by Robert Gott
‘We’re not going to catch him here,’ Joe said, and had to raise his voice to be heard.
‘Maybe afterwards,’ Tom said. ‘He’s probably hanging around outside waiting for this to be finished.’
‘I can’t see any police here.’ Joe was looking about him.
‘I didn’t mention this to Titus, and I kept yesterday’s papers out of the way.’
‘He saw today’s paper, and he’s so angry that he wants to fire me. He feels manipulated into using police to shore up what he considers a selfish personal whim of mine.’
‘But he hasn’t used them. You said there are none here.’
‘There were plenty at the cathedral, though, and they’ll be somewhere in the Town Hall — checking lavatories, that sort of thing.’
Guy came towards them, holding three beers. ‘There’s no way he can get in here,’ he said. ‘A beer won’t go astray.’
Helen and Clara joined them, each holding a glass of wine.
‘I had no idea Uncle Peter knew so many people. They’ve all been very kind, but I get the impression no one knew him very well. They all seem to have met him at functions or sat with him on committees. And we invited Lillian Johnson, but she sent an apology. I don’t blame her. This would have been awful for her.’
‘It makes me think I need to meet more people,’ Clara said. ‘If I died they could hold my wake in a telephone booth, and there’d still be room for latecomers.’
‘I’d come,’ Guy said.
‘That’s very nice, Guy. Maybe I should go to the pictures with you, after all. I’d hate our first date to be post-mortem.’
If anyone but Clara had said this it would have sounded crass and tactless. It made Helen smile.
‘Thank God you’re here, Clar. You always know the wrong thing to say.’
‘It’s my special gift.’
‘It doesn’t seem like he’s going to show up,’ Helen said. ‘If he read the notice, he’s probably waiting until afterwards. I’m going to try to relax and help Mum get through this.’
Ros Lord was talking to her neighbour in Kew, Mrs Davies, one of the few people she actually knew.
‘It’s a very nice turnout,’ Mrs Davies said. ‘Mr Lillee would have been chuffed at the number of people who came to the church. And isn’t it lovely here? And such elegant finger food.’
Ros was happy to listen to her neighbour’s banalities. They protected her from forced conversations with, and repeated condolences from, strangers. Nevertheless, Helen and Clara rescued her and left Mrs Davies to sample the food laid out on a sideboard. They took her out onto the balcony. It was crowded, but the Portico Room had become a bit stuffy, despite the doors to the balcony being open. Joe and Guy helped themselves to a sandwich each, and went out onto the balcony. The view of the Manchester Unity Building across the street was magnificent. Tom had said that he’d join them, but that he had to go to the dunny first. He walked out into the corridor and turned left. The lavatories were nearby.
GEORGE STARLING HAD had no trouble getting into the Town Hall early. He’d simply repeated what he’d done the previous day. He’d used the tradesmen’s entrance, and no one had stopped him.
Starling discovered that there were any number of empty offices on the upper levels of the Town Hall to wait in. Easter Thursday was obviously not a working day for most of the staff. He chose an office, on the same floor as the Portico Room, and sat in a comfortable chair. Whoever worked in here was very tidy. The desk was so neat that it must have been especially put into order in expectation of a few days’ break. Starling wouldn’t be discovered in this office. All that was required of him now was to lock the door and be patient.
It was the sudden jarring of a lift that woke Starling from a doze. He opened the door slightly and watched as the first people to arrive at the wake made their way into the Portico Room. Soon the corridor was noisy with voices. Starling shut the door. He would wait until everything was in full swing. Adrenalin began to seep into his system. He loved this feeling. He took out his gun and his knife. The knife’s edge was still razor-sharp, despite the work it had recently done. Soon, Joe Sable would feel its edge, and it would be the last thing he’d ever feel.
INSPECTOR LAMBERT’S ANGER had not abated. He knew it was unfair to blame Sergeant Sable alone for the misguided attempt to entrap George Starling. Helen Lord and his own brother-in-law, Tom Mackenzie, were equally implicated. However, his anger needed a focus, and so it rested on the person who ought to have argued against such a plan, but who instead claimed authorship of it: Joe Sable.
Lambert had been at the cathedral, but had stayed out of sight, and now he stood in the corridor outside the Portico Room. Everyone who’d been invited was on the other side of the doors, so at least people were safe for the duration of the wake. A sweep of the offices had revealed nothing. It would only be afterwards that Constable Peterson admitted that, annoyed at being called into work on his day off, he hadn’t bothered to check behind any doors that were locked. Lambert unfolded a copy of the sketch made of George Starling’s face and studied it. Both Joe and Helen had assured him that it was an excellent likeness. It wasn’t an ugly face, but it was striking and vicious. If Starling was in front of him, surely he’d recognise him.
His back was turned when Starling came out of the office he’d been waiting in. Starling saw the man near the door, examining a piece of paper and then putting it into his pocket. He walked towards him, his grey fedora in his hand. Lambert turned when Starling was just a few steps from him.
‘Excuse me,’ Starling said, and smiled. ‘Were you a friend of Peter Lillee’s?’
Lambert failed to see that the man before him was George Starling. Instead, he saw an elegantly dressed and well-spoken young man, whose face bore the disfiguring evidence of war.
‘No. I didn’t know Mr Lillee personally.’
‘He was a friend to me when I needed one,’ Starling said, and Titus believed him and was moved by his words. He offered his condolences and opened the door to the Portico Room for him. Starling nodded his thanks and passed inside.
‘Titus?’ Lambert looked up from reclosing the door to find Tom Mackenzie approaching him on his way back from the toilet. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I hope I’m wasting my time,’ said Lambert.
‘You saw the notice.’
‘No thanks to you. I don’t want to talk about this now, Tom. You should go back to the others.’
Tom didn’t react to the implied rebuke. He wasn’t an underling to Titus, and yes, he’d be very happy to talk about it later.
‘There’s no point standing out here, Titus. You might as well come in and have something to eat and drink.’
Titus hadn’t intended on doing this, but Tom was right. It would be interesting to see who these people were who considered themselves the inner circle of Peter Lillee’s wide circle of friends and acquaintances. Tom held open the door, and Titus preceded him into the room.
Ros Lord caught sight of Titus immediately and gave him a small wave. Titus took this as an invitation to speak to her. Across the room, out on the portico, Tom saw Joe and Helen talking to Clara and Guy. Joe and Helen had their backs to him. Guy was leaning against one of the columns that held up the portico roof. Was it Ionic, Corinthian or Doric? Guy was looking at Clara, who was speaking. Tom decided to get another beer and go out to them. That was when Starling’s silhouette interposed itself between him and his friends.
Tom knew who it was, instantly. He didn’t need to see his face. There was something familiar in the way he stood, poised in the doorway to the balcony. He saw Starling reach into his pockets and withdraw two objects. The sun caught the blade of a knife in his left hand and the sheen of a gun in his right. Starling dropped his hands to his sides. No one else had noticed the weapons, and Starling began to shorten the distance between himself and Joe Sable.
&n
bsp; Starling’s heart was pounding. This was it. He’d waited for this moment, and he saw no need to hurry it. He was just a few feet away now, and still no one had guessed his intention. He was close enough to reach out and touch Joe. Here, surrounded by people, he chose the efficiency of the gun over the knife. Killing Joe from behind, however, wasn’t enough. He wanted to see his look of terror.
He raised the gun, and, with his arm outstretched, he tapped the barrel on the back of Joe’s head.
It was the expression on Guy’s face, rather than the hard steel, that puzzled Joe. It was at first quizzical, then stricken, and in the split second it took for that transition to occur, conversation died on the balcony. It was as if everyone had noticed the man with the gun at once. He was rigid, statuesque, perfectly still, and something emanated from him that seemed to stun onlookers. Helen was simultaneously aware of both the silence and the faint hum of conversation from inside the Portico Room. What was happening?
Starling took two steps back and said, ‘Turn around, Jew.’ As he spoke, with the instincts of a predator, he glanced either side and behind him. He didn’t see Tom, hidden in the shadows. Joe turned and faced George Starling. The disfiguring scar barely registered with Joe. He looked directly into his eyes. He wasn’t afraid. He was calm. There was a strange, inexplicable intimacy that moved from one man to the other. For each of them this felt like a consummation.
‘This might be the happiest moment of my life,’ Starling said.
‘What a miserable life that is,’ Joe said.
‘Funny man. You’ll be dead in a minute. Just one more dead Jew, like all the others in Europe. I read your scrapbook. Now that was funny.’
The voices in the Portico Room had, by now, been stilled, as people had become aware of what was happening on the balcony. Inspector Lambert reached Tom Mackenzie’s side.
‘I let him in,’ he said. ‘I let him in.’ His voice sounded flat and defeated, as if he knew that Joe Sable was about to die, and that it was he, Titus Lambert, who’d allowed it to happen.
Starling was reluctant to truncate his pleasure. He ought to have simply pulled the trigger, he knew that, but he’d waited so long, and he felt so in control here that he wanted to linger. Helen Lord still had her back to him, and he wanted to see the fear in her face, too.
‘Turn around, you ugly bitch.’
Helen, who’d already experienced terror at the hands of this man, now felt oddly composed, or was it a kind of numbness? She turned. Starling sighted the Luger between her eyes. He held up the filleting knife in his left hand.
‘This is for you,’ he said. ‘No quick death for you.’ Starling knew that he wouldn’t get to use the knife, but saying the words was delicious.
Clara sensed that Guy was about to move, and she put her hand on his arm to stop him. Starling saw the movement, and his eyes caught Clara’s. She remembered what Helen had said about him, that he was ordinary. Only he wasn’t ordinary. There was a fierceness in his gaze that chilled her, and the scar, which she knew from its raw edges was fresh, made him monstrous. His was not a face, or nature, that aroused pity.
When Starling’s eyes fell briefly on Guy, Guy experienced revulsion and contempt in equal measure. He wasn’t afraid of this creature, but Clara’s touch reined in his urge to act. Starling would pull that trigger at the slightest provocation.
The next few moments were recalled afterwards as a confusion of sound and movement. The roar of Tom Mackenzie’s voice distracted Starling, and he made the mistake of lowering the gun and turning his head.
‘Drop, Joe! Drop down!’
Joe saw Tom rushing towards them, holding a chair like a crazed lion-tamer. Joe fell to his knees as the chair connected with Starling’s torso. Joe felt the clumsy tangle of Starling’s legs against his side. The momentum pushed Starling into Joe’s crouching form, and Starling fell heavily, his nose hitting the edge of the balustrade so forcefully that Clara heard the crunch as the cartilage collapsed.
Starling, dazed, was aware that people were moving. Uncertain what to do, he climbed onto the balustrade, where he could see over the crowd. He was dizzy, and he waved the Luger about loosely. He fired off a reckless shot. This, at least, had the effect of stopping people in their tracks. The undirected bullet hit a roosting pigeon in the eaves, which fell at a woman’s feet and fluttered wildly, but briefly.
The noise of the Luger cleared Starling’s head. Blood poured from his nose. He could taste it. He thought he could smell the salty air of Murnane’s Bay. There was Sable, crouching and staring up at him. He raised the gun and pointed it at Joe’s face. No lingering now. He pulled the trigger.
There was no explosion, just the click of an empty chamber.
It took a moment for this to register with Starling. All six bullets had been spent. Why was Sable still staring at him? Focussed on this, he didn’t see Guy Kirkham move towards him, but he felt his hands close around his ankles. He looked down. Who was this man? He still had his knife, which he swung in an arc, expecting it to slice across the stranger’s throat. Guy stepped back out of its reach. As he did so, he yanked Starling’s ankles, which were at waist-height, towards him.
Without flailing or crying out, Starling fell backwards, into the open air beyond the balustrade. For a split-second, he fell soundlessly. Then he landed below in a fortunate space that had opened up among the pedestrians on Swanston Street. Starling’s body hit the concrete awkwardly. If he’d been lucky, he might have survived the fall. He hadn’t been lucky. His head crashed into the pavement, and his neck snapped.
Later, when the pandemonium had died down, and the balcony and Portico Room had been vacated, a cleaner would find George Starling’s grey fedora, apparently forgotten by one of the guests. It was quality. He’d leave it with the porter at the Melbourne Club. A hat like that must surely belong to a member.
15
One Week Later. Saturday 15 April 1944
CLARA DAWSON’S EVIDENCE, supported by Dr Jamieson, who’d performed the autopsy on Peter Lillee, convinced the coroner to hand down a finding of death by misadventure. ‘In the absence of any plausible suspects in this case, however extraordinary it may seem, accidental death by hydrogen sulphide poisoning remains the most likely probability,’ he said.
Ros Lord had suggested that lunch on the day following the inquest would be a good idea. It would be an opportunity to honour Peter Lillee privately after the fiasco of the official wake. It was a small gathering. Clara Dawson, Helen Lord, Tom Mackenzie, Guy Kirkham, Joe Sable, and Ros Lord. Inspector Lambert and his wife, Maude, had been invited, but they’d declined. As it happened, Maude had decided at the last minute that she’d come, and when she arrived with Tom, Joe was hopeful that this might signal the possibility that his relationship with Inspector Lambert might be reparable.
They’d spoken only once, briefly, since Joe’s tendered resignation had been accepted. On that occasion, Lambert had said very little. He’d certainly made no effort to dissuade Joe from his decision. Two days after his resignation Inspector Lambert had telephoned Joe, as a courtesy, to tell him that Ron Dunnart wasn’t implicated in the murders of the Reillys or Bob O’Dowd. The Reillys had been shot with George Starling’s Luger, and there was enough blood trapped in the crevices of his filleting knife and, bizarrely, under his toenails, to link him also to Bob O’Dowd. Lambert could only speculate how Starling knew either Reilly or O’Dowd, but the evidence was irrefutable that he’d been present at both crime scenes.
In Starling’s room at The Victoria Hotel, the key to which had been in his pocket, the police had found among his clothes a coat with the name ‘John Pluschow’ stitched into its lining. Inspector Halloran in Warrnambool had been informed, and Maria Pluschow was to be questioned. It was possible that this might help solve the murder of Hardy Truscott, although Inspector Lambert wasn’t optimistic about this.
The police had also found close to
five thousand pounds in cash, and the key to a motorcycle, which was yet to be located. He’d imparted all this information concisely and in a tone that closed off conversation. Joe thanked him and asked if Ron Dunnart would be returning to Homicide.
‘Sergeant Dunnart is to be discharged. This unit is now very seriously undermanned. Kevin Maher has applied to join Homicide.’
Joe felt sick.
‘I won’t take him, of course, although one of the unfortunate consequences of your resignation has been that people, some people, believe that it gives credence to Maher’s version of what happened in Watson Cooper’s house. I need hardly tell you that it hasn’t changed my view of that incident. I believed you then, and I believe you now. I think you would have made a fine detective, Joe. Your poor judgement has more to do with your age and inexperience than with your ability. I’m partly responsible for that.’
‘Promoting me was poor judgement on your part. Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Yes. That was a mistake. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth, and I’m sorry that that decision exposed you to such horrors.’
There was a strange absence of emotion in Lambert’s voice, as if he was trying to keep his words to a minimum. Joe didn’t know how to respond, and Inspector Lambert’s coolness and brutal assessment of Joe’s time in Homicide made him uncomfortable and eager to get off the phone.
‘I’m sorry I let you down, sir,’ he said, and before Lambert could respond, he hung up.
Joe had mulled over this conversation for days. He’d told everyone the details about George Starling, but he’d kept back the humiliating news that Inspector Lambert considered him proof of what happens when you make an error of judgement. This was such a blow to his ego that he couldn’t even discuss it with Guy Kirkham.
Now Maude Lambert was here for lunch. It was she who broke the ice. As she shook his hand in greeting, she said, ‘The Homicide department will miss you, Joe. Titus will miss you. You may not think so, but he will. You’ll come to dinner soon, won’t you?’