And then she saw it. On the bureau so that she had almost missed it: a gold tiepin. She walked over to the bureau, not taking her eyes from the tiny gold object. She knew before she had picked it up and studied it that it had his initials engraved on the head. She had gone to the jeweller herself in Hunter Street to make her commission and a man, an elderly Jew with a pronounced Mittel Europe accent and a straggling greying beard, had put a glass to his eye and peered at the tiepin and nodded and said, ‘Ja, ja,’ and she had returned the following day to pick it up.

And here they were, the initials: A.D.

CHAPTER TEN: THIS IS NOT IMPERIAL RUSSIA

CHAPTER TEN

THIS IS NOT IMPERIAL RUSSIA

Alasdair instructed his cab to drop him in Macquarie Street. From here he walked the short distance to Richmond Terrace, an attractive avenue overlooking the Domain but whose unfortunate proximity to Parliament House meant that its row of elegant mid-century merchant’s houses were gradually being bought up and converted into ministerial outposts. The offices of the Secretary for Public Monies were here, squeezed into a narrow and already rather cramped three-storey terrace. It was a temporary measure, Alasdair presumed, though whether temporary because larger and more appropriate accommodation on Macquarie Street would be forthcoming or because the ministry was itself a temporary measure and would soon cease to exist, the Secretary for Public Monies did not care to speculate.

There were only thirteen ministerial positions in the Legislative Assembly. When the new ministry had been announced the previous year, the Premier had seized for himself the offices of Colonial Treasurer and Minister for Railways. That left only eleven to be distributed between the other members of the Assembly, and when one took out all the ministries allocated to the various members who had assisted the Premier to get into office and those who had assisted him to stay in office and those who might assist him in the future, this left very few positions indeed for up-and-coming young members who burned with ambition and whose futures were ahead of them but who had very little in the way of political power to wield in the meantime. It meant Alasdair Dunlevy, long-time member for an electorate not too many miles from the city and therefore of moderate importance, had been promised Secretary for Lands and had seen it go to George Drummond-Smith, he had heard rumours he might get Public Works when it had been retained by Charles Booker-Reid, and there had been hints he was next in line for Railways when the Premier himself had grabbed that portfolio.

Eventually, and only when a member had died suddenly in office, the Premier had appointed him Secretary for Public Monies. Alasdair had been provided with a small staff and this office, the house in Richmond Terrace.