Chapter One #3
“There was this Australia in Peace and War exposition in Paris, you see, just a couple of months after Victory in Europe Day, and nothing would have it but to send him all the way over for that. It was the jewel in the crown of the department, this exposition, and he was—or is—one of their top men. He flew to London—he hails from here—and then arrived in Paris a week or two later with the rest of the men. He wrote to me from the hotel there—the Ritz Paris, a very fine hotel. He seems to have done his work for them and then just . . . vanished. After that letter nothing else came, and there was no word of his return. I was not alarmed at first, but it is unlike him to not send any letters at all, so when there was no second letter, and time stretched on, I became worried. I have contacts in Paris”—Billie had guessed this, and now she nodded—“but they tell me they haven’t heard from him.
Naturally, I contacted the Bureau of Information, which wasn’t altogether as easy as I’d expected, and they said he didn’t work for them.
I mean, really,” she said, aghast. “It was quite galling. The advertising firm he works for said he was working for the department, and round and round it went.”
“The Bureau of Information denied that he worked for them?” Billie asked, intrigued.
“They told me my Richard had completed his employment and he no longer worked for them. Yet, the advertising firm said he’d left them to work for the department.”
“I see. And how long ago was this?”
“A few months after the exposition, toward the end of ’45. At first I thought he was . . . well, just being Richard. But I did become concerned.”
“Of course.”
Mrs. Montgomery watched Billie’s face carefully.
“You mustn’t judge me, Miss Walker,” she said.
“My Richard is a lovely man, a good man of sterling reputation. He works hard, and naturally a man of his status and demanding workload deserves a certain amount of . . . freedom. He’s very .
. . masculine, a leader. So, you see, although some may find my attitude shocking, it’s the only way to ensure harmony in our marriage. We had an understanding.”
Billie nodded and leaned forward, meeting the woman’s large eyes.
“You do not need to defend yourself, or your marriage, to me, I can assure you of that.” If there was one thing Billie had learned in life, and certainly in the course of her work, it was that marriages took many different forms. “Judgment is not my job, and I don’t trouble myself with it.
My job is to find your husband, if you choose to employ my services for the purpose. ”
Mrs. Montgomery’s shoulders dropped beneath the rounded contour of her tailored suit. “Thank you,” she said simply.
Billie leaned back and thought for a moment. “How much did your husband discuss the scope of his employment with you? The aim of his work at the exposition, his day-to-day, and that sort of thing?”
“We never discussed work or financial matters,” Mrs. Montgomery replied, shaking her head adamantly, as if this non-communication on issues of finance was a wifely virtue. “Richard was the man of the house. That was his role. His work was his own affair. He was a good provider, Miss Walker.”
Billie had no reason to disbelieve her. “Have you any employment, Mrs. Montgomery? Any—”
“Certainly not,” she shot back before Billie could finish. The very idea seemed to aggrieve her.
“Of course,” Billie replied, keeping her expression even. This view was commonplace; if a woman like this worked, it was thought it was because her husband was not an adequate provider, not for reasons of human need, independence, or personal fulfillment.
Mrs. Montgomery paused, perhaps realizing the implication of her views. “No offense,” she added again, looking around Billie’s office. “Some women are forced to work, I understand.”
Billie held her tongue. After all, she couldn’t claim she didn’t have to work, but it hadn’t always been simply for necessity.
Puzzles enlivened her, and the work she did during the war as a reporter .
. . Well, she was proud of what she’d achieved.
In truth, she didn’t much savor the idea of a life without some mystery to solve.
Not for her was the bliss of ignorance. Billie wanted to know what was happening below the surface—and there always was something.
“If your husband returned to Australia, as seemed to originally be the plan, in your opinion is there any possibility he could have entered the country without your being aware?” Billie did her best to read this potential client, who she hoped would not be insulted by this suggestion.
“Please understand this question is one of logistics,” she decided to add.
“I am not casting aspersions on your relationship with your husband.”
Mrs. Montgomery appeared to consider this.
“I think I understand what you mean.” She took a sip of her tea, frowning, and contemplated something.
“The fact is, my Richard never liked to keep a low profile, so I’d say yes, I would simply have known if he was in Australia this whole time.
Yes, absolutely.” The Crawford jaw flexed as she considered her errant husband.
“I don’t believe my Richard could return to Australia without my knowing, certainly not for this long, and certainly not to Sydney.
And he wouldn’t have any reason to. I never kept him on a tight leash.
It just wasn’t like that.” She shook her head for good measure.
“No, he simply doesn’t know how to keep a low profile, even if he were motivated to. ”
And was he motivated to? Billie wondered.
Many men had returned from the war in secret, to live out solitary lives in the Australian bush, too psychologically damaged by war to face society or the lives they had once known, or unwilling or unable to endure the uncomfortable stares of neighbors and pointing of children at scars and war wounds they could not hide.
But this woman’s husband had gone missing in Paris just after the end of the war in Europe.
He wasn’t involved in combat that they were aware of, and there was unlikely to be a great deal of danger in his particular line of work. It didn’t fit.
“And what have you done in the intervening years?” Billie asked gently.
“I won’t mince words, Miss Walker. I have been fairly comfortable, though bothered by the mystery of it.
” She paused, and Billie wondered again if this woman’s pride was somewhat more injured than her heart, but then, after so long, one had to find ways to cope.
Billie knew that more intimately than she’d like to.
“It did me no favors socially, I can say. It seemed to others at first that I was a deserted wife,” Mrs. Montgomery added.
“However, in time most assumed he had passed on. It became accepted that I might be a widow. After all, there are so many widows nowadays. I guess part of me accepted that, too.”
“Is that what you believe?” Billie asked.
“Well, I don’t quite know what to believe,” she replied, and at face value Billie sensed she was being honest about that.
“After a time I went to the usual agencies, naturally, the constabulary, the Red Cross, but I’m afraid it hasn’t been much help.
Well, it hasn’t been any help at all, frankly, and the whole thing is such a frustration, especially now.
” She swallowed, and Billie wondered if she detected a flicker of guilt.
“Without some evidence of his adultery, or a certificate of death . . .”
“You will remain married, and unable to move on. Should you wish to,” Billie added.
Mrs. Montgomery nodded. She seemed a determined woman who knew what she wanted, and often got it, Billie wagered.
Forced to remain married while abandoned would be an unsuitable status quo for such a woman, particularly one who considered a wage beneath her, or a sign of failure.
That gilded cage may have been fine for a while, but it had surely tarnished with time. It would be getting lonely in there.
Billie leaned back, and quite inconveniently cast her eyes over one of the photographs on her wooden desk.
It was that photograph—the one in the small frame.
It had been an unconscious impulse to look at it, the image she had taken of Jack in Vienna.
In the image Jack was smiling, and his smile was intoxicating, eyes alive with the irresistible chemistry that had erupted between them like a bright flame.
This was the weekend they’d fallen in love, before the war had begun, before the world had been irretrievably altered, and long before their makeshift wedding and her father’s sudden passing that followed, taking her far from him and their work together.
Her husband was just as he looked in those flashes that haunted her each time she closed her eyes.
That smile. Those hazel eyes. That lean, tanned face.
And those lips she had kissed for untold stolen hours, locked in embraces in bombed-out buildings, hearing shells in the distance.
Jack Rake. Sitting up, Billie averted her eyes and swallowed.
It was only the tiniest movement of her throat, a subtle sign that this conversation was a touch close to home.
Someone who knew her well might have caught it—her mother would have—but not this stranger, who was quite understandably caught in her own thoughts about her marital troubles.
Billie’s bread and butter was missing husbands, and cheating husbands.
That Billie’s own husband was missing was something she hardly needed reminding of.
With all the war had done, there was rather an increase in missing men.
Professionally, she was adept at looking for missing husbands, but in time she’d all but given up on her own.