Twenty-seven
Detective Inspector Hank Cooper from Sydney’s Central Police and Private Inquiry Agent Billie Walker were both somewhat outside their usual jurisdictions as they stood on the edge of Victoria Pass in the Blue Mountains, the afternoon wind tugging at their hair and clothing. A roped-off area of broken timber railing marked where the Oldsmobile had forged a deadly path to the final resting place of two men on unforgiving rocks hundreds of feet below.
“This was an ‘unfortunate accident,’” the detective inspector commented after a long silence, peering over the edge and quoting Billie from the police report. “Is that what I am to believe?”
“Well, one can hardly call it fortunate,” Billie noted.
They stood several feet away from the path of destruction, and though all was quiet now save for the rustling of summer wind through the bush and up the steep embankment, and the intermittent roar of the occasional passing vehicle, the aftermath of the plummeting motorcar had left a kind of psychic path that could still be felt. Billie thought she could almost hear the sickening sound of the splintering rail and the crash far below.
“One can’t help the bad driving of others,” she added, wrapping her dark navy driving coat around her, wind whipping the hem. “Locals die on this bend every year, I’m told, and I suspect the driver did not know these roads as a local would.” She paused. “I slowed. They did not.”
“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?” Cooper said, turning to her and holding on to his hat.
“Do I?” She had theories but she didn’t have a sure answer for why those men had wanted Adin Brown’s silence, or who had sent them to ensure it. Moretti? And who was he working for exactly? Was this part of a grudge against her dad and by extension her? That seemed a stretch after so many years. No, she didn’t have all the answers. Billie didn’t have a sure answer for why she’d been pummeled in an alley or why Con Zervos was dead and had been planted in her bedroom. Theories were forming, a cast of characters assembling, clues knitting together—but answers? No.
The inspector asked her to describe once again the chain of events, the path of the cars. She complied patiently, shouting from time to time when the wind came up.
Cooper heard her out, took some notes, and without a word led her back down the road, away from the pass with its spectacular view of the Megalong Valley on one side and Hartley Valley on the other, toward where they’d left their motorcars. Unless they wished to rappel down to the fatal collection of rocks, they could not get closer to the mangled hunk of metal from which two bodies had been extracted and which a crane would soon remove from the otherwise picturesque landscape.
“It was unwise to pursue them,” the inspector said once they reached their vehicles.
“I don’t plan to make a habit of it, Detective Inspector,” Billie replied, leaning against the roadster’s driver’s-side door and wondering fleetingly if she’d have been called unwise or heroic if she’d been her father. “I do wish, though, we could firmly establish who hired them, and their reasons.”
“I’ll look into it,” he said.
“Will you?” she asked, watching him. “You have to admit it’s quite a coincidence that Moretti was outside my flat on Sunday and those thugs, who said they worked for him, attacked Adin Brown the next day.”
“Yes. It is interesting,” he said cautiously.
They would head to the hospital next, and Billie hoped that Adin was recovering well and would have something to say, if not his entire memory restored. She felt the inspector knew more than she did about the whole affair, including, probably, the identities of the dead men. But just what that was remained to be seen.
Billie’s arrival at Katoomba Hospital with the tall inspector did not go unnoticed by patients and staff.
As they made their way toward the arched sandstone entrance, Billie noticed a flurry of activity behind the windows on either side. The nurse from the previous day was once again at the front admissions desk, even more wide-eyed and happy to assist, and nearby Billie spotted a copy of the day’s newspaper. It appeared to have been hastily put to one side, as if to give the impression that the incident and its coverage had somehow not been a major topic of conversation. Uniformed staff watched them move through the halls, turning and whispering, leaving a buzz of low voices in their wake as they headed to an area Billie was unfamiliar with. To her relief, they had moved Adin Brown out of the men’s ward to a private room west of the main entrance, usually reserved for quarantine cases. He also now had a police guard, she noted. The local constable from the previous day—he of the circular questions and outdoorsman glow—was sitting outside the private room, looking catastrophically bored, and it was with some pleasure that Billie watched him register her approach, then stand and put on an air of officiousness, only to have Cooper flash a badge and put him back in his place several ranks below.
“Detective Inspector Cooper, Central Police. Ms. Walker is assisting with our inquiries,” the inspector said. The constable’s goldfish-like gaping stretched on for a moment and then ceased, his athletic complexion paling. The nurse opened the door into the room and Billie gave him a saccharine smile as she moved inside, Detective Inspector Cooper shutting the door behind them for privacy.
They found themselves in a modest room with a single bed and a barred window that afforded some natural light. It smelled of bleach and some kind of disinfectant they’d presumably used on the boy’s wounds. Adin was propped up, which was encouraging, but when he turned to look in her direction Billie was shocked by the swollen appearance of his eyes. He had been beaten around the head with some enthusiasm, that much was evident, and it now made a great deal of sense that he was having difficulty with recollection. His parents were with him, his father holding his hand tenderly. With the inspector and Billie inside the room, there wasn’t a lot of space. A vase with some bright cerise bougainvillea added some cheer to a setting that might have been somber, except for the palpable relief felt by Mikhall and Nettie Brown.
“Oh, Billie!” Nettie exclaimed, leaping up and embracing her, all reserve and formality having fallen away. “Thank you for finding our boy, our dear, dear boy.” Fresh tears were running down her face and so fierce was her embrace that Billie felt she might injure a rib, or perhaps she was still bruised and tender from the alley attack. Trapped for a moment in the woman’s arms, Billie exchanged a look with the inspector, who was observing the emotional scene without comment. Now her client—her former client—was not concerned about what it had cost to find her son. Now that she had her boy back, it seemed she felt only pure relief.
Billie waited until the squeeze eased before she spoke. “I can’t take all the credit, I’m afraid, Mrs. Brown. The people who found Adin near the railway tracks and brought him here should really be thanked. And the nurses and doctor. I’m just glad he is getting proper care now and will be safe.” She looked around the room again. Yes, there was no way in except through that door, and anyone trying to get to the boy would have to get past the police guard.
“There are boot prints on him . . . boot prints on my boy; they hurt him so badly,” Nettie said, sobbing quietly into Billie’s ear. They remained entwined for a moment, Billie reassuring her that Adin was in good hands.
The nurse had already informed them that the boy’s back was injured but not broken—a relief—but his head injuries were a major concern, along with some internal bleeding. He would recover in time. He needed rest, a lot of rest. Billie suspected it would not be a quick or easy process to elicit memories from Adin Brown.
Once released, she pulled up a chair beside the narrow hospital bed and turned to the patient. “Adin,” she began, “my name is Billie Walker. I visited you yesterday, but you likely don’t remember.” She took his hand in hers and shook it gently, her eyes drawn once more to the raw red lines across his wrists. Ligature marks.
Red-rimmed eyes met hers. “I remember,” he said simply, his voice small but determined. “Thank you.”
She nodded that she understood. “This is Detective Inspector Cooper from the city. He is here to learn about what happened to you, if you can recall anything,” she said, and turned to the inspector, who seemed not to mind that she had taken the initiative. Nettie’s display would have put at rest any questions about her connection with the family.
Adin worked hard to pull out recollections for the inspector, and several times apologized and said he was trying to remember. He appeared frustrated that the memories would not come. The inspector, for his part, was more gentle and patient than Billie had expected. When asked, the boy swore he had not been drinking and could not account for the smell on his clothing when he was found. He remembered pulling himself from the train tracks, but he didn’t know how he got there, or to the hospital.
The space became stiflingly small as time stretched on, and after twenty minutes or so a nurse entered, bringing tea and refreshments for the patient, his family, and the police visitors. Billie took Cooper aside as Nettie and Mikhall and the nurse fussed over Adin, and told him she’d like to show Adin something that might prompt his memory. Cooper agreed, pressing her for fewer details than she might have expected, perhaps trusting her and her connection with the family to help loosen up the line of inquiry. Not every inspector would do that, she knew, desiring to be seen in control as men in his position often did. Once the refreshments were cleared away Billie took a seat next to the boy and showed Adin the auction house advertisement she had brought with her. The effect was riveting. His painfully swollen eyes widened and he struggled up from his pillow.
“Yes, I saw this advertisement and recognized my great-aunt’s necklace,” Adin said, sitting up as straight as he could and holding the newspaper clipping with the kind of intensity with which one might hold a lifeline. “I saw this at the milk bar. This advertisement.” That fitted with what Adin’s friend Maurice had told Billie. The inspector eagerly wrote notes as the boy continued. “That necklace belonged to my great-aunt and they took that from her, took everything from her.”
“Who is they?”
“The auction house people. I don’t know how exactly . . .”
“How can you be sure it is the same necklace?” the inspector asked.
“I am sure,” the boy said.
“It does appear to be the same necklace the woman is wearing in this photograph,” Billie said, handing the small, creased image to the inspector.
“Where did you get this?”
“It belongs to the boy,” was all Billie said, looking away, not happy to answer questions about its acquisition.
The inspector narrowed his eyes but said nothing to her. For now. “I’d like to keep this, thank you,” he said to the Browns, and they nodded their assent.
“I looked up the auction house and contacted them to find out where they got it,” Adin said, his memory becoming clearer, the words now tumbling out. “The owner wouldn’t speak with me, and they wouldn’t let me in the place. But I had to talk with him. Everyone knows Georges Boucher frequents The Dancers, so I tried to talk to him there. I figured I could walk straight up to him and confront him. Then he’d have to listen to me.”
“And did you speak with him?” the inspector asked.
“No.” Adin frowned. “I was thrown out before I could, and then before I knew it someone had grabbed me.”
“Were there any witnesses to this?” Cooper asked.
“No,” he said. Then he pulled his brows further together. “Actually, one of the doormen. I’d spoken to him earlier. He saw what happened, I think.”
Con Zervos. He saw the boy abducted.
“You were alone when this happened? Not with friends?” the inspector asked, noting everything down.
The boy nodded.
“I thought it was the doormen at first. It’s a high-class place. But then they were playing real rough. I think I . . . I think I blacked out. I was taken somewhere, and . . .” His breathing sped up, the blood draining from his face. “They . . .” Billie noticed his hands begin to shake.
“Take it easy, kid. You’re all right now,” the inspector said. “Just breathe. That’s it . . .” Slowly, the boy calmed and his chest began to move again at a more normal rate. “Would you recognize any of the people who attacked you?”
“Oh yes . . . I would, I think. They didn’t hide from me at all. They . . .” He trailed off again, sweat appearing suddenly on his pale brow where the bandages did not cover him. He balled his hands into fists, and pressed them to his temples. He cried out, startling Billie and the others in the room.
In no time the door opened and a nurse appeared, the constable looking over her shoulder from outside. The cry had been heard. “That’s enough for now,” the woman said, pushing Adin gently back down into his bed. “You must rest.”
The nurse ushered all of them out of the room, even Mr. and Mrs. Brown, and as they assembled in the hallway outside, the inspector protested.
“The patient must rest. You’ve got your orders and I’ve got mine. That is enough for one day.” Even in the face of Cooper’s authority, the steely nurse wouldn’t back down.
Billie walked away from the small room in a near trance, head swirling with thoughts, barely aware of the inspector trailing behind her. She could see it clearly now—the boy beaten nearly to death, then doused with alcohol and left for dead on the train tracks. An accident, end of story. The train would explain the injuries sustained by his beatings—if there had been much of a body left to examine at all.
They let him see them, Billie thought. They expected it wouldn’t matter, because they expected him to be dead.