Burning Bridges

By Peter Sheldrake

Anthea has retreated to a cottage hidden in the hills above Melbourne, escaping from her past. A detective comes to her house, asking if she can help makes sense of a set of torn drawings. She pieces them together, and then a body is found nearby, under an old railway bridge. As she get drawn into the investigation her skills as an artist prove critical. Soon she has new friends helping her in the hunt for the murderer, but each step of the way they face new puzzles and complications. Meanwhile Anthea is becoming attracted to the detective. At last, they seem to be on the right track.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Travelling North
• Release date: Aug 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9780999392805

Book preview

Burning Bridges

Burning Bridges

An Anthea Daines Story

Peter Sheldrake

Travelling North

Burning Bridges, Copyright 2017 © Peter Sheldrake

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Travelling North

4496 Cotswold Road

Pfafftown, NC, 27040

Travellingnorth.com

ISBN Number:978-0-9993928-0-5

Cover photograph by the author

Copyright 2017 © Peter Sheldrake

Portrait of the author by Linda Perri Kent

Copyright 2017 © Linda Kent

Other books by Peter Sheldrake:

The Eamon Cowan series:

Upside Down

2.      Just Looking

3.      Up in the Air

4.      Going Down

This is the first Anthea Daines story.

Prologue

It had been a day of surprises.  Against his expectations, killing someone turned out to be rather simple.  It wasn’t just that it was straightforward, to be expected after all his preparation; no, it had turned out to be something of a let-down.  Not only was it easily done, but it was far less exciting, less fascinating than he had anticipated.  On the other hand, dealing with the aftermath, deciding what to do with the body, now that proved to be intriguing in so many unanticipated ways.

What had made it so compelling? He hadn’t foreseen his attention was to become focussed around creating a scene, one in which the body, once found, would be part of a larger display.  Delighted, he was quickly absorbed in the task, deciding the staging was not a task to be rushed.  With time in hand, he started by reviewing how the setting could be used.  Once he was happy with his plan, he turned to details, ensuring all the work was done precisely, and with considerable care.  He saw this was much more than arranging a spectacle.  He was going to offer a challenge, based on where and how the corpse was to be found, and the clues he would provide. 

In the end, once the tableau was complete, for that was what it was – although, he couldn’t help thinking, certainly not a ‘tableau vivant’ – it was almost entirely hidden.  The centre-piece would be difficult to find, while the other smaller display was to be seen quite quickly, certain ensure some initial misunderstanding.  Only when the victim was found would all the clues in both displays be discovered.  All would be revealed, but would it all make sense?

Fascinating, puzzling, a staged dead body at the centre of a conundrum.  And there was more.  A really clever investigator might find he had left some further clues elsewhere, in another place well away from this setting.  He revelled in the sense of power in creating his scenario, providing a series of challenging steps which would lead to an inevitable conclusion.

Hours later, he was finished.  He was tired.  Carrying the body along a narrow path had been a challenge.  It had been a long night, but he knew what he had created was a tour de force, a brilliant construction.  With any luck, there would be enough time to wait and see how the initial discovery unfolded.

Chapter 1: Tuesday 16 September, The Patch

‘Don’t burn your bridges’, her mother used to say, but Anthea had read sometimes you need to burn bridges to stop yourself from crossing back over them.  As far as she could see, there was no risk of that: she’d burnt almost every one of them. Somewhat out of sight and seldom used, she still had contact with her parents, but they had left to retire in England, and were a long way away.  There was also another and rather rickety crossing still in place, a link to her brother, but she felt that bridge was unpredictable, and wouldn’t want to use it again unless she really had no choice.  Once had probably been enough.

Standing at the kitchen window, she looked out towards the edge of the forest; no one to be seen, not even any houses.  It was a strange feeling, but not a depressing one.  Nearly all her bridges had gone, and she was almost completely isolated, yet isolation was a kind of freedom, too.  She had the opportunity to start again, to be a different person.

Anthea sighed.  All this thinking about burning her bridges had been triggered as the result of reading the local Free Press newspaper, the Leader.  A couple of days ago, someone, kids probably, had tried to set fire to the Puffing Billy Trestle Bridge, a long curved wooden viaduct that crossed over the road to Emerald, less than a mile away from her home.  Given the steam train was one of the major tourist attractions in the Dandenong Ranges, the attempt to burn down the trestle bridge had caused an outcry.  Fortunately, it had been a pathetic attempt; the only evidence was a slight amount of charring on one of the stanchions, accompanied by considerable angst in the local community. 

When she first read the story, the best part had been the use of ‘stanchion’, a word Anthea discovered meant a post.  However, a little later it was this same article which had triggered off her reflections on burning bridges.  She’d moved to The Patch about nine months ago to do exactly that, living in a small cottage, tucked away on William Road, close to the towering Mountain Ash trees that dominated Sherbrooke Forest.  Settling there was part of a need to break from the past, and her hideaway in the hills above Melbourne was ideal.

Eleven years before she had enrolled in a studio course at the Victorian College of the Arts.  She loved drawing and painting.  The transition from her girl’s school to the VCA had been confronting.  It was as if she had emerged from a cocoon into a world full of exotic wildlife.  Within a year she fell in with a crowd of students from various courses, some arts, some music, and some drama.  Without her knowing it, those friendships would lead her to the beginning of a long, slippery and distinctly downward slope.

It wasn’t merely confronting, she had been overwhelmed.  Perhaps it was the party life.  Or meeting loud, rude and assertive boys.  Whatever the trigger, she began smoking.  From there she moved on to drinking.  Then hash. Then harder drugs.  Each successive step allowed her to hide a little further from any kind of meaningful relationship.

Barely getting through her degree, she left her student flat to live in a dank shared cottage in East St Kilda, with three other women, two men and an assortment of drug-befuddled indigents passing through.  Like the others, she spent much of the time drunk, high, or both, living in her own addled world.  Almost out of control, she did remember to eat, but not enough.  Most days she decided she should take her contraceptive pill.  Some kind of anxious foresight had led her to set aside a small hoard of illegal emergency contraceptive pills, just in case.  Her secret trove had proved an unnecessary caution, her daily pill irrelevant: getting high had diminished her libido and eliminated any interest in sex.

Early last year, her dad had rung to say he was retiring early.  Free to do what they wanted, her parents had decided to return to their roots, moving back to live in the UK, to a small town near Gloucester, where they could be close to his sister, her Aunt Elsie.  Over the years, she hadn’t spoken to her parents often, but his call hit her like a shock wave.  She realised she had few real friends.  Her brother was in Sydney working for a law firm and she was sure he disapproved of his sister; her school friends were scattered, out of contact.  There were the few students she had met at college who were still staying with her: they lived most of the time in a private drug-induced separate reality.  Once her parents left, she would be even more alone.

The shock had worked.  She dragged herself over to see a doctor.  Dr. Julia Edgeworth had been kind, but very firm: Anthea had a choice, to continue as she was, and probably kill herself in the next few years, or clean herself up.  She was an addict, her body beginning to waste away.  The doctor had wanted her to see a psychiatrist, but she resisted.  Instead, she got in touch with her brother, and begged him for the money she needed to get through the first stages of recovery.  She’d never asked him to help before and was stunned when $1,000 arrived.

The next three months had been extremely hard.  She paid rent on a tiny flat in Brunswick, away from people she knew.  She stopped the drugs, the drinking, and the smoking.  For the first two weeks, withdrawal was agony.  Then, as she got over the initial tremors and the continuing intense flu-like pains, she began to come around, although she had to battle cravings and bouts of depression.  She hung on, lonely but determined.  By July, she was over the worst, although by then she was running out of money.

Anthea knew she had to exercise to build up her strength.  One cold but sunny day in late August, she was walking in Collingwood, and saw an advertisement posted outside a design studio.  They were looking for an artist to do contract illustrating.  Doubtful but desperate, she went inside and was introduced to Tom Charters:  a tall and skinny man, in his late 50’s, with grey, thinning hair, wearing cords and a pale green shirt, he was responsible for sourcing technical drawing and illustrations.

To this day, she didn’t know why Tom had given her a chance, but he asked to see some of her work.  Using pencils and paper from an office supplies store, she managed to put together a few bird and plant drawings.  He must have seen something in what she brought in; he gave her enough money to get proper materials and asked her to deliver six drawings of rainforest birds.  It was the beginning of occasional but continuing commissions.  When she first met him, she hadn’t realised he ran the practice.

Six months later, the studio had put her on a contract, giving her work on preparing illustrations for various projects as proposals came in.  It was always somewhat unpredictable.  Most of the time the requests were for drawings from nature, mainly realistic, and just occasionally something a little more imaginative.  From time to time she would be asked for other types of illustration, house interiors, furniture, even cars and motorbikes. 

She never heard from her brother again and was doubtful he would want to hear more, but she emailed her parents from time to time.  In December, her dad had written to say since she had been off drugs for nine months, he was willing to send her a share of the house sale they had completed before leaving for England.  It was more than enough to put down as a good-sized deposit on a tiny cottage.  She could move into a place of her own and found a home in the hills to the east of Melbourne.  Delighted, her dad had agreed to guarantee her mortgage

Her cottage.  Her cottage was a rectangular, simply designed 40-year-old brick veneer home, shaded by trees on three sides, facing west at the back, resting on a sloping block.  The front door was about forty feet from the road, down a brick path.  Once inside, there was a small dining room to the left, and a kitchen straight ahead with a tiny eating area.  To the left of the kitchen was the laundry.  Turning right, down a short hall, there was a lounge on the left, and to the right were two small bedrooms on either side of a bathroom.  The previous owner had modernised the cottage three years earlier, with new cupboards, and lights throughout, a heating and cooling system, a new stove, new washing machine, and a glass shower cubicle.  She even possessed a dishwasher.  A retreat with all mod. cons., just as the real estate agent had said.

When she moved in, she had kept some money back from her share of the sale of her parents’ house.  It was more than enough for the one change Anthea wanted, to have the small lounge window torn out, and a new window, almost the size of the wall, put in its place.  The lounge became her studio.  No easel, she worked with a draughtsman’s drawing table. 

The edge of Sherbrooke Forest was a short distance down from the bottom of her garden.  Almost every day she would see rosellas and an occasional cockatoo in the garden.  In the evenings, she would be able to spot possums in the trees, and, just occasionally, the sound of rustling by her front door would announce an echidna, her echidna, was slowly making its way from one end of the porch to the other.

It was quiet, almost completely secluded:  there were other homes along her street, but people tended to keep to themselves.  The area was called ‘The Patch’.  It was the ideal name for a few streets of scattered homes between Belgrave and Monbulk.  It wasn’t really anything:  a dozen streets, several houses and cottages, a school, a store, and a few flower and fruit growing businesses.  An unnoticeable tract of land, patched in between two townships.

When she moved in to her cottage, Anthea was determined to make her way, and to do it by herself.  She had lost touch with almost all her friends from the past, except for one who’d moved to Sydney.  Most days she had no contact with anyone except the staff at the studio and, occasionally, she might meet people there from the companies for whom she provided illustrations.  She had caught up with the neighbours on either side of her cottage and across the road, and she spoke to a couple of them from time to time, but everyone respected each other’s privacy.  Apart from family, she really had burnt almost all her bridges.  She wasn’t sure about her brother, but there was that link still in place to parents.  She liked to think she would start to build some new connections in the future, but not yet.

Anthea shook her head.  All that thinking about burning bridges was the result of reading an article that in the local newspaper.  There was no more time to be wasted on reflection.  She walked out of her kitchen, into her studio, and started drawing.  Kitchen implements.  It was one of her less inspiring commissions.

Two hours later, she heard a knock at the front door.  It had to be the postman.

She opened the door, and looked through the fly screen.  There was a young man standing there, some three inches taller than she was, probably close to six feet.  He was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a white shirt, with a pen and what looked like a small notebook in the pocket.  Fair hair, cut short, he was smiling.

‘Mrs. Daines?  I’m from the Belgrave police.’

He showed a warrant card.  Detective Sargent Harrison.

‘Yes.  Is there a problem?  Can I help you?’

‘It’s the other way around.  I was hoping you could help me.’

Anthea hesitated for a moment, then pushed the screen door open, and ushered him in.  It was warm outside, a sunny Spring day.

‘Would you like something to drink?’

‘Just some water, please.’

They went through into the kitchen.  With glasses of water in front of them, sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, she could see he kept fit.

‘You said you wanted some help, Sargent Harrison?’

‘Yes, Mrs. Daines.’

‘It’s Ms. Daines, Anthea Daines.  Please call me Anthea.’

‘Thanks.  I’m Bryan Harrison.  With a ‘y’.’

Bryan smiled, and Anthea could see he had bright, electric blue eyes.

‘So, Sargent Bryan, what’s this about.’

‘I’m sure your read about the attempt to burn down the trestle bridge.’

‘I did.’

‘Well, there’s a little bit more to it than the reports in the press.  There was a fire, but we think it was set to destroy some papers, and the damage to the bridge was incidental, and almost certainly unintended.  If there was a plan to harm to the bridge, it failed to do much mischief.’

‘Papers?’

‘Drawings.  We found out you were an artist and thought you might have some ideas about them.’

‘How?’

‘How what?’

‘How did you find out I was an artist?’

Bryan smiled.

‘I shouldn’t reveal our methods!  I didn’t want to go up to talk to the artists in the hills, they’re likely to be too busy selling to tourists.  Instead, I asked the postmaster if there was a local artist, here in Belgrave.  He said you would go to the post office from time to time to mail drawings, and to collect parcels from artists’ suppliers.’

‘And I thought I was hidden away here!’

He smiled.

‘No one can hide from the police.’

Bryan opened the bag he had been carrying and placed several sketches on the table.  They were all beautifully drawn.  Three of the five were of Lyrebirds, and one was a Satin Bowerbird.  Anthea looked closely at the fifth.

‘I think it’s a White-browed Scrubwren.’

‘Can you tell us anything about the artist?’ 

Anthea took them through to her studio, spreading them out on the table.  She took a magnifier and examined them carefully.

‘They’re the work of an accomplished artist.’

‘And?’

‘Mainly drawn from life, I would guess, but I’d be pretty sure this work was done in a studio.  But not live subjects.  Probably using dead birds as models.’

‘But you said from life?’

‘It means from real things!  And photographs, too.’

‘Why photographs?’

‘They can help you see details as you work.’

‘Why do you think the artist used photographs?’

‘It’s not easy to explain, but photographs flatten what they reproduce, and this sometimes leads to distortions.  If you look at this drawing of a lyrebird, it’s correct, and the detail is outstanding.  But the positioning is just slightly wrong.  It’s the back foot, it’s not quite right, as if it’s slightly out of place.  Can you see what I mean?’

Bryan squinted at the photograph and shook his head.

‘Anything else?’

‘The paper is high quality.  Some of these drawings look older than others, and I’d say one or two of these might have been drawn at least 10 years ago, possibly longer.  If these were meant to be burnt, then either whoever lit the fire didn’t appreciate what they had, or there was a reason to want them destroyed and ensure they were irretrievable.’

‘The artist?’

‘I don’t think so.  If I had drawn these, I wouldn’t want them set alight.’

Anthea didn’t say anything more, and they went back into the kitchen. Bryan followed, and sat down again.  As she sipped her water, she looked over at him and sensed he was hesitating.

‘Is that all?  Nothing else was found?’

Bryan blushed.

‘There were some other drawings, three more, and some fragments.’

‘Do you have them with you?  Can I see them?’

‘They’re a bit different.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They’re explicit, y’know, erotic.’

‘For heaven’s sake, show me.’

Taking them back into her studio, Anthea could see the three other pictures were works of art, not just illustrations.  One was of a nude woman, standing, facing the artist.  The second was the same woman, one hand on a breast, the other between her thighs.  The last was of a man and the same woman, naked, enjoying intercourse.

‘Beautiful.’

The fragments were a jumble.  Some seemed to be torn pieces, and a couple had burnt edges.  Several were of parts of birds, a kookaburra, a gang gang cockatoo, a wren, and other fragments hard to identify.  One part of a picture showed a woman’s arm, breast, and part of her lower body.  Finally, there were several fragments showing wooded areas, and at least two including parts of a building.

‘He or she was very talented.’

Bryan’s embarrassment had diminished.

‘And they could have been drawn from life, too?’

‘Possibly, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the artist used photographs for these as well.’

‘The figures are posed?’

Bryan pointed to the couple.

‘Yes, Sargent Bryan.’

Anthea smiled.

‘First an outline was drawn, and then both people posed, possible separately some of the time.  Or they could have been drawn entirely from a photograph.  I’m not sure.  Those three drawings could be in a gallery, they’re very good.’

‘Do you recognise them?’

‘Neither of them.’

‘Sorry, I meant do you recognise the work, the artist?’

‘No.  I’m still new here, but I would guess they could be the work of a local artist.  Certainly, this is the place to see lyrebirds.  There are a couple of artists up in the hills.  One is a painter, and the other a sculptor.  Yea, I think I’ve seen drawings of birds like these in the sculptor’s studio in Sassafras.  Might be his.’

Bryan finished his water and put the drawings back in his bag.

‘Look, thanks.  I think there’s more.  I’ll see what else we have, and I might come back.  If that’s alright with you?’

‘Sure.’

‘Anthea, excuse my asking, but do you live alone?’

‘Yes.  Why?’

‘It’s just when I checked your address, I saw it was in the name of Anthea Gardener.  The post office told me you were Anthea Daines.’

‘That’s me.  Anthea Daines is my work name.’

‘I see.  Look, Anthea, I noticed your screen door has a broken lock.  You’re far away from the main road here, and you should take care of your security.  I’d get that lock fixed.’

‘Thank you.  I will.’

As Bryan walked out and over to his car, Anthea caught herself looking at him.  After years of living on the edge, of almost being out of control, she was still hiding away from men, but she couldn’t help noticing he looked as though he had a good figure.  And nice eyes.  And she also saw how he was looking at her.  Enough. 

She went back inside and went over to her drawing table.  She wouldn’t see him again, and she hadn’t moved to a hideaway to get tangled up in any close relationships.  Certainly not with a man, not yet.  She might have been out of it most of the time, living in a drug supported haze, but it had been hard enough leaving her friends in the squat.  They had been the centre of her world for several years; going away hadn’t just been about getting over addiction, it had ripped up part of her life.  Building a new life was going to take time.

Chapter 2: Thursday 18 September, The Patch

Anthea was rather pleased with her latest drawing.  No, she decided, it wasn’t just an illustrator’s drawing, she was getting serious about her work, taking a step towards becoming an artist again.  It seemed a dream a year ago, and now it might just be possible.

Those three nudes she had seen a couple of days ago had been working away at the back of her mind, and early this morning she had given in.  She had taken the mirror off the dressing table in her bedroom, put it in her studio, and feeling just a tiny bit self-conscious, started to do a drawing of herself, nude, down to her waist.  After an hour or so, she had stopped, and looked at what she had done, critically.  Yes, it wasn’t bad.

Then she looked at herself in the mirror.  Despite eight years of abuse, she’d emerged in reasonable shape.  Her hair was growing longer again, and it was still a rich reddish dark brown.  It had even recovered some of its lustre.  Her eyes were dark, and emphasised her pale skin:  she was going outside more now, but she would always have pale skin.  Her nose was short, turned up a little, and when she looked at it, it made her smile.  Her mother had called it a button nose.  Her figure?  She was nearly five feet and nine inches tall, and by the time she stopped the drugs she had become thin, bones showing where they shouldn’t, but a year of good eating was putting some flesh back on.  Many years ago, she had been weightlifting and exercising regularly, and she knew she should start again.  But, yes, she looked OK.

It was time for a cup of tea.  Waiting for the kettle to boil, she decided after this break from drawing, she might give herself a treat, and take her bike out.  Was her love of her motorbike evidence she still had a wild side to her character?

She had learnt to ride when she was at college.  For a year or more she rode a small motorcycle.  Then she had sold it because she needed the money.  However, despite all the stupid things she had done over the next few years, she had kept her licence, and even made certain she renewed it:  through the years at the squat she clung on to the thought she would get to ride again, one day in the future.

She couldn’t remember exactly what had possessed her to buy a second-hand motorbike, but when she saw an old Suzuki V-Strom 650 for $2,000, dirty, and needing a lot of work to get it roadworthy, she had bought it.  She saw it as a birthday present for herself, possibly as a step towards greater independence?  For two months, she had worked away on her bike.  Laurie, the owner of the Elizabeth Street store had given her a manual, sold her some additional tools to go with the standard set and offered to loan her some others.  He had even brought the bike out to The Patch when he was going up to Warburton. 

In early August, when the weather was clear, she had gone out for the first time.  It was her birthday; the ride was a good way to reward herself.  Since then she had tuned the bike further and allowed herself one good ride a week.  It was a step by step process, going a little further each time.  She’d travelled as far as Healesville, and over to Warburton.  Years earlier she’d gone on a trip over the Black Spur and on to Marysville.  By October, she wanted to be confident enough, and feel strong enough, to do it again.

She had just put on jeans and a cotton shirt, when she heard a knock at the front door. The drawing!  She quickly took it off the drawing table, and slipped it into an artwork portfolio. 

It was the policeman, Sargent Bryan Harrison.

‘Hi!  I’ve got some more material from the fire.  Can I come in?’

They went straight to her studio, and he emptied out a bundle of scraps of paper.  Some were bits of drawings, and some were fragments of photographs.  It was like a pile of pieces from several jigsaw puzzles.  She sorted them out into piles, first by type, and then by any obvious evidence of what they could be.  The smallest pile was of bits of photographs.  She spread them out, and slowly moved them around as she examined each one.  She heard Bryan leave the room, then some banging outside.  Whatever he was doing, it didn’t distract her.

There were torn pieces from what looked like four 8x12 prints.  Sorting them out into three collections, Anthea decided several appeared to be from two landscape shots, woodland, fairly close in.  One of the other piles was pieces that appeared to come from a portrait, head only.  The final group contained pieces from what looked as though it might be a studio shot of a nude woman. 

The fragments from which she could most readily make some sense were from the portrait.  With what turned out to be little more than a third of the original to work with, Anthea managed to assemble the photograph of a man, a portrait shot.  He was young, probably in his twenties, with fair hair, a moustache, and an elongated earlobe.  Once she was happy with the placing of every scrap, she grabbed her camera and took a photograph.

The two woodland shots were more difficult, and she decided to see if she could recreate the photographs together, side by side.  It was possible she was being influenced by what she knew, but both seemed to be images of a series of tall eucalypts, just like the ones at Grant’s Picnic Ground.  There was no obvious basis to put one piece in one print or the other.  Slowly she assembled two partial montages.  When she had placed every fragment, she stopped, and photographed the two collations, hoping she had put together a reasonable facsimile of what had been there.

The last pile had slightly more pieces in it.  Quickly sorting them out, Anthea could see her initial impression was right, it was of a young woman, standing in front of a wall or sheet.