Part 4

Chapter 16

I don't kill innocent people. Not like them. What's a few half-starved men to the State? Life means nothing when there's a profit to be made. Men blown to bits, crushed under stone. And they do it out in the open, like there's nothing to hide. The police do nothing. The courts, even less.

And what did my brothers do? What could they do? We were at their mercy. But I made it my business to keep a watchful eye on them when no one else would. Nobody knew how much time I was spending in that godforsaken city—I had become a professional stowaway… A spy. I worked long days to be in two places at once, but the dedicated train made it possible. Their dependence on us made it possible.

No. I am not like them. When I found enough hate in me to kill, my target was a worthy one. When I had seen the evidence with my own eyes, I had made up my mind that very day, the plan unfolding before me like a prophecy. It was perfect. The worthless jacks would simply chalk it up to an unfortunate accident, and I could return home with peace in my heart. The ghosts, avenged at last, would allow me to rest.

Perhaps I wore my anger on my sleeve. Perhaps my eyes betrayed my true intentions, yielded the bitterness of years long past. Perhaps it could only be seen by someone who knew how it felt.

However it happened, I found myself suspected before I had even carried out the deed—months of subterfuge laid to waste by one unlucky meeting. It would not do. Justice had to be done. The sacrifice, once again, was mine to bear. I could not remain here, in my home, while my accuser drew breath.

But I am not like them. I don't kill innocent people. Perhaps it was for the best. A new town, a new name, a new life.

The injury was… unfortunate. Modest provisions of food and water had been made, an old mattress ticking, leaking feathers like a sieve, plucked opportunistically from a bin to provide warmth against the hard stone while I did what had to be done.

The delay was… unexpected. By now, I had planned to be on a train—back to Melbourne and then, to who knows where. But the broken rail meant another day in hiding, another day without medical attention for my ward—who was growing paler and weaker by the moment. But I dare not breathe a word. It would mean damnation, not just for me, but for this place.

Chapter 17

He hit the ground hard, his hands instinctively covering the back of his head, his legs paralyzed. His mouth was open, his throat hoarse. He was certain that he must be screaming. But the wailing from the air raid siren was all he could hear as he waited for the incoming shells to find their targets, the frozen hard earth chilling him through to his marrow.

A loud crack! was followed by a sudden burst of light, illuminating grime- and dust-streaked faces in the distance. Faces who would never see the break of day again. He had been lucky thus far. Plenty of men braver and smarter than he had been struck down right before his eyes. A man would go slowly insane if he chalked his survival up to destiny, divine intervention, a misplaced sense of infallibility. No, it came down to luck—plain and simple. Jack braced himself for the onslaught, wondering if today was the day his luck would run out.

But it wasn't shrapnel that hit him first—it was a body, heavy and warm, using its substantial weight to roll him onto his back. They must have broken the stronghold! He balled his fists to strike a blow against the insurgent's chest but his forearms were seized in an expert grip and held firm. Goddamnit! What thrice-damned traitor was teaching the German soldiers judo?

"Jack!"

That voice. No, that can't be right. She wasn't… He couldn't…

"…Jack, look at me!"

He blinked into the blinding white light that poured in from the open doorway and cast the figure into shadow, but for a diminished haze that seemed to glow around her like a halo. It was the light seeping through her dressing gown, he realized with unexpected clarity; he had watched her pack it—the golden one with the koi fish—one of his favourites.

"Ph-Phryne?" His eyes darted around the room and found the faces of the miners haunting him from their photographs on the wall. "Those men. They perished… I saw it."

She carefully released his arms and rubbed them soothingly—whether to calm her own nerves or his was a question she would rather not examine too closely. As soon as she had realized what that howl was… who it was… she had come running, barefoot and barely dressed with lockpicks at the ready, to find him prone on the floor and stiff as a board.

"It's alright," she whispered, wiping the sweat from his brow with her hands. "You're alright."

He could hardly believe her when she looked so terrified. Disoriented, he tread murkily through the sensations—one foot in, one foot out of the quagmire—such that the cold wooden floor at his back seemed to transform beneath him into a winter battlefield. The miners morphed into fellow soldiers, proud and courageous and no more for this world. Her hands, for all they were gentle and familiar, could have been the ministrations of a field nurse doing her best to comfort him until death's angel came for him at long last.

"The air raid siren… Was it…" He hated the fear in his voice but it had been so real, he had to know for certain. "…Did I dream it?"

"No. It was the mine whistle," she explained, stroking his cheeks, determined to keep her hands on him—an anchor to this world. "They should have warned us. The war wasn't so long ago. I'm sure we weren't the only ones it startled." When I get my hands on the hotel manager, she thought fiercely, he'll wish he hadn't survived the war!

"I… I can't move my legs."

"I think I can help with that," she murmured, pressing her lips to his temple and then maneuvering herself towards his feet. She had nearly tripped on it when she had run headlong into the room. With a grunt, she heaved and pulled the leaden doona from his legs, unwrapping him like a mummy from where it had twisted about him as he had struggled.

"There. Wiggle your toes. Can you feel them?" Her tone was serious, concerned, as she smoothed her palms up and down his shins.

He felt her hands spread warm and wide on his bare ankles and seemed to realize, for the first time and far too late, that he would hardly be fending off Germans dressed only in his smalls. The nightmare was ebbing away but his ears only grew hotter with embarrassment. He did not like the way this case was affecting him.

"I feel like an idiot," Jack hissed, the pins and needles spreading through his lower body as the blood began to circulate once more. He balled his hands into fists and drummed them down along his legs in an act of self-flagellation to hasten the process.

"Don't. Don't you dare cheapen what happened to you over there, Jack… What happened to me." She grasped for his hands, stilling them. "The memories are just as painful and real and absurd now as the war was then. They're part of us, Jack."

His voice was low and rough with the strain of holding back the tears that so desperately wanted to fall when he admitted that there were times he wished they weren't part of him, that there were times he wished he had chosen differently. If she hadn't understood so well, hadn't experienced the living hell for herself, he might never have said it aloud.

As painful as it was to consider a Jack Robinson without honour or responsibility, without justice or scruples, she did not contradict him. Nor did she shush him into compliance like a child. Who was she to deny him his feelings when she had had plenty of occasions to share the sentiment wholeheartedly? The cords in her throat tightened as she pushed the vision of Janey's remains from her mind.

Phryne brought his knuckles to her lips. "I know, darling. I know."

The suite's door secured, she leaned back against it and loosened the tie of her dressing gown so it fluttered down in a glimmering shroud as she draped herself over him. Over and over, she kissed him, until the metallic tang of fear on his tongue had dissipated, replaced with the earthy-sweet flavour of him. Jack held her close, savouring the jut of her nipples sharp against his ribs, the prick of her fingernails where her hands curled at his neck and hip, stoking the fire, easing the pain.

Making love to Jack Robinson was an adventure all its own. One she relished, one that required her full attention, and one that surprised her—though it should not have given his forewarning about tactical errors. Like the man himself, his appetites may have been borne from tradition but they ran to the adventurous. The variety in her modus operandi was extensive and required consideration of sartorial carnage, potential for disruption, proximity to her internal device.

She could have been tender with him—she had been, many times—with butterfly kisses and touches like whispers as though anything else would bruise him beyond repair. She could have handled him like he was the finest Venetian glass, as beautiful and precious as he was fragile—she had done that too and it had been breathtaking. She could have drawn him into a flippant romp of distraction, an exhilarating joining that would leave them too exhausted to fret.

In the end, her choice was a product of her mood, and his. She dug her fingers into his skin and sucked his nipple into her mouth, sponging it with her tongue. Then she bit down upon it. Hard.

If he had asked why, or been offended, she would have had no answer. She only knew that he needed release from this poisonous brew of duty and ghosts and guilt. That he needed honour… pleasure… pain.

But he did not ask… he sobbed—a gut-wrenching cry that shook a lone droplet from the far corner of his eye—and then he was gone, tangling his hands into her hair and freefalling in her warm wicked embrace.

Her hair fell forward to sweep softly against him as she slid down his torso, soothing his skin where she had nipped at his ribs. Slipping off his smalls, she nudged one of his knees upward and fitted herself in the space it created between his legs. Her fingernails seared down the back of his thigh while she mouthed the thick tendon that stretched tightly beneath his pelvis.

She nuzzled into his cock and balls and tortured him with the edges of her teeth until he was moaning and writhing beneath her, his rasping gasps loosening the tightness in her own chest.

If he could have formed words, he would have begged. But there was no need. Between the stars in the heavens above them and the horrors of the depths beneath, Phryne Fisher captured him in the warm wet heat of her mouth and wrung every last sensation out of his body.

Chapter 18

"Hugh!" Dot smiled brightly at her husband, who rounded the counter to greet her. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes shone brightly. Pregnancy agreed with Dorothy Collins. But so did sleuthing, and Hugh knew she wasn't at City South for a social call.

With a glance behind him, he whispered, "We can't talk here, Dottie."

"Of course not," she assured him with a sweet smile and a wink. "Mr. Butler has invited us to lunch."

They joined the comrades around Miss Fisher's kitchen table, a steak and egg pie and salade russe before them, and dug in heartily.

"Dunno what Miss Fisher was hopin' fer us t' find," Bert grunted between bites. "Spent all night down at the worker's union and got nuthin' but a splittin' headache. Bastards must be thinnin' the grog with rotgut again."

"Yeah," Cec said in his quiet, reassuring way. "Nothing unusual. No one buying rounds or laying heavy bets."

"Any theories on Sunday's explosion?" Mr. Butler asked from his perch at the worktop, seemingly absorbed in applying a precise ratio of icing to a chocolate layer cake.

Bert piped up first, to no one's surprise. "Only that it won't be long 'fore the papers blame the workers for doin' a shoddy job."

"Too right," agreed Cec.

"Hmm," tutted Mr. B. He was confident that anything worth hearing would have been overheard by those two. "What about you, Constable? Any luck with the secretary?"

Hugh unwittingly snapped to attention. "No sir… I mean, Mr. Butler… ah, sir."

Sympathetic to the young man's plight, Mr. Butler laid a generous slice of cake in front of him and, fortified by the presence of dessert, Collins found the words to elaborate. "I rang her reference. The exchange belongs to a pub in Fitzroy—they never heard of her. And she didn't report to work this morning."

"Dubious references or not, I hope she hasn't not gone afoul of our killer."

"Did you get a description?" All eyes turned to Dot. There seemed to be a question behind the question and they had all worked with Miss Fisher long enough to recognise the effect.

"Uh… Yes. According to the Railway Commissioner, she's about your age, average height, average build, average looks—"

"That's a fat lot of help," Bert muttered under his breath, ignoring Dottie's shushing and the face she pulled at him.

"But there was one remarkable thing," Hugh said, determined to redeem himself. He supposed he had come to terms with the rejection of his wife's kin—it was far more important to have the respect of her actual family. His finger tracked through the handwritten notes in his pad, determined to get it exactly right. "He said she has red hair."

Dot's eyes widened at this piece of information. "In that case, I may have found something." She had spent her morning telephoning the numerous secretarial schools in Melbourne, in search of a former student by the name of Mitchell.

"You didn't mention the case, did you Dottie? Inspector Robinson would have my… Well, he wouldn't be happy."

"No. Well, you know how I feel about lying. But I couldn't see another alternative." She fingered the crucifix, dangling from its golden chain, in penitence. "So I told them I represented a woman who wanted to hire her, only she had misplaced Miss Mitchell's address."

The red-raggers looked at her dubiously. "Placements are very competitive," she explained. "It's in the school's interest to fill as many positions as they can." When Mr. Butler deigned to raise his eyebrow, she bit her lip nervously. "And I may have promised a finder's fee if they were able to help me locate her."

Bert cracked a huge grin. "Attagirl, Dottie. Show me someone who can't be bought, an' he's either lyin' or 'e ain't breathin'."

Dot thought wistfully of a time when she would have argued against that idea but she was no longer that naïve. "Well, I'm not proud of it… but it worked. It's a far more common name than I would have thought. Out of three women, two are the right age and one of them studied through a correspondence course."

"That just leaves the one in Melbourne to investigate," Hugh encouraged. "Well done, then."

But Mr. Butler noted the shadow that had darkened her expression. "Dorothy?"

"All the students have to take an examination in person in order to get their certificate. And the one from out of town… the school director remembered her because of her red hair. Miss Fisher doesn't believe in coincidences."

"Miss Fisher isn't here," Mr. B pointed out gently. "What do you believe, Dorothy?"

"I believe she is the one we're looking for." Dot looked between the men seated at the table. "Penelope Mitchell is from Wonthaggi."

Chapter 19

"Unngh," Jack croaked, his eyes tightening as he stirred from the spot on the floor where, utterly undone, he had fallen into a brief but blissful dreamless sleep. His body thrummed with the ache of being loved relentlessly by Phryne and his sore shoulder was screaming. "Why didn't we move?"

"You foretold your fate," she teased. "The Prophecy of the Twin Bed, as I recall." Her eyes smiled beneath impossibly long, impertinent lashes as she removed herself from his chest so he could move. "You're not hiding a crystal ball somewhere, are you Jack?"

He stole a glance along his naked length, his body rousing at the memory of how she had brought him to climax after unspeakable climax. He had never minded her rough touch before, but this had been different… intimate, and intensely private. He had needed it, craved it, without possessing any conscious knowledge of the desire for himself. How had she known? How much had he unwittingly given away? With a purse of his lips, he replied in his usual sardonic fashion. "It doesn't appear that I'm capable of hiding much of anything."

Phryne followed his eyes down and back up again, her gaze coming to rest on a darkening mark, a blood moon rising over his left collarbone—one of several she had conjured with teeth and tongue and suction, nails and pinches and devotion.

"That's not precisely true," she said, suddenly serious. This case was haunting him, and he had shared scarcely any of his fears. She dipped her head to suckle the bruise softly.

A groan rose within him like a wave, undulating into a gasp. "I thought you preferred a never-ending source of mystery?"

"I usually do." She rubbed a cautionary thumb over lips—a warning. Don't speak. I need you to listen. "But not when it leaves you to solve it alone."

Considering that she had been dismantling his defenses since her wild surmise at the Andrews' crime scene, he should have been little surprised. When he first realised the depth of his feeling for her, he had been terrified—terrified that Phryne Fisher, human freight train, would chew him up and spit him out on the tracks in pieces too tiny to put back together—pieces too tiny to feel anything at all. But he had underestimated her.

She was stubborn, this was certainly true, competitive and strong-willed, and in light of those things, he let himself forget that Phryne was a woman who valued her happiness far more than her pride. She had found ways to show him how she felt. He could see it in her eyes, taste it in her kisses, feel it in her demanding embrace. All the same, her tenderness knocked his breath out of his chest—another blow struck to the crumbling armour around his heart. Like the new skin revealed under a felled scab, it felt tight and tender and too sensitive to touch.

Her worried gaze searched him for clues. He was wearing the sort of contradictory expression that would have distorted another face into the grotesque—the way the muscles pushed and pulled, at odds beneath his skin. It only emphasised how beautiful he was.

Jack's cheeks were plump and broad, apples lilting up in delight, like that glorious moment on her Aunt's tennis green or when Mr. Butler indulged him with his favourite supper. But surrender tugged down the corners of his lips until they rested on the plinth of his sturdy chin, surrounded by the set of his determined jaw.

"There is something I won't hide any longer." He leaned in and kissed her deeply, his tongue warm and weighty in her mouth, his fingers fluttering against her throat to trace behind her ears and thread into her hair.

Phryne felt his devotion vibrate over every pore of her skin. The way he tasted her with such exquisite intention, the distance between her knees and her toes seemed both infinitely long and infinitesimally small. Her eyes, when they opened, were muzzy and drunken with his attentions, and found Jack gazing at her.

Jack's eyes were soft and earnest. "I love you."

Chapter 20

"Penelope Mitchell?" Bert gruffed, his eyes narrowed in consternation.

Cec turned the whole of his attention to his friend. "You don't think—"

"What? What is it?" Hugh was looking between them as if watching a particularly vigourous tennis match.

"Red Penny!" Bert and Cec exclaimed as one.

"Who?" Mister Butler asked.

"Red Penny," Cec repeated. "She's with the commos down there. Joined the miner's union soon as she was of age."

Dot was aghast. "Is she a miner?"

"Nah," Bert drawled. "No women allowed. But she's at the front of every march carryin' signs."

"Wasn't there was a picture of her in The Worker after them blokes died? I might still have a copy."

"No need for that, Cecil," Mr. Butler said and disappeared into the downstairs study. In moments, he was laying a stack of newsprint on the kitchen counter and flipping through the contents. Bert and Cec shared a sly smile. Their Miss Fisher was truly one of a kind.

"Aha! Here it is," he said, extracting a several pages from the archive. The headline was in printed in boldface type. Fourth Miner Succumbs to Injuries. Where Is the Justice? The photograph beneath depicted a large assembly of men, women, and children holding hand-lettered signs and banners that read, Justice for the Miners, Wonthaggi Coal Drives Melbourne, and A Decent Wage for A Dangerous Job. At the front of the crowd, two figures stood out.

Dorothy read the caption aloud. "'Neville Ferguson, Jr., noted activist and spokesman for the Wonthaggi branch of the Australian Coal and Shale Employees' Federation, expressed his hope that the inquest into the latest disaster to plague the State Coal Mine in Wonthaggi, Vic., will shed light on the harsh working conditions and inequitable pay. He is joined by Miss Penelope "Red Penny" Mitchell, a fixture in the tight-knit community and a beacon to the cause.' Neville Ferguson! That's who Miss Fisher and the Inspector are looking for… she knew him!"

"So it would seem," Mr. Butler agreed.

"If she suspected him of murder…" Hugh began.

"…She could be in a heap of bloody danger." Bert finished.

Chapter 21

Jack kissed the last of the tears from her face, tasting the sentiment she wasn't yet able to form into words. It hardly mattered. What he had thought he needed was an illusion, a contrivance designed to protect himself.

What he needed most was not to hear the words, but to trust himself enough to say them.

"Jack—"

He closed her mouth with his index finger, his other hand had wound beneath her gown and strummed soothingly down her bare back. "Shh. There's no need."

She beamed impishly up at him. "I was going to say that we'd better get a move on if we're going to solve this case today. Because I want you at home… in our bed… tonight." To another, her coquettish masquerade might have seemed diminished by the thickness of her voice—Jack thought it rather improved on it.

He grinned lopsidedly. "So what are we waiting for?"

Inside the Wonthaggi Police Station, the local sergeant deferred to the Melbourne DI's rank with a sniff and stood to greet him. Upright, he was roughly the size of a carthorse.

"Awful long way to come to check out a missing person claim, Inspector," Sergeant Daughtry drawled, crossing his arms in front of him in a posture which made it abundantly clear that he was not appreciative of other cops on his turf—much less city cops. "Coulda just wired an inquiry."

Jack had expected as much by way of reception. In the line of police work, interlopers were never precisely welcome as much as they were tolerated. As complete outsiders to this small town, outright obstruction might be a distinct possibility. It was one of the reasons he had decided not to telephone ahead.

The Inspector tucked his warrant card back into his coat pocket and gestured to the woman on his left. "Miss Fisher, here, is a personal friend of Neville Ferguson's sister."

With skeptical eyes, the sergeant turned his attention to the ridiculously dressed—albeit attractive—woman, barely restraining himself from rolling his eyes. Who in their right mind wore all white to a mining town?

"Kasi Ferguson contacted your station," Inspector Robinson continued, redirecting Daughtry's attention politely, but firmly.

"Yeah, and I told her the same thing I'll tell you now. He's a grown man who's prone to walkabout. It's only been a coupla days… he'll turn up."

"Miss Ferguson ended up in my office beside herself with worry when she couldn't reach her brother," Jack explained, playing what he thought was his best hand.

"Unless you got evidence to the contrary, there's nothing we can do."

"I'm not asking you to do anything," Jack replied—hardly at liberty to discuss the Tidmuth case nor intimate that he suspected Ferguson might be involved in a crime. "But as a fellow member of the Victoria Police, I thought I would extend you the professional courtesy. I don't know about you, Sergeant, but I prefer to know what's going on in my own jurisdiction. We're here at the request of Miss Ferguson. If you had seen the state of her, I'm sure you would have done nothing less."

"Sure 'bout that, are you?" the sergeant asked. His light brown eyes were intelligent and gave little away as he sized up the pair of them.

Jack steadily met the man's gaze. "I am."

"As it happens, I got me a sister who worries too much." Sergeant Daughtry eased himself back down and told the Inspector what he knew of Ferguson.

Eventually, he shifted his attention from the Melbourne cop to his companion. "You know," the sergeant said thoughtfully, taking in the lady's appearance with fresh eyes. "It's easy to forget that Nev's a toff. Smart man a' course. Bit of an odd duck. But he cares—really cares—about the workers and the town. That means somethin' around here. My ol' man was a miner. Came here in nineteen-ten when it was still a tent town. He died last year."

"I'm so sorry," Miss Fisher said. "Was it a mining accident?"

"Pneumonia," he replied. "Da thought the world of Neville. Most folks here do. Dunno what you're hopin' to find, Miss, but I'll wish you luck. Appreciate it if you'd keep me informed, sir."

Jack shook the man's meaty hand. "Of course."