The Port Fairy Murders (34 page)

Joe left the presbytery feeling slightly depressed. He’d hoped to find in the priest a man of quiet wisdom. Father Brennan wasn’t a theologian. He was dull, mediocre, and pious — because, Joe suspected, that was easier than being brilliant.

AT FOUR O’CLOCK,
the five investigators reconvened at the police station. Inspector Halloran had met Andrew and Phillipa Todd. They were like sleepwalkers, he said. Mrs Todd had summoned a spark of anger when Halloran had asked if they’d like to see Selwyn.

‘Are you serious?’ she’d said. ‘That ape killed our children.’ She wasn’t prepared to listen when Halloran tried to explain that this had not, in fact, been proven to be true.

‘It’s true, all right,’ she’d hissed, and Halloran had seen no advantage in pressing her to understand the complexities of the case. They’d insisted on seeing all three bodies. Mr Todd had been stoic. Halloran could see the muscles in his jaw clenching and unclenching as he struggled not to break down. Mrs Todd collapsed when she saw her daughter’s battered face. With Halloran’s help, Mr Todd carried her to the car. She woke, and seemed dazed, and then she cried so violently that she was sick.

‘They’re staying at Matthew’s house. The priest was going to call on them this afternoon.’

Will they find comfort there?
Joe wondered. Brennan would pray. Perhaps that would be all that they’d expect. It seemed meagre to Joe.

Helen’s retelling of what had happened at the Shipmans was as accurate as she could make it. Halloran said that grief and shock were forms of temporary insanity, and that getting information in those circumstances was difficult. The level of upheaval in that house was suggestive, as Helen had said, of emotions inconsistent with the planning and execution of a murder.

Joe tried to be polite about Father Brennan. Paddy Filan was a Catholic, after all. He was relieved when Paddy agreed that Brennan was the kind of priest who would never be given an important parish.

‘You can’t imagine him, can you,’ Filan said, ‘sitting down with Doctor Mannix to discuss some thorny issue?’

Brennan had mentioned the conflict between the Co-operative and the fishermen who used Matthew as their forwarding agent. Unfortunately, the only man he could name was currently in New Guinea. Joe, Manton, and Filan had spent the afternoon talking to men on the wharf. Several fishermen were out in the Southern Ocean, but there were some who’d taken the opportunity to earn a bit of cash by helping with the dredging of the river mouth. This had to be done regularly to prevent it silting up, blocking access to the sea. Matthew Todd wasn’t the popular figure those closest to him insisted he was. He was seen on the wharf as a man who used his family name to big-note himself. The general consensus was that he looked down his snooty nose on the fishermen, even those he represented, and that he’d never done a decent day’s work in his life. No strong leads came out of the interviews with the wharf workers. The fishermen out at sea would be followed up later, but feelings about Matthew didn’t run hot. He was disliked, resented even. There wasn’t much passion in the dislike or the resentment.

‘The general feeling seemed to be,’ Constable Manton said, ‘that you’d cross the street to avoid him, but you wouldn’t cross the street to kill him.’

‘The town seems quiet, Constable Filan,’ Halloran said. ‘Two murders in a small community would usually generate fear and paranoia.’

‘People think the murderer is already in custody, sir. They think this was a family matter. If they thought there was a killer at large, we’d have the town councillors breathing down our necks. This hasn’t frightened people. It’s given them plenty to talk about.’

‘I believe Selwyn Todd is being transferred to Warrnambool tomorrow,’ Halloran said. ‘Agnes Todd’s witness statement means we can’t risk releasing him into the community. There’s nobody who’d take him, anyway.’

‘Where will they put him?’ Joe asked.

‘The Brierly Mental Hospital in Warrnambool. There are no other options.’

The group was silent.

‘Will the funerals be held here, sir?’

‘Mr and Mrs Todd want the funeral of their children to be held here in St Patrick’s. They’re hoping Monsignor Andrews from Warrnambool will conduct the service. The bodies should be released on Thursday.’

‘What about Agnes Todd?’

Constable Filan answered.

‘I don’t think Miss Todd can be given a requiem Mass. She was a suicide, and suicides are generally denied a church burial. The Todds are influential, though, so perhaps they’ll work something out with Father Brennan.’

‘I don’t think Phillipa Todd will be working too hard to do Agnes Todd any favours, even after death,’ Halloran said. ‘For now, I want us to sit down and review every scrap of information we have. Somewhere among all those convenient alibis there has to be a weakness. We have three bodies, and we’re only certain about one of them — and we’re only certain about that because one of us wasn’t doing his job properly.’

No one challenged Inspector Halloran’s assessment of Constable Adams. Each of them, though, wondered if he or she would have been able to prevent Agnes Todd from taking her own life.

GEORGE STARLING DIDN’T
want to roar into town and draw attention to himself, so he parked his motorcycle in scrub above the rock pools known as Pea Soup. Leaving his suitcase with the bike, having first put the money in his pockets, he set out. It would take him 20 minutes to walk into Port Fairy. He turned into James Street and headed north. If he’d continued along the road he was on, he would have ended up in Gipps Street, which would have obliged him to pass the courthouse and the nearby police station. He wasn’t ready to do this. He saw up ahead that there were people gathered in groups of twos and threes. Their attention was focussed on a house on the opposite side of the street. Starling pulled his hat low so that it obscured his eyes, and walked casually towards them. When he reached them, a woman who’d watched his approach said, ‘Are you one of the detectives?’

It took Starling a moment to register that his suit must have led her to assume that he might be a person of some importance.

‘No,’ he said politely. ‘Has something happened here?’

‘Lord,’ she said. ‘You must have just arrived from the moon. Has something happened? I’ll say it has. That house opposite? Three people dead in it. It gives you the creeps just looking at it.’

‘Are the police inside?’

‘Nah. It’s all locked up. The detectives are at the station. That’s what Mrs Henny says. She says she saw them all go into the station half-an-hour ago. Who’d have thought that such a thing could happen here? Like I say, it gives you the creeps.’

Starling was about to move off when she added, ‘One of the detectives is a woman. Can you imagine that? I know they’re collecting tickets on the trams now, but a lady detective! I mean, it doesn’t fill you with confidence, does it?’

Starling smiled, but there was no warmth in it. He continued on his way. The town felt different to him now that he had money in his pocket. He didn’t think anyone would recognise him. He’d kept out of everyone’s way in the two weeks that he’d been there. He’d spoken to shopkeepers and to his landlord, but he’d never lingered for a chat. He was fairly sure that if they remembered him at all, it wouldn’t be with any clarity. He’d been scruffy, his clothes dirty, and his exchanges terse. If pushed, they might describe a workman with nothing remarkable about him. He thought he’d test this by having a drink at the Caledonian Hotel. How long would it take that fat barman, Stafford Giles, to recognise this visitor as the man who sometimes sat in the window, away from any possibility of conversation? He’d ask for a whisky. If he’d done this just a few days ago, Stafford Giles would have pointed out that whisky was expensive, and he’d have asked to see his money up front. Starling was willing to wager that he wouldn’t do this to the gentleman in the grey fedora.

The Caledonian was busy. When Starling entered, a few men looked at him — not because they were curious about him, but because they were expecting someone they knew. The well-dressed stranger was of no further interest to them. At the bar, Stafford Giles poured him a whisky without hesitation. Starling kept his head bent forward so that Giles saw the brim of his hat, and not his full face. He took his whisky to an empty seat near the window. It was only a few days before that he’d been sitting in the same spot, with vague plans. His plans since then had become sharply focussed. Joe Sable would die tonight, he thought. No mucking about. The problem was, he was with a group of coppers. Starling needed to get him alone. There was that policewoman — he’d take her, and use her as bait to force Sable to come to him, alone. That, he thought, was definitely a plan. He drank another whisky, and watched Bank Street. The light would soon be fading. It was time to find Joe Sable, and the woman.

HELEN HAD BEEN
honest about the failure of her interview with Dorothy Shipman, and despite the general consensus that there probably wasn’t much more to learn from her, she wanted to speak with her again. The hysteria in the house had felt real, but that didn’t mean that it
had
been real. It was 7.30 pm. Inspector Halloran had declared that any further questioning of Selwyn Todd was pointless. Selwyn didn’t answer questions, and not because he wouldn’t answer them — he couldn’t answer them. His inability to defend himself would condemn him to Brierly Mental Hospital, where he would doubtless be isolated as criminally insane, unless doctors with expertise that was relevant to his condition were prepared to insist that he couldn’t possibly have killed Rose Abbot.

Constable Filan’s wife, Annette, offered to cook dinner for all the police. Halloran and Manton didn’t want to impose, understanding that this would deplete the Filan household’s larder. Nevertheless, she insisted that they shouldn’t have to pay for their dinner in town. She had to cook for the prisoner, and as she and Paddy ate the same food, adding extra to the pot was no impost. One of the advantages of living in a small coastal town was that supplies that were difficult to secure in Melbourne were available here. Annette Filan made a fish soup and a rabbit stew that included potatoes and tomatoes. Aggie Todd would have been surprised that such food was to be lavished on Selwyn. Annette Filan’s position had always been that even if it didn’t matter to a prisoner what he ate, it mattered to her. There was something in the integrity of this young policeman’s wife that reminded Helen of her mother.

They ate their meal in the police station, and afterwards Joe asked if Helen wanted him to go with her to the Shipman house. She declined — two detectives might be too alarming for them. The men agreed that a beer at the Star of the West Hotel would be a fine idea, before Halloran and Manton returned to Warrnambool for the night. The pub would have closed at six o’clock, but Paddy knew the proprietor, and he’d slip them in through the back. All five officers left the police station together and walked up Wishart Street. The lengthening shadows of dusk diminishing into night meant that the figure who followed them moved easily, fluidly, secure in the knowledge that he was unnoticed. The police turned into Cox Street. Starling’s heart rate increased. Princes Street, the street where he rented a mean and filthy room, ran off Cox Street, just ahead. The police passed Princes Street. Starling stood at the corner of Princes Street and considered his options. Where were the coppers headed? He couldn’t take on all five of them. Then the cards fell his way. A little way along Cox Street, the group stopped. A few words were said, and the four men moved off. The woman remained alone, looking at a house. She put her hand on the gate, and withdrew it. She seemed to be gathering her thoughts. The men turned out of sight, into Sackville Street. There was no one else about. The woman stepped back from the house and put her hands on her hips. Starling had moved to be directly behind her.

‘Hey,’ he said.

Helen turned, and in the last of the light she recognised George Starling.
How very ordinary you look
, she thought, before Starling struck her.

STARLING STOOD OVER
Helen Lord’s still body, and was pleased with himself. One blow to the side of the head had been enough to knock her down. He gave her a vicious little kick to the stomach to make sure she wasn’t feigning unconsciousness, then leaned down and picked her up and put her over his shoulder. She was slight, and he carried her with ease. His room was only yards away.

EDDIE ROONEY WASN’T
sure what he’d just seen. A few moments earlier, he’d watched from his front step as a group of people, one of whom he’d recognised in the dim light as Paddy Filan, stopped, spoke a few words to the woman who was with them, and then walked away. The woman approached the Shipman house opposite. Visitors had been going in and out of the house all day. Sheila, Eddie’s wife, had been across to offer her condolences, and to drop off a casserole, and she’d told Eddie that Dorothy Shipman was a mess. ‘All over Matthew Todd,’ Sheila had said. ‘I suppose it’s nice that somebody loved him, although I can’t see why anyone would myself.’

As Eddie watched the woman, a form seemed to materialise out of the half-darkness and obscure his view of her. It was a man. Eddie could see that he was wearing a suit and a hat. The man raised his hand, and almost immediately, after shuffling his feet in an odd way, he bent down and picked up the woman, who seemed to have fallen to the ground. The figure moved off with the woman over his shoulder.

‘Sheila!’ Eddie called through the open doorway of the house behind him. ‘What do you make of this?’