Dead Man Switch

by Tara Moss

  ‘What’s doing?’ he asked, absentmindedly rubbing some irritation under the glove that covered his left hand.

  ‘Very little, Sam, I have to say,’ Billie responded. She pushed her deep brunette curls back behind her ear and sipped her tea.

  Sam was one of those earnest Aussie lads who had enrolled in the army young and had worked in a secretarial role for some time before war broke out and he was needed for more exciting work in the 2/23rd Battalion – exciting work in the war being the kind that set you up as cannon fodder if you didn’t have the right connections. Sam wasn’t a connected bloke, and had he been rich, he likely wouldn’t be working as a second to a PI now. He had many skills as a secretary, but truthfully he wasn’t a great typist. Anyone could see why, and clients had good-naturedly joked about it more than once. In Tobruk an Italian thermos bomb had finished off many of his comrades-in-arms and he’d come away with a few less fingers, and some terrible scarring on his hands – defensive wounds, Billie had surmised. His left hand was wrapped in a leather glove, filled in the necessary places with wooden prosthetic fingers. His right, though scarred, was whole and as steady as you could want on a trigger hand.

  Typing aside, Sam’s role was varied. Sometimes it paid Billie to have a strong arm around. Sometimes it paid to have a tall man in the outer office to run interference if a disgruntled husband came in, angry that she’d helped his wife divorce him. And sometimes it simply paid to have a man for added cover when Billie was ‘in the field’, or to compensate for the fact that she was a woman working in a predominantly male business. It helped matters that Sam looked passingly like Alan Ladd, though much taller, which made him easy on the eye, and realistic as a partner for Billie when such a masquerade was required during an investigation. Most of the grizzled gents in her profession wouldn’t pass convincingly as a match for her, but she and Sam made an attractive pair, and that went a long way in certain circumstances. He didn’t know much about detective work yet, having been on the job only a few months, but he was great with orders, and unlike some other men he didn’t mind taking them from a woman – decent work being rather scarce even for able-bodied men, after all. And by some measure, working as a secretary for Billie was probably more exciting than in the forces, or at least that’s what Sam claimed. It wasn’t all filing cabinets and administrative work. He was getting to know all the bars, hotels, dosshouses and back alleys in the city. Not glamorous, exactly, but not dull either. And if he couldn’t type with ten fingers, well, that was just fine.

  ‘How was The Overlanders last night?’ Billie asked him. She hadn’t seen a lot of pictures lately, but it was something Sam enjoyed spending his pay cheques on. ‘Did Eunice like it?’ she added. He’d only just started dating Eunice, though he didn’t talk about her much.

  Sam was expounding upon Chips Rafferty’s portrayal of a Western Australian drover when the telephone rang. He put down his cup, cleared his throat and answered in a professional tone. ‘B. Walker Private Inquiries, how may I . . .’

  Sam trailed off and Billie raised an eyebrow, watching.

  ‘They hung up,’ he said, puzzled, and replaced the receiver in its cradle. ‘Or they were cut off.’

  ‘You didn’t hear anything?’

  He shook his head. ‘The street, perhaps.’

  It was just past three in the afternoon, only minutes after Billie had suggested Sam might leave early, when she heard a polite knock on the door of the outer office, and the sound of him letting someone in.

  ‘I . . . I understood it was a lady detective,’ said a small, panicked voice in the next room, emphasising the word lady as if it were terribly important. Not everyone knocked on that outer door. In fact, most people came walking straight in with their troubles and needs so Billie deduced that this was someone either especially polite or especially nervous. She rose swiftly from her desk and made her way to the open doorway of her inner office before Sam could explain. No sense in losing a customer who might skedaddle through nervousness, especially when business was a little too slow for comfort.

  A tense woman in her late thirties or early forties stood in the outer office, giving the impression of a spooked deer, her feet planted slightly apart as if she might bolt at any moment. Billie took her appearance in quickly: she stood roughly five foot three and wore an impressive chocolate-brown fur stole clasped at the bust, probably mink or musquash, and fine quality at that. Beneath that was a brown suit of a light summer weight, a little drab and conservative in its design. Probably tailor made, but not recently. Her Peter Pan hat was pre-war in style, not the latest fashion. It was a slightly lighter brown than the suit and was finished with a chocolate-brown feather. The woman wore very little makeup, and a pair of round, plain spectacles made her brown eyes seem huge, adding to the impression of a startled doe. Like her attire, the woman’s hair was brown. Her shoes were good-quality reptile skin to match her handbag, but not flashy. The heels were low, sensible. A little worn, but nicely kept. Her gloved hands were clasped tightly over the handle of her small handbag, and both seemed as sealed shut as her mouth, which looked to have lately sucked a lemon.

  Billie imagined her wearing a darker, heavier suit of similar utilitarian cut and colour in autumn and winter and this one throughout spring and summer, but her fur . . . now that was special, almost out of place on a person like this. For an Antipodean November, Sydney wasn’t too hot yet, but this accessory was by no means worn to ward off the cold. The hairs on the stole were gleaming and brushed down evenly. It seemed new and Billie wondered about the story behind it.

  ‘I’m Ms Walker, the principal here. This is my secretary and assistant, Mr Baker,’ Billie explained with a wave of her hand, and the woman’s eyes widened for a moment. ‘Would you like to come into my office, Mrs . . . ?’ The woman did not complete the question with a name. Nonetheless, Billie stepped smoothly back into her office and pulled a chair out for the woman before making her way around the wide wooden desk and waiting by her seat.

  It took a moment for the woman to follow her from the outer office. Sam offered to take the woman’s stole, but she mumbled a thank you and refused. After an awkward silence, during which it seemed even odds whether the woman would sit down or bolt, she finally entered and took the offered seat across from Billie.

  ‘Please, make yourself comfortable,’ Billie said gently. ‘Samuel, would you please bring some tea?’ Billie hoped it might help settle her flighty companion.

  Sam tactfully closed the inner office door.

  ‘How may I be of service to you?’ Billie asked, watching as the woman’s eyes went to the floor, then the globe on the filing cabinet, before finally settling on the big map of Sydney on the wall. Her lips remained sealed throughout.

  Billie was used to this initial process sometimes taking a while. She was patient and she didn’t press for names or personal information before it was necessary. Many people who came to see her were upset by their circumstances and for some the mere prospect of dealing with a private inquiry agent about any matter was distressing enough on its own. As Billie well knew, PIs had a mixed reputation. This fact hadn’t escaped her growing up with a PI dad, and little had changed on that score. She suspected that the American detective pictures that were currently popular did not help – they were full of ultra-masculine shady types, handy with their fists, who said ‘Sweetheart’ while their eyes said something else. Some female clients intentionally sought out private inquiry agents of their own sex, particularly if their problem was a domestic matter that they would find awkward to discuss with a man, or perhaps simply because the prospect of dealing with a Sam Spade type did little to comfort them. This was the bread and butter work of a woman like Billie Walker, and she wondered what story the potential client before her would tell. Cheating husband?

  The Bakelite wall clock above the doorway ticked away the minutes until eventually Sam returned with a tray assembled with a teapot, milk jug, two cups, sugar and spoons. He slipped away again without a so
und and the door closed with a soft click. For a big man, he knew how to achieve strategic invisibility. After several more ticks of the clock, her tea sitting untouched, the stranger finally spoke.

  ‘I wanted to see you because . . .’ She was finding something difficult to say. ‘I need . . . a woman’s intuition.’

  Billie let that one lie. She didn’t believe in what was often called ‘women’s intuition’, even if it was what some people came to her for. Men’s intuition was simply called knowledge, or at the very least an informed and rational guess. When the little woman in her stomach told her something was wrong, it was informed by a thousand tiny signals and observances of human behaviour. It was deduction at work – some of it conscious, some subconscious, though no less rational than a man’s reasoning. Billie did believe in paying attention to the knowledge in that life-saving gut of hers, but not because she thought it was some mysterious and almost mystical feminine ability. Listening to her gut had been vital in getting her through the war, and it was put to good use in her business. It was something her father, Barry, had done before her. Such instincts were about being observant, about listening – something many women happened to do very well, which was probably where the term had come from. But there was no sense in breaking down the notion of women’s intuition now. In fact, for the moment there was no sense in speaking at all. The stranger in her office was now wringing her hands. Billie watched and waited for her to open up. She was like a kettle building up steam.

  ‘My son . . . is missing,’ the woman finally said. The words sounded heavy and hard to say. Billie noted a light accent slipping in – was it European?

  Not a divorce number then, Billie thought. She’d only just wrapped a rather unfortunate case that had required her to hop four fences to chase a man down, ripping a good pair of silk trousers. She was tempted to swear off divorce cases for however long she could – which likely wouldn’t be long at all if she wanted any paying business before 1947 rolled around.

  ‘I see,’ Billie responded in a level tone. ‘How old is your boy?’

  ‘He turned seventeen in August.’

  The jury was out on whether his age was in his favour or against it, but Billie was secretly relieved she wouldn’t be looking for a toddler. ‘Has anything like this happened before?’

  ‘No.’ The woman shook her head adamantly. ‘Adin is a good boy. He’s just . . . gone. He had dinner, went to bed as usual, but then he was gone. His bed hadn’t been slept in.’

  No one was ever just gone. There was always a story. He went to bed, but his bed wasn’t slept in. It was unlikely to be abduction, though of course that wasn’t completely out of the question. Had he climbed out a window, gone out on the town and decided not to come back? Or could he have walked out the front door without being detected, perhaps?

  ‘How long ago was this?’ Billie asked.

  ‘Two days ago. Well, I knew on Thursday morning that he was gone.’

  Billie nodded. It was Friday now, so if he went missing on Wednesday after dinner, that was almost two days. A lot could have happened in that time, but it wasn’t terrible odds. ‘Have you spoken to anyone else about this? The police, perhaps?’

  The woman nodded, and her mouth cracked a little, turning down. ‘Yes. I checked with his friends and when they hadn’t seen him I went to see the police. They were not helpful . . .’ Again the voice strained a touch. There was something there. ‘I was at the police station yesterday, and when I was leaving, a Miss Primrose recommended I see you.’

  Constable Primrose. She was good like that. Billie had her connections all over Sydney. She passed the woman, now quietly crying, a handkerchief, embroidered with the initials B.W. It was received with a murmured thank you. The woman dabbed the corners of her eyes, and then placed it on the desk, took off her gloves and put them in her lap, her pale hands kneading and turning. She wore a gold ring on her left hand, Billie noted. The spooked impression had not left her entirely, but she was opening up now, easing herself into Billie’s care. Still, Billie gave her time. Finally the woman took a sip of her tea with a not so steady hand, added another lump of sugar and took another sip. After a minute some colour came back into her face and her shoulders dropped an inch.

  ‘So you would characterise this situation as unusual?’ Billie asked. Teenagers did have a habit of running away.

  The woman nodded adamantly again, her eyes still wet. ‘Yes.’ Her tone implied a degree of personal offence.

  ‘I’m sorry to have to ask you these questions,’ Billie said soothingly, ‘but it is important to get as much of the story as possible in order for me to help you. If we are to find your son promptly, I can make no assumptions.’ She didn’t know what it was like to be a mother, but she imagined losing a child or having one unaccounted for would be very nearly unbearable. It was bad enough with a missing adult, as she knew too well. ‘Where do you think your son might be, if you had to guess? Does he have a girlfriend perhaps?’ Billie’s even-featured face was a picture of care and restraint. A good, compassionate listening face, but there was a veneer of professional composure as well. She’d learned from the best.

  ‘There is no girlfriend. He’s a good boy. None of his friends have seen him.’

  Not when his mother is asking, anyway, Billie thought. She considered things. Missing about two days. No girlfriend the mother knew about. Friends claiming not to have seen him. ‘If I accept this case,’ she said, ‘perhaps you could write down their details for me just the same. I’d like to speak with them myself.’

  The ‘if’ hung in the air. ‘Oh, of course.’ The woman fiddled with her reptile bag for a moment, then opened a small fabric purse and pushed a folded ten-pound note across the desk towards Billie. ‘Will this be enough for a retainer?’

  ‘If you like I can begin inquiries today. The retainer is suitable. I charge ten pounds a day plus expenses.’

  The woman didn’t seem sure what to make of that. The sucked-lemon look returned. She sat with her knees pressed together, unmoving. ‘That’s a lot,’ she protested.

  Billie had heard that before, more than once. She leaned back in her chair and crossed one leg over the other, and let the tension in the office sit for a while before responding. Once the air was so still it could almost have suffocated a small bird, she gave a tight-lipped smile and said, ‘Frankly no, it isn’t a lot. I give cases my full attention, full time and at all hours, and I need to pay a decent wage to my assistant, who is also worth every shilling, I assure you. My day is not nine to five. In fact, I may get furthest from nine at night to daybreak. Sometimes the work becomes dangerous.’ When the woman opened her mouth to object Billie cut her off, not finished yet. ‘I can’t know whether cases will turn that way until I am further in, and neither can my clients. There are frequently disgruntled husbands and jilted lovers and betrayed friends or business colleagues to contend with – and sometimes far worse. People come to me with things they can’t do or don’t want to do themselves, and often for good reason. And perhaps you haven’t employed a private inquiry agent recently, but you’ll find a lot in my trade who’d happily charge you one hundred pounds or more if they thought they could get it out of you, for a simple case that could be resolved in just a couple of days.’ She crossed her legs the other way and gave the woman a level look. ‘No, ten pounds a day is not a lot,’ she concluded, and waited.

  One PI Billie knew of had taken a client for a staggering five hundred pounds, but you couldn’t get that kind of cash out of many clients, and Billie had no interest in working like that in any event. Attempts to regulate the industry had thus far been unsuccessful, though Billie was not totally unsympathetic to the idea despite the red tape it would doubtless bring. For every one of them who left a client disgruntled and without a shilling to their name, the same shilling-less condition caught two investigators like a virus. Shonky investigators were bad for the industry, bad for Billie. And though she was no angel, it also made Billie sick to think of robbing people in
their most vulnerable moments.

  At least, the ones who didn’t deserve it.

  The woman’s face had softened slightly, the sucked-lemon look vanishing and the hands on the reptile handbag loosening a touch. The monologue had worked. ‘What kind of expenses?’ she ventured, now trying even to smile a little as if to appease the investigator across from her.

  ‘Anything extra that comes up, travel for example, if required, but you’ll be informed first and can give your approval. I like everything on the level and up front.’ Billie still hadn’t touched the ten pounds and it sat there between them, a symbol of uncertainty. ‘Do you have a clear photograph of your son? If I am to proceed I would need an up-to-date photograph and his full name.’

  The woman took an envelope from her handbag and passed it over. She seemed to have accepted the terms. Inside was a photograph, bent slightly in the upper corner. ‘His name is Adin Brown. This was taken about a year ago.’

  Billie studied the picture. Adin was a good-looking boy, and certainly a healthy enough lad to get into trouble, by the looks of it. His hair was distinctive and curly, with a bit of height at the front. He wore his cotton shirt open a touch, just enough to suggest there were a couple of hairs he wanted to show off. There might be a girlfriend. But then, the mother could be right, too.

  The woman, still not having given her name, let out a long sigh, seeming unaware she was even doing it. ‘I never thought I’d hire a lady detective,’ she remarked.

  Billie shifted forward in her chair again. ‘Well . . . Mrs Brown, I presume?’ Her visitor nodded. ‘Mrs Brown, life takes us to interesting places. You’ve done the right thing if the police aren’t showing any initiative. When a person goes missing every hour counts. Though I must stress that I am not a detective.’

  The woman looked panicked again for a moment, shoulders high, mouth tight and those dark brown eyes showing their whites. ‘You’re not . . . ?’