Hugh struggled for some time to bring his sobbing under control. He then leaned forward on his elbows and rubbed his face with his hands, still unable to look at Joan directly. When he spoke his voice was hoarse and barely rose above a whisper.
‘I love you, Joanie. I know that must sound strange given what’s happened, but it’s true. It’s because I love you that I cannot … bring myself …’ Here, Hugh almost choked on his own words. ‘The fact is I have syphilis. The pox.’ He spat the word out with disgust. ‘Another legacy from my time in France. But one that cannot be talked about openly. I hope you understand now; that’s why I cannot … will not … make love to you. I refuse to hurt you in that way, Joanie, though so many men have done this to their wives and girlfriends, feckless bastards that they are.’
Tears ran down Joan’s face. What could she possibly say?
Hugh looked directly at her now. His voice dropped to a gentler, more confessional tone. ‘When I was a young bloke in France—only bloody seventeen at the start, can you believe it?—I found my only consolation was in the arms of the French harlots. Pathetic, yes, I know. But somehow it staved off the horrors, the fear of death, for one more day. We all did it. It was part of what happened over there. I even fell in love, like a stupid fool. So naive! I blame myself of course.’ For a brief, unguarded moment, Hugh’s face changed into a hideous expression Joan had never seen before. ‘But I blame those women too. Those brazen, heartless women. It disgusts me what they do. How they take advantage of a young man’s weakness, his fear and loneliness.’
Joan felt dread spreading like a chill up her neck and across her chest. Please, God, no …
‘My body has been riddled with this pox for years. It has already begun to destroy my brain, eat away at my memories. I am not the same person I was even a year ago. Not completely in control of my moods or thoughts. Mercifully, it will kill me soon—if I do not kill myself first.’
There was a long silence then, broken only by the night sounds of the harbour: the ghostly wail of ferry horns, the bellowing of warships anchored at Garden Island, the ceaseless shushing of waves, wind-whipped, bow-cleaved, spitting, hissing, smacking the jetties and rocky foreshore.
Joan hesitated for a second with that trembling sense of horror that a door was about to be opened that could never be closed. She spoke. ‘Hugh, please tell me it wasn’t you who killed Eleanor.’
Hugh looked up at her then with panic in his eyes, mouth gaping. ‘Jesus, Joan, why on earth would you … ?’
‘When we met Ruby and Greta today, Greta told me that she saw you kissing her mother in a posh car outside her house in Tempe. Gordon’s car. She was hiding in the garden near the front gate.’
Hugh startled. He was at a loss for words. ‘No, that’s not … she must have made a mistake …’
Joan did not even begin to understand how to make sense of what Greta had told her. But she believed the little girl and she knew something was terribly wrong. ‘Just tell me it isn’t true, Hugh. I need to hear you tell me that.’
Hugh sat immobilised, shock turning the skin around his eyes into white, luminous circles. He was struck dumb. Joan was angry at this cowardly retreat into muteness and determined to provoke a response. She thought that the unthinkable was her best protection; the notion of Hugh as a murderer was so absurd, so utterly impossible, she had nothing to fear.
‘Is it because you hate whores that you did this? Because they poisoned your whole life? Is that why you killed her, Hugh? Out of revenge?’
‘No,’ Hugh barked at her. ‘No, that’s not it at all. She was just part of a plan. A pawn. But not so innocent as everyone thought. Oh no. Not Eleanor.’
Hugh realised then he had blurted out the beginning of the truth, the opening sentences of his confession to Joan. He rocked back and forth, clutching his skull, shaking his head from side to side now and then as if trying in vain to make the nightmare inside vanish.
‘You want to know the truth?’ he said at last. ‘Are you sure? I guess I owe you at least that, Joanie.’ His head was still buried in his hands. ‘It was all going to come out little by little anyway. The way these things usually do.’
‘What?’
Hugh looked up. ‘The real story, Joanie. It’s a beauty, I promise you. A real corker!’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Feel free to use it for your novel, if you like. Though it’s so outrageous it’s doubtful anyone would believe it. Well, you’re the writer; I’ll let you be the judge of that.’
Hugh leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘So, where to begin? In one way I’m not so very different to you. I sat down one day and dreamed up a story. The story of a crime. The trick then was to make it real. It had one very simple purpose. To frame my commanding officer, Major Gordon Fielding-Jones, for murder.’
Joan gasped. ‘My uncle? For murder? I don’t—’
Hugh motioned for her to be quiet. If he did not unburden himself of this secret now, he never would. Joan nodded. She was bewildered but she did in fact have a dreadful inkling of where this ‘story’ might be headed. As he spoke, Hugh’s face became as still as a mask and his eyes were fixed on some point over Joan’s shoulder.
‘You see, Gordon is a murderer, after all. A mass murderer. He and all those bastards who, out of blind loyalty and naked self-interest, took us into an imperialist war. A horrific bloodbath more like!’ Hugh’s eyes flicked to Joan as if to force home his point. ‘But Gordon was also personally responsible for murder. Ordering his men to their deaths when he knew the operational plans were little more than authorised suicide and his soldiers were exhausted and demoralised beyond endurance. And then leaving so many others of us, like myself and your brother Richard, crippled for life. Who will ever hold him to account for these crimes? No one.’
Hugh dropped his eyes then and studied the palms of his hands. ‘I could even have forgiven him, perhaps, if he had shown a shred of remorse after the war was over. But not Gordon, no. He was actually proud of his command. He believed his men went willingly to the slaughter, loyal to him to the bitter end. And then he came home and prospered without a thought for all those who had suffered and died. I could not let him get away with that.
‘At first I poured all my anger into the struggle for a revolution and my faith in a society that would hold men like Gordon to account. I believed in that possibility with such fierce hope! But over the last ten years I have watched the Australian Communist Party tear itself to pieces and fail to inspire support from working people. My faith faltered. It seemed the revolution would never come. Men like Gordon would always escape justice, always make the rules.
‘And then last year Gordon recruited me into the New Guard. My chance to punish him was within my grasp! It was destiny. I felt as if God Himself had called me to be an instrument of His justice. Within a month or so of acting as Gordon’s bodyguard and chauffeur, I got wind of his involvement with the crime boss Jeffs, though it was only later I learned the details. That was when I began to think that maybe I could destroy him. Not a quick, merciful death, but a long, painful public disgrace.
‘Not long after that you and I met at Trades Hall.’ Hugh looked at Joan with a look of such tenderness that she had to remind herself she was listening to a confession. ‘You probably won’t believe me now when I tell you that I fell in love with you. But I admit that was not my original plan. I thought you might be useful to me as Gordon’s niece, that you’d be able to tell me more about your aunt and uncle. It turned out that you hated them almost as much as I did!
‘And then a few months ago I heard that your friend Bernice had introduced a prostitute, Eleanor Dawson, to your crazy aunt’s sex club. Here was my big chance! A direct link between the Fielding-Joneses and one of Jeffs’s prostitutes. It was even plausible for Gordon to have met her at his flat. And her presence would be witnessed by all the members of the club. Bingo! I could stitch up Gordon for the murder of Eleanor Dawson. How hard could that be?’
Joan let out a cry of pain. ‘You mean you chose Ellie … ?’
‘Yes, yes.’ Hugh was impatient to continue his story. ‘I commenced my plan soon after that Goddess Club meeting with Eleanor. Gordon had given me responsibility for his personal security. I had smart clothes, access to money, keys to nearly every room in the flat, use of Gordon’s car.
‘That was when my plan began to take shape. I went to the brothel one night and introduced myself to Ellie. Told her my name was Major Gordon Fielding-Jones. Given Olympia’s youthful beauty for a woman of her age as well as her taste for younger men, her marriage to a fellow like me did not seem an impossible stretch. I told Eleanor I didn’t like the way my wife had exploited her. That I wanted to make amends. I never expected or demanded sex. It was to be our very own secret. Well, she was charmed. Nobody had ever treated her with such kindness.’
Joan could imagine how alluring this must all have seemed to poor Eleanor, if not a bit too good to be true. Was she not suspicious of such unsolicited benevolence in a world that was at best indifferent and at worst unremittingly hostile?
‘I took her out for a few quiet suppers in the city and began to give her gifts and money. And then I made promises. I would set her free, help her find a new life, rent her a nice flat where I could visit. I loved her, I said, but I would not touch her until we could be together properly. She wrote me love letters like the one you found in Gordon’s desk. Very touching.’
By now, it was impossible for Joan to look Hugh in the eye. It was as if her boyfriend of the last six months had become possessed by a demon. This cold-hearted monster had Hugh’s face, spoke with Hugh’s voice, but could not possibly be Hugh. She wondered now, to her utter humiliation, how many, if not all, of his debilitating episodes of gas neurosis—when he had failed to turn up for dates with Joan—were in fact a cover for when he was busy ensnaring Ellie.
Hugh leaned closer to Joan. His voice, which had hardened as he laid out the cold facts of the case, softened a little now. ‘I know what you’re thinking. How could I treat this poor woman so cruelly? But Ellie was no saint, Joan, believe me. When she was one of Jeffs’s most highly paid whores, she could easily have paid off the house at Tempe. Instead, she partied and boozed and gambled and did coke and enjoyed a string of lovers. Did she ever think about her mother and little girl then? Did she think about her poor husband out west with his swag? No, she did not.
‘I was pretty careful about going out in public with her for obvious reasons. But then I had another idea. One day when Gordon and Olympia were out on the town I made sure they were snapped by my good mate, the street photographer. I then got him to take another snap of me and Ellie on the same spot a few days later. I paid him a handsome amount of dosh to make a composite, mixing different photos in the darkroom to make them appear as if they were all part of the one photo. Fiddly stuff. My mate was able to cut Olympia out and replace her with Ellie standing next to the real Gordon! You found that photo in Gordon’s desk.
‘Can you spare us a fag, Joanie?’ asked Hugh suddenly, in such a casual manner it was as if they were simply enjoying a pleasant evening by the harbour. His hands were shaking. With his dodgy lungs, Hugh rarely smoked but it seemed tonight he needed something to steady his nerves. As the breeze freshened off the harbour, he also slipped on his ruined jacket. Joan handed over her Luckies pack and a box of matches. Hugh lit up and took several puffs before resuming his story.
‘My “romance” with Ellie continued into the New Year. One afternoon I made a point of dropping her off at Tempe so her mother Ruby could see my car—Gordon’s car—and hear my name. But I made sure she never saw my face. Though I made a mistake there: I didn’t think about Greta hiding by the gate.’ He smiled grimly.
‘I had sworn Ellie to secrecy but knew she would tell her flatmate Jessie all about me. I had no problem with that. It meant one more witness to Gordon’s relationship. But then I made another slip-up. I came to Ellie’s flat late one night to change our arrangements—very risky; stupid, in fact—and Jess was there when she shouldn’t have been. She must have overheard my voice and thought it sounded familiar. I never made that mistake again.’
Hugh took another deep inhalation and blew out a stream of blue smoke. He began to cough a little but managed to get it under control. ‘Now came the really tricky part: how to set up a murder. The police would need evidence. So I created some. One morning I asked Gordon to please give me his work number in case I ever had to ring him there in an emergency. I grabbed the nearest piece of paper—Olympia’s Bacchus Club letterhead, of course—and he scribbled it down with his fountain pen. On the morning of the murder I then stole his cut-throat razor. Both the razor and the letterhead had his fingerprints, not mine. I wore driving gloves, you see. Now I had two pieces of evidence to be left at the crime scene.
‘I also knew Gordon was having a meeting that night in Kings Cross with Phil the Jew. By then I had learned what he was up to. He had cooked up a scheme to sell snow to returned soldiers who could not get enough morphine for their pain. A whole new market was waiting to be tapped courtesy of Gordon’s contacts inside the Returned Sailors and Soldiers League. Frankie Goldman would run a team of dealers and Jeffs and Gordon would split the profits. This meant, of course, he had no alibi for the night of the murder. He could hardly ask Jeffs to vouch for him, could he? And with a bit of luck his car would be spotted, parked only two streets away from the murder scene in Kings Cross.
‘I had all my ducks in a row. I had told Ellie I would drop by later that night. It was time for her to start a new life, I said, time to kiss her old life goodbye. She even packed her bags, poor love. When I rang the brothel around ten, I was told she hadn’t turned up for work. I went straight to the flat and she let me in. The neighbours had their opera cranked up loud. I could see that someone had punched her in the eye and wondered what the hell was going on.’
Joan’s face was white. She shook her head angrily, her hands over her ears, refusing to hear the details of the murder itself. Hugh nodded as if to acknowledge her objection and was silent for a moment. Her hands came down. He began to speak again.
‘It was a mercy killing, really: Ellie’s life was so wretched, her coke addiction getting much worse, she was falling apart. No use to anyone, least of all her mother and daughter. I left Gordon’s razor covered with his fingerprints under the bed. I also left the letterhead with Gordon’s business number on the bedside table. Job done. Two lots of evidence at the scene with Gordon’s prints, and letters and a street photo to be found at the apartment. It was foolproof. Perfect. Now it was just up to the police to join the dots. And then came the totally unexpected!’
Hugh leaned back on the bench and laughed out loud. ‘You! The wild card, the bloody spanner in the works. You removed the letterhead from the crime scene. The vital piece of evidence with the only set of prints easily traceable to Gordon to match those on the razor. I was stunned! I couldn’t believe it. My whole plan was ruined. What could I do now? How would the police be able to follow my trail of clues to frame Gordon without that?’
Joan remembered Hugh’s look of shock and anger at the Arabian Café the morning she confessed to taking the letterhead. Now she understood why he was so upset and she marvelled at how he had managed to hide his true feelings.
Hugh clutched at his temples for a moment as if that catastrophic turn of events still caused him pain. ‘I had to think fast. There was now only one person who could follow my trail of clues. The same person who had derailed my plan would have to get it back on track. You! I took a gamble on your interest in crime and your resentment of Bill Jenkins—and, of course, your hatred for your aunt and uncle, which you could barely even admit to yourself. I had to dangle a story in front of you about Gordon as a possible killer but leave enough doubt for you to want to investigate.
‘With the Bacchus Club letterhead removed from the scene and covered in your fingerprints, it was now useless as evidence. But it just might work as leverage for blackmail. Which it did, further convincing you of Gordon’s guilt. Of course, it was more the suggestion we knew about Gordon’s involvement with Jeffs that really spooked him and persuaded him to cough up money. Playing your part at the Hotel Australia gave you the confidence to get your hands dirty as an undercover detective. And it felt good squeezing money out of that arsehole to help your parents and your brother, didn’t it?’
Hugh grimaced as if at a throb of pain in his forehead and massaged his temples with his fingers. ‘There were still some bloody unforeseen complications of course. Frankie Goldman acting like a paranoid dickhead, slashing Jess’s face. And then the danger that, triggered by morphine, Jessie suddenly remembered that Ellie’s secret lover was not in fact Gordon but your boyfriend Hugh! I had to fix that straightaway before she told anyone.’
‘Oh Jesus, no!’ Joan had led Hugh straight to her at the hospital. ‘You didn’t … ?’
‘She didn’t leave me a lot of choice. She was so groggy that I got her downstairs to the hospital car park easily enough, but then she suddenly recognised me. After a bit of panic and a struggle—she left a nasty bruise on my forehead—I knocked her out and put her in the boot of Gordon’s car. I didn’t want to hurt her, Joanie. I tried to bribe her, to buy her silence, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Nasty piece of work she was. Always bad-mouthing her so-called friend Ellie, stealing money off her, ratting on her to Frankie. I dumped her in the sand dunes out at Malabar and then picked her up again on Sunday night and drove her to The Gap. Left a shoe and some cigarette stubs to make it look like suicide.’
The more Hugh talked, the madder he sounded. And the more wretched Joan felt as she realised she had unwittingly sacrificed Jessie to Hugh’s madness. She wanted to shout at him: ‘How can you sit there so calmly talking about killing two innocent women?’ But she did not want to interrupt his confession. She needed to hear the whole story.
‘Well, there was no stopping you now, Detective Inspector Joan Linderman. I even told you that I was a member of Gordon’s bodyguard, in case you wanted my help. But, no, you were flying solo. All I had to do was make sure the clues were there for you to find: a letter and a photo. I even left the study door unlocked.’
Joan felt so ashamed. She knew it had all been too easy, but she had been so keen on her role as the clever amateur detective, she had ignored her own instincts.
Hugh sucked the last lungful from the cigarette and crushed the butt under his heel. ‘There was another hitch, of course. Bloody Geoffrey. He and I should have been gone by the time you went into the study, but he couldn’t find his glasses or some damn thing! I called him off when he recognised you and hoped that everything was back on track. You would take the evidence to the police and they would conduct a search of Gordon’s flat.
‘But then I overheard Olympia on the phone to Gordon at his club later that same evening. Geoffrey thinks he knows who your blackmailer is. Recognised her tonight, snooping around in your study. Our niece, that’s who! Probably in cahoots with that crazy woman Becker. They were both friends with the dead woman and want to pin her death on us. You have to scare her off.’
A groan escaped Hugh’s lips and again he clutched his head in pain. It seemed to Joan that every time he had manipulated events to his own purpose, along came another unexpected contingency to knock him off course. ‘When Geoffrey told me he had killed your cat and left you a death threat on Gordon’s orders, I knew you would probably be too scared to hand over evidence to the police. He also told me he was trailing you all over town and had seen you and Bernice taken into Central Police Station for questioning!
‘So what was I supposed to do now? I was worried that Geoffrey, though no genius, would begin to suspect you and I were working together. It would be all up for me then. That’s why I had to stay away from you for a couple of days to throw him off the scent. In the end, of course, the penny did drop for Geoffrey and he came after you. But that took a while.
‘In the meantime, I had to change the story again, come up with something spectacular to take the police’s attention off you and Bernice and put the spotlight back on Olympia and Gordon. Something the police couldn’t ignore but a crime that still tied them to Ellie’s murder. And then I realised you had already handed the answer to me on a plate!’
‘I had?’ Joan’s voice was husky with grief.
‘Yes! You insisted I see that Greek play, The Bacchae, about the crazy women who hunt down the King of Thebes and tear his head off. By now I think my disease was starting to really play all sorts of games with my mind. I was prepared to risk anything to put Gordon behind bars for murder.’ Hugh’s attention drifted away again to the horizon, where the newly opened bridge floated in the darkness inside a cloud of light. Some rooms had blacked out inside the silhouette of Bomora; perhaps bored partygoers were resorting to smashing the light bulbs.
‘You know something, Joanie? I feel for the down-and-outs who have to use whatever they can to get by. The con men and women, the impersonators, the frauds, the spielers, the magsmen and “go-getters”. In my book, the rich, the self-deluded and the greedy, they’re all fair game for these con artists. It’s the age of the con man, after all. The con man is king. Tell the people what they want to hear, make them promises you can’t keep. Whether you’re Prime Minister Joe Lyons or Premier Jack Lang or Lieutenant Colonel Eric Campbell, it’s all the same.
‘But I always hated the likes of Frankie Goldman. An inferior type of human being who enjoys violence and cruelty for their own sake and uses them to make money for his boss. A lieutenant loyally serving his commander. A bully selling out everyone under him, sacrificing their lives. He reminded me of myself as a lieutenant in France. Sickening.
‘I knew Frankie was easily flattered. I told him that Gordon knew he was the real chief of the cocaine trade and wanted to cut him a better deal on selling snow to veterans. Would he come to a private meeting with Gordon? Just him. Not a word to his boss. Hush-hush. Frankie took the bait. I drove him down to the empty warehouses at Darling Harbour. There I shot him in the back. Later that night, I chopped his head off. Messy, yes. Very. But no worse than the carnage I saw in France. Just body parts, all of it. And this bloke had it coming.
‘Delivering the head to Jeffs was the tricky bit. But it left a convenient trail of blood in the boot of Gordon’s car. And I added the nice touch of the Ladies’ Bacchus Club letterhead in his mouth. I like to think Olympia would’ve approved of that. At least this time there was no chance of you coming along to steal it. And I knew that Jeffs would be so angry with Gordon he would hand him over, all stitched up with bags of snow, to the cops.’
Hugh was silent for a moment. He was a little breathless, having talked almost non-stop for the last ten minutes. His face appeared oddly calm now, as if he were relieved to have unburdened himself of his ghastly secrets. The balm of the confessional. Joan sincerely hoped that he did not expect her to absolve him of three murders, particularly those of two innocent women. Why had he confessed to her at all? Because she had left him no room to move? Yes, Greta’s little secret was certainly a key piece of solving the puzzle. But Joan suspected that Hugh also wanted her to know how clever he was and how committed to destroying Gordon for his crimes. It had been a marathon of improvisation and invention, of quick-thinking and ruthless subterfuge and he was proud of it all.
‘Why have you told me all this?’ asked Joan. ‘Do you want me to go to the police?’
‘That’s up to you.’ Hugh shrugged. ‘I don’t really care now. It would have been good to see Gordon go to gaol, to pay for his crimes. But it’s your story now, to do with as you wish. And in the end, you are the only judge and jury I care about, Joanie.’
‘But you’ve confessed to murder. Three murders!’ Joan was astonished at Hugh’s seeming lack of remorse for what he had done and for the terrible responsibility he wanted to lay on her. ‘You can’t put that on to me. That’s not fair. You have to go to the police.’
‘Shhh, please don’t distress yourself, Joanie. It’s all too late for that now. I’m sorry I had to drag you into this mess. That was not my intention. But I believe everything I did was for a good cause. To bring people like Gordon to justice—for what he did to me and so many others; to your brothers, to your parents. All I wanted was for you to understand my reasons before I go.’
‘What do you mean before you go? Where are you going?’ What did Hugh intend to do?
Hugh did not seem to hear Joan’s question. ‘I hope that perhaps one day you will find it in your heart to forgive me.’ He interrupted himself as he suddenly reached into an inside pocket in his suit jacket. ‘Oh, wait a minute—there’s something I have to give you.’
But at that precise moment, a terrifying ruckus could be heard from inside Bomora. There were screams and cries of dismay that seemed to flow from room to room. And then there was a gunshot. Angry and frightened voices erupted all over the building. A second gunshot followed. ‘Jesus! She’s mad! Call the cops!’
The noise grew rapidly louder and closer. The door of the downstairs laundry flew open and a tall figure in a billowing silver dress rushed into the backyard. She was silhouetted for a moment in the blaze of light from inside the house so that neither Joan nor Hugh could make out the woman’s face. But there was something in her carriage, in the cut and bounce of her shoulder-length hair, that was disturbingly familiar. She held a small pistol in her trembling hands.
‘Amelia?’
Joan’s whole body went numb. She felt Death’s bony finger tapping her on the shoulder. The swoop of fear in her belly and the cold sweat on her face did not lie. Her time had come.
‘Where is she? Where is the bitch?’ Amelia’s cry was halfway between a sob and shriek of rage. It was the cry of someone whose whole world had been smashed to pieces. There was nowhere for Joan to run or hide. ‘There you are!’ Amelia shouted. It was obvious she was drunk, maybe even high. ‘You fucking bitch! You’ll pay for what you did!’
Amelia aimed the gun at Joan’s chest and pulled the trigger. The flash was blinding. In the very last second, Joan saw Hugh step into the line of fire. The bullet struck him in the right shoulder. His body spun sideways; he cried out in pain and buckled to his knees.
Before Amelia had time to fire again, the lumbering figure of Frank Bennett had burst through the back door and was upon her, tackling her to the ground. Now police sirens could be heard close by and lights could be seen in Macleay Street, washing the surrounding buildings in a ghostly blue glow. It looked like the neighbours must have rung the cops a while ago about the riotous party at Bomora and it had taken this long for the police to begin their raid.
Good timing, thought Joan. She ran to Hugh, who had somehow managed to stagger to his feet. She was still taking in the fact that he had almost certainly saved her life. Again.
‘I love you, Joanie, I really do,’ he said regretfully. ‘Take care of yourself.’
He kissed her passionately on the lips then took off at a quick trot towards the back fence. Even with the spreading patch of blood on his right shoulder, he found the momentum and strength to vault up onto the back fence, fling his right leg over and, with a shout, drop down onto the far side. Before the first cop made it inside the building, Hugh Evans had disappeared.