“What the hell is wrong with you? Billy? What have you done?”
Blankly Billy looked at her. They stayed like that a long time. Then he dropped his whip and walked away without a word.
Chapter 17
Henry Wells
The train squealed into Southport station and hissed a filthy cloud of steam. The doors opened, the passengers disembarked,day-trippers mostly, mothers and their broods. It had not occurred to Henry to bring his family. They might have providedthe perfect excuse. Instead he stepped down from first class alone and made his way through the bustle and noise, along theplatform, through the station building, such as it was, and outdoors. A crisp winter sun greeted him. A faint whiff of saltwater on the breeze. He walked along Railway Street to the park, glimpsed the pier and the beach and the sea. It was all reallyrather pleasant. He could see why Southport was so popular, apparently favored by the governor himself. They would come inthe summer, he decided, stay for a weekend; he would find out which was the best of the hotels. It might prove useful. Hecould talk to the right people, his children could play with theirs, Laura could befriend their wives.
He found the little weatherboard police station and, satchel in hand, stood appraising it from the street. With its picket fence and tidy front garden, its deadheaded rosebush climbing the porch, it looked more like a holiday cottage than a police house, and certainly too quaint and quiet for someone like Edmund Noone. The man had quite the reputation. Henry had done his research. Highly decorated for his work spanning almost two decades with the Native Police, a number of high-profile cases to his name, including apprehending the murderer of an outback squatter called John Sullivan . . . which just so happened to have occurred at around the same time and in roughly the same location as the massacre reported by Reverend Bean. The two couldn’t be a coincidence. Henry was on to something, no doubt.
So what was Noone doing here, then, in this sleepy backwater retreat?
Henry walked to the gate, opened it, the hinge creaked as it swung, felt obliged to close it behind him, such was the tidinessof the place. He followed a flagstone path between the flower beds, then noticed a man sitting smoking on the porch. He wassprawled on a bench with his legs splayed and his arms hooked over the backrest. Henry couldn’t make out his face, only thewhite of a ragged cigarette dangling from his lips.
“Good morning. I’m looking for Chief Inspector Noone.”
As he said this, Henry stepped up onto the porch and got a better look at the man. He was young, early twenties, with hoodedeyes, sandy brown hair, and scar-pocked cheeks. Dressed in scruffy trousers and a loose-fitting shirt, an immense long-barreledrifle propped beside him against the bench, he certainly wasn’t a police officer; he looked more like a larrikin off the streets.He drew on the cigarette, blew a smoke ring.
“He ain’t here.”
Through the open doorway Henry glimpsed an empty front desk and office, no sign of a clerk or constable inside. “This is thepolice house, isn’t it? I was told this is where Mr. Noone resides?”
“Nope.”
“But . . .”
“Resides means live, don’t it. Ain’t nobody lives in here.”
He was grinning. He slopped his tongue noisily around his gums.
“Stationed, then. The chief inspector is stationed here, is he not?”
“Depends on who’s asking.”
“Henry Wells, attorney-at-law. And you are?”
The man spat. “I done told ye: he ain’t here.”
“Well, when are you expecting him back?”
“Hard to say.”
He stared off into the distance, took another pull on his cigarette. Henry stood there impotently. No idea what to do next. Ordinarily he would have marched inside but this man, his rifle . . . he shifted his feet and looked about, until a voice from a back room called, “Show him in, Percy, please.”
The larrikin uncrossed his ankles and leaped to his feet, scraped his cigarette dead on the arm of the bench, and tucked itbehind his ear. He snatched up the rifle, barged Henry aside, went in through the open front door. Henry hesitated then followedthe trail of smoldering tobacco into a pristine office bereft of people, papers, or stationery of any kind. The place lookedutterly deserted. Not a working police house at all.
Through they went, along a narrow hallway to the back of the building, until they reached a door standing ajar. Percy leanedagainst the frame and folded his arms and rested an elbow on his rifle like a crutch. He nodded for Henry to enter. Smirking,the light now dancing in his eyes. Henry gripped the handle of his satchel all the tighter, pushed open the door and steppedinto the room.
Noone was sitting behind a broad writing desk, reclining in his chair, a book open in his hand: Nietzsche: On the Genealogy of Morality. He placed the book facedown and stiffly turned, his posture oddly upright, as if his spine was pinned. Even sitting he wasincredibly tall—over six and a half feet, Henry guessed—and wore a light gray three-piece without the jacket, a gold watchchain dangling between the waistcoat pockets. His hair was black and so precisely combed that Henry could see the tooth marks,and his mustache was black also, full but neatly trimmed. He smiled at Henry warmly. Didn’t rise or offer his hand.
“Chief Inspector, I’m very grateful. Sorry to arrive like this, unannounced.”
“On the contrary, Mr. Wells, you announced yourself most clearly outside.”
Only now did Henry notice the man’s eyes. Gray, opaque, unblinking—for a moment he even wondered if Noone was blind. Certainly that would explain how he could have heard the conversation on the porch. Henry leaned a little forward and to one side, noticed the eyes follow him, then straightened and swapped the satchel to his left hand, approached the
