Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1

by Peter Watt

  Max patted his ample belly. ‘Missus Duffy is a fine cook. It is not my fault.’

  Michael laughed at the twinge of embarrassment shown by Max for the sad loss of his once fine body. Around Max, it was easy to laugh and hard work had been a good panacea for the emotional ills of the past few days.

  ‘If you think Aunt Bridget’s cooking is good, you should see what Uncle Frank has planned for the Erin starting next week,’ he said as he took a swig from the bottle of English beer. It was not cold, or even cool, but it was still pleasant to the palate of a thirsty man.

  ‘You mean like that other hotel vhere people pay for meals,’ Max growled disapprovingly.

  ‘Uncle Frank thinks he might give it a try,’ Michael ventured. ‘It will certainly be a change from what we usually serve up in the bar. Rabbit soup, saute of goose with olives, kidneys in champagne, mayonnaise of lobster, beans, peas, cauliflower, artichokes, spuds . . . Sounds like something I ate only a couple of nights ago . . .’ Michael’s voice trailed away as he remembered the night at the Macintosh cottage.

  ‘Ach! Too rich for the people who come to the Erin, mein friend. Vey vill not pay three shillings for such a meal. Vey are mostly dumb Irishmen like you . . . potato eaters,’ the German said good-naturedly, but Michael did not hear his friend’s good-humoured insult. His thoughts were across the harbour in another place with another person.

  Max noticed the faraway look on the young man’s face and gave him a nudge in the ribs with his elbow. ‘Dumb Irishmen!’

  Michael sighed and focused on the present. ‘Sorry, Max. I was just thinking about something,’ he apologised.

  ‘Your papa and brudder, my friend?’ Max prompted gently. ‘Patrick vas the best of men. He saved my life when the British came to kill us all at Ballarat and I vill never forget him.’

  ‘No. I wasn’t thinking about Da or Tom or Billy.’

  ‘Vot is troubling you, young Michael?’ Max prompted. But before he could reply, they were surprised to see Daniel with his coat over his shoulder climb down the stairs into the cellar and pick his way carefully to them through the wooden crates and kegs.

  ‘Have you any spare bottles down here, Mike?’ Daniel asked by way of greeting. Michael rummaged behind the crate and found three more which he opened, passing one to Daniel who took a long swig. At this time of day, he was normally at the chambers of the law firm of Sullivan and Levi and leave from the chambers was unheard of – except to attend family births and deaths. When Daniel had finished half the bottle’s contents, he made himself comfortable on a wooden crate.

  ‘I gather from your look,’ Michael said in a serious tone, ‘and the fact you are home early, you have found out something?’

  As an articled clerk to a firm of solicitors in the city, Daniel was in a good position to hear things. ‘Yes,’ Daniel replied as he stared down at a point on the cellar floor. ‘The man who was killed by the blacks was Angus Macintosh.’

  ‘Angus!’ Michael exploded. ‘I remember Fiona saying that was the name of her oldest brother. God almighty! Penelope said that Da had protected the murderer of a white man. She must have meant that the white man was Fiona’s brother and it’s no bloody wonder she hasn’t tried to get in contact with me in the past couple of days.’

  ‘That’s not all,’ Daniel added. ‘It appears, from a report by the police lieutenant in charge of a dispersal, that Tom’s body was never actually found by him or his troopers. The trap only made a presumption that Tom was killed.’

  ‘How did you find out all this, Dan?’

  ‘Better you don’t ask questions,’ he replied with a mysterious smile. ‘That way I don’t have to tell you any lies.’

  Michael nodded. His cousin had devious ways about him, and it was no wonder he had chosen to be a lawyer. In fact, Daniel had used money to bribe a clerk in the Macintosh firm of solicitors for all the information they had on the affair in Queensland. The clerk had met him at a city hotel for lunch and information had been exchanged for money and a few free drinks.

  ‘What else did you find out?’ Michael asked as the news about Tom held a sudden ray of hope.

  ‘Apparently Uncle Patrick held the police at gunpoint so that some wounded blackfellow could escape,’ he answered as he took another swig from the bottle. ‘It seems the blackfella was responsible for the death of Angus Macintosh. The trap, who was in charge of the dispersal, reported that he left Uncle Pat and Old Billy alone and rode off. He said he then heard cries for help and when he rode back he found both Uncle Pat and Old Billy speared to death. Later he came across Uncle Pat’s bullock team and he made a decision to destroy the dray and bullocks so that supplies would not fall into the hands of any of the hostile natives that might be around.’

  Michael frowned. ‘There is something about the trap’s story I don’t like, Dan,’ he said slowly. ‘Something that doesn’t sound right.’

  Daniel nodded, and it was Max who intervened. ‘A trap vould never let Patrick go for stopping him in his duties,’ he reflected. ‘A trap vould arrest him, not ride avay and leaf him.’

  ‘You are right, Max!’ Daniel said, recognising the fundamental flaw in the police story. ‘The bastard could have killed Uncle Pat and Old Billy and somehow he missed Tom.’

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ Michael swore. ‘Did you get the name of the trap by any chance?’

  Daniel racked his memory. He had not considered the police officer as a suspect for murder before, but what Max had said made a lot of sense. It was not probable the inspector would allow Patrick to go free after harbouring a man wanted for murder.

  ‘Mont . . . no! . . . Mort, Lieutenant Morrison Mort of the Native Mounted Police. Mort is the name of the murdering bastard!’

  The three men sat in a short silence, and the taste of the English beer soured in Michael’s mouth.

  ‘What about Fiona’s father? Was he anywhere near the scene?’ Michael finally asked, breaking the silence.

  ‘Yes. He was with Mort when Uncle Patrick bailed them up,’ Daniel replied, as he repeated the details given to him by the talkative clerk.

  ‘Then he is just as responsible for murder,’ Michael said quietly, and his eyes glowed feral in the gloom of the cellar.

  Daniel shifted uncomfortably. ‘I doubt if we could prove anything against anyone,’ he said. ‘Without any witnesses, it would be our word against that of the police and Donald Macintosh. And . . .’

  ‘I know that,’ Michael snarled. ‘Murder gets done and we are without the law. But there is a thing called natural justice.’

  ‘Forget what you are thinking,’ Daniel said quickly to cut short the dangerous ideas he could see forming in his cousin’s mind. ‘You will only end up swinging on a rope with your neck stretched if you go after either Donald Macintosh or the trap.’ But Michael ignored his cousin’s warning as his mind was set and he knew what he must do.

  ‘I have some more news for you,’ Daniel added in an attempt to distract his cousin’s murderous thoughts. ‘Miss Fiona Macintosh has left Sydney with Miss Penelope White. It seems that their whereabouts is a mystery even to the family solicitors. There is a rumour that she was sent away on the orders of her mother because of some love affair she was having with an Irishman.’ Michael gaped. ‘Don’t worry, your name did not come up,’ he added, by way of reassurance.

  Michael had planned to see Fiona that very evening. Now she was gone to God knows where! It was as if the devil were playing a sad and iniquitous game with him. He had not known exactly why he wanted to see her or what he would do and say when he met her again. All he knew was that he must see her – at least once more – before he travelled to Queensland to ascertain the truth concerning the death of his father and Old Billy. And possibly find Tom.

  ‘Dan, thanks for all you have done,’ Michael said as he stood and stared at the pile of kegs that he and Max had stacked. ‘I think I need to talk to Uncle Frank about finishing up here.’ Both men exchanged worried glances.

  ‘You
are needed here, mein friend,’ Max said as he placed his brawny arm around Michael’s shoulders. ‘I vould haf no one to drink vif.’

  Michael smiled at him. ‘There are a lot of things I have to do, Max,’ he said quietly. ‘And when they are all done, I promise I will come home.’

  THIRTEEN

  Penelope’s home was not as luxurious as the Macintosh mansion. But it was still a house that reflected the considerable wealth of its owner, Granville White.

  Originally built for a wealthy Sydney land developer, the house had been purchased by Jonathan White, father of Granville and Penelope, when he had come out from India to invest his modest fortune in the Antipodean colonies. It was ironic that he should survive the rigours of India only to die from a fall from his horse during a fox hunt in England’s green and hedgerowed fields two years past.

  Sarah White, his wife, had remained in England to live her life out as the mistress of the traditional White estates. She had never visited Australia. Life in the colonies had no appeal for a woman who had always yearned, through the blistering hot and sunbaked days of the Indian dry season, for snow at Christmas.

  Her children had chosen to join their father in the far-off colony of New South Wales. Although she had not fully approved of her daughter returning to Australia, the scandal of her sexual escapades around London had helped Sarah decide that a short sojourn to the colonies might be in the best interests of the White family’s reputation in polite London social circles.

  Sarah accepted that her son, Granville, must be close to her sister-in-law’s family if he were to realise his ambition of uniting the two fortunes. There had always been a presumption that he would eventually marry Fiona as a means of cementing the amalgamation of the two family fortunes.

  The library, in which Granville sat brooding, held many mementos of India. On the teak desk was a small but weighty brass statue of a Hindu deity. On the walls an array of traditional Indian weapons were displayed; exotically shaped swords, wickedly curved knives and small battle shields. Above the swords and knives was a long and deadly lance that had once been part of the arms of the Indian regiment in which his father had been an honorary member. Jonathan White loved India, but the terrible mutiny of the Bengal Army in ’57, and the end of the rule by the East India Company for whom he’d worked, had decided him to seek more stable avenues in which to invest his wealth.

  Australia had been a natural choice based on the advice of his sister, Enid, who had extolled the opportunities in the colony of New South Wales. Jonathan had left the management of his colonial business ventures to his only son when he sailed to England on the visit from which he never returned. Granville had inherited the family colonial enterprises under the conditions of his father’s will, and his mother, the smaller estates in England. The large and comfortable mansion he now lived in with his sister was part of that inheritance.

  A stately grandfather clock in the corner of the dark library ticked away the minutes as Granville sipped a port wine and puffed on a large cigar reflecting on the events that had transpired in the Macintosh library and their implications concerning his future ambitions. More than ever it was vitally important to secure Fiona as his wife if he was to move one step closer to the final amalgamation of the families. But this was a matter not easily obtained, as the stupid girl had become infatuated with the Irish oaf Duffy. So David Macintosh was not the only obstacle between himself and gaining almost total control of the vast fortunes of the Macintoshes. He also had the Irishman to contend with and, although any formal union between Fiona and the Papist was unthinkable, he was still an obstacle. While the Irishman lived, he knew Fiona would be under his influence. Duffy seemed to have a magnetic quality about him that attracted women and he would have to be removed from Fiona’s life in a way that was absolute in its permanence.

  The thick smoke from the cigar curled around Granville’s head and the warm night brought a moth fluttering into the library through an open window. It circled the flames of the candles and sizzled as it flew too close to the flame, before spiralling to the floor with part of its wing seared away.

  ‘A flame!’ he said softly as he watched the doomed moth fluttering helplessly on the library floor ‘All I need is a flame to burn you, Mister Duffy, and there will be nothing between Fiona and myself.’ And he knew the very flame was at his fingertips.

  Only days earlier he had been advised not to hire one of the men who had reported for a place in the crew of the Osprey. The first mate of the Macintosh barque knew well the man’s unsavoury reputation for disruptive violence and had told Granville that he was extremely dangerous – a violent man with a reputation for killing. But a man who had enough animal cunning to avoid the traps of Sydney Town. What was his name? Damn! What was the man’s name? Jack Horton! Yes, it was Jack Horton!

  If anything went wrong, Granville knew he could be facing the gallows. But if everything went well, he would have eliminated the major obstacle between himself and Fiona. Unconsciously, he wrapped his sweaty hands around a small brass statue that he used as a paperweight. He glanced down at it and realised with a start that it was the statue of Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, whom the dreaded thuggees of India worshipped. Surely this was an omen, he thought. Yes, he would talk to the first mate and arrange to see the infamous Jack Horton.

  It was time to deal with his sister and prepare the next stage of his plan because, as far as he was concerned, Duffy was already dead. The next step was to procure his cousin’s hand in marriage. A less easy task than plotting the murder of a man, he brooded, as he climbed the stairs to his sister’s room and opened the door without knocking.

  Penelope stood in front of a full-length mirror naked to the waist, cupping her large but firm breasts in her hands and she did not notice her brother enter the room.

  ‘You have certainly grown into a beautiful woman, Penny,’ he said, admiring his sister’s breasts.

  Startled by his intrusion, she turned to face him, snatching a shawl from her bed. ‘How dare you enter my room without an invitation,’ she snapped as she held the shawl up to cover her breasts.

  ‘I go where I like in my own home, dear sister,’ he answered, nonplussed by her anger. ‘Remember that well. Besides, it is not the first time I have seen you naked.’

  She turned her back to her brother, slipping on a silk chemise which only accentuated her firm and desirable body. ‘That was a long time ago, Granville,’ she retorted in an icy tone. ‘And I swear I will kill you if you ever try to do that to me again.’

  He knew her threat was real. His sister was not a woman one crossed. She had the inherent vindictiveness of the Whites. ‘You seemed to enjoy yourself at the time,’ he smirked. ‘If my memory stands me well. I know I enjoyed myself. You were always more than willing to comply with my . . . ahhh . . . rather unusual requests for your services.’

  She glared at her brother with a burning hatred for memories of a time and place that still haunted her. The unspeakable acts he had forced her to do could never be undone, and she had experienced at first hand the physical power of the male to degrade a female. But as time went by, she was able to use the very act of sex against men in subtle and devious ways that made them unwittingly comply with her ambitions. Lust was an unbridled need for men, she had learnt. But it was a need that she was able to use as one would tame a rampant lion.

  And she knew with a burning certainty that one day she would revenge herself on her brother for the lost years of innocence. But for now, he stood smirking in her bedroom for the perceived power he still thought he held over her.

  ‘And I suppose it was that time with me that gave you a taste for young girls,’ she said with a mysterious and savage smile.

  His smugness disappeared. ‘What do you mean by what you just said?’ he asked quietly with a touch of fear in his question.

  ‘This house is not big enough to hide all its secrets,’ she replied with a bitter smile. ‘Not big enough to conceal the cries of that young gi
rl. What’s her name? Oh, yes, Jennifer. The gardener’s daughter. I think she is only eight years old. About the same age you used me. Or could she be a year or two older, dear brother?’

  Granville paled. So his sister knew of his meetings in the library with the young girl. The pact with Harris to provide his young daughter had been sealed with her visits to the library. Although the man knew what was happening, he chose to let the stupefying effects of the gin that his boss freely supplied obliterate the reality of his daughter’s pain. And he justified it, in his alcohol-riddled mind, by telling himself that although his daughter was a pretty girl she was most likely to become a prostitute – as her mother had. A large strawberry birthmark on one side of her face was God’s punishment upon her for her mother’s sins, and the harsh reality was that no man would want her when she came of age, or so her father thought. At least for the moment she had all that she could possibly want – good clothes and plenty of food on the table for both of them.

  ‘Better you forget what you have just said, dear sister,’ Granville replied menacingly. ‘Better we both forget the past and think about the future. Your future as well as mine. I think I have something that you want very much.’

  ‘My future. What can you do for my future?’ she asked sarcastically. ‘And what do you have that I might want?’ But she knew her brother was capable of anything and was curious to hear what he would propose.

  ‘This house,’ he said with a wave of his arm. ‘And all that goes with it.’

  Her interest was aroused. She had always been bitter that her father had not left the house co-jointly to them. Jonathan White was a chauvinist. To him, females were mere property to be bartered in marriage to further family interests.

  ‘And how do I get the estate, dear brother?’ she asked with less sarcasm and he smiled.

  ‘All you have to do is help me convince Fiona that she should marry me,’ Granville replied. ‘Nothing more. When you have done that I will sign over the house to you. And a sum of money to maintain you in the life that you are used to.’