Matt Eaton - Blank

“They let you go then?” he inquired.

“Who wants to know?”

“I was there this morning – when you and your friend were arrested.”

“Oh yeah,” she remembered. She sounded older than she looked.

“What’s your name?”

“Charlotte. What’s yours?”

“Luckman. Any idea what’s going on, Charlotte?”

“I dunno, weird shit. Cops are thinkin’ we just another cuppla boongs on the grog and sleepin’ in the dirt. We had a couple but we weren’t pissed.”

“How’d you get down to the river last night?”

She stared at him like she resented the implication. “I dunno.”

“Listen, I don’t think you and your friend did anything wrong. What do you remember?”

“I dunno, it’s all like a dream. I can’t remember.”

“Any idea why you can’t remember?”

She shook her head like it was so far beyond comprehension it was impossible to put into words. “We weren’t drunk.”

He nodded. “I heard you mention a bright light.”

She glared at him, as if waiting for him to poke fun.

“I saw a bright light too,” he admitted. “I’m staying at the Riverview Motel. I saw it this morning. Around dawn. Like a giant spotlight.”

Her eyes widened. “From the sky. I saw it. Wozza don’ remember. But ah know he didn’t hurt that priest. We liked Father Clarence – he paid blackfellas to work for ‘im. Wozza wanted a job too, he wanna work with his cuz.”

“So there were more people working for Father Paulson besides Daisy?”

Charlotte looked suspicious. “You got a lot of questions, Army man.” She said it like she was calling him a traitor to his own kind.

“Do you think there’s any chance Father Paulson and Daisy were doing the dirty?”

She shook her head. “The Father had his fingers in a few pies but Daisy wasn’t one of ’em.”

“Fair enough,” he chuckled. He heard a car horn. Pollock had pulled up out the front of the station. “You should go home,” he told Charlotte. “No point hanging around here. They won’t release Wozza any time soon.”

Luckman walked to the curbside and pulled open the front passenger door of Pollock’s white Ford Falcon. The interior stank of stale cigarette smoke.

“You won’t get any sense out of her,” said Pollock.

“On your own, eh?” Luckman asked him.

“I thought you might prefer discretion.”

“I take it you’ve been trying to check me out.”

Pollock’s eyes didn’t leave the road. “Couldn’t raise anyone in Canberra. Something wrong with the damn phones.”

“Keep trying,” Luckman urged. “And General Shearer is in Brisbane right now: Amberley Air Base. You could probably raise them on short wave. I’d hate you to think I was trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.”

The journey from the police station to Father Paulson’s house took them right past the crime scene.

“None of our boys spotted Charlotte and Warigal anywhere near the river until just after dawn,” said Pollock. “The night patrol is scared shitless they fucked up, but they’re insisting that part of the river was quiet as the grave – ’scuse the pun. It was a quiet night. No drunks or troublemakers anywhere. So I’d like to know what brought those three to that spot at four in the morning?”

“Strange place for them to have a fight,” Luckman agreed. “If Warigal was going to confront Father Paulson surely he’d do it at the priest’s home?”

“He and Charlotte could just have been dumping the body. We’re not certain where the priest was murdered.”

“So why’d you let Charlotte go?”

“Oh look whatever happened wasn’t her doing. She’s a pain in the arse but she’s harmless. She’s better off at home neglecting her kids,” Pollock spat, blustering past what might have been an act of compassion. “Anyway, we know where to find her,” he added.

Clarence Paulson’s house was almost invisible from the street, hidden behind a high rendered wall. A large gun metal grey gate barred entry to the driveway. Pollock turned off the engine and walked up to a buzzer near the gate. Apparently someone was home because the gate began to open automatically. Leaving the car outside, they walked along a curved gravel driveway to the front door of a nondescript single-storey yellow brick house – probably late 1960s vintage.

“The uniform guys will be along soon to tape off this front yard so if you see anything don’t touch it,” Pollock warned.

“Fair enough,” Luckman replied.

Daisy Moreton was waiting on the front doorstep. She was an attractive Indigenous woman in her early 30s. Her eyes were red, most likely from crying. She waved them indoors without a word.

As he crossed the threshold, Luckman caught a glimpse of movement behind her. Was there someone else in the house? He got the distinct impression it was the same someone who had met him at Bar Doppio in town.

“Why didn’t you answer the phone when I called earlier?” Detective Pollock demanded.

“Didn’t want to talk,” said Daisy.

Luckman realised this meant phones somehow still worked inside the town limits .

“I take it you’ve heard what happened,” Pollock continued.

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“Who told you?”

She shrugged. “Everyone knows. People bin comin’ over this mornin’ to say sorry.”

“What do you mean say sorry?” asked Pollock.

“They sorry Father Clarence is dead. Everyone loved him.”

“Is there someone here with you in the house?” Luckman asked her.

“No, just me. Father’s assistant is here usually, but he bin gone all day.”

“What’s his name?” the detective asked her.

“Paolo Favaloro. He’s Italian.” Judging by the look on her face she held a rather dim view of this particular Italian.

“I think I saw him as we arrived,” Luckman told Pollock.

“He not here,” Daisy insisted. “Take a look if you don’t believe me.”

Pollock didn’t seem to care.

“When did you last see Father Clarence alive, Daisy?”

“Last night, when I went to bed. He was alone in his office.”

Luckman could tell Daisy’s responses weren’t to the detective’s liking. Certainly something about the housekeeper wasn’t quite right. She was keeping something to herself.

“What exactly was the nature of your relationship with Father Paulson?” Pollock asked her.

“Cleaning and cooking. That’s all,” she told him flatly.

“I’m going to have a look around if it’s all right with you,” Luckman told Pollock.

The policeman glanced at Luckman and nodded dismissively.

“Stay out of the bedrooms,” he said, his eyes remaining firmly focused on Daisy.

The house was large and very well appointed. Modern red suede couches adorned a spacious living room bedecked with art of all styles and periods. Luckman discovered an adjoining office. It smelt like a church. Thick wooden shelves ran along three of the walls surrounding a large antique cedar desk in the room’s centre. To one side of the desk there was a small, autographed photo of Pope Paul VI in a picture frame. There were more photographs spaced strategically along the bookshelves like trophies. Bishop Desmond Tutu with his arm around a white man, presumably Paulson. Another photo showed the same man with a much older woman. Maybe his mother. There had to be a 20-year gap between the two photographs, but Paulson appeared the same in both. He hadn’t aged.

Behind the desk, thick burgundy velvet curtains hung either side of a broad window that looked out at a lush garden, and then to the house next door. Everything was neat and tidy and there was no sign anything had been disturbed. It might have been too neat.