Maralinga Part 27

The phone rang. He answered it.

'There's a lady here to see you, Colonel,' the receptionist said. 'A Miss Elizabeth Hoffmann.'

'I'll be right down.'

He picked up his bag and headed straight for the foyer.

'h.e.l.lo, Colonel.' Elizabeth offered her hand and, as they shook, he noted that her grip was as firm and confident as a man's, which didn't altogether surprise him. 'I hope you'll forgive the intrusion,' she said.

'It's not an intrusion at all, Miss Hoffmann. I have an hour to fill in before I leave for the airport. Will you join me for a drink?'

'Thank you. I'd love to.'

When they'd settled themselves in the lounge, he ordered a Scotch for himself and she opted for a pot of tea. It was a bit early in the day for her, she said, she still had an afternoon's work to get through.

'This is something of a surprise, I must say.' Nick leaned back in his armchair with a querying look.

'Yes, I suppose it is,' she agreed, then went on to explain. 'My colleagues told me you always stay at the Grosvenor, so I thought I'd pop around on the chance that you might have a spare moment.'

'And I do. But for what purpose, Miss Hoffmann?'

'Perhaps to accept an apology?' Elizabeth didn't feel remotely apologetic, but she'd been unable to come up with a better pretext for a visit. 'I sensed your annoyance at the conference and I'm sorry. I didn't intend to be quite so confrontational.'

Nick laughed at her blatant transparency. 'Of course you did, that's an out-and-out lie. You were as provocative as you could be right from the start.'

Oh no, I wasn't, Elizabeth thought, I could have been a lot more provocative, believe me. But she smiled, grateful for his good-natured response. 'Surely that's a journalist's job, Colonel,' she said.

'Then why the apology? Aren't you being a little contradictory, Miss Hoffmann?'

'Yes, I suppose I am,' she admitted, 'but I wanted to make sure that I hadn't offended you. You see, I've only been at The Advertiser six weeks. I'm still new to the job and I wouldn't want to '

'You wouldn't want to cruel your pitch, is that it?'

'Yes, that's precisely it.'

'I admire your honesty.'

Nick did. In fact, he found her honesty remarkable. She appeared to have not a shred of the artifice he'd encountered in most women. Particularly in most good-looking women. Perhaps he'd misjudged her.

The tea and Scotch arrived, and when the waitress had gone, he offered his own admission, which seemed only fair.

'I have to admit I was a bit annoyed,' he said. 'I took offence at the way you used your femininity to gain an advantage.'

'In what way?' Elizabeth wasn't sure what he was getting at.

'Well, the way you remained standing for a start. You were the centre of attention, all eyes were upon you. It was extremely provocative.'

'I thought we agreed that's a journalist's job.'

'Not when a journalist looks like you, Miss Hoffmann. In remaining the central focus you provoked nothing but distraction. A rather cheap trick to gain the upper hand, I thought.'

Elizabeth tried to keep a rein on her anger, although the colonel's att.i.tude, so typical of that which she had encountered from men on a regular basis, infuriated her.

'I can't help my appearance, Colonel,' she said stiffly. 'I do my best to counter it, I can a.s.sure you.' She gestured at her blazer. 'I do not dress seductively, I wear virtually no make-up and if I cut my hair any shorter I'd be bald. Quite frankly, if men can't handle my appearance then that is their problem, not mine.'

'Oh dear.' Nick realised that perhaps he could have expressed himself a little more delicately. 'My turn to apologise. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound so blunt.'

Elizabeth gave in with relatively good grace, although she recognised the man was making no apology for what he'd said, only the way he'd said it. But then, of course, he knew no better.

'That's perfectly all right, Colonel,' she said. 'I did my training in Aldershot I'm quite accustomed to the att.i.tude of military men towards women in the workforce.' Even as she made the dig, she smiled to let him know that he was off the hook. 'I can a.s.sure you though, I am an excellent journalist.'

'I don't doubt that for one moment, Miss Hoffmann. So tell me, how did you know about the codenames?'

'Ah, that would be giving away far too much,' she said. 'A good journalist never reveals her source of information.'

She sipped her tea thoughtfully, wondering how much she should tell him in order to keep him intrigued without annoying him. The balance was delicate. Which way should she play things?

Nick didn't push the matter any further, construing her silence to mean that the subject was closed. He didn't care about her source of information anyway; he was far more interested in the woman than the journalist. No doubt some soldier on leave had been showing off while he tried to get her into bed, he thought. And who could blame any man for trying to bed Elizabeth Hoffmann?

'Aldershot, eh,' he said with interest, keen to make up for his previous blunder, 'the home of the British army. Well, you'd certainly earn your stripes as a cadet reporter there, I would think. So how and when did you become a feature journalist?'

As she regaled him with the story of her interview for The Guardian, Nick found himself riveted. The thought of her storming an editor's office dressed as a man and smoking a cigar was not only amusing, it was somehow erotic. And yet she seemed unaware of the fact. There was an extraordinary s.e.xuality about Elizabeth Hoffmann, but she didn't appear to know it.

They chatted for a further half-hour, or rather Elizabeth did. Nick mainly asked the questions. Then he looked regretfully at his watch.

'Time I was heading off, I'm afraid.'

As they stood, he added casually, 'I'm back next week, Wednesday, just overnight. I don't suppose you'd be interested in dinner?'

He wasn't scheduled to be in Adelaide the following week at all, but he could make an overnight stopover on his way to Canberra, he decided. By now, all good intentions to practise common sense and steer clear of the woman had deserted him. Elizabeth Hoffmann was a positive magnet. What red-blooded male could resist such a challenge?

'Thank you, yes. I'd enjoy that.'

'Excellent. How about I ring you at The Advertiser when I get in, probably mid-afternoon, and we'll make our plans then?'

'That suits me perfectly, Colonel.' Elizabeth offered her hand.

'Do you mind if I call you Elizabeth?' he asked as they shook. 'Outside the office, of course,' he added.

'I don't mind at all, Nick.' She smiled. 'Thanks for the tea. Have a safe trip. I'll see you on Wednesday.' And with a quick wave, she was gone.

Elizabeth knew Nick Stratton found her attractive. She hadn't at first. At first she'd thought that he found her a genuine cause for irritation. But when he'd displayed no interest in discovering her source of information, she'd suddenly realised why. She'd stopped wondering how to keep him intrigued, recognising that there was no need. He was already intrigued, but not by her mind. She had to admit that she was just a little disappointed in the colonel. He was an impressive man, and she would have preferred his interest to have been of a more cerebral kind. Under normal circ.u.mstances she would have offered him no encouragement, but these were not normal circ.u.mstances. If she was to discover what was going on at Maralinga, she would need Nick Stratton's a.s.sistance, and if devious means were called for, then so be it.

For the first time in her life, Elizabeth found herself practising feminine wiles she hadn't even known she possessed.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

In the four months since Daniel's death, Elizabeth's resolve had not faltered nor her conviction diminished. She remained steadfast in her determination to discover the truth, and more than ever she refused to believe Daniel had died either by his own hand or accidentally.

As the rawness of her grief had settled, she'd studied his letter for further clues. She did not view it as the product of a disturbed mind as others might; others, after all, did not know Danny. Certainly, he'd been in a degree of turmoil at the time of his writing, she could see that, but the cause of his turmoil was abundantly clear to her. Danny was an idealist with a love of the army and a strong sense of justice. When he'd suspected his friend's death might have been a possible military a.s.sa.s.sination, his faith in the army had been severely shaken, but a man like Danny did not suicide for such a reason. Nor did he suicide through grief suffered over the loss of a comrade. A man like Danny would be driven to discover the truth. Was this why he had met his death?

She went over and over the contents of the letter, no longer needing to refer to it directly, every word now etched in her mind. Had the army threatened men with court martial if they spoke of what they'd seen? Pete Mitch.e.l.l had evidently said so, but Danny himself hadn't appeared too sure. And if men had been threatened with court martial, then what was it they had seen?

There were many questions to be asked, but of one thing Elizabeth was certain. To find out what had happened to Daniel, she would need to find out what was going on at Maralinga. And she couldn't do that from the other side of the world.

After handing in her notice at The Guardian, she'd applied for a position with The Advertiser in Adelaide and had been instantly accepted, the editor only too keen to gain the services of E. J. Hoffmann, whose feature articles in the London Guardian were so impressive.

Elizabeth's adventure had begun the moment she'd set foot on board the SS Strathaird at Tilbury Docks one icy-cold morning in early December. As the ship had pulled out into the harbour, she'd leant over the railing waving to her parents who'd come to farewell her, and she'd kept on waving even when they'd been swallowed up by the crowd, just in case they could still see her. Alfred and Marjorie Hoffmann, too, had continued to wave from the dockside, even though they'd no longer been able to distinguish their daughter amongst the hundreds jostling for position on the Strathaird's decks.

Unlike the majority of her fellow pa.s.sengers who were migrating under the post-war a.s.sisted-pa.s.sage scheme offered by the Australian government, Elizabeth was paying her own way. She was therefore free to return to her homeland at will, without serving out the scheme's obligatory two years, but this did not make her chosen course of action any the less momentous. The instant she had decided to leave England, Elizabeth had known that her life was about to undergo a radical change.

She'd enjoyed the sea voyage. Even the Bay of Biscay's rough crossing and the overwhelming heat of Port Said had not deterred her, and the Suez Ca.n.a.l she'd found quite remarkable. Unfortunately, disembarkation had been forbidden due to the Suez Crisis, but boat traders had provided an exciting distraction, swarming the ship and selling every conceivable trinket to its captive pa.s.sengers.

Most of all though, Elizabeth had loved the vast expanse of ocean and the sense of wonder she'd felt as she'd stood on the deserted deck watching the sunrise over the endless blue water, or when, late at night, she'd looked up at the stars in a sky she'd never seen, a sky clearer and more vivid than the one she'd known in the northern hemisphere with different constellations. At such times, she'd thought of her life and of Daniel's and of the plans that they'd made, and her thoughts had not saddened her but rather strengthened her purpose. She'd felt he was with her in her search for the truth.

The first Australian port of call had been Fremantle, and then it had been on to Adelaide, where the Strathaird had arrived just six weeks after departing Tilbury Docks. The next leg of Elizabeth's adventure had begun.

She'd bought a map of the city and booked into the Amba.s.sadors Hotel in King William Street. It had proved comfortable enough, but of far greater importance was the fact it was just around the corner from the offices of The Advertiser in Pirie Street.

As on previous occasions, while not actually lying, Elizabeth had failed to stipulate her gender in her application, and when she'd fronted up to The Advertiser to make herself known, she'd antic.i.p.ated some hostility, if not from the editor then certainly from her fellow journalists.

'Good G.o.d, you're a woman.' The editor, a jovial man called Peter Johnston, known to all as P. J., had been astounded. 'Why didn't you tell me?'

'You didn't ask, and I didn't think it necessary given the fact that you'd accepted my credentials,' she'd replied pleasantly. Then she'd waited for the outburst. To her amazement, there'd been none.

'Fair enough,' P. J. had said. 'Welcome to The Advertiser, Miss Hoffmann. Good to have you aboard.'

Elizabeth had been surprised. Not only had the editor welcomed her, but her male colleagues, apparently respecting her work and her track record, had displayed none of the professional antipathy towards a woman in the ranks that she'd experienced during her early days at The Guardian. There'd been the customary problem of unwanted attentions from some, but she'd managed to discourage without offending, and the men had quickly come to regard her as one of their own.

She had sensed immediate animosity, however, from the one female amongst the senior hierarchy. Edna Sparks, a New Zealander in her forties, was the leisure and entertainments editor and held sway over a broad spectrum of the paper that dealt with the more lightweight matters, particularly those appealing to the female readership. Edna had regarded Elizabeth with baleful suspicion from the outset, and Elizabeth had had no idea why.

'Jealousy, that's all it is,' Laurie Knight, sports columnist, had said dismissively. 'Edna's got it in for all the young things, particularly the lookers. You want to watch her though, Liz, she's tough. You get on the wrong side of Edna and Sparks'll fly.' He'd given her a nudge and a wink, as if the remark was his own, but the pun had been bandied about as long as Edna had been in power, which was well over a decade.

Elizabeth had smiled dutifully. Laurie was well-intentioned enough, but he was one of those who had to be kept at arm's length. Why were the sports columnists always the most insistent, she'd wondered; and she really wasn't too sure about being known as 'Liz'. She had yet to realise that Laurie Knight was not the only Australian with a penchant for diminutives and that it was more than likely she'd be stuck with 'Liz'. She had taken his advice with regard to Edna though, and had steered clear of the woman whenever possible.

Laurie's glib a.s.sumption, which was not uncommon amongst his fellow journalists, was actually incorrect. Edna Sparks, having fought for her position in a man's world, was certainly tough, but she felt no particular animosity towards young women, good-looking or otherwise, unless they were after her job. As a company woman, married to her work and to the newspaper, Edna had no time for petty jealousy; it was not productive. Her initial antipathy towards Elizabeth had sprung from neither the threat of compet.i.tion nor the envy of youth. She had been concerned that Elizabeth Hoffmann might prove a disruptive element. The other young female employees performed secretarial and typing pool duties and knew their position in the hierarchy. They would not dare encourage the men's attentions during working hours any flirtatious behaviour was conducted outside the office. Elizabeth, however, had been brought into the workplace as an equal, and Edna could see that the men found her a distraction. It would be only a matter of time, she'd thought, before Elizabeth Hoffmann would cause trouble.

But as Edna had watched and waited for the warning signs, she'd quickly recognised that Elizabeth Hoffmann had no intention of causing trouble. Indeed, she'd found herself admiring the skilful manner in which the young woman fielded the men's attentions, neither offending nor encouraging, but relating to her colleagues in a friendly fashion and on a strictly professional basis at all times. Within barely a fortnight, Edna Sparks had reversed her opinion completely. Elizabeth Hoffmann was a credit to women in the workforce, she'd decided. There should be far more like her.

'Would you care to join me for lunch? I know an excellent little cafe that serves the very best sandwiches.'

The invitation was offered in the quaint New Zealand accent that no-one dared ridicule because it belonged to Edna, and Elizabeth looked up from her work flabbergasted. Only days previously the woman had been scowling at her across the newsroom floor, hatchet-faced and eagle-eyed, as if waiting for a moment to swoop in for the kill.

'Love to,' she said.

They sat opposite each other in one of the booths of the little corner milk bar where the chicken and salad sandwiches were indeed delicious, and while Edna made no apologies, she admitted to her original suspicions.

'I was so sure you'd cause trouble,' she said, 'but I must say I admire the way you handle the men.'

'In what way?'

'No nonsense. You keep them in line. I like that.'

Elizabeth laughed. 'You make me sound like a sergeant major,' she said, but she knew exactly what Edna meant. 'Actually the men make it easy for me, Edna. Even those on the make seem to respect my work. It wasn't at all the case when I started out at The Guardian I can tell you. I've no idea why,' she said thoughtfully as she stirred her tea, 'but for some strange reason, Australia seems more tolerant towards female journalists than Britain is.'

'Oh, we Antipodeans aren't quite as backward as you British tend to think.'

The tone of voice wasn't as harsh as the comment itself, but in glancing up from her cup Elizabeth nonetheless expected to encounter criticism. She encountered nothing of the kind. As Edna smiled, her hawk-like face softened and her eyes gleamed with an intelligence that was suddenly attractive.

'From a historical viewpoint, it's not really unexpected, you know. New Zealand led the suffrage movement, granting women the vote in 1893, and Australia followed in 1902. Britain didn't come to the party for another whole sixteen years.'

'Yes, you're right, of course. I'd forgotten that.'

'And did you know that both countries also boasted pioneer women journalists prior to the turn of the century?'

'No, I certainly didn't. How very interesting.'

'Oh yes, it is indeed.' Edna launched into a pa.s.sionate account of her fellow countrywoman Stella Allan, who'd become the first female parliamentary reporter in New Zealand and Australia. 'That was in 1898,' she said. 'She was Stella Henderson then, it was before she married. She was only in her mid-twenties.'

After recounting Stella Allan's story, she moved on. 'And of course there was Louisa Lawson who pioneered The Dawn: A Journal for Australian Women in 1888. She employed female typesetters too, which was a further cause for controversy ...'

It was a full twenty minutes before Edna came to a halt. 'I've carried on a bit, haven't I,' she said with no attempt at apology. 'It's a subject very close to my heart.' She looked at her watch. 'We'd better be getting back to work.'

'What a pity,' Elizabeth said, 'I could listen to you for hours.' She meant it wholeheartedly. 'And I must say I'm very thankful that the Antipodeans appear to continue one step ahead with regard to women's rights in the world of journalism anyway. It's quite a relief.'

They split the bill between them and left.

'How are you settling into Adelaide, Elizabeth?' Edna asked as they walked back to Pirie Street. She had decided she would not adopt the diminutive as her male counterparts had done 'Liz' did not suit the young Englishwoman at all. 'Have you found somewhere to live yet?'

'No, I'm still at the Amba.s.sadors. I've decided to stay in a hotel until I find the right place.'

'And what do you see as the right place?'

'I'm not sure, I haven't really had time to start looking in earnest, but I'd thought of somewhere by the sea.' Elizabeth smiled self-effacingly. 'It's probably frightfully British and frightfully unrealistic, but in coming all the way to Australia one fantasises about living by the beach.'

'It's not unrealistic at all. I have a contact who handles several rental properties in Glenelg and Brighton.' Edna had contacts all over Adelaide, advertisers mostly who were keen to keep on side with her. 'I'm sure he'll have something that will suit you. Leave it to me.'

Elizabeth did, and a week later she'd moved into a large, airy flat on the first floor of a once-imposing terrace house in St Johns Row, Glenelg. The house, which had seen better days, had been converted into two holiday apartments and the balcony of Elizabeth's upstairs flat commanded splendid views of the beach.

The building is faintly reminiscent of those seedy, once grand seaside hotels that abound in English coastal towns, she'd written to her parents. The beach itself bears no resemblance at all to our beaches, however in fact, it quite puts them to shame. There are no pebbles here, just miles and miles of glorious white sand, like one sees in the postcards, and the promenade is lined with magnificent Norfolk Island pines. Every morning I walk barefoot along the beach, after which I shower and then catch a tram into work Glenelg is less than half an hour's ride from the city. I must say, it is a wonderful way to start the day ...'