by Robert Gott
‘I’m happy to drive Guy back here tomorrow, but I won’t stay.’
‘Think about it. You might change your mind.’
In the car, on the way back to Kew, Joe and Guy analysed closely what had transpired. Had they fooled Prescott, or had Prescott fooled them?
‘He liked the idea that I had money,’ Guy said. ‘That seemed to blunt any suspicions he may have had, and when that old bloke passed him the note about this car, I think we had him.’
‘You had him when you produced those tears. How did you do that?’
‘Oh, that’s easy,’ and to prove the point he produced them again.
‘You should go on the stage,’ Joe said.
‘This is better than the theatre. Much, much better.’
TOM MACKENZIE KNEW perfectly well that he was bound by the secrecy provisions of the Crimes Act, and he also knew that any breach of those provisions amounted to treason in a time of war. Nevertheless, having invited his sister, Maude Lambert, and her husband, Titus, around for dinner, he had no intention of not discussing his first day back at work. He knew that Titus had met Tom Chafer, and he was eager to hear his view of the man. Tom was certainly not going to exclude Maude, who had nursed him back to health and who had been privy to his lowest moments, from the details of his new position. Chafer had said that he was to use whatever means he had to lure Winslow Fazackerly into betraying himself. He couldn’t do this inside Victoria Barracks. He needed to gain Fazackerly’s trust, and he thought that bringing him into his own family, although a risky strategy, would be the most efficient and practical way to do this. He’d suggest bringing him round for dinner. Fazackerly presented well, but if he really was a fifth columnist it would be like bringing a viper into the nest. Titus and Maude would be watchful and discreet. Maude especially had a gift for drawing people out, and for seeing through their shams. If Fazackerly was a spy, Maude Lambert would probably be the first to know.
Tom managed to turn unappealing and fatty chops into a rich stew, which he called a daube because he’d used beer in which to slowly braise them. He would have explained the process fully, but he knew that neither Maude nor Titus was particularly interested in culinary techniques. They did, however, enjoy the result. Neither of them knew he’d returned to work, and that took both of them by surprise. Maude had assumed that he’d wait until his left hand had been freed of its splint.
‘I had no intention of going back, until I got a visit from two blokes from Military Intelligence.’
‘Not that awful little arsehole Chafer?’ Titus said.
‘Not him, no, although I’ll tell you about my meeting with him in a minute. And he is an arsehole. No. It was two very reasonable men who suggested I might like to come back to work sooner rather than later, and by sooner they meant today. I suppose I could have said no, but I got the sense that no wasn’t really an option. For them, my saying yes was plan A, and there was no plan B.’
‘Intelligence doesn’t do plan B.’
Tom told them as much as he knew about Winslow Fazackerly and about Chafer’s instructions. There was no need to raise the delicate matter of the Crimes Act. Both Titus and Maude knew that Tom was breaching it, but they were pleased that he was. Maude particularly saw this as proof that her brother had fully recovered. There had been times, and recently, too, when she thought this might not be possible.
‘Do you know anything at all about Japan, Maude?’ Tom asked.
‘Only what I’ve read in the papers, and none of that is good, even adjusting for propaganda.’
‘Titus?’
‘Nothing. I’ve never met a Japanese person. I have some vague idea that they dived for pearls up around Broome.’
‘So convincing Fazackerly that we share his passion for all things Japanese isn’t going to work.’
‘I think our ignorance might work in our favour,’ Maude said. ‘But I don’t think all three of us should try to win him over. He’d see through that. Only one of us should attempt to gain his confidence.’
‘That’s my job,’ Tom said.
‘I think it should be me,’ Maude said. ‘I presume he’s not stupid, so he’ll be on the lookout for anyone inside Victoria Barracks who starts asking him questions. I, on the other hand, could reasonably express great sympathy for his wife, and be wide-eyed about whatever he tells me.’
‘I can’t put you in any danger, Maude.’
Pre-empting Tom’s as-yet-unexpressed plan, Maude said, ‘Invite him here for dinner tomorrow night. What’s dangerous about that? I’m not planning on meeting him in a dark alley to discuss helping out with the Japanese invasion of Australia. All you need is evidence of his treason. I think I can get that more quickly than you can, simply because your position will be a barrier to intimacy.’
‘Chafer helpfully suggested I should seduce him, only he wasn’t so polite in his language.’
Maude laughed. She leaned across and kissed Titus on the cheek.
‘Don’t worry, darling. I won’t sleep with Mr Fazackerly, not even for my country.’
‘Thank you, Maudey. How very reassuring. What if he looks like Dana Andrews?’
‘Oh well, if he looks like Dana Andrews I’ll start learning Japanese immediately.’
DR CLARA DAWSON was used to male patients, and even some female patients, refusing to allow her to examine them. She’d once told Helen Lord that the easiest patient to deal with was one who was in a coma. Generally, resistance to her ministrations vanished after the first examination. Soldiers were the most amenable. Whatever modesty they’d suffered in civilian life had been knocked out of them by the forced closeness of army life. Men in their forties and fifties were the worst. It was not uncommon for them to suggest that Clara couldn’t wait to get a look at their private parts. Clara had discovered that the best way to deal with this was with frankness, and she would tell them that the sight of their cocks would add nothing to her day, and in some cases perhaps less than nothing.
Clara was mostly confined to the female ward, but night shift and short-staffing meant that she went to wherever she was needed in the hospital. She knew that she copped more night shifts than the male doctors, but she hadn’t got very far in challenging this. In time, she’d come to prefer night shift, because many of the people who let her know daily that they considered her a glorified nurse worked normal hours and were absent.
It was just after 10.00 pm when Clara was called to the bedside of a man who’d been admitted that evening suffering a head injury and a shallow knife wound to the stomach. His injuries were superficial, but they bled extravagantly, especially the head wound. Clara shaved his belly and sutured the shallow slash, and bandaged his head. He was lean, but not underfed, and he wasn’t drunk. His dark hair was thinning, which made him look slightly older than the 45 he’d given as his age. His name was Kenneth Bussell, and he said that he worked for the railways. He’d given all this information to Clara as she’d set about cleaning him up. He’d shown no reluctance to being examined by a female doctor, although he’d expressed surprise when one of the nurses had addressed her as ‘doctor’.
‘How did this happen, Mr Bussell?’
‘I was minding my own business, just walking through the gardens near the Shrine. I was concentrating on not falling into one of those bloody air-raid trenches they’ve dug all over the place when some bastard jumped me. He clocked me on the head, and it knocked me out. When I woke up he was gone, and I discovered that the cu— … Pardon me, I discovered that he’d stabbed me.’
Clara had no interest in filling the gaps in this absurd story. Whatever had happened hadn’t happened the way Bussell had told it.
‘You’re a lucky man,’ was all she said, and left him to attend to another patient. She would check on him at the end of her shift, and would recommend that he be discharged. The police could deal with him from there on.
Clara gave no furth
er thought to Bussell. Her shift had been busy, and she was on her way out of the hospital when she remembered him. She found him sitting on the edge of his bed, redressed in his bloody clothes. The doctor who was with him was a man for whom Clara had little respect, either as a practitioner or a human being. Dr Gerald Matthews made no secret of the fact that he believed women were barely tolerable as nurses, and intolerable as doctors. He never spoke to Clara, unless it was to pass a snide remark. He’d seen her enter the ward, so it wasn’t possible for her to avoid him.
‘This man tells me you’ve given him permission to go home,’ Matthews said, and his tone managed to suggest the decision was the result of incompetence.
‘No. I told Mr Bussell I’d assess him at the end of my shift, which is why I’m here and not on my way home.’
‘I think I’d better do that assessment.’
Bussell looked from one to the other.
‘The lady doctor stitched me up. You haven’t even looked at me, mate. I think I’d prefer her to look at me again.’
‘She stitched your wound, did she? Show me.’
Clara retained her self-possession in the face of this attempt to humiliate her in front of a patient.
‘Open your shirt,’ Matthews snapped, and Bussell, with a little sneer of reluctance, did so. Matthews made a show of looking closely at Clara’s sutures, and sniffed as if in disapproval, but said nothing. There was nothing to say. The sutures were neat, and the wound was clean. He didn’t bother checking the head injury.
‘He’s all yours, Dawson. I’m happy to leave you with the paperwork.’
‘He’s a bit of a prick, isn’t he? Pardon my French,’ Bussell said.
6
WINSLOW FAZACKERLY DIDN’T consider himself an agent of the empire of Japan. He knew that his marriage and the time he’d spent there would have made him a person of interest to the authorities. In fact, he was amazed that no one had yet openly questioned his loyalty to Australia. No doubt, his family’s impeccable social credentials had helped protect him. He had no career ambitions in the air force — he was only there because his father had insisted that some form of military service was inescapable. He had no desire to see action. He wondered sometimes if this made him a coward or a pragmatist. The thought that he might be a coward didn’t appal him. He’d never admired heroes, either in fiction or in life — and real-life heroes were mostly fiction anyway. Heroes were stupid people who managed to survive their stupidity. That was Fazackerly’s view.
The moment he met Tom Mackenzie, he liked him. Mackenzie was personable, and seemed to be intelligent. He’d offered no explanation for the splint on his left hand, and Fazackerly made no inquiries about it. He wasn’t incurious, but his instincts told him that his discretion would be appreciated. Fazackerly also knew instinctively that Group Captain Mackenzie had been deputised by someone to keep an eye on him. Fazackerly didn’t mind being watched. There was nothing to see. He’d be suspicious of all overtures of friendship, but he saw no reason to reject them. Good company was rare, and by the end of Mackenzie’s first day he’d proved himself to be good company.
For his part, Tom hoped that Fazackerly wasn’t a spy. His immediate impression had been favourable. Fazackerly was witty and relaxed about the tedious nature of the job he was required to do. Air force people needed shoes, socks, and underwear, and Fazackerly said he’d rather be requisitioning them than wearing them. Tom was certain that Fazackerly was smart enough to know that he was being watched. It would be a strange dance that they’d be doing — each aware that the other couldn’t be trusted, and each determined to keep this knowledge from the other. Despite this, Tom wondered if a friendship might be possible.
At lunchtime on Friday, Winslow and Tom walked down St Kilda Road and into the city, where they managed to find a seat at the Hopetoun Tearooms in the Block Arcade. The lady who pushed the trolley between the tables was particularly attentive to the two good-looking men in uniform.
‘We get mostly air force in here,’ she said. ‘A cut above, don’t you think? Rarely see a bloke from the army in here.’
‘The air force is definitely a cut above,’ Tom said.
‘The corned-beef sandwiches are good today,’ she said, and so that was what they ordered.
‘Why the air force, Winslow?’
‘I liked the uniform.’
‘You don’t strike me as a person who’s comfortable in a uniform.’
‘Well, unless they’re tailored they’re always a bad fit — and I know that’s not what you meant. I was encouraged, shall we say, to join a branch of the services by my family. My father called in some favours, and here I am, safe in a stuffy office in Victoria Barracks, and back living in the family home. Do you have your own place?’
‘Yes, I have a house in South Melbourne. It’s not flash, but it doesn’t leak, except in one spot, which I wish I’d fixed every time it rains.’
‘I’m about your age and I don’t have a place of my own. Not in Australia, anyway.’
Tom’s face must have betrayed him, because Winslow said, ‘You weren’t expecting me to tell you that?’
‘Well, I’m not sure what it means.’
‘I don’t have a place in Australia, but I do have a house, or my wife’s family has a house, in Hiroshima, in Japan.’
‘Your wife is Japanese?’
‘As I think you know, Tom. May I call you Tom, outside the barracks?’
‘I hate being called sir, so please call me Tom whenever there’s no brass around to accuse you of insubordination.’
Tom was stalling for time, unsure how to answer Winslow’s comment. If he lied, Winslow would know it and any hope of getting close to him would be lost.
‘I’m sorry, Winslow, that was disingenuous of me. I was given your dossier, which has nothing in it that wasn’t supplied by you. I think Intelligence thought I should know, so that I didn’t go running to them with the exciting news that you were married to a Japanese woman. Believe me, if you were considered a security risk, you wouldn’t be working in Victoria Barracks.’
‘Or maybe that’s precisely where I’d be. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. That sort of thing.’
‘Your wife is in Japan.’
‘I haven’t seen or heard from my wife since 1938. It’s the greatest grief of my life.’
‘It looks like the war won’t go on for much longer.’
‘I’d be about as welcome in Japan as Etsuko would be here, and yet if I could get to her in Hiroshima tomorrow, I’d go. Does that make me a traitor?’
‘Your wife isn’t responsible for what the Japanese army is doing.’
‘But that’s not how people see it, is it? She’s the enemy, and the enemy is cruel and not quite human. And you have to admit, the Japanese army has done a pretty good job of reinforcing that view.’
‘You lived in Japan, didn’t you?’
‘Listen, Tom, I make no secret of the fact that I love Japan and the Japanese people, although I no longer say that out loud. I don’t, however, love everything about it unconditionally. I don’t understand, and loathe, emperor worship. What kind of god-emperor needs thick spectacles? The culture of obedience is unsettling to me, but despite everything, Tom, there’s something there that draws me in. I can’t describe it, but I’ve been seduced by it.’
‘I think people might be more forgiving than you think after the war.’
‘No. Why should they be? Their sons or brothers or friends have been tortured, starved, murdered. Brutality is hard to forgive. The truth is, my wife doesn’t belong here, and will never belong here, and I don’t belong there. I’m what the Japanese call a gaijin, which is an outsider, an alien, and, depending on who’s saying it, a potential enemy.’
Tom wondered if this honesty was the clever strategy of a different kind of potential enemy. He couldn’t see it. Winslow Fazackerl
y, if he was a spy, was a clever one. He was anxious to get Maude’s opinion of him.
‘My sister and brother-in-law are coming around for dinner tonight. Would you like to come? Titus is the head of the Homicide department.’
As soon as he’d added this detail about Titus, Tom wished he hadn’t. It sounded like he was big-noting himself.
‘If you come with me straight from work, you can help chop the vegetables.’
‘I’d love to come, but I’ll go home first and change into civvies. I don’t want to spend any more time in this uniform than I have to.’
Tom knew that Fazackerly was staying in his parents’ house in Middle Park, which meant that he lived within walking distance of Tom’s house.
‘Should I bring anything?’
‘A couple of beers, if you have them.’
‘I can run to that. I’ve got some decent cognac as well.’
Having settled on this, Fazackerly spoke further about his life in Japan, astonishing Tom with his description of communal bathing in the neighbourhood onsen. They returned to Victoria Barracks and the mundane work of requisitions.
JOE HAD BEEN against Guy’s staying at Prescott’s place on his own. Helen had at first agreed with Joe, but had been persuaded by Guy’s argument that Joe was needed on the outside, if only to be able to get Guy out in an emergency. She said it was important that Guy’s role be formalised, and entered him into the agency’s books as a consultant on a limited contract and a generous remuneration. Guy said that he’d do the work gratis, but accepted Helen’s terms when she insisted upon them.
Joe drove Guy to Prescott’s gate. A few hundred yards back from the gate and well out of sight of the house there was a large tree stump, the remains of what had once been a majestic and ancient river red gum. There was a split in the stump, and Joe and Guy had settled on this as the best place for Guy to leave his written reports and observations. There was no other way for him to communicate with Joe. Prescott had a telephone, but it was in the hallway in the main house, and any call from there would be overheard. Leaving a note in a tree stump was primitive, but the nearest post office wasn’t within walking distance. Guy was confident that he could leave the area of Prescott’s orchard without being seen. He’d do it at three in the morning if he had to. And, yes, he understood that taking notes would have to be done carefully.