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

US troops have permanently landed in the city 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, smart tailored uniforms and good manners. What’s more, they love to dance and show a girl a good time, and young women are throwing caution to the wind and pushing social boundaries.

Not Meg Eaton, however. The war has brought her nothing but heartbreak, stealing her young love eighteen months ago. Until, in the middle of a Perth heatwave, 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?

Debut author Deborah Burrows has brought her skills as a historian to the fore with this meticulously researched and thoroughly entertaining novel of love and intrigue.

For my mother, Mona Eastwood, who danced with Americans but married an Australian; for my father, Jefferson Williams, who fought a hard war and died too young. For all those who loved the ones who came back from that war.

One

Sunday, 3 January 1943

Perth, Western Australia

It was in the middle of a Perth heatwave, in the middle of a world war. It was the day I met my dead lover’s brother and discovered a body in my neighbour’s backyard. The day my life changed forever.

‘Hey, mister, did you lose them fingers fighting the Nips?’

I was on the front verandah, sprawled in a canvas deckchair on a sweltering Sunday morning. The boy’s high-pitched voice, coming from somewhere very close, entered my ragged sleep and jerked me back to gritty-mouthed reality.

Without opening my eyes, I raised my head to hear more. I knew that voice.

‘Did you, mister?’

It was Fred McLean from across the street, a sharp-faced youngster aged around ten, who was always on at the Americans from the nearby Catalina base for lollies. He was probably talking to an American serviceman.

I put my hands on the wooden arms of the deckchair and pushed myself up to take a look. The hibiscus bush blocked most of my view and the man with the missing fingers was almost entirely hidden, but I could see Fred clearly enough. Baggy khaki shorts hung from his thin hips and his grey cotton shirt was flapping loosely around him as he hopped from one bare foot to the other on the footpath.

I flopped back into the canvas, wondering if I should go out there and save the man from Fred’s grilling, but discretion got the better of compassion. I was not dressed for company. Overcome by a surge of patriotism in early November I’d decided to take seriously the government’s campaign urging us to create ‘new clothes from old’. I had dyed an old linen tablecloth a rather uneven green and made what the pattern book referred to as a ‘playsuit’ – a pair of shorts and a backless halter top. It was cool and comfortable and that was the best that could be said of it. It was also rather skimpy and I was showing a lot of leg. They were good legs. Peter had thought them terrific. I pushed that thought away, before memory could take hold, and concentrated on what I should do.

Although I was curious about the man with the missing fingers, I did not want to go out there dressed in a playsuit made from an old tablecloth. I decided to stay where I was, but I continued eavesdropping, of course.

‘How about that scar on your face, did you get that fighting the Nips?’

‘Shark bite.’

There was no accent. He wasn’t an American then.

‘Naaaaaah.’ Fred invested the word with three syllables and immeasurable scorn. ‘You’re having us on. It was the Nips, right?’

‘You’ve got me. It was the Japanese. Now, I’m looking for Mrs Doreen Luca. Do you know her? Do you know where she might be?’

The voice sounded familiar. It was Australian, nicely modulated and well educated. Not an English accent, but almost.

Doreen Luca lived two doors down; she often had male visitors, but they didn’t usually sound so posh.

I had a sudden need to see this latest visitor. Pushing down on the crossbars, I attempted to rise up and out of the deckchair. The canvas swung alarmingly and I fell back. Deckchairs often defeated me. I gripped the sides more firmly and pushed up again. This time I twisted out of the canvas seat entirely and landed heavily on the concrete.

I didn’t know many swear words, but I used what I had, muttering them under my breath as I knelt gingerly beside the porch wall rubbing a grazed knee. Peering through the mass of leaves I could now see the back of the man. He was wearing the khaki uniform of an officer in the Australian Army, the AIF.

‘Dunno, Captain,’ said Stan McLean, who was there with his brother. ‘I haven’t seen her all day. Saw her yesterday, though, waiting for a trolleybus on the highway around lunchtime.’

I smiled at Stan trying to help. Fifteen-year-old Stan was always trying to help. If Stan and Fred were out there, it was odds on fourteen-year-old Jimmy McLean would be close by, because he and Stan were usually inseparable.

‘Are you one of Doreen’s fellas?’ Young Fred was a merciless interrogator.

I heard a laugh.

‘No. I’m just a friend. If you see her, could you let her know I’ve been looking for her? My name’s Lagrange.’

Lagrange! Peter’s name, said in that way Peter had of skipping lightly over the ‘La’ to concentrate on drawling out the ‘grange’. La-grange. It was Peter’s name and it was Peter’s voice. My heart seemed to jerk, before settling somewhere in my throat and fluttering there with rapid, light beats.

I was on my feet and running out into the sunshine before I realised what I was going to do. My feet slid on the grass as I came to an abrupt halt in front of the man and I fought to stay upright while I tried to make out his face, but the sunshine was dazzling and I needed to shade my eyes with my hand. For an instant there was something of Peter there, something in the shape of the jaw, in the hollow at the throat, in the set of the shoulders. But all too soon my eyes adjusted to the light and I saw clearly the man who was standing with Fred and Stan McLean. This was a stranger. I examined the grass under my feet, and the dry rasping of cicadas filled the silence while I tried to catch my breath.

Peter is dead. He died eighteen months ago. In England. His plane was shot down.

I looked up at the neat red-roofed houses that lined Megalong Street. A radio came to life in a house nearby. Vera Lynn was singing that she knew they’d meet again; I knew it was a lie. No one spoke.

Perhaps it wasn’t really that long before I finally turned my gaze towards the stranger, but it felt like an eternity. He seemed surprised, and perhaps amused. My cheeks were burning and my lower lip was clamped between my teeth. I pulled it free and smiled at Stan.

‘G’day, Meg,’ Stan said, his face lighting up in an answering smile.

‘I thought someone was calling me,’ I said.

The sunshine was blinding. Heat pressed heavily on my head and my bare back felt as if it were burning already. The grass under my feet was warmly damp and the eucalyptus scent of summer was heavy around us. Everything was still in the breathless air except Fred McLean, who continued to hop back and forth from one bare foot to the other on the hot pavement.

‘No one was calling anyone,’ said Fred. Only feet as tough as his would be able to stand the concrete path in this heat.

‘My mistake,’ I muttered, looking down again.

I pretended to smooth the front of my shorts while tugging at them surreptitiously to reduce the amount of leg I was showing. My bare feet weren’t all that clean. Most embarrassing were the circles of dirt on my knees, from when I had landed on the porch.

‘Where’s Jimmy?’ I asked, hearing a degree of desperation in my voice.

‘He’s crook,’ said Stan. ‘He’s got a wog.’

‘He was spewing this morning, and Mum’s kept him in.’ Fred’s blue eyes were bright with the news. ‘He was real crook. Spewed up everywhere. Dad went spare.’ He hopped onto his other foot. ‘Dad’s home for a while.’

‘That’s a shame,’ I said, looking first at Stan and then at Fred. ‘About Jimmy, I mean.’

‘Good morning, Miss, er?’

‘That’s Meg Eaton. She lives there.’ Fred waved towards the house.

‘Excuse me, Miss Eaton, I’m trying to find Mrs Luca. Have you seen her today?’

The stranger had a nice voice. It wasn’t much like Peter’s at all, really, although the cadence was similar.

I had been staring at the dirt on Fred’s skinny knees. Now I flicked a glance towards the man with Peter’s name.

‘I haven’t seen her for a few days,’ I said.

I felt like all kinds of a fool for running out there like a mad thing, but I forced myself to look at him directly, to meet those dark eyes. There was nothing of Peter in the face before me.

Peter had been solidly built, with blue eyes under a mess of sandy blond hair and a spray of freckles across his nose. This man was tall, dark haired and dark eyed, with a long, straight nose in a tanned face. He was broad shouldered and stood with the upright bearing of a soldier, but he was too thin. His injuries made it clear that he had seen combat. The scar Fred had referred to started below his left eyebrow and ended just above his mouth, which was slightly twisted up because of it. This gave him a rather sardonic appearance. Still, I thought he was an attractive man.

I remembered the missing fingers Fred had mentioned and glanced at the man’s right hand. It was at his side, long-fingered and perfect. I flashed a look to his left. He was holding his left hand partly tucked into his khaki trousers. I wondered if he was trying to hide it. He could have worn a glove, though it was hot weather for gloves, I suppose.

Realisation dawned as I raised my eyes to meet his. Lagrange was not a common name. This was surely Peter’s older brother, Tom. I made a soft, startled sound. He glanced at me, surprised, and I blushed.

‘If you see Mrs Luca, would you mind telling her that Tom Lagrange is looking for her?’ he said.

‘Yes, Captain Lagrange. I’ll be sure to tell her if I see her.’ My voice was flat. Peter’s brother.

He no longer seemed politely indifferent. Now he appeared to be sizing me up, and he was obviously trying to place me.

‘I think we’ve met. Do you recall?’ he asked.

We had met briefly once before, years ago, but we had never been formally introduced. Peter had said Tom’s memory was almost photographic.

‘I don’t think so.’

I don’t know why I said that.

‘Perhaps you’ve seen me around. Perth’s just a big country town, really,’ I said quickly.

I wished him gone now, and it probably showed on my face. He was nothing like Peter; he was nothing to me. Captain Lagrange gave me an uncertain smile, murmured a thank you, and turned to walk away. This allowed me a clear look at his left hand. The middle finger was missing from above the first joint and the fourth and fifth were missing entirely. The scar tissue was still red.

It was a moment before I realised that he’d stopped walking and had turned to face me. To my intense embarrassment he held up the injured hand for my inspection, before giving a small bow of his head and continuing on his way.

At least you’re alive, I wanted to call out to him. At least you’re still alive.

He reached the corner, turned and passed out of sight.

I clenched my hands into fists and then opened them, stretching out the fingers. My face was burning. Injured and maimed soldiers were a common sight now the troops had been recalled to Australia and it was considered very poor form to stare at them.

‘Do you reckon a Nip sliced them off with a sword?’ Fred asked Stan, making a sharp swiping movement with his right hand across his left.

I flinched.

‘Dunno,’ said Stan. ‘I reckon if a Nip got close enough to do that he’d have finished him off.’

‘Unless he had a sword too, or a gun.’ Fred’s voice rose with excitement. ‘Maybe he was fighting two of them and one slashed his face and he had to shoot that one first and while he was doing that the other one got his hand and then he shot the other one.’

Stan considered this, nodding slowly. ‘Maybe.’

‘Oh, be quiet, you two,’ I said. ‘The poor man was injured fighting for Australia. However it happened, he’s a hero. There’s no need to look at him like he’s a freak or to go on about it so.’ Face flaming, I turned and walked quickly back to the house.

Two

I opened the door to the smell of baked rabbit. Ma and Joan were at church and wouldn’t be back for an hour or so. I had stopped going to church. I had stopped doing a lot of things after Peter died.

It was a little cooler inside the house. I closed the front door against the heat, and headed to the bathroom, where I washed my face in cool water and scrubbed at the dirt on my legs and feet until they were clean again.

I went to the kitchen to check the rabbits. It defied common sense to have a hot baked lunch every Sunday, no matter how sweltering the weather might be. But my English father had insisted on it, and although he’d been dead since I was a baby, it was a family tradition that would never be changed. He had also insisted on kippers for breakfast, but my mother hadn’t hesitated in letting that tradition fade away, at least.

My father was a casualty of the Great War, even though he didn’t actually die until 1922. He’d joined the Australian Army in 1916, after he learned of the death of his younger brother in France. He said it was his duty to go off to war, but it meant leaving a wife and two small daughters behind in Kalgoorlie. On the sideboard in the dining room was a photograph, taken just before he left, of my father standing stiffly in his uniform next to his wife and daughters. My sisters Joan and Mary, who were five and three, regarded the camera with blank, confused stares, and Father appeared grimly determined, like a man who was tired of arguing the point of why he had to go away to war. Ma hated that photograph. ‘I look so sad,’ she always said when she saw it. ‘Because I was so sad.’

My father, Charles Eaton, was an English accountant who had never fired a gun before, and the experience of war destroyed him. He returned to find that his job had been given to someone else and he spent his time drinking to forget what he’d seen and done in the battlefields of France. He lived long enough to see me born and then died of influenza. So he never knew that despite the ‘war to end all wars’, within seventeen years of his death the world would be tearing itself apart, yet again.

One wall of our kitchen was covered in war zone maps of Europe, the Middle East and Asia. We Eaton women kept a sharp eye on the state of the war, and our knowledge of geography had expanded amazingly since 1939. Coloured pins on the three maps indicated the various fighting fronts, and although the situation was not as dire as it had been last year, it was clear the war would not be won quickly. The same maps were on walls all over Perth, all over Australia. The capture of Tsymlyanskaya by the Red Army last week was being avidly discussed by people who, before the war, would have been hard-pressed to say exactly where Moscow was.

A blast of hot air hit my face as I opened the oven and pulled out the casserole. Two rabbits were wrapped in bacon and bubbling away with carrots and onions. I didn’t care much for baked rabbit, but accepted its inevitability given the meat rationing, and Ma had a good recipe. Replacing the dish, I checked the stovetop. Stewed plums and custard for dessert.

The rabbits had come from Stan and Jimmy McLean, who trapped them in the nearby bushland and sold them for two and six a pair. Stan and Jimmy were the eldest of the five McLean boys. They were a bunch of curly-haired larrikins who lived in the house across the road with their mother, Marie. She was raising them while their father, Cec, was away in the Navy.

My mother, sister Joan and I were very fond of Stan and Jimmy. We had come to rely on them to help us with household jobs like fixing blown fuses, clearing blocked drains and changing tap washers. A few months ago they’d managed to trap a possum that had got into our roof. Ma often said that she didn’t know what she would do without them.

Listless, I began to set the table in our small dining room. Through the leadlight windows, I could see the street was empty. The McLean boys must have gone home to lunch. As I laid out cutlery and serviettes, I replayed the scene that had just happened and grimaced self-consciously at what a fool I’d made of myself. Running out like that, gawping at Tom Lagrange like an idiot, and staring so rudely at his hand. I groaned. Peter would have been mortified. He had adored his brother.

‘Tom’s the brains of our family, Meg,’ he’d once told me. ‘He’s going to teach literature at university when he’s back from Oxford. But you name it, he’s good at it. That’s how he won the Rhodes. He’s amazing at maths too, and sport, music, science . . . I’m a poor second.’ His eyes shone with pride.

We’d been picnicking in a secluded part of Kings Park. We were at that stage where we thought of little else but each other when we were apart, and were unable to keep our hands off each other when we were together. I’d been telling Peter how I was often plagued by my sister Joan, who could be terribly bossy. He was sympathetic, but obviously didn’t feel the same way about his older brother. Maybe it was different for boys.

‘His memory is almost photographic,’ Peter boasted. ‘He doesn’t suffer fools and he’s got a stare that would fry you at fifteen paces. Not that he uses it much. He rarely loses his temper, but when he does . . .’

I laughed. ‘I’ll try to stay in his good books, then. He sounds scary.’

‘He’ll adore you.’

I doubted it. Actually, I thought Tom sounded like a complete pill. ‘Is there anything he can’t do?’ I asked.

‘He’s not as good at rugby as I am, because I have a better build for it. And he can’t wiggle his ears. I can do that.’

He gave me a demonstration. Laughing, I laced my fingers through his and pushed him backwards onto the grass, pinning him down with my body.

‘He can’t do this either,’ I said, lowering my face to his. ‘At least, he can’t do it with me.’

I smiled briefly at the memory, and sighed.

The Mirror was on the kitchen table. Joan bought it every Saturday and read it from cover to cover. Even though it was mostly a tacky scandal rag, I sat down to leaf through it. It always reported the divorce court proceedings in great detail; the saucier the better. American servicemen loved the Mirror. According to my friend Annie, who went out with lots of Americans, the submariners based in Fremantle called it their favourite comic strip. I’d also heard that the pilots of the Catalina seaplanes, who were quartered nearby, carried it with them for light relief on their patrols over the Indian Ocean.

As usual the paper was full of tawdry tales of husbands and wives discovered in compromising situations by Perth’s foremost private investigator, Alf Sleep. The front-page headline read: YANK SAILOR SUNDAY WAS DOROTHY’S MAN FRIDAY.

Flicking through, a name I did know caught my eye in ‘Nicky’s Merry-Go-Round’, the gossip section. I wondered why it was that you wouldn’t hear a name for the longest time, and then it came up twice in one day?

Word is that Tom Lagrange and his lovely fiancée Phyllis Gregory will tie the knot pretty soon. And about time, too. Everyone in town is saying what a wonderful couple they make. Tom, who returned from the front line quite recently and is convalescing from injuries, is one of our real heroes. Phyllis is one of our real beauties. It’s a match made in heaven.

I wondered why Tom was looking for Doreen Luca if he was engaged to the lovely Phyllis Gregory. Doreen was attractive enough, but she was no beauty.

Doreen and her husband Frank had moved into the house two doors down from us a couple of years ago with their little daughter Paulette. I liked Doreen; she had been very kind to me after Peter died. She never told me to ‘get over it’, or that ‘time will heal all’ or other such stupid, hurtful things. She said that I’d probably love Peter forever, but with time I’d learn to cope. She was right.

When Frank joined the Navy early last year, Doreen got a job at the nearby military hospital. By then Frank’s Italian parents had been interned as ‘enemy aliens’ and because Doreen couldn’t look after Paulette and work full-time, she’d placed the girl into the Catholic orphanage in Subiaco.

Doreen was lonely without Paulette and Frank, and six months ago her friend Betty Barwon had moved in, for company and to help with the rent. Ever since, the comings and goings of the two women had been fodder for street gossip. In fact, the general consensus in Megalong Street was that Doreen and Betty were little more than floosies.

‘I’ve got a hard job,’ she told me once. ‘It’s so awful to see the men come into the hospital all mangled and hurt, and know that many of them will never be right again. I need to go out to forget about it. I like to have a good time. That’s no crime and it’s nobody’s business how I do it.’

It amused me how Doreen never seemed bothered about the old biddies in our street. When they tut-tutted, she’d just push back her blonde hair in that languid movie-star way of hers and thumb her nose at the neighbourhood. Maybe Tom liked that about her, too.

A slight commotion at the front door and a gust of hot air announced the return of Ma and Joan, complaining about the heat as they entered the house.

I took the casserole out of the oven and started to dish up.

‘Peter’s brother turned up in the street this morning, looking for Doreen Luca,’ I said, a little later, between mouthfuls of rabbit and vegetables.

‘His older brother? The Rhodes scholar?’ Ma sounded anxious. She was always anxious when Peter’s name came up. ‘He’s in the army, isn’t he?’

I nodded and gave her a reassuring smile.

‘Tom Lagrange. He’s a captain. He was in the Middle East with the AIF when Peter . . .’ I stopped, my mind going blank for a few seconds. Ma and Joan were both looking at me. I smiled a little to show I was fine and said quickly, ‘He was wounded in New Guinea, I think. He’s lost some fingers and his face is scarred quite badly.’

‘Poor man,’ Ma said sympathetically.

‘Whatever would he want with Doreen?’ Joan said, her eyes quite lit up at the news. ‘He’s a bit posh for someone like her, isn’t he? Mind you, men seem to like that flashy, trashy look.’

No one could accuse my sister of a flashy, trashy look. But then, my sister didn’t have a boyfriend.

‘Doreen’s all right,’ I said. ‘She just knows how to have a good time. I should think you’d need that, surrounded by wounded soldiers day in and day out.’

‘She put her daughter in an orphanage, Meg, so she could fool around with Americans while her husband is away in the Navy! Why do people seem to think nurses are above propriety?’ Joan shot me a look as if I were no better.

I knew it was no good arguing with my sister when she was on her high horse, but that had never stopped me.

‘Doreen can’t work at the hospital and look after her daughter as well. If the government hadn’t decided to lock up perfectly harmless Italians who’ve lived in Australia for years, Paulette would be with her grandparents. Anyway, Doreen and Betty aren’t nurses. Betty works in the hospital pharmacy and Doreen is in administration. She practically runs the place, I’m told.’

That got me another dirty look from Joan.

‘So what? There are always men visiting them at all hours. They’re –’

‘Anyway,’ I cut in loudly, ‘Captain Lagrange seemed worried about her.’

‘Did you mention Peter to him?’ Ma asked.

She was looking at me fretfully and I flashed her another reassuring smile.

‘No. He didn’t know who I was, and I didn’t tell him.’

‘Well, Mrs Lagrange will have something to say if he takes Doreen Luca home to meet her,’ Joan said. ‘If you weren’t good enough for Peter, how’s she going to feel about Doreen and her precious Rhodes scholar, war hero, eldest son?’

‘Oh, shut up, Joan.’ I put down my knife and fork with a clatter and glared at her. ‘Why are you being so hateful? What do you care?’

She was in a particularly spiteful mood. Something must have stirred her up. Had somebody at church raised the fact that she was unmarried at thirty-one? That was guaranteed to make Joan wild.

‘Don’t speak that way to your sister, Meg,’ Ma was saying. ‘And Joan, that was uncalled for. Mrs Lagrange never said Meg wasn’t good enough for Peter. I don’t know what gets into you girls.’

‘Blame it on the heat,’ Joan said dismissively. ‘Anyway, Tom Lagrange is engaged to a society beauty. If he wants to see Doreen, it’s obviously just to fool around with her.’

‘Joan! That’s just plain nasty.’ Ma was furious.

Joan looked abashed, but she wasn’t ready to give up her argument.

‘Well, really though. He’s from one of the best families in Perth. Doreen is a fake blonde good-time girl. Why would he be interested in her?’

‘Possibly because she’s a far nicer person than the beautiful Phyllis Gregory. Miss Gregory is the one who wrote to me after Peter died, remember?’ My voice was shaky. I stood abruptly, gathered up the dishes, and took them into the kitchen to wash up. I knew Ma would be telling Joan off for bringing it all up again. At the sink, with my hands in the warm soapy water, I could hear snatches of their whispered conversation.

‘Got to get over it.’ That was Joan, of course.

‘Give her time.’ Ma sounded anxious.

‘But she never goes out. It’s been eighteen months, for heaven’s sake.’

‘Be kind, Joan.’

I finished the last of the dishes and stalked down the hall to my bedroom. If it had been Ma and me having the conversation she would have said: ‘Be kind, Meg. You know it’s hard for Joan. She never thought she would be unmarried and living with her mother and sister at the age she is.’

I sighed. Although she was bossy and downright irritating at times, she was my sister and we had shared a lot. I knew how scared Joan was about ending up an old maid. She had a good job managing the lingerie department at Moore’s, one of the largest department stores in town, and she had lots of friends, but she hated the fact she was single. Although I couldn’t stand her pushing me to go out more, I suspected it was because she was worried I’d end up like her. She just couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get over Peter’s death.

I looked out my window. The curtains were partly drawn across to keep out the heat, but I could make out the red brick wall of the neighbour’s house. I was only twenty-one. I had years before I was on the shelf. I’d get over Peter in my own time.

I’d read of his death in the newspaper, on 28 July 1941. We were at breakfast. My mother had the West Australian open and I saw her face become white and I saw the tears well in her eyes. I guessed it before she handed me the paper, before she came around to hold me close, as if I were still a little girl, as if she could actually help me.

Peter’s family had not thought to tell me; I had to read it in the paper, like everyone else in Perth that morning. I knew his family had always thought of me as the temporary girlfriend who would be dropped when Peter met the right girl from the right family, but I thought it was cruel of them to let me find out that way.

There were two photographs on the table by my bed. Peter in his Royal Australian Air Force uniform with his tousled blond hair and bright eyes. When that photograph was taken he had just turned twenty-one. A month later, he was dead. In the other photograph he had his arm around a young woman with light brown hair in a shoulder-length bob, pretty enough features and a happy smile. They looked happy. We had been happy.

I picked up the photo of Peter. ‘I met Tom today,’ I told him. ‘And I wasn’t very nice to him. Sorry.’

Peter smiled at me out of his wooden frame. Same smile, same tousled hair, same young enthusiastic face I saw every time I picked up the photo. He would always be young and beautiful and laughing, always twenty-one, ever unaware of what was in store for him four weeks later off the coast of England.

I lay down on my bed, as I had so often done in the past eighteen months, hugging the photograph to my chest.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.

As if I could ever forget.

About a week after he told me he was going to join the air force, we were in his car at Cottesloe Beach, kissing and touching and both longing for more, but scared of the consequences. The sound of the waves was loud in the darkness and the wind was cold, even through the car windows. Peter murmured that his parents had taken his younger brother to visit their grandparents in the country and the house was empty. I knew what he meant and I pushed away from him, my heart racing. I’d always said no before. It was a big step, an overwhelming step to take, to sleep with your boyfriend. But Peter was leaving me soon and he wouldn’t be back for a long time, maybe years. Now it seemed right to finally take that step. Or perhaps it was part of an unspoken, one-sided bargain I wanted to make with fate. Doing this would be proof of my love for Peter, and surely no one who was loved as much as I loved him could be hurt. If I just loved him enough, Peter would be safe.

We were both quiet as he drove along the highway towards his parents’ house in Peppermint Grove. Suddenly he pulled up beside a chemist’s shop.

When he returned his face was bright red and there was a sheepish smile on his face. ‘That was really embarrassing,’ he said, putting a paper bag between us on the seat. ‘I’ve never bought . . . Ah, I’ve never . . .’ He looked at me. ‘You don’t have to, Meg. I love you. That won’t change. I can wait.’

It was then I knew he had never done this before either. So I smiled at him. ‘I know that,’ I said. ‘I love you too, and I want to.’

His bedroom was messy. The shelves were full of school trophies and models of aeroplanes hung from the ceiling. The big desk under the window was covered in engineering texts and notebooks. A single bed was against the wall. There was an awkward pause. I walked across to him and put my arms around his neck and he bent down to kiss me. Then, somehow, all fear vanished in a haze of desire. We were clumsy, laughing, embarrassed, passionate and tender, and afterwards, as we lay tangled together in that narrow bed, both of us overwhelmed by what we had just done, I listened to his heart beating and I wondered if any girl anywhere in the world had ever felt as happy as I did at that moment.

The bed moved as Peter twisted up and slightly away from me, so that he could see my face. ‘Meg, you can’t ever do that with anyone else. I think I’d die if you ever did that with anyone else,’ he said, very seriously.

‘I never would,’ I said, indignant. ‘You mustn’t, either. Not with anyone else.’

‘I promise. Let’s get married now. Right away. Before I leave.’

‘We can’t,’ I said. ‘You’re not twenty-one, and your parents would never approve.’

He nodded slowly, frowning. ‘You’re right. They want me to wait until I’ve finished my degree, so I can support a wife properly.’

‘You asked them?’

His expression was cagey. ‘I mentioned it. They said I should wait.’ He frowned again. ‘Dammit. I can’t even afford to buy you a ring.’

‘I can wait,’ I had said, smiling. ‘When you get back.’

The edges of the photo frame were digging into my chest. I sat up, carefully put the photo back where it belonged and wiped my eyes. Too many tears. I had wept too many tears in the past eighteen months.

I needed to distract myself, so I decided to write to Harvey. I went into the kitchen and sat at the table. I picked up a pencil, stared at the blank piece of paper and sighed. Harvey Bradford was a thorn in my side, a problem I didn’t know how to solve. After crying every day for nine months after Peter’s death, I had allowed my mother to persuade me to go out with the son of our local butcher. Harvey had been keen on me since we had arrived in Perth in early 1939. We went out a few times. He was a decent fellow, kind and eager to please, although I was poor company. I liked him well enough, but it had not been serious, at least not for me.

When Harvey left for New Guinea with the AIF he begged me to write to him, and I agreed to do so because we were always being told it was good to write to servicemen. But the letters Harvey sent me in return had become increasingly intimate, and now after six months he assumed there was some kind of engagement between us. I knew I should write and tell him he had it wrong, but Harvey was in Buna, on the Kokoda Track, where the fighting was fierce. He was living in hell and I didn’t have the heart to destroy his illusions. But neither did I want him to think I was going to marry him.

Dear Harvey, I wrote, and put down the pencil. How could I drop someone who was fighting in New Guinea? Who might be killed or seriously injured at any moment? Who said my letters were the only bright point in his life? Whose father was our family butcher and gave my mother extra meat? Harvey was coming home on leave in a few weeks and I didn’t know what to do.

Thank you for your last letter. We are all well here. I was sorry to hear that the food situation up there has not improved and that the weather is so nasty. I hope that your Christmas celebrations were enjoyable. Things are the same as ever here. Mother and Joan send their regards.

What I wanted to write was:

Dear Harvey, please do not refer to me as your dearest Meg. I am not. Please do not show my photograph to the other chaps. It does not please me to hear that when you did so, they referred to you as a lucky dog. You are not a lucky dog, because I am not, in fact, your girl. Please do not tell me that you dream about me every night, because the thought of it makes me feel strange. Sincerely, Meg.

I kept hoping he would work out that my letters were anything but those of a girlfriend. But Harvey was not the smartest fellow in the world and his letters were full of praise for my writing skills. I was well aware that the problem of Harvey would have to be addressed soon, but not today. Not when I had just treated a soldier badly.

The weather has been very hot here. I hope you got the Christmas hamper . . .

Three

By six o’clock the heat had settled like a heavy blanket around the house. I had been unable to shake a feeling of misery all afternoon. Ma was writing letters and Joan was taking a nap. I could feel the black hole looming and I was scared of getting lost in my dark thoughts. I needed to do something.

‘I’m going to pick plums,’ I called out to Ma, picking up the wicker basket we kept in the kitchen. I had an idea to make some plum jam; sugar was rationed, but there were special allowances for jam making.

A large plum tree stood at the back of our yard, but most of it overhung the laneway that ran between the houses on our side of Megalong Street and the houses that fronted Winthrop Avenue. The tree was covered with blood-red plums, but the ones on our side of the fence had been picked days ago. There was no access to the lane from our yard, so I slipped on a pair of shoes and stepped out the front door into the heat.

Megalong was a short street at the eastern edge of the section of Nedlands known as Hollywood, a name that always amused the American servicemen because it was definitely not a glamorous place. There were no movie studios, just small red-tiled bungalows set close together on neat little blocks, but it was a friendly neighbourhood. We had moved here from Kalgoorlie to be closer to my middle sister, Mary. She was twenty-nine and lived with her husband, Desmond, and their four-year-old daughter, Helen, not far away in the posher part of Nedlands. Des was a teacher, which was a reserved occupation, and so he had avoided conscription.

The heat pushed against me like a physical barrier as I made my way slowly to the end of the street and I regretted not putting on a hat. But I hated going back once I had closed the door behind me. At the corner I turned into Park Road and then into the sandy, overgrown laneway that ran behind our street. In front of me stretched a wide tunnel of wooden picket fences. They had weathered to a listless grey colour but were enlivened by the red brick of the outhouses that were set into each back fence. The scent of hot sand and eucalyptus was strong and the air shimmered around me as I trudged the short distance to the plum tree. I didn’t see him until I was almost there.

Tom Lagrange was standing under our plum tree, almost invisible in the deep pool of its shade. A half-eaten plum was in his hand and his mouth and chin were wet with the sticky juice. He looked at me from under the brim of his cap and threw me a rather guilty smile. I recognised something of Peter in that smile.

‘I couldn’t resist,’ he said. ‘My aunt had a plum tree in her backyard and when I was a boy I ate plums every summer until I was ill with them. What wondrous life is this I lead, ripe plums drop about my head.’

His last words were rather indistinct because he had popped the rest of the plum in his mouth. I edged closer, holding the basket against me like a shield.

‘What?’ I had no idea what he was talking about.

He watched me through half-closed eyes and gave me a languid smile. ‘I’m having green thoughts in a green shade.’

It sounded like he was quoting poetry to me. Was he trying to make me feel stupid?

‘Apologies to Andrew Marvell,’ he said. Spitting the stone into his hand, he tossed it down the lane with easy athleticism. He seemed happy. At least his face seemed a lot less tense than it had been in the morning. Then he shook his head as if he was trying to focus.

‘Sorry. I’m –’ He paused and looked around as though searching for whatever he had been going to say. ‘I’ve just taken some, ah, pretty powerful painkillers for this.’ He held up his left hand. ‘It makes me feel a bit, ah, dreamy for a while. I’ll be fine in a minute.’

I felt a stab of guilt and wondered how I should apologise for my behaviour earlier. His glance flicked down to my legs.

‘You’ve washed your knees,’ he said. There was another lazy smile.

I decided not to apologise. Or smile.

‘Have you found Mrs Luca yet?’ I asked.

He closed his eyes for a beat. ‘No, I haven’t found Mrs Luca. No one has seen her since yesterday. She was supposed to meet me this morning, but didn’t show.’

He spoke very slowly, deliberately, as though pulling the words out of the air, one at a time. It was very strange. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a white handkerchief to wipe his face and hands. ‘Do you have any idea where she might be?’

I watched as he wiped his ruined hand, making no attempt to hide it from me. After he had finished he folded the handkerchief carefully and returned it to his pocket.

‘She usually visits her daughter on Saturday,’ I said. I was interested to see if he knew of Paulette’s existence.

‘She’s at St Joseph’s, isn’t she?’

I nodded. ‘You should ask Betty Barwon where Doreen is. They live together, after all.’

He gave me a sharp look. He was definitely more alert now. Peter had been right about his stare.

‘How do you know me?’ he asked suddenly.

There was a calculating gleam in his eyes, which didn’t match the dreamy smile that was still on his lips. His eyes were very dark and he was watching me closely.

‘All the girls at university knew Tom Lagrange,’ I said, shaking my head to move some stray hair from my face.

‘I can’t say I recognise you,’ he said, pleasantly enough. ‘Surely you’re too young to have been at university with me.’

‘I was a typist, not a student. You were tutoring there before you went to Oxford. But of course, you wouldn’t have looked at the typists.’

‘You think that, do you?’ he said wryly. ‘What are you doing here? In the lane, I mean?’

Shouldn’t I be asking him that? I live here after all.

I held up the basket. ‘Plums,’ I said. ‘You’re standing under our tree.’ I was careful to keep my voice steady, but felt the heat in my cheeks.

His expression lightened. ‘Don’t let me stop you. I owe you a plum. I could pick the higher up ones for you.’

‘Thank you for the offer, Captain Lagrange, but I’m fine by myself.’

‘You called me Tom earlier. Please, call me Tom. And, actually, I owe you two plums, maybe three. I was in a fugue of plum delight.’ He appeared to be enjoying himself again.

‘Why are you here? In the laneway, I mean. Other than to eat our plums.’

He didn’t reply. He was very still, looking at me intently. A small crease had formed between his eyebrows. Then, all at once, his smile was back.

‘I remember you now,’ he said. ‘You worked in the Registrar’s office in 1939. You had come down from the country, hadn’t you? The Goldfields? You often wore a horrible hat, like a small cone with a blue feather stuck on the side. You ate your lunch on the grass under the large Moreton Bay fig, the one at the back of the Registry, with a dark-haired girl called Joyce.’

He plucked a plum and put it into the basket.

‘You seemed very young then. You’ve changed a fair bit in the last three years. Not your eyes, of course. They are still that same green. My brother Peter thought you were perfectly adorable. Before I sailed for England he told me he was working up the courage to ask you out. Did he?’ Another plum went in the basket.

‘Very good. Spot on,’ I said. I made as if to clap. The basket swung as I did so and the plums rolled about. Peter had been right about his memory. I turned away, pretending to look at something down the laneway. ‘Peter was lovely.’

‘He was a scruffy lout.’

Shocked, I turned back. He had a teasing look on his face.

‘He never combed his hair,’ he said.

He was right. Peter had never combed his hair.

I smiled. ‘It didn’t matter. He was still lovely.’ My smile disappeared. ‘He was too young to die.’

Tom looked away and I couldn’t see his expression at all. Nor could I hear it in his words when at last he spoke. ‘Yes, he was too young to die.’

I didn’t want to be there any longer, so I turned, intending to walk away. He gripped my arm lightly to stop me and I swung around to face him, glowering at him, tight-lipped and annoyed. Tom dropped his hand away and reached up to pick another plum, which he handed to me. When I didn’t take it, he put it into the basket. Then he picked another, from high up, well beyond my reach. He put that into the basket as well. I didn’t move. The sun was hot on my bare head and I felt faint and rather ridiculous, so I moved back into the shade of the tree and started to pick plums.

His baggy khaki shirt had two large pockets in the front. He reached into one and pulled out a packet of Lucky Strikes. Shaking the packet sharply, he raised it to his mouth and drew out a cigarette with his lips. A small silver and gold lighter appeared and flashed into life as he lit the cigarette, then disappeared into his trouser pocket. He inhaled deeply and blew out a stream of smoke.

‘You do know her, though? Doreen Luca?’ His voice was easy, conversational.

‘I see her around. At the shops, in the street. I like her.’

I gave a short laugh and reached for another plum. ‘Doreen and her friend Betty are notorious in the street.’ My voice became defiant. ‘I loved that hat.’

‘It was a horrible hat,’ he said with a teasing smile.

Although he had a very nice smile, it wasn’t at all like Peter’s. Maybe I had imagined the similarity. For some reason, that made me feel sad.

‘Did he?’

‘What?’

‘Ask you out. Did Pete ask you out?’

I was startled by him using Pete rather than Peter. I had always called him Peter. Did his family call him Pete?

‘Yes. He did,’ I said too loudly. ‘And we went out. And then he went away. And then he died.’ And the best part of me died too.

I silently dared him to say anything more. He reached up, picked two plums and dropped them in the basket. We picked plums in silence and when I glanced down I was surprised at how many there were. The basket was getting heavy. Wordlessly, Tom took it from me and held it in the crook of his left arm. It was still very hot and I could see a sheen of perspiration on Tom’s forehead, under the brim of his cap.

Gradually I became aware of a raised voice in the neighbouring yard. Mrs Phoenix was calling out to someone. I looked at Tom, who had also stopped to listen.

‘Please come out of there, Mrs Luca. It’s not proper for you to stay in there.’

She sounded upset. I moved closer to her yard and called over the fence.

‘Mrs Phoenix? It’s Meg Eaton. Can I help?’

The gate from the Phoenixes’ yard into the laneway opened, and Mrs Phoenix appeared looking very distressed and making faint moaning sounds. A large, soft lady in her early seventies, she had very fluffy white hair that she dyed a pale blue. She was a kindly neighbour and we Eaton women were fond of her. Her husband, Arthur, was another story. A retired bank manager, he was also the local air raid warden. He took his job far too seriously and had become the bane of the neighbourhood. Until Japan entered the war a little more than a year ago, the authorities had enforced more a brownout than a blackout, but Mr Phoenix had always insisted on stringent compliance with the blackout regulations. It was a real nuisance.

Mrs Phoenix was in a terrible flap.

‘Oh, Meg,’ she said, in her surprisingly girlish voice.

‘I don’t know what to do. Mrs Luca has gone to sleep in the shelter and she won’t come out. She might listen to you. She’s just ignoring me.’

‘Won’t she listen to Mr Phoenix?’ I asked.

‘Arthur’s away for the weekend on warden business and won’t be back until tomorrow,’ she replied. Her anxiety was obvious. ‘He’ll be so upset. She’s got to get out.’

I felt Tom come up behind me.

‘How long has she been in there?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. I haven’t been out the back all day, it’s been so hot. I only came out now to feed the chooks and saw the door was open. I don’t want to go down there on my own, it’s too steep for me.’ Her voice was rising to hysteria.

‘I’ll talk to her if you like,’ I said, trying to soothe her.

‘I hope she’s not ill. She hasn’t moved an inch.’ Mrs Phoenix grimaced nervously.

I glanced at Tom, who raised an eyebrow.

‘Want me to come too?’ he asked.

I nodded. I’d rather have company, especially if Doreen had to be helped out of the shelter. She wasn’t a big woman, but she was heavier than me. Smiling reassuringly at Mrs Phoenix, I gestured towards Tom. ‘Mrs Phoenix, this is Captain Lagrange. He’s a friend of Doreen’s.’

From the look on her face, Mrs Phoenix didn’t consider that a recommendation.

We followed Mrs Phoenix into her backyard, where Arthur Phoenix’s air raid shelter took pride of place between the chook pen and the outhouse. He’d built the shelter carefully, using half a corrugated water tank that had been cut lengthwise and placed over a deep trench. The walls were shored up with sandbags and the roof was covered with more sandbags. You had to descend five steep steps to get in.

We approached the shelter and Tom stood beside me as I peered down the steps into the small room. I could just make out Doreen, lying on a camp bed. She was covered by a blanket, despite the heat. One arm was over her eyes, her face was to the wall and she seemed fast asleep.

‘Doreen,’ I called.

She didn’t move. Tom spoke in a louder voice, sharp and authoritative.

‘Doreen. Wake up, it’s Tom Lagrange.’

I realised Doreen was lying awfully still. A peculiar, fluttering sensation filled my chest and I felt the hair rise on my arms.

‘Doreen,’ I said more loudly, and was surprised to hear the quaver in my voice.

Still no response. I worried at my lip and glanced at Tom. His lips were pulled into a thin, hard line and there was a deep crease between his brows. The scar on his face was very red.

‘Stay here,’ Tom said, lightly touching my arm. He placed the basket on the ground and made his way slowly down the steps. After some hesitation I followed him.

‘Doreen,’ I said, in a voice I hardly recognised.

There was no answer. The air was filled with a rancid, sweetish smell that made the acid rise in my stomach. There seemed to be a shimmering shadow over Doreen’s exposed skin. When I realised it was flies, settling on her arms and face, I swallowed convulsively as saliva poured into my mouth and nausea threatened to overwhelm me. Tom moved to the bed and pulled away the blanket. Though I knew he’d seen combat, the steadiness of his hand surprised me. I heard his sharp intake of breath and saw the bloody mess of Doreen’s chest. There was no doubt she was dead. I backed slowly away and made my way up the steps on shaky legs, gulping in the hot air and trying not to retch.

The sunlight was blinding. But, despite the heat, I was cold and trembling. Mrs Phoenix was hovering near the top of the steps, making a peculiar wringing movement with her hands.

‘Is she all right? Meg, you look –’ She faltered as she took in the expression on my face, then her voice rose almost to a shriek. ‘For heaven’s sake, what happened?’

Shut up, I wanted to scream, but Mrs Phoenix was an old woman. I had to stay calm.

‘I need to telephone the police,’ I said as firmly and calmly as I could. ‘We need to telephone the police,’ I repeated, looking at Tom, who was now beside me.

‘I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘Let’s take Mrs Phoenix inside for a cup of tea. You have one too, and use plenty of sugar.’

He had an air of quiet authority, but there was a bleak expression in his eyes. I felt an enormous sense of relief that he was there. I had always thought Mrs Phoenix looked like a fluffy blue rabbit and now as her pale eyes widened the resemblance was striking.

‘What’s happened? Is Doreen all right?’

‘No, she’s –’ I couldn’t say it.

Tom could. ‘I’m afraid she’s dead. I need to telephone the police. Do you have a telephone?’

I knew they did, because Mr Phoenix was the air raid warden. But it took a while to calm Mrs Phoenix, whose hands were now fluttering like little beating wings. Tom managed to grab one in flight and lead her inside. He deposited her at the kitchen table then went in search of the telephone.

I filled the kettle and put it on the stove to heat. Tom’s voice floated through. I knew the operator would be listening to the entire conversation and wondered how long it would take for the news to be all over Nedlands, all over Perth. Reaching into the cupboard I found cups and saucers, and put them on the counter, happy to be doing something.

‘I’d like to report a death,’ said Tom.

He sounded very calm and, hearing his voice, I found myself becoming calmer also as I poured boiling water over the tea-leaves in the pot.

‘Meg, dear, how did she die?’ said Mrs Phoenix.

‘I’m not sure.’

I tried to make my voice comforting, but I could hear the tremor in it. When I turned around with the teapot, Mrs Phoenix seemed to have aged suddenly. Under the powder and lipstick her face was grey and I felt a sharp stab of concern for her.

‘Mrs Phoenix, would you like to come over to my house? Mother and Joan are home. Captain Lagrange can wait here for the police.’

Tom had come back into the kitchen and we exchanged glances. He nodded. We led Mrs Phoenix next door and told Ma and Joan what had happened. Leaving Mrs Phoenix in their care, Tom returned to the Phoenix house and I went to my room, where I sat heavily on my bed.

It was now eight o’clock and although it was still light, in an hour or so it would be completely dark, despite the daylight saving. Twilight didn’t linger in Perth. I remembered it was a full moon, and the thought of Doreen illuminated by moonlight made me shudder. All I wanted was to curl up into a ball on my bed.

My eyes were drawn inevitably to the photographs on my bedside table. Peter. It was cowardly to leave his brother to deal with this alone. Rising, I went to the wardrobe and took out a dark blue cotton frock to wear instead of my skimpy playsuit. I changed quickly and, despite Ma’s protests, returned to the Phoenix house.

All was quiet as I made my way to the kitchen. Tom obviously hadn’t heard me and I stood in the doorway for a few seconds, watching him. He was sitting slumped at the kitchen table, cradling what must have been a very cold cup of tea in his hands and staring down at the table. The scar dominated his thin face. He looked exhausted, defeated even, but when I entered the room his expression lightened.

‘You’ve changed your clothes,’ he said. ‘Pity. I very much liked that green outfit.’

I laughed involuntarily, and was immediately upset at myself for doing so. Doreen was lying out there dead, after all.

‘Another?’ I gestured at the cup he was holding.

‘How are you holding up?’ he asked, when I handed him the tea.

‘To tell the truth, I feel like I’d fall into pieces, only I’m too stubborn to allow it. I can’t believe she’s dead.’

‘You’re doing very well. A lot of girls would be in hysterics by now.’

His praise made me feel warmer, stronger. I sat down beside him. The tea was hot and strong and sweet and tasted marvellous. After taking a few sips, I looked across into the dark eyes that were so unlike Peter’s.

‘She was murdered, wasn’t she?’

The left side of his mouth quirked up as if jerked by the scar, but it formed into a grimace, not a smile.

‘Yes. It wasn’t an accident and I doubt it was suicide.’ He looked down at his tea, then up to meet my eyes again. ‘Let’s not talk about it. Let’s leave it to the police.’

He took out his cigarettes. There were already several cigarette butts in the saucer in front of him. He offered the packet to me, but I shook my head.

‘I don’t smoke.’

‘It’s a nasty habit,’ he admitted. His face visibly relaxed, however, as he breathed in the smoke.

‘So Pete did ask you out. I’m glad. He seemed to like you a lot.’

The steam from my tea made my eyes wet. ‘He asked me to dinner just after you left. We went out together until he left for England. A bit more than a year.’ I gazed into my cup. ‘You don’t look like him at all,’ I said, hoping I didn’t sound accusing.

He gave a short, sad laugh. ‘I’m sorry about that. I loved him too and I miss him dreadfully.’

I nodded, refusing to cry, but I found I couldn’t stop nodding and the cup was shaking in my hand. Tom took it from me and put it on the table.

‘Poor Doreen,’ I said. I was surprised to realise my face was wet with tears.

And then his strong arms were around me, holding me tight. I was really crying now, big gulping sobs, as images of Doreen and Peter, Tom’s hand and scarred face and Harvey came into my mind, and I thought of the war and of all the people who were dying and being hurt. My face was crushed against Tom’s chest; it was hard and warm and smelled of wet cotton and sweat. He was Peter’s brother, who loved him too and missed him dreadfully.

And I was snivelling all over his chest. Somehow I stopped the tears and pulled away, sniffing. I realised I didn’t have a handkerchief. Tom handed me one that was sticky and smelled of plums and I blew my nose. Embarrassed, I bent my head over the sodden handkerchief and Tom moved back to his own chair. We sat together, lost in our own thoughts, waiting for the police.

A few minutes later the sound of a motor brought us to the front porch, where we saw that a black police car had pulled up outside the house. There was a loud bang and a rush of thick black smoke from the ungainly charcoal burner attached to the back, then the doors opened and two uniformed policemen got out and stood beside the car, looking up at us suspiciously. One was tall and thin and the other short and round, like a pair from a nursery rhyme. I felt bubbles of nervous laughter build up inside me.

Tom gently touched my arm, just as he had done before. ‘I’ll take them to her. Why don’t you wait inside.’

Tom and the policemen disappeared around the back. Neighbours had started to gather in small groups, watching the police car and the Phoenix house. I was reminded of crows circling a dying sheep. I turned abruptly and hurried inside.

I washed my face and hands in the small bathroom off the hallway, and felt better for it. I was just entering the kitchen when Tom came through the back door with the taller policeman.

‘We’ve alerted Detective Munsie,’ the officer said. He was a few shades paler than when he’d arrived and was twisting his cap around and around in his hands. ‘Could you both stay here until he arrives? Constable Riley will stay with the body.’

Declining a cup of tea he went out to wait by the car.

I sat down at the table. My heart was racing. The body. It used to be Doreen Luca and now it was the body. Doreen had been so full of life. How could she be the body? Tom sat down across from me. I looked at him and he lifted the corner of his mouth in a joyless smile.

Four

The light outside now had a brassy dullness. Faint twitters and chirps could be heard in the garden, but inside the house the air was heavy and still. Although it was nearing sunset, the kitchen seemed to be hotter than it had been an hour before and I could feel a headache beginning behind my right eye.

Tom stood suddenly and went to the sink. He filled a glass with water and handed it to me.

‘Drink this. You look done in.’

I suspected my face was flushed and that I looked tired and hot. There was a thin sheen of perspiration on Tom’s face and I could see damp patches under the arms of his cotton shirt. Despite that, he seemed cool and somehow detached from the horror of the afternoon. I pushed wet hair off my face, sipped at my water and wondered how much longer we had to wait.

Not long. Muffled voices and footsteps in the hallway announced the arrival of Detective Inspector Jack Munsie of the Criminal Investigation Bureau. With him was a sour-faced man who I thought must be the police pathologist, because he was carrying a black doctor’s bag. I knew something of Detective Munsie, because he was a fairly regular visitor to Mr Goodley, the Crown Prosecutor, who was my boss.

Detective Munsie had a long, dour face, enlivened by a pair of clear grey eyes. According to Mr Goodley, ‘Jack Munsie is a Presbyterian plodder, but he knows what he’s about’, by which I understood that he was a teetotaller who lacked imagination, but he was a good policeman.

At the moment, Detective Munsie just looked hot. He removed his hat, reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and began mopping at his forehead.

‘Meg. Miss Eaton, I should say. What a nasty business,’ he said, skewering me with a look.

He turned to Tom and nodded curtly. ‘Captain Lagrange. So, you and Miss Eaton found her. I’ll take a look at the body and then you can tell me what happened.’ He glanced out of the window and frowned. ‘I hope they’ve brought good torches, it’s nearly dark. Things can be difficult in this blackout.’

I felt a sudden need to make it clear to Detective Munsie that it was entirely accidental I was with Tom Lagrange when Doreen’s body was found, but he left the room before I could say anything.

Detective Munsie returned some fifteen minutes later with a sombre look on his face.

‘The police photographer will be here soon,’ he said. ‘Once he’s finished they can remove the poor woman.’ He glanced at me. ‘Would you prefer me to speak to you first, Meg?’

I nodded, not looking at Tom. Detective Munsie gestured for Tom to leave the kitchen. He disappeared through the door into the hallway and I heard the front screen door bang after him as he left the house.

Detective Munsie sat opposite me at the kitchen table. A uniformed policeman took the chair Tom had vacated, opened a notebook and sat with pencil poised. The palms of my hands were moist.

I realised that I wasn’t carrying my personal identity card and felt myself blushing. Detective Munsie looked enquiringly at me.

‘My identity card is in my house, next door,’ I blurted out. ‘Do you want me to get it?’ We were supposed to carry the card at all times; it was an offence not to be carrying it.

Detective Munsie smiled. ‘I know you, Meg, it’s all right.’ Then his smile fell away and his face seemed to become sharper. ‘Now, young lady. Tell me what happened,’ he said.

I stared at the grain of the wood in the table, cleared my throat, and began.

I described meeting Tom Lagrange that morning, and meeting him again in the laneway in the late afternoon, and picking plums. My voice didn’t falter, until I got to the part where we found Doreen.

‘We could see her lying on the camp bed in the shelter and she did seem to be asleep, just as Mrs Phoenix had said. We called to her, but she didn’t answer. So we went into the shelter.’

I tried to sound calm, but I could hear my voice shaking. ‘It was clear she was . . . not alive. There was something about the stillness and the smell. And . . . and she had flies on her. Captain Lagrange pulled the blanket away and I saw the blood on her chest. Captain Lagrange called the police. We took Mrs Phoenix to my house. She was dreadfully upset.’

I almost gabbled the last sentences. With a feeling of relief I stopped and raised my eyes to meet the steady gaze of Detective Munsie. The policeman beside him was laboriously writing down what I had said in a slow longhand.

‘Thank you, Miss Eaton. For the record, could we have your full name, address and date of birth?’

‘Margaret Amelia Eaton. I live at 34 Megalong Street, Hollywood, and I was born on the twenty-fourth of September 1921.’

‘And you work at the Crown Law Department?’

‘Yes. I am a stenographer. I generally work for the Crown Prosecutor, Mr Goodley. I’ve worked there for nearly a year now.’

‘How long have you known Mrs Luca?’

‘Since she came to live here in Megalong Street with her husband about two years ago. For the last six months she’s been sharing the house with her friend Betty Barwon.’

‘And her husband?’

‘Frank Luca. He’s in the Navy. Doreen told me she asked Betty to move in because she was lonely after he left.’

‘Have you met her husband?’

‘Yes, of course. He joined the Navy early last year.’

‘Luca is an Italian name?’

‘Yes. His parents were from Italy, but they’ve been in Australia for years. They have a fruit shop in North Perth. Mrs Luca told me they’ve been interned as enemy aliens.’

Suddenly I remembered Paulette.

‘Oh, Mr Munsie, she has a daughter, Paulette, at St Joseph’s in Subiaco. Someone will have to tell her.’

‘Don’t worry about that. We’ll take care of it.’

My heart ached for that poor little girl. I wondered if Betty had been told that her best friend was dead. And how would they let Frank know?

There were heavy footsteps on the porch. The screen door squeaked open and two men entered the kitchen, one of them carrying a large camera with flashbulbs attached. Detective Munsie directed them to the backyard. For the next few minutes I could see flashes of light as the police photographer recorded Doreen’s death. In my mind I had a clear image of her, lit up in the shelter, subject to flash after flash as she was photographed from every conceivable angle.

I realised Detective Munsie was speaking again. His voice was kindly now.

‘So, were you friendly with Mrs Luca?’

I dragged my attention back to him. ‘I suppose you would say we were friends. I liked her. We would talk at the shops or in the street.’

‘When did you last see her?’

‘A few days ago. She was at her front gate and we had a chat about the war. The Australian commandos had been found alive in Timor, and we talked about that.’

‘Was she close to Captain Lagrange? Did she mention him to you?’

‘No-o,’ I said slowly. I could feel the heat wash into my cheeks. ‘Actually, Doreen – Mrs Luca – had quite a few male friends, but I’d never seen Captain Lagrange in Megalong Street before.’

‘And you know Captain Lagrange well?’

‘No. Not at all.’

His look was quietly sceptical. I felt myself blushing again.

‘I don’t know him. I knew of him when I was working at the university in 1939. That was just before he left for Oxford. He won the Rhodes scholarship, you know.’

Detective Munsie nodded, waiting for me to go on.

‘And . . . and I went out with his younger brother for a year, before he went to England with the RAAF. He was killed there in July 1941. Peter and I didn’t start seeing each other until after Captain Lagrange had left for Oxford, so he didn’t know anything about it, really, until we spoke about Peter briefly this afternoon.’

Detective Munsie’s face gave nothing away. ‘Now, Meg, you say you met up with Captain Lagrange in the laneway this afternoon. Had you arranged to meet?’

‘No. I told you, I didn’t know him at all until today.’

‘What were you doing in the laneway?’

‘I told you. I was picking plums.’

‘And meeting Captain Lagrange was entirely accidental?’ There was a note of incredulity in his voice and I realised with a shock that he didn’t believe me.

‘I didn’t know him before this happened,’ I repeated. I could hear my voice becoming petulant. ‘I mean, I didn’t know him to talk to.’

‘You talked to him this morning,’ he said, his tone sharp.

‘I heard him talking to some neighbourhood boys outside our house and I went out to see what he wanted. They told him my name. We spoke no more than two or three sentences. He was looking for Mrs Luca. He asked if I knew where she was. I told him I didn’t. That was all.’

‘You must have been surprised to see Captain Lagrange in the laneway.’

‘I was.’

‘What did you discuss, in the laneway?’

‘I asked him if he’d found Mrs Luca and he said he hadn’t. We picked plums and we spoke about his brother. Then we heard Mrs Phoenix calling out to Doreen Luca.’

‘Then you found the body.’

‘Yes. Then we found . . . then we found her.’

‘Captain Lagrange went with you to Mrs Phoenix’s house?’

‘Yes. And I was pleased he offered. If Doreen had been intoxicated, which is what I imagined, then I would have found it hard to get her out of the shelter by myself.’

‘Do you know Mrs Phoenix’s yard well?’

‘I’ve been in it before, yes.’

‘So you knew about the air raid shelter?’

‘The whole street does. Mr Phoenix is the area air raid warden.’

‘Did Captain Lagrange know about the shelter?’

‘I have absolutely no idea, but I don’t see why he would. Why don’t you ask him?’

‘Is there anything else you would like to tell me at this time?’

‘No, sir.’

‘I may want to talk to you again, Miss Eaton. I will let you know. Please don’t discuss this with anyone.’

I felt exhausted, as if I’d run a race. I also felt strangely guilty, although I had no idea why I should feel that way.

‘Do you want me to send Mrs Phoenix in? She’s with my mother and sister at the moment.’

‘No,’ said Detective Munsie. ‘I can see her tomorrow. I’ll leave two policemen here and I’ll be back first thing. Could you let her know?’

‘Of course. I expect she’ll stay at our house tonight.’

He turned to the constable and asked him to get Captain Lagrange.

I rose and stood uncertainly by the chair, unsure whether or not he wanted me to leave. He was examining some papers on the table and seemed to be ignoring me. Tom entered the room with the constable a minute or so later. He gave me a dark, unreadable glance. Detective Munsie looked up.

‘You can go now, Miss Eaton.’

Tom slipped into the seat I’d just vacated.

‘How can I help you, Detective Munsie?’ Tom said.

He was the perfect army officer. Cool, self-assured and forthright.

I walked down the hall, pushed open the screen door and peered out into the front yard. A policeman was standing at the gate, facing away from the house. There was no one on the porch. Without thinking too much about it, I let the screen door slam gently, loudly enough to be heard in the kitchen, but not at the gate. I slipped quietly back to the bedroom by the kitchen, stood behind the door and listened.

‘Thomas Manton Lagrange.’

He had the same middle name as Peter. It was a family name.

‘Flat 11, Bayview Mansions, 15 Victoria Avenue, Claremont.’

Posh address, in the posh suburb next to Nedlands. I knew those flats. They overlooked a very pretty part of the river, near the Claremont Swimming Baths.

‘Eleventh of February 1916.’

So he was nearly twenty-seven. Peter would have been twenty-three next June.

‘I’m currently a liaison officer between the Australian and American forces in Western Australia. I’ve been moved from active service because of injuries.’

There was silence. I wondered if Tom had handed Detective Munsie his papers. I wondered if he’d held up his maimed hand.

‘You knew Mrs Luca?’

‘Yes.’

‘How well did you know her?’ I could hear a quaver in the detective’s voice and the image of an excited highland terrier on the scent of something sprang to my mind.

‘I met Doreen Luca when I was admitted to the military hospital for treatment, about three months ago. We became friends.’

They were friends? It seemed ludicrous. Whatever did they have in common? He was well out of her league. But I remembered that a lot of people – a lot of girls – thought Peter was out of my league. I lifted my arm to wipe damp hair off my forehead. The bedroom where I was hiding was dusty and airless. I felt perspiration on my forehead and trickling between my breasts.

‘You were friends?’ Munsie’s voice was politely disbelieving.

‘We were friends.’ Tom was polite but definite.

‘Nothing more?’ Munsie was less polite and more disbelieving.

‘Nothing more.’ Tom sounded bored.

There was a short pause.

‘When did you last see Mrs Luca?’

‘Friday night. At a party held by Mrs Ziko in Carrington Street, Hollywood. Do you mind if I smoke?’

There was no answer, but I heard the faint click of a lighter striking.

‘Did you leave the party with Mrs Luca?’

‘No, but she was waiting for me when I left about ten minutes after she did.’

I imagined him drawing on the cigarette and his face relaxing.

‘She said she wanted to discuss something with me, and suggested that I walk home with her. She thought it better if we weren’t seen going to her house together, so we went into the laneway behind the house. When we finished our discussion she went into her yard through a couple of loose pickets in the fence. I didn’t see her again until Miss Eaton and I discovered her body.’

‘What did you and Mrs Luca discuss?’

‘She thought I should be told something. It was personal.’

‘What was it?’

‘It was a private matter.’

‘Nothing is private in a murder investigation.’ The detective’s voice was sharp.

‘I’m not willing to discuss it. I went to her house on Saturday afternoon. She wasn’t there, but her husband was. He seemed agitated. He was unhappy about her relationships with American sailors.’

‘Not her relationship with you?’

‘I told him we were simply friends. He seemed to believe me.’ His tone indicated that he didn’t care what Mr Luca thought.

I thought about Frank Luca. It was interesting that he was home from sea. And that he knew about Doreen’s active social life. Still, I couldn’t believe he had anything to do with her death; he had adored her.

‘I went to her house again this morning to see if she was all right. When no one answered the door I asked some boys on the street if they knew where she was. I also asked Miss Eaton, who came over when I was talking to the boys.’

‘You wanted to see if she was all right? Why did you think she might not be?’

‘Her husband had been upset. I just wanted to check.’

‘You know Miss Eaton well?’ Detective Munsie asked, changing tack.

‘No, not at all. She told me this afternoon that she had been close to my brother. Apparently she worked at the university before the war, but I don’t recall ever being introduced to her.’

‘Even though she was seeing your brother?’

‘That was after I had left for England. I went to England in August 1939 and didn’t return until November 1940, when I joined the army. I knew my brother was seeing a girl in Perth, but if he mentioned her name in his letters I didn’t recall it. Peter left here in October 1940 with the RAAF. He was killed in England in July 1941.’

There was silence again for a few heartbeats.

‘I went back to Mrs Luca’s house this afternoon to see if she had returned, but I didn’t go to the front door. I entered her backyard through the fence. I tried her back door, but there was no answer. When I looked in the windows it was clear no one was there.’

There was a sound, as if someone had moved his chair.

‘I had returned to the laneway when I saw Miss Eaton. I was helping her pick plums when Mrs Phoenix asked her for assistance in removing Doreen from the air raid shelter. I went with her and we found the body together.’

It was now stiflingly hot in the stuffy little bedroom where I was hiding. I rubbed my itching nose, desperately trying to prevent a sneeze.

‘Where were you last night?’ Munsie asked.

‘At a private party in West Perth.’

‘Address?’

‘Flat 4, Hillside Flats, 15 Mount Street. My fiancée, Miss Phyllis Gregory, lives there.’

‘What time did you leave the party?’

‘I didn’t. The party finished at around midnight and I spent the rest of the night with Miss Gregory. I left there around nine this morning. Obviously I’d prefer it if the information was not made public.’

So, if Doreen had been killed last night, Tom had an alibi. Miss Phyllis Gregory must have real money, as well as being one of our real beauties, because Mount Street was one of Perth’s most exclusive addresses.

‘Is there anything else you wish to tell me?’

My heart was thumping as I slipped from the bedroom into the narrow hallway. I was at the front gate, nodding at the constable, when Tom emerged from the house behind me. Although still early, it was very dark. Cloud now covered the moon, closing in the day’s heat. I started towards my house, making my way as carefully as possible without a torch.

‘Meg, could I talk to you please?’ Tom called softly.

I stopped.

‘That went well,’ he said as he reached me. He sounded as though he didn’t mean it. ‘Hear everything?’

I glanced at the policeman, but he was out of earshot.

‘I was in that bedroom too, of course,’ he said. ‘When you were talking.’

I wondered why he had been eavesdropping, but I was embarrassed that he assumed I had been too. I said nothing.

‘Would you walk with me?’ The uncertain note in his voice surprised me.

Around us in the street little groups of people were still gathered in their yards and on the footpath, talking quietly together and watching the Phoenix house. Some were carrying small torches that made weak pools of light on the ground by their feet.

‘Meg!’ It was Joan’s voice. ‘What’s been happening? What did the police say?’ Her torchlight was bobbing along the footpath as she came towards us.

‘Just a minute, Joan. I’ll be there in a minute,’ I said loudly.

The torchlight stopped about ten paces away from us.

Tom said quickly, ‘Meg, I’d like to talk to you. Will you have dinner with me? A drink? Tomorrow? Some day this week?’

‘Why?’ I was taken aback. Why would he want to meet me?

He had lit yet another cigarette and its tip was bright in the darkness. It became brighter as he inhaled, but he turned away to avoid blowing smoke in my face.

‘Several reasons,’ he said.

‘To talk about Peter?’

It was too dark to see him clearly, but I was very aware of him, standing too close to me.

‘Yes. Peter and other things. Dinner tomorrow? I’ll come for you at seven.’

He was pushing me. I didn’t want to meet him for dinner. That would mean worrying about table manners and trying to find things to say to him. And there was too much that didn’t add up about Tom Lagrange. A man who was engaged to be married, pursuing friendship – if that was what it was – with a married woman who was now dead, and now pursuing me, pushing me. For what? And yet, he was Peter’s brother. How could I not agree to meet him?

‘If you really want to talk, I’d rather just meet you after work for a drink. What about the Adelphi Hotel on Tuesday? Around five. There’s no need for dinner.’

‘I would very much like to take you to dinner.’

I shook my head, then realised he couldn’t see it. ‘No. I’d prefer a drink.’

‘Just a drink then. The Adelphi it is.’

He disappeared into the darkness. Joan came bustling up to me as I stared after him.

Whatever was I going to wear on Tuesday?

Five

‘Ooo hoo.’ Mrs Elsie Quantock from number 27 was the first of our neighbours to arrive the next morning, just as we were finishing breakfast.

I’d been expecting visitors. There had been a murder in the street, after all, and the neighbours would be consumed with curiosity. It upset me to think that poor Doreen’s death was a subject for ghoulish gossip, but my neighbours were all kind people, really, and this was the most exciting thing ever to have happened in the street. And they hadn’t seen her body. Doreen’s death seemed incredible to them, whereas to me it was uncomfortably real.

‘We’re in the kitchen,’ Ma called out.

‘It’s only me.’ Mrs Quantock came in, holding a jar of marmalade. Her eyes lit up to see me and Mrs Phoenix at the table. ‘I had some extra marmalade and thought that you might like some.’

Ma thanked her and offered her a cup of tea.

‘I can’t say anything about it,’ I said, before she could ask. ‘Detective Munsie was very clear that I wasn’t to discuss any of it.’ Her face fell.

Ma smiled at her sympathetically. ‘Meg hasn’t told us anything either,’ she said.

Joan glared at me. She took it as a personal affront that her own sister wouldn’t tell her everything about it.

Obviously disappointed, Mrs Quantock looked at Mrs Phoenix, who appeared to have recovered remarkably well from her initial shock the day before.

Mrs Phoenix turned to me. ‘I haven’t spoken to Detective Munsie yet,’ she said in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Do you think it’s all right if I tell people what I saw?’

‘If you want to tell people, I can’t stop you, Mrs Phoenix. But Detective Munsie may not be too pleased about it.’

Mrs Phoenix looked unhappy.

Mrs Quantock looked more so. ‘I just want to know what happened,’ she said, putting the marmalade on the table with a nervous frown. ‘It’s such a terrible thing and it happened in our street. Poor Doreen.’

Joan said, ‘Meg was in the laneway picking plums –’

Annoyed, Mrs Phoenix broke in. ‘I hadn’t been out all day, because it had been so hot. You know that Arthur is away on warden business this weekend?’

Mrs Quantock nodded and the old lady went on.

‘It was when I went out to feed the chooks that I saw her, in the shelter. I thought she was sleeping. But –’

‘Ooo hoo.’ Another neighbour was at the back door.

‘Kitchen,’ Joan called out.

I got up. ‘I have to get ready for work,’ I said to Ma.

Mrs Dodd from number 11 came in from the back verandah carrying some eggs. ‘It’s just me,’ she said. ‘The chooks have been laying so well and I thought you might –’ She saw Mrs Phoenix. ‘Isn’t it dreadful about Doreen? Do you think it was a maniac? Or a spy? The police are searching all the houses and yards.’

‘I was just telling Elsie . . .’ Mrs Phoenix began.

I fled the kitchen.

When I emerged from our house I saw that there were several police cars in the street and a uniformed policeman was on guard outside the Phoenix house. He smiled at me as I walked past on my way to catch a trolleybus into town. I tried to smile in return but it was a poor effort. That made me feel sad, because he was handsome and I knew that Doreen would have been delighted to stop and flirt with him. I wished I could tell him what Doreen had been like, make it clear that she had been a happy, lively woman. That she was more than just the body.

As I continued along the footpath it seemed that every resident of Megalong Street had decided to water their gardens that morning. They all wanted to know what had happened, but I gave the same answer to everyone. ‘I can’t discuss it, I’m afraid. The police won’t let me.’ Ignoring the disappointed looks I almost ran across Park Road to the bush track that led to Stirling Highway.

I emerged opposite the honey-coloured sandstone buildings and lovely gardens of the University of Western Australia. Framed by the intense burning blue of a Perth summer sky, the tall clock tower of Winthrop Hall was as beautiful as ever but, as usual, I was sad to see the changes that war had brought to the university. Wooden boards were nailed across the stained-glass windows as air raid protection. A barbed wire fence had been erected around the perimeter, and security was very tight, because parts of the grounds and some of the buildings were being used for the US Catalina flying boat base. Armed US sentries stood at the gate.

Beyond the university and through the peppermint trees on the foreshore I could see the sweep of Matilda Bay, mirror calm in the morning sunshine. On the far bank was the brilliant green of market gardens and beyond them the red terracotta roofs of the houses of South Perth. In the distance was Pelican Point, where the flying boats were moored. I couldn’t see any from where I stood, but I could hear their engines. The sound was a reassuring reminder that Australia was not alone in this war.

I vividly remembered the arrival of the Catalinas, early one morning in March last year. Ma, Joan and I had been woken by the unceasing roar of aircraft overhead. At first we were terrified, thinking that it was the Japanese invasion, and we stumbled outside in our dressing-gowns, half asleep. Up and down the street neighbours were peering anxiously at the sky as plane after plane circled above us before descending to land somewhere on the river.

‘They’re American,’ Jimmy McLean shouted excitedly. ‘Catalina flying boats, landing in Matilda Bay. We’re heading over there to see them. Come too.’

So we dressed hurriedly and walked to the river to join what seemed to be the whole population of Nedlands stretched out along the bank. We all watched as dozens of flying boats landed like ungainly pelicans and hundreds of men in tan overalls and leather jackets came ashore in small boats.

After nearly a year now, we were used to being woken early every morning by the deafening thunder of Catalinas taking off. I often saw servicemen around the neighbourhood, but I hadn’t spoken to any of them. The officers lived in a huddled village of asbestos and weatherboard huts that had been built in bushland near the highway, and the enlisted men lived in Quonset huts in the university grounds. Doreen had told me they were polite, generous and great fun; she had loved spending time with the pilots.

But I didn’t want to think about Doreen. I turned my face to the sun and closed my eyes, listening to the noise of the engines as I waited for my bus.

It was a marvellously sunny morning, though much cooler than yesterday. There was an exhilarating freshness in the air around me and I breathed in deeply. It was difficult to imagine that a war was going on, or that a woman I had known had been murdered in our street. Somehow the perfect weather made the events of yesterday seem more unreal.

The crowded Number 25 jerked to a stop with a squeak and a shudder on the road beside me. As usual I spent the journey watching the Swan River, under the shadow of Mount Eliza. Maybe it was because I had grown up in a desert town that I so loved that wide, meandering river. I scanned the far distance, past the wooden Crawley Swimming Baths, for a couple of the flying boats moored near Pelican Point. Soon, the pungent smell of hops meant we were passing the red-brick nineteenth-century jumble of the Swan Brewery. The Emu Brewery was next, its beautiful Art Deco friezes sharply delineated in the sunshine. We turned away from the river and entered St Georges Terrace.

The Terrace, too, was different from the one I had known before the war. The ornate facades were as grand as ever, but window displays in the department stores had disappeared and most of the windows were boarded up because of the danger of flying glass during an air attack. Others had been converted into street-level air raid shelters.

There was a generally drab appearance about everything, except for the rather garish propaganda posters that had been put up throughout the city. Two in particular caught my eye that morning. A little blue fish lazily approached a tasty worm on a hook: ‘Even a fish wouldn’t get caught if he didn’t open his mouth – watch your tongue.’ I wondered how many neighbours were talking to Mrs Phoenix about the murder. The next poster depicted a fearsome Japanese soldier jumping out of the red and white rising sun flag of Japan, heading straight for Australia with bayonet fixed. The caption read: ‘He’s Coming South: It’s Fight, Work or Perish’. I allowed myself a bitter smile. A Japanese soldier hadn’t murdered Doreen; sometimes danger was much closer than you realised.

I got off the bus at the old Treasury Buildings. At a gesture from the white-helmeted policeman on point duty I crossed the Terrace and entered the oasis of Stirling Gardens. The gardens were beautiful even in the middle of summer and they lifted my spirits as I made my way towards the Supreme Court building.

I loved my job. Law, particularly the criminal law, was fascinating to me and I loved learning how it all worked. An added bonus was that working for the Crown Prosecutor gave me inside knowledge of all the major crimes that came to trial in Western Australia. I enjoyed being involved with such important matters. And now it meant something more, that I would have privileged access to information about Doreen’s murder as it became known.

Waving to the doorman, I crossed the foyer to the shabby wooden staircase that led down to the offices of the Attorney General’s Department, Crown Law. These were located in an annex at the rear, giving a marvellous view of the lawns and botanical gardens that stretched behind the building, almost down to the river. However, that view was strictly for the lawyers. There was no window in the typists’ room.

The cleaning lady, Mrs Gangemi, met me on the stairs. She was a small, round Sicilian with dark curly hair and a wicked grin. Her mournful face and large, dark eyes always seemed on the verge of tears until they were lit up by that grin, and at least once in every conversation a startling giggle would explode out of her without warning.

Sadly, neither the grin nor the giggle had been much in evidence since her husband had been interned as an enemy alien last year. I had met Mr Gangemi once. He was a square, short-legged man with a jolly face and I had liked him very much. I supposed that the construction business he had spent twenty years building up would fade the longer he was interned and eventually fail. It was a shame, because I had no doubt the Gangemis were as loyal to Australia as I was.

Mrs Gangemi always stopped for a chat when she saw me. I had helped her when her husband had been taken away by filling in the inevitable forms the government demanded. She was convinced that it was only because of my form-filling expertise that she had not been incarcerated with him. I knew it was because the Crown Prosecutor had made representations on her behalf, but he refused to let me tell her.

‘Good day, Miss Meg,’ she said. She always made it sound like ‘Missa Megga’.

I smiled at her, thinking it was a relief to speak to someone who knew nothing about the murder. ‘Hullo, Nancy. Did you see Mr Gangemi on the weekend?’ I asked. His detention camp was a two-hour bus ride from Perth.

‘Oh, yes. Every weekend, I go to the camp. The food there is so bad. Mr Gangemi, he needs me to bring him real food.’

‘They’ll eventually realise how silly it is to keep men like Mr Gangemi interned. He’ll be home soon, I’m sure.’

Nancy’s grin appeared. ‘I sure hope so. Before it gets cold anyways. A cold bed, it’s no good.’ She giggled, and covered her mouth with her hand, like a naughty girl. I smiled in response, and went on down the stairs towards the typists’ room.

A door led from the typists’ room to a short corridor, off which were the offices of the four lawyers who made up the Crown Law Department in Western Australia.

A similar series of rooms further down the corridor housed another three typists, together with the accounts and clerical staff. Several of the junior clerks were in the armed forces and their jobs were being held for them, which meant that the remaining clerical staff had to put in extra hours. I did work for whichever lawyer needed it, but I worked primarily with Mr Goodley, the Crown Prosecutor, who was a jealous boss.

I hung my light summer coat and hat on a coat-rack behind my desk and put my lace gloves into my handbag.

Mavis Filmer entered a little while later. She was assigned to the Solicitor General and was nominally in charge of typing. A thin woman of around fifty, she wore her greying hair in the rigidly waved style of the early 1930s. Miss Filmer did her work assiduously, left at five sharp each afternoon and went home to a ginger cat and the wireless. Rumour had it that her fiancé had been killed in France in the Great War. In the year I had been working there, I had not been asked to call her Mavis.

The desk beside me was empty. I glanced at the clock: it was five past nine. Annie Eccles was late again and Miss Filmer would not be happy. Annie was my best friend. She worked for the Crown Solicitor, but had a reputation for unreliability. It was a good thing for her that typists were as rare as hens’ teeth these days.

I didn’t expect Mr Goodley to arrive for another half-hour at least. He had worked very long hours in the week just past, prosecuting a case of theft of government property. After a long trial he tended to take things easy.

Sure enough, at ten o’clock precisely, he wandered in, immaculately dressed as usual. There was a small rose in his lapel and his hat was tipped over one eye in a dapper fashion.

Maurice Goodley was not a tall man and he was slightly built, but he had a military bearing and when he spoke he commanded attention and respect. Despite being almost sixty, his hair was still uniformly black and somewhat longer than fashion dictated. It was a major player in the arsenal of tricks he used to sway a jury, showing rage as he tossed it back, pain as he let it fall across his face, and precision of thought as he tucked it behind his ears during a summing-up.

He had other weapons, too, of course. His eyebrows could reach astonishing heights during cross-examination. ‘See,’ they could say to a jury, ‘the witness lies.’ Or they could come together in a fearsome scowl: ‘Look. The man is guilty.’ His long fingers were also called into play, fidgeting with his pen during the defence summing-up, or flitting around to emphasise a point or make clear a difficult argument.

It was a special treat for me to be able to watch him perform. He liked me to sit in the back of the court during an important trial and take down the cross-examination in shorthand, because I could provide him with a transcript faster than the court reporters.

‘We rub along well,’ he said to me after the first month or so. He liked my precision in typing and shorthand. He also liked, although he never would admit to it, my ability to rephrase his words and tone down a particularly offensive remark to a minister or another lawyer. I was well aware that I had saved his friendship with the Attorney General on a number of occasions by omitting from the typed letter some piece of clever invective that was on my shorthand notepad.

‘I said that, did I?’ he asked me the first time that the typed letter was not the same as the one he had dictated. His eyebrows were drawn together in a scowl and he was regarding me as if I were in the dock.

‘You meant to,’ I replied, meeting his gaze squarely, although I was afraid I had overstepped the mark.

My Uncle Wilf, who had been at Gallipoli and whom I’d idolised as a child, always told me, ‘Look ’em in the eye, girl, no matter what. Look ’em in the eye and take it on the chin.’

‘Hmmm.’ Mr Goodley had glanced at the typed letter and thrown me a sharp look. ‘I write well, don’t I?’

As he passed my desk this morning, he asked me to come into his office when I was ready. I picked up my notebook and pencil and followed him in. I found him at his desk with his hands steepled in front of him. He peered at me over his half-moon reading glasses.

‘So, Meg, you found a body. How dramatic. Are you all right? Detective Munsie telephoned me this morning. He was impressed with your composure yesterday, but it must have been a terrible shock.’

‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘It was pretty ghastly, though. I knew her.’

‘Yes, so Munsie said.’ He frowned at the inkstand on his desk. ‘It’s the husband, of course.’

I was startled. Not that Mr Goodley would be talking to me about it, because I knew how much he loved to gossip, but that they had already decided it was Frank Luca.

‘Why do they think it was him?’

‘His ship docked at Fremantle on Friday night. He left on shore leave at midday on Saturday and he is currently AWOL. It’ll be in the newspapers this afternoon. It’s almost always the husband in these cases.’

‘Do they know how Doreen ended up in the air raid shelter?’

‘I’ve given up trying to fathom the criminal mind,’ Mr Goodley said in a slow, ponderous voice.

When he started talking to me as if he were addressing a jury, it meant discussions were concluded. I picked up my pad, ready for dictation.

When I returned to the typists’ room, Annie was typing industriously. She had slunk in at nine-twenty, and mouthed to me ‘Big night’ when she sat down under the weight of Miss Filmer’s frown.

Annie was twenty-four, with wild black hair, hazel eyes and a true hourglass figure. I sometimes wondered how we were such good friends because we were so different. I was far quieter than she was, and since Peter had died I didn’t really go out much at all. So I relied on Annie to let me know what was happening in Perth. A girl didn’t need to go out with Americans to have a good time – there were plenty of Australian, British and Dutch servicemen in Perth, too, but only American servicemen existed for Annie. She took full advantage of the many cabarets and dance halls that had sprung up out of nowhere after US troops arrived in 1942. The American ‘invasion’ of Perth was, in Annie’s view, the most exciting thing ever to have happened here.

‘Well, who wouldn’t think so?’ she said. ‘They are charming, they know how to treat a woman and they look so dashing. I mean, honestly, Meg, their uniforms are smooth. The Australian uniform is baggy and scratchy. Their uniforms fit. I love that even the enlisted men wear ties, not just the officers.’

She giggled. ‘And their flies are zippers. Our boys have buttons, like they’ve just come off the Ark.’

It was early in our friendship and I was taken aback.

‘Annie! Just how closely have you been examining their uniforms?’

‘Well, it’s pretty obvious. If you look.’

‘I thought your father said you couldn’t go out with Americans.’

‘Pops came around last week when Sammy Lewin arrived with a carton of Lucky Strikes and a bottle of whisky. He gave Mum a bunch of flowers and a huge box of chocolates. They’re fine with Americans now.’

It soon became clear that Annie was willing to examine the American uniforms very closely indeed. She reckoned girls were stupid to hold out for love, stupid to expect it to be like it was in the movies. Men wouldn’t wait around if a girl kept saying no, she told me earnestly. There was a war on and no one had any time to lose.

‘Meg, if you hold out on any soldier or sailor you go out with, you’ll be dropped and you’ll miss the best time of your life,’ she insisted.

Annie’s liaisons didn’t always end happily. She had sobbed herself sick over some unfeeling American on several occasions in the year I had known her. But on the whole, I thought she was right. Things had changed with the war. Men were gone so quickly now, off to horrors those left behind could only imagine, and who could blame girls if they were more willing to slip into bed with them? I hadn’t held out when it came to Peter and I had no regrets.

‘A body! Meg, how horrible! How could you not scream your head off?’ Annie said on our way to lunch.

We were stepping out of the building, heels tapping on the stone floors, to eat our sandwiches on one of the benches in Stirling Gardens.

‘It must surely be the husband,’ she went on. ‘Golly, I hope it wasn’t an American. The Catalina base is very close to your street, isn’t it?’

‘Well, she used to hang around a lot with the Americans and they all seem to carry knives, but circumstances indicate the husband is the most likely suspect.’

Annie giggled. ‘You sound like Mr Goodley. So what are you going to wear when you meet the handsome captain for a drink tomorrow?’

‘He’s not all that handsome. And he has a beautiful fiancée, according to the Mirror.’

‘So what?’ said Annie. ‘Why would he invite you for a drink if he wasn’t interested in you?’

Annie saw life in very simple terms. If a man asked you out for a drink he was interested in you. If he had a girlfriend, or even a fiancée, it was too bad for her. I was pretty sure Tom Lagrange was anything but simple and I suspected his reasons for inviting me for a drink were not simple either.

Six

The following morning I dressed carefully in a hand-knitted dress of dusty pink, a favourite of mine. I had washed my hair the night before and I brushed it into a smooth shoulder-length bob, which I topped with my best hat, a small circle of brown straw with a shallow crown and a thin pink ribbon. I had borrowed a pair of new nylons from Joan and wore my best court shoes.

I twisted around to check that my stocking seams were straight. It was considered vulgar not to wear stockings, but they were almost impossible to get now because they were so severely rationed. The problem was solved if a girl was friendly with the Americans and their seemingly endless supplies of nylons. If not, there was always Cyclax stockingless cream, which tanned the legs so you seemed to be wearing sheer stockings. You had to get a friend to draw the seam-line up the back of the leg with an eyebrow pencil, and some girls were even clever enough to paint in the little square along the heel, just like in real stockings. The cream worked perfectly – until it rained. I was lucky that Joan worked in a lingerie department and she could usually manage to find a pair for me. I always kept a tube of Cyclax in my drawer, though, just in case.

The morning newspaper was full of the murder. As Mr Goodley had predicted, Doreen’s husband Frank was the main suspect, though the police still hadn’t found him.

According to the paper, Frank had been drinking at the Captain Stirling Hotel on Saturday afternoon. The hotel was fairly close to Megalong Street, and it was a favourite American hangout. He was thrown out for being drunk and disorderly at six o’clock closing time, after which he turned up at the Catalina officers’ quarters, asking for his wife. Apparently he had found out that Doreen was one of the number of local women invited to attend a party there that night. The sentries wouldn’t let him through the gate, and told him they were going to call the Military Police. Frank slipped away along a bush path and hadn’t been seen since. Doreen was at the party all evening and consumed a great deal of alcohol. She had left the base just before midnight, presumably heading for home, along the same bush path.

I knew the area well. The quickest way to get to the officers’ quarters from Megalong Street was to cross Winthrop Avenue from Park Road and walk along a rough path through about two hundred yards of bush to the gate on the highway. I wondered if Doreen had met Frank, or whoever her murderer was, on that path, before she went with him to the air raid shelter.

I moved on to the war news. The Americans were making slow but solid progress on Guadalcanal on the Solomon Islands in the Pacific, Rommel’s Afrika Corps was on the run from the British Eighth Army in Africa, and the Red Army was doing well against the Nazis on the Eastern Front. I turned to the maps on our kitchen wall. A blue pin went on the dots that represented the Solomon Islands on the Pacific Ocean map and I placed another blue pin just to the east of Tripoli on the Africa map. I moved a red pin to the left in Russia.

Otherwise, I ignored the map of Europe because it was so depressing. I had used black pins for each country under Axis control and the continent of Europe was now a forest of black pins with a solitary blue pin in Britain. A line of red pins delineated the Russian Front, but it was too close to Moscow for my liking.

Nancy Gangemi was on the stairs again as I made my way down to the office later that morning, looking very upset. When I asked her what was wrong, she shook her head.

‘This newspaper, it says the police think Frank Luca killed his wife. That’s not right.’

I was surprised. ‘Do you know him?’

‘His parents live near us in North Perth. But right now, they’re both in the camp with Giuseppe. They are good people. I’ve met that boy. He didn’t kill his wife.’ She shook her head firmly. ‘It’s a mistake. She was a bad girl. Mrs Luca told me about her. There were lots of fellas. One of them must have killed her. Not Francesco.’

As I made my way to the office I thought about what Nancy had said. I, too, found it hard to believe that Frank Luca would be capable of killing anyone, especially Doreen. He had loved her very much.

Mr Goodley, on the other hand, needed no convincing of Frank Luca’s guilt. He was full of good humour that morning; he always appreciated a juicy murder. Especially as he knew an important fact that was not in the newspaper.

‘A couple driving down Winthrop Avenue at around twelve-thirty saw a woman crossing the road. The police think it must have been Mrs Luca, from the description they gave. She was walking with an unsteady gait and tried to wave them down, but they thought she was intoxicated and they didn’t stop.’

‘Maybe she was running away from someone.’

‘They say they didn’t see anyone else, but who knows?’

‘The paper says she left the base just before midnight, so what was she doing in the bush for half an hour until twelve-thirty?’

He shrugged. ‘She might not have left the camp alone. Anyway, it rules out the Americans, because the sentries have verified that all naval personnel quartered at the camp were signed in by twelve-thirty.’

If we could trust the sentries, it was looking pretty bleak for Frank Luca, whatever Nancy might think.

At five o’clock I put the cover on my typewriter and went to the ladies’ room to powder my face and apply fresh lipstick. I combed my hair so that it hung smoothly and put on my hat, tilting it at what I hoped was a fashionable angle over my right eye. Then I washed my hands, pulled on my gloves, picked up my handbag and set off along St Georges Terrace for the Adelphi Hotel.

The Terrace was lined with imposing buildings that had been constructed with money from the gold finds at Kalgoorlie, where I had been born. I had always felt a sense of pride that Kalgoorlie was the reason behind Perth’s elegant main street. Today, however, I didn’t have an eye for the buildings. I was too busy pushing my way through the crowds of servicemen out for a good time and the city workers trying to catch trams or trolleybuses or parlour cars home. The garish posters did catch my eye, though. A woman in overalls was imploring me to ‘Do your bit on the Food Front: Grow Your own Vegetables for Victory’. Ma had managed to grow some potatoes last year, but the beans had all died and the broccoli got mould. There was a lack of green thumbs in the Eaton family.

The crowd surged around me, and I was feeling slightly dishevelled by the time I managed to get through to William Street. I was waiting for the policeman on point duty to wave me across when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see a young American in naval whites eyeing me with a cheeky grin.

‘Honey, I bet you’re off to see a young man. You look mighty fine indeed. I’m sure I could show you a better time. Howsabout it?’

I smiled and shook my head.

The policeman waved us through and I was swept away from him, across the road with the crowd. There was a lot of rivalry between local men and Americans over us women, but I thought that Australian men could learn something from the Americans, who were always very polite and paid us nice compliments. They were also generous, as Annie informed me, turning up with flowers and chocolates and other gifts when they came to take you out. Of course, their rates of pay were around twice those of the Australians.

That thought brought me back to Tom Lagrange. He was an Australian captain who didn’t need the money. The Lagranges were wealthy. Tom and Peter’s father was a businessman, but the family money was in sheep and cattle stations in the north and timber in the south-west. It was funny that neither Tom nor Peter had wanted to be a part of the family business. From Peter I knew that Tom wanted to teach literature at university, although his parents were hoping that his stint at Oxford would get that out of his system.

Peter had wanted to be a civil engineer. He had wanted a lot of things . . .

Thinking about him brought the usual tears and my steps slowed as I blinked them away.

The Adelphi came into view, its facade a warm yellow in the sunshine, its sharp Art Deco lines crisp and satisfying. It was one of the best hotels in Perth, and most of its rooms had been requisitioned for recreational quarters for commissioned officers of the US Navy.

Tom Lagrange was leaning against the wall of the hotel, smoking a cigarette. Annie might love the smooth, tailored American uniforms, but I always felt proud when I saw our men in their baggy khaki. Captain’s pips shone on Tom’s shoulders. On his left sleeve, near the cuff, were three gold stripes, each representing a wound received in battle. His face was strong-featured and angular under the peaked officer’s cap. He looked nothing like Peter.

My stomach tightened and I wondered why I had agreed to this meeting. Feeling dizzy, I stopped walking and let the crowds move around me. What was I doing? Peter had wanted me to meet Tom, whom he’d seemed almost to hero-worship. But Peter was gone. Spending time with his brother would surely just stir up all the memories and misery that I was just starting to push to the back of my mind.

Just as I had decided to walk away, Tom turned and saw me. My confusion must have been apparent, or maybe it was clear that I was about to turn and run. He pushed himself away from the wall, threw his cigarette on the ground and made his way towards me through the crowds. There was a closed, wary look on his face. He gave me what seemed like a forced smile as he came closer. Tom put out his hand and I grasped it as if it was a lifeline.

‘Hullo, Meg,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you came. I was worried you were going to stand me up.’

‘I almost did,’ I admitted. ‘I was about to turn around when you saw me.’

He was still holding my hand and he pulled me towards the hotel entrance.

‘I’ll buy you some courage. We should talk.’

He led me past the two conquistador statues that guarded the stairway, through the mirrored lobby and into the red leather and chrome elegance of the cocktail lounge, where he found us a table in a corner. The room was filled with US naval officers, many of them drinking with local girls, and there was a hubbub of laughter, conversation and clinking glasses. The six o’clock swill was in full swing with people drinking hard before the bar closed. A haze of cigarette smoke added to the impression of boozy decadence. Tom held my chair out for me as I sat down.

‘What would you like?’ There was a slight smile on his face now and the shuttered, almost haunted expression was gone.

‘I’m not much of a drinker,’ I admitted. ‘What do girls usually ask you to get them?’

He really smiled then and I marvelled at how it changed his face.

‘It depends on the girl,’ he replied. ‘It’s a warm evening. What about a Singapore sling?’

It sounded tempting, sophisticated. Tom grinned at my expression and didn’t wait for my reply.

‘Wait here,’ he said. He pushed through the crowds, heading towards the bar, and I lost sight of him.

It wasn’t the sort of place I would normally come to and I wondered why I had suggested it. Was it possible I had been trying to impress Tom? If so, it hadn’t worked because he seemed far more at ease than I felt. I sat up straighter. I’d just have to wing it and ‘box clever’, as Peter would say.

Tom returned with a schooner of beer for himself and a pretty pink drink in a tall glass for me. The drink was deliciously sweet and refreshing. My face must have given me away again, because he laughed.

‘Only one, Miss Meg. Or you’ll be on your ear.’

I felt irritated to be treated like a child, but I didn’t want to show him that. I took another sip. ‘It’s lovely,’ I said, in what I hoped was a tone of cool sophistication. I sat back and looked at him, raising my eyebrow. He looked at me just as coolly, still smiling. Then he gave a short sigh and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. He shook one out, put it in his mouth, lit it and inhaled deeply.

‘Your hair. Was it always that colour?’ he asked. ‘I remember it being darker, and it was shorter, wasn’t it?’

‘What?’ I was confused. So he really had noticed me in 1939. ‘Yes, it was shorter and curlier, it curls more when it’s short. I don’t dye it. It just goes lighter in the summer.’ I was babbling. I took another sip of my drink to steady myself.

‘You were very young then. Wide eyes and curls, like Shirley Temple.’

‘I was seventeen,’ I said, annoyed again.

‘And now you’re twenty-one. Do you chew your bottom lip like that whenever you’re uncomfortable?’

And do you always make such personal comments? I said nothing, lifted my chin, and wondered again why Tom had wanted to meet me.

‘So, Meg, what do you do for fun in Megalong Street, Hollywood?’

I gave a small shrug. What sort of conversation was this?

‘I don’t do much,’ I answered, my tone flat. ‘I go out sometimes with Annie, a friend from work, or with my sister Joan. Sometimes with Joyce, the girl from university. Although Joyce is in the WAAAF now, and it looks like she’ll soon be posted away. I play bridge with my mother and her friends. Attend Red Cross meetings. Listen to the wireless. Go to the pictures. Read.’

It sounded pathetically dull. I was twenty-one and living the life of a middle-aged old maid. With some horror, I realised I was in danger of living Miss Filmer’s life. All I needed was the cat.

‘No boyfriend?’

That’s none of your business.

‘No, not really. Not since Peter . . . Well, I did go out a few times with a fellow last year. But it wasn’t serious at all. Really.’ I didn’t want him to misunderstand. ‘He’s in New Guinea now. In Buna, where all that terrible fighting has been going on, and somehow he’s got it into his head that it was serious. His name’s Harvey and he’s coming home on leave in a few weeks. I’m not sure what to do.’

Why was I telling him this? Because I had no idea how to handle being in a fancy cocktail lounge with him? Because he was obviously an experienced man of the world? Because he asked? He seemed to have a way of making me talk.

‘So you write to this Harvey?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why haven’t you written and told him that it wasn’t as serious as he thought and he shouldn’t have got his hopes up?’

‘Because he’s in New Guinea. Because he might be killed. He says my letters are all that keep him going.’

I picked up my glass and took another sip. Maybe the drink was stronger than it seemed. I felt as if I were floating and I couldn’t believe I had told him about Harvey. What the hell, I could forget all about Tom Lagrange after tonight.

He stubbed out his cigarette and lounged back in the red leather chair. ‘He’s manipulating you. Don’t allow yourself to be manipulated into a situation that is intolerable to you. What will this Harvey expect when he comes home? How far are you prepared to go to keep him from being miserable?’

‘Not that far!’

‘Then let him down now. Don’t wait until he comes home.’

I took a gulp of the cocktail. He was regarding me intently, his eyes so dark that they didn’t seem to reflect light. Had Doreen fallen into those eyes? I bit my lip, wondering if it was the cocktail that made me feel this way.

Tom grimaced self-consciously. ‘I knew Pete had a girlfriend in Perth. I should have made time to see you when I got back after he died. I’m sorry I didn’t do that, Meg.’

So that was what this was about. He felt responsible for me.

‘Tom’s the responsible one,’ Peter had told me. ‘Eldest son and all that. He was expected to look after me. I used to follow him around all the time and wanted to be in everything he did. Poor Tom.’ He had grinned self-deprecatingly, the boyish grin that always seemed to stop my heart beating for a second or two.

I blinked away tears and took another sip of my drink. When I looked up I saw something softer in Tom’s eyes.

‘Tell me about him. Where did he take you when you first went out?’ His voice was light, conversational, but I flinched all the same. I still found it hard to talk about Peter. Even after eighteen months, it still felt raw.

‘The Oyster Beds,’ I said, staring at the three captain’s pips on the shoulder of his jacket. ‘He took me to dinner there. I’d never been anywhere so posh. It was lovely. I was worried we’d have nothing to talk about, but that was never a problem. We just clicked, right from the start.’

I couldn’t help smiling at the memory. After dinner we had driven to the Palais de Danse on the beachfront at Cottesloe, where we sat in the car and listened to the music compete with the sound of the waves. It was there Peter first kissed me.

I stopped smiling and stared at Tom, mute.

‘I was in the Middle East when Pete died,’ he said. ‘I got the news by cable. The last time I saw him was August 1939 when I left for Oxford. Just before he started seeing you. I have a photograph of him in his RAAF uniform, looking shockingly young and too grown up all at once.’

That was the photograph beside my bed.

‘When it happened,’ I said, ‘in July 1941, the air force sent his things home to your parents. They didn’t tell me. I read about his death in the newspaper. That was terrible. I suppose I just didn’t believe it at first. A week later I wrote to your parents, asking if it were really true. If he really was gone. A few days later I received a parcel containing all of the letters I had written to Peter. Just my letters, and the three photographs he had of me. There was also a request for me not to contact your parents again and to return all the letters Peter had written to me.’

Tom’s expression was unreadable. ‘They said they were not obligated to me emotionally or financially,’ I continued. ‘It was very strange. Did they think I was going to ask them for money?’

‘Meg, I didn’t know anything about this.’

‘I wrote back to say I couldn’t return the letters he’d written to me, but I’d be happy to meet them if they liked. They didn’t like. I received a reply asking me not to contact them again or they would “engage solicitors”.’

Tom’s face was drawn in a deep frown.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘They’re your parents, I shouldn’t have told you. I don’t know why I did –’

‘Who wrote to you?’

His voice was steady, but there was a glint in his eyes and I wasn’t sure what it meant.

‘Actually, it was Phyllis Gregory. She said she was writing on behalf of your parents. My impression was that they were worried I’d ask them for money or something, but perhaps I was too upset to think straight.’

Tom gave a bitter laugh. ‘Phyllis and my family must be no favourites of yours. It was a terrible time. I don’t think anyone was thinking straight.’

‘Anyway, it’s all over now. I really don’t think about it all that often.’ But now I’d mentioned her name, I wondered what else he might have to say about Phyllis Gregory.

‘Meg, I don’t think my parents ever saw your letters. They never mentioned them to me. Knowing Phyll, I expect she opened all their correspondence and only showed them what she thought they needed to see. After Pete died and I was away they relied upon her completely. We’re engaged, you know. I don’t think she meant to be hurtful. She’s a good person really.’

There was a despondent note in his voice, and he appeared to be genuinely upset. I murmured something about it being fine, looked away and took another sip of my drink. I was glad Tom hadn’t known about the letters, because I liked him. I was glad I liked him because Peter had wanted me to like him. All of a sudden I felt very weary and wished I was at home with my mother and Joan.

There was a light touch on my arm. Tom was leaning towards me.

‘Meg,’ he said gently. ‘I don’t know you, and I suppose you’ll think it’s none of my business, but I do know Pete would not have wanted you to shut yourself away like you’ve been doing. You’re young and attractive. You should be going out. You can’t spend your life mourning Peter, or being scared of making mistakes like Harvey. It’s been eighteen months. You’ve got to let him go.’

I felt my face grow hot and lowered my eyes to the glass in front of me. Rivulets of condensation were running down the side. Tom had no right to say that to me, though Peter himself had told me not to mope.

It was a few days before Peter was due to ship out to Canada for training, at the close of a day I remembered as being made up almost entirely of laughter. We ended up by Shenton Park Lake. A grove of weeping willows spread their fronds out over the water’s edge, in a scene that might have come from a Constable painting. It was warm and dry among the willow roots and as night fell around us we spread a rug on the ground. I was worried we would be seen, but Peter said it would be fine, that it was almost completely dark in the blackout.

The wind blew the branches around us, but never exposed us and the rustle of the leaves covered our laughter, our muffled breaths and, eventually, our soft cries. Peter’s body was hard and muscled and he smelled of sweat and hair oil and Lifebuoy soap. Afterwards, as we lay together, still half-dressed for warmth, he became serious.

‘Meg, if I buy it over there – if I don’t come back – don’t mope. Just get on with your life. Promise me that.’

I had cried and held on to him tightly, told him not to say that, not even to think it. He was insistent, though, and I did promise. Only I hadn’t been able to keep that promise.

I sat very still, refusing to cry. Finally I looked at Tom and gave a little laugh. ‘You’re not in cahoots with my mother, are you? She says the same sort of thing.’

Now there was a slyness about his smile. ‘Maybe her friends have been complaining about your bridge playing.’

I frowned and his smile broadened. But when it faded I could see that his eyes looked tired. Tom had old, tired eyes in a young man’s face. I was unwilling to look at him too closely because I was a bit wary of those eyes, especially when the room was spinning.

‘I know I should get out more. But it seems so pointless, now he’s gone,’ I said.

Tom didn’t respond.

‘All right,’ I said carefully, talking to the room and not to him. ‘I will make an effort, I promise. No more staying at home, moping about Peter.’

As soon as I said it a feeling of resentment washed through me. Tom Lagrange was not responsible for me. He had no obligation towards me, moral or otherwise, just because it was his brother I couldn’t get over, and his family and fiancée who had treated me so shabbily. I flicked him a glance. I knew I was flushed and suspected that the drink was giving me false courage.

‘Anyway, it’s easy for you,’ I heard myself say. ‘You tell me to get out more, but I can’t just whip up good cheer, or the sort of dresses the women here are wearing for that matter. Could you get me the clothing coupons for evening dresses?’ I threw it out as a challenge, not a request.

He shook his head, obviously surprised.

‘I thought not. So don’t push me,’ I said, trying not to sound too sullen.

Tom’s expression was thoughtful, but not unkind. Eventually he nodded. ‘All right, I’ll back off.’

We sat in silence while around us the room became even more crowded as the six o’clock cut-off loomed. I was thinking about the promise I had just made. I didn’t want to fall in love again. I didn’t think I could fall in love again, but it would be nice just to go dancing with Annie and enjoy myself. I decided I’d ask her tomorrow.

It was time I left. I turned to Tom, and caught him staring across the room.

‘Good Lord, what does he want?’ he murmured, just before a man in the uniform of an American Naval Air Force lieutenant sat down beside me.

It was neatly done. There was no one near us one second and then there was a very large American sitting beside me the next. His hair was cropped and blond and his eyes were a clear blue. He looked healthy and clean and athletic, but I couldn’t help thinking of those Nazi propaganda posters extolling the virtues of the Aryan race. The scar on Tom’s face was livid. He was not smiling.

The stranger grinned. ‘Battle alert. I’m sure this is all kosher, but I’m doing you a favour, buddy.’

He glanced at the doorway. A tall woman with a long slender neck and a statuesque figure was standing there, elegantly adjusting her silver fox fur stole. Her fair hair was cut into short curls and her lips were dark red. The ice-blue frock was plain, but well cut and decidedly chic. That fur stole alone would have cost more than my entire wardrobe. It seemed to me that every man in the room, including Tom and the American officer, was watching her.

She was undeniably lovely, but I thought she had a rather sulky face. Then she caught sight of Tom and smiled, and I could see she was an absolute stunner. I stifled a sigh. This had to be Phyllis Gregory.

I glanced down at my pink dress. Joan had spent weeks knitting it from a pattern she ordered from the Women’s Weekly, and I had been thrilled with it. Suddenly it seemed frumpy and obviously home-made. My heart was racing and I felt faint. Would she remember my name? Peter had not liked Phyllis Gregory. He had called her Tom’s biggest mistake. I straightened my shoulders and lifted my chin. I liked my dress. Miss Gregory, you’re Tom’s biggest mistake.

The American officer turned to me with a grin. He had a pleasant enough face under sandy-coloured eyebrows and I smiled back.

‘I’m Chad,’ he whispered in a twangy American accent. ‘Chad Buchowski. It might be politic to let Phyll think that we’re together. She can be nasty if she gets jealous, and she gets very jealous of Tom.’

My smile became fixed in place. Tom had got up from his seat and his expression was not one I had seen on him before. There was a touch of bewilderment in it, and he suddenly seemed younger. Glancing at me, he raised one eyebrow, but that gave me no hint as to what he wanted me to do. Meanwhile, Miss Phyllis Gregory progressed across the room, the dress swishing across her body as she moved. Will she remember writing to me? My palms were moist.

She arrived at our table, adjusted her fur stole and presented her face to Tom for a kiss. Tom moved in obediently and when he leaned back there was a smudge of red on his cheek, like a wound to match the scar on the other side.

‘Darling,’ she said to Tom, wiping the lipstick off his face with her thumb.

Chad was also on his feet. ‘Phyllis,’ he drawled, ‘great to see you.’

Phyllis glanced over at him. ‘Lieutenant Buchowski.’

She ignored me. It took effort to ignore someone as blatantly as Phyllis Gregory was ignoring me. The foxes were paying me more attention; at least they were looking in my direction, peeping out from the fur at her neck.

Up close she was as lovely as she had seemed in the doorway, although I realised she must be several years older than I was. She might even be older than Tom, whose eyes had become as glassy as the little fox eyes. I sat still, feeling like a fool, unsure what to do.

‘How lucky to find you here,’ she said to Tom in an accent that spoke of a very good girls’ school. ‘I’m parched. Be a love and buy me a gin before they close the bar.’

Her eyes were half closed. I had the image of a lioness lying in the sun, flicking her tail. She looked over and past me without any acknowledgment, and back to Chad. I realised Chad had no idea what my name was and I opened my mouth to introduce myself, when I saw Tom give a visible start. It was disconcerting to see him so unsettled. I preferred the Tom I had met on Sunday, the Tom of ten minutes ago, the man who was in control of any situation.

‘Phyll,’ said Tom. ‘Allow me to introduce Miss Margaret Eaton. Miss Eaton, Miss Phyllis Gregory.’

I smiled at Miss Phyllis Gregory and murmured, ‘It’s Meg, actually.’

The smile she gave in return did not show her teeth and there was more than a hint of a challenge in it. I was reminded of a dog asserting its right of possession. That thought buoyed me. Phyllis did in fact remind me in many ways of what my mother would call ‘a lady dog’. I preferred that image to the lioness one. It was clear that she didn’t remember my name and I could see why Peter hadn’t liked her. He had hated any sort of pretension. I thought she was terrifying and I was not unhappy when she went back to ignoring me.

The diamonds on Phyllis Gregory’s ring finger caught the light as she took out a gold cigarette case from her handbag. Withdrawing a pair of tiny gold tweezers shaped like fancy scissors, she extracted a cigarette. Tom and Chad vied for the honour of lighting it for her, a contest Tom won, as Phyllis held the cigarette in the little tweezers up to her mouth. She took a quick breath of smoke, throwing up her chin as she did so, just like Bette Davis in the pictures. Turning to Tom, she stroked his arm.

‘Darling, gin.’ It was only a few minutes to six.

Tom looked flustered, as though he had forgotten. ‘Anything for you, Chad? Miss Eaton?’

Chad asked for a beer. I shook my head and downed the rest of my cocktail. More delicious false courage. As Tom made his way to the bar, Chad turned to Phyllis.

‘How are you, Phyll? I haven’t seen you in a while.’

She pouted, drew on her cigarette and played with the foxes’ heads. Their glass eyes shot me warnings that I was out of my depth in the company of a woman who wore dead animals around her neck, smoked like Bette Davis, and ignored me so competently.

‘Oh, I’m fine,’ she murmured. Her voice was high and rather breathy. I wondered if she had to practise making it sound like that. ‘Are you staying here now? I thought you were over at the university camp, close to your odd-looking planes.’

‘I’ve moved up in the world. The camp is a bit basic. Don and I moved yesterday for some rec leave. We’ll bunk here for a few weeks to remind ourselves of what it is to be civilised, then go back to camp.’

‘Well, upon my word! I’ve just realised you are here alone, Chad. That’s a first. Wherever is dear Donald? You spend so much time together, I think it must be love.’

Chad smiled faintly. ‘He’s my buddy, and he’s saved my bacon on a number of occasions. So lay off him, Phyllis.’ He had stopped smiling and his face was flushed.

She lifted a lazy hand. ‘Of course. Actually, I think Don is sweet. What do you think, Miss Eaton?’ Her blue eyes showed no more emotion than those of the foxes as she turned towards me.

‘I think he’s lovely,’ I replied without thinking. ‘So sweet.’ Chad was grinning at me.

Phyllis raised perfectly plucked eyebrows. ‘Of course he is. Darling, thank you. It’s a lifesaver.’ She put out a hand to accept a frosty glass from Tom, who put a beer in front of Chad and a lemonade in front of me. ‘We’re all agreeing how sweet Donald Dudley is.’

‘Don’s all right,’ said Tom. ‘Just because he doesn’t lie down and worship you, Phyll, there’s no need to be unkind.’

‘Darling, I said I thought he was sweet. Miss Eaton agrees. In fact, she called him lovely.’ She was all injured innocence and wasn’t bothering to hide that it was an act. How must it be to have such confidence, I wondered.

I was suddenly sick of all this and I stood up. Tom and Chad rose as well.

‘Meg, are you ready for dinner?’ Chad said.

That was cheeky. Standing made me even more light-headed, so I smiled at him. Tom had said I should go out more. Might as well start now.

‘I’ll be right back. Where are we eating again?’

‘Why, Meg,’ Chad was grinning. ‘Here, of course.’ Tom, firmly in the grip of Phyllis, was not smiling.

‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘But remember I have to be home by ten. You promised.’

‘And you will be. Ten on the dot.’

I wafted somewhat unsteadily through the crowds to find the ladies’ room, wondering what I had got myself into. I was at the mirror, reapplying my lipstick when Phyllis entered and sat down beside me.

‘A friendly warning, Miss Eaton. Or may I call you Meg?’ she said. ‘You do know that Chad is married, don’t you?’

‘Oh, we’re not serious,’ I said airily. ‘You know how it is.’

Phyllis smiled at her reflection in the mirror, pulled out a comb and ran it through her blonde curls. She was ignoring me again.

I got up, gave the required tip to the attendant and walked out of the room, back to where Tom and Chad were waiting.

Seven

The following day I woke up feeling happy. This was unusual, and I lay in bed for a while thinking about the night before. Dinner at the Adelphi with Chad had been more fun than I’d had in a long time. Since Peter, obviously. It felt good to be treated as special, like a girl, but in a way that was uncomplicated and safe. Chad was a married man, but he was enjoying a respite from the war, just as I hoped our boys could too when they were far from home.

The meal was delicious, a great change from home cooking, and we had talked easily about all sorts of things. He was a Catalina pilot, which had made me inclined to like him from the start. We Megalong Street residents felt a certain sense of ownership of the Catalina men who were quartered so close to us, although we had very little idea about what they actually did when they flew off each morning, heading north. So, although the posters on the buses and city buildings told us to ‘Be like Dad and keep Mum’ and that ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’, I had asked him.

‘What do you do when you’re on patrol? Are you allowed to tell me?’

‘Sure I can.’ Chad smiled. ‘I doubt you’re a spy. We do reconnaissance, anti-submarine attacks, convoy escort, search and rescue, laying mines, pamphlet drops and bombing missions. That sort of thing.’

‘Is it dangerous?’ As soon as I said it I felt like a fool. Of course it was dangerous.

He shrugged. ‘There’s a war on. The Japs want to shoot us down. We try not to be shot down.’ He gave me a grin. ‘Heck, it’s dangerous crossing the street. Especially in Perth. The drivers here are terrible.’

I made a face at him. I knew it was bravado.

‘I love flying,’ he said. ‘I miss home, but I sure do love this life.’

‘Is it a nice plane to fly? The Catalina, I mean? I . . . I used to go out with a pilot. He flew Spitfires,’ I said proudly. ‘He loved them. Said they were sweet to handle.’

Peter had raved about his ‘kite’ in his letters to me. He wrote that I had a rival:

Meg, it was love as soon as I climbed into the cockpit. It really does feel as if you pull on the machine and become a part of it. It’s so damn powerful, but very well balanced and a delight to manoeuvre. Whipping a Spit around the clouds is one of the greatest experiences of my life.

Chad smiled. ‘Spits are a great little ship, I believe. I haven’t flown one. Cats are swell. They never let you down. Slow, though.’ He paused, and looked thoughtful. ‘You said “flew”. Does that mean he . . .’

I hardly hesitated. ‘He was killed in England in July 1941. Actually, he was Peter Lagrange. Tom’s brother.’

Chad smiled wryly. ‘So that’s why Tom ran me through the wringer when you were away earlier. I thought he might be interested in you himself.’

I frowned. ‘What do you mean, ran you through the wringer?’

When he had explained, I shook my head. ‘It’s not like that. I hardly know him. Anyway, he’s engaged to Phyllis Gregory.’ I was flustered and decided I would run Tom Lagrange through the wringer the next time I saw him.

Chad laughed a little. ‘She’s a beautiful woman. He should be worried about losing her to an able-bodied man.’

‘Tom’s hardly an invalid.’ I was annoyed on his behalf.

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ he said with that same wry smile.

And I’m not interested in finding out. I smiled, too. ‘So, tell me about where you’re from in America.’

At the end of the evening he had asked to see me again – just as a friend, he said, because he was a happily married man.

‘How long do you spend in town, between combat missions?’ I asked. I wanted a moment to think. How would I have felt if Peter had asked a girl to go out with him when he was in England? There wasn’t a simple answer to that. Maybe the girl would have fallen for him, or been available in the way Annie was, and I would have hated that. But I wasn’t Annie. Chad’s wife would have nothing to fear from me.

‘We have two days on patrol, three days for maintenance on the plane and training, and two days to rest. I’m on patrol from tomorrow, but I’ll be free next Saturday night, if that suits you.’

I said I would love to see him again. He said that was swell.

At breakfast, I asked Joan about Tom and Phyllis. She was always full of information about Perth’s society gossip, and for once I was interested.

‘Well,’ she said cosily, between bites of toast, ‘they got engaged in September 1941 when Tom was home from the Middle East. That was after –’ She broke off and looked closely at me. ‘Are you sure you’re all right hearing about this?’

‘Yes, I’m all right. Go on.’ And strangely it was true. I was all right.

‘They had a big party at the Esplanade Hotel. He gave her a beautiful ring with three diamonds that he’d ordered from Melbourne.’

I knew none of this. I had been locked away in my grief. Still, Joan’s capacity to remember trivial details of the lives of the social set never ceased to amaze me.

‘There was a lot written about him in the papers. You know the stuff: Rhodes scholar and war hero. That sort of thing. You know he won the Military Cross? It was a very big deal at the time.’

I shook my head. I really knew nothing about him, which seemed to surprise Joan.

‘The engagement wasn’t a shock, they’d been a couple since before he left for Oxford.’ She paused, watching me. ‘Are you really all right talking about this?’

I nodded. ‘Why do you keep asking me that?’

She made an impatient sound. ‘Because you weren’t all right for such a long time. We got used to not talking about Peter or his family at all.’

I was astonished to see tears in her eyes.

‘Meg, you scared us so much. I thought for a while that you’d never be well, that you’d –’

‘What?’ I was watching her now, anxiously.

She dabbed at her eyes with a hankie she’d extracted from her pocket. ‘Nothing. You’re better now.’

‘Yes. I’m fine now.’

I was worried about the tears. Joan never cried. I realised that I hadn’t really looked at her for a long time. There were lines on her face that I hadn’t noticed before. Her hair, which had been a light brown like mine and was up in a low pompadour ready for work, was almost all a silvery-white colour now. Joan had started to go white when she was twenty-six. Ma said it was a family thing and that Aunty Millie had been the same. I hadn’t realised how little of the original brown still remained and I wondered if worry about me had been responsible to some degree.

I had very little memory of the first months after Peter died, but I did remember that Ma and Joan were always there, trying to make me eat, taking me out, making sure I wasn’t alone. One of them always seemed to be in my room when I woke from the terrible nightmares – that I was trapped with Peter in his burning plane – that had come night after night for weeks after I learned how he died.

If I cried now she’d think it was about Peter. It wasn’t, so I pushed back the tears and smiled. ‘I love you, Joanie,’ I said.

Joan seemed embarrassed and made a dismissive gesture with her hand. ‘I’m just glad you’re better now. We were worried that this business about Doreen would bring it all to the surface again, but you’re coping really well.’

She got a strange look on her face, jumped up and ran out of the room, returning with a scrapbook, which she handed to me.

‘I’ve been cutting out bits from the papers about Peter and his family,’ she told me. ‘When he died I saved the articles about him. Then there was one about Tom being awarded the Military Cross and Peter was mentioned, so I cut it out. Since then I’ve cut out stories about Tom, because he’s Peter’s brother. I thought you might like to read it all one day. When you were feeling better, I mean.’

I felt a bit faint. I had no idea she’d been doing that. She was the oddest person, my big sister. One part of me saw the whole business of the scrapbook as a bit ghoulish, but I could see that she didn’t mean it that way. Joan wasn’t a demonstrative person. The scrapbook was a way for her to show love. Just as she had done by looking after me for all those months when I was too absorbed in my own misery to notice.

I managed a shaky smile and opened the scrapbook. I went quickly past the articles that dealt with Peter’s death. PILOT-OFFICER LAGRANGE PRESUMED DEAD; PERTH PILOT’S DEATH IN ENGLAND; LAGRANGE FAMILY MOURNS LOSS OF SPITFIRE PILOT SON. I still didn’t feel able to read them. Maybe one day I would. The news items about Tom came afterwards.

CAPTAIN T.M. LAGRANGE M.C.

For gallantry during the Syrian campaign, Lieutenant T.M. Lagrange was awarded the Military Cross and has now been gazetted as a captain. On 9 June 1941 at the Litani River, Lieutenant Lagrange showed outstanding gallantry and initiative in forcing his way across the river, despite being wounded by an explosive bullet. His cool conduct was an inspiration to every man. His brother Peter Lagrange (dec’d) was a pilot officer with the RAAF.

WAR HERO ENGAGED

Captain Thomas M. Lagrange M.C., one of Perth’s war heroes, yesterday announced his engagement to Miss Phyllis Gregory. Miss Gregory, a slim, attractive blonde, is well known in Perth and Melbourne social circles.

ENGAGEMENT COCKTAIL PARTY

Green palms and huge bowls of flowers decorated the balcony of the Esplanade Hotel on Friday when Captain Thomas Lagrange M.C. entertained about ninety friends at a five o’clock cocktail party in honour of his fiancée, Miss Phyllis Gregory. There was a happy air of informality, as guests came and went, stopping to offer best wishes to Captain Lagrange and the guest of honour, and to chat awhile with the many friends they found gathered there. Miss Gregory chose a charming gown of palest mist blue, the bodice of which was latticed with gold sequins, and a picture hat of matching satin straw softened with tulle, which was a perfect foil for her blonde beauty.

According to the newspapers, Tom had been ‘mentioned in despatches’ (whatever that meant!) twice after receiving the Military Cross. He’d returned to Perth three months ago, after being severely wounded while on active service. There were no details given about how he’d been injured or the extent of his injuries. I assumed they were serious, otherwise he’d be in Brisbane with the Pacific High Command. I shut the book and turned to Joan.

‘Thanks. It was really thoughtful of you. I’ll look at it more closely later.’

‘It was nothing,’ she said, obviously pleased. ‘Mum thought it would just upset you, but I knew you’d be interested once you felt better. We’re so glad you went out last night. Um –’

Joan looked cagey and tried to hide a smile. ‘By the way, you’re not the only one who went out last night.’

This was interesting. Joan seemed to be almost humming with excitement. ‘Who did you go out with?’ I asked.

She actually blushed. ‘Well, it might be nothing, but I met a very nice man on Monday night when I was at the Lawlors’ bridge party. He’s a major in the regular army and his name is Walter Yeats – Wally. He telephoned me at work yesterday and asked if I was free for dinner. We went to the Esplanade.’

‘And you like him?’

‘I think so. He’s quite a bit older than me – in his forties and a widower. No children.’ She shrugged. ‘As I said, it might be nothing. We’re going out again on Saturday, though.’

I grinned at her. ‘Good luck. And however nice he is, he doesn’t deserve you, because you’re the best.’

She rolled her eyes and made a sound indicating that I was being silly, but I could tell that she was happy I’d said it.

Eight

At one o’clock I was putting the cover on my typewriter when Tom Lagrange sauntered through the door carrying his khaki jacket over his left hand, hiding the missing fingers. His right hand held two brown paper bags. Miss Filmer and Annie raised their heads. Annie’s eyes went wide and Miss Filmer looked stunned. Tom was undeniably handsome, in that Irish way with his black hair and dark eyes. I thought of his brother’s blond, scruffy charm and sighed.

Annie threw him her brightest smile. ‘Can I help you?’

He smiled in return, shook his head and turned to me.

‘Hullo, Meg,’ he said, holding up the bags. ‘Are you free for lunch? I’ve got sandwiches.’

I gave him a cool look. Whatever was he doing, turning up like this? I hoped he wasn’t going to start pushing me to go out again because I did not want to be his charity project.

‘I’m free,’ I said, without enthusiasm. I ignored Annie’s enquiring look, giving her and Miss Filmer a little wave as we left the room.

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, as he opened the back door for me.

‘It’s not too hot today, so I thought we could have a picnic,’ he said. ‘We can have tea or coffee somewhere later.’

Somewhat sulkily, I followed him through the botanical gardens behind the Supreme Court building to an unoccupied patch of grass under the shade of a large Moreton Bay fig. The gardens were crowded and most bits of shade were occupied by office workers or servicemen. It was a clear, hot day but the sea breeze was starting to come in.

He had picked a spot close to Riverside Drive, across the road from the thick stands of cotton palms near Barrack Street jetty. They were obscuring the wooden yacht club buildings, now being used as social clubs for the American Navy and the Red Cross. Beyond the jetty lay Perth Water, the wide stretch of river in front of the city. Today it was rippling with sharp little waves. On Riverside Drive, dull-coloured military trucks and jeeps were the only traffic.

To our right was the Esplanade, once a grassy stretch of parkland on the river foreshore. At the start of the war it had been ploughed up to prevent enemy planes from landing. Now there were slit trenches in what had been playing fields and the whole area was black sand and weeds, which made me rather sad. The botanical gardens, where we were sitting, had been left alone because the Japanese couldn’t land planes among the big trees.

Tom spread his jacket on the grass and motioned for me to sit on it. When I did so, he lowered himself to the ground beside me and stretched out his legs. I was aware of a sweetly fermented scent in the air; little fallen figs covered the ground around us.

‘Enjoy your dinner with Chad Buchowski?’ he asked, handing me a bag. ‘It’s just ham spread and lettuce. There wasn’t much choice. I’ll do better next time.’

Next time? I disliked ham spread. I smiled a thank you and took the bag.

‘Dinner was very pleasant,’ I said. ‘And he got me home by ten o’clock. On the dot.’

‘He’s married.’

‘So Phyllis told me. And so Chad told me, before the first course. We’re meeting again on the weekend. It’s all above board. He wants company and I like dancing. You did suggest that I go out more, remember? My mother is going to invite him and his friend Donald to dinner.’

Tom was looking down as he opened his paper bag and I couldn’t see his face.

‘Chad’s an interesting man,’ I said lightly. ‘He comes from Cooperstown, in New York. The state, not the city.’

‘Fascinating,’ said Tom in a voice that indicated the opposite. He took out a sandwich.

‘But Chad says the oddest things.’

‘Mmmm?’

‘He asked me when I had been adopted by your parents, because he thought that only a brother would warn him off the way you did when Phyllis and I were away from the table.’

Tom seemed suddenly transfixed by his sandwich.

‘Tom, I like him, as a friend. Please don’t do anything like that again.’

He raised his head. ‘Did you discuss Doreen Luca with him?’

‘No. I was trying to forget about it, and I did. I think that cocktail helped,’ I said, with a touch of embarrassment.

There was a flicker of amusement, then an expression I couldn’t decipher. ‘Chad knew Doreen well,’ he said.

‘What does that mean?’

‘Whatever you want it to.’

I felt a sharp stab of annoyance. ‘You knew her, too. Stop trying to protect me. If you think you owe it to Peter, you don’t. I don’t need looking after. Anyway, you were the one who wanted me to get out more.’

Tom had finished his sandwich. He took out another, saying nothing. I unwrapped mine and bit into it.

We ate in silence. After a while I said, ‘I don’t mean to be churlish. I should thank you. It was good to go out. Chad said he’d introduce me to some nice, unattached Americans.’

Tom lay down and covered his eyes with an arm. It reminded me of how we had found Doreen and it made me feel uneasy.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Have fun with some nice, unattached Americans. Preferably not with Chad, though.’

I was perplexed. I thought I was a good judge of character. Perhaps Tom didn’t like the way Chad had been so unashamedly admiring of Phyllis. Whatever the reason, Tom had no business telling me who I could or couldn’t spend time with.

‘Why are you here, Tom?’

He sat up and turned to look at me. ‘I wanted to ask you something.’

I frowned at him suspiciously. ‘Ask me what?’

‘I’m a liaison officer between the Australian and US forces in Perth. I need to know what’s going on. That includes any news or gossip that relates to the US forces. Doreen often let me know what was happening at the Catalina base. She and I really were just friends,’ he said. ‘I’m engaged. I’m not a cad.’

I nodded.

‘Now I’ve been asked to liaise with the police about Doreen’s murder. There’s a possibility that someone at the Catalina base might be involved, because she was at a party there just before she died.’ He gave me a quick, enquiring glance. ‘Would you be willing to help?’

I was shocked. ‘Me help you? How?’

‘Just keep your ears open. If anything is being said about the US troops I’d appreciate it if you could let me know what you hear. And, obviously, if it’s about Doreen’s death, then tell me. Or let Munsie know.’

‘Like a spy?’

He laughed. ‘It’s nothing like a spy. Just a source of information.’

It sounded like spying to me. ‘I don’t know, Tom.’

‘Please think about it. It would help me. You know people in the neighbourhood. You talk to them. They talk to you.’

I took a bite of the sandwich and thought about it. I decided it couldn’t hurt.

‘All right, I’ll give it a try,’ I said. Tom smiled.

This seemed like a good time to see if I had any skill in getting information from people, and I had questions of my own after some of the things I’d read about Tom in Joan’s scrapbook.

‘I don’t understand why you’re here. In Perth, I mean. Why aren’t you in Brisbane with General MacArthur and the Australian bigwigs?’ I asked. ‘You’re smart and you’re a highly decorated war hero. I’d have thought they’d want you helping with strategy or something, even if you can’t fight on the front line any more.’

There was a bitter laugh. ‘I was repatriated to Brisbane at first and I did work with MacArthur’s people. But apparently I’m – how did they put it? Ah, yes – unreliable. I asked to return to Perth and it was thought that US–Australian liaison here would be just the ticket.’ He sounded as if he had a different opinion.

‘How are you unreliable?’

‘You don’t really expect me to answer that, do you?’ he said, with deceptive lightness. Then he shook his head. ‘Please forget I told you that. And don’t spread it around.’

‘Of course I won’t.’ I was indignant.

Tom smiled. ‘Look, they’ve given me some slack, because –’ He paused, and now there was a bitter edge to his smile. ‘Because of the injuries I got when I was captured.’

‘I thought you were injured fighting with the AIF in New Guinea.’

‘I fought with the AIF in the Middle East. When I returned to Australia I was seconded to the Intelligence Corps. I was on a mission. I was captured. I was injured. I escaped. Nothing more to say, Meg.’

There was a stubbornness about his mouth and a hardness in his eyes that almost made me stop. Almost.

‘And so you’re in Perth to recuperate. To be with your parents and with Phyllis?’

The hard look faded and he smiled. ‘Partly. In fact, Phyll had a lot to do with me ending up here. She knows all the important people. MacArthur thinks the world of her.’

‘Phyllis knows General Douglas MacArthur?’ I said in a high, rather breathless voice.

Tom grinned. ‘She calls him Dodo. His wife hates her.’

No surprises there.

‘And you know him, too?’

‘Yes, quite well.’

‘Were you badly wounded?’ I flushed. ‘Apart from the hand, I mean.’

He looked away from me, over towards the river. ‘I’m fine. I’m improving daily.’

I concentrated on my sandwich. The thought of Tom as a prisoner of war made me feel cold. I’d heard terrible stories about what the Japanese did to prisoners.

‘But let’s not talk about that,’ he said lightly. ‘What do you think about American servicemen in Perth? I suppose people resent them in some respects.’

I picked at the grass near where I was sitting, pulling some out. Evidently I was to earn my lunch.

‘Well, yes. There’s some resentment. The Americans seem to have all the money in the world, and Aussie soldiers get annoyed when they splash it around because the diggers get paid so much less.’

He laughed. ‘And the Yanks splash it around on the girls, which is even worse.’

I threw away the grass stem and nodded. ‘Another thing that annoys people is how shopkeepers reserve scarce items for the Americans because they’re willing to overpay for them. They pay too much for everything really, usually unwittingly. People take advantage of them dreadfully.’

I pulled out a hankie and wiped my hands.

‘At the restaurant last night the waiter put a forty per cent surcharge on the bill!’ I could hear my voice rise in annoyance. ‘Chad wouldn’t let me complain. And he tipped as well. Even though I begged him not to.’

Tom shot me a quick grin. ‘I think they call it the Catalina Millionaire tax.’

I met his smile. It was true, the men at the base were known as the Catalina Millionaires. ‘Maybe. I like the Americans I’ve met. I’m just glad they’re here in Australia, helping us in this war. And a lot of people feel that way.’

‘Are attitudes changing towards them?’ Tom asked.

I thought about it. ‘It’s complicated. You weren’t here when they arrived in February last year, just after Singapore fell. We were so grateful they were fighting with Australia that we treated them like royalty. Nothing was too good for them.’

How could I make Tom understand the fear and uncertainty that had overwhelmed us when Singapore fell to the Japanese? We’d been told it was impregnable and that Australia was safe while Singapore held. But the surrender came so quickly and we lost so many men; seventeen thousand Australians were taken prisoner, along with more than fifty thousand other Allied troops. All of Perth was affected. If you didn’t have a friend or relative who had died or was a prisoner of war, you knew someone who did. Mr Goodley’s son, Clive, had been taken prisoner in Singapore and was now a POW in Changi prison camp.

‘When Singapore fell and Darwin was attacked a few days later, we were certain it was only a matter of time before the Japanese invaded,’ I said slowly. ‘Especially after they bombed Broome and Derby. We’d always felt safe here in Western Australia because we were so isolated, and suddenly we’d been bombed by the Japanese. A lot of people honestly believed that Canberra would abandon us.’ I smiled at Tom. ‘It seems silly now, but I knew women who were sleeping with guns under their pillows, ready to shoot themselves when the Japanese arrived.’

‘But the Americans came instead,’ said Tom.

‘Yes, and finally we felt safe.’

‘Is the American glamour wearing off now it’s clear that Perth isn’t going to be invaded?’

‘I think so,’ I replied. ‘The girls who go out with them still adore them and we’re very glad they’re fighting with us but, yes, I’d say the novelty is wearing off.’

Tom grinned. ‘I got that impression myself.’

I looked him square in the eyes. ‘Individually, they are lovely, and I look forward to seeing more of them. I really enjoyed myself last night.’

Tom stopped smiling. ‘Want some coffee?’

‘Yes, please, that would be nice.’ I preferred tea, but coffee sounded more sophisticated. No doubt Miss Phyllis Gregory drank coffee.

He brushed himself off and got to his feet, holding out a hand to help me up.

The New Star Café was filled with office workers, but Tom managed to find a table and ordered for us both. The waitress put two small cups of dark coffee in front of us. I added a spoonful of sugar and stirred.

‘I keep thinking about Doreen,’ I said, taking a small sip. ‘And how we found her.’ I wished there was milk. I put in another spoonful of sugar and stirred my coffee thoughtfully. ‘It seemed strange, the way she had been covered with a blanket. As if the murderer cared about her.’

‘The most probable reason is that it was her husband and he was remorseful when he realised he’d killed her. Though I’m not absolutely convinced it was Frank Luca,’ Tom said. ‘Would you like some cream with that?’

‘Oh yes, please.’

He raised his head and called the waitress over. She brought the cream immediately.

‘Why don’t you think it was Frank?’ I asked.

‘I’m not saying that. He’s still the most likely suspect. But it’s rum she was in the shelter. Doreen had a house, less than fifty yards away. Why would she go to the shelter in the dark? It’s difficult to get to. That’s been bothering me.’

I poured some cream into my cup and watched the colour lighten.

‘She shared her house with Betty Barwon,’ I said. ‘Maybe she wanted to keep her meeting secret from Betty . . . and that would mean it wasn’t Frank Luca she was meeting.’

‘Exactly.’

Tom leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette. As he lifted it I could see where his fingers were discoloured by nicotine.

‘Do you remember –? No you didn’t look closely at her. She had twigs and leaves in her hair and her clothes were dirty. As if she’d rolled on the ground.’

I flinched at the thought of her being in terror, trying to escape. Did she know her life was nearly over? ‘Perhaps she was running away from her attacker, fell to the ground, got up and ran to the shelter to hide,’ I said.

Tom looked sceptical. ‘If you’re being chased, you’d hardly vault over a picket fence and run down those steep, slippery steps into a pitch-black air raid shelter. You’d bang on doors and scream for help.’

That made sense. I sighed.

‘I suppose you need to get back to your office,’ he said, grinding out the cigarette firmly in the ashtray.

He picked up his cap, pushed his chair back and rose from the table, leaving money for the coffee.

‘Are you free for lunch again on Friday? I’ll wait for you outside the back door to the courts at one o’clock.’

I was taken aback. I had enjoyed our lunch, and my concerns about Tom Lagrange had settled down somewhat. But I didn’t see why we’d meet again unless I had something to tell him.

‘I’m free,’ I said, with some hesitation. ‘But why do you want to see me again?’

He shrugged. ‘Do I need a reason?’

‘Well, yes, actually. You’re engaged, remember.’

He twisted his mouth into a wry expression, and with the index finger of his left hand, he began counting off the fingers of his good hand in turn. ‘You knew my brother. You’re helping me with my liaison work and with the murder investigation. I enjoy your company.’ He smiled. ‘Enough reasons? You’re willing to meet Buchowski for dinner and he’s married. Have pity, Meg. I usually spend lunchtimes alone in my office or on a bench watching the river or liaising with the Americans.’

‘But your fiancée isn’t on the other side of the world,’ I said, watching his face.

‘You don’t have to worry about Phyll,’ he said. ‘She trusts me to do the right thing. Do you?’

I laughed and agreed to meet him, but I wasn’t at all sure it was the right thing to do. Chad had implied something very different about Miss Gregory’s capacity for trust.

Tom laughed to himself as we were walking back to the Supreme Court building. ‘Do you know what A.E. Housman said about Americans?’

I shook my head. I didn’t know who A.E. Housman was.

‘He said, “In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.” ’

At first I had no idea what he was talking about. Then I realised.

‘You really don’t like Chad, do you?’ I looked at him levelly. ‘Stop giving me warnings, Tom. Cryptic or otherwise. You are not my keeper.’

He smiled, but said nothing further.

Nine

The next morning, my mother saw me to the gate as I was leaving for work. She gave me a quick kiss, and then made a little sound between a moan and a sigh.

‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘That horrible man is home on leave.’

Able Seaman Cecil McLean was standing at his gate with his wife, Marie. They were with Mrs Phoenix, who was talking animatedly. I could guess about what.

I didn’t like Cec McLean, who was a big, solidly built man in his late thirties. I thought he had an air of menace about him. Before Cec joined the Navy, Marie often had bruises that she explained away by saying she was clumsy or had walked into a door, but we all knew the real reason. The thought of that sickened me.

‘G’day, little Margaret Eaton,’ he said, as I walked towards them on my way to the highway.

His pale eyes took in my body with slow and insulting thoroughness. His naval uniform was tight and although it was still early the collar and armpits were soaked with sweat. I smiled warmly at the women.

‘Are you home for long?’ I asked Cec.

‘My ship came in on Friday. We’re here for two weeks. Shame about Doreen Luca. She was a good sort.’

I glanced at Mrs Phoenix, who coloured and looked embarrassed.

‘Yes, it’s horrible.’

‘And you found her. Nasty surprise for you.’

I nodded.

‘Reckon Frank didn’t like her carrying on with the Yanks.’

‘Maybe.’

Cec laughed and playfully punched Marie on the arm. She winced. ‘Everyone knew Doreen and Betty were carrying on with the Yanks, including Frank. He told me so, on Saturday.’

That stopped me in my tracks. ‘You saw him on Saturday?’

‘Yep. In the street after the pubs closed. We invited him in for a drink or two, didn’t we, love?’

Marie smiled anxiously and gave a quick nod.

‘He left to go back to Doreen’s around nine-thirty. We never seen him after that.’

Cec glanced at Marie, who gave another quick little nod.

‘Have you told the police?’

‘Yep. They came around asking a lot of questions yesterday.’

I gave them a small smile and continued down the street. It was interesting that Frank had definitely been in the area that night. The evidence was certainly stacking up against him, but I still couldn’t see him as a murderer. I remembered him as a slim, handsome man who adored his wife, but who was playfully flirtatious towards other women. He just didn’t seem the sort to murder someone, but how would I know?

As I was making my way carefully along the sandy path through the bush to the highway I saw Stan and Jimmy McLean pulling a little cart filled with kindling. Taking it home to their mother, I supposed, and perhaps to my mother also – the boys kept us supplied with wood scraps for our chip heater. I got the usual beaming smile from Stan, who I suspected had a bit of a crush on me. Jimmy looked ill. His face was thin and pale and drawn, and the usual cheeky grin was absent. I remembered that his brothers had told me he hadn’t been well.

‘G’day, Meg,’ Stan said. ‘Mr Luca’s done a bunk. Do you think he did it? Dad reckons he did.’

They were both looking at me closely.

‘I know as much as you do. It is odd that Mr Luca has disappeared, but who knows? Let’s wait and see, shall we? I’m sure the police will soon discover what happened.’

‘Doreen had a lot of fellows hanging about her. Lots of Yanks.’ Jimmy’s voice sounded raspy. ‘Maybe it was one of them. Maybe Mr Luca didn’t do it. Did the detective tell you anything?’

‘No. He didn’t tell me anything.’

‘What if Mr Luca didn’t do it?’ There was a surprisingly urgent note in his voice. ‘Dad says they’ll hang him because he’s an Eyetie. But what if he didn’t do it?’

‘They won’t hang him because his parents are Italian,’ I said. ‘He won’t hang unless there is good evidence that he killed Doreen. And even if they do convict him, he might not be hanged.’

Jimmy looked unconvinced. Grabbing the handle of the little cart from his brother he started to pull it away. I put a light restraining hand on his arm.

‘What, no joke, Jimmy?’

‘I’m not in a joking mood today,’ he said. ‘Sorry, Meg. Maybe tomorrow.’

He turned and pulled free from me, heading down the path. Stan threw me a worried smile and followed his brother.

I stood watching them walk away, feeling concerned. Jimmy always had a joke for me. It was a tradition between us. They were always very bad jokes and I always laughed as if they were very good jokes. I made a mental note to speak to Marie about him – find out if he had seen a doctor. I was very fond of Jimmy, and it was awful to see him so down.

Mr Goodley had a great deal of dictation that morning, and I spent an hour just taking shorthand. Before leaving the room I cleared my throat to catch his attention.

‘Is there any news on the Doreen Luca murder?’ I asked.

‘There’s nothing on the husband’s whereabouts yet. Munsie is putting out a warrant for his arrest. We suspect he’s in hiding somewhere – probably in the Italian community. They look after their own. Mind you, remember Reggie Woodham?’

‘Vaguely. The name sounds familiar.’

‘You might be a bit young to remember that one. Woodham killed his wife in ’35 and disappeared. They found his body in Kings Park three weeks later, hanging from a tree. Luca may have done the same.’

I shuddered. ‘I hope not. The whole thing’s horrible enough as it is.’

His face was impassive as he picked up one of the papers on his desk and began to peruse it.

‘I’ve got the autopsy report here. Doreen Luca was stabbed. Well, no surprises there. There was one single-edged stab wound that penetrated the right ventricle of the heart. There’s no evidence of, er, intimacy with a man prior to death. She was also bashed on the head, it seems.’

‘Bashed and stabbed?’ I felt a bit weak at hearing so much detail. Mr Goodley did that to me sometimes, read from autopsy reports so that I could ‘toughen up’. He said that the secretary to the Crown Prosecutor had to get used to blood and gore. But the cases had never involved someone I knew before.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But the stab wound caused her death. She definitely died in the shelter, they can tell by the post-mortem blood pooling.’

Mr Goodley was being remarkably forthcoming with the information this morning. ‘Do they know what time she died?’ I asked.

He read from the sheet of paper. ‘Between midnight and six on Sunday morning.’

It was when the muscles in my neck relaxed that I realised how tense I had been, how important it was to me that Peter’s brother couldn’t have been involved in Doreen’s murder.

‘Have they found the murder weapon?’

He shook his head. ‘It was a knife, similar to those a lot of servicemen carry. It’s most probably the husband, but Munsie is considering other possibilities. Claremont Hospital, and Lemnos. There were no patients listed as missing from either, but you never know.’

These were the two mental hospitals in Perth, and both were just within walking distance of my home. Lemnos Hospital looked after the shell-shocked soldiers from the Great War. We sometimes found a lost patient from Lemnos wandering aimlessly around the neighbourhood. They could be agitated and frightening, but I’d never heard of anyone being hurt by one.

‘What else?’ Mr Goodley scanned the notes in front of him. ‘He’s looked into Mrs Luca’s activities at the Hollywood Military Hospital. She worked in administration, and was well liked by the patients and staff. None of the men she had dealings with appears to have been dangerous, or to have been unduly interested in her. They suspect she may have been engaged in some pilfering of hospital stores, but that isn’t uncommon, unfortunately.’

‘Captain Lagrange said she had twigs in her hair and her clothes were dirty.’

‘Yes. That’s mentioned in here.’

He leaned back in his chair.

‘Munsie’s keeping an open mind, but I’m of the firm view that she and her husband argued about her relations with American servicemen. He stabbed her in anger, was filled with remorse and ran off like a cowardly dog. Italians like to use knives.’

I wanted to tell him that I’d met the man, that I didn’t think that he was any more likely to stab a person than I was, and it was stupid to make generalisations about Italians. But Mr Goodley was my boss and there was a line I couldn’t cross. His attitude surprised me, however.

‘Frank Luca is Australian,’ I said. ‘He was born here.’

He ignored me. His hands were steepled in front of him on the desk, which meant he was about to make another pronouncement.

‘I’ll go for wilful murder and the death penalty, but I suspect the jury will convict him of the lesser offence and he won’t hang. She was a bit of a bad girl, it seems. Running around with all sorts of men, putting her child in an orphanage. Juries don’t like that sort of thing.’

I mumbled something about having work to do, and left his office.

Unfortunately, Mr Goodley’s views on Italians were widely held. At my Red Cross Circle meeting that evening the only subject of discussion was the murder. And the only suspect was Frank Luca.

Every week a group of local women met at the local scout hall to knit, gossip and pack comfort parcels for the Australian prisoners of war. The tins of food that had been declared as essential nutrition for the soldiers – chocolate, tea, jam, brown sugar, condensed milk, coffee, sultanas, cheese and canned lamb and peas – were set out on long trestle tables. There were also packets of tobacco, cigarettes, soap and socks, which were ‘essential for morale’. Everything was carefully packed into sturdy cardboard boxes with the Red Cross symbol on the top and ‘Australia’ on the sides. We could only hope that they actually got to the prisoners.

‘It must have been the husband,’ said Myrtle Glennister. She handed a packed box to me. I put on the lid and bound the whole thing tightly with twine before placing it with the other completed parcels on the dispatch table.

‘He’s Italian, isn’t he?’ Poppy Bates was at the side of the hall, part of a group of women who were knitting. ‘The husband, I mean.’

‘He was born in Australia,’ I said. No one paid me any attention. I tied up another box, snipping the twine angrily.

Mrs Morton was a large lady with a deep, almost mannish voice that echoed through the hall. ‘My Reggie says that the Italians were a liability in the last war when they fought with us and it’s easier to have them as enemies in this one. Let the Nazis worry about them.’ That comment caused a lot of laughter.

‘I wish they’d find him.’ Olive Lawson sounded anxious.

Dimity Smith handed me a box. ‘Never trust an Italian, that’s what my Percy says. Italians are hot-blooded. He probably killed her in a jealous rage.’

I had to work hard to bite my tongue and say nothing. I couldn’t alter people’s views, but it irritated me to have to listen to such ill-informed comments. My best friend in Kalgoorlie had Italian parents. I had known her family well and liked them all very much. I thought of poor Nancy Gangemi, trying to raise three children in the absence of her husband. The women around me were not nasty or stupid, and I realised that it was hard to be objective when the Italians were fighting against us in the war – Australian POWs in prison camps in Italy might well receive the parcels we were packing tonight. But given such anti-Italian prejudice, my fear was that Frank Luca would be convicted no matter what the evidence.

‘Why don’t we listen to some music?’ I said loudly. ‘It’ll make the time go faster.’

‘Have you seen Mrs Gangemi? She’s looking for you. She’s really upset about this story. Apparently she knows Frank Luca,’ Annie said, holding up the paper. Frank’s photograph was on the front page, under the heading: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?

I had just walked into the office on Friday morning. It seemed like nobody in Perth was talking about anything other than the murder or Frank’s guilt.

‘Mrs G. kept slipping into Italian, telling me what a nice boy he was and how he couldn’t have done it. Mind you, he’s quite good-looking,’ she said. ‘Maybe he didn’t do it.’

I laughed. ‘You’d be a terrible juror.’

She gave me a sly look. ‘Speaking of good-looking, aren’t you meeting Captain Cute for lunch again?’

I felt myself flushing. ‘It’s not like that. I think he feels responsible for me, because I went out with his brother.’

‘Mmmm,’ said Annie. ‘He’s dreamy. Sort of a cross between Tyrone Power and Errol Flynn. Wish he felt responsible for me.’

I didn’t see Mrs Gangemi before I met Tom for lunch.

He was in good spirits. He seemed more alert and interested than he had on Wednesday, and there was a sharpness in his eyes that I hadn’t seen previously.

‘It looks like we’ve finally taken Buna–Gona,’ he said. ‘It’s just mopping up operations now.’

The joint Australian–American offensive to capture the Japanese beachheads at Buna, Gona and Sanananda on the northern coast of Papua had been much in the news over the past months. The casualties had been appalling.

‘At what cost, though?’ I said.

‘You’re right, of course. From the very first that offensive has been a litany of death, disease and despair. We learned the hard way that maps don’t show jungles, swamps, snipers or mosquitoes.’ He took off his cap and ran his good hand through his hair.

‘The government wouldn’t allow a lot of what really went on to be reported, because it would be too distressing to the public. MacArthur underestimated the Japanese and forced the men to fight with insufficient artillery and ammunition. Hopefully he won’t do that again.’

‘Harvey is up there with the 2/16th Battalion,’ I said.

‘That was my old battalion. I was with them throughout the Syrian campaign.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘We faced the Vichy French forces when we crossed into Palestine. Would you believe we were told to wear our slouch hats, not helmets?’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘In the hope that the French might remember us as comrades from the Great War, and not fire on us.’

I smiled and shook my head. ‘That’s crazy.’

Tom nodded. ‘We soon put on our helmets when the bullets and bombs started flying.’ He sighed. ‘The fighting 16th. Not many of the men I commanded in Syria would be left. The casualties at Buna were terrible. My old company would be made up of reinforcements I don’t know, like your Harvey.’

I still hadn’t written to Harvey to shatter his illusions. So, to change the subject, I said, ‘It’s been great to read about the commandos on Timor. I know a couple of them – there are a few Kalgoorlie men among them.’

The West Australian had been full of the exploits of this small group of Australian commandos that had been successfully fighting the Japanese in guerrilla-style warfare since February 1942. Everyone thought they had been killed or captured when the Japanese invaded Portuguese East Timor, until they cobbled together a radio and made contact with Darwin.

‘Country boys are often the toughest and most resourceful soldiers,’ Tom said with a grin. ‘Bad at taking orders and you need to earn their respect, but they were some of my best men.’

‘Do you miss being part of it all? Not the fighting, but just being part of it?’ Talking about the war like this seemed to have enlivened Tom and it was good to see it.

His smile was more like a grimace. ‘You’re perceptive, Meg. I hated fighting. I hated it more than I could possibly describe. And yet, I was surprisingly good at it . . . When you’re in the thick of it and your men are relying on you, you just have to get on with the job.’ He looked away, towards the river. ‘Yes, I miss being part of it.’

I wondered again why Tom was in Perth. And why he was considered ‘unreliable’.

Over our sandwiches we discussed what had been reported in the papers about Doreen’s murder and I told him what I’d learned from Mr Goodley. Tom agreed that the evidence was mounting against Frank Luca.

‘Mr Goodley thinks Italians are predisposed to crimes of passion,’ I said. ‘In fact, just about everybody is saying that.’

He laughed. ‘Whereas you are well aware that there are lots of cool, pragmatic Italians. And despite the paucity of evidence, I’m sure there are lots of passionate Australians, too. I hate stereotypes.’

I smiled. ‘Me too,’ I said, pleased that Tom didn’t share Mr Goodley’s views.

We sat companionably for a few moments, both watching the river.

‘Do you know Frank Luca? Is that why those comments about Italians annoy you so much?’

‘Yes, I know him, but the comments annoy me because they are unfair and ill informed,’ I said, almost offended. ‘Frank lived with Doreen in our street for a year before he joined the Navy. As you can see from the photograph in the paper, he’s rather handsome. A bit like Rudolph Valentino. I don’t know him well, but he seems nice enough, a gentle person. I thought he loved Doreen very much.’

‘Which makes it more likely that he killed her.’

‘That’s a horrible thing to say. Why would you say that?’

He looked amused and didn’t answer.

‘Mr Goodley thinks he might have killed himself.’ The thought of someone dying alone in that way had been haunting me. ‘He has a daughter. It would be a dreadful thing to do.’

‘He might think it was preferable to going through a trial and then being hanged.’

I looked down at the grass before saying, with some embarrassment, ‘I don’t like the death penalty. Not even for murder. I know that sounds stupid, when we are at war and people are dying horribly every hour, but I don’t think “an eye for an eye” is the answer.’

He gave me a quick, sideways glance. ‘Because any person’s death diminishes you? Because you are involved in mankind? I used to believe that, but war changes things.’

‘ “Involved in mankind”. That’s John Donne, isn’t it?’ I said slowly, hoping my schoolgirl memory wasn’t letting me down. ‘ “No man is an island.” ’

He nodded. ‘ “Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee –” It’s a great piece of writing.’

‘It’s exactly what I think. I’m sorry that you don’t believe it any more.’

There was a short silence. Tom was looking down, staring at his maimed hand.

‘There are some people whose death would improve humanity,’ he said at last. ‘And, to be perfectly truthful . . . if I could, I would opt out of mankind altogether.’

I moved my gaze over to the river and saw a water bird flash downwards, looking for fish. In the months after Peter died I had wanted to leave the world behind, too. Every breath seemed too much trouble and sleep brought only nightmares. That I had been able to drag myself out of the dark pit was due in no small measure to the unconditional love of my mother and sister. I wondered how unconditional Phyllis Gregory’s love was.

All at once, the day seemed cooler and I shivered.

‘Cold?’ he said. ‘Let’s get out of the wind. I’ll buy you a cup of tea.’

Ten

I was on my way to pick up Ma’s groceries the following Saturday morning when I saw Jimmy McLean sitting on Mr McCready’s wall, frowning at the footpath. His face was still too thin and drawn, but he smiled to see me.

‘Hey, Meg,’ he said eagerly. ‘Why do you think it would be a good idea to have a tax on prams?’

‘I have no idea,’ I responded. ‘Why would it be a good idea?’

‘Because then all the babies would be up in arms and we’d have a fully armed infantry.’

I laughed. ‘I like that one,’ I said.

He grinned, but it didn’t mask the tiredness in his eyes. When the grin faded his restless anxiety was obvious. ‘Meg, you found her, didn’t you? Found Doreen, I mean.’

I nodded.

‘It must have been awful for you. I’m sorry that you found her.’ There was a strange intensity in his voice. ‘No one should have to find a body. Not of someone they know.’

‘I’m fine, Jimmy. I didn’t see much. It was Captain Lagrange who found her really.’

His face screwed up in a frown. ‘What’s he like, Captain Lagrange? Stan said he was looking for her that day. What sort of bloke is he?’

‘I don’t know him very well, but he’s a war hero and I like him.’

Jimmy nodded slowly. ‘Yeah. That’s right. He’s an Aussie war hero.’ He seemed to brood over this. ‘Everyone thinks that Mr Luca killed Doreen. But it might have been someone else. It might have been an American.’ He was watching me closely. ‘Dad doesn’t like Americans, and I don’t like them either.’

‘Oh, Jimmy. Don’t be like that. I’ve met some lovely Americans. They’re just like us – some are nice, some not so nice.’

‘Maybe,’ he said uncertainly, but the troubled look in his eyes remained. Then he threw me a cheeky smile. ‘Hey, Meg, what note in music makes a good soldier?’

‘Haven’t a clue.’

‘A sharp major.’

I laughed and we parted, but I was worried about how ill he seemed and wondered why he disliked the Americans so much.

Betty Barwon was at the greengrocer’s. It was the first time I had seen her since the murder. A shortish, plump girl, about five years older than me, Betty had straight dark hair cut in a severe bob. She also seemed to have a perpetual cold; the area under her nose was always red and she seemed never to be without a handkerchief in her hand. Today, however, her eyes were red also, and I suspected that she had been crying. I got a brave little smile from her and a wave of her hankie as I arrived.

I didn’t like Betty as much as I had liked Doreen. Doreen was fond of gossip, but she was never malicious. Betty’s stories often had a nasty edge to them. Still, I greeted her warmly and told her I was sorry about Doreen. The words seemed inadequate, but I didn’t know what else to say.

‘How are you coping without her?’ I asked.

She sniffed and touched the hankie to her nose. ‘It’s lonely. I really miss her. She was such good company.’

‘Perhaps you could find someone else to share the house.’

‘No. I couldn’t replace her that quickly. And my boyfriend will help out with the rent. He’s an American, so he can afford it.’

We left the shop and turned down Kanimbla Road towards home.

‘People seem to think that Frank killed Doreen,’ I said. Tom wanted me to find out what the locals thought. Betty was a good place to start.

She gave me a sharp look. ‘Oh, I’m sure he did. He hated the idea of her hanging around with the Yanks. And he’s Italian, of course. You know what they’re like.’

‘No, actually. What are they like?’ I said, my voice deceptively light.

She seemed surprised at the question. ‘Hot-blooded. And they carry knives.’

‘So do most of the Americans.’

She was clearly surprised. ‘You don’t think an American did it, do you?’

‘No. I’m just pointing out that there’s no evidence that Frank carried a knife. Not all Italians carry knives. And Frank’s Australian. Anyway, was he so hot-blooded? He seemed pretty meek and mild to me.’

‘He killed Doreen,’ she said in a decided tone.

As we turned into Megalong Street she stopped and turned towards me. ‘You and Tom Lagrange found her, didn’t you? How do you know him?’

‘We only met that day, and it was an accident that he was with me when we found her. Do you know him?’

‘Oh, yes. He’s always hanging around the Americans. Some kind of liaison officer or something.’ She wrinkled her nose.

‘You don’t like him?’

‘I think he’s stuck-up.’

I began to walk on. I wasn’t interested in Betty’s views of Tom.

‘Tom Lagrange is full of himself,’ she continued heatedly, following me. ‘Doreen adored him, but he was too high and mighty for someone like her.’

I slowed my pace and turned to face her.

‘He’s engaged to be married,’ I said, speaking cautiously. ‘It would have been wrong of him to encourage her.’

‘That didn’t stop him seeing her a lot. He must have known how she felt. I hate people like him. The la-di-dah set.’ She spat out the words as if they left a bad taste in her mouth. ‘They take what they can from us, but we’ll never be good enough for them.’

We were near her front path now, and her anger had subsided into tears. She was sobbing into her hankie and I couldn’t leave her like that. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked. ‘Do you want me to come in with you?’

‘I’m fine.’ She blew her nose. ‘Come in for a cup of tea, if you like. Please come in, Meg. It’s so lonely without Doreen. I hate going into the empty house.’

The place was smaller than ours, and it looked uncared for. Obviously Betty hadn’t been in any mood for housekeeping in the days since Doreen’s death.

‘Her stuff is all still here,’ Betty said, gesturing towards the main bedroom as we passed it on the way to the kitchen. ‘I don’t know what to do about it. Her parents are dead and her sister lives in Victoria somewhere. Her daughter can’t take it.’

She sat down heavily on a chair by the kitchen table and started to cry again. ‘It’s all so hard. I don’t know what to do.’

‘Perhaps you should just pack it up in boxes and keep it for a while. Paulette might want it later. I’ll help if you like.’

‘It’s not just the stuff. It’s everything.’ Her voice was flat, defeated. ‘I can’t stop thinking about Doreen. Poor Doreen. You know, she was crazy about Tom Lagrange. I hated to see her like that. Worrying if she looked good enough, spoke properly, knew enough. She would have done anything that man wanted, just so she could spend time with him.’ Betty glared at the table. ‘It was stupid. Any idiot could see she never stood a chance. Any idiot but Doreen.’

Just what was Doreen’s relationship with Tom? It was peculiar that someone like Tom would want to spend a lot of time with someone like Doreen, even if she did give him information. I hoped I wasn’t being a snob, but what did Doreen have that would interest Tom, other than the obvious attractions of her body? Was I being naïve? Perhaps Joan had been right and he had been fooling around with Doreen. Detective Munsie hadn’t actually said so when he interviewed Tom, but the implication was there.

My heart started to beat faster and I felt a little faint. Maybe Doreen had become an embarrassment to Tom, had wanted too much, had threatened his cosy future with Phyllis Gregory. If he hadn’t killed her himself, could he have arranged it?

‘What are you trying to say, Betty? Do you think Tom Lagrange killed her?’ My tone was sharper than I intended. The words had come out of nowhere. What did I really know about Tom Lagrange, other than that Peter had hero-worshipped him?

Betty was looking at me in astonishment.

‘No, of course not. I told you, her wretched husband killed her, I’m sure of that. Tom Lagrange has an alibi. Detective Munsie told me.’

It was an alibi that was based on the word of Tom’s fiancée and I suspected that Phyllis would be a good liar if she had to be. Still, it had to be more likely that Frank Luca had killed Doreen than Tom. I liked Tom. But nothing seemed to make sense to me at the moment, and I still didn’t know why Tom had spent so much time with Doreen.

‘Shall I put the kettle on?’ I said, rising quickly and going over to the stove. Betty nodded dispiritedly.

‘I hate people like him, that’s all,’ she said. ‘They think they own the world, just because their family is rich.’

‘That’s unfair, Betty,’ I said. ‘I have to say, Captain Lagrange doesn’t seem like that to me.’

‘You have no idea, Meg; you’re not really working class,’ she said with a look of scorn. ‘My dad was a lumper at the Fremantle docks. In the 1919 wharf disputes he got stuck with a bayonet by our own police because he wanted a fair deal for the workers. Nothing fancy, just a fair deal. And who was the government looking out for, eh? The rich, that’s who. Always have, always will.’

I poured the tea. I knew nothing about the rights and wrongs of the incident she was talking about. I wasn’t even born in 1919.

She took a sip of tea. ‘After my dad got injured, life was a constant struggle, just to survive. We never had enough to eat.’

‘You weren’t alone there, Betty,’ I said, with some heat. ‘We weren’t rich. Far from it. My family struggled too. Everybody did in the thirties. There was a depression on, remember? My mother was a widow. We were lucky to eat some days.’ I finished my tea and began to make a move towards leaving.

She looked at me blankly. ‘You don’t understand. Often we didn’t eat. And I’ll tell you what, Meg, I’d do just about anything never to be hungry like that again.’ Her face hardened. ‘Don’t you fall for their tricks. The “upper classes”. No matter how bloody nice they talk, how polite they are to a pretty girl, they’re just bloody capitalists, looking out for themselves.’

She lapsed into a brooding silence while I collected my things.

‘Thanks for the company,’ she said as I got up to leave. ‘I wish I was a better person. I know I’m not as nice as Doreen. She was always trying to be cheerful, always wanting to think the best about people. That’s why I hated to see her so miserable.’

I walked into our kitchen to find that Joan was home from work and reading the paper. She shoved it at me.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘You’re in the Mirror.’

The headline read: NO SHELTER FROM DEATH. It was a full-page article about Doreen’s murder, complete with photographs. I was mentioned as the person who had discovered her body, along with Capt. Thomas Lagrange M.C. of Claremont. There was a photo of Tom in his uniform, but it must have been an old one from their files, because he looked younger and there was no scar on his face. I wasn’t sure I liked the notoriety, but Joan seemed thrilled. No doubt it was going straight into the scrapbook.

Alone in my room I couldn’t shake off Betty’s fierce words about Tom. I wished I’d never heard them. I’d decided Tom Lagrange was a good man, that I had no reason not to trust him, and now I was confused again. How much of what Betty said was about class? She hated Tom, that was certain. But if I was going to judge Tom on the basis of having rich parents, I would be as bad as those willing to think Frank Luca was a murderer just because his parents were Italian.

I knew it was impossible to really know another person, but I hoped I was a reasonable judge of character. Tom simply didn’t seem the type to have been having an affair with Doreen Luca. I had no doubt he treated her with the same degree of polite consideration he seemed to treat everyone and maybe she had misunderstood. If Tom was guilty of anything, perhaps it was no more than being oblivious of the fact that a young woman had a crush on him.

Betty was right about one thing, though. Australia wasn’t a classless society. Your accent, the school you went to, who your people were – it all made a difference. Class was even present like a faint shadow between me and Nancy Gangemi, who I thought of as a friend. She insisted on calling me Miss Meg, no matter how much I begged her to drop the Miss. Eventually, after many attempts to persuade her, she blurted out in some distress, ‘It feels wrong in my mouth, not to say Miss.’ After that I dropped the subject.

And I had put up with some nasty comments from Peter’s female friends, or worse, the innocent question with a barb attached. ‘You’re a typist? So what do you actually do? Apart from just typing, of course.’ When Peter took me to his lovely family home by the river to meet his parents, Mrs Lagrange had been frostily gracious. Mr Lagrange, who was tall and dark, like Tom, had been friendlier. He congratulated Peter on knowing how to pick a pretty girl and asked me about my family in a polite and interested way. But I got the feeling neither of them thought I made the grade.

Peter had laughed when I told him this. He told me it was just their manner. ‘They liked you a lot, especially Dad. More importantly, I like you a lot. In fact, I love you. So stop worrying.’

Chad was due to pick me up at seven o’clock. That would be good. Dancing would sweep away these difficult thoughts. At five-thirty I went outside to water the garden. I sprayed water onto the parched flowers, shrubs and small square of lawn that made up our front yard and let my thoughts wander. From all along the street came splashing sounds and the hiss of sprinklers and in the air was the scent of moist sand and greenery.

Mrs Phoenix appeared by her gate, watering her prized blue hydrangeas. I moved across to her.

‘How is Mr Phoenix?’ I asked. Apparently the news about Doreen’s body being found in his air raid shelter had ‘given him quite a turn’ when he arrived back home on Monday.

‘Getting better. It was a terrible shock, though.’

‘It was a shock for everyone,’ Joan replied. She had come out to stand on the front porch. ‘I wish Frank Luca had chosen somewhere else to kill his wife.’

I made a face at Joan. ‘We don’t know it was him,’ I said.

‘Well, who else could it have been?’ Marie McLean walked across the road to join us. ‘Stan and Jimmy keep making a fuss about it, insisting it might be an American. I think they’ve been listening to their dad because Cec can’t stand the Yanks. Mind you, Fred’s the complete opposite. He adores the men at the Catalina base; he’s always at them for lollies and they give them to him. They seem very nice to me and they’re very generous.’

‘It had to be Frank,’ Joan said in a voice that brooked no opposition. She stepped down from the porch and made her way gingerly across the wet lawn towards us. ‘The police think so, too. If he’s innocent, why’s he in hiding?’

‘We don’t know why he’s missing. Maybe somebody was after both of them,’ I said, squirting water on a rosebush. ‘Maybe he’s dead, as well.’

‘Oh come on, Meg, it was a crime of passion by a jealous and hot-blooded Italian,’ my sister said.

‘It’s attitudes like that – all Italians are hot-blooded; all Jews are profiteers – which lead to riots and to concentration camps. And wars.’

‘But Meg, Italians are hot-blooded. Everybody knows that.’

I opened my mouth to refute this, when to my surprise, Mrs Phoenix entered the fray.

‘Meg is right. How can you say all Italians are the same? That’s just silly,’ she said.

Joan scowled. ‘But everybody thinks so.’

I was really angry now. ‘Joan, you must remember the anti-Italian riots in Kalgoorlie in 1934. I was only twelve, but I remember them vividly.’ I turned to Marie and Mrs Phoenix, ‘Three men died, many people were hurt, and there was a terrible lot of damage.’

Mrs Phoenix nodded. ‘I remember. It was the miners, wasn’t it, angry about Italian men taking their jobs?’

‘It started with some miners, but it turned into a big mob of stupid, angry people. Italian hotels and boarding houses were blown up with gelignite; houses and shops that belonged to Italians were burned down. It was dreadful.’

‘Meg is sensitive about it because her friend’s family got caught up in the riots,’ Joan said.

‘Too right I am,’ I said. ‘My friend Angela’s father was badly beaten, their fruit shop was destroyed and their cottage was burned. The Valentis lost everything they had in the world. Everything!’

I would never forget those days. Worried about my best friend and her family, I persuaded Uncle Wilf to pack up his truck with provisions scrounged from my mother and from neighbours who were horrified by what had happened. We joined a group of others looking for the Italian families who had fled from the rioters the day before. After driving around for hours we finally found about two hundred people huddled in the scrubby bush between Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie. They had no food and no water, but they were too scared to come back to Kalgoorlie.

Mrs Valenti said to us when we arrived, ‘My husband is naturalised Australian. My children are Australian. They go to school with Australian children. They look like Australians. They talk like Australians. Why should they suffer like this?’

When I read about the Nazis looting and burning Jewish shops and houses in 1938, it had brought back vivid memories of that mob in Kalgoorlie, only four years before.

I was still in touch with Angela. She had married a miner, Jim Carlucci, who was now fighting with the AIF. After the riots, her father had received some compensation from the government and opened another fruit shop, remaking a life for his family in Kalgoorlie, but Angela had written to tell me he was now interned as an enemy alien. So not much had changed, really. Maybe that was why I was so annoyed when people automatically assumed that ‘hot-blooded’ Frank Luca had killed Doreen.

Joan looked contrite. ‘I’m sorry, Meg. I didn’t mean anything. But you have to admit, it does seem likely that Frank Luca killed Doreen.’

I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down.

When we were back inside Joan said to me, ‘What are you going to wear tonight? Would you help me decide what I’m going to wear?’

Joan was going out for dinner and dancing with Major Wally Yeats. As she was perfectly capable of deciding on an outfit for herself, I suspected Joan was trying to make up for what she had said in the front yard.

‘Well,’ I said with a rueful smile, ‘I’ve only got one good outfit, so I’ll wear that. But I’d love to help you choose.’

Joan made most of my clothes as she was a terrific seamstress, but with the rationing of material she had little to work with. My best frock was a knee-length floral silk, with a crocheted yoke and sleeves and as much skirt fullness as regulations allowed. Before the war only long evening gowns would have done if you were going to a nightclub or cabaret for dancing, but with clothes rationing had come a sense of informality and now it was fine to go out dancing in knee-length frocks as well.

‘Are you going to wear your blue gown?’ I asked her. Joan had a slinky full-length evening gown in ice-blue crepe that set off her silvery hair beautifully. ‘Or should you wait until you really want to “wow” him before that one comes out?’

We wandered into her room, and she took out the blue crepe.

‘I think it’s a bit too formal for this evening,’ she said with a touch of reluctance. Reaching into the wardrobe she pulled out a knee-length black sheath dress that was cut low in the back and held together by shoestring shoulder straps. It was gorgeous. I sighed, wishing yet again that Joan was slimmer so I could borrow her clothes.

‘Well, if that doesn’t “wow” him he’s an idiot. When did you make that?’

‘A while ago,’ she said. ‘I haven’t had a reason to wear it before. You don’t think it’s too . . .’

‘No, I don’t think that at all. It’s perfect.’

Joan smiled and carefully put the dress on her bed.

‘Now, Meg,’ she said in her ‘big sister’ voice, the one she used when she wanted to tell me what to do. ‘This Lieutenant Buchowski is married, isn’t he?’

‘Yes. We’ve discussed this,’ I said, trying not to sound petulant. ‘He’s not interested in me in that way.’

Joan appeared unconvinced. ‘You’re a very pretty girl. Any man would be interested in you in that way, whether he’s married or not.’

‘I can look after myself, you know. I’ll be fine.’

‘Well, if he tries to get you to “look at the view” on the way home, you tell him you’re not interested.’

I giggled. ‘I think he’d be a bit more subtle than that.’

She frowned at me. ‘You know what I mean. Just be careful. Harvey was perfectly safe – we know his family. But what do we know about this American? If he tries anything you have to be very firm and tell him you’re not that sort of girl.’

I leaned across and gave her a peck on the cheek. ‘I love the black dress and Wally Yeats will, too.’ There was no point arguing with her. She meant well, but it was irritating that she thought I was still an innocent young girl. ‘I’m going to get ready now. Please stop worrying about me, I’ll be fine.’

Chad rang our doorbell at exactly seven o’clock and when I answered he was standing there with a large bunch of roses and two boxes of chocolates, one for me and one for Ma.

‘You look swell,’ he said, smiling as if he really meant it.

Chad looked pretty good himself. Annie was right; the American uniforms were smoother and fitted better than the Australian uniforms. Chad’s jacket, trousers and shirt were a light tan colour, but he had a black tie. His officer’s cap was tan and black, with gold braid around the brim.

He spent a few minutes chatting to Ma. She suggested he and his friend Don might come to dinner one night and he said they’d be delighted. When we finally left the house, there was a taxi waiting for us.

‘Chad!’ I said, my eyes wide. ‘Surely it hasn’t been waiting all this time. Why didn’t you tell me?’

He just laughed and opened the door for me. ‘I slipped him a carton of cigarettes,’ he whispered once we were in the back. ‘He’d do anything for me now. We’ve got him for the night.’

We ate at the Adelphi again and talked as easily as we had before. Chad spoke about his wife Susan and their little dog, called Peppy, who were both waiting for him at home in Cooperstown. His father ran a drugstore there and Susan and Peppy were living in Chad’s parents’ home. Before the war, Chad had won a football scholarship to a prestigious university called Cornell, and he had done well there. He hoped to get into business when the war ended.

After dinner we ended up at the Silver Dollar Cabaret in Hay Street, one of the new cabarets that catered primarily for the Americans. According to Annie, it had the best dance band in Perth.

The Silver Dollar was crowded with Americans and local girls. A six-piece band was belting out a Glenn Miller hit and the dance floor was full. As Chad led me through the crowd I noticed bottles of whisky and brandy on nearly every table, despite the liquor laws forbidding alcohol being served after six o’clock.

‘Here we are,’ he said with a flourish. He had found an empty table and put his jacket over a chair to claim ownership. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘I’d rather dance,’ I said, raising my voice against the hubbub around us.

He grinned and offered me his hand. ‘Let’s cut a rug then.’

We went onto the dance floor and for a while I forgot about everything that had been bothering me in the whirl of music and movement. He danced well, and we stayed on the floor for three dances, until I begged for a break and he led me back to our table.

As I sipped my lemonade and Chad downed a couple of beers he asked me if I had got over the shock about Doreen, and I told him I had, more or less.

‘I knew Doreen well,’ he said. ‘We were pretty good friends for a while there, but she got too serious about me, so it was time to cool things down a tad. But that was some months back.’ He slid me a sideways glance. ‘Then she got mighty close to Tom Lagrange.’

I made a non-committal murmur and turned my head to watch the dancing. I wished people would stop talking to me about Tom and Doreen. I didn’t want to discuss Peter’s brother with Chad Buchowski or Betty Barwon or anyone.

I danced with a few servicemen that night. It was a surprise the first time someone cut in on us. A dark-haired ensign tapped Chad on the shoulder in the middle of a dance and he surrendered me at once. The stranger told me he was Norman Zeck, a submariner from Alabama. When the dance finished he thanked me politely, turned on his heel and walked off, leaving me standing there in the middle of the floor. No Australian would have done that.

Chad laughed when I returned to my seat, complaining about the treatment. ‘Get used to it, honey,’ he said. ‘It’ll keep happening. Pretty girl like you, well, the boys can’t resist muscling in.’

I did get used to it. A couple of the men who cut in asked me to see them again. I wasn’t quite ready for that yet, so I politely declined.

Around midnight we went to the coatroom to retrieve our things and I saw another side to Chad. He handed over our ticket and a pretty girl with brown curls, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, disappeared to collect our stuff. When she returned she was carrying a black derby, an expensive fur coat and a little black hat I would have loved to own, but which was certainly not mine.

‘These aren’t ours,’ I said.

‘I’m in uniform,’ said Chad in a sharp voice. ‘I’d have a US naval cap, wouldn’t I?’

The girl appeared confused. She put the things down and went to look at the ticket again, but dropped it and disappeared from view as she scrambled to pick it up.

‘Hey, little girl, we haven’t got all night.’ Chad’s fingers were doing an impatient dance on the counter and his tone was not pleasant.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, when her head appeared above the counter. She seemed near to tears. ‘I’ll try again.’

‘Don’t worry, it’s fine. There’s no rush really,’ I said to her in a conciliatory tone, earning a sharp look from Chad myself.

By the time she reappeared he was in a foul mood. ‘Is this what you call service around here?’ he said to her. ‘I should report you to management.’

The tears that had been threatening fell now down her cheeks, and my own cheeks burned. I thought Chad had behaved very badly. I was quiet in the taxi home.

‘Thanks for a lovely night,’ I said when we got to my house. I didn’t offer my cheek for a kiss.

‘Thank you, Meg. It was swell. I’m sorry about that coat-check girl. She just irritated me. We expect better service where I come from. You will come out with me again, won’t you? How about next Tuesday night?’

I said I would. I had not liked his behaviour with the coat-check girl, and hoped I wouldn’t see it again. But other than that he had been good company, and I had so enjoyed just being out dancing.

At breakfast the next morning it was clear that Joan’s evening had gone very well indeed. She was glowing.

‘Well, yes,’ she said. ‘We had a lovely time. He took me to the Starlight Restaurant for dinner and then to the Embassy Ballroom for dancing. You were right, he loved the dress.’ Then she blushed.

Eleven

Tom turned up at my office at lunchtime on Monday, charmingly dealt with Annie’s attempts at flirting, and asked if I was free. I had a moment’s doubt, wondering whether Phyllis really knew about the lunches, but I decided that there was no harm in it if we ate in the gardens, which were very public. Over lunch my doubts vanished completely, because Tom was not in the least romantic.

‘The Americans seem to be close to victory on Guadalcanal,’ I remarked, wondering how Tom had managed to find chicken sandwiches. I loved chicken sandwiches.

He inclined his head to indicate agreement, then grinned. ‘Tojo no longer calls the tune in the Pacific, thank God. It’ll be a while before victory, though. And it’ll be hard fought.’

We spent a while discussing the war and, as before, Tom was intelligent and interesting company. I liked his dry and incisive sense of humour and he seemed genuinely interested in my views on the war, politics and life generally. We didn’t discuss Doreen’s murder much at all. Frank Luca had disappeared off the face of the earth and the police hadn’t come up with anything new. I mentioned young Jimmy’s oddly intense remarks, and Betty’s conviction that Frank was guilty, but there was little else to say. Eventually, Tom began to talk about Peter.

‘You’ve visited my parents’ house?’ he asked.

I nodded.

‘So you know how close it is to the river, to Freshwater Bay. We always seemed to be at the river. Pete called it our limitless liquid backyard. Swimming in summer, of course. Prawning at night, using kerosene lanterns. Dad got us a little sailing dinghy, told me I was responsible for Pete, and left us to it. We’d go off sailing, fishing and crabbing in it. And exploring for miles into all the little bays along the river.’

He lit a cigarette and stretched out to lie on his back with a leg bent up. He looked peaceful.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever been crabbing?’ he said.

‘You’re talking to a Kalgoorlie girl.’ I laughed a little. ‘I grew up drinking fresh water that had been pumped for 350 miles all the way from Perth in a big pipeline. Peter wanted to take me crabbing, but we never got to do it.’

Tom smiled. ‘There’s nothing like eating freshly caught Blue Manna crabs. You can scoop them up from beside the banks of the river in summer, but when the weather gets cooler you need to use a boat. We’d row out to a deep channel we knew at the end of some tidal flats and tie drop-nets to the side. You should have seen the crabs we caught in that place!’ He held up his hands wide apart.

‘When we’d caught enough I’d make Pete row back to shore while I lounged at my ease in the boat – I told him he needed to build up his muscles.’ He laughed, but softly, and there was a note of melancholy. ‘I was the hero older brother and he used to do whatever I asked, poor kid. I was pretty hard on him sometimes, but most of the time we were good mates. Best friends.’

Tom was silent for a while. He had his arm resting over his eyes and he was very still. When he spoke again there was a catch in his voice. ‘We would come to shore at the foot of the low limestone cliffs near our house. Those cliffs are riddled with caves and we had explored every one of them. I’d build a fire, boil water in a billy and cook the crabs. Then we’d eat them with buttered bread and lemons that Mum had given us.’

He spoke very quietly now. ‘One night when we were on the river – Pete must have been about eleven – it was so dark and the stars were so bright we could see their reflections in the water. I was pointing out the constellations when, all of a sudden, the sky was filled with falling stars. It was magical. A meteor shower, of course. Pete said we had to make lots of wishes because with so many stars falling, at least one was sure to come true.’

He was quiet for a long time after that, with his arm across his eyes. Which was just as well really, because by the time he raised his arm I had put away my hankie and my eyes were dry.

Tom turned up for lunch every few days after that. I wondered if the reason he wanted to keep meeting me was because he was able to talk about Peter with someone who had also loved him. But it was hard to read Tom’s emotions, because he kept them so firmly in check. Although he could be devastatingly charming when he wanted to be, the impression he presented to the world was of cool, rather detached self-sufficiency, with sometimes more than a touch of supercilious arrogance. I had a feeling he was bored and frustrated, tucked away in Perth so far from the action.

Or maybe it was his hand causing him pain. He couldn’t abide sympathy and yet it was so hard not to react when his face became suddenly drawn and white and I knew it was because of the hand. One lunchtime he was shaking a little, his face was pinched and he snapped at me each time I tried to make conversation. Eventually he said, ‘Let it go, Meg. Can’t we just sit here enjoying each other’s company?’

I raised an eyebrow, and he had the grace to give me a shaky laugh. ‘Let me enjoy your company, then. You can pretend I’m not here and enjoy the afternoon.’

I was concerned, but I simply smiled and pulled a book out of my handbag and pretended to read as he lay down on the grass with his eyes closed. I watched little beads of sweat form on his upper lip and forehead. He had never been like that before. At a few minutes to two o’clock I told him I had to go. He nodded without raising his head, and said, ‘Thanks, Meg. You have no idea how much . . . I’ll be all right. Really. Now go.’

He was waiting for me outside the door to the gardens when I emerged at lunchtime a couple of days later.

‘Sorry about last time,’ he said. ‘I’m fine now.’

A brown paper parcel was under his arm. It was soft, and it didn’t look heavy. After we had finished our sandwiches and were sitting in the shade enjoying the cool sea breeze, Tom picked up the parcel. He held it loosely and turned it over and over.

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘A wigwam for a goose’s bridle.’

I laughed. ‘My granny used to say that.’

‘So did mine.’

He had a surprisingly furtive look. ‘Ah, I asked my mother if she had any spare dresses that could be remade into the sort of frock a smart girl could wear to dances. She gave me these.’

He handed me the parcel. It was a remarkably thoughtful gesture. Girls all over Perth were raiding the closets of their mothers, grandmothers and maiden aunts for old dresses that could be made into wearable outfits suitable for the evening. The clothing coupons never seemed to stretch to evening wear.

I thanked him profusely, but there was more.

‘There’s a dance at the Nedlands Tennis Club on the thirteenth of February, the Saturday after next. An American Red Cross affair, celebrating Aussie–US friendship. I’ve got two tickets for you. You might want to take your friend Annie.’ He reached into his breast pocket and took out an envelope, which he handed to me.

Annie and I opened the parcel at my desk. Even Miss Filmer came over to look. There were two dresses inside. A dark blue crepe de chine with a wonderfully full skirt that could easily be made up into a pretty frock. The other was my favourite. It was made of soft green embroidered silk and I was already imagining how I would look in it. I would wear it to the Red Cross dance.

As well as lunching with Tom, I was dining and dancing with Chad, who asked me to go out at least twice a week. Wrapped up in my lonely grief since Peter’s death, I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the company of men. It was so nice to dress up for a night out, to be regarded with admiration, to be given compliments. So enjoyable to be held in strong arms on a dance floor, in a dizzying whirl of sound and movement, enveloped by the smell of tobacco, sweat and hair oil. And it was exciting to engage in conversations that challenged my perceptions of men, the war and the world outside my city. I had carefully read the newspapers. I knew where all the battle fronts were and I could talk about strategies and campaigns. Yet, apart from Peter’s death, I had little idea of the human cost of the conflict that was raging throughout the world. Now I was meeting the men who were a part of it.

True to his word, Chad introduced me to a number of American servicemen. Most were little more than boys who had never left their small home towns before. One even admitted to me, red with embarrassment, that he had been surprised to find we spoke English in Australia. They were invariably polite and almost overwhelmed by the welcome they had received in Perth. They seemed to have an amazing number of interests, these young men with their bright, white smiles, and yet every one of them had lost someone close to them in the war, and if I looked deeply into their eyes I caught a hint of some private grief or horror. I tried to get them to tell me about their wartime experiences, but few did. Which was probably just as well, because the little I did learn haunted me long after the dance music had stopped.

‘I think it was the saddest day of my life when I buried John.’ Lyle was a twenty-year-old soldier who was chugging a beer after we’d shared a frenetic dance. ‘We’d been buddies since grade school. His grave is close to the beach, in a coconut grove on Tulagi. It’s real pretty there and he’s near some of our guys who died in the same action, so he’s not lonely. They say they’ll take him home to America after the war, but I sort of like to think of him lying there, listening to the waves.’ His eyes were wet as he smiled and asked me for another dance.

Vernon, a skinny kid with a shock of white-blond hair, had ended up in Perth after his plane crashed in the ocean. At first they didn’t know if they could save his sight and he lay in a field hospital, blindfolded, for some days before he was evacuated.

‘It wasn’t the pain – heck, they gave me enough morphine to send me off to la-la land – it was the smell of that place I’ll never forget. That stench of rotting wounds. I doubt I’ll ever get rid of it.’

Chad never spoke about his wartime experiences. He preferred to try to make me laugh. He was confident and energetic, but he had a quick temper, which seemed to explode out of nowhere and disappear in a whirl of apologies and a contrite grin. I liked him, but he wasn’t relaxing company. And it wasn’t long before I found myself too often having to shrug off Chad’s unwanted arm around my shoulder. It probably meant nothing, but after Harvey I wasn’t taking any chances.

As arranged with Ma, Chad came for dinner at our house a few days after we first went out. A week later he came again with his friend Donald Dudley. Ma and I could hardly believe the gifts they brought. There were the usual flowers and nylons, but also an amazing amount of food: meat, eggs, butter, chocolate, salted nuts and canned ham. Ma was astonished and embarrassed at the abundance, but very grateful.

‘Now don’t you worry about that, Mrs Eaton,’ Chad had said with a grin. ‘We know how hard it is for you folks with the rationing and all. We Americans always bring food to Australians who are kind enough to offer us hospitality.’

‘It’s a pleasure. We really appreciate you coming over here to help us out,’ Ma stammered.

Lieutenant Dudley was a thin man, tall, with an erect posture and immaculately smooth hair. His straight moustache was a sharply defined black line above lips that were a little too red and too wet, rather like a baby’s mouth on a man’s face. When I asked what part of the US he came from he said Boston, but it sounded like ‘Bawston’. It was an accent I hadn’t heard before.

Listening to Don’s views on society (in sad decline morally), liquor (repealing prohibition was a serious mistake that would come back to haunt America) and dancing (a waste of energy that any savage could do, particularly the jitterbug, which was almost licentious), it was soon clear that he was a wowser. He didn’t seem to approve of much at all. But Ma had been raised a Methodist, and she thoroughly approved of him.

I caught Chad’s eye during one of Don’s tirades. He winked, which made me nearly choke on my water. I didn’t say anything. Don was a guest in our house. But, if he’d asked my opinion I would have said we were no worse than previous generations, Singapore slings were delicious and dancing was one of the delights of life.

They became fairly frequent visitors after that. Don, especially, told us that he appreciated the homely atmosphere, and he got into the habit of accompanying Ma and Joan to church on Sundays.

A few days after Tom had given me the dresses, Chad and Don came to dinner. When I saw them to the front door at the end of the evening, Chad turned to me with a smile.

‘We’re sorry that Joan was out,’ he said. ‘We were wondering if you’d both care to join us at a party organised by the Red Cross next Saturday.’

‘The one at the tennis club? I’m already going with my friend Annie.’

Chad’s easy grin appeared. ‘Then come with us,’ he said. ‘Please?’

I couldn’t see that Annie would object to being taken to the dance by two American officers. ‘Love to,’ I said.

Twelve

I finally met Wally Yeats the following afternoon, when he arrived to take Joan to a bridge party. He was in his mid-forties, average height, balding and a little pompous, but he seemed kind. He watched Joan constantly with a rather hangdog expression that indicated he was smitten.

‘I just have to get my handbag,’ she said to him. ‘Meg, can you help me with, er –’

‘Of course.’ I followed her into her room and said, before she could ask, ‘He’s lovely. I like him a lot.’

‘Do you really think so? He’s forty-five. Do you think that’s too old?’

‘No. Anyway, he doesn’t look it.’ Actually, he looked older, but I’d never tell her that. ‘And he adores you. I can tell.’

A strange look came over her face, happiness tinged with terror. ‘Meg, I really like him.’

‘Good. Because I think he really likes you, too.’

Ma smiled at me when they left. ‘I think this might work out,’ she said. ‘I’m so happy for Joan. It’s early days, of course, but –’ Now she seemed apprehensive. ‘Oh, Meg, I do hope this works out for her. It might be her last chance.’

As I peeled the vegetables for tea, I considered how it was almost shameful for a girl not to marry. Of course, you had to be married to have children and Joan wanted children. But money was part of it, too. Women earned so much less than men that it was difficult to make ends meet if you relied on only your salary. I knew that Miss Filmer’s solitary life was one of constant petty economies. Ma, Joan and I lived on Joan’s income and mine and the small inheritance from my English grandmother that had come in 1938. The inheritance made all the difference. Although we lived frugally, we could still afford little luxuries; without the inheritance we would have found it hard to make do.

I finished peeling the potatoes and started on the carrots. I knew what Joan’s real fear was. It was one I shared. Although we both loved Ma very much, the idea of growing old alone with her, like Miss Beryl Comer and old Mrs Comer in number 7, was simply unbearable.

I hoped Wally Yeats was right for Joan, and that she’d get what she wanted out of life. But what about me? Peter’s death had put me into a strange sort of limbo. I did not want to end up like Miss Filmer or Miss Comer. I wanted a husband and children. The problem was that I had only ever been able to imagine a future with Peter. I wasn’t like Annie, who fell in and out of love every other week. She reminded me sometimes of the little yacht Peter had sailed on the river, tacking and coming about and changing course with the wind. I couldn’t do that. I was more like a big battleship, I needed time to change course. I would come around eventually and my life would head off in a new direction, but it had to be in my own time.

The Tuesday morning before the Red Cross dance, Annie turned to me with a mischievous look.

‘So, are you having lunch with Captain Cute, or can you spare me an hour at lunch for shopping?’

‘I’d love to go shopping. What are you after?’

‘I want a new lipstick for the dance on Saturday. I thought we could go to Boans. You’re much better than I am at picking the right colour.’

‘Will there be much choice?’

She had the West Australian open on her desk and pointed to a large advertisement for Boans Department Store.

Max Factor Lipstick Re-Fills. All shades. Limit 1 to a customer. 3/7 each.

It was almost impossible to buy lipstick in a metal case any more, because apparently the cases were being turned into cartridge holders. So, when lipstick was available, we refilled the same cases over and over again. But 3/7 for a refill was very expensive. My annual salary was only 190 pounds and most of that was given to Ma for board. When I needed a lipstick refill I bought Boans’ own brand. The only choices of colour were dark red, red or pink, but refills cost a mere 1/3. Annie could afford Max Factor because her dad was the managing clerk for a law firm in Howard Street and he let her keep all of her salary to buy pretty things for herself.

At the Max Factor counter at lunchtime I gazed wistfully at the myriad shades of red and pink. Annie picked up a tester.

‘Too orangey,’ I said. She put it back and picked up another.

‘So, is Captain Cute going to be at the dance?’

‘Tom’s got a fiancée,’ I said firmly. ‘That one’s too pale.’

‘Hmm,’ Annie said quietly as she put the lipstick back. ‘He sees a lot of you. If I were Phyllis, I’d be furious.’

I blew out a breath as she picked up another lipstick.

‘We’re friends. Just friends. I really like him and I like spending time with him, but that’s it. And that one is too purple for your colouring.’

Annie pouted. ‘Men usually don’t make so much effort to see a girl unless they’re interested in her.’

She waved a deep scarlet lipstick in front of me. I nodded.

‘So men and women can’t be friends?’ I was annoyed. ‘That’s pretty sad, if it’s true.’

Annie started to apply the lipstick. She said, a trifle indistinctly, ‘I think it’s hard just to be friends with a man. There’s always something else. It’s to do with sex.’

Her bottom lip was now a rich red. ‘Mind you, Australian men think more of their mates than their women. They have no idea how to treat a girl. You know what they say, that on payday an Aussie man goes to the pub with his mates first, then places his bets on the ponies, and then picks up his girl and takes her to the beach.’

I laughed. ‘Because he’s spent all his money on his mates and the ponies?’

She swept colour onto her top lip. ‘Americans always go for the girl first.’ She rubbed her lips together and smiled. ‘That’s why Americans are so great. And they stay with you the whole night.’

I laughed, and she rolled her eyes. ‘I didn’t mean it that way, silly. I mean that when an American takes you out he really looks after you. If he sees a group of his mates he doesn’t leave you cooling your heels so he can spend time with them.’

She was right. That was how it usually went if you were out with an Australian, the men all up one end of the room and the women at the other. Peter hadn’t been like that, though. I picked up a dark red. Too much like what Phyllis would wear.

I put the lipstick back. ‘Anyway, Tom is Peter’s brother. It would be strange if he was interested in me in that way,’ I said.

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Annie was looking in the mirror, making a kissing expression. ‘In the Bible men are always marrying their brothers’ widows. I think it was required.’

Annie was referencing the Bible? She laughed at my expression.

‘I went to Sunday School, you know. My sister Ellie and I knew every naughty bit in the Bible. There are lots of them. Have you read the “Song of Solomon”? Phew!’

I grinned. ‘My cousin Alice and I may have looked it over once or twice.’

‘For an awfully long time I thought sex was all to do with your belly button. I was lucky Hettie O’Reilly lived nearby,’ Annie said, with a sly smile. ‘I got all my information from her. Hettie knew everything.’

‘I have to ask. What happened to Hettie O’Reilly?’

‘Got in trouble at age sixteen and had to get married. When last heard of she was having her fourth.’

I laughed. ‘So it seems Hettie didn’t know everything, after all.’

Annie leaned towards me and whispered, ‘I say, praise the Lord for the invention of rubbers. I’d be in big trouble otherwise. The American ones are much more reliable, you know.’

‘Annie!’

She grinned again and picked up another lipstick. ‘Just giving you information. Do you like this better?’

‘No. I like the colour you’ve got on,’ I said, rather distractedly.

I was thinking about Peter. Apart from my early Biblical investigations, I’d got all of my information from him. Although he’d been a little more experienced than me, in reality we had learned together. After the first time the main problem had been finding somewhere private. The blackout helped. If it was warm enough we lay down our rug in secluded parts of Kings Park, otherwise we used the back seat of Peter’s car. Then I remembered, with an odd jolt, that actually it had been Tom’s car; he’d let Peter use it when he was in England.

Annie was looking at me with a quizzical expression. As I brought myself back down to earth I realised that although I had been thinking of Peter, I did not feel like crying. There was some sadness, but I was also happy just remembering him.

The next day Tom was waiting for me with lunch when I emerged into the gardens. He had brought chicken sandwiches again because he remembered they were my favourite. The day was warm, but not as hot as it had been, and the sea breeze was in. Far above us was the hard blue sky of mid-February and the shadows of the trees around us were short and sharp in the clear white light.

Tom was carrying another brown paper parcel, tied with string and about the size of a book. He put it down next to him and we ate our sandwiches.

‘I’m looking forward to the dance on Saturday,’ I said, at last. ‘Mind you, Don Dudley doesn’t approve of dancing at all.’

‘What do you think of him?’

‘He’s a bit of a prig. A wowser. Very Methodist.’

Tom was stretched out beside me on the grass. He grinned.

‘He’s also stonkingly rich. And, actually, he’s a Congregationalist, not a Methodist. Have you heard of the Boston Brahmins?’

I thought about it.

‘Aren’t Brahmins some sort of Indian priest?’ Or were they a type of cow?

‘The Boston Brahmins are the first families of Boston. They claim descent from the Protestants who founded Boston in the seventeenth century. They are a group of very old, upper-crust New England families.’

‘Sounds very posh.’

Tom smiled. ‘I like Don. He’s not good with people, but he’s extremely intelligent. He’s quite the expert on insects. He’s definitely a prig, though, and a wowser of the worst sort.’

‘Insects? He didn’t mention insects.’

Tom picked up the small parcel. ‘Here,’ he said, handing it to me.

I took it warily.

He shrugged. ‘It’s nothing much.’

I tried to unpick the knot, but it was too tight, and my hands were shaky. Tom pulled out a pocket knife and cut through the string. It was a book, English Poetry. It wasn’t new. Inside, on the flyleaf, was a name in a handwriting that was familiar and yet rather unformed: Peter Lagrange.

‘It was Pete’s school text,’ said Tom. ‘You’ll find that he made some notes in the margins. I used to help him with his schoolwork and he’d write what I said straight into the book.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Not all of the annotations come from me. Next to William Blake’s Tyger, he wrote: “Beaut poem. Really scary.” He did that a bit. Just wrote down what he thought about a poem. Some of the stuff he’s written is very funny.’

I didn’t know what to say, so I looked down, leafing through the book and trying to make out Peter’s crabbed notes. When I raised my eyes Tom was watching me intently.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

He smiled and shrugged again.

‘Weren’t you studying poetry at Oxford?’ I said, just to say something.

‘Yes. Robert Browning in particular.’ He gestured towards the book. ‘Some of his poems are in there and they’re as relevant today as when he wrote them. Read Porphyria’s Lover. It’s a favourite of mine. The narrator is entirely mad and immoral, commits a pointless murder and attempts to rationalise his actions. I always think of the Nazis when I read it.’ He laughed. ‘Sorry if I sound like a lecturer. Pete wrote next to that poem: “This chap’s completely loony. It’s a worry Tom likes the poem so much.” ’

I laughed too. ‘I’ll bear that in mind when I read it. Did you enjoy being at Oxford?’

A dreamy look came into his eyes and his whole face softened. All of a sudden he looked breathtakingly handsome, which made me want to cry for some reason.

‘Enjoy Oxford?’ He nodded slowly. ‘It’s a sublime place. Impossible to describe really. I loved it. All of it, even the snobbery and ridiculous traditions. I was at Magdalen College, on the banks of the Cherwell.’

‘Will you go back, after the war?’

‘I’ve still got a year left on the Rhodes.’ He sighed. ‘After the war. Seems impossible to imagine a time after the war. I’m not sure. It depends on Phyllis – we’ll be married then. I don’t think she’d enjoy the life there, even if only for a year. She’s got big plans for our future. She wants me to follow my father into business, not spend my time in academia.’

He looked away from me, over to the river. ‘Maybe I’ll go back. It depends if there’s anything to go back to. So far no bombs have fallen on Oxford. The rumour is that Hitler wants to make it his capital if he finally invades Britain, so he’s not allowing them to bomb the place.’

His smile was wistful. ‘Yes, I’d like to go back to Oxford after the war. For a while, anyway . . . It’s very peaceful there.’

I opened the door at home that afternoon to the sound of Dinah Shore on the radio, singing ‘Silver Wings’. I was clutching Peter’s book.

Peter had told me he was going to enlist in mid-July in 1940. It was a cool, windy afternoon. We’d driven to Cottesloe and he’d bought me an ice-cream. We shared it as we walked along the beach, enjoying the salt-scented wind and the sound of the waves on the sand. He had his arm tightly around me and my head was nestled into his shoulder. It was difficult to walk like that, but we didn’t mind.

There were anti-aircraft guns on the beaches and barbed wire blocking access to the beach from Cottesloe to the north. But in those days the war was somewhere else. There were the occasional reminders: the return of injured combatants, and more and more people were receiving the dreaded telegram regretfully informing them of the death of a loved one. Yet, in the time before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, we in Perth felt far from any armed conflict. We had been filled with horror as the Nazis stormed across Europe, and we knew that Britain was fighting for its life against the German Luftwaffe, but still it all seemed a dream that took place far, far away.

‘Meg, I’m going to join the air force,’ Peter said. ‘After I dropped you off last night I sat in the car and thought about it for hours. It’s only a matter of time before I’m called up and I’d rather choose where I go. I like the idea of flying.’

My first thought was how handsome he’d look in his uniform.

I was almost nineteen. He had just turned twenty. You don’t think of death. You think of excitement and self-sacrifice. You think of poor little Britain and helping to defeat the Nazi menace. You think of how handsome he’ll look in the uniform.

I managed to act fairly normally for some time after I read about his death. I suppose I thought there’d been a mistake. I went to work, I spoke to people. I accepted sympathy, but for a while I didn’t really believe it. Then I got the letters from Phyllis. Shortly after that, ‘Silver Wings’ came on the radio one evening. It was a favourite of mine and I knew it by heart. It was the first time I’d heard it since Peter’s death.

They told me later that I started to scream. And I wouldn’t stop. In the end, Ma got Mr Phoenix to call an ambulance. They took me to Claremont Hospital with the other crazy people, and they injected me with something that made me sleep for a day. When I woke up my hands were bloody with grazes and there were bruises on my body. Apparently I’d punched the floor, the walls, myself, over and over again.

Now, the song was ending. Ma came out of the lounge room, humming. When she saw me her eyes became wide with fear. We hadn’t listened to any music for months after that because any song that referred to the war would make me cry, or shake, or both. Gradually I improved, but that song, ‘Silver Wings’, could always send me into hysterics.

I smiled. ‘I’m fine. Really. I’m fine.’ I put Peter’s book on the hall table and pointed to my eyes. ‘See. No tears.’

She opened her arms and I walked into a hug.

The day before the Red Cross dance was another warm, eucalyptus-perfumed day. Tom and I were sitting on a bench by the river, watching a pod of Swan River dolphins playing in the water. I knew I looked forward to seeing Tom far too much and it had started to worry me. He was Peter’s brother and he was engaged to be married.

Tom finished his sandwiches and screwed the paper bag into a ball with his right hand. He had rolled up the sleeves of his khaki shirt and I watched the tendons in his arm move smoothly under the skin as he did so. He removed his cap, and the dappled sunshine brought out unexpected golden highlights in his dark hair. He lit a cigarette, breathed in deeply and laughed a little at the dolphins’ antics. Five small grey bodies were jostling and twisting and leaping around each other sinuously in the water. Tom was wholly at ease, almost sleepy, he was so relaxed. I wasn’t.

I realised that over the past few weeks I had been surreptitiously watching him, getting to know his face and his body, his expressions and his moods. His face seemed to be made up of hollows and shadows. If he looked bored, it meant he was irritated. The scar on his cheek became a darker red when he was annoyed. When he relaxed, his face softened. If he was teasing me the right side of his mouth quirked up. His right hand was really beautiful, with long supple fingers. Despite his injuries Tom moved easily and assuredly and he was obviously very fit. His arms were lean, but tightly muscled.

He started humming ‘Don’t Sit under the Apple Tree’.

‘Are you sure we should meet so frequently?’ I asked, in a hesitant voice.

He turned to me in one quick movement. There was a wary look in his eyes.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘I’m feeling guilty. It’s clear that I’m no real help to you in your liaison work; I’ve never got much to tell you that you don’t already know. And the murder investigation seems to have stalled completely.’

‘Meg, I can afford to shout you lunch.’ He twisted around to look again at the river. The maimed hand was clearly visible. It was the shape a little boy made when he wanted to pretend he was carrying a gun.

I stole a look at Tom as he sat beside me and there was an odd feeling in my chest. He had become too important to me and it was wrong. Was I falling in love? It wasn’t like it had been with Peter. That had happened very quickly, and it had been as natural as breathing. Other than Peter, I had no experience of love.

‘Mr Goodley prosecuted an Australian serviceman for black marketeering last week. He was selling American goods,’ I said, more to silence my own thoughts than for any other reason.

Tom turned towards me. ‘I know the case,’ he said. ‘It’s a matter of concern to the US and Australian authorities. Did Mr Goodley mention the black market in drugs?’

‘Someone was prosecuted the other day for doping horses, but that was in the Magistrate’s Court. He had small amounts of heroin and cocaine. I think drugs are really hard to get now because of the war.’

‘Hmm.’ Tom sounded bored, and went back to watching the river.

‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘there’s little need for black market goods when the Americans are so generous with anyone who gives them hospitality.’

‘Like your family?’ He still sounded bored.

I felt my cheeks grow warm. ‘We’ve had Chad and Don over to dinner a few times, and my mother intends to invite them again. She likes them a lot and they seem to appreciate the home atmosphere.’

Tom sat up and gave me his full attention. ‘So you’re seeing a lot of Chad Buchowski?’

‘Not as much as I see you. And it’s all above board.’ My voice was sharp. ‘How does Phyllis like you seeing me so much?’

There, I’ve said it. My heart started to race.

Now he was looking towards the river again. ‘Phyll and I trust each other. You and I, we’re friends. She knows that.’

Does she know how often you meet me for lunch? Why do you meet me so often?

Tom started to gather up our things. We walked back to the court building in silence, but he smiled as he left me at the door.

‘Enjoy the dance tomorrow.’

Nancy was mopping the stone steps. She watched Tom walk down the path towards the Terrace and her face lit up with a grin.

‘He’s a good-looking chap, your army fella, but he’s too thin. He needs feeding up. It’s too bad about that hand and that scar. But it’s no matter really. So long as they’re all there where it counts.’ She giggled like a girl.

‘He’s not my fellow. He has a fiancée. She’s a real stunner.’

‘Well, somebody better tell her he’s looking at you like you are dolce,’ she said. ‘He don’t look at you like he’s got no stunner girlfriend, no fidanzata. Not when he smile at you like that, he don’t.’ Nancy frowned into her bucket and gave the dirty water a vicious stir with the mop before sighing. ‘Shame. He’s polite, even to someone like me. It’s “Good morning, Mrs Gangemi, how are you?” when he sees me. Like I’m important.’

‘You are important,’ I said. ‘Captain Lagrange is just a friend. I used to see a lot of his younger brother, who was killed in England nineteen months ago.’

Nancy became full of apologies in her broken English. ‘Shame about the fidanzata,’ she concluded.

She looked into the grey water again. ‘It’s not stealing if he want to be stolen, you know,’ she said.

I didn’t sleep very well that night.

Thirteen

Annie came to my house on Saturday night and we waited together for Chad and Don to arrive. I was feeling very pleased with myself and my new frock.

It was in the oriental style that had been popular before the war, sleeveless, with a small Chinese collar and hot-pink trim. I loved it. The silk fabric was the same pale green that magazines referred to as Eau du Nil. It was tight across the body until just under the hips, when the fabric flared out to swirl around my legs as I moved. Joan had gasped when I showed it to her, pointed out a label that read ‘Schiaparelli’, and refused to make any changes other than to make it fit me snugly.

‘It’s a good thing you’re so slim, Meg,’ Joan had said as she finished her adjustments. ‘Not many girls could pull off a frock like this. You can.’

My shoes were old, but I had no coupons for new ones and anyway worn-in shoes were better for dancing. At least I had new nylons, courtesy of Chad. The final touch was lipstick that matched the trim on my dress – Max Factor Coral Kiss – a present from Joan. I was ready to dance.

Annie had given a slow whistle when I sashayed into the lounge room. ‘I take it you’re expecting to see Captain Cute,’ she said with a smirk.

‘No. Maybe. Are my stocking seams straight? Anyway, if he’s there, he’ll have the beautiful Phyllis in tow. I just want to have a good time.’

‘Looking like that, you will, my friend. You look good enough to eat with a spoon and I’ll have to step back to avoid being trampled. I do hope that your captain is there, though. I’m in a fever to see this Phyllis. And your seams are straight as a die.’

Chad and Don arrived at eight bearing orchids and chocolates for Annie and me, and another food parcel for Ma. Annie pinned her corsage onto her dress, but I didn’t want to risk damaging my new frock, so I tied mine to my wrist and thought the exotic bloom complemented the dress beautifully.

Chad gave a slow whistle. ‘Meg, you’re the cat’s meow. Honey, you look gorgeous.’

I caught Annie’s eye and she winked at me. I felt glamorous, the equal of anyone, even Phyllis Gregory.

By the time we got to the tennis club the dance was in full swing. Down the side of the room tables were laden with food and there was an enormous quantity of alcohol on offer. The hall was beautifully decorated with little US flags on strings around the walls, interspersed with Australian flags and Red Cross flags. American naval officers and petty officers filled the hall, enough even for Annie. Some American Red Cross nurses were among the crowd, but most of the girls were locals. Betty Barwon, dressed in pale chartreuse, was chatting to the ratings who were serving behind the bar. I could see a few Australian officers, but Tom wasn’t among them.

‘Dance?’ Chad asked, raising his voice over the band. I nodded and we entered the crush of couples on the floor. It was a foxtrot. The air in the hall was sultry. Cigarette smoke was so thick that it dimmed the light, giving the impression that we were dancing in a haze. Chad kept strictly to the steps of the foxtrot, but people were dancing the jitterbug in the centre of the room.

Jitterbugging had arrived last year with the Americans. The elementary step was the lindy hop, but it had all sorts of variations with strange names like the balboa, jersey bounce, jig walk and flea hop. I had picked this much up just from the talk on the streets. I had never tried it, but it looked like fun. At first, girls who accepted the invitation to ‘cut a rug’ and jitterbug faced nasty gossip, but it was so common now that the prejudice was fading.

When the number stopped Chad went off to find another partner and I took the opportunity for a breather. As I watched others dancing the jitterbug, I felt a degree of wistful envy. The dance seemed to bring out such uninhibited exuberance, I wished I had the nerve to participate. Annie felt the same way.

‘Oh, I want to join in,’ she said. ‘It’s terrific fun, I’ve tried it in town. But Meg, people can see your smalls when your skirt goes flying up. And some of those scanties have very wide legs. You can see far too much.’

‘Maybe we can give it a go, but make it clear that we won’t do the lifts,’ I said.

Annie agreed. ‘I’m not inclined to reveal everything to a group of a mere few hundred close friends,’ she said.

However, when a young ensign came over and asked her if she wanted to ‘cut a rug’ with him, she said yes without a mention of the lifts and entered the fray without a backward glance.

‘Intending to do the jitterbug?’

Tom was at my elbow.

‘I’m not sure. Probably not. It’s a bit lively.’

‘You need both hands to jitterbug properly, so it’s out for me. But the tune they’re playing is actually a modern waltz. That sedate enough for you?’

He led me onto the floor and took my right hand in his left and we began to waltz. Something felt wrong. His hand felt whole. I saw he was wearing a padded glove.

As we relaxed into the waltz it was obvious that Tom danced expertly.

‘Can you do everything well?’ I asked.

‘Yep, everything.’ He smiled, to show it was a joke. ‘What’s the matter? You’re a good dancer. And you look sensational.’

‘It’s the dress, but thank you.’

‘It’s you.’ His smile was frankly admiring.

Embarrassed, I stared at the pips on his shoulder and concentrated on the dance. The music flowed around us. As Tom steered us around the crowded dance floor I was very conscious of him being so close to me, of the pressure of his good hand on my back and the feel of his left hand as it should be, whole and perfect.

‘Where’s Phyllis?’

‘Over there, talking to the American Consul.’

I glanced over to where he had indicated. Phyllis was looking very chic in a slinky floor-length gown of ivory silk. She was talking animatedly with an older man and didn’t seem to have noticed us. Tom pulled me closer than the waltz demanded and for a moment I let my cheek rest lightly on his shoulder. It felt far too good for my peace of mind, so I lifted my head and gazed over the dance floor.

After Tom had returned to Phyllis the night passed by me in a whirl of dances. I couldn’t be a wallflower at a do like this one. There was always an American ready to cut in, or approach me when I was free. And they were a lot of fun.

‘Where do you come from in America?’ I was dancing with a submariner called Mike. He had a high forehead and a cheeky smile.

‘Los Angeles.’ He dipped me.

‘Where the movies are made?’ He righted me.

‘Yes, where the movies are made. But no, I don’t know any movie stars.’

I pouted. He whirled me around a slower couple and grinned. ‘Well, I might know one or two. Who’s your favourite?’

‘James Stewart.’

‘Aw, he’s everybody’s favourite. You know, and this is not just pitching woo, I really have met Jimmy Stewart. If you let me take you to dinner next week, I’ll tell you all about it.’

I hesitated. His smile faded.

‘Please say you will, Meg. You’re the prettiest girl in the room, by far.’

I laughed and shook my head. ‘You’re exaggerating, by far.’

Phyllis was standing next to Tom, in conversation with another couple. I tipped my head in her direction. ‘What about her?’

He swung me around so he could see her clearly.

‘She’s a dish all right, but if I’m any judge, she’s also trouble. You wouldn’t have a lot of fun with her.’

I thought his judgment was spot on, so I smiled at him. ‘What about Monday? I could meet you at the Adelphi at seven.’

He grinned in response. ‘That would be swell.’

When I met up with Annie by the refreshments table, she was in seventh heaven. She had danced with Americans all night and with Chad at least twice.

‘Are you sure he’s married?’ she asked me, still breathless after her last dance.

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘He doesn’t act married.’

‘Annie, he’s married. Don’t get any ideas.’

She replied with a wink and a grin, and darted off to get a drink, leaving me standing alone. It wasn’t long before Mike came over and I was swept again into the dancing.

At around eleven I needed a break and took a seat at the side of the room. I watched Tom dancing with Phyllis. They made an impressive couple, dark and light, day and night. In her heels she was almost his height and he was holding her close. He appeared relaxed and as I watched he laughed at something she said. I looked away from them and watched Annie for a while. She had picked up the jitterbug steps easily. Her dress was flapping around her legs dangerously as she was pushed and pulled and flung from side to side by her partner. Her cheeks were red and she was laughing as she danced.

A stocky, round-faced petty officer named Paul ‘Whitey’ Whitman from Ohio appeared at my shoulder and begged me for a dance. When he asked me if I’d go out with him the next week I thought of how Tom and Phyllis had looked dancing together and I made a date for Friday night. My week was filling up nicely. Annie was right. A girl could really enjoy herself in Perth if she wanted to.

I declined another dance with Whitey and found myself drawn to watching the jitterbugging again. It had become so popular in Perth dance halls and cabarets that even the Embassy Ballroom had taken to roping off a special area for the more conventional to dance in without being jostled by jitterbugging couples. There was a sort of animal enjoyment in the jitterbug, an abandonment of social niceties that was entirely new to Perth. Perhaps staid little Perth needed shaking up. If so, the jitterbug was one way to do it.

‘Care to give it a try, Miss?’

A young ensign was standing beside me. He was tall and slim and had a lovely accent, like something out of Gone With the Wind.

‘I don’t want to be flung around, but I’d like to try it.’

His teeth were very white. ‘You have my word. No flinging around.’

It was fun. The steps were simple and it was impossible to dance them without laughing. He told me his name was Bud Hollis, he was from Georgia and he loved to jitterbug. It was the truth. We swung and shook and laughed and danced the jitterbug to whatever music was playing.

After four dances I was exhausted and begged off the next. Bud smiled and let me make my way back to the side of the room, but not until he had made me promise to go out with him, one day soon. When I looked back he was already turning to cut in on another couple.

I pushed through the dancers to the refreshment tables, asked the rating who was acting as barman for a glass of lemonade, and stood watching the action. I was still breathing rather fast and I was still smiling.

‘Having fun?’

It was Tom. I looked around for Phyllis and saw her dancing with an American naval commander. For the first time, I wished that Tom would leave me alone. I’d forgotten all about him when I was dancing with Bud.

‘It’s impossible to do the jitterbug and not laugh,’ I said. ‘But I didn’t let him swing me around. I don’t care to share that much of myself with the room.’

‘They’re playing another modern waltz. Want to give me a go again?’

I thought about refusing, pleading exhaustion, but there was a look in his eyes that stopped me. He seemed unsure of himself, as if he didn’t know whether or not I would accept. I hadn’t seen him look like that before.

So I smiled and said it would be lovely. We took to the floor and waltzed to ‘Reaching for the Moon’. It was lovely. And then he left me to return to Phyllis.

I ordered a Singapore sling, and as I sipped it I couldn’t help but remember my drink with Tom at the Adelphi. All at once the room seemed too noisy, too hot and smoky. I needed fresh air.

The door leading to the verandah closed behind me, shutting out most of the light. Blackout restrictions applied even to dances, but the verandah was faintly illuminated from a low light somewhere. A stiff sea breeze had sprung up and the night was fresh. I breathed in a deep draught of the cool air and let the wind blow across my face. Over to one side of the verandah I could hear low conversations and muted laughter, and I could just make out Don Dudley sitting alone on a bench near the door. He was smoking a pipe and looking into the darkness over the tennis courts. I asked if I could join him for a while.

‘Of course. It would be a pleasure,’ he replied. He lifted his glass of Coke for a sip and looked away from me, back at the night.

‘It’s a bit mad in there,’ I said, smiling as I sat beside him.

‘I don’t dance, but Chad reckons it’s important to attend these things or the men will think we’re too high and mighty. He’s usually right about that sort of thing.’

‘Chad seems to be a good friend to you.’

‘The best buddy a man could have. And he’s a real hero. In August last year he rescued six American airmen from a bomber that had crashed close to enemy positions at Buna. And that’s only one of the extraordinary things he’s done. You know he was awarded the Silver Star for helping rescue those American nurses from Corregidor?’

‘He didn’t tell me.’ Chad never talked about what he did on duty. The Silver Star was a very high commendation and I was impressed. I realised that there was a lot I didn’t know about him. ‘It must be very dangerous for all of you.’

Don shrugged. ‘You can’t afford to think about it. You do lots of practice flights so that you’re prepared for any eventuality, you keep up the maintenance on the plane, and you trust in the Lord. What else can you do? I’ve found that I’ve become a fatalist. If I’m going to die, then that’s what the Lord wants.’

He took another sip of his drink. ‘I don’t want to die, though. Which is how come I owe Chad so much. He’s saved my life twice already.’

‘That’s funny; I’m sure he said that you’d saved his life,’ I said. ‘Saved his bacon, anyway.’

Don looked puzzled, before his face cleared and he laughed a little.

‘He’s being melodramatic. I helped him out in a money crisis last year – not of his making, I can assure you – a debt his wife had run up in his absence. I was more than happy to assist, although he was most unwilling to accept anything. In fact, we’re thinking of going into business together when this is all over.’

‘Well, I wish you success. My mother was saying just the other day how much she likes you both.’

That remark made his little red lips quirk up in a smile, pushing up the straight black line of his moustache.

‘And we think your mother is charming,’ he said, with a formal little bow of his head. ‘Chad is a very moral person. So many of the men, and the officers too, indulge in behaviour that is nothing less than debauched, simply because they are away from home and think they can’t be found out. Although, to be fair, sometimes it is not the man’s fault. I hate to say it, but Australian women can be very determined flirts.’

I decided to change the subject, and remembered something Tom had said.

‘I hear you’re interested in insects.’

It was as if I had switched on a light.

‘Why, yes. Entomology is a major interest of mine. You have some fascinating moths in Western Australia. I am particularly interested in the Anthelidae, which are only found in Australia and New Guinea.’

I nodded, but Don needed no encouragement. I’d never seen him so animated. He banged on about a particular moth he had found that he was sure was a new species or sub-species. It sounded exactly like the ones that used to fly into our screen door before the blackout was introduced.

‘That’s great,’ I managed to say. ‘Does that mean your name will go in the books?’

‘Well, I’d have to find several to prove a new species, but one might do if it clearly established that it was a different sub-species. Unfortunately a cat ate the specimen I found. I’ve been searching for another in the bush around the camp every free night I have, but no luck yet.’

I had a thought.

‘Were you in the bush the night Doreen Luca was killed?’

His face changed instantly. His eyes narrowed and he looked away with his lips pursed. I watched him closely in the dim light.

‘Doreen Luca was immoral,’ he said with some heat. The hand that held his pipe was shaking. ‘She was always hanging around our men, despite being a married woman. Doreen Luca was a temptress. Perhaps she got what she deserved.’

No one, no matter how lax their morals, deserved to be stabbed in the heart and left to die alone. And certainly not Doreen, who had never said a bad word about anyone in my presence. I felt the heat rise in my face, but I managed to hold back an angry retort. Instead, I made an excuse and left him to go inside to the laughter and music.

‘Care for a drink, ma’am?’

It was one of the naval ratings serving behind the bar. I let him pour me a fruit punch. He was a big man, probably in his early thirties, whose bunchy muscles were running to fat. He had a brutish sort of face; he looked familiar.

‘You’re not dancing,’ I said. ‘Are you on punishment duty?’

‘No, ma’am,’ he said, almost coyly, ‘I’m not much of a dancer. Truth is, I let my cat get too close to a moth and it was considered diplomatic to volunteer for bar service.’

‘Not Lieutenant Dudley’s moth?’

His face lightened at once with a wide grin that made me smile. He had a missing tooth that gave him a goofy look, like a big kid. ‘That’s the one.’ He introduced himself as Norbert Wilder, ‘but everyone knows me as Nobbie.’

‘Meg Eaton,’ I said. ‘I’ve just been hearing about Lieutenant Dudley’s moths. They sound rather ordinary to me, but I’m no expert.’

‘It was a plain brown moth, ma’am,’ Nobbie said. ‘Poor Sugar didn’t know not to eat it, but, boy, was Lieutenant Dudley mad.’

‘I suppose Lieutenant Dudley is a stickler for the rules,’ I said.

‘And how,’ he said, wiping away imaginary sweat from his forehead. ‘I usually keep my head down.’ He pointed to the badge on his sleeve, which showed a pair of crossed keys with wings attached. ‘I’m just a storekeeper; I try to stay out of trouble. I thought Sugar was a goner when the lieutenant saw what she’d done. Commander Grant managed to get her away, but I was real worried for a while that the lieutenant’d kill her.’

I suddenly remembered why he looked familiar.

‘Nobbie, I think I know your face. Have I seen you in Megalong Street?’

‘Well, I do visit there some. My girl lives there. Betty Barwon.’

I felt my eyes go wide. ‘So you would have known Doreen.’

‘I did, but I’d rather not talk about it. It’s a party.’ He motioned to the bottles in front of him. ‘Finish up that punch, I’ve got some giggle juice here that’ll knock your socks off, Miz Eaton.’ He was right – the drink he mixed me put the Singapore sling to shame.

At the end of the evening I was standing at the doorway with Annie waiting for Chad and Don to join us when Tom and Phyllis came over on their way out. As Tom introduced Annie to his fiancée, Phyllis flicked a cool glance over us both, subtly judgmental, leaving me with the impression that we had been found wanting.

‘Lovely frock, Miss Eaton,’ Phyllis drawled, on a quick exhalation of smoke. She was using her pretentious little tweezers. ‘Did you enjoy the dance?’

‘Very much indeed. And you?’

‘Personally, it was a little too loud and rowdy for my taste.’

Tom gave a short laugh. ‘Don’t be a snob, Phyll,’ he said teasingly. ‘You only danced with the important people.’

Phyllis gave no indication that she’d heard him. She was staring at me.

‘Your mother has a frock that’s very similar,’ she said to Tom, giving him a sharp look, which he returned with a shrug and a blank stare.

She turned back to me, frowning a little. ‘Who’s your dressmaker?’

I laughed, but I could feel that my cheeks were hot. ‘A very exclusive one,’ I said. ‘But if you’d like a copy made, I’m sure she’d be delighted to oblige.’

She shot me a glance through her long eyelashes, threw up her chin and quickly exhaled a thin stream of white smoke. I caught a glint of something in those big blue eyes, but I didn’t know exactly what it was.

It had been fun scoring a point off Miss Phyllis Gregory, but no doubt I’d have to pay for it.

Fourteen

‘Damn you to hell, Keith, you blasted woollen fiend.’ It was Monday lunchtime and I was alone in the typists’ room, talking to a partially completed woollen jumper. I had dropped yet another stitch. I peered at it closely. The tension was all over the place and there were small holes and lumps in it where I had dropped stitches and knotted the wool. I threw it onto the desk.

I hated the jumper and I hated Patons Service Woollies, Speciality Knitting Book, No 153, with its instructions for knitting ‘Keith, a jumper designed for naval personnel’. I was not a good knitter and the patterns were not, in fact, easy for even the most inexperienced knitter. I was trying to help the war effort in any way I could, but this was proving beyond my meagre skills.

‘I think you’ve beaten it into submission, there’s no need to insult it, too. Ah, what is it, exactly?’

When had Tom come in? ‘Whatever are you doing here?’

I must have sounded peevish, but it seemed impossible to avoid Tom Lagrange. I’d resolved to keep him at more of a distance since the dance. I kept remembering the way I’d felt when he was holding me close on the dance floor. I had liked it too much and I couldn’t help wondering how he felt about it. These thoughts had already begun to exhaust me, and I was well aware there was no nice ending to this story if I was going to start getting romantic feelings.

‘What does it look like I’m doing? I’m knitting a jumper called Keith. It’s for the Navy and it’s a cow of a thing.’ Scowling, I held it up for his inspection. He nodded gravely, but his eyes told a different story.

‘Come to lunch?’ he said, perching on my desk.

I knew I should say no. I knew I had to stop seeing him so often. I regarded the jumper with loathing and shoved it into the bag where it usually lived. The thought of spending another minute with Keith was simply impossible.

‘Lunch? What a good idea,’ I said.

As we walked out of the building, Tom said with a teasing smile, ‘You’re much more domesticated than I realised, Meg.’

‘I crochet, I knit, I embroider. I have all the usual accomplishments.’

‘Phyllis knits,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘She’s always giving me jumpers, scarves, socks –’

‘How homely of her,’ I said. Phyllis was probably on very good terms with Keith and his brother woollens.

‘And she cooks. She did a course in French haute cuisine and she’s very good.’

‘All the domestic skills. Lucky you. Where are we going, by the way? You and me I mean?’

Did I see fear in those dark eyes? I opened my eyes wide in a guileless stare. Just like Phyllis.

‘To lunch, Tom. Where are we going to lunch?’ I said, putting him out of his misery.

‘Ah. What about the Colour Patch in Howard Street?’

I shrugged. ‘It’s fine with me.’

We shouldered our way through the lunchtime crowds to a tearoom in a little street two blocks away from the court. The place was decorated in garish colours, presumably to live up to its name, and the table we found in a corner had been lacquered a bilious green. The surface looked sticky under bright yellow cotton placemats.

As I sat down I realised I’d forgotten to freshen my lipstick before I left the court. I’d never be a femme fatale; there were just too many things to remember. I was willing to bet that Phyllis, goddess of domesticity, cooked up her French meals in full face paint, wearing stilettos and a slinky evening dress, knitting while she waited for the water to boil. Fishing around in my purse I finally located my lipstick and pulled it out, together with a compact. Ignoring Tom, I flipped open the compact and inspected my face. Shiny nose, a few freckles, no lipstick. I started to repair the damage.

‘Whatever are you doing?’ Tom sounded genuinely astonished.

‘I’m a mess. Who knows who I might see?’

He shrugged in a way that suggested there was no accounting for female idiocy and I felt my face burning as I finished up.

A middle-aged waitress arrived. She was wearing a baby-pink apron over a lime-green frock and had a frilly pink cap on her head. She was grumpy. Dressed like that, I couldn’t blame her. We gave our orders and she marched off.

While we waited for our food I told Tom that Harvey was on his way back to Perth.

‘So when are you meeting the lovesick swain?’ Tom asked.

‘Wednesday,’ I said. ‘I’m dreading it.’

‘Be careful with him.’

I shrugged. I knew Harvey, he didn’t. Then came another warning.

‘Annie seemed to spend a lot of time with Chad Buchowski on Saturday night. I like Annie, she’s a great girl; you might want to warn her off.’

‘What exactly do you know about him?’ I was growing suspicious. ‘You keep warning me about him, but you never say why.’

Tom sent me a quick look and said, in that expressionless voice he sometimes used, ‘Can’t you just trust me?’

The waitress arrived with our sandwiches and he flashed her a brilliant smile. Her grumpy look disappeared and she asked him – not me – if he wanted mustard. He said that he did. She turned, and without consulting the couple at the table next to us, removed their mustard pot and set it down in front of him. He smiled again and thanked her. She left us, looking happy. After spreading some mustard on his sandwiches, Tom leaned across to return the pot to the next table, murmuring his apologies.

He turned back to me with a grin. ‘So you enjoyed the dance?’

‘It did wonders for my social life. I’m going out with a submarine officer called Mike Sully tonight, dancing with Petty Officer Whitey Whitman on Friday, and probably catching up with Bud Hollis, that tall jitterbugging ensign, next week. So whatever your concerns are about Chad, you can stop worrying – I’ll hardly have time to see him.’

Now Tom was looking over towards the door. I followed his gaze, but couldn’t see what was so interesting. I wondered if it bothered him, me seeing other men.

I hesitated, wondering if I should tell him about Don Dudley.

‘Tom, there was something odd that came up, about Doreen.’

‘Mmm?’ He was still regarding the door, or watching something outside. I went on.

‘When I had a break from dancing I got talking to Don Dudley. He was rattling on about moths, how his specimen got eaten by a cat and how he goes out looking for moths in the bush near the officers’ quarters every night when he’s not on patrol.’

Tom turned back to our table and picked up a sandwich. ‘He’s a recognised amateur entomologist. I think his special interest is moths. I thought you said this was about Doreen.’

‘It is. I think he was in the bush on the night Doreen Luca was killed.’

‘Did he tell you that?’

‘No. When I asked him he clammed up. But he was odd about it all. If he wasn’t on patrol that night, then I think he was out in the bush near where Doreen was last seen.’

He seemed hesitant. ‘We don’t know that he was out there.’

‘You could check though, couldn’t you, whether he was on patrol that night? And there was something else. He called Doreen a temptress who deserved what she got.’

‘He said that?’ Tom’s lips tightened and a sharp crease appeared between his eyebrows.

I nodded. ‘Yes. He said it quite vehemently. That she got what she deserved, because she was always hanging around the men, despite her being a married woman.’

‘Dudley is a fool. I’ll look into it.’

Before he could say anything else the waitress arrived with tea for me and a smile and a coffee for Tom. We sipped our drinks in silence for a while, before he lit the inevitable cigarette.

‘Wait a minute,’ he said. A smile was tugging at his mouth. ‘His moth specimen got eaten by a cat?’

I giggled. ‘By a cat called Sugar.’

Tom spent the rest of the lunch hour teasing me mercilessly because I was going out with Mike Sully that night. He gave me tips on how to appear fascinating to an American and told me that it was always best to take it very slowly with them. I refused to rise to the bait.

‘Do you know what Americans call girls who kiss on the first date?’ he said.

I eyed him sceptically. ‘What?’

‘First date floosies.’

‘Oh, that’s nonsense.’

‘It’s true. Never kiss an American on the first date. If you do, he’ll be sure to think you’re a loose woman.’

I laughed before replying coolly, ‘Who knows? I may decide to risk it.’

Tom seemed about to reply when his relaxed expression vanished and his face contracted into the still, rather shuttered expression I knew all too well. That, and a whiff of her perfume, was my only warning.

‘Darling, how lucky to spot you here.’ Phyllis had swooped in from behind.

‘Phyll,’ said Tom, rising. He kissed her cheek.

‘I was walking by and saw you from the street.’ She turned her cool blue gaze on me. ‘Miss Eaton.’

‘Hullo,’ I squeaked, meeting a look of pure, glittering dislike. For some reason I felt terribly guilty.

She held my gaze briefly, then turned towards Tom. ‘Darling, I need to know if you are free tomorrow night for a bridge party with Moya and Charles. And what are we doing for your birthday on Thursday?’

‘I’m free for bridge. The parents have invited us around for my birthday,’ Tom said. He pulled out an empty chair. ‘Please join us.’

I glanced at my watch. The café was emptying. Rising somewhat inelegantly, I pushed my chair back and stood by the table.

‘I hadn’t realised it was so late. I need to get back to work.’ My voice was rather high. ‘Thank you for the coffee, Tom.’ I turned to Phyllis. ‘Nice to see you again. Goodbye.’

Phyllis slid into the chair I had vacated and started to pull off her gloves. I caught Tom’s eye over her blonde curls.

‘Don’t forget what I told you,’ he said, but his mouth was quirked up at the right side, a sure sign that he was teasing.

I grinned at him over Phyllis’s shoulder, turned and walked to the door. Outside I merged into the crowd, but managed a quick peep through the window as I walked away. Tom was talking earnestly to Phyllis and had his hand over hers, which was outstretched on the table. I wished him luck.

Mike didn’t expect a kiss goodnight, but he asked if he could see me when he got back to port in April – he was leaving in a few days for a two-month underwater tour in the Indian Ocean. I said I would like that, because we did have a lovely evening. He was smart as well as funny and we laughed a lot. When he smiled, attractive crinkles appeared at the side of his eyes. Although I had met a lot of men in the past few weeks, I had begun to worry that no man other than Tom could really interest me, and it was a relief to discover that I was attracted to Mike. I thought it was a shame I wouldn’t see him again for such a long time.

So, it was surprising and irritating to find a letter waiting for me when I returned home from work the following day. The envelope was expensive parchment and was addressed to ‘Miss Margaret Eaton’ in fine handwriting. It was an invitation to tea at a very exclusive Mount Street address.

Dear Meg, I would be delighted if you could join me for tea on Saturday afternoon at four o’clock. I am sure that we have much to discuss and it would be so good of you to spare me the time. With best wishes, Phyllis Gregory.

Fifteen

The evening was not going well. We were in a small restaurant on Stirling Highway and had just finished our main course. Harvey was looking at me with a gaze that was a bit wet and a bit excited and (to me) a whole lot scary, given what I was intending to tell him. It had been so much easier when he was overseas. I chewed my lip anxiously, hoping he wouldn’t see the distress in my eyes and trying not to see the hope in his.

Harvey had grown up in the months he’d spent fighting in New Guinea. His broad, good-natured face was harder, more lined. His eyes seemed sadder and there was a grimness about his mouth that I had not seen before. It didn’t suit him. I wondered if he had been drinking before he came to pick me up, because his voice sounded rather thick and his speech rambled more than I remembered. He hadn’t mentioned one bad thing that had happened to him up there. If you believed Harvey, New Guinea was all larks and music and mates. But since he had arrived to take me out he had been smoking constantly, almost feverishly, much as Tom did, and he rarely met my eyes. Now he was telling me jokes.

‘You know, the mosquitoes are getting so fussy now – because there are so many of us up there – they lift the identification tags to check a chap’s blood group before biting him.’ He laughed and I forced a smile in response.

‘We get the Japanese radio station up there. There’s a show called Zero Hour, fronted by a Jap sheila called Tokyo Rose. It’s amazing how she knows our units and their locations. She even names officers, and it’s all wrapped up in stupid propaganda. I do enjoy the music, though. She plays all the latest hits.’

I was nervous, and not really paying attention. I suspected Harvey was nervous too. As he spoke I let my gaze wander around the room.

With a start, I recognised the lean, dark-haired man at a table in the corner. It was definitely Tom, even if he was half hidden behind a newspaper. A cup of coffee was on the table in front of him. I hadn’t seen him come in. Was this a coincidence? I hadn’t told him where we were going; I hadn’t known myself.

‘Your letters are tops, Meg.’

I turned to look at Harvey, smiling wanly. How was I going to do this? I supposed that scenes such as this were going on all over Australia, all over the world. I glanced over at Tom again, before forcing my attention back to Harvey.

‘Dad’s going to make me a partner in the shop after the war, you know. It’s a good little earner. I’ll be well able to support a wife and family.’

I felt my eyes widen in horror.

‘Gee, you’ve got beautiful eyes, Meg. I’ve never seen eyes like yours. That clear green colour. I thought of your eyes when I was on patrol . . . they gave me courage,’ he said.

It was such a lovely compliment. I smiled at him, and then remembered he’d talked about a wife. And a family. My heart started to race and I found my gaze dragged back to where Tom was sitting, immersed in his newspaper.

I worried at my lip.

‘You’re not listening to a word I’m saying.’

I couldn’t look at him. Why was Tom here?

‘Meg,’ Harvey’s voice was louder. ‘What is so interesting about the chap in the corner?’

My attention was jolted back to Harvey. ‘Nothing. What chap? I don’t know.’

‘You’ve hardly bothered to disguise the fact that he’s the only person in this room you’re interested in. You’re certainly not interested in me, that’s for sure.’

Had I been that obvious? I shook my head and reached my hand towards him. He leaned over, grabbed my hand and pulled me awkwardly across the table.

‘What is it?’ he said in a low, bitter voice. ‘What is it you’ve been trying to spit out all night? Is it him? I thought it was too good to be true. That you’d wait for me. All around me the blokes were losing their girls. It got so they didn’t want to get a letter from home. But your letters never changed. What’s changed now, Meg?’

His grip was hurting and my hip was jammed against the edge of the table. I winced, trying to pull away.

‘Is there a problem?’

Tom’s low voice cut through the restaurant hubbub. When had he come over? I had the feeling that time was playing tricks on me.

‘Tom, go away,’ I said, trying without success to pull my arm from Harvey’s grasp.

The noise around us faded as people turned to watch. I could handle Harvey, for heaven’s sake. Harvey looked at Tom and then at me. His expression was that of someone who had just worked something out. He let go of my arm.

‘So he is the reason you’ve gone so cold all of a sudden,’ he sneered. ‘A captain, eh. Better than a poor old private.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s not what you think.’ Why did my voice sound so small and pathetic? ‘This is Captain Lagrange. He’s Peter’s brother. You remember Peter, he’s the chap I was with in 1940, the pilot.’

‘He’s dead. He died before we started going out.’

Harvey’s voice was flat and cold and suddenly I hated him.

‘You and I never went out, Harvey. Not seriously. I wrote to you because we’re always being told to write to soldiers, and because I like you. But it was never serious. Ever. You made that up in your head.’ I hated to hear the shrillness in my voice.

Harvey flinched. He looked at Tom and his face became hard and fixed. His lips rose in a snarl.

‘And now you’re rooting the dead chap’s brother? There’s a word for girls like you.’

Tom moved quickly and without any warning. All at once he was behind Harvey and his left arm was tight around Harvey’s neck. He grabbed the collar of Harvey’s shirt with his right hand and twisted it so that it was choking him. Still holding the twisted collar, Tom pulled Harvey up, until he was almost out of his chair.

‘Apologise to her,’ Tom said, very softly. He looked like a stranger; his eyes were cold and his face was hard.

He tightened his grip. Harvey was gasping for breath and his gaze was darting around as his face became a dark mottled red.

‘I’m sorry, Meg,’ Harvey said in a hoarse whisper.

Tom didn’t release him, though.

Around us the other diners were watching, their expressions a mixture of horror and excitement. A pair of waitresses hovered anxiously by the doorway.

‘Let him go, Tom,’ I whispered urgently. ‘Please let him go. He apologised.’

Tom released his grip and lowered Harvey into his seat, before finally letting go of his shirt.

‘She was my girl,’ said Harvey. He sounded unsure and defeated.

Tom’s lips were pulled into a thin, hard line. He looked at my arm, which was red where Harvey had gripped it. Harvey flicked me a quick look, before getting unsteadily to his feet. Tom made a movement and Harvey froze, half out of his chair. He looked at Tom and shook his head firmly.

‘I won’t do anything, sir,’ he said, standing almost to attention.

Then he turned to me. His voice was still raw, but he seemed calm now. ‘Meg, this evening hasn’t gone the way I wanted it to. Not at all. If you want the truth, you’re not what I remembered either. I suppose it’s hard to keep things up when we’re so far apart. How about we both sleep on it and meet up tomorrow after you finish work?’

He glanced towards Tom. ‘Without him. We can discuss it sensibly. I’ve a fair notion of what you’re going to say, so don’t lose sleep. Someone told me you were going to break up with me and I suppose it’s been gnawing away at me all day.’

‘I’m so sorry, Harvey,’ I said.

‘I heard that you’d been out and about dancing with all sorts of chaps. Americans. I didn’t want to believe it.’

He nodded towards Tom. ‘At least he’s not a Yank. No offence, sir. There was no need to protect her. I’d never hurt her. She’s tops. Sometimes her letters were all that kept me going. I just lost it when she kept looking at you. I’ll settle the bill on my way out.’

Tom inclined his head briefly, but said nothing. As Harvey moved away he knocked his chair, and I jumped involuntarily. How could I be afraid of Harvey? The incident had shaken me, that was all.

As the people around us returned to their conversations, Tom sat down opposite me.

‘How dare you follow me here,’ I hissed. ‘What did you think? That Harvey would attack me? Really, Tom, I can fight my own battles.’

His dark eyes watched me steadily. ‘I got worried when he grabbed your arm. My upbringing, I suppose. I can’t stand by if a woman is being manhandled. What makes you think I followed you?’ he said.

‘I don’t know,’ I muttered. ‘It seems too coincidental.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Dessert?’

‘No,’ I said, too loudly. ‘No, thank you,’ I added in a softer voice.

‘Coffee?’

He was holding his mouth very tightly and somehow I knew he was furious.

‘He really wouldn’t have hurt me,’ I said.

‘He was hurting you. He had your arm and you were in pain. Meg, things can get out of hand quickly. Harvey had a look on his face that I didn’t like. Have you ever been assaulted? Ever?’

‘No.’

‘You get to recognise it, the look, I mean. And he had it.’

I shook my head. Harvey wasn’t violent, he was sweet and gentle.

‘He’s a trained soldier now, Meg. He’s killed men in combat. He’s seen men killed, seen mates killed. He’s not who he used to be. And I’m pretty sure he was drinking before he got here. Drink makes a man unpredictable.’

He ran his good hand through his hair, before patting his breast pocket in search of his cigarettes. His hands were shaking. He shook out a cigarette and put it in his mouth.

‘He probably primed himself with some Dutch courage because he suspected your news wouldn’t be good.’

‘So men who go to war are brutalised? Sweet men like Harvey become the sort of men who can hurt women?’

He lit the cigarette. As he inhaled, some of the tension left his face. ‘In a way. It affects everyone differently. He’s still part of the violence; it’s close to the surface with him. He has to go back into that hell up there when his leave is up.’

He laughed a little, mirthlessly. ‘And although he was fearing the worst, he was probably still hoping you were sweet on him. Imagining what was going to happen after you left here together.’

I flushed and he smiled slightly.

‘When the war is over he’ll lose some of the easy brutality. But he’s never going to be the man he was before all this.’

‘And that’s the same with you?’ I was thinking of how easily he had incapacitated Harvey and the expression on his face when he did so.

Tom flinched and gave me a dark look. ‘Very much so. You don’t know me, Meg. Not really. If you knew the things I’ve done . . . I try to tell myself that the man who did those things wasn’t really me.’ There was a chilling intensity in his voice and he spoke very softly. ‘Because if that is who I am, then you should get up now and run away as fast and as far as you can.’

Even though I knew Harvey and Tom and the other men I’d been spending time with over the past few weeks had almost certainly killed people, I had never really considered what that must do to them. No wonder they never wanted to talk about combat; they were probably trying to forget the terrible things they’d had to do. I could imagine wanting to distance yourself from such things, but I doubted that they would ever really escape the memories.

‘Tom, that man isn’t you,’ I said, trying to be understanding but merely sounding nervous instead.

‘I’ve upset you. I’m sorry,’ he said, with an anxious smile.

I shook my head and he smiled more easily. ‘The poets of the Great War understood all this,’ he said. ‘If I go back to my studies I think I’d like to do work on Owen, Sassoon, Brooke, Rosenberg, Gibson and the others. Do you know any of their work?’

‘No,’ I said, then, tentatively, ‘I’d like to read them. Have you got a book you could lend me?’

He smiled again. ‘Several. I’ll bring you some. So, coffee?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’d like some coffee, please.’

They said the veterans of the Great War were never the same afterwards. I had seen Tom when he went for Harvey and there had been murder in his eyes. That had scared me as much as Harvey’s actions. Perhaps even Peter would have been a different man, if he had returned.

‘It’s horrible,’ I said, after the waitress had left with our order, ‘that good men can be so changed by war.’

Tom sighed. ‘War forces you to make choices which in any other situation you would never have to make. Those choices can be extremely difficult to deal with later, when you are no longer in the extreme of battle.’

He withdrew into his own thoughts.

‘None of the men ever talk about it,’ I said. ‘You never talk about it. I want very much to understand.’

‘It’s probably impossible to understand if you haven’t been through it,’ he said, watching me closely. ‘They’re not taking prisoners up there in New Guinea. Neither side is.’

‘So, if you come across a wounded enemy soldier . . .’

‘No prisoners.’

‘But we can’t do that.’ I was horrified. ‘Surely we can’t. We Australians – we’re better than that.’

‘There are reasons. When we realised what they –’ He broke off.

‘What reasons? What are the Japanese doing?’

‘There are reasons, Meg.’

‘Poor Harvey, how could he be prepared for anything like that?’

Tom shrugged.

‘Or you. You said you missed being part of it. How could you miss that?’

‘I miss the mateship. The friendships that are forged are like nothing else. Some of the individual acts of bravery are astonishing. I miss doing something worthwhile.’ He held my gaze. ‘It has to be done, Meg. I really believe that. No matter what the cost, we have to win this.’

He shook his head, as if to clear it, and dragged deeply on his cigarette. ‘But, yes. It’s horrible. And it could be years before it’s finished, before men like Harvey can go back to normal life.’

And it was those at home who were going to have to pick up the pieces when it was over. Just like after the Great War. Like my mother, forced to cope with a broken husband who drank too much and died too young. Or my friends’ mothers who had to care for men who had been gassed, or wounded, or who had simply lost their nerve after being buried alive in mud or suffering too long in intolerable conditions.

We were both sitting in deep thought when the waitress came with our coffee. She must have thought us a morose pair. Tom smiled charmingly and apologised for the earlier fuss. She blushed and said that it was no problem, but shot a dubious look at me, obviously blaming me for the entire incident. She was right about that, so I kept my head down.

‘I was a coward,’ I said, once she had gone. ‘You were right, I should have been clearer in my letters to Harvey. But I didn’t want to hurt him. He was so far from home and seemed so lonely.’

Tom made a small sound, like a snort. ‘Meg, don’t be naïve. Harvey knew it was a long shot that someone like you would wait for him. Or be interested in him at all.’

‘Someone like me?’

‘A girl as good-looking as you.’

I turned in my seat and eyed Tom with feigned surprise. He laughed.

‘Yes, Meg, I think you’re a looker. Don’t get too excited, though. I think that about a lot of girls . . . It’s more than just looks with you, though.’

I let that remark pass without comment. But I was shaken, even if I tried not to show it. I decided to change the subject.

‘Tom, why did you come home from Oxford? Rather than join up in England, I mean.’

‘Because I’m not English. I wanted to fight beside Australians. Patriotic of me, eh? All I hope now is that it’s over before Teddy turns eighteen.’

‘Teddy? Oh, that’s right, you have another brother. How old is he?’

‘He’s fifteen and desperate to join up before it’s all over. He’s already decided on the Navy. You’d like Teddy. He’s more like Peter, blue-eyed with sandy hair and freckles. Very likeable, uncomplicated. All he wants is to spend his time sailing or at the beach. It drives my parents crazy.’

I laughed. ‘I wouldn’t have picked you and Peter as brothers.’

‘Peter and Teddy take after my mother. They’re the English gentlemen. I’m more like my father. Dark Irish, pure Galway. They were a gloomy, brooding lot, those Irish ancestors of mine. I’m afraid I’ve inherited the tendency.’

Peter was never an English gentleman. He was a scruffy, sandy-haired Aussie larrikin and he was lovely. I said nothing, stirring my coffee. Then I laughed at a childhood memory that popped up out of nowhere.

‘Once, when I was a little girl in Kalgoorlie,’ I said, ‘I was watching some Irish dancing with my mother. The girls were dressed in sumptuous velvet dresses, embroidered in marvellous patterns. Their hair was in long ringlets all the way down their back, and their legs seemed to fly over the stage as they danced. I thought it was the most wonderful thing I’d ever seen. I asked my mother if we had any Irish blood, thinking I could be a part of it, by proxy.’

Tom was watching me with a half-smile on his face.

‘My mother replied, rather stiffly, “There are no Irish or convicts in our family.” ’

He really laughed then, throwing his head back, his face lit up in a way I hadn’t seen before.

‘Well, we’ve got Irish and convicts in ours,’ he said. ‘Though we keep schtum about my mother’s grandfather, who was sent out here in the 1850s for stealing sheep. He became very wealthy and influential once he got his ticket of leave, but she’s still ashamed of him. There are thieves, swindlers and even a convicted murderer in my family. And that’s only the ones in Australia.’

I met his eyes. After a while, almost as if a signal had been given, we turned back to examining our coffees.

‘And you’re one of Perth’s best families,’ I said, in a teasing voice. I stirred my coffee again, pushing the spoon around and around and watching the whirlpool. ‘I never would have been good enough for Peter. Your mother made that clear both times he took me home.’

Tom put his hand on mine. ‘It’s stirred enough,’ he said. Surprised, I looked into his eyes. ‘Meg, my parents would have welcomed you. If Pete loved you, that would have been enough.’

I felt again the sense of being drawn into his eyes, of wanting to lose myself in them, only this time there was also an odd sensation in my chest; like pain, but not pain. And then the sudden, subtle shift in my perception. It had been so hurtful to think that Peter’s family saw me as a gold-digger. It hurt more that I now preferred dark eyes to blue.

‘It’s your birthday tomorrow,’ I said, at last. ‘I haven’t got anything for you.’

‘Don’t worry about that.’

When he dropped me off outside my house and saw me to the door, I turned my face up to him. ‘A birthday kiss?’

‘Better not.’

He turned away to leave and I shone my little torch at the lock. Before I could turn the key, he changed his mind and was standing close to me again.

‘Perhaps just one,’ he said. ‘Because it’s my birthday in an hour.’

He bent towards me and very gently put his mouth on mine. Then he was gone, into the darkness.

Sixteen

‘Meg, Meg, you’re in the Mirror.’ My mother’s voice was pitched much higher than usual. She sounded surprised, excited and fearful, all at once.

I was confused. ‘What do you mean? I can’t be. Is it something about Doreen?’

It was late on Saturday morning. We were relaxing after breakfast and Ma was reading the weekend papers. She handed the Mirror to me, open at ‘Nicky’s Merry-Go-Round’, the gossip section.

And who is the girl who has been seen out and about quite a lot lately, often with AIF Captain Thomas Lagrange and often with Allied naval officers, including one very married Chad Buchowski? Well, it’s pretty little Margaret Eaton of Hollywood, that’s who. But she’s not a movie star. I’m told she’s a stenographer with the Crown Law Department and not Tom’s usual sort at all. Rumour has it Tom’s long-time fiancée, Phyllis Gregory, is not too happy about this development. I say, stick to the unattached fellows, Meg.

Ma was looking at me with a worried expression. Joan snatched the paper out of my hands and read the article aloud. I felt sick.

‘Meg,’ said Joan. ‘Just how many men are you going out with?’ She sounded incredulous. ‘When have you been seeing Tom Lagrange? I’ll be asked about this at work. You know that everyone reads the Mirror.’

I knew that. Everybody at my work read the Mirror, too.

‘Margaret, are you really seeing Peter’s brother? Has he broken off his engagement?’ My mother’s voice was quiet.

‘We’re friends. It’s not like that. Not like she says, I mean.’

‘Then why is it in the Mirror?’ asked Joan.

‘I don’t know. I’m friendly with him, that’s all.’

‘Well, you must be seeing a lot of him,’ Joan said decidedly. ‘If it’s in the Mirror. And I’d be worried about Phyllis Gregory if I were you.’

‘The Mirror is a scandal sheet. It doesn’t always get it right.’

Joan gave me a look. She appeared to believe that the Mirror always got it right. ‘You should be more careful of your reputation, Meg. I don’t know what Wally will say.’

‘I don’t care what Wally says. It’s none of Wally’s business. It’s none of your business. The Mirror is a dreadful rag that should get its facts right.’

My mind was racing. Why should I have shot to public notoriety, and in such a nasty way? I was a nobody. Had someone been pointing the finger at me? Someone with easy connections to the Mirror’s social reporter? Was this Phyllis Gregory’s revenge? No. The article made her look stupid and jealous, and she’d hate that.

‘Margaret, I don’t like the idea of you seeing a man who is engaged to another girl.’ Ma’s voice had moved from disappointment to disapproval.

‘Tom Lagrange and I are friends, Mum. We’re not seeing each other, not like that.’

‘But, Meg, if he has a fiancée it is inappropriate to see him socially.’

I wanted to cry with frustration. ‘We are just friends.’

Friends, yes. But what more? I’d been thinking of little but Tom since Wednesday night. And I was to have tea with his fiancée this afternoon. The sick feeling returned. Maybe I could cry off. And then I thought what astonishing timing it was. Did Phyllis want to teach Tom a lesson? On balance, I thought not, because the article was as irritating for Phyllis as it was for me and Tom. I’d heard that no one knew much about Nicky, but she knew everything about everyone. It was probably just appallingly bad luck that the article had appeared on the day I was to meet Phyllis.

I had to put up with smirks and innuendo about the Mirror article from our neighbours as I made my way to the Hampden Road shops to collect Ma’s shopping. Mr Walker, the grocer, thought it was a grand joke. He said with a booming laugh that even if I wasn’t a movie star, I obviously had a movie star lifestyle. Everyone in the shop laughed. I smiled, a trifle stiffly, and left as quickly as I could.

Mrs Bowley at the bakery was even more embarrassing. ‘The Lagranges are a very old Perth family,’ she said, in a conspiratorial whisper as she leaned across the counter to hand me the bread I’d ordered. ‘If you can catch a Lagrange you are doing very well indeed.’

I murmured weakly that she shouldn’t believe everything she read in the Mirror.

‘Watch out for his long-time fiancée,’ someone called out. ‘She sounds scary.’ There was laughter as I pushed my way through the crowd.

Marie McLean was coming out of the newsagent and I crossed the street to speak to her.

‘How’s Jimmy?’ I asked. Even though he’d seemed a little better when I had seen him a few days ago, he was still pale and thin.

‘A doctor at the children’s hospital ordered a tonic,’ she said. ‘It’s done him some good, but he’s still not himself. I hope he’s better before school starts in a couple of weeks. The murder seems to have really upset him; he doesn’t seem to be able to get over it. Well, it’s upset all of us, of course.’

I murmured my agreement as she left me to go into the greengrocer’s. I hadn’t spared much thought for poor Doreen over the past few weeks because I’d been so caught up in my hectic social life. The police still had no idea where Frank Luca could be and I was becoming increasingly worried that he had ended his own life.

I turned down Kanimbla Road towards home, hoping for some quiet time to prepare myself for the meeting with Phyllis.

‘I read about you in the Mirror.’

The voice was close behind me. I turned to see Betty Barwon clutching her handkerchief. She looked rather tired.

‘Chad Buchowski is gorgeous looking,’ she said, giving me a tight smile. ‘But you want to watch out for him, he has a nasty temper. He hit Doreen once, quite badly. That’s why she stopped seeing him.’

I felt like I’d been hit myself. I wanted to believe that she was lying. In spite of Tom’s repeated warnings, and the quick temper I’d seen him display, I had been so sure Chad was harmless. But it was clear that Betty wasn’t lying.

She laughed at my look. ‘You’re so innocent, Meg. Just like Doreen. You think that everyone is nice. But they’re not,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘They’re not. You’ve got to stop trusting people.’

I didn’t know what to say. I’d been wrong. Tom had been right. I suddenly hated the fact that he was always right. I felt like a fool. In my view, nothing justified a big man like Chad hitting Doreen. I knew what Marie McLean had to put up with, and it filled me with disgust.

‘And I hope you haven’t fallen for Tom Lagrange,’ Betty continued. ‘He’s bad news.’

‘We’re friends, that’s all. We just talk,’ I said. I shifted the bag of groceries to the other hand and tried to make my face blank. I was not going to discuss Tom with Betty. I was confused enough already. It was clear that she disliked him and whatever she said was tainted by that. I would think about all this later. Right now I desperately wanted to get home.

‘Well, I’ll bet you he hasn’t talked about this,’ she said. ‘He had a terrible fight with Doreen the night before she died.’

My heart started to race and I felt a little faint. I did not want to hear this, but I had to know more. I knew so little about Tom’s friendship with Doreen. I needed to find out if what Betty knew could be used to hurt him.

‘They were in the laneway behind the house, but I could hear them clearly from the backyard. She was saying she’d do anything for him, get him anything he wanted. She even said she loved him. “Oh, Tom, but I love you.” ’ Betty imitated a lovesick girl’s voice. I felt acid rise in my stomach.

‘She must have tried to put her arms around him or something, because he said, “No, Doreen. Get away from me.” ’

Betty was watching me closely.

‘Poor Doreen,’ I said, putting the groceries down to rest my arm.

‘You got that right. He was real harsh. Gee, his voice would’ve made hell freeze over the way he said, “Doreen, I don’t feel that way about you. You need to realise that.” ’ Betty made a poor job of imitating Tom’s rather posh accent. Then she lowered her voice and leaned towards me. Up close the red patch under her nose looked moist and unhealthy. I thought she must have a perpetual cold. No wonder she always carried a hankie.

‘She let him have it then. She told him his girlfriend – you know, that stuck-up blonde bitch – Doreen said she was sleeping with Chad Buchowski. Gee, did that make him angry. He told her it was a filthy lie.’

I grimaced, which Betty evidently took as encouragement because she went on in her flat, nasal voice. She was enjoying herself now.

‘Doreen said he was a dirty bastard who didn’t know a good woman when he saw one. She cried then, and he tried to be a bit nicer, but she wasn’t having any of it. She gave him what for. Told him his precious Phyllis was the town bike and that he was an idiot to fall for it. Then he got even colder. He said: “That’s a lie, and you know it. I thought you were better than that, Doreen. Clearly I was wrong.” Rotten bastard. Doreen started bawling her eyes out, but I think he must have left, because I didn’t hear anything else till she came back to the house. I didn’t let on that I’d overheard, of course.’

I’d heard enough. I picked up the groceries and started to walk away, but Betty went on eagerly, following me.

‘She might’ve been lying about the girlfriend and Chad Buchowski,’ she said. ‘And I really can’t see that sourpuss as the town bike. Doreen used to lie a lot, to get what she wanted.’

She slid me a sideways look. ‘I guess she wanted Tom Lagrange. He certainly didn’t want her. Gee, he got mad. Scary, icy mad. Still, he didn’t kill her. Detective Munsie said he had an alibi and I shouldn’t go spreading rumours. I thought you should know, though. What with that story in the Mirror about you both.’

Later that afternoon I got off the tram and slipped into Kings Park. I wanted to walk through the bushland and gardens to clear my head in preparation for my meeting with Phyllis Gregory. As I drifted along the paths that crisscrossed the park, I wondered if Phyllis had told Tom she was meeting me today. I hadn’t heard from him since Wednesday night. When he kissed me. When I asked him for a kiss. My cheeks burned at the memory. While my reason was telling me to keep a distance from him, I’d practically thrown myself at him. Like Doreen.

I was inclined to discount much of what Betty said. She didn’t like Tom and she would put the worst interpretation on whatever she had heard that night. Could Tom be blamed if Doreen had a crush on him? I knew from my own experience how easy it was to be attracted to him. From what Betty had told me, he had been frank with Doreen about his feelings. What did he feel for me? Clearly he liked spending time with me, but what did it mean? Nancy Gangemi and Annie seemed so sure that he saw me as more than a friend. But Tom had a smile that would turn any woman’s head, including a middle-aged Sicilian woman’s. And Annie thought any man who glanced at you twice was interested in you; she was no judge of someone as complicated as Tom Lagrange. When I saw him with Phyllis, they looked right together. I didn’t like her, but clearly he did, whatever he felt for me.

I was jealous of Phyllis Gregory. I had to admit it to myself. I wished they were not engaged, wished that he was free. When we first started meeting I enjoyed just talking to him. I felt as if I was really thinking about issues and able to discuss them sensibly. Without making me feel stupid, he made me want to know more. It wasn’t just that, though. I knew that now. Dancing with him, talking to him in the restaurant and then that kiss, had woken feelings in me that I hadn’t experienced since Peter. His brother.

I almost groaned out loud as I walked through the dense, rather scrubby bushland. It was such a mess. No matter what Annie might say about the Bible, it made me feel strange to want Peter’s brother in that way.

I emerged on May Drive, with its avenue of oaks and plane trees planted after the Great War. Each tree had a plaque commemorating a serviceman who had died. Most had died young. Every one of them was someone’s son: many of the trees had been planted by mothers. They were husbands and brothers; fathers, fiancés and lovers. I wondered if Miss Filmer’s young man was commemorated in one of these plaques, and if she came to visit his tree.

You couldn’t get away from war. I came to the ridge that overlooked the Swan River. It was dominated by the Cenotaph. There were war memorials in every suburb of Perth because Australia had lost so many men in the Great War, but the Cenotaph was the biggest and the most important. It recorded the names of every man from Western Australia who had died in war. It would contain many new names when this war finished. Peter Manton Lagrange would be one of them.

I sat on a bench overlooking the river and tried to calm my thoughts. Peter had died far away from Australia, fighting for England. Now Australia itself was fighting for its life. How had it come to this? Was there something about humankind that made such conflicts inevitable? Why was history so often presented as a list of wars and battles, conquests and defeats? Was this a ‘just war’? It was a war we had to win. Like Tom, I was sure of that.

I looked around me. Lush green lawn stretched out to the edge of the escarpment, and the wide sweep of the Swan River sparkled below a clear sky. The lawn was full of picnickers, many in uniform, enjoying the peaceful sunny afternoon. I watched a family group, a father, mother and two young children, lolling on a big checked rug, the father in the uniform of the RAAF. As I watched, he stood, picked up his little boy and swung him around in the sunshine as the child squealed in delight. The mother was nursing the baby. She was smiling.

I rose and left the family behind, walking quickly to the north-eastern edge of the park. Mount Street, a wide street that followed the line of the hill up to the park, lay in front of me. There were still a few graceful ‘gold boom’ houses, built in the early part of the century, standing alongside modern double-storey houses in mock Tudor style and crisply stylish Art Deco flats, all clinging rather precariously to the edge of Mount Eliza, with the sheer drop behind them to Mounts Bay Road and the river beyond.

As I drew closer to Phyllis’s apartment, I felt like a schoolgirl being sent to the headmistress for punishment. This was stupid. The worst thing that could happen was that she would be patronising. I was used to being patronised; I worked in a legal office. I doubted she would be rude. If she was, I could cope with that, too. My real fear was that she would ask about my feelings for Tom, that she would know if I were dissembling, that my face would give me away.

I would tell her the reason we met so often was because Tom was Peter’s brother, and that we spent our time talking about him. It was partly true.

The shifting shadows of the jacaranda trees that lined both sides of Mount Street made pretty patterns on the footpath. ‘Hillside’ was a red-brick block of six apartments built in the Art Deco style of the early thirties around a large courtyard. According to the letterboxes, Miss P. Gregory lived at number 4, which was one floor up. It overlooked the river, of course.

The risers on the staircase were decorated with Spanish tiles, lending a Mediterranean look that suited the sunshine and informality of Perth. On the terracotta tiles outside her blue front door were three big pots filled with colourful flowers. I knocked briskly. Phyllis opened the door dressed in a pair of exotic lounging pyjamas in apricot and green silk that seemed designed to emphasise her long legs. Her blonde curls were carefully dishevelled and her make-up was perfect. She looked fresh, stylish and beautiful.

I had on a brown pencil skirt and an apple-green blouse under a brown jacket, with a beret to match. I had thought I was smartly dressed. Seeing Phyllis, I realised I was not. Beneath my slip I was wearing scanties I had sewn from discarded flour bags that had been unpicked and boiled clean. Phyllis no doubt wore silk under those pyjamas, if she wore anything at all. Now I felt like a frumpish country girl come to be interviewed for the position of lady’s maid. I was tempted to drop into a curtsy, just to see what she would do.

The sick feeling was threatening my stomach. There were those, like Phyllis, who had the style and confidence that money and education brought, and those, like me, who did not. I had been raised in a tiny house in a dusty goldfields town by a widowed mother who took in lodgers and worked long hours dressmaking to support her three daughters during the Great Depression. I wondered if Phyllis had ever done a day’s work in her life.

I raised my chin and met her gaze squarely. I smiled and said hullo.

‘Meg,’ said Phyllis, smiling as if we were old friends. ‘I may call you Meg, mayn’t I? I feel that I know you so well. Tom has mentioned you often.’

She waved me inside, the diamonds on her left hand catching the light as she did so. I removed my hat and gloves and put them on a hall table. Following Phyllis down the passage, I saw a modern kitchen and a bathroom on one side, and a couple of bedrooms on the other. The lounge room was large and furnished attractively in light-coloured wood. Bright cushions had been tossed artfully around. The walls were a pale peach and the overall impression was light, modern and comfortable. The far wall was entirely glass, with full-length windows and French doors that opened onto a wide balcony overlooking the river.

‘What a lovely room,’ I said, and meant it.

To my surprise, Phyllis appeared genuinely pleased at the praise, flushing slightly and smiling.

‘I think it is comfortable and cheerful, which was what I wanted.’ She looked around her with satisfaction. ‘Tom loves it. He says it makes him feel peaceful. I suppose that’s why he spends a lot of his time here.’

It suddenly all seemed less delightful.

We went out onto the balcony where Phyllis had set up a small table with a prettily embroidered teacloth. There was a plate of teacakes on the table, together with plates, cups and saucers. All that was needed was the tea. Phyllis showed me to the chair with the best view of the river and disappeared into the kitchen. She returned a little while later with a silver teapot, which she placed on a trivet to draw.

Let the games begin. Although, of course, they already had begun, with the first mention of Tom’s name in the doorway. It was hardly a contest, and that I would lose was never in doubt, because Phyllis made me feel gauche and tongue-tied.

She chatted for a while about what she had been doing with Tom over the past weeks and on his birthday. ‘It was such a lovely evening. We all get on so very well. Pam Lagrange and I are so close. And I adore his father, George.’

The plate of teacakes was offered. I took one.

‘So, you are a stenographer.’ She stumbled over the word, as if it were foreign to her.

‘Yes. I work at Crown Law. For the Crown Prosecutor.’

‘Maurice Goodley? I know his wife Adele very well.’

‘She’s very stylish, isn’t she,’ I said with a polite smile. I disliked Mrs Goodley, who took pleasure in patronising me whenever she came to the office.

Phyllis poured tea into my cup, then milk.

‘I don’t know how you do it. Dealing with criminals, I mean. And with the police. The facts of some of the cases must be harrowing.’ She shuddered delicately. ‘You must have nerves of steel.’

‘It’s interesting work,’ I said. I loved my job, but I didn’t want to explain to Phyllis why it was so interesting. She would find some way of trivialising it. But she was looking at me as if expecting more, so I said, stupidly, ‘I feel as if I’m part of something important . . . being involved in justice, I mean.’

Phyllis smiled. ‘Really? I wasn’t aware stenographers played such a crucial role in the administration of justice. As for me, I’m just a lily of the field. I toil not, neither do I spin.’ She laughed, a high tinkling laugh like a bell. I wondered if she had practised to make it sound like that.

‘Of course, many of my friends work,’ she continued. Somehow she made it sound ever so slightly dirty, like a nasty habit they had taken up. ‘Some have done courses in shorthand and typing, like you. Others have joined the WAAAF or even the Land Army. I never really wanted to do anything like that. I’m deeply involved in many charities, of course. I sit on several committees – the Red Cross, for instance – and I help Tom with his US liaison duties wherever I can.’

‘I’m a volunteer Red Cross worker,’ I said, a trifle desperately. Phyllis made it sound as if I was shirking my war duties by merely working in a reserved occupation.

She smiled. ‘Your family? They’re from Perth?’

‘I was born in Kalgoorlie.’

‘Really? My father had a mine near Kalgoorlie, but I was born in Melbourne. We moved here when I was ten, when Father got involved in mining.’

She let slip that the school she’d gone to was the best girls’ school in Perth and she’d gone on to finishing school in France. Then she asked me what school I had attended.

‘Eastern Goldfields High School. I left when I was fourteen, to start my first job.’ There was no point pretending I was anything other than I was.

It was a mistake to admit it, though. I realised that as soon as I saw the triumph in her eyes as she smiled and raised her serviette to her lips with an effortlessly elegant gesture that I could never match. She didn’t ask me my age. Perhaps that was a sore point because I had calculated that Phyllis must be at least twenty-nine. It really wasn’t the thing for the woman to be older than the man, no matter what rank in society you occupied.

She moved on to the subject of Tom. She had met him at a party when he was nineteen. I imagined how alluring Phyllis at twenty-one must have seemed to the nineteen-year-old Tom. Somehow the thought of a love-struck young Tom made me feel very sad. That was the age Peter had been when we’d started seeing each other.

‘He’s brilliant, as you must be aware. They were desperate to keep him in England, but he insisted on coming back to Australia to join the regular army. That was a stupid waste of his talent. He joined the AIF as a private and was promoted through the ranks during his time in the Middle East.’

She offered me another teacake. I accepted and she took one, too. They were delicious. I supposed she had made them herself. I didn’t ask.

‘He was transferred to the Intelligence Corps when he came home from the Middle East. I believe he was in some special unit doing undercover work when he was captured. But that’s something he doesn’t talk about.’

My heart was thumping as I waited for her to continue.

‘General MacArthur thinks very highly of him. Dodie helped us get permission for Tom to return to Perth so he could recuperate from his wounds.’

She looked at me as she mentioned MacArthur, presumably to see how impressed I was. I smiled vaguely, as though I too were on speaking terms with the great general. Phyllis frowned a little. ‘I always call him Dodie. He’s a dear friend.’

She lifted the teapot and poured me another cup.

‘We were in despair when we heard Tom was missing in action – his parents and I. They were still recovering from losing poor Peter, of course.’

She tipped some milk into my tea and flicked me a glance. I sat very still.

‘For a month we didn’t know if he’d been captured or killed, then we heard he had been found and taken to the military hospital in Brisbane. I was almost mad with relief.’

She picked up her cup and sipped at her tea. I realised with a shock that her face had changed. It was softer somehow, and there was real pain in her eyes. I had not expected that.

‘I went to him immediately. You have no idea how terrible his injuries were. What you see, the hand and the face, that’s just a part of it. There was a bayonet wound too, and he was beaten very badly. His back is dreadfully scarred. I can’t describe how terrible it is. Don’t tell him I told you this because he hates anyone to know.’

So why are you telling me? I was suddenly angry, and forced myself to drink some tea. I needed to stay composed. Phyllis took another sip and resumed her story.

‘It was like raw meat when I saw him in Brisbane. I couldn’t look at it, I just cried. His back, his face, his poor hand . . . He was so beautiful, before.’ Her voice broke and she dabbed at her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief.

‘You didn’t show him how you felt?’ I blurted out.

I could not imagine how someone like Tom – any man – would feel to see devastation in the eyes of the woman he loved, at the hideous scars war had left on his body. At a mess that couldn’t be fixed.

She turned to me. Her mouth was in a sulky pout and her blue eyes were narrowed. This was the face I knew. ‘I couldn’t lie to him, not when he was so ill. Tom treasures the truth above all else. You must know that by now.’

The calm demeanour reasserted itself.

‘He begged me not to leave him. He was utterly desperate. So I promised. And I keep to that promise. I will never leave him, Meg. We will be married as soon as the war is over. Perhaps earlier, now he’s not on the front line any more.’

Her gaze was fixed on me, forcing me to look at her, to meet her eyes.

‘Men find me attractive and I am asked out a lot, despite my being engaged.’ She waved her left hand and the diamonds flashed. ‘But Tom is my world and I am his. He relies on me completely. He loves me desperately.’

She put away the handkerchief. Now it’s coming, I thought.

‘Women still find Tom attractive. I think you might have a little crush on him yourself, Meg. Of course no one but me has any idea of what the actual damage is. Not just to his body. This war has affected him in so many ways. You cannot possibly know the pain he endures. He takes enormous doses of pain-relieving medication. Did you know that?’

I shook my head.

‘I thought not. He won’t let anyone but me see what he goes through. He can get terribly cranky when the next dose is due. You see the polite, delightful Tom. You see his sense of humour and his fine intellect. You have no idea what I see. He’ll never be what he was before.’

‘Will anyone?’ I said.

There was a little crease between her carefully plucked eyebrows and her eyes were dry now. She seemed not to have heard me. The unspoken question was in her face.

‘I like Tom,’ I said, keeping my voice steady and light. ‘We’re friends. We talk about Peter.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Phyllis. ‘Poor Peter.’ She looked down at her plate and started to crumble what was left of her teacake.

‘Meg, I do remember you. I remember your letter to Tom’s parents. I know you were friendly with Peter before he left, but you should know that you weren’t the only girl. Tom didn’t want me to tell you, but I think you need to know.’ Now she was looking at me with a hard, unwavering stare.

‘That’s not true.’ My voice was clipped and dismissive, but her wide blue eyes allowed me nowhere to hide.

‘They received letters from an English girl after his death. It seems as if he was just as serious about this girl as he had been about you, but she was actually there, able to be with him, if you get my meaning.’

I did. Suddenly my own plate was intensely interesting, but it was empty and there was no teacake to crumble. So I focused on the river instead. It isn’t true. I would have known.

‘Apparently there is a child. Oh, Meg, you have to understand, he was far from home, and in terrible danger. You can’t judge him.’

I looked up. She was still watching me closely, but I could see excitement flickering in her eyes. She was enjoying this. She really hated me. My friendship with Tom, and now the article in the Mirror, it must have hurt her pride dreadfully.

‘I don’t judge Peter,’ I said. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Be sensible,’ she said. ‘Accept how things are. Men are like that, you know. They’re weak. I’m not saying that Peter wouldn’t have come back to you, if he had lived. But he’s gone and you need to get on with your life. Find a new man. Maybe an American. Not Chad, obviously. And not Tom.’

Now we’re at the crux of it.

‘It’s silly to keep spending time with Tom. Articles like the one in the Mirror are embarrassing for him, and me, and for you. You’re a pretty girl and there are lots of fine men around. You’ll find someone who is right for you. It’s a fun place, Perth in wartime.’

Perth in wartime. It sounded like a song. She started to gather the tea things together. I was being dismissed.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Some men might be like that. But not Peter.

I would like to see the letters from the girl in England. I think there has been some sort of a misunderstanding.’

Her face hardened and for the first time she looked her age. ‘No. The letters are with his parents, and I don’t want to distress them any further.’

I let it go. For the time being.

Phyllis stood, and I stood too. It was clear that tea was finished. I asked where the bathroom was and she directed me down the hallway. She came with me as far as the kitchen, carrying the tea things. Through a doorway I saw a man’s shirt and trousers on the bed of what looked like a guest bedroom. I hesitated there a moment.

‘Oh, that’s Tom’s,’ Phyllis said, matter-of-factly.

‘His dressing room?’

It was rude to pry, but what the hell? This was Phyllis; she’d tell me whatever she wanted me to know.

‘No, it’s his bedroom when he stays over.’

She laughed at my expression. ‘Oh, Meg, don’t be naïve. Tom and I are lovers. We have been for years. But he can’t sleep in the same room with anyone any more. He has terrible nightmares. I can’t stand to hear him and he can’t stand to inflict them on me. He’s terribly proud.’

She had the concerned girlfriend look on her face again.

‘He wakes screaming nearly every night, wet through with perspiration, shaking terribly. My poor Tom. He never talks about what happened to him up there, but it never leaves him.’

My face must have betrayed me, because she said, sharply, ‘There’s no need to look at me like that. I suppose you think I should hold him close in the night and calm his fears. Well, it doesn’t work that way. Do try to grow up.’

It was when she saw me to the door that the lioness reappeared. The faint, superior smile was gone and with it her veneer of brittle politeness. Deep in her eyes I caught a hint of fear, but she was masking it well. She wasn’t masking her dislike.

‘I knew when I met Tom that I was going to marry him,’ she said, in a hissing whisper. ‘There have been other girls. Of course there have been, but I knew they wouldn’t last. He always came back to me. And then he asked me to marry him.’

The anger was clear in her eyes now. ‘Since he was injured I’ve looked after him, and it’s not been easy. He has problems someone like you couldn’t begin to deal with. I am not going to lose the man I love to some gold-digging little typist who left school at fourteen.’

What could I say? He had asked her to marry him; she had the diamond ring to prove it. His parents ‘relied upon her completely’. She was from the right social set. They had the same friends. All I had were memories of his brother, who was nothing like him in looks or in manner. And Phyllis had tried to take even those away from me.

We regarded each other for a moment, before I murmured, ‘Thank you for a lovely tea.’ I turned and made my way down the pretty stairs.

Seventeen

Chad thought the Mirror story was hilarious, and was laughing about it when he arrived to take me out that evening. Although I was worried about what Betty had told me, it had been too late to cry off. Anyway, I told myself that it was likely Betty had exaggerated. Chad had always been a perfect gentleman to me and I wanted to think well of him. He was a highly decorated war hero and, more importantly, my mother adored him.

‘So, little Meg Eaton is in the Mirror. All the boys at the base want to meet you.’

‘It’s not funny, Chad.’ My voice was sharp. ‘It’s horribly embarrassing. And wrong. I hate the Mirror.’

He laughed again, more loudly.

Chad wasn’t good company that night. When we weren’t dancing he was fidgety and tense, one moment light-hearted, the next moody. He seemed to be talking nonstop, mainly complaining about the men at the base and about the Navy generally. And he had developed a twitch, like an elaborate wink of his right eye. It was very disconcerting, until I remembered that he was off on patrol the next day.

At around midnight we left the cabaret. We were waiting for the taxi in the darkness outside when he took my arm, pulled me close and leaned in for a kiss. I pulled away.

‘Come on, Meg. Just a kiss. Don’t be cold. I bet you’re not cold with Tom Lagrange. At least the Mirror doesn’t think so.’

His hot hands were all over my body. ‘It’s not like that with Tom. Stop it,’ I said as I batted them away.

‘Just a little kiss. What’s the matter? We had a good night, didn’t we? What’s wrong with you?’ I could hear the anger building in his voice.

He was determined to make me kiss him, and in the end I did. I had a sudden fear that if I kept resisting he would have forced me. His breath was foul.

When he dropped me home he asked me out again, but I refused. I said, truthfully, that my week was already full. I did not intend to accept any more invitations from him, but I didn’t tell him that.

The incident scared me, made me wonder again how good a judge of people I really was. But Chad had not been like that when I first knew him. Thinking back, it was clear that over the last few weeks he had become more unpredictable. He was calm and easy company one day, edgy and almost bitter the next. But he had always treated me respectfully before. It was likely that he was simply a good man who had been changed by the terrible experience of war. Like Harvey. I felt sorry for Chad, but given what Betty had said about him hitting Doreen, I did not want to spend time alone with him again.

I suffered a couple of sleepless nights wondering what to do about Tom. At around three o’clock on Monday morning I was finally and irrevocably resolved to tell Tom that I couldn’t meet him any more. I immediately felt much better, and slept then, but by eight o’clock that morning my eyes were heavy and I felt dull and miserable and unsure.

I dreaded running into Tom so it was an unpleasant surprise to find him waiting for me at the bus stop on the highway. It was even more surprising to see that he was obviously annoyed.

‘Damn Nicky,’ he muttered. ‘Damn Mirror. Phyll is furious. I spent most of yesterday calming her down.’

I held out a hand to hail the trolleybus and Tom climbed on board with me. As the bus moved slowly along Mounts Bay Road, I watched the river rather than look at Tom’s face. The water was white-capped and choppy beneath a grey, overcast sky. Tom’s face was flushed and angry under stormy dark eyes. There were beads of perspiration on his forehead and upper lip and an obvious tremor in his hands.

‘I didn’t know you were still seeing Chad Buchowski,’ he said at last, his voice brusque.

Was that it? ‘You don’t have to worry about me,’ I replied. ‘I have no intention of seeing him again.’

He moved his gaze past me to look out of the window. ‘Good. We can discuss the rest of it at lunch,’ he said.

Leaving the river behind, the bus turned up Mill Street and rounded the corner into St Georges Terrace. I had to grip the seat in front to stop from leaning into Tom. I gripped it very tightly.

‘Look, Tom,’ I whispered, ‘we should stop having lunch together. It’s too public. And now people will really be watching. Perth is a hotbed of gossip.’

He waved a hand dismissively. ‘I’ll meet you outside the back of the court at one o’clock. We can talk about it then.’

I didn’t say anything. We were almost at my stop and I got up. Tom stood, too, and followed me down the bus to the exit. He took my arm to help me down the steps, and didn’t let go when we were on the pavement. His hand was still tight on my arm as I waited to cross the Terrace.

‘Let go, Tom.’ I shook my arm, but he kept holding on.

‘I’ll let go when you agree to meet me for lunch.’

‘Let go, I’ll be late for work.’

‘Look at me, Meg.’

His face was tense, but there was a vulnerable look in his eyes. They were so dark that I couldn’t tell where the pupil became the iris.

‘Please meet me for lunch.’ He closed his eyes for a beat, and when he opened them he seemed very weary. ‘Please, Meg. We need to talk.’

‘All right, I’ll meet you for lunch.’

He let go of my arm and slipped into the crowd. I watched until he had completely disappeared. I felt slightly ill. Was I ever going to be able to say no to him and actually follow through with it?

‘Meg’s in the Mirror, our Meg is in the Mirror.’ Annie’s voice was a triumphant singsong as I walked into the office. I glared at her.

‘Stop it, Zac. The Mirror wouldn’t print the truth if you paid them.’

‘Don’t call me Zac if you value your life. But you know what I say: where there’s smoke . . . And it’s not just me. Our Mrs G. has noticed, too.’

She started to stir an imaginary bucket with an imaginary mop. ‘That army fella, he look at Missa Megga like she dolce, like she a sweet little meringue. And Missa Megga, she look at him like he a great big lollipop she want to lick all over.’

‘Annie!’ Miss Filmer sounded scandalised. ‘There’s no need to be vulgar.’

‘Whatever would Miss Filmer know about those sorts of lollipops?’ Annie said, as we were recovering in the ladies’ room. We had fled in disarray, giggling uncontrollably.

‘Anyway, it’s all nonsense,’ I said.

‘He likes you, Meg. A lot. That’s obvious. Not just as a friend, and not just because you went out with his brother. I was watching him when you were dancing together. And he kept looking at you when you were dancing with other men. I saw him. Phyllis Gregory is certainly a looker, but so are you. And he was looking.’

She lowered her voice, beckoning me closer. ‘I heard that she hangs on to him because she knows some weird sexual technique that enslaves men,’ she whispered. ‘It’s the same one that Mrs Simpson used to ensnare King Edward, so that he’d abdicate for her.’

I groaned and shook my head slowly. ‘Wherever do you hear these things? That’s ridiculous.’

‘No, really. It’s true. They teach it at exclusive finishing schools.’

Now I was laughing. Annie loved this kind of gossip.

‘Anyway, it’s all irrelevant. I’ve decided to stop meeting him. I’m telling him today.’

Annie just smiled at the mirror and put on more lipstick.

Tom brought chicken sandwiches and led the way to a bench under a jacaranda. It was almost at the end of its flowering and purple blossom carpeted the ground around us. Tom cut straight to the chase.

‘Look, Meg, I don’t want my actions to be dictated by some wretched gossip columnist. We’re friends, aren’t we? Why should we let them tell us what to do?’

He reached towards me and I froze. I felt his hand in my hair. When he pulled back he was holding a jacaranda flower. Eventually my heart rate slowed.

‘Tom, it’s just causing gossip.’

‘Please, Meg.’ Although he looked a lot better than he had done earlier, he seemed very tired, and he still had that vulnerable look in his eyes, which was unsettling. I turned away from it to examine the flowers in the garden beside us. A black beetle was making its way up the stem of a canna lily that was the blood-red colour of Phyllis’s lipstick.

I knew what I wanted to say. I had worked it all out in the early hours of the morning. I turned back to Tom, opened my mouth . . . and said something wholly unexpected.

‘Just because I left school at fourteen doesn’t mean that I’m stupid.’

He looked shocked. ‘I know that, Meg.’

‘I was always top of my classes, even though I was put up a year. I could have been a teacher or gone to university, but there was no money. There was never any money. My father died when I was a baby and my mother had to work hard to raise us. People like you and Phyllis will never have any idea what she went through. I’m proud of my mother, proud of my family. My sisters and I, we had to start working as soon as we could.’

My voice was high and I sounded a bit shaky. ‘I read a lot, you know. I might not know who A.E. Housman is, but I’ve read everything Dickens ever wrote, and Jane Austen, and I’m reading a lot of poetry now, too. It’s a joke in my family, how much I read.’

‘Meg.’ Tom sounded perplexed. ‘I’ve never thought you were stupid. Quite the contrary. Why do you think I like spending my time with you?’

‘I don’t know why you spend your time with me,’ I practically shouted at him. ‘Why do you spend so much time with me? I wish I knew.’

But I rushed straight on, not giving him a chance to answer. My words were tumbling out without any thought now. I was telling him all the things I wished I’d been able to tell his ghastly fiancée.

‘I’m not a gold-digger, either. Peter and I never talked about money. We did simple things together and that was by choice.’

Tom was sitting perfectly still, watching me. Letting me get it off my chest, I supposed.

My voice cracked. ‘Peter wanted to marry me. Your family may not believe it, but he did. I said we were too young. I told him I’d wait for him and he said we’d be married when he came home.’

I stopped talking and looked away from him, into the garden. The beetle had reached the top of the lily and was climbing down now, into its crimson centre.

‘This is Phyllis, isn’t it?’ Tom said, at last. ‘She’s said terrible things to you, hasn’t she?’

‘That wasn’t the worst. How could you not tell me about Peter and the English girl?’

‘Phyll told you about that? When?’

I was really angry now, and my voice was high and fast. ‘She invited me to tea on Saturday. Why didn’t you tell me about that girl? Because it’s a lie? Peter never slept with another girl and he certainly never had a child with her. How could anyone believe it for a minute?’

My voice was shaking. ‘This is Peter we’re talking about. He was writing to me regularly, usually every day. Do you think he wouldn’t have told me if he’d fallen in love with another girl? He used to tell me if he went to dances and danced with other girls.’

I closed my eyes for a moment and willed my voice to become steady. ‘If there is a girl who wrote such letters, she’s lying.’

‘There is a girl and, yes, you are right, she was lying,’ Tom said.

I could hardly believe it. I opened my eyes, but his expression was unreadable.

‘Tell me.’

‘I heard the story when I came home from the Middle East in October of ’41. The whole thing seemed dubious to me. If Pete had gotten a girl pregnant he would have tried to marry her. And I was pretty sure he would have written to me about it. So, I wrote to Pete’s commanding officer and I got a response at once. He knew the girl because she’d tried the same thing when other Australian airmen had been killed. She had a baby and she needed money. My parents had sent her money. So had other grieving parents.’

I felt faint with relief. It explained a lot. Now I understood why Phyllis had written me those curt letters insisting that Peter’s parents weren’t obligated to me, ‘emotionally or financially’. If she had only let me speak to them I could have made it clear that I wanted nothing from them. I could have made it clear to them that this other girl was lying.

‘The air force asked if we wanted the girl prosecuted. I said that we didn’t. Perhaps we should have, but there was a baby – someone’s baby – and it needed looking after. She’d sent photos and my mother thought there was a resemblance to Pete. Wishful thinking, of course. Hoping that some part of him still existed. I don’t think they wanted it to be a lie.’

I could understand that. After Peter’s death I’d wished we hadn’t been so careful. Wished I’d become pregnant, so that some part of him would still exist.

‘Meg, if I’d known you then – known that Pete had you waiting for him here – I wouldn’t have believed it for a minute.’ He was watching me closely, holding my gaze. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to tell me.

‘I’m not so special,’ I said, looking down. ‘But Peter and I were in love. I would have known if there was another girl. Phyllis should have let me speak to your parents.’

I shot a quick glance towards him. He was still looking at me with that unreadable expression. I realised how dear his face had become to me, how much I would miss him.

‘Tom, I think Phyllis said such horrible things to me because she’s upset about how much time you spend with me.’ I searched for the words I’d rehearsed in my mind. ‘I think that you like spending time with me because in some way it brings back Peter. I think we’ve helped each other deal with losing him. But it’s not fair on Phyllis.’

As soon as I said it, I knew it was a lie. As if I cared about that blonde witch. It wasn’t fair on me.

He didn’t say anything, so I went on. ‘You really have helped me. I’m going out again, and I can think of Peter now without crying. That’s wonderful, but . . . I really don’t think we should spend time alone with each other any more.’

What was I hoping for? What did I want him to say?

Not this. ‘You’re right, of course.’ His expression now seemed rather bleak. ‘It would be better for you not to see me. I’ve been selfish, as usual.’

I shook my head. ‘How were you selfish? I’ve enjoyed being with you.’

His smile was a travesty. ‘Yes. It’s been fun, hasn’t it? But you’re right. It has to end.’

He closed his eyes for a few seconds, opened them and stood up. The wind had become fresher and he raised his good hand to hold his cap in place.

‘Goodbye, Meg,’ he said, and turned to walk away.

He was going. How could he just walk away?

‘No,’ I said. ‘Wait!’ He stopped and turned towards me. Now I was angry again, but I wasn’t sure why. ‘So this is it?’

‘Meg, I’m not well, in many ways.’ His voice sounded strained. ‘Phyll looks after me. We’ve been together so many years now. She knows exactly what she’s getting.’

‘What are you trying to say?’

His face was drawn and tired.

‘That you’re absolutely right,’ he answered. ‘I hope it all works out well for you.’

‘It will,’ I said. He was giving me what I had asked for and I was furious with him. ‘I’ll find someone. It’s such a fun place, Perth in wartime. Mike Sully is due back in a few weeks. He’ll do.’

‘Oh yes, that’s a very good idea,’ he said sarcastically.

I stood up. ‘Goodbye, Tom.’ My voice was hard and cold; I was working to keep the tears at bay. I turned to look at him for the last time. He was watching the river and his lips had become very thin. He was hiding something. I knew it.

‘What is it you’re not telling me? There’s something you’re not telling me.’

He shook his head. ‘Mike Sully seems to be a decent man. If you like him, you should see him.’ His voice was infuriatingly reasonable.

‘I don’t need your permission to go out with someone.’

‘Call it my blessing then.’ He turned to look at me. His voice was no longer reasonable. ‘See anyone you damn well like.’

‘Anyone but Tom Lagrange.’

‘This is a stupid discussion. You’re the one who wants to stop seeing me. Do what you want. Go out with anyone you want. It’s your life.’

Bite your bum. That’s what Stan and Jimmy McLean would say. I stood up and glared at him. I could see the sinews in his right arm knot and tighten. His knuckles were as white as the bone beneath. But when he spoke, his voice was terribly calm and reasonable.

‘Meg, I’m a selfish brute, who should have stopped these lunches weeks ago. I hope that you find a man as good for you as Peter was. Goodbye.’

He turned into the wind and walked away without looking back.

Eighteen

Annie threw me a sympathetic smile when I came back from lunch, but didn’t ask any questions. My brain felt sluggish and I found it hard to think of anything at all.

As I sat in a parlour car on the way home, I could feel the thin needle-sharp pain of a headache begin behind my right eye, bringing with it the threat of worse to come. I had suffered often from blinding, debilitating headaches in the year after Peter died, but it had been a while since the last one. I put up my hand to rub my right temple. Thomas Lagrange and all men could go to blazes. If I’d been Catholic I would have gone on to the convent in Dalkeith and signed up on the spot.

I opened the front door and wearily called out a greeting. Ma came into the hallway, and as soon as I saw her I knew something was wrong.

‘What’s happened?’ My voice was high and frightened. ‘Is it Joan? Mary?’

Ma shook her head. ‘The plane taking Harvey Bradford back to New Guinea has been reported missing. Harvey is presumed dead.’

We had parted as friends, Harvey and I, the day following the scene in the restaurant. When we met at a local café after work I had explained to him gently that I had never viewed our relationship as seriously as he had, but I’d enjoyed our time together. He apologised again for his behaviour, blaming the alcohol, and had the grace to admit that he’d also been writing to a girl called Connie. He was going to see if she wanted to make it more serious. I had wondered if it was Connie who had told him that I’d been seen around with Americans.

‘You know,’ he said, looking embarrassed, ‘that Captain Lagrange seemed a decent chap. He did what had to be done and left it alone. He’s a bit of a hero among the boys who were in the Middle East with him. He’s got a reputation for looking after his men – won a medal for some foolhardy stunt in Syria that saved a lot of lives. The men always know who the better officers are. You stick with him, and you’ll be fine.’

I had a torrid night. My brain whirled away into spirals of pain and nausea relieved only slightly by aspirin and cold compresses. I awoke with bleary eyes and the feeling of light-headedness that followed a bad headache.

At work, a parcel was waiting for me. I opened it to find two books: The Poems of Wilfred Owen and The War Poems by Siegfried Sassoon. There was no note or card.

I left the building with Annie at lunchtime, wondering if Tom would be waiting, but of course he wasn’t. I had nothing to say during lunch. The afternoon dragged. I had to stay late to finish some urgent work for Mr Goodley and it was with enormous relief that I put the cover on my typewriter, collected my things and left the office. As I was walking out of the building, clutching my books, I heard my name being called. It was Nancy and she had obviously been waiting for me.

‘Miss Meg,’ she said, patting my sleeve. ‘I need to speak to you, can we have a talk, please?’

‘Of course. What is it?’

‘We can’t talk here. Tomorrow. Can we talk tomorrow after work? Can you come to my house? Come for tea. Then we can talk.’

‘Of course. If it’s that important.’

Her face was tight and anxious. ‘Oh, Miss Meg. It’s that important.’

I assumed she needed help with more forms. I could do that easily. It would be good to feel useful to someone. I needed to be busy and useful. ‘I’d be glad to help, Nancy. I’ll meet you tomorrow. Here, at five o’clock.’

That night I started reading the poems in the books Tom had sent to me. And I began to understand, just a little, what I had sometimes glimpsed behind Tom’s eyes.

I heard nothing from Tom the following day. I told myself I had to accept that our friendship was really over. It had been my choice. It was the right thing to do. So why did I feel so utterly miserable?

Nancy was quiet on the tram to her small house in North Perth, an older, rather run-down suburb just north of the city. I had visited her there several times after her husband was interned. She always insisted on giving me a huge meal, accompanied by the slightly sour red wine made by friends of hers who had a vineyard in the Swan Valley.

We got off the tram at Newcastle Street and I followed her as she hurried past the small, closely packed houses. A blacksmith’s shop was at the corner and I peered in to see the blacksmith working at his small forge. There was a loud ringing as hammer hit iron and sparks flew around him. Despite the sound of an engine somewhere in the shop, I felt I had been transported back a hundred years.

Like the blacksmith’s shop, Money Street was a relic of the past. It was narrow and filled with little houses built in the nineteenth century and mostly semi-detached, many with ornate decorations set into the masonry. Stone wreaths of flowers and pillared balustrades gave a shabby elegance to the little dwellings. One side of the street was dominated by a factory: R. Mackay & Co. Ltd, Aerated Water and Cordial Manufacturers.

Yet Money Street was undeniably beautiful because of the enormous plane trees that formed a thick canopy of green over the roadway. Their trunks were fully three feet in width and as white as satin, with the occasional splash of dark brown like a stain. Only a hint of blue sky was to be seen through the leafy canopy and we seemed to swim in shadow as we made our way to the Gangemi house.

Like the others in the street, it was set close to the footpath, with a tiny front garden. The back garden, I knew, was larger and given over entirely to vegetables. Sometimes Nancy gave me tomatoes and beans as a gift to my mother.

Nancy showed me into the lounge room, which was scrupulously clean and very simply furnished. The Gangemis had left a life of grinding poverty in the hope that Australia would provide them with a better future and, until the war, they had been doing a good job of keeping their heads above water. Mr Gangemi’s detention was a major setback, but they were a tough, resilient family and I was sure that they would survive this, too.

Nancy’s daughter Maria, who was ten, had already laid the table with platters of what Nancy called antipasto – pickled vegetables, cured meats, and olives from the tree in the backyard. The three dark-haired and dark-eyed Gangemi children looked greedily at the spread and I assumed they did not usually eat so well, though I wasn’t sure. They were all rather round of body. I ate sparingly, knowing from experience that there were several courses to come. Primo and secondo came in quick succession, then dolce, which made me remember what Nancy had said about Tom. I felt misery wash through me like bile, but I pushed myself to smile when I caught Nancy looking at me with concern.

‘Too much food,’ I said, rubbing my stomach. ‘Wonderful food, but so much.’ The children nodded understandingly.

After tea, the two younger children were sent away, leaving me with Nancy and fourteen-year-old Sam. He was a steady boy who worked in a local factory and was providing much-needed money for the family. He had his mother’s perpetually mournful expression and melting brown eyes, but I hadn’t seen any evidence of her sense of humour. Perhaps life was simply too difficult at the moment for this boy to find anything to laugh about.

‘Miss Meg,’ Nancy said with a very sombre face. ‘We need your help. Not just me, but my friends also, and my family.’ She stopped there, as if unable to continue, and looked to Sam to take up the story.

‘Miss Meg,’ he said, in a voice too deep for a boy. ‘Mama, and others too, have done something to help some friends of my father. I don’t know what to do. I think it’s really stupid, but Papa said we had to. He’s been here since Sunday. He’s out the back. In the shed.’

‘What? Who’s in the shed? Your father?’

‘No, not Papa. Mr Luca.’

I gasped in shock. Fear for the Gangemis followed shortly after. If Frank was found here it would be disastrous for them.

Nancy took me out to the shed where Frank Luca was sitting in front of a small table, almost unrecognisable as Doreen’s handsome husband. His hair was matted and too long. He hadn’t shaved in days and the stubble was dark and rough on his face, making him look dirty. He also looked terrified. His eyes were constantly checking the tiny space. He had been in hiding for nearly two months, and it showed.

When I entered the shed he shot me a look of pure panic.

‘Frank,’ I said gently. ‘I’m Meg Eaton. Do you remember me? I live in Megalong Street and I knew Doreen.’

‘I remember you, Miss Eaton,’ he said. ‘Mrs Gangemi says you know about the law. She trusts you.’ The terror in his eyes was awful to see.

I sat down in a seat across from him.

‘I’m not a lawyer. I can’t help you like that. In fact, I think it might be best if you give yourself up to the police. Detective Munsie is a fair man.’

Nancy put a glass of red wine next to him and he reached for it like it was a lifeline. It disappeared in a couple of gulps. He flicked her a glance that held a request and she got up and left the shed. The wine seemed to perk him up. He sat up straighter and his face looked less desperate. He even tried to smile.

‘Thank you for coming to see me, Miss Eaton. It’s kind of you to help.’

There was a dip of the head and a quick upward glance at me through long, dark lashes. Even unshaven and done in, Frank Luca had a certain elegance. There was a sinewy grace in his movements.

‘I didn’t kill Doreen.’ His voice was low, with a slight accent. Not Italian, but the accent of an Australian with Italian parents. My school friend Angela had the same accent.

‘They’re saying I did it. My folks are Italian and they want me to have done it. But I didn’t. I loved her. Doreen wasn’t perfect, but I didn’t care. She was the mother of our girl and she was a good wife before the war. It’s this war. It was too easy for her to have a good time. I was away with the Navy and Doreen liked to have a good time.’ As if the burst of speech had exhausted him, he dropped his head back into his hands.

Nancy bustled in with another glass of wine and a plate of food. Frank again downed the wine in a gulp and made short work of the food.

‘They’ll hang me. Just because my folks are Italian, they’ll hang me. But I didn’t hurt Doreen. Please believe me.’

I had absolutely no idea what to do. I wished I could talk to Tom about it, but that couldn’t happen. Instead I was on my own, with Frank and the Gangemis relying on me. The proper thing to do was to turn him in to the police. But that would mean the Gangemis would face prosecution. And what if Frank really was innocent? He was right: it would be hard for him to get a fair trial.

‘Frank, you need to remember exactly what happened and tell me everything. Everything. Did you see Doreen the night she died?’

He held my gaze. ‘I don’t know who killed her, Miss Eaton. Honest. I didn’t talk to Doreen and I didn’t touch her that night, but I was in the bush and I saw her cross Winthrop Avenue, heading for home. I didn’t see anyone following her.’

So he had been there. Motive and opportunity. He’d be charged with her murder and at his trial Mr Goodley would tear him to pieces in the witness box. I bit my lip nervously. Could I believe him when he said that he hadn’t killed Doreen? He easily could have followed her into the laneway and somehow got her into the air raid shelter.

‘Frank, tell me everything that you did and saw on that Saturday.’

He wouldn’t look at me, and instead began to scratch at the tabletop with his fingernail, digging a little hole in the soft wood. ‘I went to see her, straight off the ship, because I was worried.’

‘What were you worried about?’

‘I was worried she was seeing other men. You know, romantically.’

‘Why were you worried about that?’

‘My cousin Monica wrote and said that Doreen was fooling around with the Yanks. I wanted to talk to her. I didn’t want to believe anything without talking to her.’

I wasn’t sure what to think. He didn’t seem like a murderer, but what did I know? Mr Goodley often said it was the people you least expected who did the worst things.

‘Go on,’ I prompted, because he had lapsed into silence.

‘When I got shore leave I went to our house, but she wasn’t there. So I waited. Betty came home and we had a cup of tea. She told me Doreen was going to the Catalina base that night for a party with the Yank officers. She said Doreen had been fooling around with the Yanks at that base and with some filthy rich AIF officer.’

He took a ragged breath. ‘Betty went out, and this Aussie officer came to the door asking for Doreen. I told him to lay off her. He said they weren’t involved romantically. Those were his words.’

‘Did you believe him?’

‘Yes and no. Why would a rich officer like him want my Doreen, except for some fun? He wouldn’t see it as romantic.’

I felt sorry for Frank, as I imagined him blustering and Tom icy and superior. I remembered Tom’s response to Detective Munsie’s question about that meeting.

‘What happened then?’ I felt like Detective Munsie myself, conducting an interrogation. I wanted to see if I could trip him up on some obvious falsehood. So far, though, I had the feeling Frank was telling the truth.

‘He left and I went to the pub, but it was full of bloody Yanks. After it closed I walked over to the Catalina base. I told them I wanted to see my wife, but they said they’d call the MPs, so I left to go back to our house. I met Cec McLean in the street and we went to his place for a drink and some tucker. Then I went back home and fell asleep on a chair on the porch. When I woke up, Doreen still wasn’t there.’

‘And then?’

‘I went back to the Catalina base to look for her.’

‘Did you see anybody?’

‘I saw an officer in the bush. A bit taller than me, thin though. He was wearing a peaked cap. Could have been a Yank or maybe the Aussie captain. The moon was full and it was pretty bright, but those caps look the same.’

My stomach lurched. Tom could have walked there from Phyllis’s apartment. They slept in separate rooms. Phyllis wouldn’t have known. Or she might have known, and given him an alibi anyway. Either way, it was entirely possible.

‘And there was another bloke, a big bloke.’ Frank held out his hands to indicate someone broad and tall. ‘I saw him a couple of times. Once he was carrying a box, a big box, or maybe a tub.’ He held out his arms again, to indicate an object wider than a man.

‘Was the big man an officer?’ I wondered if it could have been Chad.

‘Dunno. Can’t remember if he had a cap.’

‘What about Doreen? When did you see her?’

He lowered his head with a small moan and to my dismay he began to cry.

I leaned over and patted him on the arm. ‘Frank, it’s important.’

‘She was all over the big man. He was all over her. What could I do? I’m not a big man.’

I handed him my hankie, although it was too small to do much good.

He blew his nose. ‘I’m not proud of myself,’ he said.

‘Frank, I’m sorry. Did they speak? Did you hear anything?’

‘Nah.’

‘What did you do after you saw Doreen and the big man?’

‘I walked away.’

‘Were you angry?’

His look, when he raised his eyes to me, was cold. ‘I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you mean. Yes, I was angry. Of course I was. Doreen was my wife. But I wanted to cool down, to think. I walked down the path and crossed Winthrop Avenue. I stood there, by the side of the road, waiting for her. It seemed a long time before she came out and crossed the road. She was drunk and she nearly got run down.’

‘Was anyone following her?’

‘No one followed her that I could see, but I didn’t hang around. When I saw how drunk she was, I didn’t want to talk to her any more. I walked up the street towards Subiaco.’

He was looking straight into my eyes, and I believed him.

‘I went to my mate’s place. That’s where I was when I found out about Doreen in the newspaper on the Monday morning. The paper said I was most likely to have done it. I got scared and went to another mate’s place to hide. I’ve been hiding ever since.’

I had no idea what to do next. If he gave himself up I was terribly afraid that they might not give him a fair go. Most of all I was afraid for Nancy and Sam. I was worried that they could both face criminal charges for hiding him. The family could not take a blow like that. And I was worried that he had seen a thin officer in the bush not long before Doreen died. Could it have been Tom?

I needed time to think, to be alone for a while, but Frank was looking at me in dumb desperation. I bit my lip and said, ‘Frank, if you won’t give yourself up, you can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous for the Gangemis. You’ll have to go somewhere else.’

‘So you believe me? That I didn’t touch Doreen?’

‘I think so. I don’t know. I’m confused. But I won’t turn you in to the police, although I think you should do it yourself.’

I left Frank in the shed and went back to the house. Nancy seemed less anxious, and I hoped that wasn’t due to some misguided belief in my abilities to help her out of this situation. I wouldn’t turn Frank in, but I wouldn’t lie to protect him either. I just hoped I’d never have to answer any police questions about him.

‘Miss Meg, thank you so much for seeing him. He needed to tell his story to someone. You know about the law. What should he do?’

‘I’m very concerned for you and the children if he stays here.’

‘Mr Gangemi says we need to help him.’

‘But Nancy, if he is found here you might be arrested. They may put you in gaol. And Sam, too. What will happen to the little ones then?’

She started to cry and I felt terrible. I looked helplessly at Sam, who was standing beside her. He spoke to her in Italian, and after a while she stopped crying and nodded.

Then Sam addressed me. ‘There’s a man who lives on a farm south of Pinjarra and he’s agreed to take Frank. Mama wasn’t sure whether he should go, but now she thinks it’s a good idea.’ He made a face, half indulgent, half annoyed. ‘Mama wants to help everyone. But sometimes you just can’t do that.’

I sighed with relief.

‘If he won’t turn himself in, then that would be perfect, Sam. If he could leave here, I mean.’

Pinjarra was a good two hours’ drive from Perth and well away from the Gangemis.

‘Don’t keep in contact with him at all,’ I told Sam as I was leaving. ‘Once he’s gone, forget you ever met him.’

He nodded gravely, his brown eyes big in his young face. ‘Forget I met who?’ he asked blandly.

I blinked in surprise, then realised it was a joke. Perhaps young Sam did have a sense of humour after all.

Nineteen

‘Mr Goodley?’

He was surrounded by papers and books and was obviously working on an important brief, but he peered at me over the half-moon spectacles.

‘Yes, Meg?’

‘I was discussing a book I am reading with my mother and sister last night and I realised I was unsure of a legal issue.’

He smiled. ‘Yes?’

‘In the book one of the characters knows an awful lot about a murder but keeps quiet about it, to protect someone else. When the police actually ask her a direct question, she lies. I’m fairly sure it is an offence to lie to the police, but is it an offence not to tell them what you know?’

‘That depends. Is it an English book? Keeping quiet about a crime is a crime under English common law. It’s called Misprision of Felony. We don’t have that in our Criminal Code in Western Australia.’

He turned around in his chair, reached up to the bookcase behind him and extracted a leather-bound volume. ‘It is an offence, however, to wilfully obstruct the police in their investigation of a crime. Section 135 of the Code.’

He leafed through the book, found the spot and read out the section to me.

‘So, if your fictional heroine was English, she was committing an offence by not telling them all she knew, and she was committing another offence when she lied to them. That wouldn’t be the case here. Only by specifically lying to the police would she be breaking the law.’

I assumed a shocked look. ‘So, a person could know where a murderer was hiding and keep quiet about it? That’s not against the law? That’s terrible.’

I hoped I wasn’t over-egging the pudding, but I opened my eyes wider to express my outrage.

‘It’s the law,’ Mr Goodley said. ‘But the person couldn’t do anything to obstruct the police. That would be an attempt to pervert the course of justice.’

He picked up the book, turned around and replaced it in the bookcase. I thanked him for his time and left the room.

I wanted to help Frank Luca, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t even know why I was so sure he was telling me the truth. But I was sure, and I felt sorry for him. Everyone else seemed willing to convict him just because he was the husband and he was Italian, and that was dreadfully unfair. It was worse now, because hiding from the police for so many weeks had made him seem guilty. I knew it would be all over for him once it became known that he had been near Doreen around the time she was stabbed and I could not stand by and let him face the hangman’s noose if I could do something to help him.

There was another consideration also. In the back of my mind was a niggling doubt about the strength of Tom’s alibi. Betty had presumably told Detective Munsie about the argument between Tom and Doreen. It wasn’t much of a leap for Detective Munsie to realise that Tom easily could have walked from Phyllis’s flat to Megalong Street in the early hours of Sunday morning. Why would Doreen have gone to the air raid shelter unless it was with someone she knew? Someone who didn’t want to be seen with her? Someone like Tom. According to Frank, there had been a thin officer in the bush before Doreen had been killed. I could not believe that Tom had murdered Doreen, but I didn’t want him as the next most credible suspect after Frank.

What I needed was more information.

Mr Goodley had received a thick envelope from Detective Munsie a couple of days ago, but I hadn’t had a chance to look at the contents before he put it into his ‘safe’ place. A plan formed in my head. That night I thought about what I could do. It was risky, but I felt fairly confident I could pull it off.

‘Are you coming?’

It was ten minutes past five o’clock, the following afternoon. The cover was on Annie’s typewriter and she was pulling on her gloves. Miss Filmer had already gone. I shook my head.

‘I want to finish some typing before I go.’

It wasn’t unusual for me to stay back to finish urgent work.

‘Okey-dokey. But it’s Friday night and that’s the night when all good girls should go dancing. I’m off to the Embassy Ballroom. Don’t become too conscientious, Meg. And don’t forget you promised to meet me at the Silver Dollar tomorrow night.’

‘I’ll be there. I’ll see you at eight.’

She grinned. ‘I’ll get you out and about despite yourself, Meg Eaton. And if you meet an unattached American officer – one who’s single, good-looking, good-natured and rich – keep me in mind, please.’ There was a wink and a smile and she was out the door.

The room was very quiet with Annie gone. I put a page into my typewriter, rolled it down and started the letter on my dictation pad. I typed for about twenty minutes, then got up and went to the door. I checked the main corridor, then the clerks’ room. Empty. It was now after five-thirty and most people were long gone. I hurried over to the door that led to the offices of the four lawyers, opened it and crept quietly down the short corridor. Mr Goodley’s office was the third door down. He had left work at four-thirty, and I knew he and his wife were attending a concert because I had booked the tickets for him. I checked that each office was empty.

I went into Mr Goodley’s office and pulled the door shut behind me. The room was strangely bereft without his lively presence. My heart was racing and my palms were moist. I often went into his office when he wasn’t there, but I had never before gone in there to read his confidential documents. His big, old-fashioned desk was in front of me, near the window. I knew he kept important documents in the third drawer down, which was always locked. I also knew that there was a spare key to the third drawer in the unlocked top drawer, in an envelope marked ‘spares’. I was soon rifling through envelopes and folders marked ‘Confidential’. The one relating to Doreen’s murder was close to the top.

I removed it, put it on the desk and leafed through the documents. They were a goldmine. There was not only the autopsy report, but copies of all the statements that the police had taken, including those of Betty Barwon and the US servicemen. I debated taking the entire thing to my desk and copying it there, but thought it would be easier if I took it all down in shorthand at Mr Goodley’s desk and typed up the information later. There would be less risk of losing or damaging anything that way. My shorthand speed was very fast. I had topped the state in the Junior Shorthand Typists’ Examination when I was fifteen. But there was a lot to copy.

I did the autopsy report first. It was very technical, but the gist was that a single, oblique stab wound had penetrated the left ventricle of Doreen’s heart and severed a coronary artery. Death was due to cardiac tamponade (whatever that was!). She also had a depressed skull fracture over the right frontal region. It was a thin wound, perhaps caused by a wooden or metal rod.

Next I turned to the sworn statements.

Chad stated that he was friendly with Doreen, he had spent the evening in her company and they had left the base together at ten minutes to twelve. He walked down the bush path with her and they parted near Winthrop Avenue. As he was walking back to the base he met up with Don Dudley.

Aha, I thought, and smiled to myself. So Don could have been the thin officer Frank had seen in the bush that night. There was nothing to link Tom to this crime.

I carried on reading Chad’s statement. He and Don had chatted for a while, and then walked back to the gate together, arriving at around twelve-thirty. While they were talking, Nobbie Wilder had walked past them carrying a large tub of food scraps. Chad had not seen anyone else in the bush.

Don Dudley stated that he was out in the bush that night looking for moth specimens. He saw Chad at around ten minutes past twelve. They had conversed together on the path, before returning to the base at twelve-thirty. He saw no one when he was in the bush. Nobbie Wilder walked past when he and Chad were talking.

It seemed clear that Nobbie Wilder was ‘the large man with the box’ that Frank had seen. I wondered what Don and Chad were talking about for so long in the darkness. Also, what was Doreen doing in the bush after Chad left her? It wasn’t until twelve-thirty that she was seen crossing Winthrop Avenue. Another question was whether Nobbie could account for his movements after twelve-thirty.

As I turned to the next statement I heard sounds out in the corridor. Someone had opened the door from the typists’ room. I pushed the drawer closed, turned off the desk light and grabbed the folder, my pad and pencil as I scanned the room for hiding places. I slipped under the desk and pulled the chair in behind me. Then I waited, trying to calm the frantic thud of my heartbeat.

The office door opened.

‘I know they’re somewhere in here.’ It was Mr Goodley’s voice and he was moving towards the desk.

‘Maurice, your desk is remarkably neat. That pretty little secretary must really keep you in order.’ It was Mrs Goodley.

‘She does. I’m terrified the Americans will snap her up. They’re offering a great deal of money to good stenographers.’

‘Didn’t she find the Luca woman’s body?’

I could hear him fossicking around in the papers on the top of the desk. I was barely breathing. It was very dusty and the scent of oiled wood was almost overpowering. My nose was itchy and I was terrified I would sneeze.

‘Mmm-hmm. With the Lagrange boy.’

I was in a very ‘Wanda the War Girl’ predicament. In the cartoon strip, Wanda was always hiding under desks and getting into scrapes to find out information. Here I was, stuck under a desk with classified information and trying not to sneeze, while my boss was inches away, and talking about me.

‘Whatever was she doing finding a body with Tom Lagrange? Phyllis Gregory usually keeps him on a very tight leash.’

‘I’m not sure. She seems to see a lot of him. I’m rather concerned about Meg, to tell the truth. There was that unpleasant article in the Mirror, and now I think she knows more about this murder than she’s letting on. She was asking me some peculiar questions yesterday.’

‘Pam Lagrange is terribly worried about Tom. He’s been so nervy since he came back.’

‘It’s hardly surprising. He’s lost his brother, he was badly wounded and when he was captured by the Japanese he was almost certainly tortured. You should all give the boy some time.’

His voice trailed off.

‘Here they are,’ he said, sounding relieved.

‘Thank goodness. Really, Maurice, you’d forget your head if it wasn’t attached to your neck. It’s not very secure in here. Shouldn’t you lock it up for the weekend?’

‘I don’t usually bother.’

It sounded as if they were at the door now, and I was starting to breathe more easily.

The door closed and I heard the key turn in the lock. I sneezed. Twice.

When the sound of their voices receded I pushed the chair away, clambered out from under the desk and ran to the door to try the handle. Locked. Damn Mrs Goodley! The room was getting dark, but I didn’t want to put on a light in case Marty, the nightwatchman, decided to investigate. Mr Goodley never bothered to put up the blackout blinds unless he was going to be staying back and Marty would know he wasn’t working late tonight. I moaned softly, put my back against the door and slid down to sit on the floor with my head in my hands.

I could always climb out the window. It overlooked the gardens and it wasn’t very high above the ground. But how would I get the window securely shut again, once I was out? My handbag, hat and gloves were still in the typists’ room, so even if I did get out, I would have to go around to the front of the building, bang on the door and ask Marty to let me in to collect them. Marty was always friendly, but he might ask some difficult questions in those circumstances. I wasn’t sure what crimes I might have just committed, but I would certainly lose my job if anyone found out.

The window faced north-east and the light in the room was rapidly fading, but I could just see my wristwatch. Seven o’clock. I’d spent more time than I had realised in transcribing the documents. They were still under the desk, so I crawled across the carpet to the desk and patted around underneath for the folder, my pad and my pencil. The really irritating thing was that I couldn’t finish copying the statements.

I thought about it. I was trapped there anyway. Why shouldn’t I finish what I had started? Standing, I lifted the lamp from the desk and put it on the floor beneath the desk. I climbed into the space, just as I had when Mr Goodley had turned up, and adjusted the lamp so that it shone on my lap. Although I felt like a contortionist, I managed to finish the transcription of all the statements.

US naval pilot Earl Morrison had seen Chad and Doreen leave the base together before midnight. He said they had been very affectionate all evening, and Doreen seemed quite intoxicated when she left the base with Chad. He saw them kissing for a while before they wandered off together down the path through the scrub. At about twelve-thirty Morrison was sitting in the rec hall with some other men, when Chad returned and joined them. They all stayed up drinking until the early hours, at which time Morrison and another man assisted Chad to bed.

Bud Hollis (Ensign Robert Hollis Jnr), the young pilot I’d met at the Red Cross dance, had the room next to Chad, and two up from Don. He saw Don in the corridor, heading for his room at around twelve forty-five. He also heard Chad come to bed at around three o’clock and had heard him snoring loudly after that. There was a suggestion of pique in the statement and I assumed that poor Bud had not got much sleep that night.

Nobbie (Aviation Storekeeper Second Class Norbert Francis Wilder) had been ordered to clean up after the party because he was on ‘KP duty’, which was apparently punishment duty. There was no mention of what he was being punished for. He had dug a big hole just off the bush path earlier that day, intending to throw the rubbish and food scraps into the hole and bury them. It was a big hole because a couple of lambs were to be roasted on a spit and there would be the carcasses to bury. At midnight he carried a large tub filled with food scraps and other rubbish to the hole and emptied it, before returning to the base. He refilled the tub, picked up a shovel and left the base at twelve-thirty for his second trip to the hole. He tipped in the second load of rubbish, filled in the hole and returned to the base about fifteen minutes later to return the shovel and empty tub, after which he headed across the highway to his bunk in one of the Quonset huts. He saw Chad and Don talking together on his first trip, but not on the second.

Betty confirmed that Frank had arrived at her house on the afternoon of Doreen’s death and she had given him a cup of tea. She told him that Doreen would be going to a party at the Catalina base that night. That was the only time she saw him. She had attended the party at the officers’ quarters and confirmed that when Doreen left she was quite intoxicated. Doreen and she had spoken about Frank, and Doreen had said that she would ‘sort things out with him the next day’. Betty left the party at around midnight and walked home along the highway. Doreen was not at the house when Betty arrived home and there was nothing to indicate that she had been there. Betty wasn’t worried when Doreen still hadn’t returned the next morning, because that was not uncommon. Betty spent all of Sunday with Nobbie, which explained why she was not at the house when Tom went there looking for Doreen.

The sentry at the gate to the officers’ quarters, Lyle Lane Sawatzke, confirmed that all the men living in the quarters were there by twelve-thirty and confirmed Nobbie’s movements. Louis Samuel, the sentry on the gate at the university, confirmed that Nobbie had been signed into the university grounds at a quarter to one.

I turned off the lamp, untwisted my body from its cramped position and put the lamp back on the desk. I was stiff and sore, but I knew a lot more now. There was nothing to indicate that Tom had been anywhere near the area. Even if the police did arrest poor Frank, his evidence could not put any suspicion on Tom because the thin officer he had seen was most likely Don Dudley.

As far as I could tell, things were looking bleak for Frank. I was inclined to think that Frank had actually seen two ‘big’ men. One with a box (Nobbie) and one ‘all over Doreen’ (Chad). That didn’t help Frank, however, because they both had been with Doreen before she crossed Winthrop Avenue at twelve-thirty. Chad could prove that he was at the base the rest of the night. Possibly Don could have snuck out after twelve forty-five, but it seemed crazy to think that Don would commit a cold-blooded murder because Doreen was a flirt. Or that Nobbie could tip the rubbish in the hole, fill it in, sneak across Winthrop Avenue to stab Doreen in the shelter and get back to base to be signed in fifteen minutes later.

It was now pitch black in the office. I patted my hand down the side of the desk to find the third drawer and replace the folder. There was a moment’s panic when I couldn’t remember where I had put the envelope with the drawer key. I went back onto my hands and knees and felt around on the floor under the desk until I found it. As I reached inside for the key, I could feel another four or five keys in the envelope. Realisation dawned and, with it, hope. These were spare keys.

I found the small key to the third drawer and locked it. Gingerly, hands outstretched, I stumbled my way back to the office door and tried each key in turn. The third one fitted. With a satisfying click, the lock turned. Smiling, I walked slowly back to the desk in the darkness and replaced the envelope with the keys in the top drawer. The key to the door I kept. I would replace it on Monday.

In the typists’ room I tucked away the shorthand pad in my handbag and picked up my hat and gloves. My hands were dirty, so it was after I had made a detour to the ladies’ room that I surprised Marty. He was sitting on his chair at the desk in the lobby, reading a book under the light of a lamp that lit up his white hair. It also lit up his startled face when he saw me.

‘Crikey. It’s nine o’clock. Whatever are you doing here at this hour, Meg?’

‘Urgent work,’ I said, waving cheerily at him.

‘They work you too hard. I hope they know what a jewel you are.’

I smiled at him. ‘Let me out, please, Marty. I’m starving.’

Twenty

I was on my way home with Ma’s groceries the following morning when I heard someone calling me. I swung around to see Cec McLean.

‘Hullo. I thought you were back at sea,’ I said.

‘Got in again yesterday. We ran into a Japanese sub and needed to put into port for repairs. Fremantle was the nearest, lucky for me. We’ll be here for a week.’

He fell into step with me. ‘Here, Meg, let me carry that shopping bag.’

It was always a worry when Cec McLean was solicitous. ‘I’m fine, really.’

‘Come on, hand it over.’

I handed the net bag to him and we walked together along the tree-lined footpaths, past the rows of terracotta-roofed bungalows in their neat gardens, towards Megalong Street.

‘So, you’re mates with the Americans at the Catalina base, and with that rich Aussie captain. Lagrange, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

Apparently Cec read the Mirror. I had picked up today’s copy for Joan and it was tucked safely in my shopping bag. The front-page headline read: POW’S WIFE TOOK LESSONS FROM YANK COOK: ENDED UP IN THE SOUP.

As we were approaching my house he said, ‘Betty told me about Doreen’s crush on that Captain Lagrange. And about their barney the night before she died.’

I said nothing.

‘You don’t think it was him that killed her, do you? And not Luca?’

‘Apparently Captain Lagrange has an alibi. I understand Detective Munsie doesn’t suspect him.’

‘Yeah. So Betty said. Still . . .’

I looked at him, blank-faced. He wanted to tell me something and clearly I wasn’t going to get away until he did.

‘What?’

‘Maybe someone heard Doreen talking to someone that night, in the bush by the officers’ quarters. Maybe she was asking somebody for something. Maybe your Captain Lagrange would like to hear about it.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘You tell him I’d be happy to talk about it.’ For a fee, was the unspoken premise. ‘He’d better see me soon, or I’ll tell what I know to other interested parties.’

We had reached the gate outside my house. Cec handed the bag to me, gave me a wink and walked away.

I was confused. What was he trying to say? Was he referring to Don or Chad as the other interested parties? What did it have to do with Tom? Just when I felt sure that Tom could not be suspected, Cec had to turn up with his mysterious message.

I debated telephoning Tom. He had given me a number to use for emergencies, but it was now five days since I had seen him and I decided that hearing his voice would just make me more confused and unhappy. In the end I wrote him a letter, setting out what Cec had said and where Cec lived and I sent it that afternoon. He’d get it first post on Monday.

The Silver Dollar was crowded, smoky and full of alcohol-fuelled energy. A six-piece band was on a stage in the corner. They were finishing ‘In the Mood’ as I came in, but went straight into ‘Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens’, which really increased the pace. The dance floor was full of people stomping and shaking in time to the music and having a great time. I couldn’t see Annie anywhere. I felt the usual sick feeling that overcame me when I entered a crowded room alone. I always seemed to have dancing partners, but who would I talk to between dances? I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t put Annie in that position if she turned up later.

‘Why, if it isn’t Meg Eaton. Hi there, stranger.’

I turned to see Chad Buchowski standing at my shoulder.

‘Hullo, Chad,’ I said, with more enthusiasm than I felt. ‘I’m supposed to meet Annie Eccles here. Have you seen her?’

‘She was here a while ago, but left. Said she felt sick.’

I was annoyed, unfairly, because it wasn’t Annie’s fault if she was ill. But I hadn’t wanted to come out, and she had been so insistent.

‘Dance?’

I accepted, relieved I knew somebody there. Chad was full of energy and whirled me around with gusto. When the dance finished we went back to his table. He ordered me a lemonade and himself a beer. I noticed his hands were shaking.

‘You’re a bit shaky. Is anything wrong?’ I asked.

‘Heck no, they just do that sometimes. I’m fine. Whisky with that?’ He lifted the bottle that was on the table. I shook my head. He poured some into a glass and downed it in a gulp. Then he drank the entire glass of beer.

He looked strange, different. I realised it was his eyes – they were darker than usual. The pupils were so large that the blue irises were scarcely visible. He winked, which startled me until I realised that he still had the facial twitch.

‘Sure is hot in here,’ he said. ‘Yeah, poor little Annie. She seemed kind of done in. She told me to tell you she was sorry and she’d see you on Monday. Another dance?’

We got up and moved onto the floor.

‘Do you have any clue why Lagrange is hanging around our base?’ He loomed over me and winked as he dipped me back.

‘I don’t know. I don’t see Tom any more.’

I tried to put some distance between us, but it was hard to do that when you were dancing.

‘He sure hangs around the base a lot lately. I think he’s investigating something. Do you know?’

‘I don’t know, Chad. He’s a liaison officer, isn’t he?’

‘Well he sure asks a lot of questions for a liaison officer. Are you sure he’s not investigating something? Are you sure he’s not investigating me?’

‘I really don’t know.’ I wished he would stop talking about Tom.

‘I’m sick of that guy. Always asking questions. Where does he get off, asking personal questions?’ He scowled, then laughed and nodded to himself. ‘I’ve had something of his, though. He wouldn’t like that. No sir. He wouldn’t like that at all.’ He winked at me.

I said nothing. His questions were annoying and his remarks unpleasant. The twitch was creepy.

He led me back to his table when the dance concluded and gulped down another glass of beer as if he hadn’t drunk in a week. Sweat beaded on his forehead and that horrible wink made him seem like a pantomime naughty uncle.

‘Swell here tonight, hey?’ he said, but now his attention was on a speck of dust he was trying to pick off his sleeve. After a while he was rubbing at his arm as if there was something on it that he wanted to get off. Something was definitely wrong with him.

‘Chad, are you all right?’ I said, though what I really wanted to do was to run out of there as fast as I could.

‘Yeah, sure. I’m fine. What’s the matter? Swell here tonight, don’t you think? Good and crowded. I like it crowded. The place sure is jumping. Want a drink? You never drink, Meg. It might loosen you up some. Want another dance?’

‘Actually, I’m not feeling so well myself, I think I need to go home.’

‘You’re wound up so tight, Meg. You should learn to loosen up some.’

He grinned, presumably to show it was a joke. Then he winked again. I didn’t smile back. His teeth were big. I hadn’t noticed before just how big his teeth were. He looked like a huge, blond wolf.

I’d had enough. ‘Chad, I’m going home.’

‘I’ll take you.’ He rose and offered me his hand.

‘No, you’re enjoying yourself here, please stay. I can get home easily.’

‘Meg, I couldn’t forgive myself if anything happened to you out there. Don’t argue, I’m taking you home.’

He took my hand in a firm, if sweaty, grip. I didn’t want to cause a scene, so I let him lead me out of the club.

We began to walk down Milligan Street, looking for a taxi. It was quite dark, because of the blackout, and there was only a waning moon. The street seemed empty.

‘You really do need to loosen up, you know,’ he said.

‘I don’t know that,’ I replied. ‘Would you please stop saying it?’

Chad laughed, looked round quickly, and in a moment he had me pushed up against a wall, his tongue shoved into my mouth. His hand was at my breasts and his body was pressing against me. I struggled hard, trying to kick him in the groin. He was big, though, and strong, and when I finally managed to push him off me I knew it was because he was letting me go. Someone was walking towards us. The man had his head discreetly down. I nearly screamed to him for help, but something stopped me. I did not want anyone to see me this way.

‘Can’t blame a guy for trying.’ Chad’s voice was rough and low.

‘Keep away from me,’ I said. My voice sounded like frightened bleating, and it annoyed me. I drew in a breath and stood up straight, facing him. He gave a quick laugh and anger flooded through me, washing away my fear. I needed to get away from him, but I knew better than to make sudden movements around an aggressive animal.

Chad lit a cigarette, his hand shaking as he brought it to his mouth.

‘So what’s going on between you and Lagrange these days?’ He peered at me suspiciously. ‘I don’t like the way he watches me. What have you told him about me?’

‘I told you, I don’t see him any more. What would I tell him anyway?’ That you attacked me? That I think you’ve gone mad?

‘You know exactly what I mean,’ he said, in a sly, insinuating voice. ‘He hates me. He knows. Suspects, anyhow. We’ve had some times, Phyll and I. She has this neat trick –’

‘Shut up. Just shut up.’ I was moving away from him, very slowly.

‘I know why he stays with her. You couldn’t possibly compete.’

‘It was never like that between us.’

‘He just has to have a few women around for a bit of variety. He has to be adored. Phyll won’t adore him, she knows him too well.’ His wolf mouth was twisted in a snarl now.

‘Just shut up, Chad. Leave me alone.’ My voice was shrill. I was suddenly afraid again and he knew it.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll go. Why would I want to stick around a teasing little bitch like you? Watch it, honey, or you’ll get a reputation.’ With a laugh he turned abruptly and walked away.

I was alone in the dark street. There was faint music around me. It must have been coming from the Silver Dollar. I was cold, shaking violently, and I wanted to throw up. I desperately wanted Tom, and then I wanted to cry. I was afraid that Chad would come back and I didn’t want to walk to the bus stop alone. Eventually the door of the cabaret opened, spilling light and laughter into the street. Four or five revellers emerged and I followed them to the bus stand.

I was safe on the bus, and as it trundled me home I slowly calmed down, although my thoughts were angry and confused. I didn’t know if there really had been anything between Chad and Phyllis, but that didn’t matter. Tom had known about this dark, wolfish side to Chad and that was why he had warned me. Not because he was jealous of Chad spending time with me – who could be jealous of such a man? – but because he felt responsible for me, his dead brother’s girlfriend. Had Tom really only wanted adoration from me? He had kissed me, but only because I asked him to. It seemed adoration was the only thing I had to offer him.

The next morning Fred McLean delivered a letter from Chad, apologising for his ‘inexcusable behaviour’ and asking me to forgive him. He pleaded too much alcohol and worries about his family in the US. I still felt badly shaken, and I didn’t believe a word of it. The man was vicious, and I now considered him capable of anything. Even murder?

I took the letter to my room, where I sat on my bed and reviewed the circumstances of Doreen’s murder. Don was an unlikely suspect but he had despised Doreen; his vindictive little speech about her at the Red Cross dance made that clear.

Chad had been deposited in his room by Lieutenant Downey at three o’clock and Bud Hollis had heard Chad snoring after that. But maybe Chad was only pretending to be drunk and it was Don, pretending to be Chad, who Bud heard snoring. That would give Chad an alibi. Chad could have gone to Doreen’s house, killed her and moved her body to the shelter . . .

Then I remembered. According to the autopsy report, Doreen died in the shelter. And Betty went back to the house after the party and was there all night.

Doreen had been hit on the head! Maybe Don met her in the bush before twelve-thirty and rendered her unconscious with a blow to the head, ran down the bush path, met Chad, told him what had happened. Chad went back . . .

No, that didn’t work because Doreen was seen walking across Winthrop Avenue at twelve-thirty.

If Frank hadn’t murdered Doreen, it was a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie.

I wasn’t ready to completely dismiss the possibility that Doreen’s murder was committed by Chad and Don together. I just needed to figure out how they could have done it and why.

Twenty-one

It was more than a week since I’d seen Tom. He hadn’t acknowledged my letter about Cec. I missed his company so much it felt like a physical pain. I missed our conversations, I missed his sense of humour, I missed looking at him and I missed him. Distraction came in the form of Bud Hollis, the Catalina pilot from the Red Cross dance.

Bud sent me an invitation to come jitterbugging with him at the Embassy Ballroom on Friday night. When he arrived to pick me up, with the inevitable flowers and chocolates, he was as good-looking as I remembered. And he was as good-natured. I looked forward to an evening of cheerful, uncomplicated company.

The taxi pulled up outside the red carpet and arched awning that led to the Embassy Ballroom, the premier dance hall in Perth. It was on the first floor of an elegant semicircular building on the corner of William Street and the Esplanade. The Embassy had a sprung floor and a big band that alternated between older style dance music and the modern swing music of Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey. I had danced there with Peter before the war. They were playing Dorsey’s ‘Tangerine’ as we entered, and I could see Annie on the dance floor with a Dutch submariner.

I also saw Chad, and my stomach tightened. Bud waved at him and when the music finished Chad came over to us with his partner, a slim brunette in her late twenties with dark eyes and a serene smile. Chad greeted me with a kiss on the cheek and introduced me to Mrs Iris Swinton.

‘Meg’s a good friend of mine,’ he told Mrs Swinton, without a trace of irony.

It was as if the incident outside the Silver Dollar had never happened. His eyes looked normal and he wasn’t shaking or twitching. In fact, he seemed calm and in control, like the Chad I had first met and liked so much. I was perplexed. Surely it wasn’t normal to have such dramatic mood swings. Was he mad?

Bud and I spent a couple of hours jitterbugging. It was impossible to hold worrying thoughts in your head and do that crazy dance at the same time. Bud was so sweet, I found myself wishing I could get him and Annie together. I laughed to myself, then sighed. As much as I liked Bud and his soft Southern drawl, I didn’t want him for myself. I only wanted Tom, who apparently only wanted to be adored.

At around midnight we wandered down to Bernie’s, the late-night hamburger joint on Mounts Bay Road. Bernie’s consisted of two old caravans and it was filled with revellers from the ballroom. We sat on a bench with our hamburgers, under the shelter of an old tent which was lit up by coloured lights, despite the blackout. It was the first place in Perth to serve American hamburgers and was always crowded with US servicemen and local women.

‘Do you like Chad?’ I asked Bud, picking up my hamburger uncertainly. I had never eaten one before.

‘Sure, though he’s not a close friend. He’s a swell pilot, one of the best on base. And brave. You know he got the Silver Star?’

I nodded.

‘Good company, too, when he’s not in a temper. He’s got a rotten temper,’ Bud said. He suddenly seemed pensive. ‘You know he used to hang around with the girl that was killed, Doreen,’ he continued.

‘Mmmm?’ My mouth was full of hamburger. I wiped grease off my face with a paper napkin, wondering what Bud knew about it.

‘Yeah,’ he said absently, looking down at his hamburger. He pulled out a limp piece of lettuce and put it on his plate. ‘It was kind of strange. They busted up a while before she died, but on the night she was killed she was all over him again.’ He put the top back on his burger and took another bite.

‘Really?’ I knew from the documents I’d transcribed that Chad and Doreen were together at the party.

‘Yup.’

‘Hmmm.’ I took a mouthful of lemonade. ‘Maybe she fell for his charms again.’

‘But that’s the funny thing. He was in a real mood. All burned up because we’d had a room search that afternoon.’ He bit off an enormous mouthful of hamburger.

‘Why would they do that?’

‘Looking for contraband.’ His voice was muffled with food.

‘What sort of things?’

‘Pep pills. Bennies.’ He smiled at the look of confusion on my face. ‘Drugs. We get Dexedrine pills to keep us awake on the long-haul flights. They do the job, but some of the guys get a taste for them and take extra. We’re not supposed to keep stashes of the stuff.’

‘Did they find any?’ Nobody had mentioned a search for drugs in the police statements.

‘Nope. They rarely do. These searches are pretty routine but they’re a nuisance, and you never know when they’re coming. There’s black marketeering going on all the time. Food, cigarettes, stuff like that. Shucks, we all do it to some extent. That’s how come we’re able to bring presents to you Aussies who are kind to us. We’ve got an awful lot of stuff, and you don’t. But some guys lift stuff to sell, not to give away. And some guys take dope because they can’t do without it. Pep pills make you feel like you could take on the world.’

My burger didn’t seem as tasty as it had earlier.

‘Bud, do these pills make your eyes look funny? Do they make you sweat and shake? And get angry for no reason?’

Bud’s face seemed to close up a little. ‘If you take too many they make your eyes seem darker, because your pupils dilate. Is that what you mean? Sweating and shaking? Yeah. That can happen too – you can’t sleep if you take too many and not sleeping can make you go nuts. Say, Meg, why do you want to know this? Seen someone like that?’

‘It was just something I heard about that I didn’t really understand. Now I do. Thanks.’

Bud seemed unconvinced. ‘You’re not seeing much of Chad any more, are you?’ he said, with a shrewd look.

‘No.’

‘Probably a good idea.’

I decided to change the subject and think about the problem of Chad later.

‘Do you like it here in Perth?’ I asked.

‘Yeah.’ He smiled. ‘Sure I do. Only thing I don’t like is living in the huts at Crawley base. But I’m moving next week to a hotel just up the road. Nedlands Park Hotel, I think it’s called. Some of our guys have been billeted there.’

‘What’s so bad about the officers’ quarters?’

‘We’re in little bedrooms with walls so thin there’s no privacy at all. Heck, you can hear a newspaper rustling in the room next door. I’ve found out far too much about the other men for my liking. Can’t leave soon enough.’

I laughed, but my mind was working furiously. If there really was so little privacy at the base, then my wild surmises about Chad and Don sneaking out to murder Doreen could not possibly be true.

Bud was still talking. ‘But I like Perth and I sure do like flying. Not so much the bombing. And I hate dropping propaganda leaflets – it’s dangerous and I can’t see what good it does. What I like best are the search and rescue missions. When you pick up the guys from the ocean or you ferry wounded soldiers to a hospital it’s sort of like you give life, not death.’ He laughed self-deprecatingly.

‘We picked up an Aussie bomber crew the other day,’ he said. The cheeky grin was back. ‘They’d been floating in a little life raft for more than a day with hardly any water. Boy, were they happy to see us.’

He gave a snort of laughter. ‘One of them said, when we dragged him on board: “What kept you, sport? Too busy chatting up the Aussie sheilas to come and get us, were you?” And he was the worst injured of them all! I told him to mind his manners or I’d throw him back in.’

Bud got us a taxi just by standing at the side of the road and holding up his hand. Locals never seemed to be able to hail one.

‘I sure had a swell time tonight, Meg. Can we do it again soon?’ he asked, as the taxi pulled up outside my house. I saw the gleam of his white teeth in the gloom.

I hesitated. I liked Bud a lot, but I didn’t want him to think I wanted to be more than friends.

‘As friends, Meg. It’d sure be a shame not to see you again when we had such fun together.’

I smiled at him. ‘I’d like that,’ I said. We made a date for the following Friday.

Twenty-two

The next morning I’d just finished the grocery shopping for Ma when I saw Betty Barwon coming out of the butcher’s. I waved at her and she stopped to chat.

‘Poor Mr Bradford,’ she said. ‘He’s worried sick, there’s been no word about Harvey.’ She dabbed at her nose with a hankie. ‘Mr Bradford said you broke Harvey’s heart.’

‘What nonsense,’ I said. ‘He was going out with a girl called Connie when he left last time.’

‘Oh. My mistake.’ She slid me a look. ‘Are you still seeing Tom Lagrange?’

‘We never went out together. That’s a stupid rumour and I don’t want rumours spread about me, Betty.’

‘There’s no need to be huffy about it,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry.’ I made my tone conciliatory. ‘I must have got out on the wrong side of bed this morning. How are you, Betty?’

She shrugged. ‘I’m all right.’

‘How is your American boyfriend?’ I asked, hesitantly, unsure how to broach the subject. ‘Is he a Catalina officer?’

‘He’s not an officer. He’s a petty officer; he looks after supplies at the base.’

‘Is he nice?’

‘He’s got personality, that’s for sure, but he wouldn’t win any beauty contests. He told me he met you at the Red Cross dance. His name’s Norbert Wilder. Nobbie.’

‘I remember him.’

‘Nobbie’s all right. You’ve got to know how to handle him, though.’

Enough of the small talk, I thought. I wanted information.

‘I heard Doreen was very cosy with Chad Buchowski the night she died,’ I said.

Betty sniffed and frowned at me over her hankie. ‘What do you care about that? Frank killed her. Everybody knows that. There’s no point in dragging it all up again.’

‘You said Chad hit Doreen. I need to know if he’s all right. We girls need to stick together.’

She sniffed again, looked down and then up into my eyes with a measuring sort of expression.

‘Chad’s got a rotten temper. He takes too many of those pills they give the men to keep them awake on the missions. He can get mad as a cut snake, for no reason at all. It’d be better to stay away from him.’

‘What do you mean, pills to stay awake?’ I said, innocently. Betty worked in the hospital pharmacy and if anyone knew about the pills, she would.

‘Dexedrine. Methedrine. We give them to our pilots, too, otherwise they can’t stay awake on the long-haul missions. But if you take too many for too long they can make you really mean. Unpredictable.’

‘And Chad takes too many?’

‘Seems like it to me. But maybe it’s just his personality.’

‘Why do they let him have so many?’

Betty’s expression became guarded. She shrugged. ‘I dunno. Maybe they don’t know he’s taking so many. And you can always get what you want, if you pay enough, or you know the right people. Just ask Tom Lagrange.’

‘What does that mean?’ My voice was sharper than I meant it to be.

‘Gee, you’re so naïve, Meg.’ She gave a little smile. ‘Maybe that’s why he likes you.’

‘If I’m so naïve, help me to understand. What are you talking about?’

‘Doreen loved his fine manners. She loved the way he treated her, as if she was special. But it was all just to get what he wanted.’

What Betty didn’t realise was that Tom treated everyone that way: me, Doreen, Nancy Gangemi, the waitress at the Colour Patch. His manners were a part of who he was. I could see how it would turn Doreen’s head. What I couldn’t understand was why Tom had spent so much time with her.

‘You keep saying he used Doreen. What for?’

Her look was almost pitying. ‘If you can’t work it out, I’m not telling,’ she said. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Meg. Why was he so close to Doreen? He wasn’t in love with her. He wouldn’t sleep with her. Maybe she could get him things he needed.’

‘What things would he need? Cigarettes?’

Betty started to laugh, not unkindly, but with real mirth. I felt myself blushing.

‘Please, Betty, just tell me what you mean.’

We had reached the corner. She shook her head and turned away from me to walk down Kanimbla Road. She was still laughing. I saw her wave to someone on the path ahead. Nobbie Wilder was standing there, face impassive. He looked big and a bit menacing. Then he smiled and waved and he just looked like a harmless goof with a missing tooth. I waved at him and turned away.

I pondered what Betty had said as I walked home. Surely she couldn’t mean that Tom took those pills, the ones that made Chad so angry and strange. Tom was nothing like Chad. He never had those terrible rages, for one thing. Not that I’d seen, anyway.

I turned into Megalong Street and heard children’s voices, loud and angry.

‘Aw, don’t be so mean. You’re such a meanie, Fred.’

‘Yeah, Fred. You’re a meanie. You’re just like Hitler.’

‘Shut up, you drongo, or I’ll thump you.’

Fred McLean was on the footpath outside his house holding a paper bag above his head, keeping it out of reach of his two younger brothers.

‘C’mon Fred, give us a lolly. Just one. C’mon.’

‘Nah. Won’t. They’re mine.’

I assumed he’d been begging at the US base again. When Fred saw me he looked a little guilty, but then his face lit up with his usual knowing grin. He ran off down the footpath with his younger brothers in tow, still calling out for a share of the loot.

‘He’s a rotten kid.’ I turned around to see his eldest brother, Stan, coming up behind me with a wagonload of kindling. ‘Got a mean streak, like a yellow dingo. Never shares with the littlies.’

I smiled at him. ‘I hear your dad is off again.’ Joan had heard it from Mrs Phoenix and announced it at breakfast.

‘Yeah. He left this morning and they’re sailing this afternoon. None too soon for me,’ he said bitterly. ‘Mum’s laid up today. Dad caught a skinful last night and took it out on her.’

Stan’s face was tight and care-worn, and I felt sad that he was forced to be old beyond his years. He pushed the little wagon back and forth on the footpath. ‘Hey, Meg,’ he said. ‘Do you think they’ll hang Mr Luca? When they catch him, I mean.’

The change of subject flustered me.

‘I don’t know, Stan. It looks bad for him,’ I said. ‘Although I don’t think he killed Doreen.’

‘I’m sure he didn’t.’

‘What? What do you know about it, Stan?’

He flicked me a glance and kicked his foot against the wagon so that the wood rattled. He seemed terribly troubled.

‘What is it, Stan?’

‘What if you know something, something about a crime? Do you have to tell?’ he asked.

‘No, you don’t have to. But if it means that a murderer gets away free, it wouldn’t be a good thing to do.’

‘That’s what I say. But he’s scared.’

‘Who’s scared?’

Stan shook his head and looked down at the cart. ‘I don’t know what to do, Meg. He’s really scared. He should just tell the police what he knows, but he won’t.’ His expression was suddenly fearful. ‘I think Dad’s been blabbing. He came home really drunk last night.’

I was confused. ‘Is it your dad who’s scared?’ I asked.

‘No, not him.’ Stan shook his head again, emphatically. ‘Maybe we should tell you about it. Sometimes I think my head’ll explode with worry.’

‘Stan, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’d be happy to listen if you need to talk.’

He closed his eyes for a moment, then said, ‘I’ll see if I can get him to talk to you. I can’t tell you anything, he made me swear. But he hasn’t told me everything. He’s really scared.’

It was my turn to shake my head. ‘Who are you talking about?’

‘Jimmy.’

Twenty-three

I waited at home all Saturday afternoon to see if Stan would bring his brother Jimmy to see me, but they didn’t come.

On Sunday morning, when Ma and Joan were at church, I walked over to the McLean house. Marie came to the door, a hand raised to her face. She was trying unsuccessfully to hide the bruises her husband had left there. Anger washed through me like bile. Anger at Cec McLean and Chad Buchowski and all the cowardly men who used their strength to hurt women.

‘G’day, Meg,’ she said softly. Her lip was cut, too, and she seemed embarrassed.

‘I was wondering if I could see Stan and Jimmy.’

‘They’ve gone to the beach. Left early this morning. They took their lunch and I don’t expect them home before tea.’

‘Would you ask them to come and see me when they get back?’

I walked home slowly with a deep feeling of unease. I had to assume Jimmy knew something about Doreen Luca’s murder. He had been very strange when I saw him some days after we found Doreen, and now I remembered how worried he had been about Frank being blamed. I had reported that to Tom, who hadn’t seemed all that interested, and then I’d forgotten all about it. He’d also asked me about Tom, I remembered. Could that have had something to do with his father’s odd remarks about Tom?

Pushing open the front door, I checked on the lunch – baked rabbit again – and walked to my room. I sat on the bed and tried to think it all through. Jimmy was scared of someone, and Stan was worried that their father had been ‘blabbing’. I remembered that Cec had told me ‘someone’ may have overheard something in the bush that night. It was now clear that he was talking about Jimmy. But how could Jimmy have overheard anything?

And then it hit me. The rabbits! Stan and Jimmy trapped rabbits to sell. Jimmy could have been in the bush that night, on his way home from trapping rabbits. Maybe he saw or heard something then. He was so adamant that it wasn’t Frank Luca who killed Doreen. But why had he asked me about Tom?

I wished I knew what Cec had wanted to tell Tom. What had Jimmy heard? Had Doreen met Tom the night she was killed? His alibi wasn’t foolproof. He could have met her in the air raid shelter. Stan had said that Cec came home drunk on Friday night. Had someone paid him off? Surely it wasn’t Tom. But Tom had said himself that I didn’t really know him at all. How could I be sure about anything? Anyone?

My head felt like it was spinning. I got off my bed and went to set the table for lunch. There was nothing I could do but wait till I saw Jimmy. I’d get him to talk, somehow, no matter how reluctant he was.

After tea I was reading in my bedroom when I heard the front doorbell. I jumped up and ran to answer the door, thinking it was Stan and Jimmy, but Don Dudley was standing there.

‘Good evening, Meg.’ He sounded timid. ‘I was wondering if I could see your mother.’

Don had called on Ma before. They talked easily together and she liked him very much. She said he was lonely and he had told her she reminded him of his own mother. They went into the lounge room and closed the door.

I went back to my novel – The Rainbow, by D.H. Lawrence, as recommended by Tom – and forgot about the time. A knock on my bedroom door dragged me from Gudrun Brangwen’s hectic emotional life and it was a shock to see that it was dark outside. Ma was at the door and she looked worried.

‘What’s the matter? Is it Jimmy?’

‘Jimmy? Whatever has Jimmy to do with anything?’ she said, confused. ‘No, it’s Lieutenant Dudley. He’s very upset. I think you should hear what he has to say, Meg.’

‘What does he have to say?’

‘It’s about Doreen.’

Don was sitting on the couch, his head resting in his hands. He seemed dishevelled and unhappy. When he looked up it was clear he had been crying.

‘Hullo, Don,’ I said gently.

He flicked a glance towards my mother. She gave him an encouraging smile. ‘I really do think you should tell her about it, Donald.’

It was her firm but kind voice, the one that had always convinced me to confess to some misdemeanour or other when I was a girl. She nodded towards one of the armchairs and I sat down. Don stared at the floor for a good minute, before nodding briefly and drawing in a deep shaky breath.

‘I saw her that night. The night she was killed. On the bush path. Doreen. I saw her with Chad.’ Something blazed in his eyes for a second. ‘I didn’t like Doreen. I thought she was immoral. I still think she was immoral. But that does not excuse what I did.’

He looked down at his hands, which were gripped tightly together.

‘She was kissing Chad. He . . . he was touching her. I thought it was wrong for her, a married woman, to be kissing him, a married man, in such a fashion. When Chad left her, I waited for her down the path and I told her so. She just laughed at me. She was drunk.’

His mouth was trembling and I was worried he would start to cry again. But he controlled himself and continued.

‘She said some dreadful things about me and some dreadful things about Chad. I became very angry.’ He took in a shuddering breath and shut his eyes for a moment, then continued, ‘I hit her. I have never in my life hit a woman before. Never. Please believe me.’ His gaze returned to my mother, who nodded at him. She looked sympathetic and he smiled at her wanly.

‘I’m not that sort of man. I hate violence – violence against women especially.’ His voice trembled. ‘I’m becoming the sort of man I despise.’

Now he was looking at me, his eyes wide and frantic.

‘I hit her with the steel frame of the butterfly net I was carrying. I hit her hard, I was so angry.’

He looked down at his hands again and stopped talking.

‘What happened, Don?’ My voice was gentle. My heart, however, was racing.

‘She fell to the ground. I was horrified. I checked on her, of course. She was breathing, but she was moaning. I told her I’d go for help and I made her as comfortable as I could. I put my jacket under her head and then ran towards the camp. Chad was on the path, talking to one of the men, and I told him. He said I should go back to the officers’ quarters and not tell anyone else, and he’d see that she was all right.’

‘And?’

‘I went back with him, of course. We helped Doreen to her feet and she seemed to be fine. I wanted to see her home safely – she was still drunk – but she didn’t want that. She was very angry with me. Threatened to tell what I had done. Chad calmed her down. I think he may have offered her money, but I couldn’t hear and I’ve never asked him about it.’

‘What happened then?’

‘She left us and walked down the path towards Winthrop Avenue. I picked up my jacket and Chad and I walked back to the officers’ quarters together.’

‘Don, I think you should tell the police. She didn’t die from a blow to the head, but it will give them the answer to a piece of the puzzle about the night she died.’

‘You are right, of course. It is the correct thing to do. But what if they ask me about what she said that night?’

I frowned at him. ‘What did she say?’

He looked stubborn. ‘It was mainly about Chad. It was lies. I’m sure it was lies.’

‘Did you tell Chad what she’d said? When you first met him on the path?’

‘Yes, and he was mad as hell. He said she was lying, trying to make trouble for him because he’d turned her down. But when I told him she was hurt, he said we had to look after her. He’s a good man.’

Was he trying to convince me, or himself?

‘Wait a minute, Don. You said Chad had been all over Doreen and that was what made you angry.’

‘He admitted losing control of himself, because she tempted him and he was missing his wife. But he wouldn’t go home with her, as she wanted him to.’

I was sceptical. ‘So what did she say about Chad?’

He held his mouth in a tight frown and looked mutinous. I looked at Ma.

‘Donald dear,’ she said quietly, ‘perhaps it would be best to tell us everything and then we can advise you what to do. You know how fond I am of Chad.’

His face contorted, as if he was in pain. ‘She said Chad had a great many girlfriends and that he was deeply involved in the black market for illegal drugs. And that was why they searched his room that day.’

It sounded as if Doreen was letting fly with the truth that night.

‘It was a lie. They found nothing when they searched his room. Only, today . . .’

He was staring at the floor now, and his hands were clenched together.

‘What, Don?’ I asked.

He didn’t reply for some time, but his knuckles became white.

‘This afternoon I had a headache and I looked in Chad’s bag to see if he had any aspirin,’ he said slowly. ‘I found a great many Methedrine tablets. We’re not on patrol until next weekend, so he has no reason to have so many pills. I need to think about it all. Think about what to do.’

He raised his head and glared at me defiantly. ‘You don’t like Chad any more, do you? But he’s a true hero, you know. Ask anyone at the base. He saved six injured men at Buna. He flew into the middle of the battle and landed by the light of burning palm trees. The enemy were so close, his crew could hear them yelling to each other. He stayed more than eight hours while each of those men was brought out of the jungle, and flew them home to safety. He’s the bravest pilot at the base and I’ll not be a part of anything that blackens his name.’

He glanced back at Ma. ‘I don’t see what good it would do to go to the police. They know it was her husband who killed Doreen. It would just raise unwarranted suspicion against Chad. There may be a good reason for him to have so many pills.’

He was adamant. He thanked me for listening to him, and I went back to my room. Ma spent some more time with him, talking to him, maybe praying with him. When he left she came to my room.

‘The poor man can’t sleep,’ she said. ‘He’s not thinking straight and he’s terribly worried about Chad.’

‘Men like Don shouldn’t be in this war. I think he’s emotionally unsuited.’

Ma sighed. ‘I think most people are emotionally unsuited to war. We didn’t start it, Meg. But it has to be won, or we’ll all be talking Japanese.’

I gave her a small smile. ‘Oh, we’ll win. It’s the cost of winning that worries me.’

I was awake for much of the night, worrying about what Don had said. If I could believe Don, and I had to admit to myself that I did, then it seemed as if neither Chad nor Don had stabbed Doreen. What did Jimmy McLean know about it all?

Twenty-four

I overslept the following morning and didn’t have any time to call in at the McLean house before work if I was to get there before Miss Filmer. She frowned on us using the office telephone for personal calls and I wanted to ring Tom. On the trolleybus into town I watched the river and wondered again about what Jimmy knew. Why was he so scared?

A very efficient-sounding young woman answered the phone when I was put through to the number Tom had given me. I gave my name and asked to speak to Captain Lagrange.

‘This is a message service. If you leave your name and contact details, I will ensure Captain Lagrange is informed.’

‘Could you tell Captain Lagrange that Meg Eaton needs to speak to him today, please? Tell him it’s about what we found in early January.’

Miss Efficiency sounded snooty and rather dismissive, and as I hung up I wondered how many women telephoned her asking for Tom.

It had become very hot again, as it often did in early March, and by lunchtime the office was stifling. I felt I needed some fresh air, so I headed out to sit in the gardens.

I pushed open the door and gasped as I came face to face with Tom. He was slouched against the wall, his muscles slumped and his face grey and lined with fatigue. His eyes seemed unfocused, somehow empty. When I said his name he shook his head, as if he didn’t know who I was. His eyelids drifted shut and he started to slide slowly down the wall. I put a hand on each of his shoulders and shook him.

‘Tom! Tom, what is it?’ I shook his shoulders again. ‘Tom, wake up. What is it?’

He moved his head aimlessly, screwing up his closed eyes as he did so.

‘Meg,’ he said, slurring the word like a drunkard, ‘there’s something wrong.’

‘I can see that. What is it? Are you drunk? Drugged? What?’

‘Drugged, I think.’

He opened his eyes but he didn’t seem to see me. His speech was slow, as if he had to think about each word very carefully.

‘Got your message. Took the stuff twelve-thirty. Always take the stuff twelve-thirty. Made me too sleepy. Maybe sedatives, not . . .’

His voice drifted away and he slumped against me, falling down my body and landing on the ground in a sitting position by my knees. I knelt beside him.

‘I feel very sleepy,’ he mumbled. ‘You wanted see me. I wanted see my Meg. Don’t hate me, Meg.’

The grass was damp and my knees were cold. There would be a stain on my dress. I turned Tom’s head to look into his eyes. They were very dark and it was hard to make out the pupils, but they seemed to be much larger than usual.

‘He’s intoxicated,’ said a female voice, loud and disapproving. ‘I should call the Military Police. An officer too.’

She was plump, dressed in purple and had a prissy little mouth.

‘You keep out of it, you nasty busybody.’ My voice was a loud hiss. ‘He’s ill. You just go away and mind your own business.’

Prissy mouth left with a sniff.

I was still holding on to Tom’s shoulders, keeping him steady, and I felt his body convulse in a laugh. ‘My Meg,’ he rasped. ‘A tigress when roused.’ He coughed a little.

‘Be quiet,’ I said. ‘I don’t belong to you.’

Gradually Tom seemed to regain a degree of control over his body. He stretched his neck and sat a bit more upright.

‘How are you feeling?’ I asked.

‘Awful. My hand hurts like blazes. I think someone swapped my pain pills for strong sedatives.’ He was still speaking far too slowly. ‘Question is, who?’

‘You need to go to hospital.’

He shook his head and I felt his whole body move as he did so. His shoulders were very bony under my hands. He was far too thin. What reserves would he have to fight this?

‘No, no hospital. I need to think,’ he said in a voice that was painfully raw. ‘Why would someone want to sedate me? There wasn’t enough to kill me, or I’d not have come out of it so easily. Though . . . maybe sedatives don’t work very well on me now.’

He shifted his position, and I allowed him to twist around so that he was leaning against me. He was shaking his head slowly, when I felt his body flinch.

‘Meg.’ His voice was suddenly sharp. ‘I need to be seen. By as many people as possible.’ He coughed again. ‘What’s the time?’

I checked my wristwatch. ‘It’s twenty past one. You’re sure you didn’t take the wrong pills by mistake?’

‘No. I don’t have any sedatives. Meg, I think something is going to happen. I think I’m not supposed to have an alibi.’

‘What will we do? How can we stop it?’

‘We can’t. I may be wrong, anyway. It may just be a practical joke, but I can’t take the risk.’ He sounded sharper now, more alert, although his eyes were still slightly unfocused and he looked tired.

‘Walk with me around to the front of the building,’ he said. ‘We’ll go in through the front door. Speak to the doorman, to the receptionist, to anyone you know. Make sure they see me. I need an alibi for – I don’t know, at least two hours? I can’t think. How long would sedatives put me out for, do you think?’

I thought about it. ‘If you took the pills at twelve-thirty, and they were supposed to make you sleep, then I’d say five hours at least. Stay with me until five o’clock. I’ll think of something to tell the girls at work. Then I’ll get you home. And shall I call Phyllis?’

‘She’s visiting friends in Pemberton. She was picked up early this morning. Whoever did this presumably knew that, too. God, Meg. I have to think, and my brain feels like mush. How did they swap the pills? How did they know I’d be at Phyllis’s? What else?’

I helped him to his feet. He was very shaky, but managed to stand. He took my arm and leaned on me heavily as we walked around the building. When we reached the front doors, I waved at the doorman. We walked together across the vestibule and I waved at the curly-haired receptionist. Negotiating the stairs with a half-comatose man clinging to me was a challenge and my shoulders were aching with his weight by the time we got to the Crown Law office. I pushed open the door and saw Miss Filmer, knitting at her desk.

‘Hullo,’ I said. ‘Have you met Captain Lagrange? Tom, this is Miss Mavis Filmer. Sit down here, and I’ll get you some water.’ I lowered him into a chair near the wall, opposite my desk.

I flicked Miss Filmer a glance. ‘Captain Lagrange isn’t feeling well, so I’m letting him sit here for a while. I want to keep an eye on him until he feels better.’

‘I’m not so bad, but Meg’s worried because I’m rather wobbly on my feet,’ Tom said. ‘She’s worried people will think I’m drunk. I’m not.’

Miss Filmer was looking at him warily, but by the time I returned with the water they were like old friends and he was calling her Mavis.

When Annie arrived back from lunch she was clearly surprised to see Tom.

‘I’m not feeling so good,’ he said to her. ‘Meg and Mavis are keeping an eye on me.’

Tom still looked pale and shaky, but his eyes were brighter than they had been in the garden. Annie was obviously intrigued.

‘Ask Annie what her real name is,’ I said to Tom.

‘Annie, what’s your real name?’ he asked obediently.

‘It’s Anzac,’ she said, glaring at me and smiling at Tom.

‘Anzac? Anzac Eccles?’ His face was relatively sober, but there was a mischievous light in his eyes. For the first time since I had met him that afternoon, I felt reasonably happy.

Annie said, rather tartly, ‘I was born on 11 November 1918. My parents were tossing up between calling me Anzac or Armistice.’

‘Anzac was definitely the better choice,’ said Tom. He attempted a smile. ‘I grew up next to a girl called Dardanelles Dawson.’

Annie’s voice was bitter. ‘If I have a daughter I’m calling her Jane, or Margaret, or something very ordinary. I wonder if there’ll be kids called Kokoda or Tobruk when this war’s over?’

Tom spent the afternoon sitting on the chair near my desk, his head leaning against the wall. Though he became progressively more alert, as the hours passed his condition worsened. There were dark circles under his eyes and his face was pinched with pain. I was worried about his injured hand, which he was holding tucked against his body. He had said it hurt dreadfully, I remembered.

When Miss Filmer whispered to me that he needed to see a doctor and I should take him to the hospital, Tom overheard and shook his head violently.

By the time Mr Goodley arrived at four o’clock, whistling cheerily because the jury had convicted, Tom was bent over in his chair, his whole body shaking and his eyes streaming. Mr Goodley took one look at him and told me to get him into his office. That was easier said than done, and in the end Mr Goodley had to help me get him there.

‘I think he ate something that disagreed with him,’ I said. ‘I’ll take him home as soon as I finish work.’

‘He needs his medication, girl.’ Mr Goodley’s expression was grim. Turning to Tom, he said, ‘You don’t want a hospital?’

Tom shook his head.

Mr Goodley sighed and said, ‘Tom, your father is one of my oldest friends. Obviously I can’t advise you . . . Let me send you both home in my car. Mr Matsen can drive you. You were badly wounded, weren’t you?’

Tom nodded. He was shaking. Mr Goodley watched him intently, before shaking his head.

‘It’s a shame,’ he said. ‘I hope you can beat it. Try to beat it, Tom. It’s a bad master. It’ll bring you down if you don’t.’

Tom’s eyes and nose were streaming. He pulled out a handkerchief and shakily wiped his face. ‘I will,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I am trying.’

I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about.

The conveyancing clerk, Mr Matsen, was a nervy man in his mid-forties. He had faded blond hair and carried weight around his middle, like a semi-inflated tyre. He was a careful driver, and appeared to dislike my exhortations to ‘Drive faster, for heaven’s sake, can’t you see he’s ill.’

By the time we arrived at his building in Claremont, Tom was moaning softly and his body was racked with almost constant shivering. He leaned on me heavily as we made our way to the front door. I propped him against the wall while I let us in with his key and had him lean on me again as we went into the foyer.

‘First-floor flat,’ he muttered.

Slowly we made our way up the stairs. I opened the door to his flat and we entered the hallway. He gestured towards his bedroom and I assisted him to the bed, where he sat, head bowed, exhausted and shivering.

‘Where are your painkillers? Can you have them on an empty stomach?’ I was almost frantic with worry for him.

He shook his head aimlessly. Beads of sweat were running down his forehead.

‘Bathroom . . . morphine syrettes. Bring me a box.’

I practically ran out of the room. The bathroom cabinet was filled with tubes of pills – morphine sulphate and diacetyl morphine, and a number of pale pink boxes labelled Solution of Morphine Tartrate, 5 syrettes. On the box was written: WARNING: May be habit forming. I grabbed a box and returned to Tom. His hand was shaking so much that I had to open the box for him. Five slim yellow boxes were inside, and I opened one and pulled out a small tube with a hypodermic needle attached. I handed it to him, although his hand was shaking so badly that he could hardly hold it. I put the pink box with the other syrettes next to him on the bed.

‘Just leave, Meg. I can do this.’ He wouldn’t look at me.

‘I’ll make something to eat. You need to eat. We both do.’

He shook his head. I went to find the kitchen.

There was an electric refrigerator. This impressed me because we only had an icebox at home. In the refrigerator were eggs and milk. That impressed me too, because eggs were rationed and hard to get. Stale bread was in the bread-box. I found salt and searched the cupboards for a bowl and a frying pan. Then I scrambled the eggs and made toast. I was so hungry I ate my eggs standing in the kitchen while I prepared a plate for Tom. It was amazing how much better I felt once I’d had some food.

While his eggs were cooking I had a quick look around the flat. There were a lot of bookshelves, all of them overflowing. Some very good modern paintings were hanging on the rather stark white walls and they enlivened the room. Brightly coloured Turkish rugs offset the dark furniture, and there was a wonderful view of Freshwater Bay through the windows at the far side of the room. In a small room to the side he had set up gymnasium equipment.

When I entered his bedroom with the tray of food, Tom was half lying on the bed with his eyes closed and his arms outstretched, two empty syrettes beside him. I couldn’t see the others. He was humming ‘Green Eyes’, the Tommy Dorsey hit. Much of the tension had left his face, although his scar was starkly red against his white cheek. He opened his eyes when I came in, but didn’t move. He started to sing softly.

‘I’ve got scrambled eggs.’ My voice was brisk.

He raised his head to look at me. His eyes seemed a little out of focus. There was a silly smile on his face and he continued singing.

‘Come on, Tom, you need to eat.’

Slowly, he pulled himself up to sit at the side of the bed. I handed him the plate and watched while he listlessly forked the scrambled eggs into his mouth. When he’d finished I thought he looked a lot better. At least there was colour in his face and the scar wasn’t so livid. I took the plate and he lay down again, humming softly. After a while he was silent and I could see he was asleep.

I took the dishes away and washed up. Then I inspected his library. His taste was eclectic, which was no surprise. I read for a couple of hours or so, before going back to check on him. It was close to eight-thirty and the room was in semi-darkness. He didn’t seem to have moved, but he turned his head to look at me. His jaunty mood had passed. He looked tired and desperately unhappy.

‘Now you’ve seen the worst of me,’ he said.

‘Your worst is not so bad.’

‘I tell myself I’ll kick this stuff once the pain is under control, once my hand is better.’

‘You will.’

‘Maybe.’

His face was stained with sweat.

‘Would a warm bath help? I could run one for you.’

‘You’re not my nurse, for God’s sake. Go home, Meg.’

‘I’ll run you a bath and then I’ll go. Once you’re in bed.’

He stared at me fiercely. ‘You are the damnedest woman. Leave me alone. I don’t need your help. Leave me some dignity, won’t you.’

‘I’ll run you a bath.’

As he was bathing I went into the lounge room again. He had an enormous number of poetry books. I was engrossed in some old favourites when he called out to me.

‘I’ve finished the damn bath. Could you please go home now?’

‘I’m coming in, so you might like to put on some pyjamas,’ I shouted back.

Tom was in bed, wearing blue striped pyjamas. For some reason, that made me want to cry, perhaps because he looked so young, with his hair wet and his face scrubbed, dressed in his pyjamas. He seemed terribly tired, as if he could barely keep his eyes open.

‘Thank you, Meg. Now go home, please.’

‘Do you need anything else?’

‘No. I just want to go to sleep and forget all about today.’

‘I could read to you, until you fell asleep.’

He didn’t answer immediately. Then he said, in a curious light tone, ‘What’s the book?’

‘Nineteenth-century poetry. I’ve been reading Peter’s book, and you were right, Robert Browning is one of my favourites.’

He gave a mirthless sort of laugh. ‘I’m more a Coleridge man now, obviously.’ Holding my gaze he said, with weary bravado: ‘He was an opium addict, too, of course.’

His mouth twisted self-mockingly and he closed his eyes.

At last he looked at me again. ‘If you must stay, and knowing you, you won’t leave until you’re sure that I’m asleep, then read me some Browning. Only not “Two in the Campagna” or “In a Gondola”.’

‘What about “Love among the Ruins” ’

There was a short laugh. ‘Why not? A good choice, in the circumstances.’

I picked up the book, flicked through, found the poem and began.

Tom smiled then, as if he really meant it. He lay back on his pillow and was asleep before the end of the poem.

Twenty-five

Tom was addicted to morphine. That shouldn’t have been such a surprise because I now realised that the signs had been there all along. Mr Goodley had known it immediately. On the bus home to Megalong Street I wondered how often he used the syrettes and pills and what a normal dose was. How many syrettes had he used today? I knew little about it. Now I understood Betty’s cryptic comments. Doreen had been getting morphine for him, perhaps stealing it from the hospital. Mr Goodley had said she’d been in trouble for pilfering.

It wasn’t Tom’s fault; even Mr Goodley could see that. Somehow I had to make Tom realise that this wasn’t going to drive me away.

I let myself into the house quietly, but Ma was waiting up for me. She often did that.

‘Meg, it’s very late, I was getting worried.’

‘I’m sorry, Mum. You did get the message from the Phoenixes, didn’t you? I asked them to tell you we had a bit of an emergency. I’m really tired, can I tell you about it in the morning?’

‘Yes, I did get the message and of course you can. But there’s been a bit of an emergency here, too. Marie McLean was over a little while ago, asking for you. Her Jimmy hadn’t come home and she wanted to know if you knew anything. She said you’d been around there on Sunday asking for him. What was that about, Meg? Do you have any idea where he is?’

Bed was going to have to wait. Ma put the kettle on while I went around to the McLeans’ to see if they were still up. The lights were on and Marie raced to the door the moment I knocked. She was in a terrible state. Jimmy still wasn’t home; he hadn’t been seen since lunchtime. I explained that I had no idea where he could be.

‘I wouldn’t normally be too concerned, because Jimmy and Stan are very independent,’ she said. ‘But Stan doesn’t know where Jimmy is either, and that is the really worrying thing. They’re usually inseparable.’ She looked anxiously at Stan, who was standing beside her in the doorway. ‘I’ll call the police tomorrow, if he’s not back in the morning.’ There was a quick look at me. ‘Do you think that’s the right thing to do?’

I said that it was her decision to make, but I’d definitely call the police if he wasn’t back by tomorrow.

Tom had said he thought something might happen while he was drugged. Maybe that something was connected to Jimmy’s disappearance. I wondered if I should say anything about what Stan had told me, but when I glanced at him he shook his head. Unsure if it was the right thing to do, I told Marie to let me know if I could help in any way, and I left the house. Stan caught up with me at the gate.

‘Meg,’ he said urgently, ‘don’t let on about Jimmy and Doreen. Not yet. I promised him.’ He looked close to tears.

‘But Stan, any promise you made to Jimmy doesn’t count if he could be in danger. You’ve got to tell the police. Tell them everything you know.’

He bit his bottom lip anxiously. ‘I’ll tell them if he’s not back tomorrow. He might be hiding out for a dare or something.’ But he didn’t look as if he believed that.

As I made my way to the bus stop the next morning, my neighbours were huddled together in small groups, talking together and looking concerned. Mrs Phoenix was standing beside her gate, watching the street fearfully.

‘Oh, Meg,’ she said in a teary voice, ‘Jimmy McLean is still missing. He didn’t come home last night and Marie is beside herself with worry.’

‘Did she call the police?’

‘Yes, this morning. They’ve already started a search. Young Stan is helping. Oh, Meg, they’re going to drag Dyson’s Swamp.’

That was what the old-timers called Shenton Park Lake. I thought of how foul and stinking the lake became by the end of summer, and I shuddered.

As soon as I arrived at work I called the telephone number I had for Tom and left a message with the snooty receptionist. He telephoned me at nine-thirty, sounding distant and businesslike. When I said that I needed to see him, he asked me why.

Miss Filmer and Annie had arrived, so I whispered, ‘Jimmy McLean is missing. He’s Cec McLean’s son. He was last seen at lunchtime yesterday. I think he knows something about Doreen.’

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

‘Tom, did you hear me?’

‘Yes, I heard.’ His tone was brusque. I heard him sigh. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t meet you today. There’s something big going on here. I’ll try to telephone you later, or I’ll send a message tomorrow.’

I hung up. My palms were moist and I felt nauseous. He obviously did not want to meet me. I sat, staring at nothing, until Annie asked me what was the matter.

‘I’m an idiot.’

She smiled. ‘Captain Cute?’

‘If he’s Captain Cute, I’m Major Disaster.’

‘Is he feeling better today?’

‘Yes. It was a stomach wog. He’ll be fine.’

Tom didn’t telephone. When I left work, the headline of the afternoon paper, the Daily News, gave me the story as I waited for my bus: NEDLANDS BOY MISSING. I spent the journey home in a fog of misery.

They had dragged the lake but found nothing, Mrs Phoenix informed me as I met her, standing outside her gate that evening.

Her pale eyes were filled with tears. ‘Where can he be, Meg? Do you think someone stabbed him like they did Doreen? Then hid his poor little body? Do you think there’s a maniac loose?’

I told her, firmly, that I did not think it was a maniac and it was likely that Jimmy had run off as a lark. I didn’t believe it, though.

The following morning Jimmy was still missing and I was early into work, hoping that Tom would telephone me there. A letter arrived for me instead, asking me to meet him outside the front of the Supreme Court building at five o’clock. It was a long day. Whenever I couldn’t distract myself with work I thought of Jimmy McLean as I had last seen him, pale and drawn and obviously frightened. Why hadn’t I realised that something was really wrong? I had been so bound up in my own concerns that I had failed to notice what was going on in my street.

When I met him Tom looked grim, but otherwise seemed no worse for what had happened two days before. I took one look at him and began to cry, deep gulping sobs that racked my body. He led me to a nearby bench under a tree in Stirling Gardens and I collapsed onto it, still weeping, unable to stop. Tom lit a cigarette and waited until I was calm.

‘Tell me what you know about all this,’ he said.

The gardens were practically empty, apart from a few workers on their way home. The heat of the day lingered in the still air. I could hear birds in the trees, singing above our heads. A cicada’s dry rhythmic chirp came from somewhere nearby. Life was getting on around us. I blew my nose.

‘I don’t know much,’ I said, mopping at my face with my handkerchief and uncomfortably aware that I must look red-eyed and blotchy. ‘On Saturday, Stan McLean told me that Jimmy knew something about Doreen’s death. Only Jimmy was really scared and wouldn’t let him talk about it. Jimmy’s only fourteen – oh, Tom, he’s such a nice boy.’ Choking back tears, I went on. ‘Stan also said his father might have been blabbing. Did you meet Cec on Friday night? Did you pay him?’

‘I met Cec McLean on Thursday. He told me that someone had overheard Doreen asking an American for something that she wanted to get for me. Because my name was mentioned, he assumed that I’d pay to keep it out of the ears of the police.’

‘And you did pay him.’ My voice was accusatory. ‘He came home drunk on Friday night. He beat his wife that night, you know. Why did you pay him anything?’

Anger flared in Tom’s face and his voice was harsh. ‘I didn’t pay him a thing. If he got paid it was by someone else.’

‘Oh.’ I felt ashamed for having doubted him. ‘Who paid him then?’

‘How the hell should I know, Meg? I bought him a couple of beers on Thursday night, that’s all. I won’t be blackmailed.’

‘What did Doreen want to get for you? Morphine?’

He flinched. ‘Apparently she was non-specific,’ he said in a cool voice. ‘I told McLean I didn’t care if he told the police. He had nothing. The information was not worth worrying about.’

‘So why is Jimmy missing?’ I was nearly shouting. I took a deep breath and spoke more softly. ‘If he didn’t know anything worthwhile, then why is he missing?’

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ he said, in his usual infuriatingly calm manner. He paused for a moment. ‘Actually, I do have some ideas, but I need more information.’

‘What information?’

‘The autopsy report, for one thing. Munsie wouldn’t let me look at it.’

I almost smiled. ‘I have a copy of the autopsy report. And copies of most of the statements taken by the police. And I spoke to Frank Luca a couple of weeks ago. I’m pretty sure he didn’t kill Doreen.’

Tom’s expression seemed to indicate admiration and anxiety in equal parts. ‘How did you get hold of all that? And speak to Luca? He’s still on the run, isn’t he?’

I gave him a cool look in return. ‘I just did,’ I said, feeling smug. Then I smiled shakily. ‘It’s all at home. Come with me and we can go through it.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘If I turn up with you looking like that, your mother will send me away with a flea in my ear.’

I was puzzled, then remembered I’d been crying. I put my hand up to my face. ‘Do I look awful?’

‘You look beautiful. But you look like you’ve been crying.’

Embarrassed, I turned towards the Supreme Court building. ‘I’ll get Marty to let me in to the ladies’ room,’ I said. ‘He’s the nightwatchman.’

Marty let me back in and the mirror in the ladies’ room revealed that I did look awful: my powder had run in tracks down my face, my eyes were red and puffy and my lipstick was nonexistent. After repairing the damage as well as I could, I joined Tom outside. He was still sitting on the bench and had lit another cigarette.

‘What time did you leave me on Monday night?’ he asked. He was staring at a spot on the grass, a few yards away from where he was sitting.

‘Nine o’clock or so.’ I kept my voice light and sat beside him. ‘There’s something else. Don Dudley came to our house with an interesting story on Sunday night.’

This got his attention. ‘What was that?’

‘He’s the one who hit Doreen on the head. He feels terrible about it. He got angry when he saw her kissing Chad on the bush path that leads from the base to Winthrop Avenue. She lost consciousness when he hit her and he went and got Chad. They helped her up and Chad promised her money if she’d forget about it. Then he and Chad went back to the base and she walked away down the path.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

‘You were hardly in a state to take it in on Monday.’

His face twitched, but he said nothing. Then he sighed and stood up. ‘Come on then, I’ll take you home. I want to see what Jimmy’s brother has to say about all this.’

Twenty-six

We pulled up outside my house in Tom’s car, and walked across to the McLeans’ to see if Stan was available to see us. Marie said he was out searching for Jimmy. She looked exhausted and the yellowing bruises stood out on her pale face. Tom said he’d call in later on the off-chance that Stan was home, or see him tomorrow. As we were walking down the path Tom pulled his right hand into a fist.

‘The husband gave her those bruises?’ His voice was low and angry.

I nodded. ‘He’s a horrible man. Poor Marie.’

Tom was holding his lips very tightly. When I saw the look in his eyes I remembered how he had dealt with Harvey and thought it was lucky for Cec that he was away at sea.

Ma was surprised to see Tom, but she gave him a warm welcome and invited him to stay to dinner. Joan and Wally were out somewhere, so it was only the three of us.

‘I like Tom very much,’ Ma said to me when we were in the kitchen serving up. ‘But he’s still an engaged man, Meg. Please try to remember that.’

After we’d eaten I asked Ma if Tom and I could use the dining room for a project we were working on together. Her look was quizzical but she said nothing. I went to my room to fetch my notes. I also got a blank notebook for Tom.

‘Meg, why are you so sure that Frank didn’t kill Doreen?’ Tom asked as I handed him the notebook.

I thought about how I should reply, and said as calmly as I could, ‘It was in his manner, in the way he talked about her. I believed him.’

He was watching me. There was an odd expression on his face, somewhere between indulgent and exasperated. I had missed his eyes over the past few weeks, but I felt the usual sense of being drawn into them.

‘You also think Chad Buchowski is a nice man. We can all be wrong about people. People lie all the time. They tell half-truths and they reinvent history in their heads.’

It was a fair point. Mr Goodley often said the same thing. But I recalled how Frank Luca had looked as he described what happened that night. I was sure that he had told me the truth, as far as he could remember it.

‘I was wrong about Chad.’ I blurted out the words. When Tom raised an eyebrow I felt myself blushing and went on hurriedly. ‘Look, Tom, I questioned Frank as well as I could. He was scared and maybe he was lying about some things, but I don’t think that he killed her. And I don’t think he knows who did, either.’ I paused. ‘Do you really believe that everybody lies? Do you lie? Have you lied to me?’

He looked over towards the window. It was covered with the blackout curtain.

‘You lied to me about Doreen, didn’t you? About the crush she had on you. That’s what you argued about on the night before she died.’

His voice was dangerously calm. ‘Crush. I suppose it is crushing to your spirit to want someone who doesn’t want you. How did you know about that?’

‘Betty Barwon overheard.’

‘I wonder how many people she’s told,’ he said sourly. ‘I didn’t know Doreen felt that way about me until that night. I shouldn’t have let it happen. I had no idea that I could still be an object of desire.’

‘Idiot. That’s lying to yourself.’

He was no longer calm. ‘Let it go, Meg.’

I flinched at his tone, but continued. ‘Betty told me Doreen offered to get you anything you wanted,’ I said. ‘From what Jimmy overheard, it seems as if that was what she was trying to do. Perhaps she met up with someone in the air raid shelter to get something for you, or to find out something for you. To make you like her again.’

‘I didn’t stop liking her.’

‘You were horrible to her.’

‘And why do you assume that what Betty Barwon told you is the truth? I was not horrible to her.’

He seemed to be closely observing the table. ‘I suppose Betty also told you what Doreen said to me.’

‘Yes. But she said you didn’t believe Doreen. I don’t believe it either, not about Phyllis. Betty said Doreen would lie to get what she wanted.’

‘I did believe Doreen. That’s why I was so angry.’

‘Then you are an idiot. I don’t like Phyllis, but . . . Well, I think that she loves you. I can’t see her with Chad Buchowski under any circumstances.’

‘I can. She admitted it to me.’

I felt as if the air had been sucked out of my lungs. I couldn’t look at him, so I stared at my hands, gripped together in my lap.

‘She told me last week. We were arguing.’ I wondered what they had been arguing about and glanced up to find him watching me. ‘It wasn’t about you. Phyll wants to get married right away, but I want to wait until the end of the war. It’s a sore point.’

‘Tom, even if she did go with –’

‘Leave it, Meg.’ He shook his head, as if puzzled. ‘Why is it I always end up telling you things I never mean to?’

Sitting up straighter, he picked up the pencil. His voice was brisk and businesslike. ‘Now, what have you got for me about this murder?’

I told him in detail everything Frank had told me, and handed my file to him. He read it all carefully and made some notes of his own. When he had finished, he sat back with a thoughtful expression.

‘Well, it’s clearer now. Transcribing the post-mortem report was inspired work.’

I flushed a little. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think Doreen might have been stabbed in the bushland before twelve-thirty.’

‘But she was stabbed in the heart, Tom. And seen walking alone across Winthrop Avenue. How could she have done that if she’d been stabbed in the heart? And anyway, it says that she died in the shelter, because of –’ I pulled the notes towards me and read, ‘ “The post-mortem pooling of blood indicates that death occurred in situ.” See?’

He drew a sharp line under some of the notes he had made on the pad. ‘I know that. But just because she died in the shelter doesn’t mean she was stabbed there. I’ve been swotting up on stab wounds. I feel a responsibility towards Doreen. She helped me, and I liked her a lot.’

‘All right. What did you find out?’

‘There was a case in England in the thirties where a young man was stabbed in the heart with a small sheath knife during a fight outside a dance hall. He was lying on the ground and moaning, but the people who saw him assumed he was drunk. He got to his feet, told a passer-by that he was going to the police and walked unaided along the street. He was unsteady on his feet, walking bent over and holding his stomach. Everyone who saw him assumed that he was drunk.’

He sat back in his chair and gave me a level look. ‘Interesting, don’t you think?’

‘He had been stabbed in the heart?’

Tom nodded. ‘The autopsy established that his death was due to cardiac tamponade.’

‘That’s in Doreen’s autopsy report.’ My own heart was beating fast now.

‘A tamponade occurs when the heart is penetrated and blood pours out of it into the pericardium.’ I shrugged and shook my head, uncomprehending. He elaborated. ‘That’s the fluid-filled sac surrounding the heart.’

‘How could anyone live for so long after a wound like that?’

‘The pathologist concluded that the blood seeped into the pericardium comparatively gradually, because of the oblique way in which the knife penetrated the heart. Basically, his heart was able to keep beating long enough to let him get up and walk.’

‘The autopsy report says the wound to Doreen’s heart was oblique.’

‘Yes.’

‘Was that boy – the one who was stabbed – was he trying to get anywhere in particular? Was he able to think clearly, I mean?’

‘It seems he was trying to get to the police station, which was about 500 yards away. In fact, he went past it, so maybe he was confused. When he was found unconscious he had gone a total distance of 600 yards in about twenty minutes.’

I tried to measure the distance in my mind. It would only be around 300 yards, 400 at the most, from the Catalina base to the Phoenixes’ air raid shelter.

‘What happened to him?’

‘He was carried on a stretcher to the police station, where he was able to give his name and address, and to say he had been in a fight. He died soon after admission to hospital. But he survived for an hour and a half after receiving a fatal stab wound to the heart.’

‘So, you think Doreen was stabbed, the murderer ran off and then she got up and walked towards home.’

‘Possibly. I’m just exploring possibilities.’ He pushed his hand through his hair again, and sighed. ‘Meg, it’s still possible that Frank murdered Doreen. He admitted to you that he saw Doreen and Chad in the bush that night. That would be a powerful motive. And he ran away, which looks bad.’

‘It could just as easily have been Chad then! We don’t know for sure that anyone’s telling the truth. Don might protect him.’ I had been quite confident that Don was telling me the truth when he told me his story, but if I had to choose which man I believed most, it was Frank.

‘You’re right. We don’t know anything. But, if Doreen’s case is like the one I’ve just described, then at least we know it’s possible she was stabbed in the bush before twelve-thirty.’

‘We have to tell Detective Munsie about this,’ I said, and had a sudden thought. ‘But Tom, why didn’t the police pathologist mention this possibility in his report?’

‘Because he’s a fool. I had a long meeting with him and Munsie weeks ago. I put all the information I’d turned up in front of them and asked to see the autopsy report. They refused that request, and appeared committed to the idea that it was her husband and he’d stabbed her in the laneway or in the shelter.’

Tom put the pencil on the table and sat back in his chair. He seemed tired, and pinched the bridge of his nose as if he was in pain.

‘To be fair,’ I said, ‘Detective Munsie wouldn’t be likely to consider it a reasonable theory if the police pathologist didn’t agree.’

Tom sat up and regarded me with a quizzical expression. ‘Speaking of that, I’d be very interested to know how you got all of this information.’

I met his stare blandly and raised an eyebrow, just as he did when he wanted to avoid answering a question. The corner of his mouth quirked up in amusement, but before he could speak, I went on. ‘Tom, who swapped your morphine for sedatives? How many pills were swapped? And how did they do it? And do you think they wanted you to be blamed for whatever has happened to Jimmy?’

‘To answer the last question, it’s certainly possible. I can’t think why else, and the timing is suspicious. I’m not sure how many pills were swapped. I didn’t keep many drugs at Phyll’s and I threw away what was left. As to the who and how, I have absolutely no idea. Phyll’s apartment isn’t at all secure. She thinks it’s middle class to lock up, so she never does. We were out all Sunday afternoon, so I suppose it was done then. Whoever it was must have known quite a lot about my routine. Known that I kept drugs at Phyll’s flat and when I took them. It doesn’t make any sense.’

I remembered the many tubes of pills and syrettes I had seen in the bathroom at Tom’s flat. Presumably he had enough morphine at his own flat to keep going with.

‘Where was Chad on Sunday afternoon?’ I asked.

Tom gave me a surprised look. ‘He was where Phyll and I were. At a garden party in Dalkeith, the home of the US Consul.’

‘None of it makes any sense. There are too many mysteries. Like why Doreen was in the Phoenixes’ air raid shelter.’

‘I think Jimmy McLean helped her into the Phoenixes’ air raid shelter.’

Jimmy! I’d forgotten about him. There were so many tangled threads I was trying to hold clear in my mind.

‘So you think he found her in the laneway, after she had been stabbed?’ I said. ‘Because he was out trapping rabbits that night.’

‘Yes. I think he found her, and she asked him to take her somewhere safe.’

‘Poor Jimmy. An air raid shelter would seem to be a safe place, to a boy.’ Misery washed over me as I remembered Jimmy and his jokes and his air of bravado. Maybe he had tried to help Doreen in the best way he could.

Tom’s expression was bleak. ‘Yes, it probably would.’

There was one thread I wanted to pick at again.

‘Tom, listen for a moment. We know Frank Luca saw Doreen being hugged by a big man. That must have been Chad Buchowski. Frank walked away in disgust, but do you think that Chad might have been stabbing her, not hugging her? Chad has a terrible temper. I think he takes Methedrine pills all the time, not just when he’s flying. Oh, and I haven’t told you this yet – it was something Don said – Doreen told him that Chad slept around and was involved in black market drugs, and Don told Chad what she had said. Maybe that would have made Chad angry enough to kill her.’

Tom looked directly at me, holding my gaze. ‘Why do you suddenly dislike Chad Buchowski? Did he hurt you?’

‘No.’ I felt myself flushing. ‘He got fresh once or twice, but I coped.’

Tom nodded and looked away, but I had seen the flash in his eyes. I touched his hand, but he pulled it away from me and pushed it into his hair distractedly.

There was something I had to ask. I said, in as cool a voice as I could manage, ‘When Betty told me about the argument, she said that Doreen told you she’d do anything for you, get anything for you.’

He picked up his pencil and started to draw a star on the page in front of him.

‘Did you want her to get anything specific? Any thing or any information?’

‘No.’

He shaded the points of the star.

‘Detective Munsie said that Doreen was suspected of pilfering from the hospital.’

Tom stopped drawing. He managed a smile, but it went nowhere near his eyes.

‘Tom, did Doreen steal morphine for you from the hospital?’

He held my gaze. His expression was unreadable. Then he looked down at the paper and scribbled over the star.

‘Meg, I’ll take all of this away, if that is all right with you.’ His voice was briskly efficient. ‘I want to think about it some more. I want to talk to young Stan McLean. From what you said, Jimmy told him something that may be important. And he may not have shared it with the police yet.’

I wanted to cry, but I said, very calmly, ‘Can I be there when you speak to him?’

‘No. I think it would be best if I spoke to him alone.’ I opened my mouth to argue the point, but he shook his head. ‘I’d prefer to talk to him alone. I’ll let you know what he says. Meet me tomorrow after work at the Esplanade Hotel.’

He pulled my notebook and scraps of paper towards him and put them into a dispatch satchel that he had brought with him.

We walked in silence to his car. To my astonishment, after putting the satchel in the car, he turned to me, pulled me abruptly towards him and kissed me hard on the mouth. Before I could gather my thoughts, before I could react at all, he got into the car and drove away.

Twenty-seven

I sat at a table in the crowded lounge of the Esplanade Hotel and tried not to think about Jimmy while Tom went to order drinks. There still hadn’t been any word of the boy.

The room was full of servicemen and all around me was the clamour of American voices, talking, arguing and laughing. Sometimes it seemed as if we had lost Perth to the Americans. It was a (not very funny) joke that after the war we’d petition the US to become a state. Annie dreamed of marrying an American serviceman and going to live in the United States, but I had no such ambition. I liked Americans, but I liked Australians better. I supposed I’d feel differently if I was in love with one of them. The trouble was that I couldn’t imagine being in love with anyone whose name wasn’t Lagrange.

I saw Tom returning with a beer for himself and a shandy for me.

‘What did Stan say to you?’ I asked as soon as he sat down.

‘Hold on a minute. I want some beer.’

He raised his glass and took a long drink, before setting it down and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘That’s better. It’s thirsty work, investigating a murder.’ He sighed. ‘And depressing.’ He reached into his top pocket for his cigarettes, but let his hand drop without taking them out.

‘Tom, what did Stan tell you?’

‘Patience, my Meg.’

‘I’m not your Meg,’ I said. ‘Stop saying that.’

I got a lazy smile in reply, then Tom became serious. ‘Stan didn’t tell me very much, really. He’s beside himself with worry, poor lad. Stan was at work when Jimmy disappeared, but according to the younger brother . . .’

‘Fred.’

‘Yes. According to Fred, Jimmy was fine in the morning, but something happened after lunch. Fred saw Jimmy in the street at around two o’clock, and he seemed frightened, but wouldn’t say why. Then he walked off and hasn’t been seen since.’

‘Jimmy did tell Stan something about what he saw the night of the murder, I’m sure he did,’ I said.

Tom picked up his glass again and drained it. ‘I’ll just get another,’ he said, and headed off to the bar. I was in a fever to know what he knew, and when he returned I glared at him.

‘Tom Lagrange, you sit down and tell me what you heard, or I swear I’ll tip that beer over your head.’

He moved the glass protectively towards his chest. ‘Just listen to the nasty girl. And me an invalid,’ he said, in a stage Irish accent.

‘How much have you had to drink?’

‘Enough,’ he said. ‘All right, I’ll tell you. Stan says that Jimmy was up late that night, in the bush by the base. He saw Doreen twice and he did help her into the shelter.’

‘What was he doing there?’

‘Just as you thought. It was the rabbit traps. A fox got the last lot, so Jimmy was checking them.’

‘Start from the beginning, when he first saw Doreen on the bush path. What did he hear?’

‘He heard Doreen talking to a man. I think that must have been Chad, because he described him as “a really big and tough-looking Yank”. Doreen wanted to know if this Yank could get something for her. The Yank asked if she wanted it for her boyfriend, “the grange”, or so Jimmy heard it.’

‘What was she trying to get for you?’

‘Jimmy couldn’t hear that bit. Cec was operating on the off-chance that I’d be able to be intimidated.’ Tom’s eyes narrowed and his tone was dismissive. ‘As if someone like that could intimidate me.’

Tom raised his glass for another long drink.

‘Jimmy always went home through the laneway. He’d climb over the fence into their backyard so that he could slip into the sleep-out that he shares with Stan and Fred, and their mother wouldn’t know he’d been out. Stan heard Jimmy get back late, because as soon as he got into bed he started to throw up and couldn’t stop. Stan got his mum. She didn’t know he’d been out at all.’

I waited while Tom took another mouthful of beer.

‘Two days later, after we found Doreen and everyone was talking about the murder, Jimmy told Stan that he’d seen Mrs Luca and other people in the bush that night. Fred overheard and told their dad, who was as heavy-handed as you’d expect in asking Jimmy questions. Jimmy told him only that he’d heard Doreen asking the big Yank for something for the grange.’

‘So did Jimmy say anything at all to Stan about Doreen’s death?’ I was sitting on the edge of my seat.

‘He told Stan he saw Doreen in the laneway as he was coming home. He said she was crook as a dog and she was scared. She asked Jimmy if he knew somewhere safe for her to stay until it was light. Jimmy suggested the Phoenixes’ air raid shelter.

‘She told him she was meeting a friend in the morning, who would be able to help her. I assume she was referring to me. Fat lot of good I was.’ Tom’s voice was bitter. He picked up the glass and took another deep swallow of beer. ‘Jimmy got her comfortable on the camp bed.’

‘Oh, no! She died when he was there, didn’t she?’ I said. I remembered what Jimmy had said to me, that no one should have to find the body of someone they knew.

‘Yes,’ Tom said. ‘He got a rug to put over her because she was shaking. But when he turned around again she had died. Just like that. Jimmy saw the blood on her chest when he shone his torch on her.’

My heart ached for Jimmy, all alone and confronted with that horror. I could work out what had happened next. ‘So he didn’t know what to do and he ran home? He must have been terrified.’

Tom nodded.

‘So do you think whoever killed Doreen got the idea that Jimmy knows something and has . . .’ I couldn’t finish. I didn’t want to think what might have happened. ‘We’ve got to go to Detective Munsie with all this, everything we have. We’ve got to find Jimmy before . . .’ I trailed off again. I wanted to cry.

Tom grimaced. ‘I spoke to Munsie today, after I’d seen Stan. He knew most of it from Stan already and he’s not interested. He finds it hard to accept that Doreen could have walked all that way with a wound to the heart. He still thinks that the most likely explanation is that Frank Luca stabbed her in the laneway, just before Jimmy found her. Frank has a motive that the police understand.’

I shook my head. ‘It wasn’t Frank. He wasn’t like that. And he couldn’t have taken Jimmy.’

‘Munsie thinks Jimmy’s run away because he’s scared he’ll be blamed in some way for Doreen’s death.’

‘That’s crazy. Why would he wait until now to run away? He’s said all along that he thought it was an American who killed Doreen. And it’s awfully coincidental that Jimmy disappeared at the same time as you were drugged.’

I remembered something Chad had said. Something that had worried me at the time. ‘Tom, what have you been investigating at the Catalina base? Chad was really angry about it the last time I saw him.’

‘That’s what I’ve been doing for the past week. I’ve been heading an investigation into a big black market ring. It involves US personnel and Australians.’ There was a flicker of excitement in his eyes. ‘If I can do this, if I can get convictions, then it will prove I can be trusted to do more than attend cocktail parties with Phyll and butter up the US Consul.’ He gave me a quick smile. ‘I’m not very popular at the Catalina base because we’ve been searching rooms and interrogating personnel for the past few days. I spent a particularly tiresome few hours this afternoon with your friend Norbert Wilder. And I spoke to Chad. It’s safe to say that I’m not too popular with either of them at present.’

‘Nobbie’s not my friend,’ I put in quickly. ‘Nor is Chad. Are they involved?’

‘Wilder is a supply officer. Yes. I think he’s involved in the ring. He’s cleverer than he looks, though, and so far he’s been able to cover his tracks. There’s no evidence against him yet. Chad? Maybe. Probably not.’

‘What sort of black market stuff? Drugs?’ My mind had made connections. Nobbie went out with Betty, who lived with Doreen, who I suspected got drugs for Tom. Nobbie was at the base with Chad, who probably took too much Methedrine.

Tom had become very still, apparently watching the condensation on his glass. ‘It’s mainly supplies – petrol, liquor, food, luxury items. Yes, some drugs, but probably not morphine,’ he said at last. ‘The American authorities are worried that another type of drug – amphetamine – is going missing from the base dispensary. You mentioned Methedrine yesterday. That’s an amphetamine used by Americans. We tend to use Dexedrine. They call them “pep pills” or “go pills” and give them out to the pilots to counter fatigue. The pills induce sensations of wellbeing, confidence, relaxation, elation. The Americans don’t believe they are particularly addictive, and use them extensively. But there’s a concern that some of the pilots and ground crew are taking too many and they’ve recently introduced stricter measures for handing them out. Now it seems likely that they’re being sold on the black market.’

‘What do you think about them?’

‘They’re definitely addictive. I’ve seen men go crazy wanting them, needing them.’ He looked at me directly. ‘I don’t take them.’

‘Just morphine?’

He shut his eyes for a moment and then said, ‘Meg, I have to go now. I’m meeting Phyll at the Adelphi.’

I’m avoiding the question yet again as I go to meet my two-timing fiancée.

I kept my face as emotionless as I could, but then I remembered something that I’d read in the statements I’d transcribed.

‘Tom, Nobbie was at the party the night Doreen died because he was on punishment duty. Did you know that? Was the punishment to do with black marketeering?’

He smiled at me then, and it lifted my heart. ‘Yes, he was on what they call KP – kitchen patrol – because he’d been caught pilfering supplies. If I can tie him to this black market ring he’ll get more than KP duty. He’ll get a short holiday in Fremantle Gaol before an all-expenses paid journey back to the United States to face a court martial.’

Tom drained the last of his beer and we left the hotel together, but we went our separate ways at the Terrace.

On the bus home I stared at the poster above the seat across from me. Hitler was under a table at a restaurant taking notes as a couple chatted away. ‘Careless talk costs lives’ was the caption. Jimmy hadn’t said anything, and not talking might have cost him his life.

I tried to order my thoughts. Despite Tom’s evasiveness, it seemed clear that Doreen had been stealing drugs from the hospital for him. Had she also been stealing them for Chad? Or Nobbie? Or both of them? That could be a reason to want her dead. If Chad didn’t stab her, did he get someone to do it for him? Don said that when he ran down the path after hitting Doreen, he found Chad talking to one of the ratings. What if Chad was instructing the man to murder Doreen? I had a hunch that the rating was Nobbie Wilder, the ‘big man with the box’ who had dug the convenient hole in the bush, and who I now knew was probably involved in the black market.

The next morning I sent a note to Don Dudley at the Adelphi, asking him to meet me at five o’clock in the hotel foyer. When I got there, Don was sitting in a large armchair in the lobby, looking nervous and tired. There was a red mark on his face, like a bruise. He stood as I approached, and gestured towards the seat next to him. I thanked him for meeting me with so little notice.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked, without thinking.

‘No. It’s Chad.’ Don shook his head. ‘I’ve been worried about the number of Methedrine tablets I found in his bag on Sunday. This morning I flushed them all away. I tried to make Chad understand why I’d done it, that it was wrong to take so many. I said I’d help him overcome whatever problems he had. But he was furious.’ He gingerly touched his cheek. ‘We came to blows.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said.

‘I don’t think Chad’s the man I thought he was.’ Don sighed. ‘I don’t know what to think, really. Why did you want to see me, Meg?’

‘Would you mind answering a couple of questions for me?’

He looked nervous, but nodded. ‘Of course I will.’

‘On the night that Doreen died, when you and Chad went back and helped her to her feet, did she walk down the path away from you alone?’

He hesitated, clearly uneasy discussing what had happened that night. Then he nodded. ‘Chad and I watched the light of her torch disappear down the path and we returned to base together.’

So Chad didn’t stab Doreen.

‘You mentioned that Chad was talking to a rating when you found him on the path earlier. Do you remember who that was?’

‘That one with the damned cat. Norbert Wilder. When I approached Chad he walked away.’

My heart started to race.

‘Did he walk off along the path? In the same direction as Doreen had?’

‘Yes. I think so.’

The timing worked. It just worked. I needed to speak to Tom.

On the trolleybus home I decided I’d telephone Tom first thing tomorrow morning and suggest that we speak to Mr Goodley about it all. If we could convince the Crown Prosecutor, surely Detective Munsie would accept our theory.

I got off the bus at around six-thirty. As I made my way along Megalong Street I saw Mrs Phoenix waiting at her gate, waving a piece of paper at me.

‘Meg, I’m glad I caught you. Arthur just took this message for you.’

Captain Lagrange. Meet at 8.00. Betty Barwon’s house.

‘He telephoned a few minutes ago,’ she added.

We used the red public phone box on the corner when we needed to make a call, but friends knew they could leave a message with Mr and Mrs Phoenix. I had told Tom that and given him the number, but I wondered what was so urgent.

At home I changed into sensible shoes, slacks and a green woollen sweater that brought out the green in my eyes. I washed my face and re-did my make-up. As I brushed my hair I puzzled over the message. Why would Tom want to meet me at Betty’s? Perhaps he was intending to question her about her relationship with Nobbie. Anyway, it would give me a chance to tell him what I had learned from Don.

Joan was out again with Wally; things were getting pretty serious between them and I was very happy for her. I told Ma over dinner that Tom Lagrange had asked me to meet him at Betty’s place and that I suspected I wouldn’t be home for a while. Her mouth tightened, but she said nothing.

‘You look nice,’ she said, as I rose from the table.

‘What does that mean?’ I sounded defensive.

‘That you look nice. Don’t read things into what I say.’

‘I’m allowed to look nice.’ Now I sounded very defensive.

‘Good heavens, Meg, I said that you looked nice. Go, then. Meet your Tom Lagrange. Break your heart. See if I care.’

At that, she left the room and I thought she might have been crying.

I was not in a particularly good mood as I made my way along the street to Betty’s house. There was no answer when I knocked on the front door, so I decided to go around the back.

It had rained during the afternoon. A faint sheen of moisture gleamed on the concrete pavers along the side of the house and the velvety musk scent of geraniums was almost overpowering as I reached the backyard. Like most houses in the street, an enclosed sleep-out verandah ran along the length of the rear of the house. There were a couple of steps leading up to the back door. I stood on the top step and knocked. I heard a muffled, ‘Come in,’ so I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The sleep-out was a narrow room, with louvred windows along two sides. On my left was a brick wall with a door leading into the laundry room. The door leading to the small internal kitchen was directly in front of me, next to a casement window, which provided some light for the kitchen. A camp bed, with a grey army blanket folded on top, was under the windows to my right. There was no other furniture. Faded rugs covered the wooden floor.

I couldn’t see anyone.

‘Tom?’ I called. ‘Betty?’ I walked further into the room.

My head exploded into pain and darkness. I started to fall and desperately put out a hand to grab at the door, but someone pulled me inside. The floor rushed up and I hit it hard.

Twenty-eight

I was being pushed roughly onto my front. My hands had been pulled behind my back and tied tightly together, and my feet were bound also. I shook my head and cried out from the pain that throbbed in my temple. Slowly the room began to swim into focus. I was lying on my side, under the louvred windows at the side of the back door. It was getting dark and it was difficult to make out anything, but someone was in the sleep-out with me. I felt a rush of terror for Tom.

‘Who’s there?’ I called out, my voice ridiculously small and high-pitched.

A large figure loomed over me. He was pulling the blackout curtains across the windows. For an instant I thought it was Chad, but the figure resolved into Nobbie Wilder. He regarded me dispassionately.

‘If you scream I’ll have to slug you again.’

‘Where’s Betty?’ I lifted my head to look around.

‘She’s not here.’ Nobbie put on the light. It was very bright and hurt my eyes, making me blink.

‘Why have you tied me up?’

‘So you won’t get away, of course. I thought you were supposed to be smart.’ He sat down on the floor beside me. A piece of wood lay next to him, about the right size for a club.

‘What do you mean to do with me? This is mad, Nobbie. Mr and Mrs Phoenix and my mother all know I’m here.’

He grunted and pulled out a knife. Just for a moment I thought that my heart had stopped, but he ignored me. The knife had a retractable blade and he pushed it in and out a few times. He picked up a whetstone, and ran it along the knife’s edge.

‘Who else are you waiting for?’

There was a tight smile as he continued his knife sharpening, but he said nothing.

‘Are you waiting for Chad?’ My mouth was dry and my voice was croaky.

‘Now, Miz Eaton, I’m not going to talk to you. I’m not going to say anything at all. In the movies they always get a guy to spill the beans, just by asking. Now, I’m not saying that I’ve got any beans to spill, but I won’t be saying anything.’

I licked my lips and tried to get some moisture into my mouth.

‘Oh, Nobbie, at least talk to me. Who are we waiting for, anyway?’

‘We’re waiting for your boyfriend. The Aussie officer, the skinny guy. I want to talk to him.’

‘He’s not my boyfriend.’

‘So Betty tells me, but I don’t believe it. You should have stayed out of it all, Miz Eaton. I like you. I sure wish that you’d stayed out of it all. You know what they say about curiosity.’

I wriggled my hands to try to loosen the bindings on my wrists, but they were not moving at all.

‘How is Sugar?’ I asked.

He laughed. ‘Sugar is just fine. She’s a swell cat.’ He turned back to his knife.

I kept worrying at the bindings. They seemed to be loosening, just a little.

‘You won’t get loose, Miz Eaton,’ he said, not looking up, still wiping the grey stone back and forth over the edge of his blade. ‘I’m in the Navy. They teach us how to tie things up real good.’

‘What makes you think Captain Lagrange is coming?’

‘Because you sent him a message to meet you here.’

‘I did?’

‘You did. Well, Betty did, but he’ll think it was you.’

‘Did Betty help you get Jimmy, too?’

‘Like I said, I’m not saying anything.’

He brought his hand up to his mouth and made a movement, like he was turning a key in a lock, and pretended to toss away the key. It was such a childish thing to do that I was momentarily stunned. I had absolutely no idea how to deal with this man.

I wanted to keep him talking because if he was talking he might not hear Tom arriving and that might give Tom a chance. I’d scream if I could, but if I mistimed it he’d gag me or maybe stab me and then there would be no way I could help Tom at all.

‘So, where is Betty?’

He ignored me.

‘Where are you from in America, Nobbie? How did you come to have Sugar?’

Wordlessly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a large folded handkerchief, which he used to gag me. I could hardly breathe and for a minute I panicked, sure I would choke or suffocate. Then I concentrated on breathing through my nose and trying to ignore the gag. I felt light-headed, but I was able to get enough oxygen. Just.

Around fifteen minutes later we heard it. Someone was whistling as they came around the side of the house. Whistling ‘Green Eyes’.

‘Meg? You there, Meg? Betty?’

It was Tom, of course, and he was close to the back door. I struggled against the bindings and tried to call out, but the material stuffed in my mouth meant that only a muffled sound emerged. It didn’t carry. When the door opened Nobbie was standing behind it with the piece of wood in his hand. Tom started to enter the room and I saw Nobbie raise the wood.

Why had I worried? Tom was a soldier. He had seen a lot of combat and he was no fool. As he came through the door he feinted to the right, so that the club missed him, then he dived to the left and hooked his arms around Nobbie’s legs. The club dropped noisily and they both landed heavily on the floor near me, in an awkward tangle of limbs and torsos. I managed to push myself away from them and ended up in a miserable huddle by the camp bed, watching them grapple with each other.

Nobbie was bigger and heavier, but had let himself run to fat. Although Tom was thin and his left hand was a liability, he was fit and agile and obviously trained in unarmed combat, so neither had an absolute advantage. Nobbie was pounding his big left fist into any part of Tom’s head and body that he could reach, and trying to catch Tom’s left hand, presumably to cause maximum pain. Tom fought like a wildcat, twisting and turning, digging his fingers into Nobbie’s eyes, using his elbows and feet and landing hard blows from his right hand in any exposed area while trying to protect his left.

But I was all too aware that Tom was not in top form – he had been through too much in the last few months. Sooner or later he would fade and Nobbie would beat him into a pulp.

Stan McLean slipped through the open back door. Tom shouted something at him before grabbing Nobbie’s right arm and bending it up behind him while at the same time hooking a leg around Nobbie’s so that he dropped onto his stomach. Stan disappeared. Nobbie was on the ground, grunting in pain, but he hadn’t given up the fight. He was twisting and kicking at Tom while trying to lift himself off the ground. I was terrified Tom would lose him and the whole terrible struggle would start again.

Stan was suddenly at my shoulder, pulling out the gag. I gasped in relief at being able to breathe easily. He whispered that he’d be back in a minute and disappeared again. I pulled fruitlessly at the bindings at my wrists.

The back door was pushed open again and this time Chad Buchowski appeared. His eyes opened wide as he took in the scene: me tied up by the bed and Tom and Nobbie locked in combat. Tom looked up, and because his attention was distracted, Nobbie was able to twist out of his grasp. In a flash he was back on his feet. Chad threw himself at the two of them. His big body obscured my vision and for a few heartbeats I had no idea what was happening.

When Chad turned I saw that he had his right arm around Nobbie’s neck and his left arm was gripping the right and pulling it tight. Nobbie’s legs were jerking horribly. Suddenly he became limp. With a look of horror, Chad released Nobbie, who dropped to the floor at his feet. I thought for a moment that Chad had somehow paralysed him, but it was something about the limp way he was lying sprawled on the floor that made me realise he was dead. I shook my head a few times. I could feel that my eyes were wide and staring, and my breathing was fast and shallow. I turned my head to seek out Tom, and that sobered me. His lips were a thin line, his eyes black in a hard face etched out of shadows as he dropped to his knees beside Nobbie and felt at his throat for a pulse. He stood up slowly, shaking his head.

He shouted at Chad. ‘What the hell do you think you were doing? Why did you do that? I had him. We could have taken him.’ I had never heard him raise his voice before.

Chad’s voice was fast and he sounded scared. ‘I was trying to help. I had him in a choke hold. I didn’t mean to kill the guy. It was just a choke hold. To subdue him. He shouldn’t have died.’

Tom became absolutely still, standing over Nobbie’s body. Then he leaped at Chad. He grabbed his right hand and twisted it savagely, at the same time hooking his leg around Chad’s knee. Using Chad’s own momentum, he brought him crashing down to land on his back, winded and wheezing. Before I could draw breath, Tom took Chad’s other hand and flipped him over onto his front, then twisted his arm up behind him. He had his left arm around Chad’s neck and Chad was grunting in pain.

‘I had him, Chad,’ said Tom, lowering his mouth to Chad’s ear and talking in a soft but bitter voice. ‘Why did you kill him?’ He pushed Chad’s arms up and leaned into Chad’s neck.

Chad gasped. ‘I didn’t mean to kill him. I was trying to help.’

‘That’s a damned lie.’

There was a movement behind me. Tom glanced towards me, saying, ‘Did you find anything?’

Stan McLean appeared, carrying some dirty cords that had presumably been cut from Venetian blinds. He looked in horror at Nobbie sprawled on the ground, and Tom restraining Chad. But without a word, he went over to Tom with the cords. As Tom held Chad down, Stan tied his hands behind his back and bound his feet. Then Tom hauled him up to sit against the wall, behind the door.

Tom got to his feet. His face was filthy with sweat and blood and his body was slumped with weariness, or something else. I saw him flick a look at Nobbie’s body as he slowly came over to me. He knelt beside me and gently touched my face.

‘Stan, bring a knife over here.’ He was again cool and in control, and he snapped out the order like the army captain he was.

Stan handed a pocket-knife to Tom, who cut away the bindings. My hands were all pins and needles as the circulation returned and I gasped with the pain. Tom rubbed the wrists where they had been chaffed. That hurt even more, but I didn’t tell him. His hands were bloody. Now there was blood on my hands, too.

‘You saw that, didn’t you Meg? You saw him murder Wilder?’ Tom’s voice was low and harsh.

‘That’s a lie,’ said Chad. ‘Tell him M–’

‘Shut up, Buchowski,’ Tom snarled. ‘That’s an order.’

He felt my head, asking me what I’d been hit with, did it hurt, could I see properly? I managed to tell him that I was fine, although I wasn’t sure what Nobbie had hit me with. I didn’t mention my terrible headache.

Tom stopped rubbing my head and looked at me. His expression was bleak.

‘I got blood in your hair,’ he said. ‘It was on my hands. I’m sorry. I think you’re okay though.’ He gave a small laugh, more like a sob. ‘As well as can be expected.’

‘I’m fine,’ I whispered, with as much of a smile as I could manage.

He smiled weakly in return, and ran his thumb over the palm of my right hand. Then he helped me to sit so that my back was leaning against the camp bed. Tom and Stan crouched beside me. Tom went back to rubbing my wrists as Stan patted my shoulder. Tom’s eyes were far too bright. I wanted to cry and collapse in a heap, but forced myself to stay calm.

Stan was watching Tom. I wondered if the expression on my face showed the same degree of dumb devotion. It was not a happy thought.

‘What happened here, Tom?’ I asked. ‘I don’t really understand. What did Nobbie intend to do with us? He kept sharpening that knife. And where’s Betty?’

‘I doubt we’ll find Betty. She’s either scarpered, or she became a liability.’ Tom’s mouth hardened. ‘And I think you and I were supposed to have been found dead tomorrow morning. Or maybe we would never have been found. Wilder was good at digging pits, remember.’

‘But why?’

‘I don’t know why they’d want you involved, but I think they were worried I was closing in on them and they wanted me out of the picture.’

I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry.

‘Stan, would you get Meg a glass of water, please?’ Tom asked.

The boy was out the door like a shot.

‘How did they get you here?’

‘Someone left a message with Mr Phoenix that you wanted to meet me here,’ I said, my voice barely a whisper.

Tom gave a short laugh. ‘I got a message that you wanted to meet me. I thought it sounded fishy, and Miriam told me she didn’t recognise the voice.’

‘Miriam?’

‘She takes the messages. So I went to your house first. Your mother told me that the meeting was my idea, so I knew for certain it was fishy.’ He seemed embarrassed. ‘She doesn’t approve of me seeing you.’

‘No. She doesn’t.’

Stan had returned with some water in a cup. It tasted marvellous and I drank it greedily. Tom nodded approvingly at the boy.

‘I got Stan to come along as backup.’

Stan looked like he had been handed the moon on a plate.

‘Now Wilder is dead, thanks to Buchowski.’ Tom’s voice was stone cold. He glanced towards Chad, who was hunched over, shivering. ‘And he can’t tell us anything.’

‘He can’t tell us where Jimmy is.’ Stan sounded close to tears.

Chad raised his head to look at us. ‘Why have you got me tied up? I’m not the bad guy here. I was trying to protect you, buddy. Wilder was a big guy, and he was going to get away from you. Believe me, I was just trying to help.’

There was murder in Tom’s eyes, and I thought he might go for Chad again.

‘Tom,’ I said, to distract him. ‘I’m pretty sure that Nobbie killed Doreen. The timing works.’

‘Why?’ Stan seemed perplexed. ‘Why would he kill Doreen? And . . . and kidnap Jimmy?’

Tom flicked a look at me and turned to Stan. ‘Wilder was involved in the black market. I expect we’ll find a cache hidden here in the house. He worked in the PX – that’s the US version of our quartermaster’s store – so he had access to just about anything he wanted to sell. I’ve been involved in investigating what was going on.’

Stan nodded. ‘Did he kill Doreen?’

‘I don’t know.’

It seemed that Nobbie, Doreen and Betty must all have been in the black market together. But why was Doreen murdered? And what about Chad? If he didn’t kill Doreen himself, he may have been in on it with Nobbie. I looked over at him. He was breathing fast and I could see sweat on his face.

‘Why were you here, Chad?’ I asked.

‘Yes, Chad, why were you here?’ Tom echoed, very softly.

‘I just came to see Betty. I never expected to find all this going on.’

‘An amazing coincidence, you turning up just when you did. I think you killed Wilder to keep him quiet.’ Tom’s voice was harsh.

‘You’re crazy, man. That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.’ Chad’s face was red. ‘Why won’t you believe me? I was trying to help.’ There was a rising panic in his voice and under the bluster he looked terribly afraid. I saw his chest rising and falling with quick breaths.

‘Tell us why you wanted to see Betty,’ I said quietly, shooting a look to Tom that I hoped he would understand.

Chad’s face seemed to cave in. ‘I buy my dope from her,’ he said. ‘Pep pills. You know, Methedrine. We get them for the long missions, to keep us awake. Betty has Dexedrine. It’s even better.’ His bravado had disappeared and he seemed completely drained of energy. ‘I go crazy sometimes when I have the stuff, but it’s like hell if I don’t have it. They used to give it out like candy, but the last few months they’ve cut it back so we only get it when we fly.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry that I behaved badly to you, Meg. I really am sorry. I lose control so easily now . . .’

Tom’s head jerked up to look at Chad. He still had my hand and his grip tightened. I whispered to him, ‘He didn’t hurt me. I dealt with it and it’s over.’

‘Can’t you untie me?’ Chad said. ‘Please, Tom. I feel sick. I’m so tired. I need the pills.’

He had started shaking. This man was entirely different from the one who had tried to attack me outside the Silver Dollar.

‘Where did Betty get the pills from?’ I asked him.

Chad turned weary eyes towards me. ‘The military hospital, I guess. There’s always drugs around a hospital. Maybe from Wilder – he seemed to know everyone.’ Sweat had beaded on his forehead and his skin looked grey. ‘Meg, can’t you get him to untie me? I feel really sick. I need my pills. Don got rid of all the pills I had and they wouldn’t give me any at the infirmary. It’s been too long since I had any. I couldn’t find Wilder at the university camp and I only came here because I was desperate.’

I looked at Tom, who shook his head.

Chad groaned. ‘I just wanted to help. Meg was tied up and you’d lost hold of Wilder. I didn’t mean to kill him. I swear it. I don’t know what I’m doing sometimes.’ Chad dropped his head forward. ‘Please untie me. Please Tom.’

Tom had a calculating look in his eyes. ‘Buchowski,’ he said sharply.

Chad raised his head warily. He looked smaller. Sad. Scared.

Tom said, ‘I’ll get you the stuff, but you need to answer some questions.’

‘What?’ Chad sounded tired and defeated. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Tell me about Wilder’s role in all of this.’

Chad’s head fell forward again so that his answer was muffled. ‘Wilder always had extra pills if we needed them. I’m not the only guy who needs more, you know. He got them from Betty. Or from our dispensary. Or one of our hospitals. I don’t know.’ His voice was flat. ‘He and Betty always had whatever you needed. And I need pep pills. Nothing makes sense without them any more.’ He looked up at us and tried to smile but the effect was more of a grimace. ‘You should understand, Tommy boy. It’s just a different poison. I need pep pills. When I have them I can do anything; nothing hurts me, everything’s great. You take your morphine pill every day. But it’s heroin that does it for you, isn’t it?’

I turned to Tom, but Chad’s words didn’t seem to have affected him at all. He looked hard and pitiless. There was a cigarette in his mouth and he was lighting it. As he drew in a breath the tip flamed red. He rose to his feet in a quick movement and went over to Chad, bent down and put the cigarette in Chad’s mouth. As Chad drew in the smoke the tip flared up again. They looked at each other for a moment.

Tom returned to Stan and me, picked up the blanket from the camp bed and shook it out. He went over to Nobbie’s body and draped the blanket over it so that it was now a shapeless grey lump, although his boots were still visible.

Tom went back to Chad and crouched down next to him. He let Chad have another drag of the cigarette.

‘Who killed Doreen? And where is Jimmy?’ Tom sounded calm.

A spasm passed through Chad’s body. He took a few breaths. ‘And I’m supposed to roll over for you?’ He sounded incredulous. ‘I know that Doreen was trying to get heroin for you, Tom. She was asking around everywhere because they’d got wise to her at the hospital. Did the army know that? Did she get too embarrassing? Is that why you killed her?’

Stan was sitting very still. He seemed horrified. I wondered if I looked the same.

‘What rubbish you’re talking, Chad,’ I said in the loudest voice I could muster.

‘You little innocent. Doreen used to get it for him from the hospital.’

‘Maybe she did. The drugs help to control the pain of his injuries. That doesn’t mean he killed her.’

‘He’s an addict. He keeps morphine pills at Phyllis’s place and I saw heroin there once, too. Doreen was asking for heroin the night she died. It all adds up.’

Tom’s eyes were very cold. ‘You know I didn’t kill Doreen, Chad,’ he said. ‘Did you?’

Chad shook his head. ‘I was nowhere near that air raid shelter. I left Doreen alive on the path that night and went straight back to the base with Don.’

‘Chad,’ I said. ‘You were talking to Nobbie when Don found you. What were you talking about?’

‘I told him Doreen had been bugging me for dope, asking me to get some from him. Said she’d sleep with me, do anything I wanted if I got it for her. I knew it was for him. She was crazy about him.’ He flicked a glance at Tom.

‘Why wouldn’t she ask Nobbie for it directly?’ I asked. ‘He came to the house as Betty’s boyfriend.’ Nothing made any sense to me any more.

‘I don’t know. Maybe she’d asked him for too much already and she thought I could do better? Wilder wasn’t happy when I mentioned it, but he said he’d talk to her.’ Chad shook his head. ‘Wilder didn’t kill Doreen. He was in the Quonset huts all night. I checked up on him after I knew she’d been killed. He was nowhere near that shelter.’

He closed his eyes. ‘I liked Doreen. Can’t you get that? I liked her. I didn’t kill her. It was the husband who killed her.’

Twenty-nine

Tom, Stan and I had a furtive discussion.

‘He knew about the pills I keep at Phyll’s,’ Tom whispered to me urgently. ‘He must have sent someone there to swap them.’ He glared at Chad and said loudly, ‘Were you just tying up a loose end? Jimmy was just a kid, for Christ’s sake.’

Stan jumped to his feet and stood rigidly, turning his head back and forth between Tom and Chad. ‘He killed Jimmy? How do you know?’

Stan stared at Chad, who wouldn’t meet his eyes.

‘Why did you kill him?’ It was a cry of pain.

Sweat was trickling down Chad’s face and he was shaking. When he raised his head, he looked like a frightened boy. All at once I felt sorry for him. This man was a highly decorated pilot. When I first met him I had liked him. I had thought he was good and brave. I had considered him to be a friend. When he wasn’t taking the drugs he probably was that man.

‘I didn’t kill any kid.’ Chad’s voice was rising to hysteria. ‘I swear it. Nobbie was an accident.’

I touched Tom’s arm. This was getting out of hand and we still had no idea where Jimmy might be.

‘Don’t you think it’s time we got Detective Munsie involved?’

Tom closed his eyes for a moment, as if in pain. I was worried about him. His face was caked with blood and sweat and he was obviously exhausted.

‘You’re right,’ he said at last. ‘Does Betty have a telephone?’

‘I have no idea. Do you want me to look? If there’s not one, I’ll go to the Phoenixes’. I’ll ask Detective Munsie to come here.’

I got shakily to my feet and walked through the kitchen to the hallway, turning on lights as I did so. On a low table opposite the front door was a telephone. I was bending down to pick up the receiver when a hand covered my mouth and I felt a hard tube pushing into my back. For a bewildered few seconds I had no idea what it was.

Then I heard Betty’s voice, low in my ear. ‘Don’t be silly, Meg. I’ve got Nobbie’s gun. I don’t want to hurt you, but I’m desperate. So stay very still.’

She sniffed. ‘If you don’t do anything stupid, you’ll be fine. I just want my money and I want to go.’

I nodded, scarcely moving my head. I could feel the barrel of the gun moving against my back as Betty’s hand shook.

Her voice was high and she was speaking quickly. ‘Walk ahead of me into the sleep-out. Don’t do anything silly and you’ll be fine. Don’t try to be heroic, or you’ll die, and then your precious Tom will die and then Stan. If you do anything you’ll be responsible for me killing them. Do you get that?’

I nodded again. She removed her hand from my mouth.

‘I’ll do whatever you say,’ I whispered.

She kept the gun in the small of my back as we walked together through the kitchen and into the sleep-out.

No one had moved. Nobbie’s body was still a shapeless lump on the floor, his boots sticking out like a horrible joke. Chad was still shivering, arms behind his back and legs bound. Tom was sitting on the floor by the camp bed, smoking a cigarette. One leg was out in front of him, the other was bent up and he was resting his arms on that knee. Stan crouched next to him and they were talking together in low voices. They both glanced up as I came into the doorway.

My face must have communicated to Tom what was happening. I saw a flash of panic in his eyes before they became as blank as stone. In an instant his face was calm. He had that familiar small, sharp crease between his dark eyebrows.

Betty pushed the gun into my back to urge me a little further forward.

‘I’ve got Nobbie’s gun. I don’t want to hurt anyone,’ she said. ‘I just want my money and some of my stuff. Then I want to go.’

Stan made a movement and Betty shoved the gun hard, so that I jerked forward.

‘If anyone moves without me telling them to – if anyone does anything at all without me telling them to – I’ll shoot Meg. I won’t think. I’ll shoot her. I don’t want to shoot her. A gunshot will be heard and someone will call the police and I don’t want that. But if I’m going to hang anyway, I don’t care if Meg dies. So, any movement and I’ll shoot her.’

Tom and Stan both nodded. Chad threw back his head and made a high whinnying sound. I was confused until I realised he was laughing.

‘They thought it was me who killed Doreen. Can you believe it, Bet?’ His face contorted. ‘Tell them to let me go, Betty. I’ve got money. I need some dope. Give me some dope, will you?’

‘Shut up.’ Betty’s voice was shrill. ‘You disgust me. You and Tom Lagrange. Neither of you give me the time of day until you need something. Betty’s not good enough for the officers. She can go with the ratings. She can go with funny-looking Nobbie Wilder. But when you want something, then it’s “Please, Betty. You’re a beaut, Betty. Can I have some dope, Betty?’’?’ She sniffed again. ‘Nobbie was better than both of you. And now he’s dead.’

‘I have never asked you for anything, Betty.’ Tom’s voice was low.

‘No,’ Betty snapped back. ‘You used poor Doreen instead. Used her up. Now she’s dead, too. I hate you all.’

She pushed me further into the room and I stumbled a little. Her hand was hard on my arm. ‘Watch it,’ she said, steadying me.

We stood there for a few seconds, just inside the doorway. I could hear her breathing loudly through her mouth. There was the rattle of mucous in every breath.

‘Stan, get up,’ she said. ‘There’s a hiding place under the boards in the corner. Under the rug over there.’ She must have gestured with her head because Tom and Stan both looked towards the far left corner. ‘Pull up the rug and take up the boards.’

Stan did as she asked. When he had pulled out four small pieces of floorboard, I could see a square of darkness in the floor.

‘Take out the box that’s in there.’

Stan reached into the hole and pulled out a metal box. Betty fumbled behind me, and I felt her move as she threw a key to Stan.

‘Take out the money that’s in there.’

Stan unlocked the box, reached in and pulled out a wad of banknotes. I estimated it might come to a few hundred pounds. Tears came into my eyes. It was a small sum for Doreen’s life. Two lives, if you counted Nobbie. Three, if Jimmy was dead.

‘Bring it over here.’

Stan moved towards us, holding the money in front of him as if it were a dead rat. There was hatred in his face as he looked beyond me at Betty.

‘Where’s Jimmy? Did you kill Jimmy?’ He spat out the words.

‘Give the money to Meg.’

Stan handed the wad to me. It was slightly damp from his hands and I held it uncomfortably, unsure what Betty wanted me to do with it.

‘Did you kill Jimmy?’ Stan had the single-mindedness of youth.

‘I didn’t kill anyone.’

‘Did he kill Jimmy?’ Stan pointed to the lump that had been Nobbie. ‘Did you tell him to kill Jimmy?’

The gun at my back jerked again. Please, Stan, don’t upset the crazy woman with the gun. I stayed absolutely still, not daring to look at Tom.

‘Did you get him to kill Jimmy?’ Stan’s voice rose into a keening sort of wail as tears spilled onto his cheeks. ‘Where’s my brother?’

I felt the gun jerk again. Betty pushed it hard into my back and I thrust my torso forward to relieve the pressure.

‘Shut up!’ Her voice was high and strained. ‘We didn’t touch Jimmy. I don’t know where he is. I didn’t kill anyone.’

‘Stan.’ Tom’s voice was hard and brutal. ‘Get back over here. Now.’

Stan swallowed. I saw anger flare in his eyes, but he turned around, went back to Tom and sat beside him on the floor. Tom took his arm and squeezed it gently.

‘It wasn’t my fault that Doreen died.’ Betty’s voice was high and fast. ‘She shouldn’t have had a go at Nobbie. He got mad when she started making threats.’

Betty swung around to face Tom, forcing me along with her.

‘It was your fault. She wanted heroin for you. It was always for you. Anything for you. She couldn’t get it from the hospital any more, so she asked Nobbie.’

Tom had become very white, but the cool, almost supercilious expression was still on his face and his voice was flat. ‘Nobbie stabbed Doreen because she asked him for dope? That makes no sense, Betty.’

‘Nobbie said he couldn’t give her any. First she got all flirty and said she’d sleep with him, and then she got angry and started to make stupid threats. But it was true.’ Betty’s voice rose in indignation. ‘We couldn’t get heroin any more; we couldn’t even get morphine. That was Doreen’s fault, too. She’d taken too much and the hospital was looking into it.’

Betty sniffed loudly. ‘Doreen told Nobbie that if he didn’t get her some she’d dob us in.’ There was a sound like a sob. ‘We’d been good to Doreen, Nobbie and me. She shouldn’t’ve made threats like that.’

‘So Nobbie stabbed her.’

‘He didn’t mean to stab her, it just happened.’

‘He stabbed her in the heart, Betty. It wasn’t an accident.’

‘It was an accident.’ Betty was defiant. ‘He got angry and didn’t think about what he was doing. It just happened.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because I was there. I was waiting for him at the hole he’d dug for the scraps. He ran back to tell me what happened and I told him we could put her body in the hole. Cover her over and no one would ever know what happened to her. They’d think she’d run off. Only he’d left the spade back at camp, so he went to get it. When we went to get her, she’d gone.’

‘You must have been worried to find her gone.’

‘We thought she must still be alive. Of course we were worried,’ she snapped.

‘Then she turned up dead in that air raid shelter. That must have worried you, too.’

‘We were scared that someone was trying to give us a message – Nobbie was in business with some really tough men. It made no sense that she was in that shelter. But then the police thought Frank had done it, so we were in the clear. Until Cec McLean told me that Jimmy was in the bush that night, too.’

Betty’s breathing quickened. ‘Cec said he was going to sell you information and we didn’t know what to do. But when Nobbie met Cec at the pub last Friday Cec was angry that you hadn’t paid him.’

She was crying now. I could hear the wet sniffing behind me increase.

‘So Nobbie got him drunk,’ she said. ‘And Cec told him that Jimmy saw Doreen in the bush that night, and that he’d heard her talking to someone.’

‘So you got worried about Jimmy.’

‘Of course we did.’ Betty sounded irritated. ‘We didn’t know what Jimmy knew.’

‘So you decided to stop him from talking?’ Tom’s voice was almost hypnotic. There was no intonation at all; his voice flowed over us like cool water.

‘Nobbie said it was the only thing to do. With Jimmy gone there was nothing against us at all.’

Tom was holding Stan’s arm in such a tight grip his knuckles were white, and Stan was sitting so still he was scarcely breathing. He stared fixedly at a spot in front of him as tears trickled down a face that was set into a mask of utter loathing.

Betty sniffed. ‘It wasn’t my idea. It was Nobbie’s idea. I like Jimmy.’ Her voice faded, then she said, more firmly, ‘We didn’t kill Jimmy. He wouldn’t come into the house. Nobbie didn’t touch him. I don’t know where he is.’

‘But you thought up the idea of swapping my drugs.’

I felt the gun move as Betty laughed softly.

‘Nobbie thought you were getting too close. We wanted to make you look unreliable, let them know you were addicted. Maybe put you back in hospital. Get you off his back. I made up Nembutal to look like morphine pills and I swapped them for one of your prescriptions in the dispensary at the hospital.’

Tom regarded her blankly. ‘So you didn’t swap them to try to frame me for Jimmy’s disappearance?’

The gun moved suddenly as Betty laughed. I couldn’t help making a quick panicky movement and I saw fear spark in Tom’s eyes then disappear as his face became calm again.

‘Is that when you took them?’ she said. ‘What a lark. Now shut up, I want to get out of here.’

‘Why did you get me and Meg here tonight?’

‘That was Nobbie’s idea. He said you were asking too many questions at the base.’

‘What was the plan, Betty?’

‘He figured that if we had Meg he could get you to tell us what you knew. I wasn’t going to have anything to do with that,’ she said decisively. ‘I like Meg.’

I saw the fury in Tom’s eyes, just for an instant. I hoped Betty hadn’t seen it.

‘And after I had told you all that I knew?’ His voice was icily calm.

‘Nobbie said we needed a fall guy.’ Now there was a note of whining self-justification in her voice. ‘I like Meg. It was nothing to do with me. It was Nobbie.’

‘What was Nobbie going to do, Betty?’

She spoke quickly, as if saying it quickly somehow made it less appalling. ‘He didn’t tell me, not really. I wasn’t sure.

I think he was going to stab Meg, just like he stabbed Doreen. And then you were going to disappear and they’d think that you stabbed Meg and Doreen. No one would believe Jimmy then, no matter what he said. Not after they knew about you and the drugs. Nobbie thought it would be easy to get you. He didn’t expect you could fight.’

‘You and Nobbie were going to leave Meg here, dead on the floor? Then you were going to kill me and bury my body somewhere?’ Tom’s voice was flat. ‘That was your plan?’

Tears rolled down my cheeks and I felt them dripping from my chin. I couldn’t look at Tom.

‘He had dug the hole already,’ she said. ‘In the bushland near the base.’ I felt her head jerk up; the gun jerked too. ‘It wasn’t my plan. It was all Nobbie’s idea. I had nothing to do with it. I told him he shouldn’t do it. I didn’t like it at all. He said we had to or he’d be hanged. He said we’d both be hanged.’

‘I had an alibi for Doreen’s death.’

‘Only that fiancée of yours. No one would believe her. Not after it became known how many drugs you’d been taking and that Doreen was getting them for you. They’d think you killed her to keep her quiet. No. It was a good plan. Only he didn’t realise you’d be able to put up a fight.’ I felt her shrug. ‘That’s it. I’m leaving.’

‘Betty, before you go, give me some pills. Please. I’ve got money.’ It was Chad’s voice, low and desperate.

I’d forgotten about Chad. I turned to him. He was still shivering and there was a dead look in his eyes.

‘Please, Betty.’

‘No,’ Betty said, her voice sharp. ‘No. You’re pathetic, Chad Buchowski. Get the stuff from your own dispensary.’

‘They won’t give me what I need.’

I felt her shrug again. ‘There’s some in the box,’ she said, presumably to Tom. ‘Give them to him if you want.’

Tom whispered something to Stan and got up. He went to the tin box and took out a tube of pills. Moving over to Chad he crouched in front of him. As he moved away I saw Chad swallow. Tom started to return to Stan when Betty’s voice rang out. ‘Hey! Get the money from him. I’m not running a charity.’

Tom turned back to Chad. ‘It’s in my breast pocket,’ he said.

Tom reached in and took out a wad of American bills.

‘Give me all of it,’ Betty said. ‘Chad can keep the pills that are in the box. Bring the money over here, Tom. No funny business, mind, or I’ll shoot her. I mean it.’

She prodded me with the gun to make the point.

Tom walked towards us with the money. He was handing it to me when there was a sudden loud banging at the door. I felt Betty jerk in alarm and she pulled me with her as she turned to the door. Then everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

‘Betty Barwon, turn off those lights. Do you hear me? Get those lights off right now. You know better than that. Turn them off.’

Some part of me registered that it was Mr Phoenix’s voice, but Tom had used his shoulder to push me hard to one side. I landed heavily on the floor amid a shower of banknotes. In a blur of movement, Tom had circled Betty’s wrist with his left thumb and forefinger, while at the same time grabbing the barrel of the gun with his right hand and pushing it towards her stomach. Then the gun was in his hand. He shoved Betty backwards and I saw astonishment in her face as she hit the floor with a thud.

Tom laughed.

It was the burst of laughter, verging on hysteria, that brought me to my senses. Tom was examining the gun in his hand.

‘She had the safety on the whole time.’ He looked back at Stan, shaking his head and still laughing. ‘She had the safety on. I was so scared I could hardly think, and she had the safety on the whole time.’

Still laughing, he tucked the gun into the pocket of his trousers and bent over to help me up. I took his hand and he pulled me up towards him, folding his arms around me tightly. I burst into tears again, sobbing against his chest. It was hard and muscled and smelled of sweat and wet cotton. I hardly registered that Mr Phoenix was standing at the open back door, looking extremely annoyed.

‘Get those lights out in the front rooms or put up the curtains,’ he barked. ‘You’re breaching blackout. There is a war on, you know!’

Then I began to laugh.

Thirty

My hysteria faded as we waited for Detective Munsie to arrive. Tom was, as usual, coolly efficient. He gave Mr Phoenix the gist of what had happened and called the police. Once he had released me from that fierce hug, Tom had not looked at me. He and Stan had untied Chad and used the cords to bind Betty, whose courage and energy had dissipated as soon as she lost her gun. She sat still, looking miserable and sniffing quietly.

The cold-blooded horror of what Nobbie had planned for me and Tom played around the edges of my mind, sending shivers down the back of my neck every time I let down my guard. I tried to distract myself with the questions that remained unanswered. And there were too many of them. Like, where was Jimmy? Was he all right? What was Doreen’s relationship with Tom?

Mr Phoenix, with the same officiousness that made him an excellent air raid warden, did not let mere murder and mayhem deflect him from his duties. He went through the house, room by room, putting up every last blackout curtain.

As soon as Tom released him, Chad had gone over to the metal box and filled his pockets with tubes of pills before returning to sit on the floor near the back door. He avoided our eyes and said nothing. He looked a lot better than he had earlier. The shaking had stopped and he seemed normal.

I went over to sit next to Stan, who was crying in earnest now. I held him against me and let him cry himself out, rocking him a little as if he were a very small boy. He said Jimmy’s name over and over as he sobbed.

Detective Munsie arrived about thirty minutes after Tom had called him and everything seemed to become manageable with his calm presence. He spent some time talking to Tom in the lounge room, and spoke briefly to each of us in turn. I refused to allow him to talk to Stan alone and sat with them as Stan carefully recounted what he had heard. He didn’t mention that Doreen had been getting heroin for Tom. Nor did I.

Once Nobbie’s body had been removed and Betty had been taken away in the police car I asked if Stan could go home. Detective Munsie was giving orders about securing the house until the next day, when a full search for contraband would be carried out.

He glanced up at me and nodded. ‘I’ll need a further statement from you and the boy, but it can wait a day or two.’ His expression sharpened. ‘And mind you tell me everything when I next see you.’ I held his gaze, hoping I looked enigmatic, but Detective Munsie gave a short laugh. ‘Yes, take the boy home, Meg.’

So I went with Stan across the street to his mother, who wrapped him in a hug and cried. The police had already told her much of what had happened so I excused myself as soon as I could. My head hurt and I felt utterly miserable. We still didn’t know what had happened to Jimmy and I had no idea how to deal with what I had learned about Tom. I just wanted my mother.

Tom was waiting at my gate. I tried to make out the features of his face, but it was a grey blur in the darkness.

‘How is Stan?’ His voice was low, worried.

‘Still very upset. Not knowing where Jimmy could be is tearing him apart.’

‘How are you?’

I felt emotionally drained and very weary. And sad. I supposed that I was in shock, and eventually everything would come crashing down around me.

‘I’m terribly tired. It was hard hearing about Doreen’s death like that. It’s not like in novels, is it? It’s no relief that we know the answer to the puzzle of who killed her. I just feel so sad.’

Tom made a little sobbing sound, almost like a laugh.

‘You’re thinking about Doreen? After all you’ve just been through?’

‘It was all so pointless. So stupid. I don’t know, maybe I’m in shock and I’ll start screaming in a few minutes.’

He shook his head.

‘Tom, I need you to tell me the truth about you and Doreen. No more evasions. I’ve heard so many things now. I need you to talk to me.’

He tried to laugh, but it was a flat sort of sound. ‘The truth?’ He sighed. ‘You want the truth?’

‘Yes, Tom, that’s what I want.’ My tone was angry, but it was to hide my misery.

‘We’ll talk. But not now. Soon. I can’t deal with the truth or with any of this now. And you need to rest.’

He took my hand, lacing his fingers through mine, and led me down our path to the front porch. Ma was there, peering into the darkness, presumably wondering about the police cars and excitement in our quiet street. I pulled my hand away from Tom and went to my mother, who wrapped her arms around me and held me close.

We went inside together, leaving Tom alone in the dark.

Jimmy turned up at his house late the following morning, arriving in a police car that had collected him from his grandparents’ farm near Roleystone, a little community to the east of Perth. It seemed as if all of Megalong Street came out to welcome him home.

I found out the whole story that afternoon, over a cup of tea at the McLeans’ house. Detective Munsie was right. Jimmy had been scared and he had run away. Initially, his refusal to talk had been out of fear that he would be blamed for letting Doreen die, but it was the realisation that Nobbie had killed her that had made him run.

Doreen had told him, when he helped her to the shelter, that she’d been hurt by ‘that gap-toothed Yank bastard’. He had no idea who she meant. He had no suspicion of Betty, or of her big, sullen Yank boyfriend, who he thought were friends of Doreen’s.

Jimmy had made up his mind to tell me what he knew when I returned from work on Monday. But just after lunch he had seen Nobbie’s smile for the first time. Terror took over and Jimmy didn’t think. He just went. He cadged a ride on the train to Roleystone and walked the three miles out to where his grandparents lived on a small fruit farm. He told them that his mother wanted him to stay there and get better. Poor Jimmy looked so pale and ill that they believed it. They had no idea the whole of Perth was looking for him because they had no telephone and only got the weekend newspapers. When they went into town on Saturday they found out about the search for Jimmy and contacted the police immediately. And Jimmy came home.

So did Frank Luca. He turned himself in to the police as soon as he read in the newspaper that he was no longer under suspicion. He was promptly arrested by the naval police and charged with being absent from his ship without leave, but in the circumstances I knew he was unlikely to care about facing time in the brig. The Mirror printed a lovely photograph of his reunion with his daughter, Paulette.

Tom and I met up the following day. It was exactly eleven weeks since we had found Doreen’s body in the Phoenixes’ air raid shelter. We met in the Botanical Gardens where we had lunched so many times, but he led me across Riverside Drive to a spot on the foreshore and laid a rug on the grass. I sat beside him. It was a still, sunny morning and the river in front of us was a clear blue that mirrored the sky. A pair of black swans were floating nearby, oblivious to the concerns of the human world.

‘Tell me about why Doreen was trying to get heroin for you on the night she was murdered,’ I said.

‘What do you know about heroin?’ Tom said.

He was sitting with his legs bent up in front of him, resting his arms on his knees. There was a bitter smile playing around his mouth, but he wasn’t avoiding my eyes.

‘Nothing, really. It’s illegal to have it without a prescription. It’s addictive, like morphine. It’s like morphine, isn’t it?’

‘It comes from opium, like morphine, but it’s different. It’s a synthetic drug, diacetyl morphine. When it was first produced late last century, it was designed to be a non-addictive morphine substitute. It wasn’t, of course.’

Although the smile was still on his mouth, he had a haunted look.

‘Heroin will kill all pain and anger and bring relief to every sorrow.’ He made it sound like a quote. ‘It works more quickly than morphine. A single dose of heroin sends you into a deep, euphoric reverie, especially if it is injected into a vein. When you’ve been in terrible pain, Meg, physical and mental, can you imagine how that euphoria feels?’

I thought that perhaps I could understand. I knew that Tom was often in terrible pain. And he had seen so many men die.

‘Why did you want heroin? You’ve got morphine.’

‘It works better than morphine,’ he said brusquely. ‘More intensely. But there’s a flip side. Addiction. Repeated use creates an extreme physical craving. You become its slave, and your entire existence revolves around each daily dose. I’m hooked on the stuff. It wasn’t a choice.’

Tom’s dark eyes begged me to understand. ‘When I was captured by the Japanese I was in command of four men. I led them into a trap –’

He made a faint sound, like a groan. I could see the effort it took for him to make his face hard and closed. ‘They killed my men. They made me watch while they killed my men. They beheaded Bill Grieves. He was my sergeant. There was a little ceremony. They used a sword.’ He looked down, swallowing convulsively. ‘The others were bayoneted and pushed into a grave. Charlie Farrell and Vic Embleton. I’m not sure that Alan Carter was actually dead, but they buried him with the others . . .’

It was my turn to make a soft, horrified sound.

Tom’s voice became matter-of-fact, and his expression cool and distant. ‘I was bayoneted when we were first captured. Here.’ He put his right hand on his back, towards the left side. ‘And I was beaten quite badly – my back is scarred. They hurt my hand. It got infected. The result you see.’ He held up his maimed hand. ‘But they kept me alive, because they wanted information. The Japanese control the production of heroin in China. They have a lot of it. I needed pain relief. Giving and withholding heroin was one of the methods they used to make me talk.’

His face changed again. Of the multitude of emotions in his eyes, self-loathing was the most apparent.

‘I talked all right. What do the Americans say? I sang like a canary.’

‘How did you get away?’

‘I was lucky. They probably should have sent me straight to Tokyo, but at first I was too ill to be moved and then they couldn’t resist interrogating me themselves. The outpost where I was being held was strafed and bombed. I escaped in the confusion and after a while in the jungle I ran into a coastwatcher. He contacted our side and they got me out.

‘I was a mess when I got back and I was given morphine, lots of morphine, for the pain. It’s not as good as heroin, though . . .’

He shivered.

‘I was in Brisbane after I got back, working for the Pacific High Command as an intelligence officer. But I needed heroin, Meg. I found a doctor who would prescribe it for me without putting me on his register. When he was discovered and charged with failing to keep a register of heroin it became known that I was getting the stuff from him illegally. I faced losing my commission and dishonourable discharge.’ He patted his front pocket for cigarettes, found the packet and shook one out.

‘Phyll went in to bat for me. She was amazing. She even went to see MacArthur. Phyll convinced them it wasn’t my fault, and pointed out how embarrassing it would be to discharge such a decorated soldier.’

His lips twisted as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. ‘So they sent me back here to Perth. To be a liaison officer. To be nice to people and to attend social events with my beautiful fiancée. To rot here for the rest of the war.’

I turned away from him to look at the river, trying to imagine needing something so much that you’d risk everything just to get it. Then I looked at Tom again; if he could be strong enough to tell me this, I had to be strong enough to meet his eyes as he did so.

‘I tried to come off the heroin, the morphine, all of it, when I arrived here from Brisbane. I thought I could kick it if I was strong-willed enough. I couldn’t. I was too ill. My body couldn’t take the withdrawal and I nearly died. Doreen was at the military hospital when I was brought in. She came to visit me. She’d read to me, talk to me. I was in a bad way.’

He lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, almost desperately.

‘We became friends. Really. She was a grand girl.’

My mouth was dry. I ran my tongue over my lips and said, ‘So Doreen and Betty were selling drugs. Selling heroin and morphine they stole from the hospital?’

‘No!’ Tom shook his head and punched at the grass with his good hand. ‘Before she met me Doreen never stole drugs.’

He held my gaze again. The muscles on his face were tight and there was a look in his eyes that was awful to see. Again, I read it as self-loathing.

‘The truth is that after I was discharged from hospital, Doreen got me drugs. I take morphine pills for the pain in my hand. I get them legally from the hospital on prescription. But you always seem to need more of the stuff once you’re addicted. Doreen got me morphine syrettes. She also got me jacks – heroin pills. I try to make do with the morphine pills, or the syrettes, but it’s injection or inhalation of heroin that I crave. I make a solution out of the crushed jacks and inject it into a vein, or I crush the pills and breathe in the powder, or I mix the powder with tobacco and smoke it.’

He sighed again and finally looked away.

‘I suppose, deep down, I knew that Doreen was doing it because she thought she was in love with me. I told myself that it wasn’t so, that I wasn’t desirable any more. I told myself Doreen was a kind woman who just wanted to help me. I told myself it was all right to use her like that. You’ll tell yourself anything when you need something that badly. On that Friday night I begged Doreen for more heroin.’

Tom was watching me closely again. His eyes were dark and beautiful and terrible. This time I looked away first.

‘Poor Doreen.’ My voice trembled. ‘She must have loved you so much.’

‘And she died because of it, didn’t she?’ His voice was harsh. ‘After that argument in the laneway – the last time I saw her alive – she went all out to get heroin for me. She threatened Nobbie, and she died. All for me.’

Tom’s expression was bleak. He felt responsible for her death. He felt responsible for so many deaths. But he wasn’t. The Japanese had killed his men, and Nobbie had killed Doreen.

He plucked at a loose thread on the rug. ‘I thought the drugs Doreen gave me came from the military hospital and she got them for me herself. I now realise that she also got stuff from Betty and Nobbie. Doreen didn’t tell me that.’

Now he was staring into my eyes.

‘You want the whole truth, Meg? That’s why I was so worried when she didn’t turn up on the Sunday morning. Not about her, but about whether she had managed to get me any heroin.’

The world seemed to shift around me. ‘So Doreen was nothing to you other than a means to get drugs,’ I said.

‘No.’

‘Yes,’ I said, in a voice I hardly recognised. ‘How could you let her do that? She might have gone to gaol, lost everything because of you. And you didn’t really care about her at all.’

‘I did care about her. We were friends. She knew I needed heroin and she offered to get it for me.’

‘It was wrong to let her do it, Tom. You know it was.’

He didn’t look away, but he seemed to retreat. ‘Yes,’ he said, in a flat voice. ‘It was wrong to let her do it. I wish –’

‘Why did you see me so often?’ I blurted out the words.

‘I don’t understand what you wanted from me. I couldn’t get you drugs. Chad said you need adoration from women. Is that all you wanted from me? Someone to unthinkingly adore you?’

I could no longer bear to see what was in his eyes, so I turned my head to watch the river instead. I wished I could walk down into the water and never surface again.

‘Please, Meg. Look at me.’

I turned towards him again and met his dark, unflinching gaze.

‘Why did I see you so often? The truth? When I saw you on that Sunday we found Doreen I thought that you were very young, very sweet and very unhappy. I felt guilty about not seeing you before. We met for the drink and it was clear that you hadn’t got over Pete. That made me sad. I thought I owed it to Pete to try to get you to go out more, to enjoy yourself. To help you get over him.’ There was a quizzical expression on his face, as if he couldn’t quite understand what had happened. ‘Anyway, after that first lunch, I just wanted to keep seeing you. Then I needed to keep seeing you. It was as simple as that.’

I wiped away my tears with the back of my hand.

‘I enjoyed seeing you,’ he said. ‘Spending time with you made me feel happy, something I hadn’t felt for a long time. So I kept meeting you. Perhaps it was another addiction. Perhaps I was addicted to seeing you.’

‘That’s stupid. That’s a stupid thing to say. You are cruel, Tom. I’m not an addiction, like heroin. That’s a terrible thing to say.’

My voice was ugly, belligerent. He flinched. Then we were staring at each other.

‘What wouldn’t be a stupid thing to say?’ he said. ‘Is it stupid to say that I love you? I do. I didn’t mean to fall in love – God knows I didn’t expect that! Meg, you’re Pete’s girl. Falling in love with you was the last thing I expected to happen.’

When I shook my head tears spilled onto my cheeks. ‘It isn’t true.’

‘It is true that I love you. You are –’ He broke off, wiped a hand across his face, and said, ‘I’m no good for you, though, so I’ll have to get over that addiction, too.’

‘I am not an addiction. Stop saying that.’ I was nearly shouting. ‘What about Phyllis? Where does she stand in all this?’

He punched the grass again, and now his voice was angry.

‘Phyll knows about everything. She knew about Doreen. She hated the drugs, hated all of it, but she stood by me. Not that I was much use to her. There’s not much passion left in me now and I can be very bad company. It’s no wonder she went with Chad.’

‘Do you love her?’

‘No. Not any more. You’re not to blame for that. I’ve known it for a while now. I thought I could be satisfied with what we had, that there was enough liking to make a reasonable fist at a marriage . . .’

‘Face it, Tom,’ I said sharply. ‘It was easier just to stay with her. Let Phyllis manage your life while you used anyone you could to keep this addiction going. She thinks you love her. You should stop lying to her.’

‘I did. Last night. I told her we couldn’t be married, that it wouldn’t work. That we’d end up hating each other.’

Poor Phyllis. I could imagine how completely humiliated she’d be feeling. Then I couldn’t believe that I was feeling sorry for Phyllis Gregory.

‘We didn’t discuss how it would be made public,’ he said. ‘At the moment she does hate me. I told her I’d put around the story that it was her idea to break off the engagement. She told me she was going to Melbourne and if she never saw me again it would be too soon. Maybe one day she’ll forgive me.’

His dark eyes were watching me closely. He wrapped his right hand – his perfect right hand – around mine and my entire body thrilled to his touch. He put the left hand on top of our joined hands.

‘Meg, this pain in my left hand is caused by nerve damage. Something called traumatic neuroma. I’ve had several operations, but they haven’t helped. The last one made things worse. They want me to try another procedure.’

He took his hands away from me and gently stroked his maimed hand with the other. ‘I’m scared to try it. Sometimes the pain is almost intolerable – I do need big doses of pain relief. If it gets any worse I’ll never be free. I’ll never beat this.’ There was fear in his eyes now and also desperation. ‘Meg, I want to beat this. I need to be free of it.’

‘See another doctor. Get a second and third opinion. You can’t live this way, Tom. Deal with the pain in your left hand and then deal with the addiction. Let me help you.’

He shook his head. ‘You deserve better than me. I’m no good for anyone. You deserve the chance to find someone better.’ His face had become a mask. He was shutting me out. ‘Come on, I’ll take you home.’

‘No.’

In a quick movement I stood up and brushed the grass off my skirt. Tom was very still, sitting on the rug by my feet. He was just as handsome and ravaged as always, but I could see him clearly now.

‘I’m sorry that you are such a mess, Tom. I thought you knew everything, were always right, and I had everything to learn. I wish you had told me how things really were with you, how you felt about me, so that we could have tried to work it out together. Now I just hope it’s not too late.’

‘It is too late. I’m no good for anyone, least of all you.’ There were tears in his eyes. I had never seen him cry before.

He bowed his head. His black hair was shaved at the nape of his neck, just like a schoolboy’s, and for some reason that made me want to cry. Or perhaps it was the way he sat, with head and shoulders bent like an old man weighed down by doubt and fear and uncertainty. His mutilated hand was lying loosely on his lap, partly covered by the other.

Thoughts whirled through my mind. Tom was very close to being broken. He hated himself, hated the needs that ravaged his body. He loved me, but he thought he was no good for me. He thought I didn’t know him, that I wasn’t strong enough to cope with the complex, damaged man he really was. He was wrong, though. I remembered the times I’d spent with Tom over the past months. How he had made me feel, how he had been when he was with me. In the end, I thought, it was simple. I was better when I was with him and he was better when he was with me.

‘You are good for me,’ I said. ‘We’re good for each other.’ My voice became stronger. ‘I love you so much. I tried not to. I thought it would be a betrayal of Peter. But I don’t think that any more. We have a lot in common and we are good when we’re together. Love like that is not an addiction. It’s the best thing there is. You are worth loving, Tom Lagrange, no matter what your problems. If you love me, then let me help you. I’m stronger than you think.’

For a while he stared down at his hands. When he raised his head the pain in his eyes was almost unbearable.

‘I do love you,’ he said. ‘But, Meg, no matter how much I love you, I can’t promise you a happy ending. Not after a war. Long after this one is over, I’ll still be fighting the demons that haunt me.’ He lowered his head again, and said, so softly that it was almost inaudible, ‘I just don’t know if love is enough.’

I knew.

‘It is,’ I said.

So I sat down beside him again, and I took hold of his hands, both his hands. He shook his head slightly and he tried, not very hard, to pull them away from me. I held on tight.

Acknowledgments

My mother, Mona Williams (1920–2011), became a war widow in 1963 and raised four children alone. The debt my brothers and I owe her is incalculable.

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

My thanks go to the following also: Ilse, Carolyn, Sue and Ali, who read early drafts and gave me invaluable feedback; the many other friends who listened patiently to my incessant gabbling about the novel; Rob, for putting me right about unarmed combat and showing me the best way to pluck a loaded pistol out of someone’s hand; Janet Blagg, who helped me so much in so many ways; my agent, Sheila Drummond, and the team at Pan Macmillan – Alexandra Nahlous, Cate Paterson and Catherine Day. Also Jeanmarie Morosin. Thank you all so much.

Further Reading

When writing this novel I tried to ensure that the history of Perth in wartime was as accurate as possible. I can’t possibly acknowledge all the books I read and internet sites I visited, but two books that deal specifically with Perth in the Second World War are: Fleeting Attraction: A Social History of American Servicemen in Western Australia by Anthony J. Barker and Lisa Jackson (University of Western Australia Press, 1996) and On the Homefront: Western Australia and World War II, Jenny Gregory (ed.) (University of Western Australia Press, 1996).

My father was a member of the 2/2 Independent Company, one of around 400 Australian commandos who tied up over 20,000 crack Japanese troops on Timor in the dark days of 1942. Their story is an inspirational example of determination, resourcefulness, courage and mateship. The latest, excellent book about that campaign is The Men Who Came Out of the Ground by Paul Cleary (Hachette Australia, 2010).

An entertaining book setting out the history of the notorious newspaper the Mirror is High Jinks at the Hot Pool by Ron Davidson (Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1994).

One resource that no Australian social historian can afford to ignore is Trove, the marvellous National Library of Australia site, which includes an extensive collection of digitised Australian newspapers: http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper.

Another internet site I found to be a goldmine of interesting information about Australia during the Second World War is www.ozatwar.com.

Deborah Burrows is a lawyer and writer and lives in Perth. She specialises in the area of medical law. She also has several degrees in history, including a postgraduate degree in medical history from the University of Oxford, where her dissertation was ‘Science in the Witness Box: Expert Medical Testimony in Criminal Poisoning Trials in England 1800–1860’ (bringing together her interest in crime, history, medicine and the legal process). This is her first novel.

First published 2012 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

Copyright © Deborah Burrows 2012
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.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Burrows, Deborah.
A stranger in my street / Deborah Burrows.
A823.4

Adobe eReader format: 9781743348093
EPUB format: 9781743348109
Online format: 9781743348086

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

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Cover design by Nada Backovic

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