57

HARRY hears a horse approaching before he sees it. He is up early again – not for the paddock this time but in Flinders Street, at the new railway station with its ostentatious copper dome. It is just past dawn and there are few people around: men carrying lunch-pails heading for work near the docks; a young woman hoping to catch the first train to Brighton, where she has work as a kitchen-hand; a befuddled sailor who has slept in an alley after being ejected from Young and Jackson’s tavern. Harry ignores them all. The collar of his jacket has been turned up, a cap covers his thick hair. He hears a car engine and seagulls cawing, but it is only when the horse comes close that he emerges from behind a column on the station steps.

The horse is black, as is the carriage it pulls. Blankets are draped over the horse’s back, secured by a cord with a tassel. The carriage is open, little more than a flat tray with a raised bench for the driver. He wears a dark suit with a black top-hat, but even this makes him only slightly higher than the white plumes atop the squat container on the tray. The plumes as well as brass fittings on the corners and sides are decorative touches, but the size and distinctive shape of the container reveal it to be a coffin. The driver of the carriage is an undertaker’s man. Beside him, not nearly as splendidly dressed, is Franz Kukol. In the gloom his face appears very pale behind his thick moustache. He nods as the driver tugs at the reins to halt the carriage.

‘Everything in order, Franz?’ Harry asks.

‘All went like clockwork, boss. Audran evidently sorted things with the right people, as you instructed.’

Kukol notices that Harry is remaining near the horse and has barely glanced at the carriage and its load.

‘There were no problems?’

The Austrian shakes his head.

‘One less thing for anyone else to deal with.’ He pauses. ‘There was something odd: the fellow at the dead house … He wept when we left, as if he had a particular interest in who we were taking. Young lady called Lily.’

Rats scuttling. The sound of distant laughter.

‘Unhinged, Franz, from working in such a place. And now?’

‘Will be loaded onto the mortuary train,’ the driver replies, his voice low. ‘Leaves this morning from the Princes Bridge platform, direct to Spring Vale cemetery.’

‘A trainload of coffins,’ Harry says. Kukol suspects he is both appalled and intrigued by the idea. ‘And you anticipate no difficulties once there?’

‘Special section for unknowns, mate.’

‘But it will be handled appropriately?’

‘Due ceremony, as you stipulated. All top-drawer, like the casket itself.’

Harry pats a pocket of his jacket, checking for something.

‘Very well then. It is best this way. You are able to see it through, Franz?’

‘Sure thing, boss. Just another box for me to accompany. You won’t be coming along yourself?’

The horse snorts. The plumes on the casket shudder. Harry steps back and shakes his head.

‘There’s something else I must attend to. This is all I had requested. Thank you. I … We’ll talk later, Franz.’

He turns and leaves with no further farewells, walking with his hands clasped behind his back; not towards the hotel, as Kukol would have expected, but in the other direction. Towards the river. He hasn’t been there since his jump five weeks previously, when he came by motor car. Now it is early in the morning and there is no pushing crowd of people, but he recognises it even before he sees the sign.

Queen’s Bridge.

He watches his feet, heedless of anything else around him, until he judges he is halfway across.

There is the stone parapet on which he perched. He could mount it again without difficulty, but there is no need. Instead he leans against the wall, which is no more than chest-height, and looks over. The water is as black as the undertaker’s horse. Black and oily. Difficult to discern the surface. He hears it sucking against the piles. Somewhere a door slams.

Now.

It is not enough. He did not observe shemira. He will not attend the internment. He needs to do more. And he realises as he stands there, right hand reaching into his jacket pocket, that he cannot even think of an appropriate prayer to recite. He is a poor son of a Rabbi.

So this offering will have to do.

He has tried to settle things in his own way. And now she can rest. They can both rest.

Several blocks away, the wheels of the first cable-tram screech on a turn.

If anyone were watching, though he sees nobody when he glances around, they would think nothing of it: a solitary man muffled against the cool of the morning, losing himself in private thoughts on the bridge before tossing something over the side. Perhaps a chunk of old loaf for seagulls.

The flying goggles – the ones he wore just a few days earlier, one metal frame slightly dented – spin in the air, reflecting the early light, before they hit the water with the slap of a fish jumping.

Then the blackness swallows them.