For a long time Joan had pitied Gloria’s delusion, putting it down to the tenacity of a mother’s love that would defy all odds, but gradually her mother’s obsessiveness had begun to infect her, to the point that she would catch fleeting glimpses of James in the slipstream of her vision—in the morning rush on George Street, for instance, or disappearing around a corner in Martin Place. She suspected her grief for her missing brother had redoubled its power over her and was playing havoc with her mind because she was now involved with Hugh, a fellow soldier who’d made it home. With a pang of empathy, she resolved to make more of an effort to stay in touch with her mother.
‘How’s Dad’s gardening going?’ she said into the phone.
‘Not too bad. Got some nice nectarines last week. How’s things with you?’
‘I’m fine, Mum. I just wanted to let you know that there’s a story in the papers today about a girl who died in our boarding house. The usual scare-mongering nonsense! But I know how much Mrs P. likes to stir the pot.’
Then, as Gloria started to twitter anxiously, ‘No, wait, Mum, listen. She was not a friend of mine; she was a very sad case, got mixed up with some bad people. But you have nothing to worry about, okay? I’m perfectly safe. The police are confident they’ll find the person responsible. No, they’re quite sure none of the other tenants were involved. They’re all lovely, respectable people.’ Joan hoped she sounded convincing.
She was almost relieved when the conversation took its usual turn. ‘Yes, I’ll visit soon, I promise. Yes, I’ll see if Hugh can come. He’s very busy right now.’
Hugh remained a shadowy but heartening prospect in her parents’ understanding of Joan’s life. She’d told them that he was a journalist writing for a labour rights magazine (which they applauded) with no mention of the Communist Party (which they would not). The problem of her family meeting Hugh was repeatedly deferred to a theoretical future.
‘I love you too, Mum. Give my love to Dickie and Pa.’
‘I will, Joanie. And to James too when he gets home.’
‘And James, of course. Bye, Mum.’
Her third call was to Bill Jenkins, on the off-chance he was actually in the office. To her surprise, he was.
‘Joanie, how you doing, darl?’
She told him it had been a rough night but she was doing okay, then moved quickly to the purpose of her call. ‘Look, something’s been bothering me,’ she said. While making her other phone calls, she had watched several guests arriving in the guesthouse lobby carrying items of luggage; one guest was a young woman with a suitcase in each hand. ‘I don’t know if the cops picked up on it or not, but I noticed that Ellie had two valises packed with clothes. Why would she do that? Was she planning a trip somewhere? I thought you might ask them about it—assuming the coppers haven’t already closed the file,’ she added bitterly.
Bill said he would pass it on. ‘Don’t assume anything, Joanie. Commissioner Childs and Superintendent MacKay are hell-bent on taking down Jeffs and his thugs, despite a few rotten apples on the force and the bastard’s friends in high places. But the coppers have got their hands full at the moment what with the New Guard and the Reds making so much trouble. Anyway, I might see you at the coroner’s court if there’s an inquest.’ Bill was clearly in a hurry to wind up the call. ‘Take care of yourself, Joanie. Stay out of trouble, eh?’
She had one last phone call to make, the most daunting of all. From the pocket of her blouse Joan pulled out an envelope containing the Ladies’ Bacchus Club letterhead. A phone number was scribbled on it. Was it her aunt’s?
As she lifted her hand to dial, Joan was ambushed by a memory from when she was twelve. A birthday picnic in Vaucluse Park with tartan rugs and a fancy motorcar, her Aunt Olympia in a gorgeous dress and cartwheel hat, and little girls in ponytails and pretty frocks playing chasings. Joan had been invited to celebrate her cousin Amelia’s birthday party, the first time she had ever been included in that exclusive social set. Why? She did not have the foggiest. Except her brothers had just shipped off to war. Maybe that was it—they felt sorry for her. All that lingered now was a scalding sense of shame at her own ugly homemade dress, the merciless teasing of the other girls and something disgraceful she had done, the details now repressed. Her hand trembled as she dialled. What would she say if her aunt answered?
The call connected. A young woman’s voice, light and crisp, said, ‘Swanson and Hart Solicitors, Mr Fielding-Jones’s office, can I help you?’
Joan was dumbstruck.
‘Hello? You’ve reached Mr Fielding-Jones’s office, can I help you?’ It was a business number for Uncle Gordon. The woman must be a secretary. Joan did not know what to do. Should she say something? Then she heard another voice rumbling in the background, a male voice, clipped, impatient. Yes, that could easily be Uncle Gordon, whose British-inflected baritone perfectly matched his large patrician head and giant, expensively besuited frame.
‘I think it must be a wrong number, sir,’ said the woman on the other end of the phone with a note of irritation in her voice.
Abruptly, Joan hung up. What the hell had just happened? The phone number penned on the stationery for her aunt’s secret society was a direct line to her husband’s legal firm. And somehow this number had turned up in the possession of a prostitute in Kings Cross—a prostitute who had been brutally murdered and disfigured almost beyond recognition.
Joan’s heart was thudding so hard it knocked against the inside of her chest. The strange metallic taste in her mouth must be fear, but the fizzing sensation in her veins, in her whole body, that she recognised. It was the delicious dread, the ecstatic burning, that she loved most about life in the Cross, on the threshold of the perilous and forbidden.
She felt alive.
CHAPTER SIX
Feeling as if all eyes were on her, Joan made a quick exit from the Cairo and hurried back to her flat. She returned to find it deserted. Bernie had caught an early tram to Tempe and Jess was not yet back from the police station. Looking for a more secure hiding place for the secret letterhead, Joan slipped it in between the pages of her manuscript.
Changing from her skirt, blouse and overcoat into one of her only two casual summer cotton dresses, Joan set off along Macleay Street once more, this time at a more leisurely pace, savouring the warmth of the sunny autumn morning and feeling a fleeting sense of peace despite everything that had happened last night.
She walked on slowly, taking in, on her left, the stately white facade of the ‘Manar’ apartment blocks and the gaudy decoration, the balconies and turrets of the Gothic mansion ‘Maramanah’, each behind its own fancy stone- and iron-work fence. Joan loved the elegance of Macleay Street, which resembled what she imagined a Parisian boulevard would look like. A row of plane trees cast an iridescent green glow, giving the street an even more luminous air of enchantment. On weekend afternoons or workday evenings, stylish couples promenaded—the women in fur stoles and silk stockings, the men in grey fedoras and double-breasted suits—stopping to gawk in the windows of the delicatessens, the cafes, the wine saloons and dress shops.
There were other things to gawk at, too, for those who knew where to look. One might spot Mary Gilmore, the radical writer and communist fellow traveller (and one of Hugh’s pantheon of political saints), looking like an Edwardian governess or suffragist in her old-fashioned high-collared jacket as she dashed from her flat on Darlinghurst Road to the nearest fruit and vegetable barrow to buy something for her supper. Sometimes Joan saw the dapper Ken Slessor, poet by night and film critic and journalist for Smith’s Weekly by day, with his matinee-idol pencil moustache and rakish bow tie, off to dine at one of his favourite posh restaurants, the Paris House or Cavalier. Or, as sunset lured bohemians from their burrows, you couldn’t miss poet Geoffrey Cumine in his red velvet trousers, pea-green shirt and blue beret, an earring in each ear and a blue butterfly tattooed on his left cheek. Later in the night, people crossed the road to avoid the towering stooped figure of Pro
fessor Brennan, with his greasy hair and long black coat, shambling from flat to flat to discourse fluently on the French Symbolists or to recite from memory lengthy slabs of Paradise Lost, his favourite party trick, performed for a free glass of sparkling burgundy.
As Joan rounded the corner where Macleay Street turned into Darlinghurst Road, her heart quickened at the sight of her destination and the thought of unburdening herself. She hoped that Hugh had been able to get away on time. Over the footpath hung the neon-tubed cursive sign ready to burst into white-hot brilliance come nightfall: COFFEE ARABIAN. A breeze rattled the leaves of the plane trees and the cafe’s canvas awning, hanging over the upstairs balcony, rippled loudly, a striped and scalloped wave.
She pushed open the glass door and mounted the stairs to the second floor. There in the dimly lit interior she saw Hugh, gaunt and pale, hunched over a cup of tea at their usual table. He only came to this ritzy little cafe, with its aluminium tubular chairs, frosted Art Deco murals and small Buddha lamps on each table, for her sake. He was a fish out of water here with his shabby clothes and empty pockets, more at home in the cheap hash houses down on William Street.
Joan removed her hat and gloves and they kissed. ‘God, it’s good to see you. I feel like I’m going mad.’
‘That’s understandable, Joan. It’s not every day you see a dead body.’
Joan ordered a coffee, feeling her heart slowing and relishing the warmth of his hands on hers. She told Hugh about Bernice’s theory that Frankie Goldman was the killer. She went over some of the gruesome details again, just to hear Hugh comfort her and confirm her own feelings of horror and dismay. Yet at the same time, her retelling also dragged the night’s event out of the realm of private nightmare and into the clinical light of day. Hugh patted her hands, murmuring, ‘Poor love, how awful,’ without for one minute making her feel like a ridiculous, hysterical woman.
She felt a little bolder then and ready to take Hugh further into her confidence. ‘There’s something else I have to tell you,’ she whispered, leaning in as an older well-dressed woman entered and sat down only two tables away. ‘Something stupid I’ve done.’
‘What is it, Joanie?’
‘I, well, I … I took something from the crime scene. A note that was on Ellie’s nightstand. With a telephone number written on it.’ Joan felt her face burning. This was even harder than she had anticipated.
‘Are you serious?’ Hugh was staring at her, aghast. ‘That’s against the law—you do know that, don’t you?’
‘Please, just listen,’ begged Joan, beginning to wonder if she should have kept quiet.
‘Why on earth would you do something like that?’ Hugh’s voice was raised, his face flushed. She’d never seen him so upset about anything personal between them; he reserved this kind of anger for the great injustices of the age.
Joan stammered, ‘I don’t really know. Please let me try to explain …’
‘Of course. I’m sorry.’ Hugh made a conscious effort to calm down. ‘It’s just that I’m concerned for you, Joan. You know what bastards the police can be. If they find out …’
‘I know, I know.’ Joan tried to unravel the reasons behind her impulsive act, even confessing to him how Bill Jenkins’s taunt had stuck in her mind as a permanent reproach to her abilities as a woman. ‘That was definitely part of it. And maybe the shock of seeing the Ladies’ Bacchus Club letterhead, knowing my aunt could be mixed up in it. I told you how she invited Ellie to take part in one of their meetings.’
‘Why would you want to protect your aunt? I thought you hated her.’
‘I think I did it for my mother’s sake. Her state of mind is, well, you know, very fragile. And there’s Bernie to think of too. If my aunt and uncle are mixed up in something shady, she’ll blame herself for getting Ellie involved.’
‘That’s understandable, I guess. So, what are you going to do now?’
‘I’ve already done something. I rang the number.’
Hugh stared at her, speechless for a moment. ‘And who answered?’
‘A secretary. Turns out it’s the number for Uncle Gordon’s law firm.’
Hugh’s whole face blanched, mouth gaping, eyes wide open. He blinked and tried to speak, but it seemed too many thoughts competed for his attention.
Joan nodded. ‘Strange, right? I have no idea what it means. But I have a bad feeling about it.’
Hugh hunched his shoulders, fingers drumming nervously on the tabletop. ‘You’re right to have a bad feeling about it, Joan. There’re a few things I think I need to tell you.’ Hugh cleared his throat and scanned the cafe before furtively slipping a small hip flask from his inside jacket pocket. ‘You might need a drop of this.’
Having added a dash of brandy to both their cups and taken a gulp from his own, Hugh began to talk. ‘I have no idea what your aunt or uncle’s involvement with the death of Ellie could be; that’s anyone’s guess. Maybe the police should be given a proper chance to investigate, I don’t know.’
Joan felt a pang of guilt then: surely this meant she should find a way to get the letterhead into their hands and give up on any fantasy of solving the case herself.
‘Listen to me carefully, Joan. If a word of what I am about to tell you leaves this cafe, I risk being expelled from the party. I’m telling you this only because I care about you and I want you to know what kind of person you’re dealing with.’ Hugh looked over his shoulder to check that the two staff were still at the counter, out of earshot. The only other occupant of the cafe at this early hour, the well-dressed older woman, was absorbed in her magazine. ‘We’ve been keeping a close watch on your uncle ever since he became part of the New Guard.’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t know how much I should tell you.’
‘I need to know, Hugh.’ Joan grabbed his arm across the table. ‘I’m already involved.’
‘Joanie …’ Another pause. ‘We’ve seen things that make us think your uncle may have ties to Phil Jeffs.’
Joan shook her head in disbelief. Her mother had hinted to Joanie that her uncle’s business dealings were not always above board, but ties to a Jewish crime boss? That seemed a bridge too far. For a start, Uncle Gordon was old-school Catholic with an anti-Semitic streak as wide as a country road.
‘We know he and Jeffs have had regular meetings,’ Hugh continued. ‘Maybe Jeffs is simply seeking legal advice, but the meetings have been at Jeffs’s clubs, not at your uncle’s law firm. I think it’s safe to say that your uncle is not really the upstanding citizen he would like us all to believe.’
‘Meaning what?’ said Joan.
‘He may have investments in Jeffs’s business empire, helping to launder his profits.’ Hugh lowered his voice a notch further. ‘To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that your uncle dabbles in a bit of snow now and then—all these rich fellows do—and is not immune to the charms of Jeffs’s ladies of the night. It’s a perk of doing business with Jeffs. He wouldn’t be on his own, I can tell you. Who do you think make up half the clientele at Jeffs’s nightclubs? The professional, cashed-up gentlemen of the North Shore and the Eastern Suburbs, that’s who.’
Joan cast her mind back to the well-heeled men in expensive tuxedos she had seen at the Fifty-Fifty Club that memorable evening with Bill. ‘Do you really think Uncle Gordon could have killed Eleanor?’
‘I doubt he would have done it himself. He probably would’ve paid someone. Ellie might’ve known things best kept secret. Pillow talk. I’m sorry if this is a terrible shock to you. We live in a cruel world.’ That was the second time Joan had heard that phrase in the last twelve hours. She did not need a lot of convincing.
‘So, what should I do?’ she asked.
Hugh sat in silence for a moment. ‘We both know Jeffs has crooked cops in his back pocket. We’re talking about the death of a prostitute. Who’s gonna rock the boat for that?’
Joan was more confused than ever. ‘Are you saying I just let the whole thing go?’
‘No, no—I have a
much better idea. The letterhead is not much good now as evidence since it’s been removed from the crime scene and is probably covered in your fingerprints. But it may have another use.’
Joan stared at him in puzzlement. What could he possibly mean?
‘I’ll tell you what I think you should do. And I’ll help you.’ A conspiratorial smile was forming on his lips. ‘I think it’s time the Fielding-Joneses paid their debts.’
‘I don’t understand …’
‘Blackmail, Joan. A game I’m sure Gordon understands very well. Except he calls it “negotiation”. Or “the cost of doing business”. Amounts to pretty much the same thing, though.’
Joan could not disguise her shock. The idea of blackmailing her aunt and uncle had never crossed her mind. But she could see the natural justice of it. Gloria and Horace had sacrificed two sons to the war while Gordon had come home unscathed. Now her parents were struggling to survive, barely able to care for Richard, while Olympia and Gordon splashed money about with gay abandon, salving their consciences with the odd charity ball.
It was only some months ago that Gloria’s utter despair as a mother had finally driven her to write a letter to her older sister, explaining that Richard’s shell shock had not improved over the years; in fact, his mental and physical decline had accelerated. Gloria had sent many letters to the Repatriation Department and the Inspector-General of the Insane but her son’s condition was not considered serious enough to receive treatment in a military mental hospice (as opposed to the appalling conditions of a civilian lunatic ward). At her wits’ end, she was turning to her sister.
In light of Gordon’s distinguished service in France … Gloria began her appeal. Perhaps a sympathetic word in the right ear or a letter supporting Richard’s case …
Death in the Ladies' Goddess Club Page 5