‘That sounds great.’
Sheridan felt lifted in her company, and her first impressions of the hairdresser didn’t accord with what Cole had told her.
‘Where are you living?’ the hairdresser asked as she began her work.
‘Oh, I’m just staying at the pub for the time being, until I find a place of my own. I’m going to look at something this afternoon.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘About five miles out of town. There’s a small farmhouse that’s been vacant for a while, but only just come on the market.’
‘I like how you say miles. I don’t like kilometres, either. It doesn’t sound right, does it?’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
‘But the farmhouse sounds wonderful if it’s in good condition. I heard you were from the city so you’ll appreciate your privacy, and in your job you probably don’t want people too close to you anyway. We’ll just take off about two inches, okay?’
Sheridan nodded. ‘I’ve never had a place of my own,’ she volunteered.
‘What, never? Then you’ll appreciate that, too.’ Fantasio kept close as she used scissors and comb. Sheridan sometimes felt the brush of her arm, more often her hands patting, shaping, drawing out her hair in assessment of it. ‘And how are you settling in at the station?’
Sheridan raised her shoulders beneath the smock.
‘It seems alright. The secretary, Janice, is helping me fit in.’
‘Janice Fullbright is a lovely woman.’ Sheridan listened to the scissors click as Fantasio asked, ‘Who’s in charge of the station these days?’
‘Senior Sergeant Cole.’
‘What’s he like?’
Sheridan shrugged again.
‘He’s very busy. I don’t know much about him, to be honest.’
‘Well, you haven’t been here very long. I’m not really a person for giving advice, but if I was to say something, it would be this. People in the country like to stick together, and sometimes it’s hard for new people to get a look in, if you know what I mean. But wander in here any time you want to talk. The other two girls are very friendly, too. Everyone will get used to you soon enough.’
‘Thanks, I will drop by. I met your two ladies the other day when I came in to have a look. They seem nice.’
‘You won’t find many good hairdressers in the country. They take the job for granted.’ She pulled a long comb through Sheridan’s hair. ‘I might sound like I’m blowing my own trumpet, but this salon has more customers in town than all the other hairdressers – men’s and women’s – combined, and that includes the cheapies who work from home. And all those women come to me for a reason.’
‘I bet. You’ve got lovely hair, yourself.’
‘Having attractive and healthy hair is about knowing how much you can do with it, as much as what you do to it. Long hair suits me, so I don’t fiddle with what I know works.’ Fantasio smiled. ‘I’m a walking advertisement for my business. If the woman who cuts your hair can’t look smart, then what does that say about what she can do for her customers? For the same reason I have to dress well, too.’
‘Agreed. It looks like you’ve got a good business.’
‘I’ve been a hairdresser all my life, since I was fifteen. There were other things I could’ve done, but my father would have none of me staying at school.’
Sheridan had been wondering how long it might take her to get to the subject of her family, and more particularly the subject of her brother.
She said, ‘My parents were the same. I had three brothers who all went to university. At sixteen I had to leave and get a job. My father enrolled me in a nursing course and I went along with it for a year. Then I quit and worked for a greengrocer for a while. A woman came into the shop one day and started talking about her daughter who had joined the police force. And that was how I got the idea, just through a chance meeting. I hadn’t thought about it once before then.’
‘Were your parents pleased about that?’
‘No,’ Sheridan replied and they both laughed.
‘Then good luck to you,’ Fantasio said. ‘Sometimes you just have to take a big leap, because you never know what’s around the corner. You might have heard. My brother and his wife were killed in a road accident last week. Tragic.’
‘I heard there was an accident.’
‘It was my brother, Harry,’ she said. ‘Some people might think I’m heartless or strange working the day after his funeral, but we all cope with it in different ways, don’t we? Me, I like to keep busy. I’m not a person who likes to dwell on things. There’s only one way to manage as far as I’m concerned, and that’s through action. Keep busy. Do things. Don’t you agree?’
‘I do.’
‘Keep your mind off things. That’s the secret. Always look ahead, as difficult as things can be. Now, let’s put a few curls through your hair.’
The hairdresser helped her out of the chair and into another behind the curtain at the back of the shop. There Sheridan lay her head back thinking, luxuriating in the sensation of soft hands through her hair as the hairdresser washed it and set rollers.
It was almost with a feeling of regret, or disappointment to her, when Fantasio asked her to move under the hair dryer.
‘You should only need twenty minutes or so,’ the hairdresser said as she switched the machine on.
And while she was sitting under the dryer, flicking through a women’s magazine, Sheridan watched the hairdresser sweep around the chairs, tidy up the pile of magazines, fold neck cloths, Linda Fantasio glancing up now and then and meeting her eyes almost every time, so Sheridan grew embarrassed under the noise and heat of the hair dryer, while still wanting to dart another glance across the salon.
‘Don’t worry. You’re going to look fabulous!’ Fantasio called out over the noise of the dryer.
‘I’m not worried!’ she called back, grinning.
Once her hair had dried with the curlers set, the hairdresser began removing the rollers.
‘You’re going to be the belle of the ball, or whatever the equivalent is at the police station,’ Fantasio said. ‘I’d say this has worked to perfection. Your Senior Sergeant Cole, I wonder what he’ll say about it.’
‘He probably wouldn’t even notice.’
‘Christine, it’s the ones who pretend not to notice, who see the most.’ She laughed. ‘But men who do notice are also as rare as hen’s teeth. And my husband is living proof of that.’ She fiddled the rollers out and took tresses of hair between her fingers before teasing and bossing them into final shape. ‘How’s it looking?’
‘Really great.’
When Fantasio began speaking again, Sheridan felt the hairdresser’s fingers lightly touching the back of her neck, the faintest of stroking as she said, ‘Men need to pay much more attention to women, because it’s the women who get things done in this world. If you ever want something to happen quickly and properly, ask a woman to do it, not a man.’
Sheridan had to concentrate hard not to give in to the dreamy state that was the hairdresser’s touch.
‘What will happen to your brother’s farm now?’ she asked.
‘The family’s farm, Hilltop,’ Fantasio corrected her. ‘My brother was working it, if working is the word you’d use, which out of accuracy I wouldn’t, but my other two brothers and myself are supposed to own a share of it. We’ll have to meet with the solicitor’s and see the will to work out what’s going to happen.’
‘What would you like to do?’
‘Me? Dad’s not around to see it any more, so maybe we should just get rid of the place. The cattle would bring a good price, the supposed racehorses less so. Maybe there are kids around who’d like a pony to ride around on. Heaven knows there wouldn’t be much risk of those horses getting up a pace.’
‘They say it costs a lot of money to race horses.
’
‘You bet it does. Stock feed, vet’s bills, special supplements, horse floats, race entry fees, special stalls. Everything has to be special. And by special I mean expensive. And it’s all the time involved, too, in driving them around from one racetrack to the next, when all Harry was doing was taking those horses on a sightseeing tour of Victoria. He might have won one race in all that time, at Tatura. Tatura!’
Sheridan couldn’t help but laugh along, even though she had never heard of Tatura.
‘I’m not kidding,’ Fantasio repeated. ‘Tatura!’ and they kept laughing.
Sheridan said, ‘They had a boy too, didn’t they? How sad for him, having to grow up without his parents.’
‘He’s with me now.’
‘With you? For a little while, or …’
‘We’ll see. But he’s known me since he was born and I’m his closest living relative, if you don’t count Dianne’s side of the family, which I don’t.’
‘What’s wrong with them?’
‘If you stay in this town long enough you’ll find out, but I’ll say just this. Every last one of the Bramleys is a lazy, good for nothing sponger. They’re the last people you’d trust with a little boy, to be honest. He’s much better off with me.’
‘You’ll have a happy home for him, too, I’m sure. Kids need that.’
‘They do. Are you pleased with what we’ve done here?’
‘Very.’
‘That’s good news for both of us then,’ Fantasio said. She brushed Sheridan down for any fallen hair before whipping off her smock. ‘Just stop a minute.’ There was a stray hair just beneath Sheridan’s eye and Fantasio delicately brushed it away with a finger tip. For Sheridan she might have delivered a shock of electricity. ‘There. You’re all done now.’
The policewoman felt like she was stumbling to the counter to pay. She realised she had left her hat by the hairdresser’s chair and clumsily retrieved it.
Fantasio said, ‘Now don’t forget, Christine. Come here any time you’d like. I’d love to see you again, so you have to come back. Promise?’
‘I promise.’
As she floated out of the salon, pleased as punch with her new haircut and ready to show it off, Chris Sheridan almost forgot what it was she was supposed to have gone to Linda Fantasio’s salon for.
Chapter 11
‘Well well well, look who’s gracing us with her presence today? I do declare it’s our fair lady, Audrey Hepburn, herself,’ Janice announced the moment Sheridan stepped back into the station.
‘What do you think?’ Sheridan asked, removing her hat and twirling about for everyone’s amusement.
Whittaker stood at his desk grinning.
He said, ‘Senior constable, you look a hundred quid.’
‘It’s been dollars and cents the last year now, Ben,’ she reminded him. ‘You have to get with the times.’
‘Fat chance of that happening around here,’ Janice said. ‘But Lloyd asked to see you as soon as you came in. He’s in his office. Ben, you too.’
Cole looked her up and down as she took a seat alongside Whittaker. She saw he noticed but refrained from commenting on her hair, instead asking, ‘How did you get on with Mrs Fantasio?’
‘Well, I think,’ Sheridan replied.
‘Okay then, fire away,’ Cole said. ‘What about her family?’
‘It was as you said,’ Sheridan began, a bit put out by his slightly abrupt tone. ‘She didn’t have a high opinion of her brother, though I didn’t get the feeling there was enough antagonism that she might have wanted to harm him. She did say how much her brother’s horses were costing them and obviously it was a fair bit, but she was harder on her brother’s wife. She said the Bramley’s were all spongers, so she clearly had no time for them. But she didn’t strike me as being the murderous type.’
‘What type did she strike you as being, then?’
‘She was friendly. She talked about what was going to happen to Hilltop, that it would have to be put into a solicitor’s hands, but she didn’t have any strong views about what might happen, as far as I could tell. She doesn’t seem greedy. She said she was taking care of the little boy because she feels he’d get the best care with her. Again, she seemed to have the child’s interests at heart, not her own.’
‘Did she mention anything else about family troubles? Legal problems or the like?’
‘Only the money her brother seemed to be spending.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Not really.’
‘What about the tyre marks we found at the railway line, then. Have you found those wheels?’
Sheridan felt herself sink. ‘No, not yet,’ she admitted.
‘Was there anything else about Fantasio?’ Cole asked, his tone suggesting that what she had provided so far hadn’t amounted to much.
‘No …’ she faltered, trying to think of something.
‘Ben, what about you?’
Whittaker sat up straighter, as though a teacher had caught him on the hop with an unexpected question in class. But he recovered himself quickly.
‘John Colston died last year, on the 24th of January 1966. He’d been sick in the months before his death, cancer they reckoned. But I spoke with a bloke from the bowls club and he said Mr Colston had always been as fit as a Mallee bull – that was his words – and Mr Colston complained to him that he shouldn’t be sick when he hadn’t been all his life, and he wondered if something funny was going on.’
‘Who wondered that, John or his friend?’
‘I got the idea that it was Mr Colston, that he thought maybe a person or persons unknown had been interfering with his health.’
‘The three of them had been living together hadn’t they, Harry, Harry’s father and Dianne Colston?’
‘In the family home, Hilltop.’
‘And Harry’s mother had died some years earlier, too, hadn’t she? Suddenly? She was fairly young. I remember the funeral myself.’
Sheridan ventured, ‘Maybe that was the family disaster Linda Fantasio was referring to?’
‘It could have been,’ Cole granted. ‘I don’t suppose there was an autopsy for either of the Colston parents?’
‘No,’ Whittaker said.
‘And why would there be?’ Cole said, almost to himself. ‘Do we have anything on any of the Colstons in our records?’
‘Nothing, senior sergeant. But there is about the Bramleys.’
‘Tell me.’
‘On 17 October 1961 there was trouble at the Bramley house. They hadn’t been paying their rent and the owner Lewis Jensen tried to get them out.’ Whittaker looked down at his notes, puzzled. ‘It says here there was a fracas, senior sergeant …’
‘A fight.’
‘Anyway, after it Ken Bramley was charged with disturbing the peace and causing a nuisance, but I couldn’t find anything else after that.’
‘I don’t remember any of it. And I don’t remember a Lewis Jensen,’ Cole said. ‘But the Bramleys have been living in that house for as long as I can remember, so they mustn’t have been evicted.’
‘It must have blown over,’ Whittaker tentatively suggested. ‘because of the fracas?’
‘What else?’
‘Harvey Bramley, a son of Mr Bramley, has also been charged twice with stealing from the hardware shop and he was put on a good behaviour bond both times, in 1964 and 1965.’
‘How would you describe the Bramley family generally, Ben? What they’re like.’
‘They’re poor. They don’t work.’ Whittaker shifted apologetically on his seat. ‘Other than that, I don’t know.’
‘Alright. Let’s get back to the Colstons. What can either of you tell me about their financial state when they died?’
‘We can help with that,’ Sheridan was relieved to say. ‘They banked with the State Bank
and the manager there, Mr Rowlands, admitted he was concerned about the way their finances were going. The manager had known John Colston well, he said, and he was surprised at how quickly he had gone downhill with his illness. At the same time, he couldn’t help but notice how the farm’s milkers were being sold off and with it the farm’s income, the cows being replaced with beef cattle, which he thought there was some argument for, and with horses, for which he doubted there was. The mortgage on Hilltop had been increased. The long and the short of it was that the Colstons were going backwards at an alarming rate and Harry Colston didn’t seem to want to listen to reason or do anything about it.’
‘Hang on, why would they have a mortgage on the place? They’ve owned it since the year dot. Was it against the new house?’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘Did Rowlands say anything about Dianne Colston’s part in this?’
‘He was very diplomatic about her. She probably banked with him, too. But reading between the lines …’
‘He wouldn’t have been happy about it. So we know their finances weren’t in a tip-top state. The question now is, who is going to benefit from the Colstons’ deaths? Do we know if there’s a will?’
Sheridan interjected, ‘Are we even allowed to look at it if there is one?’
‘If we think someone’s been murdered, we are. The will then becomes the motive, doesn’t it? Did either of you speak with the solicitor?’
‘I’ll do it today if you like,’ Whittaker volunteered.
‘That’d be good, Ben. Okay. Fine work with the bank manager, and talk with Lawrence Heywood the accountant, too. I know he has horses and he might have something to contribute to the story, as well. And we still need to find those wheels,’ Cole said pointedly to Sheridan. ‘Ask again at Brown’s and push the fire brigade. They can’t have just disappeared.’
Sheridan and Whittaker exchanged a glance as they left Cole’s office.
‘The honeymoon is over. If there ever was one,’ she said.
‘Don’t worry about the chief,’ Whittaker said. ‘He’s tough when he wants something done, and soft if you’re in trouble. When you hear what happens in other stations, we’re lucky here. But when the senior sergeant has something on his mind, he doesn’t let go of it easy, so don’t think he’s having a crack at you.’
Whistle Down The Wire Page 7
