Good Murder (17 page)

‘Good,’ she said. ‘You can sit together and fake friendship. We’ll see who’s the better actor.’

Chapter Six

meeting charlotte

SATURDAY MORNING
was warm and still, and by 10.00 am the temperature hinted at the summer ahead. Peter Topaz arrived and we sat for a while with Annie, on the verandah outside her bedroom. The talk was small.

‘Augie is fixing up the Ladies’ Lounge,’ Annie said. ‘Soon there’ll be hoity women in there ordering Pimms and discussing their friends’ taste in hats.’

Topaz laughed indulgently. I was uncomfortable. Quite apart from anything else, Annie’s assessment of how Topaz felt about me was getting in the way of easy banter. I also believed that we were unevenly matched, in that his dislike of me was greater than my dislike of him. As a general rule I prefer it to be the other way around. It went deeper than that, too. My dislike of Topaz was situational, based on his original supposition that I was a murderer. His dislike of me was personal, and grew out of his strange misreading of my character. He was under no pressure to change my mind about him. I felt, perhaps foolishly, under considerable pressure to change his mind about me. This feeling coexisted, confusingly, with a lingering suspicion about Topaz’s motives. I thought it best to get a few things out in the open.

‘Annie says you think I’m a ponce,’ I said.

He was unfazed by the remark.

‘Well, Will,’ he drawled, ‘that doesn’t make me Sherlock Holmes, does it?’

‘All right,’ intervened Annie. ‘ We all understand that you’re not the best of friends, but let’s get this over with, and Will, stop being such a pain in the arse. Peter’s sticking his neck out for you.’

I raised my hands in acquiescence, but said nothing.

‘We’re going to the Ladies’ Lounge at the Royal,’ Topaz said. ‘The three of us. Then Annie’s leaving, and you and I are going for a friendly stroll around town, stopping at the Engineers’ Arms on the way home.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked. ‘Really.’

‘Conroy’s a smart man, but even smart men have blind spots. He wants to get out of here. Go to Brisbane. If he tidies this case up quickly he’s in line for a promotion and a transfer. It’s hard to get Brisbane to notice you if you’re stuck in a small town where not much happens. A double murder is good for the CV.’

‘You want him to go?’

‘He’s a good detective, but a move to Brisbane for him would be good for both our careers. I don’t want him to screw up this case, and if he keeps going after you he will screw it up.’

‘If you really believe that Conroy’s got the wrong man, you must have some idea of who the right man is.’

‘Must I? Fred was a possibility, but I thought at first that you were a better one, until more information came in. You were never a possibility for Mrs Drummond. That was way outside your pathological potential.’

‘You make that sound like an insult.’

‘That’s because you always put your ego before your common sense. Most people would be happy not to be called a psychopath. You feel slighted, as if a skill of yours is being impugned.’

‘Boys, boys,’ said Annie. ‘Let’s go and have a drink, for Christ’s sake.’

Annie and Peter Topaz walked arm in arm. I fell back, but Annie looped her arm through mine and we walked thus, the three of us linked. Occasionally Annie threw her head back and released a peal of laughter. An observer might well have thought that we were a jaunty trio.

The Ladies’ Lounge of the Royal Hotel was busy. Well-dressed women wearing clothes that fell far short of the austerity restrictions drank gin slings at two shillings a pop, while their husbands drank beer in the main bar. We sat at a table, and Topaz offered to pay for the first round.

‘Oh, no,’ said Annie. ‘Let me. To celebrate.’

‘What are we celebrating?’ I asked.

‘I haven’t told you yet. I’ve got a job on 4MB. Advertisements and doing the Women’s Session in the morning.’ She dipped her chin and added, sotto voce, ‘It pays incredibly well and it’s only half an hour a day, so it won’t interfere with rehearsals.’

I mustn’t have been smiling.

‘You’re not cross are you, Will? It just sort of fell in my lap. The producer was at dinner the other night, and we got talking and he said he needed an actress and that I’d be perfect, especially as people already know me. And just think, I’ll be Johnny-on-the-spot if anything comes up for you.’

Topaz turned to me and said, ‘And if you fall over on radio, nobody can see you, so that’s got to be a good thing.’ He smiled broadly and slapped me on the back.

‘I’ll have a whiskey,’ I said, choosing the most expensive spirit from the list.

‘A pink lady for me,’ said Annie, and handed Topaz the money. He went to the bar to order.

‘When do you start?’ I asked, struggling to keep any peevishness out of my voice.

‘I’ve already recorded three commercials, and the first Ladies’ Session is next week. Do try to be good about it, Will. A girl needs an income.’

‘The company pays you,’ I said.

‘Oh yes, but three pounds a week, Will. Really, it’s not a king’s ransom, is it?’

‘It’s all we can afford at the moment.’

Topaz came back with the drinks. He had decided on a whiskey, too. He nodded to several women on his way across the room.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘what shall we talk about?’

‘Anything except the war,’ said Annie. ‘It’s bad enough having to hear about it on the radio day in and day out.’

Topaz reached across and clasped her hand.

‘I’m sure he’s fine. If he wasn’t, you would have heard.’

‘You’re sure who’s fine?’ I asked.

‘Annie’s brother, John. He’s flying with the RAF in England.’

‘Please,’ said Annie, ‘let’s talk about something else. We’re supposed to look like we’re enjoying ourselves.’

I was frankly amazed by this little nugget of information. I had never thought of Annie in any sort of family context, but then I didn’t think that way about anybody in the company. I suppose they all had siblings tucked away somewhere.

Topaz raised his glass in a toast and said, ‘To your new job.’

I followed automatically, raised mine, and said graciously, ‘Yes, Annie. Well done.’

It’s astonishing, when one recalls events, how momentous occurrences are set in motion by the smallest of actions. Whenever I now hear the clink of glasses, raised and touched in celebration, I associate it with the horrifying consequences of my meeting Mrs Charlotte Witherburn. I had just sipped my whiskey when a woman wearing an extremely well-cut outfit — it must have cost her at least 50 guineas, perhaps more — came to our table, leaned down, and kissed Topaz lightly on the cheek.

‘Thank you for speaking to Harry. I think things are better than they were.’

‘Let me know if they get worse.’

Clearly there was an understanding between them to which we were not to be privy.

‘These are friends of mine,’ he said. ‘Annie Hudson and William Power. Mrs Charlotte Witherburn.’

I stood up.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Miss Hudson, the actress. How lovely. And Mr Power. You’re with the circus, I think someone mentioned.’

‘No. I’m an actor. My company is in town preparing a play. Shakespeare.’

‘Bringing culture to the barbarians.’ Her mouth formed the arc of a smile. There was no laughter in her eyes, and I didn’t think there had been laughter there for a very long time. She looked in her late thirties, with dark hair carefully and artfully curled. Her skin was pale, but not pallid, simply protected from the devastating desiccation of the Queensland sun. She had once been very beautiful and, although she was still remarkable, there was something in her face suggestive of decline. There was a great sadness about her that I found intriguing and erotically charged.

‘Won’t you join us?’ I said.

Our eyes met and I felt a kind of spasm, deep in my brain, almost like a short circuit. I stopped breathing.

‘I don’t want to interrupt your conversation,’ she said, in a voice that had had money spent on it. ‘And I have left a friend at a table. Thank you, but I must go back to her.’

Charlotte Witherburn returned to her table, but before she had sat down I had undergone a shattering transformation. When I now looked at Annie Hudson I saw a charming, amusing, rather coarse woman who bore a striking resemblance to Greer Garson, but who aroused nothing in me. Nothing. She was as sexless as a sister, her attractiveness noted, acknowledged, but disempowered. I did not now see Peter Topaz as a rival, but as a copper who was in the unfortunate position of having to publicly support a suspect he did not like. I experienced a rush of affection for him. It may have been the whiskey, which I had finished in one gulp.

‘Will, are you all right?’

Annie’s voice called me back from the abstracted plateau of sudden infatuation to the reassuring banality of the Ladies’ Lounge of the Royal Hotel.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine.’

We sat for an hour, chatting inanely but comfortably. Topaz asked about the company, how it worked, what plays we had performed. All the while I kept an eye on Charlotte Witherburn. When she and her companion got up to leave she looked across and waved a farewell.

‘Who is she?’ I asked, and I could not entirely disguise the eagerness in my voice.

‘She’s married to Harry Witherburn.’

‘Should that mean something?’

‘Timber and sugar. He’s probably the richest man in Maryborough.’

‘She seems unhappy.’

‘She is unhappy.’

That was as indiscreet as Topaz was prepared to be, while he was sober at any rate, although I couldn’t imagine that he would ever get so drunk that he would drop his guard.

‘I have to go,’ said Annie. ‘I’m recording this afternoon.’

She kissed Topaz, patted my arm, and left, her departure watched by many pairs of eyes.

‘I think it’s time we were seen in a less salubrious pub,’ Topaz said. On our way out, he stopped at two tables and chatted briefly. At each of them he said, ‘This is a friend of mine, William Power.’

At least two of the women raised their eyebrows in mild surprise, but shook my hand without compunction. As we set off for the Engineers’ Arms in March Street, I said, ‘Listen, Peter. I want to apologise. I’ve been a prick.’

‘Is that the whiskey talking, Will?’

‘Fair go. I’ve only had two. I realised in there that you really were sticking your neck out for me and that there’s nothing in it for you.’

‘I’m not a knight in shining armour, Will. There’s plenty in it for me. Conroy’s transfer for one thing.’

‘Still, I am grateful. I know I don’t seem very grateful, but I am.’

‘I understand your distrust, Will. I’ve never had someone accuse me of being a murderer to my face, but if I had, I wouldn’t take to it too kindly.’

‘Can I trust you, Peter?’

He stopped walking and faced me.

‘No. I am not your friend. I’m a copper. If I learned anything to your disadvantage, I’d use it. You should keep that in mind. You can trust me in this, though. I’m not laying a trap for you. You didn’t do it.’

‘My God,’ I said. ‘You know who did. Don’t you?’

He continued walking. At the door of the hotel he said, ‘I don’t have any evidence.’

‘And what’s Conroy’s view on this?’

‘He said that the smart money was on that fucking nancy-boy actor. I think those were his exact words.’

He smiled and pushed open the door. I followed him into the bar.

The Engineers’ Arms was crowded and noisy. There weren’t many uniforms in here. Topaz had chosen it because it was a pub favoured by locals, most of whom worked up the road at Walkers Engineering. A few of them greeted him. A few others turned away, obviously unhappy to have a walloper, even an off-duty one, in their bar. We stood against a wall, exchanged a shouted word now and again, and performed a reasonable impression of two mates socialising.

‘I need a piss,’ I shouted.

I followed my nose to the urinal and, having relieved myself into the evil-smelling trough, stepped down and was about to leave when a man blocked the doorway. There was a belligerent air about him that was familiar.