The Autumn Murders

by Robert Gott

  The funeral of Mr Peter Lillee will be held this Thursday 6 April at 11.00 a.m. at St Paul’s Cathedral and afterwards in the Portico Room at Melbourne Town Hall. Beloved brother of Mrs Rosalind Lord, beloved uncle of Miss Helen Lord, and friend to Mr Joseph Sable. Rest now from your labours.

  Hardy Truscott would have claimed that this was the hand of Odin, controlling his fate and shifting elements in the universe in his favour. Joe Sable and Helen Lord were being delivered to him on a platter. He lost interest in whether Reilly’s death had been reported. He left The Victoria Hotel, dapper in his best suit and pale-grey fedora, and walked to St Paul’s Cathedral. He’d never been inside it. He’d never had any reason to do more than walk past its unavoidable heft.

  As soon as he entered the cathedral’s interior, he decided that this wasn’t the place to mete out punishment to Joe Sable and Helen Lord. It was too big. Peter Lillee, whoever he was, must have been a wealthy man to score a funeral in this place. He didn’t venture much beyond the last rows of pews. The lushness of the polychrome stonework and dazzling floor tiles reminded him that the people who worshipped here were complacent in their privilege and ripe for the cold, hard shock of National Socialism.

  The Town Hall sat just a block north of the cathedral, in Swanston Street. Starling had never been inside this building either. The front doors were closed, but he walked further along the front of the building and found an open work area. This was where deliveries must be made. He entered, his hat pulled low. Two workers, who assumed from his clothes that he must be someone, nodded a polite ‘Good morning’, and Starling pushed open a door.

  He found himself in a corridor and walked along it, unchallenged by a woman who was hurrying somewhere. Another woman, trailing behind, said ‘oh’ when she saw Starling’s face. He asked her where the Portico Room was, and, embarrassed by her reaction to this poor man’s scar, she gave him directions. Starling thanked her and within minutes had found the door two floors up to the Portico Room. He opened it.

  There was no one in the room, which was surprisingly modest in its dimensions. Even so, it would be busy with people on the day of the reception. He’d have to surrender his long-cherished wish to get Joe Sable alone. What mattered was that Sable died. A slow and exquisitely judged and painful death was the ideal, but war demanded sacrifice, and dispatching Sable in a crowded, noisy place would have to do. Starling didn’t think he’d have any trouble getting into the post-funeral reception. He wouldn’t come through the front door. He’d come through the service entrance.

  There was a public lavatory outside the Town Hall, on the Collins Street side. Starling stood at the urinal, relieving himself, and imagined finding Joe Sable in the crowd, standing behind him as he spoke to someone, preferably Helen Lord, and reaching around his shoulders and drawing his filleting knife deeply and swiftly across his throat. Sable wouldn’t know what happened. No one would know what had happened for the few seconds it took for the wound to gape as the jugular pumped blood into the room. Perhaps before melting into the crowd he’d shoot Helen Lord, in the middle of her forehead, her eyes wide with shock at Joe Sable’s gushing throat. As Starling replayed this action in his head, he settled on it as the best possible plan. It was almost elegant in its simplicity.

  INSPECTOR LAMBERT WAS at Russell Street by 8.00 a.m. He’d had two hours’ sleep. Vera O’Dowd had been located, and she’d agreed to meet Inspector Lambert at the City Morgue at 9.00 a.m. Titus considered his presence there a courtesy he couldn’t refuse. He’d seen Bob O’Dowd’s corpse. Vera O’Dowd wouldn’t be asked to look at his face. There’d be no point. All its features had been sliced away. She’d make the identification, as Dunnart had done, from the tattoo on his arm.

  When Joe Sable arrived at 8.30 a.m., Titus briefed him immediately, almost mechanically, on Bob O’Dowd’s death and on his interview with Ron Dunnart. He added details he hadn’t told Joe the previous day about Barbara and David Reilly’s murders.

  ‘I don’t have a report for you to read. There hasn’t been time. Martin Serong hasn’t even developed his photographs yet.’

  Joe heard what was being said, but its grotesque excess kept its full meaning at bay. Reilly and O’Dowd dead? And Ron Dunnart sent home? Had Inspector Lambert had some sort of breakdown?

  ‘Sir, surely Sergeant Dunnart is a suspect?’

  Lambert shook his head.

  ‘If you’d seen Bob O’Dowd’s body and what had been done to it, you’d know Ron Dunnart didn’t do it.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ring me last night, sir, when you were told about Bob O’Dowd?’

  ‘It was very late, Sergeant. There were other officers available. I need at least one of my men to have had a decent night’s sleep. Can you imagine what the newspapers are going to do with this? Four policemen killed in a matter of days. The Premier is going to want this cleaned up as quickly as possible. He’s going to want an arrest immediately, and so is the Commissioner.’

  ‘This is going to have a terrible effect on everyone here.’

  ‘Yes, it is. The Commissioner is going to address all the officers who are in the building at ten o’clock. It’s possible that among them is the man who killed Reilly and O’Dowd. And Mrs Reilly.’ Titus was aware that Barbara Reilly had already become an addendum. This was fatigue. He wouldn’t normally have been guilty of such thinking. Still, if he thought like this, other officers would do the same. He’d need to ensure during this investigation that Barbara Reilly’s death wasn’t spoken of in ways that suggested it was of less importance than David Reilly’s death. She must always be Barbara Reilly and not David Reilly’s wife. ‘We’re in uncharted waters, Sergeant.’

  ‘Were they killed by the same person?’

  ‘I hope so. Christ, I hope so. On the surface, at least, it doesn’t look like it. The Reillys died quickly and cleanly. O’Dowd’s death was ghastly beyond measure.’

  ‘The only link between them, sir, is Ron Dunnart.’

  ‘Do you think I should arrest him?’

  ‘It would send a shock wave through here, but it might satisfy the press.’

  ‘I’m assuming, hoping, you’re playing devil’s advocate, and that that is not really what you believe.’

  This hadn’t been Joe’s intention and now he was confused. He sensibly fell silent.

  ‘I’m not going to arrest Ron Dunnart just to appease the press. I want to make this very clear to you, Sergeant. I do not believe that Sergeant Dunnart is a psychopath. He disliked, even loathed, both of the dead men, but he did not kill them.’

  Inspector Lambert asked Joe to speak with Martin Serong, John Jackson, and Abraham Hart. They would brief him fully. He left a few minutes later for the City Morgue. Joe sat, still, not quite able to understand what had happened. Questions were racing around in his head, and the one that disturbed him most was about Inspector Lambert. Why was he protecting Ron Dunnart?

  VERA O’DOWD CAME to the morgue with her sister. Inspector Lambert introduced himself at the morgue’s entrance. She answered dully, her face impassive. She had a cast-iron alibi, but could she have paid someone to murder her husband? Even the thought felt like a calumny, and Titus wondered if such thoughts were doing irreparable damage to his mind. Murder focussed the mind on everything that was base in human nature.

  The smell of the morgue, sharp carbolic acid and something cloying and foul, clutched as it always did at Titus’s stomach. For Vera O’Dowd and her sister, who said nothing, the smell must have been overwhelming. Bob O’Dowd’s body lay on a gurney in a small room, which had been attached, almost as an afterthought, to the large autopsy room. Dr Jamieson, a man whose compassion, like Martin Serong’s, somehow survived the grim rhythms of his working life, stood by the body. He’d seen grief in all its manifestations, and Vera O’Dowd’s shut-down quality didn’t surprise him.

  ‘Mrs O’Dowd, I know how difficult this is, but would you help me identify th
is man?’

  Titus thought this a gentle question, and Vera O’Dowd nodded in response.

  ‘Do you recognise this tattoo?’ As he said this, he lifted the sheet carefully, so that only that part of O’Dowd’s arm was visible. Vera looked at it and nodded.

  ‘I always hated that tattoo. May I see my husband’s face?’

  ‘No, Mrs O’Dowd. I’m sorry, but his face was very badly damaged.’

  Vera, whose last words to her husband had been unpleasant, wanted somehow to make amends, and, in an irrational rush, she pulled the sheet from Bob O’Dowd’s body. The revealed creature had been washed and sluiced, and the damage done by Starling’s filleting knife was stark and appalling. Vera’s sister ran from the room, and Vera, in a strange reaction, sank to the floor and sat there, her head dropped forward, and her breaths coming in shallow gasps. Titus and Dr Jamieson lifted her to her feet and helped her to the reception area. Her sister was there, shaking from head to foot and weeping. The two women didn’t fall into each other’s arms. They sat side by side in chairs near the door, a lifetime of distance between them unbridgeable even by what they’d both just seen.

  ‘We will find the person responsible for this,’ Titus said, and his words sounded hollow to his ears.

  JOE TELEPHONED HELEN to tell her about Bob O’Dowd and to express his doubts about Inspector Lambert’s judgement.

  ‘He knows Ron Dunnart, Joe. He’s worked with him.’

  ‘Does he know him, though? Could anyone ever really know the darkest things we’re capable of?’

  ‘We both know someone who might be capable of this.’

  ‘The viciousness is familiar, but there’s absolutely no connection. We know he’s here, but he can’t be guilty of every vile thing that happens. The world is full to overflowing with George Starlings.’

  WHILE THE VICTORIA police force was coming to grips with what had happened in Melbourne — and news had travelled as far as the remote police station at Pyramid Hill — George Starling was at the pictures, watching first Random Harvest and then The Desperadoes. The pictures filled in his day and calmed him down. He planned to watch a third picture that night or perhaps see whatever was on at the Comedy Theatre. He’d have an early night. Tomorrow, Easter Thursday, he had work to do.

  He intended to get up early, find a barber, have a clean, close shave, and find his way into the Town Hall several hours before the Peter Lillee funeral party was due to arrive. An event like that would be invitation-only. The newspaper notice was a statement of fact, like the vice-regal notices, and was certainly not an open invitation to the public. Riffraff might make it into St Paul’s to gawk, but they’d be denied entry to the Town Hall. Starling would find a place to wait, unseen, and then appear among the assembled guests, and in his finely tailored pockets would be a Luger and a filleting knife.

  ON THE MORNING of Peter Lillee’s funeral, Joe came in to Russell Street early. He intended to go from there to St Paul’s Cathedral. Inspector Lambert was already at his desk. A copy of The Age was in front of him. He called Joe into his office.

  ‘When did this notice first appear?’

  ‘Yesterday, sir.’

  ‘Yesterday. I didn’t see the papers yesterday, and neither did Maude. At least this explains why no paper appeared at the house. I presume Tom knew this was being printed and made sure Maude didn’t see it. Whose idea was this?’

  ‘It was mine, sir.’

  ‘And just what do you plan to do if Starling shows up? That, I presume, is the point of this ostentatious notice?’

  ‘I plan to arrest him?’

  ‘Do you expect him to come quietly?’

  ‘No, sir, I do not. I will be armed, and I won’t be alone.’

  Inspector Lambert leaned forward and with fierce precision he said, ‘This is ill-conceived and ill-thought-out. No doubt Constable Lord and her mother agreed with you. That disappoints me, but I don’t expect them to be thinking clearly at this time. You have invited a brutal, ruthless man to disrupt the funeral of a good and decent man. You will have no control over what happens — none whatsoever. You can’t predict how Starling, if he sees that notice, will behave. You have endangered the life of every person who attends the funeral or who goes to the wake.’

  Joe tried to summon self-righteousness to defend himself against this tirade. He failed, and every one of Lambert’s blows landed. Why hadn’t any of them thought of this?

  ‘This may come as a shock to you, Sergeant, but however much pressure you feel you’re under, you’re not alone in that. Two of my officers are dead, and now, instead of concentrating our efforts on that, I’m going to have to send God knows how many men to Peter Lillee’s funeral.’

  ‘I’m not asking for any back up.’

  ‘It isn’t back up. It’s insurance against your foolish plan creating chaos. You’ve forced me into putting the lives of these men in danger and at the very least, if Starling doesn’t turn up — and let’s hope he doesn’t — into wasting hours of their time with standing around. Only you and Constable Lord know what Starling looks like. Did that occur to you?’

  ‘Tom knows, too.’

  Lambert was beginning to lose his patience.

  ‘I don’t think I’m getting through to you, Sergeant. You seem to be labouring under the delusion that the world revolves around you.’

  A white flash of anger jolted Joe into hot speech.

  ‘The man who burned down my flat, the man who has come here to kill me, is within reach because I’ve brought him within reach. You seem to be labouring under the delusion, sir, that this shouldn’t matter to me. It does. Self-defence is not the same as self-regard. I’m sorry if that distinction had escaped you.’

  Joe had never before displayed such insubordination, and it both appalled and thrilled him. He took a breath. ‘Whatever happens today, I’ll tender my resignation.’

  Inspector Lambert leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.

  ‘One thing you can be sure of, Sergeant, is that I will accept it.’

  AS JOE WALKED to St Paul’s Cathedral, he felt elated. This would be his last day in Homicide, his last day as a detective. He was strangely energised by this. He hadn’t intended to resign, but when the moment had come, it had seemed right, even if it had been done in anger. There had been something of the inevitable about it. His position had never felt secure to him.

  He reached the cathedral at 10.00 a.m. The casket was in place before the altar. The doors weren’t to be opened until 10.30, and Joe and Tom were to stand on either side of them, watching for Starling as people filed in. None of the side doors were to be opened, so if someone entered, he had to do it from the main entrance.

  The Melbourne Club had pulled serious strings to secure the cathedral on Easter Thursday. It must have been a great inconvenience and a disruptive interference in the setting up for the Good Friday program of worship, and for the Holy Thursday services. Someone at the Melbourne Club had enough sway to have done this.

  The club had promised Ros Lord that she would have to do nothing, and that promise had been kept to an extravagant degree. Staff from the club had defied wartime austerity and had found enough flowers to subdue the smell of furniture polish and floor wax. A condolence book had been organised, club members had volunteered as ushers, and eulogies had been settled. There were to be four of these — two by Melbourne Club members, and two by artists, one a woman, whose names Ros vaguely remembered Peter having mentioned.

  Helen, Ros, Clara, and Guy arrived not long after Joe, followed by Tom. Ros moved about the cathedral thanking each person she met for his part in shouldering the burden of the funeral arrangements.

  When the doors opened, Joe and Tom took up their positions. Helen greeted each person as he or she approached the aisle. Within twenty minutes the cathedral was full and people were spilling onto the Flinders Street footpath. There was no sign of G
eorge Starling. The only people Joe recognised were several policemen in suits. Inspector Lambert wasn’t among them.

  The service went smoothly. Each of the eulogies was anodyne — even those delivered by the artists — which disappointed Ros. The impression left by them was that Peter Lillee kept all of his friends slightly at bay and sequestered them one from another.

  At the end of the service, six pallbearers, none of whom Ros or Helen knew, carried the coffin to the waiting hearse. It was taken to the Fawkner Crematorium, accompanied by two Melbourne Club members. Ros and Helen had elected not to attend the cremation. They moved with the crowd to the Town Hall.

  Joe realised, as he and Tom stood at the Collins Street entrance to the Town Hall, that it was unlikely that Starling would make an appearance here. Only eighty people had been invited to the wake, and when the last of them had been crossed off the list, the doors were closed.

  Tom and Joe followed the Town Hall employee, whose job it had been to check guests’ names against a list, up well-worn marble steps to a corridor and into the Portico Room. Joe had expected a much grander space. It was surprisingly small and rather bare. Fortunately, the doors to the portico were open, and most people had chosen to move out onto the balcony. The Melbourne Club hadn’t been stingy with the food or the drink — and it was the club that was picking up the bill for both the funeral and the wake.