Dead Man Switch

by Tara Moss

  There were no sounds save for the crackling of the line as the inspector absorbed what she was telling him. If they really had formed some sort of a bond of trust, this was the moment it was to be tested. The silence stretched and stretched. Billie worried that the line had been cut off.

  She could not walk away from this. Shyla was in there, and it was highly likely she did not know she was in there with a Nazi. A killer, probably. There could be no other explanation for a man living so far from the city with a homestead full of treasures and his house staff practically held captive. He was paying for his lifestyle with the belongings of murdered Jews and political prisoners.

  ‘How did you get there? Were you seen?’

  ‘It’s a long story, and I’ll explain later, but a friend of mine tipped me off. No, I wasn’t seen.’ She stopped there, not wanting to involve Shyla more than Shyla might wish. She is inside the homestead and I am worried about her, she wanted to say. She was worried about Shyla and she was worried about what that sobbing meant. Who had it been? Shyla, or one of the girls she’d been anxious about? ‘I have reason to believe there may be underage girls in the house, possibly being held against their will, though I have not seen them with my own eyes.’ Not yet.

  ‘You got a tip-off about a Nazi war criminal and went in there yourself?’

  ‘Not quite,’ she replied. ‘I didn’t realise how serious it was until I saw it myself.’ Did Shyla know what was in the sheds? Did the other girls know? ‘I’ll explain when I see you, just trust me. I am not mistaken about this,’ she insisted. Her hand holding the receiver was so tense the knuckles had whitened.

  ‘I’ll have to get a warrant,’ Cooper replied after a spell, evidently taking her word. ‘I’ll pull some strings, but it will take a few hours. I could be out there by . . .’ Billie did the maths. It was perhaps a two and a half hour drive from the city to the homestead. Her heart sank just thinking about the time it would take. ‘I could get there by, say, six, soon after sunrise, with a warrant. The magistrate won’t like me waking him . . .’ he said. ‘But I’ll be there.’

  Blast, Billie thought. Of course Cooper would have to play it by the book. She thought of calling Sam for back-up. But would that help? Could he get there much faster? Could the two of them get the girls out safely – that is, if the other girls were there at all? The little woman in her gut told her the girls were there, and the situation was bad, very bad indeed. Thinking of Shyla shut in that house with a Nazi made Billie’s guts churn.

  ‘The girls may be in danger. I know one of them. And I heard . . . sobbing, coming from a room that is boarded up from the outside.’ Her arms came up in gooseflesh as she recalled the haunting sound. ‘I don’t like them being left there until morning,’ she explained. ‘Is there any way of getting to the man sooner?’ Just to be sure, she told herself. Just to be sure they are unharmed and he can’t get away.

  The line was silent for a beat. ‘I have someone I trust at Richmond station. They’re only an hour or so away. I’ll call and get him to come and pick up the girls.’

  ‘No,’ she said instinctively. The man could get spooked and it was all backwards, the girls being taken away and not the man who was living off the contents of that horrible drum. ‘They’re young Aboriginal girls, Inspector. From what I can tell they would not want to go with the police if they can avoid it. Can you get the man on suspicion and have him held? Can he be picked up, considering what is in the sheds?’

  ‘I’ll still need the warrant.’

  ‘I didn’t imagine it, Inspector.’

  ‘I don’t doubt you, Ms Walker.’

  Billie ran it through in her mind. ‘If police come for the girls, and they have no warrant and can’t hold him, I worry what could happen.’ She’d been unnerved by the contents of the shed, and what she’d heard. She’d have to quiet the uneasiness in her belly and wait. ‘You get your warrant.’

  ‘I will, Ms Walker. I give you my word.’

  ‘You can call me Billie,’ she told him.

  ‘Billie,’ he said, ‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’

  She described the homestead and its location in detail, gave the specifics of the motor car and its licence plate, and Cooper signed off to set the wheels in motion. She hung up and leaned against the wooden partition of the telephone box with her eyes closed.

  She hoped she knew what she was doing, too.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Shortly after midnight, Billie moved swiftly along the shoulder of the dark road in her quiet oxfords, having parked her roadster at a safe distance from the Colo homestead.

  The quiet before the storm.

  The homestead revealed itself against the night. Billie swallowed. Lights were still on, even at this hour. She wished for a sympathetic magistrate and wings under the inspector’s feet. She had alerted the authorities and could not do much else for now, but she had to see that Shyla was safe. And she needed to be there when the police descended. Shyla did not like police, did not trust them, and she had her reasons for that, reasons Billie thought she understood. But what else could she do? In any event, she could not sit this one out. For some reason Billie trusted Hank Cooper, she realised. At least as much as she trusted any cop she’d only just met. She believed he would come. She believed him, and Great Hera she hoped she was right to. She hoped he had believed her when she’d explained the significance of what was in that shed. She could not have been mistaken about what she’d seen.

  The orchard across the road from the homestead was undisturbed, rotting fruit dotting the ground like a crop of small, open-mouthed jack-o-lanterns, blackened and malformed with decay. Billie crept past and spotted the sooty owl, now perched on a piece of broken fencing, still staring at her with that skull-shaped face. This time it did not fly off. It was staying to watch the show.

  Wait.

  The gate at the driveway had been unlocked since her departure. Had Cooper telephoned the Richmond police after all? Could they have beaten her here? That seemed unlikely given the distance to Richmond and the sense of quiet at the property. Her heart eased a little at the second possibility her mind grasped on to. Had Frank left the property again? With another lot of goods for Georges Boucher, perhaps? Could she whisk Shyla and the other girls away in his absence? But as she made her way towards the ridge to approach the homestead from the south, hopping the rotting fence and creeping up through a disused paddock, she spotted the moonlight glinting off an unfamiliar motor car parked beside the Packard outside the shed.

  He is not alone.

  Who was this visitor? A danger to Shyla and the other girls? Billie made for the shelter of the outer shed, and waited. Satisfied there was no one in either automobile or outside the homestead, she approached the vehicle and noted its number plate. It had a distinctive fluted radiator grill. A Daimler? Yes, a mid-thirties Daimler Light. It was a fine car, as the Packard was, and equally out of place in the rural surrounds.

  There was movement at the house, at the rear, close to the outhouse, and a light came on. Billie stayed low and sprinted the short distance to crouch beneath the lit window. There were no curtains here, just as there hadn’t been in the dining room. With such a remote property perhaps privacy was assured, and this man, Frank, did not worry about being watched. That was the reason he’d come to this place. To ensure his privacy, to ensure his freedom. What uninvited guest would bother him here, where even the fruit was left to rot?

  Footsteps moved towards the window, and Billie flattened herself against the side of the house. A few clicks, and the sound of a bolt or lock, and then the window swung open on its hinge. Billie held her breath, then exhaled when Shyla’s face appeared, dark and resolute, gazing into the night and haloed by the light of a kerosene lamp inside.

  ‘Pssst. Shyla, it’s me.’

  A gasp, then, ‘You’re here. You found him,’ in a whisper.

  ‘You found him before me,’ Billie replied, also in a low voice. She stood up and the two women were face to fac
e at the window, Billie in darkness and Shyla silhouetted by the soft light from within. Billie’s hands were balled in fists, she noticed, and she uncurled them. ‘Shyla, are you all right? What about the other girls . . . are they here? Has Frank hurt them? Does he prevent them leaving, contacting their families? Is it as you feared?’

  Shyla appeared to consider her words carefully. It was probably only a few seconds before she spoke, but to Billie it felt much longer as she stood outside in the dark bush by the window, wary, unsure and utterly alone. ‘One girl, Ruthie, she has more freedom,’ Shyla told Billie. ‘She makes the meals. She showed me the book, did Ruthie. I took it for safekeeping.’ The young woman reached into her undergarments and pulled something out then handed a small notebook through the window. Billie took it, puzzled. Shyla spoke again, very softly, after looking cautiously over her shoulder. ‘The others are locked up. There are two girls, just kids they are, Ruthie says, and locked up for the men he deals with. She doesn’t see them, except to deliver meals. I have not seen them, only emptied the pans.’

  The blood in Billie’s veins seemed to freeze. There was a lot to absorb in what Shyla was telling her, and she took a moment to recover herself and push back the bile rising in her throat. The sobbing she’d heard. It had been one of the girls. ‘How long have you been here, Shyla?’ she asked. ‘Has he tried to . . .’ She tried to form the words.

  ‘I came two days ago for domestic service work. I told him I am twelve,’ she said. ‘He’s ignored me so far.’

  ‘He bought that?’ Shyla was clearly older, perhaps eighteen, maybe even in her early twenties.

  ‘His arrogance makes him blind,’ Shyla said. Her clever caramel eyes flashed. ‘I can make myself seem simple, to a certain kind of person.’

  Whoever this Frank was, he was bold enough to think he could come to Australia and do what he wanted, in the isolation of the bush, using young, even underage, Aboriginal girls to do his bidding, for whatever purpose he had decided upon. Shyla had infiltrated the house in a way only she could have. But it was risky, potentially downright dangerous, especially so far from any help. Billie was impressed, but deeply worried. Shyla must have read the concern on her face, because she added, ‘My mob are here. I’ll get them out with you or without you.’

  If she anticipated some protest from Billie, she didn’t get it.

  ‘I’m with you,’ Billie said in a firm whisper, deciding that now was not the time to talk about the horrifying significance of what was in those sheds. ‘It sounds like those girls need out and need help. Is Frank armed? Is he alone or are there others with him? Do you have a weapon?’ She looked around. Apart from the quiet rustlings of some small animal in the deep bush behind her, nothing stirred outside the house.

  ‘He has a pistol,’ Shyla said. ‘At least one, but he doesn’t always wear it. I brought no weapon, but it wouldn’t be hard to find things here to use. Knives, all these heavy statues. And I think I could get his gun if I needed to.’

  Billie allowed a grin to turn up the corners of her mouth. She’d underestimated this young woman, and clearly Frank was vastly underestimating her, and Shyla knew how to use that to her advantage.

  ‘Other men who come here call him Franz.’

  Franz. A German name. ‘Where is he now? Is he still awake? And who arrived in the Daimler?’

  ‘He’s at the other end of the house with the visitor, an older man,’ Shyla said. ‘You should keep that,’ she added, pointing at the small book she’d given Billie. ‘Keep it safe. He will find it in time if I keep it on me. It’s better with you.’

  Billie looked around. Satisfied they were not about to be interrupted, she opened the leather-bound notebook. Not daring to use her torch, she angled it so the light of the sitting room fell upon the pages. There were some neat scrawls in German, but the small book was not in code. It was, in fact, too horribly plain. In the upper-left corner was written the word Klient, in pen, and below it, in pencil, gin jockeys in quotation marks, as if this offensive colloquial term had been added at a later date as a curiosity of language. Billie’s stomach churned. Aboriginal women were sometimes derisively called ‘gins’. It was a derogatory and sexually humiliating term. ‘Jockeys’ were the men who consorted with them, the term seeming to imply their mastery, their superiority. Billie’s face was hot. It was worse than she’d imagined. Perhaps worse than Shyla had first believed. She flipped through the notebook’s pages. It looked like a list of transactions, yet it did not list monetary amounts. There were just the names, along with dates. Some had several entries beneath their names. She didn’t recognise most of them, but ‘Georges Boucher’ stood out a mile.

  ‘Is this . . . what I think it is?’ Billie asked. Names and dates. That awful slur.

  ‘I did not know until I came,’ Shyla said. ‘We must get the girls out, Billie. I must go now or he will suspect something.’

  Billie’s fists were clenched again. She was holding in her hand a little black book detailing the indecent assault of the girls here. The girls had been sent to do domestic work, but were being held against their will and horribly abused as some sort of power play by the owner of this book. His note-keeping would come back to bite him, she hoped.

  ‘When he realises the book is gone, you’ll all be in danger,’ Billie said.

  ‘We are already in danger,’ Shyla replied simply. It was hard to argue against that. ‘Take the book. Keep it safe.’

  Billie nodded, stuffing it under her driving coat. It was evidence. ‘Yes, I’ll keep it safe,’ she assured her friend. Cooper, perhaps, was the right cop for this. If not, she’d take it straight to Lillian Armfield, and if that didn’t get something done, well, those names would find their way to someone who would extract justice.

  Shyla turned to leave, then turned back and pointed at the book, her face dark with anger. ‘Not gin jockey.’ She spat the words out. ‘Rapists.’ Her rage was palpable.

  Billie had let Shyla down by not finding this man sooner. Three days had been lost since she came to Billie, but she’d had so little information and there’d been no way of knowing it was so urgent. And now Shyla herself was inside the house, and though Billie had her Colt she couldn’t know what she would find if she went in, gun blazing. The girls might get hurt. He might use them as hostages. They already were hostages.

  How long could the situation hold?

  ‘Does he suspect you?’ Billie whispered.

  Shyla shook her head. ‘I think no. I should go back,’ she said again, pulling away.

  ‘Wait . . . I went to get help,’ Billie admitted, reaching out and touching the young woman’s shoulder. ‘I didn’t want anything happening to you. There are police coming. When they do, stay down and let them take the man. He is . . . he’s a war criminal.’

  ‘Gunjies?’ Shyla said urgently in a distressed whisper. ‘You brought coppers?’ Her eyes widened with a stricken expression – the expression of someone betrayed.

  ‘I know some cops I can trust,’ Billie tried to assure her, thinking of Cooper. Constable Primrose too, though she didn’t wield the same power, yet. This was too big to keep under wraps, even if Billie wanted to. ‘We can’t keep this from the police.’ She patted the book of names through her coat. ‘They’re already on their way.’

  Shyla narrowed her eyes, as if regretting having asked for Billie’s help.

  ‘Please trust me,’ Billie said. ‘This book is valuable, and with the right cops we can get him. There is more evidence against him in those sheds, and the cops need all of it. There is no telephone here, right?’ she asked.

  Shyla shook her head. ‘Nowhere near these parts. Richmond Railway Station is the closest, I think.’

  ‘What happened to the other girl – you told me in Sydney there were four?’ Billie thought to ask.

  ‘She ran.’

  Billie nodded. They’d have to see if they could track her down as a witness. ‘Have you seen what’s in the sheds, Shyla?’

  ‘No. He won’t let
us near them. They’re locked.’

  And little wonder, she thought. ‘You just have to trust me,’ Billie said, racked with anxiety and guilt, even though she believed she had done the right thing in calling Cooper. Or at least she hoped.

  ‘Will you last another few hours?’ Billie asked her.

  ‘I’ve lasted almost two days here,’ Shyla said, as if insulted.

  ‘Okay.’ Billie felt suitably chastened. She knew the cops would be a mixed blessing for Shyla. They would end this madness, but what else might they bring? ‘I’ll stay nearby and watch until the right moment,’ she promised. ‘I’ll be in the bush, out there.’ She pointed. ‘I’m sorry about the police, Shyla. I truly am. But there is no other way.’ She pulled back from the window and slipped away from the house.

  A noise grabbed her attention – a grunt? – and she turned. There was a rush of movement in the darkened room, shadows whirling, and Billie frantically retraced her steps.

  They’d been discovered.

  Shyla was struggling with someone. A man. Billie made out his rounded silhouette. It wasn’t the pale man, but someone shorter, heavier, older. Georges Boucher? That would be his Daimler out the back, Billie realised, and he must have heard the two of them and come through the door silently while they were talking. Fortunately Shyla had not secured the window, and Billie hauled herself up onto the sill, just in time to see her friend hit squarely in the face. Rather than crumbling, Shyla scooted backwards, escaping his grasp. Billie pulled her Colt out, but Boucher, filled with rage, ran at Shyla, grabbing her by the throat, while she held a hand over his mouth, preventing him from calling out. It was too tough to get a clear shot. Billie rushed to help her friend, but in a blink Shyla reached behind her and took something in her hand. She hit Boucher with it across the side of his head, and the body that had set upon her with violence jerked and crumpled, landing with a sickening thud on a Persian rug. A vase of flowers on the table next to the object in Shyla’s hands swayed once, twice, and crashed to the floor, showering the rug with glass and water and native flowers.