‘You’ll do me the favour of telling me who you are.’
‘I’m sorry — my name is Hardy. I’m a private investigator from Sydney. Does the name Chatterton mean anything to you?’
‘You’ll not be referring to the poet?’
‘No, not the poet, the Judge.’ I rattled the gate a fraction. ‘Can I come in and ask you a few questions?’
‘Perhaps. You mentioned Gertrude. What of Gertrude?’
‘She’s dead, doctor. She died this morning. I came from Sydney to see her but I didn’t make it in time. That’s why I’m here.’
Emotional control of the kind that is generations deep fell away from him in a split second. He clutched at the gate and the newspaper fell; I held his arm to steady him and we stood there like father and son mourning a wife and mother. I opened the gate with my free hand and helped him up the path towards the house. He was a portly man with a weatherbeaten face. His eye sockets were sunken and surrounded with dark, puckered skin as though a stain was seeping out of the eyes into the tissue. Flesh sagged on his cheeks but his chin and neck were firm; it was as if he’d aged selectively, in patches.
The house was a big, plain weatherboard, painted white with a glassed-in verandah running along three sides. I eased him up three steps and across to a cane chair. He sat down stiffly, like an old horse sinking to its knees for the last time.
‘Can I get you something doctor?’
He spoke slowly and remotely, as if from far away. ‘I was making coffee.’
‘I’ll get it.’ I went into the house and through a couple of well-ordered rooms to a neat, bright kitchen. I collected mugs, milk and sugar and took the pot off the stove. When I got back to the verandah Osborn had straightened up a little in the chair, lifted his head and seemed to be looking through the window to a far distant point. I poured a black coffee for him and he nodded and took it. I made one for myself and sat down opposite him.
‘I’m sorry to hit you with it like that.’
He seemed not to hear me. ‘Forty years,’ he said. He moved his head and looked directly at me. ‘It was her, you’re sure?’
‘Yancey Street,’ I said. ‘A handsome old lady, white hair.’
The coffee slopped and he set the mug down before covering his eyes with his hand. I drank some coffee and waited. After a minute or so he made an effort, palmed tears from his face and drank the coffee. He didn’t look at me but pulled himself up out of the chair.
‘Excuse me,’ he said. He walked slowly through into the other room and I heard him lift the phone and dial. There was silence and then the sound of the phone being put down. I poured more coffee and sipped it while he resumed his chair.
‘No answer,’ he said. ‘I can’t just leave her there, all alone.’
‘I’m sorry doctor, I’ve got the living to consider.’
‘Yes. You’re a detective you said? A policeman?’
‘No, I’m a private detective. I’m sorry about Nurse Callaghan.’
‘Nurse, Sister, Matron,’ he said softly. ‘The most wonderful woman.’ I drank some more coffee and he watched me critically.
‘You should put milk and sugar in it,’ he said. ‘I’d guess you were a drinker, a drinker with an empty stomach. Your metabolism needs something to fuel it.’
‘I’ve also been hit on the head,’ I said defensively. I leaned forward to give him a look. He put down his cup and eased the hair gently aside. I brought my head up and he looked directly into my eyes.
‘Nasty,’ he said. ‘A possible concussion. You should be at a hospital. I’m afraid I don’t practise any more.’
‘You did though, until recently.’
‘And how would you know that?’
‘From the medical register.’
‘You’ve been researching then. You’re right, I retired two years ago. You should go to the hospital, there’s a good one here.’
‘Maybe later.’ I sipped some coffee. ‘I want to ask you about Gertrude Callaghan and things that happened here thirty years ago.’
‘Do you now? You come here bleeding and smelling of spirits and you ask me that. How do I know you didn’t kill Gertrude?’
‘Would I have come here and told you about her if I had?’
‘Perhaps not,’ he said wearily. ‘But I doubt I have anything to tell you.’
‘I think you do. Thirty years is a long time but I need information and you’re the man that knows where the bodies are buried.’
He winced and a sharp breath came out of him; he tried to cover it by lifting his cup to his mouth.
‘Just an expression doctor. Why does it startle you?’ He didn’t answer and I pressed on. ‘I’ll dig for it doctor. I’ll be working in the dark and things will just have to fall out as they may. It doesn’t have to be that way though.’
‘What are you saying?’
He was good, very good. Without trying he’d got me to say more than I meant to while he hadn’t volunteered a damn thing himself. I had to plunge on with my uncertain knowledge and try to flush him out. I had hints, clues and guesses and just one piece of hard information on him — knowledge of his feelings for Gertrude Callaghan.
‘I’ve seen a photograph of Nurse Callaghan with a pregnant woman taken down here. The photograph was authentic and I’ve identified the locality.’ This was a lie but it seemed like a safe one. ‘My interest is in that woman specifically and the child, I’m not concerned with the wider issues.’ I chose the words carefully but they still sounded thin.
‘May I see this photograph?’ he said.
‘No.’
‘And why not?’
‘It’s a crucial piece of evidence and I don’t carry it around with me.’
He leaned back in his chair and drank some coffee. ‘You mean you don’t have it,’ he said confidently.
‘The man who had it is dead. He was murdered, probably by the same person who killed Nurse Callaghan.’
The smugness left his face. ‘Murdered! You didn’t say that before. No, not Gertrude. Did she…’
‘Tell me anything? I’m not going to answer that doctor, it’s time for you to open up a little.’
I finished the coffee, thought about a cigarette and decided against it. It wasn’t a time for betraying weaknesses. He sat back further in the chair and his eyes seemed to sink deeper into those cavernous, dark- rimmed sockets. He looked like a man letting his mind run back. I waited. When he spoke it was carefully and slowly with the Scots accent more pronounced.
‘I’m going to talk in generalities Mr Hardy, at least to start with. Do you understand? A lot of reputations and lives, good lives, are at stake in this. A lot of harm could be done.’
I nodded.
‘Let me say for a start that I know nothing about anyone by the name of Chatterton. I might have had some dealings with a Chatterton but if so I’ve forgotten. I’m an old man and I have forgotten many names.’
‘But you remember some?’
‘Aye, and with good reason.’ He ran a hand over his head and plucked at the dewlaps on his face. ‘This is hard for me. I’m not sure I’m doing the right thing. I know nothing about you.’ He groaned. ‘Tell me about Gertrude, was she… hurt?’
‘She was in bed. I didn’t see any signs of violence but someone had searched her house, probably the same person that hit me. Something happened up there.’
He suddenly looked every day of his age. Gertrude Callaghan was woven into his past and he wanted to talk about it, but secrecy had become a habit.
‘You seem to be having some trouble starting your story doctor,’ I said. ‘Let me help a little. There was an establishment of some sort down here thirty years ago, a place where women came to have babies. Or not to have
