Second Last Episode of 'Paternity' an Original Australian Mystery Novel

This is Episode Eighteen of 'Paternity' in which Con Robson makes a move, and Frank has some good news and some bad news. Just one more episode before Pip's story is complete.

LINKS TO OTHER EPISODES ARE ON THE SIDE BAR

And please leave feedback in a comment at the end of this instalment.



The ceiling fan buzzed, in the heat of this afternoon a gigantic insect, mesmerising.

After they returned from their walk and a counter meal at the pub, Joe had gone off to his room to catch up on email and Pip decided to spine bash – a rarity for her.

All seemed well with the world, even though she hadn’t yet got to the end of her quest to discover who her father was. Even though all was still up in the air about the rapists and George’s murder.

She supposed she was relaxed because everything she could do at the moment, she had done. Nothing left but to wait for the police investigation about poor George, with the hope of a DNA test on Robson at the end of that. And wait for the result of Frank’s own test.

The fan moved unnoticed as Pip mused on Joe’s presence.

She was pleased he’d turned up. It was good to feel that he was looking out for her, and things seemed safer now.

It was strange how easily they had slipped into enjoying each other’s company again, because they had hardly seen each other since they split up more than eight months before. Mind you, there hadn’t been any trauma in the split so far as she was concerned. Simply, Pip hadn’t wanted to commit herself, and walked the other way.

She suspected all along that it was different with Joe. She always thought he was pretty serious, but that was his look-out, not hers.

Pip lay on the chenille bedspread for maybe half an hour, and then made her way down the hall to do battle with the plastic shower curtain in the bathroom. After the shower she did feel better in fresh shirt and jeans, and knew that she could murder a beer. It had been a hot day.

Pip trotted down the carved staircase and into the bar, now filling up with drinkers also anxious to quench their thirst. Without even glancing around the room, she ordered a middy of light and made for the usual round table and high stools which she and Frank had pretty well made their own of late. The old journalist was not there yet, and she expected that Joe would turn up soon.

Feeling the cool film of condensation on its side, Pip raised the glass. The beer froth bubbled against her lips, and for the first time she became aware of others in the room.

Particularly was she aware of one man – the man just one table away from hers. He was a short tomato stake with a large nose, ineffectual mouth and weak chin. Con Robson was looking straight at her, a leer on his face. Pip made herself stare back.

She would not give him the satisfaction of giving an inch.

When it did seem appropriate she lowered the glass onto a cardboard KB poster on the table. Only then was the link between their eyes broken.

Pip turned towards the window, looking across the street and into the distance. Despite herself, her mind was a whirl.

A moment later, her peripheral vision told her that Robson slid off his stool and took the four steps to her table. He was so short that his eyes were at a level with hers as she sat there on the high stool.

‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get to fuckin’ hell out of town. Now.’ His voice rasped. And then Con Robson turned on his heel and walked back to his table.


Pip hadn’t even finished her middy when Frank approached with two more – one for her.

'Why’s that prick here, showing himself?’ Frank nodded towards Robson.

‘Being obnoxious as usual. That’s what.’

‘He hasn’t had a go at you again?’

‘Just told me to get to hell out of town. Nothing I can’t cope with.’

Robson could have read Frank’s body language a mile away. He was furious.

She looked towards the door and saw that Joe was coming down the stairs. Pip’s army of guards had all reported to duty at once.


‘I’d say that little threat was Con Robson’s last hurrah,’ said Frank.

The three journos had been in the bar together for an hour, and were making short work of any bar nibblies that came their way.

Five minutes before Con Robson had oozed past them and out the door to the street, as though he needed to be somewhere else. He had been drinking alone throughout, seemingly friendless.

‘Have you heard any more from the police?’ Joe looked towards Frank.

‘Yep. The good sergeant has Gazza teetering on the edge of cooperation. He thinks it’s just a matter of time now before Gaz comes across and that means charges will be laid against Con too. Rape and murder.’

‘That can’t come quickly enough.’ Pip could feel her teeth grinding against one another, and they all became engrossed in their individual thoughts.

Joe was the first to speak again: ‘By the way, there’s some good news for the town, thanks to you Magee.’

‘Really? Has the story brought some results?’

‘Yes, the Minister announced this afternoon that there will be an official heliport established here to cater for health emergencies. Well done!’


Frank went off to interview a local councillor and Joe and Pip were having a quiet time in a little space that was formerly graced with the name ‘ladies’ lounge’, at the back of the pub. The room had a somewhat moth eaten carpet and the walls were adorned with a dozen framed photographs of town luminaries of the past – all men.

There were half a dozen brown coloured lounges and some hard backed chairs, and a television set with a small screen in a corner. In the late afternoon light, dust motes danced in the air – a measure of how little the place had been used (or cleaned) lately. Even so, it was good to be away from the noise in the bar, Pip mused.

Joe handed her a bag of salt and vinegar chips, and they began munching in between sips of light beer.

‘How long do you need to be here now Magee?’

Pip hadn’t thought about when she’d go back to the city; she’d been far too caught up with happenings in the bush town.

‘I’d like to hang around to see what happens with Con Robson.’

‘But we can find out everything we want to know from the Daily …’

Pip shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know. I’d just like to be here when it happens.’

‘If it happens.’

‘Mmmm. If it happens. I’ll stay just a couple more days. You’d think if Gazza is going to implicate Con in the rape, and then the murder, it should be soon. At least that’s what Frank says.

‘Once he’s charged I can start proceedings to get his DNA tested. It would probably be easier to do that here, on the spot.’

‘Okay, I’ll hang in here too. I’ve got some leave coming to me, and I reckon you need a back-up.’

Pip squeezed Joe’s hand in gratitude.


Joe had just come back to the lounge with another couple of light beers when Frank wandered in with a bounce in his step and bearing a middy of his own.

‘Do you want to hear the good news first, or the bad?’

‘I think we’ll have the good stuff first eh? Might make us feel stronger.’

‘Gazza has dobbed in Con Robson on both the murder and the rape, and the sergeant made the arrest not long after Con left the pub. Is that good news or what!’

‘Wonderful. I can’t believe it!’

Pip stood up and jumped towards Frank, almost knocking the beer from his hand in her effort to give him a bear hug.

‘That is just the best news ever. Joe – what d’you think about that!’

‘Amazing Magee. Bloody amazing that’s what it is. Let’s drink to the sergeant of police.’

‘And to a long closeted life for Con Robson,’ added Frank, holding his beer in the air briefly in salute, before tossing off half of it.

Pip sat on the lumpy old lounge and burst into tears. She sobbed and her shoulders shook, there in Joe’s arms.

And when her tears had almost dried Frank patted her shoulder, a tear in his own eye. ‘I’ll get us a bottle of wine and it’s my shout for dinner at the Greek’s. Agreed?’

‘What about the bad news?’

‘That can wait until we get some tucker under our ribs.’

The foregoing is excerpted from Paternity by June Saville. All rights reserved. No part of this novel may be used or reproduced without written permission from the author.


So … what will be the bad news? The story of Pip Joe and Frank draws to a CONCLUSION in our next chapter of ‘Paternity’.

Be sure to watch out for this next exciting and FINAL EPISODE, as all good authors would say. It’s the moment we’ve been waiting for!

What will happen next? Tell me in a comment ...


AFTER THAT GO TO EPISODE NINETEEN, THE FINAL EPISODE OF PATERNITY

Stop Press! Ep. 17 'Paternity' - an Australian Mystery Novel

Better late than never! Here is the next episode in Pip's story. You'll remember that our young journalist is again in the town where her late mother was raped and seems to be getting closer to finding out who her father was.

Links to earlier episodes are on the side bar.



The sun had been up only a short time when Pip opened her eyes to the next morning.

She was lying, dreamy, the embossed rose patterns still out of focus on the ceiling when there was a soft knock on the door of her room. She felt relaxed for the first time in days and wished to hell whoever it was out there in the hall. They might go away she thought, and lay quiet.

The knob rattled and the door moved inwards, even though she had felt sure she’d locked it before going to bed, as usual. Who could it be?

Joe was there, standing in the open space.

Then he moved into the room and closed the door. Softly, he said: ‘Did you get my rose Magee?’

The pink rose on her pillow had been Joe’s gift … Pip raised herself on one elbow, and Joe came over to her, and sat on the side of the bed.

She seldom saw him without a tie these days … He looked wonderful, with a day’s growth of beard emphasising the shape of his jaw line.

‘I am so pleased to see that you are okay. I got in last night and couldn’t find you anywhere in the pub. Didn’t know where else to look. I couldn’t wait to check you out this morning. I’ve been worried sick that those blokes may be planning some revenge or other …

'Knowing you is some responsibility my girl.’

It was just so good to see Joe.

‘I did have a scare …’

‘You what? Scare?’

‘Yeah. But that’s all it was.’ Pip told him about the ambush in the darkness near the ruined house.

She hadn’t taken the time to process that scare properly, and now the memories came back … the proximity of Gazza’s breath, the laughter floating towards her as she ran. Her own strangled breathing. She recounted it all, and realised for the first time how very frightened she had been.

Joe leaned forward to take her in his arms.

‘There there. There there Magee…’

Pip realised tears were coursing down her face and she buried herself in the soft space between his arm and his chest.



Two hours later Pip and Joe walked hand in hand down the carved staircase and into the dining room where breakfast was still being served.

The waitress was laying a corner table with fresh cloth and cutlery, and looked up with surprise.

Pip could see that an explanation was called for: ‘We’re old friends,” she said.

‘Oh. Oh, that’s nice.’

Frank was helping himself to cereal and turned around to see the two of them, still holding hands. His eyes sparkled.

‘Well, you’re fast workers. Where did you spring from young Joe? Haven’t seen you for a millennium.’

Joe surrendered Pip’s hand to take Frank’s in a solid handshake. It was very obvious the two still held each other in great respect.

Joe had been a second year cadet when Pip joined the Daily and they had both worked under Frank’s tutelage for years. They were among the many Sydney journalists who later shared a general disappointment at the slow disintegration of Frank’s powers.

The three old friends shared a meal of cardboard cereal followed by mixed grills of chops, sausages eggs and bacon, slightly seared at the edges, and were now sipping pub instant coffee and planning their day.

It was deadline afternoon at the Guardian for Frank, and he had still to complete page one so that the press could roll.

Pip looked across at her old boss and reminded herself how strange life could be, and how it seemed often to move in circles.

Here they were, all together again, but this time in the town of Selene’s nemesis. She hadn’t let Joe in on the secret of the picnic yet, and wondered how he’d take it.

Could Frank be her father? She would soon know if he was. The DNA test should be through very soon now ...

Pip watched as Frank lit up one of his roll-your-owns, having neatened his creation, as usual, with the end of a match.

She was struck by Frank’s purposeful demeanour and his obvious enthusiasm about seeing Joe again. He was facing the food servery, sideways to her, silhouetted against the mottled glass of the dining room window.

Pip gazed idly, happy with her lot. Then her eyes focussed.

She focussed on that silhouette, so familiar in its entirety as to be almost unknown at the level of detail.

She’d never really noticed the shape of Frank’s nose.



Pip became aware that Joe was watching her intently.

‘You’re deep in thought Magee.’

‘Mmmm.’

She forced herself back into the dining room.

‘I wonder how the police sergeant is getting on with Gazza. Whether he’s got through to him that he’d be better off spilling the beans on Robson than sticking to his silence about his involvement in the murder, and the rape.’

‘What’s that all about?’ asked Joe.

It hadn’t occurred to her that there had been no time to bring Joe up to speed on the latest details about her rape investigation. She’d talked about the scare last night in the main street, and he knew George was dead …

Frank turned to Joe.

‘The local copper has banged up Gazza the mechanic for George Wimpole’s death, and we think he’s working on him in the hope of implicating an accomplice in both the murder and the rape.’

‘Accomplice?’

‘We think a bloke called Con Robson was egging him on in George's bashing, hoping to silence him. Con is a solicitor in town and George told Pippin he had been part of the rape.’

‘Yes Joe,’ Pip said. ‘George reckoned that Con Robson there. You know I suspect that four rapists were involved with Selene that night …’

‘Yep.’

‘Well. One was George Wimpole, now dead after Gazza assaulted him.

‘The second was Gazza himself, now being questioned about the murder, and another was a Sydney boxing promoter ‘Pug’ Raven also dead, but of natural causes.’

‘And rapist number four?’

‘We’re pretty sure it was Robson, the solicitor who George says was also in on the rape, but we have no way of proving it yet. And Con is still very much alive.’

‘Well. How …?’

‘George told us that Robson had been there that night and threatened the rest of the rapists into secrecy about his presence. We think that George was killed because he knew too much. They feared he had talked to me.’

‘You mean Robson got away with the rape scot free?’

‘Yes, so far anyway, but we want to change that for him. And once Robson is implicated in the rape I can apply for a DNA test on him.’

‘Yes. The local copper had always been uneasy about the case and now he is out to prove he was right,’ Frank said, ‘He’s working on Gazza to come clean and get Robson put behind bars too.’

‘Let’s hope he’s successful.’ It was Joe’s turn to be deep in thought.

Then he said quietly: ‘It’s the only way this thing can be put to rest, and it’s the only way you will be truly safe again Magee.’

Pip knew that Joe was right. She hadn’t thought of it that way before.



Frank had gone off to work and Joe and Pip set off on foot down the long main street towards the cenotaph. Joe had wanted to feel the town for himself, a little like a dog marking out his territory.

Every one of Joe’s actions now spelled out for Pip that he was determined to protect her, and to join in her quest. It was obvious that he appreciated her deep desire to understand the events of Selene’s night of torture, and to put right what she could.

Strangely for Pip, so independent and with such a mind of her own, she found the prospect of Joe’s help something of a comfort.

As they walked, they talked, and Pip went through the events since she had first arrived in town. She told him about the people she had met: Harold Staunch the GP, Jim Rouse and his wife and children, the football coach, the Greek café owner.

They stopped and peered through the grime of the front windows at the Guardian office, glimpsing Frank at his typewriter, and they chatted about the obvious changes that had come to their industry.

When they came to the soldier on his plinth, Pip turned right, down a narrow gravel road she hadn’t travelled before. Something stopped her from going left, to the scene of her mother’s torture. She didn’t want to face that today.

She wanted the gentle morning with Joe to continue on in its peaceful way.

This little by-way turned out to be greener, with occasional tall trees replacing the straggly growth of the other side of town.

Pip and Joe were holding hands again.

Pip drew a word picture of the picnic with Frank, and the story of the old journalist’s theory unfolded. To say that Joe was astonished at the possibilities would be an understatement.

‘It’s too much like a novel, Magee.’

‘Perhaps. But stranger things have happened. Frank was a real charmer in his younger days, as you know … I could see my Mum falling for him.’

They climbed through a wire fence and made their way down an embankment to a tiny stream, to on a patch of soft grass, under a gum tree.

The sun was high now, and the birds had gone wherever birds go in the middle of the day. It was all very quiet.


The foregoing is excerpted from Paternity by June Saville. All rights reserved. No part of this novel may be used or reproduced without written permission from the author.

This all looks very cosy. Will Pip and Joe get it together? Leave me a comment ...

GO TO EPISODE EIGHTEEN

THE ZOMBIE - A SHORT SHORT STORY

This is something a bit different – akin to stream of consciousness.

I am posting this piece to help fill the gap before I get to finish off Paternity properly for you.

It’s unashamedly inspired by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the astonishing Colombian short story writer.

Warning – it’s not a fun yarn!

After 1994 when a military coup ushered in an era of soaring poverty within their native land, Haitians in their thousands attempted to flee the misery, many in small boats making illegally for America They did so with the aid of their faith, Voodoo, a national religious folk cult characterised by a mixture of Roman Catholic ritual elements which date from the period of French colonisation, and the theology and magic of Africa.




The Zombie


The hold is dark and dank and it is filled with eyes and I am twenty-five years old and refuse to live any longer working working in the wretched poverty of Haiti my Caribbean homeland, working so long and so hard and yet still in a boarding house room with thirteen others and little food between us all, and now I am in this boat called ‘Belief in God’ with so many eyes, but on the way to something different and better in the USA even though death may come before we make it however I am prepared for that and I am prepared to face this sour taste and swollen tongue and the parched lips of thirst, and the stench and the crush of these bodies and the stomach pain from hunger and the stiffness because I can’t stretch out my limbs, and the cursing and the bucket with the faeces and the vomit, and the groans and the retching and the yells, followed on other days by the gentle sharing talk of hopes and dreams and of times past, and the stars glimpsed through the trapdoor, open at last, when you know it is all worth while for a change from everything that has gone before, but then the returning doubts that crash in with the roaring of the wind, and the screeching of the timbers, the flapping canvas and the bucking and lurching as this frail little boat groans and screams its way up mountainous waves and into never ending chasms of dark green water when all forty of us would slide as one across the hold, a tangled mass of pain and sweat and cursing only to be tossed with force in the opposite direction to confront other gnarled timbers and tumbled limbs, then the blessed relief when the boat is quiet again and they give you just two mouthfuls of water that taste better than any feast, when you clutch your Good Book closer, thanking Him for Deliverance, while those around finger little flags and chant against the sound of a strangled squawk when the captain on deck slaughters a rooster as sacrifice to our safety, and he scatters perfume among us, a scent that cuts the stench but briefly, and the sun beats down, hotter every hour and the hold is an airless furnace and we sink into ourselves: vessels of fear that takes over from our fading memories and hopes, and a drum beats above, beating … beating … and the naked bodies writhe and the sweating limbs are snakes slithering and ensnaring, and I wonder for my reality, before sinking even further into myself, the drum beating is the beating of my being and the black walls of the hold closer now, and I do not wish to move, even when the opportunity comes, and I cannot move, and the little voodoo flags and the charms drift through the thick black air, and the rooster crows, and the priest captain chants to Agwe, the spirit of the sea, and Christ is on his cross, flesh blooded from the tearing of thorns, and I am escaped from my misery.

© June Saville. Not to be reproduced without express permission of the author.

I'd love to know your feelings about this little piece. Did it hit any nerves? Any memories materialise? Did you hate it? Did you enjoy it?