The Road Home

by Margaret Way

  “The police, the police!” Erik Hartmann threw up his hands in disgust. “The police are bloody useless. Couldn’t find Helena. Thought she’d simply done a bunk. Thought we were a bunch of wankers. Murderers, maybe. Your father didn’t think that. He saved us all from going mad. He had heart. You thought I might have been the one to make Helena run? Not me. I could never, ever go so far, although I had come to question whether I was her father. Oh, don’t look like that!” he all but shouted at Isabelle.

  “That must have opened up a great deal of rage?” Bruno asked, his contained tone in marked contrast to Hartmann’s belligerence.

  For a moment, there was naked grief in Erik Hartmann’s dark eyes. “Anger, humiliation certainly, but that doesn’t mean I was not completely broken by Myra’s death. Such a mystery! She was a splendid horsewoman. So is Abigail. They used to go riding together. Alas, not on that fatal day.”

  “So Mrs. Abigail Hartmann loved to be outdoors too?” Isabelle asked, stunned by how many new trails were opening up.

  “Why wouldn’t she?” Erik Hartmann asked, making a chopping gesture with his hand. “Abigail is a Stirling. Surely you’ve heard of the Stirlings of Moorooka Downs? The family pioneered the South West, just as we did. It was considered a great coup when my stepbrother, Christian, managed to win her hand. Abigail had many suitors. I would have considered her myself but for Myra. No woman could hold a candle to Myra.”

  “The two women were good friends?” Bruno spoke casually, so as not to appear too prying as indeed he was.

  “Good enough.” Hartmann shrugged. “Wise woman that she was, Abigail quickly got into the habit of accepting she could never measure up to Myra. Actually, in her own way she used to minister to Myra. She certainly deferred to her.”

  “Not a good place to be in?”

  “Whatever do you mean?” Hartmann stared across at Isabelle, who had made the observation.

  “She wouldn’t have been human if she weren’t a little jealous of your wife’s position as number one,” Bruno suggested.

  “It was a great comfort to us Abigail understood what her place was,” Hartmann said stiffly. “Abigail may not have been a vivid personality, but we all liked her. She was—is—very pleasant. My father always said Christian was lucky to get her. I thought so too. No one could ever accuse Abigail of letting the family down.”

  “My father had the idea Mrs. Abigail Hartmann hid her understandable resentment.”

  Their host threw up his arms. “That’s monstrous!” he cried. “There was no bitterness or envy in Abigail. She was a great comfort to us all, especially after Myra was killed. We owe a lot to Abigail. There was no rancour whatever in the woman.”

  “Where was she on the day?” Bruno asked, keeping his tone respectful.

  Erik Hartmann could hardly speak for anger. “What are you suggesting?”

  “As the police say, just a routine question, sir.”

  “Question time is over,” Erik Hartmann said curtly, making no attempt to hide his agitation. “But I can put you straight on this. Abigail was in her room the entire afternoon. From time to time she suffered severe migraines. A servant looked in on her twice.”

  Isabelle longed to ask the name of the servant, but it was clear Erik Hartmann wouldn’t hear another word on the subject of Abigail Hartmann, his half brother’s widow.

  Despite that, Bruno gave it one more try. Like Isabelle, he was disturbed by all the things they didn’t know and, to the best of his knowledge, his father had never recorded. “I’m surprised Mrs. Abigail Hartmann didn’t choose to remain with you. There must have been a very close family bond, and she is Kurt’s grandmother.”

  “Abigail went back to her own people,” Erik said in a dull, defeated voice. “There was no persuading her to stay.”

  “Would she not have been a supportive figure in Helena’s young life?” Isabelle dared to ask.

  “Oddly enough, that wasn’t the case,” said their host. “The answer lies in Helena’s difficult nature.”

  “She crossed swords with you?”

  “No, no.” Hartmann dismissed that sharply. “Helena didn’t have aggression in her. She had problems, obviously to do with her mother’s death. We all thought it would pass as she grew older, except it didn’t. Helena had a timid side to her character. She became fearful of every last little thing.”

  “Such as?” Bruno knew he was pushing it.

  “The house. The house she had lived in all her life. Our beautiful ancestral home. There was even a time when she thought someone was trying to harm her. Absolute nonsense! No one would have dreamed of harming a hair on her head. It all had to do with her mother’s accidental death. Myra was so alive it was impossible to accept she could die.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Hartmann,” Isabelle said gracefully. “Thank you too for letting us in to this illustrious family’s history.” She hoped she wasn’t piling it on too thick.

  Hartmann appeared charmed, and then he rallied. “You’re not one of us, my dear, although you give every appearance of it.”

  “That’s precisely why your nephew is taking steps to prove or disprove our case,” Bruno said.

  Erik Hartmann let out a long shuddering breath. “If my nephew is loyal to me, as his son is, he will refuse any DNA test. It’s an insult to our family name. Your father found nothing here, McKendrick. Neither will you or Isabelle.”

  “Perhaps, sir, you don’t know your nephew as well as you think?” Bruno suggested. “We have a meeting with him right about . . . now.” Bruno glanced down at his watch.

  Erik Hartmann’s smile was a pained grimace. “I think you’ll find he won’t return to the house. My nephew, in the absence of his wife and daughter, a frivolous little thing like her mother, is married to the land, Eaglehawk, our family inheritance. It means more to him than anything in the world, including his own son.”

  “So I don’t count? Mum and Kim don’t count, frivolous little things!” Kurt made the second tempestuous entry of the morning. He gave his great-uncle a look of tremendous disappointment. “That’s what we mean to you, is it, Uncle? We’re family.”

  “My boy, my boy, I can’t believe you thought I meant you. I love you. You’re my heir.”

  “You’ve given up on Mum and Kim? They’re inferior, are they? Mum said you always made her feel like that. Kimmy was really frightened of you when we were kids.”

  “Why don’t you go to your mother and sister?” Bruno asked, keeping the conversation on the boil. “Strike out. Live your life. You’re not a cattleman like your father. What talents you have, you could be wasting.”

  “What I should do is kick you out right now,” Erik Hartmann shouted. “Who are you to come here, telling my family what to do?”

  “Maybe I’m trying to be helpful, Mr. Hartmann,” Bruno said.

  They all turned as a man dressed in working gear, with an Akubra on his head and heavy black boots on his feet, thundered into the drawing room. “What the blazes is going on here?” Stefan eyed his son first, then his uncle, whose cheeks had swelled with anger.

  “Uncle Erik has been mouthing Mum and Kim off big time.” Kurt wore unaccustomed rage. “He called them ‘frivolous little things.’ What do you call them, Dad?”

  Stefan Hartmann didn’t hesitate. “I married your mother because I loved her. I still love her. Nothing has changed for me there. Kimmy is my darling daughter. You are my son. I can’t bear the way you’ve turned away from me, Kurt. I don’t care you’re not cut out to live a life on the land. I want you to be happy. But as long as you’re under your great-uncle’s thumb—I can just imagine the sort of stuff he feeds you—you’ll never get yourself sorted. I love this place. I love this land. It’s in my blood. Don’t blame me for that.”

  “I don’t!” Kurt cried. “But I do blame you for not going after Mum. How sorted are you?”

  Stefan threw off his wide-brimmed hat. “Why don’t we take a trip into Adelaide sometime soon? Just the two of us.”

 
; “And what? Ask them to come back here? You having me on or what?”

  His father shook his head. “They’d have been okay only for the great-uncle you so admire. When did you ever take their side? When did you ever do the manly thing, Kurt? Stand by your mother and sister against him. No, Erik promised you a great prize. Or so you thought. His heir. Don’t you realize if I pulled out, Eaglehawk would fail as a working station? I work twenty-four/seven to keep it afloat. It’s not your great-uncle who runs Hartmann Holdings. It’s me, for God’s sake. Everyone but you knows that. I could, with a little bit of help, buy Erik out. It could be three against one. You, me, and Kimmy.”

  Bruno broke in. His tone held a hint of challenge. “I could, perhaps, help you there, Mr. Hartmann.”

  “You’re leaving,” Eric Hartmann rasped, his body tensed like an animal about to spring.

  Kurt, however, sounded almost friendly. He turned to Bruno. “Could you do that?”

  “I run a very successful wealth management company, Kurt. If your father needed help, I’m certain I could provide it.”

  “You bastard!” Eric Hartmann spat out. “You think I’m so easy to intimidate?”

  “You’ve rolled over everyone and everybody who has got in your way,” Stefan cried in condemnation. “But that’s all behind you. I must take a stand. This young lady here”—he indicated Isabelle—“is the living image of Myra and Helena. A finer version of both. I promised McKendrick a DNA sample. I’m going to stick to that promise. My heart holds to the fact Isabelle is one of us. My head needs the final proof. Of course if she is one of us, she is entitled to shares in Eaglehawk.”

  Kurt, of all things, burst out laughing. “You’re serious, Dad?”

  “Try me.”

  “What do you say you solve a little problem for us, Kurt?” Bruno asked, turning to the younger man.

  “Like what?” Warily, Kurt started to juggle some keys in his pocket.

  “Last night Isabelle was awoken by a sound of moaning that appeared to come from the fireplace in the Chinese Room. She came across the hall to me because she was frightened.”

  “It was the wind, more than likely,” Stefan said, crinkling his already deeply lined brow. “Why do I have this sense of Helena speaking about moaning in the night?”

  “Helena had psychological problems.” Erik Hartmann gave a laugh that stopped short of being contemptuous. “The truth of it is, she was unhinged. She never got over her mother’s death. Myra haunted the girl.”

  Bruno ignored him. “Bella and I had the idea it might have been someone blowing through a pipe of some kind. Perhaps a pipe connecting upstairs and downstairs that was in use way back.”

  “Someone?” All of a sudden, Kurt appeared much younger and freaked out.

  “We believe so, yes. Someone wanted to frighten her. For what reason we’re not sure. Maybe for the hell of it.”

  “We’ll want Mrs. Saunders in here,” Stefan said.

  “I forbid it!” Erik roared.

  “Go get her, son,” Stefan said to Kurt.

  Immediately, Kurt sprang into action. “Right, Dad.”

  “Is that it? Is that your answer?” Erik Hartmann cried. “It’s Mrs. Saunders playing a joke?”

  “Some joke!” Bruno said.

  Kurt was back with the housekeeper in double-quick time. As ever, she looked to Erik Hartmann. “You wanted me, sir?”

  Isabelle glanced over at Bruno, who looked simply wonderful brooding. A Mr. Rochester. “We wondered, Mrs. Saunders, if you could show us the bell system that is probably ducted into various rooms of the house?” he asked in a polite enough tone.

  Mrs. Saunders, looking astonished, sought the Master’s approval. “Sir?”

  “Do what you’re told, woman,” Stefan broke in, like a man going mad.

  The woman went to protest, but Stefan Hartmann took hold of her arm. “Lead the way, Mrs. Saunders, if you want to keep your job.”

  “I beg your pardon!” Mrs. Saunders refused to heed him. She wrenched herself away.

  “Do it,” Erik suddenly roared.

  Face rigid with mortification, the housekeeper led them through the house to the corridor outside the huge kitchen area. As expected, up on the wall was a long panel with coded letters beneath, identifying different rooms of the main house.

  None for the adjoining wings, Isabelle noted.

  “What are we looking for here?” Kurt asked.

  The overpowering personalities of his great-uncle and father explained a lot of his immaturity, Bruno thought. He gave Isabella a quick look. Both had hoped, indeed expected, to find something that could have been used to create sounds. Some piping device. There wasn’t one. At least not one hanging on or beneath the panel.

  “Perhaps you can tell me,” Mrs. Saunders spoke through tight lips.

  “Something with the capacity to make a moaning sound,” Bruno said, aware Isabelle had moved off. She was walking down the corridor to a tall Victorian mahogany hall stand. Several hats were hanging on the various pegs, uniforms, an apron, outdoor shoes and tall Wellingtons in the space beneath.

  “There is absolutely nothing there,” Mrs. Saunders said with great emphasis.

  Bruno turned on her. “Let’s see, shall we?”

  Isabelle, meanwhile, was shuffling around the boots and shoes. They all saw her pull out a long, tapering hollow piece of yellowish wood, painted with aboriginal symbols.

  “That’s a didgeridoo!” Kurt stared at all of them in turn, his mind awhirl.

  “We all know what it is, you fool!” his great-uncle snarled.

  Mrs. Saunders was taking deep breath after deep breath. She appeared to have an excellent lung capacity, Bruno thought.

  Isabelle walked back to them, handing the aboriginal musical instrument from ancient times to the housekeeper. “You can play this, can’t you?” she asked, showing no sign of doubt.

  “Of course she can!” Kurt’s voice had gathered strength. “She has aboriginal blood in her, hasn’t she, Dad?”

  “Which doesn’t mean she can play it,” Isabelle said. “It’s a very difficult instrument unless one has mastered certain techniques, like circular breathing. I could probably get a moan or two out of it. It’s been kept in good condition, water run down it frequently, maybe some kind of wax inside.”

  Stefan Hartmann’s voice shook. His entire powerful body shook. “What-have-you-done?” he demanded of the housekeeper, barely able to keep himself in check.

  “Play it, Mrs. Saunders,” Bruno urged. “You can. We all know it.”

  There was a fierce anger on the woman’s face. Anger and something more powerful. Pride. She took the instrument from Isabelle, wiped off the mouthpiece with her pocket handkerchief, and then set the tapering end to her encircling mouth.

  Immediately, her lip tension and the controlled air flow caused the primitive instrument to vibrate. It was clear Mrs. Saunders had command of the woodwind instrument. It started to moan.

  Both Stefan and his son looked stricken. Erik Hartmann slammed back into the wall, wringing his hands so hard his fingernails had turned white.

  “I should have guessed,” Isabelle murmured to Bruno beside her. “That was really stupid of me. I knew it had to be a horn of some kind. I was thinking Afghan, Turkish, something Christian had brought home, but we’re right here in the home of the didgeridoo.”

  The moaning, the grieving sound, continued. Mrs. Saunders didn’t check herself. She considered herself an artist as indeed she was.

  “Give that bloody thing to me,” Stefan continued to roar, his expression hostile and bitter. “Give it to me, witch!”

  The resonant if eerie sounds stopped. The housekeeper passed the native instrument to him. There was a strange, triumphant expression on her handsome face. “I’m as much one of you as she is,” she suddenly announced, in a hate-consumed voice. “Don’t you remember how beautiful I was when I first came to this house? Beautiful. Beautiful as that bloody woman Myra, who was horrible to me. She trea
ted me like dirt, yet I was one of you.”

  “You should be in the madhouse.” Erik Hartmann let himself drop slowly into a hall chair as though his legs could no longer support him.

  “What the hell is she talking about?” Stefan Hartmann’s ruddy, tanned face had lost colour.

  “Go on. We’re listening, Mrs. Saunders,” Bruno urged, reaching for Isabelle’s hand and clasping it tight.

  “Bin sleepin’ with yah own kin,” Mrs. Saunders rounded on Erik Hartmann with undisguised contempt. A further shock. She had dropped her educated accent for a bushwoman’s slurred speech.

  The Hartmann men were transfixed with shock, their expressions blank.

  “I chased that girl away,” Mrs. Saunders jeered. “I felt sorry for her, but I did it.”

  “The same burning resentment that brought about Myra’s accident,” Bruno’s tone seared. This raised even more questions, he thought.

  “A ghost did that. Not me,” she said with a flash of emotion.

  “What in hell is she talking about, Erik?” Stefan rounded on his uncle, his big body tensed.

  “Don’t you dare touch me.” Erik slunk back further against the wall, as though his nephew, a tough cattleman, was about to physically attack him. “I have no idea, Stefan. Truly. The woman is delusional.”

  “Thought the old man was a saint?” Mrs. Saunders sneered. “He couldn’t help himself. No man is a saint. He took my mother. Not by force. No way. He was a gentleman. She worshipped him like he was a god.”

  Everyone was in their own way in a state of confusion. “You expect us to believe this fantasy for one instant?” Stefan exploded. “My grandfather slept with your mother?”

  Kurt gave a little moan, then before anyone realized it, he crashed to the floor in a dead faint.

  “Half caste,” Mrs. Saunders corrected him, totally ignoring Kurt’s dramatic collapse. “Beautiful. Like me. You people are pathetic. You know nothing. You know nothing of our magic.”

  “We know enough about the Kadaitcha Man,” Bruno threw over his shoulder. “The magic man, the tribal executioner.” He and Isabelle alone had sprung to Kurt’s aid. Bruno began tapping the young man sharply on his cheeks, calling his name.