Inheritance (12 page)

‘You mean illegal?’

‘The government has laws that
“prohibit anyone from disturbing or taking anything from known or unknown aboriginal sites”
to quote the law. Totally unwarranted, I think. Who’s to miss the odd piece? There’s plenty out there for everyone. It’s all just red tape. But there are heavy fines, even jail. So…caution is necessary.’

‘And where does this station come in?’

‘I’ve heard from a reliable source there are some unusual native locations on the property. I know as a fact that there’s a cave with aboriginal drawings so it’s possible there’s more.’

‘What sort of things would you be interested in?’

‘Anything portable. Ancient stone tools, containers, anything. But what would bring millions, and I do mean millions, is if we could discover one of the secret burial places.’

Ben whistled. ‘Millions, eh? And you think there’s a chance there could be something like that on this station?’

‘A chance, yes. A very good chance, almost a certainty, so I’ve heard.’

‘And where’s it likely to be?’

‘Apparently they buried their dead in tunnels or narrow caves, wrapped in cloth or bark. Things like that could be worth anything, a skull would be priceless.’

‘And you have the contacts to dispose of those sorts of things?’

‘Absolutely. So let me know if you go to work there.’

‘Yeah. Maybe we could do something even if I don’t. Where did you hear about this burial place business?’

‘I don’t reveal my sources.’

‘Fair enough. So what would be in it for me if I found something like that?’

‘I told you. I’ll look after you, Ben. There’d be plenty for both of us. Heaps! But it may not be easy to find. It’ll be up to you to see what you can find out. Keep your eyes and ears open. You might pick up a clue. Remember, it could be worth millions. Plenty for everyone.’

Tuesday evening was warm, one of those balmy spring nights that come so often in the tropics. Cassie dressed with care and applied a light makeup then surveyed the effect in the mirror. She had chosen, after great deliberation, a simple dress of deep green cotton, slightly fitted so that it skimmed her body. The shoestring straps revealed an even tan but her shoulders looked a little bare.

Opening a small drawer, she took out a pearl drop pendant with a gold chain and fastened it around her neck, then added small gold earrings and studied her appearance again. This time she was satisfied with what she saw.

Though why I’m bothering, I don’t know. He’s obviously having an affair with Stella, otherwise why would he be going to visit her at night? Tonight is strictly business. And I’m not sure I really trust him, anyhow. Her thoughts were interrupted by Rosie’s voice announcing Mark’s arrival. Cassie picked up her purse and went to meet him.

***

The scent of exotic tropical flowers from the gardens surrounding the restaurant reached Cassie as a waiter escorted her and Mark outside. Soft music played. An enormous silver moon hung low in a dark velvet sky and stars sparkled, like diamonds sprinkled by a heavenly hand. Tall palms ringed a large open-air patio set with tables, far enough apart to ensure privacy. A crisp white cloth covered each table; silver cutlery winked in the light from the candles glowing in the center of each one, leaving the surroundings in soft twilight. The waiter led them to a table set for two.

Cassie looked around as she sat down and then gazed up at the heavens. ‘How lovely. Dining under the stars.’

Mark smiled. ‘I hoped you’d like it. It’s my favourite restaurant.’

‘It’s a perfect night for being outside.’ Cassie tipped her head back again. ‘And just look at those stars!’

‘Yes. We’re far enough away from city lights to see them in all their glory. You can’t see them like this in Sydney, or any other big city.’

Cassie looked around again. ‘What a wonderful place. All the candles make it look like fairyland.’

The waiter reappeared and handed them large menus.

‘I can recommend the seafood here,’ Mark told her. ‘The leader prawns are magnificent. And to drink, I think champagne. Does that suit you?’

Cassie nodded. ‘Yes, that sounds great.’

They made their selections and the waiter reappeared moments later with champagne in an ice bucket. He poured a little into Mark’s glass and waited until he sipped and gave his nod of approval, then filled both glasses and left.

Cassie twisted her glass, watching the bubbles rise. ‘I usually associate champagne with celebrations.’

‘This is a celebration.’

‘Really? What are we celebrating?’

‘Our first dinner together.’ He raised his glass and smiled at her over the rim. ‘May it be the first of many.’

Cassie raised her eyebrows. ‘I thought this was a business meeting.’ She kept her voice light.

‘There’s nothing that says you can’t mix business and pleasure.’

‘I see. Then perhaps we should talk business.’

‘Let’s enjoy our meal first. Then business.’

‘Very well then.’ She raised her glass. ‘To pleasurable business.’

‘I’ll drink to that.’ They touched glasses with a smile, then drank to the toast. When they put down their glasses, Mark sat back and regarded her. ‘You know, that green dress brings out the colour of your eyes. They look like…emeralds. Yes, emeralds glowing in the candlelight.’

Cassie’s eyes widened. ‘How fanciful. I didn’t suspect you’re so imaginative.’

‘There’re probably many things you don’t suspect about me. But I’m more interested in you. I’d like to get to know you much better; I want us to be friends. I’d like to know all about you.’

‘There’s not a lot to know. When my father died, my mother started her business and when I left uni, I went to work with her and that’s what I’ve done ever since. Not terribly interesting.’

‘But there’s much more.’ He seemed genuinely interested. ‘What do you like, what do you dislike? What do you do in your leisure time?’

Cassie laughed. ‘You are inquisitive. Well, let’s see. I like music, films, theatre. I play tennis.’ She ticked them off on her fingers. ‘I often spend quiet nights at home. I visit my grandparents with my mother. And I often go to the beach with my friends at weekends.’

‘Well, that’s a start. And which beach do you like best?’

‘Bondi, of course.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Why of course?’

‘Well, we live at Edgecliff. Bondi’s always been my local beach. Why? Don’t you like it?’

‘I don’t dislike it. I just prefer Palm Beach. I lived there for a while.’

‘For a while?’ Cassie tilted her head.

‘Yes.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘When my marriage broke up, I sold the place and Gemma and I moved back with my mother. She lives in the family home in Strathfield.’

‘Oh. I see.’

The waiter returned with their first course.

Cassie surveyed the plate of assorted seafood morsels. ‘This looks wonderful.’

‘I hope you enjoy it, madam.’

‘Thank you. I’m sure I will.’

With a flourish, he left. They ate in silence for a few moments, enjoying their food, then Cassie returned to their conversation.

‘Is Gemma your only child?’

‘Yes.’

‘Has she been with you ever since you and your wife parted?’

‘Yes.’ Bitterness tinged his voice. ‘Her mother didn’t want her.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’

‘You’re not.’ He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. ‘It’s just…it’s not something I’m fond of remembering. Gemma was the only good thing about our marriage.’

‘I see. I guess you were young when you married.’

‘Oh, yes. Young and silly,’ he mocked himself. ‘I met Rowena not long after I left uni, just after I started work in the business. She was five years older than me, and beautiful. I was madly infatuated.’ He paused, looking a trifle embarrassed. ‘But that’s enough about me. You don’t want to hear this.’

‘But I do. That’s if it doesn’t hurt you to talk about it.’

‘It doesn’t hurt me.’ He shrugged, shaking his head. ‘I’m well over that. It just annoys me to think what a gullible young fool I was.’

Cassie, realising she wanted to know more about Mark, encouraged him. ‘Go on.’

‘You don’t want to hear. We didn’t come here to talk about my miserable marriage.’

‘But I do. If we’re thinking of co-operating in business, then I’m interested in you.’

He regarded her thoughtfully, stroking his chin.

‘All right…’ He took a deep breath. ‘Rowena was part of a fast set. I saw her as worldly, sophisticated and I was flattered when she showed an interest in me. We started going round together. She was a real party girl. It was parties nearly every night. Nightclubs, dinners, races on Saturday; we lived in a social whirl.’ He sipped his drink. ‘I couldn’t see it was Pierce Constructions she loved, not me. It was the prestige, the affluent lifestyle. We were married within a year, the big wedding, the lot!’

He leant back in his chair. ‘That’s when the trouble started. I had more responsibility in the business. I wanted to stay home some nights, but not her. If I didn’t want to go with her, she’d go without me.

‘My work started to suffer. I had to slow down, but she wouldn’t. So she started going her own way. When she became pregnant, I was so happy; I thought a baby would change her. But I was wrong.’ He shook his head. ‘As soon as Gemma was born, she hired a nursemaid. She wouldn’t even feed her herself.’

Cassie felt his pain and reached her hand out to him. He covered it with his own.

‘This was when I really began to see her as she was. We drifted further apart In the end, we were two strangers living in the same house. I was happy to do any work away from Sydney that came along, just to get away. I came up to Cairns to supervise a project about four years ago, and that’s when I fell in love with the tropics.’

He released her hand as the waiter returned to remove their plates and refill the glasses.

‘Go on,’ Cassie said, her voice reflecting her sympathy.

‘There’s not a lot more to tell. When I returned from a trip away and she told me she’d met someone else, I was relieved. She met an English tycoon at the races who could give her a more exciting life than me. He breeds racehorses for a hobby and now she spends her life jetting all over the world with him. Their photos are in the society columns sometimes when they visit Australia.’

‘And does she come to see Gemma then?’

‘Oh no!’ The bitterness was back. ‘Having a child’s not part of her lifestyle. I doubt she ever gives her a thought. Gemma’s the real loser in all this.’

‘Does she still remember her mother?’

‘Oh yes. She misses her. She’s still waiting for her to come home. She won’t accept that she’ll never be back.’

A lump came to Cassie’s throat as she pictured Gemma waiting hopefully for the return of the mother who had forgotten her. ‘Poor little girl.’

‘Yes. She’s the most important thing in my life and I hate to see her unhappy.’ He sighed. ‘She’s not an easy child to manage, I’m afraid. She can be quite willful. I’m afraid Rowena either totally spoilt her or totally ignored her. Mainly the latter.’

When he spoke again, after a pause, his voice became brisk.

‘Now then, this won’t do.’ His lips twisted in a wry smile. ‘Thank you for listening to me, but we didn’t come here to talk about me and my boring past. I’d much rather talk about you.’

Cassie matched his lighter mood, not revealing that she felt she understood him better now. ‘We actually came here to talk about business.’

‘Ah yes. Business. Now then, this idea of yours for cabins in the rainforest. I think it’s an excellent idea.’

The waiter appeared again with their main courses.

Cassie gasped. ‘My goodness. I’ve never seen prawns that size!’ She surveyed the two large red crustaceans that dominated the plate in front of her.

‘I told you, leader prawns are magnificent. Forget business until after we’ve finished dinner.’

They settled to the serious business of enjoying their meal.

When their plates were clean, they leant back in their chairs and both waved aside the offer of dessert.

‘That was a wonderful meal and this is an exceptional restaurant. Thank you for bringing me here.’ Cassie smiled at him. ‘And now to business.’

Mark threw up his hands. ‘You’re a hard taskmaster, Cassie.’

‘It’s why we came here.’

‘And I’ve been hoping it may have been to enjoy each other’s company.’

‘You are incorrigible. If you act like this at all your business meetings, I’m surprised you ever get any work done.’

‘Meeting. Ah yes, we are having a meeting, aren’t we.’

‘Be serious now. I’m interested to hear how you think we could work together if I go ahead with my idea to build cabins.’

‘You must go ahead with it. It’s a great idea. You’ll do well. Tourism’s growing all the time. And I meant what I said about us working in together.’ He sounded serious now.

‘How?’

‘Well, if any of your guests want to use any of Binbin’s facilities, say the pool, or the courts, we’d organise that. And if any of our guests want to visit any of your attractions, maybe take a guided tour of the rainforest, or the caves, then we’d organise that, too.’

‘Hmm. It sounds all right. I have other ideas, too. I’m thinking of establishing a little zoo of baby animals for the children. Working dog demonstrations. Campfires with bush ballads, all that sort of thing. Do you think they’d be popular?’

‘Absolutely. We could combine our resort style with your more bush and environmental approach. It’d be a winning combination. Cater for all tastes.’ Mark sounded enthusiastic. ‘And being next door to each other, it’d be easy to arrange. Almost like an extension of each business.’

Cassie found his eagerness infectious.

The next hour was spent in animated conversation over coffee and liqueurs, discussing ways and means of implementing their plans. They found they were in agreement on many points. They had a heated discussion, however, when Mark proposed the idea of supplying gear for fishing from the riverbank.

‘We could run competitions,’ he enthused. ‘Kids in particular would love it. There’d be prizes for the best catch. It’d fill in hours of their time; that’d make it popular with the parents.’