Heart of the Outback (19 page)

“Not that I’m aware of. Richard had a few flings — there was nothing wrong with him in that department. But nothing serious, I’m sure of it.” Then he thought for a moment, “Still, it might be
worthwhile checking into. A son doesn’t tell his father everything. I know I didn’t tell mine all the things I got up to.”

“Yes, well, it’s a line of enquiry I’ll follow up too.”

“So, where do you go from here?”

“I’ll ask around, discreetly. I’m not expecting to find any dramatic leads. It could take months to get a clear picture but,” he beamed at CJ, “I’m a patient man.”

“Good.” CJ nodded his head approvingly. Suddenly his earlier opinion of Sergeant Steve Parrish rose a couple of notches. He’d been impressive, this last half-hour. The man appeared to know his stuff. Maybe, just maybe, his original opinion of him had been hastily drawn.

Steve rose from the armchair and moved towards the door. “I’ll see myself out. And remember, sir, keep this under wraps, at least until I get more to go on.”

“All right.” CJ stared thoughtfully at the closing door, his fingers drumming on the desk top. Hell, it wasn’t going to be easy to keep this information to himself. And he had trouble coming to terms with the idea that Richard may have been murdered. Such a possibility hadn’t occurred to him. So, when Steve found out who did it — and strangely he had faith in the policeman’s ability to uncover the mystery — all he wanted was five minutes with the bastard.

Francey dialled the ten digit number and waited. She had just had a wonderful half hour conversation with her mother. Francey knew from her mother’s anxious questions that she missed her only child dearly and wanted to know when she was coming back to
Sydney. The days were flying by, she realised. She had been away from her Potts Point apartment for almost ten days and so far, she admitted to herself with some surprise, she had been neither homesick nor bored. Although, if she was to be scrupulously honest with herself, she did miss her mother’s cooking and even her father’s nagging.

“Aden Nicholson.”

Francey smiled at the sound of his smooth, cultured tone. “Francey here.”

“Aahh, the travelling architect. It’s good to hear your voice.” Then he added in a huskier tone, “I’ve missed you. How are things going up there?”

“Everything’s fine. The design is coming along, it’s almost finished in fact.”

“What’s it like, rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous? Or should I say in CJ’s case, infamous?”

“Interesting.” She thought she detected an undertone of envy or impatience, or was she, sensitive creature that she was, just imagining it? “Actually, he’s been very nice to me. Everyone has. I’ve even done a little riding, though …” she gave a low chuckle at the memory. “I had to sit on a cushion for a day or two till my muscles forgave me.”

“So,” his tone deepened. “It hasn’t quite been all work and no play?”

Again … what was it? Annoyance? Displeasure? Well, let’s get it out in the open. If he had a gripe she might as well hear it. “What’s wrong, Aden? You don’t sound yourself.”

“Don’t I?” There was a short pause. “Guess I’m missing my favourite girl. Life’s pretty dull around here without a certain sassy-mouthed architect.”

Her sigh was audible. “Me too. I’ll be home soon.”

“Yes, well…” he said slowly. “You mightn’t be home as early as expected, Francey. I’ve been talking to CJ on the phone, this morning in fact. He has a … a development he wants you to look at, providing he’s pleased with what you draw up for the mini conference centre.”

“He hasn’t said a word to me.”

“He wanted to wait until you’d finished the current project before broaching the matter.” Another pause. “It sounds exciting … and big. He’s been negotiating the concept for a resort and golf course development at Cooktown. He’s got a fifty-one per cent interest so he has control, and a Japanese consortium has the rest. The resort’s intended mainly for well-heeled Japanese who love to play golf. There’ll be condominiums for sale or to rent and two eighteen hole golf courses. Evidently he bought the land ten years ago, for peanuts. It’s on the outskirts of town. He reckons the timing’s right to develop it.”

As Aden spoke something clicked in Francey’s head. The conversation CJ had had with a man called Fielding the day she’d arrived. And later she had seen a television news report on a near riot at Cooktown after which three greenies had been hospitalised. That had to be it!

“What about the work piling up in the office? If I stay on I’ll be snowed under so deep I’ll never get on top of it.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve taken some on and have farmed the rest out to Tony. Look, Francey, as I said
before you left, CJ may be able to put a lot of work our way. I want you to cultivate this opportunity for all it’s worth.”

“Even though it means it could be a month, maybe longer before I return?”

She heard his regretful groan through the receiver, but suddenly thought to herself, was it genuine? Disappointment engulfed her like an oncoming tide as she began to sense that as much as she liked Aden Nicholson he was first and foremost a businessman and their personal relationship was secondary to making money. Her mouth twisted in a grimace of a smile as she realised that in some ways Aden and CJ were alike, the probable difference being the degree of ruthlessness each might be capable of.

“I know. I’m not happy about it and I hope you’re not happy either but I’m sure you’ll agree it’s an opportunity we, the firm, shouldn’t pass up.”

It was her turn to sigh and she did. “I guess.” She tried to muster some enthusiasm for the soon to be mentioned project, but couldn’t. Deep down a feeling was taking form and growing inside her that she was being manipulated by Aden
and
CJ. She didn’t like it, at all!

“Francey, don’t mention anything to CJ about the Cooktown thing. Let him bring it up. Okay?”

“Okay.” She looked at the half finished left side elevation of the conference centre and said, “Work calls, I’ve got to go.”

“All right. We’ll talk again at the end of the week. Bye.”

Once she’d replaced the receiver Francey tried to concentrate on the job at hand. Normally she could do
site elevations in her sleep, but not at the moment. Something in Aden’s manner! She couldn’t quite put her finger on it though and then she worried that maybe, with her fertile imagination, she was imagining layers that simply didn’t exist.

The lines of the drawing blurred then cleared. Her pencil ran along the ruler automatically, detailing the building line, but her mind was elsewhere. She’d thought, heard, that distance was supposed to make the heart grow fonder, but did it?

Still, she hadn’t exactly been pining away for Mr Aden Nicholson. She missed him, missed his pleasant company and his ability to make her laugh, but it wasn’t as if she couldn’t function without him. She remembered the time Meredith and Brett had been separated for a week. Meredith had been beside herself with loneliness and had driven her crazy with half-a-dozen phone calls every day.

She put too much pressure on the pencil and the point broke. Damn. Deciding on a break she left the cubbyhole office and strolled out onto the screened-in verandah. Silence, punctuated occasionally by the lowing of a steer, greeted her as she stood at the railing looking down at the pool. So peaceful. She would have appreciated the scene more had her own thoughts been serene. Since her arrival at Murrundi she had made it a habit to walk around the homestead and its environs, not just for exercise but because it helped her get the feel of the place and to visualise better the project on which she was working. Not just the concept of the conference centre but how she could make the building blend with the surroundings rather than stick out unattractively and jar with everything else.

Sometimes she took her camera with her. There were always interesting subjects to photograph, unusual angles, shades of black, white and grey. A couple of stockmen had been shy about having their photo taken and she hadn’t pressed them, instead she had photographed other subjects. The disused water tower and the bore water outlet with its trough and half-a-dozen steers drinking from it. The scarecrow in Alison Wontow’s vegetable garden against a background of cumulus clouds and, occasionally, she’d catch a stockman on his horse — always a good subject — providing her film was fast enough to catch him in action.

Had she thought to analyse the fact, it would have surprised her how easily she was fitting into life on a cattle station. A natural curiosity made her interested in almost everything that happened. She wanted to know the function of all the pieces of the farm machinery, and what the stockmen did for relaxation. It seemed a lonely life for them but Mike Hunter, the foreman, told her the men were used to it. They made their own amusements. Cards, television, and CJ had a huge library of videos they could borrow. One man was even doing a degree in animal husbandry by correspondence.

“A penny for them?” A voice said from behind.

Francey half turned to see Natalie standing slightly to her left. “Pardon?”

“A penny for your thoughts, as the saying goes. You seemed quite engrossed.” Her grey eyes studied the same view. “It’s a bit cool for a swim but we could have a game of tennis if you’re interested.”

Francey smiled. “Thanks, I can’t. I was just taking a five minute break from work. Maybe later on, though I warn you I’m not much of a player.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll just have a bit of fun.”

“I was thinking how fortunate you and Richard were to have grown up with all this,” she waved her hand about expansively, “for your backyard.”

The comparison made her think of her own childhood playground. A narrow backyard with a tin fence too high for her to peek over into the neighbours backyards. And stacks of fruit boxes from the shop. She remembered that she and Meredith used to make cubbyhouses and play all sorts of games, until her father got cross about it. With passing traffic so heavy the front street was too dangerous to play in, but the back lane, when the weather was right, was perfect for a game of cricket or football with the other kids in the neighbourhood. As she and her friend had grown they had explored to the water’s edge of Glebe Point and around Blackwattle Bay watching the rowers from the Glebe Rowing Club practice on the water. Without a doubt she was sure that hers had been a far different childhood to Natalie’s privileged one.

“It wasn’t always like this,” Natalie admitted, her gaze roaming around the cultivated gardens and the blue waters of the pool. “Wait here a minute, I’ll get one of the photo albums and show you.” Two minutes later she returned with two large albums.

Both women sat on the cane lounge and Natalie opened the first book.

“CJ married Mum in 1971. He’d made a killing on an opal field in South Australia so he paid cash for
Murrundi which, at the time, was badly run-down. See,” she pointed to a photo of a less than salubrious weatherboard house on brick stilts, the verandah dipping down at a ramshackle angle. “This is where we first lived. Richard was only a baby and back then our backyard was bare earth. No grass or shady trees, no flowers. The first few years money was tight what with CJ trying to build up the herds and purchasing solid breeding stock. It wasn’t until Grandfather deWitt died, leaving Mum everything, that things changed for the better.

“Mum believed in CJ’s business acumen so she let him handle her estate. All she asked was that he give her enough money to build a decent house.” She tapped the wall behind her. “This one. The original homestead was moved and it’s now the foreman’s cottage. Over a six month period CJ liquidated all her assets and that’s what gave him the capital for his initial investments.”

“Well, judging from what I’ve read, CJ’s expanded that inheritance quite nicely.” More than nicely, Francey thought. CJ’s wealth was
conservatively
estimated at over thirty-five million, all of which would be Natalie’s one day.

“Right. That’s how most people would see it.” However, Natalie didn’t. As she’d grown up it had rankled that her mother had handed over her entire estate to CJ Ambrose. What if CJ hadn’t been successful? He could have lost everything. That he hadn’t mollified her somewhat but she remained cross at Mumsie for in her will there had been virtually nothing left to her other than personal jewellery and several of the paintings — which now at least hung in
her penthouse apartment in Brisbane. It wasn’t fair. In her opinion, by hereditary rights, a third of what CJ had accumulated should be hers now but wouldn’t be until he died because of Mumsie. That’s why she’d had to go cap in hand to CJ for a loan to start her art gallery business.

Francey turned a couple of pages of the album and saw a young girl with fair plaits dressed in a tennis outfit. “Is that you?”

Natalie laughed. “Yes. Awful, isn’t it. I was such a skinny kid. I could play tennis though,” she said matter-of-factly and turned a couple more pages. “That was taken after I’d won the under-sixteens’ state title.”

“Then I’m glad we didn’t play tennis. You’d wipe the court with me. My tennis game is of the ping-pong variety.”

“I rarely play these days,” Natalie said with a nonchalant shrug, “it wouldn’t be such an uneven match.” Her mother used to love to watch her play tennis. She had rarely missed a match when she’d been young. Brenda had wanted her to try for the professional ranks but she had known she didn’t have the determination or the dedication needed to make it at that level. Dear Mumsie. Natalie gazed thoughtfully at a photograph of an impeccably groomed woman with perfectly coiffed auburn hair. Smiling. Mumsie had been her one true confidante. She could and had told her mother everything, sometimes shocking her in the process. Trish had taken over much of that role but she still missed her mother dreadfully.

Francey sighed. “I should get back to work.”

“Yes. Can’t have CJ saying you’re malingering, can we?” Suddenly there was an edge to Natalie’s voice. Was the young architect trying to fob her off when she was going out of her way to be friendly? She was very good at sensing such behaviour in people. Too often she’d been hurt when she’d been younger until she’d built a protective wall around her emotions. But she wasn’t sure that Francey was being deliberately stand-offish. She’d see … “There’s a new band playing tonight at the Verona Hotel in the Isa. Would you like to come and check out the local talent?”