Sydney
1943
It was half past five in the morning and the heat was already unbearable.
“Elizabeth.”
The whispered name woke Dixon from a deep sleep. The room was in darkness.
She was slow to react, having lain awake for hours the previous night, and many nights before that, trying to make sense of the explosive information Teresa had unwittingly given her. She was consumed with planning who to write to first, what to say or hint at, and how best she might revenge herself on those at Tyringham Park who had wronged her, especially the little tell-tale, Charlotte.
“Elizabeth!” A little louder this time, accompanied by tapping.
Lady Blackshaw would be first – that was only fair – she had already written a letter to her at Tyringham Park and would post it later in the day. Charlotte, Miss East, Manus and Dr Finn would have to wait until she heard back from Her Ladyship.
“Elizabeth!” said for the third time, loudly and impatiently, finally drew Dixon from her bed.
It was Jim Rossiter’s voice. Mrs Sinclair must have died and he had come around to tell her and to bring her back to the house to include her in the funeral rituals. Thoughtful as ever.
She pulled her dressing gown around her, clutching it at her neck with one hand while she opened the door with the other. Her face was already fixed in an expression of sympathy – Jim was exceptionally fond of his mother-in-law, and she of him.
“Is it Mrs Sinclair?”
Jim pushed past her, flicked on the light switch and closed the door behind him.
“No. It’s not her. She’s still hanging on. It’s you. What I want to know is what have you done with the bloody money?”
Afterwards, Dixon couldn’t remember in what order Jim had made his accusations, but “robbing me blind for years” was the phrase he kept repeating.
“Pack your bags. You’ll never see this place or Norma or her mother again. I’m making sure of that.”
Dixon felt as if she wasn’t standing in the middle of her bedroom, bare feet firm on the carpet, but falling backwards out of an open window, her fingers losing their grip on the slippery frames while a freezing wind snapped at the shroud-like curtains. She experienced a flashback to the time Miss East and Dr Finn came to the nursery together and she knew by the look on their faces that her time was up.
Jim upturned her mattress and emptied the contents of her wardrobe on to the floor. He accompanied her to the bathroom and waited outside while she washed and dressed. At one point while he was questioning her he came near and she put up an arm to defend herself from an expected blow, but he said he had never hit a woman in his life and wasn’t about to start now. He held her shoulders, looked into her face and said in a reasonable voice that it would save him a lot of trouble if she would tell him where the money was. The physical contact comforted her and she didn’t pull away. With hands like those steadying her she would never have to fear falling backwards through an open window.
After everything the family, especially Mrs Sinclair, had done for her, Jim continued, telling him where the money was hidden was the least she could do. She must have had an aberration. It could happen to anyone handling all that cash, being tempted, giving in during a weak moment, afraid to own up, not knowing how to undo it. He understood. It wasn’t too late to make it right.
An image of Charlotte Blackshaw keeping a stubborn silence came to mind. She would do the same. He couldn’t trip her up if she didn’t say anything. Look at what Charlotte had got away with.
He waited, but she held her nerve, looking downwards so she wouldn’t be influenced by his expectant expression.
“We all thought the world of you, Elizabeth,” he said, dropping his arms. “Just shows you how wrong you can be. I’ll find the money, believe me, even if it means lifting up floorboards and tearing the place apart, and putting the hard word on every bank manager in Sydney.”
Apologising for having to check her handbag, he took it to examine the contents and found amongst her personal things a wad of high-denomination notes fitted into an empty cigarette packet. The money was for her Beth Hall account. She had intended to deposit it later on in the day after she’d done the hotel banking, but she couldn’t very well tell him that.
“The mother of your fiancé?” he asked, reading Lady Blackshaw’s address on the unstamped envelope of the letter she had written. “I would offer to post it for you, but I have a better idea. You’ll hear about it in a minute.”
He replaced everything in her handbag, including the money. “You’ll need that where you’re going to tide you over,” he said. “It’s the big stuff I’m after, not this piddling amount. I can’t have you ending up on the streets. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what you did for the Waratah, but you have to admit you were well paid.” His voice sounded more sad than angry. “There was no need for you to put your sticky fingers in the till.”
From the top of her wardrobe he retrieved her suitcase, opened it, and felt around the linings and pockets where he found the necklace, rings and bracelet she had stolen from Lady Blackshaw. “Mrs Sinclair mentioned these. From your fiancé, she said.”
Dixon made a grab for them.
“I’ll keep them,” he said, putting them in his pocket as he sidestepped her. “Compensation. Go on. Pack. I’m not taking my eyes off you until we leave.”
It was Peter Molloy, the new manager, who had noticed something wrong, Jim said. “Get a professional to look over the books,” Peter had advised after he’d been there for six months. “Something isn’t adding up.”
The young pup had never liked her. He must have thought all his Christmases had come at once when the auditor found deficits going back twenty years.
The mistake she’d made was increasing her percentage after Peter, a hotelier with little experience, had been appointed manager over her when she knew the position was rightly hers. Passed over because she was a woman and a spinster. She knew there was no malice in what Jim did – he often acknowledged how she and Mrs Sinclair had done wonders wooing customers and how she had held on to them after her patron had left. He thought being manager, even of a respectable establishment like the Waratah, was no job for a woman, and he would have considered it the gentlemanly thing to do to protect her with a male superior.
He was going to deport her at ten o’clock precisely. It was either that or inform the police, and he’d made the executive decision to send her back to England, from where she could cross over the Irish Sea and deliver her letter to Lady Blackshaw by hand and save on the postage. He would personally escort her to her cabin and wait at the gangplank until it was raised and the ship pulled away to make sure she didn’t disembark at the last minute.
“You’ll have the status of a stowaway,” he said, “except the captain knows you’re there. This no-speaking lark will come in handy for the trip.”
He couldn’t bring himself to involve Norma while the investigation was going on, he continued, and didn’t look forward to telling her before the next first Sunday of the month to explain Dixon’s absence. As for Mrs Sinclair, she would go to her grave without knowing her protégé had disgraced herself.
Jim didn’t allow Dixon to enter her office, speak to the night porter, or leave any written notes or phone messages before she left the hotel.
A young sailor was expecting them at the quay and led them to a cabin the size of a cupboard with ‘Quarantine’ fixed to the door.
“I gave your name as ‘Jane Brown’, not that anyone will be talking to you. Remember to stay out of everyone’s way – I don’t want my old mate cursing the day he did me a favour. You won’t be seeing him. He has more important things on his mind than social chitchat, like trying not to be sunk by a German U-boat, for instance.” He placed her case on the bunk. “You’re a cold fish, aren’t you? Did we ever know you?”
He put his hand in his pocket, retrieved her pieces of jewellery and, taking Dixon’s hand, folded her fingers over them. “Keep them,” he said. “I can’t dishonour the memory of your fiancé who wasn’t as lucky as I was coming home from the Great War in one piece. Just make sure you never show your face around here again. If you do I’ll personally break your bloody neck.”
With that, he left.