Unnatural Habits: A Phryne Fisher Mystery (Phryne Fisher Mysteries) (8 page)

I bet you were, thought Phryne. You never liked your daughter, and then she shamed you. So you got rid of her, and you don’t miss her at all.

‘How…wilful,’ she agreed tautly.

‘It was shocking!’ said Mrs. Edward Prospect, groping for her smelling salts.

‘Certainly,’ said Phryne. ‘Did she take anything with her to the convent?’

‘Only the clothes she needed.’

‘And she hasn’t been back to collect her other things?’

‘Certainly not!’ said Mrs. Prospect. ‘Her father has forbidden her to enter the house.’

‘I see. And where is Mr. Prospect?’

‘At his work,’ she said stiffly. ‘But I am sure he cannot add anything to my account of this…distressing affair.’

‘Indeed,’ said Phryne. ‘Did Ann have any friends?’

‘She never brought them here,’ responded Mrs. Prospect. ‘I believe she associated with some of the girls from the factory. But I don’t know them,’ she said with leaden finality.

‘Well, I’ll just collect my daughter and pursue my enquiries through other channels. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Prospect.’

The lady of the house rang for the little maid and Jane was produced. She looked rather white and pinched, Phryne thought, as though she had seen something horrible. But she said nothing and they left the house in good order.

They returned to the cab, where Bert was lounging against the door, smoking one of his aromatic roll-ups and contemplating the street.

‘All right?’ he asked Phryne.

‘In a way. Call back the others, will you, Bert dear?’

Bert put his fingers in his mouth—at no time disturbing the cigarette—and whistled. Ruth and Tinker came running. They all piled into the taxi and Bert started off for the next destination.

‘Phew!’ said Dot.

‘I second your “phew!” and raise it,’ said Phryne. ‘Dot, pour us some tea, please. How did you go, Jane? You look upset.’

‘I am,’ said the young woman. She gulped sweet tea from the Thermos Dot produced. ‘That woman has four more children. They’re all locked in a bare back room with the maid. No toys. No books but the Bible. They are forbidden to play or even move much in case they dirty their clothes. They argue and fight all the time. And the poor little maid—she’s only twelve, an orphan—they got her from the convent. She sleeps in the kitchen on a pile of rags. But they say that Annie left and never came back. They haven’t seen her again.’

‘But she has been seen,’ said Tinker, puffed up with triumph. ‘The kid next door said he saw her go in when no one was home and leave again with a suitcase.’

‘Aha,’ said Phryne. ‘Nice work, Tink.’

Tinker glowed.

‘Was anyone with her?’ asked Phryne.

Tinker was immediately dashed. ‘I didn’t ask,’ he muttered.

‘Never mind, you will next time,’ said Dot comfortingly.

Ruth frowned. ‘I talked to the kids on the other side,’ she said. ‘They hadn’t seen Ann. But they say that Mr. Prospect is a big bad-tempered bruiser and yells something chronic. They reckon that he beats his family. He drinks a lot.’

‘Ah, I suspected as much,’ said Dot.

‘Why?’ asked Phryne.

‘She was wearing a high collar—in this weather!—and long sleeves. To cover the bruises.’

‘God have mercy,’ said Phryne.

Dot chose to believe that this was a prayer and crossed herself.

‘Next address, Guv’nor,’ said Bert.

‘Ask about socialism if you can,’ Phryne said. ‘Ann Prospect was a socialist. Her mother disapproved, of course. Do you know anyone in the Manufacturing Workers’ Union, Bert?’

‘I can find someone,’ said Bert. ‘They’ll help when I tell them that a daughter of the working class has disappeared. They know a lot of people.’ He chewed his cigarette. ‘And there’s the sheilas, the militant women. You know about them, Miss.’

‘I read their magazine,’ said Phryne. ‘A good notion, Bert. Where are we now?’

‘Still in ’Wood,’ said Bert. ‘You watch yourself. This ain’t the nice bit. Not that Collingwood has a lot of nice bits.’

‘I rely on your vigilance,’ said Phryne sweetly.

‘I’ll be vigilant all right,’ Bert assured her. ‘Or they’ll have the wheels off the cab before you can kiss yer ’and.’

It wasn’t a nice bit of Collingwood, even among the available bits. The streets were unpaved, the dust endemic, and the smell indicated that the sewerage commissioners had not explored this far into the wastelands. It was poor, mean, dirty and overcrowded. The arrival of the car produced immediate interest. A scurry of grimy children appeared as if by magic, and their grimier elder brothers left the wall and bench where they had been slouching outside a barber’s shop and hulked across to ascertain whether this taxi might provide prey. Phryne wished she had brought her little gun. The situation looked ominous. But she had been in worse places. She got out of the car.

The emergence of Phryne was greeted with whistles and crude comments. The emergence of the driver, however, produced a profound silence which was only broken when a thin, tow-headed young man said meekly, ‘G’day, Bert.’

‘Fraternal greetings, Comrade Scott,’ said Bert. ‘How’s it goin’?’

‘There ain’t no work,’ said Comrade Scott. ‘No money, neither.’

‘Just as usual, eh?’ Bert smiled. ‘This is Miss Fisher. Friend of the workers, and not bad for a bloated capitalist. Now, we’re looking into the disappearance of one of the daughters of the working class. She used to live ’ere. Mary O’Hara. You know ’er?’

‘Nice little girl,’ said Comrade Scott. ‘Real quiet. Used to help her mum. We couldn’t credit it when she got into trouble. None of us got close to her. She’d shy away from any man. Like she was frightened.’

‘This true?’ demanded Bert of the assembly.

They all nodded.

‘What about the family?’ he asked.

‘The old man’s out of work,’ said Comrade Scott. ‘Took ill. Used to be a brickie. The old woman’s a cleaner and takes care of the children. Eleven of them—well, ten now that Mary’s gone. Dunno how they makes ends meet. The old man can’t do much anymore.’

Phryne reflected that there was one thing he could still do and it might be better if he couldn’t do that either. Eleven children! In a house no bigger than the Prospects’ and a good deal more rundown.

‘They home?’ asked Bert.

‘Yair,’ said Comrade Scott. ‘He’s home. She’s at work. Poor cow.’

Leaving Bert to continue the interrogation, Phryne waved at her minions to stay in the car and took Dot to knock on the unpainted front door. No one had planted anything in this front garden apart from corned-beef tins.

Knocking on the blistered door produced only a scamper of footsteps, then silence. Phryne called out, ‘Anyone home?’ and the door creaked open an inch or two. A small worried face peered out.

‘You the bailiffs?’

‘No, I’m Phryne Fisher,’ said Phryne. ‘I want to talk to your father.’

‘Jeez,’ commented the voice, and the door gaped, half off its hinges. A bellow came from down the hall and the voice fled. A small girl, Phryne thought, in a calico smock made from a flour bag. She had
Fine Flour
stencilled across her bony shoulder-blades.

The house stank of frying fat, filthy humanity and cigarette smoke, with an undernote of beer. Surprisingly prosperous smells for such a sty, Phryne thought. Dot was fingering her rosary, uneasy. They walked down the hall into the kitchen, from whence had issued the bellow.

It had come from a large man. He was sitting in an armchair. He had a packet of cigarettes in his hand and had clearly been drinking from a beer bottle. Otherwise the room contained no furniture but a table and three chairs. To the leg of the table a small child was tethered with a leash around its waist. It was crying in a low voice, as though it had been unattended for a long time and knew that no relief was in sight. Phryne was instantly disgusted. Dot swooped and grabbed the leash, untying the child.

‘Who’re you?’ growled the man. He was a revolting sight. He was wearing ragged khaki shorts and a filthy blue singlet. He was unshaven, greasy and more than three parts drunk.

‘I’m Phryne Fisher,’ she said again. ‘Are you Mr. O’Hara?’

‘What’s it to you?’

‘Could be money,’ said Phryne evenly. Beating this monster around the head with that unwashed skillet and tethering him to the table would be satisfying but not productive of information. She could put off proper retribution until later.

‘Yair?’ he asked, faintly interested.

‘First we had better do something about this baby,’ said Phryne. ‘Do you have any milk?’

‘Beer’s better,’ he said.

The cupboard was empty and the ice chest had neither ice nor milk in it. A flood of children had come into the room. Dot selected the oldest, who was perhaps thirteen, and gave her six pennies.

‘Go get some milk and bread,’ she ordered. ‘And lollies all round. Come back quick and you shall have threepence for yourself.’

The girl grabbed and ran, pursued by the others. Dot found a clean nappy and changed the baby. Another could be heard crying on the back porch. She took the toddler outside with her to attend to it. As she did so, she prayed very hard for control of her temper. Did poor Mrs. O’Hara have no relatives who could care for her children apart from her brute of a husband?

‘Tell me about your daughter Mary,’ said Phryne.

‘Liar,’ said Mr. O’Hara.

‘Really? What did she lie about?’ asked Phryne, lighting a gasper in defence against the smell.

‘How she got into trouble,’ said Mr. O’Hara fuzzily. ‘Said it was Don. Don’s a good bloke. He wouldn’t do a thing like that. Brings me beer and smokes. Pays the rent. I got a bad back and leg. A wall fell on me.’

He looked up for sympathy and found none in Miss Fisher’s stony eyes.

‘So who is this charitable gentleman?’ she asked.

‘Don,’ explained Mr. O’Hara. ‘Donald Fraser. Lives down the road. He likes to come ’ere because he’s all alone since his mum died last year. He took a fancy to our Mary. But he wouldn’t have…’ He was falling asleep.

Phryne did not interfere with the benevolent action of the Forces of Alcohol. So Mr. O’Hara had sold his virgin daughter to his neighbour for beer, smokes and rent. It probably struck the neighbour as a bargain. She looked at Dot.