The Port Fairy Murders (27 page)

‘May I speak frankly, sir?’

‘Please.’

‘Ron Dunnart is the kind of man who’d use information in a case like this for his own advantage.’

‘You mean blackmail. Yes, I’ve already warned him. When you announce that you’ve been instructed to join the case, it will be like an exclamation mark after that warning. Ron Dunnart has friends, so this isn’t going to do your popularity any good. You can see why I couldn’t ask Constable Lord or Sergeant Sable to do this, can’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

David Reilly was flattered, even if he doubted the sincerity of that final, unnecessary, implied compliment to his experience and authority. Titus handed Reilly the notes.

‘Read these meagre offerings and then pop down the corridor and break the good news to detective Ron Dunnart that he’s getting an extra man to lighten his load. He’ll be thrilled.’

David Reilly, who’d begun this interview with the glum certainty that it would go badly, smiled.

‘Not half as thrilled as I’ll be, sir.’

GEORGE STARLING HAD
impressed himself with his successful imitation of gentlemanly restraint when that bloke, who must have been a detective, almost knocked him down. He wandered up and down for a few minutes more, and decided that the exercise was pointless. He was at a loose end. He could go to the pictures. He liked the pictures. He liked Gene Tierney, Joan Crawford, and Gary Cooper. He didn’t like Leslie Howard, Charles Boyer, Errol Flynn, or Mickey Rooney — he wouldn’t bother going to a picture if one of them was in it. He didn’t have a preference for a particular type of picture. He watched westerns, musicals, gangster movies, and even women’s pictures with equal pleasure. He headed back into the centre of town to see what was on.

A movie had to be spectacularly awful for George Starling not to get lost in it. Movies had been a refuge from his dismal upbringing, and their capacity to free him temporarily from the demands and insults of daily life remained into adulthood. Bad films made him angry because they breached the promise he’d come to expect, and so it was that he felt agitated when he left halfway through
Behind the Rising Sun
. It was just after midday. If he returned to the alley that Steven McNamara had taken him down, there were sure to be detectives still hanging about. He wanted to see who they were, and he also wanted to see whether or not he’d managed to burn the place down. There was even an outside chance that Joe Sable would be there. Starling hoped that the death of two fairies might be the sort of case that Sable would be assigned to. If the club had burnt down, of course, the identification of the bodies would have been stalled. Still, with nothing better to do, and feeling jittery from the bad movie, he found the alley off Little Bourke Street, and passed it two or three times, pausing to look into its shadows. There was no evidence of fire damage. A uniformed policeman stood at the door, his white helmet standing out in the gloom. So the bodies must have been been found. That was good. It pleased him to think that detectives were wasting their time trying to find the killer. There was absolutely nothing to connect him to the crime. A random murder was the perfect murder. Police liked the comforting reassurance of statistics which showed that victims almost always knew their killer. They’d work on that assumption in this case, and that would waste hours, days, of their time. There wasn’t any activity in the alley. Perhaps the detectives were upstairs.

RON DUNNART AND
David Reilly had arrived at the crime scene at 11.30 am. Dunnart, as Inspector Lambert had predicted, had known precisely what Reilly’s appointment to the case signified. All right, then — he’d tread carefully, show due deference to Reilly’s face, and keep him in the dark as much as possible. He took Reilly to the private club, but waited until they got there to discuss the progress of the investigation. He pre-empted the criticism of the briefing notes he’d given Lambert.

‘I’m trying to keep Inspector Lambert informed as we go, but so far there’s not a lot to go on. He must think we’re dragging our heels. We’re not.’

‘You still don’t know the identities of the bodies.’

‘No. No one has been reported missing, and whoever the person was who found them hasn’t come forward.’

‘For obvious reasons.’

‘And what reasons might they be?’

Reilly wanted to say that the fear of being blackmailed was probably the reason. He refrained diplomatically.

‘He’d have to explain what he was doing at the club, and that might be awkward. I’m surprised that no one has missed either of the victims.’

‘Maybe they had a habit of not turning up at home regularly.’

Dunnart was right about this. Steven McNamara’s mother was used to him disappearing for days at a time. He would always turn up, explaining that he’d been staying at a friend’s place. The barman, Sturt Menadue, lived alone. His friends wouldn’t notice that no one in his circle had heard from him. He liked to keep his friends separate from one another — a habit that allowed Dunnart to say truthfully that finding out the name of either of the men was proving surprisingly difficult.

‘They had no identification papers on them, and not so much as a set of initials on any of their clothing.’

‘Who’s the landlord of this place?’

‘We do know that. We haven’t been sitting on our arses.’

‘Nobody said that you had.’

‘He’s a bloke by the name of Jimmy O’Farrell. He’s in his eighties, and he lives in South Australia. He owns a few properties in Melbourne, and they’re managed by his son, Brendan O’Farrell. We haven’t yet spoken to O’Farrell the younger; but when we do, I suspect we’ll have the name of at least one of the dead men. Unless, of course, the older of the corpses is Brendan O’Farrell himself.’

‘Do you have his address?’

‘O’Dowd should be there now. He lives in St Kilda.’

‘None of this was in the notes you gave Inspector Lambert.’

Dunnart, whose patience was wearing thin, allowed a hint of annoyance to creep into his voice.

‘That’s because the information only came in late this morning. Christ. It only happened on Saturday night, and Sunday isn’t the best day for tracking things down. The bloody Titles Office is closed on Sunday, or did Lambert expect us to break in and go through their records?’

‘Keep your hair on, Ron. No one’s criticising the way you’re handling the investigation.’

This was such a blatant lie that Dunnart’s estimation of Reilly’s abilities plummeted. If Reilly was the best that Lambert had to offer by way of a watchdog, Dunnart had nothing to worry about.

Outside, in the alley, Dunnart asked the policeman on the door if anybody had approached it. A couple of men had taken a few steps into the alley and then turned back into Little Bourke Street on seeing the uniform. Dunnart and Reilly headed back to Russell Street.

GEORGE STARLING RECOGNISED
one of the men who came out of the alley: he was the bloke who’d almost knocked him down at Russell Street. Starling tore himself away from examining the contents of a shoe-shop window, and followed the two detectives up Little Bourke Street. He moved quickly, kept his head down, and obscured his face with the brim of his hat. It was unlikely that either of the men would turn around, but it was a sensible precaution just in case one of them did. He managed to get close enough to hear that one of them, the one who’d bumped into him, was named Reilly. It gave Starling a real lift to know that the man they were looking for was a few feet behind them. In an act of brazen pleasure, Starling quickened his pace, passed the two detectives, and walked ahead of them.
What first-class fools they
are
, he thought. Reilly — he’d remember that name. Maybe he’d find a way to introduce himself to Detective Reilly. Maybe Reilly could be persuaded to tell him where the Jew boy Sable was hiding. As soon as this thought occurred to Starling, he saw its merits.

–12–

HELEN LORD AND
Joe Sable arrived in Port Fairy at 4.00 pm. They deposited their belongings at Douglas House, and were taken by Constable Manton to the police station. Manton had met Helen Lord before, and was unsurprised by her presence. The situation at the small police station was a little different, however. Inspector Halloran wasn’t there when introductions were made, and Constable Adams, who hadn’t met Helen when she’d been in Warrnambool, was confused by her being there. Was she some sort of secretary to the Homicide bloke? Helen clarified matters for him by requesting a full briefing, followed by an interview with the prisoner. The use of the word ‘prisoner’ shocked Paddy Filan. Selwyn was being held in a cell because there was nowhere else to put him. He supposed that that did indeed make him a prisoner. Adams, meanwhile, thought that they should wait for instructions from Inspector Halloran before discussing the case with a female.

‘Constable Lord and I require a briefing immediately, Constable. Which of you was first on the scene?’

The authority in Joe’s voice overcame any doubts that had been aroused by his youth and by the fading bruises on his face.

‘I was called to the house early this morning.’ Paddy said.

Halfway through the briefing, Inspector Halloran arrived and signalled that it should continue. When Constable Filan had finished, Halloran welcomed Helen and Joe, careful to make no distinction between them, and identifying them both as representatives of Homicide. He outlined his reading of the case, and expressed his doubts about Aggie Todd’s version of events, while acknowledging that he had no idea who she might be protecting.

‘Aggie Todd isn’t a suspect herself, sir?’ Helen asked.

A little snort escaped from Constable Adams, who was amazed that this female blow-in could even contemplate the bizarre possibility that that staid, dried-up old spinster would be capable of murder. The snort drew a look of unalloyed fury from Inspector Halloran. He expected better from his men.

‘Miss Todd is absolutely a suspect, Constable Lord. We would be foolish to limit her role to being an accomplice. We need to consider, however unlikely it might seem, that she might have been directly involved.’

He turned to Constable Adams.

‘Old ladies don’t kill people — is that what you’re thinking, Constable?’

In an effort to regain lost ground, Constable Adams said, with more confidence than he was feeling, ‘Well, poison maybe, sir, but these were such violent deaths, and Miss Todd seemed frail to me.’

Helen, who’d resented that snort, nevertheless came to his rescue.

‘I haven’t met Miss Todd. If she’s a frail old lady, I can certainly see why you might want to eliminate her as having physically committed these murders.’

Inspector Halloran wasn’t so forgiving.

‘Miss Todd is not a frail old lady. Constable Adams here thinks that anyone over 40 is elderly. He sees a woman over 60 and assumes she’s frail. Miss Todd is fit, strong, and calculating. She provided us with a self-serving list of plausible suspects, and I found her cool indifference to the fate of her brother frankly repugnant. She’s a force to be reckoned with. Your question was a perfectly reasonable one, Constable Lord.’

While he was speaking, he opened a briefcase and took out an envelope.

‘A commercial photographer here in town developed these for us in a hurry.’

He tipped the photographs, still smelling strongly of chemicals, onto the table. Helen reached for them, knowing that this would horrify Constable Adams. She spread them in front of her and Joe. There were eight photographs in all.

‘There are more, of course,’ Halloran said. ‘I thought we needed to get at least some of them done as quickly as we could.’

Nothing was said as the photographs were examined.

‘Where are the bodies now?’ Joe asked.

‘They’ve been taken to the morgue, which is attached to the hospital.’

Helen knew not to ask to see the bodies; it would put Halloran in the position of having to refuse her. The photographs were adequate, although they lacked the incisive, penetrating assurance of Martin Serong’s photographs.

‘Could we speak to Mr Selwyn Todd before we see the Todd house?’ Helen asked.

‘Sure, but you’ll have to excuse the smell,’ Constable Filan said. ‘The cell’s hot, and Selwyn was already a bit on the nose when we brought him in. We cleaned him up a bit, which he didn’t take kindly to.’

‘He had blood on his hands, is that right?’ Joe asked.

‘Yes,’ Halloran said. ‘We’re assuming that it’s Rose Abbot’s blood.’

‘Has he said anything at all, Constable, since this morning?’

It had taken a while, but Joe was now comfortable addressing men his own age, or older, by their rank.

‘Not a word, sir.’

He wasn’t yet comfortable with being called ‘sir’.

Paddy Filan suggested that the interview take place in the station’s backyard. There was a table there.

‘You don’t consider him a flight risk?’ Joe asked.

‘It’s been a long time since Selwyn did anything in a hurry. The thing about running away is that it involves running. When you meet Selwyn, you’ll see that the Stawell Gift isn’t on his list of things to do.’

‘And you don’t consider him dangerous?’

‘He’ll be handcuffed.’

‘You didn’t answer my question. Do you consider him dangerous?’