The Tenderness of Wolves (13 page)

Well that’s it. There’s no other way of saying it, and anyway I find my throat has constricted so fiercely I’m not sure I could get more words out.

Parker seems to be thinking; his face has lost that blank cast and his black eyes are fixed on mine.

‘Seven days ago?’

I could kick myself. I should have said eight. Or nine. I nod.

‘And Jammet was found six days ago.’

‘My son didn’t kill him, Mr Parker.’

‘How do you know?’

I feel a surge of anger at his question. Of course I know. I’m his mother. ‘He was his friend.’

Parker does something very unexpected then: he laughs. Like his voice, it is low and harsh, but not unpleasant.

‘I too was his friend. Yet Mr Knox and Mr Mackinley seem to think I killed him.’

‘Well …’ I am taken aback by this turn of events. ‘I suppose they don’t know you. But I think an innocent man would surely do his utmost to help a woman in my situation. That would establish him as a man of good character.’

Am I imagining it, or is he actually smiling? The down-turned mouth twists a little.

‘So if I help you, you think Mr Mackinley will release me?’

I cannot tell if he is being sarcastic. ‘That will depend on circumstances I know nothing about, Mr Parker, such as whether you are guilty or not.’

‘I am not. Are you?’

‘I …’ I hardly know what to say. ‘I found him. I saw what had been done to him!’

Now he looks genuinely surprised. And I have the overriding impression that he wants to know what I saw. And, it occurs to me in a rush, if he wants to know, then it stands to reason that he cannot have done it.

‘You saw him? They did not tell me what had been done.’

If he is lying, he makes a convincing show. He leans forward. I try not to lean away from him, but his face is terrifying. I can almost feel the anger radiating from him.

‘Tell me what you saw. And I may be able to help.’

‘I can’t do that. I can’t make a deal with you.’

‘Then why should I help you?’

‘Why would you not?’

Suddenly he stands up and strides to the wall of the warehouse–just a few paces, but I flinch before I can stop myself. He sighs. Perhaps he is used to people being afraid of him. I wonder where Adam is with the coffee–he seems to have been gone at least an hour.

‘I am a half-breed, accused of killing a white man. Do you think they care if he was my friend? Do you think they believe anything I say?’

Parker is standing in a particularly shadowy patch of the warehouse and I cannot see his expression. Then he turns back to his pallet bed.

‘I am tired. I will have to try and remember. Ask me tomorrow.’

He lies on the bed and pulls the blanket over him, his back to me.

‘Mr Parker, I beg you to think on this.’ I’m not at all certain that I can argue my way back in here. ‘Mr Parker …?’

When Adam returns I am waiting inside the door. He looks at me in astonishment, the pot of coffee steaming like a miniature volcano in the dank air.

‘Mr Parker and I are finished for the time being,’ I tell him. ‘But why don’t you leave the coffee here.’

Adam looks unhappy but does as I suggest, placing the pot and a cup a cautious distance from the pallet.

And that, it would seem, is that.

Andrew Knox sometimes wishes he were not the upstanding community elder he has become. When he retired from the law it was to get away from all those people who begged him to instil order into their tangled, messy lives. People who lied and cheated but still thought the world was conspiring against them and that whatever iniquities they had committed, none of their troubles were of their own making. As if it is not enough to have the whole town in an uproar because a potential murderer is in their midst, John Scott was in his study this morning, complaining that he must have his warehouse back, or substantial compensation for giving his building over for the town’s benefit, as he put it, or else he will have to take up the matter with the government. Knox wished him luck. Other inhabitants have stopped him in the street to ask why the culprit has not been moved to a proper gaol–no one seems to entertain the possibility that he is innocent. And Mackinley is in no hurry to leave–Knox suspects him of wanting to extract a confession in person, so that he can parade the conviction like a trophy. Knox is caught between the hungers of ambitious men and wants no more to do with any of it.

And then there is the business of Sturrock, which he can’t ignore.

Mary taps on the door and says that Mrs Ross is here to see him–again. The woman won’t leave him alone. He nods and sighs inwardly–he has a sinking feeling that if he said
no she would wait outside in the hall–or even, God forbid, in the street.

‘Mr Knox …’ she starts speaking before the door is closed.

‘Mrs Ross, I trust your talk was helpful?’

‘He wouldn’t talk. But he knows something. I have to come back tomorrow.’

‘I can’t let you do that, you see …’

‘He didn’t do it.’

She sounds so certain he stares at her with his mouth open, until he remembers to close it. ‘What makes you so sure? Feminine intuition?’

She smiles sarcastically–an unpleasant trait in a woman. ‘He wanted to know how Jammet died. He didn’t know. And I am sure he knows something about Francis. But he doesn’t trust Mr Mackinley to be fair on a … half-breed.’

Knox suspects that Parker doesn’t trust him either, but she is being diplomatic.

‘Perhaps you also know what he was doing in Jammet’s cabin?’

‘I’ll ask him.’

Knox frowns. The whole thing is getting out of hand. He forgets that a few moments ago he was wishing himself free of his responsibilities–the prospect of a farmer’s wife taking them from him is preposterous.

‘I’m sorry, it’s quite out of the question. We are going to move the prisoner as soon as possible. I cannot let anyone who feels like it walk in and talk to him.’

‘Mr Knox.’ She takes a step towards him, almost as if (were she a man) to threaten him. ‘My son is in the bush and the Company men may not find him. He may be lost. He may be injured. He is a boy and if you stop me finding out whatever I can, you may be responsible for his death.’

Knox has to make an effort not to step backwards. There is something about her–or perhaps it is that sense of inadequacy that tall, handsome women tend to provoke in him.
Looking into her flinty eyes–eyes of a peculiar grey and mineral hardness–he is aware of the fierceness of her will.

‘I would have thought that you, of all people, would understand what it is to lose a child. Would you deny me help if it is possible?’

Knox sighs, infuriated that she should use the Seton tragedy against him, but also aware that he will, as a result, give in. If the boy has simply got himself lost he doesn’t like to think about the consequences. And perhaps Mackinley doesn’t have to know. If he is careful, then no one else need ever find out.

He tells her to come back in the morning, very early, impressing on her the need for discretion, and sighs with relief as she goes. He supposes it is only natural for a mother to act so in protection of her child; it is just that it would be more natural (and he would find it easier to sympathise) if she cried or showed some softness in the doing.

‘Mr Knox!’ Mackinley barges into his study without knocking. Really the man is becoming more and more unbearable; he saunters through the house as though he owns it. ‘I think one more day should do it, don’t you?’

Knox looks at him wearily. ‘Do what, Mr Mackinley?’

‘Get the fellow to confess. No point stringing things out.’

‘What if he doesn’t confess?’

‘Och, I don’t think that will be a problem.’ Mackinley smiles cunningly. ‘Deprive these fellows of their freedom and you soon have them grovelling. Can’t stand the confinement, like animals.’

Knox looks at him with hatred. Mackinley doesn’t notice.

‘I thought I’d have another go before dinner.’

‘I have urgent paperwork. Can it wait?’

‘I don’t see why you should trouble yourself, Mr Knox. I am quite prepared to question him alone.’

‘I think it would be … sounder if both of us were present.’

‘I don’t think I’ll be in any danger.’ He pulls back his jacket to reveal a revolver in his waistband. Knox feels a flush of anger.

‘It wasn’t your safety I was thinking of, Mr Mackinley. Rather the need to have more than one witness to whatever is said.’

‘Then I will take Adam, if that is your concern. The key, if you please.’

Knox bites his tongue and opens the drawer where the two keys to the warehouse lie in his custody. He wonders whether he should change his plans and go with him. He has started to think of Mackinley as a criminal, and of course he is nothing of the sort, but a respected servant of the Company. He gives him one of the keys and forces a smile.

‘Adam should be in the kitchen.’

After Mackinley has gone, Knox hears raised voices from the drawing room. His daughters are quarrelling. He briefly considers intervening, as he used to when they were younger, but cannot raise the energy. Besides, they are grown women now. He listens to the familiar sounds: Susannah’s voice dissolving into tears, Maria’s lecturing tone, which makes him wince, a door slam, and then footsteps running up the stairs. Grown women is what they are.

Sturrock has been talking with Mrs Scott, and she looks up at me with her habitual nervous air, presumably in case it is her husband come to find fault. I get an impression that they have been having quite an intimate conversation: when I walk into the store they subtly draw away from each other as if signalling the end of a confidence. I feel disgruntled; I had thought I was his co-conspirator. It seems Mr Sturrock makes a habit of holding whispered conversations with other people’s wives.

He turns to me and smiles, bowing his silver head. ‘Mrs Ross. You have found the warmest and most welcoming place in Caulfield on this cold day.’

I nod, a little stiffly. For some reason I was half-expecting him not to know me.

‘Can I get you a cup of coffee, Mrs Ross? On the house?’ Mrs Scott looks at me with unusual boldness. She seems to have taken a sort of courage from Sturrock’s presence to make free with her husband’s coffee.

‘Thank you. That would be welcome.’

I would have had it even at their outrageous prices. I feel cold to the bone. Warehouse cold. Murder cold. Despite what I said to Knox, I have no idea whether Parker is a killer or not. My certainty that he did not know what had happened to Jammet faded as soon as Adam padlocked the door.

‘You did not tell me you were acquainted with Mr Knox,’

I say, to get it over with, wishing I sounded less petulant.

‘I don’t believe I did. I’m sorry.’

‘You could have gone to him and asked about Jammet’s possessions. You didn’t have to sneak around like a thief.’

Like me. I feel betrayed. I liked him more when he was as furtive as I was.

‘My acquaintance with Knox is an old one. I don’t believe he will know me now.’

‘Does he know you’re here?’

‘I think it would be hard for him not to know.’

‘I don’t mean to pry. I just feel rather … at a disadvantage.’

We sip our coffee in silence for some moments.

‘I did not mean to mislead you the other evening, Mrs Ross, please believe me. Sometimes one is disappointed in one’s own part in things. We always want to be the hero, don’t we? The hero of the story or … nothing.’

‘I am sure you did your utmost.’

He sighs. I am inclined to believe him, but am aware this is more to do with his charm than with any famously unerring judgement on my part.

‘If they were not there to be found, then nothing you could have done would have brought them back.’

He smiles. ‘But some say, as I am sure you have heard, that I looked too long, and that I kept hope alive when it should have been dead and buried.’

‘If a parent chooses to hope, then nothing anyone else can say will stop them.’

It comes out harsher than I meant it, and Sturrock looks at me with that look of eloquent compassion I saw on him before. The cynical part of me wonders how many families, tortured with worry, saw that look, and were comforted by it.

Of course it is not compassion that is needed in my situation, but action. Something that has been turning over
inside me, nameless and frightening, crystallises all of a sudden. And I know that I can no longer rely on other people, not on anyone. They only disappoint in the end.

Knox finds Sturrock in residence at the Scotts’. He announces himself to the maid, and Scott comes to greet him. He looks at him with raw curiosity, but Knox says nothing about why he has come. Let them all gossip (they will anyway, whether he allows it or not), it is none of their concern. Perhaps they will think Sturrock another murder suspect.

He is shown to the room at the back of the house that the Scotts let out to travelling salesmen. The servant knocks on the door and when Sturrock answers, Knox goes in.

Thomas Sturrock has aged since he last saw him. But then it must be ten years–and the ten years between fifty and sixty can mark the difference between a man in the prime of life and his dotage. Knox wonders if he himself is as changed. Sturrock is as straight and elegant as ever, but seems thinner, drier, more fragile. He stands up when Knox comes in, masking his surprise, or whatever he feels, with an easy smile.

‘Mr Knox. I suppose I should not be surprised.’

‘Mr Sturrock.’ They shake hands. ‘I hope you are keeping well.’

‘I manage to find things to occupy me in my retirement.’

‘Good. I expect you know why I’ve come.’

Sturrock shrugs extravagantly. Even with frayed cuffs and slightly stained trousers he gives the impression of being foppish. It has counted against him.

Knox feels awkward. He had forgotten the effect of Sturrock’s presence and had almost managed to persuade himself that the accepted story going round Caulfield was true.

‘I’m sorry about … well, you know. I know how people talk. It can’t be pleasant.’

Sturrock smiles. ‘I am not tempted to contradict them, if that’s what’s worrying you.’