A Stranger in my Street

by Deborah Burrows

  ‘What did you and Mrs Luca discuss?’

  ‘She thought I should be told something. It was personal.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘It was a private matter.’

  ‘Nothing is private in a murder investigation.’ The detective’s voice was sharp.

  ‘I’m not willing to discuss it. I went to her house on Saturday afternoon. She wasn’t there, but her husband was. He seemed agitated. He was unhappy about her relationships with American sailors.’

  ‘Not her relationship with you?’

  ‘I told him we were simply friends. He seemed to believe me.’ His tone indicated that he didn’t care what Mr Luca thought.

  I thought about Frank Luca. It was interesting that he was home from sea. And that he knew about Doreen’s active social life. Still, I couldn’t believe he had anything to do with her death; he had adored her.

  ‘I went to her house again this morning to see if she was all right. When no one answered the door I asked some boys on the street if they knew where she was. I also asked Miss Eaton, who came over when I was talking to the boys.’

  ‘You wanted to see if she was all right? Why did you think she might not be?’

  ‘Her husband had been upset. I just wanted to check.’

  ‘You know Miss Eaton well?’ Detective Munsie asked, changing tack.

  ‘No, not at all. She told me this afternoon that she had been close to my brother. Apparently she worked at the university before the war, but I don’t recall ever being introduced to her.’

  ‘Even though she was seeing your brother?’

  ‘That was after I had left for England. I went to England in August 1939 and didn’t return until November 1940, when I joined the army. I knew my brother was seeing a girl in Perth, but if he mentioned her name in his letters I didn’t recall it. Peter left here in October 1940 with the RAAF. He was killed in England in July 1941.’

  There was silence again for a few heartbeats.

  ‘I went back to Mrs Luca’s house this afternoon to see if she had returned, but I didn’t go to the front door. I entered her backyard through the fence. I tried her back door, but there was no answer. When I looked in the windows it was clear no one was there.’

  There was a sound, as if someone had moved his chair.

  ‘I had returned to the laneway when I saw Miss Eaton. I was helping her pick plums when Mrs Phoenix asked her for assistance in removing Doreen from the air raid shelter. I went with her and we found the body together.’

  It was now stiflingly hot in the stuffy little bedroom where I was hiding. I rubbed my itching nose, desperately trying to prevent a sneeze.

  ‘Where were you last night?’ Munsie asked.

  ‘At a private party in West Perth.’

  ‘Address?’

  ‘Flat 4, Hillside Flats, 15 Mount Street. My fiancée, Miss Phyllis Gregory, lives there.’

  ‘What time did you leave the party?’

  ‘I didn’t. The party finished at around midnight and I spent the rest of the night with Miss Gregory. I left there around nine this morning. Obviously I’d prefer it if the information was not made public.’

  So, if Doreen had been killed last night, Tom had an alibi. Miss Phyllis Gregory must have real money, as well as being one of our real beauties, because Mount Street was one of Perth’s most exclusive addresses.

  ‘Is there anything else you wish to tell me?’

  My heart was thumping as I slipped from the bedroom into the narrow hallway. I was at the front gate, nodding at the constable, when Tom emerged from the house behind me. Although still early, it was very dark. Cloud now covered the moon, closing in the day’s heat. I started towards my house, making my way as carefully as possible without a torch.

  ‘Meg, could I talk to you please?’ Tom called softly.

  I stopped.

  ‘That went well,’ he said as he reached me. He sounded as though he didn’t mean it. ‘Hear everything?’

  I glanced at the policeman, but he was out of earshot.

  ‘I was in that bedroom too, of course,’ he said. ‘When you were talking.’

  I wondered why he had been eavesdropping, but I was embarrassed that he assumed I had been too. I said nothing.

  ‘Would you walk with me?’ The uncertain note in his voice surprised me.

  Around us in the street little groups of people were still gathered in their yards and on the footpath, talking quietly together and watching the Phoenix house. Some were carrying small torches that made weak pools of light on the ground by their feet.

  ‘Meg!’ It was Joan’s voice. ‘What’s been happening? What did the police say?’ Her torchlight was bobbing along the footpath as she came towards us.

  ‘Just a minute, Joan. I’ll be there in a minute,’ I said loudly.

  The torchlight stopped about ten paces away from us.

  Tom said quickly, ‘Meg, I’d like to talk to you. Will you have dinner with me? A drink? Tomorrow? Some day this week?’

  ‘Why?’ I was taken aback. Why would he want to meet me?

  He had lit yet another cigarette and its tip was bright in the darkness. It became brighter as he inhaled, but he turned away to avoid blowing smoke in my face.

  ‘Several reasons,’ he said.

  ‘To talk about Peter?’

  It was too dark to see him clearly, but I was very aware of him, standing too close to me.

  ‘Yes. Peter and other things. Dinner tomorrow? I’ll come for you at seven.’

  He was pushing me. I didn’t want to meet him for dinner. That would mean worrying about table manners and trying to find things to say to him. And there was too much that didn’t add up about Tom Lagrange. A man who was engaged to be married, pursuing friendship – if that was what it was – with a married woman who was now dead, and now pursuing me, pushing me. For what? And yet, he was Peter’s brother. How could I not agree to meet him?

  ‘If you really want to talk, I’d rather just meet you after work for a drink. What about the Adelphi Hotel on Tuesday? Around five. There’s no need for dinner.’

  ‘I would very much like to take you to dinner.’

  I shook my head, then realised he couldn’t see it. ‘No. I’d prefer a drink.’

  ‘Just a drink then. The Adelphi it is.’

  He disappeared into the darkness. Joan came bustling up to me as I stared after him.

  Whatever was I going to wear on Tuesday?

  Five

  ‘Ooo hoo.’ Mrs Elsie Quantock from number 27 was the first of our neighbours to arrive the next morning, just as we were finishing breakfast.

  I’d been expecting visitors. There had been a murder in the street, after all, and the neighbours would be consumed with curiosity. It upset me to think that poor Doreen’s death was a subject for ghoulish gossip, but my neighbours were all kind people, really, and this was the most exciting thing ever to have happened in the street. And they hadn’t seen her body. Doreen’s death seemed incredible to them, whereas to me it was uncomfortably real.

  ‘We’re in the kitchen,’ Ma called out.

  ‘It’s only me.’ Mrs Quantock came in, holding a jar of marmalade. Her eyes lit up to see me and Mrs Phoenix at the table. ‘I had some extra marmalade and thought that you might like some.’

  Ma thanked her and offered her a cup of tea.

  ‘I can’t say anything about it,’ I said, before she could ask. ‘Detective Munsie was very clear that I wasn’t to discuss any of it.’ Her face fell.

  Ma smiled at her sympathetically. ‘Meg hasn’t told us anything either,’ she said.

  Joan glared at me. She took it as a personal affront that her own sister wouldn’t tell her everything about it.

  Obviously disappointed, Mrs Quantock looked at Mrs Phoenix, who appeared to have recovered remarkably well from her initial shock the day before.

  Mrs Phoenix turned to me. ‘I haven’t spoken to Detective Munsie yet,’ she said in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Do you think it’
s all right if I tell people what I saw?’

  ‘If you want to tell people, I can’t stop you, Mrs Phoenix. But Detective Munsie may not be too pleased about it.’

  Mrs Phoenix looked unhappy.

  Mrs Quantock looked more so. ‘I just want to know what happened,’ she said, putting the marmalade on the table with a nervous frown. ‘It’s such a terrible thing and it happened in our street. Poor Doreen.’

  Joan said, ‘Meg was in the laneway picking plums –’

  Annoyed, Mrs Phoenix broke in. ‘I hadn’t been out all day, because it had been so hot. You know that Arthur is away on warden business this weekend?’

  Mrs Quantock nodded and the old lady went on.

  ‘It was when I went out to feed the chooks that I saw her, in the shelter. I thought she was sleeping. But –’

  ‘Ooo hoo.’ Another neighbour was at the back door.

  ‘Kitchen,’ Joan called out.

  I got up. ‘I have to get ready for work,’ I said to Ma.

  Mrs Dodd from number 11 came in from the back verandah carrying some eggs. ‘It’s just me,’ she said. ‘The chooks have been laying so well and I thought you might –’ She saw Mrs Phoenix. ‘Isn’t it dreadful about Doreen? Do you think it was a maniac? Or a spy? The police are searching all the houses and yards.’

  ‘I was just telling Elsie . . .’ Mrs Phoenix began.

  I fled the kitchen.

  When I emerged from our house I saw that there were several police cars in the street and a uniformed policeman was on guard outside the Phoenix house. He smiled at me as I walked past on my way to catch a trolleybus into town. I tried to smile in return but it was a poor effort. That made me feel sad, because he was handsome and I knew that Doreen would have been delighted to stop and flirt with him. I wished I could tell him what Doreen had been like, make it clear that she had been a happy, lively woman. That she was more than just the body.

  As I continued along the footpath it seemed that every resident of Megalong Street had decided to water their gardens that morning. They all wanted to know what had happened, but I gave the same answer to everyone. ‘I can’t discuss it, I’m afraid. The police won’t let me.’ Ignoring the disappointed looks I almost ran across Park Road to the bush track that led to Stirling Highway.

  I emerged opposite the honey-coloured sandstone buildings and lovely gardens of the University of Western Australia. Framed by the intense burning blue of a Perth summer sky, the tall clock tower of Winthrop Hall was as beautiful as ever but, as usual, I was sad to see the changes that war had brought to the university. Wooden boards were nailed across the stained-glass windows as air raid protection. A barbed wire fence had been erected around the perimeter, and security was very tight, because parts of the grounds and some of the buildings were being used for the US Catalina flying boat base. Armed US sentries stood at the gate.

  Beyond the university and through the peppermint trees on the foreshore I could see the sweep of Matilda Bay, mirror calm in the morning sunshine. On the far bank was the brilliant green of market gardens and beyond them the red terracotta roofs of the houses of South Perth. In the distance was Pelican Point, where the flying boats were moored. I couldn’t see any from where I stood, but I could hear their engines. The sound was a reassuring reminder that Australia was not alone in this war.

  I vividly remembered the arrival of the Catalinas, early one morning in March last year. Ma, Joan and I had been woken by the unceasing roar of aircraft overhead. At first we were terrified, thinking that it was the Japanese invasion, and we stumbled outside in our dressing-gowns, half asleep. Up and down the street neighbours were peering anxiously at the sky as plane after plane circled above us before descending to land somewhere on the river.

  ‘They’re American,’ Jimmy McLean shouted excitedly. ‘Catalina flying boats, landing in Matilda Bay. We’re heading over there to see them. Come too.’

  So we dressed hurriedly and walked to the river to join what seemed to be the whole population of Nedlands stretched out along the bank. We all watched as dozens of flying boats landed like ungainly pelicans and hundreds of men in tan overalls and leather jackets came ashore in small boats.

  After nearly a year now, we were used to being woken early every morning by the deafening thunder of Catalinas taking off. I often saw servicemen around the neighbourhood, but I hadn’t spoken to any of them. The officers lived in a huddled village of asbestos and weatherboard huts that had been built in bushland near the highway, and the enlisted men lived in Quonset huts in the university grounds. Doreen had told me they were polite, generous and great fun; she had loved spending time with the pilots.

  But I didn’t want to think about Doreen. I turned my face to the sun and closed my eyes, listening to the noise of the engines as I waited for my bus.

  It was a marvellously sunny morning, though much cooler than yesterday. There was an exhilarating freshness in the air around me and I breathed in deeply. It was difficult to imagine that a war was going on, or that a woman I had known had been murdered in our street. Somehow the perfect weather made the events of yesterday seem more unreal.

  The crowded Number 25 jerked to a stop with a squeak and a shudder on the road beside me. As usual I spent the journey watching the Swan River, under the shadow of Mount Eliza. Maybe it was because I had grown up in a desert town that I so loved that wide, meandering river. I scanned the far distance, past the wooden Crawley Swimming Baths, for a couple of the flying boats moored near Pelican Point. Soon, the pungent smell of hops meant we were passing the red-brick nineteenth-century jumble of the Swan Brewery. The Emu Brewery was next, its beautiful Art Deco friezes sharply delineated in the sunshine. We turned away from the river and entered St Georges Terrace.

  The Terrace, too, was different from the one I had known before the war. The ornate facades were as grand as ever, but window displays in the department stores had disappeared and most of the windows were boarded up because of the danger of flying glass during an air attack. Others had been converted into street-level air raid shelters.

  There was a generally drab appearance about everything, except for the rather garish propaganda posters that had been put up throughout the city. Two in particular caught my eye that morning. A little blue fish lazily approached a tasty worm on a hook: ‘Even a fish wouldn’t get caught if he didn’t open his mouth – watch your tongue.’ I wondered how many neighbours were talking to Mrs Phoenix about the murder. The next poster depicted a fearsome Japanese soldier jumping out of the red and white rising sun flag of Japan, heading straight for Australia with bayonet fixed. The caption read: ‘He’s Coming South: It’s Fight, Work or Perish’. I allowed myself a bitter smile. A Japanese soldier hadn’t murdered Doreen; sometimes danger was much closer than you realised.

  I got off the bus at the old Treasury Buildings. At a gesture from the white-helmeted policeman on point duty I crossed the Terrace and entered the oasis of Stirling Gardens. The gardens were beautiful even in the middle of summer and they lifted my spirits as I made my way towards the Supreme Court building.

  I loved my job. Law, particularly the criminal law, was fascinating to me and I loved learning how it all worked. An added bonus was that working for the Crown Prosecutor gave me inside knowledge of all the major crimes that came to trial in Western Australia. I enjoyed being involved with such important matters. And now it meant something more, that I would have privileged access to information about Doreen’s murder as it became known.

  Waving to the doorman, I crossed the foyer to the shabby wooden staircase that led down to the offices of the Attorney General’s Department, Crown Law. These were located in an annex at the rear, giving a marvellous view of the lawns and botanical gardens that stretched behind the building, almost down to the river. However, that view was strictly for the lawyers. There was no window in the typists’ room.

  The cleaning lady, Mrs Gangemi, met me on the stairs. She was a small, round Sicilian with dark curly hair and a wicked grin. Her
mournful face and large, dark eyes always seemed on the verge of tears until they were lit up by that grin, and at least once in every conversation a startling giggle would explode out of her without warning.

  Sadly, neither the grin nor the giggle had been much in evidence since her husband had been interned as an enemy alien last year. I had met Mr Gangemi once. He was a square, short-legged man with a jolly face and I had liked him very much. I supposed that the construction business he had spent twenty years building up would fade the longer he was interned and eventually fail. It was a shame, because I had no doubt the Gangemis were as loyal to Australia as I was.

  Mrs Gangemi always stopped for a chat when she saw me. I had helped her when her husband had been taken away by filling in the inevitable forms the government demanded. She was convinced that it was only because of my form-filling expertise that she had not been incarcerated with him. I knew it was because the Crown Prosecutor had made representations on her behalf, but he refused to let me tell her.

  ‘Good day, Miss Meg,’ she said. She always made it sound like ‘Missa Megga’.

  I smiled at her, thinking it was a relief to speak to someone who knew nothing about the murder. ‘Hullo, Nancy. Did you see Mr Gangemi on the weekend?’ I asked. His detention camp was a two-hour bus ride from Perth.

  ‘Oh, yes. Every weekend, I go to the camp. The food there is so bad. Mr Gangemi, he needs me to bring him real food.’

  ‘They’ll eventually realise how silly it is to keep men like Mr Gangemi interned. He’ll be home soon, I’m sure.’

  Nancy’s grin appeared. ‘I sure hope so. Before it gets cold anyways. A cold bed, it’s no good.’ She giggled, and covered her mouth with her hand, like a naughty girl. I smiled in response, and went on down the stairs towards the typists’ room.

  A door led from the typists’ room to a short corridor, off which were the offices of the four lawyers who made up the Crown Law Department in Western Australia.

  A similar series of rooms further down the corridor housed another three typists, together with the accounts and clerical staff. Several of the junior clerks were in the armed forces and their jobs were being held for them, which meant that the remaining clerical staff had to put in extra hours. I did work for whichever lawyer needed it, but I worked primarily with Mr Goodley, the Crown Prosecutor, who was a jealous boss.