Had she ruined it for herself with everyone, she wondered? Neither Linda or Cole now seemed to have any faith in her. Was she back to square one again, the loner, the wallflower? As she retraced the engagements of the previous days she couldn’t even remember what had led to what, how the debacle with Cole and Linda and Bramley had come to be. In her mind she was still wrestling with someone in that front yard, and still tormenting herself with the record of her failures. She could feel the bruises, too, and the stitches in her hand reminded her of her recklessness every time her fingers bumped against something.
She retreated to bed for a while, cried and then slept. When she woke she was surprised to see one o’clock had come and gone. She filled the bath and lay in it listening to her transistor radio. And then, as she splashed water over her face, she thought she heard the whine of a car’s engine beyond the corny country and western song leaking from the radio. She leant out of the bath, dripping water over the floor as she turned off the radio and listened.
There was a car, and it was heading up her driveway. It was probably her landlord next door come to check that everything was alright, as he had threatened to do. Bad timing on his part, she thought as she rubbed herself off with a towel and pulled on jeans and top as quickly as she could, trying to drag her socks on, almost hopping through the kitchen and then to the back door to see who it was. Bloody bad timing, when she just wanted everyone to go away and let her wallow in her own misery. Cole, the station, the whole bloody lot of them, could go and rot in hell.
As she snatched the door open the car she’d heard had turned the corner of the drive headed directly toward the house. It took a few seconds to register who it was.
‘Linda!’ she cried and dashed out in her socks, and before Fantasio had barely put a foot on the ground she caught her up while collapsing in a flood of tears.
‘Hold on, hold on,’ Fantasio comforted her. ‘Shoosh now. You’re okay. Really you are.’
‘No I’m not,’ Sheridan bawled. ‘Everything’s gone wrong and you think I’m a turncoat and stupid and that I let you down when you’ve done so much for me when I never meant any of it. I really didn’t.’
‘I know you didn’t, so you can take it easy ’ Fantasio said. ‘Come on, let’s go inside and talk.’
They sat in the kitchen with Sheridan shaking and shivering like she’d just been plucked from deep, dark water. Fantasio switched on the kettle and made coffee, rescued a couple of biscuits from a tin.
She found a blanket and wrapped it around Sheridan.
‘Did you see a doctor?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ Sheridan reluctantly held out her injury to show. ‘Bruises and a few stitches. Nothing really.’
‘Poor kitten.’ Fantasio reached and took her hand. ‘I hear you’ve been gallantly defending my honour. But you shouldn’t have done it, you know. I can take care of the Bramleys.’
‘I know, but I wanted to help you, that’s all. I probably went about it all the wrong way, but when you told me that he’d threatened you I couldn’t help it. I had to do something to put him in his place.’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll do that.’
‘And now Senior Sergeant Cole thinks I’m a loose cannon who can’t be trusted …’
She was threatening to spill over again. Fantasio let go of her hand.
‘Listen Christine, here’s what you do. When are you going back to work?’ she asked.
‘Tomorrow,’ Sheridan answered with a shiver, ‘But now I’m worried what they’ll think of me. You know what it’s like as a woman. You have to do everything twice as well as a man to be recognised for it, and then when you fail at something they just think that’s what they expected you to do all along.’
‘You haven’t failed at anything. You showed you’re capable of taking it up to anyone when you need to. But tomorrow speak with Sergeant Cole as soon as you go into the station, and tell him you know you overstepped the mark, but that you’ll do your best to follow procedures by the book from now on. Everyone goofs up now and then. You wouldn’t be normal if you didn’t.’
‘I know I goofed. But you’re right. I’ll do that when I see him.’ She regarded her friend, began to draw proper breath again. ‘You know how to say all the right things, Linda.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ Fantasio laughed. ‘But you’re cold. I’m going to stoke up this fire and we’ll both feel better for it.’
The kitchen stove had almost burnt out and Fantasio soon had it roaring again.
‘It’s a miserable day,’ Sheridan said, looking toward the window.
‘Which will pass. So long as we stick to our guns tomorrow is going to be a whole lot better. You’ll see.’
‘I like that about you. You’re always so positive.’
‘What other way can you be? But I know I’ve been a little hard on your Sergeant Cole. I know he’s got a job to do and so on, but it’s just the way he charges in on me, demanding this and that, that gets me riled sometimes.’ She drank her coffee. ‘I shouldn’t let it, of course.’
‘Is there any progress on the will?’ Sheridan asked.
‘Not yet,’ Fantasio answered. ‘It’s in the hands of lawyers now so there’ll be a lot of legal argy-bargy before anything happens. Who knows how long it will take? At least the Bramleys won’t be able to get their grimy hands on our property in the meantime. The lawyer I’m talking to says it’s strange that Harry didn’t leave anything to his son. Which it is. He says that might invalidate the whole thing, so Dianne wasn’t as smart as she thought she was.’
‘Yes,’ Sheridan agreed. ‘Wouldn’t you always provide for your children first?’
‘Harry …’
Fantasio’s voice trailed off and Sheridan saw her head dip, her reluctance to go on.
‘Yes?’
‘Can I tell you this?’
‘You can tell me whatever you like. I’m listening.’
She spoke slowly, as if she wanted to make it clear to herself. ‘Harry could be so exasperating sometimes, but he was my brother and however angry I’d get with him, he was always still my brother. When I boiled over at him, it was really Dianne I was angry with. Because I knew that whatever my brother’s failings were, they were born out of weakness and ordinary failure, not spite or greed. He and Dianne. Sometimes I could separate them and sometimes I couldn’t. But I can now. I see my brother clearer now, and to me he’s to be pitied. And loved. We shouldn’t hold grudges against the dead, should we?’
‘No, we shouldn’t.’
‘There was more going on in that house than I ever understood. Harry would show me glimpses of his unhappiness, and I found that disturbing in someone who had always been cheerful, and who wanted to be cheerful. He had a weakness for gambling, and I didn’t realise how bad it was. He thought buying into horses would make him his fortune, but who in their right mind would expect a thoroughbred champion to appear from out here? I think his failures in both those things slowly ground him down, when he was already running away from his father, haunted by him even though he was dead. He was the boy who was never good enough for Dad,’ she said bitterly. ‘And then he was too fond of a drink. We all enjoy a glass or two I know, but not to the extent Harry and Dianne did. Sometimes they would go way beyond the stage where a normal person would just be sick or fall comatose into bed. They would just keep going and going, to all hours, until each became as ugly as the other. I worried about the baby right from the start.’
‘It wouldn’t have made Harry feel any better, on top of the other things.’
‘No, it didn’t,’ Fantasio said. ‘Things came out, too. Awful things. Harry told me once, not long after George was born, that they got on a bender and in her cups, and when they were fighting about something else, Dianne told him that he couldn’t do anything properly, not even father a son.’
‘What do you mean?’
&n
bsp; ‘Harry took it to mean that he hadn’t fathered George, that he wasn’t his real father. But when he took it to her she tried to brush it off and said she meant parenting, not that he wasn’t George’s actual father. But the fact that Harry said that to me also told me that he must have had his doubts, because he needed to air it with me.’
‘Do you think it might be true?’
‘Before Dianne married Harry, they called her the Town bike. I think you know what that means. She was desperate to snare him and she did, and my father didn’t do anything to stop him, when he had another time with Robyn Kinross, who at least would have been good on the farm. I never understood it.’
‘But what do you really think, about George’s father?’
‘I don’t know what I think, and there’s probably no way now we’ll ever know. But either way, it’s not George’s fault, so to me he’ll be Harry’s and that’s how I’ll treat him. I can’t do anything for Harry anymore. But I can do something for Hilltop and what’s left of our family.’
‘Your brothers?’
‘They don’t want to know. They always resented Harry being given the farm. Now all they care about is getting their hands on a share of it.’
‘Have you told them about the will?’
‘Not yet. I was going to, but I’ve got enough on my hands without them coming here and jumping up and down.’
‘You’ll do a great job of looking after George.’
‘I hope so. But Christine …’ She paused, and Sheridan knew something significant was coming. ‘… I was hoping you’d do something for me. From what you said the other day.’
‘Of course I will. I promised you, didn’t I? Do you think Harry left George out of the will because he thought he wasn’t George’s natural father?’
Fantasio put her coffee down.
‘That has crossed my mind, and more than once. As I said, whatever happens now, I’m looking after George, no matter what. But I was hoping you could help me, maybe find out if anyone knows anything about Dianne having an affair since she married Harry.’
‘I’ll do it, sure, but how would I find out something like that?’
‘Sergeant Cole. He’s investigating what happened to Harry and Dianne. He’ll be talking to more people than you or I could ever hope to, and where they wouldn’t share anything with us, they might with him. Everyone respects him. Look at what he did last year.’
‘I’m still not sure what …’
‘Christine, I just want you to speak to Sergeant Cole, ask him if he’s heard about Dianne having a liaison with anyone, whether he’s got any suspicions himself about her in that department. Maybe someone will make a claim on George and want to take him. I just need to know, one way or the other. When I look at George later on when he’s growing up, I want to know that someone’s not just going to appear out of the blue one day and try to whisk him away from me. It’s for my own peace of mind, do you understand? You’ll do it, won’t you?’
‘Yes, I will.’ Sheridan answered. ‘But there won’t be much leeway around this one. I’ll have to ask him straight out when I’ve barely heard anything about your brother’s case the last week.’
‘Then tell him you heard a rumour about some kind of love triangle going on with Dianne, that there might have been a second man involved with her.’
‘Then why would he kill Dianne, too?’
‘I don’t know, Christine. Make something up.’
Sheridan saw Fantasio was becoming upset, so she said she would follow it up with Cole and let her know. If her boss was receptive to anything she said right now.
‘There’s something else, too.’ Fantasio cut across her thoughts. ‘And this is something you can say came directly from me. For a long time I’ve thought Dianne Bramley was involved in my father’s death. All his life I never knew him to be sick, and then not long after Harry got married and Dianne moved in with them Dad began to go downhill. First there were pains and tiredness Doctor Browning put down to working too hard, pains that got worse and worse over the next two years, even when every test in the book showed up nothing. Gradually his eyesight started going, his hearing too, and he lost his coordination, falling over sometimes for no good reason. Finally he was bedridden and that was too much for him. He was a proud man and he just gave up. Tell your Sergeant Cole that, and that I said it. It’s too late now to do anything about it, but at least he should know.’
Chapter 32
When Cole arrived for work early the next morning he found Chris Sheridan waiting for him. They retreated into his office.
Before Cole was able to take a breath Sheridan blurted out, ‘That business with Ken Bramley. I just want you to know it won’t happen again.’
Cole broke into a grin, ‘I’ve already forgotten about it. How are you feeling?’
‘Much better, thanks,’ she answered, her spirits already lifting. ‘I’m keen to get back into it, boss.’
‘That’s great then. I think I’m making some progress on the Colstons.’
‘And whoever shot at your house?’
‘Not so much on that, but I’m working on it.’
‘That’s good. If you want me to do anything to help just tell me.’
‘I will, but there’s plenty for you to do here at the moment. Ben’s got his hands full so you can link up with him today. Someone tore a hole through a fence out near your way yesterday and made off with some prize sheep. There was also a string of vandalism to cars along Bishop Street last night. Ben’s got all the details. He’ll fill you in.’
‘Okay, thanks. I’ve got some information on Dianne Colston, too. I don’t know if it’ll be any good to you or not.’
‘What is it? Did you have to beat it out of Ken Bramley?’ Cole teased.
‘No, I didn’t. I saw Mrs Fantasio. She’d heard I’d been injured and came out to see me, to make sure I was alright.’
‘Nice of her.’
‘It was. But what had happened was, Mrs Fantasio thinks Dianne Bramley might have killed her father. She says he fell sick soon after Dianne and Harry married when her father had never been sick a day in his life. She thinks Dianne might have poisoned him or something and she wanted you to know.’
‘Why did she tell you that?’
‘To put it on the record I suppose.’
‘She could have made a statement if she wanted. But she’d need some concrete evidence to go with it, and when Dianne Bramley is dead I’m not sure what the point would be.’
‘I don’t think she wants to do that. She just wanted you to know, to put an end to it somehow.’
‘Fair enough then.’
‘I’ve got something else, too’ she ventured. ‘But I could only tell you in the strictest confidence. You couldn’t breathe a word of it to Mrs Fantasio, for example.’
Cole thought. ‘Okay. Tell me.’
‘Right. Mrs Fantasio has some questions about George’s – you know the Colstons’ baby? – his paternity. Harry Colston apparently said something to Linda about it. He’d had a row with his wife and his wife said the baby might not be his.’
Cole straightened up. ‘Linda Fantasio told you that?’
‘Yes. She said there was no proof, but both she and her brother obviously had some questions about it. She thought that might be why her brother made no mention of the baby in the will. Boss, do you think there might have been some truth to that?’
‘I really don’t know. I haven’t heard anything myself, but thanks for letting me know. I’ll go out and have another chat with her.’
‘Only, if you do that, she’ll know it came from me.’
‘Don’t worry. She knows I’ve got her copy of the will. I’ll ask her why she thinks George isn’t mentioned in it, and we’ll see what she says.’
Sheridan continued uneasily, ‘Thanks. I know Mrs Fantasio has been a suspect, for obvi
ous reasons, but I don’t believe she had anything to do with the killing of her brother or his wife.’
‘I know you think that, Chris. And it’s good that you’d tell me. If I can sound a note of caution, though, just stay on your guard with Linda Fantasio. You need to watch yourself in a town like this. Whether you like it or not – and I don’t – people talk. Gossip soon gets reported as fact. Do you know what I’m saying?’
‘I do, and thank you, boss. We’re just friends.’
‘In the end it’s your business, and no one else’s. Just don’t say or do anything that’s going to get yourself into trouble, or compromise our work here.’
‘I promise,’ she said.
‘Okay. Find Ben then and see if you can help him find those woolly sheep.’
When Sheridan left Cole picked up the telephone and called Robyn Kinross.
He told her, ‘It’s just a courtesy call.’
‘Damn!’ she exclaimed jokingly.
‘I just wanted to let you know I’m going to pay your mother a visit today.’
‘Have you let them know in Bendigo?’
‘I have. Last time I was there I felt she had more to say about the Colstons but just couldn’t get it out. I’m hoping she might be in better form today.’
‘Are you still going on about Harry? I agree with your theory, but it’s too late for an autopsy now isn’t it?’
‘Only in terms of his physical remains. I think there might be someone in town here who could shed some light on it, and your mother might be able to tell me who that person is. I’d like to have a quiet word with your father, too, Robyn, so could you mention that to him please? He can drop by the station in the next few days if it suits him.’
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