CHAPTER
5
The internet searches Kirsty had checked out on her journey north to Clarence had not done the place justice.
She crossed the river and reached the main street just before noon on her third day of travel. LILLYPILLYSTREET, said a large, old-fashioned sign. A strip of buildings lined its high side—quaint and old-fashioned, in double-storey brick with painted fronts and fancy curved parapets bearing dates like 1907 and 1911. A wide grassy strip adorned with huge flowering shrubs cut the street in half, and the utes and massive old sedans that cruised by all seemed to be driven by old blokes in plaid shirts who didn’t like to drive over thirty kilometres an hour.
Typical country town, only way greener than she was used to. Way warmer, too, considering it was August. Back home, two thousand kilometres south, the wind would have been slicing at her cheeks like a frozen knife, whereas here, the breeze was gentle, carrying with it the smell of fresh-cut grass, and the odd raindrop scudded down from a few heavy clouds dulling the otherwise blue sky.
The address on the letter she held in her hand turned out to be for an ancient office tucked behind a laundromat. The glass door had a battered Open sign slung around its handle, but she hesitated and cast a quick glance down at herself. Sleeping in a swag in the back of a ute two nights on the go was not ideal for presenting oneself to strangers. Nor was heading on a cross-country journey with only a small duffle bag of clothes as luggage.
Her jeans were fine. Dusty around the hem, sure, but she’d washed them in Cobar and hung them to dry between there and Narrabri. Khaki singlet: cleanish. Long-sleeved shirt the colour of a red popsicle … she’d do. Her hair she’d braided into a loose knot on top of her head and secured it with one of the elastics that habitually lived on her wrist, and there were some knots in it that felt like they’d never come out, but that’s what scissors were for. If she owned any.
She could hear an industrial washing machine through the thin wall separating the office of Walter McDonald, Solicitor & Notary from the laundromat. Its shrill spin was so like a plane propellor her mouth went dry.
‘It’s nothing,’ she said firmly. ‘Not an omen, not a warning … justlaundry, for heaven’s sake.’ Man, she was overthinking this like a Fox with a family curse to evade. She was in a new town, so there was no reason to think fate was lurking on the other side of this door to trip her up.
That’d be twice in one week.
Not even Terri had ever needed to skip town twice in one week.
The lawyer, when she finally muscled up the courage to knock on the glass door, turned out to be a crusty old bloke who had to clear a battered old travelling case from the chair so she could sit down and say the heart-pounding words out loud.
‘I’m the granddaughter of Mary Bluett. I’m here to claim my inheritance.’
His eyes dropped to the floor beside her. ‘Dragged it out of storage this morning.’
‘This old case?’ Age-tarnished buckles. Dints and scratches and the limp elastic of a long-ago travel ticket dangling from its handle. A link—a physical, hold-in-your-hands, actual link to a family history that wasn’t Fox.
The lawyer’s voice rumbled but his words got lost somewhere between him saying them and her dragging her eyes away from Mary Bluett’s bequest. She wondered what the internet would have to say if she addedzoning out over old objectsto her list of symptoms. ‘Sorry, you were saying?’
‘The suitcase. It needs a key, girlie, but we don’t have it.’
She winced at the ‘girlie’. Walter McDonald clearly didn’t do a roaring trade in sexual harassment law.
‘Didn’t want to smash the catches open without your say-so. I’ve got a stainless-steel letter opener; you want me to crack open those locks?’
‘Er … no … but is there anything else you’ve found out? Any more steps you or I should take? Who is Doreen Anne?’ If only John Mann were here to hand her a clipboard. A checklist which she could tick-tick-tick then move on to easier stuff.
‘Sorry, love.’
‘But you must know something about the Bluetts if Mary left her estate in your care.’
Walter puffed his cheeks and opened an ancient file. ‘Let’s see. I did up wills for Mary and her husband in 1991, and then a new one for Mary after her husband popped off, a few years back. I’ve a copy of both here.’
He turned around a long, foolscap sheet.Last will and testament of Mary Dorothy Bluett, of Bluett’s Farm, 376 Shannon Gully Road, she read. An address. Well, that was more than she’d known before.
‘And is the family still there? At this address?’
‘Oh no, the farm was sold off decades ago. After the young fella died, I expect.’
The young fella being Trevor. How very sad. ‘And … there’s nothing else?’
‘Just the little matter of my final invoice,’ he said. ‘Terri said you’d be settling up.’
Of course Terri would say that; that was the only predictable thing that had occurred since her run of good luck came to an end. Handing over her card to pay the bill almost gave her the warm and fuzzies. ‘Fine.’
A minute later, receipt in one hand and suitcase in the other, she was back in her ute. What now? she thought. What did people on the run from fate do when they inherited a mysterious suitcase from relatives they’d never known?