A Time of Secrets

by Deborah Burrows

  I thought it was unlikely.

  ‘We also know that de Groot killed the Malay prisoner,’ said Sinclair.

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Turns out he knew the real de Groot. The false one couldn’t risk it.’

  ‘How did he kill him?’

  ‘Slipped poison into his mouth when he and the guard first manhandled him into the interrogation room. The prisoner was agitated because he feared de Groot and that’s why he fought them.’

  ‘But he vomited up the poison.’

  Sinclair nodded. ‘So, when de Groot went to help him he –’

  I broke in excitedly. ‘I know what happened. He put his fingers into the prisoner’s mouth. I thought it was to help him breathe, but he was feeding him more poison, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Correct. We’ve now learned that de Groot’s been using the empty flat for his transmissions since he arrived in Melbourne in late June.’

  ‘By the way,’ said Ross, ‘Allott has reported in from Timor. He hid himself and watched what happened when we made a drop of supplies to Destro. Bill Ellis came out under Japanese guard. Poor chap looked pretty bad, apparently. So Destro is now officially recorded as compromised. We won’t be sending any missions to Timor for a while.’

  Eric wasn’t going to Timor. I smiled.

  ‘Why was Cole there, in the laneway behind the flats?’ I asked. ‘On the night he was killed?’

  ‘We’re not sure. Perhaps he’d started to suspect de Groot. He may have been following him back to the empty flat when de Groot saw him, confronted him and killed him. De Groot’s denying the murder – says he found the body and just moved it – but we don’t believe him.’

  ‘Cole may have been on his way to attack Stella again,’ said Eric. ‘That’s what I think.’

  ‘I think so, too,’ said Ross.

  ‘So de Groot wheeled the body away to divert police attention from Avoca and the wireless transmitter?’ I said, trying not to imagine how much Cole must have hated me.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sinclair.

  I looked out the window. Ross was right about Melbourne weather. The beautiful day had clouded over and a light rain was now falling. Would this winter ever end?

  *

  Three days after de Groot had been captured I was tipping the used tea leaves into the geraniums when Lawrie Smith came out of Violet’s back door onto the landing. He was carrying his duffle bag.

  ‘You’re off, then,’ I said. ‘Back to the war?’

  ‘G’day, Stella. Yeah, I’m shipping out today. Won’t miss Melbourne. Too cold, too wet and too many bad memories.’

  ‘How’s Violet?’

  His face darkened. ‘She’s hanging on, but it doesn’t look good. Doctors don’t think she’ll make it and we’re all preparing for the worst.’

  ‘Oh, Lawrie, I am sorry. It’s been a long, heartbreaking couple of weeks for you and your parents.’

  He put the duffle bag down and reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. ‘Thanks for trying to warn me about that bastard, Cole. You know, he bashed Violet and left her for dead. How could you do that to someone you said you loved?’ He lit his cigarette and shouldered his duffle bag. ‘I heard he attacked you, too.’

  ‘Yes, he did,’ I said slowly.

  Lawrie’s eyes narrowed, and he took a long drag on his cigarette. ‘I reckon mongrels like that are as much the enemy as the Japs. Good luck, Stella. You stick with the staff. He’s a top bloke.’

  His boots clattered as he descended the wooden stairs. He strode purposefully across the backyard to the gap in the fence that led to the back lane. In a minute he was out of sight.

  I stood on the landing, watching the gap in the fence, gripping the teapot with both hands, mouth slightly open. How did Lawrie know that Cole had left Violet for dead that night? My mind worked furiously. Violet came out of her coma briefly on Monday. Cole was murdered on Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.

  Behind me the back door opened and Eric appeared.

  ‘Heard voices,’ he said.

  ‘It was Lawrie Smith. He’s shipping out today, returning to the Pacific front.’

  Eric took the teapot out of my hands. ‘Good man, Lawrie Smith,’ he said. ‘Tough. Does what has to be done, but he doesn’t enjoy it. Cool-headed in a crisis, too.’

  *

  Later that afternoon Eric came to Goodwood to take me to dinner and then dancing at Leggett’s, where we’d first met. It was still light when I emerged at five o’clock to find him waiting on the porch. I took his arm in mine and leaned into him, feeling the hard muscles under the rough woollen fabric of his khaki tunic as we walked towards the gate. The puddles on the path were pools of blue, glinting in the late sunshine. A light breeze ruffled my hair.

  ‘Everything okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Tickety-boo,’ I replied.

  He turned to me, eyebrow raised. ‘Tickety-boo?’ he repeated, deadpan. He put on a fake upper-crust English accent. ‘That’s simply wizard, old girl.’

  I laughed. ‘Go bag your head.’

  ‘We’ll make an Aussie of you yet,’ he said, smiling.

  Two jeeps full of Americans slowed down to a walking pace beside us on Toorak Road. The GIs called to me, entreating me to dump the sap I was with and go out with them. In response, Eric pulled me into a passionate kiss. The GIs whistled and made ribald comments before the jeeps roared off. When Eric released me, I caught the scent of flowers in the air.

  Spring was coming at last to Melbourne.

  Author’s note

  APLO is modelled on a branch of the Allied Intelligence Bureau known as the Far Eastern Liaison Office, or FELO, whose Melbourne headquarters were in a mansion on Toorak Road, South Yarra, known as Goodrest.

  The Destro mission is based on a disastrous Australian intelligence operation codenamed Lagarto, which was an operation of the Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD), not FELO. The circumstances are much as I’ve set them out in the novel, except that the Lagarto party landed in Timor in July 1943 and was captured by the Japanese army in September 1943. The farce didn’t end until July 1945, after a code-intercept station in Perth became convinced that the Lagarto wireless operator was sending under duress. This was made known through unspecified ‘unofficial’ channels, just in time to prevent the men in yet another intelligence mission from parachuting into Timor to certain capture or death.

  A report into the debacle found: ‘The Lagarto operation has no redeeming feature . . . To this failure can be ascribed the wretched deaths of 9 Australians, some Portuguese and scores of loyal natives. Even the Japanese must have despised the gross inefficiency and criminal negligence with which it was conducted.’

  The last message received by Australia, ostensibly from Lagarto, was on 12 August 1945. It read: Thanks for your assistance for this long while. Hope to see you again. Until then wish you good health. Nippon Army.

  Further reading

  ‘A Small South Pole’, Studies in Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, vol 4, issue 4.

  Kate Darian-Smith, On the Home Front: Melbourne in wartime: 1939–1945, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 1990.

  John Laffin, Special and Secret, Time Life (Australia), 1990.

  Joanna Penglase and David Horner, When the War Came to Australia: memories of the Second World War, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1992.

  Alan Powell, War by Stealth: Australians and the Allied Intelligence Bureau 1942–1945, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, 1996.

  www.ozatwar.com/sigint/sigint.htm

  trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/ (This marvellous site allows you to read the newspapers of 1943.)

  Acknowledgements

  As always, this novel would not have been written without the support, assistance and research skills of my wonderful husband, Toby.

  My thanks go to the
following, for their friendship and encouragement: the ‘coffee girls’, Felicity, Ilse and Maureen; SSO friends, especially Carolyn, Giselle, John Y, Sue Le S, Sue P and Sheila; also Jenks and David for military information; my nieces, Jessamy (and now little Nell), Susannah and Esther; Bevan, Mark and Vaughn; and all my wonderful ‘steps’, Em, Lucy (and Jacob, Olive and Sunday) and Nigel. And to my cousin, Bernard, who sent me his vivid recollection of seeing US navy men misbehave on a tram, which I used practically verbatim.

  Thanks also to my fabulous agent, Sheila Drummond.

  It is impossible to overstate the support and assistance given by the team at Pan Macmillan Australia: Haylee Nash, Cate Paterson, Samantha Sainsbury and Eve Jackson to name but a few. And my sincere thanks go to Ali Lavau, editor extraordinaire.

  Finally, this novel is also dedicated to the tough, resourceful and courageous Australian men who volunteered for ‘special and secret’ missions in the South West Pacific theatre. They went into danger that is now almost impossible to comprehend. Too many never came home. Lest we forget.

  About Deborah Burrows

  Deborah Burrows is a lawyer, historian and writer from Perth. She is currently based in Oxford and writing full-time. Her first novel, A Stranger in My Street, was published in 2012, followed by Taking a Chance in 2013. She was inspired to write about Australia in World War II by her mother’s stories of dancing with American servicemen in Perth. Her father’s exploits as a commando fighting in East Timor and New Guinea with the famed 2/2nd Independent Company were an inspiration for A Time of Secrets.

  Also by Deborah Burrows

  A Stranger in My Street

  Taking a Chance

  More bestselling fiction from Deborah Burrows

  A Stranger in My Street

  It’s January 1943. Australia is at war and Perth is buzzing.

  US troops have arrived, in what local men refer to bitterly as the ‘American occupation’, and Perth women are having the time of their lives. The Americans have money, accents like movie stars, good manners, and young women are throwing caution to the wind and pushing social boundaries.

  The war has brought nothing but heartbreak for Meg Eaton, however, stealing her young love eighteen months ago. Until, that is, she meets her lost lover’s brother, Tom – standing over a body in her neighbour’s backyard.

  Suddenly, Meg finds herself embroiled in the murder mystery, and increasingly involved with Tom Lagrange. But is he all that he seems? And what exactly was his relationship with the dead woman?

  Praise for Deborah Burrows:

  ‘Murder, mystery and romance weave a web of intrigue through the tensions and prejudices of wartime Australia. A rewarding read, I loved it’ liz byrski

  ‘With great characters and atmosphere, what follows is clever and rewarding’ weekend gold coast bulletin

  ‘a novel worthy of some of the world’s top crime writers. With her background in medical law and history, Burrows effortlessly and authentically recreates time and place. Rarely is a first novel so accomplished’ good reading

  Taking a Chance

  Perth, 1943.

  A time for taking chances.

  Eleanor ‘Nell’ Fitzgerald is smart – inside and out. For now, she writes helpful fashion advice for a local rag, but is bursting with ambition and plans to marry her lawyer beau as soon as he returns from wartime service. When she meets the handsome, famous and oh-so-charming Johnny Horvath of the American Press Corps, she finds herself dragged into a murder mystery.

  Convicted of the murder of her artist lover, Lena Mitrovic is languishing in Fremantle Gaol. Johnny is sure of Lena’s innocence and ropes in Nell to help him find the truth. During their investigation, they uncover some seedy secrets of wartime Perth: the other side of the ‘American Occupation.’ Girls and young women have been throwing caution to the wind, entering into romances and liaisons with the visiting servicemen.

  And Nell soon discovers that not everybody has good intentions . . .

  Praise for A Stranger in my Street:

  ‘Burrows draws on her work and life experiences to craft this interesting and entertaining story. A fine debut novel’ herald sun

  ‘A compelling combination of murder mystery and a tender romance’ west australian

  ‘This is one of those books where you think – I’ll just read to the end of this chapter before I put out the light – and then you find you just have to go on reading’ liz byrski

  First published 2015 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

  1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000

  Copyright © Deborah Burrows 2015

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available

  from the National Library of Australia

  http://catalogue.nla.gov.au

  EPUB format: 9781743536902

  Typeset by Post Pre-press Group

  Cover design by Nada Backovic

  Cover images: © Elisabeth Ansley/Arcangel Images,

  © Jill Battaglia/Dreamstime, Canstock

  The characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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