Kerry Greenwood - Blood and Circuses

An argument had started in the front bar. It had increased in volume, and now became inescapable. Mr Thomas the publican was discussing the reason why he should give another bottle of cheap ruby port to Lizard Elsie, the sailor’s friend.

Lizard Elsie stood five feet high in her damaged canvas shoes. She was dressed in an assortment of carefully chosen rags, topped with what had once been a rather expensive ball-gown, to judge by the remains of the sequins, and a tatty feather boa wound three times around her neck. The ruby-port content of Lizard Elsie’s blood was low. This always made her cross.

‘No, Elsie, I already gave you a free bottle yesterday. Don’t drink it all at once, I said. I’m not giving you any more of my port.’

Lizard Elsie pushed aside her tangled black hair with both dirty hands. She levelled black eyes at the publican and screamed in a shrill voice like a seagull, ‘You mean bastard! You mongrel cur! Wouldn’t give a poor girl the drippin’s from your fucking nose! Bloody well gimme me port or you’ll be fucking sorry!’

Tommy Harris reflected that they didn’t call her Lizard Elsie for nothing. Her tongue was definitely blue. The respectable patrons of the Provincial were drawing away and remembering appointments and lunch and requirements to go back to work or the missus. Mr Thomas saw this and lost his temper.

‘You get out of my nice clean establishment, you and your foul tongue! Get out before I call the cops!’

Lizard Elsie did not reply in words. She seized a stool and flung it at the bar.

Bottles shattered. Mary the barmaid ducked and came up splashed in liqueur and picking glass out of her hair. Small specks of blood freckled her magnificent bosom. Three drinkers leapt to help her remove the splinters.

Tommy Harris glanced sideways and realised that Reffo had left him, without even waiting for his pound. He looked through the window and sighted the blond man standing on the corner of Johnson Street, waiting for the traffic to clear.

‘Bloody well gimme me red biddy!’ shrieked Lizard Elsie, pleased with the smash. ‘Or I’ll get another chair!’

At that moment, when all eyes but Tommy’s were on the brawl, a car slid around the corner of Johnson Street. There was a shot, perhaps two shots. Tommy Harris found himself running. He came out of the pub and dropped to his knees to cradle Reffo in his arms, whose life spurted out of a dreadful hole that had been blasted in his chest and onto the unforgiving bitumen of Brunswick Street.

‘They got me,’ commented Reffo. He said something in his own language. Then he gasped, ‘Exit,’ and died.

His was the first death that Tommy Harris had seen. He knelt in a spreading pool of cooling blood, holding the dead man close and reminding himself sharply that constables do not cry.

The occasion was also notable for the fact that, for the first time in living memory, Lizard Elsie had slipped away from a fight without insisting on her bottle of ruby port.

Detective Inspector Robinson invited his visitors to be seated. Grossmith steered Tommy Harris into a chair beside his own. He was worried about the boy—one of his most promising constables. First he had nearly fallen off a roof and been rescued by a female murderer. The next day he had watched Reffo die. It might have been too much for the young man. He was a country lad, after all, came from Hamilton. He wasn’t a kid who had lived in the streets like some. Grossmith himself had found his first corpse when he was ten, an old drunk who had died in a lane in Fitzroy. But Harris was shaking and his face had blanched so that his freckles stood out like ink-blots. Grossmith did not like the look of him.

Neither did his superior officer. Robinson said very gently, ‘Tell me what happened, Constable. What did Reffo say?’

‘ “They got me,” sir, he said. “They got me,” and then he said something in Balkan. I didn’t understand it. Then he said, “Exit” and then he died.’

‘Both barrels of a shotgun at close range,’ said Grossmith. ‘It don’t do you no good. Blasted out most of his guts.’

Tommy Harris made a sound like a sob and then shut his mouth hard. Robinson pressed a buzzer. His sergeant looked in.

‘Get us some tea, will you? Lots of sweet tea.’ The sergeant looked at Constable Harris, pursed his lips and nodded. Robinson said to Grossmith, ‘What can you tell me about Reffo?’

‘Real name Georgi Maria Garinic, thirty-five years old, native of Rumania. Came to Aussie after the War, naturalised, took his oath and all. Been living in ’Roy, making a crust as a carter and driver. Big, strong, blond bloke. Known associate of the Brunswick Street Boys, that’s Jack Black Blake’s mob, the Brunnies. Not nice citizens. You remember Blake. Record as long as me arm. He hangs around with the Judge, Little Georgie who’s as mad as a cut snake, Billy the Dog, and Snake Eyes. Not nice citizens. Feuding with the ’Roy Boys at the moment. Crims. Petty stuff, mostly. Receiving stolen goods and the odd burglary. I’m sure as eggs that both the Brunnies and the ’Roys are standover merchants but I can’t get no one to complain about them. You know what it’s like. They’re all terrified that if they stand up in court they’ll get a petrol bomb through their front window. I reckon the Brunnies had something to do with the butcher’s shop fire but I can’t prove it. Lately we been thinking that they had something big on. That’s why I sent Harris down to the Provincial. Reffo ain’t what you could call truthful but them Brunnies hate the ’Roys. I thought we might pick up a useful word or two.’

‘Perhaps we did. Ah, thanks, Sergeant. Here you are, Harris.’ Robinson spooned sugar into the solid white cup and put it into Tommy’s hands. ‘Drink up. Help yourself, Terry. Now, I am going to tell you something confidential. Do I have your word not to disclose it?’

Grossmith nodded. Harris gulped tea and said, ‘Yes, sir.’ He was pleased that his voice did not shake.

‘Good. The interesting thing that Garinic said was “Exit”. We’ve heard that before. For the last six months we have been losing prisoners. There was Maguire and there was that rat Smythe. You know about them?’ They nodded. Tea was putting colour back into Harris’s white cheeks. Grossmith absently gave him his cup and Tommy drank, feeling more centred. ‘But what you haven’t heard about is Seddon.’

‘He’s dead, sir. Died in prison,’ said Grossmith. As Robinson did not speak, the big man added, ‘Didn’t he?’

‘Oh, yes. Certified dead by the prison doctor and carried out in a coffin. Given to his family to be buried—that won’t happen again, I can tell you, not without a post-mortem. Because last week I got this.’

He handed them a card in a stiff white envelope. It showed dancing crowds of gaily dressed people. ‘It’s postmarked Rio de Janeiro.’

Terence Grossmith read the spiky, idiosyncratic handwriting with difficulty. ‘It says, “Dear Jack, just to let you know I’ve arrived safely. If you are still doing that literature course, I refer you to Romeo and Juliet, Act IV, Scene i. Best regards as always, William Seddon.” William Seddon? Is this his writing, sir?’

‘Yes. They say it’s identical. The Shakespeare reference is to the scene between Friar Lawrence and Juliet, where he gives her a drug to mimic death. It annoyed me at the time but we have been lucky. If that cheeky bugger hadn’t needed to crow about getting away, then we wouldn’t have had a clue. But there is an undercurrent in the underworld, if I may put it like that. They are all talking about Exit. If you have the money, Exit can get you out of the country. I don’t know how to find them. No one will tell us anything else about it.’