“A fraudulent operation,” said Frank. “Don’t waste your money. Have any of you seen the stable hand here today? I spoke to him this morning. He was sitting over there. Solid looking man in a dark vest, short brown hair…said he works here every day.”
“Are you sure?” said Weber. “No one works here every day. Against the rules of the jockey club. Unfair advantage and all that. Did he give you his name?”
Frank shook his head. “I got bashed on the head this morning, inside the stables. And Inspector James said…” He stopped, his mind racing. They’d been led to New Chums town because Hohepa had said that the stable hand had chased Boyle in that direction and had then returned to see if Frank was alright. New Chums town was a couple of miles from the race track. Why would anyone follow a suspicious-looking person for two miles before he’d checked to see what the suspicious person had done? And why had the man not returned to talk to them himself, but left everything in the hands of a ten year old boy?
“Could one of you give Inspector James a note?” he asked. “He’s probably at the police station or the Cumberland Hotel.”
Weber fetched him a piece of paper and a pencil from the office and Frank wrote a quick note telling him to check the Scandy clearing as there was a body out there, adding that it might be worth finding out more about the stable hand. “Thanks. Tell him I’m on my way to Ernest Robinson’s house. I’ll see him back in town in an hour or two.”
He rode back towards Ernest Robinson’s place feeling sick to his stomach. What the hell was going on? Who was this stable hand? Had he hit Frank or, as Hohepa had reported, actually seen Boyle do it and chased after him? But more than anything, what had happened to Mette? Why had someone taken her? Was it something to do with the horse? Had he got involved in something he should never had touched. He couldn’t let himself think about it yet. He had to stay focused if he was going to find Mette.
By the time he reached Ernest’s house it was dusk; a single paraffin lamp burned outside the front door. Other than the lamp the house was in darkness. He knocked hard on the door and waited. After several minutes the door opened a crack and Agnete looked out.
“Frank?”
“Is Ernest here?”
“He’s gone to the pledge signing ceremony,” she said. “He helped Mrs. Patterson…”
Frank pushed open the door and stepped into the house. Agnete shrank from him as if she expected him to hit her, and he clasped his hands behind his back to reassure her that he would not. She’d changed in the last two years. She had always been obnoxious, and had put herself first, even to the extent of letting Maren take care of her children when her new husband refused to have them in his house. This timid Agnete was something new. But someone must know something, and if Agnete knew anything at all he was going to get it out of her. He hoped she would respond to reason and tell him the truth.
“Agnete, why did you lie to me about Mette going to her sister’s house?”
“I…I didn’t lie…not really…she left…”
“She was here yesterday morning when I went by. I saw the pony trap behind your house. I asked you if you’d seen her and you said she didn’t come in, but spoke to you outside and continued on to Bunnythorpe.”
Agnete nodded mutely. She looked terrified.
“But if she was going to Bunnythorpe she wouldn’t pass here. She’d turn off much sooner at the Stoney Creek road.”
“She - she went past and then turned around and went back,” said Agnete. “She must have changed her mind.” She was staring at the floor, refusing to look Frank in the eye.
“No,” said Frank. “She was here, and for some reason she left.” He looked around at the hallway with its elaborate looking glass and ornate table and chair. “I’m going to search the house.”
Agnete sighed. “She was here for a while, but she got upset with Ernest and left,” she said.
“In the trap?”
“The trap was gone already,” said Agnete. “Ernest took it somewhere…”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. But in the direction of the race track. He went to pick someone up I think. When he came home someone dropped him off and left. Whoever it was took the pony trap with him.”
“What about Mette, then,” asked Frank. “If she didn’t have the trap how could she leave? Did she walk away?”
Agnete did not reply. She bit her lip and avoided Frank’s eyes. He stepped closer to her and said quietly, “Agnete?”
She retreated into the kitchen. She was breathing heavily and on the verge of panic. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. She was in the library…”
The library was at the end of the hall to the right of the mirror and table. He wrenched open the door and felt a blast of cold air from the darkened room. The draft came from an open window which had been propped up by a stack of books. And on the table was a copy of Mette’s favourite book, A Tale of Two Cities. She had been in here and and had left by the window.
Outside the open window, an unrelenting dark confronted him. She must have had a good reason to leave if she’d climbed into that blackness. And through such a narrow opening. He would not fit through it himself. A thick gorse hedge abutted the house, making a climb out extremely difficult, especially for a woman who was afraid of heights.
He tore back to the kitchen and grabbed Agnete by the arm. She went white and made a whimpering sound. “No Frank, I…”
“Why did Mette feel the need to leave by the window? What happened?”
She was whimpering, terrified. A cold certainty came over him. “He hit her, didn’t he? Like he hits you?”
She started to shake her head, but it turned to a nod. He dropped her arm, pitying her for the first time. “He hits you? Agnete, why have you never said.”
“What would I do?” she asked, showing some of her old spirit. “Where would I go? Would Pieter take me in? Or you? I’m sorry, but…”
He was ready to go after Ernest and kill him, but he had to find out more before he left this poor shell of a woman alone. “Agnete, I’ll help you when I can, but first I have to find Mette. She climbed out the library window and went to the clearing. I know that. But someone took her from the clearing after killing an old woman. And we found the body of a man in new chums town. My pony trap was beside him. Do you have any idea what’s going on?”
She shook her head. “Ernest never tells me anything. But he spends a lot of time on the Blue Ribbon Campaign. Maybe that has something to do with it. Maybe there’s money involved…he’s the treasurer…”
“The Blue Ribbon Campaign?”
“Temperance,” said Agnete. “I told you he’d gone to the pledge tent. Maybe it’s something to do with that. There are a lot of important people involved with the temperance movement - people with money. That’s why Ernest got involved. He likes money…”
He left her in her darkened house and sped back to the race course, wishing there was a faster way to contact Inspector James. It was going to take more than him by himself to sort this out. He could call out the volunteers, perhaps…
The pledge tent was lit by gaslight, with the shadows of the audience flickering larger than life against the canvas. A choir was singing the temperance song The Young Abstainer to the tune of God Bless the Prince of Wales. He wondered briefly what the Prince of Wales, a notorious tippler, would think of that.
He mingled with the crowd who were finding seats, scanning for Ernest. The crowd was made up mostly of women, with a few of the local luminaries clustered in groups. No sign of Ernest.
The mayor approached the podium first, and complimented everyone for wearing the temperance colours. After polite applause from the crowd, he cleared his throat, held on to either side of the podium as if to prop himself up, and began to speak. “I’d like to tell you some of my reasons for being a teetotaller.”
A woman near Frank said quietly, “I wish he’d sit down and let Sister Patterson speak. She’s the one I came for…”
Frank could see Mrs. Patterson sitting at the back of the stage, tapping her foot impatiently. But the mayor continued, ignoring the main speaker behind him. He wanted his moment on the stage.
“One reason I became a teetotaller is that drink traffic is the great enemy of mankind, morally, socially, and religiously.” He paused and took a long drink of water from a glass beside him on the podium. “Another reason is that temperance is the cause of humanity and of God. If a foreign foe were to invade our shores, every Briton in these isles would prepare to meet him, and so should every man oppose the greater enemy— drink.”
He was warming up, but not carrying the crowd with him. They’d seen the mayor before and began talking over him. Mrs. Patterson stepped forward and took him gently by the elbow. “Thank you, your honour. An excellent start. And now if you don’t mind, I’d like to begin.”
The crowd roared its approval.
Frank walked down one aisle, looking for Ernest in the seats on either side, and then crossed in front of Mrs. Patterson as she started to speak. He could see a small table to her left on which rested a pile of blue ribbons beside a black poke bonnet lined with lace. Her glasses sat atop the bonnet. No notes of any kind. Apparently she would speak extemporaneously.
“My friends, we are here today to join together with the Army of God on high to fight against the great devil, alcohol,” she started, her hand raised, one finger pointing upwards. Her voice was loud and dramatic. A trained actress, he thought. She glanced down at Frank as she spoke, and then back at the crowd, moving her head from one side to the other to make sure to look each person in the eye. The crowd quietened, mesmerized.
He continued up the other aisle against a crush of women moving to the front of the tent to collect their ribbons; on the far aisle they continued on to the tables to sign the pledge books. The pledge tables had large billy cans at each end and pledgers were tossing coins and notes into them after they signed the pledges. He estimated the cans might hold as much as a hundred pounds. A couple of these events a week would bring her in eight hundred pounds a month. A fortune to most people, including him.
“I call on you all today to sign the pledge and proudly wear the ribbon…”
The crowd near the front parted briefly, and he saw Ernest opening a flap behind the stage; he made his way to one of the tables on the side and said something to a pledge taker, who passed him one of the billy cans.
Frank pushed back through the crowd of women, bumping and elbowing them, trying to get to Ernest. The mayor, who had stepped down from the raised stage, clasped his arm.
“Easy there, sergeant. There are women present. You’re not in the barracks now…”
“Sorry..I’m trying to get to…”
“You’ll be able to sign the pledge soon enough…no hurry. Get in line and wait your turn.”
By the time he had extracted himself from the mayor, Ernest had disappeared again. But the tent flap was moving as if someone had recently passed though. He pushed through the crowd at the table again, trying not to shove.
Mrs. Patterson had finished speaking for the moment. She cleared her throat, took a sip of water, and began to sing in a deep contralto. The crowd sighed.
It was on one dark and starless night
I heard and saw an awful sight
The lightning flashed, the thunder rolled
Across my dark denial soul
I saw a gulf form down below
Where all the dying drunkards go
I saw another weeping crowd
Bloodshotten eyes and voices loud
“Come here young man, we’ll give you room
This is the whiskey seller’s doom…
The woman clogging the aisles had frozen in place, eyes on the singer. He pushed his way around to the back of the stage to where Ernest had first entered and lifted the flap. The back of the tent faced the side of the track away from the stand, and the bush beyond it. Ernest was nowhere to be seen, but a man was coming from the far side of the track, crossing towards the stands. In the dark it was hard to see him, but he looked familiar. Was that the stable hand finally? He had the same general bearing. Frank was torn between chasing Ernest and finding out what he could from the stable hand - if he was the same man he’d seen yesterday. But Ernest wouldn’t have gone far, and he knew now he was at the race course.
“Hoy there.”
The man glanced at him, hunching over with his hands in his pockets. “You talking to me?”
“You were here yesterday…when I was hit from behind…I have some questions for you.”
“Me? I think you’re confusing me with someone else, mate.”
“You were eating an apple, and…”
“Nah, mate. Not me. I just got here this afternoon.” He jerked a thumb towards the tent. “I’m with the Blue Ribbons over there.” He had a slight Australian accent, which Frank had not noticed the previous day. He hesitated, unsure. The man shrugged and walked away. Frank watched him, not sure about his own memory He’d talked to the stable hand very briefly … and this man’s clothing was not the same.
18
Mette and Hop Li
“Don’t touch those mushrooms. They’ll kill you.”
She was having a nightmare about the day she and Hemi had searched for Jens, two years ago. Her cousin Jens had drowned, and his body had never reappeared. But one day a memory popped from the depths of her mind and she remembered Hemi saying he had seen a white ghost across the river from the pa on the day Jens and his friend Paul had disappeared. Paul’s body had reappeared two months later, but Jens’ body had not. She was sure they would find him, but all they’d seen in the spot was a stand of pine trees with red cap mushrooms around them. She knew in her heart that he had climbed from the water and eaten the mushrooms, and they had killed him. But there was no body.
For a moment she did not realize that she was not dreaming the words. She was hearing them. Someone, a boy, had asked about mushrooms and a man had answered him. Mushrooms that killed you had red caps, and they grew under pine trees, which she knew lined the path to the hut. Someone was out there picking mushrooms. Someone who could get her out from beneath the rafter, who could save her.
“Help me. Help me.”
Her mouth was dry and her voice scratchy, so she tried again. “Please, someone help me…”
Two faces appeared at the window, looking like angels in the stained glass window of a cathedral. But not angels. Hohepa and Hop Li.
“Mette?”
Hop Li had the door open in minutes, dragged the beam off her chest, and helped her to her feet. She gave way to sobs, clinging to him. He was not an emotional person but he kept his arms around her and let her cry, patting her awkwardly on the back.
“How you get yourself into this?” he said eventually.
She sniffed. I was at Ernest’s place and he hit me, so…”
“Frank’s gonna kill him,” said Hop Li.
She nodded. “And I climbed out the window and went to the clearing, but he came and found me…”
“Ernest came and found you?”
“No, no…” It was a long story and she wanted to leave. She could tell him the full story later. “We have to go. He might come back…”
“Who might come back? What’s going on? Does Frank know?”
“Mrs. Hardy, Mrs. Hardy,” said Hohepa from the doorway. “There’s a man coming…”
Mette put her hand over her mouth. “Oh no. He’s here…”
“Don’t you worry, Mette. If someone is coming to hurt you, I got him,” said Hop Li.
He pulled his push dagger from his pocket and planted his feet squarely on the dirt floor. “Get behind me, Mette,” he said. “Hohepa…run like hell. Don’t worry about us, just run. Get Sergeant Frank.”
“Should I…” began Hohepa. Bernard loomed behind him. “Run, Hohepa, run,” screamed Mette. “Run to Frank…”
Bernard lunged at Hohepa, but Hohepa slid between his legs and took off at full
speed, not looking behind him. Mette got behind Hop Li. He was moving his weight from one foot to another, his body tense, ready, the dagger held at chest height.
Bernard came into the hut, his hands out, ready to fight. He had reminded her of a snake earlier, and now he looked like a snake about to strike. He saw Hop Li and stopped, far enough away so that Hop Li could not reach him without moving forward.
“Right then,” he said. “It’s going to be a fight is it? Let’s see what you’ve got, Chinaman.”
“Mette, if you get the chance, run for it,” said Hop Li. “I’m gonna take care of this bugger. Slow him down anyway…stay behind me when I move…”
Bernard undid his belt buckle and pulled out his belt in one swift move, flipping it like a whip. He wrapped the end around his hand and began swinging it around his head, buckle out, looking like David about to attack Goliath, grinning at Hop Li. Hop Li moved back, keeping his distance from the weapon, the handle of the push dagger held in his palm, the steel blade jutting between his fingers like a tiger’s claw. She could see his whole body was tense, tightly coiled, waiting for action. Her heart was pounding but she felt alive. Hop Li would finish this murderer and she would be safe again.
She moved further away from Hop Li’s back, keeping behind him. He was trying to move her towards the door so she could make a run for it. She braced herself, ready to run as fast as she could. The two men circled right, then left, Bernard refusing to leave the door unprotected, Hop Li refusing to close with him.
Neither of them were looking at her, but Hop Li managed to gain a little ground. She took the sliver of opportunity and ran around Hop Li and towards the door. If she could get through it she was sure she could outrun Bernard, and Hop Li would delay him.
Bernard scarcely looked at her. Without taking his eyes from Hop Li, he danced to his left and elbowed her hard in the belly, bending to make sure he hit her in the very place that would do the most damage. She fell to the ground clutching herself, her knees drawn up in agony, retching.
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