Bereft (26 page)

“He was at Bullecourt. He died there.”

“Oh. I'm sorry.”

She waved his condolence away. Perhaps Mrs. Cranshaw was right; the war widows grew sick of sympathy, of good wishes, of the chatter about bravery and honour. They needed something more substantial from their dead men. “It's not your fault,” she added in a rather more conciliatory tone.

Robert looked uncomfortable at the swerve in conversation. He released Quinn's arm and began carrying on about the shame of that damn war and how he would have loved to get into the thick of it all but for his duties here as an officer of the law …

Quinn grew concerned by the manner in which Mrs. Porteous was watching him.

“You are a little familiar, sir. Are you from the district?”

He blushed. “No, ma'am. Just passing through. Never been here before.”

Now Robert peered at him with renewed interest, as if the lady had spotted something he had missed. “Yes,” he said, brandishing his notebook. “That's right. Papers. I was this minute asking Mr.—Wakefield, wasn't it?—for his papers to prove he is not infected with the influenza. Just a formality, of course.”

Quinn steadied himself against a stone angel. Pale green lichen had gathered in the prayerful hands of the creature. He was doomed and looked around in vain for Sadie, foolishly imagining she might rescue him somehow, as she had done that first day.

But Mrs. Porteous swung around to address Robert Dalton. “Lucky you were around the other night, wasn't it, Constable?” Some women were undone by grief but others, like this Mrs. Porteous, were given authority by its everlasting company.

His uncle faced her and dropped his notebook. “Eh? What's that?”

“At Mrs. Higgins' place? The other night.
Evelyn
Higgins?”

Robert winced. “Ah. Yes.”

She turned to Quinn with eyebrows arched in mock amazement. “Mr. Dalton—
Constable
Dalton, I should say—happened to be passing by the house of a certain widow a few nights ago when the poor lady spied the ghost of her late husband who was killed in Europe. Quite late.
In the house.
The lady had quite a chat with him, before Mr. Dalton managed to shoo him away.”

Robert ducked his chin and said something under his breath.

“Well, Evelyn was sure it was Dick. Said it was just like him, in uniform and everything. Do you believe in these things, Mr. Wakefield? Ghosts and such?”

“I'm not sure, ma'am.”

Robert attempted to reassert his authority. “There was no man there. People sometimes see what they wish to see. It was that orphaned Fox girl I've been trying to find. I saw her run across the lawn as clear as anything. Right across the lawn. Even found a divot taken out of the grass. I daresay no ghost could do
that
. Took Dick's revolver, too. Girl's armed now, believe it or not. She must have been wearing an army tunic, though; we found it by the fence, which is why poor Evelyn must have been confused.”

“What on earth would a girl want with a gun?” Mrs. Porteous asked.

“Who knows. She's a wily one, though. Damned if I can catch her. Almost got her a couple of weeks back. Nearly got bitten by a snake, too.” He held up his bandaged wrist. “I'm not much good at tracking, but Jim Gracie is back tomorrow morning from Bathurst and he can track anyone over anything for a few bob. Especially now we've got the jacket she was wearing. He caught that Wynne chap who shot his wife. We'll grab the girl by tomorrow afternoon, no question. We'll take care of her.”

Quinn started.
By tomorrow afternoon.

“Take care of her?” Mrs. Porteous asked.

Robert coughed. “She has no family here. I'll take her to an orphanage.”

“Yes, I am quite sure you will take care of her.”

His uncle's brow furrowed. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

Mrs. Porteous and the constable stared at each other for a second before she turned away and indicated the surrounding countryside. “Lucky you were here, sir, to look after the poor widows and orphans of Flint. Who knows what we might have done these past few years without you. We might have been lost.”

Robert paused before hazarding a response. “Yes, well, I was telling Mr. Wakefield here before you arrived—”

“It doesn't matter,” she snapped, and picked her way over to Quinn. The widow's suspicions of him seemed to have been miraculously dispelled.

Robert had picked up his notebook and waited to proceed.

“Maybe you did know him?” Mrs. Porteous asked Quinn. “Sergeant Porteous. Reg, they called him. Reginald Porteous. He was quite tall, as tall as you. Blond, blue eyes. Broad in the shoulder. 13th Battalion, 4th Brigade. He was at Gallipoli. Egypt, then Gallipoli. The Army sent me a letter about it. A Captain something-or-other sent me a letter. Captain Murray, perhaps. We have two daughters that have survived. He was shot, this captain said, and is buried there. At Bullecourt. One day we shall visit, of course. I shall take the girls. Soon. One day we will go. You know, I had never even heard of the place before.
Bullecourt
,” she added with distaste.

“Already they are building a monument in the town,” she went on, as if now unable to keep up with the torrent of her own emotions. “A column with the names of all the dead. Already it's a memory. The dead men are already a memory. But there are, of course, many others who didn't return. The fallen are many. We widows as well, naturally. And orphans. Not that that is any consolation, or not to me.”

Mrs. Porteous looked steadily into Quinn's eyes. “Reginald Porteous,” she was saying. “Do you remember anyone by that name, Mr. Wakefield? P-O-R-T-E-O-U-S. Porteous.”

Quinn vaguely remembered Mr. Porteous from his boyhood, but had not encountered him in the war. The 13th had fought alongside his 17th at Pozières, but the other men were little more than bobbing shapes in the darkness, voiceless, awaiting their deaths. But Mrs. Porteous stared up at him with the stem of her posy wrung ragged in her gloved hands. For some reason she was sympathetic to him, and for that he felt he owed her. Besides, she had saved his life by her very presence here in the cemetery. He was dismayed to note a penny-sized stain on the brim of her blue hat, a presage, without doubt, of the poverty she would now endure.

Another silence as they all waited for the echo of the widow's words to fade. At any moment Robert would start up again and demand Quinn's papers and he would be undone.

“Yes,” Quinn said. “I do remember him now. A blond fellow. I met him in Egypt.”

The widow's relief was palpable. She stifled a cry. “Really? In Egypt?”

“In training there. He was an excellent shot, a good rifleman, as I recall.”

“Oh, he was a marvellous man.”

“He was,” Quinn agreed. “Quite the joker. I remember he tried to ride a camel in Cairo but the damn thing refused to stand up with him on board. He tried and tried, but the creature refused. Gippos had a good laugh at his expense, the devils.”

“Yes, that sounds like him. He made me laugh so much. I would give anything to have him back again. I have all his letters, you know. He was always so cheerful because he didn't want me to worry, but it sounded awful, so awful.”

Robert Dalton had by this time regained some of his composure and moved to interpose himself between Quinn and the widow. “A terrible thing, but it might be better not to talk of it. Now, Mr. Wakefield, your papers …”

But Mrs. Porteous angled past the constable and drew so close to Quinn that he got a whiff of the rosewater she had dabbed on her neck. It was the scent of widowhood. “Did Reg speak of me? I know it is vain, but I can't help but think of it. At night I wonder about it. All night, sometimes. When you knew him in Egypt? Did he talk of me or the girls?”

Quinn hesitated. He had lied himself into a trap. At war, men spoke of all sorts of matters, trivial or otherwise: of girls and their homes; of food they yearned to eat; of pets and their football teams; of the time their old man gave them a hiding for nicking apples. As he lay bleeding to death from a shrapnel wound to his stomach, a fellow called Greedy Thompson had rambled almost incoherently of a sandy flathead he had caught once near Bermagui, saying over and over how all the town's fishermen said it was the biggest flathead they had ever seen. Quinn thought of Fletcher Wakefield and of what he regretted not telling his fiancée before she died. Fletcher was killed before the war ended, and now Quinn supposed he could tell Doris himself without the intercession of mediums and their ilk. He thought, too, of the vicious query Mrs. Cranshaw had hissed at him that night at the séance.
What would you say
to a woman like that?

“Yes, ma'am,” Quinn told Mrs. Porteous. “Now that I think about it, he did talk about you. He said you were without doubt the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Without doubt. He always said you were too good for him. That's exactly what he said. Far too good for him.”

Mrs. Porteous sagged with relief. “Can you stay with me a minute, please, Constable?” she murmured.

“Of course, but I need to check this fellow's papers, it's my job—”

“Don't worry about this gentleman. Can't you see he was wounded, for goodness sake? Look at him. Leave him be. Goodbye, Mr. Wakefield. Good luck to you. And thank you so much. Come on, Constable. Take me over to Ginny's grave. It's over there by that bush. See there?”

Robert Dalton huffed but took Mrs. Porteous' arm and they tottered away between the graves. Quinn pocketed the shell that he had been clenching in his palm and hurried away. The tracker Gracie would be back tomorrow morning. They had to leave at once.

Part Four

THE ANGEL OF
DEATH

24

S
adie was sitting on a tree stump outside the shack eating an apple when Quinn arrived back from the cemetery. He told her what Dalton had said about the tracker's return.

“Are you sure?”

“I'm sure.”

She became thoughtful.
“Sometimes things speak in a voice not their
own.”

“What?”

“Something my mother told me. What about Thomas? He'll be here any day now. I know he will.”

Quinn sighed. He would have to tell her Thomas was almost certainly dead. He kneeled in front of her. “Sadie,” he began, but couldn't summon the courage to say anything more. After all, the girl actually had faith in something, which was more than most people had in these dark times. It was wrong to destroy it.

“You promised to wait with me until he came back, remember?” she said, as if reading his thoughts.

“I know, but—”

“But what?”

“The tracker will find you. Dalton, too. You know what he wants with you. He'll kill you. We have to leave. I have thirty pounds from my mother. It's enough to go anywhere. We have to leave now. Tonight.”

She stared at the roll of money he had wrenched from his pocket, but shook her head. “There's not enough time. Not if he's back in the morning. He has dogs.”

The girl was right. Already the light was thickening. There was no way they could make their way through the bush at night and they would be seen if they travelled by road.

Quinn paced again. He had an idea. “Do you know where the tracker lives?”

“Of course I do.”

“Does he have a wife, children?”

“Just dogs.”

“Then I'll go to his place tonight and wait for him to arrive in the morning. I'll tell him that I'm Thomas, that I'm your brother and there is no need to search for you. Have they ever met?”

“Yes, but years ago.”

“I'll give him money
not
to look for you, if needs be. But we have to leave as soon as we can afterwards. No more waiting.”

“What about Thomas?”

“I'll come back for him later, in a few weeks. When they've stopped looking.”

“Do you promise?”

He ignored her question. He felt desperate. “Is it a bargain, girl?”

With her front teeth, Sadie nibbled at her apple. She spat out a seed. She nodded. “But what if Jim Gracie won't do what you ask him?”

Quinn paused. “Then I'll kill him.”

She wiped her mouth and gazed around at the trees for a moment, as if consulting them on his idea. “Then you need to take the gun this time.”