He was very relieved to see the coat still lying over the fallen tree, and seemingly untouched. Told of it, Morey patted for the pocketbook, but left the coat in place and told McShane to stay with it. ‘Down here?’ Newstead nodded. The policeman started down the loop path, not even glancing to see whether Newstead was following, his eyes fixed on the ground. But he’d heard, because he flicked a hand to indicate that Newstead steer to the edge of the path to avoid what Newstead saw then was the print in sand of a heeled shoe, headed downhill. He wondered at himself that he hadn’t thought to look for the same thing. All the distinctive heeled prints headed down, none up.
At the lookout the policeman strolled out onto the unfenced rock as if it were a patio. Warnings crowding his tongue, he forced himself to watch. The policeman threaded a path through glasses, hat, papers and compass to the edge and peered over, then stepped back again behind the compass and knelt and read the bearing. He picked up the hat and turned it over. Even from the steps Newstead saw the initials cut deeply into the leather sweatband, VGC. Morey placed the hat down as it had been, ran a finger along the frame of the glasses, then stared out over the valley. He spoke looking towards Mount Banks.
‘What sort of mood was he in, would you say, your man?’
Newstead waited to see if he would look round. When he didn’t he spoke to the back of his head. ‘Well … bit hard to judge, not knowing him. All he said on the trip up I’ve told you. Only thing strange I thought was he gave his pipe a pretty fierce workout, but he maybe did that all the time. I don’t know.’
Morey pushed on his bent knee to stand and came back inside the wire enclosure. He leaned his forearms on the pipe railing and spoke down at the items on the rock. ‘Bit like a display, eh Mr Newstead.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘He’d be a clever man I take it, an archaeology professor. I’d reckon you’d have to be good at telling a story from bits of evidence. Bit like a copper.’
‘Again, I couldn’t say. But I gather he’s clever, yes. He told Fred he was top dog of some institute in London. And he’s published books. Fred’s read one. Before the war. Not archaeology, about politics.’ He didn’t repeat that Fred had told him the Professor was a well-known Red. That on their several trips to Kings Tableland and the longer drive to Bell they’d talked about Joe Stalin and about events last year in Hungary. The professor had been upset by the photographs of Russian tanks in the streets of Budapest. He and Fred were Labor, no further, but hadn’t much liked the photographs either. He had no idea what the policeman’s politics were.
‘Well, Mr Newstead, I’d say your man hasn’t stumbled or tripped. For whatever reason, or reasons, he’s stepped off.’ He turned his head and pinned Newstead with a stare. ‘But you keep that news strictly to yourself. Not even to your better half.’
Newstead’s mouth filled with an indignant ‘no’. Not to the demand but to the verdict so blandly delivered. He managed to stammer, ‘Of course.’
‘But you don’t believe it, do you, everything says the opposite. That’s how I know. But it’s not what I’ll be telling the coroner, and neither will you. Unless there’s a note turns up in his room, which I think’s unlikely. So what I just said’s between you and me. Now go up top and stay with his coat and send McShane down here, we need to make some notes and measurements.’
The anger that had swelled in him yesterday swelled again, he pushed himself up from the heavy chair and strode out onto the grass, needing to be moving. He’d felt dismissed, not sufficiently adult to be there if he’d been so completely taken in by the ‘display’. He stalked to the lemon tree and tore off a yellowing leaf. Damn thing needed iron again. He flicked the leaf away. He hadn’t told Joyce directly the policeman’s verdict but he’d hinted at it. He wasn’t having any uniformed bastard telling him what he could and couldn’t tell his own wife. She’d backed him up, that without a note or a witness not even a policeman could say what had really happened. They could look at the evidence but they couldn’t look inside a person’s mind. He was as sensitive to people and their quirks as anyone wasn’t he, driving a taxi. He believed he was. He’d picked up on the woman going to the Point. Morey had never laid eyes on the living man. He had. Seen him half a dozen times at least stroll down from the Carrington, smile at people, tip his hat. He’d shared the cab with him for twenty minutes. He’d got no sense from the man, absolutely none, that he was knowingly taking a one-way ride. That he wouldn’t be sitting in the same corner of the seat on the return, puffing furiously on his pipe and reading through whatever notes he’d made. No one could be that good an actor if it wasn’t their actual job. Yet a sentence of Morey’s had stuck. I reckon you’d have to be pretty good at telling a story from bits of evidence. The policeman had meant telling in the sense of inventing, not reading a story already there. He turned from the lemon tree and walked in a straight line to the back door. He needed to talk to someone else who’d observed the man.
He recognised the voice as soon as she said good afternoon. ‘Carrington Hotel, how may I help you?’
‘It’s Harry Newstead, Mrs Clooney.’ Habit proved too strong and he added, ‘How are you?’
There came a wet click, then a pause.
‘I’ve been better, Mr Newstead. How about yourself?’
‘Likewise. Finding it a bit hard to stop pacing around. So I was wondering if you maybe could tell me who was on either Friday night or yesterday morning who might have, you know, seen or talked to him. And if I could come up and have a chat. If they’re on again today.’
There was another, this time longer, pause.
‘That would be me, Mr Newstead, I did from two till ten Friday. And I understand very well what you’re saying. I finish at four, if that suits.’
He looked quickly at the new electric wall clock. It was twenty past three.
‘I’ll just get changed. Thank you.’
‘I’ll be in the lounge.’
He went into the sunroom. Joyce was sitting in the armchair facing the wireless. A baritone was singing in what sounded like Italian. She paused the needles. He told her where he was going and why. She lowered her hands to her lap and studied him, then nodded and asked whether he’d be back for when Fred dropped off the car. He said if not to tell him he’d go round later and do the take.
He walked up the lesser-used side of Katoomba Street as far as the church before he crossed. When he came near the Carrington he slowed and studied the rank. The Wolseley wasn’t there but Bert Mayle and Tom Harradence were standing smoking at the fender of Tom’s Chrysler, Tom with his foot up on the bumper. He stepped to the window of the jewellers’ and watched from the side of his eye till both men turned to look at a passing Jaguar, when he skipped to the closer of the stone pillars at the hotel’s vehicle entrance and slid round it and started up the driveway, keeping to the stone kerb rather than have the crunch of his shoes in the gravel.
He looked at his watch again before he pushed open the door to the lobby. Five past. She’d have handed over. He knew the woman behind the desk to nod to. She returned his nod and didn’t enquire when he continued walking. Only two or three times had he been further into the hotel than the lobby, and never into the lounge. A sign with a gold-gloved hand pointed the way.
The barman smiled at him and stepped to the taps. ‘Be with you in a tick,’ he said. The man executed a small bow and stepped away. At the far end of the lounge the lower sashes of all the windows were fully raised, the blue of the Jamison and the ranges to the south framed, then rooftops entering the frames as he advanced. Three tourist couples were sitting together on curved divans in the centre of the room. She lifted a hand to him from a leather armchair in the right corner. As he changed course he took in the marble fireplace. It was huge, four times the size of the one at home, ironbark logs laid in readiness for one of the sudden changes in weather the Mountains were famed for. She nodded when he entered the embayment of chairs but didn’t smile. An empty glass stood on a coaster on a low
marble table. She sat upright to take his hand. He’d always been slightly awed by her, not anything in her manner but by the fact that she was nearly as old as his mother yet looked half that age, having flawless olive skin, jet-black hair and a large sensuous mouth accentuated by the scarlet lip paint she habitually wore. Her hand was long-fingered and cool. His, he realised, was probably sweaty. He slid it free and pointed to the glass. ‘The same again?’
‘Thank you, a gin and tonic.’
He felt as he walked back to the bar in some vague way flattered that she hadn’t thought he required an apology for starting without him. He’d have preferred a schooner but ordered a whisky and ice.
He chose the chair to her left, out of the window’s glare. He’d practised openings on the way up Katoomba Street. But with the moment upon him he realised that everything he’d practised relied on her already knowing what he knew. She was leaning forward in her chair trying to see his eyes, he’d fallen into his schoolboy habit of staring at the teacher’s feet. He sat straight. ‘Sorry. Just a bit hard to know how to start.’
‘Let me help, then. I had a Senior Constable Morey from Blackheath here a little after lunchtime. You’ve also had dealings with him, I gather.’
‘You could call it that.’
‘Quite. Not that I know what he said to you, and it’s none of my business. But he pursued with me a line of questioning that had behind it a “theory” I considered to be tripe and I told him so. His words to me then were that I’d grabbed the wrong end of the broom, he was simply trying to establish the professor’s movements while he was here. I told him as I’m now telling you – that Professor Childe was here on and off over a period of weeks before yesterday morning. He went out twice to Bathurst to stay with another retired professor and his wife, a Professor Stewart of Sydney University, and he told me he was looking forward to visiting there again. I explained that he told me he’d become very interested in geology as well as his own field of history and archaeology, especially the geology of the Mountains, and he was planning a book on the ages of the various strata, why he was going about to look at the cliffs. He seemed actually very excited by the idea. He lived up here for a while as a child, at the end of Falls Road he told me.’
He felt some contribution from him was due and said, ‘Yes, my partner, Fred Benham, said.’
‘I know Mr Benham.’
‘Course you would. Sorry.’
‘And I should apologise too, I sound as if I’m setting myself up as some sort of … confidante.’ She lifted her hand to forestall him. ‘Understand that I’m speaking now just to you, Mr Newstead, not our policeman. I think he was far too private a man to allow confidences. But I believe we became passing friends at least. Quite often in the evening he sought me out for a chat if I wasn’t too busy, or even if I was, or became so, he’d stand until we could continue. I very much enjoyed those chats, and I believe he did too.’ Her voice broke and she stopped. ‘Excuse me.’ She took up her glass and swallowed a large mouthful and set it back on the coaster, dabbing her mouth with the back of her other hand, then, realising what she’d done, glancing at the skin to see if she’d removed any paint. He’d never driven her but knew where she lived, in a large well-kept weatherboard in Lovell Street she’d shared with her late husband. He’d been dead some four or five years and the word was, among the blokes at the rank anyway, that she was on the prowl again, why she’d started at the Carrington. He didn’t think the professor would have qualified as prey. And you can shut up with stuff like that, he told himself angrily, you’re not here for jokes. He glanced and saw she wasn’t looking, she was studying her hands held clenched before her chest. It so resembled prayer he wondered was she a churchgoer, and if so, where. ‘So – Friday.’ She raised her face to him. ‘About half-past eight he came out of the private bar looking a bit red and flustered. He didn’t say anything but Douglas the barman told me later that some men in there – I won’t call them gentlemen – were making loud remarks about his appearance. He came to reception and we talked for about half an hour, or rather he talked while I did things. If you’ve been with him you know.’
‘I been with him only the once, yesterday, but Fred says the same – like you were in a library with the books talking to you.’
A sad smile lit her face and vanished. ‘That’s it exactly. Anyway, he excused himself and went upstairs. A few minutes later he was down again with his portable typewriter in its case and said he wanted me to have it. I’m sure it was a genuine impulse, but I thought it one he might later regret. I told him I couldn’t possibly accept, he needed it for his book, but he repeated what he’d said to me a number of times, that he hated typing, he preferred to write longhand, and he wanted to give it to someone he knew would use it properly instead of him with two fingers. It’s a very good Olivetti. When I told him again I couldn’t he began to grow distressed, so I accepted and thanked him. My intention was just to put it in the safe and give it back. I only managed to do one of those things.’ She choked on the last words and closed her eyes.
‘Would you like some water?’
She rubbed the backs of fingers across her lids and opened them and reached down to her purse jammed between her hip and the arm of the chair. ‘Why don’t I give you the money and you buy us another round, and yes a glass of water please.’ She saw his mouth open and hushed him. ‘I earn my living too, Mr Newstead.’
She’d drained the glass when he returned with the small tray. She lifted the empty aside for him to place the fresh gin and tonic on the coaster, then took the water from him and sipped. She waited for him to sit and arrange his legs.
‘I didn’t tell our Constable Morey what I just told you, Mr Newstead. About the typewriter. For the simple reason he’d have twisted it to mean the opposite of how it was intended. I did tell him, however, that no matter how long Professor Childe chose to stay with us he settled his account weekly. He was scrupulous about it. I believe if he was planning something … something untoward, he’d have settled with me on the Friday evening. He would not have left the foyer yesterday knowing he owed the hotel money.’
Keenly aware that his shyness had forced her to do much of the talking, he told her the professor hadn’t paid at Govetts either. He began to describe events from when the man had got out and stood looking into the Grose, but she stopped him, shaking her head. ‘Please, I’d rather not know.’
They sat in an awkward silence. He really didn’t want to walk her down to the rank, have the blokes see them together, but he’d have to offer. Finally he said he should be getting home, they generally ate early on a Sunday. He’d walk her down to the rank if she wished. He tried not to let his relief show when she thanked him and said a friend was coming for her.
‘I hope I’ve eased your mind a little, Mr Newstead.’
‘Well, you obviously saw much more of him, Mrs Clooney. So it’s been good to hear things from your angle.’
He placed his glass on the tray and reached for hers and she told him to leave them, it was the barboy’s job. She offered her hand. When he took it she enfolded his with her left and squeezed.
‘We were granted the great privilege of meeting him. I think that’s something we should both of us treasure.’
Joyce was flouring salmon rissoles. Having whisky on his breath he kissed her on the cheek and she kissed him back keeping her hands in the bowl. When he turned he noticed the newspapers were gone from the counter. They were somewhere, she wouldn’t have chucked them. He got a glass of water and sat at the table.
He told her what Marj Clooney had said, trying to recount as much as he could in her words rather than his own. She floured the last rissoles. He was not distracted by her moving about as he talked, it was the pattern of his arrival home on days he’d worked. She rinsed the sticky flour from her hands and dried them on her apron, glancing up at the clock so that he did the same. If he hadn’t copped a last fare Fred would be on his way. She picked up the kettle and carried it to the sink and pou
red out the old water and refilled it. As she turned off the tap she said at the window, ‘I’ll save my questions because he’ll be here any second. But tell me this –’ she looked at him over her shoulder – ‘because it doesn’t sound to me like this talk with her’s settled anything – are you going to be thinking of nothing else for the next week but this Professor Childe?’ She turned with the kettle in both hands.
‘I don’t know, Joyce.’
‘That’s not exactly an answer.’
‘Because it’s too fresh to say! If I close my eyes I can watch the whole of yesterday.’
‘Well I wouldn’t call that a good sign for going to bed. Would you?’
She drew breath to say more but they both heard the distinctive sighing growl of the Wolseley shifting down into second, then the squeal of the back springs as it bumped over the gutter and up into the driveway. She walked to the stove and picked up the flintgun, lit the gas.
The flyscreen door slammed and Fred stumped into the kitchen. He was fifty-one, short, and now cow-gutted after years of sitting. He’d never married. He and Newstead’s father had been best friends. In their early twenties they’d bought a secondhand Chevrolet and gone into partnership. There was a photo on the lounge room wall in his mother’s house of both men grinning into the camera, Fred behind the wheel of the Chev and his father, for the joke, braced with both hands on the handbrake lever. They’d volunteered for service on the same day and Fred was rejected, as both must have known he would be, his left leg shorter than his right. Despite the heat he was wearing his fawn cardigan. He dumped the takebag on the table and pulled out a chair and sat heavily. ‘I’ll give tea a miss, Joycey, got an appointment up the club with a schooner.’ He turned to Newstead and tapped the belted leather bag, which had a healthy fatness to it. ‘Bit of heat brought them out. So, how are you?’
The Best Australian Stories 2016 Page 13