Kerry Greenwood - Tamam Shud

‘No, wait. The dead man’s initials are AEK. Anthony E Keane. Or Kean. GT might be ‘Go to’ and ST might be ‘station’. And they think he might have been an American. That gives us US. United States.’

‘Mmm, but what about this AUR?’

‘It’s the chemical and Latin term for gold.’

‘Mmm. Well, if we assume that the first line is sort of correct, which I think is a bold assumption… then we have to look at the next line. Now we have ANT in the middle, and we might guess that it is preceded by W, making WANT. Am I going too fast for you?’

‘No, go on.’

‘Now I’ve assumed that code B equals K, that’s what gave us his initials S and the sender of the message appears to be WT K.’

‘WT, indeed. You know what WT stands for!’

‘So I do – wireless transmission, the call sign being K. So the object of the WANT might be a person.’

‘Wait, Bernard, aren’t you going to tackle the rest of the letters?’

‘Mmm? No, my dear, that is the macron.’

‘The what?’

‘The macron. The O with a cross over it. It is understood that either the message runs backward from that point or that the rest is gibberish. Just put in to fool the opposition…’ He read on a little and frowned.

‘Phryne, did you do any code-breaking during the late unpleasantness?’

‘No, none. A little sabotage, a few assassinations and a lot of intelligence gathering, why?’

‘You never came across the Irish/Nazi connection, then?’

‘No. Bernard, what are you talking about?’

‘I was working for a while on transmissions which the Nazis sent to the IRA. There was a lot of traffic, mostly intercepted, and nothing ever came of it – in fact, I felt sorry for those poor spies, parachuted into Ireland and having the Irish being all Irish at them. They stood out like sore thumbs and the amount of radios and equipment that went into bogs or police hands was phenomenal. But there was one name, you see, which always came up when there were killings to be done. They are gunmen.’

‘Yes?’

Bernard turned the message, mostly decoded, for her to see. The light shone down strongly on the letters. It now read AUR GT ST US AEK WANT P- ENA-WT K.

‘Sorry, Bernard, I’m not with you.’

‘There were two of them, two brothers. Patrick and Michael Heaney, but often, because the Germans don’t like double vowels, called HENAY. That was their codename. P and M Henay. And offhand I can’t think who else K might want except P Henay.’

The young man with the panama hat approached the gate of the station, where a crowd was gathering for the departure of the Melbourne train. A small dark man paused at the door, saw his face and was about to cry out, when he was held in what looked like a fraternal embrace.

‘Come for a little walk, Brian,’ said the young man, and Brian came with him to the head of the train.

‘Where is the money?’

‘So help me God, I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell.’

‘Did you use the stuff?’

‘I did, but he just upped and died!’

‘Goodbye, Brian,’ said the young man.

‘Patrick, for God’s sake…’

‘No more words,’ and Patrick pushed Brian just hard enough to send him under the Melbourne train, and walked quietly out of the fuss without ever being noticed.

‘Well, we had better call someone,’ said Phryne. ‘I think that your surmise is correct and Adelaide has more Heaneys than it needs. Who would be able to help?’

‘Archie, I think – yes, Archie would be our best bet. There’s the telephone, Phryne, you call him. I’ll get another bottle of wine. I feel unwell. I have never acquired a taste for assassins.’

Phryne dialled the number as he called it and was presently talking to a cool, educated voice, to which she could just put a face – a well-fed, complacent face with silvery hair; a politician’s face. What was Archie of military intelligence doing in Australia? She had last seen him in London.

‘Phryne, my dear! I heard about your dead man.’

‘It’s about him that I am ringing. I’m in the mountains with Bernard Cooper…’

‘Half his luck!’

Phryne ignored the tone of the chuckle. ‘And he’s decoded the message. It appears that you have an IRA gunman amongst your nice citizens.’

‘Name?’

‘Patrick Heaney.’

‘Oh, indeed. Patrick Heaney, eh? There has just been an accident at the railway station, you know,’ he added absently. ‘A little Irish American called Brian Sean Ryan. Now I wonder… very well, Phryne, we will look for Heaney.’

‘So you know him?’

‘Oh, yes, I know him. Have you told anyone else?’

‘Bernard. And my companion knows where I am,’ responded Phryne automatically. She did not know Archie well and she was constitutionally cautious.

‘I meant anyone official.’

‘Yes, a young police constable called Hammond. She’s very bright, and I’d like to see her promoted if we can’t solve this one publicly.’

‘I’m sure that can be managed. Are you coming back to Adelaide?’

‘Not tonight.’

‘Very well. Should have it cleared up by morning. When you come in, call on me, eh? Parliament building. Anyone will show you the way. I’ll be expecting you’.

Phryne accepted another glass of the cool pale wine and said, ‘Bernard, who is Archie? I mean, what is his position? I recall him very imperfectly.’

‘Sir Archibald Donaldson. You’ll like him but not as much as you like me, I hope. He’s in Parliament House. I… I don’t go into the city much, Phryne, but I’ll come in with you if you like.’

‘No, Bernard dear, you stay here and aestivate, and I’ll come and join you on occasion. How does that sound?’

‘That sounds lovely. I’ll write out your message for you, then, and…’

‘And?’

‘I think we might go back to bed, don’t you?’

A phone call from Sir Archibald Donaldson to a lowly police constable is unusual. Hammond was so overcome that she listened without saying a word. Then she said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and gave the phone to her sergeant.

‘Yes, sir, of course you can have her,’ he agreed with insulting alacrity. ‘I’ll send her right over, sir.’

Hammond stood up and straightened her seams.

‘You’re on loan to the Funny People,’ said the sergeant unpleasantly. ‘And I hope they keep you.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ agreed Hammond, and walked out of the office.

Sir Archibald was affable, kind and rather distinguished, though dreadfully old. Hammond liked him. He sat her down at his imposing desk and stated, ‘This is the situation, Miss Hammond. Your dead man appears to have had some rather nasty friends. Now you know the dead man’s face and you also will be shown rather a lot of pictures. Your chief says that you have a photographic memory; I want to know if you’ve seen any of these men on the streets. Take your time, now.’

Hammond began to leaf through a pile of pictures. Notes about the subjects’ colouring, height and build were on the back. Eventually she sorted out three.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes.’ She gave the photos to Sir Archibald. ‘The top one has red hair and a scrubby sort of complexion and is tall and thin. The second one is small and dark, with brown eyes and black hair. I saw them together outside the Railway Hotel in Hindley Street yesterday morning.’

Sir Archibald matched the descriptions to the written legends on the photographs and raised an eyebrow. ‘And the third?’ he asked.

‘He’s slim and has pale brown hair and pale eyes – perhaps they are blue. He’s hard to remember – hard to get a fix on, if you see what I mean. Taller than me but not much. Nicely dressed.’