The Holiday Murders (10 page)

The cup of tea was plonked down pointedly on top of the article that he was reading; when Jones picked up the cup, the owner reclaimed his paper with the aggressive proprietorship of a man reclaiming stolen goods. Jones felt a surge of anger, and threw sixpence on the counter, daring the man to demand more. Clarry seemed about to, until he caught the look in Jones’s eye.

Jones sat at a table facing the woman. She stared glumly at him before producing something approaching a smile, as if she might possibly summon the energy to turn one more trick. Jones looked away. He felt that a mere glance from her would be enough to spread the infections she was no doubt rotten with. The walls of the café were plastered with propaganda posters that were a bit more robust than the ‘Make-Do and Mend’ and ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’ variety. These were uncompromising examples of the art form. The most startling was a bright-red poster, so heavy with text that Jones stood up to read it. ‘
Everyone a Spy
,’ it said. ‘
Everyone a Killer’
.

The owner was watching Jones, and the woman was watching his cup of tea. The contorted face of a Japanese man stared out at Jones, and below him the text was florid: ‘They smiled, bowed, scraped, and though we tolerated them, we hated their obvious insincerity, their filthy tricks of snide business. We’ve always despised them! Now we must smash them!’

Jones put his hand up under his shirt and ran his fingers across the still-raw tattoo. Japs. He hadn’t given them much thought. They were sub-human. He didn’t care if they and the National Socialists shared a common enemy
.
Ptolemy Jones would no more take orders from a Jap than he would from a Jew.

His tea was tepid, and a smell of rusty pipes rose from it. He took a sip, pushed it away, and stood up to leave. He crossed to the counter, and said calmly, ‘I’d like my sixpence back. The tea was shit.’ The owner handed it over without a word. Jones noticed that his hand trembled slightly as he propelled it across the counter. This gave him pleasure.

‘I like the poster,’ Jones said. ‘I don’t like the whore.’

The woman stood suddenly. But before she could say anything, Jones took two steps and pushed the flat of his hand hard into her face, and she fell heavily against the wall.

‘Next time I come here,’ he said, ‘she’d better not be here.’

‘Next time?’

‘There will be a next time. I like it here. It has potential. I like it.’

Jones left, feeling as if he’d found his Munich beer hall. This would be the ideal meeting place for the Party. Magill’s house was too poncy, and he wasn’t convinced about Magill anyway. All that art palaver made him want to punch someone. He’d wager Magill had never been in a fight in his life. One day, this disgusting café would be a shrine — the place where National Socialism took root in Australia. The thought was erotic, and he felt his cock swell. He couldn’t fuck that whore, though. He needed someone clean.

He headed for East Melbourne.

-7-

Constance Thorpe put
down the telephone. ‘Mary Quinn’s father and brother are dead,’ she said.

The woman sitting in the chair opposite her put her teacup down heavily.

‘My God, Constance. How? When?’

‘That was a policeman — a detective. Mary’s being brought here, now.’

‘Why?’

‘There’s some concern about her safety. She wants to stay here, just for the night. I’m a bit surprised by that because I didn’t think she felt particularly close to us. Is that all right with you, Dora?’

Dora Mansfield shrugged, and Constance started worrying that she’d agreed to the detective’s request too quickly — she ought to have asked Dora first. The actors with whom she worked at 3UZ would have been amazed by Constance’s domestic uncertainty. The professional Constance Thorpe was never uncertain; she was intimidating in her assurance, and most of the people who worked under her were a little afraid of her. At home, though, she deferred to the younger Dora Mansfield — to the point where some of Dora’s scripts for
The Red Mask
suffered from a lack of critical attention. Constance loved Dora almost to distraction; it was as simple as that. Dora, for her part, returned that love in kind. In Constance, she had found a woman who was brave enough to live with her as her lover, and to hell with the rest of the world. They were discreet, but not secretive, and certainly not shamefacedly dishonest.

‘It’s an emergency, isn’t it?’ Dora said. ‘And the fact that I don’t like her much doesn’t matter under the circumstances. If she’s in some sort of danger, though, is having her here putting us in danger, too?’

‘The detective said we’d be perfectly safe, and that he’s posting a policeman downstairs, just to be sure.’

‘Which means he’s not sure, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. But I couldn’t say no, could I?’

Dora smiled.

‘Of course you couldn’t. We’ll have to tell her about us, Con. I’m not going to sleep on the couch to protect Miss Quinn’s sensibilities.’

‘I’m sure she already knows, and I don’t think she’ll be fussed, really. If Mary Quinn disapproves, that’s Mary Quinn’s problem, and if she makes a fuss you can write her out of
The Red Mask
. Besides, I don’t think she’s got a boyfriend, so maybe she’s a daughter of Sappho herself. She
is
gorgeous, you must admit.’

Dora conceded that Mary Quinn was indeed a looker. But while that was something in her favour, it wasn’t enough.

‘I still don’t like her, Con. I don’t like the way she says my lines. I know she comes from money, but she doesn’t have an aristocratic bone in her body. She’s common, and you can hear it in her voice.’

‘You’re too hard on her, Dora. I think she’s fine as Lady Mary, and she’ll get better.’

Dora gave a dismissive little toss of her head, and her perfect Louise Brooks bob fell perfectly back into place. She’d worn her hair like this for many years, and unlike most women who imagined that the severe cut made them look like Miss Brooks, Dora Mansfield was right in supposing that it did. Constance didn’t want her to experiment with a different style. As she’d said many times, she liked to retire each night with Lulu. It was a thrill.

‘Christmas Day is an inconvenient time to have a family tragedy,’ Dora said. ‘It’s one of the things I don’t like about Mary Quinn — her timing is always slightly off.’

During the drive
into town, Mary Quinn was silent, but she spent the time tap-tapping on her teeth. The small, clicking noise irritated Joe Sable so much that he felt his sympathy for her diminishing. But this may have been largely because he’d been offended on Sheila Draper’s behalf by Mary’s open dissatisfaction with the quality of Sheila’s rooms. It didn’t seem to have bothered Sheila, but perhaps that was born of a long period of having stoically accepted her place. She was grateful for what she had, Joe thought, and not envious of what she lacked. A character comparison between the two women was not flattering to Mary Quinn. To assuage a small stirring of guilt, he asked, ‘Are you all right, Miss Quinn?’

She turned towards him.

‘I’m very frightened, Sergeant — that, most of all.’

‘Is there anybody who can help you with the … arrangements.’

‘Arrangements?’

‘The funeral arrangements.’

Mary Quinn looked stricken.

‘Oh God, I hadn’t even thought of that.’

‘You mentioned a priest your father was close to.’

Her face relaxed.

‘Oh, yes. Him. He’ll know what to do.’

Joe got the impression that, as far as Mary was concerned, this problem was now solved.

Constance Thorpe’s flat was on the eighth floor of the Manchester Unity Building. It was one of only a handful of flats in the art-deco edifice, and when Joe Sable and Mary Quinn stepped out of the extravagant lift, it became apparent that it was the sole private residence on the floor. There was a dentist, a jeweller, a solicitor, and number 812 — Constance Thorpe’s flat. Joe knocked, and the door was opened by Dora Mansfield.

‘Miss Thorpe?’ Joe asked.

‘No. Constance is inside. I’m Dora Mansfield — a friend of hers. Mary, I’m so sorry. Please come in.’

Constance came forward, and took Mary’s hands and led her to a chair. She began to ply her with questions, but in such a thoughtful way that Joe was impressed by her discretion. He understood why Mary would feel safe with her. There was something about Constance and Dora — Joe immediately surmised that they were intimate companions — that made disorder seem unlikely. Their flat, of course, suited Mary’s sense of the comfort and elegance that was her due. The interior might have been designed by the same hand that had designed Joe’s in Princes Hill. This flat, however, was furnished sparsely, but expensively, and every piece had been carefully chosen to be faithful to art-deco principles.

Joe declined Constance’s offer of tea. He had no intention of lingering, and he was careful about what he said to her, offering nothing that could be construed as a strong opinion. He was aware, nonetheless, that Constance was finding out what she needed to know, extracting almost as much information from what he didn’t say as from what he did say. He could tell that Mary would tell Constance and Dora everything that she knew anyway. In the safety of this flat, she would play out the drama for all it was worth.

For the moment, though, she was sitting quietly and listening to Joe. When he occasionally turned to look at her, he had the strong sensation that what she was feeling was fear; he couldn’t see any grief in her. It didn’t make him like her any the more.

Ptolemy Jones walked
past number 1 Clarendon Street at nine o’clock on Christmas night. It would be properly dark in a very short time. He stopped a few houses down and watched. A man walking a dog passed close by. The blackouts in the Quinn house were up, but light spilled from the front door when someone came out. Even though it was too dark to see his features, Jones knew he must have been a detective. Who else would be in the house? They would’ve taken the bodies away by now, and they’d be scratching their heads over this one. He’d had a bit of fun in there, especially with the son. Thinking about it made his cock hard again. He’d forced the father to watch. He liked it when someone had to watch — double the fun. He walked away towards the boarding house where that friend of hers lived, sure that he’d find Mary Quinn there. He put his hand in his pocket and felt his erection through the cloth.

Inspector Lambert left
the Quinn house around nine, and checked the street before getting into his car. A man was walking some distance away and receding into the darkness. But there was no one lurking about: no gawkers, and no newspaper men. There were two men inside the house — science boys — and they’d be working through the night, doing a final top-to-bottom check.

When he arrived home, Maude was listening to the radio. She’d decided that it was her responsibility to keep an eye on the progress of the war and to pass on every depressing report to him. Nevertheless, Titus was grateful for her daily précis; without it, he might almost forget that there was a war on at all. Maude turned the radio off, and poured them each a large whiskey. Whiskey was almost unobtainable, except at exorbitant prices on the black market, so the single-malt had become the preserve of Christmas and birthdays. Even so, the bottle was already close to empty.

‘Mary Quinn’s staying the night with the producer of her show’, Titus said. ‘She didn’t feel safe at her friend’s place.’

‘I don’t blame her, Titus. If I’d seen what she’s seen, I’d lock myself in my room and never come out.’

‘Then she’s moving to the Windsor.’

‘Well, she can afford to lock herself in a very nice room there.’

Titus told Maude about the visit from Intelligence, and about Joe Sable’s temporary secondment to it. He wasn’t going to let the Crimes Act limit the information he passed on to Maude.

‘You mean they want him to have dealings with those dreadful people, Titus? Even though he’s Jewish?’

‘I think Intelligence sees that as an advantage — Daniel in the lion’s den, and I suspect Joe feels, not obligated exactly, but compelled maybe. I don’t think he’s ever been confronted before by savage anti-Semitism.’

‘Well, anti-Semitism isn’t the exclusive preserve of fascists. It’s more likely that someone in Intelligence thinks it’s funny to put a Jew in danger.’

Titus began to object.

‘I’m sorry, Titus. That was hysterical of me. That magazine has rattled me. I know Joe Sable can look after himself, and I’ll wager that he agreed to do it without batting an eyelid.’

‘He did. He’ll be fine. He won’t take stupid risks — he’s not the type to play the hero.’

They were silent for a moment.

‘I have to speak to John Quinn’s priest tomorrow,’ Titus said. ‘I don’t like talking to priests. There’s always something strange about them.’

‘I imagine your Methodists demonised them.’

Titus laughed.

‘Yes, yes, they did. It didn’t work, though, because I still feel they have some sort of ghastly moral authority, and I resent that feeling.’

‘He’s just a man in a black dress, Titus. Think of him like that.’

Titus leaned across and kissed Maude. The kiss took them to the bedroom, where the troubles of the world were shut out.