by Robert Gott
‘Yes.’
‘This is why he doesn’t suspect you any more. He’s got far more convincing suspects to sort out.’
‘But Conroy knows, too. Peter tells him everything. Why is he still on my case?’
‘They could be divvying up the suspects. Each of them putting pressure on a different person. Or maybe Witherburn is a mate of Conroys.’
‘All right, let’s just go through some of the possibilities here. Now, we know that Polly was pregnant. The post-mortem would have revealed that to the coppers, but Charlotte told them anyway. Harry Witherburn was the father.’
‘She said he was the father. That doesn’t mean he was, even if he was fucking her. He might not have been the only one. You almost got there yourself. It might have been Patrick what’s-his-name.’
‘Lutteral. Unlikely.’
‘You can’t know that for sure. It might have been Fred.’
‘That’s unpleasant.’
‘Nevertheless, if what Shirley Moynahan told you is true, it’s a possibility. Or it might have been someone we don’t even know about yet.’
‘Harry Witherburn had the most to lose.’
‘Maybe. But if you’re a religious prig like Patrick Lutteral and your fiancée tells you she’s pregnant and that you’d better marry her in a hurry, you might react badly. Of course, if they’ve never actually fucked and he found out that she was pregnant to someone else, well, who knows what he might do. Witherburn is definitely not the only candidate here.’
‘If you’d met Patrick Lutteral, you’d know he couldn’t have done it.’
‘I’ve met enough religious types to know that they are the last people on earth you’d trust. Scratch a zealot and uncover a pervert. Don’t make Conroy’s mistake and settle on a suspect and be blind to other options. Our problem is, Will, that we don’t know enough about Polly Drummond. Her life holds the key to her death.’
‘What about Mrs Drummond? Was she killed by a different person? Mal Flint?’
‘He could have killed Polly, too.’
‘Why?’
‘Like I said, we don’t know enough about her. Maybe she was fucking him, too. I agree that the two murders seem very different, but that might be deliberate. Someone could be trying to create the impression that there are two killers out there.’
‘When I came in here,’ I said, ‘I thought I had a grip on all this. Now I’m more confused than ever.’
‘Does Mrs Witherburn think her husband had anything to do with Polly’s death?’
‘I asked her that. She didn’t answer, which I suppose means yes. You don’t think she’s in danger, do you?’
‘I think she’s been in danger since the day she married him, and if you’re not careful you’ll be in danger, too.’
‘We’re getting closer, Arthur.’
‘No, we’re not, Will. We’re just uncovering more people who might decide that the world can do without you.’
I hardly slept that night. All I could think about was Charlotte in that huge house, with her husband crouching like a black spider in some dark corner of it. I woke fatigued and did not go down for breakfast. At eight-thirty Augie came to my room and said that there was a man downstairs who wanted to see me.
‘Did he give a name?’
‘No. No name. I don’t know who he is. Never seen him before. I told him to wait in the bar.’
I had a strange foreboding as I pushed open the bar-room door. The man had his back to me and was seated at the empty bar, smoking. When he heard me come in, he stood down from the stool and faced me. He was my age and height, and his clothes sat uncomfortably on a lean body, hardened by work. His face was tanned, but the most remarkable feature about it was the eyebrows, which were ginger, although his close-cropped hair was dark brown. I had never seen him before, and yet there was something about him …
‘Are you William Power?’ he asked.
‘Yes. And you are?’
‘My name’s Joe Drummond,’ he said. ‘So you’re the murdering prick I’ve heard about.’
He pulled a pistol from his trouser pocket and pointed it at my chest. The last thing I remembered was the shattering report as he pulled the trigger. I felt no pain, but fell into a well of darkness, and continued falling until all sensation stopped.
Book Two
Chapter Seven
freedom and capture
‘WHY AREN’T I DEAD?’ That was the first question I asked the splendidly breasted matron when I woke, yet again, in the Maryborough Base Hospital.
‘By rights, you should be, Mr Power. The man who shot you was expecting you to remain upright. It seems that as soon as you saw his gun you began to faint. You crumpled just as he pulled the trigger. The bullet went through the muscle at the top of your shoulder, above the collarbone. It was meant for your heart. There’s no permanent damage, but that left arm will be out of action for a bit longer.’
Was there a whiff of mockery when she said that I had begun to faint at the sight of the gun? Would she rather I had stood proudly and taken the bullet where Joe Drummond had intended it to go?
‘Where’s Joe Drummond?’ I asked.
‘Who’s Joe Drummond?’
‘The man who shot me.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Power, you’ll have to ask Sergeant Topaz that. You’re becoming a regular. Usually we only see circus people when there’s been a tumbling accident or someone falling from a horse.’
‘I’m not with the circus,’ I said wearily. ‘Why does everyone in this town think I’m with the circus?’
‘Perhaps they think you look disreputable,’ said Peter Topaz as he came into the ward.
‘Where’s Joe Drummond?’ I asked again.
‘He’s in custody. It might surprise you, but we do actually take a dim view of people pointing guns at other people and pulling the trigger.’
I moved slightly to make myself more comfortable, but a sharp stab of pain forced me to remain still. I felt as if I must have gone white, and experienced a rush of nausea.
‘Are you going to be sick, Mr Power?’ asked the matron with unnecessary sternness.
‘No,’ I said grimly, and by a sheer act of will held the contents of my stomach in check. I thought she’d had enough entertainment at my expense already.
‘I need a statement from you.’ Topaz paused and scratched his chest between the first and second button of his shirt. ‘I also need to know if you intend to press charges.’
This was one of the most extraordinary remarks I had ever heard.
‘I would have thought that attempted murder was a crime, even in Queensland,’ I said.
‘Well, strictly speaking, it is. But perhaps this was more in the nature of an assault, or an accident.’
I was dumbfounded.
‘He shot me,’ I said. ‘If I hadn’t ducked, I’d be a dead man.’
The matron made a noise that sounded unpleasantly like a chortle.
‘If Joe Drummond had wanted to kill you,’ Topaz said, ‘you’d be lying on a slab in the mortuary. He doesn’t miss. He would have summed you up as a fainter as soon as he saw you and made the necessary adjustments.’
‘You’re serious, aren’t you? You really don’t want me to press charges.’
Topaz gave the matron a look that indicated that he wanted her to leave. She took the hint without demur and withdrew.
‘Frankly, Will, I don’t want you to press charges.’ He didn’t take his eyes off me as he waited for my response. Another little stab of pain quelled a sudden urge to give energetic expression to my astonishment. I settled for weakly asserting that Topaz obviously was disappointed that Joe Drummond had missed and that he was hoping to give him a second go at shuffling me off this mortal coil.
‘I want you to meet him,’ h
e said.
‘Thanks. I’ve already met him. We didn’t really hit it off.’
‘The person who killed Polly and her mother, if it was the same person, will never be caught if Joe Drummond is locked up.’
This remarkable little aperçu penetrated the fog of nausea that had enveloped me since I had agitated my wound by moving.
‘You’ll have to explain that,’ I said. ‘I’m obviously too dim to understand how that could possibly be true.’
Peter Topaz looked from side to side, and the movement was so mechanical as to be almost a pantomime parody of a person anxious not to be overheard.
‘I can’t guess at the motive, but we have three dead Drummonds and one live one. Joe Drummond might be a source of some interest to our killer.’
Topaz sat on the end of my bed. His weight shifted my body painfully. My involuntary wince did not encourage him to stand up. In fact, he made another unnecessary movement.
‘You want to use Joe Drummond as bait?’
‘Yes,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘But he’s no sprat, I assure you. He’s willing. More than willing.’
‘I see. So since he shot me you’ve convinced him that I’m not the murderer.’
‘He didn’t take much convincing. He said that the moment he saw you he knew you probably didn’t do it.’
‘But he pulled the trigger anyway.’
‘Well, when you point a gun at someone there’s a sort of adrenaline juggernaut that makes retreat difficult. He feels bad about shooting you. Really, he does.’
‘I’m looking forward to him feeling a lot worse.’
‘Oh, come on,’ Topaz said. ‘What do you want, an eye for an eye? You want to shoot him in the shoulder?’
‘No. I want the law to do what it’s supposed to do and punish people who shoot me.’
‘The quality of mercy …’
‘Oh, please!’
Topaz shrugged. ‘I’ll let you think about it. Joe’s in the cells, and that’s not very pleasant, I assure you.’
‘Perhaps you should put him in a suite at the Royal.’
He held up both hands. ‘All right, all right. You’re obviously not in a reasonable frame of mind at the moment. But think about it. At least think about meeting him, and then decide whether to press charges or not.’
After Topaz left I stared at the ceiling and tried to douse the spark of anger that threatened to flare inside me. I closed my eyes and relaxed into the imagined speech of a judge thundering a lengthy sentence at the bowed and chastened head of Joe Drummond. This pleasant reverie was interrupted by Annie Hudson, who grabbed my foot through the bed sheet and shook it.
‘You have to drop the charges against Joe,’ she said sharply.
‘I’m very well, thank you for asking.’
‘I know that. I asked the matron. You have to drop the charges against Joe.’
‘Joe? Joe? You’re on first-name terms with the man who tried to kill me? Has everyone gone mad? Is the fact that I’ve been shot of any interest to anybody?’
‘Oh, really, Will. Why does everything always have to be about you? Joe Drummond is sweating in a disgusting cell when he should be out helping to catch the person who murdered his mother and his sister. You’re lying here in the lap of luxury and …’
This was too much. I forced myself into sitting upright, ignoring the pain this caused, reached behind me with my good hand, grabbed the pillow, and threw it forcefully at Annie’s head. It caught her in the face. She was prepared to take this as a joke until she saw the look on my face. She realised then that the emotion behind the throw was not jocular. My fury did not make her cower. It had the reverse effect. She walked to the table beside the bed and lifted the jug of water that was sitting there. With a movement that was both deft and brutal, she upended its contents over my head. The shock of the chill made me gasp.
‘I’m just sorry it wasn’t a bedpan full of urine,’ she said.
The matron came from nowhere and ordered Annie out of her hospital.
‘I’m sorry about the sheets, Matron,’ Annie said as she swept out, ‘but I’m sure you’ve wanted to tip something over him yourself.’
The matron did not disagree, which was offensive enough, then she began replacing my wet dressing rather too roughly. I was pushed and pulled in all directions with little regard for my physical comfort. She removed the sling, my shirt, and the bandages on the gunshot wound.
‘Gently!’ I yelped.
‘I am busy enough, Mr Power, without you adding to my workload.’
‘Excuse me,’ I snapped. ‘I did not tip water over myself. It wasn’t me who let a madwoman in here outside visiting hours.’
‘You’re going home later this afternoon. You can get up now and sit in the waiting room until the doctor discharges you.’
I wasn’t given any choice in this matter. I was bundled out of the sopping bed, and its sheets were stripped before I had a chance to protest.
‘Circus people,’ she muttered.
I was expecting that someone would come in the truck to pick me up. Petrol had become difficult to get in Maryborough, but I knew that we had at least a quarter of a tank left, and the short drive from the George to the hospital would hardly drain it. No one came, however — not even Arthur. On the uncomfortable walk to the hotel I consoled myself that Annie had probably driven from the rehearsal hall when she had made her unpleasant visit, and that everybody was doing the right thing professionally by choosing to work on their pieces for the benefit. I didn’t for a moment think that I had been abandoned by the company. I wasn’t, after all, very badly injured, and Charlotte’s fund-raiser was only a few days away. Performing well there could add significant numbers to the box-office.
As I walked I was engaged in a little rehearsal of my own. What was I going to say to Annie? Despite my feelings for Charlotte, I could not entirely expunge from recent memory my alarming sexual lurch towards Annie, even if it had not developed beyond a moment of disrupted onanism. All thoughts of Annie, positive and negative, vanished when I entered the dining room of the George Hotel. A silhouette sat against a far window, upright, but somehow broken at the same time. Charlotte stood as soon as she saw me. She put out her hand to stop my headlong rush towards her.
‘Oh, Will,’ she whispered, and the pain in her voice was as palpable to me as the pain in my shoulder.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
She moved so that a panel of light fell across her face. One eye was red and bruised, and her lip, oddly swollen, was cracked at one end. Under the pressure of her words a thin ooze of blood had broken through the lipstick she had used to disguise the damage.
‘We’re both in the wars,’ she said, and smiled faintly. I reached up to touch her face, but she pulled away from me and her eyes darted nervously over my shoulder, as if she was expecting to see someone there.
‘The red-headed man,’ she said. ‘I don’t like him. I don’t like the way he looks at me.’
I had seen the way Augie Kelly looked at women, and I could not argue with Charlotte’s revulsion. There was, however, a more compelling issue at hand.
‘Did your husband do this to you?’ I asked.
‘Why, yes, of course,’ she said, and she furrowed her brow quizzically as if she thought the question peculiar or unnecessary.
‘Did he find out about us?’
‘No. I don’t think so. I don’t know. He may have. He doesn’t really need an excuse.’
‘Will you come up to my room? We can talk freely there.’
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Not here. Not in a hotel. I’ll come for you tomorrow at eleven. We’ll drive somewhere.’
She was suddenly anxious to leave. When Augie Kelly entered the room, she said, in a voice pitched too high to be convincingly casual, ‘Thank you, Mr P
ower. Those pieces sound perfect. I’m sure people will be most entertained.’
With her head lowered she hurried out. A moment later the sound of her car’s engine reached us and then receded as she drove away.
‘Walked into a door, did she?’ Augie said, crassly.
‘The only way her husband can get an erection is by thumping women. Perhaps you’re familiar with the condition.’
‘All right, all right. Keep your shirt on. It’s none of my business.’
I sat down, suddenly tired.
‘Christ, Augie, what a mess, what a fucking mess.’
Augie left but came back almost immediately with a beer.
‘The others will be back soon,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to keep mum about Mrs Witherburn’s visit?’
‘No. Why should you? You heard her. She was here about the fund-raiser.’
‘OK. I’ll be more specific. Do you want me to keep mum about what she looked like.’
I realised that I was being drawn into a kind of intimacy with Augie, but I felt I had to call on him to keep quiet.
‘Yes. If you wouldn’t mind. It’s nobody’s business.’
‘Just ours,’ he said.
I didn’t want to give Augie the impression that I considered him a mate who could expect further confidences from me. Arm’s length was my preferred distance where Augie Kelly was concerned. Charlotte would not have been happy to hear Augie appointing himself as the guardian of her reputation.
‘I know you don’t want to hear this,’ he said, and his tone indicated that, as a friend, he felt able to speak the words I apparently didn’t want to hear. ‘I know you don’t want to hear this, but don’t get mixed up with the Witherburns. You are a trouble magnet, and Harry Witherburn is real trouble. He’s a powerful man, and if he thinks you’re messing around with his wife he’ll squash you like a bug.’
I let Augie run through his gratuitous and impertinent advice without interruption. The fact that he felt able to give it made it clear that he had made the shift from considering me as a client to adopting me as an intimate. I would have to be careful in future not to encourage him further.