Whistle Down The Wire Read online

  ‘Why should she?’

  ‘Because she likes getting her mucky little fingers into everything she can. Let me guess. She’s going to take the little boy, right?’

  ‘She was Harry Colston’s sister. Why shouldn’t she?’

  ‘That’s convenient when she’s got no kid of her own. It’d surprise me, though, that she’d take Dianne’s child as her own. Maybe she’s just going to blot that part of it out.’

  ‘It’s obvious those two women didn’t like each other, or at least we know that Linda didn’t like Dianne. Do you know why that is?’

  Janice settled on the edge of Cole’s desk.

  ‘Linda Fantasio thinks she’s Mrs It-And-A-Bit. If you ask me, she was jealous of her brother marrying Dianne Bramley. The baby rubbed more salt in the wound when she can’t have kids of her own. She’s just a hairdresser, for God’s sake, but the way she carries on you’d think she was Queen Nefertiti.’

  ‘When Dianne Bramley was just from a poorer than poor family. Well, two people have been killed. A little boy’s an orphan. All things considered, everything else should be trivial, shouldn’t it?’

  ‘Of course. But wait for the bunfight to start when they try sorting out the will. Then it really will be on for young and old. The Bramley side of things won’t take anything lying down either.’

  ‘You’re saying it’s going to get messy then?’ Cole said.

  ‘And then some,’ Janice added. ‘By the way, you’re ready for today, aren’t you?’

  ‘Ready for what?’

  ‘You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?’

  ‘Forgotten what?’

  Janice sighed loudly. ‘The new senior constable. Starting today.’

  ‘Hell, right. I did forget. What time is he getting here?’

  ‘He is getting here any minute,’ she replied, smiling.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Nothing, you’ll see,’ she said, sweeping out of his office and returning to her desk.

  When Cole rose from his desk later in search of a new pen he was thinking about what he’d look for in the wrecked car, and how he might need to pay another visit to Hilltop. He was also thinking about Linda Fantasio, a smart, breezy woman, and how and why she might have gotten under people’s skin, when he glanced up and saw a woman standing at the front counter.

  ‘Yes, can I help you?’ he asked.

  It took him a few seconds to register she was in uniform.

  ‘Senior Constable Chris Sheridan. I’m the new senior constable starting today, at your service,’ she announced brightly.

  She saw his face drop and smiled wryly.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Cole said.

  ‘I’m not what you were expecting, a man?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Yes.’ Cole threw his hands in the air. ‘I admit it. I saw Chris in the file and made an assumption. I didn’t read the file closely enough, just saw the name and … Anyway, welcome and come in!’

  She gripped his hand firmly.

  Sheridan was in her late twenties to early thirties. Her hair, a dusty light brown colour from what he could see, was tucked up into her hat. Her complexion was pale and slightly freckled, her face broad and her jaw strong. She looked no weakling. The police uniform never flattered anyone, male or female, but it sat well enough on her. Of a good height, she strode confidently into the station’s work area and made acquaintance with Janice and Sergeant Forrest and Constable Whittaker. Cole noticed the immediately warm reaction she drew, the way she shook hands effusively and looked straight into her new colleagues’ eyes when speaking to them.

  Cole said, ‘Senior constable, Janice will show you around and help get you settled in. There’ll also be some paperwork for you to do. After that we’ll meet and I’ll tell you a bit about the work here.’

  ‘Sounds good to me, senior sergeant,’ Sheridan said as Janice hauled her away.

  It was several hours later that Cole and Sheridan sat down to talk in his office. Previously he’d preferred using one of the station’s larger rooms for meetings and one on one’s, but lately he’d found his office’s smaller dimensions, and its warmth, agreeing with him.

  Might as well get straight to the point, Cole thought.

  ‘I see you’d made a special request to come here. So what brings a city policewoman to Mitchell?’ he asked. ‘Some might say it’s the last place a copper would want to go.’

  She nodded as he completed his remarks.

  ‘Then I’m not one of them, sir,’ she said. ‘When I got my promotion it was at the head of my list. I was stationed at Camberwell and let me tell you, not much ever happens at Camberwell. I’d heard about the cases here last year, and thought it could be a good place to work.’

  ‘And all the talk about this station didn’t put you off?’

  ‘No, I looked at it the other way around. No one makes it easy for a policewoman in Melbourne. They think we should be making tea and coffee and running up to the shops for sandwiches and pies. I didn’t join the police force for that.’

  ‘So you thought our defence of a girl against a senior policeman meant something?’

  ‘It did. I’ve heard enough stories of bad cops taking advantage of women to last me a lifetime. The stations I’ve served in would never even follow up on the most obvious case. But Mitchell seems to be a shining light.’

  ‘Good for you then that you haven’t given up, and that you didn’t take the easy way out and quit the force like some do. Sometimes I wonder, though, whether we did the right thing taking that detective to task when you soon find out doing it is going to be harder than you ever imagined. But I don’t have any regrets about it, not a one. I also have to tell you that before last year barely anything resembling excitement ever happened at this station, so if you’ve come here thinking it’s going to be fun and games and full speed ahead all the time, you’re bound to be disappointed.’

  ‘I understand that, senior sergeant. But I think I’m going to learn things here. I think Mitchell will make me a good copper.’

  She sat comfortably, but eagerly, her eyes trained on him all the time.

  ‘Let’s hope so then, if you’re not one already,’ Cole said.

  Cole went on to brief her on staff numbers at the station and about what he expected from his officers. He told her a little about the men currently serving at the station and detailed how their workload was broken up. Being a relatively small station, those working at Mitchell had to be both flexible and adaptable, and be able to move quickly from the very mundane tasks to the slightly less mundane ones, he explained. Much was going to be boring and routine, so expect that and be pleasantly surprised when it wasn’t. Being able to fit in with the townspeople and those working the properties around the district should be her highest priority, too. Listen first, and then listen some more again before you venture to open your mouth. Be sympathetic to their ups and downs and don’t come down too hard on anyone over minor matters. The law was the law, but it was only ever intended to be the course of last resort. If in doubt, let them off. A poor reputation was almost impossible to recover from in the country, he said.

  ‘But you’ll be fine,’ he finally reassured her. ‘Get yourself involved in the community. Play tennis or netball and everyone will respect you for having a go. Take out a library card and poke your head in at the shops. Let everyone know who you are, but remember that they don’t need to know everything about you, either. Keep a bit of distance.’

  ‘Got it, sir,’ Sheridan replied enthusiastically, as if she were jotting mental notes.

  ‘Great. We’re really happy you’re here, senior constable, and once you’ve been allocated your equipment I believe the boys are keen to take you out to lunch at the Albion,’ he said when Janice’s head popped expectantly around the door.

  She said, ‘Thank you, sir. I can’t wait to get stuck into it
here.’

  She shook his hand vigorously again and Janice whisked her away.

  ‘What do you make of him?’ Janice asked Cole drily when everyone had departed noisily for the hotel.

  ‘I think he’ll be good,’ Cole said, continuing the joke.

  ‘So do I,’ Janice agreed, enjoying sharing a confidence. ‘She’s no great beauty, but that’s a good thing for a copper. Lets you get on with the job. But she seems bright to me, too, and keen to get on with it. There was quite a bit of excited chatter from the boys, too, I noticed. And no wedding ring on her finger.’

  Cole didn’t say it, but Sheridan appeared to him as being much more than the sum of the first impressions she created at the station, as good as they were. There was an intelligence and warmth in her eyes that allowed her to be at one with the troops. He could see, too, that the station staff would try to mollycoddle her when there would be no need for it. And he welcomed any new addition to his team that wasn’t fixated on their post-force plans or on strategies for avoiding work. Over the years he’d seen too much of that. Country police stations, like country schools, were often waiting rooms for retirement.

  ‘Has the Colstons’ car been brought around yet?’ he asked.

  ‘Not yet, but it should be here any minute,’ Janice replied.

  ‘Good. I’ll let Miss Sheridan follow me around for a while until she’s settled in. I’ll get her to have a look at the car too, see what theory she might put forward as to why the accident happened. There’s nothing like starting a new person off by giving them something meaty to get their teeth into.’

  Chapter 5

  ‘How was lunch?’ Cole asked Chris Sheridan when she returned from the hotel.

  ‘I had the crumbed cutlets. The cutlets were fair to middling, but the crumb around them was more like middling to hard. Okay, rock hard.’

  ‘That dish has been on the menu since Adam was a boy. I should have warned you. But if you’re looking for top shelf dining, the Albion won’t be the place for it. Maybe try the Chinese down the road if you like something different. The Lins have just opened up. I didn’t ask where you’re staying though. At the Casablanca?’

  ‘No. I’m in at the Union Hotel until I find a place of my own.’

  ‘Aren’t those rooms pretty cramped?’

  ‘I can’t say about the others, but mine is. Which is all the more motivation to find something of my own quickly.’

  ‘If you need some time off to look around, just go ahead.’

  ‘Thanks, sir, but I’ll manage it in my own time.’

  ‘Sure, but do it if you need to. In the meantime, do you want to go out and have a look at the Colstons’ car, the one that hit the train last night? It’s a pretty awful sight, though, and no one has to if they don’t feel like it.’

  ‘I’m keen to have a look at the car. Sir.’

  They went outside through the station’s rear door and Cole unlocked the padlocked gate leading into a yard enclosed by a high Cyclone wire fence.

  ‘We like to do things the right way around here,’ Cole said casually as he fiddled the key back out of the lock. ‘but I’m not a big one for formality, so there’s no need to call me Sir. Call me anything you like – within reason – but I’d prefer it if you didn’t call me that.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, but she couldn’t think of what form of address to use, leaving the unspoken word dangling.

  ‘The car’s over here,’ Cole pointed, though it couldn’t be missed. ‘As I said, it won’t be a nice sight inside, but I didn’t want it hosed out just yet.’

  In daylight the car looked even more mashed up. It was as though a monstrous machine had taken it in its pincers and cut and crushed it, before turning it over and over again in fierce inspection, which was more or less what had happened.

  ‘You wonder how they even got the bodies out,’ Sheridan marvelled.

  ‘The fire brigade does a good job, even with things it shouldn’t have to do,’ Cole said.

  ‘You’d never see a wreck like this in the city. The suburban trains don’t get up enough speed, and then the gates and bells usually work.’

  ‘No such luck out here, or at least not at Harper’s Corner or at the hundreds of other rail crossings stuck out in the country. We can barely get the Roads Board to put up a sign. Out of sight, out of mind.’

  They prowled about the wreck, sometimes kneeling down to get a better look inside. The car’s two right hand side doors were missing and the boot was so crushed it couldn’t be opened.

  After a while, Sheridan asked, ‘So you think there might have been some funny business going on here?’

  Cole turned, taken aback, ‘What makes you say that?’

  She stood up jauntily, raised her shoulders slightly.

  ‘Otherwise, why bother looking over the car like this, when it just seems like a simple car meets train accident?’

  ‘I do have some questions,’ he admitted.

  ‘Can you say?’

  ‘What I don’t understand is, when I talked to the train driver he said the car was travelling slowly. He seemed to think it was moving really slowly. If that was the case, it would have been the first time a collision had occurred there where the car wasn’t going like a bat out of hell. What reason, if not to stop for the train, would have a driver dawdling when there’s nothing else out there for miles, and when it’s a straight road through the intersection? Why couldn’t they have stopped then, and avoided the collision, if they were going that slowly? The other question is, what were the Colstons doing there late at night when they live on the other side of town and had left their baby at home alone?’

  ‘Maybe someone, a relative or a friend, had gotten into some kind of trouble and they were on their way to help?’

  ‘Why would Dianne Colston have gone along for the ride then, too?’

  ‘You’re right, the baby. Unless Mrs Colston wasn’t the world’s best mum.’

  Cole laughed. ‘It’s possible. The engine driver said he didn’t have time to see who was in the car before it hit, or he didn’t want to, but his impression was that the car drove steadily but slowly into the accident. As if they were out on a Sunday drive, he said. The train’s horn would have gone off just before the car hit. I saw for myself how bright the train’s headlight was in the dark.’

  ‘It rained last night. Perhaps the driver wasn’t concentrating or expecting the crossing. But maybe they’re not the things we should be thinking about. Maybe we should be looking at where the Colstons were going. Let’s say it wasn’t an accident, that they were deliberately brought to the train. The one thing we do know is the direction the car was travelling in. But what you’re getting at … just so I’m clear. You think both driver and passenger might have already been dead before they were hit by the train?’

  ‘Keep it under your hat for the time being, but yes. And I have absolutely no idea why that might have happened.’

  ‘I suppose that’s one way to hide something suspect. The question then is, if they were killed, was it at the scene or near it, or somewhere else? And then the next question is how could the car have kept moving if they were dead? If they were murdered near the rail crossing someone must have coaxed them out there in the first place, given the time of night it was. So what or whom could they have been heading towards?’

  ‘What or whom, yes. They weren’t headed in the direction of home, we know that much. But you’ve hit the nail on the head there, senior constable.’ He stared at the wrecked car. ‘It’s hard to see how someone could manage to have a car run into the train with two dead people in the front seats.’

  ‘But that doesn’t make your idea completely incredible,’ she returned. ‘It’s what evidence you could find for it, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s always the evidence. What have we got so far?’ he asked, wanting to see what she would say.

&nbs
p; Sheridan used her right index finger to count off the fingers of her other hand: ‘So we’ve got the train driver’s story. We’ve got the fact of the couple being oddly out in the middle of nowhere in the dark of night. We’ve got the car right here.’ She thought. ‘And then there’s the accident scene we haven’t had time to look closely enough at yet.’

  ‘Very good. It was pitch black last night and it rained heavily. Which could be a help or a hindrance to us. A help if it shows up tyre marks or anything dropped or lost in haste. A hindrance if it’s washed away anything.’

  ‘What do you make of the car?’ she asked.

  ‘Take a look at this,’ he said and they again bent over to peer into the mangled shell. There’s plenty of blood all over the seats. Stink of urine.’ He leant closer. ‘Then smears of blood over the dashboard. The steering wheel smashed on impact and probably made contact with the driver’s head there too by the look of it. The windscreen smashed into thousands of pieces of glass, which makes it hard to pinpoint where they might have hit that. Normally in an accident where the car collides with something stationary, the occupants get pitched through the windscreen. Here, because they were travelling slowly, they would have still hit the windscreen but the train’s force would have been far greater. They would have been thrown back and bounced around inside the car as they were dragged along.’

  If he thought she might be taken aback by the grisly scene, she didn’t show it. Instead, she asked, ‘What was the position of the bodies in the car when they were found?’

  ‘He was mostly draped over the front seat. She’d been tossed over into the back. But the really interesting thing,’ he continued, still peering around inside the car, ‘is that there doesn’t appear to be any evidence of a hard impact anywhere on the roof of the car, or on the back window, which is still fairly intact. All of which contradicts the injuries we found on the bodies when we examined them in their coffins. Both had severe trauma injuries to the backs of their heads. One of them happening in the accident itself, you could understand. A person could get twisted around in the force of the crash and have the back of their head cannon into something hard. But two?’