‘Shall you marry him?’ she asked.
‘Marry Ben?’ Belinda laughed outright. ‘Wait till you see him,’ she shrieked. ‘Him and his sticky-out teeth.’
So Kitty, who had reached the age to be interested, at least in theory, found herself interested in the idea of this Ben. Whose sticky-out teeth might be an impediment but might not.
More and more Cat Mortimer was feeling out of touch with the world. In two weeks she would be eighty and had become a stranger lodged uncomfortably in a time where nothing familiar remained.
Electric trams had been running in Launceston for two years now. There were trams in Hobart also. There was talk of the state government taking over the Great Lake Hydro-electric Company. Progress that had excited her once now seemed a threat.
‘My time is running out,’ she said but only to herself.
A week after Kitty had left for Sydney she got out of bed later than usual. She had slept but was still tired and felt cross about it. She might theoretically have retired but somehow there always seemed plenty to do. Mrs Rigwood made her a hot drink and she took it outside to look at the sea. She sat on the bench that was a recent addition. There was no wind and so far as it ever was the ocean was calm. Gulls swooped and cried and the sound took her back to her childhood. Always there had been gulls. In Porlock; following the St Vincent’s wake; at Jackson’s Landing.
Mungo had left the station to her. She had appointed a new manager and had the house rebuilt. She went there every year on the anniversary of Mungo’s death but seldom at other times. The memories were too painful, also recently the journey south had become more of a challenge than she liked. Age, she thought. It affects us all and we must deal with it as best we can, but there is no joy in it.
She was still wearing her robe and had not combed her hair. That was something else to be cross about: she was usually meticulous about such things. She got up to go back to the house. She swayed, a little light-headed, and a band of flame lashed her, running up her left arm and tightening around her chest. The pain was terrible; she thought she cried out; the next thing she knew she was face down on the wind-cropped grass. Then all was dark.
* * *
She came to in bed. She felt tired but peaceful. For a few moments she could not remember what had happened. She rang the bell and Mrs Rigwood came.
Such excitement! Lying there, pinned to the bed by weakness and the weight of the bedclothes, she could not escape as Mrs Rigwood told her how she had heard Cat cry out, had come running to find her unconscious on the ground, had somehow managed to get her into the house and into the bed, how she had then phoned the exchange and got the doctor…
Mrs Rigwood’s dramatic tale made Cat more exhausted than ever.
‘The doctor has been?’
Yes indeed. He had been and examined her and listened to her heart and would be back again later…
‘What did he say?’
‘He said you needed rest.’
‘That was all?’
‘And he said to avoid stress. That was most important. And not to drink too much alcohol. And take care –’
Pulverised by Mrs Rigwood’s merciless excitement, Cat felt her stress levels heading skywards. ‘Mrs Rigwood, you know as well as I do I hardly touch alcohol. Did the doctor say whether or not I can drink tea?’
‘He did not say, madam.’
‘Then maybe you could make me some. If you would be so kind.’
Mrs Rigwood went. Cat rested.
Later, after tea, she thought. It was a warning, reminding her of her age and that she would not live forever. Although it was hard to believe in an alternative.
There was something she must do so the following morning, over Mrs Rigwood’s fierce objections and the doctor threatening to wash his hands, she climbed out of bed, went to the table that doubled as a desk and began to write.
Dear Kitty
She told her about the crown and how she had not stolen it but rescued it from men who had murdered its owner. She doubted Kitty’s conscience would be troubled even if she had stolen it but saw no reason not to tell her granddaughter the truth.
It is hidden safely but whether it is still where I left it I do not know.
The clues to its whereabouts are contained partly in the journal that you have borrowed to show your friend and also in a handwritten notebook. Remember our games, and how you will need both books to solve the problem.
It will be a nice little challenge for you! But knowing you as I do I am sure you will have no difficulty deciphering it. Dear child, you may wonder why I have chosen this complicated way of telling you where the crown is. Well, there are two reasons. First of all I wanted to test your character and ingenuity and secondly because I want no one else to know about it. No one at all. It is our secret and our secret alone.
When you are home I shall give you the notebook. If for any reason I am unable to do that you will find it in the library at Cat’s Kingdom.
O bina te.
Grandma
She read it through, wondering whether it might not be better to write it in cant. Certainly it would be safer that way but it would be too arduous to translate so long a letter so she left it as it was. She put it in an envelope, sealed and addressed it. She rang the bell.
‘Please post this letter for me.’
Three days later she decided she was well enough to get back to work. This was more a psychological challenge than anything else. Justin had been running things successfully for years and Cat had virtually nothing to do yet she couldn’t let go.
‘Without work I am nothing,’ she said.
She made a series of entries in the notebook; without that information finding the crown would be impossible. Also a couple of quotations that Kitty would need. Afterwards she pottered, knowing what she was doing yet refusing to admit it even to herself. But the day before her birthday she really did have something to do and nearly came a cropper because of it.
She prepared the instructions. It was tiresome, especially when it came to the translation, but now it was essential because without them how could Kitty find what had been waiting so long to be found? Fifty-five years. Almost a lifetime, she thought. It was hard to imagine.
When the paper was ready she went into the kitchen where Mrs Rigwood was communing with a piece of lamb.
‘How do you fancy lamb fritters for your tea?’ asked Mrs Rigwood.
Cat said: ‘I want some oil cloth.’
‘What do you want that for?’ Mrs Rigwood spoke kindly; she believed in being patient with the old.
Cat gave her a look and after a half minute the cook complied.
‘That big enough for you?’
‘And some twine. And a knife.’
Armed with her parcel, Cat went to the ice house by the cliff edge and worked on the door until it opened. Even opening a door was a challenge now.
It was cold inside the ice house with some ice still left from the winter. She stood on tiptoe to push the packet into a crevice up near the roof and as far from the door as she could get. She went back out and found herself flat on her back outside the entrance, wondering how she had got there.
SEVENTY-FOUR
Joanne
Should I take him on? How? I couldn’t think or do anything. I stood back.
‘Of course.’
He smiled. He came in. Behind him…
‘I believe you have met,’ Wiranto said.
Damn right we’d met. I looked at the two men who’d snatched me at knife point in the Walls of Jerusalem. The one I’d called Mack the Knife closed the door and stood with his back to it.
‘You see we are serious men,’ Wiranto said. He was still smiling, all mates together. ‘You have something that belongs to us, I think. We would like it back.’
So we’d come to it at last. No more fun and games. Knowing it somehow freed up my thinking. A bit late, perhaps, but better than never.
‘You owe me an explanation, Dr Wiranto.’
&nb
sp; I saw something stir in his eyes.
‘A means to an end,’ he said.
‘And that justifies all this?’
‘Of course.’ He sounded surprised. ‘Hadn’t you heard? The end always justifies the means. Anyway… Where is it, Dr Fletcher?’
‘Where is what?’
He was patient; I had to give him that. No threats or bluster; just this deadly, smiling courtesy. He knew there was no need for threats: his smile contained all the threat he needed. He’d said it, hadn’t he? The end and the means? It was a case of like, tell us why don’t you? I could imagine him smiling as he wrenched out my fingernails.
‘Where is the crown?’ he said.
Denying knowledge would be a waste of time; there was no mistaking his certainty.
‘Poxon,’ I said.
It had to be. No one else had seen the box or the notebook. The bastard must have burgled my desk the day I came back from Melbourne. No wonder the boss kidnapper had been able to describe the notebook so well. He’d clearly reported my trip north, too; maybe I’d even been right and he’d seen me stow the crown in my safe.
Wiranto’s smile broadened. ‘He has been a good friend of our movement. And has family on Muar. He naturally would not wish to hazard their safety.’
‘You’re not from Jakarta, are you?’ I said. ‘You are the Muar Independence people.’
My instinct was telling me to buy time. God knew what good it would do.
‘The Gerakan Kemerdekaan Muar? Of course. Dr Cottle was easily persuaded – he was so anxious that I should be someone important, you see – but I am amazed it took you so long to work it out. And that nobody thought to check my credentials with Jakarta. That was careless.’
The kidnapper who’d dished up the coffee up in the Walls said something.
‘He is right,’ Wiranto said. ‘There is no time to waste.’
The phone rang.
All of us froze, staring at the ringing phone.
‘Answer it,’ Wiranto said.
I lifted it cautiously. ‘Hello?’
‘Are you all right?’ Colin’s voice. ‘Averil phoned me. The police are on their way.’
‘Splendid, darling. I’ll get on with supper then. Remember what I told you. We are having Indonesian tonight.’
‘Is he there?’
‘Lamb satay with peanut dip. A new recipe. They say it’s very good.’
‘They? He’s not alone?’
‘That’s right. I’ll see you later.’
I hung up. Their suspicious eyes watched.
‘Who was that?’
‘My boyfriend. He’s coming to supper.’
I smiled. My brain had come back to life. I tried to figure out the angles. As so often, I could think of nothing. If I had a gun or even a baseball… I had nothing. My whisky glass was standing by the telephone. I picked it up. Half a glassful. Gone in a flash.
‘The crown is not here,’ I said. ‘You’ve had a wasted trip.’
‘I don’t think so. Your office safe has a combination lock. I’ve seen it myself. Give it to me.’
‘I’m not sure I can remember it.’
Mack the Knife stirred, spitting angry words. Rage seemed an integral part of him. I thought what a knife could do. With a man like that around, buying time could be a dangerous business. Yet something made me keep trying. Courage? Stupidity? Neither. I was bloody furious that men like this should march into my house and threaten me. Should treat me the way bastards like them treated all women. Well, I was a woman but not the woman they thought I was. My ancestor had obsessed about the words of John Paul Jones; now I found myself united in her admiration. I have not yet begun to fight. Damn bloody right.
Wiranto, with a pained expression on his face: ‘Dr Fletcher, please don’t be foolish. We need the combination and –’
He stopped, body poised, senses alert. As he listened. I’d heard it too: the distant wail of sirens. The police must have really motored to get here so fast.
The sound distracted them; their attention shifted.
Gotcher! I snatched up the whisky bottle, ran at Wiranto full tilt and smashed it as hard as I could on his head. I was still holding the bottle. I swung it and caught my coffee-making comrade across the face. King hit? Tell me about it! I recovered, turning, but too late. Mack the Knife was behind me, his arm around my throat, choking me. Any second his knife would end it. Once again instinct and adrenaline came to the rescue. I thrust down with my hands between his legs. I grabbed his tackle and sat down. Hard. A dying whimper as he subsided. The living room floor… Bodies. None of them looked like troubling me any time soon. To which a fourth was added. Consciousness slid away. I slid boneless to the ground.
I didn’t even hear the police arrive. Colin was on their tail and told me afterwards what had happened, how they ran at the door and smashed it open. Stopped just inside the house, aghast at what they thought was a multiple killing. Even after they realised it wasn’t it took a while for them to come to terms with the idea that one woman, fifty-five kilos stripped, had been the author of such mayhem.
But I had. Was I Cat Haggard’s descendant or was I? And didn’t I feel good about it?
SEVENTY-FIVE
Kitty
In Sydney Ben offered to take the two girls to see the sights but there wasn’t much outside the harbour and once you’d seen that you’d seen it all. Or so Belinda complained.
‘We could hire a boat,’ Ben suggested.
Belinda did not think she would fancy being out on all that water. She had promised Kitty a brighter time and had even suggested there might be outings.
‘Outings where?’
She didn’t know. Just outings. With people. Somewhere she could show off her new frock. But there was nothing so she was angry with the city for being less than she had remembered. And was inclined to blame Ben of the sticky-out teeth and even Kitty for her disappointment.
‘This is all there is,’ Ben said.
‘It is not enough,’ Belinda told him. ‘After so long a journey.’
‘There is a bandstand.’
There was indeed, with men in uniform playing martial music, but Belinda turned up her nose and was resentful that neither Kitty nor Ben seemed to share her hatred of this drab, ordinary town. And a hot wind blew, which did not help.
‘Of course it’s all right for the pair of you,’ she said.
‘What were you expecting?’ Ben said. ‘It’s not as though you haven’t been here before.’
While Kitty remembered her grandmother’s warning that Belinda Royal was a spoilt brat.
That night in the room they were forced to share Belinda, stripped to her frilly undies because of the heat, blamed Kitty for ganging up.
Kitty would have none of it. Until she had left Hobart she had known only the unease of not knowing. Now she had discovered the vastness of the world she was more inclined to stick up for herself, so denied any suggestion of ganging up.
‘That is nonsense,’ she said.
Belinda was aggravated. She had bestowed her friendship on this girl only because of her docility. Now she felt betrayed.
It led to words and accusations and, when Kitty refused to back down, to a falling out of such dimensions that Belinda’s aunt became alarmed. When Kitty, outraged in her turn, said she would return to Hobart, the aunt who valued harmony in the home above all things agreed it might be for the best.
The two girls did not speak, even in parting. Belinda would not accompany Kitty to the railway station but turned her back on this creature who had so grievously deceived her.
The grandmother’s letter arrived the day after Kitty’s premature departure. The aunt gave it to Belinda to send on or take with her when she returned to Hobart. Belinda turned it over in her hands and was tempted to open it but in the end threw it in the kitchen fire.
‘She needn’t think I am going to fetch and carry for her,’ Belinda said.
SEVENTY-SIX
Cat
Mrs
Rigwood had been watching from the kitchen window, know ing the importance of keeping an eye on the old, and came running.
‘Dear oh dear…’
But Cat was already scrambling to her feet.
‘I slipped on a piece of ice. At least I didn’t fall over the cliff.’ She laughed. And shook off Mrs Rigwood’s intrusive arm as she limped back to the house.
Mrs Rigwood told the doctor of her employer’s mishap when he came calling that evening.
‘You will go to bed and stay there,’ he ordered her. ‘Otherwise I accept no responsibility.’
Cat smiled, saying nothing, and for the moment complied. She even had breakfast in bed the following day, a ritual she detested, and dozed, and that evening got up, bathed and dressed herself. Thank God they finally got rid of those ridiculous wide skirts, she thought. Not to mention the bustles that made you look like you’d got pumpkins strapped to your backside.
‘In my glad rags, Mrs R,’ she said.
The cook with her hands on her ample hips. ‘And where are you going?’
‘To the Governor’s House. I told you the governor has kindly invited me to dinner. To celebrate my birthday.’
‘I was certain you would cancel,’ Mrs Rigwood said.
‘Refuse a free meal at the Governor’s House? Never in all my years, Mrs Rigwood.’ And laughed at the absurdity of the suggestion.
Yet when she dismounted from her carriage outside the Governor’s House she wondered whether she should have cancelled after all because the effort of mounting the steps to the entrance seemed disproportionate to the climb.
Sir Henry and Lady Duggan made much of her yet she felt as though a translucent veil had been drawn between her and the rest of the party gathered in her honour. It was an extraordinary thing to happen to a convict. She smiled at the absurdity of it. She saw they did not understand her amusement and did not explain.
The dinner went on forever. Several courses and the gold dining service and wine with everything. Cat pecked at this and that but barely touched the wine.
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