The Road Home by Margaret Way (7)

Chapter Six

It might look desperately uncomfortable, but Isabelle found as she bounced up and down in her white cotton and lace nightie, the Chinese bed was well upholstered with an excellent mattress. Thank God for that!

She knew wall sconces along the high-ceilinged corridor were burning, but no light reached under the heavy mahogany door. She looked around the large room for ghosts. There were none. Bruno was right across the corridor, yet she wanted him to be closer. She would have no hesitation banging on his door should some creaks in the night frighten her. Though all old houses creaked, didn’t they? Bruno’s rock-solid presence made her feel safe. Yet she was reluctant to close her eyes, much less fall asleep.

Again and again, old memories of her childhood threatened to overcome her. Norville believed Hilary to be her mother. She now didn’t. But what did Norville actually know? Hilary led him around by the nose. Had Hilary lost her child and somehow persuaded Helena to hand her baby over? Her heart ached for all the young women who had been forced to do so all down the centuries. Nothing much seemed to change.

“Oh God!” she muttered, winding her arms around herself. “Don’t worry about things you can’t alter. Go to sleep. Go to sleep.” It had been a very long, upsetting day, with the promise of a worse one on the morrow.

She had pulled back the floor-length silk curtains, letting the bright moonlight and the night-sky stars shine in. She hadn’t felt brave enough to open up the French doors. The wind was tapping at the panes of glass and creeping under the gaps between doors and floor. A lovely, subtle fragrance rose from the freshly laundered sheets and pillow slips. She could identify the fragrance. Boronia. By the light of the moon, she could see the elaborately carved white marble fireplace with a luxuriant green fern filling the interior space. She knew the high temperatures of the day could drop dramatically at night as the desert sands gave up their heat.

She closed her eyes, clutching the top sheet tight. She wasn’t afraid of the dark. Well, not until now anyway.

* * *

She couldn’t open her eyes or find her breath. Where was she? She threw out an arm and hit hard, glossy timber. “Damn!” Her fingers were poking through holes. Of course: the fretwork on the Chinese bed.

She opened her eyes as memory flooded back. The white moonlight that had rayed across the room before she had fallen into an uneasy sleep had dimmed. She had been dreaming. Hilary and Helena were in her dream. Both of them sunk in sadness. Mother and daughter. She wanted to get out of that dream. It was too distressing.

Fully awake, she became aware of a sound. Surely that sound had been in her dream? It was a soft moaning, extremely unsettling. She sat up in the Chinese bed, struggling to get her bearings. Surely the previous owner of this room could mean her no harm? Her plait had come loose. Her hair was spilling all over the place. The moaning continued apace. It was like a grieving in the partially relieved blackness.

She kicked off the covers, thrashing her long legs. She needed to find her feet as quickly as she could. She was shivering, feeling a little faint.

Why the hell didn’t she have her flashlight? She had brought one with her. Reaching for her white robe, thankful it glimmered in the semidark, she shouldered into it. The moaning held a faint vibrato. It continued, shifting pitch. Close to a demisemi tone. She knew the sound of the wind. The wind had dropped.

She made a rush for the door, not stopping to turn on the lights, throwing the door open, before running on bare feet across to the Turkish Room, where no doubt Bruno had fallen fast asleep the minute his head hit one of those cushions. She had to wake him; it couldn’t be helped. She wanted Bruno as witness to the moaning sound. She hadn’t conjured it up. The sound had played around the room, joltingly ghostly. Was it such a terrible thing to feel frightened in a vast, strange house full of strange people? Even Hilary might have a fit of nerves.

Bruno’s door was open, which made it easy for her to run inside. She was feeling her way, yet something touched her cheek. She nearly screeched aloud in panic.

Damn, it was only a wall hanging. The bloody things were everywhere.

She could see Bruno’s lean body at rest. Here she was with goose bumps breaking out on her arms and he was fast asleep. Thank God he didn’t snore. She ran at him as if he were the only person in the world capable of saving her from falling off it.

He was lying with his bare back to her, his skin so smooth and golden. She wanted to jump in beside him. Instead, she grabbed at his shoulder with cold fingers, intending to shake him and tell him to wake up, when she was suddenly seized by strong arms, thrown over the top of him, bent back against the bed, all squished up against his side. For a second it was so wildly exciting she didn’t want to move. From cold she went to hot and dreamy in an instant. She wanted Bruno’s weight, the wonderful muscular density pressing down on her. She wanted to do what she had never done before. Raise her legs, lock them around him. Raise her hips. She had to face it. She wanted Bruno to make love to her.

Bruno, however, had other ideas. He shot up, leaning over her, poised on one elbow. “God Almighty, Bella, what are you doing here?” For a moment, he didn’t know if she was real or a figment of his imagination. Only he had clamped her willowy body with his hands. His fingertips had brushed her white breasts, grazed the flowering coral-pink buds of her nipples.

“What am I doing?” she cried, spitting like a kitten. “I don’t believe this. What are you doing? I was only trying to wake you. It was you who hauled me into the bed.” She tried to sit up. He lifted her in an iron grip.

“Bella, my bed is private,” he said.

“You’re not making a joke of this surely?” She knew she sounded overexcited.

He took a very deep breath. “Of course I’m not.” In the semidarkness, he stood up and moved away from the bed. He couldn’t stay a second more beside her. The obvious was obvious. Just holding her, he was fully aroused. He reached for his robe, thankful he had pulled it out of his suitcase.

Isabelle began to inch across the uncomfortable bed. “All right, you’re so tough. Let’s put it to the test. There’s a weird sound sailing around my room. It sounds like a grief-stricken moan.”

“Bella!”

“Don’t Bella me.” She pressed her two hands over her heart as though holding it in. “Come and have a listen.”

“I hope you’re not trying to seduce me?” He half-laughed, only it wasn’t a laugh at all.

She picked up a heavy cushion and threw it at him, which of course he fielded. Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere she wanted to cry. Longings and desires. She had them. Why else would she want to cry? Only what possible good could come of that?

“You’re not crying, are you, Bella?” Control was slipping out of his fingers. He knew there would be danger in comforting her.

“Are you going crazy? Of course I’m not crying.” She denied the charge, astonished that she was. Tears were trickling down her cheeks.

“Damn it, you are. Don’t cry, Bella. Please, please don’t cry.”

The anguish in his voice made her heart leap right into her throat. He actually sounded as if she was breaking his heart. She touched a forefinger to one cheek, then the other, flicking away the beads. “You really should come and listen to this,” she said huskily. “It’s not night terrors, I swear.” She went to move past him but accidentally stumbled over one of the many objects lying on the rug.

To prevent her falling, Bruno had to make a grab for her. There was nothing else he could do.

It was ecstasy.

Agony too. He was nearly breaking up. He knew if he started kissing her, which he desperately wanted to do, he would be very harshly judged. By himself and whoever was up there. That was his religious upbringing, started by his mother, who had conveniently left her religious scruples behind. Isabelle was in his care and protection. He was determined to be the good guy to the end. All this wasn’t helping one little bit. Especially in the adrenaline rush of the dark. Temptation that had been there right from that very first night but kept seriously in check was getting stronger with every passing hour. When had he ever wanted to kiss a woman and hadn’t? This was a first. Bella was a first. He was treating her like a princess.

Her glorious hair was falling all around her face and down her back. Her body come warmly against him seemed barely covered when she was wearing a long white nightdress and a robe, half-slipping off her shoulders. It would be so easy to slide it the rest of the way. She had a natural, very special scent. That scent was on him. The scent was everywhere, like a powerful aphrodisiac. All he had to do was pull her in by her supple waist. Let what was going to happen, happen. He had to remind himself a beautiful woman could break a man into a million little pieces.

“Bruno,” Isabelle whispered. “Are you going to let me go?” It was the last thing she wanted, but she had to gather all her strength. How strange yet how familiar they were to each other, she thought. This wasn’t any casual fling. What was it? They were actually treating one another with kid gloves. Bruno, without knowing it, had become her centre. It was a secret she couldn’t confide. Marta Lubrinski might shoot her.

Bruno’s heart was tolling heavy beats. He could feel the heaviness in his groin. “You should have put on a light,” he said, deciding the best course was to admonish her. It was safer.

“If I could find one. Gosh, there are a lot of things in here.” She clasped his hand, urging him to follow her. “Come and listen.”

“I’m coming.” He had noted the time: 3 a.m. The witching hour, deep in the night. An hour for lovemaking with all the senses raging. God knows he was in the mood, but he didn’t fancy being sent straight to hell. He just had to put up with the ache in his heart, in his head, in his groin.

“Don’t turn on the light,” she warned as he put out a hand. “Come right in. Keep quiet.”

“Bella, I’m getting a little too old for this,” he protested.

“I said keep quiet.”

The bright moonlight had dimmed, but he could see all the fine details of this extraordinary and undeniably spooky room. It was difficult to pay attention to anything but Isabella. He thought he might even be deaf to the most beautiful music or it would surge through his whole being, washing away all his good intentions. As it was, he could hear nothing but the hammering of his heart. Anyone would be susceptible to the atmosphere in this house. He was himself. Isabella, with her exquisite sensibilities, even more so.

Nothing. His teeth were actually locked together in concentration. He couldn’t hear a peep, let alone a moan. “I think our ghost has cleared out,” he joked. He wanted to reach for her. Say it was only the sound of the wind whistling around the huge house. He wanted to offer comfort. He could love Bella, his heart told him. It was a very worrying thought.

“Wait.”

It was clearly an order. Her short fingernails bit into his skin. “Tomorrow is a working day, Bella. For both of us,” he reminded her.

“Hush!”

“Most ghosts are invisible, aren’t they? Or spotted maybe once or twice?”

He had hardly finished his little taunt when, as if whooshed out of a tunnel, a soft, poignant moaning that even Bruno found disturbing issued from within the fireplace and floated into the bedroom.

“What did I tell you?” Isabelle hissed between her teeth. “It sounds utterly desperate.”

Bruno hadn’t reached that conclusion. He moved nearer the fireplace. “Precisely!” He gave a brief laugh. “It’s doing what it’s supposed to do, frighten you.” He uttered a mild curse beneath his breath. “It’s a trick, Bella. A ploy. The bloody nerve!”

He was giving the strong impression of a man who might very well raise the household at 3 a.m. demanding answers. That alone cleared Isabelle’s head. She rushed to switch on the lights. Why hadn’t she thought of that? A trick! She hated the fact Bruno had. Hated anyone who would play such a callous prank on her. The sound had sounded so perfectly authentic.

Immediately, the large room was flooded in a golden glow. She bit her inner lip, waiting for Bruno to come up with something resembling a plausible answer. She watched him move to the marble fireplace with those winged women, get a hand on the luxuriant fern, jerking it out roughly. In the process, the plant hit one of the gilt-metal andirons. It fell over, clattering loudly in the silence. Bruno then stuck his head under the chimney breast. Stared all around him.

“What are you looking for?” Isabelle went to him, tapping him on the shoulder.

“Have you noticed the moaning has stopped?” He swung his head to look down at her. How much smaller she seemed without heels.

“All right. Don’t get angry.”

“I’m somewhat off angry. I’m furious. This room they put you in? It was all planned. It might be an Oriental extravaganza, but it’s no place to sleep.”

“Agreed, but it was Helena’s room. I’m sure of that.”

“And I’m sure someone was trying to drive Helena mad. She was a sitting duck.”

“Sleeping duck, don’t you mean?”

“She’d have been lucky if she got much sleep. The sound was coming from the fireplace, right?”

“Well, I haven’t known you all that long, but as it turns out you are mostly right.”

“The sound could be ducted into any number of rooms. These old houses had their own system of servants’ bells to ring. Things to yank. A servant could easily turn some device against a nerve-ridden girl. I’ve a good mind to go downstairs and wake up Mrs. Saunders. She’s as sinister as it gets.”

Isabelle blinked. “Well, yes, but I wouldn’t call her a fiend!”

“I’m more used to fiends than you are, Bella,” he said darkly. “Can’t you see poor Helena sitting up in bed, full of woe, crying?”

“It’s good to know you have a feminine side.”

“Let’s not get into that. A young girl raised without a mother she may have believed had been killed by her father or someone prepared to do his bidding. We can’t forget Christian. Probably he was shot as a matter of urgency.”

“Possible, but it’s also possible your theories are skewed.”

Bruno looked down his straight nose at her. “I hate to mention this, but you were so frightened you ran across the hallway and jumped into my bed.”

Isabelle was all the more indignant because it had been so nearly true. “I’ve been warned against jumping into strange men’s beds, thank you. A bit of a change for you, but there was no flying leap to hop in beside you. You pulled me right across you, and none too gently either.”

“I’m wary of beautiful women,” said Bruno self-righteously. It was perfectly true.

“No need to fret. I bear that constantly in mind. Surely Helena didn’t suffer in silence? We intend to have the moaning sound investigated in the morning, don’t we? It wasn’t the wind.”

“More like someone blowing through a tube,” Bruno said with a frown.

“Playing it like an instrument.”

“Probably had plenty of practise,” he said grimly.

“You’re deadly serious, aren’t you?”

“You bet. I doubt you’ll hear the moaning again. Just to be sure of it, I’m going to spend the rest of the night on that settee, sofa, whatever the heck it is.” He jerked his head over his shoulder to the furnishings.

“It’s a chaise longue.” Isabelle set him straight.

“I regret I’m ignorant of such matters.”

“Gosh, you sound like Mr. Darcy. Anyway, you’re too big for it. It would probably collapse. I’ll take it.”

“Great, that’s settled.” He bent to pick up the fallen andiron.

She hadn’t expected him to agree so quickly. “I can’t believe you mean that.”

“I don’t. It might seem unfair, but women always get the best of everything.”

Now she found herself smiling. “What about the armchair? We’ll find you something to rest your long legs on. A footstool. There’s an ottoman in your room.”

“Perfect! I’ll turn my armchair with my eyes trained on the door. We’ve got the message loud and clear. Erik Hartmann wants us out of his territory. That’s when Mrs. Saunders moves in, with or without his knowledge. She’s perfectly capable of any amount of mischief.”

“Why doesn’t it horrify me?” Isabelle asked.

“That’s easy,” said Bruno. “You’ve got me.”

* * *

They were the first in for breakfast, or the family had already had theirs. No surprise there. It was eight o’clock, the time stipulated. Stefan Hartmann would most probably be on the job from first light as he appeared to run the vast station alone, with only the aid of his stockmen.

Isabelle moved over to the sideboard. This was the breakfast room adjoining the kitchen. A collection of lovely old plates, probably from some nineteenth-century dinner service, had been attached to the Wedgwood blue walls and set within frames. Someone with impeccable taste and money to burn had organised the design of the downstairs rooms.

They could hear the murmuring of voices from inside the kitchen, which no doubt would be state of the art. The long mahogany sideboard with three drawers was set with all manner of plates, dishes, flatware, a jug of orange juice, a big bowl of fruit compote, another of muesli, a basketful of muffins. There were a number of silver entrée dishes with covers, sauce boats containing condiments. She lifted the lid of one of the entrée dishes. Steam rose.

“Scrambled eggs. I love scrambled eggs.” She lifted the next lid. “Bacon and sausages for you, Bruno. At least we won’t go hungry. I would like some toast, though.”

The words were no sooner out of her mouth than the same aboriginal girl, sweet faced, black curls, lustrous dark eyes, who had helped serve dinner, came out of the kitchen door carrying a very fancy silver toast rack that held at least ten slices of toasted bread. She smiled shyly. Isabelle and Bruno returned her smile with a friendly, “Good morning. It’s . . . ?”

“Nele,” the girl supplied. “Anything else you would like?” she asked, looking from one to the other with a great deal of interest.

“No, thank you, Nele. This looks lovely. I’ll have coffee afterwards, if I may? What about you, Bruno?”

“Black for me,” he said.

“Any chance you would be able to make me a cappuccino?” Isabelle asked. She liked a cappuccino in the morning.

“Certainly, miss,” the house girl told her cheerfully. “Mrs. Saunders has all the machines she needs.” With another beaming smile, she turned about.

“Clearly Mrs. Saunders doesn’t want to see us,” Bruno said, when they were alone.

“Why would she? We’ll just have to invite her to explain where the sound might be coming from. Though I’m sure she will deny ever having heard it.”

“We have a bit of time to fill in until Stefan Hartmann meets up with us at ten,” Bruno said, pouring orange juice for them both.

“Do you suppose we could see something of this incredible landscape before we leave?”

“We can ask.” Although he’d made several trips to the wild heart of the continent, he was keen to see as much as he could of Eaglehawk.

* * *

After a good breakfast that restored a measure of well-being, they made their way back into the grand drawing room. Mrs. Saunders had not appeared with a cheery, “Good morning. Was everything satisfactory?” She stayed well out of sight and sound. There was no one around. The house was all but empty. Probably Kurt was with his uncle in the West Wing. Too much to expect he had joined his father in the great outdoors.

“This has to be the piano in Helena’s portrait, wouldn’t you say?” Bruno signalled Isabelle to come over. “Play something.”

“Not here. Not now. It wouldn’t be polite.”

“Polite?” Bruno laughed harshly, his dark eyes burning. “Who cares about polite? Don’t worry. You’re here with me. Everything will be just fine. If nothing else, it might draw the family out.”

“I’d feel safer if you had that battle-ax with you.”

“Mrs. Saunders?” He raised his black brows in surprise.

“That’s one battle-ax. I’m talking about the piece of militaria in the Turkish Room.” As she was speaking, Bruno was opening up the lid of the grand piano.

“What’s it to be?” She went to touch the keys, stopped short.

“Something as loud and bravura as possible.”

“Something to shatter the silence.”

The moment Isabelle’s curled-up fingers actually came down on the keys, feeling their weight, which was important, she felt a pang of fright. The keys were about to start talking to her.

“What’s wrong?” Bruno stared down at her in surprise. Isabelle the accomplished pianist was acting like a beginner, unsure of where to start. “Are you okay, Bella? What are you waiting for?”

She shook her head a little, flapped an authoritative hand at him. He stood back at her command.

The first rebellious chord of Chopin’s “Revolutionary Etude” in C minor rang out like a battle cry. That was what it had been intended to be. Chopin had poured his emotions into the famous etude, inspired by the Russian attack on Poland’s capital, Warsaw, in 1831. The chord echoed right through the house, rapidly filling the drawing room with tumultuous sound.

Isabelle was underway, her left hand a dazzling, relentless accompaniment to the right. Bruno couldn’t imagine anyone not coming to a halt, hearing a piano being played with such power and technique. Where was the power coming from? he wondered. Isabelle couldn’t have weighed more than 105 kilos. It wasn’t until the final chords had died away before they heard heavy, fast footsteps on the staircase.

A moment later, Erik Hartmann strode into the room, his face working like a man overcome by some terrible dread. “How dare you!” he shouted, as though Isabelle should have to beg for forgiveness. “How dare you! The impertinence!”

Such a reaction was completely over the top. One might have been forgiven for thinking Isabelle had taken to the grand piano with a sledgehammer. Bruno came swiftly to her side, intending to intervene, only she stood up from the piano, walking slowly towards Erik Hartmann with astounding self-possession, given she was a guest in his home, which was about as remote as one could get. “I dare,” she said, in a voice not quite her own.

It wasn’t at all what either Erik Hartmann or Bruno expected. Hartmann stared back at her as though he didn’t have the faintest idea what to say next because his opening salvo hadn’t worked.

“Sometimes it’s possible to pick up vibrations from musical instruments,” Isabelle continued in the same tone. “Great artists, particularly string players, have made that point. I’m no great artist but I know a little about such things. Hands that touched those keys were holding tight to their sanity.”

Instantly, Erik Hartmann’s expression changed to one of scorn. “What, piano tuners?” he cried. “Those are the only hands that have touched that piano for nigh on twenty years, young lady. Tuning it. You should be careful with your tricks.”

“No trick,” Bruno broke in, unsettled by something in Bella’s manner, but ranging himself beside her. “Speaking of tricks—and it was pretty good as tricks go—what causes the moaning sound in the Chinese Room?” he asked.

Erik Hartmann gave him such a queer look. “Moaning sound? I have no idea what you’re talking about. What you heard would have been the wind.”

“The sound was coming from the fireplace.” Bruno ignored the protest. “We thought—”

“We?” Erik Hartmann drew himself up as though some scandalous romp had occurred under his roof.

“I assure you. it’s not what you’re thinking, Mr. Hartmann,” Bruno said calmly. “Isabelle found the sound very disturbing. She came across to my room to wake me.”

“You’re making it all up!” Erik Hartmann was reduced to a kind of panting, as though his heart hurt him.

“You don’t believe us?”

“I do not.”

“Sir, I don’t lie. Neither does Isabelle. The sound would terrify a child. Even an adult. Initially, it frightened Isabella. It even disturbed me until I figured out what might be causing it. Perhaps we might take a look at all the bells and whistles that were used in the old days to alert the servants. The family would have had servants?”

“Of course,” Hartmann said pompously, as though no one need to ask.

“Could you indulge us?” Bruno’s suggestion was prompt.

Erik Hartmann’s dark eyes were markedly fixed on Isabelle. “You’re a very fine pianist,” he said with a strange, unexpected emotion. “My wife, Myra, was just such a pianist. Helena was good, but she could never match her mother. In anything, sadly.”

“Her mother taught her?” Isabelle asked, thinking what they knew of the dazzling Myra, she wouldn’t have made a good teacher, if a fine performer. The two didn’t often go together.

“No, no.” He shook his head. “Well, only for the first few years,” he amended. “Myra didn’t have the patience, but fortunately, Helena showed a lot of early promise. We finally hired an excellent teacher. A fine young man. He lived with us for some years. Helena liked him. I liked him myself. Myra was capable of being very unkind to him from time to time. She was like that. She wanted you to feel uncertain of where you were with her.”

“A tutor? Why wasn’t my father told about him?” Bruno asked, shooting a quick glance at Isabelle.

“For the simple reason he had gone back to England almost a year before. He was well out of the picture.”

“When did he actually arrive?” Bruno asked. All sorts of theories were exploding in his mind.

“Myra had hired a woman teacher before then, ex-Sydney Conservatorium. She was effective, certainly, but she didn’t really fit in. Piers was hired when Helena was around twelve. He left when she was seventeen and had gained all her diplomas. That was five years after her mother was killed. May she rest in peace.”

“If you could please tell us his full name?” Isabelle asked.

For a moment, Erik Hartmann appeared incapable of formulating a name. “Piers . . . Osbourne,” he said finally, hitting a hand on his forehead. “English. Such an air about him! One would have thought he was the aristocracy, yet he was only a piano teacher. But absolutely first class. Helena blossomed under his tutelage.”

“Did he keep in touch?”

“I believe he kept in touch with Helena for a time. Then the contact fizzled out. He returned to his family in England. We never heard from him again.”

“Helena didn’t go to boarding school, then?” Isabelle asked the question. She had assumed Helena, like many Outback children, especially the offspring of the well to do, attended private boarding schools.

Hartmann shook his head. “She could learn all she needed to learn here. Piers was a great help there too. He was obviously highly educated, of good family. Her aunt Abigail supervised her studies too. Abigail is a very clever woman, although she hides it beneath the proverbial bushel.”

“How old was Piers Osbourne when he arrived?” Bruno asked.

Erik Hartmann took his time answering. “Early twenties, I believe.” His tone had gone from fairly amiable to aggressive. “I believe he wanted some excitement in his life and picked out Australia. No great culture clash, with the huge migration from the British Isles.”

“May one ask where Mrs. Abigail Hartmann lives?” Bruno looked to his host.

“All these questions!” Erik Hartmann was clearly displeased. “Don’t think I don’t know what your reasons are.”

Bruno answered for them both. “Isabella is making no claim to anything, sir. It’s as I told you. I was the one who brought her extraordinary resemblance to Helena and her mother to her attention. She wanted no part of it, but subsequent conversations with the two people who raised her have given rise to serious doubt and a whole lot of speculation. This is a crisis time in Isabelle’s life. All she wants to know is whether there is a Hartmann connection.”

“So this DNA testing is the answer?”

“The definitive answer. There’s nothing easy about any of this, sir. We do understand that. You said you were contacted with news of Helena’s death. Have you been sent papers? Have you sighted them?”

“God no!” Hartmann burst out angrily, and then caught himself up. “You’d do well to go away. Someone helped Helena to run away. It killed my father.”

“Someone killed my father,” Bruno said on a harsh note. “Hit-and-run accident.”

Hartmann gaped at him. “How monstrous. I didn’t know.” He appeared genuinely shocked. Either that or he was a fine actor. “I had heard he had died. I assumed of natural causes.”

“Unnatural causes,” Bruno said. “The driver of the vehicle that hit him was never found. The police investigated of course.”

“The police, the police!” Erik Hartmann threw up his hands in disgust. “The police are bloody useless. Couldn’t find Helena. Thought she’d simply done a bunk. Thought we were a bunch of wankers. Murderers, maybe. Your father didn’t think that. He saved us all from going mad. He had heart. You thought I might have been the one to make Helena run? Not me. I could never, ever go so far, although I had come to question whether I was her father. Oh, don’t look like that!” he all but shouted at Isabelle.

“That must have opened up a great deal of rage?” Bruno asked, his contained tone in marked contrast to Hartmann’s belligerence.

For a moment, there was naked grief in Erik Hartmann’s dark eyes. “Anger, humiliation certainly, but that doesn’t mean I was not completely broken by Myra’s death. Such a mystery! She was a splendid horsewoman. So is Abigail. They used to go riding together. Alas, not on that fatal day.”

“So Mrs. Abigail Hartmann loved to be outdoors too?” Isabelle asked, stunned by how many new trails were opening up.

“Why wouldn’t she?” Erik Hartmann asked, making a chopping gesture with his hand. “Abigail is a Stirling. Surely you’ve heard of the Stirlings of Moorooka Downs? The family pioneered the South West, just as we did. It was considered a great coup when my stepbrother, Christian, managed to win her hand. Abigail had many suitors. I would have considered her myself but for Myra. No woman could hold a candle to Myra.”

“The two women were good friends?” Bruno spoke casually, so as not to appear too prying as indeed he was.

“Good enough.” Hartmann shrugged. “Wise woman that she was, Abigail quickly got into the habit of accepting she could never measure up to Myra. Actually, in her own way she used to minister to Myra. She certainly deferred to her.”

“Not a good place to be in?”

“Whatever do you mean?” Hartmann stared across at Isabelle, who had made the observation.

“She wouldn’t have been human if she weren’t a little jealous of your wife’s position as number one,” Bruno suggested.

“It was a great comfort to us Abigail understood what her place was,” Hartmann said stiffly. “Abigail may not have been a vivid personality, but we all liked her. She was—is—very pleasant. My father always said Christian was lucky to get her. I thought so too. No one could ever accuse Abigail of letting the family down.”

“My father had the idea Mrs. Abigail Hartmann hid her understandable resentment.”

Their host threw up his arms. “That’s monstrous!” he cried. “There was no bitterness or envy in Abigail. She was a great comfort to us all, especially after Myra was killed. We owe a lot to Abigail. There was no rancour whatever in the woman.”

“Where was she on the day?” Bruno asked, keeping his tone respectful.

Erik Hartmann could hardly speak for anger. “What are you suggesting?”

“As the police say, just a routine question, sir.”

“Question time is over,” Erik Hartmann said curtly, making no attempt to hide his agitation. “But I can put you straight on this. Abigail was in her room the entire afternoon. From time to time she suffered severe migraines. A servant looked in on her twice.”

Isabelle longed to ask the name of the servant, but it was clear Erik Hartmann wouldn’t hear another word on the subject of Abigail Hartmann, his half brother’s widow.

Despite that, Bruno gave it one more try. Like Isabelle, he was disturbed by all the things they didn’t know and, to the best of his knowledge, his father had never recorded. “I’m surprised Mrs. Abigail Hartmann didn’t choose to remain with you. There must have been a very close family bond, and she is Kurt’s grandmother.”

“Abigail went back to her own people,” Erik said in a dull, defeated voice. “There was no persuading her to stay.”

“Would she not have been a supportive figure in Helena’s young life?” Isabelle dared to ask.

“Oddly enough, that wasn’t the case,” said their host. “The answer lies in Helena’s difficult nature.”

“She crossed swords with you?”

“No, no.” Hartmann dismissed that sharply. “Helena didn’t have aggression in her. She had problems, obviously to do with her mother’s death. We all thought it would pass as she grew older, except it didn’t. Helena had a timid side to her character. She became fearful of every last little thing.”

“Such as?” Bruno knew he was pushing it.

“The house. The house she had lived in all her life. Our beautiful ancestral home. There was even a time when she thought someone was trying to harm her. Absolute nonsense! No one would have dreamed of harming a hair on her head. It all had to do with her mother’s accidental death. Myra was so alive it was impossible to accept she could die.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hartmann,” Isabelle said gracefully. “Thank you too for letting us in to this illustrious family’s history.” She hoped she wasn’t piling it on too thick.

Hartmann appeared charmed, and then he rallied. “You’re not one of us, my dear, although you give every appearance of it.”

“That’s precisely why your nephew is taking steps to prove or disprove our case,” Bruno said.

Erik Hartmann let out a long shuddering breath. “If my nephew is loyal to me, as his son is, he will refuse any DNA test. It’s an insult to our family name. Your father found nothing here, McKendrick. Neither will you or Isabelle.”

“Perhaps, sir, you don’t know your nephew as well as you think?” Bruno suggested. “We have a meeting with him right about . . . now.” Bruno glanced down at his watch.

Erik Hartmann’s smile was a pained grimace. “I think you’ll find he won’t return to the house. My nephew, in the absence of his wife and daughter, a frivolous little thing like her mother, is married to the land, Eaglehawk, our family inheritance. It means more to him than anything in the world, including his own son.”

“So I don’t count? Mum and Kim don’t count, frivolous little things!” Kurt made the second tempestuous entry of the morning. He gave his great-uncle a look of tremendous disappointment. “That’s what we mean to you, is it, Uncle? We’re family.”

“My boy, my boy, I can’t believe you thought I meant you. I love you. You’re my heir.”

“You’ve given up on Mum and Kim? They’re inferior, are they? Mum said you always made her feel like that. Kimmy was really frightened of you when we were kids.”

“Why don’t you go to your mother and sister?” Bruno asked, keeping the conversation on the boil. “Strike out. Live your life. You’re not a cattleman like your father. What talents you have, you could be wasting.”

“What I should do is kick you out right now,” Erik Hartmann shouted. “Who are you to come here, telling my family what to do?”

“Maybe I’m trying to be helpful, Mr. Hartmann,” Bruno said.

They all turned as a man dressed in working gear, with an Akubra on his head and heavy black boots on his feet, thundered into the drawing room. “What the blazes is going on here?” Stefan eyed his son first, then his uncle, whose cheeks had swelled with anger.

“Uncle Erik has been mouthing Mum and Kim off big time.” Kurt wore unaccustomed rage. “He called them ‘frivolous little things.’ What do you call them, Dad?”

Stefan Hartmann didn’t hesitate. “I married your mother because I loved her. I still love her. Nothing has changed for me there. Kimmy is my darling daughter. You are my son. I can’t bear the way you’ve turned away from me, Kurt. I don’t care you’re not cut out to live a life on the land. I want you to be happy. But as long as you’re under your great-uncle’s thumb—I can just imagine the sort of stuff he feeds you—you’ll never get yourself sorted. I love this place. I love this land. It’s in my blood. Don’t blame me for that.”

“I don’t!” Kurt cried. “But I do blame you for not going after Mum. How sorted are you?”

Stefan threw off his wide-brimmed hat. “Why don’t we take a trip into Adelaide sometime soon? Just the two of us.”

“And what? Ask them to come back here? You having me on or what?”

His father shook his head. “They’d have been okay only for the great-uncle you so admire. When did you ever take their side? When did you ever do the manly thing, Kurt? Stand by your mother and sister against him. No, Erik promised you a great prize. Or so you thought. His heir. Don’t you realize if I pulled out, Eaglehawk would fail as a working station? I work twenty-four/seven to keep it afloat. It’s not your great-uncle who runs Hartmann Holdings. It’s me, for God’s sake. Everyone but you knows that. I could, with a little bit of help, buy Erik out. It could be three against one. You, me, and Kimmy.”

Bruno broke in. His tone held a hint of challenge. “I could, perhaps, help you there, Mr. Hartmann.”

“You’re leaving,” Eric Hartmann rasped, his body tensed like an animal about to spring.

Kurt, however, sounded almost friendly. He turned to Bruno. “Could you do that?”

“I run a very successful wealth management company, Kurt. If your father needed help, I’m certain I could provide it.”

“You bastard!” Eric Hartmann spat out. “You think I’m so easy to intimidate?”

“You’ve rolled over everyone and everybody who has got in your way,” Stefan cried in condemnation. “But that’s all behind you. I must take a stand. This young lady here”—he indicated Isabelle—“is the living image of Myra and Helena. A finer version of both. I promised McKendrick a DNA sample. I’m going to stick to that promise. My heart holds to the fact Isabelle is one of us. My head needs the final proof. Of course if she is one of us, she is entitled to shares in Eaglehawk.”

Kurt, of all things, burst out laughing. “You’re serious, Dad?”

“Try me.”

“What do you say you solve a little problem for us, Kurt?” Bruno asked, turning to the younger man.

“Like what?” Warily, Kurt started to juggle some keys in his pocket.

“Last night Isabelle was awoken by a sound of moaning that appeared to come from the fireplace in the Chinese Room. She came across the hall to me because she was frightened.”

“It was the wind, more than likely,” Stefan said, crinkling his already deeply lined brow. “Why do I have this sense of Helena speaking about moaning in the night?”

“Helena had psychological problems.” Erik Hartmann gave a laugh that stopped short of being contemptuous. “The truth of it is, she was unhinged. She never got over her mother’s death. Myra haunted the girl.”

Bruno ignored him. “Bella and I had the idea it might have been someone blowing through a pipe of some kind. Perhaps a pipe connecting upstairs and downstairs that was in use way back.”

“Someone?” All of a sudden, Kurt appeared much younger and freaked out.

“We believe so, yes. Someone wanted to frighten her. For what reason we’re not sure. Maybe for the hell of it.”

“We’ll want Mrs. Saunders in here,” Stefan said.

“I forbid it!” Erik roared.

“Go get her, son,” Stefan said to Kurt.

Immediately, Kurt sprang into action. “Right, Dad.”

“Is that it? Is that your answer?” Erik Hartmann cried. “It’s Mrs. Saunders playing a joke?”

“Some joke!” Bruno said.

Kurt was back with the housekeeper in double-quick time. As ever, she looked to Erik Hartmann. “You wanted me, sir?”

Isabelle glanced over at Bruno, who looked simply wonderful brooding. A Mr. Rochester. “We wondered, Mrs. Saunders, if you could show us the bell system that is probably ducted into various rooms of the house?” he asked in a polite enough tone.

Mrs. Saunders, looking astonished, sought the Master’s approval. “Sir?”

“Do what you’re told, woman,” Stefan broke in, like a man going mad.

The woman went to protest, but Stefan Hartmann took hold of her arm. “Lead the way, Mrs. Saunders, if you want to keep your job.”

“I beg your pardon!” Mrs. Saunders refused to heed him. She wrenched herself away.

“Do it,” Erik suddenly roared.

Face rigid with mortification, the housekeeper led them through the house to the corridor outside the huge kitchen area. As expected, up on the wall was a long panel with coded letters beneath, identifying different rooms of the main house.

None for the adjoining wings, Isabelle noted.

“What are we looking for here?” Kurt asked.

The overpowering personalities of his great-uncle and father explained a lot of his immaturity, Bruno thought. He gave Isabella a quick look. Both had hoped, indeed expected, to find something that could have been used to create sounds. Some piping device. There wasn’t one. At least not one hanging on or beneath the panel.

“Perhaps you can tell me,” Mrs. Saunders spoke through tight lips.

“Something with the capacity to make a moaning sound,” Bruno said, aware Isabelle had moved off. She was walking down the corridor to a tall Victorian mahogany hall stand. Several hats were hanging on the various pegs, uniforms, an apron, outdoor shoes and tall Wellingtons in the space beneath.

“There is absolutely nothing there,” Mrs. Saunders said with great emphasis.

Bruno turned on her. “Let’s see, shall we?”

Isabelle, meanwhile, was shuffling around the boots and shoes. They all saw her pull out a long, tapering hollow piece of yellowish wood, painted with aboriginal symbols.

“That’s a didgeridoo!” Kurt stared at all of them in turn, his mind awhirl.

“We all know what it is, you fool!” his great-uncle snarled.

Mrs. Saunders was taking deep breath after deep breath. She appeared to have an excellent lung capacity, Bruno thought.

Isabelle walked back to them, handing the aboriginal musical instrument from ancient times to the housekeeper. “You can play this, can’t you?” she asked, showing no sign of doubt.

“Of course she can!” Kurt’s voice had gathered strength. “She has aboriginal blood in her, hasn’t she, Dad?”

“Which doesn’t mean she can play it,” Isabelle said. “It’s a very difficult instrument unless one has mastered certain techniques, like circular breathing. I could probably get a moan or two out of it. It’s been kept in good condition, water run down it frequently, maybe some kind of wax inside.”

Stefan Hartmann’s voice shook. His entire powerful body shook. “What-have-you-done?” he demanded of the housekeeper, barely able to keep himself in check.

“Play it, Mrs. Saunders,” Bruno urged. “You can. We all know it.”

There was a fierce anger on the woman’s face. Anger and something more powerful. Pride. She took the instrument from Isabelle, wiped off the mouthpiece with her pocket handkerchief, and then set the tapering end to her encircling mouth.

Immediately, her lip tension and the controlled air flow caused the primitive instrument to vibrate. It was clear Mrs. Saunders had command of the woodwind instrument. It started to moan.

Both Stefan and his son looked stricken. Erik Hartmann slammed back into the wall, wringing his hands so hard his fingernails had turned white.

“I should have guessed,” Isabelle murmured to Bruno beside her. “That was really stupid of me. I knew it had to be a horn of some kind. I was thinking Afghan, Turkish, something Christian had brought home, but we’re right here in the home of the didgeridoo.”

The moaning, the grieving sound, continued. Mrs. Saunders didn’t check herself. She considered herself an artist as indeed she was.

“Give that bloody thing to me,” Stefan continued to roar, his expression hostile and bitter. “Give it to me, witch!”

The resonant if eerie sounds stopped. The housekeeper passed the native instrument to him. There was a strange, triumphant expression on her handsome face. “I’m as much one of you as she is,” she suddenly announced, in a hate-consumed voice. “Don’t you remember how beautiful I was when I first came to this house? Beautiful. Beautiful as that bloody woman Myra, who was horrible to me. She treated me like dirt, yet I was one of you.”

“You should be in the madhouse.” Erik Hartmann let himself drop slowly into a hall chair as though his legs could no longer support him.

“What the hell is she talking about?” Stefan Hartmann’s ruddy, tanned face had lost colour.

“Go on. We’re listening, Mrs. Saunders,” Bruno urged, reaching for Isabelle’s hand and clasping it tight.

“Bin sleepin’ with yah own kin,” Mrs. Saunders rounded on Erik Hartmann with undisguised contempt. A further shock. She had dropped her educated accent for a bushwoman’s slurred speech.

The Hartmann men were transfixed with shock, their expressions blank.

“I chased that girl away,” Mrs. Saunders jeered. “I felt sorry for her, but I did it.”

“The same burning resentment that brought about Myra’s accident,” Bruno’s tone seared. This raised even more questions, he thought.

“A ghost did that. Not me,” she said with a flash of emotion.

“What in hell is she talking about, Erik?” Stefan rounded on his uncle, his big body tensed.

“Don’t you dare touch me.” Erik slunk back further against the wall, as though his nephew, a tough cattleman, was about to physically attack him. “I have no idea, Stefan. Truly. The woman is delusional.”

“Thought the old man was a saint?” Mrs. Saunders sneered. “He couldn’t help himself. No man is a saint. He took my mother. Not by force. No way. He was a gentleman. She worshipped him like he was a god.”

Everyone was in their own way in a state of confusion. “You expect us to believe this fantasy for one instant?” Stefan exploded. “My grandfather slept with your mother?”

Kurt gave a little moan, then before anyone realized it, he crashed to the floor in a dead faint.

“Half caste,” Mrs. Saunders corrected him, totally ignoring Kurt’s dramatic collapse. “Beautiful. Like me. You people are pathetic. You know nothing. You know nothing of our magic.”

“We know enough about the Kadaitcha Man,” Bruno threw over his shoulder. “The magic man, the tribal executioner.” He and Isabelle alone had sprung to Kurt’s aid. Bruno began tapping the young man sharply on his cheeks, calling his name.

“You know it’s you two who have opened up a whole new world to me,” Mrs. Saunders went on as though nothing was happening. “DNA testing. Never crossed my mind! But now! I could be entitled to a share in the station. It’s sitting on sacred land. Our sacred land. You have no right to it, the lot of you. But I don’t think I want to make trouble. You can pay me out. I’ll go away like Miss Helena.”

Stefan swung on her, looking capable of real violence. “You frightened her away.” He stared at the woman as though she had crossed some uncrossable divide.

“Not me who chased her away from here,” the woman said. “Ghosts. Phantoms. Maybe the Kadaitcha Man, like Mr. McKendrick says. The Kadaitcha Man could have put a spell on her. Or it could have been a powerful female member of a tribe charged to cause death. Maybe it was the outside world calling. She asked for help to get away and got it. Many possibilities, don’t you reckon?”

Neither Erik nor Stefan spoke, though they appeared absolutely united in thought. They had lived all their lives close to the wild heart of the continent. They had lived with aboriginal culture. They knew all about the Kadaitcha Man and magic rituals. They knew all about curses put on certain individuals, the methods of execution used. In Erik’s childhood, the station’s head stockman had died without being either poisoned or injured but through bone pointing. A method of magic that never failed to kill. The practise still continued, but very much in secret. The Kadaitcha Man wasn’t any mythical figure. The Kadaitcha Man was real.

Kurt had come around, shuffling his booted feet on the floor.

“You’re okay. You’re fine. Stay still for a moment,” Isabelle reassured him, brushing a lock of his blond hair from his clammy forehead.

“My whole world has changed,” he muttered hoarsely. “I’m not the person I thought I was anymore.”

“Neither am I.” Isabelle looked with kindness into his colourless face. “I’ll get you a glass of water.”

“I’ll get it,” Bruno said. “Stay with him.”

Bruno was only gone a moment. He handed the glass of water to Isabelle, who held it to Kurt’s lips.

“Thank you. Thank you.” He handed the half-empty glass back to her, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Let’s get you up.” Bruno extended a strong arm, drawing the younger man to his feet.

“All right, son?” Stefan finally emerged from his stupor.

“What do we do now, Dad?” Kurt asked timidly, ill with shock.

“God Almighty, I want nothing else but the truth,” Stefan cried. “Helena was forced out of this house.”

“Sir, I don’t believe Mrs. Saunders is the answer,” Bruno intervened, speaking calmly and with a good deal of persuasion. “Admittedly, she had formed the habit of playing cruel pranks on Helena. Revenge, I would suggest. Revenge against the entire Hartmann family, who lorded it over her, if not mistreated her. Mrs. Saunders—I believe the Mrs. is a courtesy title—hated everyone at the house. Understandable, if she actually is, as she claims, Konrad Hartmann’s illegitimate daughter.”

Erik Hartmann’s still handsome face had become deeply grooved. He tried to clear his throat. “She’s lying,” he said, as if with his last breath. “That woman could never be my half sister. Christian’s half sister. It’s not possible. You talk about the Kadaitcha Man; our God should condemn her to hell.”

“He’s not going to do that.” Mrs. Saunders was unperturbed. “The old man didn’t know. My mother never told him. She feared we would be banished to some other station or even killed. Easy enough out here. Especially then. My mother made a respectable marriage. Her husband, my dad, died only a few years back, as you all know. She died when I was fourteen and I started work in this house as a maid set to do all the hard cleaning and the polishing, helping out in the kitchen. That’s all any of you thought of me, a servant. Only I had a taste for power, even if it was only in small things. Years later, I became Mrs. Saunders, the housekeeper. No husband. No children to cling to me. I wanted a better life.”

“You wanted my wife out of the way?” Erik accused her with burning eyes.

“I hated her sure, but I didn’t lay a finger on her. Didn’t have to. Didn’t the tongues wag about her? She craved sex, that woman. She was having it off with that boy.”

Isabelle interjected, “What boy? Piers Osbourne?”

“Him and your dad.” Mrs. Saunders wagged a cruel finger at Stefan. “The fool couldn’t get enough of her.”

Stefan Hartmann’s dark eyes were glazed over. “You’re lying. Tell us you’re lying.”

“I’m not. Mrs. Abigail Hartmann could back me up. She knew all about the secret love affair. I didn’t need to tell her—she’s a smart woman—though I tried to protect her. She was kind to me. Not like that cruel bitch, Myra.”

A loud, disturbing groan emanated from Erik’s throat. “Do you mind if we leave this for a while?” he begged, holding up his hand in a desperate gesture. “I can’t take anymore.”

Stefan Hartmann’s head was bent, as if in defeat. “Neither can I. None of us is going anywhere. We can speak of these matters much later in the day. My wife always said this is a house of secrets. She was right. But not even she could guess at how much has been hidden, and so deep.”

“I love you, Dad,” Kurt abruptly burst out, his voice trembling.

“I love you too, son,” Stefan said quietly, before he turned to address Bruno and Isabelle. “Look, I can see this is a big shock to you both as well. Even your father couldn’t have known what we’ve heard this morning, McKendrick. Will you both be all right on your own? Why not take a look around the station? You can take one of the jeeps, but remember, don’t go far.”

“What if we take a couple of horses?” Isabelle asked. “Bruno and I both ride.”

Stefan nodded. “I’ll get someone to look after you. Hard hats, mind.”

“Of course,” Bruno answered.

“Look at the two of you, shattered, humiliated, brought face-to-face with reality!” Mrs. Saunders crowed, giving Erik and Stefan a smile that offered no quarter. “I don’t lie. The tests won’t lie. Much as you wish it otherwise, I’m one of you. And so’s she!” She threw out a hand to include Isabelle. “You can’t bear to hear it, I know, but I’d say she’s Christian’s granddaughter. Not yours, Erik, my longtime secret lover. Don’t dare to deny it.”

Erik Hartmann’s features looked carved out of stone. “You’ve learned very little if you think you can cross me, Orani.”

“You don’t know how good it is, seeing you lose control,” Mrs. Saunders countered. Her still-arresting face was filled with such immense hatred, the sensitive Isabelle could feel it rolling over her in waves.