Accident on a Dark Night - Episode 8 of 'Paternity' an Australian mystery novel.

This is episode eight of 'Paternity' in which journalist Pip Holmes takes a reckless step that leads her into trouble on a dark night. But will it lead to the answer of her chilling question - was her father a rapist?

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

LINKS TO OTHER EPISODES ARE ON THE SIDE BAR


Pip felt as though a sledge hammer was at work on her chest, and her breath was coming fast. She had just got used to the conundrum of trying to sort out the three rapists — attempting to arrange them in her mind as prospective fathers. That job had been difficult enough, but this!

Wimpole was ringing his delicate hands and looking everywhere else but at Pip.

‘We were all young … and easily pressured. It’s so very difficult in a small town.’

‘All right.’ The words exploded from deep within her, ‘but who was the fourth man that night?’

‘It was his idea you know. Oh yes Gazza and Pug were only too pleased to be in it, but Robson pulled the strings. They abducted your mother and Robson turned up afterwards to share the spoils.’

‘Robson?’ Pip was finding it difficult to absorb all of this …

‘His father was a solicitor and a big name around here. When it all came out they made threats. They insisted that he be left out of it. Out of the police investigations. I must also admit that some money changed hands …’

Wimpole’s eyes were red and puffed, and the words tumbled from his mouth now as though they were hot coals.

‘This has been a burden Miss Holmes, and I am pleased I have told you. But I cannot make this official in any way. You must understand that. I must live here. I cannot dredge up the past. My entire lifestyle would change. A teacher of small children … I’ve kept it quiet so far.

‘I was so lucky that I was not stopped from teaching after the trial. I probably would have been except that the judge made some kind comments after they were sentenced …’

He had become an automaton: programmed to tell his story despite the consequences.


Frank was clattering away on an ancient Underwood typewriter when Pip walked into the Guardian office.

The place was officially closed on Saturday afternoons, but Frank had said he’d had some catching up to do …

‘Didn’t ever have the heart to throw out this old thing,’ he said, patting the metal ringed keys.

‘Hey look, I’ve got some news …’

Pip’s tone of voice must have signalled her tension, because Frank immediately twirled on his chair to look straight at her.

‘What do you know about a guy called Robson?’

Frank’s face furrowed into a grimace of disgust. ‘Con Robson. He’s the low life who swindled half the town’s oldies out of their retirement savings. Current generation of a family of crooked legal eagles.’

‘Who did he rip off?’

‘Every cashed up old woman for miles around. Robson invested their funds in shonky deals until the law caught up with him. Must have got away with a couple of million. And left a lot of people destitute.’

‘Charming.’

Sitting there on the edge of the heavy old desk, Pip delivered a potted version of Wimpole’s story. Frank began pacing the small space in the middle of the cluttered room, and then stopped to face her.

‘Are you ready for this kiddo?’

‘Mmmm. What’s to be ready for?’

‘He got out of gaol only a few months back. Did six years.’

Pip picked up a pen and began tapping it absentmindedly on the desk. This was something to get your head around.

It seemed the sunlight had dimmed a little before either of them spoke again.

‘I met him the other night Frank — at the football meeting. He was with Gazza.’

‘That would be right. Birds of a feather.’

‘But they don’t seem at all alike …’

‘Not physically, but they’ve got things in common. A low cunning, for one.’

‘Staunch had no time for him, but he didn’t tell me Robson had been in gaol. And neither did George.’

‘Some sort of town loyalty I suppose.’


By six-thirty that evening, after a questionable and early meal in the dining room, Pip lay at full length on the faded pink chenille bedspread, eyes following the swirling pattern of English-style roses embossed on the fake plaster ceiling.

So … Con Robson. The fourth man. Frank had said he was repulsive: tiny, quiet and secretive and with a handshake like a wet fish. He had dark brown hair and a limp left over from a speeding accident. That jelled with the character she’d seen with Gazza at the footy meeting.

Her father? Was he her father?

Frank reckoned Robson treated his attractive red-haired wife and three skinny children as though they were his possessions more than anything. He said the family liked to present a façade of high respectability in the town.

Only after the arrest did people break the silence surrounding hideous deals and illegal schemes woven for years by the solicitor and his austere father. The old man died years before, and Con had proved a worthy successor, carrying on the fraudulent business for some time without discovery.

Just what had she uncovered? Pip dragged herself off the bed and poured a glass of water from the jug. She couldn’t have hoped to find a decent, fitting father among a pack of rapists. But this lot had turned out to be a pretty deranged bunch.

Was Con Robson her father? Without clear evidence yet, she still felt that Gazza and Wimpole were not. And Pug Raven really did seem unlikely. But how could she get to prove anything? How?

Pip realised she couldn’t just march up to Robson and demand that he get a DNA test. Apart from Wimpole’s story, there was nothing to pin the rape on him. Wimpole wouldn’t speak openly, and there was no way Robson would walk into the dock himself.

She took a headache tablet, crawled between the sheets, and woke up an hour later.


Staunch had drawn her a mud map of the route to take to the Rouse farm, and Pip found it after only one false alarm. Not bad in the dark, she told herself, given the intricate twists and turns of the unmade roads and the lack of signs.

She felt uneasy about the reception awaiting her after the treatment Jesse Rouse meted out in the Greek café, but Harold Staunch had undertaken to arrive early and smooth her path, and he was a formidable ally.

A smile on the face of Mrs Irene Rouse confirmed that Staunch had done his job, even though Jesse himself remained aloof and unco-operative but, thankfully, polite enough. They gathered around a long table in the kitchen that seemed to be the centre of the household and everyday family life. The two children were already in bed in a sleep-out she’d noticed on the way in.

The kitchen was a large shabby room scattered with sundry uncomfortable straight backed chairs and warmed by a wood stove at one end. One of those 1940s kitchen dressers with doors decorated in tinted glass stood in a corner. There was a discoloured porcelain sink and several pieces of damp washing hung limp on a piece of rope suspended from two of the walls.

Everything wooden was painted a sickly pale green, all of it chipped, and the linoleum floor was cracked and faded. The Rouse family was doing it hard.

Irene Rouse used the corner of a kitchen towel to wipe away her tears as she told the city reporter the story of the day her son died. She looked more attractive without her squashed felt hat. Her mousy coloured long hair was caught back with a comb, and this showed off her high cheekbones. In her sorrow, sitting in her kitchen and dredging her memories in an obliging way for a stranger, there was something quite noble about her.

Pip adjusted the volume control on her tape recorder to counter the softness of the woman’s voice.

‘There couldn’t be anything more horrible, Miss Holmes. Jimmy lay there so still and white, and I couldn’t do anything. That long ride to the hospital was a nightmare. It went on and on and when it finally ended it was too late …’

In her anguish Irene Rouse screwed the towel into a knot. Her eyes were liquid pain.

‘It is madness to close down our little hospital when other help is so far away … We must do something to make it safe for our kids. They say helicopters … Anything, so long as not one more child dies.’

‘Politicians do take note of publicity Mrs Rouse. The paper will do what it can. Tell me about Jimmy … what sort of a boy was he?’

Mrs Rouse took a deep breath and looked at her husband. Jesse was standing, his back to the wood stove, supporting himself on the railing of one of the chairs. His knuckles were white, ringing support from the wood. Harold Staunch rose from his own chair and walked three steps to place a reassuring hand on the farmer’s broad shoulders.

At that moment Pip became aware that another person had entered through the door behind her. She twisted and oddly felt no surprise to see that a man was standing silently in the darkened doorway. The fellow had let himself in, and there was no warning of his approach.

It was Con Robson.

‘Mr. Robson, you’re here …’ Jesse Rouse offered Robson the chair closest to the stove. It seemed the solicitor was expected.

Pip calmly leaned over and put a new tape in her machine. The small click she made as the tiny cassette went home was thunderous in the quiet room.

Irene Rouse broke the silence again. ‘Umm, Miss Holmes, this is our solicitor, Mr. Con Robson.’

‘Oh, Mr. Robson and I have met.’ Pip hoped her touch of irony got through. At the time she felt that Robson approved of Gazza’s little scalding effort at the football meeting. He’d stood beside the mechanic, impervious to her discomfort.

‘Mr. Robson is here to look after our interests. He is advising us in our dealings with the insurance company …’ Jesse Rouse had an edge to his voice.

Con Robson sat there in the chair, sullen and avoiding visual contact, making no effort to acknowledge her presence.

Pip decided to ignore him, and continued the interview.

‘So young Jim was good at football Mrs Rouse?’

‘He was very good Miss Holmes. One of the best in the team. He was a popular boy …’

‘I understand he hit his head on the post on his way to scoring a goal …’

‘That’s enough Miss Holmes!’ Robson’s voice boomed across the room at her. It was a strong, deep voice; articulate — a complete contrast to his appearance.

‘What do you mean by that?’ she countered.

‘Talk about how the accident occurred might very well compromise my clients. I don’t want you to take this path.’ He turned to Jesse Rouse: ‘In fact I can’t see anything positive in this. I’ve been against any dealings with the media right from the beginning …’

‘But Miss Holmes’ newspaper wants to help with our community health problems. It’s for the good of the town.’ Irene seemed stronger since talking about her troubles, but Pip didn’t like the mother’s chances of changing the attitude of this man.

‘Come on Robson. Let’s have a bit of co-operation.’ Staunch’s nose had become quite red. ‘Look at the wider picture man.’ At least he was on her side.

‘I see your point, but I’ll be very careful. There are ways and means …’ Inside, Pip was losing patience. She leant forward on her chair. ‘I’d really like to help. It’s personal in a way too. A sort of act of forgiveness to the town — on behalf of my mother.’

Staunch looked startled. ‘Your mother?’

‘It was a long time ago. Before I was born in fact. My mother was raped here when she was a young woman. Raped by a number of men in bush a few miles away.’

Pip made sure she looked straight at Robson as she said this. He remained absolutely without emotion.

She knew she’d been reckless, but what the hell.

‘How awful,’ Irene Rouse’s eyes were wide.

Staunch was looking thoughtful. ‘What year was this Miss Holmes?’

‘July 1975 Harold.’

‘Yes, I remember the case.’

Two of the men were sentenced to gaol for it …’ Pip’s gaze remained on Robson, gauging his reactions. There were still none. He was as unreadable as a blank page.

Not long afterwards Pip took her leave of the Rouse household and its guests. Robson got his way and halted the interview, but she judged there was enough material on the tape for her purposes.

She arranged to call Staunch the next day, and watched his old Mercedes Benz disappear down the road south before climbing into her own car to head north to the town and a good sleep.

Pip set off in second gear, picking slowly between occasional rocks that appeared in the badly maintained dirt track.

Thick scrub and occasional large gums crowded in on her vehicle, often blotting out her view of the way ahead. She found the turn left on Staunch’s mud map and began peering through the darkness for a T intersection that signalled the road into town.

Two headlights on high beam pierced the night behind her. Everything ahead disappeared — the road, the trees, the rocks — as the sudden intense glare robbed her of sight.

Instinctively she braked as the vehicle swept past in a deafening engine roar and cut in immediately in front of her own headlights. It was a large car. A large black Mercedes. The driver propped, triggering a bank of dazzling red brake lights within a metre of her bonnet.

Pip swerved to the left towards oblivion, and smashed into a tree. The mystery driver gunned the powerful engine and howled into the darkness.


Pip’s car had rammed a small paperbark. She lay half stunned against the steering wheel for a few minutes, and gingerly felt a painful spot on her face. She rattled around the rubbish in her glove box to find a torch, and shaking, got out of the car. The tree had punched a neat half circle in her bumper.

Pip moved around the car, shining the torch under it and at the tyres but could find no more damage. It was lucky she had been travelling slowly when that idiot did his work.

It was Robson of course. His road rage had to be some sort of threat to get her to back away from looking into the rape case. Pip was beginning to understand how the solicitor operated.

Standing there in the dark, dizziness came at her in a wave, and she threw out an arm against the car door to stop herself falling. She dropped the torch and its beam played on a heap of dead leaves at the side of the track.

Her glance left the comfort of the shaft of light and attempted to pierce the darkness. Anyone could be there watching her …

As rapidly as she could, Pip stepped into the car and slammed the door shut, locking it. Carefully, she reversed and made it to the road into town.

What now, she wondered ...

©June Saville 2008. Not to be reproduced without express written permission of the author.

GO TO EPISODE NINE

Pip's recklessness stirred up the crooked solicitor Con Robson - would you have taken such a risk in her situation? Tell me in a comment and please let me know if you are enjoying the story ...

A Tangled Web - Ep. 6 of 'Paternity' an Original Australian Mystery Novel

A Tangled Web ...

Young Sydney journalist Pip Holmes visits a patch of lonely Australian bushland where her mother was gang raped only months before Pip was born. She is there to answer some pressing questions ...
This is episode six of my original mystery novel 'Paternity'.

LINKS TO OTHER EPISODES ARE ON THE SIDE BAR

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


Frank didn’t seem to do breakfast often, but next morning there he was at one of the starched tablecloths in the pub dining room, making short work of bacon and eggs.

Pip helped herself to the corn flakes and tinned fruit salad offered at a side table before seating herself in the empty chair opposite him. She craved her usual fresh carrot juice.

She had really enjoyed the jog she’d just had ranging along some of the few side streets in the town, but already she was feeling she wasn’t as fit as usual. She must look after herself …

But then here was Frank tucking in after another big night. Everything was relative, she thought.

‘Not worried about your cholesterol then?”

His eyes were as round and as yellow as the egg yolks; his face pallid. The night on the turps or signs of some illness?

‘I hear you created waves at the football meeting last night.’ Frank was using a crust of toast to capture the jellied liquid clinging to his plate.

‘It wasn’t hard I tell you. This town doesn’t enjoy strangers. Did your spy also tell you about Gazza’s little foray?’

‘Yeah. The bastard. I warned you. What possessed you to go into that lion’s den by yourself?’

‘I’m a big girl Frank. He’s not the first chauvinist pig I’ve met in this job.’

‘It made me wonder if he has an inkling of this personal problem of yours. Have you been asking around … about Selene?’

‘Hell no. Don't worry - he doesn't know anything. That’s the sort of bloke he is. Can’t stand women.’

‘Certainly not uppity ones with minds of their own.’

‘I did make one friend last night ... Staunch, the club president. He’s promised to help, but I hit a brick wall with everyone else.’

‘You’ll just have to chip away at it. These people don’t confide in their own mothers.’

‘I’m beginning to realise that.’

Pip wasn’t worried about the assignment — it would look after itself in the end. She did resent the fact that it took her away from the real purpose of her visit though.

Frank could have been reading her mind: ‘By the by I have an appointment with a rapist in the morning … coming?’

‘How can I refuse?’

Pip hunched her shoulders and chose baked beans on toast from the hand written menu. Everything else looked as though it would be swilling in fat.

The brow beaten waitress disappeared into the kitchen, and Frank was at the urn at the side table filling a cup with black tea.

So … she was about to meet another of the monsters — this one supposedly human. Pip closed her eyes for a moment and saw her mother as a tiny speck, alone in an immense and hostile landscape.

Selene would have felt so alone here. It was fairly obvious that her mother couldn’t have counted on any backing from people in this town. And, thought Pip, but for one or two exceptions, neither could she.



Part Seven
Pip spent the rest of the day hunting through files at the Guardian.

Stories of the trial were all written by the same hand — chauvinist and very selective. It was as though the writer had a personal interest in the outcome. Snide references to the ‘city woman’ and the consistent gloss applied over uncomfortable facts seemed to her to be due to more than misplaced loyalty.

She did discover that two rapists were found guilty and were gaoled. George Wimpole was found not guilty following allegations, accepted by the court, that he had been coerced into the situation by the others.

Pip gleaned from another article that the third rapist, Gerald ‘Pug’ Raven left town in the eighties to become a boxing promoter in Sydney. Apart from these snippets, Pip wasn’t thrilled with her afternoon’s work.

The District Court records may be the way to go next …

Pip sighed deeply just before the sun made the horizon. She replaced the last of the files in its dusty home in the office shop front window and walked over lengthening shadows back to the pub.

In her bedroom Pip used the mobile to ring Harold Staunch to keep her assignment simmering.

After a shower and a dried out lasagne, she found herself ringing the doorbell of a substantial homestead on the outskirts of town. The tone was shabby prosperous, with a bull nosed verandah roof and sprawling down-at-heel garden just evident in the gloom. There was a medical practitioner’s brass name plate still in place near the main door.

The stained glass panels swung back and Staunch stood there with his toothy smile.

Pip followed him down a wide strip of shining linoleum and into a space of buxom lounges and porcelain figurines. A comfortable woman sat crocheting on a low chair set near one of those old style electric fireplaces with fake hot coals in the grate. Her smile matched Harold’s (and the fire) in its warmth.

Pip refused the offer of more food and Staunch ushered her into an inner room with a huge desk and bookshelves. She perched on a small lounge and the doctor wheezed into the heavy office chair.

‘This will be better for our purposes. Now, how can I assist?’

It seemed that young Jim Rouse died as the result of hitting his head on a goal post in the final minutes of the under fifteens grand final, suffering a severe blow to the head.

Jack Tripp, the coach, had done the right thing with his first aid, but the stricken parents were forced to bundle the boy into a car for a 400km panic ride to the nearest hospital. Staunch was out of town visiting relatives at the time.

‘I’d have helped if I’d been around of course, even though retired. Not that I could have done all that much without proper equipment.’ The fat man’s eyes were moist as he reached for an old briar pipe and began scraping the inside of the bowl with a knife. ‘It was a crying shame.’

‘And Jim was dead when they arrived?’

‘He lasted half an hour. All that did was rub salt into the wound. Emergency surgery may have been possible. Mind you the cottage hospital wasn’t flash with technology, but we could have given him a chance until more help came.’

‘I read it closed down only a week or so before the accident …’

‘Yes … very sad.’

‘What’s the solution to this Mr. Staunch?’

The doctor was packing his pipe with scented tobacco. ‘Miss Holmes, I deeply believe that if they must close down so many hospitals around the countryside they should organise more medically equipped helicopters. The bases should be arranged in a tight network right throughout the State.’

‘There is such an arrangement isn’t there?’

‘Oh, they’ve made a start. But the bases are as scarce as hen’s teeth the further you get away from the city. To me it seems very unfair.’

Pip clicked off the mini tape recorder she had placed on the desk.

‘I have to talk to the Rouse family if this story’s going to pack any punch …’ ‘I’ll try again for you. Can I leave a message at the hotel?’

‘Sure … thanks. Look … the other night Gary Bullfinck was with a short skinny looking guy with a bad limp.’

Staunch stared at her under his bushy brows. ‘Could only be Con Robson. Why?’

‘Call it a journalist’s nose Mr Staunch. Intuition. I reckon he’s trouble.’

‘You may be right. Con is a solicitor. The third generation of his family in that profession. I suppose he’s the black sheep really, although I have always had doubts about his father’s integrity as well. I wouldn’t trust Con Robson, certainly. He’s a quiet worker, and very ruthless … ‘


Pip had a rotten sleep, and it wasn’t just the hammock-shaped bed. Her night was peppered with visions of werewolves circling in a macabre dance beneath a strangely prominent moon.

They capered and leapt, their weird forms thrown into relief by the flames of a central fire. The half-men-half-animals gyrated with increasing speed until, climactically, they leapt, one at a time and screaming, to perish in the flames.

In her dream Pip was a quiet witness: a wide-eyed owl perched in darkness at the edge of a ring of light.

The sun was well on its way when Pip finally got up, sick to death of trying to reach blessed oblivion. She stumbled down the hall to the toilet and then shuffled into the shower recess.

Her tongue felt as though it had been dragging on a gravel road. She reached over to place the hair conditioner on the partition that divided the two showers, and noticed the plastic bottle was shaking in her hand.

She was a mess. She went back to bed.

Two hours later there was a banging on the door and Frank’s voice drifted in through her tunnel of sleep: ‘Hey, we’re supposed to be on the way to George’s …’

‘Come in. It’s not locked …’ Pip lay there lethargic on the pillows. And still she didn’t move when Frank’s greying head appeared around the door.

‘I can’t be bothered Frank.’ He sat on the edge of the bed and patted her foot through the pink chenille.

‘Yeah. It’s all a bit hard eh.’

Pip used the back of her hand to stop a tear spilling onto her cheek.

‘Mmmm …’ This feeling of helplessness had sneaked up on her, and in a way she was surprised at herself. On the other hand these were big issues they were dealing with. It was so different when the drama was close to you, and not connected to someone she would write about for the next day’s paper …

In the distance beer kegs were being rolled down the beer truck ramp and into the cellar, the metallic rattle disturbing and abrasive.

‘So you’re going to call it a day Pippin? Chuck it all in?’

A rooster crowed somewhere.

‘I don’t want to … It’s pretty hard … Harder than I thought … I mean, I really want to know who my dad is.’

Pip’s head began nodding rhythmically, there on the pillows, ‘I must know. But I’m scared. Scared of what I will find. And scared if I don’t find it.’

‘None of that’s surprising … I guess you just need to make up your mind how much you want this. What sort of a hassle will it be in the future if you don’t find out? Or does it really matter after all … ’

‘Oh, it matters Frank. One helluva lot.’ A tide of pink had begun to rise on Pip’s wan face.

‘Well then!’

‘Okay … Okay. We’ll go.’

Frank slapped his thigh and made for the door. ‘I’ll wait for you in the bar.’ Pip lay there a few moments longer, and then her bare feet slipped over the edge of the bed and onto the stained carpet.


The car rumbled over rocks in an exposed creek bed in a dip in the road. Frank had insisted on driving, and they’d sat in silence since leaving town. It was Pip who finally broke it.

‘So you say this Wimpole is not a bad type, even though he was arrested with a gang that was found guilty of raping my mother?’
‘Well, if you put it that way …’

‘What other way is there to put it for god’s sake?’

‘Look … the guy was very young at the time and being leaned on. Gazza wouldn’t be the easiest person to defy in such a situation mate. And get this — there was no evidence that George enjoyed his involvement. He said he didn’t even have an erection. They didn’t find any of his semen. He claimed he wasn’t caught up in what he was doing, and was repelled by the whole thing — in fact he said he felt fearful himself throughout your mum’s ordeal. And we can’t prove otherwise.’

‘If he wasn’t emotionally involved — I mean if he wasn’t getting off on the rape — he could hardly have been my father anyway. But if they were wrong about the semen and he was my father after all, the reverse could be true. He was getting off on torturing Selene and was as guilty as the rest.’

‘Yeah. I suppose so … But don’t forget the court let him off.’

‘I’ll know when I meet him.’ Pip was looking out of the window, not seeing the passing blur of trees and sheep paddocks, ‘I’ll know.’

‘Yes. You’ll know.’


George Wimpole’s hand shook as he placed a china cup and saucer on a small table nearby.

‘Sugar?’

Pip slumped in the bowels of a huge lounge chair, as usual with her legs dangling at some distance from the floor. Men designed furniture.

She heaped two spoons with sugar and stirred it into her tea. Wimpole sidled across the carpet to Frank. ‘Hot and strong, as you like it.’

Frank winked at Pip as a whiff of heated whisky spread through the room.

Seems compassionate enough. There’s something weird about him though. Strange scratchy voice …

She recalled the way her stomach tipped over on itself as she had stood with Frank, waiting for Wimpole’s door to open.

To her, it still looked as though there was one in three chances that this man was her father.

She’d already met Gazza when Frank told her the mechanic was in on the rape, and by then she could not have contemplated Gazza as the one … the one who was the key to her existence. The possibility was just too horrible.

Wimpole though.

From Frank’s description she could just consider there may be a chance, and when the door opened and Wimpole stood there, she waited for her sixth sense to make a decision, and none came.

The old news reports suggested Wimpole was coerced into taking a role on the night of the rape. Gazza was his cousin, and George’s love of books and his home town were like oil and water to each other. According to his defence, the blokes had decided George needed some practical experience: a sort of initiation.

She looked again. At least he had a bit of humanity about him. And there was something else … he was small, as she was.

Wimpole sat on the edge of a chair with a wooden back, balancing his tea. A few drops spilled unnoticed onto his freshly pressed pants.

Frank was inclined to give George the benefit of the doubt. Could she?

‘It was good of you to let us come Mr. Wimpole.’

'I feel it’s the least I can do Miss Holmes. It was a horrible experience for everyone.’

Easy to say … but was he telling a tragic lie?

‘You know they left your mother for dead. A traveller found her next day, lying there in the dust, and they took her to hospital, badly injured. I understand she couldn’t even speak about her experience for some time,’ the words were tumbling ‘They might never have found out who was responsible except for the unusual tyre tracks left by Gazza’s car.'

Wimpole was far away now.

‘I felt so sorry … so sorry for her. I couldn’t … I couldn’t do a thing.’

The little man crumpled. The air went out of him. Was this the doing of a valve that had opened to let free the pain of years? Or a great act?

Wimpole began to sob, and Pip ignored his plight. ‘Couldn’t you have gone back yourself, Mr. Wimpole? To see if she was all right?’

‘I … I was frightened. And Garry Bullfinck made me stay at his home that night.’ George Wimpole was staring at her, his eyes deep red rings. ‘Please believe me.’

‘There’s one way we can put paid to this George,’ Frank was pacing up and down the centre of the room. ‘You could submit some DNA for comparison with Pip’s. It would rule you out as her father.’

‘As your father?’ Wimpole was in shock, and agape. ‘You … you were the baby?’

Pip gazed at her cup, nodding.

‘I didn’t realise. I assumed. I don’t know what I assumed …’ Wimpole was looking wildly around the room, as though to find help at hand in one of its nooks and crannies. ‘Are you sure?” he choked.

‘Sure of what?’ Pip came to life and almost yelled at him.

Wimpole tried to meet her eyes.. ‘It wasn’t me, Miss Holmes, I’m not your father. The way I felt when that rape was happening … it couldn’t have been me.'

Pip’s folded arms kept him at bay.

‘I don’t know … Yes. Yes, of course I’ll have a test. Of course. But there’s no way. No way at all.’


Pip pulled the car over outside of the Guardian office and they sat with the windows down while Frank lit up his inevitable cigarette. ‘Well, what’s the verdict?’

‘I’m afraid the jury’s still out. My intuition seems to be failing me. I just can’t feel anything definite. Of course, he’s not your cold blooded fiend … He wouldn’t have been the leader of the pack or anything, but I seem to think he’s a bit too good to be true. Why couldn’t he have done something to make it better for Selene?’

‘Well he told you that Pippin. Gazza was the fly in his ointment. Anyhow, the DNA test will put things in their place.’

‘I … I just feel he’s hiding something, that’s all. There’s something we’re missing …’

Frank ashed his cigarette into a sad looking bottle brush at the edge of the bitumen. ‘Maybe. Maybe … There’s still Raven. We could take a look at the boxing promoter.’

‘Sure. But then I’d want to have another talk to Mr. Wimpole. Come at him from another tack. Whatever the result of the test.’

Pip watched as Frank stubbed out his cigarette on the pavement and ambled into the newspaper office, then she put the engine into gear and drew away onto the pot holed road. It was only four o’clock and there was still time for something she’d been avoiding for days.

Jaw set firmly, Pip made a U turn and took the unmade dirt road at the end of town.


So this was where her mother was violated. Where she herself was conceived. It seemed a perfectly ordinary clearing surrounded by a perfectly ordinary patch of Australian bush.

But Pip waited. Waited until the sun disappeared behind the hills, taking with it the muted colours of the landscape, and leaving behind lengthening shadows and intensifying darkness.

She sat cross-legged in that clearing, the hard earth pressed against her body, and soon a coldness seeped into her bones. A restless wind rustled her short dark hair and sent leaves skittering across the earth. The tall gum trees moaned in the suddenly turbulent air, and Pip’s consciousness took the moaning and turned it into a scream, the terrified scream of her mother as she lay in that same spot, crushed and mortified, so long ago …

A crescent moon cast a weak light among the trees.


When the sun rose next day Pip crawled stiffly from the back seat of her car where she had lain since dawn, stretched her limbs, and slipped behind the wheel. She needed to shake herself to get out of this doleful mood, and get on with it.

Back at the pub, Pip fired up the laptop and logged into the Telstra White Pages. It was time for a bit of research.

She was lucky the place had dial-up connections in the rooms – almost the only technology in the place. She supposed they were there to attract travelling salesmen.

According to a drinking mate of Frank’s the third rapist, Gerald ‘Pug” Raven, was still in Sydney making a packet as a boxing promoter.

The mate said that, originally, Raven’s father lobbed in town with a touring boxing troupe and got a local girl in the family way. There was a shotgun marriage and Gerald was born nine months later.

Years after, when he was a young man, Gerald’s own boxing ability became his passport out of town.

Pip fed ‘Raven, G, capital city, NSW, residential’ into the search page and waited. Only one result - ‘G. Raven, Esther Road, Balmoral’. She clicked ‘map’. Just around the corner from The Esplanade.

If this was her target, he hadn’t done too badly for himself …

She clicked again: Yellow Pages. No ‘Boxing Promoters’, but ‘Boxing Clubs’, with several individuals listed as contacts for the organisations. Bingo! Gerald ‘Pug’ Raven was there at his home address, Esther Road, Balmoral.

Balmoral was a lovely harbour suburb of Sydney, and Pug must have been successful to be able to afford to live there. She supposed he had a family …

Pip got out of the Telstra page and into smh.com.au. The Sydney Morning Herald archives.

There was one entry under ‘Gerald Raven’ in the past three years. An obituary!

‘Shock Death of Boxing Promoter. High Speed Car Crash.’ The story was four months old. No photograph.

Raven was young to have died, as her mother had been, but there it was.

Sitting on the chenille bedspread, laptop on her knees, Pip felt defeated. Had she made her move too late?

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.

GO TO EPISODE SEVEN

Country towns are mostly wonderful places in which to live and bring up children but, as in the city, a bad egg can spoil the dozen. What do you think?
Please tell me in a comment and let me know what you think of my story ...

PATERNITY Episode 4 - an Aussie Mystery Novel

Here is Episode 4 of my ongoing mystery novel Paternity the story of a determined young Sydney journalist's quest to discover who her father was. The search takes her to an outback Australian town where she renews the friendship of a former workmate and daily editor, now reduced by the demon drink to a position as hack on the local newspaper.

LINKS TO OTHER EPISODES ARE ON THE SIDE BAR



Pip didn’t go back to the Guardian office that afternoon: she couldn’t face any questions. Instead she bought a hamburger from the take away counter at the pub and ate it in her bedroom. She drank water from the crockery jug. Pip wanted to think.

So. Selene was raped as a virgin, according to the paper, at the age of 22. June 24 1975. Almost nine months before Pip’s own birth.

It looked as though her father was a rapist.

The thought scorched her.

How can I reconcile
These men —
Animals of the night —
With the human being                                                                                                                              Who is my Dad?

Was he gang leader
Or gutless follower,
Too weak To say no?

Did he even look at her?
Note terror in her eyes?
Feel the rush of her breath
as he crushed her?
Or was she just
A space
To fill?

Did he hear screams
As he pierced her softness,
Invaded secret places
Where none had been before?

He must have felt involved
In some way
To leave …
His seed.

I hate him With a fervour
Whoever he was.

There in the town where it all began, a single tear trickled down Pip’s face, followed by a flood.

The pub pillow
Soft and white,
Cradles my head.
But Selene’s secret
Sucks my soul
Into a vortex
Of regrets.

Other kids Had fathers.
Not me.
I used to think ...
What’s it like
To have
A football hero Dad?
Or one who turns his hand
At making a swing …


To rock me                                                                                                                                                 With love?

If things were different
Would my Dad
Have played ball
And taught me to swim?

Would I be so fond of reading
And writing
As now I am?

Or would rock music be
My passion?

Or climbing mountains?

Part Six
Frank took his feet off the solid old desk and walked out of the office to meet Pip at the Guardian premises. She’d seen him through the dusty window and it looked as though he had been slumped on his chair, deep in thought.

‘Pippin … the page with the photograph that you left on the desk last night ... when you went out in a rush. Was that what you were looking for?’

Pip wanted to roll into a ball. Instead, she nodded and lowered her body into the chair she’d been using the day before.

Frank picked up the file and stared at the faded old picture. He too was dredging it for information, and seemed loathe to speak.

The ticking of the big old clock in the corner filled the room, and the second hand moved a full sweep of the Roman numerals on its dial.

‘Is this the personal bit you wanted help with, or part of your commission?’

‘The personal bit Frank.’

‘Yeah? You know this woman?’

Once again Pip felt her body curl inwards on itself. Her eyes were damp when she looked up.

‘She was my Mum,’ Pip choked.

Ever the comforting bear, Frank engulfed her in his arms.

‘My god,’ he murmured.

‘Come on, we both need a drink.’



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.

GO TO EPISODE FIVE

Put yourself in Pip's shoes - how would you feel about all of this? Would you want to know? Or do you agree with me that we all have different reactions to situations and that one person's needs may be another's nightmare?
Please tell me in a comment. Next episode coming up.