Kerry Greenwood - Tamam Shud

‘Well, yes, but I don’t know if there’s a connection. Someone – several someones – broke open all the lockers in the left-luggage office of the Adelaide Central Railway Station last night. Didn’t pinch anything, just left all the stuff strewed on the floor.’

‘What were they looking for?’

‘I think it was the suitcase that we found earlier that day. It hasn’t any wallet or keys or passport in it, though, but the clothes are the right size. And there is a laundry bag with a name stencilled on it.’

‘Well, what name?’

‘Keane. Or Kean. Otherwise there are just clothes and a toothbrush and some soap, a shaving brush, that sort of thing. All American-made.’

‘So it may not belong to him.’

‘Or it may,’ said Hammond.

‘Keane,’ mused Phryne. ‘Any initial?’

‘T or A E. The A could mean that his name was Anthony, T for Tony and A for Anthony. I reckon that there’s a fair chance that the man was called Anthony E Keane. Not that it helps. No one of that name is missing in South Australia. The other states haven’t got back to us yet.’

‘Well, that’s promising. I’ll go and see my friend, and if he will help we should have an answer fairly soon. Nothing more from the pathologist?’

‘No, but he’s convinced that he was murdered. He says that there are poisons that leave no trace. He’s basing his theory on the face, on the expression.’

‘Well, so are we. If he took poison, where’s the bottle or paper it was contained in? There was nothing around his feet, I noticed.’

‘So did I but he could have thrown it into the sea.’

‘Yes. Well, I’ll get on with the code, and I’ll call you when I’ve got an answer.’

WPC Hammond looked suddenly uneasy.

‘No, Miss Fisher, don’t call me. I’ll come and find out what you’ve got in two days time.’

‘Hammond, I should like to have had you with me in France,’ said Phryne. ‘You have a fine sense of security.’

Bernard Cooper was home. The sound of his gentle voice made Phryne feel safe for the first time since she had encountered her dead man.

‘Bernard dear, it’s Chatte Noire .’

‘Phryne!’ he sounded astonished. ‘What are you doing here? When can you come to dinner?’

‘Tonight, if you like. Where are you?’ He gave the address.

‘Come early, ma chere chatte – the road’s a bit rough and the turning is hard to find in the dark. Nothing wrong, cherie ?’ he asked, sounding worried. ‘No need for me to alarm the legions?’

Phryne smiled. Bernard could probably summon up the entire army, navy and air force if he felt the need.

‘Nothing like that,’ she assured him. ‘I have a puzzle to show you.’

‘Oh, dear, and I had thought it was for the pleasure of my company.’

‘It is that, as well. I’ll come now, if you like.’

‘Yes,’ he said firmly. ‘I do like.’

Phryne hung up, gathered a shady hat and sunglasses, and called upstairs, ‘Marie! I’m going out. I won’t be back tonight. I’ve written down where I’ll be and the telephone number. All right?’

‘ Oui , Madame, I am going to the pictures.’

‘Oh? With that nice greengrocer?’

‘ Oui , Georges.’ She pronounced it in the French manner. ‘He is dreamy.’

Phryne smiled and went out into the searing street. She unlocked the Sprite and drove carefully up into the Adelaide Hills, concentrating on the uncertain surface of the road and hoping that higher up it might be cooler. A little thing like petrol rationing would never worry Phryne Fisher.

Bernard Cooper lived in a large colonial house with verandahs, perched on the side of a cliff. It looked vaguely uncertain, as though at any moment it might slide into the abyss. He was waiting for her as she negotiated the steep drive and parked the car at the back door.

‘Come in, come in, ma chatte, ma cherie ! You must be parched. I have a nice bottle of the local champagne cooling at this moment.’ He put a hand under her elbow. ‘All right, Phryne?’

He had aged, Phryne thought, and he thought the same thing about her.

War had not been good to Bernard Cooper. It had furrowed his brow and lent a faint trembling to his hands. Phryne, he noticed, had white streaks in her black hair, and lines around her mouth and neck that had not been there before she went to France. He cleared his throat.

‘You look splendid,’ he said, and Phryne grinned at him.

Suddenly the original Phryne was there: impudent, confident and beautiful, her green eyes shining. He caught his breath.

‘Come in,’ he repeated. ‘This weather is really enervating. I hardly do anything in the summer,’ he added, closing the door against the harsh sunlight and leading her into a cool panelled study. ‘Just aestivate and pray for rain. Here we are, a nice bottle of bubbly.’

‘Bernard,’ said Phryne, sitting down and casting aside her sunglasses and hat, ‘you are babbling.’

‘Quite right, cherie , I am,’ he confessed.

‘What are you covering up for?’ she demanded, putting a hand on his arm.

‘Oh, Phryne,’ he said, looking at her quite without artifice, ‘I never thought that we would grow old.’

‘No, neither did I. But I’m not old yet,’ she added briskly.

‘Give me a glass of champagne and pull yourself together, Bernard, my dear. You are not old, either. You are still the shaggy bear I loved in London, and I still love you.’

Bernard smiled and poured the wine.

‘I still love you, Phryne. I have never been able to get you out of my mind.’

‘Are you alone here, Bernard? Where’s Stephanie?’

‘Stephanie’s dead. Didn’t you know? She died of heart disease. Two years ago. We got all the way to Australia, bought the house that she always used to talk about – you remember, during the Blitz, we used to talk about the hills and the rosellas and the wine? We’d only been here a year and she died.’

‘Oh, Bernard, I’m so sorry…’

He smiled again, ruefully. ‘At least she got here. She got what she wanted, even if she only had it for a little time. There were so many others who never knew what it was to be free and at peace.’

‘That’s true.’ Phryne reached across and took his hand. The strength was still there, the tension of strong muscle under the thinning skin. His hair was still shaggy and blond, his beard almost white; his eyes were still the colour of a trout stream, pale grey flecked with gold.

‘I am glad to see you again, Phryne,’ he said quietly, and she kissed him.

‘Well, what about this puzzle?’ he asked, as she drew away.

‘Take some more wine and tell me about it.’

Sensing that her kiss had started something that Bernard would need time to adjust to, Phryne produced the paper and he laid it flat on a solid oak table, under a strong electric light.

mrgoadard mtbimpanetpmliaboaiaqc

ittmtsamstgab

‘Hmm. Not an alphabet code, I think,’ he said.

‘How can you tell?’ asked Phryne, who had never understood codes.

‘Not enough letters. I mean, not enough different letters. An alphabet substitution uses all of the letters of the alphabet and there are several which don’t appear. A box code, possibly, or an ETAIONSHRDLUCWME’

‘Sounds Greek,’ she commented.

‘It’s based on the frequency of the letters in the English language. Where was this found or shouldn’t I ask?’

‘It’s the code relating to the dead man on Somerton Beach. They’re calling it the tamam shud mystery. You haven’t heard of it? Don’t you get newspapers up here?’

‘What, news? I don’t want to hear any news’, he said in horror, as though Phryne had offered him nice, fresh axolotl salad. She shook her head at his isolationism and sipped more wine. It was quite passable, and blessedly cool.