A Stranger in my Street

by Deborah Burrows

  Nancy was quiet on the tram to her small house in North Perth, an older, rather run-down suburb just north of the city. I had visited her there several times after her husband was interned. She always insisted on giving me a huge meal, accompanied by the slightly sour red wine made by friends of hers who had a vineyard in the Swan Valley.

  We got off the tram at Newcastle Street and I followed her as she hurried past the small, closely packed houses. A blacksmith’s shop was at the corner and I peered in to see the blacksmith working at his small forge. There was a loud ringing as hammer hit iron and sparks flew around him. Despite the sound of an engine somewhere in the shop, I felt I had been transported back a hundred years.

  Like the blacksmith’s shop, Money Street was a relic of the past. It was narrow and filled with little houses built in the nineteenth century and mostly semi-detached, many with ornate decorations set into the masonry. Stone wreaths of flowers and pillared balustrades gave a shabby elegance to the little dwellings. One side of the street was dominated by a factory: R. Mackay & Co. Ltd, Aerated Water and Cordial Manufacturers.

  Yet Money Street was undeniably beautiful because of the enormous plane trees that formed a thick canopy of green over the roadway. Their trunks were fully three feet in width and as white as satin, with the occasional splash of dark brown like a stain. Only a hint of blue sky was to be seen through the leafy canopy and we seemed to swim in shadow as we made our way to the Gangemi house.

  Like the others in the street, it was set close to the footpath, with a tiny front garden. The back garden, I knew, was larger and given over entirely to vegetables. Sometimes Nancy gave me tomatoes and beans as a gift to my mother.

  Nancy showed me into the lounge room, which was scrupulously clean and very simply furnished. The Gangemis had left a life of grinding poverty in the hope that Australia would provide them with a better future and, until the war, they had been doing a good job of keeping their heads above water. Mr Gangemi’s detention was a major setback, but they were a tough, resilient family and I was sure that they would survive this, too.

  Nancy’s daughter Maria, who was ten, had already laid the table with platters of what Nancy called antipasto – pickled vegetables, cured meats, and olives from the tree in the backyard. The three dark-haired and dark-eyed Gangemi children looked greedily at the spread and I assumed they did not usually eat so well, though I wasn’t sure. They were all rather round of body. I ate sparingly, knowing from experience that there were several courses to come. Primo and secondo came in quick succession, then dolce, which made me remember what Nancy had said about Tom. I felt misery wash through me like bile, but I pushed myself to smile when I caught Nancy looking at me with concern.

  ‘Too much food,’ I said, rubbing my stomach. ‘Wonderful food, but so much.’ The children nodded understandingly.

  After tea, the two younger children were sent away, leaving me with Nancy and fourteen-year-old Sam. He was a steady boy who worked in a local factory and was providing much-needed money for the family. He had his mother’s perpetually mournful expression and melting brown eyes, but I hadn’t seen any evidence of her sense of humour. Perhaps life was simply too difficult at the moment for this boy to find anything to laugh about.

  ‘Miss Meg,’ Nancy said with a very sombre face. ‘We need your help. Not just me, but my friends also, and my family.’ She stopped there, as if unable to continue, and looked to Sam to take up the story.

  ‘Miss Meg,’ he said, in a voice too deep for a boy. ‘Mama, and others too, have done something to help some friends of my father. I don’t know what to do. I think it’s really stupid, but Papa said we had to. He’s been here since Sunday. He’s out the back. In the shed.’

  ‘What? Who’s in the shed? Your father?’

  ‘No, not Papa. Mr Luca.’

  I gasped in shock. Fear for the Gangemis followed shortly after. If Frank was found here it would be disastrous for them.

  Nancy took me out to the shed where Frank Luca was sitting in front of a small table, almost unrecognisable as Doreen’s handsome husband. His hair was matted and too long. He hadn’t shaved in days and the stubble was dark and rough on his face, making him look dirty. He also looked terrified. His eyes were constantly checking the tiny space. He had been in hiding for nearly two months, and it showed.

  When I entered the shed he shot me a look of pure panic.

  ‘Frank,’ I said gently. ‘I’m Meg Eaton. Do you remember me? I live in Megalong Street and I knew Doreen.’

  ‘I remember you, Miss Eaton,’ he said. ‘Mrs Gangemi says you know about the law. She trusts you.’ The terror in his eyes was awful to see.

  I sat down in a seat across from him.

  ‘I’m not a lawyer. I can’t help you like that. In fact, I think it might be best if you give yourself up to the police. Detective Munsie is a fair man.’

  Nancy put a glass of red wine next to him and he reached for it like it was a lifeline. It disappeared in a couple of gulps. He flicked her a glance that held a request and she got up and left the shed. The wine seemed to perk him up. He sat up straighter and his face looked less desperate. He even tried to smile.

  ‘Thank you for coming to see me, Miss Eaton. It’s kind of you to help.’

  There was a dip of the head and a quick upward glance at me through long, dark lashes. Even unshaven and done in, Frank Luca had a certain elegance. There was a sinewy grace in his movements.

  ‘I didn’t kill Doreen.’ His voice was low, with a slight accent. Not Italian, but the accent of an Australian with Italian parents. My school friend Angela had the same accent.

  ‘They’re saying I did it. My folks are Italian and they want me to have done it. But I didn’t. I loved her. Doreen wasn’t perfect, but I didn’t care. She was the mother of our girl and she was a good wife before the war. It’s this war. It was too easy for her to have a good time. I was away with the Navy and Doreen liked to have a good time.’ As if the burst of speech had exhausted him, he dropped his head back into his hands.

  Nancy bustled in with another glass of wine and a plate of food. Frank again downed the wine in a gulp and made short work of the food.

  ‘They’ll hang me. Just because my folks are Italian, they’ll hang me. But I didn’t hurt Doreen. Please believe me.’

  I had absolutely no idea what to do. I wished I could talk to Tom about it, but that couldn’t happen. Instead I was on my own, with Frank and the Gangemis relying on me. The proper thing to do was to turn him in to the police. But that would mean the Gangemis would face prosecution. And what if Frank really was innocent? He was right: it would be hard for him to get a fair trial.

  ‘Frank, you need to remember exactly what happened and tell me everything. Everything. Did you see Doreen the night she died?’

  He held my gaze. ‘I don’t know who killed her, Miss Eaton. Honest. I didn’t talk to Doreen and I didn’t touch her that night, but I was in the bush and I saw her cross Winthrop Avenue, heading for home. I didn’t see anyone following her.’

  So he had been there. Motive and opportunity. He’d be charged with her murder and at his trial Mr Goodley would tear him to pieces in the witness box. I bit my lip nervously. Could I believe him when he said that he hadn’t killed Doreen? He easily could have followed her into the laneway and somehow got her into the air raid shelter.

  ‘Frank, tell me everything that you did and saw on that Saturday.’

  He wouldn’t look at me, and instead began to scratch at the tabletop with his fingernail, digging a little hole in the soft wood. ‘I went to see her, straight off the ship, because I was worried.’

  ‘What were you worried about?’

  ‘I was worried she was seeing other men. You know, romantically.’

  ‘Why were you worried about that?’

  ‘My cousin Monica wrote and said that Doreen was fooling around with the Yanks. I wanted to talk to her. I didn’t want to believe anything without talking to her.’

  I wasn’t
sure what to think. He didn’t seem like a murderer, but what did I know? Mr Goodley often said it was the people you least expected who did the worst things.

  ‘Go on,’ I prompted, because he had lapsed into silence.

  ‘When I got shore leave I went to our house, but she wasn’t there. So I waited. Betty came home and we had a cup of tea. She told me Doreen was going to the Catalina base that night for a party with the Yank officers. She said Doreen had been fooling around with the Yanks at that base and with some filthy rich AIF officer.’

  He took a ragged breath. ‘Betty went out, and this Aussie officer came to the door asking for Doreen. I told him to lay off her. He said they weren’t involved romantically. Those were his words.’

  ‘Did you believe him?’

  ‘Yes and no. Why would a rich officer like him want my Doreen, except for some fun? He wouldn’t see it as romantic.’

  I felt sorry for Frank, as I imagined him blustering and Tom icy and superior. I remembered Tom’s response to Detective Munsie’s question about that meeting.

  ‘What happened then?’ I felt like Detective Munsie myself, conducting an interrogation. I wanted to see if I could trip him up on some obvious falsehood. So far, though, I had the feeling Frank was telling the truth.

  ‘He left and I went to the pub, but it was full of bloody Yanks. After it closed I walked over to the Catalina base. I told them I wanted to see my wife, but they said they’d call the MPs, so I left to go back to our house. I met Cec McLean in the street and we went to his place for a drink and some tucker. Then I went back home and fell asleep on a chair on the porch. When I woke up, Doreen still wasn’t there.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I went back to the Catalina base to look for her.’

  ‘Did you see anybody?’

  ‘I saw an officer in the bush. A bit taller than me, thin though. He was wearing a peaked cap. Could have been a Yank or maybe the Aussie captain. The moon was full and it was pretty bright, but those caps look the same.’

  My stomach lurched. Tom could have walked there from Phyllis’s apartment. They slept in separate rooms. Phyllis wouldn’t have known. Or she might have known, and given him an alibi anyway. Either way, it was entirely possible.

  ‘And there was another bloke, a big bloke.’ Frank held out his hands to indicate someone broad and tall. ‘I saw him a couple of times. Once he was carrying a box, a big box, or maybe a tub.’ He held out his arms again, to indicate an object wider than a man.

  ‘Was the big man an officer?’ I wondered if it could have been Chad.

  ‘Dunno. Can’t remember if he had a cap.’

  ‘What about Doreen? When did you see her?’

  He lowered his head with a small moan and to my dismay he began to cry.

  I leaned over and patted him on the arm. ‘Frank, it’s important.’

  ‘She was all over the big man. He was all over her. What could I do? I’m not a big man.’

  I handed him my hankie, although it was too small to do much good.

  He blew his nose. ‘I’m not proud of myself,’ he said.

  ‘Frank, I’m sorry. Did they speak? Did you hear anything?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘What did you do after you saw Doreen and the big man?’

  ‘I walked away.’

  ‘Were you angry?’

  His look, when he raised his eyes to me, was cold. ‘I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you mean. Yes, I was angry. Of course I was. Doreen was my wife. But I wanted to cool down, to think. I walked down the path and crossed Winthrop Avenue. I stood there, by the side of the road, waiting for her. It seemed a long time before she came out and crossed the road. She was drunk and she nearly got run down.’

  ‘Was anyone following her?’

  ‘No one followed her that I could see, but I didn’t hang around. When I saw how drunk she was, I didn’t want to talk to her any more. I walked up the street towards Subiaco.’

  He was looking straight into my eyes, and I believed him.

  ‘I went to my mate’s place. That’s where I was when I found out about Doreen in the newspaper on the Monday morning. The paper said I was most likely to have done it. I got scared and went to another mate’s place to hide. I’ve been hiding ever since.’

  I had no idea what to do next. If he gave himself up I was terribly afraid that they might not give him a fair go. Most of all I was afraid for Nancy and Sam. I was worried that they could both face criminal charges for hiding him. The family could not take a blow like that. And I was worried that he had seen a thin officer in the bush not long before Doreen died. Could it have been Tom?

  I needed time to think, to be alone for a while, but Frank was looking at me in dumb desperation. I bit my lip and said, ‘Frank, if you won’t give yourself up, you can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous for the Gangemis. You’ll have to go somewhere else.’

  ‘So you believe me? That I didn’t touch Doreen?’

  ‘I think so. I don’t know. I’m confused. But I won’t turn you in to the police, although I think you should do it yourself.’

  I left Frank in the shed and went back to the house. Nancy seemed less anxious, and I hoped that wasn’t due to some misguided belief in my abilities to help her out of this situation. I wouldn’t turn Frank in, but I wouldn’t lie to protect him either. I just hoped I’d never have to answer any police questions about him.

  ‘Miss Meg, thank you so much for seeing him. He needed to tell his story to someone. You know about the law. What should he do?’

  ‘I’m very concerned for you and the children if he stays here.’

  ‘Mr Gangemi says we need to help him.’

  ‘But Nancy, if he is found here you might be arrested. They may put you in gaol. And Sam, too. What will happen to the little ones then?’

  She started to cry and I felt terrible. I looked helplessly at Sam, who was standing beside her. He spoke to her in Italian, and after a while she stopped crying and nodded.

  Then Sam addressed me. ‘There’s a man who lives on a farm south of Pinjarra and he’s agreed to take Frank. Mama wasn’t sure whether he should go, but now she thinks it’s a good idea.’ He made a face, half indulgent, half annoyed. ‘Mama wants to help everyone. But sometimes you just can’t do that.’

  I sighed with relief.

  ‘If he won’t turn himself in, then that would be perfect, Sam. If he could leave here, I mean.’

  Pinjarra was a good two hours’ drive from Perth and well away from the Gangemis.

  ‘Don’t keep in contact with him at all,’ I told Sam as I was leaving. ‘Once he’s gone, forget you ever met him.’

  He nodded gravely, his brown eyes big in his young face. ‘Forget I met who?’ he asked blandly.

  I blinked in surprise, then realised it was a joke. Perhaps young Sam did have a sense of humour after all.

  Nineteen

  ‘Mr Goodley?’

  He was surrounded by papers and books and was obviously working on an important brief, but he peered at me over the half-moon spectacles.

  ‘Yes, Meg?’

  ‘I was discussing a book I am reading with my mother and sister last night and I realised I was unsure of a legal issue.’

  He smiled. ‘Yes?’

  ‘In the book one of the characters knows an awful lot about a murder but keeps quiet about it, to protect someone else. When the police actually ask her a direct question, she lies. I’m fairly sure it is an offence to lie to the police, but is it an offence not to tell them what you know?’

  ‘That depends. Is it an English book? Keeping quiet about a crime is a crime under English common law. It’s called Misprision of Felony. We don’t have that in our Criminal Code in Western Australia.’

  He turned around in his chair, reached up to the bookcase behind him and extracted a leather-bound volume. ‘It is an offence, however, to wilfully obstruct the police in their investigation of a crime. Section 135 of the Code.’

  He leafed through the
book, found the spot and read out the section to me.

  ‘So, if your fictional heroine was English, she was committing an offence by not telling them all she knew, and she was committing another offence when she lied to them. That wouldn’t be the case here. Only by specifically lying to the police would she be breaking the law.’

  I assumed a shocked look. ‘So, a person could know where a murderer was hiding and keep quiet about it? That’s not against the law? That’s terrible.’

  I hoped I wasn’t over-egging the pudding, but I opened my eyes wider to express my outrage.

  ‘It’s the law,’ Mr Goodley said. ‘But the person couldn’t do anything to obstruct the police. That would be an attempt to pervert the course of justice.’

  He picked up the book, turned around and replaced it in the bookcase. I thanked him for his time and left the room.

  I wanted to help Frank Luca, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t even know why I was so sure he was telling me the truth. But I was sure, and I felt sorry for him. Everyone else seemed willing to convict him just because he was the husband and he was Italian, and that was dreadfully unfair. It was worse now, because hiding from the police for so many weeks had made him seem guilty. I knew it would be all over for him once it became known that he had been near Doreen around the time she was stabbed and I could not stand by and let him face the hangman’s noose if I could do something to help him.

  There was another consideration also. In the back of my mind was a niggling doubt about the strength of Tom’s alibi. Betty had presumably told Detective Munsie about the argument between Tom and Doreen. It wasn’t much of a leap for Detective Munsie to realise that Tom easily could have walked from Phyllis’s flat to Megalong Street in the early hours of Sunday morning. Why would Doreen have gone to the air raid shelter unless it was with someone she knew? Someone who didn’t want to be seen with her? Someone like Tom. According to Frank, there had been a thin officer in the bush before Doreen had been killed. I could not believe that Tom had murdered Doreen, but I didn’t want him as the next most credible suspect after Frank.