Field Walking
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said.
‘Well I was, my friend. Sadly, that makes you and me the last of Lenny’s mates to see him alive.’
‘Which is why we’re meeting now,’ the boss lady said. ‘Unfinished business. My dear brother here has played a number of cameo roles for us over the years.’
‘It’s such a wonderful challenge,’ Rodney said. ‘In the theatre, the audience knows you’re an actor playing a role. But it’s much more fun when you take Shakespeare literally and make the world your stage. Savvy here likes to be made up to play a part. We’re a splendid team, and we’re planning ourselves another gig in Arajinna, but we need your local knowledge.’
It was late in the evening before they had worked out the details. On Gavin’s recommendation they scheduled their gig for the last day of the school year when Arajinna would be overloaded with visitors preoccupied with Speech Day and other break-up activities. All of the Blakes would be sure to be at the book-launch of a biography of Walter Blake written by Max Kingsley. It was also the day when Bill Smith was to attend the shire’s staff Christmas lunch and be thanked for his work and wished well for the future. That made it appropriate for him to drive Rodney and Savvy to Arajinna in a hired van. Their cover would be as casual workers engaged by Bill Smith to help cart his belongings back to Sydney. To help establish the legitimacy of their activities, Smith would arrange with the letting agent for them to leave the keys at the police station when they vacated the house. This would allow them to display their made-up characters who would, if anybody ever sought them, have told Smith their next work was to be somewhere in Queensland as fruit pickers. Not until the last detail was agreed did the boss lady open the drinks cabinet and shout them all a drink.
‘It’s a good plan,’ she said, clinking her glass against Gavin’s. ‘It’s particularly good because we can use your local knowledge without much risk of blowing your cover. Rodney and Savvy will attend to our business while the citizens of Arajinna are in town doing theirs. From what you and Savvy have reported, it seems unlikely our work will be interrupted. After your Christmas lunch you can pick them up out along the highway and be well away by early afternoon.
‘Such a pity,’ Rodney said. They all looked at him. He shrugged and sighed. ‘Saverio and I will play our parts beautifully and the chances are nobody but some copper at the station, will see us. The real drama will be played to an empty house.’
Weirdness
November 1992
Arramulta
Arajinna
3rd November 1992
Dear Edwin
Meg Schmitz called me to say you had briefed her about The Valley People. She says things will move slowly because there is nothing to suggest our skeletons are a priority job and the coroner has a chronic backlog. I think Meg is hoping our activities will turn up something more for them to go on.
Meanwhile, I have researched the ownership history of this property. I purchased it from the Estate of Nora Keppel who had owned it until her death in 1990. She purchased it in 1982 from a man named Magnus Lansing, who had inherited it in 1973 from his father Tolis Lansing. It was a Lansing who built the place in 1905, so the Lansing family held the property for about 77 years in all. I shall be fascinated to learn whether either of the surnames Keppel or Lansing appears in any of the files of your organisation.
Yours sincerely
Tony Blake
9th November 1992
Dear Tony
Jackpot! We have lots of information on various cults but names are hard to get. Luckily, our card index contained the name Lansing. The entry directed me to a file on The Valley People.
In 1971, Magnus Lansing’s father, Tolis, approached our group. Earlier, he had filed a missing person’s report with police. Magnus was eventually located at a property in the north of Queensland. He told police he was happy and wanted to be left alone to determine his own life. Because he was an adult, and seemed to be in good health and spirits, the police closed their file after informing the father of the outcome of their enquiries. I have little other information. One of my colleagues made notes of a couple of subsequent telephone conversations with Tolis Lansing. If Magnus inherited the property, he must either have been named in a will or have been the beneficiary in the winding up of the estate if his father died intestate.
It would be interesting to make enquiries about activities at the property from 1973 until 1982. Arajinna is a small community so presumably somebody will know. I should be grateful if you would keep me informed.
Regards
Edwin
Judith, who was the only Blake to have lived in Arajinna throughout the period of interest, could not recall hearing the name Lansing and knew nothing about the previous occupants of the house on the river. Emily remembered the name from earlier times but didn’t think she’d met any of the Lansing family. She had no idea of the age of the man she had sometimes seen fishing from the verandah when she rode her bicycle across the bridge. Max had not arrived in Arajinna until 1987.
‘Try Adrian,’ Judith suggested. ‘He and Olive were always a mine of information about everything to do with the district.’
Over a cup of tea at Land’s End, Adrian told Tony what he knew. ‘I believe the Lansings used to attend the catholic church at Calway Junction, so they weren’t part of Olive’s network at St Mark’s. I never visited the property on the river but I knew there was an orchard when I was young because the girl used to bring oranges to school. She would have been a couple of years younger than me. The name Magnus doesn’t ring a bell. Have you spoken to Ginny? She’d probably come to Arajinna by then. Being a nurse, she might have had contact with the family.’
‘Sorry, mate,’ Ginny said when Tony paid her a visit. ‘I’ll have a dig at Adrian next time I see him. Damned cheek. I’m not that old. I do remember Nora Keppel in her last years but I didn’t have any dealings with her. Have you asked old Stan Fleming? He’s in his nineties but he still has his wits about him.’
Tony found Stan Fleming dozing in a rocking chair on his front verandah. ‘I remember old man Lansing, the one who built the place,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure I ever heard his first name—he was Mr Lansing to us young tykes. The house was still quite new when I was a kid. We used to go fishing a bit further down the river. The old bloke used to let us use the track through his place. There was no orchard in those days. It was planted after I stopped going there; I can’t remember exactly when—sometime in the twenties I’d guess. The son must have been born around the same time. I don’t remember his name but he was one of the lads who went away to the war.’
‘Does Tolis sound right?’
‘It does. Yes, Tolis, that was him. Magnus would have been a post war baby and there was a girl born later—Rita I think. Not a very sociable family; they weren’t members of the golf club or anything. But I used to see them at the flicks sometimes. I was a regular at the Odeon on a Friday night. The Lansing family must have had money because they weren’t farmers and the orchard would never have supported them—not living in a big place like that. It’s the way with some people, of course. Some folks stick to themselves. Tolis must have died quite young—maybe in his fifties. The mother wasn’t around then. I don’t know what had happened to her. I think there was just Magnus and Rita. Thinking back now, it makes me realize how little you really do know about some of your neighbours. Somehow, the Lansings never attracted attention. They weren’t even the subject of gossip at the club. They were merely “the people who live in that place on the river”. End of story. Have you found out what happened to Magnus and Rita?’
‘All I know is, Magnus sold the property to Nora Keppel.’
‘I knew Nora, of course. Everybody knew Nora. Lost her husband in the war. She was the postmistress for yonks, and the telephone-exchange operator at the same time. Gilbert Ross handled most of the conveyancing for local properties. He might know what happened to Magnus. And Barbara Borthwick must have taught them in primary school; you’ll have to go to the hospice if you wan
t to talk to her.’
Tony rang the hospice and arranged a time to visit. He found Barbara Borthwick sitting in the garden. She was hard of hearing but otherwise bright. In a shouted conversation she confirmed she remembered the Lansing children. ‘Quiet. Bookish. Never any trouble. Not brilliant but always passable. Did their homework. Never any need to send a note to the parents asking them to come in for a chat. You never get to know those sorts of kids. You remember them being in your class; but they don’t register much with the teachers or the other students. The naughty ones, and the really bright ones, you get a feel for. Sorry I can’t be of more help.’
In the offices of Duncan Ross and Sons, Tony looked across the desk at Gilbert and said, ‘By the time I’ve finished I will have spoken to everybody in Arajinna and been given the name of somebody else to call upon. I can guess what you’re going to say. “Can’t divulge anything about a client!” Am I right?’
‘Almost right,’ Gilbert laughed. ‘Ethics is our middle name, and all that. Never disclose anything learnt in confidence.’
‘Why almost?’
‘Nothing says I can’t talk about a client per se. I can’t talk about anything I learn as their representative. Strictly, according to my old man, we should not even confirm we are acting for somebody