26

OTTO LEFT THE LONDON Portrait Gallery late morning, comprehending all too well what a colossal ambition it was to overturn a murder conviction, never mind that he had yet to find a killer and prove the case — and that he had just four days in which to do it. And who, apart from Tom Chuck, would help him? Not the police, not the judiciary, not the government. Powerful men in authority, with their delicate egos, could never countenance the thought that they might be wrong, and though they would profess loudly to be defenders of justice, what they most feared was embarrassment. And anyway, what kind of an upstart would dare presume to know better than they? Well, an upstart like himself, of course!

So, yes, Otto conceded, the odds weren’t attractive, but great risk was worth taking for great reward. It presented a magnificent opportunity. Imagine, one man — well, two — taking on the machinery, and winning! Could there be a greater recommendation, a more convincing testimony, for the Private Inquiry Office?

Otto’s wont wasn’t to ponder the immutable, but he did wonder at the timing of his return to Melbourne from New Zealand. How many days would be too few? Five, he reckoned — if he counted since yesterday, and even with one a Sunday — was too many not to take up the challenge. He fully expected spiteful interference and non-cooperation by Daylesford police; but obstacles, as Otto reminded himself, were for overcoming. He would carry out his investigations alone — as was his usual, and preferred, practice — with Tom running errands from time to time as required.

It was fortunate that he had been granted these three weeks’ leave, a favour not usually so readily granted. He wondered whether the government had ever considered that his new agency might prove to be a very economically advantageous alternative to maintaining a costly stable of its own detectives for investigations of fraud, unpaid debts, and the like. Would it understand that salaried detectives were paid whether they solved a case or not, and whether they took a month to do a week’s work? His Private Inquiry Office, on the other hand, would depend for its very existence on getting the job done, and promptly. In any case, had leave not been granted, he was ready to resign, and he was sure the Detective Department knew that.

But now he had a job to do.

And what an opportune start to his investigations it was to catch sight of the familiarly gaunt form of Pearson Thompson, leaving the office of solicitor Thomas Geake, a few doors down from Chuck’s. As the old barrister was a man he had to speak to, Otto might also have taken this coincidence as auspicious, but he was a man of science, and confident in his judgement, so he knew already that he was on the right track. He quickened his step and caught up with Thompson, taking the old man by surprise.

‘Berliner! When the devil are you finally leaving this town? It seems every time I’m here, your neatly trimmed head pops up.’

‘You know, Pearson, I was just thinking that very thought about you. Let me buy you a cup of tea.’

Thompson took out his watch. ‘Too late for a spot of breakfast? At the Vic?’

It was too late for Otto, actually, but if breakfast was the price of a conversation with the man, he was sure he could manage some bread and jam.

No more was spoken until they’d ordered at the counter and taken their seats by the window at the Victoria Hotel, one hundred yards up Vincent Street.

‘I always thought you’d be a sausage man, Berliner,’ Thompson said with a grin.

My God, the fellow was in a pert mood, and so soon after losing a murder case. Perhaps it was his way of compensating for the disappointment.

Thompson abruptly turned serious.

‘You see that fellow leading the horse by us just now, down Chancery Lane? To the livery stables out the back?’

‘Hathaway, wasn’t it?’

Thompson nodded. ‘He’d be expecting a slice of the reward for the Rose case, knowing so very much about that pipe. Walker’s up for a slice himself, and Williams, and that cocky little trooper Brady. You, too, no doubt, for bringing the fugitive in.’ He shook his head and grimaced. ‘Is it right, Berliner — morally, that is — that police should have their pockets lined with reward money?’

Otto was spared the requirement to give the obvious answer, for Thompson’s omelette had just arrived.

The barrister’s face lit up. ‘Ah!’ He held his fork over it a moment, and then stabbed it through the heart.

‘You were disappointed by the verdict, I expect?’ Otto said.

Thompson thought for a moment. ‘Well, yes, of course I was!’ He took a forkful and loaded his mouth.

‘Then you did believe your client was innocent?’ Otto said, with Thompson masticating like a machine. He swallowed.

‘I didn’t say that. He shouldn’t have been found guilty. There’s a difference. I strongly object to sloppy application of the law — no, actually, it is the law I object to. Seven months, Rose was in custody. Seven! It’s an outrage. Anyway, I’ve just come over today to tidy up with Geake, so we both get our dues; salvage something from the wreckage.’ He took another forkful. ‘So, Berliner,’ he said, ‘why are you here in Daylesford? Private enterprise not your cup of tea after all?’ A fleck of egg clung to the fringe of Thompson’s moustache, defying the threshing jaw beneath. Otto wouldn’t be steered from the topic.

‘I agree with you, Pearson. Rose should not have been found guilty, on the evidence.’

Thompson dabbed his lips with finger and thumb, and smoothed his moustache. ‘You know a lot about the trial, for a man who wasn’t there.’

‘My associate was. I read the papers.’

‘Associate?’ The implication seemed to amuse Thompson, or irritate him. ‘Well, well. And who might that be?’

‘That’s not important. What he told me is, because it leads me to want to ask you some questions.’

Thompson sat back sharply in his seat; the defence counsel was suddenly in a defensive mood. He wiped his chin and looked out onto the street for a few moments. Otto saw his larynx rise and fall, and his eyes dart. He faced Otto again, this time with a mien of forced indifference.

‘So, Detective, by all means ask away.’

‘You didn’t challenge the assertion that Rose could, or would, walk all the way into town, and at night, for example.’

‘I didn’t see the point. It was an assertion self-evidently preposterous. Go on.’

‘Maybe you should have pointed that out, nonetheless. But let’s not dwell on that now —’

‘Is that all?’

Otto was quickly on to his next point.

‘You didn’t put the suggestion that maybe it was Margaret Stuart who put the pipe on the meat safe. She may well have found it that afternoon.’

‘She may well have, though I preferred to disprove that the pipe was Rose’s. I maintain still that the Crown didn’t prove that it was, despite what Judge Barry said. I mean, Hathaway would say anything if there was a reward for his words. Any more?’

‘You didn’t mention George Stuart’s report of Joe Latham’s threats to his stepdaughter. In fact, you called no witnesses for the defence, didn’t even put up the three pounds that would have secured at least one, went on at length about the law of England — as if a jury of country shop-keepers and blacksmiths is interested — and, perhaps most important, didn’t invite your client to rebut any of the claims made against him, including offering an alibi.’

‘Good God, Berliner, that’s quite a barrage!’

Otto sat, stony-faced. Perhaps he’d come on a little stronger than he should have; he didn’t want Thompson to clam up, or walk out. Fortunately, he did neither. After a moment or two, Thompson spoke, and calmly.

‘Just what is your interest, Berliner? I know you brought Rose in. I thought you, as a policeman, would be satisfied, if not delighted, with the verdict. Or is there some guilt you’re carrying around under that fine head of hair?’

‘I’ve already said, Pearson, I agree with you that Rose shouldn’t have been found guilty on the evidence —’

‘Quite so.’

‘So why was he? Do you take any responsibility? Could you have conducted the defence differently? Perhaps you could have reminded the court that it was a knife, not a razor, that killed Maggie Stuart. But then Smyth did that for you, didn’t he?’

Thompson sputtered like a lit fuse.

‘Listen to me, Berliner. You dare presume to tell me my job? I took the case because no one else would — the man was damned from the beginning.’ He leant forward and slapped the tabletop. ‘He’s a convict for heaven’s sake, from Van Diemen’s Land, the worst of the worst. Sent to Port Arthur, did you know —?’

‘I do, but to Point Puer boys’ prison nearby. He was sixteen, Pearson.’

Thompson waved this away as mere detail, and resumed his rebuttal. ‘And, Berliner, since coming to Victoria he’s been arrested — thrice that I know of — for molesting women up around Echuca, and elsewhere. Any hope I had of securing his release lay in the law. It was the law and its application that failed Rose. The police — your colleagues, mind you — had no proof.’

‘I see. Rose was destined for the gallows, whatever you said?’

Thompson considered this before answering.

‘No. I was naïve in thinking that the police case wasn’t enough to convict on; if I made a mistake, it was in overestimating the integrity of the legal system in this colony.’

Otto made a quick study of Thompson’s tone and manner. He’d heard himself several times being criticised as pompous; well, surely these detractors had never met this man!

‘Loath as I am to defend the police, Pearson, I am inclined to believe there was no direct evidence against David Rose because there was none to find.’

Thompson smiled. ‘Still a grain of loyalty there, I see.’

‘Hardly. My former colleagues made a case on hot air, and got away with it. Do you think there is evidence to be found against Rose?’

‘That’s not for me to say. In the end it didn’t matter, because we had a judge who prattled on about the circumstantial evidence being as valid as direct evidence — or even more valid — so the jury had all the justification it needed. And just as well; imagine the compensation Rose could claim should he have been acquitted. I mean, seven months’ incarceration of an innocent man would cost the government several thousand, I can tell you.’

In a brief lull, Otto watched Thompson look distractedly about the room, and then leant forward, his eyes fixed on Otto’s. He spoke softly, drawing Otto closer.

‘Look, we all know Rose had it coming. His record is a veritable catalogue of iniquity. I’d go as far to say he probably did kill her — but whatever the jury’s verdict, the prosecution simply did not prove that he did.’

So there it was, the odious confirmation that even Rose’s own counsel didn’t believe him. Otto was speechless. He leant back on his chair and watched Thompson clean up the last of his omelette, seemingly unconcerned by his admission. Thompson looked up and dabbed his mouth with his handkerchief.

‘So, Berliner, all these questions. What are you up to?’

‘I don’t agree with you, Pearson. At all. I believe Mrs Stuart’s killer is still at large, and I intend to bring him in.’

Thompson raised his eyebrows, incredulous.

‘Well, if you do bring him in, you can tell him I’m unavailable. I’ve got my own cross to bear; I’m to be a father, again, in a few weeks. God help me, at my time of life.’

ALICE LATHAM WAS STRETCHING a linen sheet on a line when Otto found her. A grubby-faced barefoot girl in pigtails alerted her mother to the visitor’s arrival.

‘Mrs Latham?’ he said.

She swept aside a curtain of tablecloth, and eyed Otto as she might a hawker of health tonic.

Otto lifted his hat, a new bowler he suspected looked a little out of place away from the city. ‘Detective Otto Berliner, ma’am,’ he said. ‘May I have a brief word?’

‘Berliner? I’ve heard that name. You were workin’ in Daylesford, but you left.’

‘Yes, I did leave, two years ago now.’

‘But weren’t you in the search for my daughter’s murderer?’

‘That I was.’

‘Then I should thank you, Mr Berliner.’

‘A cup of tea would suffice.’

The woman seemed a little taken aback by the suggestion, but then nodded that a cup of tea was as good an idea as any.

‘If you could finish these, Detective, I’ll make a pot.’ She bustled inside, leaving Otto with a basket of laundry, a bag of pegs, and the girl staring at him from the back porch. He bent and fetched out a tablecloth. It suddenly amused him that his murder investigation should begin with the hanging of washing in a Daylesford backyard, under the supervision of a child. The day itself had much to do with his good humour; the sky was clear and, in the sunshine, wattles across Wombat Hill were a blaze of the brightest yellow amid the dour green of the eucalypts and leafless branches of young oak, ash, and elm. He finished the basket and took it inside. The girl had gone.

The Latham house was small and spare. They were in the tiny kitchen and sitting-room just inside the back door, his host bent over, stoking the stove firebox. Otto took the opportunity to study her. She couldn’t have been more than forty, yet she had the waddle of a woman half her age again. Her hair was lank and unbrushed; her hands were coarse and raw. Here was a stranger to the finer things in life.

‘How many children do you and Mr Latham have?’ Otto said, pouring himself tea into a chipped china cup and finding a chair. There was a pause, and it seemed to Otto she was a little reluctant to reply. She closed the firebox and stood.

‘Mr Berliner, I have much laundry to do today while the sun is out, so I prefer you come quickly to your business. If you don’t mind.’

‘Of course not, Mrs Latham.’ There was definitely a change in her mood, as if she had had second thoughts about offering hospitality to a detective. If he was to glean anything, he knew he would have to tread carefully.

‘I’ll come straight to the point, Mrs Latham.’ She was making it plain with her attending to various domestic chores that this cup of tea wasn’t going to be a shared, much less convivial, one. This, Otto found irritating — he did always prefer to have the full attention of his interlocutor than not — but he pressed on, confident that what he was about to say would rectify this.

‘I am concerned, as others are, that the man condemned to hang for the murder of your daughter is innocent of the crime, and —’

Mrs Latham was staring at him.

‘And, so before a terrible injustice is done —’

‘You can bloody well think what you like, Detective, but the way I see it, my Maggie is dead, and a man is goin’ to pay for makin’ her so.’

‘Will that be a comfort if there is the slightest possibility that it’s the wrong man? To discover that the real murderer is still at large?’

The girl was back, with three sisters. For Otto, the timing was perfect. Mrs Latham smiled at them and wiped the face of the smallest. They each took a carrot from a basket and skipped back into the yard.

‘It is not for me to decide who killed my Maggie. That is for police and judges.’

‘I agree with you, Mrs Latham, but I think they may have made a mistake.’

Mrs Latham stared at her visitor, her face crinkling as anger and sadness vied. The latter prevailed; she looked away, her eyes reddening.

‘Mrs Latham, I am most terribly sorry. I know you may have found some peace in the verdict, but I urge you to —’

‘Please, Detective Berliner, just listen to me!’ The tears had been mopped, and now it was the face that was reddening. ‘I will not testify against my husband, so you can get that idea out of your head.’

My God! Here was a bolt from the blue. Otto affected not to be surprised, or delighted, by the implication.

‘I know many think it was Joe what done it; probably even you, Detective. But I have four children here at home, and Joe is a good provider. He won’t be if he’s hanged.’

‘Mrs Latham, you seem to be saying you believe your husband —?’

‘I’m not sayin’ nothin’. But if police and the judges can get one man wrong, they can get two, and I know there’s many who think Joe killed Maggie. I’m not one of them.’

‘I’d like to speak to Joe. When will he be home?’

Alice smiled. ‘And I thought you was a good detective! Haven’t you heard? Joe don’t live here any more.’

‘I see.’

‘No you don’t. He don’t live here ’cause I told him to leave.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Adelaide. Don’t ask me for an address, ’cause I don’t have one.’

‘So, if he’s not in Daylesford, why not answer my questions?’

Alice rolled her eyes. ‘My, you’re not so smart as you think. I’ll explain it for you nice and slow. Joe Latham is the father of my children; he sends me money. If he goes to gaol, I get no money, ’cept what I earn doing laundry, which isn’t near enough. Now, I’ve had enough of your questions, and I’m sorry to appear rude, but if you could be so considerate as to please finish your tea and be on your way.’

Otto nodded that, of course, he understood perfectly. He set down his cup, stood up, and collected his hat.

‘Thank you, Mrs Latham. I do appreciate how difficult your circumstances are, and I apologise if I have intruded.’ He stepped across to the back door and out into the yard. When he turned around, Mrs Latham was standing on the threshold.

‘Before I go,’ he said, ‘we both know that George Stuart was very certain that your husband made violent threats against your daughter. And Joe did admit at the inquest to striking Maggie, and I have learned that neither were you spared his temper. So let us not fool ourselves, Mrs Latham — your husband is, by any reading of his behaviour, a very violent man. And violent men are dangerous. Good day to you.’

Of course, Otto knew she was lying; Joe Latham didn’t sound the kind who would leave simply because his abused wife told him to. No, she had something over her husband that he didn’t want revealed.

‘WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING doing here, Berliner?’

Otto didn’t need to look up from his coffee and sandwich to know that the man with the foul mouth was his former colleague Detective Thomas Walker. But he did look up anyway, after a suitable delay.

‘Walker, charming as ever. I’m having lunch, if your detecting skills are still a little underdeveloped. Please, won’t you join me, but if you could just keep your voice down …’ Otto cast his eyes about the room, where half-a-dozen other diners were enjoying light refreshments and conversation. ‘You see, a point of difference between the Argus Restaurant and the hotel counter lunch,’ he said, ‘is the quiet.’

Walker had a choice here, and both men knew it: walk out or sit down. Either was a capitulation. He chose the latter, and, by way of a smile, Otto allowed himself a modest gloat. But Walker had too much of a head of steam up to care.

‘Look, Berliner, you left this town and now you’re back, on some kind of private investigation, undermining the work and reputation of the local police. And as for putting the bereaved mother through her pain again, I thought that would be beneath even you. Just what are you trying to achieve?’

Otto listened with a deadpan face, but with a mind busy calculating how best to respond once Walker was done bleating. First, he would take a few moments before speaking; he always found it remarkable how a slight pause could give one the ascendancy, to have the other man waiting on one’s words.

‘Detective Walker, I know my presence causes you great discomfort —’

‘Try, your very existence.’

‘Very droll, but if you’ll let me finish. Perhaps your discomfort is because you stand to be monumentally embarrassed should I prove everyone wrong about David Rose — which I admit, I may or may not do. Or it could be the reward you stand to lose that concerns you most? I should think that thirty or forty pounds of that two hundred might have your name on it, seeing as it was you, and only you, who discovered the pipe that condemned the man. But your discomfort, or the bereaved mother’s, is not my concern; the truth is.’

Walker sat back in his chair and waved away Mrs Homberg, the proprietor’s wife, who’d arrived to take an order. He looked at Berliner with a smirk.

‘You’re such a pompous prick. Is that a Bavarian trait?’

‘It may well be, though my family’s Prussian, so don’t take my word for it.’

Walker leant forward, but Otto wasn’t about to hand him the floor. He stood and took his hat and scarf from the stand. ‘Naturally, I will be speaking to Superintendent Nicolson and Chief Commissioner Standish in due course.’ He bent to Walker’s ear. ‘And, Thomas, you might even set aside your antipathy towards me and assist in my investigations. We are, after all, meant to be on the same side. Good day.’

Otto stepped out into a busy Vincent Street, the day cold but still bright. He turned and walked, and was in front of the Union Bank when a woman’s voice spoke his name. He looked over his shoulder to see Mrs Homberg there. Beyond, Detective Walker was leaving the Argus.

‘Detective Berliner,’ she said, ‘do you have a moment?’

‘Of course, Mrs Homberg. By the way, I neglected to say that was a splendid sandwich.’

‘Thank you. Do you mind if we … ?’ She led Otto out of the pedestrian stream to a spot by the bank. After a glance back to the door of the Argus, she said ‘I heard you were in town, and asking questions about Margaret Stuart’s murder —’

‘My, word does travel so fast!’

‘Well, I do know Alice Latham; Maggie worked in the restaurant for a month or so. Did you know?’

‘No. Maybe she served me.’

‘You’d remember. She was a very pretty girl. Beautiful, I think. What happened to her was —’

‘I expect many men paid her attention?’

‘Of course, and often it was of the kind most unwelcome.’

‘From anyone in particular?’

‘None that made a habit of it.’

‘I see. Is there something else you wish to tell me?’

She glanced behind again. ‘I just don’t want my husband to know I’m telling you this.’

‘Mrs Homberg, what exactly is it you wish to tell me?’

‘There was an incident, one night, not quite two years ago. Maggie’s stepfather would come to escort her home on those days she worked late. This night, when she was leaving, a man called Serafino Bonetti was here. He works at a bakery, and he was delivering —’

‘You do know Bonetti was arrested for a time on suspicion of Maggie’s murder?’

‘Yes I do, and Mr Homberg and I could not believe that he would ever hurt even a kitten. A fine young man he is, and Maggie did like his company. She’d have friendly words with him whenever he made a bread delivery.’

‘And on this particular night?’

‘Serafino was leaving and, like a gentleman, he opened the door for Maggie. I saw them, just out on the footpath, smiling and talking. And then I saw Joe Latham walk up. He would have been waiting for her, to take her home. He must have come from the Golden Age just there, because he seemed a little unsteady on his feet.’

‘So, there was an altercation of some sort?’

‘I couldn’t hear much, but I was at the window, and with the light turned down I saw Joe Latham pointing his finger at Serafino. He was threatening him. And then Maggie was arguing with her stepfather. Serafino left — I think because Maggie asked him to go. She could see that Latham was looking to start a fight.’

‘Pardon my asking, Mrs Homberg, but why are you telling me this?’

‘So you can know what a violent and jealous man Joe Latham is, and you can do something! You know he used to beat Alice, his own wife—?’

‘Yes—’

‘But I am not finished, Detective Berliner.’

‘Do go on.’

‘Two evenings later, when Maggie had to change her blouse — she’d had an accident with the sauce — I saw the most awful bruise on her neck. Like a hand had taken hold of it, like so, and squeezed.’ Mrs Homberg demonstrated a claw-hold. ‘She had a small neck. She knew I’d seen her, and she made me promise never to say anything to anyone.’

‘And you don’t you want your husband to know you’ve told me this because …?’

‘Only to avoid a row. He thinks a man was found guilty, and that is that. Joe Latham was a bad man, but he can’t hurt Maggie any more.’

‘I’m sure many people would agree with him.’

‘But Detective Berliner, if David Rose had to answer questions, why didn’t Joe Latham? I think there is something terribly wrong here.’

Otto nodded. ‘And I’m most inclined to agree with you, Mrs Homberg.’

IF OTTO HAD ENTERTAINED the idea of being a father one day, he was feeling rather glad at the moment of the luxury that parenthood was still an option. It wasn’t that young Henry Chuck’s company was intolerable; rather, it was just a little too much like hard work for Otto to prefer it over sitting alone. The pair of them — detective and child — were at the dining table, while in the kitchen Tom carved a chicken, and Adeline attended to the vegetables.

Otto persisted; something from the rules of social etiquette told him that as the guest it was his responsibility to entertain the lad while the parents were busy preparing the meal. He reminded himself that to his parents, having recently lost a baby, the young fellow was especially precious.

‘How old are you, Henry?’ Otto said.

‘Ten next year.’

‘Ten next year. Well, well. And do you want to be a photographic artist, just like your father?’

‘No.’

Otto nodded, and wondered how far away dinner was.

‘Where do you come from?’ the boy asked abruptly.

‘I came with my family to Sydney from Berlin when I was about your age—’

‘I’d like to be a detective.’

The conversation had just turned mildly interesting.

‘Oh? Tell me why,’ Otto said.

The boy shrugged. ‘I’m good at noticing things. I can tell you came here down Albert Street, from Camp Street.’

‘Really? I am staying at the Albert Hotel, on the Camp Street corner. Did you see me walk down?’

The boy’s parents had entered the room, each bringing two plates.

‘Here we are at last, gentlemen,’ Tom said. ‘I know you both must be ravenous.’

‘It looks most edible!’ Otto said, not noticing that the boy was anxious to finish his account.

‘No, I didn’t see you walk down,’ Henry said, a little piqued.

Otto turned to him. ‘So, how —?’

‘It’s your trousers,’ the boy said. ‘There are spots of yellow clay on them from the where the footpath was dug up for the drains. That’s how I know.’

Otto twisted in his seat to see the hem of his tweeds. ‘So there are. That is very observant of you, Henry,’ he said, genuinely impressed. ‘I think you might make a fine detective. In fact, you’re a detective already!’

AFTER DINNER, WHEN HENRY had been put to bed and Adeline had retired, Otto sat with Tom in the sitting room and, over a warming brandy, related the day’s developments.

‘Your inquiries have certainly attracted considerable attention, Otto. Does that concern you?’

‘Not in the least,’ Otto said, crossing one leg over the other and holding a palm to the gentle fire flickering in the grate.

‘But should there be a murderer at large, might he not leave the district?’

‘He might, or might not. But remember, David Rose has already been tried and condemned, so I don’t know whether any killer at large would flatter me so much that he might think I could change that.’

‘But it’s what you intend to do, of course?’

‘Of course. Criminals do tend to underestimate the police, which is why there are criminals.’

Tom chuckled.

‘But then, in this colony, criminals have good grounds,’ Otto added wryly. ‘Anyway, who knows, my poking around may even flush a killer from cover.’

‘Walker sounded most annoyed with you. Can the police order you to cease investigations?’

‘Perhaps. But why would they? To pretend that it’s to protect the likes of Alice Latham, maybe. No, they won’t want to risk appearing to have something to hide. They’d be thinking that, in three days, Rose will be executed and it will all go away, me included.’

‘A tipple more?’ Tom said, reaching for the bottle after a minute’s quiet reflection in the glow of the coals.

‘Tempting, Tom, but I really ought to take myself off to bed.’ Otto stood, and took his hat and coat from the hook.

‘I feel I should be doing something,’ Tom said. ‘To help, I mean.’

‘Feeding me a wonderful dinner is a good start!’ Otto smiled, then grasped Tom’s upper arm. ‘Of course, I know what you mean, and just as soon as I have something for you …’

‘But there is so little time, yet I wonder at times you seem to forget that — you seem so calm.’

Otto smiled. ‘Would it reassure you if I turned a little frantic?’

They walked through to the front of the shop, and paused at the door to the street.

‘So Joe Latham’s your suspect?’

‘Well, Tom, it is curious that a man who beat his stepdaughter, and threatened to cut her throat, should not have been investigated.’

‘And he was charged with taking Maggie’s belongings from the house three days after her death.’

‘Yes, makes you wonder —’

‘And she told the inquest Joe got up at ten-thirty or eleven to light his pipe, and she said he was only out of bed a few minutes. But then when the police came to her door at three in the morning, she said she and Joe had only just dozed off.’

‘Maybe their marriage wasn’t all violence!’

Tom frowned at the levity. Otto hastened to reassure his friend.

‘It’s all right, Tom. I’m just tired. But you’re right, that is very curious. Maybe at 3.00 a.m. Joe had just come back from disposing of bloodied clothes? And a murder weapon, perhaps?’