Horny Richard was stupid enough to tell me what I needed to know and more than I expected. Now all I have to do is bide my time. Watch and wait. Get everything ready. When the opportunity appears, I’ll strike. It’s a bit like planning a military mission, I guess. I tried out for the cadets when I was at school, but I didn’t make it. More idiots! They said something about me not fitting the profile. Well, I showed them I fit their bloody profile. I planned and executed my own mission. It was me who drowned that pretty dancer back then, but they couldn’t prove it. I’m good at this shit …
Chapter 25
“Uncle Frank, Aunt Hilda and your cousin Tom will arrive tomorrow, and we’ll have the funeral on Tuesday.” Looking composed and in control, Joanna Hilton had once more claimed her matriarchal status at the head of the dining table. A sheaf of paperwork with margin notes scribbled in red fanned before her. Jessie and Richard sat either side of their mother, listening to the specific arrangements of their father’s funeral. “Frank, Hilda and Tom will be staying in the other guest quarters for a few days before and after the funeral. Any questions?” Her head swivelled from daughter to son, a little like the laughing clown heads at the Royal Easter Show. Jessie scolded herself for such an irreverent thought at such a terrible time.
“Is there anything we can help with, Mum?” Jessie was concerned that her mother had shouldered the entire arrangements on her own. Not that Joanna wanted or asked for any help. After the initial shock, she’d simply forged ahead, as was her way. Tonight was the first time Jessie or Richard had known their mother had finalised so many funeral details.
“Well, I am putting together a tribute to your father, so if you’d like to go through some old photos, and choose a couple of your favourites that would be a great help.” She reached for the pair of cardboard storage boxes on the table and opened the lids to reveal decades of unrelated 4 x 6inch memories piled high. Jessie wondered how there could be so many hard copy photos when the world was so digitalised. But she didn’t dare mention it. Her mad, keen photographer father had adored taking “real” photos, and as such, he’d amassed a collection of chaotic imagery. She heaved a sigh of resignation. Nobody’s bothered to catalogue or sort these since the beginning of time.
“There’s so many, though?” moaned Richard.
“Well if it’s too much to ask …” Joanna’s indignant tone silenced him.
“No, Mum, it’s okay. I’ll take this box, and you start on that one, Jess.” He shoved the other equally full and heavy box towards Jessie who clasped her hands around it, reconciled to the task.
“How many photos can we choose?”
“No more than four each, please.” Joanna’s expression softened.
“We can do that. Can’t we, Richard?” Jessie fixed him in a stern gaze.
“Yes. Yes. We can do that.”
“By tomorrow morning, please…” Joanna’s pause caught Jessie’s attention.
“What is it, Mum?”
“I wasn’t going to tell you, but I think you should know. I found this in your father’s papers today.” Joanna handed a folded document to Jessie, as Richard circled around to read it over her shoulder.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It a loan agreement between your father and Uncle Frank. When the bank loaned us the money to buy Coodravale, it included an extra one hundred thousand dollars. Your father then loaned this extra money to your Uncle Frank under the proviso it be paid off within a few years. I know we’ve paid off the bank loan in full.”
Jessie stared hard at her mother. “But you bought Coodravale before I was born.”
“Yes,” Joanna’s voice faltered. “And from what I can make out by that agreement, your uncle still owes us the money.” Joanna nodded to the document in her daughter’s hands.
The hairs on Jessie’s neck bristled. “Why hasn’t he paid it back?”
“I have no idea.” Scraping her chair back from the table, Joanna began to pace the room. Jessie gnawed at her thumb as she perused the document, but she couldn’t make much sense of all the legal jargon.
“But Uncle Frank will pay it, won’t he?” asked Richard.
“Well, he should have paid it back years ago, and he hasn’t. It means I will have to discuss this with him while he’s here. It’s not a conversation I’m looking forward to though. Money is never a good topic to discuss at a funeral.”
“When you do, Richard and I will be there if you want.” Heat warmed Jessie’s cheeks. How dare Uncle Frank… “I wonder if Aunt Hilda knows anything about it?”
“Knowing Frank, I doubt it. If your father kept it secret from me, I’m sure Frank did the same with Hilda.” Circling back, Joanna dropped into her chair.
“But why would Dad lend money to Uncle Frank?” continued Jessie.
“I have no idea. But he needs to pay it back. This debt is over two decades old.”
“Don’t worry, Mum. I’m sure it will get sorted out.” Richard walked around to stand beside his mother, hand on her shoulder.
“I hope so.” She spread her hands on the table, head bowed.
“Oh, Mum. Don’t worry. Richard and I will do whatever it takes to help.” Jessie pushed from her chair to reassure her mother, bookending Richard on the other side.
Clutching their hands, Joanna glanced up at her children. A tremulous breath escaped her lips. “Now, I’m going to finish up here. I’ll see you both in the morning. Good night, darlings.” Proffering one cheek to either child, she managed a thin smile. Jessie and Richard lugged their boxes from the dining room, said their good nights and retired to their rooms to choose appropriate memories with which to honour their father.
Friday dawned bright and clear. Illuminated by the blinding glow of the rising sun, cool shadows scurried away, chased by the scorching heat. While BJ and Whiskey explored the back paddock, Jessie sat alone on the veranda. As the gloomy anticipation of her father’s forthcoming funeral replaced the shock of his death, her emotions descended to melancholy. Tears pooled in her eyes as she half expected to see her dad walk across the far paddock.
She’d not quite reached a quarter of a century before losing her father. Twenty-four years had sped past like an express train and all she had to show for it were some bittersweet memories and the four photos in her lap. The first photo of Dad and her rolling on the wet grass after the rains when she was little, reminded her of how she used to love the rain. Now it annoyed her. Studying the image, she wondered whatever happened to the gold chain with its swan medallion hanging around her neck in the photo. She’d loved that little chain, but had somehow lost it. She heaved a disappointed sigh and flipped to the next photo. A snapshot of her father and Jessie squatting around a blazing fire toasting marshmallows when she was about ten years old, told of a time when she didn’t think about what she ate. Back then, the threat of sugar held no power over her. Ah, how times have changed. A flicker of irony tugged her lips.
The last two photos showed her father standing beside her in Melbourne outside the Australian Ballet School when she first arrived and then on the following Christmas at the dinner table. For Jessie, both images rekindled mixed emotions, but little overt joy. Rather, they acted as a timeclock punch to her life. Embittered tears burned behind her eyelids as she realised there were no recent pictures of her and her father—just distant images of a girl long ago with a man who never told her how much he loved her until the day before he died.
But she was as much to blame as he was. As soon as she could, she’d escaped into her ballet world, leaving anyone and anything to do with Coodravale behind in a blur. Inspired to carve out her own life, she never looked back for too long. Being here, being home, hurt. And although she could never work out why, it didn’t lessen the pain. Coming home stung time and again, like picking a scab off a wound until it felt better to just leave it alone. With her father’s funeral only a few days away, her old scab had been scraped off once more. But for the life of her, she didn’t know why. Selfish, that’s wh
at I am, she thought, grinding her teeth. Instead of thinking about Dad, I’m thinking about myself. She was a wretched girl. But as the last thought skidded through her mind, she wondered where she’d heard that before.
In early afternoon came the beeping of a car horn that triggered a short, sharp bark from Whiskey. “That’ll be my relatives,” she grumbled, unimpressed at being disturbed. Nestled into the wingback chairs on the veranda, she and BJ had spent the last hour or so reading, relaxing and chatting about nothing in particular. “I better go and greet them with Mum and Richard. Do you want to meet them now, rather than later?”
“Sure.” He rose and heeled Whiskey beside him.
Jessie approached each relative with a quick kiss and brief hug. After words of sympathy over Ken’s death were exchanged by both sides of the family, Jessie waved BJ forward. “This is a good friend of mine, BJ, and his dog, Whiskey. This is my Uncle Frank, my Aunt Hilda and my cousin Tom.” She stepped aside allowing him to perform the required pleasantries.
“Pleased to meet you, sir.” BJ stepped in and pumped Frank’s hand.
“BJ? Is that correct?”
Jessie rolled her eyes as she watched her uncle try to assert his authority by puffing up like a bullfrog. He’d always been like that, even with her father. Because Frank was the older brother of the two, he flaunted his seniority at every chance he got. Even though BJ stood a full head taller, Frank inflated himself in an unsuccessful display of dominance.
“I call him Brad,” piped in Joanna, and Jessie wished the ground would just swallow her up.
“Then Brad it is,” corrected Uncle Frank, pumping BJ’s hand hard.
“It’s all fine with me, sir.” Turning towards Aunt Hilda, he leaned forward. “Pleasure to meet you, Mrs Hilton.”
Jessie loved her aunt. Kind, demure and blithe of spirit, Aunt Hilda wore an endless expression of sweetness and compliance. Just as well, for her husband performed the counter role of tyrant only too well.
“A pleasure to meet you too, BJ.” She offered him her hand, the best scone-making hands in the country as far as Jessie was concerned.
“And Tom. Good to meet you.” BJ flashed a wide smile at the well-dressed, city slicker in his polished tan boots and crisp white shirt tucked into neatly pressed jeans. Confident and successful, Tom beamed back, accepting BJ’s hand in a firm grip.
“Nice to meet you, BJ. Where are you from?”
“Melbourne.”
Knowing BJ was a man of few words and liked keeping his personal story to himself Jessie interrupted. “So why don’t you settle in, and we’ll meet for sundowners by the river before dinner?”
“Good idea,” said Joanna. “Richard, help them with their bags, please.”
“Yes, Mum.” Richard fell in line, and the Hilton clan tramped to the guest quarters.
Jessie lingered, shaking her head. “And I was having such a nice time.”
A soft chuckle tickled her ear. “Not to worry. It’s only for a few days.” BJ edged closer beside her.
“I don’t understand how you find any of this amusing.”
“It’s life. There’s always some bloke who thinks he’s boss, another who’s on the up and up and wants to be the boss. Then there are the followers, the peace-keepers, those not willing to rock the boat. Peace at any price is their motto. Whether it’s the army, business, family or community, the hierarchy is about the same.”
“And where do you fit in this pecking order?” she teased.
“Me? I’m the rookie. The new kid. I just do what I’m told, unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless someone steps over the line…”
“But how does anyone know where the line is?”
“They’ll know. Trust me. They’ll know.”
Her ears pricked at the lightly veiled ominous tone. She recalled the first night she’d met him. How he’d surfaced from nowhere to save her from being mugged. Back then, she’d shuddered at the thought of what he might do, but now she knew who he was and what he was capable of. She also knew that if he ever lost control, his reprisal would be swift and absolute.
Chapter 26
“So what is it you do for a living?” Tom Hilton was one of those pushy guys who wanted to know everyone’s business. BJ felt a little sorry for him really. Tom’s father was a boorish man, a man BJ instantly disliked. In his mid-sixties, with grey, receding hair, an ageing goatee beard and beady, blue eyes, Frank Hilton tried to dominate everyone around him. BJ suspected Frank had made his wife’s life hell for their entire marriage. Figuring his son had had little choice but to mirror his father’s officious behaviour to escape ridicule or a beating, Tom Hilton played a brash mini-me to Frank. They were like characters from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol—the ghosts of Hilton past and Hilton future. Aunt Hilda seemed to be the only one present with any real goodness.
“At the moment, I work for a builder friend of mine. What is it you do, Tom?” Leaning back in his chair, BJ crossed his leg over his knee and steered the conversation.
“I work as a senior accountant for Campbell’s in Sydney. I’ve been there for a few years.” Obviously thrilled to have an audience, Tom chatted about his work while the Goodradigbee River burbled quietly in the background. Sundowners by the river was a Hilton family tradition and this evening it gave BJ the added bonus to observe both sides of the family interact. So far, the tension had risen to no more than a simmer, but BJ’s gut warned that it would only take the smallest irritation to reach boiling point. From the corner of his eye, he caught Frank giving Jessie disapproving looks. She was upending the second bottle of wine into her glass and drinking its contents twice as fast as anyone else. Knowing wine and Jessie’s empty stomach were not the best combination, BJ decided to place himself in the firing line. He reached over and gently rested the bottle from her hand. “Would anyone like some more wine?”
‘I would,” she snapped, holding her glass aloft.
He drizzled a little in her glass and then proceeded to top up the other glasses. As he set the bottle on the table, she nailed him with a scathing stare. He winced. Jessie sculled her glass, reached for the bottle and poured the last of its contents into it, which she likewise sculled.
“So tell me, Brad. What did you do before you joined this builder friend of yours? You strike me as someone who can look after himself.”
Frank’s question and the smug expression on his face rankled BJ, but he kept his tone polite. “Well, Mr Hilton. I’ve done a few things in my time…”
“Uncle Frank, I think it’s time to move inside. The mosquitos are swarming,” interrupted Jessie, her voice sounded brittle and sharp.
“Yes. I think you’re right, Jessica. Let’s retire inside. I’ve got to check the chicken anyway.” As Joanna rose, the others joined her, and they strolled up the property to the homestead. Frank glanced back over his shoulder with a distinct look of disdain for his niece’s behaviour. BJ ignored him, leaned over and offered Jessie his hand.
“How dare you embarrass me in front of my family.” She snarled and slapped his hand away.
”I was trying to stop you from embarrassing yourself. You’ve got to go easy on the wine, Jessie.”
“Why? Why do I? I have every right to have a few drinks. For God’s sake, my father has just died, I’ve got some crazed stalker after me, and I might not make principal dancer. My life is going down the toilet. I think I’m entitled to drink as much as I want!” The crescendo of her voice splintered the evening’s serenity.
“But drowning your troubles with alcohol is not going to help.” He kept his tone even, trying to diffuse the situation.
“What would you know?”
Stony-faced BJ stared at her. “Come on, Jessie. I’m taking you inside.” He reached over to help her from the chair.
“Don’t touch me. I can walk up by myself.” She tossed her head in the air and stormed off.
“Come on, Whiskey.” He leaned down and ruffled her ears. “We better
get going.” In reluctant strides, he walked up to the Garden Wing with Whiskey by his side.
While he closed the doors behind him, Jessie paced to the other end of the living room. Snapping an about-face, she glared at him. “Do you mind telling me what that was all about?” She flung her arm in the air and pointed in the direction of the river.
He inhaled a long, steady breath and met her frosty gaze. “Jessie, you’re drinking too much. I know you’re going through a rough patch, but you can’t keep drowning it with booze.”
Obviously spoiling for a scene, her intoxicated bad mood pulsed in the vein in her neck.
“You’re not my keeper. I can do what I want. You make it sound like drinking too much is the worst thing in the world.”
He locked eyes with her. The nerve she’d unknowingly struck sizzled like badly wired electrics. Yes, drinking too much is the worst thing in the world. Remaining cool and in command, he readied himself. “Jessie, I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
“This wasn’t the way I wanted to tell you, but I’m hoping once you hear what I have to say you will understand why I don’t like watching you drink too much.”
Jessie folded her arms and huffed. “Go on.”
“I was married. My wife’s name was Rachael and we had a baby daughter, Tiffany.”
Jessie reeled. “You were married? With a daughter?”
“Three years ago, when I was on a tour of duty, they were killed in a car accident by a drunk driver. That’s why I hate watching you drink too much. It reminds me of the condition that bastard must have been in when he killed Rachael and Tiffany.”
Jessie’s arms dropped by her side and she sucked in air. “And you didn’t think that the death of your wife and child was important enough to tell me until now?”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t deliberately withholding this from you. You’ve had enough going on. Besides, it’s not something I go around telling people.”
Retribution: Who would you kill to escape your past? Page 15