Shadow of the Osprey (11 page)

‘What are you doing travelling to the Palmer with . . . ’ Kate hesitated as she did not know the appropriate word to describe John’s fellow travellers.

He glanced up and smiled. ‘You mean with the Chinks,’ he said, to relieve her embarrassed discomfiture in casting him as Chinese. ‘Well, as a man between two worlds, I have value to Soo Yin, my boss. Mister Soo uses me to act as his go-between in his dealings with the Europeans who ship the coolies out here. Very soon there will be thousands coming here and I will be the man to help organise their migration from Hong Kong. I don’t suppose that will make me very popular with the white miners.’

Kate had heard of Soo Yin, a wealthy and very powerful Chinese merchant operating in Cooktown. She had also heard that the Chinese merchant ran brothels and gambling houses for the Chinese, although Soo Yin did not discriminate against the white men who wished to avail themselves of the services he provided in the Chinese quarter. There were also whispered stories about Chinese secret societies in Cooktown, of which Soo Yin was reputed to be a leader.
Tongs
she had heard them called. ‘So you are a kind of interpreter Mister Wong,’ she offered conversationally.

‘Interpreter, adviser, supervisor and a few other things. Soo needs the European side of my mind to help him deal with the Europeans,’ he continued. ‘I suppose you can say I translate one idea on one side of my head into another idea on the other side. And vice versa. Right now I’m on my way down to the Palmer to establish a base for Mister Soo’s operations. My men who carry the arms are to be . . . gang bosses I suppose you could call them.’

‘What will you do?’ Kate asked. ‘When you have reached the Palmer?’

‘Return to Cooktown. Maybe sail for Hong Kong to see . . . ’ He hesitated. He had almost mentioned the existence of the tong he was working for, although he was not a member as his European blood made him suspect in the eyes of the Chinese purists. ‘. . . Well, to see about another batch for the Palmer.’ Then he fell silent.

Soo commanded the Lotus tong in North Queensland. John’s father had recommended his son for the employment on account of his dual knowledge of both Chinese and European ways. But John had always felt more comfortable in European ways, having grown up with the scent of the gum tree rather than the sandalwood incense stick. He spoke relatively fluent Chinese with a European accent. And his size commanded respect from those who were told to obey him. Soo had made a wise decision in employing the young man as had been proved in the encounter earlier that afternoon. He had the brains of his Chinese father’s people – and the brawn of his Irish mother’s side.

‘Missus O’Keefe,’ he asked now, ‘I don’t want to sound like I am poking around into your business, but did you have a husband back in Cooktown?’

Kate cast him a startled look. ‘I had . . . I have a husband. But I have not seen him in over ten years. Why do you ask such a curious question Mister Wong?’

John stared down into the fire to avoid her eyes. There was something on his mind and he wondered whether he should say anything at all. His question certainly had aroused Kate’s curiosity. ‘Why do you ask? Do you know something about my husband?’

He continued to stare into the fire, struggling with a matter that he knew he should stay out of. However he decided to tell her and took a breath. ‘There was a fella looking for you in Cooktown a while back. Said he was your husband.’

‘Kevin!’ Kate gasped. For so long he had gone from her life. Now he was back!

‘Don’t know his first name,’ John continued. ‘Just that he was a big fella. Good with the cards.’

‘Is he still in Cooktown?’ Kate asked, her feelings a confused jumble of emotions. She had grown to detest Kevin O’Keefe for leaving her on her own just when she needed him most. At the same time, she still remembered how she had felt as a sixteen-year-old girl madly in love with the handsome son of Irish convicts.

John gazed at the glowing coals of the fire. ‘I’m afraid the fella I met will be permanently in Cooktown, Missus O’Keefe,’ he said bluntly. ‘Got himself killed over some married woman. Seems her husband shot him and then took off.’ Sudden and violent death was a part of John’s existence on the frontier and he knew no other way of telling her the facts.

Kate swooned. John tensed as if to spring to her side, but she waved him off to reassure him that she was adequately composed. ‘I’m sorry it was me to break the news to you Missus O’Keefe,’ he said apologetically.

‘It is all right Mister Wong,’ she replied in a weary voice. ‘The inevitable has happened. I think I have always known that my husband’s life would end in that manner.’

A shooting star blazed across the night sky causing Kate to glance up at the long trail of sparks.
A spirit trying to return to the earth
an old Aboriginal had once told her in Townsville. She shuddered, hoping it was not her husband’s spirit returning to haunt her and said a silent prayer that his soul should rest in peace. Strangely, she felt resentment that his death had denied her the opportunity to confront him at least once more. Besides, his death had left her with unresolved issues about her own feelings.

John could see the grief etched in her beautiful face and wisely excused himself from her company. ‘Good night Missus O’Keefe,’ he mumbled, before returning to his men camped a short distance from the wagons.

As he walked to his camp he wondered whether he had actually seen grief in the woman’s face. Or had it been relief mixed with a little bit of anger? Who knew with European women? He shrugged his broad shoulders. But who knew with women of any nationality, when it came to that?

Kate sat staring at the fire, thinking about her life. Kevin was dead. She was free to start a life with any man she chose. Not that being married to Kevin had stopped her from going to Hugh Darlington’s bed years earlier. Living like a nun had not appealed to her passionate nature.

But into her life had come Tom’s children who kept her occupied as they would any mother. She had grown to love the three as if they were her own. They in turn eventually responded to her with their love.

Little Sarah was growing up with only the faintest of memories for her natural mother. Although Kate had tried to tell her who she was, young Sarah had the resilience of her birth mother and coping with the reality of her present life meant the little girl repressed terrible memories.

But the two boys did remember their mother and father. They had not forgotten the night when they saw both their parents die from the guns of the Native Mounted Police.

Kate had grown to accept the responsibilities of a parent but she still yearned for the love that she could share with just one special man. And she yearned again to feel a life growing in her body and a baby at her breast.

The fire had burned down to a softly glowing log when Kate heard the curlews crying to each other in the night. She shivered against the cold and pulled an old woollen shawl around her shoulders. She remained by the fire until even the night sounds were muted before rising stiffly to retire for the night. The morning would come soon enough.

T
iny as the kitchen of the Erin Hotel was, it had witnessed many memorable family gatherings of the Duffy family, and Sergeant Francis Farrell felt at home as he sat at the old worn table.

For years he had been a guest of the publican Frank Duffy. On cold nights when the big sergeant had been a constable walking his beat around Redfern’s splendid streets and narrow alleyways, the back door to the hotel had always been left open for him. It was a sanctuary from the bitter cold where he had sipped a warming rum with the publican and talked of bygone days in dear old Ireland.

Although Frank was dead, the tradition of hospitality of the publican’s son, Daniel Duffy, continued and the back door remained open to the police sergeant.

It was of mutual benefit for the two to meet from time to time. The Erin was the ideal place to swap information concerning Sydney’s criminal underworld – information to convict or acquit, depending on the trade-off between police officer and legal representative. For Daniel Duffy was a young man with an enviable reputation around Sydney Town as a highly successful criminal lawyer.

In his early thirties, Daniel was tall, clean shaven and slightly stooped by his years of academic study. But he had the Duffy trademark for toughness in his professional dealings and was grudgingly respected by even a waspish colonial society that normally looked down on the Irish.

His face reminded many of his cousin Michael Duffy; the same grey eyes and handsome features – albeit less marked than Michael’s face – battered by his short career as a bare knuckle boxer. Many would also describe Daniel as a serious fellow who rarely smiled. But it was known to the Irish patrons of the Erin that there was a heathen curse on the family and it was no wonder the lawyer rarely smiled.

After years of exposure to the Duffys, Francis Farrell had become an unofficial member of the clan. Had it not been for his non-intervention in Michael’s escape from Sydney back in ’63, then the young man might have dangled at the end of a rope for a killing that was not his fault. The vagaries of jury decisions could well have found Michael Duffy guilty of murder when he had, in actual fact, killed Jack Horton’s brother in self-defence.

Daniel sat at the table toying with a tumbler of rum. He was smartly dressed in a three-piece suit that marked him as a senior member of the legal firm of Sullivan & Levi – Solicitors. One day he would be a partner. That is, if he did not choose to enter politics as many would like him to do, given that he had another trademark of the Duffys – a quiet charisma.

Sergeant Farrell was dressed in his heavy serge uniform and his hat lay on the table between the two men. ‘I swear if a ghost had jumped out at me from the page I would not have blinked,’ he said and took a long swig of his tot of rum. ‘The name was there all these years under our noses.’

‘Morrison Mort,’ Daniel hissed. ‘He was the boy in that murder case you used to scare us kids with all those years ago. It was his mother that was murdered.’

‘Don’t know why I even bothered looking up the report,’ Farrell sighed. ‘Must have been the ghost of young Rosie who was guiding me to the archives.’ He glanced self-consciously at Daniel. Admitting ghosts might exist was blasphemy to the policeman’s creed of only believing in those things of the temporal world. All else was speculation for priests and women. ‘But then,’ he added quickly, ‘it made sense to look up old Sergeant Kilford’s notes. Same trademark in the same place. Too much to be a coincidence on its own.’

Daniel frowned. It was absurd to think that a boy barely ten years of age could have the mind or motivation to carry out such a hideous crime. It was a case that had frightened and thrilled him and his cousin Michael. Both boys would beg the big policeman to tell them about the gory goings on in the world of crime. And Francis Farrell was a born storyteller. His description of the mutilations – although veiled in the telling – had caused the two boys to have goose bumps and nightmares. Now the same story had resurrected those goose bumps of his youth. ‘Could it be . . . ’ Daniel trailed away as he tried to comprehend the almost incomprehensible evil in a child. It was even recognised as a legal impossibility in his own profession. A child under ten was deemed as incapable of
mens rea
, the Latin term for the concept of intent. He glanced at the police sergeant for an answer.

‘He was present then,’ Farrell shrugged. ‘And I know his ship is back in Sydney now.’

‘But could he . . . ’ Daniel paused as he attempted to understand the full horror of what might have happened years earlier. ‘. . . God almighty! A boy could not have the mind to inflict so terrible a death on his own mother. It has to be impossible. Even for Mort!’

‘A couple of my informants tell me a sea captain was seen in The Rocks around Rosie’s place the night she was killed.’

‘Did they say it was Mort?’ Daniel asked, his professional interest aroused.

Farrell shook his head. ‘Didn’t – or don’t want to – recognise him. They said it was too dark to make out his features.’

Both men well knew the reluctance of The Rocks’ residents to be involved in any police investigation. It was a place closed to official scrutiny by the law, and information from residents could only be obtained by bribe or threat, neither of which was a reliable means of gathering evidence for a court of law. ‘If you are thinkin’ we might bring him in for questioning,’ Farrell continued, ‘I doubt that we would get him to confess. He’s got the luck of the devil himself.’

Daniel impatiently waved off the suggestion. ‘I know the problems Sergeant Farrell,’ he said. ‘All Mort has to do is deny his involvement and without witnesses you would be hard pressed to present a case.’

Farrell glanced down at his empty tumbler. ‘I know what he has done to the family but we still have the law for the likes of him,’ he growled. ‘However we can pay him a bit of attention while he’s in Sydney Town. He might even go after another girl.’

Daniel shuddered at the last statement made by the police sergeant. How many poor souls would the demonic killer wrench from living bodies before he was brought to the gallows? ‘Pray that it is not someone we love,’ Daniel said softly.

Mort sat in his cabin staring at the straight-bladed infantry weapon lying unsheathed on the chart table amongst the maps. It had been with him since ’54 when he had won it in a game of cards from an unlucky young officer destined to storm the Eureka Stockade. The blade was oiled and ready to be returned to its scabbard to be hung once again on the wall of the small cabin.

Mort reached out and ran his fingers along its length. If only he had the sword at his side when he had killed the whore. Oh, she would have screamed like the others had in the past. Like the nigger girls from the police barracks when he had been an officer in the Native Mounted Police. And the brown-skinned beauties he had taken from the Pacific islands as a blackbirder. They had all screamed for their lives, begged him for the mercy that was not his to give to the species of creature that had caused him so much pain as a child living with his prostitute mother in The Rocks. But she was dead, her filthy mouth that had laughed obscenely at his pain, mutilated by a knife. And that unspeakable part of her that gave pleasure to her customers torn apart by the same knife so that it could never give pleasure again.

Carefully, Mort sheathed the silver blade in its scabbard, and held it in his arms as he crooned a tuneless song. They would never lead him to the gallows. The old Aboriginal who came to him in his dreams had told him so. No, he would meet the white warrior of the cave and only then would his fate be decided.

Mort grinned, his handsome features contorted into a grimace. He shrugged off the old Aboriginal’s assuredness that the white warrior would be the cause of his demise. No living man had that power. Neither heathen white warrior nor civilised lawyer would ever be the cause of his demise. Not when his sword was unsheathed.

He rose and placed the sword on the rack over his bunk. He would not be needing it tonight. The matter of his first mate’s severance from the company was even now hopefully being settled.

Hilda Jones was as hard as the men who sought board at her establishment. She was also a big woman, big enough to intimidate most of the boarders who stayed under the roof of her run-down boarding house at the edge of the infamous Rocks.

Hilda had little time for the traps. But it had been her message to Detective Kingsley that had brought the policeman somewhat reluctantly to the front door of her establishment.

There was a man bleeding his life away in one of her rooms. And she wanted him out. She had tried to get the badly wounded man to leave but the knife that he flashed – and the evil in his eyes – made her think twice. He had demanded that she fetch a police detective to talk to him. Not one of the beat police, but a detective. Well, at least now the traps would deal with him and rid her of his worthless carcass.

The detective followed the broad back of the woman as she waddled down a narrow fly-specked hallway to a room at the back of her boarding house. He tried not to gag at the putrid and overpowering smells of boiled cabbage, urine and vomit. The stench seemed to fill the air like some ghost of a long-dead boarder.

‘’e come in las’ night wid ’is guts ’angin’ out,’ she said as she pushed open the door to the tiny room. From a single iron bed with a blood-soaked mattress on sagging springs, a man turned his pain-filled face towards the door. The movement caused him to grimace. ‘At least ’e’s paid up to today,’ Hilda Jones said with some relief. ‘From the look of ’im he ain’t goin’ to see tomorrow.’

Detective Kingsley peered into the semi-gloom of the room which had only a broken window high in the wall for ventilation and light. The dirty wooden floor under the cot was thick with blood that had pooled into a dark stain. Skulking rats scurried away to places that only they knew; they would return when the intruders had departed.

‘You a trap?’ the dying man asked in a hoarse whisper. He was thirsty from a combination of blood loss and a hangover.

Kingsley said he was and the man asked for water to quench his raging thirst. Hilda was reluctant to leave the room, half of which her massive bulk occupied. She was curious as to why the man had demanded to see a police officer. But Kingsley spoke harshly to the landlady and she left to fetch the man a drink. The detective moved closer to the bed so that he could hear the barely whispered words of the dying man. ‘Me name’s Jack Horton an’ I know I’m dyin’. Must be, to be talkin’ to a trap on me own accord,’ the man rasped hoarsely, trying to cough. But no sound came from his dry throat and his shoulders heaved, causing the blood to flow even more heavily.

‘What happened Mister Horton?’ the detective asked with a note of respect, although he suspected that Horton was a man with some kind of long criminal record. It was obvious that the man might have a lot to say before he departed this world and all good police were natural agents of intelligence gathering.

‘Don’ matter what ’appened anymore. Jus’ say I was a bit slow an’ the other bastard a bit fast. Maybe some day ’e will end up like me.’ The words came painfully. His adversary’s knife had slit the dying man from hip to chest. ‘What I want you ’ere for is to tell you ’bout a treacherous bastard who set me up to die like some stuck pig. An’ me bein’ ’is first mate an’ all. I knows he was behind me killin’ as sure as I knows me name is Jack Horton.’

Kingsley was losing interest. So the man just wanted to squeal on a mate who had probably deserted him during one of the many knife fights in The Rocks. It was unlikely the police would ever find his killer.

Horton could see the detective’s lack of real interest in him. But he knew how to get his attention. ‘You ever ’ear of Lady Enid Macintosh?’ he asked in a whisper.

Kingsley showed immediate interest. Yes, he had read of the Macintosh family from time to time in the newspapers. They were powerful, influential people in the Colony. ‘Yair, I’ve heard of her,’ he replied. The dying man’s expression showed pleasure at the fact the name had caught the detective’s attention. ‘Big nob in Sydney,’ the detective added.

‘Yair, well, I’m gonna tell you some things, that will make yer ’air stan’ on edge. ’bout the Macintoshes, an’ the bastard Morrison Mort that works for ’em. Matter of fact, I’m goin’ to tell you a lot of things before I go. So youse better start takin’ notes . . . ’

Before he died Jack Horton revealed all he knew to the detective who listened like a man stunned by a blow to the back of the head. Horton’s motive for telling what he knew was simple: to revenge himself on Mort whom he suspected was behind the sudden ambush in an alley behind the hotel where he had been drinking. For some time he had been uneasy. Something about his captain’s aloofness had warned him treachery was afoot. No, Jack Horton was not making a death-bed confession to ease his conscience. He was taking a final act of revenge on the people he had always hated for their manipulative power.

Kingsley was glad that he had closed the door against the nosy landlady. What the dying man had told him in confidence was information that had to be carefully evaluated for its monetary worth. It was information that could be of great assistance in establishing friends in the right places. The call to Horton’s death bed was one of the luckiest things that had occurred in all his years of policing Sydney’s seamy streets. There was certainly a silver lining in every cloud! Even in run-down boarding houses in The Rocks!