The Autumn Murders

by Robert Gott

  ‘I know, Sergeant, that what you’ve told me is the truth, and not just the truth as you see it, but the truth. When this investigation gets under way, you’ll be accused either of lying outright or of having misinterpreted something that you saw. I know very little about this Senior Sergeant Maher, but one thing I’m sure of is that he’s not going to roll over and admit to shooting Watson Cooper in cold blood. He’s going to say that you’re lying. It will be your word against his.’

  ‘I understand that, sir.’

  ‘How many people here know where you’re living?’

  ‘I think only Sergeant Reilly, so unless he’s mentioned it to anyone, he’s the only one.’

  ‘He won’t have mentioned it. Reilly isn’t given to gossip. I want you to keep your living arrangements under your hat.’

  Lambert didn’t need to elaborate.

  ‘All right, Sergeant. The process will begin. Meanwhile, I want to know what Peter Lillee’s connection to Monsignor McGrath is — or was. The cathedral is a short walk up the street. McGrath is expecting you. I telephoned ahead.’

  AS JOE WALKED towards St Patrick’s Cathedral, he thought of his friend Guy Kirkham. He hadn’t heard from him for many months. He knew he was in New Guinea, and he assumed that he was still alive. He’d explained to Inspector Lambert that Guy’s family disapproved of their friendship, and although he’d always known, because Guy had told him, that their disapproval was on account of his being a Jew, he’d dismissed their anti-Semitism as irrelevant and silly. It’d had no effect whatsoever on his friendship with Guy, whose relationship with his parents was fraught for other reasons. Guy had declared, over one cataclysmic lunch, that he was an atheist. Joe hadn’t been there — Joe had never been invited to lunch — but Guy had described vividly the ensuing paternal rage and maternal tears.

  Guy had had no intention of joining any of the forces. He wasn’t a pacifist, but neither, as he’d declared, was he a martyr. The government, blithely indifferent to his feelings, conscripted him in 1942, and because conscripted men couldn’t be sent to an overseas theatre of war, he, along with his fellow ‘chocos’ as they were derisively called, had been sent to New Guinea. New Guinea was technically overseas, but it was an Australian dependency, and so conscripted men could be sent to defend it and to halt the Japanese advance south.

  From reports in the newspapers, Joe knew that the New Guinea campaign had been vicious and deadly. He sometimes felt guilty that he’d been unable to keep Guy at the front of his thoughts, and recently he’d slipped from Joe’s thoughts altogether. Now, though, as Joe approached the cathedral, Guy’s frequent railings against the Church in which he’d been raised came to mind.

  Guy had characterised the priests who he was supposed to revere as dull-witted and mediocre. The only priest Joe had ever spoken to — Father Brennan in Port Fairy — had done nothing to challenge Guy’s assessment. Guy had dismissed the Mass and all its sacraments as hocus-pocus used to distract a gullible and tractable congregation. Guy was the only of Joe’s friends who was a Catholic, so it was Guy’s vision of the Church which Joe accepted as accurate. He’d never been inside any Catholic church, although he was familiar with their gaudy interiors from Italian paintings. He assumed that the cathedral, despite its Gothic exterior, would be a riot of baroque or rococo extravagance within.

  When he stepped through the main door, the cathedral’s interior restraint surprised him. What also surprised him was the immediate effect the space had on him. He wasn’t overwhelmed by it, but he was uplifted by it in a way that stunned him. It had nothing to do with religion and certainly nothing to do with Catholicism. This was, for Joe, an aesthetic response, a joyous rush of wonder at the majesty of architecture. He’d had this response before, to art and to music, and he never confused it with the spiritual claims for it made by priests, vicars, and rabbis. He shared with Guy an irritation that churches tried to corral such feelings and name them as evidence of God’s largesse.

  He began to walk up the nave towards the main altar. A priest appeared from behind one of the great pillars, which looked to Joe like bundled rods of stone rising towards the distant, unadorned ceiling. The priest approached Joe, smiling. They met halfway up the nave.

  ‘You are Detective Sable?’

  ‘Monsignor McGrath. Am I pronouncing that title correctly?’

  McGrath laughed. ‘You’re not a Catholic, then, Detective. Although to be truthful I knew that when you came into the cathedral.’

  ‘That’s very Sherlock Holmes of you.’

  ‘The clues weren’t very subtle, I’m afraid. You didn’t dip your fingers into the holy water and bless yourself, and you didn’t genuflect before walking up the nave.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I should have brushed up on the rules.’

  ‘They’re not rules really. Just observances.’

  McGrath steered Joe back towards the front door of the cathedral.

  ‘We should speak outside, I think,’ he said.

  Once outside, McGrath took Joe to the northern side of the cathedral and indicated a seat, in full sun.

  ‘Does the sun bother you, Detective? I’m inside too much and take every opportunity to enjoy it.’

  McGrath’s even tan struck Joe as putting the lie to this statement, and he noticed how carefully McGrath arranged his spotless soutane when he crossed his legs.

  ‘How should I address you?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Oh, Monsignor is fine. Are you Church of England?’

  ‘No, I’m Jewish.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  Joe wasn’t sure what this response meant, and he ignored it. ‘I believe Inspector Lambert passed on to you the news of Peter Lillee’s death.’

  ‘He did. I was profoundly shocked.’

  ‘We found your name inside a catechism that you’d given to Mr Lillee. His sister and niece are at a loss to explain this.’

  ‘It isn’t a mystery, Detective. Although perhaps it is to his family. I had no idea that he hadn’t shared his news with them.’

  ‘News?’

  ‘Peter had been taking instruction from me for many months.’

  ‘Instruction?’

  ‘Peter was about to be baptised into the Catholic Church. We’d set a date. He was a very private man, but I didn’t realise just how private. Perhaps he wasn’t close to his sister and niece.’

  ‘They lived in the same house. They were very close.’ Joe saw no reason to add that he, too, shared that house.

  ‘Inspector Lambert gave me no details about Peter’s death, but if the police are involved, I’m assuming it wasn’t a heart attack.’

  ‘Mr Lillee’s body was found on the banks of the Yarra River in Kew, not far from his house.’

  ‘I see. And the circumstances are suspicious?’

  ‘There were no signs of violence and no evidence that there was another person present when he died.’

  ‘If you’re suggesting suicide, Detective, you can rule that out. Peter was committed to his faith, and suicide is a grave sin in the eyes of God and in the eyes of the Church. He would no more take his own life than I would.’

  ‘What do you know about his private life?’

  ‘Very little. We never spoke of it. All our meetings were confined to instruction in the Catholic faith.’

  ‘Why do you think he wanted to become a Catholic?’

  ‘Wanting to join the one, true Church doesn’t require an explanation.’ McGrath smiled at Joe as though this statement were a theological lay-down misère.

  ‘We’d welcome you, Detective. After all, Jesus was a Jew, wasn’t he?’

  ‘He was. He wasn’t, however, a Catholic.’

  Monsignor McGrath laughed.

  ‘That is unquestionably true, Detective. We like to think, though, that he got the ball rolling.’

  McGrath’s obvious enjoyment in this rep
artee was getting under Joe’s skin. It was as if, being dead, Peter Lillee had squandered McGrath’s interest in him.

  ‘Do you know anyone who might want to harm Mr Lillee?’ Joe asked in a tone that signalled an end to banter.

  ‘Murder? You think this was murder?’

  Joe wished that Helen Lord was with him. She would have extracted more from this smug priest than he could. Thinking of her, and the questions she would have been unafraid of asking, he quelled his nerves and asked, ‘Could Mr Lillee have been meeting someone late at night, down by the river?’

  ‘Are you insinuating a homosexual assignation?’

  ‘I’m asking if you think this might have been possible.’

  ‘Again, Detective, Peter Lillee would not have endangered his immortal soul by indulging in such sinful behaviour.’

  ‘Isn’t that what confession is for?’

  ‘No, Detective, it isn’t. Confession is not, despite what non-Catholics think, a get-out-of-jail-free card that licenses bad behaviour.’

  Joe had never heard the get-out-of-jail expression, but surmised its meaning.

  ‘Why do you think Mr Lillee might have been down by the Yarra so late at night?’

  ‘I have no idea. Perhaps he was walking to clear his head. He has … had … heavy responsibilities, and I imagine that sometimes a late-night walk might be a way of winding down.’

  Monsignor McGrath couldn’t disguise the irritation in his voice.

  ‘I don’t believe I can help you any further, Detective. If his sister or his niece — was it? — if either of them wishes to speak with me, she is most welcome to do so. I’ll say a Mass for Peter, and a rosary. Please let them know that. It may be of some comfort.’

  Joe was certain that neither Ros nor Helen would be comforted by such an empty gesture. He thanked Monsignor McGrath and left.

  ‘WE WERE ENGAGED to be married.’

  Lillian Johnson stood by the fireplace in her flat in Camberwell. She’d been sitting opposite Inspector Lambert, but she’d felt as if she’d begin to shake uncontrollably unless she stood up and moved about.

  ‘I was so angry with him, Inspector.’

  ‘You broke off the engagement just last night?’

  ‘No. Peter broke it off. Oh, I knew it was coming, and I was cruel, I suppose. I made him say it. I didn’t make it easy for him.’

  ‘From what you’ve told me, you were very close for a very long time. Why did he break it off?’

  Lillian sat down, but before she spoke, she stood up again.

  ‘It was ridiculous. It makes me so angry even now, when what I should be feeling is grief. He’d converted to Catholicism, and suddenly, instead of being his lover, I was an occasion for sin, as they say.’

  ‘What an awful expression.’

  ‘Everything about the Catholic Church is awful, Inspector, and I should know.’

  ‘Why did he need to end your engagement? Why couldn’t you have been married?’

  ‘Catholics don’t marry divorced women, Inspector. We are tarnished goods. We’d been intimate for years, so you can imagine how galling Peter’s new-found chastity was. Last night he thought he was being kind and thought I’d admire his commitment to his so-called faith. I thought he was weak and pathetic, and I’m afraid I told him so.’

  ‘Was he upset when he left here last night?’

  ‘I don’t know. I went to my bedroom. I couldn’t bear to look at him. I hope he was upset, but you know, I suspect he wasn’t especially.’

  She took the photograph she’d retrieved from the fireplace and handed it to Lambert.

  ‘He wrote that with a cool, steady hand, wouldn’t you say?’

  Inspector Lambert looked at the image of Peter Lillee, confident and smiling, and turned it over.

  ‘“Forgive me”,’ he read. ‘What do you think he was asking you to forgive? Something he’d done or something he was about to do?’

  ‘It’s not a suicide note, Inspector. He’s not the type.’

  ‘You said he was weak. Might that imply …?

  ‘His weakness was in his dealings with me. His great strength was his sense of himself. You don’t get to be as rich as Peter was without having unplumbable depths of self-regard.’

  ‘After he left here, did you perhaps go out and meet him later?’

  ‘You think I murdered him?’

  ‘It’s a question I have to ask, Mrs Johnson.’

  She was silent for a moment. ‘You say he’s dead. I can’t … I don’t … He can’t be dead. He was sitting where you’re sitting just a few hours ago. He simply cannot be dead. If he was really dead, I wouldn’t still be angry with him, would I?’ She looked at him desperately. ‘Would I?’

  Lillian Johnson took a deep shaky breath, but in the expelling of it, she fell to her knees and began to shudder. Her face, already pale, was now pallid. Even her lips had lost their colour. She began to sway, and Inspector Lambert hurried to her and caught her before she fell sideways, unconscious.

  Lambert felt her pulse and telephoned for an ambulance. The pulse was strong, but this looked like more than a fainting spell, and Lillian wasn’t coming out of it. She remained unconscious, with Lambert holding her hand, until the ambulance arrived.

  It was only later, after he’d been told that Lillian Johnson had had a mild stroke, that Lambert realised that she hadn’t answered his question about meeting Peter Lillee later in the evening. The doctor who was treating her said that she’d be unable to answer questions for at least a week, but that she was expected to recover well, although you never could tell with strokes.

  6

  MARIA PLUSCHOW WENT into Port Fairy as infrequently as possible. Before the war, she and her husband had made no secret of their admiration for Adolf Hitler and National Socialism. In the 1930s, this was seen by most people as merely eccentric, although they’d never had much time for Mr Pluschow, who was, after all, foreign. He also spoke with a thick accent, and nobody understood what Maria, whose real name was Mary, saw in him. Despite her being a local girl, once she’d married Pluschow she’d become something of an outsider. This hadn’t bothered her. It was only a matter of time before National Socialism assumed its rightful place in Australian politics, and when that happened, Maria would settle a few scores.

  Mr Pluschow had died in 1939, which had spared him the indignity of being interned, but it had left his wife quite alone. She had money, but no friends to speak of, unless you counted Hardy Truscott as a friend. She’d known Truscott for many years. He’d been a regular at the meetings of the National Socialists in the 1930s. He lived in Warrnambool, about a forty-minute drive from Port Fairy. She’d kept in contact with him by mail. He was a strange little man: myopic, thickly bespectacled, and bald. He wasn’t physically attractive, but Maria was drawn to Truscott’s unusual vision for what the Nazis could achieve.

  Truscott was a spiritual man, who wasn’t interested in dreary politics. He sent Maria books by his great hero and teacher, a man named Alexander Rud Mills, and Maria had read them. One in particular had convinced her that Rud Mills was a sort of prophet: The First Guide Book to the Anglecyn Church of Odin, containing some of the chief rites of the Church and some hymns for the use of the Church. She and Hardy Truscott, who’d had a long correspondence with Rud Mills, and who’d been among the small group of people who’d met with him regularly in Melbourne, found in the pages of this book a convincing philosophy to underpin their faith in National Socialism. Rud Mills saw in National Socialism a structure that could disseminate and institutionalise the new religion dedicated to Odin and the other great northern gods. Rud Mills also shared, in an exaggerated form, Nazism’s obsessive hatred of the Jews, blacks, and the impure, weakened races that emerged when the Aryan race sullied itself by breeding with inferior people.

  Truscott, deeply schooled in Rud Mills’s beliefs, guided Maria throu
gh the more arcane passages in Rud Mills’s book, and he read in his reedy, flat voice from Rud Mills’s Hail Odin! These poems, which Maria recognised as execrable, nevertheless generated spiritual uplift whenever she and Truscott discussed the redemptive possibilities of Odinism. For her, the mysticism was seductive and utterly convincing, and she believed that she may have found in George Starling an as-yet-untutored acolyte. She’d sensed a need in him beyond his fierce desire for revenge.

  She used her petrol ration sparingly; so sparingly that it had been months since she’d made the extravagant journey all the way to Warrnambool. She’d thought about driving to Truscott’s house, but remembered that he didn’t like unexpected visitors even if those visitors were sympathetic to his beliefs. Years of official harassment had made the unscheduled knock on the door a source of immediate and visceral unease. She decided instead to drive into Port Fairy and to send a telegram to Hardy Truscott from there.