The Ink Stain Read online

  About the Book

  Henry Hallward, editor of the Sydney Chronicle, has been imprisoned for criminal libel so often he can edit the newspaper from his cell.

  While awaiting trial during one of his imprisonments, Hallward boasts of a story that will destroy several powerful people. But before he can finish it he is killed, and Monsarrat and Mrs Mulrooney are sent to investigate.

  After Monsarrat meets with Colonel Duchamp, the governor’s right-hand man, it is clear the duo are on their own in solving this murder. And it seems there are many who had reason to wish Hallward dead. There is Gerald Mobbs, editor of the Chronicle’s rival newspaper. There is Duchamp’s sister, Henrietta, who can’t quite hide her cunning behind her ladylike exterior. And there is Albert Bancroft, an eminence grise whose property dealings seem to put him in an ideal position to have carried out the killing.

  Monsarrat and Mrs Mulrooney must sift through the suspects, unravel hidden agendas and navigate shifting loyalties, aware that at any moment Duchamp could ignominiously dismiss them, leaving Hallward’s murder unsolved and the independence of the colony’s press in grave jeopardy. And when a young boy is kidnapped, it becomes clear freedom of speech may not be the only casualty.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  From the Sydney Chronicle

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Authors’ Note

  Acknowledgements

  Also by Meg and Tom Keneally

  Imprint

  Read more at Penguin Books Australia

  For Jane Hall Keneally

  Descendant of an early newspaper hero of New South Wales

  And to the memory of Dr John Keneally

  From the Sydney Chronicle

  March 1826

  Yet those who condemn the ticket-of-leave man for what they see as his unwillingness to put the full weight of his shoulder to the colonial wheel need ask themselves: why should he?

  A man who has served his sentence should be able to expect freedom, yet those with a ticket of leave cannot truly be called free. They are unable to travel where their fancy takes them. They are unable to apply such skills as they have in districts where these skills are needed, if such districts fall outside the boundaries to which they have been confined. They are, of course, unable to return home.

  I have noted more than once that those who lament the attitudes of many with tickets of leave are loath to acknowledge any industry on their part, and would likely ignore the greatest displays of virtue, as long as they can persist in the damaging notion that criminals are created by nature, and cannot escape their destiny. When their self-appointed betters view them thus, it is remarkable they are willing to make even the smallest of contributions to colonial society.

  Yet, ticket-of-leave men do make contributions, to their own credit and to the shame of their detractors.

  One such man labours in Parramatta’s Government House, as clerk to the governor’s private secretary. By all accounts in possession of a fine intellect, Hugh Llewelyn Monsarrat once used his gifts to impersonate a barrister. For this, he was justly punished. Now, he bends his intelligence to the task of identifying the colony’s most nefarious murderers, ensuring they can no longer ply their gruesome trade.

  Such a man is usually shunned in the church and the street by his so-called betters. In the case of Mr Monsarrat, some of those betters would not be alive without him.

  Prologue

  Sydney Gaol

  March 1826

  ‘What’s it for this time, Mr Hallward? Trespassing again?’

  As the chief warden of Sydney’s George Street Gaol, it was a question Frank Gleeson rarely needed to ask – he did not get many return visitors.

  ‘No, Frank. Trespassing was last time – at the church, remember? We’re back to criminal libel now.’

  The prison stones gave Hallward’s deep voice a rumbling, ominous sound. The place had better acoustics than St Paul’s Cathedral. Frank should know – he’d heard enough moans bounce off the walls in his time as warden. He found it interesting that here, where the primary walls of the vast colonial penal system were made of water and wilderness, the stones still reproduced some of the echo, bulk and menace of a prison in the British counties.

  Hallward, though, was an unusual prisoner. He was not a moaner. He was too busy writing. He was also one of Frank’s more frequent guests.

  Frank was not above providing some additional comforts in exchange for a fee. He considered himself a practical warden. To those who robbed in the dead of night or forced themselves on women or stabbed rusty daggers into their friends, he gave nuggetty bread and brackish water and the occasional kick in the ribs. But to those who had done no more than stab a piece of paper with a pen – well, no harm in being lenient. Especially when they could pay.

  They all, though, paid more than Hallward. Not that he knew it. Frank wanted to keep Hallward writing, so he charged him just enough to cover expenses, and let the man believe he was being genially swindled. At this remove from the British Parliament, the governor had the power of a king. There was no voting here, even for landowners; no boroughs, even rotten ones. The only voice people like Frank had came out of the mouths of people like Hallward.

  ‘Two shillings, then,’ said Frank.

  Hallward looked up from the desk, which was covered in neat stacks of paper. Probably the finest item ever seen in this cell, the desk stood like a fantastical island in the middle of the grey ooze, the bare splintered boards, and the high, barred and grimed windows. During Hallward’s first few incarcerations he had paid handsomely to rent a desk, and Frank had procured him a new one each time. Now Frank kept just this one in a storeroom, knowing it would be needed again before long.

  ‘Price has gone up,’ said Hallward.

  ‘Risk has gone up. And the cost of bread. You know this yourself, champion of the common man that you are.’

  Hallward chuckled, shaking his head. ‘I cannot fault your enterprising nature, Frank. Although many might charge more. As you say, the risk …’

  ‘Is worth it. Not all of us have friends in Government House. We need someone to speak for us.’

  ‘I don’t believe I’ve any friends at Government House either. The look on that charlatan Duchamp’s face when he poked his head into my cell could’ve curdled milk.’

  ‘I wish I could have given you some warning, but he arrived unannounced.’

  ‘The question is, why. But a question for another day. All right then. As soon as I’m out. You know I’m good for it. Peter – the new copyboy, you’ve not met him – will be here to collect all this while I’m in court.’

  ‘And it will be in tomorrow’s paper?’

  ‘If I’m allowed to continue writing it,’ Hallward said.

  ‘Is it something that might land you back in here?’

  ‘Or ensure I’ll never be back here aga
in. Can’t tell you this time, Frank, sorry.’

  ‘You can trust me, though! You told me about the break-in story, the one you fought the duel over, and I didn’t breathe a word.’

  ‘I know, I know. But this one – I can feel the heat coming off it. It will cut that bastard Darling’s administration from neck to crotch. The information in these pages, Frank, is far more dangerous than any musket ball. I would not want to put you at undue risk.’

  Frank looked nervously around and peered out the door to make sure Crowdy wasn’t listening. His deputy warden, a self-righteous man, was prone to eavesdropping. It would be a great risk to refer to the governor in such crass terms around Crowdy, even for an inveterate upsetter of applecarts like Hallward.

  Crowdy couldn’t have heard, though, because Frank saw him now, walking down the long hallway towards the cell.

  ‘Time, is it?’ said Frank, when Crowdy arrived. ‘Already?’

  ‘According to the clock it is. You cannot argue with a clock,’ said Crowdy.

  Frank shook his head. ‘I’m getting as bad as the inmates. They constantly moan that time loses meaning here. But they say it drags, not gallops, and the sun wasn’t yet in the corner of the yard when I came in.’

  ‘Well, no matter where the sun is, the cart’s here,’ said Crowdy. He looked at the desk, then at some chicken bones on a plate on the floor – the remains of Hallward’s most recent meal – and scowled. ‘Criminals are criminals,’ he said to Frank, ‘whatever weapon they use to commit their crime.’

  ‘I’ll sheath my weapon for now,’ said Hallward. He made a great show of stacking his papers, fastidiously smoothing their edges and risking a glance at Frank as he placed them in a drawer.

  ‘More sedition?’ Crowdy asked.

  ‘Not a bit of it. Letters to my parents. A few final demands to advertisers who have been less than prompt with their payments – the patent tonic people are the worst.’

  Crowdy stepped forward, holding out a hand from which manacles dangled.

  ‘Surely not necessary, in this case,’ said Frank.

  ‘His Excellency was willing to chain soldiers who had fought for Britain,’ said Crowdy. ‘Don’t think he’d approve of leaving this one with his hands free.’

  Hallward shrugged, putting his hands out for the manacles. ‘Must follow processes. Like a good soldier.’

  Crowdy placed a rough hand on Hallward’s shoulder and shoved him towards the door. ‘You coming?’ Crowdy asked Frank.

  ‘In a minute. This one’s wily, so I’ll search the cell for contraband.’

  Crowdy nodded, propelled Hallward through the cell door. When a prisoner’s hands were bound, Crowdy liked to make their owners move so fast that they risked tripping with no way to break their fall.

  Frank waited for Crowdy’s and Hallward’s footsteps to recede, withdrew the papers from the desk drawer and stuffed them in his shirt. He would have to think of a pretext to stay behind and send Crowdy to guard Hallward in his place. Hallward had entrusted him with the documents in good faith, and when it came to faith, a career of speaking for the downtrodden – not to mention two shillings a day – bought a lot of it.

  By the time Frank got outside, Crowdy was unlocking the prison cart. He was having a little trouble with the padlock given that he still had one hand on Hallward’s arm, although the prisoner was showing no signs of wishing to flee. Frank guessed that he did not want to provide entertainment for the inhabitants of the buildings that overlooked the prison yard.

  ‘You think he’s going to grow wings?’ Frank asked Crowdy. ‘Give it here.’

  He had to admit that even with both hands, wrestling the padlock into submission was no easy task. The blasted thing was becoming increasingly disagreeable in protest at being rained on and infiltrated by the salty ocean breeze.

  If Frank had managed to open the door a few seconds earlier, it might not have happened.

  The crack of the shot, the shock of the disturbed air, sent Frank stumbling backwards to the ground. His skull connected with a rock. He shook his head to clear the encroaching fog, rubbed his eyes, and put his hand down into a puddle – odd, as it hadn’t rained for a week.

  Odd, too, that the puddle was bright red, and even odder that this liquid was flowing from the ruined forehead of Henry Hallward. His hands, free or not, would have been useless in breaking this particular fall.

  Frank was not the only one who stumbled at the shot. A boy, skirting the outer wall of the prison, jumped and landed awkwardly on a turned ankle. He leaned against the wall for a moment, listening to his breath gradually slow, looking at the sky as he often did when disturbed. The sky, at least, was free.

  Between him and the blue was the open attic window of one of the taller houses that fringed the gaol. The window slowly began to close, but not before the boy saw a glint.

  Others, he knew, thought of metal in terms of jewellery or finely wrought iron. But his short life in The Rocks had taught him that it more often took the form of a knife, or a gun.

  By the time it occurred to him that someone would have to be there to close the window, and might have seen him in the process, he was already running.

  Chapter 1

  Sydney

  April 1826

  Hannah Mulrooney didn’t trust the woman. Her clothes were far too pristine. They lacked the discreet patches on the black skirts Hannah habitually wore, each tiny stitch a testament to hard work. If you judged this woman by her clothes, she’d never done anything more arduous than lift a fan on a hot day. The buttoned-up blue jacket, the fussy little lace collar, the brooch at the neck – why in the name of God use a brooch when you had perfectly good buttons? – spoke of a woman whose greatest challenge was which cut of meat to tell the cook to order. But the most galling part was her shooting Hannah poisonous looks from the mirror in the boarding house parlour.

  ‘Must I really come?’ Hannah asked. ‘People talk in front of servants as though they were coat stands. They might not be as loose-lipped in front of … whatever I am now.’

  Hugh Llewelyn Monsarrat lowered his newspaper and sighed. ‘Housekeepers usually don’t get invited to garden parties at Government House – and the Sydney version of it, no less. You will learn nothing if you stay here. Few victims of crime touch me as does the case of Hallward, since only enemies of the truth could have wished him dead. I need you and your talent for observation to give him peace.’

  Hannah threw Monsarrat a quick smile, took an angry glance in the mirror and looked around the parlour. This place was irritating her, with its fussy little lace doilies and vases that held no flowers. As soon as she and Mr Monsarrat had arrived at the boarding house she had bustled into the kitchen, looking around for the kettle in order to start the journey towards a restorative cup of tea.

  ‘Do you always make yourself at home in other people’s kitchens?’ The voice was high-pitched and nasal, the irritating monotone of a housefly.

  Hannah had turned to see a prim-looking woman with a long nose and pinched lips standing in the kitchen doorway.

  ‘Ah, you must be Miss Douglas. Thank you for letting us some rooms at such short notice.’

  ‘You are permitted in the parlour and your rooms. Not in here,’ Miss Douglas said.

  ‘Of course. I would never cross a boundary in another woman’s kitchen. So, you will be making us tea, then?’

  ‘No,’ Miss Douglas had said.

  Hannah felt she had more than enough justification to be in a foul mood. ‘I’m trussed and I’m trapped,’ she said. ‘I will do it – for you, Mr Monsarrat. And for the man who was slain. But don’t ask me to be happy about how I have to do it!’ She walked to the armchair where he was sitting, his long legs stretched out and impeding her progress. She reached for the waist of her skirt, frowned, and used a word she had previously heard only from the lips of certain soldiers and the rougher convicts.

  Monsarrat was wise enough not to remark on it. ‘I’ve just thought of another advantage of th
is situation,’ he said. ‘I can mewl or wail or be irretrievably stupid, or any of the other many crimes you accuse me of, without the risk of a thrashing from your cleaning cloth.’

  ‘I’ll find something else,’ said Hannah. ‘Maybe a fan – never saw the point of them until now. Yet while I am forced to transform myself, you sit there reading the paper.’

  Monsarrat folded the Colonial Flyer and placed it on the table. ‘Research, dear lady. And the only paper available to me, as it happens. The Sydney Chronicle has temporarily ceased operations, as you well know. More’s the pity. Henry Hallward was one of the few willing to challenge the governor.’

  ‘The governor you work for,’ said Hannah.

  ‘Doesn’t mean I agree with him. With his assumption that the colony is his to carve up and give away. With his view that former convicts are only good for building roads, and producing an ongoing supply of labourers. I wonder sometimes if I’m a coward for not speaking as Hallward does – well, did.’

  ‘You’re no coward,’ Hannah said. ‘Yours might be a quieter bravery, but that’s all to the good. There are some of us who would prefer you to stay alive.’

  Hannah suspected Monsarrat was more distressed by Hallward’s murder than he let on. He had told her of the Chronicle’s story about him while bundling her onto a packet to Sydney, the same vessel they had stepped off at Parramatta only a few days previously. She hated travelling by water but recognised it was preferable – barely – to the undulating road, which by many accounts was lined with more bushrangers than trees. She had fancied at the time that she had seen a shadow cross his face. The paper had been a favourite of his since Hallward had thundered against an editorial written by one of his own reporters. Hallward was known for allowing a range of views onto his pages, and if he disagreed with them, he preferred to publicly castigate the articles’ authors than prevent their publication in the first place. When a hapless journalist had accused a convict, Grace O’Leary, of murder on no more evidence than her involvement in a riot, Hallward had written the following day, ‘If justified action against tyranny proves that one is also guilty of any murder which happens to occur in one’s vicinity, every person of courage should be locked up.’