Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1 (16 page)

‘Dan, thanks for all you have done,’ Michael said as he stood and stared at the pile of kegs that he and Max had stacked. ‘I think I need to talk to Uncle Frank about finishing up here.’ Both men exchanged worried glances.

‘You are needed here, mein friend,’ Max said as he placed his brawny arm around Michael’s shoulders. ‘I vould haf no one to drink vif.’

Michael smiled at him. ‘There are a lot of things I have to do, Max,’ he said quietly. ‘And when they are all done, I promise I will come home.’

THIRTEEN

P
enelope’s home was not as luxurious as the Macintosh mansion. But it was still a house that reflected the considerable wealth of its owner, Granville White.

Originally built for a wealthy Sydney land developer, the house had been purchased by Jonathan White, father of Granville and Penelope, when he had come out from India to invest his modest fortune in the Antipodean colonies. It was ironic that he should survive the rigours of India only to die from a fall from his horse during a fox hunt in England’s green and hedgerowed fields two years past.

Sarah White, his wife, had remained in England to live her life out as the mistress of the traditional White estates. She had never visited Australia. Life in the colonies had no appeal for a woman who had always yearned, through the blistering hot and sunbaked days of the Indian dry season, for snow at Christmas.

Her children had chosen to join their father in the far-off colony of New South Wales. Although she had not fully approved of her daughter returning to Australia, the scandal of her sexual escapades around London had helped Sarah decide that a short sojourn to the colonies might be in the best interests of the White family’s reputation in polite London social circles.

Sarah accepted that her son, Granville, must be close to her sister-in-law’s family if he were to realise his ambition of uniting the two fortunes. There had always been a presumption that he would eventually marry Fiona as a means of cementing the amalgamation of the two family fortunes.

The library, in which Granville sat brooding, held many mementos of India. On the teak desk was a small but weighty brass statue of a Hindu deity. On the walls an array of traditional Indian weapons were displayed; exotically shaped swords, wickedly curved knives and small battle shields. Above the swords and knives was a long and deadly lance that had once been part of the arms of the Indian regiment in which his father had been an honorary member. Jonathan White loved India, but the terrible mutiny of the Bengal Army in ’57, and the end of the rule by the East India Company for whom he’d worked, had decided him to seek more stable avenues in which to invest his wealth.

Australia had been a natural choice based on the advice of his sister, Enid, who had extolled the opportunities in the colony of New South Wales. Jonathan had left the management of his colonial business ventures to his only son when he sailed to England on the visit from which he never returned. Granville had inherited the family colonial enterprises under the conditions of his father’s will, and his mother, the smaller estates in England. The large and comfortable mansion he now lived in with his sister was part of that inheritance.

A stately grandfather clock in the corner of the dark library ticked away the minutes as Granville sipped a port wine and puffed on a large cigar reflecting on the events that had transpired in the Macintosh library and their implications concerning his future ambitions. More than ever it was vitally important to secure Fiona as his wife if he was to move one step closer to the final amalgamation of the families. But this was a matter not easily obtained, as the stupid girl had become infatuated with the Irish oaf Duffy. So David Macintosh was not the only obstacle between himself and gaining almost total control of the vast fortunes of the Macintoshes. He also had the Irishman to contend with and, although any formal union between Fiona and the Papist was unthinkable, he was still an obstacle. While the Irishman lived, he knew Fiona would be under his influence. Duffy seemed to have a magnetic quality about him that attracted women and he would have to be removed from Fiona’s life in a way that was absolute in its permanence.

The thick smoke from the cigar curled around Granville’s head and the warm night brought a moth fluttering into the library through an open window. It circled the flames of the candles and sizzled as it flew too close to the flame, before spiralling to the floor with part of its wing seared away.

‘A flame!’ he said softly as he watched the doomed moth fluttering helplessly on the library floor ‘All I need is a flame to burn you, Mister Duffy, and there will be nothing between Fiona and myself.’ And he knew the very flame was at his fingertips.

Only days earlier he had been advised not to hire one of the men who had reported for a place in the crew of the
Osprey
. The first mate of the Macintosh barque knew well the man’s unsavoury reputation for disruptive violence and had told Granville that he was extremely dangerous – a violent man with a reputation for killing. But a man who had enough animal cunning to avoid the traps of Sydney Town. What was his name? Damn! What was the man’s name? Jack Horton! Yes, it was Jack Horton!

If anything went wrong, Granville knew he could be facing the gallows. But if everything went well, he would have eliminated the major obstacle between himself and Fiona. Unconsciously, he wrapped his sweaty hands around a small brass statue that he used as a paperweight. He glanced down at it and realised with a start that it was the statue of Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, whom the dreaded thuggees of India worshipped. Surely this was an omen, he thought. Yes, he would talk to the first mate and arrange to see the infamous Jack Horton.

It was time to deal with his sister and prepare the next stage of his plan because, as far as he was concerned, Duffy was already dead. The next step was to procure his cousin’s hand in marriage. A less easy task than plotting the murder of a man, he brooded, as he climbed the stairs to his sister’s room and opened the door without knocking.

Penelope stood in front of a full-length mirror naked to the waist, cupping her large but firm breasts in her hands and she did not notice her brother enter the room.

‘You have certainly grown into a beautiful woman, Penny,’ he said, admiring his sister’s breasts.

Startled by his intrusion, she turned to face him, snatching a shawl from her bed. ‘How dare you enter my room without an invitation,’ she snapped as she held the shawl up to cover her breasts.

‘I go where I like in my own home, dear sister,’ he answered, nonplussed by her anger. ‘Remember that well. Besides, it is not the first time I have seen you naked.’

She turned her back to her brother, slipping on a silk chemise which only accentuated her firm and desirable body. ‘That was a long time ago, Granville,’ she retorted in an icy tone. ‘And I swear I will kill you if you ever try to do that to me again.’

He knew her threat was real. His sister was not a woman one crossed. She had the inherent vindictiveness of the Whites. ‘You seemed to enjoy yourself at the time,’ he smirked. ‘If my memory stands me well. I know I enjoyed myself. You were always more than willing to comply with my . . . ahhh . . . rather unusual requests for your services.’

She glared at her brother with a burning hatred for memories of a time and place that still haunted her. The unspeakable acts he had forced her to do could never be undone, and she had experienced at first hand the physical power of the male to degrade a female. But as time went by, she was able to use the very act of sex against men in subtle and devious ways that made them unwittingly comply with her ambitions. Lust was an unbridled need for men, she had learnt. But it was a need that she was able to use as one would tame a rampant lion.

And she knew with a burning certainty that one day she would revenge herself on her brother for the lost years of innocence. But for now, he stood smirking in her bedroom for the perceived power he still thought he held over her.

‘And I suppose it was that time with me that gave you a taste for young girls,’ she said with a mysterious and savage smile.

His smugness disappeared. ‘What do you mean by what you just said?’ he asked quietly with a touch of fear in his question.

‘This house is not big enough to hide all its secrets,’ she replied with a bitter smile. ‘Not big enough to conceal the cries of that young girl. What’s her name? Oh, yes, Jennifer. The gardener’s daughter. I think she is only eight years old. About the same age you used me. Or could she be a year or two older, dear brother?’

Granville paled. So his sister knew of his meetings in the library with the young girl. The pact with Harris to provide his young daughter had been sealed with her visits to the library. Although the man knew what was happening, he chose to let the stupefying effects of the gin that his boss freely supplied obliterate the reality of his daughter’s pain. And he justified it, in his alcohol-riddled mind, by telling himself that although his daughter was a pretty girl she was most likely to become a prostitute – as her mother had. A large strawberry birthmark on one side of her face was God’s punishment upon her for her mother’s sins, and the harsh reality was that no man would want her when she came of age, or so her father thought. At least for the moment she had all that she could possibly want – good clothes and plenty of food on the table for both of them.

‘Better you forget what you have just said, dear sister,’ Granville replied menacingly. ‘Better we both forget the past and think about the future. Your future as well as mine. I think I have something that you want very much.’

‘My future. What can you do for
my
future?’ she asked sarcastically. ‘And what do you have that I might want?’ But she knew her brother was capable of anything and was curious to hear what he would propose.

‘This house,’ he said with a wave of his arm. ‘And all that goes with it.’

Her interest was aroused. She had always been bitter that her father had not left the house co-jointly to them. Jonathan White was a chauvinist. To him, females were mere property to be bartered in marriage to further family interests.

‘And how do I get the estate, dear brother?’ she asked with less sarcasm and he smiled.

‘All you have to do is help me convince Fiona that she should marry me,’ Granville replied. ‘Nothing more. When you have done that I will sign over the house to you. And a sum of money to maintain you in the life that you are used to.’

Penelope sat on the edge of the bed with her long golden hair falling around her shoulders and framing her beautiful, almost angelic face. But the proposition disturbed her. There was something in her own feelings for her cousin that rebelled at the thought of her brother gaining access to Fiona’s body.

Granville watched his sister’s face and could see that she was troubled, but he waited patiently for her response to his proposal. Then she smiled enigmatically, as if she’d had a divine revelation, which made him feel a little uneasy.

‘I will help you,’ she replied. ‘But I must warn you that convincing Fiona to marry you will not be easy. Not while she thinks she might be in love with the Irishman.’

He flashed his sister a victorious smile, which reminded her of the smile on a cat’s whiskered face before it kills the helpless mouse.

‘I don’t think Fiona will be in love with Mister Duffy for much longer, dear sister,’ he said, and his sister frowned as she had a tiny suspicion which she preferred not to dwell on. Was it possible that he was planning to have Michael Duffy disposed of in some way? But she dismissed the thought with another that satisfied her needs first and foremost. Very deliberately she lay back on the bed in a way that allowed the silky chemise to slide seemingly innocently up her thighs, exposing for a brief and erotic moment that which her brother had used for his carnal pleasure.

Her provocative act was not lost on Granville who stared with undisguised lust at her, and she was pleased to see that her power over him had not diminished with time. She smiled seductively and his face reddened with his desire. If only you knew my ultimate plan, dear brother, in helping you win the hand of Fiona, you might think very carefully on what you have asked me to do, she thought as she watched her brother struggle with his lust. The divine revelation had told her how she could wreak her ultimate revenge on her brother as only she knew his true weakness, and it was this vulnerability she would use against him in the future.

‘I think you should leave my room now,’ she said, adjusting the chemise modestly to cover her exposed thighs. ‘Or you might confuse me with Fiona . . . and that would not do. I think you should return to the library to seek your relief. I believe the gardener’s daughter is due to visit you tonight.’

He glared at her with a rage for what she was deliberately doing to him, and the memories returned of their times together in the stables and the hidden places of the big house in England. How was it that she had been able to take his power from him when it had always been he who had controlled her, he thought. He stormed from the room, leaving his sister to gloat in her subtle victory.

FOURTEEN

T
he
Osprey
lay at her mooring and her timbers squeaked incessantly as she rubbed her hull against the wharf protesting like a lonely dog chained too long in the night.

Her sails were furled and her masts pointed like skinny fingers at the constellations of the Southern Hemisphere.

She was a barque, whose proud career had taken her into the rolling seas of Bass Strait and the calm of Moreton Bay as she plied the waters of Australia’s east coast with a proud history as a supply ship for the Macintosh companies. But now the barque was undergoing a refit to carry human cargo rather than the trading goods she usually carried in her holds.

A lone man stood nervously under the bow of the
Osprey
and baulked at every unexpected and unidentifiable sound. His hand never left his coat pocket where it gripped a small pistol.

Granville cursed himself for choosing to meet Jack Horton at such an ungodly hour, but it was a time when he could be sure very few people would be witness to the meeting. Horton was late. He had stipulated 4 a.m. and it was now a quarter past the hour. Granville yawned and thought about lighting a cigar to pass the time.

‘Bin later I’d might have seen you.’ The voice, which came softly from nearby, startled Granville who almost fired the pistol in his pocket.

‘Good God, man! You gave me quite a fright,’ he exclaimed as Horton emerged cautiously from behind a news stand on which a half-torn poster declared a Confederate victory in the far-off American Civil War.

‘Don’t trust anyone . . . an’ you don’t get caught out,’ Horton said matter of factly. ‘I was waitin’ to see if you was alone before I introduced meself.’

Granville eyed the bulk of the man who stood squarely in front of him. It was a mutual appraisal.

‘Spect you has a gun in your jacket in case I turn nasty or somethin’, Mister White.’

‘How do you know who I am?’ Granville replied, as he felt his spirits sink. ‘I might not be this Mister White you called me.’

‘I knows you, Mister White. Don’t take a genius to know who you are round Sydney Town. I knows you are the man who wouldn’t give me a job on this ’ere boat,’ he said as he pointed to the
Osprey
. ‘Now you give the
Osprey
’s mate a message for me to meet you down ’ere. But ’e don’t say who I was to meet. So I’se jus’ stan’s over there and watch youse real careful like, in case it wus the traps tryin’ to pinch me. But I recognises you and decides it wus all right.’

Horton spoke softly, which belied his hulking appearance. Although there was not enough light to make out his features, Granville could smell the rum on the man’s breath and feel his menace as if it were something tangible. Yes, Jack Horton appeared to be the right choice. His caution proved he was also a thinking man, despite his crude grasp of the English language.

‘I presume you are Jack Horton.’

‘That’s who I am when me mother named me, God rot her soul,’ Horton spat.

‘Well, Mister Horton, as I was about to say, who I am is best forgotten. To make this point, I will offer you a job within your . . . er . . . domain of skills, and pay you extremely well,’ he said, relaxing his grip on the revolver in his pocket.

‘What’s this “domain of skills” mean?’ Horton asked suspiciously. ‘I never ’eard that word before.’

‘I believe you are capable of doing away with a man for a price?’

‘Ah, so that’s what the word means,’ he replied, pleased with his grasp of something new. ‘Well, youse could be right . . . and youse could be wrong. It depends on how much we is talkin’.’

‘Hundred pounds.’

‘Hundred guineas . . . an’ youse can purchase my domain o’ skills, Mister White,’ he countered.

Granville baulked at his asking price, but could not help admire the man’s shrewdness as a hundred pounds was a small fortune to any man. ‘A hundred guineas is a lot of money, Mister Horton,’ he sighed, as if the figure might bankrupt him.

‘For a hundred guineas you can call me Jack like youse would any of your other employees, Mister White,’ Horton said with a sly smile that bared yellow and broken teeth.

‘Well, er, Jack . . . I suppose a hundred guineas it is.’

‘Good. Now that I am an employee of yours, you can tell me the person or persons youse want done away with.’

‘Only one person. An Irishman by the name of Michael Duffy. He . . .’

‘’E comes from the Erin, don’t ’e?’ Horton said.

‘Is this man a friend of yours?’ Granville asked apprehensively, as he had not expected Horton to know the Irishman.

‘No friend, Mister White, but ’e’s no pushover, an’ ’e’s got a lot o’ friends around the old Sydney Town. If I’d a knowed it was the pretty boy youse wanted done away with, I’d ’ave asked more than a hundred guineas. No, to do away with Michael Duffy will require a little ’elp.’

Granville weighed up what Horton was saying. Was it a ruse to extract more money from him? ‘Why is Mister Duffy a problem to a man like you?’

Horton scrunched his shoulders and slipped his hands in the rope belt about his waist. ‘The man ’as a reputation on the other side o’ town for being handy with ’is ’ands. I can take ’im, but I’d feel better wif some backup . . . jus’ in case, youse know.’ For a man like Jack Horton to make such an admission impressed Granville.

‘Another fifty guineas . . . to buy extra help. How you pay for the help is up to you . . . but at no time will you mention who I am to anyone. I need not impress on you that we are talking murder here,’ he cautioned.

Horton grinned before replying, ‘Not murder . . . jus’ me usin’ me domain o’ skills. But I need youse to do somethin’ else before I’se can do the job.’

‘What else?’ Granville asked as he tried to keep his feelings of annoyance under control at the man’s persistence in extracting further concessions from him.

‘I’se’ll need to get out of Sydney Town after I’se do away with the pretty boy. Youse can give me a berth on the
Osprey
here as a mate,’ he indicated with a flip of his thumb.

Granville did not have to ponder very long on the suggestion. For Horton to disappear from Sydney after the task was completed made a lot of sense. ‘A mate’s job requires experience. Do you have the experience?’ he ventured cautiously.

‘I’m a quick learner. An’ besides, if the work is like I think it’s gunna be with the darkies, you are goin’ to need men like me. Men who know how to get the job done properly for the right kind of boss. Someone like you.’

‘You could be right, Jack. I think you have a fine future with the company,’ Granville replied with a short and mirthless laugh. ‘Now I will tell you how and when you and Mister Duffy will meet.’ He explained to the big man his carefully thought out plan and he could see that Horton was impressed. When he asked the man if he had any questions, he said no.

Business complete, Granville was eager to leave the wharf and return home in the carriage waiting for him at Circular Quay.

‘Before youse leaves, Mister White, I have a habit of shakin’ on any deals I’se makes,’ Horton said.

Granville saw the big man offer his left hand and automatically moved to offer his left hand. A warning clicked in his mind. The left-handed shake was not right! He froze in absolute terror when the knife appeared in Horton’s right hand.

‘You see how easy death can come to a man. It can come as easily as a ’andshake between gentlemen.’ He grinned at the sudden terror on Granville’s face. He had made his point and knew Granville White had recognised the message in the simple but potentially deadly gesture. ‘An’ I knows youse is a gentleman, Mister White, who wouldn’t go back on any deal.’

Granville did not move as Horton shuffled into the dark shadows of the wharf. His legs felt like jelly and he realised that his breath was coming in short desperate gulps. He could almost feel sorry for the last moments of Duffy up against such a man.

Granville hurried back to Circular Quay where his coach was waiting for him. Even the anticipation of having the young girl’s body in his bed when he arrived home did not take his mind off the short distance the knife had been from his groin.

From his office window, David Macintosh could see across the rooftops of the warehouses to the waterfront. And as he stood with his hands behind his back he could view the
Osprey
being refitted for his cousin’s Pacific venture. Worry lines creased his forehead as he turned away from the window and walked back to his desk.

There was very little paperwork to be seen as papers and files were located in the anteroom adjacent to his office. On the other side of the door, his private secretary, George Hobbs, sat engrossed in lists and correspondence that generated the Macintosh business interests for shipping in the colonies and the Pacific.

An unobtrusive knock at his door indicated that Hobbs wished to see him.

‘Yes, Hobbs.’

Hobbs poked his bespectacled face around the door and, although he was twenty-eight years of age, premature baldness had put ten years on his appearance.

‘Missus Macintosh to see you, sir,’ he said with a warming smile reserved for the introduction of family to the offices of Macintosh & Sons. Except now it was the singular of sons that would appear on all the business signs. The problem was George’s to wrestle with. Should he have the ‘S’ dropped from the signs by erasure? Or should new signs be painted? The former option had the less than tactful touch of obliterating the ‘S’ as if wiping out a life.

‘Thank you, Hobbs,’ Enid said with a warm smile. Hobbs gave a courteous nod of the head as acknowledgement to the mother of his boss, whom he genuinely admired for the professional manner in which she had run the business in the absence of her husband.

He closed the door behind Enid as she swept into the room. She wore a satin dress of black with matching hat which suited her as it contrasted with her smooth and milky white skin.

‘Hello, Mother,’ David said, and he guided her to a thickly padded divan set against the wall. ‘Your visit comes as a pleasant surprise.’ She sat and placed her hands in her lap, which was a rather demure gesture, her son reflected, if out of character for a woman who had grown used to using this very office in the past to make critical decisions that had at times brought others to their financial knees.

‘I was talking to Hobbs,’ she said without any idle chatter. ‘He tells me you are having problems with the crew of the
Osprey
.’

David frowned. ‘Not all the crew. Just the first mate, Bill Griffin. He approached me when I was making an inspection of the
Osprey
this morning. He was rather agitated about a decision Granville has made. It seems he has put a man on as assistant first mate to Bill Griffin. A man whom Granville had originally rejected on the advice of Mister Griffin.’

‘That is Granville’s prerogative as to whom he hires . . . or rejects,’ Enid commented. ‘We agreed Granville had full control of the operational side of the venture.’

David strolled over to the window and placed his hands behind his back. Enid could see that her son was worried. He gazed at the
Osprey
and all seemed to be normal. Supplies were going aboard and sailors went about their routines. He turned away from the window.

‘Mister Griffin has threatened to resign if the man Granville hired goes aboard the ship,’ he said. ‘The man has a bad reputation as a trouble-maker and cannot be trusted.’

Enid raised her eyebrows as her nephew’s decision to hire such a man against the advice of a proven employee flew in the face of logic and good sense. ‘What do you think you should do about the situation?’ she asked.

David was in a quandary. He could not interfere in the operations unless he thought the venture might, in some way, bring scandal upon the good name of the Macintosh companies.

‘I suppose I should try to talk to Mister Griffin and placate him,’ he sighed. ‘The man Granville hired has done nothing to cause any problems at this stage and we can only give him a chance to prove his worth, one way or another.’

‘In your shoes, I would have made the same decision,’ his mother said. ‘Just let the matter ride for now.’

David was pleased at his mother’s support for his decision, except that he could not help but wonder why Granville had hired the man called Jack Horton.

‘Now that is out of the way,’ she said with a cheeriness in her voice that David had not heard since the tragic news concerning the death of Angus, ‘I actually came to see if you would like to join me for lunch. There is a French chef at that new cafe in Pitt Street and I have heard he is very good.’

‘I wish I could, Mother,’ David apologised. ‘But I have an appointment with the bankers in an hour. A matter concerning Father’s proposed expansion in Queensland.’ Lunch with his mother was definitely preferable to the stuffy boardrooms of the Bank of New South Wales, a place inhabited by pale and starched men.

‘Well then,’ his mother replied in a disappointed voice, ‘I suppose I should discuss with you the matter I was going to at lunch. Fiona’s forthcoming marriage.’

David blinked. ‘This is the first news I have heard about Fiona getting married. Who in Hades is she marrying?’