The drive had been in turns relaxing and thrilling, the landscape shifting as the buildings gradually slipped away, until the dense bush and the air of the mountains seemed to turn blue, the oil from eucalyptus trees mingling with dust particles and water droplets to give the region its color and name. She and Sam had talked as much as the engine’s roar had allowed, which wasn’t much. The higher they’d driven, the more the bustle of the city had fallen away, and now here in Katoomba the atmosphere was decidedly tranquil. In the gaps between the roar of motorcars on the main highway,birdcalls and the deep, living quiet of nature prevailed. There was something magnificent about it, and it made Billie stop and take a deep breath.
Sam had not asked why Billie had decided to drive out to the mountains, and he did not ask why they were walking toward a hospital. Whether it was his nature or his army training, Billie did not know. But the fact that Sam trusted her judgment... well, it was strangely comforting. Allies like that were rare.
“It may seem odd that we’ve come all this way,” Billie began. “I did some ringing around and I think I have a lead. If not...” She hesitated. “If I’m wrong, Sam, we deserve a drive out of the city regardless. We’ll have afternoon tea and visit the Hydro Majestic, or the Paragon,” she said, and his eyes lit up at the suggestion.
“I don’t feel I should be paid forthat,” he said.
“You will be paid, regardless of what we find here. Which may be nothing. You have gone above and beyond. I don’t want you to think I don’t realize that, because I do, Sam.”
He met her eyes and said nothing. Then there was a slight nod.Good.They understood each other.
They walked up the few stairs to the entry porch of the hospital, a gabled single-story building with a central arch on which the name of the establishment was announced, then pushed through the beveled glass doors into the cool interior. The walls inside were stretcher bond brickwork, marble memorial plaques off to one side and Roll of Life Member plaques to the other. It smelled of disinfectant and starch.
The nurse at the reception desk nodded when Billie explained their business, her face suddenly and unexpectedly opening up. “Ispoke to you on the telephone!” she said, her blue eyes wide. “That poor boy. Please come. He’s this way. Follow me.”
The nurse spoke about the boy being brought in, how no one knew who he was, how he had a head injury and was barely conscious, still unable to speak, how everyone was terribly concerned. Billie got the feeling the mystery boy had become quite a focus in the hospital. Had there really been no one else to visit him except the local constabulary to take down his description? She and Sam followed the woman into the men’s ward, where fewer than half of the beds were occupied. The nurse led them all the way to one end of the ward, where a boy lay, bandaged and bruised. The moment Billie caught sight of the curly hair sticking up between bandages, her heart leaped.Yes, this could be him. This really could.
“He speaks sometimes,” the nurse said, “but it’s mostly nonsense. He seems to have lost his memory. We haven’t been able to find out his name or where he’s from.”
“I understand,” Billie said.
“Do you think this is... who you were hoping to find? Oh, we so hope we can find the boy’s poor family.”
At this, Billie pulled the small photograph from her pocket. She held it up next to him, feeling her stomach tighten. She pocketed the image her client had given her, then knelt next to the boy, gathering herself. His eyes were shut tight with swelling, but his hair was a giveaway.
“Adin Brown? I’m Billie Walker,” Billie whispered into the boy’s ear, though he did not answer. She resisted the urge to check his pulse and temperature. He was in good hands now, but where had he been? What had happened to him? Her gaze went to the raw redmarks on his wrists.Rope?Still kneeling, she turned and asked the nurse, “Can you tell me where exactly he was found and when? How did he come in?”
“Oh, it was a terrible thing, miss. Some hikers were coming back from one of those big walks and were headed for a train, and they saw a body at the bottom of this little cliff down at Wentworth Falls, right next to the line. They thought it was something that had fallen out of a train, at first. Then when they approached, they thought it was a dead body, but when they got there he was breathing. He was badly hurt and dehydrated, but alive. Miraculous, really. He stank of alcohol. Poor dear must have been drinking and...” She trailed off. “He could have been hit by a train, he was that close.”
“When was this?”
“Yesterday morning,” she said.
“So he was found near the tracks. Does it seem that he possibly jumped from a train? Or had a fall?” Billie asked.
“Every month people come here to end their lives, you know,” the nurse reflected, shaking her head. Billie listened with a neutral expression. “But usually they leave their motorcar by the top, or their things. Shoes and a note, that sort of thing. He didn’t seem to have anything with him but the clothes on his back. We don’t know if he jumped or fell; he might have gone wandering after leaving a pub and slipped, poor dear. Some of those places have quite a sharp edge.” She paused, and her next words indicated, perhaps, what she really thought. “And so young, too.”
Samuel had been standing silently behind Billie, and now he spoke. “His family will be so pleased he is alive. Thank you for what you’ve done.”
Billie wondered if she perhaps could get further. She put on hermost trustworthy smile and said, “I think it may be who we’re looking for, but I’m not sure. Were there any personal effects on him? A wallet?” she asked, though she was quite certain she’d found her man. She wanted to see everything.
“No wallet, or we’d have known who he was right away,” the nurse responded.
“Of course.”
“Do come this way, I’ll show you his things. I surely hope it helps. I’ve been worried sick about this lad.”
“Thank you,” Billie said. She looked over her shoulder at Sam, motioning to him to stay put.
She and the nurse entered another area of the hospital, and the uniformed woman opened a locker and removed two labeled parcels wrapped in brown paper. An awful smell of liquor hit her nose as soon as they were opened. Inside one parcel was a pair of black leather men’s shoes. The other held some folded clothing, which struck Billie immediately as unusual. It looked like a formal outfit. This perhaps explained the nurse’s belief that the boy had come to die in the Blue Mountains. He had not been out hiking, that much was certain.
The nurse placed the items on a table for Billie to peruse, and she did a quick inventory. The leather shoes were fairly plain oxfords in a worn black. The label showed they were size eight, which fitted roughly with what she’d expect, considering Adin’s height. They were “prescription shoes,” but that only meant they had arch support. There was no way to track a man’s name down with a pair of shoes so standard. And the clothes: a pair of good black pants, rather the worse for wear. A crumpled and stained white shirt, smelling of gin, and a cheap gin if her nose was correct. Could he really have spilledso much of it on himself? A similarly crumpled and torn dinner jacket. Billie surmised the jacket was tailor-made, but not recently. It might even have been from before the war, perhaps when things were going well at the fur company. It reminded her of Mrs. Brown’s suits—they were prewar. But if it was made before the war, it wouldn’t have been made for Adin. Was this Adin’s father’s jacket? Billie wondered if Mikhall had given it to him, or if it was missing and hadn’t been noticed. She went through the garments carefully, finding no identifying labels or tags, and nothing of note until she discovered an inside coat pocket and felt something small and flat inside. It was creased and a touch thicker than paper.A photograph.She took only a moment to glance at it before secreting it so swiftly in her driving coat pocket that the nurse did not register that anything had been there at all. It was possible that whoever had inflicted the injuries on him had stripped him of his identification but missed this small item.
Billie had brought theSydney Morning Heraldclipping with her in case Adin could be interviewed, and she had fleetingly hoped to find his own torn copy in the pockets of the dinner jacket or pants, perhaps with something of note circled or written on it that explained his interest. Still, no wonder he was a no-show at the auction. At the time it was held, he was in this very hospital, semiconscious. The photograph, whatever it was of, was the only clue among his things as to what he might have been up to, apart from the fact that whatever had happened to him had likely happened at night, given he’d been dressed for The Dancers or a similarly formal environment.
“I’ll give a detailed description of these clothes to my client. I am hopeful,” Billie told the nurse. “There was nothing else? No bottle?”
The nurse shook her head.
