A Time of Secrets

by Deborah Burrows

‘We walked straight into a nest of Japanese,’ he said. His jaw was tight and he was staring at the papers on the desk with a fixed expression.

  I waited for him to continue, and after a few seconds he gave a small shiver. Still not looking at me, he started to talk again. ‘I’d wanted to lead a field mission. I should have been able to do it. I’m fit enough, brave enough, smart enough. I’m not the sort of officer who connects well with the men, but that didn’t matter, officers don’t need to win popularity contests. I thought I’d be fine. Only, when we were in the thick of it . . . Well, it was clear that I simply didn’t have what it takes.’

  His face relaxed into his usual expression of rather mocking insouciance as he busied himself with pulling out a packet of cigarettes, removing one, striking a match, inhaling, all the while avoiding my eyes.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  ‘Eric opened fire and sprinted off to draw the Japanese away. The rest of us scattered. It was bloody mayhem.’

  He drew in a long breath, and blew out smoke slowly.

  ‘Eric doubled back and caught up with Mike Teague. He left Mike in a position he thought was safe, and asked him to radio base, ask for us to be extracted. We all assumed that Destro had been compromised, you see. One by one, Eric found us and got us into a safe position.’ Ross had a contemptuous look on his face. ‘It was not my finest hour. I’m not the tactician he is and, quite frankly, Stella, I’m not as brave.’

  I thought of Eric, drawing enemy fire, keeping the men as a cohesive unit in the midst of chaos.

  Ross’s expression had darkened. ‘Eric thought that Mike was safe, but found him near death when he went back for him. Mike had managed to get a radio message through, and because of that they sent the Catalina flying boat to collect us that night.’

  ‘It seems obvious that the Japanese knew you were coming.’

  ‘The court martial found otherwise. Messages from Destro indicated that it was just bad luck that a Jap patrol was near the drop site. If we’d landed where we should have, we’d all have been caught immediately.’ He ran his hand across his face in a weary gesture. ‘The Japs destroyed two native villages that were going to assist us. Killed scores of people.’

  ‘You couldn’t help that.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘And despite what happened to you, the Eagle party were put into position a month later?’

  ‘The codes for Eagle have all been correct.’

  ‘But they would be, if they’d been captured as soon as they arrived.’

  ‘Exactly.’ He stubbed out his cigarette firmly. ‘Will Corporal Avery speak to Captain Molloy about what she told you?’

  ‘No. She’s terrified of Cole. Thinks Molloy won’t believe her and she’ll be demoted and sent away.’

  ‘We’ll have to keep looking for some proof, then.’ I could see the fatigue etched in the lines around his eyes. ‘The Indigo Alpha party is due to be sent up there in ten days.’

  Indigo Alpha was the first of a major four-part intelligence-gathering operation in Timor, codenamed Indigo Light. Four groups of four men were to be inserted by parachute drop into different areas of the island. Each would stay for eight weeks, gathering intelligence and trying to recruit local people to assist in the Allied war effort.

  ‘Sir,’ I said, lowering my voice, even though we were alone, ‘do you think Lieutenant Cole is a traitor?’

  Ross rubbed a hand across his face and his shoulders seemed to slump. ‘I don’t think so – I don’t know. All I do know is that I don’t want the men of Indigo Alpha parachuting straight into a Japanese trap the way we did.’

  He looked up and I was shocked to see the misery in his eyes.

  I said, hesitantly, ‘We’ll find something. If Destro has been compromised, we’ll find something to convince Captain Molloy.’

  He nodded and as I left his office I had a feeling that, for the first time, I’d had a glimpse of the real Nick Ross. That afternoon he’d been focused and professional and able to discuss his shortcomings without seeking pity. There had been no sign of the ‘lady-killer’ who tried to charm me and seemed always to be playing a role. Did he see me, finally, as a colleague he could trust? I smiled to myself when I entered my office. Perhaps Nick Ross and I might even end up as friends.

  Twenty-six

  I took Mrs Campbell’s hand in mine and gently stroked the paper-thin skin that was covered in a mass of wrinkles. The hand was older than any I’d ever held before and I was in awe of it. Mrs Campbell had been born in 1854. Queen Victoria had been on the throne for only seventeen of what would be sixty-four years as Queen and Empress. Women had worn corsets and crinolines; there had been no motor vehicles, no aeroplanes, no telephones, no wireless. The world had been an entirely different place.

  She’d asked me in for a cup of tea when she saw me returning from work that evening. We’d been having a delightful time together until she mentioned hearing noises at night, near her back door. When I’d pressed her on the issue, she’d tried to change the subject by talking about her childhood near Loch Lomond in Scotland.

  ‘We’d put out a saucer of milk on the back step every night for the brownies,’ she said. ‘My mother always did when I was a child. And it would always be gone by morning.’

  ‘The brownies?’

  Mrs Campbell took another sip of tea and nodded vigorously. The jet beads in her bonnet jiggled around her face when she did so and there was mischief in her eyes. ‘Wee elves. My father would be angry that she did it. He said it wasna a Presbyterian thing to do.’ She smiled. ‘I think it was probably the barn cats that drank it, but my granny swore it was the wee folk.’

  ‘Mrs Campbell, we both know there are no elves or brownies. These noises you’ve been hearing . . . do you think that real intruders – human intruders – are coming in at night? Is anything missing?’

  Mrs Campbell’s face closed up in a frown. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. Maybe it’s a dog sniffing around the bins.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said.

  I was worried about her being alone in the flat at night. I stood and went over to her large display case. When I peered at the shelves, there seemed to be less silver than when I’d last looked, but I really couldn’t tell for sure.

  ‘Is the caudle cup there?’ Her voice was crisp and there was no vagueness in that question.

  I checked. ‘Yes. It’s there.’

  ‘So much silver,’ she said. ‘I canna remember it all, sometimes. They’re my husband’s treasures. He bought them all.’

  I nodded in response. There was a great deal of silver jumbled together on the shelves, but I couldn’t help the nagging feeling that there was less than when I’d looked some weeks ago. The really valuable pieces still seemed to be there, though. I rubbed the back of my neck to relieve tight muscles.

  ‘Do you mind if I check the windows and doors to make sure that they’re all secure?’

  I left her sitting on the sofa as I went through the flat to check the locks. I could see no evidence of anyone having broken in. It all seemed very secure. Too secure. Now I was worried about how she’d get out of the place if there were a fire.

  I went back into the lounge room. Mrs Campbell was perched on the side of the sofa, surrounded by books and plucking at the fabric of her long woollen dress.

  I sat beside her and took her hand again. ‘Would you mind if I held a spare key to your flat? Then I could drop in whenever I was worried.’ I didn’t want to mention fire, in case she became panicked.

  She turned her face towards me. Her eyes were small and set deeply into a wrinkled face and the pupils were a bright golden-green colour that reminded me of sunshine in leaves. I thought they were beautiful.

  ‘I lost the spare key,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to have another cut.’

  ‘Do you have an inventory of your silver and books?’

&n
bsp; She nodded. ‘Our solicitor, Mr McLaughlin, he has an inventory.’

  ‘Good. Should we write to him and ask for a copy, just to make sure that it’s all here?’

  ‘If you think it’s best, dear.’ Her face brightened. ‘Another girl was attacked by that axe man on the weekend.’

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘Was it in the paper?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Mrs Campbell. ‘On Wednesday night. At a boarding house in Albert Park.’ She put her head to the side, as if she was considering. ‘A twenty-five-year-old shop assistant. She’s in critical care.’ She shuddered. ‘They’re so difficult to remove from linen, bloodstains.’

  ‘First St Kilda, now Albert Park. He’s getting closer to us, this axe man,’ I said.

  ‘Make sure you keep your flat locked up tight and I will, too. Now, Stella, sit here beside me.’ When I sat next to her, she was very serious. ‘I want to talk to you about that horrible man.’

  ‘What man?’

  ‘The one who stays with Violet. Not Lieutenant Ross.’ She paused, and smiled. ‘He’s just a confused boy.’ Her face folded into a frown. ‘I mean the other lieutenant.’

  ‘Lieutenant Cole?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Cole. He’s a bully to Violet and he trapped Dolly on the stairs yesterday. I heard him.’

  ‘It was me that he was horrible to yesterday, Mrs Campbell.’

  ‘No, it was Dolly. Yesterday evening before you got home. Terrible things he said to her. Called her vulgar names. Told her he’d tell Major Randall. Poor Dolly cried.’ Her grip on my hand tightened and she looked at me very seriously. ‘You canna show fear to a mad dog, Stella. If you do, he’ll bite. You tell that to Dolly.’

  I took down the details of her solicitor and left her sitting alone among her treasures. I slowly climbed the stairs to our flat, wondering what Cole had said to Dolly and whether it had to do with Destro. But surely everything couldn’t be related to Destro.

  My mind went back to Mrs Campbell. I’d have to get the inventory and then check all the contents of the display case to see if Mrs Campbell had been robbed. And if she had been robbed? What then? I had a strong feeling that if silver had gone missing, at least some of it had disappeared during the time I’d been at Avoca. Perhaps the missing spare key had been stolen. If so, by whom?

  I was sure that her daily helper, Ada, would have watched any visiting tradesmen like a hawk. I couldn’t believe it was Ada who was stealing silver; she’d been looking after Mrs Campbell for twenty years. Dolly stayed as far away from Mrs Campbell as possible and never went into her flat except under sufferance. I knew that Violet had taken tea with her on a few occasions, but surely Violet wouldn’t steal silver. It was hopeless. There was no way I could know who’d visited Mrs Campbell, or who was a likely suspect.

  Dolly was sitting on the couch painting her nails with liquid polish from her small and carefully conserved pre-war supply. She looked up when I entered the lounge room.

  ‘You look as miserable as a bandicoot.’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘Charming.’

  ‘Just improving your knowledge of Australian slang. What’s the matter?’

  ‘I think Mrs Campbell is being robbed.’

  The hand holding the applicator jerked so that a tiny spot of vermillion landed on the back of Dolly’s hand. She frowned at it. ‘Bother. Look what you’ve made me do.’ She swept me a glance. Her eyes were cobalt blue under the standard lamp.

  ‘Why do you think so?’ she said. ‘Did she tell you that?’

  ‘No. But I checked and I do think some of her silver is missing. I’m going to write to her solicitor and ask for an inventory so I can make sure.’

  Dolly went back to her nails. ‘If she thinks it’s all there, why interfere? If some silver is gone, why put her through the misery of knowing she’s been robbed? You’ll just upset her for nothing. She’d hate the police getting involved. Crawling over her flat. Telling her she’s too old to live alone.’

  I chewed on my lip. Dolly had a point. Why worry Mrs Campbell? I knew that her money would go to four stepchildren she saw infrequently, and who were all wealthy in their own right. Would they really miss those less-expensive pieces of silver? The really valuable pieces were still there, after all.

  ‘But I hate the idea of someone being able to get into her flat at will,’ I argued. ‘I think her spare key’s been taken. What if she wakes in the night and catches the thief at it and he hurts her?’

  Dolly held up a hand with nails of liquid red and shook it gently. I was reminded of bloody talons and felt rather revolted. ‘You can’t be sure that anything was taken,’ she said. ‘Get her to change the locks. Problem solved.’

  Changing the locks was an excellent idea. That way I’d know exactly who had a key, and I could keep a key myself to ensure that Mrs Campbell could get out of the flat if there was a fire. I’d speak to Ada about it and see if she could arrange for new locks to be put in.

  I smiled at Dolly. ‘You’re a bonzer sheila, a bit of all right, a beauty. That’s a corker of an idea.’

  She laughed. ‘Yes, yes, and my blood’s worth bottling. Not too much Aussie, please. Not in your accent of cut glass. It just sounds . . . wrong.’

  I sat beside her. ‘Doll, Mrs Campbell heard you and Lieutenant Cole having some sort of a fight on the stairs yesterday.’

  She became very still; her hands were still outstretched like a cat about to pounce, but her face was white. ‘Did she hear what we were arguing about?’

  ‘No. But she heard him call you nasty names. She heard you crying. Are you all right? He caught me on the stairs yesterday morning and was horrid to me, too. Should we mention it to Captain Molloy?’

  She swallowed and I saw some colour return to her cheeks. ‘It was an argument about work. He – he thinks I’ve been shirking my duties. He’s been in a foul mood ever since you were sent to work for Nick Ross.’

  ‘Did he want you to spy on me?’

  ‘That was the gist.’ Her voice was high and fast. ‘He wanted me to ask you what you’d been doing. I refused and he became very angry.’

  ‘I wish you didn’t have to work with the brute,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I do work with him. And there’s an end to it.’

  *

  The following Saturday, Dolly and Stanford invited a group of friends to dinner at the Athenaeum restaurant in Collins Street. By eleven o’clock they were all back at Avoca for nightcaps and the room was loud with tipsy hilarity. As usual, I was watching rather than joining in the festivities. I’d not drunk much at all, and was waiting for the party to end so I could go to sleep.

  I was surprised to hear a knock at the door. Dolly went to answer it and I was even more surprised when she returned with Nick Ross. He walked into the room with his usual poise, tall, dark and broodingly good-looking in his khaki uniform. I saw the longing in Dolly’s eyes when she looked at Ross, and was worried to see Stanford watching her closely.

  Ross’s smile was as sunny and unaffected as I had ever seen it.

  ‘I’m sorry to butt in like this,’ he said, after greetings had been exchanged. ‘I’d like a word with Stella. On the balcony?’

  Dolly looked daggers at me as I followed Ross into the cold of a moonlit night. I pushed up the collar of my jacket against the chill air and breathed lightly into the material, so as not to set off the coughing. Although the moon was full, and we had streetlights again, it was hard to make out Ross’s features in the gloom. I squinted into his face.

  ‘Eric Lund has been found and evacuated to Brisbane,’ he said. ‘He was wounded in the field, and the wound got infected.’ His lip curled. ‘Damn tropical climate. He was cared for secretly in a native village, which is why they didn’t know where he was. The infection is clearing up fast now he’s had treatment and he’ll be back in Melbourne soon.’

  Eric was alive
. He was alive and he’d be back in Melbourne soon. I felt as though I’d woken from a nightmare and I clasped my hands together tightly to stop the trembling.

  ‘How soon . . .?’

  He seemed to be amused by my question; he said nothing. We looked at each other for a few thumping heartbeats.

  ‘Thank you for letting me know,’ I said.

  Ross turned his head to look across the road to the dark shadows of Fawkner Park. His profile was like a Greek statue, too perfect for a real human being with real fears and hopes and desires. Perhaps that was his problem, I thought. He had always been too good-looking, too intelligent, and it had made him arrogant and self-destructive. But when I remembered what he’d said about blood and killing that terrible night when he told me Eric was missing, and I remembered the look on his face as he spoke about the failure of Kestrel, I couldn’t help wondering if the real problem was this war. It had placed Nick Ross into a situation he simply couldn’t handle, where he was in command of men, where he had to kill and where any mistake meant that people died. And he couldn’t cope with the guilt.

  The silence was dragging on. I turned towards the doors into the flat. ‘Well, I’d better . . .’

  He smiled into the darkness. ‘You’ve never liked me. Sensible woman.’

  ‘I don’t . . .’ I didn’t know what to say. He was a mystery to me, and to tell the truth, I had no idea how I felt about him, other than I was upset to think Dolly was risking losing everything because of her passion for him. I didn’t dislike Ross. In fact, the closer I worked with him the more I was growing to respect him, but I still mistrusted his easy charm.

  ‘You don’t dislike me?’

  His voice was scarcely audible, and I wondered if he wanted an answer. As I didn’t know what to say to him, I stayed quiet. After another painful moment of silence, I again turned to go back inside. His hand on my arm stopped me. I froze. And, totally unexpectedly, he bent towards me and put his mouth on mine. His lips were soft and skilled, but it was the trembling hesitation that made me respond, against my will and reason. When he pulled away my mouth felt cold.