Historical Detail

16

Historical Detail

    Perry had been as good as his word, and the Territorials had come. Gavin was delirious with excitement, but fortunately the broad-shouldered sergeant in charge, one Bryce Underwood, call him Bryce, Alex, wide grin, was more than capable of putting him in his place and keeping him there.

    Perry had also rounded up two more dogs, both Fifi’s half-brothers, one in the charge of a mate called Ken Larkin, a burly, taciturn fellow who seemed very happy to patrol the grounds with his muscular Fang (kennel name Fandango). Grinning sheepishly, Ken agreed to accept largesse for his services. And the other dog for me. Figaro, aka Figgy. Gavin thought the latter was an ace name. YAY! A dog, Alex! Now we’d always have one!

    Ken and Fang had immediately gone outside “to get the lay of the land” but the rest of the multitude, minus Tanya and Fifi, the one having a nap, the other on patrol, was assembled in the kitchen at Trethewin, which now seemed to have become a sort of home-room for all of us.

    Cassie nodded approval. “He can be your guard-dog, Alex!”

    I looked limply from her flushed cheeks to the lightly panting Figgy. “Mm. Lovely,” I said weakly, holding out my hand to Figgy. He obligingly approached and licked it.

    “There you are!” she declared happily. “He likes you!”

    Feebly I patted him. “Yes. Good dog, Figgy. Er—dare I ask this, Perry?”

    “Go on,” he replied, poker-face.

    “Er… How old is he and how well-trained?”

    Figgy was four and had been to obedience school and the Army had tried him out.

    “But?”

    Figgy was a quick learner and he’d probably be good as a sniffer dog but the Customs lot preferred beagles—“I seen them! Snoopy dogs!”—Yeah; shuddup, Gavin. But he had a weakness in his off back leg. He could run okay but the Army needed more jumping than he could manage.

    “That’s okay, Alex! See, he could catch that stinker Tony Brownloe easy as nothink! He won’t need to jump!”

    “That’s what I thought,” Perry agreed, poker-face.

    Junie had been standing by quietly during these interchanges but now she put in: “He’s a very friendly dog, Alex. We took him for a while during his early training—you know, to get him used to handling.”

    “That sounds all right!” urged Cassie.

    Mm. How friendly might he be to blasted Anson/Brownloe/Andrews?

    “Yeah. We could get him a proper dog basket!” offered Gavin eagerly.

    Yes, all right: I was going to have a friendly German shepherd dog called Figgy, hampered by a weak back leg and a disposition which might well result in his cuddling up to any passing sociopathic chameleons.

    “Fine,” I uttered limply. “How much do I owe for him and to whom, Perry?”

    “Nothing, I don’t think. Well, Ken took him off the Army’s hands, the bloody breeder wouldn’t have him back.”

    “Perry, he’s obviously a pure-bred. I’ll concede that a weak back leg will lower the price, but—”

    “Honestly, Perry!” cried Junie. “Just spit it out! –Ken’s got a new girlfriend and she doesn’t want two big dogs in the house, Alex. You’d be doing him a favour if you’d take Figgy off his hands. Well, they do eat a lot,” she admitted.

    “Does Fifi?” asked Gavin.

    “Yes, of course,” she replied calmly.

    That seemed to be that. Gavin formally renamed him “Figgy Cartwright” and provided him with a bowl of water “to make him feel at home.”

    I eventually managed to force a hundred dollars on Ken, but he completely refused to take more. Pure-bred Alsatian pups were going for incredible prices, as I tried to point out, but he was adamant.

    And the very next day Gavin, Cassie and I drove down to Adelaide to buy Figgy a proper dog basket, a proper dog restraint to go in my car (which was on the other side of the world, actually), several artificial bones which were the right size for big dogs—Yes, definitely for Alsatians—several mountainous bags of the proper dry dog food—Yes, it was scientifically formulated for big adult dogs: if he was four, this would be fine, and of course he could have real bones as well, but never give him cooked ones; oh, do you, dear? (weakly); yes, that was right, very bad for them—and a couple of squeaky toys which I was damn sure he’d chew to nothing in two seconds flat but which she (obliging shop woman) was sure he’d love. And two proper dog dishes, the right size for big dogs, Alex, see? One for his water and one for his food! …And Uncle Tom Cobbley and all: exactly.

    “Gavin, I really don’t think Alex needs a book on ‘You and Your German Shepherd’,” said his aunt weakly.

    “Yeah! It’s good! It’s got everythink, see?”

    I bought the book.

    On our return Junie looked uneasily at the squeaky toys.

    “Two seconds flat, Junie?” I suggested.

    She smiled limply. “No, they’re quite strong. Fifi used to have one. Um, I’m afraid the squeaking might drive you mad, Alex.”

    Oh? Fancy that.

    “Nah!” scoffed Gavin. “Come on, Figgy! This is for you! Fetch it, boy!” He threw a vaguely bone-shaped orange toy across the kitchen. Figgy streaked for it.

    “Squeak, squeak, squeak! Squeak, squeak, squeak! Squeak, squeak, squeak!”

    “Here, boy! Bring it here! Come, Figgy!” shrieked Gavin.

    Figgy approached, looking wary.

    “Drop it, boy! Drop it!”

    “Squeak!” He dropped it. Very pleased, Gavin patted him, told him he was a clever dog, and threw it again. Figgy dashed after it.

    “Squeak, squeak, squeak! Squeak, squeak, squeak! Squeak, squeak, squeak!”

    Oh, God.

    Except for Fifi and Fang, who were out on patrol, we were all in the kitchen next day about to have lunch—and I do mean all, Junie and Cassie between them were now feeding Corey Mincey and all three of his merry men—complete with old Fred, who had driven up ostensibly to “take a decko at the veggie garden” but more probably because he’d blotted his copybook with Stella in some fashion yet to be disclosed—when there came a terrific crescendo of barks from outside and Figgy shot over to the back door, scratching and joining in the barking.

    Perry was on his feet in an instant. “Quiet, Figgy! Good dog! Quiet! –Stay there, you mob. I’ll check it out; they might just’ve treed a flamin’ possum.” Ordering me to grab Figgy’s collar, he produced a pistol from under his loose summer shirt.

    I duly grabbed, but bleated: “Perry, is that necessary in broad daylight?”

    “What if it’s the cops?” asked Cassie faintly.

    “It’s licensed,” he replied briefly, cautiously opening the door. “Give ’im the ‘stay’ command, Alex, ya nit!” he added, slipping out.

    “Stay, Figgy. Stay,” I ordered feebly.

     He stayed, but the strain on my arm scarcely lessened.

    We waited in trepidation; for my part largely caused by the thought that it might well be members of the law enforcement community, in which case I’d probably be up for, at the very least, keeping unrestrained fierce dogs on the premises.

    We could hear some shouting, and then the barking ceased. We eyed one another uneasily.

    “He hasn’t shot anyone,” offered Gavin.

    “Would the bugger turn up in broad daylight?” wondered Corey.

    Well, exactly!

    We didn’t have long to think about it, but long enough for Gavin to utter: “Tell ya what, if it’s horrible ole Mr Matthews let’s hope Fifi and Fang have gone for him!”

    And for Cassie to sigh: “Why would he be up here? He wouldn’t deliver our groceries even when he was still letting us shop there.”

    Then the door opened and Perry said: “Think you mighta warned this bloke that Fifi doesn’t like cats.”

    And Pete Goodwin said with a sheepish grin: “Gidday, Alex. Thought I’d come over. Nothing else to do, since I took the package.”

    “Have you got cats?” asked Gavin keenly.

    “No, but me old Aunty Cora has, and I dropped in on her on me way. She lives down in Norwood.”

    “That’s a suburb of Adelaide, Alex,” said Cassie faintly. “Oh, dear.”

    “Come on in, Pete,” I said limply. “I’m so sorry about the dogs. I don’t really think it was entirely the smell of cats. They’re—uh—on guard, after Brodie Andrews’s latest effort.”

    “He planted a bomb down at the winery!” volunteered Gavin, his eyes gleaming.

    “Shit. Did it go off?”

    “Nah, ’cos Fifi, she sniffed it out! She’s great!” he beamed.

    “Uh—Fifi is one of the German shepherds, Pete,” I explained.

    “Got that, mate!” he grinned. “Nice to see you again, Cassie. How’s it going?”

    “You too, Pete,” she replied, trying to smile. “It’s, um, been a bit nerve-racking, really.”

    “No wonder,” he agreed kindly.

    Trying to pull myself together—not altogether easy with a strong, fit, and good-sized Alsatian tugging against my grip—I said: “Welcome to Trethewin, Pete. We were just about to have lunch. Would you like to join us?”

    He demurred but as there was plenty gave in, allowed Gavin to take him to the bathroom to wash his hands to the accompaniment of a loud explanation in re (a) the fire and (b) the number of bathrooms and toilets the place had, extant or about to be rebuilt, and eventually was installed at the table, with introductions all round.

    Because the workers needed something filling, Junie and Cassie had made two huge dishes of lasagna. As well, of course, as mountains of salads, various. It all vanished like the dew, together with some miraculous brown bread that I hadn't been aware anyone had bought but that Junie revealed she’d made with their bread-maker, it was easy. And the great thing about it was, if you’d run out you could set its timer for it to do it overnight! Gavin immediately wanted chapter and verse, so the poor woman had to explain that no, she’d made these loaves yesterday, Gavin, just mixing them in the machine and baking them in the oven, but she’d done an extra fruit loaf in the machine overni— No, it was for afternoon tea, Gavin, there was ice cream and fruit salad for pudding.

    Fred hadn’t said much up to this point except to try unavailingly to shut his grandson up at intervals, but he now looked very keen and had to get all the details, appearing very pleased to learn that the machine did the kneading for you and it was a Panasonic, the other brands were useless. Yes, that was right, you just put the ingredients in! They had to be measured accurately, of course, but it was no different from getting the ingredients for a cake right, really! The book that came with it told you what to do—yes, for the fruit bread, too. It mixed up beautiful focaccia bread, too, and you just popped it in the oven, it baked in no time.

    “Dad,” said Cassie cautiously at this point, “I think they’re pretty dear.”

    “Well, next Christmas?” he rejoined cheerfully.

    “Mm,” she agreed, trying to smile.

    “It’ll stop yer mum from doing too much,” he explained happily.

    Would it? I rather thought it’d encourage her to spend hours slaving over getting the machine to produce bread correctly, and from the look on her face Cassie thought so, too. Oops.

    The dust finally cleared. Corey and his men returned to the other side of the house, where they got on with rebuilding the staircase, not a quick job, as had been carefully explained to me. Perry and Ken went off to check out the vineyards and the fencing thereof with “a couple of six-packs” for the gallant Territorials. Tanya was settled in the Hawkes family’s “little house on wheels,” her term, with a video of fairies (“Ugh, yuck!”). There being as yet no reupholstered Lazy-Boy in the study, Gavin was settled on my bed (his choice) with a book, with Figgy in his basket beside him. Fred was settled on one of the new sofas in the sitting-room with the declared intention of maybe watching a bit of cricket, that was, nodding off. In the kitchen Cassie and Junie were relaxing with magazines and chat on the new “settle” (the country look) that Stella had triumphantly found in a shop downtown that specialised in the said look, complete with its hideous floral seat cushion that could easily be re-covered, unquote. The shop had not been able to deliver over the Christmas-New Year period, no. The settle had come up to the hills in the back of Perry’s ute.

    Pete and I retired to the side verandah.

    “Five’ll get ya ten that kid’s encouraging the dog to get on the bed as we speak,” he noted.

    “Undoubtedly.”

    “Well, if you don’t mind, mate!” he said with a laugh.

    “Er—actually I’m hoping they’ll bond, Pete. I will have to go back to Britain before long, and I can’t take Figgy with me, he’d be stuck in quarantine for weeks on end.”

    “God, yes, I’d forgotten about that! Um, but big dogs like that take a lot of feeding, ya know.”

    “Yes; of course I’ll still pay for his upkeep, but if he can bond with Gavin it’ll be one worry the less.”

    “Right. How long will it take the blokes to finish the house, do ya reckon?”

    Er…

    “What?” he spotted.

    “Unfortunately Corey’s got horribly keen and he’s been making noises about sourcing an antique baluster rail or, failing that, some genuine aged timber—I think the preferred type was called jarrah, but I wouldn’t swear to it.”

    “Western Australian jarrah: that’d be it. That’ll take a while, yeah. Uh—he wouldn’t’ve mentioned Huon pine, would e?”

    “I don’t think so… None of your woods are familiar to me, I’m afraid.”

    “Nah, ’course not. Well, enough mahogany was imported into this country during the nineteenth century to sink several fleets, but yer dinkum early Australian antiques—circa William IV to you, Alex—the ones that are worth several fortunes and are mostly in museums, these days, are made of Huon pine. Comes from Tazzie and has these unusual patterns in the grain that tend to show up under the French polish. It’s almost impossible to find any of the timber, these days, so if he does suggest it, I’d put the kybosh on it pronto, if I was you.”

    I nodded numbly.

    “Uh—it’s not a pine, actually,” said Pete with a little smile. “It is a conifer, but it belongs to the Podocarpaceae, not the Pinaceae. Said to be the longest-lived tree in Australasia: they’ve dated specimens to over two and half thousand years old, according to the rings. There’s very little left these days: logged almost to extinction.” He looked at my face. “In my opinion it’d be a crime to cut down a tree that old, but the world’s always been full of criminals, hasn’t it?”

    “Yes. –Two and a half thousand?”

    “Yep. Older than the so-called Christian era, eh? Nobody around in Tazzie back then except the birds and the animals and a few Aboriginals that had been pushed off the mainland. Ya needn’t get me started on them, either.”

    “Er—no, I won’t. I—er—have read about the tragic history of the Tasmanian Aboriginals.”

    He sighed. “Yeah. Well, anything pales in comparison to that, but it doesn't get better. The Tasmanian devils have got some sort of bloody infection that officialdom won’t admit is ten to one caused by chemicals getting into the environment. If you thought Tazzie was the pristine wilderness advertised to the tourists, think again.”

    I nodded numbly.

    “Sorry, Alex. Hobby-horse. Um, think I was trying not to get round to what I really came here to tell you,” he admitted.

    Oh, boy. I’d been hoping that he was merely at a loose end, though I’d had a sort of norful feeling that maybe it wasn’t just that…

    Pete’s story took some time, and got rather complicated, not merely because of the amount of local colour that somehow got into it. I didn’t attempt to cut him short: one never knew when a seemingly irrelevant detail might just turn out to be horribly significant.

    He scratched the shaven stubble round his bald brown pate. “Okay, well, I better just plunge straight into it. I can pretty much authenticate any Edna Lambert paintings for you for sure. You’ve got one here, haven’t you? Or did it go up in the bloody fire?”

    “No, it’s fine. It’s not here at the moment, it’s been sent to the place Lexie recommended for some TLC: the fire didn’t reach the first floor, but the smoke did. I rather like it: two women in long white dresses on a swing seat on a verandah.”

    “Yeah. They’re my Great-Aunt Ruby, she’s the one with the light brown hair, and a friend, Lizzie Bristow, some sort of a poor relation of the Barr Smith family. Edna Lambert was my grandmother, Mum’s mother. Mum was born in 1917; Edna died not long afterwards in the Spanish flu epidemic. Most of her paintings are of her two sisters and their friend: they date back to around 1910 up to 1915: by then she’d had a couple of kids who were taking up a good deal of her time. Your one of Ruby and Lizzie on the swing belonged to old Aunty Ruby: she lived to a great old age and had it in her lounge-room as far back as I can remember.” His bright blue eyes twinkled. “I was the only one of the younger generations that liked it: too young to have any taste, was the consensus! She sold it to Crozier when she decided the house was getting too much for her and she’d better move into an old folks’ home: that was back in the 1960s. She was over ninety when she popped off. She had two other paintings, which she left to me. She never married, but the other sister, Great-Aunt Edie, did. She had three sons, all killed in the Second World War. So were my uncles, Mum’s two older brothers. Uncle Jack was a bomber pilot. He was engaged to an English girl, but she was killed in the Blitz. He left everything to his brother and sister, including two of his mum’s paintings, but then Uncle Bill went down with his ship, so everything came to Mum, what there was of it. Three more of my grandmother’s oils, and a few sketches and watercolours, plus his War medals and a coin collection he’d made in his boyhood.”

    “I see,” I said weakly.

    “That makes five Edna Lamberts belonging to our side by the end of the War, if ya can count.”

    “Er—yes.”

    “By that time Mum and Dad were engaged: she was a WAAF, not living at home any more, so they just shoved everything in Dad’s parents’ garage and more or less forgot about it. It was ages before they could afford a house of their own after the War, not that there were any: housing was at a premium. They finally got a nice clean little bungalow with no room for big Edwardian paintings. They just left them where they were until Grandpa died and my gran decided to go up to her sister in Queensland—this woulda been around 1959, I’da been sixish. I remember seeing her off on the train: heap big excitement going to the station.” He smiled at me. “Sorry if this is getting a bit complicated, mate.”

    “Not at all,” I said faintly.

    “Anyway, in 1965 old Great-Aunt Edie popped off, aged eighty-five, with no younger ones on the Lambert side to leave anything to except Mum and me—and she’d always loathed the hubby’s side, apparently. She had three more of her sister’s oils: one of her and Ruby standing in the garden holding stalks of lavender in amongst the roses, one of her and their friend Lizzie sitting in basket chairs on the lawn under a big tree, and a portrait of her with a huge white hat, a white dress with blue bows and a blue Persian cat.”

    “So by 1965 you, or at least your side of the family, had eight genuine Edna Lamberts?”

    “Right. And the two I inherited from Great-Aunt Ruby only a couple of years later made ten, Crozier’s makes eleven, and that’s it for the extant Edna Lamberts that I know of for sure.”

    “Mm… And the two works that were mentioned in the contemporary catalogue that was shown to Merv and Diana Walton by the Acacia 2 gallery in Adelaide?”

    The eyes twinkled more than ever. “Boy, you don’t miss a trick, do you, Alex? It’s a genuine catalogue, I’ve found a copy in the old girl’s papers. They were Portrait of Edith Lambert and Her Cat Bluey, and Ruby and Lizzie on a Swing, your one.”

    I nodded slowly. “Uh-huh… What was it, about 1967, when your Great-Aunt Ruby died?”

    “That’s right. She was ninety-two, to be specific: born in 1875.”

    “Mm. And may I ask how old you were then, Pete?”

    “Fourteen—born in 1953. Old enough to be bloody stroppy. There was no way I was gonna let Mum and Dad junk those paintings.”

    In other words he’d been as determined a personality back then as he clearly was now. “No, I see,” I said mildly. “Was your family still in the same bungalow, Pete?”

    “Yep: two bedrooms, no garage, but Dad had recently added a carport, the height of suburban trendiness in the Sixties. I’m an ‘only’, but the odds are that a sibling wouldn’t have given a damn about our grandmother’s paintings.”

    “Your mother wasn’t artistic, then?”

    He looked wry. “Depends how you define the word, Alex. She was a great knitter, produced beautiful work, but that was it. She thought her mother’s paintings were old-fashioned and messy-looking. Liked things to be neat: cut and dried. She did my bedroom out in blue for a boy. Blue gingham was all they could afford, so that was it; know it? Cotton: tiny checks in blue and white. Curtains, home-made bedspread and a removable cover for the eiderdown. Dad was quite handy with tools—ya more or less hadda be, back then, if ya wanted anything done—and he knocked up a wooden toy box for me, and she covered that entirely in blue gingham, too. The kitchen was likewise, only pink: pink gingham curtains, pink gingham pot-holders, pink gingham seat-covers on the dining chairs and ditto homemade tablecloths. Plus a great selection of pink gingham aprons, natch. It has the great advantage of being completely washable. Most of the woodwork started off as the traditional grungy cream of the time, but by the time I was tennish she’d got Dad to paint the cupboard doors pale pink and the surrounds and windowsills bright white. It was pretty, I’ll admit that!” He laughed.

    Trethewin’s kitchen was beginning to seem almost acceptable by comparison: I nodded feebly.

    “I could never understand,” Pete added thoughtfully, “why she couldn’t see that Grandmother’s paintings were pretty, too… Oh, well. Anyway, that’s it for the Lambert descendants’ artistic talent, I’m afraid, Alex.”

    “Mm… Was Lambert your grandmother’s married name?”

    “No, her maiden name. Not that my grandfather ever objected to her painting, in fact to hear old Ruby tell it he was quite proud of her so long as he had a hot dinner put in front of him every night of his life and the boys weren’t running wild. He was a successful accountant; they had a lovely two-storeyed house with a big garden: that’s where most of her paintings are set. His name was Foster. –Uh, think I let meself get a bit sidetracked, back there, Alex. We couldn’t store the paintings at home, but Dad’s sister, my Aunty Cora, came to the rescue.”

    “The one who still lives in Adelaide?

    “That’s her, yep. Married a bloke called Ray Weston, ruled him with a rod of iron for the rest of ’is natural. Luckily he was the meek sort who didn’t seem to mind. They had a spare room, so the paintings went in there. I was too young at the time to realise it, but it was bloody lucky that that room faced south and was the coldest room in the house. By the time I was eighteen it had dawned, but it took me a while before I could afford to rent a flat and stick a room air-conditioner in for them. Actually,” he said with a grin, “it was the dough I got for giving me expert opinion on Andrews Senior’s fakes that let me swing it! –What I’d like to do,” he said, looking wry, “is set up a permanent exhibition, preferably in me Grandfather Foster’s house, hah, hah.”

    “So the house is still there?”

    “Very much so. Used to belong to an up-themselves couple who filled it with so much William Morris shit that it’s practically oozing out the doors.—Very big in Adelaide, William Morris is, Alex.—The house now belongs to an enterprising pair of gays who’ve installed a small café which charges the earth and a half, and run regular tours of the place’s frightful main rooms. Adored by the types who book out the most expensive seats for the Festival and bend your ear about how much they paid for the tickets, bugger what the actual performance mighta been. The sort that become Friends of the Art Gallery but never darken its doors except for the flaming Friends’ dinners.”

    I winced at this all-too-familiar reference, but asked: “Would they let you buy them out?”

    “For the sort of sum that I can only dream of, yes, mate!” he said bitterly. “Anyway, I’ve still got Edna’s paintings, sitting safely under lock and key in their air-con.”

    “Mm…”

    “What?” he said uneasily.

    “You’ve accounted for the rest of the family, Pete, but what about your Great-Aunt Edie’s three sons who were killed in the War? Would they have had any of their aunt’s work? And did they have any descendants?”

    Pete Goodwin was seen to swallow hard. “Um, that’s the fly in the ointment, Alex.”

    Uh-huh. I had had a sort of feeling that there might be one of those. After a moment I said: “Is this going to explain why Andrews, Senior, is or was apparently so well acquainted with the works of an artist whose limited production was never on display in his lifetime?”

    “Yeah,” he admitted glumly. “Boy, I’d hate to come up against you in business, mate. Never miss a trick, do ya?”

    There wouldn’t be much point in being in business otherwise, would there? “Go on, tell me the worst,” I said mildly.

    “Two of Edie’s sons were what old Ruby called Philistines: hearty football-playing types. Went down with their ship when it was trying to evacuate British women and kids from flaming Singapore, poor sods. No interest in art whatsoever. The other one was keen, however, and Ruby used to point to his photo in the family album and say sourly: ‘Walton, she insisted in naming him. Couldn’t see past him. Horrid little fellow, carried on with other women behind his poor little wife’s back.’ Uh, not a suitable story for a kid’s ears, I guess, but no-one else liked to look at her albums and listen to her stories, poor old duck.”

    “I see,” I said, smiling at him with considerable liking.

    Pete cleared his throat. “Uh—yeah. Ruby thought there were at least three paintings that his misguided mother, her expression, had given him. They’d have gone to his wife. They didn’t have any kids. He got his early on in the War—before Curtin had got the Aussie troops back in the teeth of sodding Churchill’s opposition. The wife remarried not long after, a bloke called Andrews. Flaming Harry Andrews is their son, born in 1944; the dad was in a reserved occupation, I gather.”

    “That’s horribly clear, Pete. Thanks for telling me.”

    “Yeah,” he said heavily. “Well, at least I’m not actually related to the bastard.”

    “No.” I got up. “Fancy a whisky?’

    “Life-saver, mate!” he returned fervently in the affirmative.

    Smiling a little, I went inside and fetched them.

    The consensus was, two whiskies apiece later, that it was fifty to one that bloody Andrews Senior no longer had the real Edna Lamberts but had flogged them off to private collectors long since. After he’d done some lovely copies of them, yes.

    Which told us something, certainly, but wasn’t much help in finding the bloody man or his damned son, alas.

    After a night’s sleep a thought struck me, and since Pete had been keen on riding out early with us, I took the opportunity, while Cassie was trying to persuade the stout Pounder, with Gavin up, to jump over a log, of asking him what had become of the Lambert sisters’ friend, Lizzie Bristow.

    He looked wry. “Well, this was back just after the First World War, mate, remember.”

    “Ye-es?”

    Pete looked dreamily up at the cloudless blue Australian sky. “In other times under other skies—vide the example of Jane Austen’s faithful family friend—”

    “You can cut that right out.”

    “Me flamin’ grandfather took her on as housekeeper, mate, that’s what became of poor Lizzie. She was younger than the Lambert girls, born in 1898. I remember her as a thin, anxious little woman, always trying to please everybody. Not a vestige of the lovely complexion and the fluffy dark blonde hair of the paintings. Or the figure, come to think of it. I can hardly remember my grandfather, I was about four when he died: 1957, that woulda been. Lizzie woulda been, um, fifty-nine. He shoulda left her the lot, considering she’d brought up his kids, but what he did, he left a couple of thou’ for Mum in trust so as she only got the interest—he didn’t trust women to handle money sensibly—and the rest, a fair whack, to found an old folks’ home, on condition Lizzie had a place there for the rest of her natural. Well, I dunno what he’d envisaged, but Mum took me to see Lizzie regularly after that—she was very fond of her—so I can tell ya what she got. The charity that was running the place built a lovely series of little chalets, so-called, plus took over an old house where they had the communal dining-room and a few rooms for live-in residents. Lizzie was parked in a poky little room that had probably originally been a servant’s room, and that was more or less what she ended up as, at the beck and call of the staff and the other residents from dawn to dusk. Well, I’m not saying she wasn’t the martyr type anyway,” he admitted, making a face, “but it was pretty bloody disgusting, all the same. She died when I was still in my teens, so I never got the chance to rescue her. If the old bastard had left Mum a lump sum outright she and Dad would’ve been happy to take her, they’d’ve been able to build on an extra room, but the income from the trust fund just about covered my school shoes and footy boots every year, and that was it. I eventually came to the conclusion,” he ended, looking wry, “that Edna was well out of it, dying when she did.”

    “Yes,” I agreed with a little sigh. “Well, possibly the old man envisaged that Lizzie would be treated better than she was.”

    “Maybe. He certainly didn’t bother to make sure his daughter would never run short, though. I’m glad to say that I can’t imagine Dad ever doing that sort of thing—not that he ever had a penny to bless himself with!” he added with a sudden grin. “But he took out a decent insurance policy, so Mum got that when he went. The house itself wasn’t worth much but property prices round their way had shot up, so she did all right out of the place in the end—and years of scrimping and saving had managed to pay off the mortgage. I dunno…” He looked out across the dry brown rolling acres of Trethewin and admitted: “It was probably their excellent example, God-fearing, hardworking, honest and completely conformist as they were, that made me determined never to condemn myself to a life like that. I had a paper round and umpteen after-school jobs, and worked in the weekends whenever anyone would take me on. I eventually managed to get through my degree thanks largely to spending the summer holidays as a jackaroo—that’s how I learned to ride,” he explained, patting old Ring-a-Ding’s neck.

    “I was wondering,” I admitted.

    “Yes: the more boring suburban bits of Adelaide don’t immediately bring the healthy outdoor life to mind,” he agreed wryly. “Well, Lizzie didn’t own any of Edna’s paintings by the time she died, and I don’t remember ever seeing any pictures in her room except a small reproduction of a sentimental portrait of the young Ellen Terry.”

    I smiled a little. “By Watts? –Yes; it’s in the National Portrait Gallery. I rather like it.”

    “Yeah? Maybe it didn’t come over too well as an ageing chromolithograph framed in black passe-partout,” he said wryly.

    “Er—no.”

    We rode on silently for a few yards and Pete said: “This old boy’s not a jumper, eh?”

    “Ring-a-Ding? No: flat racer. Did very well in his day.”

    “Yeah, well, I’m not much of a jumper, either. Shall we just see what they can do on the flat, then?”

    In the middle distance Cassie was still trying to persuade Pounder to get his fat carcass over a fifteen-inch-high fallen log. Okay, why not?’

    “Come on, then!” I said with laugh. “Get up, Postman!”

    And we were off. It wasn’t Ascot, no. It wasn’t even the Downs that I was used to. And the two old horses didn’t get anywhere near the thirty miles an hour that I’d once achieved on my steeplechasers. But it was damn good, all the same.

    Cassie gave up on Gavin and Pounder, though the kid continued to try to urge him over the log, and cantered up to us on Milly, smiling, as we returned.

    “You look as if you enjoyed that, Pete!”

    “Too right. Ages since I’ve been on a horse. You’re bloody lucky, living up here,” he replied.

    “Yes!” she beamed. “We love it!”

    Quite. She’d hate living in England. Even the wide stretches of the Downs were so different from the endless dry vistas of Australia—and it was so bloody cold. Shit. In fact, bloody damn.

    “What’s the matter, Alex?” she said in surprise. “You beat him easily.”

    “What? I wasn’t really racing,” I said weakly.

    “Of course you were!” she replied with a laugh. “He always does, the minute he gets on a horse,” she told Pete.

    “That right? Doesn’t look the competitive type. Still waters run deep, eh?” he returned with his easy grin.

    “Rubbish,” I offered feebly.

    “Ooh, what is?” gasped Gavin, coming up to us on Pounder. “He won’t jump!” he reported aggrievedly. “What’s rubbish?”

    “Largely, what comes out of Pete’s mouth on top of one cup of coffee.”

    Gavin snickered obligingly but noted: “If you’d of had a proper breakfast, Junie, she might of come in and stopped you going riding, Alex, because of your leg.”

    How very true.

    “Hell, is it playing up?” asked Pete.

    “No! –Sorry, didn’t mean to shout. Itching, that’s all.”

    “Means it’s practically healed, then. Bit slow, hasn’t it been?”

    “Just don’t go there, Pete,” I warned.

    Gavin took a deep breath.

    “Shut up, Gavin. Come on, get up on Postman, he’ll jump for you.” I dismounted.

    “Really? Ace! Tha-anks, Alex!”

    “Alex, not over the jumps!” gasped Cassie. “He hasn’t got a helmet!”

    “I think you mean he isn’t wearing it,” I replied drily. “No, the log. Well, Postman’ll think we’re potty, he could step over it, but never mind. Now, do what I say, Gavin, and he should”—er, not condescend to—“jump it.”

    So Postman was shown the log. Then we retreated and, since he was urged to a run, he duly hopped over the log. And, ears pricked, headed for the slope and the sight of the fences—

    “Stop him!” shrieked Cassie, clapping her heels into Milly’s flank.

    She and Pete raced after him, as Gavin attempted to haul on the reins. He weighed, at a guess, about—well, four stone, maybe five or six? I wasn’t used to estimating the weight of anything that size. But Postman weighed half a ton.

    Millicent Rose’s ears were back, her eyes were bright and she went like a streak of lightning, easily outstripping Ring-a-Ding, just as she had once done in front of a crowd of thousands at Sydney’s Randwick, many years back, when she was in her heyday and he was in his first big race. Even from my position well behind on Pounder I could see Pete’s face of astonishment as she passed him.

    Cassie leaned over lithely, grabbed the runaway’s reins, and hauled—and that was that.

    “Never—that horse—again!” she gasped, as Pounder and I staggered up to them.

    “Er—oh. Never put him up on Postman again? No, I promise,” l said ruefully.

    Gavin was rather blue around the gills but grinning manfully. “We’d of been all right.”

    “He would, yeah. You’d’ve fallen off,” noted Pete brutally. He dismounted from Ring-a-Ding and hauled the kid off.

    “Aw, heck! I wouldn’t of!” he lied valiantly.

    “Bullshit. –Geddoff, Alex,” he ordered me.

    “Oh—yes.” I slid off Pounder and Pete hoisted Gavin up.

    “Dunno that you deserve to get ’im back, mate,” he noted, as I approached Postman.

    “No,” Cassie agreed sourly. “In fact you deserve to walk back.”

    Pete was observed to shake all over. “Yep, and to go straight to bed without yer breakfast!” he gasped.

    I awarded him a sour look.  “Hah, hah. –How’s Milly, Cassie?”

    “She’s fine,” she said, patting her neck. “She loved it.”

    “Good. Well, come along, we’d better get them walking, we don’t want them to cool down too fast after that.”

    There was a short silence.

    “You’re thinking of England, Alex,” said Cassie on a weak note. “It must be around twenty-six: they’re predicting thirty-four for this arvo.”

    “It can’t be! Twenty-six?”

    “Dry heat, mate,” said Pete with a grin. “Good, isn’t it? You don’t feel it nearly so much when the humidity’s low. It’d be about five percent today.”

    “What?”

    “Yes, of course,” Cassie agreed mildly. “What did you think it was?”

    I hadn’t thought: it just seemed comfortable, to me. …Twenty-six? In Britain we’d be starting to talk about a heat wave!

    “Uh—well, be that as it may, it’s not good for their muscles to just stand around after vigorous exercise, so shall we go?”

    “Maybe you and Postman could do a bit of jumping, first,” the misguided Master Forrest offered.

    “Maybe you could have your head read!” retorted his aunt swiftly.

    “Yes; and talking of which,” I added, “whether or not the whole thing’s my fault in this instance, you are not being allowed on a horse again without your helmet.”

    “Aw, heck! It’s siss—”

    “No, it isn’t,” said Cassie grimly. “You’re wearing it.”

    “But Pete was racing and he isn’t w—”

    “There isn’t a spare one,” she said grimly. “Shut up, or you’ll be the one to go straight to bed with no breakfast.”

    “I never done nothink!” the boy cried in anguish.

    Cassie was more than a match for that one. “Except not wear your helmet. Just concentrate on sitting up straight and holding your arms right, like Alex showed you.”

    “I can ride, I don’t need him to show me!”

    Oops.

    “You do if you want to do eventing when you’re older,” she replied flatly.

    He scowled, but he shut up.

    Breakfast, oddly enough, was rather a silent affair after that. Though it would have been true to say that it was delicious and thoroughly appreciated by all, riddled with guilt or not. Fresh sliced mangoes, followed by pancakes with real maple syrup (Perry’s personal contribution, in order to stop Junie parsimoniously buying the artificial sort, which tasted like varnish, unquote), and just a few rashers of bacon, for a treat. True, Australian bacon tended to the thick and meaty, with slabs of fat attached, and was heart-shakingly salty into the bargain, but just one rasher went down rather well with the pancakes.

    Figgy wasn’t allowed any bacon, to the accompaniment of a stern reminder from Perry about not teaching him to expect treats because what if someone got into the grounds and offered him a poisoned treat? I looked in horror from Tanya’s innocent little round face to her mother’s, at this, but Junie was merely nodding agreement. And what had he, Perry, said about always feeding him in his own bowl, with the command—? Expectant, not to say grim pause.

    Gavin looked sideways at Figgy and didn’t make the mistake of actually uttering the command. “Ya tell him to eat and then ya gotta say his name.”

    “Exactly. And when ya give him a treat that he’s earned?”

    “Um, ya hold it out to him and say the same thing and if ya don’t say his name he’s not supposed to eat it,” he admitted, scowling.

    “Right. That’s how he’s been trained, geddit?”

    “Yes!”

    “No need to shout, mate, none of us want him to be poisoned by a conscienceless piece of garbage like Tony so-called Brownloe.”

    “No, it’d be dreadful,” put in Junie quickly. “We all had to learn the same thing when we got Fifi, Gavin, dear. It was really hard, because of course she was miserable after her handler died, and we wanted to spoil her. But we stuck to it for her own sake, and she’s wonderfully well trained now, isn’t she?”

    He began to cheer up. “Yeah, she’s great! Hey, do you reckon Figgy could go for a baddie like she done?”

    “He’s had the basic training; I’m sure he could, if it was reinforced. You and Ken’ll have to give him some more training, Perry, love,” she decided.

    Meekly the two strong, silent men agreed they would.

    My eyes met Pete’s and we quickly looked back down at our plates, swallowing smiles. Junie Hawkes was, of course, very different from Stella Forrest, but in her way she had Perry toeing the line just as Stella did Fred!

    … “Monstrous regiment, eh?” Pete concluded, as we repaired to the study after the meal.

    “Mm, well, not far off it; but you missed the worst of it, Pete: at one point we had Cassie’s mum, my mum, and my sister all here at the same time. Needless to say I was in the doghouse for the entirety of the visit—make that visitation.”

    “It’s quite an awe-inspiring thought,” he admitted weakly.

    “Yeah. You’re not married, yourself, Pete?” It was a fair assumption, since he was obviously free to cross half a continent on a whim.

    “No. Divorced yonks back. It was a dismal failure. She was a nice shiny Yank girl that thought she wanted an alternative lifestyle, unquote. Discovered that running a B&B in far north Queensland was bloody hard work and the punters that had been expected to flock to our door in quest of her very alternative pottery artefacts didn’t. Encountered a flaming great cassowary down the back of the property like where I’d told ’er not to go on ’er tod, and that finished her off. Headed back to California and Pop’s nice big shiny house in Pasadena. No kids.”

    “I see. I’m very sorry, Pete. Er—what is a cassowary?”

    He grinned. “Didja miss that one on David Attenborough, mate? Bloody great bird—a ratite. Flightless. Ours are the southern cassowary: not as tall as an emu but heavier, second-heaviest living bird after the ostrich. Shiny black feathers, blue neck and a very distinctive big casque on the head. They can kick like buggery, with a vicious great spike on their feet. Bloody dangerous when riled up.”

    I gaped at him. “And they were wandering round free on your property?”

    “In the bush—yeah. They’re protected in Queensland. Well, if I’d been nearby and it had attacked I’d’ve shot the bugger, no question, but they don’t attack unless provoked, or so the story runs.”

    I just gaped at him. The more of these extraordinary stories I heard about Australia—which the locals all seemed to take for granted!—the more it seemed as if I really had fallen down the rabbit-hole.

    I came to with a jump as Pete said: “Well, come on, Alex: we gonna check out these horse paintings, or not?”

    “Oh—yes, the Australian ones. I did recognise a couple of the horses, but I don’t know the artists at all. I gather Crozier commissioned some, so I assumed they’re genuine. I’ve shoved them in the safe, just in case we’re burgled again.”

    I opened it—the combination was in my head, not on a handy list taped under a desk drawer—and got them out for him.

    Pete looked at them in silence for a while. Then he said: “I’m pretty sure most of these modern ones are genuine. Wouldn’t swear to these two of Crozier’s earlier winners, but I’m pretty sure they’re by an older bloke who was based in Sydney; he died a few years back. His equine stuff was quite popular with owners, and I don’t think it’s ever come onto the market, though a few of his landscapes have. Ye-ah… Well, eighty percent sure they’re genuine, Alex. I know the dame that did these two rather over-coloured ones slightly; they’re okay. And the bloke who did this one, of Rushton of Trethewin, he’s a good mate, I saw him paint it, but in any case I’d know his work anywhere. But this one here, not one of Crozier’s horses as far as I recall, that’s got his signature on it, is definitely a fake.”

    “Jesus,” I said limply.

    “Yeah. The other three, here, are much older—at least, the styles and the horses are.”

    “But?” I croaked.

    “Well, this is definitely a copy, mate. Carbine. Bred in New Zealand, but became one of Australia’s most famous early racehorses. Great stallion, sired innumerable winners, and their progeny became winners in their turn. One of his descendants is Makybe Diva!” he grinned. “The original dates back to 1889, but this isn’t it: it’s in the State Library of Victoria. By Frederick Woodhouse, Junior. He was from a family of artists: his dad also painted horses. Um, well, this’ll sound odd to you, Alex, but there’s been relatively little interest in earlier Australian paintings of racehorses: where equine art is concerned any focus there has been, has been on Outback scenes. I’ve seen quite a selection, myself, because I’m keen on racing as well as art, but I hadda go out and hunt for them.” He eyed the very nice picture thoughtfully and muttered: “At least he didn’t have the cheek to copy another portrait of him that’s on flaming Wikimedia Commons.”

    I swallowed hard. “Oh. And uh, the others, Pete?”

    “Woodhouse Junior again. Two Melbourne Cup winners: Mentor, won it in 1888, and Revenue, 1901. I’d think, because of the general lack of interest, Old Man Crozier must’ve believed they were the originals, but I’ve seen them both: in private hands.”

    “I see. And presumably he can’t have seen the one in Victoria.”

    “No,” he agreed simply. I didn’t say anything more, and he looked at me dubiously. After a moment he asked: “Where were these, when you had the house fire?”

    “Hanging in here.”

    “Then Andrews can’t have been worried about them or he’d have doused both sides of the place with petrol.”

    “Mm.”

    “What about when he came up and set the bomb?”

    Slowly I replied: “It was already breakfast time when Fifi came back to the house with a hunk of gents’ trousering in her jaw, so we concluded he must’ve been around for a while. We thought it must just have taken him a while to find the right spot to plant his explosive: well hidden but liable to do the sort of damage that’d throw the business into disarray. He had a good look round in Ben’s office, too, and destroyed all the winery’s computer files, into the bargain stealing the back-up drive from the safe… But when you think about it, he’d certainly have had the time to come up here and look for these. –He wouldn’t have found them,” I added drily: “they were still in Cassie’s back garden, airing, to get the stink of smoke out of them.”

    Pete gave a startled laugh.

    “Mm: I’ve only just brought them back in.”

    He rubbed his chin. “Ye-ah… But listen, if he came up to the house surely the dog would have barked? Not to say gone for him?”

    “Yes, I agree, Pete. I don’t think it’s feasible, even if he’d left it till last. Fifi clearly caught up with him just as he was about to make his getaway, not up here at the house. He was parked down at the bottom of the driveway and took off in a great hurry: Perry found his tyre marks. There’s no way he could have outrun a big fit dog over that distance.”

    “Right.” He stared blankly at the paintings, frowning. “So we can conclude these don’t matter a damn to him?”

    “Uh-huh,” I agreed.

    “And further that destroying the other fakes wasn’t why he set fire to the house?”

    “I doesn’t look like it, does it?” I agreed.

    “So… Just spite? Same thing with the winery records and the bomb?”

    I shivered a little in spite of the warmth of the day. “Yes.”

    After a moment Pete said on a wry note: “Think in your shoes I’d chain Figgy to me wrist, mate.”

    “I think that’s why Perry’s given him to me. But I can hardly spend the rest of my life under siege.”

    “It’d be safest: you’re dealing with an obsession, here. The alternative is to catch the bugger, of course.”

    “How? I had some vague idea that we might learn enough from the paintings to track down the father, and through him, the son, but your evidence shows pretty clearly that the Edna Lamberts are a dead end. The people at Jim Hawkes Investigators are still keeping an eye on the Art Gallery in case Andrews Senior feels like sitting down and sketching in front of any of an incalculable number of artists’ works that he might fancy copying, but that’s a pretty forlorn hope.”

    “Uh—yeah. Well, a definable number, if he’s looking for South Australian artists that’d be worth copying, but the Gallery’s holdings won’t all be on display, by any means. The stuff he copies is out of fashion with the trendies, never mind how well it might be doing at auction or how well it might go down with the general public.”

    That was pretty much what I’d assumed—yes.

    “I don’t suppose,” I said without hope, “that you can remember any of his old hang-outs from the period when you helped catch him?”

    “I was more concerned with the art itself… Well, there were a couple of galleries run by mates of his, one in Sydney, one in Melbourne. They both closed down. As far as I remember the cops didn’t have enough on the owners to prosecute. No proof they knew they were selling fakes.”

    “No, I see. And the Adelaide connection?”

    Pete rubbed his chin, looking dubious. “Far’s I recall he’d well and truly got up the noses of the art Establishment here, that’d be a dead end. Well, old Edie and Ruby both kept in touch with his mum after she remarried, but it’s a Helluva long time back, Alex, I was only a kid. I think it was largely a matter of making sure she was on the Christmas card list, and the very occasional afternoon tea. Um, well, I do remember going to see her once with the two old dames, but I can’t have been more than about eight or nine—aw, yeah, that was the time Mum broke her leg, so Aunty Ruby volunteered to look after me. I’m afraid what I most remember about the visit is a big sponge cake with passionfruit icing. Hang on, though… I think,” he said cautiously. “that she musta lived not far from Grandfather Foster’s old house, because we went to see it afterwards—that’s right. We didn’t ask to see the garden, though the old ladies would’ve liked to, because if we did ‘that woman’ would invite us in and force cups of her ‘unspeakable tea’ on us!” He laughed. “Crikey, I’d forgotten all about it! –Um, yeah, well. Way back around 1961 or -2, Harry Andrews’s mum was probably living not very far from my Grandfather Foster’s house. Uh—but ten to one Harry never lived in his mum’s house after he grew up, and his bloody son’s never set foot in it.”

    “Never mind, we have to start somewhere. I’ll get Jim Hawkes to get his people to scour the telephone directory and the electoral rolls for Andrewses in that area.”

    “Ye-ah… Um, Adelaide suburbs are very small. The conurbation is huge, very spread out, but it’s composed of tiny suburbs, all cheek by jowl: they might have to check all the surrounding ones.”

    “That’s not impossible. Can you recall whether you walked from Mrs Andrews’s house or drove?”

    Pete made a face. “Nope. Sorry.”

    “Never mind. It’s the best lead we’ve had so far.”

    “Ye-ah. What about this cousin type you mentioned, Alex? Surely he’d know where his cousins lived?”

    “Gary Brownloe? He’s Brodie Andrews’s cousin, not Harry’s. Harry was his uncle, and the black sheep of the family. Gary’s parents don’t seem to have had much to do with Harry’s family: he can’t recall ever visiting them. He was only in his teens when Harry went to gaol. His parents never referred to him after that. Gary’d be about ten years older than Brodie, so they would never have played together or anything like that. He had a vague idea his father didn’t like or approve of his Uncle Harry even back before the scandal, but no idea why. That was it, I’m afraid.”

    “Blow, thought I’d cracked it there, mate,” he said ruefully.

    “No,” I replied heavily. “We’ve exhausted that avenue.”

    “Yeah, well, finding Harry Andrews’s mum’s old house is a bloody long shot, Alex.”

    “We can but try. I’ll ring Jim.”

    I did so. His reaction was the same as Pete’s, but he agreed to put the team onto it. There were certainly no other leads.

    We spent the next two days largely in exercising the horses and inspecting the site of the burnt-out stables and discussing how they might be rebuilt. Both Perry and Pete seemed very, very interested. Hmm…

    Down at the winery the continuing fine weather we were getting up here in our isolated position in the hills had encouraged Ben and Mike to hope that the vintage might be better than they’d originally feared, regular night patrols by Ken and Fang hadn’t spotted any baddies trying to spray our vines with muck, set fire to or blow up anything, and immense amounts of beer, which came from the wholesalers in giant “slabs” of two dozen cans, had flowed in the direction of the Territorials, who were going great guns with the fencing. Miranda’s customers were flocking to buy her lovely lunches and afternoon teas at the increased prices without a murmur and the wine was marching out of the cellar door in dozens at a time, jolly good. Ben was going distracted trying to do all his current jobs and rewrite the stuff that he hadn’t managed to finalise before Brodie Andrews’s last visit, but I can’t say I felt much sympathy for him.

    Then Jim rang back. They had definitely identified the Andrews house, plus its land transfer records. It had been resold three times since the initial sale on Harry’s mother’s death, sorry, Alex, mate.

    The phone call had come through when we were gathered on the side verandah having morning tea. Or coffee, in my case.

    “N.B.G.?” Pete concluded.

    “No. Resold innumerable times.”

    “Oh, blow!” cried Junie—she had become very partisan.

    “Square One, eh?” said Perry heavily.

    Well, quite!

    We sat round in depressed silence for a while. True, Gavin ate the last scone half but he didn’t look happy about it.

    Then Cassie said: “Well, look, let’s do something to cheer us up. I mean, this might sound mad, but I’d really love to see your grandparents’ old house and garden, Pete, never mind if it’s full of William Morris stuff.”

    “Overdone William Morris stuff, pet,” he corrected wryly.

    “Yes, that,” she said, smiling at him. “Let’s go and have a fancy afternoon tea there! It’d be fun!”

    I think all concerned, except possibly the two children, silently recognised that it wouldn’t be half as good as anything laid on by Junie or Miranda, but we all agreed, looking at her eager face, why not?

    So we went.

    It was such a casual, seemingly insignificant decision. Its results, however, were anything but.

Next chapter:

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