She didn’t have much to put into the house, which sent her into an instant panic – what she’d need to have a properly functioning house, and the gap between that and what she already owned. Her car was chock full of her stuff. When Janice had seen it, she’d remarked, ‘It looks like half your life is in the back of that car’, which hadn’t been that wide of the mark. The rest of her goods were in storage at her parents, which would necessitate another trip to Melbourne, perhaps two at most. But she was excited at the prospect of having her own place for the very first time. It was the kind of independence she’d always craved, not to be in anyone else’s pocket, and to live her life according to her own heart.
She hadn’t mentioned to Cole that she was going to see the hairdresser again. Did she have to tell him everything, anyway? She was entitled to a private life whether she was a member of the force or not. And this visit was strictly her own business. She was just going to have her hair washed, after all.
The following evening she strode out of the hotel, a cat call from the open public bar door trailing after her. But she felt good leaving the hotel, and imagined all she could do with that rundown shack out of town. Her neighbours there would be her landlords, too. She’d already met them fleetingly, a nice, farming family. Close to her, but not too close. Her slice of the property measured about an acre. On her back fence was the landlord’s open hayshed. From the broken boards of her rear veranda she’d be able to see the sun setting through and beyond it.
True, the farm – she was already thinking of it as her farm – was isolated, her neighbours too far away to hear a scream, and she knew what her mother would have to say when just about everything was a worry to her mother, a problem waiting to happen. Maybe she’d get a dog, or a gun, just to be sure.
But it wasn’t that that was making her feel jittery as she walked, or raising the goose bumps on her arms.
Evening had given way to night and except for some movement around the hotels the street was quiet, pale street lighting drawing attention not to the light, but to the dark. Sheridan gazed absent-mindedly into shop windows as she marched the short distance to the salon. And when she came to Snip she noticed the blind drawn on the large window and then the sign on the door – CLOSED – before taking a breath and knocking uncertainly on the glass door.
She thrust her shaking hands in her coat pockets as she watched Linda Fantasio come to the door.
‘It’s chilly outside,’ she shivered in greeting to the hairdresser, who returned her smile and drew the narrow blind down the door, snipping the lock shut.
‘I don’t want customers thinking we’re still open. And it’s more private this way, exclusive,’ Fantasio smiled enigmatically.
The salon was dimly lit, but unlike outside, somehow warmer for it.
‘I really appreciate it.’
‘And it’s better in here than being out in the cold,’ Fantasio said amiably. ‘I’m glad you came, Christine. Here, let me help you take off your coat.’
‘And you,’ Sheridan replied awkwardly as her arms slid out of the coat. ‘It’s very generous of you to see me now. You didn’t have to, you know.’
‘I know I didn’t have to. It’s just that I wanted to,’ the hairdresser said.
She hung the coat on a hatstand and ushered Sheridan further inside the salon as she turned the heater to a higher setting.
‘I got the house,’ Sheridan said as she waited to be asked into the hair washing chair.
‘That’s great news!’ Fantasio exclaimed, coming back to hug Sheridan and kiss her on the cheek. ‘Fantastic! When are you moving in?’
‘I’m hoping on the weekend. I don’t have much stuff, so it shouldn’t take long.’
‘I’ll help you.’
‘What?’
‘I said I’ll help you.’
‘But what about the wedding? Aren’t you going as a guest, too?’
‘I won’t be going to that do,’ Fantasio said dismissively. ‘No, you’re my priority next weekend. Now, let’s get you into the chair.’
She drew the curtain back and gathered comb, scissors and shampoo as Sheridan lay back in the chair.
‘I can move in myself, it’s alright,’ Sheridan protested, but being in the position she was there was no force to her words and the hairdresser laughed.
‘You’re new in town. You hardly know a soul. Do you think I’d let you do it on your own?’
Which settled it. Sheridan knew she couldn’t continue to object, and that she didn’t want to, anyway. She relaxed as the hairdresser turned on the taps, waited until the water temperature was right, and began stroking warm water through her hair. Sheridan closed her eyes.
‘It’s been a mad week,’ she murmured. ‘A new job. New people. A new town. Finding somewhere to live.’
‘And finding new friends. You must be exhausted, Chris. I don’t know how you do it.’
Still with her eyes shut, Sheridan smiled. ‘I just have to, don’t I?’
‘You’re right about that,’ Fantasio agreed, massaging Sheridan’s scalp. ‘There’s no getting away from having to make a living. As much as we’d all like to.’
‘What does your husband do?’ Sheridan asked softly.
‘My husband does as little as possible,’ Fantasio answered, to a stifled laugh from her customer. ‘In theory, he’s an electrician, but besides keeping the Italian Club in tip-top working order, he rarely works for anyone else. I’m the main breadwinner.’
‘I thought Italians were hard-working.’
‘They are. Mostly. It was just my luck to get one who isn’t. He dotes on his family, though, so there is that about him.’
‘Well, that’s a great thing, isn’t it?’
‘When I say family, I mean his brothers and sisters, his parents and cousins, the old uncles and aunties, not his actual family, his wife. He answers to them, not me.’
Sheridan felt clumsy having said it, that she’d made a terrible faux pas. ‘Oh, I see,’
The hairdresser squeezed shampoo into her hands, lathering them before working the foam into Sheridan’s hair.
‘I don’t mind who knows it. It’s a reflection on him, not me. Anyone who’s interested knows how hard I work. In a small business, you always have to be on your toes. But John – that’s what everyone calls him, Gianni’s his real name – Gianni sits on his bum and takes the credit for everything I do to the house, the yard, even if he wouldn’t dare do it to my face.’ She massaged the shampoo in vigorously. ‘When all’s said and done he’s a weak man. And then I look at how my brother Harry was, and there’s another weak man. The world is full of them.’
Sheridan thought of her own father, the men in the police stations she’d worked in, boys and men she had gone out with, always briefly.
‘Maybe now you’ve got the little boy to look after, maybe he’ll, you know, start doing a bit more?’
‘Not Gianni. Never in a million years. When I think about my father – he was a John, too – Gianni is almost an insult to him. You’d never find two men more different. They say girls marry men who remind them of their fathers.’ She paused to look at her reflection in the mirror. ‘That’s what I should have done.’
Sheridan asked, ‘And how’s the little boy going?’
‘Oh, George. He’s just beautiful, Christine. You wonder how a pair like Harry and Dianne could have produced such a lovely kid.’ Although Sheridan couldn’t see Fantasio, she warmed to the sigh of love in her voice. ‘He nearly makes up for them, and everything they did. Honestly, I could sit and watch him all day long.’
‘Do you think he understands about his parents?’
‘No, and that’s a good thing. Sometimes it looks like he’s searching around for them, but that’ll soon go, too. I’ll be his whole world.’
Sheridan tried to glance up at Fantasio standing beside the wash basin. Fan
tasio’s tender touch had returned and the feel of her fingers running through her hair was transfixing.
‘I’d like to see him one day, if you wouldn’t mind,’ she suggested.
‘You can. Any time you like,’ the hairdresser said, more pensively now as she began rinsing Sheridan’s hair. ‘Gianni’s parents blame me for the fact that he and I couldn’t have kids, or couldn’t so far. Gianni can do no wrong in their eyes, so they figure I must be infertile. My doctor says there’s nothing wrong with me, but I know I’m not going to get pregnant to him, not that we’ve done it in ages, anyway. You know when something’s not working. He could be in and out of me for six months non-stop and I don’t think anything would happen. He won’t go and see his doctor, though. He tells me Italian men don’t do that,’ she scoffed. ‘His parents haven’t come to see George yet, even though they’re only five minutes away. I don’t think they will. They won’t consider George Gianni’s baby, not even mine.’
‘That must make it hard.’
‘Yes, but it’s not going to stop me being a mother to George. That’s how it’s meant to be now. Everyone else can go jump in the lake. I’m cutting back my hours here now and there’s a girl who’s going to help me with George part time. I’m going to make a real home for him.’
‘You’ll be a great mum.’
Fantasio bowed her head a moment, studying the locks in her hands.
‘I hope so,’ she said, but distantly, and then she stopped speaking so Sheridan could tell there was something else on her mind. It came quickly. ‘Something terrible happened yesterday. Do you want to hear?’
‘Please tell me.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I am.’
‘Alright then. Harry’s solicitor called me in to tell me about Harry’s will. Hilltop has always been in our family, from not long after the first white people came into the district. It was part of what was once a huge squatting run. My grandfather and then my dad made it what it is.’ Sheridan was alarmed to hear her voice crack. ‘Or was. That hound of a solicitor, Grimes, told me that stupid Harry is giving away half of everything at Hilltop to the Bramleys. I just couldn’t believe it. How could he be so dumb? I’m sorry,’ she said, fighting back tears.
‘How could they be entitled to that?’
She was outraged to even hear of it.
‘Dianne must have gotten in Harry’s ear. No, she probably bullied him into it. All the cattle are going to her idiotic father, a man who can barely write his own name. All he’ll do with the stock is sell them and then spend the next twelve months drinking it away. My father will be turning in his grave.’
‘Wouldn’t Harry have originally owned the whole property?’
‘Harry wasn’t the smartest bloke on earth, Christine, far from it, and dad was well aware of that. He also knew my other two brothers and myself could find our own way, but he kept Harry close by him all the time and thought that if he taught him all he could he’d at least be able to stand on his own two feet after he was gone. The farm was dad’s way of making sure. I hadn’t realised, though, that the farm had been put all in Harry’s name, not with my brothers and I, as I’d thought. They’ll get a nasty surprise when they hear, too.’ She dried her hands on a towel and pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve. ‘Dumb Harry. He didn’t figure on Dianne Bramley.’
‘That’s bad,’ Sheridan said.
‘She was a gold-digger through and through. My brother had another girlfriend before her, but dad didn’t approve. He only wanted Dianne because he thought he could keep control of her. But what he didn’t realise was what a scheming little bitch she was, and in the end what he thought was going to be for the best, is going to be the end of Hilltop.’
‘Did you ever have any idea this was going to happen?’
‘None. I never liked her, but I didn’t ever think the property was going to be at stake. But I was wrong, wasn’t I, when I should have known better.’
‘But, Dianne Bramley obviously isn’t going to get the property now.’
‘No, but now her family is entitled to half, according to the will, and that’s even worse.’
‘Are you going to fight it?’
Fantasio recovered herself. ‘You bet I am,’ she said. ‘I’ll fight this every last inch of the way. I got a copy of the will so I can show it to a lawyer. I’ll be handing it over to him tomorrow.’
The hairdresser towelled Sheridan’s hair off and brought her back to sit in one of the cutting chairs. Neither said anything until Fantasio took out her scissors.
‘Just a quick tidy up, okay? And I’ll try and get a bit of curl back into it,’ the hairdresser sniffled.
‘It’s getting late. Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure.’ The scissors clicked lightly about Sheridan’s hair in fireflies of sound. ‘Harry’s death triggered off an awful chain-reaction,’ she went on more strongly. ‘And now I hear your boss is investigating me. Is that true?’
The scissors stopped.
‘I don’t know.’ Sheridan was bewildered. ‘I haven’t heard anything about it.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. What would he be investigating you for?’
‘You’re new. He’s probably keeping you out of it. But I still thought you might have heard something.’ The scissors resumed clicking. ‘There’s a rumour going around that Harry and Dianne were murdered. Dianne I could understand, but Harry? That somehow they were killed and then pushed into the train, as far-fetched as that sounds.’
They stared at each other in the mirror.
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Sheridan rushed. ‘It doesn’t sound very plausible, does it?’
‘No. It doesn’t. But your Sergeant Cole seems to think otherwise. And that I’m somehow involved in it.’
‘I … I doubt …’
‘You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?’
The hairdresser stood right behind her, still staring at her in the mirror, her voice softer as she lay her hands to rest on Sheridan’s shoulders.
‘If I hear anything, sure.’
‘I like you, Christine. I think we’re going to be really good friends. So I want you to know that I’d never do anything like that to my own brother, whatever his faults.’ Her voice was now a caress. ‘I don’t want you to get into any trouble or anything for me, either. All I’m asking is that you let me know what they’re saying about me, so I can defend myself fairly if that’s what’s going to happen. That’s all. Would you do that?’
Sheridan held her breath, feeling as though she were about to step off into a great precipice.
‘Yes,’ she answered, looking up to hold Linda Fantasio’s eyes in the mirror.
Chapter 17
Cole woke early, feeling flat as he gazed at Nancy asleep in the bed. She’d been on another spree last night, three-quarters pickled when he arrived home from work. At first she’d been contrite, apologetic, as she went about making dinner while he cleaned up in the kitchen and set the table. When he pressed her further about her drinking she turned on him, crying what business was it of his whether she enjoyed a glass or two? Women weren’t slaves anymore, were they? They weren’t going to be trampled underfoot any more, were they?
She’d never shouted at him in that way before. She’d stormed off into the spare bedroom with a bottle of Vickers and any time he went near the door she had let fly with another barrage of angry criticism.
He felt he was doing what he could, but maybe it wasn’t enough. He’d helped her get her driver’s licence. He encouraged her to go on trips to Shepparton or Echuca to get out of the house, and to visit the kids in Melbourne. He encouraged her to take up tennis again, which she did for a while. They went to see movies at the drive-in. And then they embarked on an ill-fated attempt at playing golf together, an idea that sank as quickly as their golf balls disappeared into long grass o
r the watering dams by the fifth and sixteenth holes. Their frustration and then their resentment that they couldn’t control either clubs or ball became somehow reflective of their marriage.
They had their good moments, their shared rituals, but they also increasingly occupied their own spaces. It wasn’t animosity or anything resembling it. It was more a slipping away. Neither of them liked it, but nor could they find the words or actions to deal with it.
Last night, in the end, he had left her alone. He ate a cold dinner and went to bed early. He didn’t know what time Nancy had come to bed, only that she was there beside him when he woke, and around her the sour waft of alcohol.
He silently dressed in the bedroom, quietly closing the door and making himself breakfast, feeling in a fix as what to do about her. Despite all the trips they’d made to the doctor he hadn’t been able to improve anything. It was a matter of willpower wasn’t it, though Browning had also said that certain people had a strong tendency to being alcoholic, and that it often ran in families. Was it hopeless then, he wondered?
The drunkenness and its fallout was a scenario that had been played out over and over. But Vicky was coming home soon for a couple of days, which was a ray of hope on the horizon. Perhaps she could help. Perhaps then she and her mother could then go away somewhere in a circuit-breaker that might be beneficial for them all?
Cole let himself out of the house and went to his car in the driveway. He unlocked the driver’s side door and was about to swing himself inside when he noticed that both right hand side tyres were completely flat. One could have been the result of driving over a nail, but two? There was no point even pulling out the spare. Bloody kids, he thought angrily.
He slammed the car door shut and began walking to the station. When he was there he’d call Ray Furnell and get him to come over and inflate them.
It didn’t put him in a good mood as he slumped down at his desk.
Whistle Down The Wire Page 11