A Thing of Blood

by Robert Gott

  When this figure turned his head slightly, I was astonished to see that it was James Fowler. My instincts told me not to give myself away, so I withdrew and let him complete his search in the mistaken belief that he was unobserved.

  I returned to my room, dressed hurriedly, and emerged in time to see James Fowler’s back disappearing down the stairs. The opening and closing of the front door indicated that he had left the house. I checked downstairs but there was no sign that anything had been searched or taken. The tea things were where we had left them, waiting for Mrs Castleton to clean them up, and everything else looked to be in unviolated order.

  Fowler had revealed little of himself during afternoon tea. He’d been polite, amusing and detached. Clutterbuck had said, prior to my meeting him, that he thought he was a bit of a pill, although he hadn’t expanded on how or why he’d come to this conclusion. I could now add to this portrait the unsettling touches that he was a snoop, and possibly a thief. I couldn’t believe that James Fowler had been deputised by his father to check on Clutterbuck’s suitability as a husband for his daughter. I didn’t suppose that Clutterbuck’s eligibility, or otherwise, would be discovered in the spaces beneath his socks and underwear. No. There was more to this trespass than that. Much more. I added what James Fowler was hunting for to my growing list of private inquiries.

  At my mother’s house I found Brian having a cup of tea with her in the living room. He looked haggard and exhausted; as much from his daily toils to reach unreachable adolescents as from concern about his missing wife. At least, that’s the interpretation I put on his strained expression. I’m afraid my imagination failed me when it came to attaching enervating grief to the absent Darlene.

  ‘It makes no sense,’ he said as I sat down. ‘This business with the blood. It makes no sense.’

  ‘It makes dramatic sense,’ I said. ‘And I think Mother’s right that it probably tells us that Darlene is still alive.’

  Brian grasped at this eagerly.

  ‘So neither of you thinks she’s …’

  ‘No Brian,’ I said, ‘neither of us thinks she’s …’ I filled the unsayable pause with a suitable hand gesture. ‘But we are mystified by the silence.’

  ‘It’s only been one day,’ Brian said. ‘Perhaps the ransom note has just been posted.’

  ‘If I were a kidnapper, Brian, I don’t think I’d be trusting my demands to the PMG. I’d find a more certain way.’

  ‘Still, it’s only been one day.’

  A knock at the door signalled the arrival of the two detectives. They didn’t think it was necessary to question me or Mother further, and requested a private audience with Brian. We withdrew upstairs, and I was relieved that I was not going to be subjected to Detective Strachan’s impertinence. I told Mother about my afternoon tea with the Fowlers, thinking that she might perhaps have known, or heard of, Mr Fowler.

  ‘Your father was a successful man, Will, but he was not one of Melbourne’s Brahmins. He was a country boy who made good. He didn’t mix with the Melbourne Club set and didn’t aspire to. If he ever met Mr Fowler, he didn’t mention him to me, and I’m sure Mr Fowler would have said something if he’d recognised your name.’

  As I was agreeing to the truth of this, the sound of a piece of furniture being turned over, and a gallimaufry of raised, excited voices, reached us.

  Mother and I entered the living room to the spectacle of Brian lying face down on the floor, pinned there by Detective Strachan’s knee. Handcuffs were securely in place, and all three combatants were panting. The detective who was standing — whose name I didn’t yet know — said flatly, ‘Brian Power has been arrested on suspicion of murder. We have reason to believe that he has killed his wife and done away with her body.’

  Brian was dragged to his feet and it was clear from the paralysis of his features that he’d gone into a kind of shock.

  ‘My son is a schoolteacher,’ Mother said strangely, as if the occupation precluded violent behaviour of any kind; as if, although we have all wanted to kill a teacher at some time in our lives, no one ever expects to be killed by one of them.

  ‘That’s what he does during the day,’ Detective Strachan said. ‘It’s the stuff that’s not on his curriculum that we’re interested in.’

  ‘Where will you take him?’ I asked with cool professionalism. I knew expressions of outrage at the injustice before us would achieve nothing, so I behaved as though the arrest of my brother was a technical triviality that would be processed rapidly and corrected. This was a sensible reaction my mother neither understood nor appreciated, as she freely expressed after the silent Brian had been bundled out the door, on his way to the lock-up in Russell Street.

  ‘How could you just stand there and allow that to happen?’ she asked. ‘You did nothing. You said nothing and did nothing.’

  ‘He was under arrest, Mother. What was I supposed to do? You’re the one who said we should let the police go about their business. Well, they’ve certainly gone about their business.’

  ‘You might have shown Brian some sort of support. A word. Something.’

  I paid Mother the courtesy of not pointing out that her own contribution to Brian’s situation had been confined to telling him something he already knew — that he was a teacher. She had been as dumbfounded as Brian, and now was not the time to score points against her, despite the fact that she had no qualms about dressing me down.

  ‘Brian felt abandoned. I’m sure he did. He was waiting for you to make a demand, to express some sort of anger at the effrontery of the detectives.’

  She became overwhelmed by the awfulness of the scene she had witnessed and tears welled into her eyes.

  ‘I’ll go down there,’ I said, ‘and try to see him. They won’t hold him for long. They have no evidence. The whole thing is absurd, but I hope it shakes your faith in the police force. They flail about. There’s nothing precise in what they do or the way they go about doing it.’

  With repeated assurances that Brian wouldn’t be detained for long, and that his experience wouldn’t scar him for life, I managed to calm her a little.

  At Russell Street police station I discovered that, far from obstructing me, the functionaries there were quite helpful. I was guided into a neat office, and asked if I needed a cup of tea. I declined. The detective who was Detective Strachan’s companion came in.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve been introduced,’ he said. ‘I’m Detective Michael Radcliff.’

  ‘William Power. You’ve arrested the wrong man. You do know that, don’t you?’

  ‘If I had a guinea for every time I’ve been told that, Mr Power, I’d be a rich man. As it is, I don’t think our jails echo to the weeping and teeth gnashing of suffering innocents.’

  His turn of phrase was extravagant for a copper, but it was delivered without emotion. Clearly, he was not an excitable man.

  ‘Your brother has, of course, denied any involvement in his wife’s disappearance. We, however, have information to the contrary, and it is sufficiently compelling to require us to hang onto him for the moment.’

  He wasn’t watching me in any obvious way when he said this; he was skilled at feigning indifference to the effect his words might have had. But he was, I knew, acutely sensitive to my reactions, and he must have detected the involuntary jump of surprise that caused my eyes to open fractionally wider.

  ‘I was there,’ I said. ‘I was right behind Brian from the top of the stairs until we reached the kitchen, and Darlene was nowhere to be seen.’

  Detective Radcliff enjoyed an infuriatingly indulgent smile. In a more animated face, it might have been a smirk.

  ‘I think we can agree on that, Mr Power. Darlene was nowhere to be seen and Brian did nothing to her …’ he paused, before adding, ‘at that time.’

  There was silence for a full minute as the implications of
that three word addendum sank in.

  ‘Are you suggesting that Brian had killed Darlene at some time earlier in the evening?’

  ‘You’re a quick study, Mr Power. I was half expecting that I would have to cross the t’s and dot the i’s for you. I’ve spoken at length with Sergeant Peter Topaz in Maryborough, and the picture he painted of you was not a flattering one.’

  I didn’t engage with this gratuitous insult.

  ‘There was a scream in the kitchen. I heard it. Darlene was alive and screaming at the same time that I was with Brian on the stairs.’

  ‘Let me lay this out for you Mr Power, and I’m doing this because I’m convinced that you’re not involved in any way. You don’t have to be concerned that your recent experience in Maryborough is going to be repeated here. You’re under no suspicion whatsoever. What we want you to do is listen to what we think happened, and talk to your brother. It would save us all a lot of time if he came clean, and cooperation will work in his favour when this comes to trial.’

  I thought about interrupting this ludicrous stream of police babble, but assented to hearing Radcliff out, conscious as I was that one of the best tools at a PI’s disposal is his ability to listen — and not just to what’s being said, but to what’s not being said as well.

  Radcliff took a notebook from his pocket and consulted it before he began.

  ‘There are, of course, a few unanswered questions. Until Brian talks to us we can’t know the whole story. Let’s start with Sarah Goodenough. You know your brother had an affair with her in Maryborough.’

  I nodded, and felt compelled to add, ‘I wouldn’t call a few fucks an affair, would you?’

  ‘If the terminology is important to you, let’s just say that he committed adultery, and leave it at that.’

  I had to silently acknowledge that ‘affair’ sounded much more palatable than its biblical alternative.

  ‘I don’t know how much Brian told you about his relationship with this woman, but her version differs from Brian’s.’

  ‘Well, it would, wouldn’t it.’

  ‘Indeed. Our job is to decide whose interests the differences serve. Sarah Goodenough has been interviewed by Brisbane detectives and they found her to be a credible witness, and yes, they were fully informed about her reputation in Maryborough. She agrees that she met Brian at the Royal Hotel, and that there was an immediate mutual attraction, and this is where the accounts diverge. Sarah insists that her relationship with Brian was no different from the other promiscuous contacts she had engaged in; she is ashamed of this behaviour but claims that she was maddened by grief and worry about her absent husband.’

  I snorted.

  ‘Well, Mr Power, I’m just repeating what she said. I’m not a psychiatrist, and whether she’s just rationalising bad behaviour or not isn’t relevant. What is relevant is that she says Brian became obsessed with her and he frightened her. She told him that she had no intention of leaving her husband, and consequently Brian threatened her. She said he took it back almost immediately, and started blubbering about how much he loved her. He became so distraught that he told her things he’d never told anyone else. One of these little intimations was how he’d cheated on his wife in Melbourne more than once, and that just before he’d come to Maryborough he’d planned to tell her that the marriage was over.’

  ‘Detective Radcliff, if you’ll pardon the interruption, this story is almost comical. If any part of it is even remotely true then Ned Kelly was a gentleman.’

  ‘I haven’t finished Mr Power. Its plausibility improves I assure you. Apparently, your brother told Sarah that he would do whatever was necessary to disentangle himself from Darlene. In the light of recent events, Sarah now takes this to mean that he meant murder. She recalled that he had a wild look in his eye when he said it.’

  He held up his hand to prevent my speaking.

  ‘I admit that this interpretation wouldn’t hold up in court. However, after Brian had made these remarks she did something extraordinary, something that helps corroborate the bare facts of her version, if not its extravagant emotional content. She rang Darlene and told her everything.’

  ‘And you believe her?’

  ‘There is, I’m afraid, a record of the call. She placed it and Darlene took it. They spoke for ten minutes during which, Sarah says, she told Darlene about her dalliance with Brian and warned her that he intended to leave her as soon as he got back to Melbourne. Darlene, of course, didn’t believe any of it, couldn’t believe her, but was obliged to when Sarah described Brian’s penis.’

  Detective Radcliff paused for a moment to allow that bizarre little detail to sink in. Feigning nonchalance, I said, ‘Surely one penis looks very much like another.’

  ‘You might think that if the only one you ever see is your own. Women like Sarah Goodenough know differently, and her description was sufficiently exact to convince Darlene that she had at least got close enough to see it, and not just in repose.’

  This was such an avalanche of information that for the moment I could make no sense of it.

  ‘I would have noticed that something was wrong between them,’ I said. ‘Darlene was happy to see Brian.’

  ‘If what Sergeant Topaz says about you is true, your observational skills are not exactly Holmesian.’

  I let that go. I’m sure he and Topaz had had a lovely time assassinating my character.

  ‘My mother would certainly have noticed something.’

  ‘Your mother is a charming and sensible woman, but if you’ll excuse the liberty, what Sergeant Topaz called your ‘epic self-absorption’ might be partly inherited.’

  I was not, as a matter of fact, prepared to excuse that liberty, and I stood up with every intention of slamming my fist into Radcliff’s thin, complacent face. He must have been ready for this, waiting patiently for his goading to have an effect, because he was out of his chair and had my unencumbered arm twisted behind my back before I was aware of what had happened.

  ‘Calm down,’ he said in my ear. ‘Calm down or I’ll help you calm down.’

  ‘I am calm,’ I hissed.

  With one hand on my shoulder and the other still painfully pressing my arm, he pushed me back down into the seat.

  ‘I have to say, Mr Power, that your priorities are a little askew if what provokes you is a suggestion about your mother’s ego rather than your brother’s proximity to the hangman’s noose.’

  ‘If you knew my brother you’d know that these Machiavellian manoeuvres are beyond him. My god, he fell in love with Darlene, and, believe me, that should tell you all you need to know about his imagination. You don’t grow dissatisfied with Darlene by degrees. It’s something that happens on the spot — unless you’re my brother, in which case you make the macabre decision to shackle yourself to her.’

  ‘He did cheat on her.’

  ‘Yes, and all I can say is that it was completely and inexplicably out of character.’

  Radcliff had by this time returned to his seat.

  ‘Given all the information that we have gathered over the last twenty-four hours I can safely say that at least you are behaving in ways that Sergeant Topaz would recognise as absolutely characteristic. You’re not seeing what is staring you in the face.’

  ‘The only thing staring me in the face is a detective who doesn’t know his arse from his elbow.’

  Radcliff maintained the impassive demeanour of a man used to being proved right in the end.

  ‘Have you filled him in?’

  Detective Strachan had entered the office unannounced, and with oily stealth.

  ‘Pretty much,’ Radcliff said.

  ‘The other one’s not being helpful. He’s putting on a good show of being scared witless — I almost feel sorry for him. Is this bloke going to talk to him?’

  ‘This bloke,’
I said, and did a first rate imitation of Strachan’s voice, ‘isn’t too impressed with the case you’ve constructed. I heard Darlene scream. That fact alone makes a nonsense of the idea that Brian had killed her earlier.’

  ‘Detective Radcliff obviously hasn’t told you what we think happened.’

  ‘I was getting to it,’ Radcliff said. ‘I was just extracting a little of Mr Power’s bile first.’

  ‘Well, I’ll hurry things along,’ Strachan sat on the edge of Radcliff’s desk and crossed one leg over the other, exposing a blackly hairy ankle.

  ‘Miss Goodenough has given your brother a poor character reference, and we have no reason to disbelieve her when she says that he was unfaithful to his wife prior to his arrival in Maryborough. You say you heard a scream coming from the kitchen and the sound of breaking china. We don’t dispute that. Your mother confirms it. Your assumption that it was Darlene screaming is what we dispute. We believe that this is a classic case of misdirection. We think that the woman in the kitchen was Brian’s Melbourne mistress and that the two of them cooked up this performance. Hence the speed with which the so-called kidnapper vanished and the silly splashing about of bullock’s blood. We don’t know whether your brother approved this flourish. We doubt it. He’s smart enough to realise that it would be analysed and distract us from the simple storyline he had set up.’

  As Strachan was unfolding the police version of what had happened the previous day, my resistance to its logic began to weaken. It was neat and hideously possible. The only stumbling block was that I could not imagine Brian coolly planning and then carrying out so callous a crime. Of course, if I hadn’t heard from his own lips that he had had a sexual relationship with Sarah Goodenough, I wouldn’t have thought that likely either.

  ‘Can I see him?’ I asked.

  Radcliff indicated the door and I followed him. I thought Brian would be across the road in the cells, but I was led into an interview room where he sat slumped behind a table. He looked hollowed out. A uniformed officer sat in a corner.