The Port Fairy Murders (26 page)

Halloran had to hand it to Aggie Todd. Her stories were almost plausible.

‘Perhaps, Inspector, whoever influenced Selwyn, the intention was to frighten or punish either my nephew, or my niece, and Selwyn misunderstood and killed them both. Or perhaps he was meant to teach one of them a lesson and he went too far.’

‘Why would Selwyn write what amounts to a confession?’

Aggie looked suitably aghast.

‘A confession?’

‘On his slate.’

‘There was nothing on that slate when Selwyn went to bed last night. I saw it, and it was blank. What did he write?’

Halloran checked his notes.

‘Me do bad. Them bad, but.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought Selwyn was capable of writing anything quite so coherent. I’m frankly astonished.’

‘Do you think someone else might have written it?’

‘I don’t see how. The slate was blank last night. He must have written it after I’d locked him in the shed. As I said, I don’t have a full understanding of Selwyn’s abilities. I don’t think anybody does.’

‘Are there any questions you have for us, Miss Todd?’

‘Has my brother in Melbourne been told about his children?’

‘Yes, he has. He and his wife are coming by train tomorrow.’

‘It was his wife who insisted that Selwyn stay with me. She’s a selfish woman, but she doesn’t deserve this. She’s partly responsible, of course. If Selwyn had stayed in Melbourne, this would never have happened.’

Halloran signalled to Constable Manton that he could put his notebook away.

‘Thank you, Miss Todd. I’m afraid you won’t be able to go into the house for a while. Homicide detectives are coming from Melbourne, and they’ll need access to the property.’

‘I couldn’t sleep there tonight anyway, Inspector. Mrs Cuthbert has a spare room, and ladies from the church will descend any minute with casseroles.’

Halloran caught Manton’s eye. Afterwards, in the street, he asked the constable for a reaction to Aggie Todd’s testimony.

‘Grief can show itself in all sorts of ways, sir, and so can shock.’

‘Give me four words or less.’

‘Well-ordered self-righteousness.’

‘You’re wasted in Warrnambool, Constable — you really are.’

THE AUSTRALIA HOTEL
wasn’t as salubrious as the Windsor, although by George Starling’s standards it was still pretty flash. His clothes, especially perhaps the hat — he’d never owned anything as beautiful as that fedora — ensured that the staff at the Australia treated him with immediate deference. His room had a radio in it, and he spent much of Sunday afternoon listening to what was on offer. A piano recital and orchestral music were on 3LO, National Farm Topics on 3AR, and nothing of interest on any of the other stations. He switched it off, but not before he’d heard an advertisement on 3XY for the natorium at the City Baths: ‘Roman rings, hot showers, private hot baths, filtered water, and mixed bathing every night at 8.00 pm, Sundays excepted.’

Starling was interested enough to decide that he’d pay the baths a visit the following evening. He’d seen them from the outside often enough, but he’d never been in. The exercise on the rings would do him good, and mixed bathing seemed tantalisingly erotic to him. Unless the kind of women who swam there were stout matrons with psoriasis; the promise of filtered water would be compromised if it had to battle the flaky leavings of skin diseases. He’d be sure to check the other bathers before he slipped into the pool. He was fastidious when it came to contact with strangers. The more he thought about it, the more he thought he might stick with the private bath. He’d go into the public pool area and consider carefully before immersing himself in the soup of sweat, mucous, and ooze from ugly men and ugly women. He’d look at them. He’d enjoy that. There was pleasure to be had from feeling a rush of disgust for other people.

On Sunday evening, Starling ate at the Australia Hotel’s dining room. There were tables of women — shop girls probably, he thought, or women with some sort of war job — who could afford to eat here because of the fixed price. Their laughter annoyed him. He was sitting alone, and he became aware that he’d become the object of attention for three women nearby. They were trying to catch his eye. He wasn’t flattered. They wanted him to buy them a drink, he was sure of it, and he found it objectionable. They probably thought they were being daringly flirtatious, in a manner learned from the movies. Starling met their eyes finally, and the expression on his face wiped the smiles off theirs. They turned away, and made no further effort to engage with him.

He wasn’t hungry, and was uninterested in the waiter’s apology for the absence of potatoes and tomatoes. He ordered a soup, ate it quickly, and left. He wanted to say something to the silly women, to put them in their place, but he passed their table without even glancing at them. He’d have an early night. The following morning he wanted to walk up to Russell Street and see who came and went from police headquarters. The only policeman he knew by sight was Joe Sable. He might get lucky though and recognise one of the cunts who’d been there the night Ptolemy Jones was killed.

Starling didn’t bother with breakfast on Monday morning. He was pleased that the Australia Hotel had a barbershop for guests, where he had indulged himself with a close shave. He’d become attached to this small luxury, so much so that he hadn’t yet bothered to buy himself a razor. As he walked east along Collins Street towards Russell Street, he marvelled that the people he passed would have shrunk from him if they could see themselves as he saw them. They had every reason to fear a man like him, and they didn’t know it. They led lazy, pointless lives, the sole aim of which was to protect their laziness and their pointlessness. Joe Sable’s folder of clippings proved that, elsewhere, people like him, George Starling, were engaged in a fierce and noble struggle against the Jew. He could do his bit by removing undesirables whenever he came across them. The thought put a spring in his step.

When Starling reached police headquarters, he leaned against the wall of the Magistrate’s Court opposite. He was surprised at the number of women who went in and out of the building. He was too far away to see any faces properly, so he crossed the street and loitered near the corner of Russell and La Trobe Streets. He walked back and forth in front of the main door a few times. He bumped into one man, who apologised and passed into the building.

DAVID REILLY WAS
preoccupied, which was why he’d almost knocked that pedestrian off his feet. Fortunately, the man had been polite about it. It was reassuring when people were decent and didn’t lose their tempers. He was preoccupied because, when he’d come into work that morning, he’d discovered that Helen Lord and Joe Sable had been dispatched to Port Fairy to investigate a double murder. He was senior to both of them. He didn’t allow himself to linger over the thought that he’d been overlooked in favour of a woman, although that was how he saw what had happened. There were a couple of other cases that he was working on, that was true, yet he couldn’t help but interpret this as an expression of Inspector Lambert’s lack of confidence in him. He didn’t have any illusions about his skills as a detective. He was a good, steady worker, and a reliable one. He was certainly no shirker, and he wasn’t on the take. He knew coppers who were, and he despised them for it. He was ordinary, but no more ordinary than Lord and Sable, surely. His feelings about each of them were rapidly curdling, and if there was one weakness he was willing to admit to, it was that he held a grudge. He had a brother he hadn’t spoken to for ten years, and he wasn’t one of those people who forgot the
casus belli
. He remembered it, all right.

He’d thought about what he was going to say to Inspector Lambert all morning. He’d gone for a walk, found a telephone booth, and called his wife to ask her opinion. She was in no doubt that Helen Lord was at the bottom of this, and what a disgrace it was that a woman like that should be given more opportunities than he was being given. She repeated her belief that Helen Lord was a poor sort of woman anyway — wanting, as she did, to work in Homicide. You wouldn’t catch Barbara Reilly poking around dead bodies. She had better things to do.

‘You’re too good for them, David. You should get out of Homicide. I don’t like you coming home after looking at dead people and then looking at me.’

Barbara Reilly’s opinion about Homicide wasn’t a surprise. She’d often expressed her misgivings about the job’s effect on David’s health. He’d telephoned her, really, to reassure himself that her opposition to his grim work remained undiminished. This gave him the courage he needed to ask Inspector Lambert if he might see him on a matter of some importance. Titus, who’d been reading notes on the progress of the case involving the two men at the private club, invited Sergeant Reilly to sit down. The notes were worse than useless; no progress had been made. He closed the folder and looked up at Reilly.

‘I have some concerns, sir,’ Reilly said.

‘Is this about your case load, Sergeant?’

‘No, sir. My case load is perfectly manageable. It’s no heavier than anyone else’s.’

Reilly suddenly began to feel that he ran the risk of sounding petulant. Trying to keep this note out of his voice, he said, ‘Sergeant Sable isn’t yet fully recovered from his injuries, sir, and yet you chose to send him to Port Fairy, and to keep me here. I was wondering why.’

‘My reasons for choosing the people I do for particular jobs are nothing to do with you, Sergeant.’

‘In this instance, sir, I don’t think that’s absolutely true.’

Another man might have flown off the handle at what could be construed as both impertinence and insubordination. Inspector Lambert wasn’t so insecure as to feel undermined by a member of his staff questioning his judgement. He was surprised by David Reilly’s frankness, and surmised that something serious must have driven him to it.

‘Do you think I should have sent you instead of Sergeant Sable?’

‘No, sir. I think you should have sent me instead of Constable Lord.’

‘Ah. If it’s any consolation, there are a large number of people in this building who find Constable Lord’s presence in this department inexplicable and regrettable. Fortunately, they have no say in the matter. Her position isn’t permanent and poses no threat to anyone else’s job, so the objections can only spring from an ignorant belief that a woman must be constitutionally unequal to the task of investigating a crime. I don’t happen to share that belief, and I’m well aware that that puts me in a minority. I don’t value her more than I value you, Sergeant, if that is what you were thinking. I hope it wasn’t. I wouldn’t like to think that a man of your experience could be quite so childish.’

David Reilly lost his nerve. Inspector Lambert hadn’t raised his voice. The accusation of childishness embarrassed Reilly — partly because it was true, and partly because, like everyone else close to Lambert, Reilly wanted his approbation. Lambert moved on brutally.

‘But if you’re unhappy in Homicide, for whatever reason, you’re no good to me. Your heart wouldn’t be in your work. I can organise a transfer to the Company Fraud Squad. It’s still in its early days, so you wouldn’t be stepping into established routines and loyalties.’

Reilly had entered Lambert’s office with the idea that he would ask for a transfer to this very squad. However, the fact that the suggestion came from Lambert shocked him. Titus saw the shock register on Reilly’s face.

‘I’d be reluctant to lose you, Sergeant, but if that’s what you’d prefer, I’ll grease the wheels for you. Aren’t you curious to know why I wanted you moved into this section of Homicide?’

‘I thought it was a question of office space. It’s pretty crowded down the corridor, and there was a spare desk in the area.’

Titus sighed, and Reilly was convinced that the inspector was now officially certain that he was a dolt.

‘You’ve been a policeman for a long time, Sergeant. Apart from whatever other qualities you may have, you do have one that I admire and that I think I can use to the advantage of this department. You’re honest. That’s not a quality I take for granted. We both know men who abuse their authority. I know that you don’t have any time for bent coppers. You don’t like associating with them, and you’d never be tempted to go along with them.’

‘Thank you, sir. I appreciate that vote of confidence.’

‘It comes with a sting. There’s something I want you to do, if you’re willing to stay in the department.’

Reilly’s reasons for leaving Homicide were now unclear to him.

‘I’d like to remain in Homicide, sir.’

‘Good. While Constable Lord and Sergeant Sable are away, I want you to diplomatically oversee the investigation being done by Dunnart and O’Dowd. They won’t like you poking your nose in, and they’ll know I’ve sent you, and they’ll know why; at least Dunnart will. That’s fine. I want Ron Dunnart to know that someone’s looking over his shoulder on this one.’

‘This is the murder of those two queers?’

‘It’s the murder of two men, Sergeant.’

‘Of course, sir. I didn’t mean …’

‘Ron Dunnart is of the view that a dead homosexual is the best sort of homosexual. We still don’t even know the names of the victims, and they’ve been dead for a day and a half. One of the men was quite young, probably no more than 20. It’s likely that he lived at home, and he may well have been reported as missing. I want a rocket put under Dunnart and O’Dowd.’