Now he was passing a scattering of bungalows, the airfield beyond that, rambling antique shops on his right. Tyabb owed some of its reputation to the airfield and the annual air show, but was better known as a Mecca for anything old. Most of the dealers operated out of a massive converted railway workshop, others out of houses, sheds and barns situated on the main roads of the town. Challis slowed the car and pulled into the driveway of an old church. A sign on the picket fence said ‘The Doll’s House Collectibles Fine Art Antiques W. amp; M. Niekirk Prop.’ Beneath it was another sign: ‘Niekirk Classics’, with stylised images of an old plane and an old car.
He got out. He could hear a distant aero engine. A young woman appeared in the doorway, slightly plump, cheery, under-dressed, jiggling a three-year-old girl on one hip. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Are you Mrs Niekirk?’
The girl got a kick out of that. ‘I’m Tayla, the nanny. Mrs Niekirk’s over at the airstrip.’
She didn’t know about Mr Niekirk, so Challis thanked her and headed to the airfield, entering via a slip road that led to a gate and a collection of admin buildings and hangars. He was tempted to check on his Dragon, but resisted. He steered around the perimeter, passing a dozen parked Cessnas and Pipers, to a couple of hangars on the far side. He pulled up against the side wall of the first hangar. A wooden sign above a small door read ‘Niekirk’.
He got out, yawned, stretched the kinks out of his spine, consciously holding back. He was a tall man, probably underweight, and still wore the tired pallor of a long winter and longer hours. Part of him wondered, as he spotted a Beechcraft make a banking turn above farmland at the far end of the landing strip, if he was about to take a step that he might regret. The plane flattened out, came in shallowly over the access road and touched down neatly. Nothing new, yet Challis watched with a childlike pleasure.
He stepped around to the front of the building and halted in his tracks. Two flatbed trucks were parked there, a front-end loader. Beyond them, in the dim interior, a huddle of overall-clad men were scratching their heads beneath a looming World War II warplane. Bristol Beaufighter, thought Challis automatically, admiring the stubby, menacing shape. Long-range fighter-bomber, designed in Britain and built in Australia, deemed ‘whispering death’ by the Japanese.
The Beaufighter claimed most of the space, both engines thrusting forward of the bulbous snout like a crab’s claws. He walked along the left flank, overhearing one of the men say, ‘Dismantle the wings first? Tailplane?’
Challis could see an office in the corner. Behind the plane, stacked here and there against the walls were old wardrobes, colonial-era sideboards, antique chairs with moth-riddled upholstery. The hangar was a useful space if you were a second-hand dealer with an overflow of stock.
The office door was open, a woman standing at a filing cabinet. Hearing his footsteps on the cold concrete floor, she turned to face him. She was tall, angular, about forty, wearing a loose white shirt over black tights, a little harried-looking as she peered at him over maroon designer frames. ‘May I help you?’
‘Mrs Niekirk?’ he asked, conscious that he sounded like a policeman.
She seemed to flare up. ‘I’ve had it with you people. We’re complying with that order.’
Challis held up both hands. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not here about any order.’
She went very still and waited, tense under the surface. ‘What can I do for you,’ she said flatly.
‘My name is Hal Challis and I own an old aeroplane and I’m thinking of-’
A narrow hand went to her throat. Challis saw small chips of gold there, gold on her fingers and earlobes, too. And a flicker of dark emotions. ‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ she said, barely moving her mouth, ‘but my husband is going out of the aircraft business.’
‘Oh. That’s a shame.’
With an effort, the woman shook off whatever had been affecting her. Her voice a low, pleasant rasp leavened with a smile, she offered her hand and said, ‘Mara Niekirk. Please forgive me, I sounded harsh.’
‘That’s okay.’
‘The thing is, we had our fingers burnt recently. Do you see that heap of junk out there? The men and the trucks?’
And Challis thought at once: the Beaufighter’s being repossessed. ‘Yes.’
‘My husband has a sideline business, brokerage. He puts people who have a classic car or aeroplane to sell in touch with people who want to buy one. But this time’-she gestured at the plane beyond the office door-‘he thought he’d be buyer and seller himself. More profit, you see. He even had a UK client lined up, prepared to pay a hundred thousand pounds sterling. The next thing you know, the federal government steps in and says the deal can’t go ahead. Fifty thousand dollars down the drain.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Needless to say, I’m a little cross.’
Challis didn’t ask where the husband was. In the doghouse somewhere. Instead, he asked why the Beaufighter couldn’t be exported.
‘According to the officious little bureaucrat who slapped the order on us, that damn plane has cultural heritage significance. If Warren tries to ship it overseas it will be confiscated and he’ll be hit with a heavy fine, even jail time.’
Challis jerked his head at the trucks. ‘So you’ve found a local buyer?’
Mara Niekirk grimaced. ‘It doesn’t rain but it pours. It seems the man who sold us the plane may not have had rightful ownership of it.’
‘It’s being confiscated?’
Mara Niekirk held up a finger. ‘ Repatriated is the word they used. It’s going to the War Memorial in Canberra and when the ownership issues are thrashed out, we’ll get a tax break under the cultural gifts program. Did you know such a thing existed? I didn’t.’
Challis stored the information, Mara Niekirk watching him steadily over the rims of her glasses. ‘Which is not the same thing as getting our money back.’
‘Can’t you sue?’
‘Hah!’
So the man who’d sold it to them can’t be found, or he’s broke, guessed Challis. He eyed the metal walls, hung with a number of prints and drawings: a Charles Blackman schoolgirl, a Brian Dunlop print of an open, curtained window. A matched trio of Brett Whiteley artist’s proofs, an homage to Van Gogh.
Mara Niekirk, watching Challis appraise them, blew a tendril of brown hair away from her nose. ‘This room needed a certain something.’
‘So, no more dealing in aeroplanes.’
‘Or vintage cars, my husband’s other side interest.’
Challis gave her a crooked smile. ‘Pity. I also have an old Triumph sports car I want to get rid of.’
She returned the smile. ‘Can’t help you.’
16
Until a year or two ago, Sundays had been a sacred day for Scobie Sutton-sacred in the holy-day sense and sacred in a family-spending-the-day-together sense. A bit of a sleep-in, late morning church- Sunday School for Roslyn-and the afternoon for visiting his wife’s mother and sister, or an excursion to Healesville animal sanctuary, or catching up on household chores, gardening and homework-hoping that God didn’t mind.
But Beth had lost her job and with it, it seemed, something of herself. Their church being less than helpful, she’d turned to a crackpot sect known as the First Ascensionists. She’d tried to gather Scobie and Roslyn to the fold, and when that failed she’d turned her back on her little family for a while.
She was better-a lot better than she had been-but now she spent her days abjectly saying, ‘Can you ever forgive me?’ and ‘You must hate me.’ It was wearisome. She phoned Scobie at work several times a day, she hovered in the doorway whenever Roslyn did her homework or practised on the electric piano in the evenings.
Father and daughter had the patience of saints; and at least they were out of the house during the daytime hours of the working week. Weekends were different. There was absolutely no escaping the heavy weight of Beth’s presence. And so it came as a great relief to them when Beth’s mother and sister had stepped in, offering to take her off their hands on Sundays.