The Ink Stain Read online

  Monsarrat cleared his throat, snatching his hand away with a vehemence he hoped wasn’t rude. ‘I am sorry for your loss, Mrs Selwyn. I’m very grateful to the tea, and your helpful information.’

  The woman stood up, smoothing her skirts.

  ‘Oh, you wouldn’t happen to know the owner’s name?’ asked Monsarrat.

  Mrs Selwyn scoffed, perhaps offended that anyone would think she could be ignorant of a neighbour’s name. ‘Bancroft. Albert, I think. Most unfriendly man, but I haven’t seen him for quite a time. Gave me a key, though I think I’ve lost it. Anyhow, he told me not to use it – unless the house was being burgled, in which case I should feel free to stop the thieves. Me! At my own risk!’ she said. ‘Mr Monsarrat, I would be delighted to assist you further … in any way you see fit.’

  ‘Exceptionally kind of you, but I’m sure it won’t be necessary.’ He backed towards the door, turning as he opened it and trying to avoid the impulse to sprint.

  Cullen led Hannah through the newspaper office, past the frames – all but one of them smashed. A wooden press sat, hacked and useless, at one end of the room.

  ‘Odd that they left just one frame,’ she said.

  He glanced towards the intact frame. ‘It was hidden in a drawer,’ he said. ‘I set it here to remind myself what this place is capable of.’

  They walked to the back of the building, and Cullen opened a small door with rusted hinges. Hannah stepped into a yard that looked as though it hadn’t been maintained since it was built. Voracious weeds sprang through the cobblestones, and a pile of machinery rusted in one corner, next to a stack of broken printers’ plates. In another corner, an indistinct lumpen mound was covered by oddly clean canvas.

  At the back of the yard was a wooden shed, haphazardly built from mismatched planks, held together with nails that weren’t driven all the way in. It did, however, have a door. A closed one.

  Cullen made a crescent with his thumb and forefinger, and stuck it in his mouth. A sound like a bird call emerged – the kind of bird she had only ever heard in Ireland, one that did not exist here.

  The door was slowly pushed open, its longer boards scraping on the dirt. A grimy face appeared, caught sight of Hannah, and disappeared again. She heard a scrabbling as the door was jerkily pulled closed.

  ‘It’s all right, lad,’ called Cullen. ‘She’s a friend.’

  There was no response.

  ‘There is shortbread,’ Cullen called.

  Still nothing.

  ‘Good shortbread. Happy to have it all to myself.’

  The door slowly creaked open again. One grimy bare foot emerged, followed by another.

  The boy was probably small for his age, although she couldn’t tell what age that was. He was dressed in clothes that might once have been decently made, but which were grimy and gaping at some of the seams. His face was narrow and dirty, his sunken eyes gleaming and darting, their brightness intensified by the drabness around them.

  Hannah walked forward tentatively, holding out the tray of shortbread. The boy started to back away.

  ‘I’ll leave it here, then,’ she said, setting it on the ground. ‘I’ll step away, and I won’t move again until you’ve finished.’

  As soon she was out of swatting range, the boy lunged forward and squatted at the tray, shoving squares of shortbread into his mouth with only a cursory effort to chew them.

  Cullen was standing next to her at the entrance to the yard. ‘His name is Peter. Don’t know anything about his father. Mother was a convict. They took him away from her, put him in the orphan school. She was sent out west somewhere, some property or other, and never came back. When he escaped the orphan school they didn’t make any effort to reclaim him – they’ve got enough to worry about.’

  ‘How long has he been living here?’ asked Hannah.

  ‘Six months or so. He tried to steal Mr Hallward’s pocket watch. The boy thought he was being dragged to the constables but Mr Hallward brought him here, sat the lad at his desk. He was always asking people odd questions, out of nowhere, Mr Hallward was. And he asked this lad, “If you could say one thing to the governor, what would it be?”’

  ‘And Peter’s answer?’

  ‘“I am not a dog.”’

  But you have nearly been reduced to one, you poor boy, thought Hannah. Eating scraps and living in a kennel.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Cullen, ‘Mr Hallward gave him a meal and sent him off, and the lad was back the next day. We arrived to find he’d broken in. He hadn’t taken anything, though – he was just staring at the printers’ plates, the blocks of type. So Mr Hallward asked him if he’d like to learn the trade, and he’s been here ever since.’

  ‘I can’t say much for Mr Hallward if he made the boy live in a shed and starve.’

  ‘Oh, he didn’t. Peter has a little bed in the attic. One in which he hasn’t slept since Mr Hallward died.’

  It took only a few minutes for Peter to demolish the shortbread. He stayed crouched, looking at Hannah. She approached him slowly, and crouched herself until her eyes were level with his.

  He flinched as though she was going to strike him.

  ‘You’ll have to forgive him,’ said Cullen. ‘Some soldiers tried to take him the other day – just lifted him right up, one by each arm. He struggled and eventually broke free, but not without a few little scrapes and a big scare.’

  ‘Soldiers! Why on earth? Who sent them?’

  ‘No idea, but soldiers tend to take their orders from the governor. Or his pet colonel.’

  Hannah looked to the boy. ‘I’m not a soldier,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve no intention of taking you anywhere.’

  ‘Why are you here, then?’ he said. ‘You brought me something, that means you want something.’

  What Hannah wanted in that moment was to reach out and smooth the boy’s cowlick from his forehead. She knew, though, that she would then lose him. He had spent most of his young life in a world where violence or bribery were the only two possible interactions.

  She realised, too, that he was right about her: the shortbread was a form of inducement. ‘My friend and I – he was here yesterday, you might have seen him.’

  ‘The thin man,’ said Peter.

  Hannah smiled. ‘Yes, well, he and I, we are trying to find out what befell Mr Hallward. And we’re wondering if you can tell us anything that might help.’

  ‘Why would you wonder that?’ said Peter.

  ‘You do have a habit of running away. It makes me think there’s something you want to avoid talking about. And I’m assuming that your friend brought me out to this yard for a good reason.’ She turned around and pierced Cullen with a questioning look.

  ‘I might not have been as forthcoming as I could have been with your friend yesterday, missus,’ said Cullen. ‘Without Mr Hallward, though, I must look to myself. There is no one to protect me now if I were accused of treason, of sedition, and no one to come for Peter if I’m arrested. It’s hard to tell who is working for who these days.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘Mr Monsarrat asked if Mr Hallward was working on something when he died. Some sort of story. I said I didn’t know. Peter, tell the lady what you were doing the day Mr Hallward died.’

  ‘He said one day I could move letters round in those frames,’ said Peter. ‘But I had to learn how it worked first. He told me I was a copyboy – never had me copy anything, mind, even though I have my letters.’

  ‘What did you do, then, as a copyboy?’ asked Hannah.

  ‘Collect things. Drop things off. Make sure Mr Hallward knew where everyone was. And I had to run to the gaol. The day it happened.’

  Hannah glared at the man behind her. ‘Really, Mr Cullen! No matter how urgent it was, why would you send a young lad to a place like that?’

  Cullen looked down. ‘Hallward’s insistence. As I told Mr Monsarrat, he knew he was going to be arrested. So, before they took him, he told me to send Peter to gaol two days hence, in the morning. Said he’d have something to b
ring back.’

  ‘The story he was working on,’ said Hannah. ‘What was it?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Peter, ‘but I thought I might have a read of it on the way back.’

  ‘He’d have cuffed your ear had he known,’ said Cullen.

  ‘He’d have been in no place to. And I wouldn’t have told anyone. But I didn’t get to the gaol in time. I heard a shot, and I couldn’t hear anything else for a while afterwards, like I’d gone deaf. I ran straight back here.’

  ‘If it deafened you for a little while,’ said Hannah, ‘it must have been close.’

  Peter nodded. ‘It was just above me. It came from outside the gaol – from the tallest house I’ve ever seen.’

  Monsarrat wished that Mrs Selwyn’s hand had belonged to Grace. But he refocused his thoughts back to Hallward’s murder, as he forced his feet to carry him back to the gaol. Before he could gain the door, though, a figure stepped out of the shadows.

  ‘I bring greetings to the governor’s bloodhound,’ said the man, bowing low. When he straightened again, Monsarrat saw the face of the speaker at today’s rally: Mr Donnelly.

  ‘The colony’s bloodhound is more how I would describe myself,’ said Monsarrat. ‘But greetings, of course, to you as well.’

  ‘Monsarrat?’ the man said.

  Monsarrat inclined his head.

  ‘Brendan Donnelly, at your service. Now, Mr Monsarrat, to give you some respite from all of those questions you’ve no doubt been asking, I have one for you.’

  ‘Very well. I can’t guarantee, though, that I’ll be able to answer it.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with this one,’ said Donnelly. ‘I was wondering, Mr Monsarrat, do you like fishing?’

  Chapter 11

  ‘So Bancroft could be our killer?’ asked Mrs Mulrooney.

  ‘Can’t say,’ said Monsarrat. ‘For a start, we must check the records in the Colonial Secretary’s Office.’

  ‘Records you’ve been forbidden from perusing.’

  ‘I might forget that prohibition. Accidentally.’

  ‘Good man. Nothing to be done until tomorrow though. So what can we do on a Sunday to take things forward?’ asked Mrs Mulrooney.

  ‘Well, that Donnelly fellow and I are off at dawn in a little rowboat,’ Monsarrat said. Just then, Monsarrat and Mrs Mulrooney were most pleasantly diverted by the antics of a family of ducks skimming across one of the ponds that dotted the Botanic Gardens.

  Monsarrat suspected that his friend had her own demons she was hoping to leave behind for the duration of their late afternoon stroll. She had told him about her conversations with Henrietta and Carolina. But she seemed most affected by her interaction with Cullen and the boy.

  ‘Oh, now, I nearly forgot to tell you,’ she said. ‘While we are pining for Parramatta, a little piece of it has found its way to Sydney.’ She told Monsarrat about meeting Lethbridge. ‘He is rather fond of you, I think,’ she added. ‘You’re the only person who can carry on about Socrates with him without keeling over backwards with boredom.’

  Monsarrat chuckled. ‘I do enjoy that man’s company – and his pies, of course. A cagey one, though. Reserves the right to keep his secrets. I’m fairly certain he will only help us if it suits him to do so.’

  It was a mild afternoon, and the calls of the park’s birdlife were punctuated by greetings shouted between groups of people. Neither Monsarrat nor Mrs Mulrooney registered their names being called until they heard small staccato footsteps behind them.

  ‘You two! I’ve been shouting myself hoarse. Anybody would think that you didn’t wish to speak to me, Mrs Mulrooney.’

  Henrietta was dressed in green, and her parasol was covered in ruching and small green flowers, a matching reticule dangling from her wrist. Several yards away, two other young ladies were scurrying to catch up with her, their skirts lifted slightly off the ground.

  ‘Miss Duchamp,’ said Monsarrat, bowing. ‘A pleasure to see you.’

  ‘And you, Mr Monsarrat. Mrs Mulrooney, I am pleased to have found you here. You see, I want to ask for your help. I’ve recently started running a most fascinating enterprise – I mentioned it at the garden party. The Female School of Industry. Stops young girls from sliding into idleness or worse. And it means I can find some decent maids for a change. Something has occurred to me. I would be so grateful for your help in training them. With your common air, I’m sure you would be able to relate to the girls far better than I could.’

  Monsarrat noticed Mrs Mulrooney grasp her fan, which had been dangling off her wrist, and begin to raise it. For a moment he feared she would set about Henrietta with it. Instead she emphatically snapped it open and held the stretched and painted silk in front of her face so that her clenched jaw, visible to Monsarrat from the side, would not be noticed by Henrietta.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘For such a cause, I would be delighted to do all I can.’

  ‘Marvellous! And we shall have tea afterwards – perhaps we can teach them to make it. Monday afternoon, then, after lunch – the large building on Macquarie Street. I would call for you, but I’m afraid I have a prior engagement in the morning.’

  The two other young women were beside Henrietta now, their faces shining slightly. They glanced at Monsarrat and Mrs Mulrooney, but made no attempt to introduce themselves. One was quite mousy and perhaps viewed Henrietta as a fashion paragon, as she too was carrying an opulent parasol that matched her dress. ‘Dearest,’ she said to Henrietta, ‘you must see this. He is here, again.’ She handed Henrietta a piece of paper.

  Henrietta read it, crumpled it and threw it towards the sea wall. She missed by several feet, so that the ball of paper came to rest on the ground in front of some confused seagulls. She did not appear to notice.

  ‘Come now,’ said Henrietta’s friend, ‘an acquaintance of yours desires to speak with you.’

  Henrietta smiled at Monsarrat and Mrs Mulrooney, then reached out to pat Mrs Mulrooney’s hand yet again. ‘Monday, then.’ She scuttled off at speed, forcing her friends to lift their skirts again and mince after her as fast as they could.

  Mrs Mulrooney slowly lowered her fan, staring at Henrietta through narrowed eyes.

  ‘You mustn’t worry,’ Monsarrat said. ‘She probably tells the governor that he is common too.’

  Monsarrat flinched as Mrs Mulrooney’s fan connected with his knuckles. ‘I can assure you, Mr Monsarrat, these cursed corsets are not so tight that I have suddenly become lightheaded and started caring about people’s opinions. But I’ve had enough of the gardens for one day.’ She stalked towards the paper that Henrietta had thrown away, scattering seagulls who had more sense than to impede her. She picked it up and smoothed it out. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘Vindex has been busy.’ She handed the pamphlet to Monsarrat.

  ‘Opinion May Soon Be Illegal,’ the headline read.

  We have heard that consideration is being given at the highest levels to banning this publication. We are unsurprised to learn of this, as this administration will stop at nothing to silence dissent. We beg the reader to consider the following question – is it coincidence that one such dissenter was slain in what is supposed to be one of the most secure places in the colony? Especially while in the care of the very administration he criticised.

  You will be told, without doubt, that any measures to restrict comment are for the good of the colony, which otherwise will descend into anarchy. But they are not for the good of the colony – they are for the good of the administration, which wishes to continue in its practice of granting favours without scrutiny. And which may have taken certain steps to stop that scrutiny.

  Monsarrat handed the pamphlet back to Mrs Mulrooney. ‘I had not heard anything about banning this. Mind you, I am not in Duchamp’s confidence.’

  ‘No, but Henrietta is. She mentioned it to me at the races. She has probably mentioned it to others. And I wonder … Do you think we have met Vindex?’

  ‘Why do you say that?’


  ‘Did you not notice, Mr Monsarrat, the one intact frame in the office of the Chronicle?’

  ‘Yes. Presumably the looters missed it.’

  ‘Or it was hidden. Or it was new. And of all the rubbish left to rust in the Chronicle’s yard, one mysterious pile is protected by canvas.’

  ‘You think that Cullen is Vindex?’

  ‘You thought that these pamphlets were not written by a journalist, and Cullen isn’t one.’

  ‘I also doubt he’s familiar with Latin,’ said Monsarrat.

  ‘Who knows what he picked up from Hallward.’

  ‘We should talk to him about this.’

  Mrs Mulrooney nodded and began stalking towards the gates. Then she suddenly stopped, turning towards a copse beside the path. When Monsarrat caught up with her and followed her gaze, he saw Henrietta whispering to a man who was no more finely dressed than any of those at Carolina’s recital, surely beneath her standards. A man who, nevertheless, clearly paid a great deal of attention to his moustache.

  Henrietta turned and caught sight of them. The open face of the shallow young woman had been replaced by an acute stare, along with what appeared to be anger. Mrs Mulrooney returned Henrietta’s gaze for a moment, then turned pointedly to the gate and continued walking, far more sedately.

  ‘What on earth could those two have to talk about?’ said Monsarrat.

  ‘I’ve seen her fend off Mobbs twice before. It is easy to believe they met by chance at the garden party and the racetrack, but again here? Do you know, Mr Monsarrat, I believe we have been underestimating that woman.’

  Chapter 12

  It was just as well that Monsarrat had never liked the low skies of London. He had certainly never liked arriving at his desk at Lincoln’s Inn in the dark, only to leave after the sun had completed its short arc above the clouds. Still, he now rather enjoyed getting up in the dark on occasion, here where it had become a novelty. Fishermen went out very early, and Donnelly was no exception.