Twenty
It was just past nine thirty, the pen pushers already well into their workday, when Billie strode into Daking House in a cinched rayon dress of navy blue printed with flights of delicate white birds, her little loaded Colt holstered beneath her slip, its outline visible only to those with the most keen and suspicious eye.
She could really have used more sleep, but there was, as her father used to say, plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead. Today there was much to do.
Billie wore her trusty fabric-soled oxfords—those of the satisfyingly soundless soles she’d so missed the night before—her dark navy driving coat slung over one arm and her hair wrapped neatly in a shining silk scarf of navy patterned with the soft shapes of cherry-red and white abstract flowers. A small tilt hat in navy completed her ensemble, her sunglasses round and impenetrable, her smile steady and painted as always with her last stick of Fighting Red. She felt optimistic, determined, wrapped in her clothes as if in armor. Her mind had been ticking over, and she had a plan.
Straight-backed and quiet, she was delivered to the sixth floor by John Wilson, who seemed, as always, enlivened by her presence. He looked sidelong at her finely sculpted profile without seeming to realize she could see him doing so, fooled as he was by her smoked glasses and the effect of her wrapped hair and hat, which made her look somehow like a fashion mannequin come to life. She slipped him a shilling, flashed him a wide ivory smile, and told him she would require him again presently.
Let this be the day, she thought, stepping into her office.
“Good morning, Ms. Walker.” Her assistant stood at attention behind his desk as she entered, looking slightly surprised by the relatively early hour of her arrival. Sam’s trench coat was already hanging on the coat rack; the newspapers were open across his desk. Despite the trials of the weekend, he looked no worse for wear. His eyes were clear and bright, his posture not at all that of a man who had been punched by cowardly assailants the afternoon before. He had probably expected that Billie would sleep in, and it was gratifying for her to know that he still got to work on time regardless of the strong likelihood that she would not walk in until close to eleven.
“Good morning, Sam,” Billie replied. She pulled off her round sun cheaters and ignored his move to help her with her coat. The waiting room was again empty, the magazines and journals untouched. No clients. But if she played this right, that might change—and many other things besides.
“There was a note slipped into the mail this morning,” Sam said. “Just a piece of paper among the letters slid under the door. I thought you might want to take a look right away. It could be something important.”
Billie wrinkled her brow. A note? She didn’t know whether to expect a death threat or an invitation to tea, such was her professional life at the moment. She accepted the plain piece of notepaper. “Did you go okay last night?” she asked, and watched his expression carefully.
Sam nodded. “Yes. No one could have seen me. It’s done.”
“You did well, Sam,” she reassured him. “Con has been identified and his family in Greece are possibly by now being informed so they can make arrangements and grieve. It was a rotten thing, what was done to him. Rotten and unfair and I hope to make someone pay very dearly for it.”
Sam looked relieved, though the corners of his mouth were turned down. “It was hard leaving him there.”
He didn’t seem to want to talk about it. Fair enough. An ugly business, it was. Billie unfolded the piece of paper, revealing a short series of numbers and letters: XR-001.
She recognized Shyla’s distinctive hand. “A license plate number,” she declared, pleased. It was for a recently registered car, she noted, which fitted with what Shyla had told her about the man Frank being new to the country. Since Saturday the clever young woman had elicited the information and delivered it on a page with no other clues, so only Billie was likely to know the significance. Perhaps a trip to Upper Colo was in order, once other pressing matters were resolved? But it would have to wait at least another day. For now, she had a boy to find, and she wanted a hell of a lot of answers.
“Another matter,” she said to Sam, pocketing the piece of paper. “I made it to the morgue,” she went on. “That’s how I know about Zervos. But our boy Adin wasn’t there, and no one of his description has been through. One piece of good news, at least.” She checked his expression and saw that he still looked a touch glum, brows pinched. Billie changed the subject. “On another note, how was the rest of your night? Did your date with Eunice work out? You were feeling up for it?”
Sam flinched and a strange look came over him.
“I mean . . . up for a night out, after the incident in the alley,” she clarified, wondering about his sensitivity.
“We went to the late session of The Bells of St. Mary’s, thank you, Ms. Walker,” Sam said rather stiffly.
Something about his night had not worked out well, but she decided it was best not to inquire further. “Are you up for a trip?” she asked. “A drive to the Blue Mountains?”
“Always,” he said, brightening. “I’ve only been there once . . . saw the Three Sisters. I’m parked not far away, unless you want the train?”
“No need,” Billie said to him, smiling. “It’s now December. A new month with new petrol coupons. I’ve brought out the roadster and filled her up already.” The opportunity to cruise the open road for a few hours was not one she would pass up. Following her chat with Donald Benny at the morgue, she had hopes for the case, which she didn’t yet want to reveal to Sam, in case they fell through, but even if things led nowhere on this Monday, at least they would enjoy a scenic drive and some mountain air. They deserved that, at least, after their record-breakingly awful weekend. “Let’s lock up here and hit the road.”
Her two-seater Willys 77 roadster was waiting near the entrance of Daking House, its top down, black paint gleaming in the morning sun and red leather interior beckoning. Billie thought she saw Sam actually lick his lips when he spotted the automobile. It gave the impression of being as much animal as machine, part black steed, or perhaps panther. It had few miles on the clock for its age, as it had waited patiently for its mistress while she was away reporting in Europe. The roadster had been a twenty-first-birthday present from Baroness von Hooft, who had so far given her only child a fast sewing machine, a faster motorcar, and a small Colt, in that order. All three appeared to have been chosen because the baroness recognized the power of the skills associated with them, even if she was not adept at those skills herself, and probably never would be—having no ability to sew or drive or shoot or, for that matter, cook. At least that Billie was aware of. Ella had been a modern woman for her time and her station, but her daughter, Billie, was of an altogether different era, and thanks to those gifts she could go anywhere, make anything she needed to wear, and protect herself in the unique line of work she had chosen.
On the bonnet of the roadster, leading the charge as it were, was the winged goddess Victory, or Nike, her head tilted back and nestled into her wings and long, wavy hair in what Billie fancied was a pose of pleasure. The ancient Greeks had worshipped Nike because they believed she could grant them immortality and the strength and speed to be victorious in any task, making her an appropriate ornament, to be certain, though Billie didn’t want to test the immortality theory too vigorously. No further than the dial could take them, anyway.
Sam strode forward and opened the driver’s-side door for his boss. Billie slid behind the wheel, inside the lush red interior. There was no question of her car being driven by anyone else. She pulled black leather driving gloves out of the glove box and eased them over her soft white hands as Sam got in the passenger side. He watched silently, seemingly a touch overcome by the automobile. She’d not had reason to take him out in it since his employment began.
With a grin she pumped the accelerator and pressed the starter button with her foot, and the engine cranked over, she felt it fire, and the beast that was her automobile began to warm to their presence. Driving was, to Billie’s mind, something every woman should experience, and often, though such possibilities were limited until petrol rationing ceased. For now, the restrictions prevented her from enjoying her beloved car quite as much as she’d like, but being behind the wheel on the open road was the kind of rare thrill that didn’t leave one with a hangover, social embarrassment, unwanted male attachments, or diseases, and who could argue with virtues such as those?
“You’ll want to hold on tight, Sam,” she said.
After nearly three hours of pleasant motoring, Billie pulled her roadster onto Woodlands Road, found a parking spot near Katoomba cemetery—cemeteries always being unnervingly close to hospitals—pulled off her leather driving gloves, and walked toward Katoomba’s Blue Mountains District ANZAC Memorial Hospital, her seemingly unrattled passenger trailing behind her.
The drive had been in turns relaxing and thrilling, the landscape shifting as the buildings gradually slipped away, until the dense bush and the air of the mountains seemed to turn blue, the oil from eucalyptus trees mingling with dust particles and water droplets to give the region its color and name. She and Sam had talked as much as the engine’s roar had allowed, which wasn’t much. The higher they’d driven, the more the bustle of the city had fallen away, and now here in Katoomba the atmosphere was decidedly tranquil. In the gaps between the roar of motorcars on the main highway, birdcalls and the deep, living quiet of nature prevailed. There was something magnificent about it, and it made Billie stop and take a deep breath.
Sam had not asked why Billie had decided to drive out to the mountains, and he did not ask why they were walking toward a hospital. Whether it was his nature or his army training, Billie did not know. But the fact that Sam trusted her judgment . . . well, it was strangely comforting. Allies like that were rare.
“It may seem odd that we’ve come all this way,” Billie began. “I did some ringing around and I think I have a lead. If not . . .” She hesitated. “If I’m wrong, Sam, we deserve a drive out of the city regardless. We’ll have afternoon tea and visit the Hydro Majestic, or the Paragon,” she said, and his eyes lit up at the suggestion.
“I don’t feel I should be paid for that,” he said.
“You will be paid, regardless of what we find here. Which may be nothing. You have gone above and beyond. I don’t want you to think I don’t realize that, because I do, Sam.”
He met her eyes and said nothing. Then there was a slight nod. Good. They understood each other.
They walked up the few stairs to the entry porch of the hospital, a gabled single-story building with a central arch on which the name of the establishment was announced, then pushed through the beveled glass doors into the cool interior. The walls inside were stretcher bond brickwork, marble memorial plaques off to one side and Roll of Life Member plaques to the other. It smelled of disinfectant and starch.
The nurse at the reception desk nodded when Billie explained their business, her face suddenly and unexpectedly opening up. “I spoke to you on the telephone!” she said, her blue eyes wide. “That poor boy. Please come. He’s this way. Follow me.”
The nurse spoke about the boy being brought in, how no one knew who he was, how he had a head injury and was barely conscious, still unable to speak, how everyone was terribly concerned. Billie got the feeling the mystery boy had become quite a focus in the hospital. Had there really been no one else to visit him except the local constabulary to take down his description? She and Sam followed the woman into the men’s ward, where fewer than half of the beds were occupied. The nurse led them all the way to one end of the ward, where a boy lay, bandaged and bruised. The moment Billie caught sight of the curly hair sticking up between bandages, her heart leaped. Yes, this could be him. This really could.
“He speaks sometimes,” the nurse said, “but it’s mostly nonsense. He seems to have lost his memory. We haven’t been able to find out his name or where he’s from.”
“I understand,” Billie said.
“Do you think this is . . . who you were hoping to find? Oh, we so hope we can find the boy’s poor family.”
At this, Billie pulled the small photograph from her pocket. She held it up next to him, feeling her stomach tighten. She pocketed the image her client had given her, then knelt next to the boy, gathering herself. His eyes were shut tight with swelling, but his hair was a giveaway.
“Adin Brown? I’m Billie Walker,” Billie whispered into the boy’s ear, though he did not answer. She resisted the urge to check his pulse and temperature. He was in good hands now, but where had he been? What had happened to him? Her gaze went to the raw red marks on his wrists. Rope? Still kneeling, she turned and asked the nurse, “Can you tell me where exactly he was found and when? How did he come in?”
“Oh, it was a terrible thing, miss. Some hikers were coming back from one of those big walks and were headed for a train, and they saw a body at the bottom of this little cliff down at Wentworth Falls, right next to the line. They thought it was something that had fallen out of a train, at first. Then when they approached, they thought it was a dead body, but when they got there he was breathing. He was badly hurt and dehydrated, but alive. Miraculous, really. He stank of alcohol. Poor dear must have been drinking and . . .” She trailed off. “He could have been hit by a train, he was that close.”
“When was this?”
“Yesterday morning,” she said.
“So he was found near the tracks. Does it seem that he possibly jumped from a train? Or had a fall?” Billie asked.
“Every month people come here to end their lives, you know,” the nurse reflected, shaking her head. Billie listened with a neutral expression. “But usually they leave their motorcar by the top, or their things. Shoes and a note, that sort of thing. He didn’t seem to have anything with him but the clothes on his back. We don’t know if he jumped or fell; he might have gone wandering after leaving a pub and slipped, poor dear. Some of those places have quite a sharp edge.” She paused, and her next words indicated, perhaps, what she really thought. “And so young, too.”
Samuel had been standing silently behind Billie, and now he spoke. “His family will be so pleased he is alive. Thank you for what you’ve done.”
Billie wondered if she perhaps could get further. She put on her most trustworthy smile and said, “I think it may be who we’re looking for, but I’m not sure. Were there any personal effects on him? A wallet?” she asked, though she was quite certain she’d found her man. She wanted to see everything.
“No wallet, or we’d have known who he was right away,” the nurse responded.
“Of course.”
“Do come this way, I’ll show you his things. I surely hope it helps. I’ve been worried sick about this lad.”
“Thank you,” Billie said. She looked over her shoulder at Sam, motioning to him to stay put.
She and the nurse entered another area of the hospital, and the uniformed woman opened a locker and removed two labeled parcels wrapped in brown paper. An awful smell of liquor hit her nose as soon as they were opened. Inside one parcel was a pair of black leather men’s shoes. The other held some folded clothing, which struck Billie immediately as unusual. It looked like a formal outfit. This perhaps explained the nurse’s belief that the boy had come to die in the Blue Mountains. He had not been out hiking, that much was certain.
The nurse placed the items on a table for Billie to peruse, and she did a quick inventory. The leather shoes were fairly plain oxfords in a worn black. The label showed they were size eight, which fitted roughly with what she’d expect, considering Adin’s height. They were “prescription shoes,” but that only meant they had arch support. There was no way to track a man’s name down with a pair of shoes so standard. And the clothes: a pair of good black pants, rather the worse for wear. A crumpled and stained white shirt, smelling of gin, and a cheap gin if her nose was correct. Could he really have spilled so much of it on himself? A similarly crumpled and torn dinner jacket. Billie surmised the jacket was tailor-made, but not recently. It might even have been from before the war, perhaps when things were going well at the fur company. It reminded her of Mrs. Brown’s suits—they were prewar. But if it was made before the war, it wouldn’t have been made for Adin. Was this Adin’s father’s jacket? Billie wondered if Mikhall had given it to him, or if it was missing and hadn’t been noticed. She went through the garments carefully, finding no identifying labels or tags, and nothing of note until she discovered an inside coat pocket and felt something small and flat inside. It was creased and a touch thicker than paper. A photograph. She took only a moment to glance at it before secreting it so swiftly in her driving coat pocket that the nurse did not register that anything had been there at all. It was possible that whoever had inflicted the injuries on him had stripped him of his identification but missed this small item.
Billie had brought the Sydney Morning Herald clipping with her in case Adin could be interviewed, and she had fleetingly hoped to find his own torn copy in the pockets of the dinner jacket or pants, perhaps with something of note circled or written on it that explained his interest. Still, no wonder he was a no-show at the auction. At the time it was held, he was in this very hospital, semiconscious. The photograph, whatever it was of, was the only clue among his things as to what he might have been up to, apart from the fact that whatever had happened to him had likely happened at night, given he’d been dressed for The Dancers or a similarly formal environment.
“I’ll give a detailed description of these clothes to my client. I am hopeful,” Billie told the nurse. “There was nothing else? No bottle?”
The nurse shook her head.
“Will he recover, do you think?” Billie asked.
“I hope so,” the nurse answered. “We don’t have a doctor on staff here, but our local doctor has come to look at him. He’ll be back to see him soon. He’s taken quite an interest.”
They walked back to the ward where Sam was waiting, watching the boy with troubled eyes.
“Here’s the doctor now,” the nurse said, spotting the man at the same time Billie did. He was a white-coated man of about fifty with side-parted hair, a reassuringly healthy complexion considering his occupation, and a look of concern. The nurse introduced him as Dr. Worthington.
“Dr. Worthington, my name is Billie Walker,” Billie said and extended a hand. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. This is my colleague, Samuel Baker,” she said, gesturing to Sam.
The doctor looked at the patient and back to them. “Are you family?” he asked.
“We were hired by his family to find him.”
Billie was worried he might toss them out, but instead the doctor’s face brightened. “What a relief!” he exclaimed. “So you believe you can identify this boy? We don’t think he’s a local. He’s been here for more than a day now. We informed the police when he was found, but they’ve come up with nothing. He was in an awful state . . .”
“I see you have given him good care. In your opinion, will he recover, Doctor? I mean his memory, and his injuries?”
“The prognosis is good, but things will take some time. He’s been through an ordeal, the poor boy. He shouldn’t be moved until he is more fully recovered; then he can perhaps be transferred to a bigger hospital. He has a back injury, which will improve with rehabilitation. And there is a strong chance his memory will come back fully, though I can’t be sure.”
Billie thanked the doctor and she and Sam made their way out of the ward. She appeared serene, but beneath her rayon dress her heart was pounding. The photograph. It was about the size of the empty frame back at the fur shop, Billie thought. How interesting. And those wrists. Those raw red wrists. Adin Brown had not had an easy time of things since he left the family house. No, Adin had not done this to himself. There was a lot she didn’t yet understand about the boy and this case, but attempted suicide was not the missing piece of the puzzle. He wasn’t some drunk youth out wandering alone, either. However Adin had ended up here, he was alive. He was alive, and there was a chance he would talk again.
Billie, for one, was deeply interested in what the young man would have to say.