“Uncle and aunt? What uncle and aunt? I’m an orphan. What are you talking about?”
“Just hold your horses for a moment and take a few breaths. The story of your grandfather’s war crimes will pale in comparison with what I’m about to tell you. Let me know when you’re ready, okay?”
He pushed his head back hard into the pillow and then squeezed his eyes shut for a brief moment. A tear ran down his face, but he wiped it away angrily with the side of his hand and then stubbed his half-smoked cigarette out in the ashtray I held out to him.
“All right. You said it was good. I don’t know why I’m feeling so—”
“Your name isn’t Mark Dioli, mate, it’s Pieter Strickland, and you have an uncle and aunt and four cousins still alive and living in Hilversum, in the Netherlands. Your grandfather told me he’d written to them after the war and told them you’d died of tuberculosis, and there was no point writing. He kept all their letters. I’ll give them to you when you’re ready.”
His reaction was unexpected. I’d imagined shell shock, open-mouthed gaping, and wide-eyed staring, but what I hadn’t imagined in my wildest dreams was a man shocked to his core, weeping loudly into his hands and shaking with the violence of his sobs.
I thought it the better part of valour to allow Warwick to put his arms around him and comfort the devastated policeman while I found something else to keep myself busy.
*****
I left Mark and Warwick alone while I went down the corridor to the telephone to call Harry, who’d gone home to see how his parents were and to prepare his packing for our four days away at Zephyr.
“How did he take it?” Harry asked.
“Poorly, as I expected. He was so gobsmacked when he heard the news I thought he’d faint. But I’ve left him with Warwick. You remember how Warwick arranged help for Keeps’ nephew earlier this year? I think he’s going to suggest that Mark goes to a psychiatrist to deal with all of this. I can’t tell you how afraid he looked when I told him his grandfather may never come back home again.”
“A lot of victims identify with those who abuse them, Clyde. You must have seen it in the camps. Men toadying up to guards and eventually believing their bad treatment and torture was well-deserved. Dioli was taken by his grandfather at what age, six, wasn’t it? Twenty-three years of seeing beatings and abuse as a natural part of your life, no matter how painful and demeaning, were bound to be part of his normalcy.”
“I guess you’re right. Anyway, earlier this morning, the session went well with Steve and Art. We’ve got a good likeness to go on. I’ll develop my roll of film after lunch and make a few dozen prints to circulate.”
“Tom called me this morning, Clyde. Wanted to know where you were. I told him. I hope that’s all right?”
“Yes, he has a heap of stuff to sort out in the office, so I’ll call in there shortly. Hope you enjoy your evening tonight. Give my love to your mother and father.”
“Say, Clyde?”
“Yes, Harry?”
“Are you still wearing them, like I asked you to?”
I smiled into the telephone receiver. “Yes, Harry, and I intend to drop by the beach on my way to the office and show off the big bulge in my bright yellow swimmers to all the lifesavers on duty. Maybe I’ll get dumped in the surf and my Speedos will get ripped off in the waves. I might even have to put my hand up in the water and pretend to be drowning.”
He laughed. “What time will you be passing by the beach?”
I looked at my watch. “Oh, in about half an hour.”
“See you there. North end, in front of the storage area for the surf boats.”
“You sure you don’t want to wander around from Craig’s to the rock pool I took you to?”
“Sure, but let’s swim there from the beach.”
“Harry Jones, I’ll be worn out.”
“Not by the time we get there you won’t but I can’t promise you won’t be exhausted by the time we swim back.”
*****
As a special treat, I phoned Tom from the telephone box on the corner of Beach Street and invited him to join Harry and me for lunch at Stones. I’d seen the menu of the day and there was Hühnerpaprikasch—the German version of Hungarian paprika chicken—with noodles for six shillings and sixpence, accompanied by a salad, with a slice of Linzer torte and ice cream for dessert.
While we ate, both Harry and I went through our various agendas with Tom, giving him tasks he could be getting on with while we were away in the country. Harry’s list was quite small, mainly consisting of checking timetables of the trains out to Capertee in the west for his next adventure weekend, and asking Tom to contact the private bus company in Lithgow to see whether they could pick up the fifteen young men and women at the station on the Friday evening, drive them to the camp ground, and then return them to catch the last train home to Sydney on the Sunday evening.
My list, however, consisted of liaising with Jeff Ball, who’d arranged to have a ten-man squad to help search the storm water drains that the police hadn’t examined, and to comb the Kensington rifle range. Jeff had already notified the army captain in charge of the range that shooting would need to be suspended for two days before New Year to allow a group of trained men to sift through the areas that were free of live ammunition. There were always plenty of rounds that didn’t go off and it was very dangerous if you didn’t know what you were doing. I asked Tom to help Vince supervise the five policemen Brendan had arranged to be available for us from Bondi police station to do a complete and thorough investigation of all the vaults in the South Coogee and Bronte cemeteries.
I told him I’d call in to see the Bishops before Harry and I left for Howard Farrell’s, but also asked if he’d visit them on New Year’s Eve, with a small bottle of cherry brandy from Tom and me, and to tell them what we were doing about widening our enquiry into the disappearance of their children, but not to mention we were checking places where bodies might be found.
By the time the Linzer torte arrived, I had to admit I was feeling pretty full, but the sight of the golden, trellis-topped pastry case, lightly dusted with icing sugar, and the care and love with which Liesl Becker placed it on the table in front of us, immediately made my mouth water.
“Help yourselves, gentlemen,” she said, placing the knife on the table. “Cut the size you want. No skimpy helpings here. Your newspaper article has tripled our business, Herr Smith.”
“Ich habe mich sehr gefreut zu helfen, Frau Becker,” I said in my halting German.
She laughed at my attempt to explain I was only too pleased to have been able to help and gestured to her husband, who’d been peering out of the serving hatch while his wife had presented his wonderful-looking confection.
We waved and thanked him.
God, it was delicious! I was determined to get the recipe for his pastry. Sam could make the best pastry known to man, but this was outstanding. Short, buttery, melt-in-the-mouth—the man was a genius.
“What’s the jam?” Tom asked.
“It’s sour plum jam,” I replied. “The Germans and Poles love it.”
“Well, whatever it is, it’s very moreish.”
“Another slice?” I asked.
“Give it here, Clyde,” Harry said, taking the knife from me and cutting two enormous slices for him and Tom.
“Where’s mine?”
“Can’t have you packing on the pounds, Smith,” he said with a wink. “Not unless you get more exercise.”
His knee nudge under the table did not go unnoticed. Tom gave me a wink and I returned it, accompanied with a soft chuckle as I cut myself another slice—bigger than both of theirs.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Zephyr was nothing like I’d expected.
I’d imagined a late-nineteenth-century wool baron’s mansion, all wrought iron and imported brickwork, or at least a Federation-style sprawling beauty, surrounded with tessellated tile verandas and stained-glass windows sporting Australian wild flowers in shades
of red, green, and gold, like those of Mike Hissard’s house in Bellevue Hill.
What I’d not been prepared for was a spreading, two-storied affair of white wood, colonial balustraded magnificence that must have been surely one of the oldest houses in the area.
“Wow!” Harry had muttered as we’d turned around a bank of leafy rhododendrons halfway down the red-gravelled driveway. The house had slowly come into view, taking us by surprise. It could only have been built in the mid-1800s by a wealthy Sydney businessman as his summer retreat. It had all the hallmarks of unfettered wealth.
No sooner had I turned off the engine than the front door flew open and a young man bounded down the stairs. “Hey!” he said. Even in that one word, I discerned an American accent. He courteously, but firmly, moved Harry to one side and then retrieved our luggage from the boot of the car, placed it at the foot of the stairs, and then held out his hand.
I wasn’t quite sure what to do. How much was the going rate at a private house in the country? It was my first time away. “Keys!” he said, noticing my confusion and waggling his fingers.
“Oh, sorry,” I said. I handed the car keys to him, and he got behind the wheel of my convertible—we’d driven with the roof down—pushed himself back against the leather upholstery, and whistled low under his breath. “Nice ride, Mr. Smith,” he said and then beeped the horn and drove off.
I turned to Harry with a huge grin, but he gestured behind me. The twin of the young man had appeared on the veranda and had picked up our suitcases, my typewriter under his arm, and was waiting for us to follow him. “This way, gentlemen,” he said and then pushed the front door open with his foot, closing it behind us with a quick bend of the knee and a push with his backside.
“I’m Two, that was One who took your car, and Three will be looking after you during your stay,” he said, ushering us into a wonderful, high-ceiling room at the end of the corridor on the floor above, with view over a lake at the side of the house.
There weren’t many times since I’d known him that I’d seen Harry stand stock still, the wheels in his mind turning so obviously that one could almost hear them click. “You’re not—”
“Identical triplets, yes. Mr. Farrell sponsored us to come here from the Philippines after he returned there with the American liberation alongside General Macarthur. He knew our parents before the war, and we’ve worked for him since 1946. Our names are so similar, they’re confusing, and not even Mr. Farrell can tell us apart sometimes, so the house rule is One looks after outside activities, like tennis, the pool, riding, hiking, or whatever; Two is in charge of the house; and Three looks after special guests while they’re staying. He’s also Mr. Farrell’s valet. So, if you see any one of us and you need help just ask. None of us will be offended, and it’s easier to just say something like ‘could you ask Two if we could have lunch down by the pool’. Whoever it is will make sure the message gets to the correct one of us, even if it’s him you’re actually addressing.”
“What a great room,” Harry said, putting his hands in his pockets and walking to the window. I knew it was to hide his enormous desire to pry further. I must admit I wondered if having triplets work for him was Howard Farrell’s ultimate sexual fantasy, but then remembered how often I’d been told he always had some famous sportsman or actor on his arm … and in his bed.
“The furniture was Mr. Farrell’s grandparents’ choice—all of it locked up for fifty years in storage in a warehouse in the city. The house was a ruin when Mr. Farrell was given it by his father. We arrived from Manila just in time to help with the renovations. It took three years to get it looking like this, but it still takes my breath away. I can’t believe I actually work here.”
“Talking of work,” a voice said from behind us. Another of the triplets had joined us. By this time, I was standing next to Harry at the window and was gazing out over the lake. “Mr. Farrell says you should change into your swimmers—or not, it’s your choice—and join him down by the pool for morning tea. I’m Three, by the way,” he added as his sibling left us.
He put our suitcases on the bed and began to open them.
“No need to do that—” I began to say.
“Then you’ll be robbing me of my greatest pleasure. It’s my job to look after you while you’re here, and valet service for Mr. Farrell’s guests is what makes my life special.”
I looked at Harry and shrugged. We’d had similar treatment at the Windsor while staying in Melbourne.
“When you said it was our choice, did you mean whether to join Mr. Farrell or to have a swim?”
“Oh, no,” Three said with a bright smile. “The option was whether you wanted to wear your bathers or swim au naturel—like everyone else does.”
*****
“They didn’t look like Filipinos,” I said to Harry as we followed Three’s directions and made our way down to the pool. I’d been unceremoniously told I couldn’t wear my yellow Speedos, they were far more erotic than going naked, so I threw on the pair of pale-blue American shorts I’d stolen from Harry on Australia Day earlier this year. In the end, we’d decided to wear swimmers and then if Howard was naked, we’d strip off. “When in Rome,” Harry had said.
“Two said Howard had known their parents before the war. Perhaps one of their parents was an American? Or maybe both? They could easily have been working there in export/import when the war broke out. It’s not hard to guess they didn’t survive.”
I recognised the gazebo the moment we walked out on the veranda at the back of the house. I remembered it from photographs that Ray Wilson had taken, and it was also there that Augusto had told me he’d first made love with Daley Morrison. The path led around the back of it through dense plantings of summer annuals, perennials, and low bushes before arriving at the edge of the pool.
“Hello there,” Howard called out as he saw us come into sight.
“Guess it’s goodbye to cossies,” Harry whispered, shucking his off and then waving back to Howard. I took mine off and put them on top of my head, like a flimsy, lopsided hat of sorts. Howard laughed and then stood from his deckchair and shook hands.
“Dai!” he called out to a man who was doing laps in the pool. Serious laps, not paddling or casual breaststroke like I would be doing on a lazy summer’s day. “Dai!”
The swimmer didn’t seem to notice, so Howard picked up a beach ball and then threw it in the water. It landed a few yards in front of the man, who of course collided with it, turned onto his back, and looked back at us. He waved.
“Dai? Not—”
“Yes, Dai Carew, the Welsh one hundred metre champion.”
“We saw him in the semi-finals in Melbourne at the Games not more than a few weeks ago.”
“We’ve been casually involved for nearly a year now. I talked him into taking a couple of weeks with me after the Olympics before he goes back home. I rather think he may have turned me down had it not been for this,” Howard said, nodding at his huge swimming pool.
“That must be awkward,” Harry said, “managing a relationship over such a distance.”
“The team was here for months before the Olympics acclimatising, and before that they had the European summer at a training camp in Sardinia. Not so difficult for those of us who aren’t short of a penny, and I consider it money well spent because I did some business in Europe while I was away. I know it won’t last with Dai, more because of him than what I feel, he’s a career athlete. But why not enjoy it while it lasts, eh?”
“Bore da!” the young man said, striding up behind us, stark naked, drying his hair with a towel. “Howard told me you both meibion Cymry,” and then, when we looked puzzled, explained, “sons of Welshmen.”
My Welsh was minimal and I knew Harry had none.
He held out his hand, smiling brightly. My throat tightened at the sound of his gorgeous lilt. There was too much of my father’s accent in his voice for me not to react.
“Hello,” we said, in turn, shaking his hand.
&n
bsp; He was incredibly fetching. Far more so in person than his photographs had led me to believe. It was his personality that shone, rather than his even white teeth or mass of tousled short blond curly hair. No one could say he was classically handsome. His attractiveness radiated from within.
“It’s always a mess,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. He’d seen me glancing.
“Well, look at us four,” Howard said. “Standing here as nature made us. I’m glad you two aren’t shy.”
“Army boys can’t afford to be shy, Howard, as well you know,” I replied.
“Just teasing. Two’s just about to arrive with morning tea. There’s tea or coffee, or something stronger in the gazebo if you wish. Baking was done this morning so cakes and biscuits are not long out of the oven—just given enough time to cool. Please, eat if you wish. If you don’t nothing goes to waste around here.” He patted Dai’s tummy, who kissed the side of Howard’s face. It was very sweet, and such an enormous contrast to the serious businessman we’d had dinner with, and the anguished man I’d watched sitting opposite Greyson during his interrogation, that I couldn’t help but grin and wonder that I seriously wouldn’t mind cultivating a friendship with Howard Farrell.
*****
When Harry had suggested we move under cover because of his pale skin, Howard had stood and pressed a button on the wall of the gazebo. A large white canvas awning, ventilated at the top by loose flaps to allow the hot air to escape from underneath, had unfolded from a section along the front of the building. It was easily eight feet deep and twenty across, more than enough to shade the table and chairs at which we were to eat.
Lunch was to be served by Two, who arrived with a trolley a few minutes after the awning had been unfurled. He was dressed in the house uniform the triplets all wore—black shorts, a white opened-neck shirt, and woven straw espadrilles. There were no house rules, Howard explained, we were free to do whatever we liked. The estate and its amenities were at our disposal.
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