The Holiday Murders (11 page)

Ptolemy Jones stood
at the gate of the boarding house where Mary Quinn’s friend lived. No lights were showing, but he’d been here before and he knew that the windows on the ground floor, to the right of the front door, were the windows to her room. Several times he’d seen Mary Quinn go in there, and he’d waited for her to come out. She never seemed to stay long. She’d be in there now, being comforted by her friend. But now it was time for a change of mood; it was time to give Mary Quinn her Christmas present.

Jones pushed open the gate and walked up to the front door. It wasn’t locked. That was careless. The hallway was dimly lit — so dimly that it took his eyes a moment to adjust. It had seemed brighter outside. The door to the right was where Mary Quinn and her friend would be. A small sliver of light escaped from beneath it. He put his ear against the door. There was no sound. He tried the doorknob, which turned noiselessly. It was a heavy door, and it opened without a sound. The hinges must have been kept well oiled. Jones stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

He was in a sitting room. The only light came from a standard lamp, which stood behind an armchair in which a woman was sitting, reading. She had her back to him, and she obviously hadn’t heard him come in as she slowly turned a page of her book. He could only see the back of her head, but he knew that it wasn’t Mary Quinn.
She must be the friend
, Jones thought. Where was Mary Quinn? There were other rooms. Perhaps she was in a bedroom.

He took a step forward and, just as he did so, Sheila Draper looked up from her book and, out of the corner of her eye, saw something move in the darkness behind her. She stood up suddenly, gave a little cry, and found herself facing Ptolemy Jones. She couldn’t see him properly because her eyes weren’t adjusted to the dark outside the lamp’s light, and before she could cry out again he was upon her. He stuffed his handkerchief into her mouth and forced her to the floor. She was winded into silence.

He stripped off his clothes, folded them neatly, and looked down at the curled-up woman. If Mary Quinn wasn’t here, well, that was too bad. He’d take it slowly with her friend, and maybe she’d return before he’d finished. It didn’t matter. She’d find out soon enough that he’d come calling. He put his face close to Sheila Draper’s. ‘Merry Christmas,’ he said.

-8-

Joe Sable had
spent Christmas night reading the information on Mitchell Magill and other known Hitlerites that Intelligence had provided. He’d been astonished, dumbfounded, by the proudly expressed beliefs of several individuals. Goad had mentioned Mills, with his absurd, pagan aspirations. But there was another man, W. Hardy Wilson, whose views were improbably bizarre and extreme. Joe decided to adopt Wilson’s ideas as his own when he met Magill. From the notes, it was clear that both Wilson and Magill were aesthetes, and Joe was confident that he knew enough about the arts to be convincing. He tried saying some of Wilson’s words out loud, to hear what they sounded like and to judge how they made him feel: ‘Jews are noxious irritants who cause social disease.’ He wondered when these words rose into his mouth if he could go through with this. Just saying them made his guts churn violently.

On Boxing Day morning, very early, he walked down to Russell Street headquarters. He hadn’t worked out how to orchestrate a meeting with Magill directly, but among Magill’s associates was a woman named Peggy Montford, whom Intelligence believed to be Magill’s lover. She worked as an instructor at the Glaciarium in the city, where the doughboys liked to take or pick up girls
.
As it happened, Joe had been ice-skating a few times over the years, and he’d acquired bog-standard competence at it. He could stay on his feet; in fact, he could even glide and come to a stop without crashing. And he knew that the Glaciarium would be open on Boxing Day.

There was no photograph of Peggy Montford in the file — just a description of her as being about twenty-five years old, and blonde. Joe was confident that he’d recognise her at the Glaciarium, but he only had a vague plan as to how he’d go about it. He’d come into the Homicide office early, simply because he thought something more concrete might occur to him there. Should he ask Sheila Draper to go with him, to play the part of his companion? No, he couldn’t embroil her in this; in any case, Inspector Lambert would never permit it. Lambert had said often that when it came to murder, everyone was a suspect until the killer was found. That made Sheila Draper a suspect in the murders of John and Xavier Quinn. Joe thought he’d need someone to go with him to the Glaciarium, just in case a civilian on his own was unusual enough to stand out. There were a few female constables at Russell Street, and many more women from the Women’s Police Auxiliary Force. They did mostly clerical work, replacing men who’d filled those positions before the war. Some were drivers, and some conducted licence tests. While they’d been sworn in as special constables, Joe wanted a more experienced woman for the job — a fully sworn member of the force.

Titus Lambert arrived not long after Joe. He was slightly annoyed when Joe outlined his intentions — not because he thought the exercise was pointless, but because his preference was for Joe to be working for him exclusively. He had to accept, though, that Joe now had a second master, and to remind himself that his goal, and that of Intelligence, was to catch the same person. The difference was that Titus saw that person as a murderer; Intelligence saw him as a traitor. When Joe raised the question of roping in a female constable as an ice-skating companion at the Glaciarium, Titus agreed with the stratagem; he knew just the person for the job, and thought she must have been on duty because he’d seen her as he came in. He picked up his telephone and asked the duty officer to find Constable Helen Lord and send her up to Homicide.

When Helen Lord
was told that Inspector Lambert wanted to speak with her, she let out a little ‘Ooooh’ for the benefit of the young woman who’d passed on the message. Helen Lord liked being a policewoman, but she didn’t much care for most of the men she had to work with. They saw her as a novelty, useful to them only occasionally in dealing with hysterical tarts and with wives who’d been beaten up by their hopeless, drunken husbands.

Like all female constables, Helen didn’t wear a uniform. She didn’t see this as an advantage, but for what it was: a way of reminding her of her place — as she could never expect to rise above the level of constable, no uniform on which to stitch extra stripes was needed. In these circumstances, to be called to the new offices of Homicide was a significant and slightly unnerving event. Helen had had only a glancing acquaintanceship with Inspector Lambert, and as he was one of only a few officers who acknowledged her when they saw her, she was disposed to like him. She didn’t expect that this disposition would survive a conversation with him, though. You didn’t get to be an inspector, she imagined, without being an exaggerated version of the men around her.

When she walked into the office, she was met by a detective whose face was familiar but whose name was new to her.

‘Detective Sergeant Joe Sable,’ he said, and put out his hand. ‘You must be Constable Lord.’

This strangely formal and polite gesture took her by surprise. ‘Yes,’ she said, and accepted his hand.

‘Inspector Lambert is just on the telephone. He’ll be here in a minute.’

Joe’s initial impression of Helen was favourable. She was short — about five foot four. She wasn’t pretty but, like Sheila Draper, her face expressed her character strongly. She was probably in her late twenties, he thought, and her hair was dark, untouched by grey. It was cut short, like Ingrid Bergman’s in
For Whom the Bell Tolls
. He thought she even looked a bit like Ingrid Bergman, although that might have just been the effect of the haircut. In the few seconds it took him to assess her, Joe realised that he wasn’t attracted to pretty women. This came to him as something of a revelation, and it made him smile.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was just thinking of something else.’

‘I was wondering how I’d amused you,’ Helen said, and added, ‘sir’, as an afterthought.

Joe couldn’t get used to other ranks addressing him as ‘sir,’ even though he knew first names were out of the question, at least when on duty. The police force was a hierarchy, and hierarchies were weakened by familiarity.

‘Sit down, please,’ he said. ‘We have something to put to you.’

At that moment, Inspector Lambert entered the room and asked peremptorily, ‘Do you ice-skate, Constable?’

Helen Lord did not seem taken aback by such a strange opening question. ‘I’m pretty good, actually,’ she said. ‘I have a low centre of gravity.’

Titus and Joe were impressed by her demeanour and her answer.

‘Do you think you could manage to create the impression of being on the ice for the first time?’ Titus asked.

‘Of course.’

‘Good. You are to accompany Detective Sergeant Sable to the Glaciarium this morning. What you are wearing will be perfectly suitable.’

Still, Helen said nothing.

‘Aren’t you a little bit curious about this?’ Joe asked.

‘I assume you’ll tell me what it’s about when you’re ready to. I also assume that I’ve just passed some sort of test.’

Joe looked at Titus. He was worried that this little expression of disrespect might cause Titus to choose a different constable.

‘I don’t think curiosity is a weakness, Constable,’ Titus said, ‘but I think your instinct as to when to suppress it is a strength. What we want you to do isn’t dangerous, but I want you to understand that it is outside your normal duties, and that if you agree to it you won’t be able to discuss it with anybody. You will be bound by the Crimes Act as it relates to official secrets. Is that clear?’

‘Yes.’

‘I also want you to understand that this is entirely voluntary. I’m not issuing you with an order.’

‘All right. Is it unreasonable to ask what I’m volunteering for, or would you see that as a failure of my good instincts to shut up?’

Again, Joe was worried that Titus would find Helen Lord’s measured, Bolshie attitude unacceptable, and again he was surprised when Titus responded to it as if her tone was inoffensive.

‘You have a right to know, of course. I wouldn’t expect any officer to blindly obey a request, or even an instruction. Germany and Japan are full of people who do just that, and the consequences for everyone are dire.’

Helen narrowed her eyes at Titus. She wasn’t entirely convinced that he wasn’t playing her for a fool, although she didn’t feel patronised, and she was highly sensitised to that insult. For the moment, she’d suspend her suspicions, and accept Inspector Lambert’s words at face value.

‘You said there was no danger,’ she said.

‘You sound almost disappointed, Constable,’ Joe said.

She couldn’t help herself. She turned to him and said, ‘When you’re a female constable, disappointments have a habit of mounting up.’

‘All right. Well, there will be some danger, in fact — you haven’t seen me skate.’

Titus hadn’t given Joe any advice on how much to tell Helen. Joe thought this might have been as much about jurisdiction as about trust. In going to the Glaciarium, he was working for Intelligence, not Homicide. Joe decided that he wouldn’t link the Quinn murders — which Constable Lord would surely have heard about — to this assignment. Titus had mentioned the Crimes Act, and Joe wished he hadn’t. The Act was designed to deal with espionage and sensitive government matters. Helen Lord couldn’t help but make some connection between what she was being asked to do and the progress of the war.

As they walked to the Glaciarium, Joe told Helen that he was interested in the activities of an instructor there, a woman named Peggy Montford. He didn’t say what those activities were — only that the activities, and the suspicions around them, were vague, and that it was more to do with the people she associated with than it was to do with her. Helen saved him from further entangling himself in his convoluted effort to tell her only as much as he thought she needed to know.

‘I’m just coming along for the ride, sir. I’m just glad to be out from behind a bloody desk.’

‘The “sir” stuff will have to go. I’m Joe, and we’re a couple — a clumsy couple who’ll need help on the ice.’

Helen put her arm through his and started to whistle. After a moment, he caught the tune and joined in.

The Glaciarium was
on the south side of the Yarra River, opposite Flinders Street Station. As Helen and Joe went in, the sudden drop in temperature made Joe wish he was wearing a coat. It was busy; American servicemen were either gliding adroitly around the ice, or manhandling their delighted and squealing girlfriends, who were resolutely refusing to acquire the skills that would allow them to skate out of their teachers’ arms. The chilly air was heavy with the scent of cologne. The use of this scent was a habit that Australian soldiers had yet to take up; they preferred the less feminine masking perfume of Lifebuoy soap.

Joe had described Peggy Montford to Helen, and she spotted her even before they’d fitted their skates. Peggy was standing at one of the gaps in the low wall that encircled the rink, calling out encouragement to someone on the ice.

‘She looks young,’ Helen said. ‘She certainly doesn’t look dangerous.’

Joe said nothing. He stood on the blades of his skates and began to make his way towards a gap in the crowd. After a couple of steps, he remembered that this was meant to look like his first time, and so he adjusted his walk accordingly, his arms flailing. Helen did the same, and added some squeals for verisimilitude. They succeeded in drawing attention to themselves by putting on a show of laughter and mutually perilous teetering. When they made it to the wall, they clung to it like limpets. Helen took a first, tentative step onto the ice and immediately grabbed at the wall to stay upright. Joe followed, took two steps, and hit the ice hard. Helen laughed loudly. Children sailing past looked at them contemptuously. Peggy Montford showed no sign that she was aware of them — which was unsurprising, given the number of people skating, falling, and squealing. In a carefully managed display of ineptitude, Helen pushed away from the wall, stomped rather than glided, and sat down next to Joe.