Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1 (38 page)

The gardener stopped and turned around. ‘Not in my interests, Mister White,’ Harris replied. ‘In the interests of Jenny and her boy. You see I don’t think I’m long for this world and when you’re looking at the next life you get to thinking there are things you should do before you go.’

‘If that’s what you want . . . the interests of your daughter,’ Granville said calmly as he resigned himself to dealing with Harris. ‘I’m sure money can be arranged to see she is looked after for a while.’ One of the great advantages of wealth was that money could buy peace of mind. ‘How much?’ he asked.

Harris stared at Granville with just a hint of victory in his rheumy eyes. He had always hated himself for the deal that he had made with his employer all those years earlier. He had always tried to absolve his guilt by justifying it as based on altruistic motives for his daughter’s future. Or so he thought. But the deadly and insidious consumption, and the realisation he would have to answer to his Maker very soon, had changed the gardener’s attitudes. He had come to realise that the life he had been partially responsible for creating was his only earthly immortality and he’d thought it was rather ironic that he was now tied by blood to the man he had always hated.

‘Five hundred quid,’ he replied and he watched with vicious satisfaction as Granville’s mouth gaped.

‘I can arrange for the death of a man for less,’ Granville unwittingly replied.

‘That may be so, Mister White,’ Harris said quietly. ‘But if I don’t get five hundred quid for Jenny then I think you might have signed your own death warrant with Missus Macintosh . . . In a manner of speakin’.’ The analogy was not lost on Granville. The ensuing scandal that could emerge was the equivalent of a death warrant to his aspirations.

‘You will get the money,’ Granville replied. ‘On the condition that you take your daughter out of the colony of New South Wales . . . and never return.’

Harris smiled. ‘Fair enough,’ he agreed. ‘I was told by the doctor I should go somewhere warm and dry. He says Queensland is as good a place as any. You get the money to me by next week and I can promise you that Jenny, me and the kid will be gone by the week after, Mister White.’

Five hundred pounds was not a lot to get rid of the girl and her father, Granville thought, and he would certainly miss the little slut’s prepubescent young body. However there were others who could take her place. It was only a matter of careful searching in the right places.

As the gardener and Granville made arrangements for the money to be paid, Fiona watched them from the bedroom window. Although she was relieved to see that her husband was not in any danger from the man he spoke to, she was also curious as to why Harris had come so late to see him.

When Granville finally came to their bedroom, she did not ask her husband about the conversation he had had with Harris. But he volunteered that the gardener had spoken to him about a grievance of back wages not being paid to him. Fiona knew her husband was lying but she did not comment, as she preferred not to know whatever it was the gardener had come to the house for.

That night Granville forced himself on Fiona. His lovemaking was rough and quick, as if he were using her to relieve his sexual tension. And when he was finished, he rolled over to sleep.

She prayed that she would not fall pregnant as she stared into the silent places of the night, listening to a whisper of an unthinkable and forbidden yearning. Penelope was with her in spirit and she wished she was with her in body, holding and comforting her – as they had when they were girls so long ago.

In a row of squalid tenements adjoining the backyards of the tanneries and gasworks, a young girl sobbed as she rocked her baby in her arms. He would not stop crying and she despaired that he ever would. She tried to get him to take one of her nipples in his mouth but he only screwed up his face and bawled at her attempts. Frightened, confused and facing utter despair, she tried to calm him by rocking him gently in her arms. And still he cried. Jennifer Harris buried her head in his thin wispy hair and whispered tearfully, ‘Your grandpapa will be home soon and he will help us, Willy.’

The wax candle flickered and was snuffed out as the wick reached its limit of life. The tiny room, with only a dirty straw-filled palliasse as the major item of furniture, was cast into stifling darkness. But she did not mind. Here she was safe and he would not be coming for her body to do the unspeakable things that he had in the past to hurt her.

‘When you grow up, Willy, you will be my little man and look after Papa and me,’ she crooned as she rocked the baby in the dark. He continued to bawl irritably at the flea bites that were inflicted on his tender skin. ‘And when you grow up you will hurt Mister White,’ she said with mounting anger.

She stopped rocking him and hugged him to her so that he stopped bawling as he fought for breath to fill his tiny lungs. ‘You will grow up and hurt Mister White. Hurt Mister White so that he can never hurt no one again.’ Her words echoed as whispers in the night.

THIRTY-FIVE

T
he law firm of Sullivan & Levi was well known. Its fearless reputation to take on cases not popular with the establishment brought many to its doors. Mostly the guilty who could expect fire in the belly of their defence.

Daniel Duffy was learning the rough and tumble of court work in a manner not too dissimilar from how his cousin, Michael Duffy, had learnt to fight with his fists. Except that he was learning to fight with his rhetoric and he was already being recognised as a rising star in the legal world. Daniel Duffy was humble enough to give credit for his skills to the two men for whom he worked.

Gerald Sullivan was an Irishman and Isaac Levi was Jewish Australian. Although the two men were opposites in every way – Gerald Sullivan was short, fat and fiery; Isaac Levi was tall, slim and urbane – they complemented each other. Daniel had found, in working with the law firm, the art and science of court work. The art he learnt from Gerald, the science from Isaac. Both men were ten years older than Daniel but a hundred years more experienced in the devious ways of law. Neither solicitor was popular with the predominantly English judges they fronted at the bench or the police magistrates in the petty sessions. So it was strange that a Presbyterian missionary should seek help from the law firm of Sullivan & Levi.

The fiery little missionary sat in Isaac’s office bristling with both discomfort for being in the presence of one of those who was responsible for the death of the Saviour and being in the presence of one of the damned Papists who slavishly followed the rule of the Antichrist in Rome. But the Presbyterian missionary had realised reluctantly that his mission required the legal services of a firm well and truly out of the grasp of the English establishment. Even his own Scottish legal firm was suspect when it came to prosecuting the powerful Donald Macintosh company that owned the
Osprey
– that black ship of Satan. Their zeal in establishing a case against the captain of the
Osprey
, Morrison Mort, might lack for real punch.

And so it was that John Macalister sat bristling in the presence of those with whom he never dreamt he would be associating in his lifetime. It was bad enough to have to put up with the French Marist missionaries poaching his island congregations for converts. It was an unholy pact he was entering into.

Daniel sat unobtrusively in the corner of Isaac’s office as an observer. Isaac was a handsome man who had presence whenever he entered a room. His thick dark hair was shot with grey although he was only thirty-five years old and the greyness gave him an appearance of wise maturity in the eyes of his clients. Gerald had no hair at all. He was the same age as Isaac.

The two lawyers had found common ground many years earlier in that they had both been spurned by the conservative English system. Jews and Irish were on a socially unacceptable par as far as the powerful Protestant ruling classes were concerned and it was not unheard of for the Catholic Church in the Australian colonies to rally behind the Jewish faith in secular matters, although the same tolerance might not extend to religious doctrine. In matters of professional partnership and religious tolerance, the Irishman and the Jewish lawyer were very close friends.

Daniel had been given the task of making notes for the meeting and he sat with a pencil poised over his notepad.

Neither partner had briefed Daniel about the case and he was amused to see that Gerald was getting a secretly perverse pleasure from watching Macalister squirm in the presence of so much heathenism.

Isaac ignored his partner’s smirk, which he guessed was aimed at the obvious fidgeting discomfiture of their client, and he tried to put the missionary at ease. He felt that if Macalister was able to explain why he had chosen them for his Synod’s case against Captain Mort he might feel better. A bit like how Catholics felt when they went to confess their sins to one of their priests, as Gerald had once explained to him over a bottle of good port.

Isaac Levi leant forward in his chair with his hands on his desk. ‘Tell me, Mister Macalister,’ he said, ‘why did you choose
us
to represent your Synod’s recommendation to prosecute the captain of the
Osprey
?’

Daniel froze and almost snapped the pencil in half.
So that was it
. Both partners knew of his unrelenting crusade for justice against the Macintosh family and Mort. He had long used his knowledge and contacts in law to try to find ways of bringing to justice the people who had done so much damage to his family, but to date he had nothing. Suddenly here was Mort being named for a prosecution of some kind. Maybe there was a god of justice after all!

Macalister shifted uneasily. ‘It’s not that I have anything against Jews and Papists personally, Mister Levi,’ he said self-consciously in his thick Scots brogue. ‘I would have preferred to have consulted my own kind but the Synod feels we should employ the services of a firm of solicitors with no vested interests in seeing Captain Mort is allowed to escape the wrath of God for what he has done in the islands to my people.’

‘I cannot speak for God’s wrath, Mister Macalister,’ Isaac said with just a hint of mirth. ‘But I hope I can speak for the wrath of British law against those who commit murder.’

Murder! So it was murder they were going after Mort for! Daniel almost forgot to take notes as the missionary explained the events of September and the raid on the helpless village. He explained how neighbouring Islanders had identified the
Osprey
working in the waters around the New Hebrides at the time of the killings and how a handful of survivors who had escaped the cordon of raiders could identify the devil with the pale blue eyes. The villagers who had escaped had watched helplessly from the surrounding jungle as the white man took away their friends and relatives. None of those taken away had been seen since except for the headless bodies floating in the lagoon.

Daniel listened to the gruesome and terrible story unfold. He knew his chances of proving Mort guilty of murdering his uncle and Old Billy were pretty slim. But it did not matter if they could get a conviction against him that eventually led to the gallows. The
Osprey
was currently moored in Sydney harbour and as far as the Scots missionary knew, the captain of the blackbirding barque did not suspect action was being taken against him.

Time was of the essence! They had to get the case together before the ship sailed again. God had sent Macalister to them, Daniel was sure.

After Macalister had finished his briefing, he gruffly bade his farewells. When the missionary had left the office, Isaac turned to Daniel, whose face was aglow with the savage joy of anticipated victory. Isaac smiled.

‘Well, Mister Duffy. What are your thoughts?’ he asked.

Daniel glanced at his notes before looking up.

‘The case will cause a storm around Sydney,’ the young lawyer replied. ‘We prepare a case against one of the blackbirding captains and we will have a lot of influential people against us. But we will also have a lot of people on our side who want to see the trade stopped. The trouble is they are generally not the people with the money and influence.’

Daniel knew very well the political implications of a prosecution of murder against a captain of a kanaka ship. The ramifications could undermine the foundation of the cotton and sugar plantations of Queensland in a time when the colony needed every penny it could get. Queensland was suffering badly from the crash of the English banks. But this was not merely a murder case. It was the indictment of powerful vested money and political interests in the kanaka trade.

Gerald scratched at the tip of his nose, which was an affectation Daniel would unconsciously learn from the Irish lawyer and use in years to come when he was in court considering a vital point of defence. He then removed the pince-nez spectacles he wore and said quietly, ‘To be sure it will give the British gentry in the colonies a bloody nose. They don’t like us God-fearing Irish – or you godless Jews – anyway. Ah, but it will be grand to see them quake with terror when we use their own law against them.’

Isaac grinned at his partner’s slur on his faith. He knew fully well that the rotund and jolly Irishman did not have a biased bone in his body – except against the British establishment.

‘We have a lot of work to do before we brief a suitable barrister,’ Isaac said, standing and stretching his tall frame. ‘We have an interesting case of murder committed outside the colony. It will not be easy in any way to prove jurisdiction. But I think we can.’ Gerald and Daniel nodded.

No, it would not be easy, Daniel thought, and he knew he would not sleep until he had prepared a brief as tight as a noose around a hanging man’s neck.

‘I think we have a need,’ Gerald said, ‘to move very quickly on this one. Christmas is not that far away and everything seems to come to an infernal stop around Sydney at this time of year. Damned clerks get careless about filing court papers and magistrates are hard to find outside public houses. I think we should employ a man to keep an eye on the movements of Captain Mort while he is in Sydney. Make sure he is not about to sail away and out of the grips of the courts.’

Isaac smiled. ‘No doubt I can leave that matter in your hands,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I suspect that you have someone in mind, knowing your rather colourful contacts in the world of vice and crime.’

The rotund little Irish solicitor turned to Daniel. ‘I was thinking that Mister Duffy could look after that side of things,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye. ‘His father owns one of the finest and most salubrious social establishments in town where just the right man can be employed for such a mission.’

Daniel blinked, as he tore his thoughts away from an image of Mort dangling at the end of a rope in Darlinghurst Gaol.

‘I am sure my father will know the right man to employ,’ he replied. ‘He even has contacts in the police force.’

‘Not a big Irish trap by the name of Constable Francis Farrell perchance?’ Gerald said with a wink and Daniel appeared startled by his knowledge.

‘Er . . . yes. How . . .?’ But he did not continue his question as Sydney was a small town and the Irish community close-knit. He rose and followed the two senior partners from the office. There was much to arrange to ensure that justice was done.