A Time of Secrets (22 page)

‘Do they have any idea what caused his death?’ I asked. ‘It was so quick. Was it typhoid or some terrible tropical disease?’

Ross seemed to spit out the words. ‘Poison. It looks like poison.’

I stared at him, and a hysterical laugh bubbled up. ‘Someone was able to poison an important prisoner at Central Bureau HQ?’

He rounded on me. ‘You think it’s funny?’

‘No. I think it’s bizarre. And I think he must have known something very important to risk killing him like that.
Poison?
How did they give it to him?’

Ross shook his head. ‘It looks like he took it himself. Question is, how he got it in the first place.’

I said, ‘No. The question is, why did he feel he had to die? He’d been interrogated before. What was different about this time?’

Ross and I went over and over his two statements, looking for a clue.

‘He says that the Japanese knew about these bombing raids because of that
enggan
information,’ I said, pointing to a record of interrogation. ‘How would they have known? From a traitor here, or in Timor. How much do we rely on the Timorese people?’

The lieutenant seemed to snarl his reply. ‘We need the local people. Without them we can do nothing. I’m worried that the enemy is torturing them, killing them, to stop them from helping us, but I have no way of knowing for sure.’

‘Surely the Destro people on the ground could tell you that?’

‘That’s just it. All we’re getting from Destro – according to Cole – is that it’s peachy in Timor. I don’t buy it, as the Americans say.’

‘Can’t Cole be ordered to give the information to you? Let you see the wireless transcripts for yourself?’

‘Blamey’s not willing to go that far yet. Not to give a direct order.’

‘Well, we’ll just have to get the information some other way,’ I said.

He seemed amused. ‘How? Are you going to turn into Mata Hari?’ His face darkened. ‘Don’t try it with Lieutenant Cole. He’d eat you for breakfast.’

I flushed, and said nothing.

Back in my office I thought about what had happened that afternoon. The man had taken poison because he knew we were going to interrogate him again. What information did he have that made him decide to die rather than risk revealing it under duress? How had he got hold of poison? Was the traitor we were searching for in Central Bureau rather than APLO? Or were there traitors in both agencies?

I scowled at the desk in front of me. There was no way I could answer the questions, and besides, I had other work to do. Ross had placed more buff folders marked
Top Secret
on my desk. So I forced away the memory of the prisoner’s face, opened the folder in front of me and began to read the papers inside.

Nineteen

A
t lunchtime on Saturday, I slid my latest letter to Eric into the mail tray under Betty’s amused gaze and walked along the hall to the kitchen. The trays of army sandwiches had been delivered, but I only ate them if I was desperate and today I’d brought Spam sandwiches from home.

The kitchen was empty, but it would soon fill up. We had a small group of permanent APLO workers: two secretaries, a telephone operator, six clerks, four wireless intercept personnel who worked with Lieutenant Cole, two drivers, two privates who were general dogsbodies and four officers. The officers usually ate together upstairs, waited on by one of the privates, either Jim Pope or Ned Sparkman. The sentries worked shifts and they changed each day, as they were sent from army headquarters. There were often blow-ins from other APLO offices in New South Wales or Queensland and personnel from other intelligence agencies hanging around.

As I was the first in for lunch, it was up to me to make the pot of tea. I’d just poured boiling water over the tea leaves when Mary Massey came in, carrying a paper bag with her lunch in it. Because Mary lived ‘out’ with her parents and her mother made her lunch each day, Jim Pope called her the Cut Lunch Commando.

‘I wish you still worked in the drawing room with us,’ she said. ‘We miss you.’ Her cheeks puffed as she blew out some air in a sigh, and she sank into a seat near me. ‘They’ve put Sergeant Ayers in your spot, and he’s no fun.’

‘It’s only been a week since I left,’ I said.

I eased the tea cosy over the big brown teapot and wondered, as I did every day, who would choose to crochet together mustard yellow, lime green and maroon wool.

‘I loathe that tea cosy,’ said Mary, as we waited for the tea to draw. ‘It makes me bilious.’ She slumped in her chair and glared at the thing.

‘Is anything the matter?’

‘Why do you say that?’

I laughed. ‘Because you’ve got a face as long as a fiddle.’

‘I hate that expression,’ she said sulkily. ‘What’s it mean, anyway, “a face as long as a fiddle”? I can understand it when people say that a face is as long as a wet week, because we all know how long wet weeks can seem in Melbourne, but a fiddle? It’s stupid.’

She sat up and opened the paper bag she was holding. When she peered inside there was another exaggerated sigh. ‘Tomato sandwiches. Mum knows I hate them. Couldn’t she have made mock chicken?’

I felt like saying she should be grateful to have a mother who was alive and who made her lunch every day, but instead I smiled.

‘I’ll swap you tomato for Spam.’

‘Spam?’

‘Courtesy of the Americans.’

She perked up. ‘You bet.’

We exchanged sandwiches. I poured out two cups of tea and put a spoonful of sugar into my cup and two into Mary’s, before pushing it towards her.

‘So, what’s the problem, Mary?’

She chewed slowly, fingering the gold cross that was hanging around her neck. When she looked up at me, her chin was trembling.

‘Faye went out with Jim last night. And the night before.’

‘Oh.’ So
that
was the problem. It was bound to happen one day; I’d seen how Jim looked at lanky, good-natured Faye. I took a sip of tea and gave Mary a sympathetic look as she went on with her tale of misery.

‘Jane Corby says Faye didn’t get back to their lodgings until well after midnight. She had to climb in through a window because it was after hours. I bet Faye . . . well, you know.’ She leaned towards me, and dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘I bet she slept with him. And now she’ll . . . well, you know.’

I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. ‘Now she’ll what?’

The trembling of her chin increased. ‘Now she’ll marry him.’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘Why would she sleep with him, then?’ Green eyes gazed at me, perplexed.

I forced myself not to laugh. ‘You don’t know that she did sleep with him. But if she did, then maybe she simply wanted to. Not everybody thinks that you have to marry someone if you sleep with them.’ My voice became sharper. ‘You must know that, Mary. You’re not a child.’

‘But it’s
Jim
.’ She bent forward over the table and laid her head on her arms.

‘Even if it’s Jim.’

Her voice was muffled, but I heard her clearly. ‘Should I sleep with him? Would he like me then? See me as more than a kid? Sam de Groot likes me. He called me his
le
–
liebling
, his darling. Should I sleep with
him
? He’s nice.’

We were steering into dangerous waters, and the kitchen would soon be full of APLO workers. I gulped down the rest of my tea and stood up.

‘Come on, Mary, let’s finish our sandwiches in my office.’

Sam de Groot was coming out of Cole’s office when we got to my door. He smiled at us, but seemed surprisingly flustered. Mary lowered her eyes and smiled at the carpet as she crumpled the top of the paper bag holding her sandwiches. Sam murmured a hello to us both and carried on walking towards the stairs.

I unlocked the door and let her into the room. I’d locked the files away before I left for lunch and the room was bare and uninteresting. Mary managed to get inside before she collapsed into a chair and began to sob.

‘I really love Jim. Why doesn’t he love me?’

The unanswerable question. I think of him all the time, how can he not know that? How can he not share my feelings? How can I feel so much if he feels nothing?

‘All the nuns at school told us was how to keep boys away, not how to attract them,’ she said. ‘Girls are sleeping with soldiers all the time now. There’s no time to think about it.’

‘Have you spoken to your mother about any of this?’

Now even her ears were red. She seemed to shrink away from me. ‘I couldn’t talk to
Mum
. She never even thinks about things like
that
.’

My voice was dry. ‘How many children in your family?’

‘Nine. I’m the second youngest.’ The face that was gazing at me had not a trace of irony in its expression.

I tried my best. ‘It’s a big decision, to sleep with someone. What if it doesn’t work out with Jim? You’ll have to explain to the man you do want to marry that you’ve already been to bed with someone. That might really affect your marriage, or he might cry off entirely when he finds out you’re not a virgin.’

She winced at the word. ‘It’s not fair.’

‘No. But it’s the way it is with a lot of men.’

Frank had said that he didn’t mind me not being ‘untouched’, as he put it. He’d said that I was perfect just as I was, and my experiences before I’d met him had helped to make me that way.

He’d lied. Not long after we married, the relentless questioning began. I had no weapons to use against the barrage. Eventually I capitulated.

‘Oh, Frank, his name was Jacques Bloch. He was a painter.’

‘French?’

‘Yes. Well, his parents were Polish.’

‘He was Jewish?’

‘Yes. Well, he didn’t practise.’

‘Your lover was a dirty Polish Jew?’

I’d wanted to respond that my
first
lover was a Polish Jew, a wonderful artist and a generous, gentle lover. My second lover had been entirely French, and it was from him that I’d learned about passion and technique. I’d stayed silent.

‘How old was he?’

‘Thirty-five.’

‘You were only eighteen. The sodding bastard seduced you.’

I wanted to respond that Jacques had never promised me anything, and I’d taken what he’d given me with joy and gratitude. I’d stayed silent.

‘It’s a good thing I’m so forgiving. Not many men would accept a wife with a past like yours, you know.’

He’d lied again; Frank wasn’t in the least forgiving.

Mary was staring at me, red-eyed and puffy-faced.

I sighed. She needed to know all the pitfalls. ‘Do you remember what happened to Alice Doyle?’

Mary squirmed in her chair. ‘She got into trouble, didn’t she? She was there at camp one day and gone the next. Without any word. Just gone.’

‘They throw you out of AWAS immediately with a dishonourable discharge if you get pregnant.’

She winced at that word, too. ‘Poor Alice,’ she whispered.

I still wrote to Alice. She’d had the baby – a little girl – at an unmarried mother’s home, and had put it up for adoption. Now she was working in a munitions factory in Sydney and hating every minute of it.

‘You and Faye have been friends since camp. Good friends. Remember how happy you were when she was posted here? It’d be a shame to lose a friendship like that over a man.’

She bared her teeth in a wry grimace. ‘I don’t really hate Faye. I just wish Jim liked me instead. What’s wrong with me?’

‘Nothing’s wrong –’

There was a knock at the door and Ross entered the room, carrying a folder. When he saw Mary, saw her reddened eyes and puffy face, he gave a visible start, but recovered quickly.

Mary shot out of her chair to stand to attention.

He laughed. ‘No. Please sit, keep on eating. I thought Sergeant Aldridge was alone.’ He looked at me. ‘I’ll see you after lunch, Sergeant.’

Mary stood absolutely still for a moment after he’d gone, staring at the closed door. When she turned to me, her face had softened. She raised a hand to her cheek, and gently stroked along her jawline.

‘Gosh, he’s so handsome,’ she said. ‘Even more handsome than Lieutenant Cole. We don’t see him much downstairs. How do you manage to work with him? I’d just want to stare at him all the time.’ The tip of a pink tongue emerged to lick her lips. ‘What’s he like to work with?’

‘Annoying.’

Her face fell. ‘Really?’

‘He’s all right, I suppose.’

She smiled. ‘Does he have a girlfriend?’

‘He’s got lots. And he’s an officer. So forget about him.’

Mary made a sound like a soft snort. ‘A girl can dream.’

I smiled. ‘What about Private Pope?’