Maralinga

by Judy Nunn

  ‘No, you don’t. You don’t see at all.’ He drained the last of his Scotch. ‘You had Penney and Titterton and that bore from Canberra right there in front of you. You should have been on your feet confronting them, if only to rattle the bastards.’

  Elizabeth took instant umbrage. ‘That’s unfair! I didn’t want to disrupt things for your sake.’

  ‘I can look after myself, thank you. I don’t need to be mollycoddled.’

  ‘I wasn’t mollycoddling you, for God’s sake!’ She was insulted. ‘I was only trying to be –’

  ‘Well, don’t. Don’t try to be anything other than you. Don’t change, Elizabeth. Don’t ever change. Be true to yourself.’ He stood. ‘I’m going to get the bottle.’

  He left for the kitchen and reappeared seconds later with the Scotch. She looked at him suspiciously as he sat and poured himself another stiff measure.

  ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ‘I had a couple earlier,’ he admitted, ‘but I’m not drunk.’ It was true, he wasn’t. ‘And I didn’t come here to talk about the conference. I came here to offer you my help.’

  ‘Help in what way?’

  ‘In finding out who killed Dan. That is if anyone did – I’m not so sure about that. But at least I’ll help you find out the true facts of his death.’

  Elizabeth felt an overwhelming surge of relief. At last she had an ally, she thought. At last she wasn’t alone.

  ‘You don’t believe it was suicide then?’

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘What changed your mind?’

  ‘You said it yourself. He had too much to live for.’

  He looked at her, her eyes shining with excitement and renewed hope. Christ almighty, he thought, the boy was going home to marry a woman like that. Why the hell would he kill himself?

  He took a swig of his Scotch. ‘I have to admit that I found it difficult to believe in the first place. From the little I knew of Dan he didn’t seem the suicidal type. Most of the others didn’t think so either, which is why the news was so shocking at the time. But the report was conclusive so no-one disputed it. Sometimes the least expected men are the ones who crack under pressure. You see it a lot in conflict zones. Dan’s mates would have been sick with guilt that they hadn’t realised he was in such a state.’

  ‘So if you don’t believe it was suicide, and if you don’t believe he was murdered, what do you believe, Nick?’

  ‘Oh, I think someone was responsible for his death, certainly, but I doubt it was deliberate. Pure supposition on my part, but they could be covering the fact that he was killed in some terrible botch-up. If his death was the direct result of human error, the army would have to mount a homicide investigation and word could get out. They wouldn’t like that.’

  ‘They’d go to such lengths?’ Elizabeth was horrified.

  ‘Stranger things have been known to happen, believe me,’ Nick said dryly. ‘Don’t forget, Maralinga’s a top-secret project. Security is a major priority. It’s understandable.’

  ‘It’s not understandable at all,’ she said, outraged. ‘It’s utterly reprehensible that a man’s death should be faked to look like a suicide.’

  ‘And then turned back into an accident for the sake of the family,’ he added. ‘Don’t forget that part.’ She was about to interject, but he held up his hand. ‘Stop it right there, Elizabeth. Calm down. Outrage isn’t going to get you anywhere. This is total supposition – I’m just trying to come up with a plausible explanation.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m probably altogether wrong, and you might be too. I’ll make some careful enquiries, but what if it turns out Dan really did suicide? Are you prepared to accept that?’

  ‘If the evidence is irrefutable, I’ll have to, won’t I?’ She stood. ‘But I think you should read his letter.’

  She disappeared briefly into the bedroom and, upon returning, handed him the letter without a word. Then she sat and watched as he read it.

  Nick tried to sift objectively through the letter’s information, looking for clues or some sign that might point him in the right direction, but he found himself personally affected by it. Beneath the expression of turmoil, the young man’s love was palpable, as was his belief in the loyalty and support of the woman he loved. It was clear to Nick that Daniel gained his strength from Elizabeth. In fact, the letter said as much about the person to whom it was written as it did about the writer.

  When he’d finished reading, Nick carefully put the pages down on the table. He felt a strange affinity with young Daniel.

  ‘What do you think?’ she said.

  ‘About what?’ he asked, hedging.

  ‘Do you believe that’s a man on the verge of suicide?’

  ‘No. I don’t.’

  ‘Thank you. A colleague of mine in London said I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if I were to present it as evidence. He said they would interpret it as the writing of an unbalanced, disturbed mind.’

  ‘He’s right. They would.’

  She was silent for a moment. ‘So where do we start, Nick?’

  ‘Where do you want to start?’ He knew exactly what was coming next.

  ‘With the threat of court martial,’ she said. ‘What was it the men saw? Why did Danny think Pete Mitchell had been killed for speaking out?’

  Nick had come prepared for this very moment, but strangely enough that didn’t seem to make it any easier. He downed the remains of his Scotch and took a deep breath.

  ‘An Aboriginal family was irradiated,’ he said briskly. ‘The parents and two children had camped in a bomb crater and their bodies were discovered some miles away several days later. The patrol officers who found them, and the members of the decontamination team who transported the bodies back to base for disposal, were threatened with court martial if they talked. I was the officer ordered to issue that threat. The episode was never mentioned again, even within the deepest confines of Maralinga. It was as if it had never happened.’

  ‘How shocking,’ Elizabeth said. ‘How truly shocking.’

  ‘The deaths were shocking, yes,’ he agreed. ‘The fact that we kept the matter a secret, however, was essential. For security reasons no other course of action could possibly have been taken.’

  Nick felt restless. He contemplated another Scotch, decided against it, and sat drumming his fingers on the tabletop. Elizabeth barely noticed his restlessness. She was too distracted.

  ‘But how could such a thing have happened? Reports were issued stating the local Aboriginal people had been removed from the area,’ she said.

  ‘That’s a load of bullshit. The situation’s impossible to police so they ignore it. There might well be other bodies lying out there undiscovered, who knows?’

  He wanted to shock her. He felt like being brutal. He was irritated and edgy. Didn’t she realise the magnitude of what he’d just done? But his shock tactics didn’t work. Elizabeth had moved on from shock as her mind busily added up the facts.

  ‘Pete Mitchell was the government-appointed Aboriginal liaison officer,’ she said, ‘and Danny wrote that he was a “tormented man”. Was this why?’

  ‘It was certainly one of the reasons.’

  Nick resigned himself to the fact that she was too busy playing detective to encompass anything else, so he poured himself another Scotch and downed a quick belt before continuing.

  ‘Pete was deeply distressed about the lack of consideration given to the Aboriginal people’s predicament. A number of the patrol officers were too. They still are.’

  ‘Understandably so.’ She paused before asking the question uppermost in her mind. ‘Do you think this terrible incident of the family’s irradiation has any direct bearing on Danny’s death, Nick?’

  ‘No, I don’t. But you said yourself, it’s a starting point, remember?’ She nodded. ‘Well, I agree with you there.’ He looked down at the letter still open on the table. ‘It all started that drunken night when Pete told Dan about the Abori
ginal deaths and the threat of court martial. Pete’s subsequent murder led Dan on a trail of investigation, and that’s where we have to start ourselves. Who did he speak to? What wheels did he set in motion?’

  Elizabeth studied him shrewdly. ‘You no longer believe this is a case of human error, do you?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ Nick was wary. The letter had certainly given him a fresh perspective, but he wasn’t at all sure what he believed and he wasn’t about to encourage any fanciful notions on Elizabeth’s part. ‘I just said that we should start our investigation where Dan did. And that means the fettlers. I’ll pay a visit to Watson tomorrow.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll be willing to help? They sound like a pretty tough bunch to me.’

  ‘They’ll do anything if the price is right. Do you have any spare cash lying around?’

  ‘About twenty pounds, but I can get more out of the bank tomorrow.’

  ‘No, that’ll be fine. We’ll pool our resources – fifty quid should do it.’

  She jumped to her feet and crossed to the dresser where she took a pile of notes from the top drawer.

  ‘Clever,’ he said. ‘No burglar would think to look there.’

  She ignored the comment, thrusting the notes at him. ‘And we need to find out who was the last person to see Danny alive, Nick.’ Elizabeth was excited now. With Nick’s help she was finally making progress. ‘If you could discover who it was, and the circumstances under which they –’

  ‘Oh, I know all that.’

  ‘What?’ She came to an immediate halt.

  ‘Everyone at Maralinga knows that.’

  Very quietly, she sat. ‘Who was it? Tell me. Tell me everything.’

  ‘A bloke by the name of Gideon Melbray was the last person to see Dan alive. Gideon’s the senior requisitions officer with the British Department of Supply, and he and Dan worked together quite a lot. They were probably good mates, I really wouldn’t know, but on the night of Dan’s death Gideon called around to his barracks and discovered him crying drunk. Dan was evidently carrying on about a plot to kill Pete Mitchell and making no sense at all –’

  ‘But Danny didn’t drink,’ Elizabeth intervened sharply. ‘Apart from the occasional beer, that is. I never once saw him drunk.’

  She was suspicious already, Nick could tell, but then she was so keen to hold someone responsible he supposed it was only natural.

  ‘Yes, so Gideon said. He was surprised himself. It was out of character, he said, Dan wasn’t a big drinker.’

  ‘So what happened? What did Gideon do?’

  ‘He told him to go to bed and sleep it off. What else could he do?’

  ‘What else indeed?’ Elizabeth’s tone was arch.

  ‘Gideon was apparently horrified the next morning when Dan was discovered dead. He said he’d had no idea that –’

  ‘So this Gideon Melbray was the sole witness to Danny’s anguished mental state!’ Elizabeth was unable to contain herself any longer. ‘Isn’t that just a little too pat?’

  ‘Take it easy, Elizabeth, take it easy.’ Nick once again held up his hand in a bid to halt her. ‘Of course there would have been reports other than Gideon’s – the police made a thorough investigation – but Gideon’s story was the one that got around the base at the time. He was the last person to see Dan alive, he’s the sort of bloke who chats to all and sundry, and naturally his story became the talk of Maralinga –’

  ‘I’ll just bet it did!’

  ‘Which, let’s face it, is perfectly normal under the circumstances!’ In his exasperation, Nick raised his voice, overriding her interruption and finally shutting her up. He gave her a second or so to calm down. ‘I’ll check out the other reports with the military police, I can promise you. Rest assured, Elizabeth, I won’t let you down.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said sheepishly. ‘I got carried away.’

  ‘Yes, you did. And what’s the point? There’s no sense in that, no sense at all – it’s not productive.’ He gave the table a decisive smack with his hand. ‘Right, so we now have a plan. I check out the fettlers and call on a couple of MP mates. I’ll let you know what I come up with next week.’

  He stood, swiftly draining his glass. ‘I’ll only get one more trip into town between now and the next firing. They’ve scheduled the second test for the twenty-fifth.’

  She also stood. The brusqueness of his manner surprised her. He was in a very strange mood, she thought. In fact, he’d been in a strange mood from the moment he’d arrived but she hadn’t really noticed until now. She’d been so excited about gaining his help that she hadn’t given a thought to anything else. But now she was puzzled. She was puzzled about a lot of things.

  ‘Why are you doing all this, Nick? Why are you helping me? What made you decide to tell me about …’ She tailed off. ‘Oh my God!’ Her eyes widened in amazement and she clapped a disbelieving hand to her mouth. ‘Oh my God, the Official Secrets Act. You’ve broken your oath of silence.’

  ‘Yes.’ The penny’s finally dropped, he thought. ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘But that’s a treasonable offence. You could be court-martialled.’

  ‘If someone betrayed me, I could, yes. I could even face a firing squad if the military decided to exercise the full measure of the law.’ His smile was wry. ‘I suppose that means I’m in your hands, Elizabeth.’

  ‘Why?’ She was dumbfounded. A man like Nick Stratton! The army was his life. It was incomprehensible. ‘You of all people – I don’t understand. Why would you do such a thing?’

  ‘I believe you have right on your side and I want to help you.’

  ‘No, it’s more than that. It’s much, much more than that. Why, Nick?’

  Then she read the answer in his eyes. His eyes quite clearly said: can’t you guess, Elizabeth?

  ‘You love me,’ she said.

  He said nothing, but his silence was answer enough.

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Probably for some time,’ he admitted. ‘I just didn’t know.’

  ‘When did you find out?’

  ‘Not long after I left you that afternoon. When I got over my wounded pride and the notion that you’d used me, and when I realised what you’d said.’

  ‘What? That I love you?’

  ‘Yes. You took me by surprise, I have to admit.’

  ‘And this is your way of reciprocating?’

  ‘I suppose it is.’

  ‘You could have just told me, you know. That’s the normal way.’

  ‘I don’t put much faith in words myself. Words are too easy, they usually mean little.’

  She smiled. ‘Actions speak louder, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.’ The answer really was that simple, he thought. ‘You need my help, Elizabeth, and I want to offer it to you in any way that I can.’ He would offer this woman his life if necessary and, indeed, perhaps he already had.

  ‘I accept,’ she said. ‘I accept wholeheartedly.’

  Later, as they made love, Nick no longer fought a personal battle with his body in order to maintain supremacy. Their union ceased to be a challenge and a test of his power over her, becoming instead a mutual exchange. He gave himself as freely to Elizabeth as she did to him, and when it was over and they lay in each other’s arms, he couldn’t remember ever in his life having felt such a sense of belonging.

  Tommo slipped the fifty pounds into his top pocket. ‘You better come in,’ he said, and aimed a kick at the mangy yellow dog sniffing around Nick’s feet. ‘Get out of it, you mongrel bastard.’

  The dog slunk away into the shadows of the verandah, and Nick stepped inside the shabby little cottage.

  ‘Stick the kettle on, Mave, we’ve got a visitor,’ Tommo yelled, and Mavis, a thin, sunburnt woman, appeared from the backroom.

  ‘Don’t bother with the tea,’ Nick said pleasantly. ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’

  ‘For fifty quid, mate, a cup of tea’s no
trouble, I can promise you that.’ Harry gave an ostentatious wink to his wife. ‘Put the kettle on, Mave.’

  ‘No tea.’

  Recognising the voice of authority, Mave halted halfway to the wood stove in the corner.

  ‘No tea,’ Nick repeated, ‘just a few answers to a few questions.’

  ‘Whatever you like.’ Tommo slumped into the soggy sofa. ‘Only trying to be friendly.’

  ‘Both of you, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  Mave joined her husband on the sofa, and Nick pulled up a kitchen chair from the nearby table and sat opposite them.

  ‘Do you recognise this man?’ He showed them the photograph of Daniel that Elizabeth had given him.

  ‘Nup.’ Tommo’s reply was instant, but Mave hesitated, glancing at her husband as if seeking permission. She’d copped it for opening her mouth in the past.

  ‘Fifty quid, love.’ Tommo nudged her encouragingly. ‘Tell the man what he wants to know. Mave never misses a trick,’ he said with a gap-toothed grin.

  ‘Yeah, I seen him,’ Mave said, ‘but not for some time now. Used to turn up for the train deliveries.’

  ‘What did you tell him about the murder of Pete Mitchell?’

  Nick got straight to the point. He saw no reason not to; Tommo and Mavis had both given evidence at the trial of Harry Lampton.

  ‘Eh?’ Mave looked at him blankly.

  ‘He was around here asking questions about the murder.’

  ‘No, he wasn’t,’ Mave said, ‘not him.’ She waved a finger at the photo.

  Tommo nodded; for fifty quid he wanted to be helpful. ‘No, he wasn’t, mate. The only ones asking questions were the coppers and the other bloke.’

  ‘What other bloke?’

  ‘Jesus, I wouldn’t know. Would you, Mave? The bloke who paid us the money – I wouldn’t know his name. He never told us and I never asked.’

  ‘Oh, I know his name all right,’ Mave said. ‘The pretty one. Ada always lusted after him, the slut. She never stopped talking about Gideon Melbray.’

  ‘Gideon Melbray?’ Nick said. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Course I am.’