The Secret Fate of Mary Watson (10 page)

14TH DECEMBER 1879

Bob’s gone fishing. To give us both time to think, he says. And thinking is all that I’ve been doing. With a dollop of worry thrown in for good measure.

My palms itch madly. The most tormented of the two gets the attention of fingernails. I’ve scratched so much the skin looks like I’ve been dragged behind a wagon. What’s their problem? Hanging on the ends of my arms like two malcontents, complaining that they can’t catch everything that’s been thrown at them since that fateful afternoon in Brisbane. If I’ve coped, why haven’t they?

Haven’t you heard the one about itchy palms meaning money soon to come?
I tell them, but they refuse to answer. Just glare at me like two handfuls of scarlet fever.

I hear the footfalls of horses first. Shortly afterwards, Fitzgerald’s posse gallops out of a shimmering steam-pot to the south.

From the boarding-house verandah’s wicker chair, I watch the native troopers dismount. First their legs, iron-windmill thin, in tight black trousers. Then their torsos in dusty green shirts. The horses’ pelts shine like polished timber as they’re led to the trough where they bend their heads in unison. A dozen hinged and bristly coconut halves open and close, scooping water.

It’s barely past noon. Two black cockatoos shriek in the melaleuca, ripping out beak-sized bandages of bark. Butter’s melting in the icebox. No one’s got rid of the cat that crawled under the boarding house and died; the aroma of maggoty flesh rises up in sick, sweet waves.

Through the shimmer of heat, I see Fitzgerald climb onto a box that’s materialised from nowhere. He’s readying himself to address a handful of wilting spectators on the subject of his latest foray into cannibal country. He takes off his hat to reveal a tideline of dirt.

‘We’ve accounted for the Merkins responsible for the wounded digger on the Deighton. Sadly, at that same camp we found further evidence of outrage.’

His dentures seem to be holding today. Only a small gap between gum and prosthetic betrays him when he attempts clipped consonants. He reaches into a reed-woven dillybag and pulls out first a length of blonde hair, then a pair of lady’s cotton drawers. He acknowledges the rising tide of gasps with a few serious nods. Adjusts his teeth with a hand on his cheek.

‘We caught one of the young girls of the tribe. After questioning, she confessed that this hair and these undergarments belong to the lady of the missing family shipwrecked near Cape Melville last month. You need only imagine what those poor wretches went through at the hands of such savages. Needless to say, we’ll leave no stone unturned.’

Another waft of dead cat reaches my nose. It goes well with Fitzgerald’s speech. Questioning, I know, is a euphemism for torture. The natives would confess to anything if it meant a shorter gruelling. The leafy branch in my hand picks up its fly-swishing pace. The wicker chair squeaks in response. My palms throb.

The crowd is mesmerised. I can tell by the vigorous head-jerking that Fitzgerald’s words, plus the heat, have softened the arithmetic in their heads. There were four Europeans in that family shipwrecked at Cape Melville: a husband, wife and two sons. Yet Fitzgerald will come back in a week or so with a report of two dozen blacks killed in response and no one will think to question it.

‘Inspector.’

I catch up with Fitzgerald half an hour later, outside the Commercial Hotel. It’s too early for drinkers. The limp rugs of a few stray dogs drape over the wooden boards. An old Chinaman with a hunchback and broken sandals sweeps the doorway with a moulting broom. Fitzgerald’s talking to the water police magistrate, Bartley Fahey. At a guess, I’d say acquiring sanction for his next punitive expedition into the bush.

Fahey has a moustache in the American style so popular in the cities. It sticks out horizontally either side of his upper lip like a bundle of kindling. He’s dressed in soft serge trousers, vicuna vest, calf-leather leggings and a camel-coloured linen hat. He apparently never sweats. Is never caught in a downpour. Never attracts splashes of mud … moral or otherwise.

I wish they’d hurry up. I want to ask Fitzgerald if he knows when Captain Roberts will next be in Cooktown. Through some bizarre principle I can’t understand, the inspector’s apathy attracts information. He seems to hear a lot about what white-skinned
citizens are up to and when and where, but he neither cares nor bothers to put the information to any useful purpose.

He turns his head in my direction. ‘Young Mary.’

He hasn’t had a chance to clean up yet. There are dark stains that look like old blood on his britches. A long purple scratch down one cheek. He’s rubbed the skin at the brim line of his hat, but it hasn’t improved matters. The lines across his forehead are filled with a murky slurry.

‘Miss Oxnam.’ Bartley Fahey nods in my direction perfunctorily, as befits his estimation of my position: equidistant between lady and prostitute. Then proceeds to ignore me while he has his final words with Fitzgerald.

‘So, Harvey, don’t forget we’re expecting you and Clara for the boating picnic on New Year’s Eve.’

‘No, indeed.’ Fitzgerald straightens his hair. Dusts off his dirty trousers. ‘And about the blacks, sir?’

‘Dreadful business.’ Fahey looks into the middle distance, then back at Fitzgerald. ‘But don’t overdo things.’

His voice is weighted with distaste for the good inspector’s professional misconduct in the past: flogging an elderly black woman with a stockwhip at the Burdekin River crossing, for instance, for no reason other than that she didn’t move fast enough out of his way.

‘Wonderful fellow,’ Fitzgerald says as Fahey strides away in the rippling sun. ‘He understands the frontier problem so well, and yet manages to keep himself above it all somehow.’

‘I imagine living on the Hill helps,’ I say tonelessly. ‘Inspector, I need to ask you something.’

‘Let me guess. About Watson and that mess twelve months ago?’

The bush telegraph is working overtime. How long has Fitzgerald been back in town? An hour?

I trot out my old, tired defence. ‘He says it wasn’t him, but another fisherman from Barrow Point.’

‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he?’ Fitzgerald smiles with fatherly concern. ‘How could he hope to snare a decent girl otherwise?’

He lifts a hand to the driver of a bullock team as it passes. I step back to avoid the worst of the mud the hoofs throw up. The wagon is only carrying half a load: a modest supply of food, drink and ammunition; and probably a small sack of mail for the few foolhardy diggers left scratching for gold on the Palmer. It sounds like there’s a mouse under each pressure point of the tie-ropes — every time the wagon hits a depression in the road, there’s a corresponding squeak.

Fitzgerald’s in the mood for reminiscing. ‘You know, back in the rush, four times as many teams went out to the fields. Charlotte Street was just one long coming and going.’

‘We must all accept change, Inspector. Better still if we leap before we’re pushed.’

His eyes, overbright in his dirty face, give the impression he’s thinking carefully on the matter. But it seems he’s just trying to remember what we were talking about before.

‘Watson just wants to impress you, that’s all. It’s every man’s right to try, and every woman’s prerogative to pass judgement.’

‘I’m flattered, Inspector, but hardly illuminated. It’s vexing not to know what one’s prospective husband is capable of.’

‘Men are capable of anything, particularly away from the public eye.’

I look carefully at his face, and he looks back, guileless, saddened by the fatal flaw afflicting all males. Except him.

‘And keep in mind,’ he adds, ‘with the blacks, it’s not killing. More like self-defence, or bad luck. That should set your mind at rest.’

‘Well, I can’t say it does.’

Through the trees, just past the shoreline, terns drop like miniature folded umbrellas on a patch of baitfish. The breeze has the bite of hot, white teeth in it. I hear a snuffling rustle and look up to where a puff of air harries the curtain of an open window.

‘Look at it this way,’ Fitzgerald says. ‘If she’d made it back to her tribe, they would have killed her themselves. The smell of civilisation was on her, you see.’ He blinks. Even his eyelids are dirty. ‘To tell the truth, most men in Cooktown are partial to a cup of black coffee every now and then. Even those upstairs on the Hill. They’re usually just a little more discreet about it.’

‘Is that a confession, Inspector?’

He shakes his head. ‘Haven’t the stomach for it myself. Now, a nice cup of white tea …’

When I just stare at him, he has enough good grace to look abashed.

‘On an entirely different note,’ I say, ‘the owner of
Blackbird
, Captain Roberts, has left something valuable in French Charley’s. I picked it up under one of the tables. Would you know when he’s next due in port? I should like to return it to him in person.’

‘I could take it for you.’

‘I’m sure. But you’re so busy. Didn’t I read in the
Herald
about some illegal Kanakas escaping from the
Stanley
when she was wrecked in that cyclone? And what about that dreadful business with Nicole, Charley’s girl? I daresay you’ll be applying some intense policework to the murder investigation.’

My sarcasm passes over his head and floats gently out to sea. He straightens his shoulders, managerially.

‘All I need, really. Women of the night going off with the wrong man. Blacks on the rampage. And as if that isn’t enough, ten Tanna Island Kanakas on the loose. Though I suspect by now they’ve all succumbed to the fever. Or snakebite. Or the Myalls.’

My attention hooks on the only interesting piece of information in his litany of complaint. ‘Do you know who killed Nicole?’

He taps his nose conspiratorially. ‘Not quite yet.’

‘Sub-Inspector Brooke must have thoroughly briefed you, then?’

I do my best to sound impressed, even a little dazed, at how the wheels of justice can turn so swiftly. But he shakes his head, unwilling to give Jocelyn Brooke any credit.

‘The bare bones only,’ he says. ‘No, it wasn’t Brooke’s detective work, but evidence found on the body. Don’t press me for further information, young Mary. It’s an ongoing police investigation and therefore hush-hush. Let’s just say we’re pursuing a strong lead.’

As though either of them could catch up with a strong lead even if it dawdled. If he’d just tell me what evidence they have, I could probably figure it out myself in my spare time. Distractedly, I push the hair back from my sweaty forehead.

‘What’s the matter with your hand?’ he asks.

‘Just a rash.’ I close the angry palm and look up at him expectantly. He seems slow in his responses and a little unsteady on his feet. I wonder if he doesn’t have a touch of sun fever. ‘Captain Roberts, Inspector?’

‘Oh, yes.
Blackbird
’s in Townsville for repainting. I don’t think he’ll be putting out until well into the new year. But I imagine
he could enlist some other vessel passing through to pick up the missing item.’

‘Yes, I expect so,’ I say lightly. But it’s not what I wanted to hear.

I know better than to send a telegram to Roberts. He made it clear that would be only for emergencies. But even so … well into the new year! By then Bob will have almost certainly asked me to marry him. I need a lucky card, and I need it now. If Roberts decides on someone else for his signaller after I’ve said yes to Bob, I could finish my life as a sea-slug fisherman’s wife, stuck on a vile little island with no prospects at all. And no way to move on.

But … I do have a chance. I’ve told Roberts I can do it. He’s all but said he’ll trust me with the job. All
but
said …

I need solid confirmation. And soon.

My palms are raging again. Nothing to do but scratch.

16TH DECEMBER 1879

It’s nine at night. I’m not lying in wait for Laura; I’ve just slipped out the back door on my break to get some fresh air. I’m standing in the shadows when I see her tottering back into the light, having visited the privy. On the spur of the moment, I decide it’s as good a time as any to ask her about Bob. She’s as bright as a Christmas decoration, humming some carol to herself. She doesn’t see me in my brown dress, lost in the garish colour of her own world. I wait until she reaches the halo of kerosene light near the door, then reach out for the sleeve on her low-cut red blouse. She jumps.

‘Jesus Christ in a yak cart! Why yer sneakin’ round like a murderer?’ She pulls away.

I wrinkle my nose a little at her acrid perfume. ‘I want to talk, Laura.’

‘Well, I don’t wanna talk, Mary Oxnam.’

She straightens herself. Readjusts her bosom. She wears a pretty pink ribbon around her neck; rouge, like two fat coins, painted on her cheeks. Her hair curls fetchingly around the contours of her face. A pretty face, I must admit. The same shape as mine, but finer-boned, so that the overall effect is one of fragile strength rather than belligerence. I can see why Bob would be drawn to her.

‘Be careful out here in the dark,’ I say. ‘Take someone with you when you go to the privy. You don’t want to end up like Nicole.’

‘What kinda bastard …’ Her painted eyes spring a leak. ‘I’m gunna blubber now and muck up me face.’

I offer her my handkerchief.

‘She didn’ do nuthin’ to nobody, that girl. Sweet as the day is long.’ She blows her nose noisily, then tries to hand the handkerchief back.

‘Keep it.’

She nods once, gives a rough sniff, and pokes the crumpled material between her breasts. Then she remembers who she’s talking to. ‘What d’ya want from me, Mary Oxnam?’

‘I want to ask you about Bob Watson.’

Fruit bats start up an ear-scraping click-screech in the dark trees above us.

‘I ain’t see’d him fer a year.’

‘Yes, I know. Charley told me. But it’s what happened when you did see him that interests me.’

She brings a finger up to her painted lips, taps the small indentation under her nose. ‘Ya wanna know if he’ll rough ya up, do ya? Well, what goes on between the sheets is between me client and me. Charley says not to tell or half the hoi polloi from up the Hill would be a laughin’ stock.’

‘This is different. Bob and I might be getting married.’

Inside, someone plays a piano accordion. The sound wheezes in and out. A man laughs, huge as the moon. The high tinkle of broken glass.

She smoothes down her hair, touches the ribbon around her neck. ‘I can see yer stuck, ya silly bitch. In one way I feel sorry for ya, and in another I wish it was me in yer place. Go on, piss yerself. It’s a big joke, ain’t it? Me and Bob. But he told me he loved me. Not many of ’em say that.’

‘I daresay they don’t.’

Now there’s singing, drunken and off pitch, picking up the rough, pleated squeeze of the music. She searches for the slightest hint of a smirk on my face, then relaxes, seemingly satisfied it’s not there.

‘I guess he didn’t mean it, though,’ she continues. ‘He didn’t come back, did he? He woulda come back, wouldn’t he? If it were true what he said?’

‘Yes.’

‘They’re bastards, ain’t they, men? Or don’t ya know that yet, Mary Oxnam?’

‘Some of them are,’ I say, thinking about Papa.

She shrugs, and the frills at her shoulders jiggle. ‘You think you’re all grown up, don’cha? But yer not. You don’t understand why I’d let meself get hurt like that. When yer pa is handy with the switch, ya just get used to it.’

I can’t let this pass. ‘Why wouldn’t you want to get your own back now you’re older? Use the switch yourself?’

‘That’s what you’d do, ain’t it?’ Her eyes narrow. ‘The difference twixt you and me is, I’m a proper woman. Nice and soft like.’

‘Like what, Laura? A punching bag?’ I can feel blood’s slow pump in my head. This conversation is getting a bit too close for comfort.

The roll of her eyes is pitying. ‘Ya gotta do what they want. The sooner ya get that idea in yer plain little head, the better.’

There’s a long glance from my hair down to my boots, but she’s not quite as caustic about the task as Nicole was. There’s something else playing around her mouth. Not envy, surely?

‘I gotta get on,’ she says. ‘Don’t ya worry ’bout Bob. That’s what us workin’ girls is for — to get the rough stuff outta their system. I daresay he’ll be different with you. You being untouched — like. A wife takes over where a mother leaves off. And a man wouldn’t beat his old ma, now would he? If you’re a good wife, you’ll be all right.’

I don’t mean to speak my next thought out loud, but the itching of my palms distracts me into mumbling, ‘What if I’m not a good wife?’

There’s a rustle in the bushes, probably a rat. We both move a little closer to the light near the open door.

She snorts, then shakes her head. ‘Well then, ya silly cow, you’ll deserve whatever comes to ya. I can’t stay here yabbin’ all night, I gotta go to work. I ain’t one of them bleedin’ telephonists makin’ me money standin’ up.’

The next day I’m almost past the butcher’s on my morning walk when I see Heccy. He’s headed for French Charley’s, trotting briskly with a crate of empty bottles. He glances at me, and I know by the look on his face that there’s been another murder.

‘Wait up, Heccy! Who is it? Not Laura?’

A hot wind tousles his red hair. His eyes are watery. Over his shoulder, the bay seethes with miniature white cockscombs.

‘M-M-Marjorie,’ he says.

Marjorie? I try to bring her face to mind. A chatty girl. Plump, agreeable. She had a blackened tooth in front that she touched up with Chinese white paint. She’d fan it dry, then spend the evening in a difficult juggling act: keeping her moist top lip in the snarl position away from it without appearing as though she would bite any man who came near her. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen.

‘She’s been d-dead a week. They only j-just found her, in some reeds in the m-m-mangroves.’

‘A week! Didn’t Charley notice she was missing?’

‘He thought she’d gone with one of the m-miners.’

That would make sense. Occasionally, for a price, Charley would allow a digger to take one of the girls to a prospectors’ camp for a week. Provided she was returned in one piece.

‘I suppose you’re happy to hear it, are you?’ I ask. ‘One less sinner.’

A Chinaman carrying two buckets of coal on either side of a long pole shuffles his hips side to side as he passes. His conical hat, held on by a string around his neck, has been blown off his head by the wind. It sits on his back like a pointed hunch.

‘It’s not m-my fault she was a whore.’ Heccy’s face is pale, his freckles stark in the sun. ‘It’s the L-Lord having the last word.’

I look down at his hands holding the crate. Big, powerful hands he hasn’t yet grown into. Charley’s told me something of his background. How he comes from a strict Methodist family. How his mother and father were killed in a house fire on the property they were caretaking at Ingham and, orphaned, Heccy’s search for work brought him to Cooktown. French Charley’s was the only employment on offer. I wonder how he copes with the constant
assault on his morals, night in, night out. I remember the night he stopped me in the alley. How he seemed so much more powerful; the cabbage-tree hat pulled low over his face, the long coat. The remarkable absence of his stammer.

‘You wouldn’t have hurt those girls, would you, Heccy?’

‘M-me? No!’ His shock seems genuine enough.

‘Was Marjorie strangled like Nicole?’

He nods, tightly. ‘With that r-ribbon round her n-neck.’

My focus sharpens. All of Charley’s girls wear satin ribbons in different colours.

‘Is that what Nicole was strangled with too? Her ribbon?’

He nods again.

Carefully now. ‘How would you know a thing like that?’

‘Sub-Inspector B-Brooke’s telling the story all over t-town.’ He mumbles something else, which I can’t hear clearly.

A shadow falls over us. It’s a relief to have the sun gone. But there’s a grey, sinewy centre in the cloud overhead; a muscle of rain cramping, getting ready to release its load.

‘Where’s Fitzgerald?’ I ask. ‘Does he know that Brooke is sabotaging the investigation?’

Heccy shifts the weight of the crate from one arm to the other. The bottles clatter and ping. ‘He’s g-gone bush again. After the b-b-blacks that killed that family.’