THIRTY-THREE
Cuddy came into the sitting room as soon as Cash got home.
‘I got to talk to you.’
He was glancing through some papers in a desultory way and looked up at her words. She was white-faced, scared. He frowned. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Sumin I should have told you long ago …’ She swayed. ‘Gawd, I don’ half feel queer.’
He stood up at once, put her in a chair facing him and sat down again, looking at her. ‘What have you got to tell me?’
She wet her lips once, twice, before she managed to speak. ‘Your brother …’ she began.
Cash’s lips tightened. ‘What about him?’
‘A girl was killed last night, down near the waterfront.’
‘What about it?’
‘Your brother was down here yesterday.’
‘You’re not suggesting it was anything to do with him?’ Staring at her, incredulous.
‘There’s been others.’
‘What of it?’ he said impatiently. ‘These things are always happening. It’s one of the hazards of the trade, surely?’
‘Sumin ’appened to me,’ she said. ‘An’ I weren’t carryin’ out no trade.’
He looked at her, knowing with a sense of horror what she was going to say.
‘Your brother …’
He was on his feet. ‘You said you didn’t see who it was!’
‘I was frightened.’
‘Of what?’ His voice was raw with anger. Every gesture, every movement of his body, expressed a passionate rejection of what she was telling him. It couldn’t be true. It was impossible.
‘Of ’im. Of what you might think, if I told you. I thought you might say I’d egged him on.’
‘And did you?’ His blue eyes were dark with pain.
‘I did fancy ’im, it’s true,’ she said. ‘But I di’n’.’
‘You fancied him, did you?’ He threw up bitterness like a wall between them. Anything to strengthen his rejection of what she was telling him. ‘My own brother?’
‘What’s wrong wi’ that? Got me away from Smales, di’n’ ’e? You wanted to send me back but not ’im. That night, I di’n’ know what to do, whether to stay or go back. Nobody cared, either way. You wasn’t ’ere. I di’n’ ’ave no one to talk to. I went for a walk to think about it an’ I met ’im, up by the Tank Stream. I was that glad to see ’im. When ’e took me in the bushes I went along. Then ’e bashed me. After … you know what ’appened.’ Her voice dropped. ‘After it was over ’e prayed.’
‘Prayed?’
‘Knelt down an’ asked God to forgive ’im. Forgive both of us. Dunno what I was supposed to ’ave done. That was when I knew there must be sumin wrong with ’im.’
The horrifying thing was that Cash was not surprised. There had been signs, hints. He had shut his eyes to them. He remembered Jack’s frenzied reaction to Cuddy’s advances the night they met her in the tavern. Like a madman, he thought now.
He said, ‘The fact that he did … what he did to you, doesn’t mean he harmed anyone else.’
‘That girl they found today,’ Cuddy said, ‘there was a cross drawn in blood on her forehead. A cross, Cash.’
And Jack had prayed over her … Cash shut his eyes, trying to seal out images.
‘There was another one, some time back. A kid. I don’t ’ave nuffin to do with the old crowd,’ she said. ‘Don’t stop me meetin’ people in the town, though. They tells me things.’
He looked at her, eyes fierce. ‘They named my brother? Actually named him?’
‘Another girl got beat up so bad she near died. That was before I come ’ere. People said ’e’d done it. That was why I spoke to him in the first place. I thought maybe, if he fancied me, he’d help me get away. I thought I’d give ’im the slip afterwards.’
‘How could you care for him, knowing all this?’
She lifted one shoulder. ‘It was only bashings, then. A bashin’ don’ mean much when you been in that line o’ work.’
Cash covered his face with his hands. I shall have to talk to him. Find out if it’s true or not. What do I do if he admits it? If he denies it, will I believe him?
He could have cried for his brother, for the dead girl, for all of them, but now was the time for action, not tears.
I can inform on him, he thought. I can kill him. I can tell myself that Cuddy’s lying and do nothing.
He knew he would do none of those things. He would go to Parramatta to be with Jack, to see for himself, to feel, perhaps to talk.
It would be the hardest thing he had done in his life.
*
That same evening, Judge-Advocate Somers gave a dinner party in honour of the birthday of his patron William Grenville, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Jane was seated next to Hamish Matthieson.
‘So you never succeeded in arresting Captain Pike,’ she teased him.
He groaned. ‘Don’t even talk about it. I went in after him but he wouldn’t even let me see his ship’s papers. Any fool would have known he’d refuse. Any fool but one, anyway. We had a dozen men with muskets, he had a full broadside of cannon. It was a crazy business from the start.’
‘There’s talk that Captain Owen may be recalled.’
‘Can’t be too soon for me,’ he said. ‘Lord High and Mighty tried to blame everything on me, of course.’
‘Lord High and Mighty?’ she said. Her eyes crinkled. ‘Is that what you call him?’
‘Often worse things,’ he confessed. ‘Tell you the truth, Miss Somers, I’m inclined to send in my papers myself.’
‘What would you do, if you did that? Go back to India? Or England?’
‘I’ve a fancy to stay in the colony,’ he said. ‘I thought farming might be worth a try.’
‘Wouldn’t you find it boring?’
He shook his head. ‘Nothing boring about this country that I’ve seen. Who knows? I might even try to get over those mountains that no one else has managed. See what’s on the other side.’
She looked at him with new eyes. She had given up her original idea of marrying Cash Tremain. She had decided he was simply too immature to settle down. As for Elizabeth Hagwood’s thoughts on the subject, the fact was that she was not prepared to fight a convict whore for Cash Tremain or anyone else.
I came close to making a very serious mistake, she thought. At least I learned in time.
She smiled at him and touched her lips with the tip of her pink tongue. ‘Tell me about how you would go about crossing the Blue Mountains,’ she said.
*
Thomas Birkett was alone with a bottle in his lodgings and contemplating the impossibility of paying his debts when he had an unexpected visitor.
He scowled at the Irishman. ‘No use coming here for money,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got any.’
Duggan smiled, a burst of merry sunshine that did not reach his eyes. ‘Did I mention a word of it?’ he said.
‘What do you want then?’
‘There’s someone wants to meet you.’
‘There’s no one I want to meet, thank you.’
‘You’ll change your mind when you meet him.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Mr Thornton.’
‘The convict?’ Birkett at his most supercilious. He tipped down his drink and refilled it. ‘Why should I want to see him?’
‘Because he has a proposition to put to you that I’m sure you’ll find interesting.’
Birkett yawned.
‘So if you’re ready …’
‘You mean now?’
‘Wouldn’t want to keep him waiting, would we?’
It took a while but Thomas agreed, without Duggan having to mention the ten thousand guineas. They went to the side door of the little house that Duggan had visited earlier and were admitted in similar fashion. Thomas’s feathers were ruffled by being dragged out in the middle of the night to meet an ex-convict and he was inclined to show truculence but Thornton soon put an end t
o that.
He placed a piece of paper on the desk between them. ‘Recognise it, does tha?’
As the acquisition of wealth had moved him steadily closer to the distant shores of respectability, Ira Thornton’s accent had modified considerably but speaking to Birkett it was as harsh and uncompromising as the day he had come off the boat.
Thomas glanced at the piece of paper. As he had suspected: the IOU he had given Duggan yesterday. He pushed it away with an indifferent finger. Whether Duggan held it or Thornton or the goddamned governor, the answer was still the same. He hadn’t got the money so he couldn’t pay.
‘So?’ he said.
‘I bought yon scrap o’ paper from Duggan, ’ere,’ he said. ‘So tha owes me now. Tha understands?’
It really made no difference to Thomas who it was he could not pay. He lifted his shoulders petulantly. He wished there was a sign of a drink somewhere.
‘What’s tha goin’ to do about it?’
‘You’ll be paid.’ Yawning, as though the debt, the whole discussion, were the most boring thing on earth.
‘Damn right I will. The only question is when?’
‘When I can.’
‘Tha can now, lad.’
Thomas shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not.’
Thornton watched him for a minute. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. He got to his feet, took two steps to a cupboard in the corner of the room and came back, miracle of miracles, with glasses and a full bottle. ‘’appen tha can.’
He pushed the bottle and a glass across the desk. ‘Help thyself.’
The bottle rattled on the rim of the glass.
‘I got a proposal,’ Thornton said. ‘I think tha’ll like it.’
‘What is it?’ Thomas’s lips were wet with spirit. He drank again quickly, in case the bottle were moved as unexpectedly as it had arrived.
Thornton studied this apology for a man. He did not like relying on such a poor specimen but there was no help for it. The day would come when he would need a spokesman in parliament. Thomas Birkett, catastrophe though he was, was his best, probably his only, bet. Not every day you can buy a baronet, he thought. Even the heir to one. But I must tie him to me. Can’t have him linking up with anyone else.
He placed his hand on the paper lying between them on the desk. His eyes did not leave Birkett’s face. ‘A shame tha can’t live as a man o’ thy station should. Just because tha had a falling out with thy dad.’
Thomas watched him warily. ‘So?’
‘If thee ’n’ me comes to an agreement, I’ll tear this bit o’ paper up …’
Thomas’s wet lips shone in the candlelight.
‘… an’ pay thee an annual pension of one thousand guineas.’
A nervous laugh. ‘What do you want me to do for it? Kill the governor?’
‘Summat a lot easier ’n that. I wants thee to go to Archibald Carter and tell him tha’s changed thy mind. Tha won’t marry that daughter of ’is.’
‘I can’t do that!’
‘Think on’t, lad. Yon Carter’s a skinflint; think he’ll give thee a thousand guineas a year for nowt? Not him. He’s the sort’ll never leave thee alone, badgering and complainin’ every time tha has a drink.’
Thomas hesitated. ‘It’s a question of one’s word, you see.’ Explaining the gentleman’s code to one who could not be expected to understand.
Behind his shuttered eyes, Thornton’s brain seethed with contempt. His god-rotting word, he thought. Up for the highest bidder, that’s what his word’s worth. Like the rest of ’em. I’ll have to keep a tight grip on this one. He’s too stupid to know when he’s caught.
He asked, ‘How much is Carter paying thee to wed that girl of his?’
Thomas’s pallid cheeks flushed. He was about to refuse to answer – Thornton saw it clearly – but at the last moment he backed off.
‘Five thousand guineas.’ Sulkily, looking at the desk.
Thornton was surprised. Carter must really want a title in the family if he was willing to pay as much as that for it.
‘An’ I’m offerin’ thee ten.’ Once again he put his hand on the paper. ‘Less tha’d sooner I sent it over to Carter an’ asked him to settle up for thee?’
He knew Thomas would never agree to that. Carter might want a title but there was a limit to what he would accept. Learning that his son-in-law owed ten thousand for gaming might be enough to make him call the whole thing off. Where would Thomas be then?
Thornton watched him, giving nothing away. ‘Think on’t, lad. Think very carefully.’
‘But why should you do this for me? What do you want in return?’
‘Nothing.’
Thomas raised his eyebrows. Fool or not, he wouldn’t swallow that. ‘Nothing?’
‘Nothing at the moment,’ Thornton amended. ‘Hast tha thought of goin’ into parliament?’
Thomas was astounded. ‘Parliament? Me?’
‘Why not? Tha’s got the name. An’ wi’ me be’ind thee, tha’ll have the brass, too. Your dad won’t last forever. He dies an’ you inherit, we’ll need someone like you in parliament, speakin’ up for the colony, makin’ sure them fools in Westminster do the right thing by us. I can see thee in that role, spokesman for the colony. Regular cut out for it, I’d say. Who knows, lad? Maybe even a ministry some day.’
He could read Birkett’s thoughts so clearly. The lad was telling himself, I’ll take the money now. What can I lose? Father dies, I’ll be free of Thornton anyway. He was grimly amused that the poor fool should imagine that anything in life was as easy as that. Get plenty on you, lad. That’s what I’ll do. Time we’ve finished, I’ll own you. Body and soul.
Thomas said, ‘It’s more than just money. A man needs a wife.’
‘Wife? Who needs a wife? When tha’s back in England, sittin’ in parliament, that’s when tha wants a wife. A wife who’s proper. One of thy own kind. Not the daughter o’ some jumped-up merchant from Calcutta, by God!’
Thomas thought, as quickly as he was capable. Thornton was right, of course. He should marry someone of his own station. All the same … ‘I need someone.’
‘Every man needs a woman. Natural, bain’t it? I can arrange that, never fear. Any woman tha wants.’ And she’ll tell me about you. Everything I want to know. What you’re like. What you think. All your little vices.
Birkett wavered some more, then agreed. What choice did he have?
‘When will you see Carter?’ Thornton asked.
‘Tomorrow.’ He stretched out his hand for the IOU.
Thornton slipped it back in the drawer of his desk. ‘When tha’s spoken to him,’ he said.
‘How do I know I can trust you?’
The pale eyes glowed briefly, red embers in the white face. ‘Tha can trust me to get that paper to Archibald Carter by ten o’clock tomorrow mornin’ if tha’s not spoken to him first. Mr Duggan will call on thee at eight to walk with thee to Carter’s house.’
‘There’s no need for that.’
‘Bit o’ moral support never hurts.’ Thornton stood. The interview was over. ‘Tha’s made the wisest decision of thy life,’ he said.
At the door, Thornton put his arm around Birkett’s shoulders. ‘Can see thee now. Standin’ up in parliament, laying the law down. Doin’ what’s right for the colony. For England. Minister, did I say? Nay, lad, I can see thee wi’ a peerage afore tha’s through.’
With which happy thought he opened the door and half-helped, half-pushed Thomas Birkett out into the night. He turned to Duggan.
‘Go with him. Make sure he’s safe. Don’t want to lose him, now.’
He went back indoors and shut the door, turning back to his study.
‘Great lummox,’ he said.
*
Cash went up to the farm, wondering if he would have the courage to say what he had come here to say.
Jack was putting a gate into a new fence he had erected. His hands were scarred and dirty and his face, which he wiped with the back of one hand, was cov
ered in sweat.
He looked at Cash, expressionless. ‘What’s to do, then, brother?’
‘We need to talk.’
He led the way across the slope to the granite bluff overlooking the river.
‘Some mysterious,’ Jack said. His eyes were clear, his expression untroubled.
Straight out, Cash thought. The only way. He took a deep breath. ‘A girl was killed last night, down at the harbour,’ he said. ‘A whore.’
Jack said nothing. People, especially whores, were always being killed.
‘They say her throat was cut.’
A kestrel hung below them on quivering wings. Cash watched it for a while until it slanted suddenly across the sky to disappear in the heat haze that masked the course of the river.
‘Whoever did it painted a cross on her forehead.’
‘Where did you hear that?’
‘Someone told Cuddy.’
‘And she told you.’
‘That’s right.’
‘What else did she tell you?’
Cash’s heart was thumping. If I’m wrong, he thought, Jack may never forgive me. But I do not believe I’m wrong. He looked at his brother. ‘She told me what happened between the two of you.’
Jack smiled back at him. ‘Told you what happened?’
It would be so easy to let it go, to say no more,
‘She told me how you met her, that night. How you … raped her.’
Jack smiled. ‘I would hardly call it rape,’ he said.
Cash’s mouth tightened. ‘You’re saying she was willing?’
‘It was her trade, after all.’
‘She says you prayed for forgiveness. After … after it was over.’
‘Can you think of anyone in greater need of it?’
Something in Jack had changed. He had talked religion for a long time but always with sincerity, never cynicism. As now.
Cash said, ‘It won’t do, Jack.’
Jack raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t believe me? You’d take the word of a little trollop over your own brother?’
‘Enough!’ Cash said.
The quizzical smile broadened. ‘I was forgetting. You’re sweet on her yourself now, aren’t you? Following in Father’s footsteps.’
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