“Please can I just have a quick look through the records?” Smith asked.
His mouth was incredibly dry.
“What do you need to know?” The guard seemed to be bending.
“Where and when he served,” Smith replied, “who he fought with. That kind of thing. It’s extremely important.”
The guard picked at a scab on his cheek. He walked back inside the small building that served as his office and picked up the phone. Smith shook his head and waited.
“Sorry about last night,” he said to Lucy, “I must have been more exhausted than I thought.”
“More intoxicated you mean,” Lucy smiled, “you stud. No more red wine for you.”
A small Jeep like vehicle drove up and stopped in front of the boom gate. The guard reappeared and handed Smith and Lucy visitor’s badges.
“This is my brother in law,” he said, “he’s obsessed with the army archives. If he can’t find what you’re looking for then it isn’t here.”
“Private Colin Green.” The man got out of the vehicle.
He was almost seven feet tall.
“Jason Smith,” Smith shook his hand. “Detective Sergeant. I appreciate your taking the time to help us. This is extremely important.”
“Get in,” Green ordered.
Private Green drove across a deserted parade ground and stopped in front of a light brown building that was in desperate need of a lick of paint.
“This is what I call the history wing,” he said, “follow me.”
Smith and Lucy had to run to keep up with his lolloping stride. They followed him down a long corridor until they came to a reception desk of sorts.
“Name?” Green asked. He walked to the other side of the desk.
“Jason Smith,” Smith replied.
Green typed a few words on the keyboard and looked at Smith.
“Never heard of him,” he said. “What I mean is he was never here.”
“Sorry,” Smith said, “type in Max Brown. My father was Max Brown.”
Lucy stared at Smith. She looked confused.
“My mother made me and Laura take her name after Dad died,” Smith said, “it’s a long horrible story.”
“Here he is,” Green said, “twenty six D. My favourite archives; nothing much happened in the Australian military after Vietnam. I’ll lead the way.”
He bounded off down the corridor. He stopped at a door and opened it. Inside there were filing cabinets that reached up to the ceiling. Twenty six D was in the third row.
“There you are,” Green opened the cabinet, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to stay with you until you’re finished. We’ve had quite a bit of theft here recently.”
“Theft,” Smith said, “What sort of stuff would people want to steal from here?”
Green looked at Smith as if he was an idiot.
“Personal effects,” he said, “most of the stuff is given back to family and friends but sometimes that just isn’t possible.”
He took out a small basket and put it on a table in the middle of the room. Inside there was mostly paperwork. Enlistment papers, deployment papers and medical history. Underneath the papers was a small book. Smith opened it. It seemed to be a diary. The first entry was on the 27th July 1965. Private Green had wandered off and was now inspecting some files on the other side of the room. Smith looked over at him, picked up the diary and put it inside his jacket pocket. Lucy stared at him in disbelief.
“Can I take these papers with me?” Smith shouted over to Private Green.
“You can,” Green replied, “but first we need to ascertain that you are who you say you are and establish firm family connections. We need to go through the proper channels.”
“How long will that take?” Smith asked.
“It shouldn’t take more than two weeks,” Green replied.
“I thought so.” Smith smiled at Lucy. “Can you check one more thing for me please?”
“Of course,” Green replied, “I could spend all day going through army records.”
“I need you to look for someone else. Someone by the name of James Fulton.”
“Come this way,” Green said, “while we’re at it we might as well get the ball rolling with the request for those papers you wanted.”
“James Fulton,” Green read from the computer screen, “he’s here alright. Started basic training in July 1965. Discharged three weeks later on medical grounds.”
“So he never saw active service?” Smith asked.
“Nope.”
“Why was he discharged?”
“Doesn’t say. The records didn’t go into much detail in those days.”
“Shit,” Smith said, “sorry. So he didn’t even get to Vietnam?”
“No,” Green replied, “but hold on. His younger brother did.”
“Younger brother?”
“When I say younger, I mean younger by a whole ten minutes. John Fulton. He and James were identical twins. What was your father’s name again?”
“Max Brown,” Smith replied.
Private Green tapped a few keys.
“Here we are,” he smiled, “I love it when we start to get somewhere. Max Brown volunteered July 1965. John Fulton started his basic training at the same time. They were deployed later the same year.”
“So they fought in Vietnam together?” Smith’s heart started to beat faster.
“Same regiment. They were both there at Long Tan. They must have seen some pretty nasty stuff. Is there anything else you need to know?”
“That’s all,” Smith replied, “thanks, you’ve been a great help.
“What about your father’s papers?”
“I don’t think I’ll be needing them anymore,” Smith replied.
THIRTY FIVE
PILLOW TALK
Friday 12 March 2010
“Come back with me,” Smith asked Lucy.
“And do what?” she said, “I’m not like you. I like it here.”
“You’ll like it in York,” Smith insisted, “besides, who’s going to hold my hand on the plane?”
Lucy laughed.
“You’re a big boy Jason,” she said, “we’ve still got a few hours before you have to be at the airport. Is there anything you feel like doing for a few hours?”
“We could head off to the beach for a while,” Smith said, “or we could…”
He smiled at Lucy. She smiled back and her blue eye shone brightly. She took his hand and led him to the bedroom.
“Are you sure you won’t come back with me?” Smith asked again afterwards.
“We’ll see each other again,” Lucy sighed, “besides, I have a feeling you won’t be much company at the moment. They want you back there for a reason. You need to catch this serial killer.”
“I hate that term,” Smith scoffed.
He stroked the back of Lucy’s neck.
“It’s so bloody American.”
“He’s killed four people Jason,” Lucy said, “that’s a serial killer.”
“Seven,” Smith corrected her.
“Seven?”
“He’s killed another three while I’ve been here. Three youngsters. He killed two of them with his bare hands.”
“Aren’t you scared?” Lucy ran her fingers over the scar on Smith’s arm.
“Not at all,” Smith replied immediately, “stick me in the air at thirty thousand feet and I’m a quivering wreck but put me in the same room as a mass murderer and I feel nothing. It’s my job. Are you quite sure you don’t want to come back with me?”
“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that,” Lucy said, “I’ll think about it. How did you get this scar?”
She pointed at the star shaped scar on his arm.
“I got shot,” Smith looked at the scar. “Last year. In the middle of the North Sea. It was freezing. I hit the guy on the head with a champagne bottle and he shot me. I thought he was a friend too.”
“What happened to him?” Lucy asked.
“Fi
sh food,” Smith replied, “I suppose I should be going soon and you definitely need to brush up on your pillow talk. Serial killing is hardly a romantic topic is it?”
He kissed her on the cheek and got up from the bed.
“I’m going to have a shower,” Lucy said as Smith got dressed, “do you want to join me?”
“No,” Smith replied, “you smell delicious and I can smell you all over me; I’d like to hold on to that smell for a while longer. It might calm me down on the plane.”
“You’re not right in the head Jason Smith,” Lucy laughed and went to the bathroom.
“They say it takes a madman to catch a madman,” Smith said but Lucy had turned on the shower and could no longer hear him.
While Lucy was in the shower, Smith packed his things together in the small backpack. He picked up Lucy’s phone and called a taxi company and arranged for them to pick him up and take him to the airport. He walked outside on to the balcony and looked out across the rooftops into the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean. This is nice, he thought, but York is home.
“I’ll be ready in ten minutes,” Lucy appeared in the doorway with a towel wrapped around her.
Smith thought she had never looked so beautiful.
“I’ve booked a taxi,” he said, “airport goodbyes are so depressing.”
Lucy’s face dropped.
“I don’t mind driving you,” she said.
“I know but what’s the difference where we say goodbye? Here or the airport. Like I said, I hate airport goodbyes. They’re so impersonal.”
Lucy walked over and put her arms around him.
“I…” she started to talk.
Smith put a finger on her lips.
“I know,” he said, “the taxi will be here any minute now.”
He held her in his arms. They just stood there on the balcony. Smith’s shirt was getting soaked from the towel. He broke off the embrace, picked up his bag and walked towards the door.
“Phone me anytime,” he said.
He could swear she had tears in her eyes. He opened the door and left the apartment.
Quantas flight 205 to Singapore took off on time. When the plane had left Western Australia behind and was ascending high above the Indian Ocean, Smith unclenched his fists and unfastened his seat belt. He would be back in York in roughly twenty four hours.
“Can I get you anything sir?” the flight attendant asked in a high pitched voice. Smith thought he looked too old to be a flight attendant. He looked more like a drag queen who had been asked to remove his wig.
“Beer please,” Smith replied.
The drag queen minced off down the aisle.
Smith took out the diary from his backpack. As he bent down to get it the scent of Lucy’s perfume filled his nostrils. He breathed in deeply and smiled. He wondered whether he would ever see her again. Going back to Australia had seemed unreal. In three days he had successfully exorcised ghosts from his past and he felt like he was one step closer to exorcising one in his present. He looked at the diary. It was over forty years old but it was well preserved. It was a small, fake leather-bound book of a light brown colour. There was a peculiar stripe going round the whole book as if it had been taped up at some point. On the front were simply the words, ‘Max J Brown. Vietnam’.
“Will there be anything else sir?” Priscilla of the desert asked him. He pronounced ‘sir’ like ‘thir’ and Smith could not help but smile.
“No thanks,” Smith replied.
He opened the diary. The first entry was 27 July 1965.
THIRTY SIX
MAX J. BROWN.
Tuesday 27 July 1965
Last day of freedom. Second thoughts are overwhelming but John has managed to persuade me we are doing the right thing. Fighting for the preservation of the western world as we know it and that sort of thing. It’s still pretty daunting though. For the next twelve weeks we will no longer be Max Brown and John Fulton, we will be maggots ready to be squashed by whatever they have in store for us. Anyway, we’ve decided to go out with a bang. John and his brother James have organised a huge bash on the beach. Booze and barbeques. Jo will no doubt cry, emotional waif that she is but what will be will be.
Sunday 1 August 1965
First Sunday at the barracks. Four days in and its not so bad. Not as bad as we’d expected anyway. James is as sick as a dog. He’s got some kind of a virus and he’s been stuck in his bed. The training isn’t the worst part of all this. Me and John are fit as fiddles and we’re walking through it so far. The worst part is being away from everything that was familiar. Me and John are doing well. The Sarge says we’re two of the best he’s ever seen. I don’t know if he says this to everyone but he seemed to mean it. I’m missing home like mad. I keep thinking about Sunday lunch. Roast beef and roast potatoes with Mum’s gravy. The food here isn’t too bad but it’s nowhere near as good as Mum’s. I’m writing this in the dark. After lights out that’s it. We’re supposed to sleep. It’s easier said than done though. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the noises here. There’s a bloke two beds down that sounds like he’s sawing down trees when he snores.
Tuesday 10 August 1965
Bloody Sarge confiscated my diary. He said and I quote ‘there’s no place in this army for intellectual cissies’. He said I should be concentrating on getting ready to enter the worst war the world has ever seen. Those were his exact words. I got the diary back though although a lot has happened since the last entry. Jimmy Fulton nearly died. They didn’t even know what it was. Some virus they had never seen before. John was scared shitless that he wouldn’t make it. Jimmy’s in isolation now and his war is over. They’ll send him back home as soon as he’s well enough to travel. John is gutted. He was looking forward to fighting alongside his big brother. He still calls him his big brother even though there’s only ten frigging minutes between them. I’ve noticed I’ve started to swear a lot more since I’ve been here. If you don’t swear, you don’t seem to fit in here somehow.
Me and John are the best marksmen here by miles. The Sarge reckons we’ll be deployed together, no doubt about it. A lot of the blokes here couldn’t hit a fat kangaroo’s arse from two metres away. God help them when they have to fight for real. I got a letter from Jo this morning. She said she was so proud of me but she’s moaning that I haven’t written yet. It’s funny, last week I thought about her every second but now it seems like she is somebody I knew a very long time ago. Nothing has changed. Or maybe it has.
Sunday 29 August 1965
One month in, two months to go. Training is getting tough now, I must admit it. Some of the blokes are already starting to crack. The Sarge says its normal for a few of the men to go ape shit. Jimmy Fulton is gone. Discharged on medical grounds. Poor fellow. You should have seen the look on his face when they drove him off. It was pure primeval hatred. It was like he hated the whole lot of us who stayed behind. John took it badly. I mean, his own twin brother looking at him like that. I told him he’ll be alright. He needs to concentrate on training right now.
I got another letter from Jo. She asked me why I don’t write back. I don’t know what to say to her. I feel like I’ve got nothing to say that she’ll want to hear. I mean, it’s all so routine here. Up at five, breakfast, inspection, drills, more drills, weapons training for some of us, lunch, a bit of class work, more drills. Even on Sunday all we do is lounge around and wait patiently for Monday. Maybe we’re growing apart. I don’t know and the worst part of it is I don’t really care. This is my life at the moment and there doesn’t seem to be place in it for her anymore.
We cleaned up in the inter-barracks shooting competition. Those bastards from Queensland gave us a bit of a scare. One guy in particular was frigging awesome but we took them by two points in the end. It was mostly thanks to John and me. Some of the blokes are getting a bit pissed off with the way me and John get treated. We enjoy certain perks that the others don’t but as John quite nicely pointed out to one bloke in particular, a skinny
wimp from Fremantle, when you’re in a war, being able to shoot is a big frigging advantage. The bloke hasn’t spoken to either of us since. The Sarge almost caught me writing in my diary again. I’ve had to find a new hiding place for it. I tape it to the back of my bunk.
Smith stopped reading and put the diary down. He suddenly felt tired. He looked out the window of the plane. All he could see were clouds and the small dots that were tankers in the Indian Ocean below. He looked at his watch. He would be in Singapore in just over four hours. He finished the rest of his beer and sighed. His father’s diary had not given him much to go on yet apart from Jimmy Fulton’s illness and the fact that he hated the men who were left at the army barracks. That was still no reason to kill all those people, Smith thought, there must be more to it than that. According to the diary, his father did not have anything more to do with Jimmy Fulton after he was driven away from the barracks. What am I missing? Smith thought.
Priscilla danced down the aisle and picked up the empty beer can from Smith’s table.
“Anything else handsome?” he asked
Smith shivered.
“Another beer please,” he said, “make it two.”
Smith tried not to make eye contact with the androgynous flight attendant. Why does this always seem to happen to me? He thought, why do gay men always seem to assume I’m that way inclined? The flight attendant shuffled off to fetch the beers. Smith caught a slight whiff of Lucy’s perfume again and smiled. I’m definitely not gay, he thought. He picked up the diary and read the last entry again. There was still nothing that could explain Jimmy Fulton’s motives for messing with his head. He carried on reading.
Friday 15 September 1965
Over half way there now. John and me are still way ahead of the other blokes. The Sarge reckons that some people are just born for war. What the hell he means by that is anyone’s guess but I think he meant it as a compliment. We’ve got a bit of a booze up organized for tonight. First Friday night since we’ve been here that we’ll be allowed to rev it up a bit. Ok, there will be no girls, no beach and no surfing but we all need a break. We need to let our hair down a bit. Some of the blokes need it a lot more than the others. There was a bit of an episode in the mess hall the other day. One of the drongos completely lost it. We call the guys who joined up to shoot people, drongos. All they want to do is go to some faraway country and kill people who don’t look or act like them. This one particular drongo, a bull necked bloke called Callum Golding decided in his paranoid state that one of the other blokes was looking at him in a funny way. I mean, the poor guy just passed him a harmless glance. That was enough for old Golding. He was out of his chair and on top of the man in a flash. He stuck a fork in his neck. One minute he’s eating his breakfast and then, Bam! Fork sticking out of the poor bastard’s neck like a frigging diving board. Golding walked calmly back to his table, sat down and finished his breakfast. They took him away after that. We haven’t seen him since. The Sarge said that it’s better to happen here than out on the front line. You wouldn’t believe the things that happened when blokes lost their minds out there. It freaked everybody out for a while anyway. The bloke who got a fork in his neck survived though and he’s back with us.
The York Trilogy: The First 3 DS Jason Smith Detective novels Page 42
