Peter Corris: The Marvellous Boy

She almost wailed. ‘I’ve been up since six, it’s after eleven o’clock. Can’t it wait until morning?’

‘No, it has to be tonight.’

She was stubborn. ‘I’m not sure I’m authorised to let you look at those files,’ she said primly.

‘Listen lady,’ I grated, ‘you’ll be out on your ear if you don’t. I’ll take the responsibility. Be there with your bunch of keys.’

‘I don’t like your tone.’

‘That’s tough. I have to see those files tonight.’

She muttered something about melodrama and hung up. I skipped out to the car and got moving.

The Friday night revellers were out in fair strength. They came cruising up from the eastern suburbs to spend their money in the dirtier parts of Sydney and then purred back for their beauty sleep. The lights of the Volvos and Jaguars and Mercedes were mocking me as I hammered up to the Chattertons. The cars and their owners were safe and well insured, so were the boats that bobbed in the water gleaming under the moon. A soiled man dead in a slum house seemed remote from all this security and money, but the connections were there.

As I approached the Chattertons’ gates a small car swung out onto the road, moving fast. The car looked Japanese, the driver looked big, that was all I got. I drove up to the path that led to the house and got out. A second later I was pressed back against the door with the flesh creeping all over me: a big yellow dog was growling impressively and showing me his white teeth about two inches from my kneecap. Then a voice came from the porch.

‘Rusty! Down Rusty!’

Rusty! Carl or Fang surely, but down was where I wanted him.

‘Call him, Miss Reid, he makes me nervous.’

She did. The dog went up to her like a poodle; she spoke and it went off into the shadows beside the house.

I went up the steps. ‘Good protection.’

‘Yes, it’s necessary. There are many valuable things in the house.’

‘Get many night-time visitors?’

She hesitated a split second. ‘No.’

We went into the house and through the passages to the room I’d seen that morning. She handed me the keys to the filing cabinet.

‘I trust you won’t disturb anything.’

I looked her over. The tone was still severe, she was one of those people in the habit of saying cautionary things, usually because they’ve been spoken to themselves in that way often. But she was more obliging, or trying to be. I couldn’t smell any gin and her hair was in military order, but she exuded that glow people usually have after some sort of satisfying experience.

‘I was having some coffee to help me stay awake, would you care for some?’

‘Thank you, yes, black please.’

She nodded, almost approvingly, and went away. I opened one of the cabinets and started working through the files. They weren’t well kept — more than one person had done the job over the years and it showed in the arrangement. There were business records and papers relating to the management of earlier houses than this one. Bills paid and receipted went back forty years, so did shopping lists and bank statements. At the bottom of the second cabinet I found a folder which contained information on staff pre-war. The turnover in maids, cooks and gardeners was steady.

Miss Reid came back with the coffee and perched on the edge of the desk. It was an unusual posture for her, almost jaunty. Albie would have been surprised. I kept my finger in the file while I drank the coffee and then went back to it. Miss Reid watched me. I found it among the last few sheets. ‘CALLAGHAN, GERTRUDE’ was printed in neat capitals and a date, ‘8/5/33.’ This was when she’d come to work for the Chattertons as Bettina’s nurse, nanny or whatever. Two hand-written references were pinned to the sheet. One was from the matron of a country hospital testifying to Callaghan’s qualifications and competence; the other was from a doctor and expressed unqualified praise for her trustworthiness and abilities with children. Dr Alexander Osborn had a practice in Blackman’s Bay. I made notes from these testimonials and from the woman’s letter of application. Gertrude Callaghan was a spinster, born in Liverpool, England, in 1905. She left the Chattertons in June 1946 — her forwarding address was 11 Yancey Street, Blackman’s Bay.

I straightened up. Miss Reid was still sitting on the desk. She was looking tired but content.

‘Finished?’ she said. She let go a small, polite, well-covered yawn.

‘Nearly. I need the library.’

The old aggression flooded out. ‘You can’t go there. Lady Catherine is working on the memoirs in there, nothing must be disturbed.’

‘I won’t disturb anything. I have to look at a medical register. The Judge must have had it. I have it myself at home but I can’t go there.’

‘Why not?’

She came off the desk and moved towards the door; I herded her on and she opened it.

‘It’ll sound melodramatic, Miss Reid,’ I whispered, ‘but if I go home the police might be there and if they are they’ll arrest me.’

She was moving, keeping me at a distance. ‘What for?’

‘Murder. One I didn’t do.’

‘Who did?’ she gasped. ‘I didn’t… don’t believe you.’

I didn’t reply, just kept moving her along and we ended up at the library as I’d hoped. Miss Reid pushed open one of the high, heavily carved doors and fumbled for the light. When it came on it showed a big room with a high ceiling; two large windows were covered by heavy curtains. There was a long desk with papers laid out in neat bundles and some freshly sharpened pencils lined up.

Books dominated the room; there were thousands of them in cedar cases from floor to roof and there were two ladders on wheels ready to go. I thought of Henry Brain and his books in piles on the floor.

‘Is this catalogued?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’ She pointed to a wooden cabinet in one corner. I went over and thumbed through the cards. The medical directory was listed and numbered. I read the numbers on the shelves and climbed the ladder. The Judge had six copies going back as far as 1930, the most recent was 1975.

Dr Alexander Osborn was listed: born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1899, educated in the same city; medical training interrupted by two years in the army; served in France and Africa, rank of Captain. Osborn was a P amp; O ships’ doctor in the twenties and settled in Australia in 1929. Since 1939 he had had a practice in Blackman’s Bay. If he was still there what he wouldn’t know about the place wouldn’t be knowable. I noted the address and put the directories back.

‘All ship-shape,’ I said to Miss Reid.

‘You looked pleased with yourself.’

I was surprised and not pleased. ‘Do I? I shouldn’t be, this is just the start. But I’ve started to earn your boss’s money.’

‘I suppose that means something,’ she said acidly. ‘I wonder if I could go to bed now?’

I could have said something smart but didn’t. I don’t always. I wasn’t sure how to handle her. She probably didn’t know what I’d been hired to do, but there was her park assignation to consider and the half-lie I’d caught her in that night.

It seemed like the right time to do some work on her. She moved to open the door but I took hold of her arm.

‘Don’t touch me,’ she snapped.

‘I’d like to know what you plan to do about Rusty.’

‘Oh.’ There was relief in the sound. ‘I’ll call him.’

‘Is that what you do when your boyfriend visits? I mean the big guy in the blue car, the one Lady Catherine forbids you to see.’

‘I see who I like. Get out!’ She was a sabre fighter not a fencer; it was all beat-down-the-guard and thump for her. I decided to play the same way.