Matthew Flinders' Cat

by Bryce Courtenay

  After a while Kartanya stopped crying and looked at Billy and, almost in front of his eyes, he saw the hardness return and a defiant look in her dark eyes. ‘So what do you expect me to do?’ she asked.

  ‘Do you think you could write to them, just a short note?’

  ‘Yeah, okay, I’ve got to go. I’ll write, I promise,’ she said. Taking the pack of cigarettes out of her handbag, she added, ‘I need a fag.’

  Billy smiled. ‘Kartanya, I’m an alcoholic and addict like you and I simply don’t believe you. Perhaps you think you’ll write, but you’ll leave me and go home and tell yourself you’re upset and need a hit and you’ll snort a line of cocaine and you’ll convince yourself that what you’re doing is the best for everyone.’ Billy paused. ‘But it isn’t, my dear. Your father and mother love you. By not seeing them, you’re breaking their hearts.’

  ‘No, you’re wrong! They won’t want me back the way I am, I’m bad news.’

  Again Billy didn’t offer any sympathy. ‘You may be right, addicts have an ability to use up affection very fast, even from their parents. But they have the right to make that decision, not you. Your father wants his daughter back, that’s all. There are no reservations, no conditions. They simply love you, always have and, I dare say, always will.’ Billy added, ‘Will you give them another chance, Caroline?’

  Again Billy saw a glimpse of softness return. ‘Yes. Yes, I promise. I’ll get in touch.’

  Billy withdrew a brand-new notepad and a biro from his briefcase and placed both on the table in front of Kartanya. ‘Write!’ he commanded.

  ‘What, now? Here?’ Kartanya cried in alarm.

  ‘Christ, no.’

  Billy nodded his head.

  It was touch and go for a moment, then she grabbed the pen. ‘Jesus!’ Without further protest Kartanya began to write, at first hesitantly and then faster and faster, her tears dropping onto the page. Soon she’d filled two pages and finally completed the letter halfway down the third page.

  Billy reached into his briefcase and produced a stamped, addressed envelope. ‘Fold it and put it in the envelope, seal it and I’ll post it,’ he said, not quite believing what he’d achieved.

  Kartanya Williams folded the letter, sealed it and handed it to Billy. ‘Thank you, Billy,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m glad you’re my daddy’s friend.’ She smiled, her eyes red from crying. Then she rose and walked away. Billy watched as she walked towards the escalators and disappeared in sections as the moving steps lowered her, bit by bit, out of sight.

  Billy turned up at Marcus Eisenstein’s chambers on the appointed day. This time Ms Jebara met him with a smile. She was an attractive young woman, rather too thin and pale, and the conservative black business suit she wore didn’t help her complexion. ‘The chief justice is waiting for you, Mr O’Shannessy,’ she said, leading him to the judge’s chambers.

  ‘Hello, Billy, still on the straight and narrow, I hope,’ Marcus Eisenstein said, tact not being among his major talents.

  ‘Hanging on like grim death,’ Billy replied, laughing, although it was closer to the truth than even he dared admit.

  ‘Billy I don’t have to tell you that what I have to say can be shared with no one, not even the boy,’ he began.

  Billy nodded. ‘Yes, of course,’ though he thought it a bit patronising.

  ‘The new bloke took a little convincing, but finally agreed.’

  ‘What was he was worried about? Using women?’

  ‘No, as a matter of fact, he was delighted with the idea. But he’s new in the job and already up against the establishment in the Force and in Parliament. An allwomen police bust (pardon the pun) has never been done before in New South Wales.’ Marcus laughed. ‘We’ll be making history.’

  Billy grinned. ‘Only if it succeeds.’

  ‘That’s what he said, it’s great publicity if it succeeds, a disaster if it fails.’

  ‘Properly done, it has every chance. These people believe they’re protected and if anything is going to happen they’ll be warned in good time by the police in their pay. From my observation, they’re not exactly paranoid,’ Billy said.

  ‘Well, let’s hope you’re right, but that’s not the only concern.’ Marcus Eisenstein scratched the tip of his nose. ‘There isn’t a charge for paedophilia, we’d have to get them on carnal knowledge and that’s never easy. We’re not dealing with the usual criminal here, they’ll have the best silks in the business defending them. The German, by the way, is well gone, it’s the word of an eleven-year-old boy against a powerful group of men.’

  ‘What are you saying, Marcus? That the odds are against us?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’re reluctant to go ahead?’

  ‘No, but we have to get it right first time. We don’t know what we’ll find at The Queen of Sheba or at the Flag Hotel. We could end up with egg on our faces.’

  ‘But this is a covert operation. It could be made to look like a routine raid, nothing special, police got a tip-off that there’s an illegitimate business being run in a pub and the other is simply a raid on a strip joint looking for drugs. Two separate operations.’

  ‘Sure, with a history-making all-female squad in charge of both. The police, that is the male police, will be the first to call the media. All hell will break loose.’

  ‘And you’ll be in the eye of the storm?’ Billy said.

  ‘You’re not wrong there, mate,’ Marcus said. ‘The premier wouldn’t be too happy, I assure you.’

  ‘So what are we going to do?’

  ‘We’re going ahead but it’s tricky, according to Nora Watman, the assistant commissioner who’s putting the team together. Ideally we need an insider with a video camera.’

  Billy laughed. ‘Do me a favour, Marcus. A video camera!’

  ‘I know it sounds absurd, but evidently filming sex scenes with children is all part of the action. It’s the trophy.’

  ‘What? Well-known people, pillars of the establishment, collect videotapes of themselves in action?’

  ‘Evidently.’

  ‘With the greatest respect, Marcus, that’s hard to believe.’ But as he said it, Billy remembered something Ryan had said. ‘Hey, wait a minute!’

  ‘What is it?’ the judge asked.

  ‘Something Ryan said Monkey told him. I neglected to put it into my notes. Bloody careless. He said they’d have filmed the German raping him and it would be sent to him as a keepsake, a little thousand-dollar keepsake. Blackmail, I guess, or perhaps, as you say, paedophiles like to keep records of their conquests. If I recall correctly, Monkey said that he hated The Queenie.’

  ‘Billy, I think you’d better see Nora Watman,’ Marcus said. ‘Monkey sounds promising.’

  ‘I have his telephone number, he was confident enough to give it to Ryan.’ Billy dug into his briefcase and after some time found the card Ryan had given him. ‘I’ve never looked at it,’ he said, opening it. He handed it to the judge.

  Marcus Eisenstein arranged for Billy to meet the assistant police commissioner out of uniform and in an unmarked car outside the parking lot at Central Station. In the course of the conversation, he learned that she was no Constable Plod but held a Masters degree in public policy, a Bachelor of Arts and a Diploma of Education.

  ‘Mr O’Shannessy, I’ve studied your career in the past few days; you have an enviable record as a barrister,’ she began.

  ‘That was some time ago, Commissioner Watman. In the past few years I’ve earned an unenviable record as a drunk.’

  ‘Thank you for saying that, Mr O’Shannessy, it means I can come right to the point. With only Ryan’s testimony we’ve got very little. The German who raped him is out of the country, the two standover men who held him down are probably in Mohammed Suleman’s employ, so they won’t talk. Frankly, we need a lot more to go ahead with any confidence.’
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br />   ‘The chief justice mentioned video evidence?’

  ‘Ideally, yes. Someone from the inside, your Mr Monkey.’

  Billy grinned. ‘I think it’s just Monkey and I don’t know him, I can’t imagine why I left the bit about him giving his card and telephone number to Ryan out of my notes. It was very careless.’

  ‘Mr O’Shannessy, your notes are exemplary, but thank God you remembered it. Do you think you could persuade Ryan to call this Monkey and arrange a meeting?’

  ‘Will he be safe?’

  ‘Yes, of course, there will be a plain-clothes policewoman standing close by.’

  ‘What if Monkey doesn’t cooperate?’ Billy asked.

  ‘He will, if we frighten him enough and promise him indemnity from prosecution. Mr O’Shannessy, we’ve had a psychiatrist go over your notes, and we’re glad you wrote them quasi-verbatim. Even allowing for Ryan’s verbal translation, we believe this Monkey has a deep antipathy to The Queenie. He may just be willing to co-operate.’

  ‘I repeat my question. What if he doesn’t?’

  ‘Well, then he’ll be tidied away until the operation is over. It’s not unusual for such people to disappear from their jobs, especially if they’re also drug addicts.’

  ‘Here’s hoping,’ Billy said.

  ‘Mr O’Shannessy, after Ryan has identified Monkey you won’t hear from any of us. This is a covert police operation, we will not be sharing the details with you or the chief justice. You do understand?’

  ‘Yes, of course, commissioner.’

  Two days later Ryan called Monkey, who arranged to meet him outside the Wayside Chapel later that afternoon. Billy was not permitted to accompany him but he was waiting at Con’s house at five o’clock that afternoon when an unmarked police car dropped Ryan off. ‘What happened, Ryan?’ Billy asked him. Ryan shrugged. ‘It was cool. Monkey came up to me and he said, “Hi, Ryan, what took you so long, sweetie?” Then the policewoman come up and arrested him. “Bitch!” he said ter me. “You’ll keep, Ryan.”’

  Billy continued his daily routine without knowing when the police raid would take place. Every morning he opened the newspaper anxiously. He wasn’t expecting to read something in a banner headline, not necessarily even a leading article, but certainly as news deserving a column on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald and perhaps even a larger headline in the Telegraph. A week passed and then another and he was becoming worried that by telling him they would not make any further contact with him, they had decided to abort the raid. He called Marcus Eisenstein, who expressed himself equally concerned, although he too had been told that he would not be privy to police plans. In the meantime, Billy spent his afternoons writing in the Mitchell Library.

  Almost three weeks after he’d talked with Assistant Commissioner Nora Watman, he opened the Sydney Morning Herald. At first he didn’t see it, then in the lefthand bottom corner, in a single-column report, he read:

  Police Raid Sex Tourist Office in Woolloomooloo

  Police last night raided the premises of a Woolloomooloo hotel where they found a three-roomed complex in an unused upstairs section of the hotel that appeared to be retail premises. Later inquiries revealed that it was involved in selling imported lingerie to transvestites and cross-dressers. Trading under the name Kings Cross Dressers, the business was operating illegally on premises licensed only to sell beer and spirits, but this was not given as the reason for the raid.

  Police were forced to break in when the proprietor of the Flag Hotel, Mr Sam Snatchall, an ex-waterfront union organiser, told them he was unaware of the nature of the business and did not have a key to the premises he had rented out, believing it was being used as accommodation in line with hotel licensing requirements. Police removed several hundred videotapes, a computer and files containing photographs of young children believed to be in sexually compromising poses. Later, a spokesperson for the NSW Police, Asst Commissioner Nora Watman, said, ‘We believe the premises were being used as a travel bureau for paedophiles visiting Australia from overseas as well as Australians travelling to foreign destinations. We also believe it is an organisation used for the purposes of importing juveniles of both sexes from Thailand and the Philippines.’

  No arrests were made.

  In a separate operation in Kings Cross last night, police raided The Queen of Sheba, a notorious strip joint owned by Mr Mohammed Suleman, a well-known criminal identity gaoled in the past for drug-dealing. Several people are believed to have been arrested in premises to the rear of the club, though no names have been released to the press. It is not known if the two raids are connected.

  Both raids were conducted by an allfemale task force, believed to be a first in the history of policing in the State. New English Police Commissioner James Bullmore, when questioned by the SMH on the make-up of the two teams, stated, ‘In my police force we will not be gender specific, they were police personnel selected for the tasks because they were available and adequately trained.’

  The Telegraph reported the facts in more dramatic language, though giving essentially the same information. The marked difference was the headline. Spread all the way across the front page, it read:

  Girls Raid Kiddy-Sex Trade!

  EPILOGUE

  Billy continued his daily routine, which included writing Trim’s story at the Mitchell Library every afternoon.

  The grand saga continues, the leaky bucket known as the Cumberland carrying Matthew Flinders and Master Trim sailed into Port Louis at four in the afternoon flying the Union Jack. She was such a small ship that onlookers thought she must be from the nearby coast of Africa, or the island of Madagascar, though the colours she flew made no sense for there was no English colony in that part of the Indian Ocean. She was so obviously constructed in the manner of a coastal trading vessel that it would not have occurred to them that she might have sailed the treacherous seas from the British convict settlement in Port Jackson. As she hove to, they could see that she was an old tub in poor condition and they were even more surprised to see that she purported to be a British naval vessel that had sailed into a French harbour in broad daylight in a time of war.

  Unbeknownst to Matthew Flinders, the fragile peace between Britain and France had collapsed and war between the two nations had broken out again. The Cumberland was sailing into the very jaws of the enemy. Trim was not in the least impressed by the scowls from the inhabitants as he performed his usual trick of tight-roping the main hawser to be the first ashore. Sweaty black slaves looked at him hungrily, and white and indifferently coloured men pointed to him and jabbered in some strange language. The moment the gangplank was lowered, he scampered back on board to report the obvious lack of cordiality he had observed from the locals.

  Matthew Flinders was aware from Trim’s meowing that he was cautioning his master to be most careful in how he approached the locals. ‘Trim, do not vex yourself, lad, I have a passport from the French which was given to me when we were on the Investigator. I am sure the authorities will validate it and give us a most cordial welcome. I shall ask to see Governor de Caen at once.’

  The ship’s master, Mr Aken, had gone ashore and returned presently to tell Matthew Flinders that Britain was once again at war with the French. ‘This could be a nasty business, sir,’ he suggested.

  ‘Not at all, Mr Aken. Like us, the French are a civilised nation, they will soon enough know who I am and that we come in peace.’

  It was to be a severe miscalculation, for the French were considered by their very nature suspicious of other nations and in particular of the perfidious English. Matthew Flinders was once again allowing his optimism to rule over his commonsense. Here was a situation to be approached with great diplomacy and the utmost caution. ‘We shall soon sort the matter out,’ he said to Trim, ‘Mr Aken is ever the pessimist.’

  However, it had always struck Trim that Aken was a very down-to-earth and sensible
man and his heart sank at his master’s overweening confidence which, he was forced to admit, bordered on arrogance.

  English men of the naval officer class, while always gentlemen, did not see other seagoing nations as quite the equal of the ships of His Britannic Majesty and were apt to presume rather too much for Trim’s liking. Napoleon may have conquered Europe and Egypt but he had yet to set foot on British soil and they were there to see that it never happened. Trim was a cautious, good-mannered cat, sensible to the feelings of foreigners, and what this situation called for was a little humility, though quite plainly this was not going to be forthcoming from M. Flinders Esq.

  Matthew Flinders, sensing Trim’s disapproval, defended himself by saying, ‘Do you not recall that on the previous occasion we were at war with France, Captain Baudin of the French expedition of discovery arrived in Port Jackson. When was that, now?’ He appeared to be thinking, though Trim knew his prodigious memory would soon bring the date to the surface of his mind, ‘Ah, yes, 20th of June last year, but three days short of eighteen months ago. Only twelve of his crew of a hundred and seventy men were in a fit state to work, the others being laid low with scurvy. On that occasion Governor King provided most handsomely for them, slaughtering some of the precious government stock so that they might have fresh meat when no convict or citizen or even the governor himself had the same at their disposal. You will remember we entertained Captain Baudin and the naturalist fellow, François Peron, on board the Investigator. Such civility comes naturally to us English, and I expect the French, who do not care to be in the debt of an Englishman and who consider themselves the more civilised nation, will be anxious to repay that kindness in order that the chart of equal charity is all squared up.’ But, alas, the French thought no such thing and when Matthew Flinders, changing into his best uniform, which had been recently boiled to get rid of the lice, asked to be granted an interview immediately with Governor de Caen, the courier returned to say that the governor was unable to see him. This was stated without the courtesy of an apology for not doing so because of some other unavoidable task. The signs were ominous and Trim, observing his master’s pride so dented, cautioned him to be calm. ‘A little purring is called for here, sir, a brushing of the soft fur of diplomacy.’