The Only Good Snake Is A Dead Snake

23

The Only Good Snake Is A Dead Snake

    Surprisingly, we had several peaceful months after the attack on the bottling plant. The brief South Australian autumn came and went, a dank and unexciting winter came and went, and the vines were once more in bud. And Mike was fussing over them like a hen with the proverbial. Dad rang just as I got back from a cautious foray down there.

    “All well, Alex?”

    “Yes; this week we’ve only had one possum on the roof of the house setting off the alarms up here, and one over-eager Ken ditto down at the winery.”

    “Oops!” he said with a laugh.

    “Mm. Added to which Ken and Fang have just found a clutch of rabbit holes up on the northern boundary and the report is the buggers are coming back, the calicivirus didn’t settle their bleeding hash after all.”

    “Er… I’m not asking!” he decided with a laugh.

    “No, best not to,” I agreed heavily.

    “So, uh, do we conclude damned Andrews has gone to ground?”

    “Well, I’ve no idea what the police think, but the consensus at Trethewin is that he’s found another poor woman to sucker and is biding his time.”

    “Mm. I’m afraid your mother is agitating to come out there, Alex.”

    “I see. Well, the house is just about ready, though the two big downstairs formal rooms are still unfurnished. Corey Mincey has almost finished lovingly French-polishing the magnificent new banister he’s made for the front hall—did I tell you he tracked down the original designs for the house and has reproduced the rather horrid sweeping effect that Crozier apparently favoured? –Mm. The newel post posed some problems until we had a report of an historic mansion somewhere in the far depths of the state being declared unsafe because of a termite attack, so he rushed up there, rescued theirs—river red gum, which according to him termites don’t favour—had it checked out by the experts and has duly installed it. So we can expect the entire interior of Trethewin to be eaten out some time within the next decade.”

    “Very funny, Alex. Is it okay?”

    “Well, as far as can humanly be determined.”

    After a moment he got it and choked indignantly.

    “Sorry, Dad! But as I was saying, the interiors are just about done, and the best guest suite has been lovingly done up by Alan Travitsky—the chap from Sydney recommended by the Sales—in the style of the Edna Lambert painting. Floaty muslin curtains galore: Mum’ll love it.”

    “Mm. We—er—don’t want to live in your pocket, old man.”

    Which meant, bless him, that he didn’t think they should. “No, well, I’ve got planning permission to put up several structures, thought I might as well when I was getting approval for Perry’s and Junie’s house. Or we can convert the loft over the garages: put in a stair lift for Mum.”

    “Mm, that might be the preferred option, actually. She’s been muttering about not wanting to be too far away.”

    “Good, well, that block’s solid stone: when old Crozier did anything he did it properly, thank God, so shall I get Corey and his merry men going on the loft?”

    “I think that might be a good idea, yes. And, er, well, see if this Travitsky fellow can have a go at the décor, mm? Same style. And, uh—this’ll sound silly, but would window boxes be possible, old man?”

    I had to swallow a laugh. “What, for the geraniums? Yes, certainly. –They grow outside here, you know. Need watering in summer, of course.”

    “I see. Well, good show,” he said on a weak note. “Er—perhaps not tell her it’s for us, eh? Just show her all your improvements and let the idea, um, simmer.”

    Yes, well, that was Dad all over. “Right.”

    “And dare I ask if Gavin’s bunks have been installed?” he did ask with a smile in his voice.

    “No thanks to IKEA, you mean?” I replied grimly.

    He collapsed in sniggers long-distance from half a world away.

    “Look, his grandmother had the blasted catalogue and let the kid— Never mind. Suffice it to say the damn things defeated me and Cassie utterly, bit Perry—the language was awful—baffled Pete and made him feel his age, and finally had to be sorted out by Corey in person with the advice that we don’t wanna take no notice of any liddle bits of paper that might come with them flat-pack things, and them Allen keys are a disaster waiting to happen, mate. –Nuts and bolts. So now they’re firmly bolted together and will stand for a millennium. Or two.”

    “Very clear!” he gasped. “Well, à bientôt.”

    As he rang off I could hear Mum saying: “Who was that, dear?”

    I hung up wondering what lie he was about to tell her.

    Corey had brightened tremendously when asked if he’d be available for a loft conversion, so that was okay. Now, having penetrated to the fastnesses up there—the garage block was huge, more than big enough for six cars—he looked up into the gable dubiously, scratching his head.

    “Um, you’ll need insulation, Alex.”

    “Yes, of course.”

    “No room for pink batts, mind,” he warned.

    Er… “No?”

    “Nah well, we’ll sort it, only there’s no way we can fit in a proper false ceiling for ya, not enough headroom. Some people don’t like sloping ceilings,” he added, possibly as clarification.

    Light dawned. “Well,” I said cautiously, “it’s possible Mum and Dad might want to use it, and they’re used to elderly English houses with lots of upstairs rooms with sloping ceilings.”

    He nodded. “Aw, yeah: ’course. Seen them on Escape to the Country.”

    “Er—yes. So you think you can manage, Corey?”

    “No worries, mate! We can start right away, if ya like.” He looked at me hopefully.

    “Well, yes, that would be excellent, thanks, but didn’t you say you’d give Pete a hand to do up Cassie’s old house?”

    “He’s not in a hurry. But I know a bloke that could put in a decent path for ’im, now the weather’s better, if ya like.”

    “Well, yes, thank you, that’d be an improvement. But wasn’t the plan to insulate the house before next summer?”

    The stolid Mr Mincey eyed me tolerantly. “’E’s not a tender flower, ya know. But me and the boys can shove in some pink batts for ’im, no worries. Start first thing, prob’ly get it done in a day, easy. Providing we don’t ask that ning-nong Jimbo to grab the masks this time,” he noted sourly.

    Mm. This “Jimbo” was one of his lads and though a hard worker, not too good at remembering things, we’d now gathered. But masks?

    “Yes, er—masks?” I asked weakly.

    “’Course! Ya gotta have proper industrial masks for pink batts, Alex!”

    Er… Okay. I’d let that one go. “I see.”

    “You’ll want a plan, of course,” he then stated, eyeing the loft again.

    Would I? It was just one long stretch of nothing, as wide, obviously, as the garages were deep.

    “I’d just envisaged, um, well, bedroom at the far end with small en suite bathroom, then a sitting-room, ending up with a small kitchen and a tiny entrance lobby with the stairs going down off it? Um, with a stair lift.”

    “Yeah, that’d be good if yer mum and dad wanna use the place. They cost an arm and a leg, mindjew.”

    Mm. Almost everything except fresh produce did, here. “That’s okay.”

    “Well, it’s your dough!” Mr Mincey returned cheerfully. “So ya wanna run the staircase down at this end, then?”

    We had come up, via a ladder, through “the hatch” in the small end room which had at one stage evidently been intended as a tiny bed-sit for a chauffeur but had never got further than the installation of a loo and a minute handbasin.

    “I thought that’d be the most practical option, yes.”

    “Ye-ah… Ya wouldn’t wanna put your kitchen downstairs, maybe?”

    “No, I think it’d be handier upstairs. Just a tiny kitchenette, really. Well, a proper stove,”—given that Mum’d have a fit if there wasn’t one—“but not large.”

    “Righto. A galley kitchen’d be the go. They’re popular on Escape to the Country, too,” he said thoughtfully.

    “Are they? Right,” I agreed weakly.

    “But you’ll need a plan for the Council, anyway.”

    “Oh, I see.”

    “Not worth getting an architect for a job that small.” He eyed me hopefully.

    “Well, can you do it, Corey? It’d be extra, of course. Charge me the going rate.”

    I think he’d been waiting for this all along: beaming smile. “No worries!”

    Jolly good.

    And we clambered back down to ground level again.

    “You will put in windows, won’t you?” I ventured, looking up.

    “Yeah, sure.”

    “Um, just small ones, I think, Corey. Um, English-style, um, rather like a cottage, really,” I ended feebly. If Escape to the Country was the thing I thought it was, then all of the cottages on it that I’d noticed had enormous glass extensions, notably for the kitchen, galley or not, with immense windows if not actual French doors.

    “Right. But ya gotta have light over yer bench.”

    Sinkbench, he meant. “Yes, but a set of smallish casement windows should be enough.” –Er, how small was “smallish” to an over-keen Aussie builder?

    “Right, yer don’t wanna be mucking round with sash windows these days: they’re a real bugger to mend if the cords wear out.”

    Yes, or if certain females in your family have a fight with them. I agreed fervently and, since we were outside anyway, let him lead me down to what was now the stable manager’s house, i.e. Cassie’s former house, and inspect it. Yes, no worries: one, Rog, would be able to get a path in, no sweat, and Pete’d be jake with the new room air conditioners I’d had put in for him, and “a few” pink batts. Mm, well, I’d seen Corey’s idea of a few by now and I knew that whatever these roseate flying mammals were, we could expect to see a great pile of them arriving. However, sufficient unto the day.

    There was still, surprisingly enough, about half an hour to go before lunchtime, so we strolled up the slope to check out Perry’s and Junie’s new house. It was a kitset house, sourced by Perry himself, and put up, in the face of Corey’s deep suspicions, by the kitset chap’s own men. Quite satisfactorily, as far as I could see, but Mr Mincey was still unsatisfied.

    Junie was discovered in the white-painted “lounge-room” with the spotted IKEA sofa-bed that had once graced, not the word, Trethewin’s family-room, a pleasant enough but unexciting fawn sofa they’d brought over from Brisbane, a swathe of fabric samples and a hot-and-bothered-looking lady in a dark grey linen-look trouser suit and a severe French roll.

    “Yes, but it’s a sofa-bed, Mrs Hawkes, we’ve never had to re-cover one of those!” she was saying on a desperate note as we stepped in from the front verandah through the open sliding doors. “I mean, they come like that,” she added very weakly.

    “But it’s the same principle, surely?” replied Junie on a brightly firm note, ouch!

    “Junie,” I ventured, “if there’s a problem, I can get Alan Travitsky’s people to do your reupholstery. Just choose your fabrics, they’ll do the rest.”

    “Oh—hi, Alex,” she said weakly. “I want the sofas to match, you see.”

    “Yes, of course.”

    “So you gonna leave the walls white, then?” asked Corey, eyeing them hard.

    “Well, we thought so, Corey. We like an airy look, you see. Um, but would you like to take a look at the kitchen? I just can’t decide, and Perry’s hopeless, he can’t envisage things, but he keeps saying a red vinyl floor’s cheery—it’s because his mother used to have one, you see. Only do we leave the walls white, or what?”

    Looking pleased, Corey returned: “I’ll check it out.” And headed out to the kitchen.

    “It’s separate, you see, Mrs Brent,” Junie explained. “The house is a kitset design, and we liked the layout. They did suggest they could throw it all into one, but our place in Brizzie was open-plan and honestly, what with a lively little kiddie, there just always seemed to be a mess in the kitchen and you couldn’t escape from it! –Well, do you think that’d work, if you just supply the material?”

    The presumed Mrs Brent took another look at the spotted horror from IKEA—a very nice shape but after a while that pattern would give one nightmares—and agreed in some relief that of course they could just supply the fabrics, Mrs Hawkes. And with a certain amount of verifying of measurements and poking of things into her piece of hand-held technology, mercifully departed.

    “Phew!” said Junie, sitting down heavily on the spotted thing. “That’s that! I really did think it’d all be sorted by now! I mean, the kitset firm were just so quick, it was marvellous! Um, well, I’ll pay for the upholstering, Alex, don’t worry!” she added quickly.

    “Rubbish. We’ll lump it in with the stuff he’s doing for Trethewin, I’m getting a discount for bulk in any case!”

    She eyed me drily. “I bet.”

    I sat down on the other sofa, smiling. “Is there a problem with the kitchen?”

    She eyed the door warily but there was no sign of Corey. “Not really, except that if we don’t have red vinyl Perry’ll be saying forever and a day that red would’ve been nice.”

    “Oops!”

    “It’s all very well to laugh, but what goes with it, Alex?”

    “Um, blue and white?”

    “You and the Union Jack, too!” she retorted with some vigour. “And don’t put the idea into his head: he’d think it was a terrific joke and start looking up Union Jack seat cushions and tea towels and stuff on the flaming Internet!”

    Oops again. “Well, um, green and white? Mum always used to have geraniums when she was younger. Though I don’t know if they’d be the same red. But perhaps if you had a few green plants, um, herbs in pots, and, um, green and white curtains?” I ventured.

    Her eyes narrowed. “I know! Green and white striped blinds!” She got up and rushed out, kitchenwards.

    Crumbs, that seemed to have gone down rather well. One could only hope that Mr Mincey wasn’t vetoing it out there. I looked at the door. Er… No.

    Perry turned up that evening just before nine. In time to help force Gavin to go to bed.

    “What nit,” he enquired, after the adults had won and we’d tottered back downstairs to fortify our shattered nerves, “went and told flamin' Corey Mincey that a French door from the kitchen straight onto the non-existent patio and herb garden’d be nice?”

    “Don’t look at me!” I said hurriedly. “I merely mentioned green and white with your red flooring as a colour scheme, and Junie had the bit between her teeth.”

    “Herbs,” replied Mr Hawkes evilly, “are green.”

    “Yuh— Uh—possibly herbs in pots on the windowsill were mentioned, but that’s as far as—”

    “It’s never just as far as, ya drongo!” he shouted.

    The family-room rang with silence.

    “Sorry, Alex, mate; sorry, Cassie,” he said sheepishly. “But Jesus! I thought all the building and painting and crap was over!”

    “There can’t have been much painting,” I ventured: “those kitsets come ready painted, don’t they?”

    He sighed. “She wanted a pale blue bedroom, and the ensuite hadda be— Don’t ask. And those readymade, just-slot-in windows turned out to not quite fit and there were gaps here, there, and everywhere, Selley’s till it came out yer ears, and then it all hadda be painted over, didn’t it?”

    Did it? If he said so.

    “Let me top your drink up, Perry,” said Cassie kindly at this juncture.

    He sighed. “Thanks, Cassie.” He drank deeply and sighed again. “That’s better.” He looked round the room with a wan expression on his face. “Blue denim, eh? Soothing. Bet yer mum threw a fit, though.”

    “Yes, but then Gavin came down with his awful cold, so that distracted her,” replied Cassie serenely.

    Abruptly I went into an awful spluttering fit. “Sorry!” I gasped.

    “Don’t be, mate; it’s laugh or cry,” replied Perry drily. “I knew it’d be bad, mind you… Oh, well. Maybe if she starts up a herb garden it’ll take her mind off the ruddy décor. –Should’ve taken Tanya’s advice, really, and just lived in our little house on wheels,” he ended wryly.

    After that too-generous dose of Australian suburban life, never mind Trethewin’s isolation, I felt in great need of fresh air, and got out really early next morning for a ride on my good old Postman. With just a few jumps. And returned to the house to find a grim-faced Perry, a panting Fifi and a very agitated Mike in the kitchen along with a silent Cassie and a remarkably silent Gavin.

    “He’s had a go at the fences with wire cutters, and bulldozed rows and rows of vines!” burst out Mike.

    “Yeah,” confirmed Perry. “Not literally bulldozed, looked like tractor tyre tracks to me, but yeah.”

    “Jesus,” I said limply. “Which vines, Mike?”

    “Well, only the Cab Sav, he never took much notice of what was where when ’e was here, but that’s bad enough. They were well established and last year’s vintage wasn’t too bad at all, considering the weather, and Perry, here, had found a keen buyer, and now it’s all down the gurgler!”

    “Mm. Any indication of when this happened?”

    “No. In between patrols, presumably,” replied Perry sourly. “Fifi had a good sniff round but it was obvious he drove back to the road. Some poor bugger’ll be missing his tractor.”

    “Ye-es. Any chance of tracking him to where he presumably left his car?”

    “Not realistically, mate. Coulda been down any side road. I’ve rung Sergeant Donoghue, and he’s gonna take a look around, for what good that’ll do. I’ve got Ken and Fang down at the winery checking it out, but destroying the vines woulda taken some time; don’t think he’d’ve got round to anything else.”

    “No, I see,” I replied heavily. They were all looking at me, even Fifi, so I added glumly: “Don’t look at me, I’m at my wits’ end.”

    Cassie sighed. “I’ll put the coffee on, Alex.”

    “Thanks, darling.”

    Over the coffees I ventured: “Where’s Pete? I didn’t see him this morning: he’s usually out on a horse.”

    “Gone out after those rabbits up the boundary with his shotgun,” replied Perry.

    “He oughta shoot horrible Tony!” declared Gavin shrilly.

    “Yeah. Where’s Figgy, by the way?”

    “Patrolling outside,” the kid replied firmly.

    “Good-oh,” Perry acknowledged calmly. “Mind you take him to school this morning.”

    “’Course!”

    “And remember what I said about titbits.”

    “Don’t worry, I’ve got the kids trained up!” he replied proudly.

    Weakly the redoubtable Perry replied: “Have ya? Good on ya, mate.”

    And that seemed to be that. What the Hell else could we do?

    It was Junie’s day for the school run, so she, Tanya, Gavin and the faithful Figgy departed as usual. Mike had long since hurried back to his vines, and Perry had gone off to the winery, where he now had an office next to Ben’s. That left me and Cassie. Though, true, Corey and his minions would be surfacing any minute— Ouch!

    “What are they doing out there?” she sighed.

    “Over-keen. Drilling window holes in the bloody stonework of the garage, I think.”

    “Already?”

    “Mm. –Want to think about what to put in the formal drawing-room, darling?”

    “No,” she admitted, making a face.

    “Me neither. Shall we just let nice Alan Travitsky rip?”

    “Why not? Are we ever gonna use those rooms, anyway, Alex?”

    Er… formal entertaining? “Um, entertaining owners?” I ventured.

    “Eh?”

    “Racehorse owners.”

    “Oh! Yeah, that’d be the go, I s’pose. Um, but Alex, we simply can’t risk having valuable racehorses here while beastly Tony’s still at large!”

    “No,” I agreed—that one had occurred some time since. “Well, the stable block’s far from finished, darling, that’ll still be a while, and Pete understands that we can’t do much for some time except maybe house a few hacks and eventers for Jenny Crozier and her friends.”

    “Mm. –You’d better take out some extra insurance, Alex.”

    “I have,” I admitted. “I think the blighters think I’m working a scam, it cost the earth and a half.”

    “Insurance does, these days,” she replied simply.

    “Does it? Mm.”

    Silence fell.

    “Um, what are you gonna do today, Alex?” she ventured.

    “Accounts, I suppose. Try to work out what to claim, talking of bloody insurance, on those damaged vines.”

    “Um, it might not be worth it. I mean, I know that to us they’re not just plants, it’s the value of the wine they would of produced, but what if it’s like car insurance and you lose your no-claims bonus?”

    Er… Never mind. “Mm. I’ll think about it,” I sighed. “Um… Oh, I know! Linen!”

    “What?”

    “All the linen stored on the burnt side of the house had to be chucked out, didn’t it? Sheets and towels, darling, for the guest suite.”

    “Didn’t Alan do those?”

    “Uh—not usually in an interior decorator’s brief.”

    “Oh. Well, I s’pose you want fancy stuff. –Not from Kmart, I mean,” she elaborated.

    She didn’t sound enthusiastic. I looked at her dubiously. “Not if you don’t fancy it, sweetheart. Depute your mum instead?”

    Her face brightened. “She’d love it! Could I really?”

    Oh, Hell. Poor darling Cassie, she really wasn’t the cosy domestic type, was she? I must be mad: I’d never have taken up with one of those and now here I was, trying to fit her into a mould which was all wrong for her!

    “Of course. Tell you what: let’s give it away for today and get out on the horses. I don’t care if I never see another piece of interior décor, building site or piece of masonry again, frankly!”

    “Me too!” she beamed. “Let’s! Um, there’s the breakfast dishes—”

    “No. Come on! Grab your hat. Horses, ho!”

    And we escaped to the undemanding company of old Ring-a-Ding and Milly, it being their turn, according to Cassie, and the freedom of the rolling acres of Trethewin, now green with “spring grass.” Reliably predicted to be dead by Christmas, but too bad. One lived in the present, after all, and it was a beautiful fine spring day, and we were out in it!

    This was, as it would turn out, rather a mistake.

    We’d been riding for some time in a vaguely northeasterly direction when we encountered a hurrying Pete.

    “Bag any rab— What’s up?” I asked sharply, as his expression registered.

    “Fucking Andrews. Camped down by the creek.” He pointed.

    “What?”

    “Yeah. Don’t worry, he didn’t see me. Spotted the camp when I came over a rise, knew you hadn’t given anyone permission to camp, so I had a squint through me binoculars.”

    We nodded dazedly: they were round his neck. Presumably an aid to sneaking up on rabbits, there being very little cover on Trethewin.

    “It’s him, all right. Large as life and twice as blond as natural.”

    “How the Hell did he get there?” I croaked.

    He shrugged. “Come over the old back road, I should think. You know, it’s the winery guys’ escape route in case of fire.”

    “Oh, of course,” I said limply.

    “Yeah.”

    “But why didn’t Fifi track him to there from the Cab Sav?” groped Cassie.

    “Eh?”

    “Er—yes. Last night he seems to have got hold of a tractor and mown down a large section of poor Mike’s Cabernet Sauvignon vines,” I explained.

    “Jesus, did ’e, the bugger? Well, dare say he drove off in the tractor to where he’d left ’is flamin’ SUV, Cassie; well, it’s parked down there.”

    “I see,” she said faintly.

    “I suppose,” I admitted heavily, “it would only have been a case of dodging the patrols. The property’s too big to police properly.”

    “You said it, mate,” Pete agreed. “What now? Anybody got a phone on them?”

    “No, we hate the things,” Cassie explained wanly.

    “That’s out, then,” he returned drily. “Well, the sensible thing would be to hurry back to the homestead and ring the cops.”

    “Right, and maybe two hours later someone’ll turn up!” said Cassie on a vicious note.

    “Uh-huh. Well, ambush the bastard? I’ve got me shot-gun: what other weapons have ya got in the house?”

    “A pistol belonging to Jim Hawkes,” I admitted. “Perry will have his guns, though.”

    “I’ve got Dad’s old rifle—it’s in good nick!” Cassie assured us.

    “Right. Well, get back as fast as we can—pity ya hadda bring ole Ring-a-Ding, he’s not what he used to be—grab the guns, dash back and surround him?”

    “If he’s still sitting there waiting to be surrounded, Pete.”

    “Thanks for that Alex, mate. You got a better suggestion?”

    Funnily enough, no.

    So Pete got up behind Cassie on Ring-a-Ding, since she was lighter than me, and off we set. Not at a gallop, no: Cassie urged me to hurry but there was no way I was up for exhausting two gallant old racers on account of bloody Anson—er, Andrews. And we returned to the house.

    Which was probably the second mistake of the day.

    By the time we’d rounded up the troops, sent Cassie and Junie down to Christina’s place with orders to stay there with the doors locked and windows closed, and got back to where Pete had spotted him, the camp was empty: his vehicle had vanished.

    Pete swore fluently.

    “Not your fault, mate,” said Perry heavily. “And short of flying, nobody could of zoomed up the back road in time to block it off—if he even went that way. Probably went cross-country for a good way, got back onto the road from God-knows-where. Well, what now? Back to the house and face the cops?”

    There seemed nothing else for it, so we did that.

    This time Wilson turned up with a contingent of constables but as there was no cover out there, as both Pete and Perry pointed out forcefully, there was no hope of their being able to lie in ambush for him successfully. If they lurked behind the rise from where Pete had spotted him and tried to attack from there, he’d see them coming down the slope towards him and have ample time to leap into his off-road vehicle and away. Firmly Wilson proposed blockading the back road. Yes, well. We exchanged glances but didn’t bother to say “been there, done that”.

    Several constables were dispatched with walkie-talkies, the blockade was duly ordered, as was one on our main road—which would nicely inconvenience any hopeful customers heading for the cellar door, just by the way—and having “bludged” lunch off us, as Perry put it sourly, the cops finally left us to it.

    “If that mob can catch a maiden aunt in her bedroom slippers with both hands tied behind her, I’m a Dutchman in his clogs!” Pete concluded bitterly if colourfully.

    Well, quite.

    The dust had more or less settled, Junie had rung from Christina’s to say she was about to pop down and collect the kids from school, and honestly, it was getting a bit much, what did I think if she went down to Adelaide after the kids had had a bit of afternoon tea and left them with Stella and Fred, and I’d agreed that that sounded like a damn good idea in the circumstances, and decided to stroll down, meet Cassie and stroll back with her.

    Which, depending on how one looked at it, was probably the third and biggest mistake of the day.

    We wandered peacefully, hand-in-hand, up the dusty drive towards the horse paddock…

    “Look!” she gasped. “Someone’s left the gate open!”

    “Damn.”

    We ran towards it.

    “Stop!” she cried, grabbing my arm. “It’s him! He’s got Postman!”

    “Hell!” Sure enough, a slim fair-haired figure in jeans and a smart lightweight anorak—paid for by whom, I couldn’t help wondering in spite of myself—was seen to be leading my dear old Postman out from behind his favourite gnarled gum tree. And nimbly mounting him.

    “HEY!” screamed Cassie. “Get off that horse!”

    He looked over his shoulder, laughed—we were now close enough to see and hear this quite clearly—clapped his heels into the horse’s flank and was off.

    “Come on!” shrieked Cassie, rushing into the paddock. “Get him!”

    “Cassie—no!”

    Too late: she’d felt in her pocket for horse nuts, and Ring-a-Ding was already eagerly approaching her.

    Oh, Hell. I had no objection to chasing after the bloody man, more especially with the piece of Jim’s property which was nestling quietly under my shirt, but I didn’t want Cassie putting herself in danger.

    Milly, always more cautious than the male side, was approaching slowly. Okay, so be it. I produced a couple of horse nuts and ran towards her. She came, thank God. I grasped the halter which our horses all now wore to make catching them easier, mounted—pity the idiots from the ABC weren’t here again, I found myself thinking sardonically, more bareback riding, they’d love it—and as Cassie and Ring-a-Ding were already dashing in Postman’s wake, pelted after them.

    Even though I was heavier than Cassie it was no contest, really. Darling Millicent Rose was still more than a match for Ring-a-Ding and always had been. We passed them only halfway to Andrews’s camp and raced on after him.

    Good old Postman was going well but he was, after all, only an eventer. And it was a glorious spring afternoon and Millicent Rose had the fresh breeze in her nostrils and the springy turf beneath her feet.

    Andrews reached his camp successfully, looked behind, swore loudly, realising that there was no way he could dismount and get into his vehicle before I’d be up with him, and turned the old jumper’s head towards the stream.

    That, I’m very, very glad to say, was the fourth mistake of that day. And a huge one. Postman would have jumped the damn thing with ease. But Anson/Andrews was carrying a stick. He always had ridden with a crop back in England—possibly he’d thought it was the gentlemanly thing to do, or possibly he simply enjoyed hitting animals. He raised it and quite unnecessarily belted the gallant old eventer with it.

    I had been warned, it might be remembered, that Postman wouldn’t take the whip. If you hit him, he’d stop dead.

    He stopped dead, and Andrews flew over his head with a shout, to land, splash! in the stream.

    Then nothing…

    I waited. The stream wasn’t deep, even though the winter rains had swelled it somewhat.

    Nothing…

    Well, two could play at that game. I just sat there, waiting.

    Cassie and Ring-a-Ding panted up to us. “What happened?” she gasped, seeing Postman standing there, riderless.

    “The bastard hit him with a damn great stick and the old boy stopped dead, just as Mark Bostwick warned me. Threw bloody Andrews into the stream.”

    “Creek,” she corrected automatically, peering. “Ooh, so he did! Good on him! –Is he dead?” she asked hopefully.

    “I doubt it. Waiting until one of us is silly enough to stroll up to him: then he’ll use that bloody knife of his.”

    She shuddered. “Ugh!”

    “Mm. Well, I’ve got my phone this time,” I said, producing it from my pocket. “Want to ring Wilson? The gizzmo’s got the number in it, if you know how to find it.”

    “I can if it’s under Wilson.”

    “Er—yes.”

    “Well it might be under Adelaide Police,” she explained logically. “Um, what do I say?”

    “Just what you saw.”

    “But I missed it!”

    I had to smile. “Mm. Well, tell him nevertheless.”

    Not asking why I couldn't ring him myself, she duly phoned. After her halting explanation her end of the conversation consisted of very little.

    “Well?”

    “He said to stay where we are, don’t go near him, and ring Pete and alert him that he’ll want him to guide his blokes over here.”

    “Uh-huh. –As a matter of fact, darling, I sort of thought they were over here anyway. Lurking.”

    “Oh, yes. –I think they must have gone the wrong way.”

    We looked at each other and suddenly burst out laughing. Down in the stream, however, the enemy didn’t stir.

    We waited…

    “I think he moved!” hissed Cassie.

    “Uh-huh. Now just keep very, very quiet, darling,” I murmured. “Stay here, and don’t get off your horse for anything until I say so, okay?”

    “Um, yes, okay.”

    With that I urged Milly gently down the slope towards the stream.

    I stopped about two lengths away. Yes, he could still throw that far, but— I drew Jim’s pistol.

    “All right Anson,” I said grimly. “You’ve got a choice. Lie there and let the cops pick you up, get up and try it on with that knife of yours, or get up with your hands up. Because I can assure you this is It: the police are on their way.”

    After a moment he said faintly: “Can’t—get up—you bastard. Broken… leg.”

    Oh, really?

    “Too bad. Get up anyway.”

    With a lot of creaking, groaning and gasping, he began shakily to haul himself up, favouring one leg. He’d almost made it when he cried: “Ow! God!”, bent down to rub the leg, and before I could blink had the knife in his hand, raised to throw—

    That was when I shot him dead. Right between the eyes.

    Well, as my darling Cassie had once said, the only good snake was a dead snake, wasn’t it?

Next chapter:

https://deadringers-trethewin.blogspot.com/2025/06/postscript-from-trethewin.html