Changing Yesterday

by Sean McMullen

  Liore and Madeline turned. Two men were approaching them along the boardwalk, the third was in the street, walking in a curve to cut them off. Liore was desperate not to become embroiled in any incident. One thing would lead to another if she had to account for herself to the police.

  ‘No screaming, stay close,’ she whispered.

  ‘Dark night, you shouldn’t be out with a boy,’ said one of the men that they now faced.

  ‘Yeah, ya need a man on a cold night, missy,’ said the other.

  Liore heard footsteps that told her where the third man was treading, and that he was close behind. Twisting her head for a moment to take aim, she kicked straight back, driving her heel into the man’s stomach. The other two stood in astonishment for a moment, then the man on her left aimed a much clumsier kick at Liore while his companion groped for his knife. Liore twisted slightly to dodge the kick, then gracefully swept an arm under his foot and pushed up sharply. The man rotated upon his centre of gravity and fell backwards, striking his head on the boards.

  A knife gleamed in the dim light as the man on Liore’s right lunged, but she already had her two hands spread wide and descending to where his wrist was moving. Liore twisted outwards under the man’s arm, spun right around and drove the knife up under his ribs. By now the third man had regained enough breath to stagger forward to help his mates, but he was still partly doubled over. Liore stepped into his outstretched arms, twisted his head and slammed her knee up into his temple. There was a loud snap.

  ‘Stealthmode, leave, now,’ hissed Liore, taking Madeline by the arm.

  ‘Those men,’ began Madeline.

  ‘All dead. Crushed skull, stabbed heart, broken neck.’

  Nobody had yet come upon the bodies by the time they reached the café. Madeline took out a key and they hurried inside.

  ‘You killed them!’ gasped Madeline, sitting down heavily on a chair in the darkened café.

  ‘On target.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Violating you, their intent,’ said Liore coldly, looking back out into the street. ‘Myself, killed, would have been.’

  ‘Your voice, what is wrong with it?’

  By your leave, speaking courtly, thought Liore. ‘I have a tendency to slip into battlespeak.’

  ‘Battlespeak? What is that?’ ‘Best not to ask.’ Out in the street someone began shouting for the police, then a whistle was blown over and over again. People came running with lanterns.

  ‘You killed them with your bare hands.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Madeline put her fingers to her lips.

  ‘You are not as you seem.’

  ‘Correct. I am . . . a type of spy.’

  ‘You are also a girl.’

  Liore turned away from the street and stared at what was visible of Madeline in the gloom of the shop. ‘

  Why do you say that?’ she asked warily.

  ‘Your hands are too small for a boy, your neck has no Adam’s apple, you show no sign of shaving, and the features of your face are too fine and rounded.’

  There was a sudden tapping at the door of the café. Liore backed away into the shadows, but Madeline made straight for the door and unlocked it. A policeman entered.

  ‘Maddy, Maddy, are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Dad, of course. What’s all the fuss out there?’

  ‘Drunks, rioting. Three are dead. I get so worried about you being here alone.’

  ‘Not for long, Dad. I have been meaning to tell you, I’m leaving.’

  ‘Leaving Ballarat? I – I know you want to, but your mother, the café!’

  ‘Mother can run the café herself if she wishes. She can also marry Gerald Heath, seeing she thinks he is such a suitable match. I have made arrangements to support myself, and I have friends.’

  ‘Friends?’

  ‘Trust me, I am your daughter. Tomorrow I shall be gone without trace, but don’t worry. I shall write when I can.’

  ‘Tomorrow? Just like that? Can’t you wait until I’ve cleared those bodies out there to the morgue and I’m off duty? We need to talk about your plans.’

  ‘It would take too long to explain, but believe me when I say I must go, and it must be now. The chance may never come again.’

  ‘How long will you be gone?’

  ‘Until I’m old enough to be legally free of Mother.’

  Liore watched in silence as Madeline’s father gave her fifteen shillings and a button from his uniform to remind her that she was the daughter of a policeman. Madeline took a self-portrait of herself from the wall and presented it to him. They embraced in awkward silence, saying nothing because there was too much to say.

  ‘I’ll worry about you,’ he said, ‘but I suppose I’ve already taught you all I can, so what better time than now?’

  Then he was gone, and Liore was alone with Madeline again.

  ‘Thank you for saying nothing of me,’ said Liore.

  ‘You were right, there is nothing to keep me here,’ said Madeline. ‘Do come upstairs. I shall make dinner for us, and you can tell me what to pack.’

  ‘But I am leaving in two hours.’

  ‘Only two hours?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What a pity. So much to ask you about, but so little time.’

  ‘I am sorry, but trains run on strict schedules. I am on an important journey.’

  ‘What is it about?’

  ‘I am not at liberty to discuss it.’

  ‘You say so little about yourself,’ said Madeline, ‘yet I know so much about you now.’

  ‘You do?’ asked Liore with a trace of amusement. ‘Tell me more.’

  ‘The right pocket of your coat is weighted heavily, just like my father’s coat when he carries a gun. When you walk there is the rattle that loose bullets make in a pocket. You are armed, Leon.’

  The girl misses nothing, thought Liore, but she held her features neutral.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You have perfect manners and a military bearing. The scar over your eye marks you as someone who sees action. Girls seldom have scars like that. You must be travelling to Adelaide, for the Adelaide Express is the only train that leaves in two hours. You have also been studying the shipping notices, and know the fare to London. You bought my sketch so that your image would not remain in Ballarat, yet you gallantly paid far more than you needed to. You are a gentleman spy, even though you are a girl. I had hoped to charm you into taking me with you, at least while I still thought you were a boy.’

  For a moment they both sat absolutely still and silent, then Madeline gestured upwards.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ asked Liore as they climbed the stairs. ‘I cannot take you with me. I lead a very dangerous life.’

  ‘Just tell me how to travel as you do, fast and light. What clothes to wear, what to take, what not to take, how to hide money, how not to draw attention to myself, and how to seem what I am not.’

  ‘That is easy,’ said Liore. ‘When you leave here, wear three sets of clean underwear and two dresses. That will get you a long way without having to worry about laundry or carry a large bag. It will also make you look a bit stout, and less likely to catch the eye of annoying rakes. Never look about in wonder in new places, always try to seem like a local who is familiar with everything. Carry only one bag.’

  Madeline lit a lantern and made notes, then began dressing in the multiple layers that Liore had prescribed. Liore supervised as she packed a large knitting bag.

  ‘When you flee, try to look as if you are only going for a day trip to Melbourne, and say as much to anyone who asks. Arrange for someone else to open the café, so it will be longer before the alarm is raised. Tell the man at the station that you are buying the ticket for a friend or aunt. Walk onto the platform as if you are only seeing someone off, and wave at the train windows a lot. When the whistle blows, step aboard the train briskly. That will confuse people, they will wonder if they saw correctly. You will be more dumpy with the extra clo
thes, they will think you might be the very relative you came to see off.’

  ‘So much detail,’ said Madeline, who was scribbling furiously.

  ‘After a while it becomes a way of thinking. Never carry all your papers and money in your bag, sew a pocket into your underwear and keep enough to get by in there. Bags can get stolen, but underwear is harder for strangers to search.’

  ‘You’re right, Leon, or whoever you are. I have to learn to think ahead.’

  ‘No, no, you have to learn to think like a criminal. Criminals go about as people they are not. Remember that, it will keep you out of trouble.’

  For Liore the Adelaide Express seemed to pull out of Ballarat very slowly, and then settle down to something not much above walking pace. For a time she sat working out the train’s speed by timing the distance between milestones, and she was not at all happy with the results. She stopped the conductor as he walked past and asked if they were on time, and if anything was wrong. He replied that the train was on time, and would arrive in Adelaide right on schedule.

  Liore tried to distract herself by checking her bag, checking her gun, and checking the shipping pages of the newspapers yet again. Barry was going to London, she was increasingly convinced of that. It was only a matter of when, and on what ship. There was only one ship scheduled to leave before the Adelaide Express arrived in Adelaide, so he would still be in that city unless . . . unless he had gone straight from the station to the docks and caught the Andromeda. Daniel’s ship.

  Suddenly a nightmare of paranoia descended on Liore. Was Daniel going to London to provide an escort for Barry, or was he tempting her to chase after the Andromeda while Barry stayed behind in Adelaide and sold the PR-17, perhaps to the Lionhearts themselves? Emily had kept her at the Lang’s house all afternoon so that Barry could burgle her room and steal the weapon, that was absolutely obvious. Fox and Muriel had run away to Paris when she needed them most . . . but was that all part of a plan to give Daniel an excuse to be sent to England? Although she remained in firm control of herself, Liore felt isolated, deserted and very severely betrayed.

  Time for coldness, time for death, she thought, her teeth grinding. They have all been tested, and they have all failed. Time to break Barry Porter’s scrawny little neck.

  Liore imagined herself flinging Barry to the ground, pinning him down with a knee between his shoulderblades, then placing one hand on his forehead and another on the back of his head. She twisted. There was a very satisfying snap. She felt her mouth watering.

  Time to drown Emily Lang.

  Liore’s imagination conjured the Lang’s house in Melbourne, late at night. Everyone else was asleep as Emily crept into the moonlit backyard of the Bay Street house, as she had been instructed in a note, supposedly from Barry. Liore crept up behind her, dropped her with a foot to the back of her knee, then plunged her head into the lily pond and sat on her as she drowned. Listening to your breath bubbling away into death will be far more pleasant than putting up with your lies, thought Liore.

  Time to choke Fox on a tube of his oil paints, time to hang Muriel by her own frilly knickers.

  Liore thought of Fox tied to a chair in an artist’s garret, gagged with strips of Muriel’s petticoat, while Muriel kicked and struggled at the end of a rope made of her underwear tied together. Fox had two tubes of paint jammed into his nostrils. Liore was painting the scene. I always wanted to run away to Paris and become an artist, she was telling them. I rather fancy the symbolist school. This is very symbolic, don’t you think?

  Finally, what to do with Daniel? He might well be an innocent bystander, but I think not. Time to beat the tall and handsome Daniel until he is unrecognisable, then strangle him with my bare hands.

  Liore did not think of any specific setting for her fantasy of thrashing Daniel into a bloody pulp. She was into the second minute of planning what to do to him when she heard the voice of the conductor in the distance.

  ‘Now then, I think your brother is in the next compartment, mademoiselle,’ he was saying. ‘The boy in there has a French accent.’

  ‘Oh, merci, monsieur, then it must be him.’

  In an instant Liore was sitting up straight and whispering, ‘By your leave, speaking courtly.’ The conductor opened the door and Madeline swept in and embraced her.

  ‘Oh Leon, Leon, I thought I had lost you!’ she cried as she flung her arms around Liore. ‘I had not my ticket, and I was so frightened.’

  Thinking quickly had kept Liore alive on many occasions, so her answer was both prompt and appropriate.

  ‘Thank you so much for looking after my sister, monsieur,’ she said, pressing a shilling into the conductor’s hand. ‘I shall make sure that she does not wander off again.’

  The conductor smiled broadly, then left without bothering to ask for Madeline’s ticket. Liore closed the door to the compartment.

  ‘Well, how do I look?’ asked Madeline, spreading her arms. ‘Is this convincingly dumpy?’

  ‘Madeline –’

  ‘I bought a ticket to Melbourne so that nobody would know that I was on this train.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I thought about what you said about thinking like a criminal. Mother will think I’ve gone to Melbourne. Why would I go all the way to Adelaide instead?’

  Liore considered this carefully, and suddenly remembered what Emily had once said about Muriel. Some girls can get things from men by just batting their eyelashes, but a boy would need a loaded pistol to do the same.

  ‘I agree to take you to Adelaide and get you booked onto a ship to London on one condition,’ said Liore, folding her arms and glaring sternly at Madeline.

  ‘Oh, yes. What am I to do?’

  ‘You must teach me how to dress and act like a girl.’

  Liore and Madeline arrived in Adelaide to find the police at the station, still investigating the murder of the previous morning. Liore bought a newspaper as they left the station, then they stopped at a café.

  ‘“The murder of Peter Lurker, also known as Lurker the Worker, is being linked to the murder of Harold Luker and James Porter, and the disappearance of James Wreder in Melbourne”,’ Liore read as they sat drinking coffee. ‘One little sentence, so many mysteries.’

  ‘Four murders,’ said Madeline uneasily. ‘You were telling the truth when you said your life was dangerous.’

  ‘“Police are anxious to interview a youth named Liore Besay, suspected to be a Norwegian seaman, in connection with the murders. Mr Besay is armed and considered to be exceedingly dangerous. He is also wanted in connection with an assault on a police officer and Mrs Agatha O’Brien of Brighton, theft of a police firearm, theft of a police bicycle, theft of a motorised bicycle, destruction of property, and breaking and entering”.’

  Madeline gazed steadily at Liore. Liore shrugged.

  ‘So you are Liore?’ Madeline asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How much of that report is true?’

  ‘I am not Norwegian, and I did not kill those men.’

  ‘But everything else?’

  ‘Is true.’

  ‘Have you killed others?’

  ‘Since arriving in your, ah, country, I have killed twenty-one men, but that was war, not murder.’

  Madeline took some time to think through what she had just learned, and to make her judgement.

  ‘At the risk of becoming your next victim . . . I believe you,’ she said at last.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Well then, what about your disguise? It would certainly be easier to hide you if you were dressed as a girl.’

  ‘Not so,’ said Liore, feeling strangely uneasy. ‘Having a girl’s body is not enough. I walk, talk, behave and react like a boy, and I have never worn a dress in my life. You need to teach me everything about being a girl. That will take days, perhaps weeks.’

  ‘Well, we at least need new names,’ Madeline suggested. ‘Who will you be?’

  ‘I have not used Leon before. Leon I stay
.’

  ‘Perhaps I could be Muriel?’

  ‘Muriel could be very complicated. What about Monique?’

  ‘Monique, yes. Monique and Leon. What about a surname?’

  ‘Cluny.’

  ‘So I am Monique Cluny, and you are my brother Leon. But we have no papers.’

  ‘I can forge papers. All I need is lemon juice, lampblack, some thick paper and a device that I carry. We also need a strategy. You want to go to London, I want to . . . to find someone.’

  ‘And kill him?’

  ‘None of your business. I shall leave on the next ship for London, while you stay here and practise being a detective. We shall communicate by telegraph. I would like you to locate someone, a small and furtive youth named Barry Porter. If you find him, inform me at once.’

  ‘Barry Porter. Is he related to the murdered James Porter?’

  ‘Barry is his son. I am not entirely sure what is happening, but as you may well guess, it is very, very dangerous to be involved. Do you still want to help?’

  ‘Oh yes. I brought the old Webley revolver my father gave me in case anyone broke into the café while I was alone there,’ Madeline said, patting her knitting bag.

  ‘Can you use it?’

  ‘Yes. Dad treated me like a son and taught me a lot of things that boys do. My mother hated him for that.’

  ‘You are not typical of the girls of your time.’

  ‘Of my time? Don’t you mean my age?’

  ‘Ah, yes, of course. A girl of your age. A girl who does not have a background like mine.’

  There was an uneasy silence. Liore wondered if she might have just lost her only ally in all the world. Words had so many meanings when spoken in courtly. In battlespeak it was much easier.

  ‘Do you think I am mad for running away to become a detective?’ asked Madeline.

  The question was not one that Liore had expected.

  ‘I was surprised,’ she said guardedly. ‘I thought you might spend months, perhaps years, packing and planning, then not run away at all. Most people prefer to dream of freedom rather than leave their cage.’

  ‘Liore, I ran away because I am sure I shall never meet any other girl like you. Two or three days of learning from you will be worth two or three years of planning and dreaming.’