I breathed out noisily, only then realising that I'd been holding my breath for a long time.

  Anna looked up. `I've found him.'

  `Oh, have you? Why didn't you tell me?'

  `I thought I'd wait till you came up for air. He's the youngest son of Vlado Mladenovic. To his second wife who is twenty-five years younger than him. She's only forty-five now and Luka is twenty-two. Where does he fit in?'

  `He's here and he's up to his balls in this. He probably nearly killed a woman I know.'

  That's when I told her about Wendy.

  `In fact I'm surprised he didn't try to seduce you. You're closer to his age and you're beautiful.'

  I was expecting blowback about her being beautiful but instead she stared at me without saying a word for so long I began to get itchy.

  `What?'

  `Maybe he did. Is he a very good-looking guy with a sexy accent?'

  `Wendy's sister said he was good looking, but she never said he had a sexy accent. She described him as a `wog', in fact. Where did you meet someone like that?'

  `It was months ago. I was going to see George about my inheritance and I slipped in the street outside his office. I don't know how, but I fell straight into this guy's arms.'

  I had a few ideas. He must have been watching her and knew a pick-up in a bar or any other conventional casual meeting wasn't going to work. He must also have figured approaching her on her farm wasn't an option either, particularly after all the publicity around the murders.

  `What happened?'

  `The guy was very gracious and took me back inside and we sat down. He explained he’d just arrived in the country and asked me about Melbourne. You know the sort of thing.'

  `Not really, I've never been chatted up by a handsome stranger. What did you think?'

  `He was so smooth he was icky. So when he suggested us having a drink together, I did a Mother and left.'

  I laughed. Her `Mother' was a haughty put down and was very effective.

  `Clearly they sent the wrong man. But what about Bentford? He even got an invite to your house.'

  `But that was just recently and only because of Samantha, and my parent's connection. As I said I soon got his measure too.' So that left them only with poor Wendy. `But why are they targeting me?' She pointed at my computer. `Does that say anything?'

  I got up and checked the open bottle of wine. It was empty so I opened a fresh bottle of Riesling. I needed to fortify myself to tell Anna that she was a billionaire.

  She said nothing for so long I thought she was in shock. I sat silently too. Eventually she spoke, so softly I had to lean forward to hear her.

  `Would George know about this?'

  `I don't know, but he must. He's managed your family finances for years. He'd have to know about the trust.'

  `Could my mother have kept it secret? Could she have all that filed with a lawyer somewhere so that nobody would know about it?'

  `Patrick found it, so it's in the public domain. That's how the Mladenovics must have found it, too.'

  `Yes, but you said Patrick's an expert at searching for this kind of thing and even then you told him what to look for. Would George or the other company people, or even my father, know it was there? I mean you might have a trust for an unborn grandchild but not say what was in it. My mother knew but did she keep it hidden? If she did, how do we find it? With her gone, what do I do? If it's going to get people killed I don't want it. I don't need it anyway.'

  I didn't say that I thought, once the Mladenovics had it the only person who'd be killed was her.

  `We'd better talk to George I think. And your family lawyer. And Anna, now that they might know we've found out about this, they're going to act. You could be kidnapped and forced to marry one of them and I'll be killed.'

  `Once I marry one of them I'll be dead too. Probably before the wedding reception's over. The shortest marriage on record, I bet. So what do we do? Tell the police?'

  `Tell them what? That your remote relatives are planning your death? Try proving that. The police have to have an awful lot of evidence or they wait until something happens before they can do anything. They respond to crimes, not prevent them.'

  I realised as soon as I said it that that wasn't strictly true. After all my oldest sister and her family were still alive. The police had hidden them to keep them that way. Still, that was after my brother-in-law was murdered, so there was a crime first.

  Right now we didn't have a threat that directly affected Anna. Just conjecture. And we already knew that the police didn't like my conjectures. Anna had to go into hiding until the Mladenovics were rounded up. As of now they had committed crimes here in Australia. Patrick was dead and Wendy probably soon would be. They'd left a trail. A damaged car. And whatever forensic evidence the police had with Patrick. And most of all, names.

  Luka Mladenovic. He was Serbian. He must have arrived on a visa of some sort. He would probably be known to the Serbian embassy. There might be a record of where he was staying.

  Michael Bentford. He was a UK citizen. He too would be here with a visa. From what he said he had business associates here. They were probably a cover but we needed to take a close look at them. When I suggested to Anna that she should disappear for a while she jumped up and headed for the bedroom.

  `You know that's not an option Harry. I will not be driven away from my home. I wasn't last time and I won't be this time.'

  I followed her. `But…'

  `No. Now come to bed, or don't, it's up to you. I have chores in the morning, remember?'

  There was no arguing with her when she dug in so I crawled into bed next to her and rubbed her back. Gradually she relaxed and one thing led to another. She slept. I didn't.

  What Anna wasn't aware of was that her immediate family had been unversed in violent crime including murder. They were amateurs. These new relatives, on the other hand, were very well versed in violent crime especially murder which they used to great effect. The Mladenovics were the mob. The Serbian mob as well, with a long history of atrocities to their name. Some of it government sanctioned.

  Her grandfather and great uncle had gravitated to the Nazis. Their children, the notorious Vlado and his cousin Eleanor were as ruthless as their fathers. Now it was the turn of the newest generation to wreak havoc on law and order in their turn. So we had Michael Bentford, the elder son and Luka, the younger son of Vlado versus Anna, the eldest grandchild of Milos, Vlado's uncle.

  Unless we did something fairly spectacular I was pretty sure the mob would triumph. Anna's blind loyalty to her farm was going to get her killed. But would running solve anything? My sister had run and she lived to tell the tale but the cost was huge. She'd had to leave all her friends, her family and her husband’s family. Her children grew up not knowing who they really were, and I hadn't been able to see her even when our sister died.

  It wasn't what I wanted for Anna. I had a life and a career, too. I couldn't simply disappear. Somehow we had to force them to leave us alone. How? I had absolutely no idea.

  I finally drifted off into appallingly violent dreams with blood and entrails all around me as I sank into a bog filled with knives. I only stirred as I heard Anna pull the door closed behind her. She must have seen me move because she was back in an instant.

  `If I give all the money away, they'll have no reason to attack either of us, will they?' She tapped her nose and grinned. `See, problem solved.' She was gone before I could speak.

  I had already thought of that. But a trust involving more than a billion dollars with a huge number of legal arrangements attached to it, couldn't simply be given away. If she wanted to divest, it would probably take an army of lawyers and months to even work through what was there, much less wind it down. By then she'd have been married and her widower would stop the process immediately.

  It had to be simpler than that. Like killing Michael and Luka and the old man and any other mob hangers on. Right. That wasn't an option either. Getting them behind bars would be good too. For what? Anyway they were visitors to our shores so nailing anything on them had better be fool-proof or there could be an international incident. I had every reason to believe that old Vlado probably owned more than a few of his country's politicians.

  20

  Before I followed Anna out I unlocked her rifle and loaded it. I had no faith whatever that there would be any holds barred from now on. They may not know I was here but they sure as hell knew Anna was and now guessed they wouldn't have much time to act before she found out who they were and what they wanted.

  There were no cars around when I walked to the barn. That was one plus for living up here. The bad guys didn't just creep along a street and duck into doorways. Anna had fed the animals and turned them out. By then but she was replacing the straw in the chicken roosts. They were clucking around her feet and pecking at the food she'd thrown for them. It was a sylvan scene. She looked up smiling when she heard me. Until she saw the rifle.

  `What are you doing with that?' she snapped.

  `Nothing, I hope. But I want to be sure I'm ready if anything happens.'

  `Is it loaded?'

  `Yep. Not much good if it wasn't. Look, Anna, next to these guys, your mother and Roger and his mates were fairies at the bottom of the garden. These guys are the mob. Serbian Mafia. They'd kill you if the cornflakes are soggy. So far they've blundered with me because they didn't take me seriously. Not that the last effort was all that bad. I got lucky. There'll be no room for luck from now on. And they'll move fast. But they don't know who you're talking to about this. Or even if you are. They'll know about George Mayhew and they'll have him under surveillance, phone, office and home.'

  `They wouldn't kill him, surely?'

  `Not yet. They know they might need him. Have you thought who your mother's secret lawyer might be?'

  She paused and swept her hair aside a with straw covered hand. I had to laugh. She looked like Ceres, the goddess of the fields.

  `There was a man who visited sometimes. I always thought of him as Superman. He looked a bit like the TV actor who played him, and his name was like his too. I was sure Superman was his normal job and that working for Mother was extra.'

  `Okay, as soon as you've finished here, we'll go and look up Superman.'

  I stood by waiting for her feeling like the sheriff at OK Corral. A right git but it was essential that we didn't take one minute for granted. Not that one rifle would be much help against a concerted effort by the Mladenovics, but that and a speed dial option to the police, local, city and emergency, were all we had.

  Back in the house we looked up all the supermen TV actors Anna might have seen when she was a kid. We came up with one front runner, a guy called Tom Welling. She wasn't sure that was the name so we looked up all the big-time probate lawyers in Melbourne. Nada.

  So we looked up Sydney. If Eleanor had wanted to keep this away from the company headquarters it made sense that she might go elsewhere. We found a lawyer called Tom Kelling. I was just about to say it out loud when my paranoia got to me.

  The Mladenovics were mob so the chances that they had got into Anna's phone had to be high. And the house too. Michael Bentford had plenty of time to place some little devices in Anna's house while she was out picking me up. Rather than wait for someone to sweep the place as the network people sometimes did, I put on some music and turned the volume up to painful.

  I used my phone to call Mr. Kelling. They couldn't have got to that. He was semi-retired now but his secretary said if we left our name and a message he would get back to us. Anna did, as Anna Madden and Mr. Kelling was back in half an hour.

  I hauled Anna outside and put the phone on speaker. The man had not known how to contact Anna because Eleanor had never told him Anna's married name. In fact, she rarely spoke of her daughter he said. Surprise, surprise. But yes, Mr Kelling had some very interesting documents for Anna. No, he couldn't possibly speak over the phone and no, he hadn't been in contact with anyone from the corporation or anyone else about it since Eleanor died.

  It had to be a face-to-face meeting with a whole raft of identification details to be filled. He would send a text listing these if Ms Felby felt her phone was secure. Did she have the What's App application? If not, would she please get it then contact him again and he would forward verification information.

  Before he broke contact I got Anna to ask him if he knew George Mayhew. He'd heard of him he said but had never done any business with him. He hung up.

  `So that's how she kept it out of the mainstream,' I said, `and that's why they need you so badly. They don't know how to get to the billion any more than you do.'

  One question though was how the Mladenovics had found out that the bequest even existed? He obviously wasn't interested in his extended family or he'd have left clues in his will. Or had he? More and more questions. No answers.

  We sorted What's App on Anna's phone and texted Kelling, who sent a list of identification details that would have tested the chief of ASIO.

  `My God,' she said, `you'd think I'm asking to marry Prince Charles.'

  `It's an awful lot of money and your mother and grandfather went to a lot of trouble to keep it very, very secret.'

  `Yeah, even from me. What's the bet she was trying to overturn the will? She hated me getting anything, let alone what I bet she saw as hers by right. No wonder she was keen for me to die before she did.'

  I was still trying to find some way of getting Anna out of the firing line that was acceptable to her. Just going to Sydney to see this Kelling bloke would freak her out and she knew we had to do that. I kept thinking in circles. If I told her that the Mladenovics were likely to threaten her animals to beat her into line she'd never leave. And if she didn't leave them the Mladenovics would slaughter her.

  But, if the animals weren't there, there'd be no leverage and Anna could be kept safe as well. That was the answer. Especially if Anna didn't know where they were. It would be cruel because she'd be beside herself, but it was life and death.

  The other issue was whether we were `bugged'. I rang Greg at the network. Did he know anyone in our network who knew about surveillance?

  `What do you mean, surveillance?' he asked.

  `You know `bugs', listening devices.'

  I held the phone at arm's length as he roared his outrage. What sort of people did I think we were? Never in all the years had anyone ever suggested—you get the drift. Poor Greg, having me around, he said, was driving him to an early grave.

  So I rang Anna's late aunt Geraldine's old network. The one that had armed men on their news team. The ones that shot at me. Good old Jerry Carney, a man I had leverage over. If he was outraged at the question, I'd use it. There was no way that network didn't use clandestine surveillance.

  I'd left him alone after asking him about David Bale's mentor, the crooked Milan Pavlovic. His reaction to the mention of Mladenovic had been tense back then so I decided to leave it out this time. He was so friendly I almost hesitated to do what I had to do. Almost. He was outraged, but only for about ten seconds. After I reminded him of a break-in at Anna's mother's house that he'd admitted to on the record. I had him and he knew it. I told him I needed someone to check out Anna's house immediately, how long would it take?

  `How important is it, mate?'

  `Life and death, Jerry, life and death.'

  `Again? Can't you and that woman stay out of trouble for even a few months?' He stopped and I could almost hear the wheels of his mercenary brain turning. `Can we get an exclusive on whatever's going on?'

  `I'll think about it. When can you get this guy up here?'

  Luckily the man lived in Lilydale, less than an hour away. Jerry would call him for a first crack at the story if I wouldn't grant an exclusive.

  `You drive a hard bargain, mate, but okay,' I said. He couldn't see my grin. `Mind you if the bloke isn't quick there'll be no story, we'll be dead instead.'

  My next call was even more important but far more difficult. I had to find someone with, or who knew of, a property that could take half a dozen llamas, a donkey, and an ageing ex-racehorse. For an unspecified time.

  I finally remembered an old flame whom I thought had married a farmer. She'd been looking for greener pastures than an itinerant journalist could provide. It was more than five years earlier and I didn't know if she'd actually married him. Or if her phone number was the same. Still, she was the only chance I had on short notice. And given the risks I had to move fast. Before Anna came back in.

  I'd just picked up the phone when she reappeared and dumped a cobweb covered box on the table. She gave me a peculiar look as I put the phone down a tad too quickly. She really was good at those slight cues.

  `Some old financial stuff from George. Maybe worth a look.'

  I nodded but after another glance she left for her own greener fields. I rang Kitty. She had kept her old number. In the background I could hear a baby wailing. Kitty had certainly moved on.

  `Hi stranger,' she cried, `how are you? Long time and all that. What're you doin' these days? I mean I read about all that stuff last summer. That was awful, but no news is good news, I guess. After that I mean. Put that down! No not you, my little boy. He's a terror. So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?'

  I started with a few pleasantries but quickly came to the point. `Are you living on the farm with—'

  `Colin. Yes, and loving it, Harry.' Her voice deepened, calmer somehow. `I've never been so happy in my life.' She laughed. `Leaving you was the best thing that ever happened to me. Oops, sorry. That didn't come out right.'

  I laughed too. `No, I completely understand and I'm really glad. Look Kit, I've got a problem and I need a favour.'

  `Oh, yeah?' The wariness in her voice was palpable.

  `No, nothing bad. I just need to find a temporary home for some farm animals.'

  `Oh, is that all. Wait, how many and for how long? We haven't got a huge place here.'

  `Eight, no nine. Six llamas, a donkey, an old ex-racehorse and a maremma dog. But I don't know how long for. A few weeks probably. Of course we'd pay you to have them, everything you need and fees.'

 

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