But all he wanted was to escape, get in the car and drive. And now that he was driving, taking the back road away from houses and street lights and the humanity of Saturday night, he found another kind of depression swallowing him. Out here, with the sound of the road under his wheels, only the crackle of the car radio filled the void. His cold hands clutched the steering wheel, the car heater on but failing and even his thick woollen coat couldn’t entirely stave off the chill.
He was tired, too, no doubt from the upheavals at home and he wondered how everything could have gone so wrong. They’d been so excited that Vicky was going to spend the weekend with them, so looking forward to talking and breaking bread with her. And in a breath everything had changed.
He spun the radio’s tuning knob hoping to find a station with clearer reception, but all he found was a radio play on the ABC. He listened to the male and female actors snapping at each other for only a minute before he turned the power button off.
He thought of the Kinross clan and the poor woman locked up with the key to her imprisonment as good as thrown away. At least that was the impression he had. Why none of them at the homestead had even mentioned her. It jarred with the vibrant picture he had of Robyn. But then the angry, double-parker came into his head, too. And what Mrs Kinross had said to him about her husband being present when her brother Cameron was killed. The official family version seemed to be that John Colston had accidentally shot him, but Michael Upton at the RSL had suggested it might not have been that cut and dried, something Elsa Kinross may have also been implying through her dislocated sentences.
But why was he dwelling on it, he wondered? The Colstons were dead and buried so why couldn’t he let it go? No one was ever going to jump on him for treating the incident as the railway accident it was. And as he drove through the night he wasn’t sure why he couldn’t let go of it, only that every instinct inside him was telling him, shouting at him, that someone was responsible for it and that he shouldn’t let them get away with it.
When he arrived at the harness racing track just west of Shepparton he was guided by parking attendants to a space in the sparsely populated car park. At winter’s end, it would only be the diehards here tonight, he thought. The racing track, the last refuge of scoundrels and thieves. He locked the car and walked the short distance to the entry gate.
He had missed the first two races. The oblong track was floodlit, as were the betting windows close by the course’s entrance. Where there was hospitality – beer, pies, sandwiches, tea, hot dogs – light threw shadows around the kiosks and the short queues of punters lining up in front of them. Elsewhere, and not too far away, a dozen bookmakers took their positions on the asphalt expanse between grandstand and rails, each marked incongruously by a bright umbrella and in close proximity to each other as patrons wandered between them comparing the odds each offered for the next race.
Cole stood before the TAB’s main board scrutinizing the results of the races already run. He pulled several betting slips from his pocket, the ones he’d laid this morning at the Mitchell TAB, and realised that one slip had been for the race he’d just missed, and that his horse had won. Actually won. Cole turned with bemusement to share the moment with someone else but there was no one behind him. He collected his winnings instead and sauntered over to where the bookmakers huddled.
Most of his takings were invested on the third favourite in the next race, which came home fifth after leading into the last turn. The brief feeling of euphoria he’d experienced on winning the second race quickly evaporated. Standing in shallow pools of floodlit ground, Cole saw his feet wet with them. He gazed about emptily, the row with his daughter heavy inside as he wondered how he could pull it back. She’d still be with them tomorrow, and somehow he had to patch it up.
Littered on the ground all around him were discarded betting tickets, and he absently picked up one, studying it a second before tearing it in half and throwing it to the ground again.
‘You’ll get nicked by the cops, littering like that,’ a cheeky voice behind him remarked.
Cole turned to see Raphael Agostini, and for once he was grateful to be recognised.
Equine specialist, Xavier Guiney had sneered about Agostini’s advertising of himself. The man was diminutive and a good decade older than Cole who guessed Agostini had been a jockey himself in his younger years. Keen of eye, always on the lookout, Agostini looked like he was still on a horse’s back.
‘Raf, what brings you here, besides trotters, betting, money and fraud?’ Cole asked.
‘The sport of kings, and a beautiful night, eh, Lloyd?’ Agostini said, peering into the blackness above. ‘Any luck so far?
‘A collect on the second. And happier days since the Colstons’ funeral, at least.’
‘There was a poor bugger. Everything going for him at the start and look how it ended up.’
‘True. Life’s ups and downs, I suppose. Not much of his business had been left on good order, either. He’d been paying you regularly for something, I hear. Can you tell me what that was for, Raf?’
‘Me?’
‘Yes you, if your name’s still Raphael Agostini. Rowlands down at the bank told me.’
Agostini put his finger to his lips and furrowed his brow in a pantomime of remembering.
‘Oh that,’ he recalled. ‘Right. It was down payments for a horse he was going to buy from me. Electric Girl. He bought other horses from me in the past, too.’
‘Well there’s a surprise,’ Cole said drily. ‘It seems like everyone I speak to was selling a horse to Harry Colston. What was he planning to do? Set up his own stables?’
‘Who else was he buying from?’
‘He was going to buy one from Xavier Guiney, Guiney said.’
‘Guiney? What would he know about horses?’
‘What would anyone know about horses?’ Cole replied, casting a glance over the torn betting slips around them.
‘It’s why the industry is up the creek,’ Agostini said. ‘Anyone whose kids ride around on a broke-backed pony thinks they can breed the next Melbourne Cup winner. From what I know about Guiney, you wouldn’t trust him as far as you could throw him. Or that neighbour of Harry’s.’
‘Which one?’
‘Bigelow. He robbed Harry of that land. Pure daylight robbery and I’m surprised you blokes weren’t called in for it.’
‘Bigelow says he paid a fair price.’
‘Fair,’ Agostini scoffed. ‘If that was fair, I’m a darkie in the Black and White Minstrel Show.’ He peered back at the activity around the bookmakers. ‘Harry was soft. Everyone took advantage of him. It was like they were lining up to take candy from a baby. But I liked him, maybe because of that, him being a bit green and all. These days there’s not many people you can take on face value. But you could trust Harry. He was a decent man, and because of that the poor bugger was a worrier, too.’
‘What did he have to worry about?’
‘Everyone told him he was no good, and he took it to heart. You hear it often enough and you start to believe it, they say. But I knew it cut him up. I saw his woman bossing him around, too. Lloyd, it was embarrassing to hear the way she talked to him. And her family, they were diddling him of his money, robbery in broad daylight. Whatever he tried to do to please them only made them take advantage of him all the more.’
‘What did Harry do then?’
‘What did he do? Harry did what Harry always did. He ran away from every bit of mess he made.’
‘I was talking to someone the other day who knew Harry pretty well. She told me that the Colstons had some big black cloud hanging over them going back to the last war. Do you know anything about that?’
‘Everyone’s got a few skeletons in the closet, I’ll give you,’ Agostini answered. ‘But the Colstons had more than their fair share. Harry was the exception. He was straight up and down. What you saw was
what you got, and sometimes you didn’t get much, but that was alright with me, too.’
‘These skeletons. Which Colston are you talking about?’
Agostini cast another glance toward the bookmakers, perhaps becoming anxious he’d lose his chance to place a bet on the next race, Cole thought.
‘Which one? Or do you mean which ones? All except Harry had something hidden in the cupboard. I heard all the stories over the years. I believe them. When he was younger, before he got all shrivelled up, John Colston was a dandy, and a pants man. Went ferretting out every woman he could find, even when he got married and his kids came along. He thought he could do what he liked and no one would care, but they did. His missus, for one, did. They say she got sick of what her husband was doing, so she tried taking a bit on the side herself. What’s good for the goose, eh? Only Colston didn’t like it, and gave her one hell of a hiding when he found out about it and nothing was ever the same between them after that. If it ever was. The wife liked throwing money around, too, and that was another sore point between them. She died young did Mrs Colston, and you can’t help wondering.’
‘That her husband somehow had a hand in it?’
‘They’re your words, not mine. John Colston tried it on one too many times though, when he had a tangle with Bill Kinross’s wife, and in the end everyone was pleased that someone put an end to it, that someone being Bill Kinross. He’s not a man you’d want to cross, as Colston found out.’
Cole exhaled loudly.
‘Are you sure John Colston had an affair with Elsa Kinross?’
‘Everyone knew about it, so I’m surprised you don’t,’ Agostini said, and sighed with great finality. ‘Well, Lloyd, it’s been good talking to you, but I’ve got to see a man about a bet.’
‘Good luck,’ Cole told him. ‘And thanks for the stories.’
Agostini walked off but he wasn’t more then ten yards away before he returned.
‘They’re no stories, Lloyd,’ he said earnestly. ‘They’re the gospel truth.’
Chapter 24
Vicky slept late on Sunday morning, and Leo even later in the spare room, so it was close to lunch time when they both finally surfaced. Nancy was pale and looked ill. She had already been dead to the world when Cole returned from Shepparton.
Cole made a simple lunch of macaroni noodles, one of the few dishes he had mastered, and led a conversation through their meal that suggested the events of the previous day had never occurred. Nancy was quiet. Vicky was quiet, and Cole suspected she’d also had too much to drink last night. Leo was as he had been: apathetic, monosyllabic, only willing to attach an afterthought to something Vicky said. He was in the same clothes he’d worn yesterday and Cole noticed he hadn’t brought any luggage with him. He’d probably even used one of their toothbrushes, if he brushed his teeth at all.
But Cole tried to maintain a cheerful exchange over the dining table even when he ran into one dead end after another. He asked Vicky about her waitressing job: what sort of Italian meals the restaurant cooked, the prices and the customers. He wanted to know how schools organised themselves these days, and kids’ attitudes to learning. Vicky saw through him, of course, but she softened knowing he was trying to make up for what had happened yesterday, even if she saw herself as a blameless party to it.
After lunch Vicky hovered about for a while, before telling them they really had to go, how much fun it had been catching up with everyone, and that they’d see them again soon.
And then her car, the one she’d insisted on finding and buying by herself, pulled out of the driveway in a spluttering cloud of exhaust fumes and disappeared noisily along the street, Cole and Nancy rooted to the ground by their front gate, waving.
Cole wondered how long it would be before they saw her again.
*
It was a relief to be back at work on Monday morning and be finally able to turn it from his mind, if not dispel the ongoing tensions with Nancy.
As soon as Janice came in he asked her to find out what she could in police records about the 1941 death of Elsa Kinross’s brother, Cameron. He didn’t know the surname.
‘Quick off the mark today, aren’t we?’ she said reprovingly, but with the twinkle that was always in her eye.
‘It’s going to be a busy week. Lots to do, starting with the caravan park,’ he told her.
‘I’ll cancel all my appointments,’ she said drolly.
The Happy Daze Caravan Park was situated between the shire’s depot and Mitchell’s tennis and netball courts. About half of the park’s sites were vacant with the rest a smattering of permanent cabins and cheap, weathered caravans. Dirty washing hung between vans and poles and rubbish bins lay knocked over or with their lids missing, their plastic-bagged contents bulging like bloated stomachs. The park didn’t look all that happy to Cole, but what did he know about how its residents amused themselves?
He tried to find the park’s manager to be told by an elderly fellow ambling away from the toilet block that the manager was only on site Saturdays and Wednesdays, and then just for an hour or two. It didn’t matter. The gent was able to point out the van occupied by Van der Sloot.
‘Going to arrest him, are you?’ the old chap asked gleefully.
‘No. Just talk,’ Cole answered and had to stop himself from laughing at the look of disappointment on the man’s face.
Cole knocked on the caravan’s door several times and waited, a muffled voice coming from inside, before the half-naked figure of a guilty-looking man appeared.
‘Jan van der Sloot?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m Senior Sergeant Lloyd Cole from the Mitchell police station. I’d like to ask you a few questions?’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, now,’ Cole said.
‘One minute please. I get my clothes on,’ Van der Sloot said.
Cole waited, heard a ‘Shhh’ from inside.
The Dutchman had pulled on sandshoes and a shirt, closing the van door carefully behind him. He was in his late twenties and about six feet tall, lean and fair-headed. His face was somewhat elongated, with high forehead and cheekbones, and a chin that came to a point, the wispy makings of a beard sprouting from it.
‘What can I help you with?’ he asked.
‘I want to ask you about Bob Fry and the work you do for him,’ Cole said.
Van der Sloot seemed relieved by the question and answered, ‘Odd jobs.’
‘I guess that’s what Bob told you to say, is it? Odd jobs? Wayne Jennings said the same thing to me. Mitchell must have the highest concentration of odd job men in Australia. But never mind. Have you ever been out to Harry Colston’s place, Hilltop, and taken any bets from him there?’
Cole could see the man sizing him up, Van der Sloot already aware that he knew a decent amount about him, and that there was no point lying.
‘Once or twice,’ he answered. ‘Hilltop. Yes, I remember the gate with the crazy birds and the sign above the door.’
‘Was it for a payout, or was Colston placing a bet?’
‘No, I took money from him. It was a big bet, one thousand dollars.’
‘A thousand? Did Colston bet like that often?’
‘One or two times, I’ve been told.’
Cole couldn’t remember seeing a number like that once in Fry’s records, never mind more than once. He immediately wondered if Fry’s figures had been made up from recollection, or were just plain, deliberately wrong. If so, Colston’s gambling was even more extravagant than he’d suspected, and Fry was also understating his motive for wanting Colston dead. Was that last big sum of Colston’s – nearly ten thousand dollars – a final payoff to Fry, or a last attempt at keeping himself safe?
‘Jan, I need you to be straight with me about this, because it’s important. Who’s in the van with you, by the way?’
‘In the caravan? Noth
ing,’ he answered, but Cole saw sweat begin to glisten on his upper lip.
‘Alright. I won’t look in the van if you tell me the truth about this. Did you or anyone else ever have instructions from Bob Fry to rough Harry Colston up a bit, threaten or beat him, for not paying gambling debts?’
‘No, it’s not true. Bob never made me do that.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, senior sergeant. I promise.’
‘Okay then.’ Cole looked over his shoulder to the caravan, the small window with curved corners and the curtain drawn. ‘I’ll assume you’re telling me the truth. When you were at Harry Colston’s place, did he ever seem frightened to you, or extra worried about something?’
‘He was worried when he gave me the money. I only saw him once and Bob said not to take the money if the wife was there.’
‘And was she?’
‘Yes. I said I was from the fertiliser company and she said alright.’
‘Why didn’t Harry meet you in town to place his bets?’
‘Because the wife wouldn’t let him.’
‘Fair enough if he was squandering all that money, too. Jan, just before Harry Colston died he made a very large payment of money to someone called Balfour. Did you hear anything about that, or know who he is?’
‘How much was the money?’
‘It was ten thousand dollars, I believe.’
Van der Sloot looked surprised and shook his head.
‘No, I never saw any money like that. I don’t know Mr Balfour.’
‘I see. Is there anything else you can tell me?’ Cole asked, casting a glance over the caravan again.
‘That man Colston.’
‘Yes?’
‘He was not a farmer. In Holland we have lots of cow farms, more than here, and this man was not a farmer.’
‘Well, thanks for passing that vital information on to me. Anything else?’
‘No.’
‘Do you have a police record, Jan?’ Cole asked. ‘I’m going to check anyway, so you may as well tell me.’
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