Ada, too, had glanced out the window. She'd seen Pete. She'd been expecting him to turn up any day now, although she was surprised he'd arrived so early in the morning.

'I said that's him, isn't it?' Harry hissed.

She nodded.

'Get out on the verandah. Give him the all clear.'

She looked back at the siding. b.u.g.g.e.r it, she thought. Pete was taking another drag on his smoke, but she couldn't tell from this distance whether he'd just lit up or whether he was about to finish the d.a.m.n thing. Perhaps if she could buy some time ...

She tipped Harry's tea into the basin on the bench and was about to pour him a fresh mug ...

'Stop mucking around, Ada, you heard what I said.' If she'd been within striking distance Harry would have belted her. 'Get yourself out there.' He picked up the .22 rifle that was leaning against the wall, loaded and at the ready as it had been for days. 'Get yourself out there and call him in.'

Ada shrugged and walked to the door. What was the point anyway? She was only delaying the inevitable. Pete would come back another day, and Harry would still be waiting. She opened the door.

'Stand up straight, you stupid cow, and don't let him see your f.u.c.king eye.'

She stepped outside, feeling a stab of pain in her ribs as she straightened her back. Behind her, she heard the rifle being c.o.c.ked. Then she heard Harry's hissed warning.

'Don't forget, Ada, if he takes off, you're the one in my sights.'

She stood with the window behind her and the knowledge that resting on its sill was the barrel of the rifle. She looked towards the siding and angled her head so the left side of her face was in shadow.

Having milked the cigarette to its bitter end, Pete dropped the b.u.t.t to the ground. He was on the verge of leaving. And then he saw her step out onto the verandah. Salvation, he thought, grinding the b.u.t.t into the dust with the heel of his boot. Here was his panacea, his oblivion, and he started to walk the 200 yards from the siding to Ada's cottage.

Ada watched him approaching. She made no move, gave no warning signal. It was him or her. She had no choice.

Harry lined up his target in the rifle's sights. Come on, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he thought, come on.

Pete was barely fifty yards from the cottage when he noticed something different about Ada. The left side of her face looked strange. His step slowed just a little.

That's it, Harry thought. Perfect range ... You've had it, you p.r.i.c.k.

Ada saw Pete hesitate. If he ran, Harry would think she'd signalled a warning. She smiled invitingly. But the smile was lopsided.

She's been beaten, Pete thought, and the realisation flashed through his mind that it could mean only one thing ...

In that very instant, a shot rang out.

Pete Mitch.e.l.l achieved the oblivion he sought. He was dead the moment he hit the ground, a .22-calibre bullet through the brain. Harry Lampton was an excellent marksman. But then the target had been an easy one.

Behind the tattered screens and curtains of the fettlers' cottages, there was movement, but not a sound was heard. No alarm was raised.

Eyes watched as Harry dragged the body into the scrub, a shovel over his shoulder. Eyes watched as, forty minutes later, he loaded his meagre belongings into the FJ Holden. And eyes watched as Harry Lampton, his wife beside him, his roo dog in the back, drove away from Watson.

Through their windows, the fettlers' wives saw it all. So did Tommo, the ganger, and his wife. They saw everything and yet they saw nothing. The eyes of the fettlers were blind to anything that might invite enquiry.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Daniel was puzzled and a little concerned when Pete didn't return to the barracks that night. The following morning, he checked on the FJ Holden and, discovering it gone, made discreet enquiries amongst the patrol officers. He didn't wish to be over-alarmist in reporting Pete missing. As it turned out, Sergeant Benjamin Roscoe, who normally accompanied Pete on patrol, was as puzzled as Daniel was.

'He didn't front up yesterday,' Benjamin said. 'I didn't see him at all.'

Benjamin had actually wondered whether Pete Mitch.e.l.l's failure to report for duty might have had something to do with the Aboriginal deaths, but he hadn't said a word. He hadn't dared. He hadn't even brought up the subject with Charlie and Sam, who wouldn't have welcomed discussion if he had. They were all terrified of the repercussions should they be overheard. Each of the men had put the episode behind him. It was as if the Aboriginal deaths simply hadn't happened.

'I wouldn't worry too much though, Lieutenant,' Benjamin added comfortingly. 'Pete tends to flout the rules. He's a bit unpredictable, if you know what I mean.'

Daniel nodded; he knew only too well what Benjamin meant. 'His utility's gone,' he said, 'but he hasn't taken any of his gear with him. I'm just hoping there hasn't been an accident.'

Unspoken thoughts were rife in Daniel's mind too. In the remote possibility that Pete's wild accusations were true, then Benjamin would be one of those servicemen threatened with court martial should he break silence. But Daniel didn't dare ask. If Pete's story was true, then he would be placing the man in danger, although he had to admit that the down-to-earth Benjamin Roscoe didn't appear like a soldier under threat of treasonable charges and a firing squad. In the cold light of day, the whole business was starting to seem rather ludicrous.

Benjamin and Daniel both agreed that, in the event Pete's car might have broken down or there'd been an accident, the military police should be informed the desert was no place to be stranded.

'But let's leave it until tomorrow, Lieutenant,' Benjamin suggested. 'Pete's a pretty smart bushman, he can survive a day or two out there, and we wouldn't want to get him into trouble.'

'What sort of trouble?'

'Well, not so much trouble,' Benjamin said, 'more embarra.s.sment really.'

Daniel was mystified by the remark.

'It's possible he might have stayed overnight at Watson,' Benjamin added.

'Oh. Yes, of course. You're probably right.' Daniel felt a little foolish. He'd forgotten all about the fettler's wife. Was he the only person who hadn't known of Pete's affair, he wondered. 'We'll leave it until tomorrow, and if he hasn't turned up by then, we'll alert the MPs.'

When Pete didn't turn up the next day, they reported him missing to the military police, whose first port of call, at Benjamin's suggestion, was Watson. But there was no sign of Pete at Watson. Nor was there any sign of his FJ Holden.

'Nah,' Tommo, the ganger, said when shown a photograph, 'haven't seen the bloke. What about you, Mave?' He handed the photo to his wife.

'Nup,' Mavis said with a shake of her head, 'never clapped eyes on him.'

The response from the fettlers' wives was the same. No-one had seen either the man or the vehicle, which to the MPs seemed strange as they'd been informed Pete regularly visited Watson. But then fettlers were notoriously unhelpful.

The military police scoured the surrounding area for the utility, and reports were sent to Ceduna and Adelaide seeking Pete's whereabouts, but no news was forthcoming. It seemed Pete Mitch.e.l.l had simply decided to take off.

Daniel was worried. Pete was indeed unpredictable, as Benjamin had said, but he wouldn't take off without a word, and he certainly wouldn't leave his gear behind. Something had happened. There'd been an accident, Daniel was sure of it.

Nick Stratton was also concerned for Pete's safety, but his reasoning differed from Daniel's. He didn't believe there'd been any accident. He believed Pete Mitch.e.l.l, in his unstable state, may have cracked completely. Had his guilt over the Aboriginal deaths driven him to such distraction that he'd disappeared into the desert and taken his own life? Tragic as the possibility was, Nick found it eminently plausible.

For most, the mysterious disappearance of Pete Mitch.e.l.l was overshadowed by a far more exciting event. Just four days after he'd gone missing, the countdown began on the third test in the Buffalo series. As before, a heightened sense of antic.i.p.ation pervaded Maralinga.

Codenamed Kite, the test was once again to differ in its form of detonation. This time, the device a Blue Danube bomb was to be dropped from an RAF Vickers Valiant at a height of 35,000 feet, and exploded in an airburst approximately 400 feet above the ground.

The bomb had originally been scheduled to use a service-issue forty-kiloton core, but plans had been changed.

'What if the airburst fuse fails?' one of the physicists had suggested. 'A surface explosion with a bomb of that yield could result in huge contamination problems.'

Sir William Penney had admitted there was possible cause for concern, and a low-yield bomb core of 3 kilotons had been subst.i.tuted.

'Just in case,' they'd all agreed.

The Kite test presented particular grounds for excitement. This was to be the first time a British atomic weapon had been launched from an aircraft. The eleventh of October 1956 would mark a historic occasion for armed forces and scientists alike.

Weather conditions were favourable that morning, but, as the day progressed, the upper winds began to veer and it was decided to bring the schedule forward by one hour. The drop would now take place close to two thirty in the afternoon.

At Roadside, the crowd was gathered in its hundreds, field gla.s.ses and binoculars trained on the Valiant bomber overhead. But at the start of the ten second countdown the focus shifted and all observers turned their backs to the site.

In the Valiant's c.o.c.kpit, a tense silence prevailed as the final seconds of the countdown sounded through the headsets of each crew member.

'Two, one, zero ...'

Then the bombardier's voice, calm, unruffled. 'Bombs away.'

A slight b.u.mp was felt as the weapon left the aircraft, after which the pilot and crew sprang into action. Upon immediate release of the bomb, the pre-planned manoeuvre was to take the aircraft clear of the weapon's detonation while simultaneously counting down the seconds for the time of the fall. The final second of the predetermined countdown would be the moment of detonation, or so they all hoped.

As the aircraft sped away from the site and the countdown began, every crew member waited breathlessly for the blinding flash, praying that it would occur at the precise moment it should. If the airburst fuse malfunctioned and the detonation took place prematurely, they were in trouble.

Then, on the final second of countdown, the sky turned white. The device had detonated safely as planned, 400 feet above the ground.

Cheers screamed through headsets; men grinned and gave each other the thumbs up. The Kite test had been a resounding success on every level of operation.

The following day, however, there was reason to question the overall success of the Kite test, although only a select few were aware of the fact.

The weather had not behaved favourably as predicted. Winds had veered in an alarming fashion and fallout from the bomb had drifted much farther south than had been expected. Furthermore, rain had been forecast to the south-east of the state. This wet weather had been presumed well beyond the reach of any fallout and therefore harmless, but the presumption had now proved wrong.

On 12 October, the day after the third test in the Buffalo series, the city of Adelaide, approximately 600 miles south-east of Maralinga, was blanketed by radioactive rain. No reports of the danger appeared in the press. Nor was the public alerted to the fact that readings of radiation levels 900 times higher than normal were secretly recorded in the Adelaide area. No-one but a handful of scientists knew. And only one was prepared to go public.

'I've had a disturbing call from Hedley Marston of the CSIRO in Adelaide,' Nick announced at a meeting with t.i.tterton, Butement and Martin of the safety committee. It was two days after the firing and he was there to receive his brief for the press conference to be held in Adelaide the following day. 'Mr Marston enquired whether we intend to make any announcement about the Adelaide readings.' Nick looked from one man to another, his eyes clearly asking, What readings? What aren't you telling me?

'Marston's an alarmist,' t.i.tterton, the AWTSC chairman, snapped. 'Low amounts of radioactive particles were detected in the air above Adelaide, presenting no danger whatsoever. The man's a positive menace.'

t.i.tterton was very quick to dismiss the celebrated biochemist. In his view, it had been a wrong move to bring in the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation to a.s.sist with biological experiments. And it had been a particularly wrong move to allow Marston free rein with his tests on the radiation effects upon animals well outside the test zone. The original a.s.sumption that his findings would be a helpful measure of fallout over vast areas had proved correct, but the man himself was getting out of hand. Sir William Penney and Professor Ernest t.i.tterton were in firm agreement that Hedley Marston was rapidly becoming a political disaster. Through his experiments, Marston was obtaining potentially scandalous data on radioactive fallout. Even more worrying, he was not bound by the secrecy provisions in place at Maralinga.

'He doesn't understand the political situation,' Penney had complained time and again. 'If a man of his scientific reputation says the tests are damaging there'll be an almighty row. The communists and other political troublemakers will have a field day. He must be silenced at all costs.'

'I warn you, Colonel Stratton,' t.i.tterton now continued, 'Marston could jeopardise the entire test program.' The tut-tut of disapproval that followed seemed directed at Nick as much as at Marston. 'I must say, I'm not surprised he got in touch with you when all contact should have been made via the committee the man appears determined to undermine our credibility. It's irresponsible, to say the least.'

'I agree. He's a security risk we can ill afford.' Alan Butement instantly backed t.i.tterton, as he always did.

Nick glanced at Leslie Martin, the Australian. He usually tried to gauge the truth of the situation via Martin, who didn't have the same vested interests as the British scientists, although Nick sometimes wondered how often Martin was conveniently left out of the loop. In this instance, however, the Australian appeared to genuinely concur with his colleagues.

'He's a bit of a renegade,' Martin agreed, 'with a tendency to exaggerate.'

'Is this what I tell the press conference if his name comes up?' Nick's question was deliberately confrontational.

'His name won't come up,' t.i.tterton said dismissively. 'The general press doesn't even know who he is. You won't hear a peep about Marston.'

Ernest t.i.tterton had every right to be confident. Hedley Marston knew that if he attempted to expose his personal findings, he would be contradicted by his peers and exposed to ridicule. Sir William Penney had, furthermore, demanded that all reference to Adelaide be deleted from the article Marston was writing for publication in a scientific journal, and a further warning had been issued, in the interests of national security. Should any defamatory material appear, it would be instantly quashed, along with Marston's reputation.

'I will address the conference, Colonel,' t.i.tterton said in conclusion. 'You will make your statement to the press and, before you call for questions, you will introduce me. In the meantime, you can put Marston right out of your mind.'

Nick was grateful to be relieved of the burden. But he really did not like Ernest t.i.tterton.

On the second floor of the Government Information Office in Rundle Street, Adelaide, all was going as planned.

'And now I'd like to call upon Professor Ernest t.i.tterton, chairman of the Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee,' Nick announced. 'I'm sure he'll be happy to answer any questions you may have.'

'Thank you, Colonel.'

Nick stood to one side as Ernest t.i.tterton addressed the press gathering.

'Firstly, may I offer the committee's firm a.s.surance that all safety procedures were observed and all communications strictly in place during the Kite test. Weather conditions were satisfactory for firing, and complete agreement was reached between the Australian committee and the trials director that there was no danger of significant fallout outside the immediate target area.'

t.i.tterton went on in a similar vein for a further minute or so before concluding with his personal guarantee that the committee would continue to monitor all experimentation a.s.siduously. Then he called for questions. There were very few. And not one involved radiation readings recorded in Adelaide.

'Thank you, Colonel Stratton.' In returning the floor to Nick to conclude the conference, Ernest t.i.tterton managed to make it sound like an order.

Arrogant b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Nick thought he wanted to deck the man.

Nick stayed overnight in Adelaide. He had another press conference in Canberra the following day and was booked on a commercial flight early in the morning. He could have flown out that afternoon, but he preferred to spend as little time in Canberra as possible he found it a sterile place.

After changing into civilian clothes, he dined at the hotel and then took himself off to the seedy bars and clubs of Hindley Street with the express intention of getting drunk. He rarely got drunk, but he was so fed up with the game-playing his job required that he felt an insatiable urge for some form of distraction. Christ, he had every right to get b.l.o.o.d.y well plastered, he told himself. Safeguarding military secrets and protecting the all-important Maralinga project was one thing, but taking orders from two-faced little Pommie-p.r.i.c.k boffins was another thing altogether.

He did the rounds of a few bars, drinking a beer or two in each, before moving on to a downstairs club featuring a piano player, where he switched to Scotch.

'Thank you,' he said to the waitress as she placed his drink on the table.

The club was small and half-empty and he knew the type well. The clientele was male and the staff female, with the exception of two bouncers lounging in the shadows. Even the bartenders and the piano player were female, and the several women seated at the bar or drinking with the customers would be hostesses. This was a club for lonely men.

The good-looking brunette playing the piano segued from 'La Vie En Rose' to 'Tennessee Waltz', and a couple rose from a table to shuffle around the pocketsized dance floor. A customer leaned against the piano pouring the brunette a gla.s.s of champagne, and Nick wondered whether the pianist, too, was on the game. Most of the women would be, he was sure.

'h.e.l.lo there. Would you like some company?'

He peered up through the atmospheric gloom of the club's lighting into a pretty face surrounded by platinum blonde hair. The lips were full and red, the figure voluptuous, and she appeared vaguely familiar. He hadn't planned on s.e.x, but it suddenly seemed like an excellent idea.

'Please. Join me. Champagne?' Nick knew the rules. Hostesses at such clubs were paid commission on the cheap sparkling wine that was sold at exorbitant prices under the guise of champagne.

'Lovely,' she said breathily, and she sat.

'What's your name?'