Territory (58 page)

He walked from his study towards the front of the house and the lounge room. But there was no lounge room. The roof and the walls had gone, only the floor remained, covered with shattered glass and timber. The wind was shrieking, tearing at the rear section of the roof, determined that nothing should remain standing.

In the torch's beam, Terence saw Fran's body. She lay sprawled on her back, covered in glass and drenched with blood. Such a lot of blood, he thought. Then he saw the wound to her neck. It was cut to the bone, her jugular vein had been sliced right through. Well, that explained it.

Terence headed for the rear of the house, any minute the whole place would go. He raced down the back stairs, bending double against the gale-force winds that met him, and struggled his way to the garage.

As he backed the Jaguar out into the street, he could feel the wind buffeting the car, threatening to overturn it. He drove slowly, avoiding the hazards he could see everywhere in the high beam of the headlights. A fallen tree, an overturned car. Things were sailing through the air overhead, but he couldn't make out what they were. He swerved to avoid a large sheet of galvanised iron swirling down the road. Too late, they collided, and for a moment his vision was lost before the sheet of iron was whipped
away, digging ugly holes in the Jaguar's bonnet, but fortunately leaving the windscreen intact. He slowed down still further. No need to hurry, he had all the time in the world. Behind him the cyclone was ripping his house to pieces, but who cared, he could always build another house, bigger and grander. And who cared about the scarred Jaguar, normally his pride and joy, he'd buy another one. Tonight he had business to attend to, things to sort out. And what better cover could he have than Cyclone Tracy. As he crawled along through the destruction and mayhem which surrounded him, Terence felt a sense of elation.

 

Unable to withstand the relentless attack, the whole upper section of Maxie's house gave way. With the protection of neither roof nor walls, the supporting poles listed to one side before finally crashing to the ground. And they took with them the bedroom floor, the bedstead, Maxie and Trish.

In the laundry and the garage, Kit and the others crouched on the ground covering their heads with their arms, hearing the house crash all about them, expecting that any second their own shelters would cave in.

Then, only moments later, all was still. It was a minute or so before anyone dared believe it could be over. One by one, they stepped outside into the black, eerie stillness. It seemed Cyclone Tracy had retreated as swiftly as she had attacked.

Everywhere, people surveyed the damage. Some naively attempted to start on the clean up. ‘It's the eye,' they were warned. ‘It'll be back.'

Kit took a head count, Maxie and Trish were missing. Oh Jesus, he thought, they'd been upstairs. Maxie had taken Trish off to the bedroom. But that had been hours ago.

They turned on car headlights and searched amongst the
wreckage with cigarette lighters and matches. It was only minutes before they found them. The naked bodies of Maxie and Trish lay mangled beneath debris. Beneath the very bedstead under which they had sought safety.

One of the girls was crying hysterically, and several of the young men started trying to dig out the bodies.

‘Don't,' Kit told them. ‘Get back under cover.'

‘Christ alive, Kit, we can't just leave them there.' Nick Coustas stood nursing his broken arm and staring down at the lifeless body of his friend.

‘Yes we can.' Kit started to sprint down the street. ‘Get everyone under cover!' he yelled back at them. ‘It's only the eye!'

Kit had just one objective in mind. Aggie. Aggie lived two blocks further down the Esplanade. If the cyclone had made such mincemeat of Maxie's, what the hell would it have done to Aggie's little weatherboard? Oh Christ let her be alive, he prayed.

 

As the Jaguar pulled into the drive of the O'Malleys' house, the wind suddenly stopped. Terence left the headlights on and stepped out of the car into an unnatural calm which matched his mood. It was uncanny. He and the cyclone seemed to be as one. There was a sense of deliberation in the cyclone, as if during this brief respite Tracy was mustering her forces for her next dire attack. It suited Terence's purpose to perfection. He would kill Kit and dispose of the body during the cyclone's next onslaught.

In the headlight's beam, the house was clearly a wreck, but the granny flat built beneath it was intact. As he walked up the side path, Terence wondered whether the O'Malleys were dead, that too would serve his purpose. But the entire place appeared deserted. Damn, he thought, where the hell was Kit? Then he realised the Kingswood was missing and he remembered. Of course. ‘Maxie's having a party,' Kit had said.

Terence walked back to the Jaguar. He got in and turned off the headlights, no point in drawing attention to himself, up and down the street people were tentatively venturing out of their houses. He could hear the mutter of disbelief as they surveyed the destruction. A baby was screaming, a woman crying. He started up the car and backed out into the road. Where the hell did Maxie live? He contemplated driving around the streets of Darwin looking for the Kingswood. Then the obvious solution occurred to him. Aggie would know where Maxie lived.

 

In the eerie lull of the cyclone's eye, Mavis and Aggie went out into the street to see if they could help some of the stricken people. The town of Casuarina had been shattered and Mavis's house was one of the few left standing. Hundreds were seeking refuge in the nearby high school, the women were told. There were children and wounded. Mavis and Aggie gathered torches and candles, bandages and medical supplies, all they could carry, and rushed to Casuarina High School. They knew they didn't have long.

 

It was just as Kit had feared, Aggie's house had been demolished, ripped from its very foundations. Panic seized him.

‘Aggie!' he yelled. ‘Aggie!' And he raced frantically about the wreckage, heaving aside beams and debris, searching for her body, praying that by some miracle she might be alive.

Terence saw him in the beam of the headlights. So it was going to be this easy, he thought. The entire street was deserted. It had been almost twenty minutes since the cyclone's wrath had subsided, and those naive enough to have believed it was over had now been convinced that it was only the eye. Everyone had taken cover. The whole of Darwin was cowering, waiting for Tracy's return. There
were just the two of them, Terence thought. Just the two of them out here in the street.

Terence turned off the headlights and took the revolver from his pocket as he got out of the car.

Kit had wondered who was foolish enough to be out in a vehicle during the eye of the cyclone but he'd been grateful for the headlights. He ran to the shadowy figure standing beside the open car door. ‘Turn them on again will you, mate,' he said, breathless from his exertion. ‘She's got to be trapped here somewhere, help me find her.'

‘I'll help you find her, Kit.'

Kit recognised the voice of Terence Galloway.

‘I'll help you find her after you've given me the locket.'

Kit instinctively clutched the pocket of his shirt. He'd forgotten that he'd been carrying the locket all this time. He was relieved to feel it still there, to know that he hadn't lost it amongst the chaos of the past several hours.

Terence laughed. It was getting easier by the minute. He'd thought he might have to take Kit back to his flat to kill him. Here and now was much more convenient.

As if the gods were yet further in his favour, there was an almighty roar and Tracy once again attacked with all the vengeful force she could muster. No-one would even hear the gunshot, Terence thought, and he raised the revolver as he gripped onto the open car door to prevent himself being blown from his feet.

Kit staggered back with the force of the wind. ‘Take cover!' he yelled.

Terence fired.

As he dived to the ground, Kit saw the flash from the muzzle of the revolver and, amidst the furore of the cyclone, he heard the sharp report of gunfire.

But in the very instant Terence pulled the trigger, his ally turned against him. It seemed the maddened beast that was Tracy no longer favoured Terence Galloway.

As if in slow motion, Terence felt the car door buckle in
his hands like foil wrapping paper. He turned towards the car and, as it reared up onto its side, he felt himself falling backwards with it, unable to move his feet, pinned to the Jaguar as the full weight of it crashed down on him, the metal framework digging deep into his chest. Terence Galloway's scream of mortal agony mingled with Tracy's roar. Then, as his cry was reduced to a death rattle, he felt himself moving. He felt nothing more after that.

The Jaguar travelled a good fifty metres down the Esplanade, grinding Terence's lifeless body to a pulp beneath it, and finally coming to rest against an uprooted tree. Then Tracy, like a spoilt child having destroyed a favourite toy, turned her attention elsewhere.

As he lay on the ground, Kit's eyes followed the dark shape of the Jaguar, watching its clumsy, macabre dance down the street before it was swallowed up in the blackness.

Terence Galloway had tried to kill him. Kit had seen the flash of gunfire, he'd heard the shot. And now Terence Galloway was dead.

Kit rose and, head down, buckled against the wind, he made for cover.

Around the country, newspapers carried reports of Tracy's carnage. ‘KILLER CYCLONE TRACY BLASTS DARWIN OFF THE MAP'. ‘TRACY DEVASTATES DARWIN'. ‘DARWIN TERROR STORM: 40 DIE'.

The reports differed. The death toll varied, but was eventually confirmed at forty-nine. And with rescuers frantically combing the wreckage in the hope of finding survivors, it was feared there might be more lying dead beneath rubble. Thousands had been wounded by crashing masonry, glass and iron. Sixteen people were missing at sea, including two crew members of the navy patrol vessel HMAS
Arrow
which had sunk in Darwin Harbour. It was believed there could yet be many more fatalities at sea—the RAAF had mounted a search for thirteen small ships listed as missing.

Winds were reported to have reached 250 kilometres an hour, cutting all power and communication lines to the rest of Australia as well as destroying ninety percent of the city's buildings. Tens of thousands had been rendered homeless. Army reports described Darwin as looking as though it had been hit by an atomic bomb.

Major-General Alan Stretton, Director-General of the National Disasters Organisation, arrived in Darwin with teams of doctors, nurses and medical supplies. The Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, was expected to cut short his tour of Europe to return to what was reported as being Australia's worst natural disaster.

Evacuation of the city began immediately. Massive air-lifts took place. The homeless needed to be relocated and, with the destruction of water and sewerage systems, outbreaks of typhoid and dysentery were feared.

For the second time in her short history, the city of Darwin, gateway to the north, had been reduced to rubble.

 

Foong Lee ignored Albert's pleas to join the family in their move to Adelaide. He'd stayed after the bombing, he said, and he'd stay after Tracy. He was one of the few who still had a home; it was his duty to help rebuild Darwin, he said. So Albert stayed with him. The two men farewelled their wives and family and set about resurrecting the restaurant. Albert's home and the store had both been destroyed, but the restaurant was salvageable, and Foong Lee decided it would serve as a soup kitchen. Fresh food supplies were scarce but, as relief poured in, they would be able to garner what they could and serve free meals for the needy.

Aggie Marshall was of the same mind. She moved in to Mavis Campbell's, joined the official relief committee, and started work immediately on the distribution of funds and supplies which were arriving from the federal government and from fundraising bodies all over the country.

Kit Galloway didn't even think of moving.
NTN
was Darwin's link with the outside world and he was too busy reporting on every aspect of the disaster. A new mayor was elected in the aftermath of Tracy, and the irony of the choice was not lost on Kit. Dr Ella Stack was a robust little woman who took great pride in the fact that she had
delivered some 2,000 Darwin babies over the years. To her, the city was a sick child in need of care. Kit wondered what Terence Galloway's reaction would have been to the fact that the office he'd so eagerly sought had been won by a woman.

 

It was several weeks after the disaster, when the final statistics and death lists had been published, that a thought occurred to Foong Lee. He was surprised it hadn't occurred to him sooner, but then in the wake of Tracy he had been understandably preoccupied.

Just before dawn on a Sunday morning, he awoke to the sudden realisation that there was no longer any need for secrecy. He lay staring at the ceiling and wondered how best to go about things. Several hours later, he made two telephone calls.

 

In West Perth, Jessica Williams put down the telephone receiver, grabbed her car keys and raced out of the house she shared with two other young women. Waratah Avenue, Nedlands, she thought as she drove, good God, it was the adjoining suburb to Claremont, her childhood home where her parents still lived.

A pleasant suburban house, probably built in the fifties, it was surrounded by a low stone fence with a neatly cut front lawn and two healthy cumquat trees.

Jessica walked up the path and knocked on the door. It was opened by a handsome woman. Her copper-coloured hair although streaked with grey was thick and attractive and, despite the fact that she leaned on a cane, she was tall and of regal carriage. Jessica guessed her to be in her fifties.

‘Hello, are you Miss Southern?' Jessica asked.

‘I am.' The woman nodded pleasantly.

‘I'm Jessica Williams.'

‘I know.' The woman smiled.

Her smile was extraordinarily beautiful, Jessica thought. ‘I hope you don't mind my just calling around,' she apologised, ‘but he said … Foong Lee that is …

‘He rang me. I've been expecting you.'

Henrietta Galloway extended her hand and the two women shook. ‘How do you do, Jessica,' she said, ‘Please come in.'

Henrietta led the way into a pleasant parlour where the clear January sun filtered through lace curtains and Jessica could see the cumquat trees in the front garden. What a pretty place, she thought, airy and feminine. One feature was at odds with the rest of the room, but somehow it managed to add to its interest. The far wall, from floor to ceiling, was a massive built-in bookcase. There must have been hundreds of books cluttering the shelves, some carefully ordered, some piled untidily, as if they were referred to often. Henrietta Southern was obviously an avid reader, Jessica thought.

A tea tray was set out on the coffee table by the windows. Fine china cups and saucers sat beside the teapot, and there was a plate of shortbread biscuits.

Henrietta propped her stick against a hard-backed carver by the windows and sat, indicating the armchair opposite. ‘I'm not very comfortable in armchairs myself. Tea?'

Jessica nodded, bemused as she watched Henrietta pour the tea. The brew was piping hot, it had just been prepared.

Henrietta was aware of the girl's bemusement. ‘Foong Lee guessed that you'd be around within twenty minutes,' she smiled. ‘In fact he said he'd lay odds on it, and he's a very successful gambler, so I made tea.'

Jessica felt relaxed in the older woman's company; it was difficult not to, Henrietta Southern was charming.

‘Yes, he's an amazing man, isn't he?' she said, recalling Foong Lee's recognition of her origins. ‘I only met him the once, but I found him quite extraordinary.'

‘The feeling was obviously mutual,' Henrietta said, handing Jessica her tea. ‘You made a very strong first impression on Foong Lee too.'

‘Really?' Jessica was surprised—why would Foong Lee have found her impressive? But she was pleased, and somehow very flattered.

Henrietta observed the girl over the rim of her teacup. Jessica Williams was free from artifice and every bit as interesting as Foong Lee had said. Not beautiful in the classical sense, but very attractive. How he had ever picked her Aboriginal blood was beyond Henrietta; she herself would have assumed the girl was Irish.

‘Very few people impress Foong Lee upon first meeting,' she continued. She wanted to chat to the girl, to get to know her before they touched upon the reason for her visit. ‘He makes them feel that they do, but they don't really. He can be very devious.'

Henrietta remembered Paul's description of Foong Lee. ‘Don't let him fool you, Henrietta, he's the quintessence of Oriental inscrutability.' She'd laughed at the time, but he'd been quite serious. ‘He's a chameleon,' Paul had said. ‘He'll be whatever he thinks people wish him to be. But once he's your friend … Oh my darling girl, he's your friend for life. You must always remember that.'

‘I can't think why on earth he'd be impressed with me,' said Jessica.

‘He told me he admired your passion.'

‘Did he?' Jessica was once again surprised, but delighted.

‘Yes, your passion and your dedication.' Henrietta offered the plate of shortbread biscuits and Jessica took one. ‘But mainly your passion. He believes greatly in passion, although he says it's a quality he doesn't possess.'

Henrietta recalled Foong Lee's words. ‘You have a passion which is enviable, Henrietta. A passion for life. And it is that passion which will heal you.' He had been right, as usual.

Comfortable as Jessica felt in Henrietta's presence, she was nonetheless a little puzzled. Henrietta Southern obviously knew why she had called upon her, and yet she seemed to be avoiding the topic.

‘Have you lived in Perth long, Miss Southern?' She took a bite of the biscuit, dying to ask leading questions but feeling it would be more discreet to continue with the general conversation.

‘Call me Henrietta, please.' The girl was sensitive too, Henrietta noted with approval. ‘Thirteen years,' she said. ‘Is the shortbread good? I haven't tried it myself, I only opened the tin this morning.'

‘Terrific.'

Henrietta decided it was time to put Jessica out of her misery. The girl was obviously aching for answers. She set her cup back on the tray.

‘Foong Lee tells me that you're searching for an antique locket which was once in my possession.'

‘Yes.' The shortbread stuck momentarily in Jessica's throat as she swallowed.
Once in her possession
. So Henrietta didn't have the locket. Not that Foong Lee had said that she did, Jessica now recalled. ‘Miss Southern knows of the next stage in the locket's journey,' that was what he'd said, but in her excitement Jessica hadn't really listened.

The girl's bitter disappointment was palpable and Henrietta wished she could tell her the truth. She decided to buy time and, pouring more tea, she asked about Jessica's research.

‘Get her to tell you her story,' Foong Lee had said. ‘The locket has a connection with her people; you'll find it most fascinating.'

‘Do tell me about your interest in the locket, Jessica,' she implored. ‘Foong Lee told me your story was fascinating.'

With a definite sense that Henrietta was hedging, Jessica told of her search for the locket. As she did so, she couldn't
help but warm to her theme, and Henrietta recognised the girl's passion just as Foong Lee had.

‘… then when Foong Lee told me it was most likely seventeenth-century and Dutch into the bargain,' she concluded, having barely drawn breath for a full fifteen minutes, ‘I thought all my Christmases had come at once! I mean it simply
had
to have come ashore from one of the early shipwrecks!'

The two fresh cups of tea sat cold before them. Jessica's excitement was contagious and Henrietta had been as immersed in the story as Jessica herself had been in the telling of it.

‘And then he described the initials inside,' Jessica said. ‘L v.d. M. and B v.d. M. It was easy after that, there's been so much written about the
Batavia
since the wreck was discovered in 1963.'

Henrietta nodded. She'd heard the gruesome stories of murder and mayhem associated with the wreck of the
Batavia
.

‘Lucretia van den Mylen was her name,' Jessica continued. ‘She was an aristocrat, a woman of great beauty, and she was sailing to the East Indies to meet her husband, Boudewijn.'

Lucretia and Boudewijn van den Mylen. Henrietta recalled her thoughts when she'd looked at the initials in the locket on the night that Paul had given it to her. Who were they, she'd wondered? Had their love survived into the autumn of their years as hers and Paul's could not?

‘What became of Lucretia?' she asked.

‘She survived the shipwreck and the atrocities that followed, miraculously enough, and she finally reached Batavia aboard the rescue vessel the
Zaandam
. Which means,' Jessica said thoughtfully, ‘that the locket came ashore with someone else. Either she gave it to someone or it was stolen. I tend to favour the latter. Why would she give it away? It was surely designed as a love token.'

‘Oh yes, I'm quite sure of that,' Henrietta agreed with feeling.

The locket had most certainly been a symbol of the love she had shared with Paul, she thought. But it had also been her undoing. The locket had been the catalyst to Terence's discovery of the truth, the initials of Lucretia van den Mylen and her husband having been masked by the photographs of herself and Paul. Even Foong Lee did not know the ongoing story of the locket—Foong Lee knew no more of the locket than the fact that Paul Trewinnard had given it to her before he had died.

‘I'll make us a fresh pot, shall I?' Henrietta said, grasping her cane, about to ease herself to her feet.

‘No really, I'm fine,' Jessica insisted.

‘I think I'd like another cup myself.'

Jessica jumped up. ‘Then let me get it. Please.'

‘What an excellent idea.' Henrietta rested the cane back against the arm of her chair. ‘The kitchen's just through there, it's all set out.'

As Jessica disappeared with the tea tray, Henrietta gazed thoughtfully out the window. She didn't really want any more tea, but she needed a little space. She wanted to direct the girl to the locket; Jessica deserved the right to find it after the years she had dedicated to her search. But how much of her own story could Henrietta tell? In directing Jessica Williams to the locket, she would be directing her to Kit.

When Foong Lee had telephoned that morning, he had urged Henrietta to make her existence known to her son. ‘Terence Galloway is dead,' he'd said, baldly stating the fact. ‘He was killed in the cyclone. There is no longer any need for secrecy, Henrietta.'

But it wasn't as simple as that. Much as she longed to make herself known to her son, Henrietta was nervous, unsure as to whether she should so disrupt his life. The locket would by now have told Kit that Paul Trewinnard
was his father. Jackie Yoorunga would have honoured his promise, Henrietta was sure, and Nellie would have delivered the locket to Kit when he'd come of age. He must have had it for years now, and she'd often wondered what his reaction had been. But Kit believed that she was dead. How was she to explain her existence for all of these years? How was she to tell him that she had feared for his life? Terence Galloway's warning had remained hanging over Henrietta's head like a curse for the past thirteen years.