Resonance

By A. Cole-Byng

Ties to the city that he grew up in are strong.
Ties to a friend he grew up with are even stronger.
A letter, which that friend has written to him, makes him question his roots, his values and his loyalties.
And, even although he is half a world away and living a life he could only have dreamed of as a young man, he can’t ignore the favour that his friend has asked of him.
Even if the friend is dead.
Or, maybe, because he is.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483574493

Book preview

Fifteen

Chapter One

Thursday late afternoon,

There’s a joke about an American bragging to an Australian about how big his property is back in Texas. The American says, Man, it takes me twenty minutes to drive from my house to the letter box.

The Australian says, Yeah mate, I used to have a car like that.

Maybe not that funny but he would think of it every time he was there. From the letterbox it was exactly two and a half kilometres to the house. Not a huge distance compared to some properties in this part of the world but, put it this way, when they were at the house they wouldn’t hear a lot of traffic noise.

Good to be home boss?

Yes, mate, always good to get out of Sydney and get the lungs back to being full of this country air. They say ‘a week is a long time in Politics’, well three days in Sydney on business is even longer. Anyway that’s over now. Anything interesting been happening?

He knew there hadn’t been, otherwise Alice would’ve told him. Not only does she know everything that goes on there, she knows everything that happens for miles around.

No, not really, been quite quiet actually. John Barker called around about that sheep purchase you guys had been talking about but he said he’d catch you next time. Don’t know why he didn’t just ring. I could have told him you were away.

Daniel knew why.

John was old school. He enjoyed conversations only if they were face-to-face. And he was a bit lonely since Ethel had died. It would take him an hour to get through the twenty-five minutes of what he really wanted to talk about. Daniel liked him.

What’s the update on the chopper. Has the work all been done?

As well as doing other things on the property, Frank had been their transportation guy for about two years now. If it has an engine he can drive it and if it is broken, he can fix it. Daniel had given him one of the big barns, the one down beside the river, and he ran his own vehicle-restoration business out of it, in his spare time. He also lived there, in the loft area, and pretty well kitted-out it was too.

Frank confirmed that all the repair work had been done. It had taken the manufacturer’s service crew all day to complete the repairs and they’d just finished the inspection and testing that morning. Which is why they were driving at the moment. Normally Frank would have gone down to Sydney for him in the chopper. Luckily, already knowing it wouldn’t be available, he’d been able to organise a chopper journey to and from Sydney which had then got him back to the small landing strip in Wellington. Frank had picked him up from there. Without that it would have been a four-hour drive each way for Frank.

As he was talking he’d caught sight of an envelope that was in with some other papers on the back seat. He knew those papers had been faxed up from Sydney by his business partner John, and Alice had obviously thought he’d want to read them in the car journey from the landing strip to the house. She’d been wrong. They could wait.

He saw Daniel looking over to that side. Oh, yeah, Alice said that envelope came in yesterday. She thought it might be important and that you’d want to see it as soon as.

He lifted the envelope and, catching the man’s eyes in the rear view mirror, signaled that he was going to open it. It was postmarked Edinburgh, Scotland, UK and on the back were the sender’s name, address and postcode. The name meant nothing but the street address and the area postcode were very familiar.

He had grown up in an area not far from there. Fortunately, just far enough. His family had lived on the ‘right’ side of the main road that split two areas. Generally, day or night, their side was safe to walk in. Where this address was? Not so much. Once, cycling back late from the golf club, he’d been caught on that wrong side and had been approached by three rather ugly individuals. He had only just made it out without injury but had never gone back for the clubs that had spilled out of the bag as he’d pedaled quickly away. A lot of areas in the city had been modernised over the years and made safer. Maybe that process had reached that particular area.

Two minutes later he knew that Alice had been right about the letter. It was something important.

Dear Mr Burton,

My name is Winnie Dalgety but you would have known me better as Winnie Forrester. You knew my Dad, Pete Forrester. He often spoke about you, about how you’d been at school together, how you played football for the same team (he always said you were better looking but he was a better footballer than you.), how you lived quite close to him and his parents, even how you both used deliver groceries for old man Grieves.

Sad to have to say, Dad passed away on May 1st.

Wasn’t all that sudden, he had been sick for a while so he told me to tell you when he passed and to send you the other letter that is in this envelope. It’s from him and I didn’t open it. I don’t know if he dated it but I think he wrote it about a month before he died, so around the end of March sometime, and he gave it to me in the middle of April.

Anyway, by the time you get this, the funeral will be obviously well over with but if you ever get the chance to be back here, some time, I’m sure he’d welcome a visit.

Winnie.

At the bottom of the page were the name and address of the cemetery and the number of the burial plot.

Are you alright mate? He’d obviously been using the rear view mirror checking me out.

Not really, no.

You look…em, bad news?

Yeah, but I’m fine really…Just give me a minute will you?

Suddenly he was glad the driveway was as long as it was. This was a level of sadness he hadn’t experienced in a while and, frankly, he did not feel ready to deal with it with others looking on. In a very manly way, Pete Forrester had been a love of his life. He had been as important to him as any member of his family and in ways none of them could ever have been. He’d entered Daniel’s life at high school. Daniel’s second day there had been Pete’s first day. At the end of the school day Daniel knew he had to catch the Number 1 bus and then change to the Number 19, which went past the end of their street. As he stood waiting for the bus, he’d seen Pete join the end of the queue. When he got off that bus, Pete had done that too, and as he joined the queue for the Number 19, Pete had become the next person in line.

You’re in ‘2A2’ as well, eh? he’d said.

That was the identification for the Class. Second Year, second Class in the top Grade.

Aye. ‘2A2’. Just my second day in. Your first?

Aye.

The bus that arrived hadn’t been full by any means, there were plenty of vacant seats, but they’d sat together. His family had moved from Aberdeen to Edinburgh the previous month. Daniel’s had moved there from near Glasgow pretty much about the same time. He had an older sister, so did Daniel. He played football too but didn’t follow any particular team. He said he thought it was safer that way.

His bus stop was two before Daniel’s.

See you tomorrow, eh?

Aye, see you.

And they had, and for practically every school day for the next four years. They’d been in the same class for all subjects that next day, and for that whole term, except for the last two periods on Thursdays when Daniel suffered through Latin and Geography and Pete took a double period of History.

He was jolted out of his reminiscences by the sound of the car crunching across the gravel. Maybe some people would think it a bit pretentious to have gravel around the house but he didn’t care. It made a great noise. The house had been designed with the front facing down the valley towards the mountains so the driveway actually touched the rear of the house first and then wound its way around. His wife Janet’s vehicle was in its usual spot. She hadn’t wanted a Range Rover but had changed her mind as soon as she’d driven one.

Frank pulled the car to a halt and then got the bags from the boot. Daniel gathered up all the stuff from the back seat and followed him inside.

Hey, welcome back, came the shout from the kitchen.

Not that she’d be working in there. That was strictly Alice’s domain and he could hear them talking. He dropped the papers on the table near the door and joined them. Janet had papers and her laptop on the benchtop and a cup of coffee was half way to her mouth. A peck on her cheek temporarily halted its progress.

Hey yourself, hey Alice. Been all quiet here I’m told.

Janet was the first to speak.

Well yes, according to Alice anyway. I wasn’t here today or yesterday. I only got in about an hour ago. I had a couple of meetings during the day in Parkes, so I drove up and then stayed the night with Elisa. Been a while and it was good to see her.

Daniel had known that there was a fundraiser event being planned for the middle of next month, the 17th, so Janet had been ‘banging the drums’ to get some sponsorship. He’d done his share with a healthy donation but, as was typical of her, there was never too much money for the cause. The last he had heard the total donations were near the targeted amount.

And all is well with Elisa?

Janet’s sister Elisa would be somewhat of the archetypal multiple kids, stay-at-home Mum. Three kids to date and she had just turned thirty. And she is a published author of children’s books. Story goes, her books made more profit than their small farm. But they live inexpensively, grow their own everything and Mark makes his own cheese and beer. They don’t have hobbies. Probably not a lot of time for them.

Alice confirmed that all had been well.

John Barker came around.

Yes, Frank told me.

He’s a lonely old bugger. Just wanted a chat really I suppose. Spaghetti Bol in about ten minutes. Ok?

Time for a quick shower, get that city grime off me.

Casuals on the bed, laid out, Janet added and then re-focused on the computer.

He was back in nine minutes. Alice hated for the food to get cold.

Janet was enjoying her first wine of the day.

So, anything interesting with you down in the big city?

Alice laid both their plates down and topped up Janet’s wine. He had mineral water. They toasted anyway.

Cheers.

No, nothing really worth mentioning. Today’s meeting went well and we got the lead position on that Dirgo account. The other meetings all went according to plan except that, you wouldn’t believe it, the CEO of one organisation, FHC, took ill on the Thursday morning and wasn’t able to see me.

Janet gave him that eyebrows down look and said, Very inconsiderate of him.

Sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound like it came out.

He took a mouthful of Bolognese and then some mineral water. Alice had put in her usual amount of spices.

Anyway, I thought I’d ring his office and check on him. He wasn’t there but he called me back later to make sure everything had gone well. I told him it had.

And had it?

Actually no it hadn’t. I know I’m just the liaison person for our Venture Capital syndicate but there is something going on there in that company that no one’s telling me. I can smell it. The meeting was friendly enough and they provided all the information that they had agreed they would. They seem to be doing well and the indications on the returns on the capital are certainly in line with predictions.

So?

So, nothing at the moment. It just gave me an itch that I need to scratch that’s all.

He needed to change the subject so asked about her meetings and progress with the fundraiser.

Well, I at least had a great day. Donations are actually now up past the targeted amount, the venue has been organised and the entertainment has been booked and paid for. Here’s the big news though. The local Mercedes dealership is donating a car and we will be selling raffle tickets for a draw on the night.

Wow, that is great.

She worked so hard for this charity, the Dystonia Network of Australia, DNA for short, that it was good to see the thing getting a momentum of its own.

Alice came and took away the plates and asked if they wanted cheese and biscuits. They said ‘Please’ almost simultaneously.

And coffee?

Janet said yes. He settled for tea and said they’d take them on the back balcony.

Although he would always look at the Mountains every chance he got, the back balcony had a charm of its own. It looked straight down the length of the property, although they couldn’t see the river that signaled the bottom boundary with the neighbour. That was over a kilometre away. All up they had about seventeen hundred acres, not all of it flat or useable but all of it theirs.

They always loved ‘riding the boundary’ or at least sections of it. It took them up into the hills, behind the house, from where the views were fantastic.

Thank you Alice.

I’ll be off then, if that’s all? she said.

Yes. Of course. See you tomorrow.

Alice lived about twenty minutes’ drive away, although she’d been known to make it in fifteen when the mood took her.

The evenings that time of year would normally be superb. Just a hint of a chill in the air made conditions so refreshing after the daytime heat. Neither of them liked mosquitoes, or flies on the cheese and biscuits, so the balcony had been meshed, floor-to-ceiling, on the three open sides.

Got an interesting letter today, it….

He suddenly remembered about the second letter inside the envelope.

Sorry, I’ll be right back.

The letter was on the table near the door, where he’d left it with the other papers. Grabbing the whole lot, he turned and went back up.

From an old girlfriend is it? she enquired, as he sat back down.

No, this is from the daughter of that guy I went to school with. Pete. Pete Forrester. Seems he passed away and it looks like he wrote me a letter which his daughter, Winnie, has put inside the envelope with the letter that she wrote telling me he’d died.

He looked at his name written on the front of the envelope and recognised the handwriting immediately. Pete had been left-handed so he’d always written with the letters sloping backwards. Daniel used to joke with him that he could never copy off him in exams because of the way he leaned over and obscured Daniel’s view.

Well, open it.

Oh, yes, sorry. For a minute there I was back at school. Janet hadn’t known what that meant but it didn’t matter.

It was Pete’s writing for sure. Maybe his health hadn’t been great at the time but there was strength and determination in the writing. He read the letter aloud.

Daniel,

That you are reading this means I’m now playing football with the angels. Hard to say this without getting all mushy but I really loved having you as a friend, us looking out for each other, all those years. I think we made a great pair. Time and circumstances took us apart but we made lives for ourselves that I think we can both be proud of. I followed your career, easy to do with some of the attention you got a few years ago, but not sure what you are doing these days.

I need to ask you a favour. Of course I’m not going to be able to know if you do it, or to return the favour, but I don’t think that’s what we were about. The Daniel I knew will do it if he can and if he has to say no, then there will be a good reason why he can’t do it. I trust you as I always did.

He had to stop at that point.

Are you alright Daniel?

For the second time that day he said, Yeah, I’m fine really…Just give me a minute will you?

That some of the attention you got a few years ago had surprised him. He’d been quite lucky to have missed a lot of the effects of the Global Financial Crisis and afterwards had been critical of some of the things seen going on, in particular how some senior people still took their bonuses when companies were bailed out or when people further down the ladder lost their jobs. He’d written a few articles, done some public speaking at seminars and appeared on TV a few times. Once he’d been asked by one reporter, Does this mean you are a Socialist and, if yes, does that not seem a strange position for someone with as much acquired wealth as you?

He could remember the reply as though it had been yesterday.

I grew up a Socialist and I always will be one but, more than that, I call myself an Ethicist which I take to mean that I will always put ethics before profit.

The reporter was starting to respond so he’d cut him off,

.and, before you ask, I will always put ethics before political posturing no matter which side it comes from.

That incident, and a few similar ones, had given Daniel a fairly high profile for a couple of years before, thankfully, the media stared concentrating on someone else. The ‘Ethicist’ tag stayed with him however and it was in some overseas media so he suspected that was what Pete was talking about. If it was, he was pleased.

Ok, I’m back.

He started reading aloud again

There is an organisation here called Whitaker. They started off small about fifteen years ago and have really grown quickly. Nothing wrong with that except that every time they have grown, every time they have entered a market, and every time their sales have risen, it has been because of unfortunate events that have happened to one, or more, of their competitors. Yes, my organisation was one of them and, at the time it went under, I was lucky to escape with enough money to last me. I made sure all the employees were OK before I took any but there was no future for us. I believe Whitaker saw to that. All that is done, of course. Nothing can be undone there but I am hugely concerned about what they may do next and this is where you come in.

Hey, look at this, he held it out for her, the writing style has changed.

The writing now was smaller and neater. Clearly not Pete’s but, also, not Winnie’s. Obviously, Daniel could not know why it had changed but he could guess from the tone of the letter that, maybe there had been the involvement of some legal entity at this point. Janet just nodded.

An organisation called Beatrings is currently in a market that Whitaker desperately wants. It does not involve a lot of money but it has a huge profile. They provide material and manpower for some parts of the seating construction, and for the heating system, at the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Obviously, as you know, weather conditions are unpredictable that time of year, so the heating is adjusted based on weather conditions and wind-chill. Quite a sophisticated monitoring and response system really. Anyway, a lot of people, possibly millions, will see the name Beatrings and register its link to that event. My fear is that if something bad were to happen, that organisation would be blamed, their reputation would be shot and then, as has been the case before, Whitaker would take over. Realistically they would be the only ones who could. Now, my real fear is that Whitaker intends to make something bad happen during the Tattoo and people could be injured. Daniel, I know you have a successful career in risk management. How long do you think Beatrings would survive if their construction failed during an event, with who knows how many people watching on TV, especially if people were injured or killed? I know you don’t live here anymore but I’m hoping there is some way you can have a look at this. That’s the favour I am asking.

Daniel could visualise all this having had to be dictated by Pete to someone else. The last bit of the letter hit him hard. He could only imagine how hard it must have been for Pete.

It is a fortunate man who has lots of people he can really call friends. I only had one but that was all I ever needed.

It wasn’t signed.

Holy shit! she said.

Yeah. Well put.

So, what are you going to do?

Well if I was a drinking man what I would do would be to have the stiffest drink I have ever had!

I can understand that but I’ll settle for getting us more tea and coffee. I’ll be right back.

No matter which way he looked at this letter there was no right, or easy, answer. He was asking Daniel to ‘have a look at this’. From the grave he was asking. How the hell was he going to do that? He couldn’t exactly ring up this Whitaker organisation and say, Excuse me, my dead friend says you are going to sabotage the Tattoo, would you care to comment? He knew nothing about them and he hadn’t even heard of them until the letter had arrived. Ok, the Internet would make it easy to research them, so that would probably be a starting point, but then what?

Pete’s letter had referred to them having grown quickly and that the growth had been as a result of unfortunate events happening to their competitors. He had even said that his organisation had been one of them. He didn’t know that much about Pete’s organisation, what it did or what had actually happened to it.

He suddenly had a thought.

The other envelope. Winnie’s letter.

He picked it up and looked again. There it was - a telephone number. Why would she have put that there? Maybe just so that he could ring and say how sorry he was to hear about Pete. Or maybe she was telling him that she was where he needed to start.

But start what?

Janet was coming through with the tea and coffee. At least she had achieved something. He didn’t feel as though he had.

Thanks, he said, reaching for the tea. She’d brought a mug this time instead of a cup.

Welcome. You getting anywhere with all this?

He brought her up to date with what he’d been thinking.

You’re going to give her a call, yes. It was more of a statement than a question. "I think we both know that you can’t do nothing."

Of course, you’re right but it’s what the next bit might be that bothers me. I mean…

She shot him one her famous brows-down looks and interrupted, You sound like are going to embark on one of those ‘what if this, what if that’ discussions, and it will be one you will have to have with yourself because at the moment you know very little for sure. So, why don’t you just wait, hear what she has to say and then decide?

She was right. It was the best thing to do. He would try her number early the next morning. Given the time difference that would be her evening.

For some reason, Daniel suddenly had a vision of a surfer about to start to ride a wave and head for the shore. He would know it would get bigger, faster and more dangerous the longer he stayed on it and the nearer it got to the shore. He would know that at some point soon he’d have to decide to play it safe, and get off it, or stay with it and risk a wipeout for the thrill and reward of the ride.

Daniel have never surfed a wave. But at that moment he thought he knew how it would feel.

They sat quietly for a time. It wasn’t one of those strained silences that married couples occasionally have but it extended until they were in bed and wished each other ‘Goodnight.’

One way or another, the next day was going to be very interesting.

5 am Friday.

He’d always been an early riser. It had always been his favourite part of the day. He used to whistle in the morning but he didn’t anymore. Apparently not everyone, especially Janet, is a morning person. He quickly headed off downstairs out of earshot.

Just after five o’clock, the light would be just starting to take the edge off the darkness and the ridges of the mountains would just be becoming clear. Already he could tell it was going to be a nice day, not too hot, and one spent under a blue cloudless sky.

He dialed the number at five thirty.

6am.

Frank had grown up on a farm and had never needed an alarm clock. He didn’t own one. His bedroom faced due east, which meant that the first weak light of the day was his alarm clock. Not that he was an enthusiastic riser. He just had to do it. Especially that morning as he knew he had a customer coming at eight o’clock for his car and the engine still hadn’t been run. In fact, first jobs of the day would have to be putting the oil pickup back in, re-connecting the oil pump and putting the sump back on. Not difficult jobs but time-consuming. Then he’d have to put the oil in, check the levels and fire the baby up.

It was just how his mind worked. Always had. Everything was a sequence.

One item following another.

C after B after A.

If he’d read something once then that was it. Locked in. And if he’d been shown something as a sequence once, it was the same. He could close his eyes and see the sequence.

Some years previously, when he had been working for John Davidson the renowned vehicle restorer in Sydney, a customer had bet him five hundred dollars that he couldn’t recite the sequence of actions required to take the cylinder head off the man’s car. In those days, five hundred dollars was a significant amount of money.

At what point would you like me to start? Frank had asked.

The customer had looked at the approved manual and said he should start from the point where the mechanic would disconnect the battery.

You say what the steps would be and I’ll check what it says here. Get it wrong you owe me, get it right I pay you.

Five minutes later Frank had been five hundred dollars richer, and that customer had become his first customer when he’d set up in his own business - FB Restorations-on Daniel’s property.

With John’s blessing of course.

The big barn down beside the river was ideally placed for cars being delivered and taken away. It was about a kilometre from the entry point to the property and, although the access road wasn’t paved, it had been made smooth and well enough hard-packed for vehicles to use. Daniel had said that he could use the barn for as long as he wanted. Interestingly, their contract said that he could use the barn even if he no longer worked for Daniel but, if that happened, he would have to pay rent. The way his vehicle restoration business was doing, he could already have actually considered stopping working for Daniel now, but he didn’t want to do that.

His bedroom, kitchen and a sitting room were in the loft area and he’d made it all very comfortable. Minimalist in style and probably not to everyone’s taste, but very few people ever went up there.

He’d removed the old beam, block and tackle that had been used to lift bales of hay up into the loft, and the opening had been made into the east-facing window that now served as his alarm clock.

No time for breakfast, so with his six o’clock coffee in hand he made his way downstairs and into the facility on the ground floor.

A little over thirty metres long by about ten wide, with the loft being full length and five metres above, it had seemed enormous when Daniel first said he should have a look at it and see if he could use it. Now, with five cars inside, spare parts storage, machinery he’d installed and the necessary alleyways between everything, the building seemed to have shrunk.

From the outside the barn looked like, well, a barn. Traditional-style horizontal wooden slats, from the ground to roof height, and large double doors on one of the two longer sides.

Inside, however, it was a different story. The walls had been plaster-boarded, and painted white, and the floor was a light-grey epoxy covering that allowed any liquid spillage to be seen and then cleaned away. And it was capable of being brightly lit, courtesy of large lights all powered by solar panels on the roof and some large-capacity storage batteries.

Just before he reached the main light switch, he noticed that some of the lights in the main house were on. It was nearly half a kilometre away but being the only light around made it easy to see. Ground floor, right hand side as he looked from here, meant it was Daniel’s area. Janet’s area was first floor, left side and with a door opening out onto a small balcony. He knew that she spent a lot of time there and knowing how hard she worked, he thought she deserved her free time.

6.13 am

‘Up early,’ he texted, ‘anything you need?’

He was at the bench, applying adhesive to the gasket for the sump pan, when the reply came back.

‘Thanks, no,’ Daniel texted back. ‘All ok, was just calling someone in the UK.’

6.15 am / 9.15 pm Thursday in Scotland.

It had taken three attempts before he’d finally got through and now, about forty minutes later, he almost wished he hadn’t.

Winnie had not been in the least surprised that he’d called.

Dad was sure you would, she said.

The surprises from the conversation had been his. About what had happened to Pete and his business and then about how convinced he had been that something bad was about to happen.

The longer the story went on the more he kept thinking, ‘Pete, mate, maybe you should have stayed in the Banking industry’.

Dad said you would not be an easy person to convince. He told me to expect you to be skeptical. Aye, that’s the word he used. So that’s why he told me, assuming that you’d ring, to send some material to you. I have the parcel here. It’s not too big. I can send it to your home or would you like it to go somewhere else.

He said that the home address would be fine and asked her to post it express, which would take just a few days, and that he would pay any extra charges from his end.

She said that she didn’t know what was actually in the parcel. Pete had apparently wanted it that way. However, she knew, or at least strongly suspected, what it was about.

I don’t know if a legal person would call it evidence, as such, but Dad said to tell you he had ‘joined the dots’ and the image had appeared.

That made him smile. It had been a game the two of them played many times. ‘See who could guess what the picture was in the fewest number of joined dots’. Pete had the vision and he usually won. All Daniel could do then was to wait for the parcel to arrive.

He ended the conversation by thanking her and asking her, again, if she was OK. She said that she was. He decided not to promise to contact her after he’d had a look at the material. For reasons of his own, reasons about which Daniel could only guess, Pete had obviously wanted her involvement kept to a minimum and Daniel was not going to go against that.

In the silence that followed them disconnecting, he replayed in his head a conversation that he and Pete had had one day when they were both in their early twenties.

So, you’re going back up to Aberdeen?

Aye. Two weeks today. Job in a bank up there. Dad’s retiring and him and Mum are moving back up there. We’ve been here in Edinburgh ten years now. Long enough. I’m going to stay with Mum and Dad for a while and then get a place of my own.

Sounds great.

You’ll come up and visit though, eh?

Aye, sure.

It had been nearly three years before he’d gotten up there and probably another two after that before Pete had come back down to Edinburgh.

6.45 am.

Hey, I’ve just put the kettle on. Fancy a brew?

He was about to gracefully decline but Frank added, Customer’s sending a fully-tarped, flatbed container truck for the Aston in about an hour. Thought you might want to go for the test run with me.

Now that was Frank cheating. He knew Daniel loved Astons. So much so, he’d tried to buy a One-77 a few years ago. Second-hand of course and he’d offered a good price. No deal.

Ok, you’ve twisted my arm. I’ll walk down. Give me about twenty minutes.

No problem, I’ll wait.

7.15 am.

He knew Daniel was troubled and it didn’t take much to figure out where the angst was coming from.

The letter and the call to someone in the UK.

They had to be linked in some way. But he was not about to enquire.

So they talked around things for a while and said lots and nothing much at the same time. Then he’d taken Daniel for a short drive in the DB7. They talked about the car, what it had been brought in for, what he’d had to do and how much the invoice was going to be. Daniel had a big smile on his face the whole drive, but it turned to a frown when he’d heard the amount, and then it went back to a smile again. After all, it wasn’t his invoice to pay.

Making that much money, geez, maybe I should start charging you rent for use of the barn. Or, better yet, maybe I should become an investor and buy some shares in the business.

Frank had thought to keep the banter going. It seemed to be opening him up.

Ok, sounds good. Tell you what, he said, you can do that and I’ll trade you for shares in that helicopter of yours.

Ok, done, I’ll have my people talk to your people.

"Problem there, though, Daniel, I don’t have any people."

By that point they’d both been smiling and had kept doing it as they arrived back in the large turning circle, just in front of the barn.

Listen, Daniel, she seems to be running ok but, since the client’s transporter will be here shortly, I’ll just run it inside and do some last minute checks, Ok? I shouldn’t be too long.

Daniel said that, rather than hang around there, he’d walk up to the house and if Frank had some free time later, maybe he could go up and he’d return the ‘tea favour’.

Frank didn’t like Daniel’s tea but he knew he would accept.

It wasn’t going to be about tea anyway.

Chapter Two

8.10 am Friday – Burton-Carsewell.

I’m sorry to hear that Mr Masterton, but I’m sure you understand that Mr Burton is a busy individual and that his schedule for his trips down to Sydney, most times, doesn’t allow much in the way of time extensions or alterations.

John Carsewell had spent the previous five minutes getting his ear bent about Daniel not being available to meet him on the Wednesday morning, and then fielding