Red Herring (3 page)

“Get stuffed,” said the tunesmith.

“Come on, gents. Language, please,” said the barman, Bones Harrington. He was leaning against the back bar, tea towel over one shoulder, wiggling a tooth. “G’day, Johnny,” he said, straightening up and tossing off a salute.

“G’day, Bones,” said Molloy. He took some coins from his pocket and put them on the bar. “Give us an eight, will you?”

Molloy and Bones had been in Greece in 1941 with the 27th (Machine Gun) Battalion, dug in near Katerini at the base of Mt Olympus. They’d watched as an endless column of German trucks, tanks, mobile artillery and sidecars mounted with machine guns, came straight at them, grinding and clanking, the worst kind of dream — an army that had never lost a battle advancing on soldiers who had yet to fire a shot. But sappers had mined the approach with naval depth charges “obtained in an irregular manner” by Colonel Clifton, CO 6th Brigade, who had learned of their unconventional use in Norway the previous year. Without any authority whatsoever, he had commandeered forty from the Royal Navy in Alexandria and talked the captain of his transport into taking them to Greece. Not for nothing were the New Zealanders known as the 40,000 thieves. The explosion blew a tank sideways, the advance guard piled up, and the Brigade’s zeroed-in mortars and machine guns gave them a stonking. The Div’s first combined exercise was a battle and they did pretty well. The German advance was held up for a day and a night before the New Zealanders were ordered to fall back.

In the confusion of the withdrawal, Bones’ convoy drove straight into a motorised brigade of the
Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler,
an SS formation of singular and ferocious reputation whose command was later prosecuted
en masse
for war crimes at Nuremberg. Bones spent the next four years in prisoner-of-war camps in Italy and Austria. Molloy got to the embarkation point at Porto Rafti, near Athens, one of five thousand men rescued by the Royal Navy and taken, not to Egypt, but to Crete. Out of the frying pan into the frying pan.

Bones wiped his hands on the tea towel and took an eight-ounce glass from a tray.

“Me teeth are playing up,” he said, pouring beer from a rubber hose. “You still got your own gnashers?”

“Most of them,” said Molloy. “Couple of the back ones wobble a bit, now you mention it.”

“I’m thinking of having the whole blimmin’ lot pulled out. Get some dentures.” He slid the beer over. “Here you are, Johnny,” he said. “Get that down your rotten guts.”

“Cheers, Bones,” said Molloy, drinking the top inch.

The barman made a sucking sound. “This one, for instance,” he said. He took a white handkerchief from his pocket, carefully unfolded it, and showed Molloy a bloody bicuspid. “I was wriggling it a bit and next thing, I’m holding the bugger in me hand.”

“That’s no good.”

“It’s not.” Bones poked round with his tongue. “My brother had all his taken out,” he said, returning the handkerchief to his pocket and wiping his hand on his strides. “Last time he come to town he went to old Mr Geddes there and he said, ‘no, bugger it, I’m sick of this. Take the bloody lot out’. Had uppers and lowers fitted. Cost a packet but he can afford it. You ever considered that, Johnny? Deer culling? Not a bad life for a single bloke, out there in the bush with a rifle, all that dough and nowhere to spend it.”

“That’s a thought,” said Molloy. “Is Tim working today?”

Bones’ tone changed. He leaned in. “Jeez, poor bloody Tim. You heard what happened?”

Molloy shook his head.

“Remember Paddy?” said Bones. He hooked a thumb in the direction of Asia. “Copped it over there in Korea.”

“You’re joking,” said Molloy, putting his glass down.

“No,” said Bones. “He come in yesterday and told me. His mum just got the telegram. He’s taken a couple of days off he’s so cut up.”

“What was Paddy doing in Korea?”

“Kayforce. Lance bombardier with one of the batteries up there,” said Bones. “He volunteered.”

“Oh, you never volunteer.”

Bones raised his shoulders. “Fundamental rule,” he said.

“Kayforce?” said Molloy, trying to make sense of it. “He was too old for the bloody army.”

Bones snorted. “You didn’t know his missus. Actually, you probably did. Mary Kelly? Remember? This high? From St Joseph’s? Grew up in Paget Street? Father was a plumber?”

Molloy remembered her. “Even so,” he said.

“What a bastard,” said Bones. He counted them off. “Of the five O’Connor boys you got Vincent killed in North Africa, Barney killed in the Pacific, and now Paddy. Just Tim and Peter left.”

“Not good.”

“One more?” said Bones, straightening up.

“I better,” said Molloy. “Bloody Paddy, eh.”

Bones took his glass.

“What’s Peter up to these days?” said Molloy.

“Wellington. Got a good job with the Dairy Board. He studied for his accountancy papers while he was in the bag.”

“Did he now? Good on him,” said Molloy. “What did you study?”

Bones laughed. “Oh, cripes. Tunnelling, I suppose. I was on the escape committee. Wandered round with me hands in me pockets most of the time. Beady-eyed Huns, it’s all you could do.”

“I should drop round to Mrs O’Connor’s. Offer my condolences,” said Molloy.

“Good idea. I should too.” Bones filled a glass with lemonade. “Here’s to a good little bugger. May he rest in peace.”

“To Paddy,” said Molloy. They clinked glasses and drank. Molloy pointed to the lemonade bottle. “You off the plonk?”

“Just for a bit.”

“I wanted to ask Tim something, but you might know,” said Molloy.

“Fire away.”

“Under your hat?”

“My word.”

“I’m looking for a wharfie called O’Flynn,” said Molloy. “Irishman. Billy Burgess said he’s seen him up here.”

“Well, there’s an Irish joker called O’Flynn who comes in here with Barnes and that mob a bit,” said Bones. “Loudmouth? That the one? Why? What’s he done?”

Molloy shrugged. “Behind on a lay-by. Nothing much.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Bones, looking straight at Molloy. “Actually, doesn’t surprise me. He puts his drinks on the slate half the time and we always have to chase him up.”

“Does this O’Flynn stay around here, do you know?”

“Think he might, as a matter of fact.” Bones banged the till and took an old school exercise book from under the cash drawer. “If a
member has a big night we sometimes get him home in a taxi.” He slowly turned the pages, running his finger down the columns. “Here we are.”

Molloy took out his notebook.

“Number 3 Chamberlain Street,” said Bones, pointing over Molloy’s shoulder. “It’s a big boarding house near the top of Richmond Road there.”

CHAPTER FIVE

A black 1938 Chrysler Plymouth turned the corner into Princes Street and stopped in front of the Northern Club. The passenger got out. He was a solid man, in his fifties, face like a Belfast bricklayer, small mouth, black hair, thick eyebrows that curled up at the ends. He wore a brown double-breasted suit, the trousers belted high over his stomach, and a green tie.

“I’ll be half an hour, Sunny,” he said, wiping his hatliner. “Wait here.”

“Right-o, Mr Walsh,” said the driver, reaching into the glovebox for tobacco.

Fintan Patrick Walsh put his handkerchief back in his pocket. He looked up at the elegant sandstone building, Union Jack hanging above the entrance, thick green carpet of Virginia creeper shining in the sun, dark recessed windows giving off “the wealthy yellow light” that Mark Twain had noticed when he stayed there in 1895.

It was a long way from Patutahi in Poverty Bay, where Walsh had grown up. Not that he cared tuppence. He doubted there was a puffed-up member of this foolish piece of transplanted Englishness that he couldn’t buy or sell or put out of business or run out of town.

The doorman, Barrett, thought about asking the driver to move his motorcar, and then, realising who the passenger was, thought again. Walsh was the most powerful union man in the country. Most
powerful anything, a lot of people said, the uncrowned king, someone around whom violent rumour swirled, a union official in the sense that the American gangster Vito Corleone was an importer of olive oil.

In 1912, aged eighteen, Walsh was one of a handful of armed men guarding the Miners & Workers Union Hall in Waihi from an assault by strikebreakers and police. During the mêlée, a scab was shot in the knee and a constable in the stomach “by a person or persons unknown”. Walsh was spirited out of Waihi that night, left New Zealand soon after on a four-master from Napier, wound up in California, worked on oilers in the Gulf of Mexico and freighters on the South American run, jumped ship in San Francisco, spent two years as an organiser and enforcer for the Wobblies in Idaho and Montana.

He was a founding member, in 1921, of the Communist Party of New Zealand. He had bent the ears and twisted the arms of prime ministers from George Forbes to Sid Holland. He was the
éminence grise
of the Federation of Labour. He was said to own more land in the Wairarapa than the Riddifords. He was a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, holding a gun.

Why cross him?

Which is not to say that the doorman was windy, or lacked moral fibre. Far from it. Barrett had lost a leg at Gallipoli, shot out from under him during the charge up Rhododendron Ridge, the Auckland Battalion heading straight into the sun, Turkish bullets thick as bees, in the opening assault on Chunuk Bair. Three hundred boys were killed or wounded in less than twenty minutes.

He had lain all day in the heat, no water, flies in his mouth, lads around him crying out for stretcher-bearers, for shade, for their mothers, to die.

The CO of the Wellingtons, Colonel Malone, had refused to allow his men to follow in daylight. Now
there
was an officer and a gentleman, Barrett thought. Could have taught some of the newer members a thing or two.

Malone was killed next day on the summit, careless rounds from a British destroyer. Or possibly the Turks. Barrett preferred to blame the Poms. What a cock-up. “When I think of Chunuk Bair,” a cobber of his had said once, in the RSC after an Anzac Day do, “I think of reddish-brown. And that was blood.”

What was left of Barrett’s leg was amputated above the knee on the New Zealand hospital ship
Maheno
in Suvla Bay, and he returned home to a job at the club arranged by the Battalion 2IC, Major Campbell-Stevenson, whose father was on the committee.

Barrett was used to opening the door for powerful men, and men who thought they were powerful, had done it now for more than thirty years, and wasn’t bothered by it. Part of the job.

But Walsh was Walsh. His war was the class war.

Both sides.

The doorman brought up his arm in a polite salute. “Morning, Mr Walsh,” he said, with a deference he usually reserved for judges of the Supreme Court. “Another beauty.”

Walsh gave his name and hat to the duty manager and said he was there to see Henderson. The manager rang an electric bell and a maid in a black uniform and white apron appeared. He told her to show the gentleman to the library. She bobbed and glanced at Walsh. Pretty, he noticed. On the plump side, which he liked.

He followed her up stairs hung with portraits of long-faced Englishmen, governors-general and the like, club patrons since 1869. She had a behind that Walsh could have grabbed with both hands. Her buttocks rolled like two Tahitians dancing in a sack. Was she
sending him a message or was she simply climbing the stairs? She reminded him of a girl he’d kept in the Arundel Private Hotel, along the road in Waterloo Quadrant, before the war. Jane something. Or Julia.

At the top of the stairway was a wide wood-panelled corridor lined with prints from the Maori Wars. A faded blue and green Persian runner, held in place with polished rods, led to a set of tall double doors halfway along. The girl stopped. “This is the library,” she said. “Would you like me to knock, sir?”

“In a minute,” said Walsh. “What’s your name?”

“My name?” She looked around. “It’s Brenda.”

“You’re an attractive wee thing, aren’t you, Brenda.”

“Oh yeah? Mum warned me about fellers like you in the big city. Men of the world. All hands.”

“A wise woman. Where are you from?”

She rolled her eyes. “Otorohanga, I’m embarrassed to say.”

“But you got out. Which shows you have ambition.”

“Ambition! No one’s ever said that to me before!”

“Here’s another thing I bet no one’s said. How would you like to go for a ride in an American motorcar? Bet you’ve never been in one of them.”

“American? Not American. Lots of ordinary ones though. I like going in cars.”

“I bet you do. Tell you what. Be waiting out the front at nine tomorrow morning. I’ll take you for a drive in a Plymouth. That’s a real car.”

“Oh, love to, but can’t, sorry. Working.” She pointed at the floor. “He’s put me in the laundry the whole day. I’m ‘on probation’ according to him.”

“That ponce downstairs? Don’t worry about him.”

“I’m not. Have to pay the bills though.”

“How much do you get here?”

“Cheeky!” She paused. “A pound a week with room and board.”

“You live on the premises?”

“Eight girls in the attic. Gets so hot at night.” She fanned herself.

“Tell you what. Come and work for me. I’ll give you thirty bob a week for starters and find you a nice place to live. On your own? With another girl? Whatever you like.”

She was unsure. “What’ll I do? For a job and that?”

“Not sure yet. This is not the place for a girl who wants to get ahead in the world, I know that much.”

She thought about it.

“Nine o’clock?”

“Out the front with your suitcase packed.”

“All right.” She winked. “Sir.”

Good girl.

“Now you can knock.”

They heard a chair scrape, and footsteps.

The door opened. A man about Walsh’s age, wearing a dark suit of some expensive London weave. Tight-mouthed. Rimless glasses. Thinning hair parted well to the side and brushed back with a light layer of Brilliantine. He had the look of the late Prime Minister, Peter Fraser, but with none of Fraser’s warmth.