‘Yes, I’ll tell him. But I’m still baffled by all this.’
‘I guess I am too, but if I learn anything I’ll call you and let you know, alright?’
‘Thanks, Lloyd. That’d be good,’ she said chirpily.
He put down the phone. He hadn’t called Bendigo to warn them of his visit. If he was to have any luck finding Elsa Kinross in a reasonably lucid condition it was likely to be in the morning, before she became bored or agitated and got herself in a state where she was considered a nuisance and injected full of barbiturates. And just at this point he was yet to be convinced that the Kinross family – which member of it he didn’t know – wouldn’t step in and make his Bendigo visit as unwelcoming as possible.
So Cole put his foot down once he was on his way, speeding being one of the few freedoms afforded police, and he made quick time in reaching Bendigo. Once he found the asylum he drove up the rise and stood his vehicle in the car park outside its walls. The high gates were open and he made his own way to reception to sign himself in.
‘Police business,’ he said tersely when asked, and he was relieved there was no sign of the obstructive matron who had hindered him on his previous visit.
Instead, a young nurse took him to Elsa Kinross, and she bowed and politely left him alone with the old woman when they came to her room.
His hunch had been right. Elsa Kinross was dressed and sitting on the edge of her bed, as if undecided whether she wanted to leave it or crawl into it fully clothed. But when she noticed Cole there was recognition, a creaky smile and a slowly raised arm that drew a pointed finger at him.
He threw his arms up in mock surrender, cried, ‘I didn’t do it!’ and the old woman chortled.
‘You’re … policeman,’ she mouthed.
‘Senior Sergeant Lloyd Cole, from Mitchell,’ he reminded her.
She nodded, smiling. She did remember that, or some of it.
She motioned for her walking stick and Cole handed it to her as he watched her labour to her feet, the greatest part of her emaciated carriage leaning on the stick. She made it as far as half way across the room.
‘Do you want to walk?’ he asked.
‘I told you … Cameron…’ she whispered, her washed-out grey eyes on the doorway.
‘Your brother. I think I have a photo of him right here. Would you like to see him?’
She was puzzled, standing, still looking to the doorway as though Cole had brought her brother with him.
‘A photograph,’ he repeated more loudly, drawing the newspaper article from his pocket. ‘This appeared in the Mitchell Advertiser in 1941. I wonder if you could tell me who is in this photo.’
He unfolded the copy and stood beside her as he held it for her to see. She didn’t wear glasses but her eyesight seemed strong enough.
‘Here,’ she pointed. ‘Cam … my brother.’
‘I can see that now, Elsa,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘You both look very alike. He’s a good looking bloke, isn’t he?’
‘Yes. Yes.’
Her eyes were riveted to the photograph.
‘Elsa, can you tell me who else is in this picture?’
‘Cam …’
‘Yes, your brother. Do you recognise anyone else there, Elsa?’
She pointed again. ‘John …’
‘John Colston?’
Her face confirmed it was him.
‘Dear John,’ she whispered, and her free hand clutched at Cole. ‘Robyn … was our child.’
He must have looked shocked, but her attention remained fixedly on the photograph.
Cole gathered himself. ‘Robyn Kinross is your daughter? You had her with John Colston?’
‘Mmm,’ she murmured.
Cole found himself staring at the photograph, too, wondering at all those past entanglements.
He said, ‘Bill is there, too, isn’t he? Right there.’
His fingertip rested on an unmistakably younger Bill Kinross. He watched her screw up her face.
‘I don’t … like him.’
‘No, I understand that,’ Cole said.
‘Here,’ she pointed again at the photograph. ‘Robert.’
‘Robert who, Elsa?’
Her expression turned distant. She was somewhere else.
‘Elsa?’ he gently pushed.
‘Robert Fry,’ she whispered, shaking her head.
Cole felt the wheels turning in his head.
‘Yes, you’re right. He does look like Bob Fry. The accident with your brother,’ he said quietly. ‘Who do you think shot Cameron?’
She shifted her gaze momentarily to Cole.
‘Fry,’ she said. ‘John said he ... when …’
Footsteps from outside the room alarmed the old woman, even as they continued on past her door.
‘You’re certain he said Bob Fry?’
‘John said his … an accident.’
‘Do you think he might have been passing the buck, Elsa? That he might have shot your brother himself? That’s what most seem to think.’
‘Perhaps,’ she answered confusingly. ‘John wouldn’t mean it … not to me …’
‘Or …’ He waited. ‘Might it have been Bill?’
‘He would like … to kill me, too.’
Elsa Kinross was tiring quickly, her voice a papery scratch.
‘Thanks for telling me all this,’ Cole said.
‘No,’ she said, turning back to the bed. ‘… last chance.’
‘I just want to ask you one more thing before I go. You must have inherited your parents’ land and property? Later it would all go to your family here, wouldn’t it?’ Her head dipped in answer. ‘I thought so. Here, Elsa. You keep this photograph of your brother. I’ll put it in your bedside drawer.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘… under pillow.’
Cole nodded and folding the piece of paper, slipped it under her pillow, Elsa Kinross’s eyes following it all the way there. She turned then in slight shuffling movements, labouring toward the bed and rested by it for a minute before letting her walking stick fall to the ground. It was as if she’d just walked a hundred miles and was finally home.
Chapter 33
Cole called Constable Whittaker from a public telephone box in Bendigo and told him to be ready to go out with him on his return to Mitchell. As he got back in his car he glanced skywards and saw heavy weather, a drenching, on its way.
Part of him felt badly for leaving Elsa Kinross behind. He wondered if Robyn Kinross ever visited her mother at all, because from what he’d seen he doubted her sons ever did. And from what he understood about the family now, he knew Bill Kinross never would.
It made him think of Nancy again with a stab of regret.
It was drab country he passed through on his way back to Mitchell. Building clouds left a darkening gloom over the scrappy country around Huntly and then Goornong as he struck out for Elmore. The first drops of rain came and then went, the rain returning in drifts as he got caught behind a tractor pulling a trailer load of squealing pigs.
He drove taking further little notice of what lay around him, thinking instead of the Kinross’s, the Colstons and Bob Fry, their deputies and lieutenants.
Ben Whittaker was waiting for him outside the police station as Cole pulled his car into the kerb, the two of them leaving to drive to Ken Bramley’s house.
‘Do we know if he’s going to be home?’ Whittaker asked.
‘We know he’s not going to be at work,’ Cole answered.
As expected, Ken Bramley was home. He stood in the doorway with his son Harvey looming behind him.
‘Are you going to charge that sheila, then?’ Bramley sneered.
Cole looked him up and down, Bramley filthy in badly stained working pants and light and dark blue striped cardigan.
‘No, why s
hould I?’ Cole said.
‘Didn’t she attack me first?’
‘You got a witness for that?’
‘Witness? You want a bloody witness? The whole street seen it!’
‘That’s not what I heard,’ Cole said. ‘A whole bunch of men fighting a woman on her own. I’d say that was a pretty weak effort, wouldn’t you?’
‘She whacked me first.’
‘You used obscene and threatening language, Mr Bramley. But none of this is what we came here for. I need to ask you a few questions down at the station.’
‘About what? Ask me here!’
‘That’s not what I said we were going to do. Constable Whittaker, can you escort this gentleman to the car please? And do the right thing and cooperate, Mr Bramley. The rain’s coming in and the longer we stand here arguing the wetter we’ll get. The quicker you help us with our inquiries the quicker you’ll get back here. Alright?’
Bramley sullenly accompanied them to the police car, Bramley’s son watching on from the house before he slammed the front door shut.
‘What’s this about?’ Bramley kept demanding but the two policemen paid no attention to him.
Once at the station Cole took Bramley through the building to the interview room, seating him across the table from where he sat with hands folded on the table, his leather satchel beside him. Cole had Whittaker record the date and time and names of those present in the room first, Bramley staring at Whittaker’s note-taking like his own death warrant was being written.
Cole began. ‘It’s come to our attention that you’re a recent beneficiary of Mr Harry Colston’s will. Is that correct?’
Bramley fidgeted, pulled a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches from his pants, his eyes searching for an ashtray.
‘Get me an ashtray or the ashes go on the floor,’ he said.
‘You won’t be smoking here so you can put those smokes right back in your pocket,’ Cole said, staring him down.
‘What a bloody world, eh?’ Bramley jeered.
‘Let’s get back to my question. You’re a beneficiary of Harry Colston’s will. Is that right or not?’
‘So they say. My lucky day, isn’t it?’
Cole removed the will from his satchel and put it down on the table between them.
‘Very lucky, I’d say. It’s a pretty interesting document. Look here, for example,’ Cole said, indicating a section of the will without turning it around for Bramley’s benefit, who instead tried to read it upside-down. ‘It says you are to inherit Harry and Dianne Colston’s entire herd of Hereford cattle.’
‘That wasn’t very many cows.’
‘Still, they do fetch a fair bit of dough I’m told. Then there’s this part, the really important section, that says if anything should happen to your daughter Dianne, then the Bramley family, i.e. you, inherits her full share of the property. For someone like you – no offence Mr Bramley – who hasn’t got much, this is better than winning Tatts isn’t it?’
‘Don’t forget it was me daughter,’ he said haughtily, as if he’d gone one up over Cole.
‘Yes, it must’ve been a great shock to you, losing someone so precious.’
‘And if I catch the bastard what done it they’re dog meat,’ he snapped. He tugged out his cigarettes again. ‘Am I gonna have a smoke or not?’
‘You’re not. The will. You know it’s been frozen? That means no one can get their hands on it until the lawyers sort it out.’
‘Who said that?’
‘Mrs Fantasio.’
‘Mrs Fantasio. Poo. I’ll still get it.’
‘You might. If you or someone else can persuade everyone that this is actually a legal will.’
‘It’s all written down isn’t it? Don’t that make it legal?’
‘I’ve got some bad news for you, Mr Bramley. You see, we’ve found the will that Harry originally wrote, which is very different from the one we’re looking at now. His will, and this made-up one, written only a few months apart, are chalk and cheese from one another.’
‘What do you mean, made-up? It’s on the right paper isn’t it, and that stamp there. See it?’
‘This will …,’ Cole said, picking it up and shaking it as if to dislodge drops of water from it. ‘… is a forgery, a fake. Someone, not Harry Colston, has written it. And you know what that means, don’t you?’
‘Of course it’s real. Who says it isn’t?’
‘Our Fraud Squad, for one. Someone’s tried to forge Harry’s signature – it doesn’t match up to the signature on the real will, or to any other examples of Harry’s signature we’ve got. And we’ve got plenty of them. So the question now is, who are we going to charge over this crime, because that’s what it is now.’
‘Hang on! I didn’t do nothin’. You can’t say it was me. I can hardly write me own name.’
‘It was you, though, who took this will to Martin Bigelow to witness.’
‘Was it?’
‘Bigelow says it was.’
‘Then he don’t know what he’s talkin’ about.’
‘When it goes to court, and Martin Bigelow has to stand up before the judge and lie or tell the truth, what do you reckon he’ll say? He hasn’t actually done anything wrong, he just innocently signed a document in good faith, even though he should’ve signed it the same time as Harry was supposed to, in each other’s presence. What will he say then? My money’s on him telling the truth, that you asked him to sign it.’
‘It still don’t make me the one who done it.’
‘I think it does, especially when you’re the one who’s going to benefit most from this shonky will. All the same, this will is going to be thrown out, you can be sure of that. It was a nice try, Mr Bramley. It’s just a shame your little stunt didn’t work. Who else was in on this with you?’
‘Got no idea what you’re talkin’ about.’
‘Are you sure about that? Was Dianne somehow involved, too?’
‘When’s she dead? You reckon?’
‘No, when she was alive, when she knew she wasn’t going to be a beneficiary of the real will.’
‘This is bullshit. Are you goin’ to let me go now, or what?’
‘We’ll see. There’s another thing I wanted to talk to you about, too. The call you made to Linda Fantasio. She said you threatened her over the will.’
‘Bullshit again.’
‘She was pretty clear it was you.’
‘That scrag. She wouldn’t know nothin’.’
‘And you would, I suppose, which could be right because I think you know a bit more about what happened to Harry and Dianne than you’re letting on. Is that a fair point?’
‘No. Can I go?’
‘Not just yet. The Fraud Squad have said there’s enough here to charge you with, so that’s what we’re going to do. Constable Whittaker here will take a statement from you. After that we might or might not release you, depending on how quickly or not we can find a magistrate, and then on what bail he sets, and then on whether you can afford to pay the bail or not. And then maybe on whether we like the colour of your eyes or not. So maybe play it safe, hey, and don’t figure on getting out of here anytime soon.’ He listened to rain beginning a steady, insistent drumming on the roof. ‘Look on the bright side. You’ll be warmer and drier in here, anyway.’
Chapter 34
Next morning Cole huddled in the shelter of Snip’s veranda watching rain tumbling down over Main Street. At a time when it should have been light everything was dark. It had rained all night and gutters and drains were awash, water cascading over eaves and awnings. Cole dug his hands into his coat pockets as he watched cars with their headlights on plodding cautiously along the street.
Linda Fantasio drew her car in against the gutter ten minutes later. If she was surprised by Cole waiting for her it didn’t show. She opened the door
to the salon in a jangle of keys and rushed straight inside, switching on lights and pulling off her raincoat. Cole followed her in.
‘Have you ever seen it so dark?’ she said.
‘Not like this,’ Cole agreed, and he instantly knew they were on a different footing today.
Even at this hour of the day, and in this weather, she looked immaculately groomed, her face made up and her hair lustrous. There was a spring to her step.
‘What’s brought you here so early?’ she asked.
‘Please do what you normally would. I don’t want to hold you up,’ Cole said and Fantasio rummaged through the low cupboards behind the grooming chairs, taking out the tools of her trade.
She turned the power on to the sterilisation cabinet and Cole was taken by its violet glow.
‘Won’t be a minute,’ she said.
And when she was done, he said, ‘You might be interested to know I had a conversation with Ken Bramley yesterday.’
‘Him,’ she said dismissively. ‘What tricks is he up to this time?’
‘Just the usual. But I’m letting you know we’ve charged him with involvement in producing a forged will.’
‘What?’
He laughed. ‘I thought that might get your attention.’
‘Harry’s will?’
‘Yes.’
‘When did you find out about that?’
‘Not long ago. I would have told you earlier, but we needed to be absolutely sure before I said anything. From what our expert says there’s little doubt the will you were given is a forgery.’
She stood open-mouthed before relief swept through her.
‘I knew it! Was it just him then, or was someone else involved as well?’ she asked.
‘We’re not sure about that. Bramley is the only definite so far.’
‘Good God! That’s great news. Thank you. Can I tell my lawyer?’
‘You should.’
But Fantasio stopped in her tracks, struck by the greater implications of what she’d just been told.
‘Does this mean, then, that Bramley murdered Harry? And his own daughter, for God’s sake?’
‘We don’t know about that yet, either. We’re keeping an open mind on it. But I just need you to help us with a few things as I work my way through this.’
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