by Margaret Way
“It isn’t easy counteracting fantasies placed in a young mind. No doubt I should have tried, but in my case, it was protecting my own interests and the interests of my family. They will back whatever I have to say if I ask them. Now, I must go. Young man”—she turned to Bruno—“you can come with me. We have to round up Stefan and Mrs. Saunders. Maybe she’s having a last little chat with Erik. Who knows? I have always placed the blame where it belongs.”
“Which is where?” Isabelle asked.
“I will not answer that question,” Abigail said. “Come along, young man. I haven’t got the entire day to waste. I want to get on home.”
“You were piloted here in your station helicopter?” Bruno asked, fully expecting for that to be the case.
“Good God, why would I need a pilot?” Abigail simply asked. “I’m a woman of the Outback, Mr. McKendrick. If I have a need to do something, then I learn. I’ve had a licence for many years. Plenty of experience. I love flying. It’s a way of life out here.” She turned back to Isabelle. “I suppose Helena just could be your mother, my dear. I think you’ll find she’s dead. Traitors usually come to a sticky end.”
“So do people who have committed crimes in the past,” said Isabelle.
* * *
After Abigail and Bruno had gone off in search of Stefan, who would most probably be driving his mother to the airstrip, Isabelle stood still in the middle of the huge empty room. She was full of banked-up emotions. Abigail Hartmann was a complex character whose conscience appeared to fall into a moral grey zone. She hoped she would never see her again.
She was about to put two chairs back in order when a light flashed at the corner of her eye. She spun around in time to see Orani move from behind a chinoiserie leather screen at the far end of the room. The flash was sunlight on her crystal earrings. Tears were streaming down her face.
“She betrayed me,” Orani cried, locking eyes with Isabelle.
“How long have you been there?” Isabelle gasped, her brain working overtime.
“From when Mr. Stefan left. I came in through the French doors. None of you noticed, so I slipped behind the screen. I wanted to hear what Mrs. Abigail would say.”
“I’m so sorry,” Isabelle said. She was. She was human. She recognised how this woman would feel.
“She lied to me,” Orani continued, her devastation plain to see. “All these years and she deliberately let me believe Mr. Konrad was my father.”
“In all likelihood, fantasy. Something your mother dreamed up and fed you from childhood. Believe me, I know what that’s like. The two people who reared me lied to me all my life. They aren’t my biological parents. A new reality is very hard to come to terms with. For your peace of mind, your DNA will be tested. You can contact Bruno through his wealth management group, Fortuna, in Sydney.”
“She lied to me,” Orani repeated, barely acknowledging what Isabelle was saying. “She got me to lie for her. I did it willingly. She knew what was happening between those two.”
“Myra and Christian?”
“Who else?”
“Can you be sure now Mrs. Abigail didn’t want them dead?”
“I’m not sure of anything,” Orani said, “but she weren’t in the house that afternoon. She weren’t in her bed. There was no migraine. I didn’t look in on her.” She spoke with great bitterness. “I don’t know where she was. Maybe she went out thinking to speak to Mrs. Myra. Maybe something went wrong. Maybe they had a furious argument. Who knows? Mrs. Abigail was badly wounded, badly wronged. I was questioned. I said what I was supposed to say.”
“Which was that Abigail had been laid up with a bad migraine?”
Orani shrugged. “Everyone knew she got them from time to time, but she was as strong as an ox. Still is. Don’t let the littleness fool you. She was one of the shooting party the day Mr. Christian was killed. Could have been her that put the bullet through his back. Nobody said anything about the fact she is a crack shot.”
Isabelle’s heart skipped a beat. “You have suspicions about that day as well?”
“Not then. But now!” Orani spoke with so much venom, Isabelle felt pinpricks on her skin. “There was enough evidence—just barely, mind you—to indicate an accident. No one would ever think to point a finger at Mrs. Abigail. She was recognised by everyone as a member of the landed gentry. Why would she want to kill her husband? She adored him. She did too until she found out about them.”
Isabelle felt vaguely nauseous. “How? Surely they would have been very discreet?”
“We’re all too close,” said Orani, “if you know what I mean.”
Isabelle was amazed she did. By comparison, she had lived a very quiet, even monastic life. “So you spied on them for her?” She kept her voice nonjudgemental.
“I did from time to time,” Orani admitted. “Mainly she did the job herself. They couldn’t have known what was going on in her mind. She half-scared me. All those smiles and acting like she cared, and behind it maybe murderous thoughts.”
“‘One can smile and smile and still be a villain,’” Isabelle said, making use of the quote from Hamlet.
“Kept them guessin’ anyway. If she did confront Mrs. Myra that last day, she wouldn’t have been prepared for it. That was the problem for us all. We didn’t know the real woman. She was kept hidden. She was so nice to everyone. So nice to me. Always doing me little favours. Keeping me on her side.”
“You should have spoken out, Orani,” Isabelle risked saying. “If Abigail wasn’t in the house the day Myra had her fatal accident, she didn’t have an alibi.”
Orani looked away, perhaps guiltily. “Not as though I cared about Mrs. Myra. I could live with her being dead. But I wasn’t going to make Mrs. Abigail look bad. She was kind to me. She told me my day would come.”
“Like Anne Boleyn.”
“Don’t know the name.” Orani dashed the last tears from her eyes. “Never really knew Mrs. Abigail, did I?”
“No,” said Isabelle. “You weren’t the only one.”
“Did you hear the way she spoke about my mother?” Orani cried, splaying her long fingers across her tear-stained face. “Insane, isn’t that what she said? And I’m mentally unstable. She’s had those thoughts for a long time.” Her expression conveyed a painful surfeit of memories. “She turned me against Helena. She hated her almost as much as she hated Mrs. Myra. She was fragile, that girl, not physically but emotionally. She was living the life I was convinced should have been mine.”
“You believed what you were told as a child,” Isabelle said. It was her own experience after all.
“And that woman backed it.” Orani stared at Isabelle, as though studying her from a new angle. “You’re a good person,” she said.
“I try to be.” Isabelle felt irreparably tangled in Hartmann affairs.
“He did come back after all, you know.”
“Who?” Isabelle drew in a sharp breath.
Orani’s huge black eyes filled with tears again. She turned away abruptly, her expression sombre in the extreme. “No one. A ghost. I must go. What Mrs. Abigail said was bad for her. Bad for us both. I intend to hold her to account.”
Not only the words but the way she said them filled Isabelle with dread. “Mightn’t it be best for you to simply forgive, forget and move on? Take nothing from her. Make no attempt to bribe her. It could be a huge mistake. You could possibly be risking your life.”
“It’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it?” Orani said, such an agonized smile on her face. “In my heart, I believe Helena could still be alive. If she is, I hope you find her.”
“I have every hope we will,” Isabelle declared. “You had a relationship with Erik Hartmann, didn’t you? Have you said your good-byes to him?”
Orani shook her head violently. “I could never satisfy him,” she said. “Not ever. Not once. I even tried a few love potions. Didn’t work. There was only one love in his life and that was his beautiful, adulteress wife. Can’t blame her in a way. Chri
stian was the better man. Most likely the better lover. She got her hooks into him. I swear, Erik knew Helena wasn’t his daughter. But Erik wouldn’t kill anyone. He doesn’t have the guts.”
“I can’t think guts is the right word,” Isabelle said in horror. “More like a level of brutality and a lack of godliness to be able to take another human being’s life. Murder gets people locked up forever.”
Orani smiled grimly. “Then Mrs. Abigail has been on death row for a long time.”
“There’s a good chance she didn’t do anything.” Isabelle dragged in a breath. “We don’t know. You didn’t help. You could have talked, Orani. You didn’t. You chose to keep quiet. Helena suffered the loss of her mother. Probably, as she grew older, doubts sprang into her mind. She was fearful of someone. Not you and your cruel little games. Someone else. Now it’s too late for retribution.”
“Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t,” Orani said. She closed her eyes as though inviting some plan of action to come to her.
“Well, good-bye, Orani,” Isabelle managed with quiet compassion. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say or do.
“Be a better person than the others,” Orani responded, surprising Isabelle by taking her hand. “Don’t stop here. Go away. Your Bruno will take you. He can help you sort out your life.”
It was a stunning shock to Isabelle, this turn of events; still, she found herself saying, “Go with God, Orani.”
The woman’s face, a mask of suffering, suddenly softened. “What did I say? You’re a good person. But I go with my gods, not yours.”
With that, she walked off, back straight, head up, like a proud, strong woman bound for the gallows.
* * *
Bruno returned minutes later, on his own, which was a great relief.
“What is it?” he asked urgently. Isabelle looked as distressed as he had ever seen her.
“I have a bad feeling about all this, Bruno.”
“Understandable.” He went to her, turned her towards an armchair. “This is one weird family, damn near Gothic. We’ll go home tomorrow, okay?”
“Did you pass Orani?” she asked.
“I did. She was weeping, believe it or not.”
“She heard everything Abigail had to say,” Isabelle told him.
“Oh God!” Bruno dropped into the armchair opposite. “Where was she?”
“Behind the screen, down there at the end of the room.” Isabelle gestured. “She came in through the French doors, probably looking for Abigail. None of us noticed her, so she decided to hide behind the screen and listen to what we had to say.”
“So she got an earful!” Bruno said grimly.
“She feels bitterly betrayed. Full of anger and hate.”
“Well she’s no angel, is she? She even tried to frighten you with her stupid pranks.”
“She’s been brainwashed from childhood, Bruno. She lived her life in a closed environment. Her mother must have been a woman with her head full of dreams.”
“Very likely she would have been diagnosed with some kind of emotional illness,” he said. “Orani too. It’s a genetic condition, isn’t it?”
“Most disorders are. She more or less thought her friendship with Abigail was sacred. Then she heard Abigail speaking of her mother and her with open contempt. That would have been an immense shock. An immense loss of faith. You saw her tears. Orani wouldn’t be a woman given to tears.”
“Fool that I am, I interpreted her tears as some kind of sadness. I mean, this has been her life. Now she’s more or less been kicked out. She went with Mrs. Hartmann. You know what they say, beggars can’t be choosers. I’m pretty sure Abigail meant it when she said she would give Orani a good reference and enough money to get her settled. It would be in her own best interests to do so.”
“I’m very concerned,” Isabelle said. “Orani believes in love potions and spells. They could even work, for all I know. What I do know for sure is that Abigail is in Orani’s sights.”
“Let’s hope she wasn’t packing a pistol,” Bruno only half-joked. “She’s not perfectly sane, that’s the problem. Abigail brought it all on herself. Let her sort it out.”
Isabelle lifted her eyes to meet Bruno’s. “Abigail wasn’t in the house the afternoon Myra was killed.”
He nodded sharply. “Orani told you of course.”
“She said what that great lady told her to say. Abigail didn’t have a migraine. She was somewhere on the property. She might have intended to have it out with Myra.”
“Easy for things to get out of hand.” Bruno made the mental leap. “Abigail mad with jealousy. Myra perhaps mocking her?”
“Abigail was one of the shooting party the day her husband was accidentally shot,” Isabelle added.
Bruno answered with a great sigh. “God, I’m speechless.”
“Orani said she’s a crack shot.”
“Now that I do believe. She can even fly a helicopter. She should be taking off by now.”
“You don’t have a million dollars, do you?” Isabelle asked in a grave voice.
“What’s the bet?”
They looked into each other’s eyes. “No bets. Something very serious and bad is going to happen,” Isabelle found herself predicting. “Orani will put out a hand for far more than a huge cheque. She’ll very likely—” She broke off, suddenly jumping out of her chair. “Bruno, I’m afraid.”
He too was on his feet. The French doors of the façade were lit up by a red glow. Even from inside the house they heard the explosion, followed by screams and great wailing yells.
“Dear God, it’s the chopper. It’s down.” Bruno felt like his heart was losing vital beats. He held out his hand to Isabelle, taking it in his own.
“I don’t want to see this,” Isabelle said, her whole body trembling.
“For one solitary moment,” Bruno said. “You were one of the last people to talk to Orani. There will be an investigation.”
“Does history never stop repeating itself?”
“I’m afraid not.”
* * *
From the attic windows, they could see the site of destruction. The Moorooka Station helicopter had slammed into the escarpment, bursting into flames. No one could have survived such a horrendous crash.
Isabelle held a hand to her throat. It was aching painfully with suppressed tears. “It was no accident,” she said. “None of them were.”
Bruno looked down at her. “You’re alive. You’re safe,” he said. It didn’t seem odd to him now that his father had been cut down. His father had gone too far with his investigation and paid the price.
* * *
It was a truly horrible day played out in brilliant sunshine. Eaglehawk Station wasn’t that remote that emergency services didn’t quickly swing into action. Pilot and passenger had been killed on impact, as everyone had feared and expected. An emergency services helicopter had taken the bodies away. It was considered on the face of it a great tragedy. Mrs. Abigail Hartmann was a very experienced pilot, fixed wing and helicopter. She had been flying for years. She was in her late sixties. It was possible she could have suffered a stroke or a heart attack. The two women on board were known to be on excellent terms, despite the difference in their station. An autopsy would be held. Four police officers flew in, no doubt thinking the Hartmann family was cursed. It sometimes happened that way. Look at the Kennedys! Each member of the family was interviewed. After that came Bruno and Isabelle’s turn.
So far as Isabelle was concerned, it was all too late for words. She gave an edited version of her last conversation with Mrs. Saunders. Orani. The surviving members of the family had suffered enough. There was no need for the general public to know of the sexual relationship between the housekeeper and Erik Hartmann. No need for them to know Abigail could well have brought about the deaths of her husband and her sister-in-law, his mistress. Bruno too kept silent, even about his suspicions regarding the death of his father. It was thought by both of them that the perpetrator of these crimes ha
d been brought to justice.
“Sadness, such sadness!” Erik Hartmann said that evening when they all came together in the drawing room.
Isabelle could think of nothing to add.
It was Bruno who was thinking of the results of the DNA tests and what they would reveal. He started to speak, but Erik cut him off. “Yes, yes, McKendrick,” he said. “If you’re very kindly trying to warn me Helena wasn’t my daughter, I have to tell you I already know,” he cried, looking utterly grey and shattered.
“God Almighty!” Stefan sat, stunned. “So who then was her father?” he asked after a full minute.
“Wake up, Dad!” Kurt suddenly shouted, nearly out of his mind with shock. “My grandfather, Christian. Who else?”
“Stop!” his father roared. “Stop it this minute. Is this true, Erik?” he asked his uncle scarcely less quietly.
Erik didn’t look up. He sat hunched.
“It’s true, sir,” Bruno answered for the broken man, Erik. “The DNA will confirm it.”
“So Helena is my half sister?” Stefan shook his head, not in frantic denial but acceptance.
“And my auntie,” Kurt cried, furious at constantly being treated like a child.
“What did you tell the police?” Stefan asked, ignoring the boy.
“Neither of us spoke about private family matters,” Bruno said. “They aren’t relevant to today’s fatal crash. Isabelle had a final conversation with Mrs. Saunders. Mrs. Saunders confirmed she knew Helena was Christian Hartmann’s daughter.”
Stefan pondered all this. “She could only have got it from my mother,” he said, ageing in front of their eyes.
“Don’t go there, Dad,” Kurt pleaded, jumping up from his chair and going to stand behind his father. He placed his hands on Stefan’s broad shoulders.
“What kind of a man would betray his wife?” Stefan asked, patting his son’s hand with one of his own.
“Perhaps Abigail couldn’t give him what he wanted,” said Erik. “She wasn’t much of a mother to you, though we all pretended we thought her perfect.” Erik looked across at Bruno with saddened dark eyes. “Your father thought Abigail knew a lot more than she was willing to confide. He had the idea she would have many hidden wounds. They kept in touch,” he confided. “She told me that once. I was amazed. Abigail, God rest her soul, was a woman of many secrets. Secrets we hope she took to her end.”