So Bad a Death (2 page)

An important point about Wright is that she was unselfconscious in using Australian settings—indeed she seems unaffected by the cultural cringe. Moreover, she based her writing on experience, which gives it a realist edge, even when her narrative is heightened by pronounced Gothic elements. All her novels are about women, chronicled with great acuteness. She does not subsume herself within the persona of a male detective, as did Marsh, or ‘Margot Neville'.

So Bad a Death
was serialised in
Woman's Day
, published at the time by the
Herald
newspaper group, between March and June 1949. (The magazine had previously, in October 1948, written her up under the headline “Books Between Babies”.) Wright benefited here from the good local sales for
Murder
, and the novelty of being a young mother who managed to look glamorous on a small budget, and also to write. She was described as adopting “marriage and mystery-solving jointly as a career”. The serialisation had illustrations—by colour-blind graphic artist Frank Whitmore—which skilfully evoke the story's Gothic mood, whilst also recalling Hollywood noir and Hitchcock. The images arguably reference Wright herself, whose publicity photos were striking. The
Women's Weekly
may have featured Margot Neville serials, with their Sydney detective, but here was a Melbourne counterpart. Only the previous year
Woman's Day
had serialised Christie's
Taken at the Flood
. In addition to Wright they also bought short stories from another young Melbourne woman, Jean Turnley, which they ran along with the overseas fare of Georgette Heyer and Alec Waugh.

Many of the tensions captured in
So Bad a Death
are also evident in the pages of the magazine itself. Food and fashion feature, but so do the problems of the ‘obey' clause in the marriage vow and discussions on how to bring up children properly (Maggie is particularly severe on dummies
*
). Nearly every issue of
Woman's Day
featured a woman with an identity that extended beyond domesticity—Hollywood actresses, but also pioneering racing chemist Jean Kimble, and Wright herself.

So Bad a Death
is a subversive book: Wright had wanted to title it
Who Would Murder a Baby
, and delighted in telling interviewers how writing bloody murders was a good way to avoid infanticide. It also critiques the snobbism of the country house murder mystery with its depiction of an attempt to create a squirearchy in the Antipodes, a would-be Lord of the manor who plays god with the women around him. Patriarchy takes a pounding in the novel, as, more implicitly, does maternal dependency, the ideal of the stay-at-home mother. Like
Murder
, the novel resonated with women's lives, then and now.

After
So Bad a Death
Wright retired Maggie. It was just about possible to detect with one child, but if Maggie were to be consistent with 1950s norms, she would go on to bear an overwhelming brood. Wright also told me (after asking me to switch the tape recorder off) that Maggie had proved to be too much of a smartarse, and that she was sick of people assuming the character and her creator were the same. Yet they were similar: clever, competent women who managed homes, children and brainwork efficiently. Wright would subsequently create a character who could be a continuing strong detective: the nun Mother Paul. Since she was married to God, her professionalism was not problematic. But what Wright accomplished with Maggie was considerable.

Before June Wright, Australian detective fiction tended to focus on the male protagonists, the experiences of male detectives, even when it was written by women. Her work changed that, creating a writing space in which titles like
The Knife Is Feminine
, Charlotte Jay's 1951 debut, could flourish. Among Wright's followers into print were the superb psychothriller author Pat Flower (from 1958), Patricia Carlon (from 1961), and of course Jay herself, whose
Beat Not the Bones
(1952) won the first Edgar.

LUCY SUSSEX

*
In the USA, a dummy is called a pacifier

SO BAD A DEATH

“So bad a death argues a monstrous life.”

CHAPTER ONE

I

I am not a
femme fatale.
Crime does not dog my footsteps, as one garrulous friend assured me. It was she who applied the first loathsome sobriquet. Neither am I one of those sleuths for whom corpses crop up conveniently. Such individuals should, in the interests of public safety, be marooned on a desert island. Their presence in the community is an incentive to murder.

No claim is being made to the ranks of amateur detection. I am merely a police officer's wife who has certain reasons in recording impressions of a homicide case. One is to defend myself against further attacks by friends. The affair was bound to happen some time, and therefore it was just a coincidence that it synchronized with our arrival in Middleburn. Crime waits for no man, least of all for the super-sleuth.

It is strange to remember that it happened at that particular time of the year. One associates murder with a winter's wind whining in the trees, or with the electrically charged atmosphere that precedes a summer storm; indeed, our treacherous spring days would have been a more suitable setting. But the violence and mystery which emanated from the Hall, their breeding place, were played against a background of serene days and nights. The leaves of deciduous trees were yellow and starting to fall, and the smoke from chimney stacks rose as straight plumes through the unruffled air. Autumn was the backdrop.

Such days of glorious weather might bring a poignant nostalgia to some; to others happy memories. To me they are the reminder of the most terrifying experiences of my life.

One of those nightmare incidents becomes particularly vivid whenever I watch Tony playing in the sandpit John constructed. My heart will thud with a sudden fear of what might have been. I snatch his rotund little body hard against me to beat off the phantom. Then Tony complains plaintively of the uncomfortable grip, and the picture fades.

Tony makes me forget, but only temporarily. Often during the night I will waken sharply and think I hear his terrified baby call. I will slip quickly and quietly from bed and pad down the hall in my bare feet to the nursery. Each time I fully expect to see that dark-draped figure leaning over his cot once more. But the light from the passage shines on nothing more sinister than the black-stocking golliwog, clasped firmly in one striped-pyjama arm. Only after I lean over the high rail of the cot and listen for his quick breathing, with my own held, and take another look at the double screen on the nursery window, am I satisfied to leave him. I creep back to bed rather sheepishly, confident that I have not disturbed John with my midnight prowlings, until his voice comes deeply through the darkness.

“Well? No masked kidnappers?”

“Did I waken you? I thought I heard Tony call.”

John rolled over. “Now listen, Maggie! It's high time you stopped this nonsense. Haven't you heard that lightning never strikes twice in the same place? Forgive the trite phrase, but it is about the best security I can offer you. I do wish you'd stop fidgeting and let us get some sleep.”

I stopped thumping my pillow into shape and said meekly: “Sorry, darling. I won't offend again. Good night.”

John gave a grunt of forgiveness and rolled back. The Holland case was closed as far as he was concerned. Such a prosaic attitude to the recent events which occurred in Middleburn could only be found in one to whom crime was an everyday affair to combat.

I lay straight and still in the darkness. Sleep was far away.

“I'll remember it all for the last time and then put it out of my head for good. I'll go over every fact, every little incident. That should cure me.”

II

Tony had been with us for nearly two years when I decided that flat life was no longer bearable. We must have a house and plenty of yard space in which Tony could indulge his ever-increasing vitality without complaints from the neighbours.

John looked dubious when I told him of my decision. I would find it difficult to secure a place in these times, he said. The housing problem was acute, and so on. However, I had his permission to go ahead in the search; only make sure before doing anything final that there was an extra room he could use as a study. He wished me luck, with a pessimistic shake of his head.

“I'll find a house,” I declared firmly, “even if I die in the attempt.” Which, on the whole, was a rather ironic statement to make. Fortunately I did not know that then.

As usual John was right. But after many weeks of weary searching I triumphed.

“Middleburn,” said my sceptical husband, poring over the rough diagram I had made of the house I had inspected that afternoon. “Where the devil is Middleburn?”

“And you a policeman! Give me that paper for a moment.”

On the back I sketched a clumsy map showing two of the main highways leading from town which run through a couple of well-known outer suburbs. Between them, marked by large crosses, I made a smaller one.

“That is Middleburn.”

“Looks very much out of the way to me. Is there a decent train service to the city?”

I assured him that there was, and went on to describe Middleburn itself.

Although classed as a suburb, it had more the aspect of a country village, so isolated was it from its neighbours. The homes and gardens were delightful, set in pretty, rolling country which from many parts commanded fine views of the city in the west and the hills in the east. The houses were small, modern and smart, and inhabited for the most part by young married couples. The tiny shopping centre, set in the main road on the crest of a hill, teemed with smartly dressed young matrons wheeling baby carriages. Strolling along High Street I had to sidestep now and then to dodge groups of young mothers chatting together gaily. My town suit and hat were glanced at curiously. I presented a rather incongruous figure among the tailored slacks and careless bare heads.

I had gone to Middleburn on the advice of a city estate agency, which had given me the address of a Mr Cruikshank.

This gentleman appeared to have many irons in the commercial fire of the village. His address was scribbled on the back of one of John's official cards. As I stood outside a shop in High Street comparing the numbers, I saw that not only was Mr Cruikshank the local estate agent, he also ran a lending library, managed several agencies for insurance, and was a depôt for a dry-cleaning establishment.

Looking back now, I cannot understand how I opened Mr Cruikshank's screen door, which was and still is badly in need of oil, without feeling some other emotion than a weary speculation as to whether he could assist me in my house-hunting. My feet were sore from tramping city and suburbs. If there is anything likely to break the spirit it is blisters on the heels.

Cruikshank was a short, stout man. When I saw him that afternoon he was in his shirt-sleeves with an immense black sateen apron tied around his protruding middle. This was his usual mode of apparel in the shop. He looked up from his job of rebinding battered library books when I entered. A keen, inquisitive look was cast at me.

“Ah, yes! Margetsons wrote to me about a Mrs Matheson,” he remarked, after I had stated my business. He then added, a trifle patronizingly: “You're after a house. Well, now. That is rather a problem nowadays.”

As I considered he was liable to start commenting at length on the housing position, a dissertation I had already heard many times, I cut him short by demanding if he had any vacancies on his books.

Mr Cruikshank put his head on one side.

“Yes and no,” he replied, in an irritating fashion. “When I say yes, there is a vacant place in this district. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether the owner will sell it to you.”

He stressed the last word, and I felt my irritation rising. But house-hunters cannot afford to offend estate agents. I asked for the owner's address, so that I could see him for myself. Mr Cruikshank gave a small derisive laugh.

“You had better wait for a while until I can take you along. Maud!” he yelled into a door leading from behind his counter.

I remained where I was, idly glancing through a pile of uncatalogued books. Mr Cruikshank's maiden sister appeared.

“I have got to go out,” he told her. “Are you taking that one, Mrs Ames? Here, Maud, fix up Mrs Ames.”