‘Kauffman?’ I was shocked. ‘It was Kauffman who locked you in the shed? Are you sure?’
There was a very small nod. ‘He pulled a gun on us. I think he’s responsible for Henzell’s death. Tell Munsie he has to find Kauffman – right away, before he can hurt Lily.’
His gaze moved to the nurse, who began to roll up his pyjama sleeve.
I made my way to the waiting room to use the public telephone, muscles complaining the entire journey down the corridor about the awkward way I had been sleeping. The police receptionist put me straight through to Mr Munsie, even though it was still early.
‘Good morning, Miss Fitzgerald,’ he said in his deliberate manner. ‘I’ve been speaking to Reverend Dodd. Your
Mr Horvath is a lucky man.’
‘Johnny wants to talk to you right away,’ I said urgently. ‘He says it was Kauffman who barred the shed doors and tried to kill him.’
‘That makes sense,’ said Munsie calmly. ‘Tell Mr Horvath I’ll be in to see him later this morning, and tell him not to worry. We’re already looking for Kauffman. We found Lily last night, and she told us an interesting story.’
I wondered just what she had told them.
‘Can you tell me about it?’
‘I don’t want to give too much away until Kauffman’s been found,’ he said. ‘But we now think it was Kauffman who arranged for Henzell’s death and we’ve got a warrant out for his arrest.’ There was a slight, mirthless laugh. ‘I’ll amend the warrant to include three counts of attempted murder – that’ll be a damn sight easier to prove than the story Lily’s spinning us.’
‘Can I speak to Lily?’
‘No.’
I thought about it all after I hung up. I didn’t really need to speak to Lily. Now that an arrest warrant had been issued, the matter was sub judice. It could all be handed over to Mr Penny, the Marvel’s crime reporter, who’d only be allowed to print the bare bones: that the police were looking for Kauffman, who was going to ‘help them with their enquiries’.
My part in all this was now over and I could concentrate on my other stories: the lost girls of Perth, the crusade to get Mabel Norton out of gaol, the plight of women prisoners. I smiled to myself; there were just so many stories waiting to be written.
As I walked back to Johnny’s room it was clear that the hospital was waking up. Nurses were bustling along the corridor, and lights were on in the rooms. The scent of disinfectant and that indefinable ‘hospital’ smell was almost overpowering. I wished I had my perfume bottle, to give Johnny a more pleasant fragrance to enjoy.
He looked slightly improved, I thought, when I came back into his room. The nurse had washed him and shaved his face. His colour was more normal, but although his eyes looked less strained there was anxiety lurking there.
‘Hello, beautiful,’ he said. ‘Thanks for staying with me last night. It made me feel better just to see you there when I woke up.’
I sat beside him again and took hold of his hand. ‘You seem a lot better,’ I said.
‘I got some strong stuff from the nurse just then, and it’s helped the headache.’
When I told Johnny what Munsie had said his expression lightened considerably. ‘It was Kauffman, all right. I was scared that he’d headed straight down to Fremantle to deal with Lily.’
‘I don’t understand – why did he try to kill you and the Buchanans?’
‘Do you remember how I picked up his sketchbook?’
‘Yes. It had rude pictures in it, didn’t it?’
There was a quick laugh. ‘How did you know that?’ The smile faded and he sighed. ‘Yes, the sketches were very rude indeed, pornographic really, and they were all of one girl. It was when the Lorrimers brought out the sketch of Susan and Lily that I realised the girl in Kauffman’s sketchbook was Lily. Her hair was different in the photograph they’d given us earlier, and she seemed . . .’
I felt slightly nauseous, because I knew what he meant. The girl in that sketch of Kauffman’s had seemed older, more knowing somehow, than the girl in the photograph. ‘Lily’s only fifteen,’ I said. ‘How horrible.’
‘It’ll be interesting to see what Munsie has found out from her. Poor kid. She probably thought she was in love with Kauffman.’
‘So, when Kauffman realised that you’d seen Lily in the sketchbook, he decided to . . .’
‘Yep. I think that’s why he asked to come back to Richmond with us. He knew I couldn’t be certain it was Lily I’d seen in his sketchbook, but he needed to make sure I kept my mouth shut anyway. He must have got a gun when he went back to his house to get changed.’
‘So that’s why you got Ces to come along as well, so Kauffman couldn’t try anything in the car.’
‘I thought I was so smart; I figured he couldn’t try anything once we’d reached Richmond and there were people around. But when you were at the station I got into a fight with the Buchanan brothers.’ He looked at me sheepishly. ‘They were tormenting Mrs Carter.’
I laughed weakly, although I really wanted to cry. ‘And you say I’m foolhardy.’
‘Nugget punched me. Next thing I knew I was on the ground and Kauffman was standing behind us with a gun, telling them to put me in the car. He held a gun to Paul’s head and told Nugget to drive. We ended up at that place where you found us.’
‘It belongs to a man called Ned Jenner, but he’s away at the war.’
‘Kauffman seemed to know it well,’ Johnny said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe he’d been meeting Lily there. Anyhow, after we’d parked in the garage he told us to get out of the car and face the back wall. I was expecting a bullet, but instead he closed the doors on us. We tried to break them open, but we couldn’t. And it wasn’t long before we were feeling sick and weak. There was one window, but it was up high. The last thing I remember is the Buchanans trying to push a table under the window, so they could get up to it. I was still by the doors and I must have passed out.’
‘Kauffman had left the electric blower on in the car,’ I said, ‘so the gas built up really quickly. Arthur turned it off.’
‘I should have thought of that,’ said Johnny angrily. ‘How are Nugget and his brother?’
‘Not well, last time I heard. You were better off because you collapsed near the doors and got some fresh air as it came in underneath.’
‘Tough on them,’ he said. He squeezed my hand. ‘How did you know where to look for us?’
‘Mrs Carter told me that you’d been taken by Nugget and Paul Buchanan and had driven off along Glen Road. She wasn’t very clear about anything really, but at least she got that right. I asked Arthur for help and we drove into every property along the road looking for you.’
‘And you found me.’ He smiled at me, but I remembered the terror of that car journey, and tears flooded my eyes. Then I couldn’t seem to stop crying.
‘Hey, I’m fine. Don’t cry, Nellie.’
‘I thought you might die,’ I sobbed. ‘I thought I might lose you. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.’
He opened his arms and I lay beside him on the bed. He held me tightly and let me cry myself out. Then I lay still as he stroked my hair.
‘Shhh,’ he whispered. ‘I’m fine. We’re both fine.’ I felt his chest move in a laugh. ‘Word around the hospital is that you’re going to marry that reprobate John Horvath. My nurse asked me if it was true. “Damn straight,” I told her.’
I twisted around to look up at him.
‘Damn straight,’ I repeated emphatically, in an American accent, and his mouth quirked up into the crooked smile I loved so much.
I left him when the doctor arrived to check him over, and went to the ladies’ room, where I washed my face and combed my hair. I was sitting at the shelf in front of the large mirror fixing my make-up when two nurses came in. They removed their stiff white caps and settled themselves on the chairs beside me to do their hair. One was tall and slim with curly dark hair; the other was a buxom blonde with a pout to rival Evie’s. They b
oth looked at me with interest.
‘It’s Miss Fitzgerald, isn’t it?’ asked the brunette with a smile. She had an accent from the south of the US.
I said I was, and asked how she knew.
‘Honey, you’re famous in this place for facing down Matron. Hoo-wee, you’re a brave one. She’s a holy terror.’
I laughed. ‘She’s pretty scary at that.’
The blonde was pouting in my direction. ‘And also because you’re here with the infamous Johnny Horvath,’ she said. ‘You really engaged to him?’
I nodded quickly, before turning back to the mirror to check my lipstick.
Blondie sighed audibly. She shot a glance to the brunette, who seemed unamused, then turned to me with her eyebrows arched.
Her look was pure malice. ‘He was a very naughty boy up there in the Philippines. Romancing all the girls. Poor little Betty Simmons. Have you heard about her?’
I ignored her, concentrating on refreshing my lipstick. I wanted to look nice for Johnny. As I dabbed some powder on my nose I was worried that I looked tired.
‘That’s right, honey, you just ignore her,’ said the brunette softly. ‘She’s just jealous.’
I quickly ran a comb though my hair, got up from my chair and smiled at them both rather stiffly.
‘I must get back,’ I said, and walked out into the corridor.
Tears were very close. How could I marry Johnny? He was such a player and I wasn’t that special. He’d tire of me and then what would happen, if I was married to him, in a strange country, far away from my family? Catholics don’t divorce. The idea of being trapped in a marriage with an unfaithful husband was intolerable.
The brunette caught up with me outside Johnny’s room.
‘She’s a nasty cat, that Annie Baker. Don’t you listen to her, Miss Fitzgerald. I knew Betty Simmons, and Johnny never encouraged her at all. What she did was plumb crazy, we all thought so at the time. Some of the guys up there, they were like alley cats, but Johnny wasn’t ever like that. He isn’t the Casanova he’s made out to be.’
She gave me a straight look and her smile was sweet. ‘But you know that already, don’t you? Johnny’s a good man, and he’ll make you very happy. Now you take care. I’m Thelma Martin, and I hope we meet again.’
She walked away quickly as I opened the door to Johnny’s room.
I sat beside him and took his hand. ‘I met a couple of nurses who knew you in the Philippines – Thelma and Annie I think their names are.’
There was an appraising look. ‘What’s the matter, Nell?’
‘Betty Simmons,’ I said. ‘Tell me about her, Johnny. I need to know the truth.’
He looked at me, unblinking, for a moment. Then he nodded slowly. ‘We should get it clear between us,’ he said bitterly, ‘because that story follows me around like a bad penny and it gets worse every time it’s told. Mason Turner knows the truth, and so does Rear-Admiral Fife. Believe me, it was thoroughly investigated at the time. But it’s such a loopy story that people just can’t believe the truth. And it wasn’t talked about officially to protect the girl’s reputation.’
‘So what really happened?’
‘Before Manila fell to the Japanese, I followed the US army to Corregidor as a Philippine correspondent for the United Press. From there I followed General MacArthur and his troops onto the Bataan Peninsula and I covered the last days of American action in that sector.’
I nodded. I knew all of that.
‘I’m no angel. I was single and we were all in danger. When you’re in danger, you take your pleasure where you find it. I dated a couple of nurses – one in Corregidor and one in Bataan. Both affairs ended amicably and no one was hurt. But I guess I got a reputation as a philanderer and that has fuelled the gossip. I never dated more than one girl at a time – I never have.
‘Betty’s in her mid-twenties, a pretty enough girl with brown hair and soft eyes. I guess you’d say she’s sweet-looking. I interviewed her for my Bataan piece – she’s the nurse I described as “looking lost as she gazed upon the carnage”.’
He shook his head disbelievingly. ‘Nell, I swear I never spoke four words to her apart from that interview. I never touched her.’
‘But that makes no sense,’ I said.
‘She’d left a note,’ he continued. ‘Said that she loved me and didn’t want to live without me. There was an investigation. When they asked her she freely admitted that there had never been anything between us, that I’d never encouraged her. So I was exonerated and she was shipped back to the US. She missed out on the fall of Bataan. Missed out on being a Jap prisoner, or worse, so it worked out well for her in the long run. That’s the story.’
‘The whole story?’
‘That’s it. Ask Mason Turner if you like.’
‘I believe you.’
That poor girl, I thought. That poor, stupid girl. I imagined her watching Johnny as he moved among the medical and nursing staff in Corregidor and Bataan. As he smiled his crooked smile, charmed all the nurses and romanced a couple of lucky ones. I imagined how much she wanted him to notice her, how desperate she was for him to look at her, to see her. But apart from that one interview, he never did. And so she decided that life wasn’t worth it without him.
Was it Johnny’s fault? He’d kidded around with the nurses, flirted, given them hope when he really wasn’t interested. That was who Johnny was. He was the sort of man who’d always kid around with women. Flirting was second nature to him, especially if it would help him to get a story. Could I live with that? I’d have to, because I couldn’t change him. That was the Johnny I loved and I’d just have to trust him.
He said, in a low, intense voice, ‘Nell, I love you. Can’t you believe me about that, too? I knew almost straight away. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. That’s why I want to marry you.’
It’s a leap of faith, falling in love. I watched his face, saw the fear flicker in his eyes. He was afraid I’d refuse to marry him. My face relaxed into a smile, which broadened when I saw his utter relief. He did love me. At this moment he did love me. Who knew what the future held? All I really knew was that at this moment John Horvath and Eleanor Fitzgerald were in love and were prepared to take a chance on each other.
‘I’ll marry you,’ I said.
Johnny held out his arms, and I climbed onto the bed and snuggled in beside him. He smelled of soap and sweat and ironed cotton. I breathed him in and felt his heart thudding against my ear.
‘You do know that you flirt too much,’ I said, pulling away slightly and giving him a determined look.
‘From now on I only flirt with you, honey.’ He pulled me close again. ‘Let’s start now.’
A little while later I said, ‘I think that’s called kissing and it’s usually considered to be way beyond flirting.’ I laughed, a bit breathlessly.
‘I’m making up for lost time,’ he murmured. ‘You’ve been playing hard to get. Now I’ve got you, I want to enjoy it.’
I didn’t have any problems with that and leaned towards him again.
‘When did you know you loved me?’ I asked a while later. I was lying on the bed beside him. His pyjama top was unbuttoned and my head was on his bare chest so I could listen to his heartbeat. I felt one hand playing with my hair, and his other hand was under my sweater, lazily stroking my bare back.
‘Looking back, I think it was when I got back to the hotel on the day I met you.’
‘On the Thursday? You didn’t know me at all then.’ I shifted my position slightly so that I could look into his eyes. ‘Is that true?’
Johnny smoothed out the wrinkles that had appeared on my forehead.
‘I did know you, Nell. Knew you were the girl for me. Spending more time with you just made me more sure.’
He made a face. ‘I don’t want that Father Tierney of yours marrying us,’ he said. ‘I don’t want my wedding used as a platform for his ridiculous anti-English sentiment.’
I giggled. ‘Fair enough.
Where, then?’
‘I met the monsignor at the cathedral a week or so ago. What about there?’
‘The cathedral! Aunty will be most impressed.’ And then I had to kiss him again, of course.
‘You seem much improved, Mr Horvath.’
The voice was dry, and it came from the doorway. We disentangled ourselves and I met the disapproving eye of a tall nurse with a broad, capable face. I pulled myself away from Johnny, trying surreptitiously to tuck in my sweater as I straightened up.
Johnny grinned at her.
‘It’s okay, Effie,’ he said. ‘We’re getting married.’
‘In the cathedral,’ I added.
I thought I heard her mutter, ‘And just in time,’ but I couldn’t be sure, and anyway it was probably true; I could barely keep my hands off him.
s the taxi dropped me outside our gate Evie came flying out of the house and down the path. She threw her arms around me and wouldn’t let go.
‘Nell,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Oh, Nell, you could have been killed. Aunty and I were so worried.’
‘I’m fine, Evie.’ I was breathless too; she had me in an iron grip. But I was also touched, because she seemed very upset. ‘It was Johnny who was in real danger. But he’s going to be fine.’ I pulled away from her and smiled. ‘I’m all right, really.’
Evie loosened her grip to look at me closely. ‘You’ve ruined your lovely suit,’ she said critically, before tucking her arm into mine and walking with me to the verandah. ‘Aunty May says that you’re going to marry Johnny. I knew you would. When are you getting married? Aunty May is so happy that you’re getting married to Johnny. So am I, but I don’t want you to go and live in America. Can I be your bridesmaid? What are we going to wear?’
Johnny arrived at Violet Grove just in time for lunch the following day. He had to endure one of Evie’s bone-crunching hugs and Aunty May’s rabbit stew and he bore it all with remarkable equanimity, including their questions about his health (the headache was still there, but much improved from yesterday) and our marriage plans (he had already started arranging the special licence, but hadn’t had time to look for a ring).
Taking a Chance Page 30