A Time of Secrets

by Deborah Burrows

  He heard my story with a calm intensity that was almost frightening. When I’d finished he said, ‘We need corroboration from Hadley. We’d best wire him now.’ He jumped out of the chair and went to the door. ‘Come on, then.’

  Helen Avery was the wireless operator on duty that night. When we piled into the room she froze and glared at me accusingly. I shook my head quickly and she seemed to relax.

  ‘I want to send an urgent wire to Perth,’ Deacon told her.

  When he gave the details of what he wanted to send Helen’s head jerked and she gasped. She glanced at me. I regarded her blankly, watched the struggle in her eyes. I gave a slight shrug and lifted the corner of my lips, and wondered how she’d interpret my expression. I hoped she’d tell them what she knew. If she didn’t, I’d have to do so once we’d heard from Perth. Helen swallowed and looked up at Deacon.

  ‘Sir, I think you should know something. It’s about Destro. About Bill Ellis.’

  She finished her story and looked down at the machinery in front of her, hands clasped loosely in her lap.

  ‘You’re sure that it was a different fist on the keys?’

  She nodded, still watching her hands.

  ‘And it wasn’t in cipher?’

  Another nod.

  Deacon’s voice was calm, but there was an undercurrent of steel. ‘And this was in April? You should have come to me about this. Told me as soon as you had suspicions.’

  Helen looked up at him. ‘How could I, sir? I’d been ordered not to by Lieutenant Cole. It was only a feeling, after all.’

  He rubbed at his eyes, and sighed. ‘Let’s send this wire to Perth.’

  The reply was quick. Helen decoded it and handed it to Deacon. We stood around reading it together.

  We wired APLO on 10 July 1943 after intercepting a Destro transmission that appeared to be sent under duress. This remains our view. Will dispatch further details tonight.

  Deacon looked at Helen, who had removed the earphones and was staring up at him. ‘Who was on duty on the tenth of July?’ he asked. ‘Who took the transmission from Perth on that day?’

  Helen opened her eyes wide. ‘It wasn’t me, I swear it.’

  ‘I don’t suspect you of anything,’ he said. ‘Could you check the rosters, please?’

  She went over to a desk by the opposite wall, pulled out a large book and began to leaf through it.

  ‘Sergeant Dolly Harper,’ she said, and my heart began to thump painfully. ‘She recorded a transmission from Perth on the tenth of July.’

  ‘What’s normal procedure?’ asked Ross. ‘When you get an unexpected transmission like that one, from an interstate code-intercept group.’

  Helen’s tone was affronted. ‘We deliver it to Lieutenant Cole at once, of course.’

  Deacon nodded. ‘Thank you, Corporal. Please keep this confidential. Don’t discuss it with anyone, not even Lieutenant Cole.’

  Ross, Eric and I followed Deacon upstairs to his office, where he picked up the telephone and asked the operator to put him through to Cole’s lodgings. He listened, thanked whomever he was talking to, left a message for Cole to call him and hung up.

  ‘Cole’s not in. Hasn’t been in all evening. They don’t know where he is.’ Deacon rubbed at his eyes again. They were red-rimmed and in them I saw fatigue, bewilderment and a touch of horror.

  ‘Why wouldn’t he tell us about this?’ He looked at Ross. ‘What good was there in keeping Destro going, in sending operatives up there, if there was any suspicion it was compromised?’

  Ross shrugged. ‘I suspect he simply couldn’t accept that it was compromised. If he did then I was vindicated and he looked like a fool.’

  Deacon shook his head slowly. ‘That wire from Perth, though. To simply ignore it? We sent Indigo Alpha up there after he’d got that wire. I know that they were all lost in the air crash in Darwin, but we were going to send the Indigo Baker party this week.’ He shook his head again. ‘And if Corporal Avery is correct about Bill’s fist on the keys, then Destro went off the rails much earlier than July. Eagle and Kestrel went up in April and May. We’ve been dropping in regular supplies to Destro and you know how dangerous that is for the pilots. How could Cole do this?’

  He ran a hand through his hair, tousling it into boyish disorder. ‘It’s nearly eight o’clock. There’s nothing more we can do tonight,’ he went on. ‘The dispatch from Perth will arrive some time tomorrow morning. I need to fully brief Captain Molloy and we’ll speak to Cole tomorrow.’ He waved his hand towards us. ‘Go home. I’ll wait for Cole’s call. Do you still have the Destro communications? I want to go through them.’

  As we were leaving, Deacon said, ‘Sergeant Aldridge?’

  I turned around.

  ‘Good work, Sergeant,’ he said in his quiet way. ‘You did very well indeed.’

  Eric, Ross and I emerged from Goodwood into a cold, clear night. The air caught in my throat and I pulled my scarf over my mouth, before tugging at the strap of my satchel so that it sat more securely on my shoulder. Ross’s black sedan was parked near the front door. He opened the passenger door.

  ‘Get in, I’ll drive you home.’ He glanced up at Eric. ‘You get in, too.’

  Eric and I stood still. I was waiting to see what he would do; I suspected he was waiting for me to make a move. I thought about protesting and saying that I was perfectly all right to walk the short distance to Avoca, but it was late and cold and Lance Cole was somewhere out there. So I shrugged and made a small sound to indicate assent, and I sat in the car.

  Eric got into the back seat and Ross drove through the gate onto Toorak Road. I was acutely aware of Eric sitting behind me. No one spoke. Ross pulled up outside the flats, turned off the engine and looked at me.

  ‘We’re coming in to check the flat,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘You can go.’

  I saw his quick look at Eric and it annoyed me.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I repeated.

  Eric’s voice was a low growl from behind me. ‘Eight days ago, the woman in the flat next to you was brutally attacked with an axe. Six days ago, Cole attacked you. You nearly died. You were discharged from hospital yesterday. The only other person in those flats is eighty-odd years old. We want to come in with you to make sure it’s safe.’

  ‘Mrs Campbell may be eighty-nine,’ I said, in a brittle voice, ‘but she’s very feisty.’

  ‘Please, Stella,’ said Eric. I felt a feather-light touch at my hair, scarcely a touch at all. I stared through the windscreen at the empty road. Eric had shifted forward and his words were low and intimate, very close to my ear. ‘We need to know you’re safe. Please.’

  I drew in a breath like a sob. ‘All right. Check the flat if you have to. But neither of you is staying. I’ll lock up tight when you’ve gone, and I’ll be perfectly safe.’

  They went through the flat room by room and checked the doors and the windows. Ross was at Dolly’s bedroom door when I put my hand on his arm to stop him.

  ‘It’s private,’ I said.

  He laughed. ‘I slept in there last night. Remember? I just want to check the windows.’ He glanced at Eric and disappeared into Dolly’s room.

  I also looked at Eric, who was standing by the curtains that covered the French doors to the balcony. He had a fixed, uncertain look on his face. In his neck the small vein was throbbing. He cleared his throat.

  I stayed silent. He grimaced.

  ‘I can’t make pretty speeches like Nick,’ he said, and gave a soft bark of laughter. ‘When he was doing his degree he used me as a subject to psychoanalyse. Apparently all of my problems stem from my sisters’ deaths. I heard them die, you know. Heard them choking to death, and I couldn’t do a thing to help them.’

  I looked up at him in wordless sympathy and he nodded. ‘Nick says that’s why I have this – he calls it
a compulsion – this need to protect the people I care about. Why I can never leave a man in the field, why I won’t accept a commission because I’d be too removed from the men, why I ran out on you at Leggett’s to help Nick.’

  He clenched his hand into a fist and hit his hip hard twice, three times; I winced each time he made contact. ‘It’s why I’m torn apart to think I wasn’t there to protect you from that mongrel Cole. Or from a disease that sucks the breath out of you. God, Stella! You were dying in front of me that night and I couldn’t do a thing.’ He gave another sharp, humourless laugh. ‘Nick says we’re all shaped by our past. You’re so scared I’m like your husband that you won’t give me another chance. You won’t trust me because I lost my temper that night. So now I can’t protect you, not from Cole – not even from Nick, who’ll break your heart.’

  I looked down to examine the carpet, unwilling to meet his eyes. ‘Nick won’t break my heart,’ I said. ‘It’s not –’

  The door to Dolly’s bedroom opened and Ross emerged. There was an odd, frozen look on his face and he was carrying something in a hand towel. ‘Do you recognise this?’

  I walked over to him to see what he was holding. It was a small silver snuffbox, beautifully made and exquisitely engraved. I thought I’d seen it before. With a stomach-wrenching jolt, I knew I’d seen it before.

  I looked at him stupidly. ‘It’s Mrs Campbell’s, isn’t it? Where did you find it?’

  ‘It’s Mrs Campbell’s all right. I remember admiring it when we were with her before Dolly’s bridge party. The initials on the lid are the same as my father’s, T.A.R., and I made a joke with her about it.’

  I said hesitantly, ‘Maybe it’s only similar to the one you saw?’

  He looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Perhaps Mrs Campbell gave it to her as a gift,’ I suggested.

  His eyebrow rose again.

  ‘Was there any other silver in the room?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m about to look now. Eric?’

  They emerged a while later carrying a silver spoon with a barley twist handle, topped by a thistle.

  ‘We’ll have to ask Dolly about this tomorrow,’ said Ross.

  Eric turned to me and ducked his head slightly, as if to ward off an expected blow. ‘We think Nick should stay here tonight. He’ll sleep in Sergeant Harper’s room again.’

  ‘I don’t want him to do that,’ I said. ‘I’m safe enough here. You’ve checked the locks.’

  Eric had a stubborn look on his face. ‘We don’t know where Cole is. Let Nick stay. Please, Stella.’

  I was almost comatose with exhaustion. My eyes felt heavy and my brain was fuzzy. It had been an eventful day and I’d not slept well the night before. I strode over to the front door.

  ‘Out. Both of you. I’ll be fine.’

  I must have undressed, because I was in my pyjamas when I awoke the next morning, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember doing so. I awoke to a fine, cold morning and a sense of achievement.

  When I remembered the silver we’d found in Dolly’s room, though, my mood darkened. It would have been easy for Dolly to sneak into Mrs Campbell’s flat and steal silver. Almost like a moving picture, a vivid memory of the day I first saw Eric came into my head. I remembered that I had been standing outside the alley in Little Collins Street because I was waiting for Dolly – who had been in a jeweller’s shop where they bought and sold antiques.

  There had to be an explanation, I told myself. Nick Ross would find out. In the meantime, I was well and it was a brand-new day. I took a deep breath and relished the feeling of air deep in my lungs. I smiled as I sipped my morning tea. Cole would have some explaining to do about the message from Perth. More importantly, the men in Indigo Baker would not be parachuting straight into a Japanese trap. And Eric would not be going back to Timor with Indigo Charlie.

  Eric. As I rinsed out my breakfast dishes I thought about how Eric had been last night, of the quick pulse in his neck and his hands stretched out in entreaty. Eric wanted me to trust him. Could I do so? He’d terrified me when he’d attacked Ross, because then I’d seen the wolf within him, the capacity for ruthless violence. Undoubtedly the wolf had served him well in this war, enabling him to survive when many would have died, but could I ever really trust Eric Lund, now I’d seen the wolf?

  I picked up my hat and placed it firmly on my head. When I checked my reflection in the bedroom mirror my expression was sombre, to match my mood. Ross had said that I shouldn’t push Eric away because of my fears; I had no idea where it would lead, but at least Eric and I were talking.

  Thirty-eight

  It was a bitingly cold August morning and the air was like an assault as I closed the front door of Avoca and stepped onto the path. The scene was more like England than Australia, as frost was heavy on the ground and spectre-grey, just like in Hardy’s poem. I shivered, pulling my army greatcoat more tightly around me. At least it wasn’t raining.

  There was no heat to be found in the pallid morning sunshine, and there was a dull, leaden quality to the light. Melbourne in winter was aquatint. I shoved my gloved hands into the pockets of my greatcoat, and began the short journey down Toorak Road, trying not to dwell on the events of the past week.

  As I walked eastwards I lifted my face towards the sun, as if I were a tropical flower seeking heat. My breath puffed in front of my face like a little steam engine. The sunshine had lifted my spirits and I delighted in the beauty of the winter’s morning. A few clouds were scattered across a sky of washed blue. The grass at the edge of the footpath had been painted a shimmering white by the frost and sparkled in the morning light. The scent of wood smoke and coal and damp vegetation was in the air around me, and the occasional whiff of mushroom. Voices and laughter of the AWAS women in the park to my right were loud in the still air.

  I was almost at Goodwood when I found him. At the front of one of the flats lining Toorak Road was a low brick wall, protecting a narrow garden with a thick hedge of boxleaf honeysuckle. Other shrubs had been thickly planted to fill the space, which was no more than a couple of yards wide.

  A sparrow led me to him. I heard a fluttering in the hedge and glanced down to see what had made the sound. The bird was flitting around in some distress and I wondered if I’d scared it somehow or if there was a cat in the vicinity. Then I noticed a khaki coat, or perhaps it was a gleam of sunlight on shoulder pips. I leaned down and lifted a branch to look more closely and then I saw him: an Australian lieutenant, tall, broad-shouldered and dark-haired, lying face down. He was lying peacefully, but so very still. Frost had whitened his hair and his face was pressed into the black soil and mulch in the garden.

  Somehow I knew right away he was dead. I felt not horror or sadness, but a sort of disconnection from what was in front of me, from the world around me. Perhaps that was why I was able to step over the wall and push aside the branches to squat beside him. I pulled off my glove and put two fingers on his neck, just to make sure. His skin was cold and seemed stiff, like leather. There was no pulse. Swallowing my fear, I gently lifted his head to see his face.

  Rising quickly, I crossed the road to Goodwood and went up to the young private on guard at the gate, pulling out my identification papers from my satchel as I did so.

  ‘Please.’ My voice was high and squeaky. ‘There’s a body in the garden of those flats.’ I turned and gestured towards the building with a trembling finger. ‘It’s Lieutenant Cole.’

  *

  I had the curious feeling that I was reliving something that had already happened, even though everything about finding Cole’s body was entirely different from when I’d found Violet.

  The private on the gate called out for assistance and the guard from the door was running towards him as I went through the doors into the foyer at Goodwood. I almost fell onto a chair near the reception desk and sat there, head bowed, staring at the multi-c
oloured tiles, as around me the commotion began. Running feet, shouts, telephones ringing, whispered conversations. Later, the sound of an ambulance, police sirens, the squeal of brakes. Those sounds were all beyond Goodwood’s gate. No one, not even the police, would be allowed inside Goodwood. I was safe in Goodwood. So I sat in the foyer, watched over by Betty, counting the coloured tiles and listening to the sounds outside the gate.

  ‘Come on.’ It was Ross’s voice. ‘Come upstairs where it’s more comfortable.’

  He put his hand under my arm and helped me to stand up. I couldn’t understand why I felt so weak, so disorientated. For one thing, there had been no blood. Plus, I had feared and disliked the man. Why then, was I shaky and rather tearful?

  ‘It’s the shock,’ I said, not looking at him. ‘That’s why I’m being so silly.’

  ‘Of course,’ he replied.

  ‘I thought it was you,’ I said, blinking back the tears.

  ‘But it wasn’t me. I’m fine.’

  I kept my head down as we climbed the stairs and walked along the corridor towards his office. The Turkish rug was still beautiful and it brought back memories of Eric, on that morning before he was sent away.

  ‘You don’t hate Eric, do you?’ My voice was low, hesitant.

  ‘Not in the slightest. And he doesn’t hate me.’

  ‘He hated Cole. Mary said so. He told me so.’

  ‘Not enough to kill him. Don’t worry about that.’

  He opened the door to his office and we went in. Eric was standing by the desk and my pulse quickened. I imagined how it would feel to run into his arms, to be held tightly by him. I imagined the comfort that would bring. We looked at each other. He made a quick movement. I flinched. He leaned back against the desk and turned his head towards the window.

  ‘Sit down, Stella,’ said Ross.

  I sat in a chair and took a deep breath. No wheeze. At least I was spared that.

  ‘Your old mates Detectives McGurk and Browne are on the case,’ said Ross, putting a cup of tea in front of me. ‘Drink all of this.’