‘Back to the motor garage, I guess. If they’ll have me. Or perhaps I can try selling phonographs. Jordan reckons there’ll be money in it. Didn’t get a single response to my notice in the newspaper: “Aeroplane pilot desires situation”. Adamson has washed his hands of me. If he wants what’s left of his Wright machine, he can bloody come and get it himself. Sod him.’
The absinth is bitter on his tongue. He licks the last of it from his glass before turning towards Brassac.
‘I noticed you didn’t sign as a witness after your boss’s flight on Sunday,’ he says. ‘I signed the paper, just as I signed the first witness statement on Friday. So did you. Also Jordan and even some of the sailors from the yachts. The drivers signed. There was a woman I’d never set eyes on before: Venora Watson from Brighton Beach. But not you this time. And there was a name on the paper that was a mystery to me. A foreign name: Serani. Beats me.’
‘A mystery,’ Brassac agrees.
The two men sit quietly until Banks wanders away to relieve himself.
Brassac is staring at the flames when he hears him shouting.
‘Did you see that? A streak of light. Brighter than any star. Extraordinary!’
56
Lundi 21 Mars 1910
Au revoir Plumpton.
I am to depart this place with the wind and heat and flies and canvas for a roof. I will accompany the Voisin in boxes to the Sydney racecourse where there must be lodgings finer than I have found in this paddock. The Magic Man will fly again in Sydney. But he no longer needs to fly. He has the Australian record he chased. He soon grows tired of things.
Ralfbanks will not travel to Sydney. I will leave with him the Diamond recording about his mother. He can have it just as Mr H. was rewarded with the trophy with the eagle wings and no mention of the mechanic. If he never owns a Champion, the recording can be his Plumpton souvenir.
Ralfbanks has asked why I did not sign the last witness statement.
In truth I was ready to sign before attending to the Voisin machine. Protecting it from too many people.
I have the pen. Also the paper, prepared by Rickards the fat man.
Then I see a spectator passing by. Tall. With a moustache, like me, wearing too many clothes. The hotel manager with the spectacles is directing him to an automobile.
I look at the tall man and something is familiar. I think of opera programmes and posters and M. Bleriot talking of fine music. I touch the rim of my hat and nod. Because I have Rickards’ pen, the tall man believes I request his autograph. Takes the pen and only then sees the document I am holding. He takes a moment to read it then hesitates before signing with a grand flourish:
‘A. Bindo Serani, Consul for the Italian Touring Club’.
When Mr Serani returns the pen he touches a finger to his lips, as if requesting silence.
There are confidences a gentleman must keep.
So this is a mystery. Not something that can be tightened with a spanner.
In five years, when I have retired to my apartment on the Boulevard Chantilly, or fifty years or one hundred years nobody will know precisely what happened in the paddock.
Or who was there.
57
HARRY hears a horse approaching before he sees it. He is up early again – not for the paddock this time but in Flinders Street, at the new railway station with its ostentatious copper dome. It is just past dawn and there are few people around: men carrying lunch-pails heading for work near the docks; a young woman hoping to catch the first train to Brighton, where she has work as a kitchen-hand; a befuddled sailor who has slept in an alley after being ejected from Young and Jackson’s tavern. Harry ignores them all. The collar of his jacket has been turned up, a cap covers his thick hair. He hears a car engine and seagulls cawing, but it is only when the horse comes close that he emerges from behind a column on the station steps.
The horse is black, as is the carriage it pulls. Blankets are draped over the horse’s back, secured by a cord with a tassel. The carriage is open, little more than a flat tray with a raised bench for the driver. He wears a dark suit with a black top-hat, but even this makes him only slightly higher than the white plumes atop the squat container on the tray. The plumes as well as brass fittings on the corners and sides are decorative touches, but the size and distinctive shape of the container reveal it to be a coffin. The driver of the carriage is an undertaker’s man. Beside him, not nearly as splendidly dressed, is Franz Kukol. In the gloom his face appears very pale behind his thick moustache. He nods as the driver tugs at the reins to halt the carriage.
‘Everything in order, Franz?’ Harry asks.
‘All went like clockwork, boss. Audran evidently sorted things with the right people, as you instructed.’
Kukol notices that Harry is remaining near the horse and has barely glanced at the carriage and its load.
‘There were no problems?’
The Austrian shakes his head.
‘One less thing for anyone else to deal with.’ He pauses. ‘There was something odd: the fellow at the dead house … He wept when we left, as if he had a particular interest in who we were taking. Young lady called Lily.’
Rats scuttling. The sound of distant laughter.
‘Unhinged, Franz, from working in such a place. And now?’
‘Will be loaded onto the mortuary train,’ the driver replies, his voice low. ‘Leaves this morning from the Princes Bridge platform, direct to Spring Vale cemetery.’
‘A trainload of coffins,’ Harry says. Kukol suspects he is both appalled and intrigued by the idea. ‘And you anticipate no difficulties once there?’
‘Special section for unknowns, mate.’
‘But it will be handled appropriately?’
