Maralinga Part 30

'Nor do I,' he admitted. 'I eat at the Grosvenor when I'm in Adelaide. How would that suit you? The dining room's pleasant and the food's always good.'

'The Grosvenor it is then.'

'Excellent. We'll make it about seven thirty. Where do I pick you up?'

'You don't. I'll meet you in the foyer.'

Nick realised about halfway through the main course that his reasoning had been based upon self-delusion. A simple dinner out was not harmless at all. In fact, a simple dinner out had proved his fatal mistake.

Throughout the soup of the day a pleasant prawn bisque they'd stuck to small talk. He'd asked her how long she'd been in Australia, and she'd told him only two months. She'd arrived in the height of midsummer, she said.

'I found it unbearable at first, particularly the heatwave that hit us last month, but I have a flat in Glenelg so I get the breeze off the water.'

'Glenelg.' He stored it away as his first piece of information. 'Good beach, Glenelg do you swim a lot?'

'I'm learning,' she said proudly. 'I give myself a lesson every Sat.u.r.day morning.'

'Well, if you need a teacher, let me know. I'm an excellent swimmer.' The remark was not boastful, just a simple statement of fact.

'Of course you are,' she said. 'All Australians are. It makes me frightfully self-conscious. There I am drowning and a five year old swims past me like a fish it's most demeaning.'

He laughed, enjoying her company. He found her delightful even in small talk, although he was waiting for her to broach the subject of Maralinga. He was quite sure she wouldn't be able to resist.

They briefly discussed wines. He'd ordered a s.h.i.+raz to go with the main course, and she admitted to a fondness for a good red wine.

'It's actually the only alcoholic drink I do enjoy,' she said. 'I get by on shandies when I'm with the gang, but to me the beer spoils the lemonade.'

'You do realise that in this country that remark is close to sacrilegious.'

'Yes, it is in England too.'

'You should pay a visit to the vineyards just outside Adelaide,' he suggested. 'The Barossa Valley produces some of the best wines in Australia.'

'So I'm told.'

The main courses arrived duck for her, steak for him and that was when the small talk came to a halt.

'Tell me, Nick,' she said after the waiter had poured the s.h.i.+raz and departed, 'am I permitted to ask a few questions off the record?'

He pretended surprise. 'A few questions about what? You surely can't mean Maralinga.'

'Yes, I do,' she replied in all earnestness. 'I wasn't here for the previous series like the other journalists I have a lot of catching up to do.'

'You can ask as many questions as you like,' he said pleasantly. 'Just don't expect answers.'

'Oh, I wouldn't presume to overstep the mark.'

'Like h.e.l.l you wouldn't.' He smiled as he picked up his gla.s.s. 'Have a sip of your wine first. Tell me what you think of it.'

They sipped simultaneously, his eyes querying hers over the rims of their wine gla.s.ses.

'Delicious,' she said, 'I like it very much.' She did, although it differed greatly from the French wines favoured by her father.

'Penfolds. Right here in the Barossa Valley.' He put the gla.s.s down and started on his steak. 'So ask away, I'm all ears.'

'The Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee ...'

She started out harmlessly enough, enquiring about the safety committee's purpose, its founding members and the way it worked. The information was openly available to the press, she was already cognisant with the basic facts, and Nick answered her questions freely. Then she changed tack.

'What do you think of the committee's overall effectiveness?'

'In what way?' His response was guarded.

'Well, it seems a little biased, wouldn't you say? Two of the three founding members are British, and both have worked on previous British defence projects would they really have Australia's best interests at heart?'

'It's not my job to offer personal opinion,' he replied. She'd just voiced his personal opinion to perfection.

'Yes, of course. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked. The question slipped out. I'm really very sorry.' She returned her attention to the duck, which she'd barely touched.

'The question didn't slip out at all, and you very well know it.' Things had just jumped to a different level, Nick thought. She was testing how far she could push him. He rather enjoyed her audacity. 'You had every intention of asking me that, didn't you?'

Elizabeth was aware she was walking a fine line. She could maintain his interest through mindless chatter he clearly found her attractive but mindless chatter would not gain her information about Maralinga. She needed to charm and intrigue equally.

'Yes, I suppose I did,' she admitted. Honesty had always served before, she thought, a dose now surely wouldn't go astray. 'I shouldn't have expected an answer though. That was hardly fair.' She put down her cutlery, the duck once again forgotten. 'You see, Nick, I'm interested in the power of the committee.'

He continued to devour his steak without comment, but she knew she'd garnered his attention.

'At the conference, you talked of the full cooperation and liaison between all parties, both British and Australian, and you said that this was "in accordance with the requirements laid out by the safety committee". But I can't help wondering what sort of power the committee has to lay out requirements, and just what those requirements might be.'

He stopped eating and took a sip of his wine, waiting for her to go on.

'Oh, please don't misunderstand,' she added hastily, 'I'm not asking for your opinion. I'm just offering my own.'

'And what is your opinion?'

'I think the Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee is a sham,' she said boldly, defying him to differ.

Elizabeth was voicing Hedley Marston's views. According to Marston, AWTSC was an out and out sham. The committee had been set up by those in high places, he'd said, and its members continued to obey orders from above. Not only did the safety committee fail to protect Australia, it lied about its own findings and obfuscated the findings of others. At first, she'd wondered whether in his bitterness Marston might not be distorting the facts, but she'd found his arguments too persuasive, too intelligent. If he was right, and she believed he was, did Nick Stratton know the level of deception being practised? Marston had said all soldiers were ignorant of the true facts, even high-ranking officers. Was Nick covering the truth, or was he being kept in ignorance?

As their eyes locked across the table, Elizabeth tried hard to read his reaction.

'I see,' he said slowly, as if he were giving the matter a great deal of thought. 'The safety committee's a sham that's your confirmed opinion, is it?'

They were sizing each other up. She nodded. His normally stern face was sterner than ever, and she had a feeling she may have gone too far.

Nick was wondering how she came to hold such views. Who had she been talking to? He'd presumed she'd learnt of the test codenames from a soldier on leave a man out to impress in order to get her into bed. But a soldier would have little knowledge of the safety committee and probably even less interest in it. She must have been talking to a scientist, he thought, and a jaded one at that. He was surprised that a scientist should so openly express an opinion, but then the scenario would probably have been the same, wouldn't it? The man would no doubt have been on the make, and men bent on conquest were known to behave foolishly.

'Let me get this right, Elizabeth,' he said. 'You're offering your opinion, and you don't expect any form of comment from me. Is that correct?'

'Yes, absolutely,' she a.s.sured him. 'I mean, absolutely no. I don't expect any comment from you at all.'

'What utter rubbish.'

Oh dear, Elizabeth thought, I have gone too far.

'You're grilling me for information, aren't you?'

It was only then she realised that he was enjoying the game. Until that moment she hadn't even realised it was a game, but she could see quite clearly now he was right. Furthermore, it was a game she knew she could play.

'Of course I'm grilling you.' Her smile was both challenging and seductive. 'Do you think I'm likely to get anywhere?'

'Well, you'll never know if you don't try, will you?'

He raised his gla.s.s and she returned the salute with her own. They were openly teasing each other. The ground rules had been set in place. The game had commenced in earnest.

As they toasted each other, Elizabeth was surprised by the relative ease with which she'd embraced the art of flirtation. Bob Swindon would be proud of her, she thought.

For Nick, the toast was the moment when he realised there was no turning back and that he would continue to pursue Elizabeth Hoffmann for as long as there was the remotest chance of her capitulation.

He looked critically at her plate as he put down his gla.s.s. 'Are you going to eat that duck or not?' he asked.

'Of course I am. I'm ravenous.' She attacked the duck l.u.s.tily. 'Delicious,' she said through a mouthful of thigh meat. 'Absolutely delicious.'

It was like watching a healthy racehorse enjoying its oats, he thought.

The evening continued pleasantly. They relaxed in each other's company. She didn't push for further information and he didn't overstep the mark when they said goodnight. He shook the hand she proffered, wondering how long it would take before he could kiss her.

'Thanks for a lovely evening, Nick,' she said as the taxi pulled up. She'd refused his offer to escort her home. 'Don't be ridiculous,' she'd scoffed, 'you'd only have to get another taxi back from Glenelg. What a terrible waste of money.'

'I'll give you a ring next week, Elizabeth. We must repeat the experience.'

'Yes, I'd like that.'

He stood on the kerb and waved as the taxi took off.

Further evenings out followed, and the odd lunch too over the next several weeks, Nick found any number of excuses for regular trips to Adelaide.

The game between them became progressively more daring. She would bring up the topic of Maralinga and he would tantalise her with bits and pieces of information he considered harmless. Then she would push him just that little bit further, offering opinions, trying to draw him into conversation, sometimes even succeeding, and when he started to become testy she would back off and apologise for having gone too far. Nick knew he should ban such discussions, but he wasn't sure if he could maintain her interest without teasing her along, and so the game continued.

Nick Stratton found Elizabeth Hoffmann mercurial, maddening and very, very clever, all of which only added to her attraction. But he was making no inroads in the s.e.xual stakes. By mid-April he'd progressed no further than a kiss on the cheek. On the several occasions when he'd started to home in, she'd artfully avoided mouth-to-mouth contact, and the kiss on the cheek had now become standard practice, replacing the handshake upon greeting and departing. It was infuriating. He was being treated like a workmate. Furthermore, she always insisted on catching her own taxi home, thereby excluding him from any contact with her personal life. He dared not risk scaring her off by attempting to ravish her the way he wished she was far too intriguing but he'd reached a definite stalemate. It was time to take action, and the first step was to meet her on her home ground.

He arranged a weekend's leave and booked a hire car in advance. Then he telephoned her mid-week.

'Do you want to visit the wineries on Sat.u.r.day?' he asked. 'I'll be in town and I'll have a car.'

'Love to,' she said.

'Right. I'll pick you up around ten. What's your address?'

Elizabeth hesitated. She liked Nick Stratton: she found him stimulating company, and he was certainly useful. She was aware that the material he shared with her was heavily censored, but it was nonetheless insightful and she was slowly but surely learning much about the basic structure of Maralinga. She'd avoided inviting him into her personal life, however, knowing full well he was bent on seduction.

Oh, well, she thought, too late now she could hardly insist upon meeting him in town. She gave him her address, hoping that she wouldn't have to fight him off when he dropped her home.

He arrived on the dot of ten to discover her waiting outside the house in St Johns Row.

'Good day for it,' he said as he jumped out and opened the pa.s.senger door for her. The day was indeed glorious: crisp, cloudless and sunny. 'The Barossa's spectacular in autumn.'

The Barossa Valley, roughly an hour's drive northeast of Adelaide, was prime wine-producing country and exceptionally beautiful. They spent two hours driving through the lush, rolling foothills, visiting the wineries and walking beside the river. Then Nick called a halt for lunch.

The restaurant looked out over endless vineyards stretching down the slopes to the shallow valley below, and the leaves of the vines were a riot of colour, from rusty reds to yellows and even the deepest of purples.

'You're right,' Elizabeth said, 'it is spectacular.'

They were loath to leave when they'd finished their meal and they lingered over their wine, savouring the beauty of the place.

'How incredible,' Nick said, leaning back, arms folded, observing her with an air of amus.e.m.e.nt.

'What's incredible?'

'It's been a whole five hours and you haven't once mentioned Maralinga.'

'Good heavens above, I haven't, have I?' She was surprised as she realised that he was right. 'Would you like me to?' The challenge was there once more, in her voice and in her eyes.

'Suit yourself.'

The game was on again, he thought, but he was tiring of it now. The bar would have to be raised if she wanted more information.

'The minor tests,' she said, 'the Tims and Rats and Kittens ...' She paused, considering how to word a statement that was really a question.

'The tests with the colourful codenames supplied by your mysterious source,' he prompted archly.

'That's right.' She smiled at the reference to their first meeting, then continued in all seriousness. 'Surely these experiments could create an ongoing risk.'

'In what way?'

What was she up to, he wondered. In which particular direction was she heading this time?

'They employ the use of materials that are highly radioactive,' she said, 'uranium, beryllium, plutonium ...' Elizabeth was once again looking for a giveaway sign. She was more convinced than ever that Nick Stratton was ignorant of the true cover-up at Maralinga, and the true cover-up had become a source of great interest to her. 'I can't help wondering,' she said, 'whether these tests might pose a contamination problem in the future.'

'You're certainly a full book on the subject. I take it this is further information gained from the mysterious source who cannot be named?'

She registered the superciliousness in his tone, but not the degree to which she'd angered him.

'I've been to the library,' she said. 'I've been reading up on the subject.' It was true, she had.

'How very clever of you.'

Nick deeply resented her line of questioning. He'd realised that she was testing the extent of his knowledge and he was insulted. This was the first stupid move she'd made, he thought. Did she honestly believe he was so naive he didn't know he was being fed half-truths and possibly even lies from above? As liaison officer, he was the spokesperson for the British and Australian governments and was given material approved by both for public consumption virtual propaganda, little more. This was the frustration of his job admittedly, and it irked him, but security demanded such safeguards be set in place. Armies and governments throughout the civilised world conducted top-secret projects in exactly this manner, he thought, and if the notion was beyond Elizabeth's comprehension then it was she who was naive.