The Port Fairy Murders

by Robert Gott

  ‘Peter’s portrait is based on it.’

  Again, Peter laughed.

  ‘Based on? You’re the first person to come into this house and get the joke.’

  ‘Who painted it?’

  ‘A friend of mine — a fellow named Forbes Carlisle. He should be much better known than he is. He’s easily the equal of William Dargie, whose mother’s maiden name, by the way, was Sargent. As soon as this war’s done with, I’m determined to back him. A few really decent commissions would set him up. Do you know what he’s doing at the moment? He’s camouflaging Jeeps. Not that he minds. I think he rather likes it.’

  For the remainder of the meal, the talk was about art. Peter had strong views on Dobell’s portrait of Joshua Smith. He loved it, and thought the controversy about it was absurd.

  ‘Smith doesn’t like it because it looks just like him. But it has much more energy than Dargie’s last two Archibald winners.’

  Ros pointed out that Dobell was a friend of Peter’s, and that this might have had something to do with his enthusiasm for the Smith portrait. Two hours passed, and the four of them settled into the library for a glass of brandy. It wasn’t a misnomer, or a pomposity, to call this room a library. It was lined with books, and the one wall available for pictures was hung in the salon style with a gallimaufry of small paintings, etchings, lithographs, and drawings.

  ‘There’s nothing really valuable here,’ Peter said. ‘Just bibs and bobs I inherited or picked up at auctions. There’s one decent Goya drawing.’

  Helen, who’d heard enough talk of art to last her the rest of the war, asked her mother if there was a pudding.

  ‘I hadn’t planned one,’ Ros said, ‘but I bought something recently that I’ve been wanting to try. I’m ashamed to say I fell for an advertisement in one of the papers.’

  ‘That’s not like you, Ros,’ Peter said. ‘You’re usually sniffy about that sort of thing.’

  ‘It only cost sixpence, and it promises to make us smack our lips.’

  ‘What is it?’ Helen asked. ‘I’m not sure I want my lips smacked.’

  ‘It’s called “Mary Baker Butterscotch Dessert”, and it can be made in three minutes. All you need is milk, and we have milk.’

  ‘Oh, I have to see this.’ Helen stood up and left the library with her mother. In the kitchen, before examining the Mary Baker box, Helen expressed her gratitude for her mother’s discretion in not asking Joe any questions.

  ‘I didn’t need to ask him any questions, darling. Your Inspector Lambert explained the situation to me.’

  Helen looked apprehensive, as if Lambert had broken the rules by which the Kew house functioned.

  ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘He told me enough to know that Sergeant Sable needs a safe place. I assured him that our house is such a place.’

  ‘How much does Uncle Peter know?’

  ‘He knows as much as I do.’ She didn’t elaborate on how much that was. ‘You only have to look at him to know that whatever he’s been through, apart from his flat burning down, is still raw and painful.’

  Helen was caught off guard by a rush of emotion. Left to run free, it would have produced an incoherent sound, but she caught it in time to camouflage it as a cough. However, she couldn’t disguise the tears that flooded her eyes. She turned away, knowing that her mother had seen this, but knowing too that she could rely on her to leave her be. This time, though, Ros Lord confounded her daughter, and wrapped her arms around her.

  ‘I wish sometimes that you’d talk to me, Helen. I wait and wait, but you never do.’

  Without knowing how to respond, and without knowing why, Helen said, ‘Dad …’ and stopped, appalled.

  ‘Your father always talked. Always.’

  Helen drew gently away from her mother’s embrace. She gathered herself, forced a smile, and took one of Ros’s hands and squeezed it.

  ‘Let’s make that pudding,’ she said. Her usual astuteness failed her, as it always did where her mother was concerned, and she was unable to see the deep hurt she’d inflicted with those banal words.

  PETER HAD TAKEN the Goya drawing down from the wall, and handed it to Joe. He held it reverently. It was a quick, gestural ink sketch of a prisoner bent double, his arms pinned behind him, secured by a chain that rose to a bolted ring on the wall. The face couldn’t be seen, but it didn’t need to be. The agony was contained in the twist of the shoulder and the cruel curve of the back.

  ‘It’s not a cheery drawing,’ Peter said, ‘but no one notices it, tucked away among the others.’

  ‘But it’s Goya. His hand actually made these lines. It’s wonderful.’

  ‘It was surprisingly inexpensive.’

  Joe handed the picture back to Peter and watched him as he replaced it on the wall. He was the kind of man who changed his clothes at the end of a working day. Joe hardly ever did this. He would take off his suit jacket and tie, but he rarely bothered with a complete change. Peter Lillee probably enjoyed getting into and out of clothes, and Joe suspected that having really good clothes to get into and out of probably made a difference. There was a family resemblance to both his sister and his niece, although in Helen’s case it was only vague. Joe was suddenly conscious of the fact that he hadn’t thought about the fire, or George Starling, for several hours. When this struck him, it did so with some force; on turning from hanging the Goya, Peter saw that the colour had drained from Joe’s face.

  ‘You look ill, Joe.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why on earth would you apologise for being ill? We’ve all been carrying on as if everything is perfectly normal. Having your flat burn to the ground isn’t normal. I can’t imagine how that must feel.’

  ‘At the moment, I don’t feel anything very much. A neighbour was killed. All the flats are ruined — not just mine. I wasn’t even there, and it wouldn’t have happened if I’d been better at my job.’

  Peter wasn’t good at confidences. They embarrassed him. He dealt with the world glancingly, and was unskilled at wrangling other people’s emotions.

  ‘I’m sure you shouldn’t blame yourself. I understand that the fire was started by some criminal.’

  ‘Yes, yes, it was.’ Joe felt unable to say any more. He was close to crying in front of this elegant man. He made to say something, but his voice caught. Peter, because he didn’t know what else to say, suggested that Joe might like to see his room. Joe nodded, and hoped that Peter hadn’t seen his distress.

  Peter walked ahead of Joe, thereby avoiding eye contact. In another man, this might have been the result of natural discretion. For Peter, it was social squeamishness in the presence of another man’s fragility. They mounted a perfectly pitched staircase, and reached a bedroom on the left-hand side of the divide at the top. The room was sparsely furnished, a situation for which Peter immediately apologised.

  ‘I sold a lot of stuff — a tallboy, and a chair, and so forth. You have your own bathroom. Just a bath, no shower. There’s a boiler downstairs, so there’s hot water at the tap.’

  ‘A bath would be wonderful.’

  Joe had regained control of his voice, and Peter Lillee turned toward him with relief.

  ‘Just ignore the bloody Plimsoll line, by the way. Now, I understand you have only the clothes you’re wearing.’

  ‘I have spare underwear and socks.’

  Peter laughed.

  ‘And you’re hoping they’ll see you through to the end of the war, are you?’

  ‘You don’t need coupons for socks, so I’ll be right until I get a new ration book.’

  ‘If you look in that wardrobe, you’ll find a couple of shirts, two pairs of trousers, a suit coat, and a sports coat. I won’t miss them, believe me. You’re welcome to them. There’s also some underwear and socks — new, I hasten to add
— in the bureau drawer. We can’t have our policemen wandering around in dirty underwear. Think what that would do to morale. Are you right for a razor?’

  ‘Yes. And I have a toothbrush.’

  ‘Excellent. I don’t want you to feel like you’re camping out.’

  ‘This is very good of you, Peter.’

  ‘Nonsense. This place needs more people in it.’

  ‘Didn’t they billet anyone with you when the Americans were here in full force?’

  ‘Oh no. I didn’t want that.’

  He said this so emphatically that Joe wondered how much influence Peter Lillee wielded. Helen’s explanation that he was a businessman was too vague to account for either his wealth or his ability to keep the world at bay. Inspector Lambert might have believed that Peter Lillee would have had no choice in accepting him as a guest. But, having met him, Joe suspected that the agreement had more to do with loyalty to his niece than with an inability to resist a demand from Homicide. If he’d been able to bat military billets elsewhere, blocking Victoria Police would have been a small matter. He wasn’t with Military Intelligence. Joe had had experience with them, and they lacked Lillee’s finish. His influence was doubtless directly related to his wealth.

  ‘I’ll leave you to your bath.’

  ‘Mrs Lord’s gone to the trouble of making a pudding.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. I’ll tell you tomorrow how ghastly it was. “Instant pudding” — two words designed to strike terror into the heart of anyone with a decent palate. I blame the Americans. I bet it’s one of their exciting innovations. I’ll tell Ros and Helen that you were simply exhausted and needed to get to bed. They’ll understand. I’ll see you in the morning. If you need anything, just help yourself. It would be nice to have staff to call on, but I’m afraid I couldn’t get around that restriction. No domestic servants — what a world we live in.’

  HELEN LAY WIDE awake in her room. It was well after midnight, but her mind was alive with competing thoughts. The most worrying of these was an inchoate feeling of jealousy. She dared not consider this too closely, just as she’d never dared inquire into her uncle’s private life. She had suspicions, but she loved him and she really believed that his affairs — both professional and personal — were none of her business. She envied Joe’s knowledge of art. She would love to be able to talk to Peter with that facility, and she’d tried to educate herself. The truth was, she just wasn’t interested. This wasn’t the source of her disturbed feelings, though. She’d occasionally looked at her uncle in the course of the evening, and she’d thought that the intensity of his gaze when he looked at Joe wasn’t just because the conversation was lively. She wasn’t sure. She didn’t want to be sure. Was Uncle Peter looking at Joe with …? She slammed the door shut on the thought. She thought instead of the repulsive Stanley Halloran and George Starling. Starling existed for her only as a sketch and an uncertain threat. These thoughts were preferable to any others, and she took them with her into sleep.

  –8–

  Saturday 15 January 1944

  GEORGE STARLING TOOK stock of himself in the full-length mirror in his room at the Windsor Hotel. He’d just returned from the hotel’s barber, where he’d been closely shaved and had his hair washed, cut, and Brilliantined into disciplined shape. He was wearing a new suit, shirt, and shoes that had cost him a lot in coupons and cash. He leaned into the mirror, and thought he might encourage a neat moustache. It would grow in a matter of days. As it was, he needed to shave morning and night to keep his beard shadow in order. He turned sideways. He’d pass for a gentleman — no worries. He thought he might actually be quite good-looking. He’d never really thought about his looks before. He’d been told so often by his father that he was ugly and stupid that he’d spent most of his life avoiding mirrors. No girl had ever complimented him on his looks; not that there’d been very many girls — a couple of rough slappers, and a prostitute who’d paid with a bloody nose for calling him a hairy ape. Now, though, he thought he scrubbed up pretty well. The police wouldn’t be looking for someone who dressed like a fucking movie star and who smelled like one, too.

  He picked up his new hat — a beautiful, soft grey fedora — put it on, and tilted it. A good brothel would be more than happy to admit the man he saw in the mirror, and he intended visiting one that evening. For now, though, he’d go down to the dining room, order breakfast, and read the papers. The fire in Princes Hill would surely be reported, and that would be a good start to the day.

  In the dining room, he was subject to a deference he’d never experienced before. It gave him pleasure, but the pleasure was tempered with anger. All it took was tailoring, a good barber, and a splash of cologne, and the lickspittles buckled under. His waiter, an effeminate young man — rejected, no doubt, if he’d ever applied, by the army on the basis of deviant tendencies — made obsequious enquiries as to whether sir would care for a pot of tea. It took considerable self-discipline to subdue the malevolence in Starling’s eyes, and even more not to slam his fist into the nance’s face. He wondered idly if the boy had ever taken a beating by someone as well dressed as Starling. Maybe he’d surprise him later and smash those pursed lips into the back of his throat.

  A copy of that day’s Argus was folded on the table. He ran his eyes over its pages quickly. Where was the good news about Sable’s flat? There was plenty about the bushfires. Cheltenham, Mentone, and Beaumaris had been hit. As many as 100 homes had been razed, but this was of no interest to Starling. Still, there was enough in the articles to make him laugh:

  When the fire in the Beaumaris district was found to be out of control of the regular firemen, appeals for volunteers were broadcast. Among the first to respond were batches of soldiers from a general transport company who hastened out in trucks from their headquarters near the city with supplies of fire beaters made of uppers from old army boots attached to broom handles.

  How ridiculous they must have looked.

  Hundreds of women and children were evacuated to the safety of Beaumaris Beach and Ricketts Point. Many assisted to carry furniture and other household belongings from homes threatened by fire.

  Starling closed his eyes. What a sight that must have been — tables, chairs, sideboards, and counches, standing in the sand with the sea behind them, and a wall of flames before them.

  ‘Your tea, sir.’

  Starling opened his eyes. He cocked his head on one side and smiled. The waiter made the mistake of smiling back.

  ‘Maybe you’d like a drink after work,’ Starling said.

  ‘That would be very nice.’

  I don’t think you’ll find it very nice at all, Starling thought, and an involuntary laugh escaped him.

  ‘I finish at five,’ the waiter said.

  ‘I’ll meet you out the front, but down the street a bit. Maybe you know a place we could get a decent drink.’

  ‘I know a place.’

  Starling ran his eye over the menu.

  ‘I’ll just have the toast. Is there butter?’

  ‘Of course. The sausage is very good.’

  ‘Just toast. I don’t like sausage.’

  ‘I’ll see you at five,’ the waiter said, and headed towards the kitchen. Starling was filled with loathing and disgust. It felt right, and it felt good.

  MATTHEW TODD SAT in the shade in the backyard of his Aunt Aggie’s house in Port Fairy. She’d brought him the paper, a pot of tea, and a plate of scones. He’d brought some cream, eggs, new potatoes, leeks, and carrots, all from Rose’s farm. He’d taken them without asking. Aggie was suitably grateful — not to Rose, but to Matthew. Selwyn hadn’t come out of his shed. Normally, he’d have already left to take up his position in Sackville Street, but Matthew had arrived just as he was about to leave. He’d become wary of Matthew, so rather than risk the blow he’d receive on walking past him, he’d remained in the sweltering
heat of the shed.

  ‘He’s scared of me,’ Matthew said. ‘He should be scared of you, too, Aunt Aggie. You could control him better.’

  ‘I can control him all right. All I have to do is say your name and he does as he’s told. “Don’t make me get Matthew round here,” I say to him. It works like a charm.’

  Matthew liked his Aunt Aggie. She was dry old thing, definitely a virgin, and he couldn’t recall her ever saying anything amusing. Still, she doted on him, and Matthew loved being doted on. Dorothy was in love with him. She’d said so, and he supposed that he might be love with her, although he might not be, too. He didn’t really know. She annoyed him, and she argued with him. That would have to stop. Aunt Aggie never argued with him. She agreed with everything he said, and she was interested enough to listen as well. Dorothy had been known to criticise him for going on about some things. He wanted to be married, though. Marriage was a kind of arrival into adult life. Dorothy would do — that’s what it came down to. After they were married he’d be less patient with her. No wife of his was going to turn away when he was speaking, like she did sometimes. Not after they were married, she wouldn’t.

  ‘The paper’s there for you,’ Aggie said. It was the previous day’s — Friday’s — Argus. Melbourne papers never made it to Port Fairy on the same day. ‘There’s nothing in it.’

  ‘That saves me the trouble of reading it.’ He laughed. Matthew rarely read a newspaper. They reminded him that a war was being fought, and that there was more to it than rationing, austerity, and inconvenience. They reminded him that he wasn’t in it. He did an important job, of course, as his aunt frequently told him. She had the idea that he was ultimately responsible for the success of the Port Fairy catch. ‘Where would all those fishermen be without you to sell their catch?’ she often said.

  ‘Dorothy should be here in a minute, Aunt Aggie. Can we shift Selwyn before she gets here? I don’t like her having anything to do with him.’

  Aggie had long ago stopped feeling any need to defend her simple brother. She agreed with Matthew that he was little more than an unruly domestic animal. He was toilet trained; but, as Matthew rightly said, you could teach a cat to use a sandbox, so teaching Selwyn to shit in the toilet wasn’t exactly evidence of high intelligence. She’d gone beyond being disgusted by Selwyn. She’d become inured to even the worst of his physical habits.