She turned a corner, then checked the leather-bound notebook in her hand. Yes, this was it – a narrow two-storey brick terrace just a couple of blocks from the tram line on the main road. The homes on this stretch of Corunna Road were crammed together, as if they had been constructed in the middle of space-poor London. Still, the overall effect was charming. As Billie approached the house where Adin’s friend Maurice lived she could see that plenty of work went into keeping the small front garden neat, sweeping the steps and keeping up the potted plants by the door, but the exterior was in dire need of a fresh coat of white paint, and the balcony railings looked unstable. She moved slowly up the little path and knocked on the front door with a gloved hand. A dog barked somewhere, and Billie adjusted a hair pin, listening for movement inside the house.
After a moment, she heard footsteps. It was a young man who opened the door. He was no more than twenty, long-lashed and lean, almost skinny, and he wore his trousers rolled at the cuff to show white socks above his loafers. His single pocket shirt was unbuttoned at the top. Billie guessed that he’d spent a fair bit of time on his hair, which was side-parted in the standard way, but a bit wavy and long on top, while short at the back and sides. It was the latest style for a certain kind of Sydney boy, some of whom liked the top to sit up even higher. The style was no good for wearing hats, and Billie imagined he didn’t don one often. Doubtless he had a comb in his back pocket, because he’d need it.
‘Maurice?’ He looked her up and down, surprised that she wanted him. ‘I’m Billie Walker.’ She flashed him a business card. ‘Glad to know you. I’d like to speak to you about your friend Adin Brown,’ she explained, pushing the card into his palm.
He looked panicked for a moment, his deep brown eyes wide, and he drifted back from the door a touch and then read her card and nodded, as if having decided something. ‘Mum, I’m heading out to the shop. Be back shortly,’ he called loudly and stepped outside onto the path, shutting the door behind him.
‘I don’t want any trouble. My ma’s a bit deaf but she’s not stupid.’
Billie followed him, intrigued, keeping pace as he led her towards the street corner at Northumberland, out of the line of sight of the house. The sun was still up, but the shadows were lengthening and the shadows had eyes, she sensed. A group of boys was watching from the side of a terrace home on the opposite side of the street, their faces stacked like a totem pole, and when she turned her gaze in their direction they vanished like apparitions. Billie turned her attention back to her subject but thought fleetingly about how she’d sent Sam off to check the hospitals, leaving her without a strong arm in a neighbourhood that was now feeling less tame than she remembered before the war. All those absent fathers and tales of war seemed to have done the local boys little good, and she was pleased with her last-minute decision to slip her little Colt 1908 pocket semi-automatic into her garter. It was hand-sized and factory nickel-plated, with shining mother-of-pearl grips, and came with a sweet little soft suede change purse pouch, which was attractive but not easy to access if one was in a hurry. The thigh garter she had sewn herself for the purpose of holding the diminutive thirteen-ounce pistol worked nicely by comparison, and could be worn under most of her clothes, as it was today. The gun had been a gift from her mother, who was ‘not stupid’ either. It would take Billie only a few seconds to have it comfortably in her hand.
‘I’m not trouble,’ she said soothingly to the boy as they neared the corner, trying to ease his nerves, or perhaps her own, though the statement wasn’t strictly true if history was anything to go by. She and trouble knew each other pretty well. ‘I know you told Mrs Brown that you haven’t seen Adin, but I wanted to ask you personally to hear your side of things.’
‘Why do I have to have a side?’
‘Surely you absorb information and form views like any thinking young man in this state,’ she answered.
Her interview subject narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re not a cop?’ he asked accusingly, slowing down to scowl prettily and dart his eyes from side to side to see if they were being watched, which of course they were. Billie wasn’t sure if he wanted to be seen with her or not; it seemed even odds.
‘Do I look like a police officer to you?’ she asked him, in response to which he looked her over from heel to hat, and took his time about it. Yes, he knew he was pretty. This boy was different from the other two. He was older and had more edge.
‘No, lady, I can’t say as you do,’ he finally decided, having finished his appraisal at her expressionless red lips. He paused, eyes still fixed on her mouth. ‘But they’ve been recruiting them lately. I read about it in the paper.’
At this, Billie had to resist rolling her eyes. In ’41 when the panic set in about a lack of able men, the New South Wales police had added six women officers to the force, bringing the grand total to a mere fourteen in the state. But now Premier McKell had approved an increase in the number of female cops to thirty-six, and the papers were going mad with the idea, as if the fairer sex might suddenly take over the entire force, leaving men out of work or even, heaven forbid, waiting for their dinners, despite the fact married women weren’t being accepted anyhow. Billie was on a first-name basis with the famous Special Sergeant (First Class) Lillian Armfield, who had joined the force in 1915 and through her knew well enough the struggle. The female recruits hadn’t even uniforms, weren’t paid overtime like the boys, nor were they entitled to either superannuation or a pension. They had to sign contracts stating that they wouldn’t be compensated for any injuries suffered in the line of duty, couldn’t join the Police Association and had to resign if they married – one of the reasons Lillian never had. With all that, it was a wonder so many women were keen to sign up, but the applications always far outnumbered the spaces allotted. The relationship between the police and private inquiry agents was sometimes fraught, but Billie had her contacts, as her father had before her. But a cop? No, a cop she was certainly not.
‘I assure you I’m not a newly recruited officer of the law,’ Billie said, placing a hand on her hip as his eyes followed the movement, ‘and if you’re a good boy I suspect you’ll never meet one of those fine women.’ If he was a good boy, he at least wanted to be bad, that much was clear.
‘You look more like you could be in the pictures,’ he said.
‘Well, we’re not shooting any Hollywood pictures in Stanmore today,’ she said flatly, not interested in his flattery.
They walked on for another minute or two, their route taking them almost in a loop. Curtains parted in a house across the street and a silver-haired lady looked out at them, her nose to the window glass. One more block and Maurice finally stopped. Billie noticed a milk bar further along the street, close to where she’d stepped off the tram, and saw a small group of children who seemed to be sharing a treat of some kind. Another set of curtains rippled; this time a dark-haired youth poked his head out of a window to stare at them. They may have been far from where Maurice’s mother could see them, but plenty of others were having a gander. Billie suspected Maurice was enjoying the scrutiny and her patience was wearing thin, but she needed patience if she was to get anything out of this boy.