Beneath a Rising Sun

by Peter Watt

‘David has survived so much in the past, and he is an experienced soldier,’ Sean reassured. ‘Nothing will happen to him.’ Despite this reassurance, Sean knew full well that surviving in battle was just as much to do with luck as with experience. David’s luck could easily run out, but he did not want to consider that possibility.

  ‘Thank you,’ Allison said. ‘What would we do without you in our lives – all of us.’

  Even as Allison thanked Sean he was troubled that he had underestimated Sarah Macintosh. From everything he had been able to glean about her, she was truly her father’s daughter, and that made her very dangerous. If she took over the reins of the Macintosh empire she would be as ruthless as Sir George.

  It was time to call Harry and ask him to take on a new job. He was to track down Chatsworth and get him to admit that he had framed Allison. That would not be easy as Chatsworth was a dangerous man in his own right.

  *

  For Sergeant Jessica Duffy life had returned to near normal, although she could not share with anyone her guilt over killing a man, even if he was a traitor and enemy of her country.

  Captain Mark Carr had put her back at her old desk and she was continuing her work encoding and deciphering the reams of messages that came through each shift.

  ‘Hey, Sergeant Duffy,’ Captain Carr said one morning when she reported for duty. ‘They want you upstairs.’

  Jessica knew that could only mean her old office below General MacArthur’s room. She fetched her cap and when she stepped outside she was met by two American armed police who silently escorted her upstairs. She felt that something ominous was in the wind and she began to feel very apprehensive.

  Inside the familiar office she was told by a clerk that the colonel wanted to see her immediately.

  Jessica knocked and was told to enter.

  She stepped inside and saluted smartly, standing to attention.

  ‘At ease, Sergeant Duffy. Sit down,’ the colonel said, waving to a chair in front of his desk. As usual he was chomping on one of his foul-smelling cigars, blowing grey smoke in the air.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Jessica responded dutifully, and sat down with her hands in her lap, awaiting whatever was coming.

  ‘I have been asked who I thought might be the ideal person for a special assignment, Sergeant Duffy,’ the colonel said, looking up from the file in front of him. ‘Considering what I know about your levels of initiative, and your proven ability to carry out a difficult mission, I thought you would be the right person for the posting.’

  Jessica breathed a sigh of relief but at the same time was intrigued. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she replied. ‘I am humbled that you have that opinion of me.’

  The colonel stared at her for a moment. ‘I cannot tell you what your assignment is,’ he said. ‘If you accept then you do so on a voluntary basis, without knowledge of what is expected of you. Do you understand what I am saying?’

  ‘I think so, sir,’ Jessica answered.

  ‘I can tell you that if you accept you could face great danger. But I also have to have your answer before you leave my office,’ he said, taking a puff on his cigar. ‘If you accept, you will be driven to your accommodation after our meeting, where you will pack a few things and then be taken to meet your new bosses.’

  Whatever the colonel was offering sounded both mysterious and exciting. Jessica had come to find her work poring through cipher traffic less than challenging but, given her history, had not hoped for a transfer to something more interesting.

  ‘Sir, I accept,’ Jessica said, and the colonel blinked.

  ‘As I said, it is a dangerous assignment, Sergeant Duffy,’ he said with a slight note of surprise. ‘Are you sure you want this?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Jessica answered. ‘If it is something that can help us win this war, I am prepared to accept, no matter what the risks.’

  ‘You are a truly remarkable woman, Sergeant Duffy,’ the colonel said with a note of admiration. He rose from his desk and walked around to Jessica, extending his hand. ‘Good luck, Sergeant,’ he said, shaking her hand. ‘We will miss you at Mac’s HQ. Captain Carr has told me you have done a great job down in the swamp.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Jessica said, feeling his firm grip. ‘I hope that whatever I do makes our section proud.’

  ‘I am sure you will,’ the colonel said, walking her to his door.

  Jessica stepped outside the office to be met by the two American military policemen. She saw the colonel nod to the sergeant.

  ‘We will take you home to pack,’ the MP said. ‘Then we will drive you to your next destination, Sergeant Duffy.’

  Jessica followed the two MPs, her mind swirling with a thousand thoughts. Only this morning she had risen from her bed, showered and changed into her WAAAF uniform to face another shift in her corner of the swamp. Tomorrow she could be anywhere, and facing the most dangerous mission of her life – whatever it was.

  Before the day was over Jessica found herself standing on the side of an airstrip outside Brisbane with only her kitbag beside her. There she was met by her new boss and his team of one.

  *

  Sarah Macintosh forced herself not to chew her perfectly manicured fingernails. Tomorrow would be the meeting at which her father would make his official resignation from the board and name his successor. She was almost certain it would be her, but she had a niggling concern that was eating away at her.

  That niggling concern brought her home in the late afternoon to the house she shared with her father and brother. Sarah told the staff that they could take the rest of the afternoon and evening off as a reward for their long hours of service, and they accepted with gratitude. Sarah now had the house to herself. Her father was in town, and Sarah sneaked into his library. She was sure she had seen him writing out his resignation speech a couple of days earlier, and had noted that he locked it away in his desk drawer. She retrieved the key to the drawer from the false bottom of a paperweight – she had known for some time that this was where her father hid it – and opened the drawer.

  Sarah sat down in her father’s big chair, rifling through the reams of papers until she found what she was searching for. Sarah scanned her father’s resignation speech until she came to the sentence she knew was so critical to her future. When she found it she gasped.

  ‘You bastard!’ she swore softly. ‘After everything I have done to prove myself worthy.’

  Sarah placed the sheet of paper on the desk as if she were handling a viper and sat back in the chair in cold fury. Her father would pay for his treachery towards her. But first she had to take steps to ensure that the speech was changed to suit her. Sarah knew that she could not attempt a forgery, so her father would have to rewrite his resignation speech, naming her as his successor. Her fury was now replaced by a coldly calculated scheme.

  She opened another drawer in the desk where she knew her father kept a pistol given to him by Heinrich Himmler when they had visited Germany for the 1936 Olympics. Sarah held it in her hands, staring with fascination at the deadly instrument of death. She released the magazine from the handle to inspect the loaded clip, and then reinserted it. Donald had shown her how to use the pistol when war had been declared in the Pacific – in case she needed to use it in defence of her life in the event of a Japanese invasion. The silence in the house was broken only by the lazy tick-tock of the old grandfather clock that had always been a fixture in the hallway outside the library. Listening to the clock Sarah wondered how much it had witnessed in this house over the years.

  All she had to do was wait for her father’s return. Nothing would stand in her way now.

  As she waited, her eyes roamed along the wall of the library at the array of Aboriginal weapons adorning the wall. She knew they had been gathered after a massacre of the native people who had once lived on Glen View. She wondered why her father would keep them when he was so fearful of some silly A
boriginal curse on the family. Sarah was not aware of the death that had haunted the family for almost a hundred years. The young woman did not believe in the superstitious beliefs of her father.

  The old grandfather clock in the hallway continued to tick-tock the seconds of time, oblivious to the concept that human lives were sometimes critically measured in seconds.

  Twenty-eight

  Sarah heard the footsteps echo in the empty house and knew that her father would come straight to the library as was his habit. She continued to sit patiently with the pistol in her lap, waiting for him.

  The door opened and Sir George entered the library.

  ‘Hello, Daddy,’ Sarah said, startling him.

  ‘Sarah, you are home early, and where are our staff?’

  ‘I gave them the evening off,’ Sarah answered. ‘I doubt that they will be back for several hours.’

  ‘What are you doing in here?’ Sir George asked suspiciously, walking towards her.

  ‘I found your resignation speech,’ Sarah said.

  ‘But I had it locked away,’ Sir George said in anger. ‘How dare you go through my private papers!’

  ‘I see that you have named Donald as your successor,’ Sarah said, bringing up the pistol from her lap and pointing it at her father, who halted with a gasp. ‘You know that I am the one who should lead the family – not my brother.’

  ‘You should not point that gun at me,’ Sir George said, realising that there was something in his daughter’s expression he had never seen before. It was as if she was possessed by an evil spirit.

  ‘I want you to sit down and write a new resignation speech, naming me as your successor,’ Sarah said, rising from the chair and gesturing for her father to sit down at his desk. She walked to the big windows overlooking the driveway and glanced out. The chauffeur had already driven away, and they were truly alone in the house.

  ‘I cannot do that,’ Sir George said, regaining his composure.

  ‘Then I will shoot you,’ Sarah said calmly. ‘I will call the police in a distressed state to say that I found you in the library – with the gun in your hand – and that I think you have committed suicide. I suppose that the idea of stepping down had become too much for you, and you decided to end your life.’

  ‘You think that will pass a police investigation?’ Sir George said.

  ‘I think so,’ Sarah said. ‘You were right about Chatsworth being a very competent man. He has been able to obtain your medical records for me. You have syphilis, and I think that one of the symptoms of that is madness, in the end. Yes, I will get away with killing you if you do not rewrite the speech.’

  ‘What is to stop me standing up at the meeting and simply saying that I wish your brother to take over from me?’ Sir George asked.

  ‘Because sadly you will be in hospital with a heart condition, and I will table your speech with your apologies for not being able to be there to read it yourself,’ Sarah said.

  ‘You would have to kill me to get away with this,’ Sir George said. ‘I had a premonition that this would happen. But I thought it would be your brother, who I thought had more reason to see me dead.’

  ‘Not if you pick up your pen and do as I say,’ Sarah said.

  Sir George reached for the fountain pen, pulled out a fresh sheet of letterhead and commenced to write, while his daughter took a seat in the corner of the room. After he had finished he used blotting paper to dry the fresh ink. ‘There,’ he said, holding up the sheet. ‘You are named as my successor.’

  Sarah rose and went to his desk to examine the paper and saw her name duly noted as her father had said.

  ‘Thank you, Father,’ she said. ‘I will arrange for you to be admitted to hospital tonight suffering a heart condition.’

  ‘You are a ruthless bitch,’ Sir George said. ‘But you are my daughter.’

  ‘Thank you, once again,’ Sarah said. ‘Let’s go downstairs and I will call for an ambulance. I expect you to put on a good show for them.’

  Sir George rose unsteadily to his feet and walked towards the door, Sarah following him. At the top of the steep stairs Sir George suddenly felt a hard shove in his back. He lost his footing and plunged forward down the stairs, coming to a hard stop at the bottom.

  Sir George was not dead but he had experienced a sharp pain in his neck as he fell, and blood flowed profusely from a blow to his head and streamed down his face. When he looked up he could see his daughter walking down the stairs, a grim expression on her face. He tried to move – but could not. It occurred to him that the fall had snapped his neck and he was totally paralysed, at the mercy of his daughter now leaning over him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Daddy, that it had to come to this,’ she said serenely. ‘I am sure you would have eventually reneged on our deal. I know you are not a fool, so I am sure you understand why I have to kill you.’

  Sir George stared up, terrified, into his daughter’s eyes, and could see an image of himself there. He did not want to die and she could still help him. Sarah stood up and walked away, giving Sir George the faintest of hope that she was going to call for assistance. He knew he was crying and he could not remember ever crying before in his life. Not for anyone but himself. In a moment Sarah had returned and was holding a cushion from the living room divan.

  ‘No!’ Sir George screamed, but his words were lost in the empty hallways and rooms of the house.

  ‘It will not take long – if you don’t resist,’ Sarah said soothingly as she knelt down and placed the pillow over his face, pressing down.

  Her father could not struggle and felt the breath being smothered out of him. In that time between life and death, his dead sister came to him, and standing behind her was the young woman he had murdered all those years before. He tried to scream but could not as his life drained away. His last experience as a living human being was sheer terror.

  *

  Sarah Macintosh, between fits of sobbing, was explaining to Detective Sergeant Preston that she had been in the dining room when she had heard her father’s cry for help, but by the time she had got to him he was already dead from the fall.

  The pair stood in the hallway as the covered body was taken on a stretcher out to the waiting ambulance. Preston was taking notes as Sarah sobbed and dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief.

  ‘I must compose myself,’ Sarah said with all the feigned dignity she could muster. ‘Tomorrow, Father was to announce his retirement.’

  ‘I heard that,’ Preston said. ‘My condolences for your loss.’

  ‘I believe my father has at least left his last wishes in writing for his announcement at the meeting,’ Sarah said, the tears drying up on cue. ‘I should attend to those matters.’

  Uniformed police were poking around the house but without much enthusiasm, as it was clear the deceased had died by accident.

  ‘Nothing much to report, sarge,’ a uniformed constable reported. ‘Do you need us here any longer?’

  ‘No, we are done here, I think,’ said Preston. ‘I will follow you back to the station.’

  Sarah excused herself and said she would be in the library if anyone needed her. The officers packed up and left the detective alone in the house – except for his prime suspect. He might not be the most honest policeman in the force, but he was one of the smartest. Preston had not been fooled, and he walked around the many rooms of the house. They were all immaculately neat and tidy. He entered the downstairs living room and noticed the expensive divan. A pillow had been thrown down on it carelessly and looked out of place beside the other, neatly laid cushions.

  ‘Well, well,’ Preston muttered, picking it up. He could see fresh blood on the underside. He smiled. Sarah Macintosh had slipped up. No doubt she had intended to dispose of the incriminating evidence but had been unable to do so before the police had arrived.

  Preston found his way to the library and entere
d without knocking. Sarah was at the desk perusing a pile of papers needed for the meeting in the morning.

  Preston held up the pillow to her and noted that she paled and looked like she might faint.

  ‘A nice memento of your father’s death,’ he said with a twisted smile. ‘You could almost say it was a death mask – from the impression painted in blood – as if it had been held over his face to hasten his death. Could you possibly explain how it was on a divan next to the murder scene?’

  ‘I . . .’ Sarah was cornered, and at a loss for words.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Preston said, lowering the pillow. ‘I am sure that you and I can come to an agreement. Your father once said to me that if he died under suspicious circumstances I was to look carefully at your brother. He never in his wildest dreams expected that his daughter would do him in. But in my experience women make much more devious killers than men.’

  ‘How much would it cost me for you to be discreet in this matter?’ Sarah asked quietly.

  The detective named his figure, which was very high, and added that it was only the first instalment. Sarah did not hesitate to agree.

  ‘For that price, I expect the pillow will be disposed of,’ Sarah said.

  ‘I will put it away carefully. But if you ever forget to make a payment, it will mysteriously turn up as evidence,’ Preston said. ‘Mark my word, I can make that happen.’

  ‘I believe you, Detective Sergeant Preston,’ Sarah said. ‘I will honour my part of the agreement.’

  ‘Good, then the evidence presented to the coroner will ensure a verdict of accidental death. Of course, the coroner can always override his own decision if new evidence is discovered.’

  Sarah Macintosh stared him down. ‘If that is all,’ she said coldly, ‘I would like to be alone to grieve my father’s unfortunate death.’

  ‘I will be in touch,’ Preston said, and as he walked away he shook his head. That was one very dangerous and calculating woman.

  *

  The unfortunate death of Sir George Macintosh was spread across the pages of the daily newspapers. One such paper sat on Sean’s office desk, although he had learned of Sir George’s death from Donald before the papers hit the streets.