Chapter 03

A New Role

by

Ernest Bywater

Events and Changes

One Tuesday afternoon a taxi stops in front of a set of apartments in Shortland Street, Telopea, New South Wales, right opposite the Telopea Railway Station. The passenger pays the driver and says, “Have a good day, Hadi. I’ll call you the next time I need a taxi. Keep the change!”

The driver grins while replying in his an accent, “In other words, the same as always. Thanks for the tip. I’ll see you next time, Ernie.”

The passenger, Ernie Wells, opens the front passenger door while he lifts his waist-high alloy cane and turns in the seat. Placing the cane on the ground beside the taxi with his left hand he braces it on the ground to assist him in getting out of the taxi. In a practised strong and balanced move he leans on the cane while rising off the seat to an upright position beside the taxi. Two small steps later he reaches back to shut the door behind him, which is followed by the taxi driving away. He moves off toward the nearest building on his way home to his apartment on its top floor.

After checking his mailbox he takes the lift up to the top floor. When the door opens he’s surprised to see four rough looking young men in the hallway while one of them is beating on the door of the apartment opposite his. This is a worry to him as the occupants are two young women who go to the University of Western Sydney at the Rydalmere campus which is two stations down the railway line across the road.

While limping up the hallway Ernie says, “Stop that racket! What’s the problem here?”

The youth banging on the door turns and looks at the late-twenties male of medium height leaning on the cane while limping up the hall from the lift. He snarls, “None of your business, arse hole!”

Ernie gives a small grin while saying, “I’m an owner of this building, so anything going on here is my business. Now talk, or leave.” Because he owns his apartment Ernie is a member of the collective corporate body that owns the building, just like every other owner. This gives him a limited legal responsibility toward what goes on in the building.

The youth turns toward Ernie, gets something from his pocket, and shakes his hand in an odd way to make a flick-knife blade now visible as he says, “Maybe a cut or two will shut you up!” Ernie had continued walking up the hallway so the two are now only a bit over a metre apart when the youth produces the knife and moves toward Ernie.

Leaning a bit to his right so his weight is centred over his right leg Ernie is fast to raise his left hand while he lets the cane slide through his hand a little as he spins it so the handle strikes the youth on the inside of the wrist with enough impact to make the youth drop the knife due to the sharp pain. Spinning the cane the other way he changes the angle he’s holding it at to catch the oval knob handle behind the youth’s ankle in such a way a sharp move to the side has the youth falling down as he loses his balance. He yells while falling, hits at an angle, and hurts his knee when he hits the floor with the leg at an angle.

Another youth has a knife out and is moving forward. Ernie spins the cane the other way while changing the angle of his hand so the handle of the cane whips up to smash into the wrist of the knife hand very hard. The knife drops while the youth screams in pain. Another reverse of the cane is followed by repeating his actions on this youth’s ankle, and this youth falls to the floor. He goes down at an angle while still yelling in pain. He also hurts his knee when he strikes the floor with his leg bent the wrong way. The two sit there and moan about their pain.

Looking at the other two youths, neither of them have moved yet, Ernie says, “I’ll castrate the next one who pulls a knife!” Both gulp and move their empty hands away from their bodies. He nods, smiles, and says, “Good! Smart move!” Pointing at one Ernie adds, “You! Move slow while you take out some sort of photo ID and hand it to your mate.” He does that and is told, “Sit on the floor, up against the wall opposite the door. Legs at ninety degrees and hands on your head.” He does as told and is soon sitting against the wall.

Turning to the fourth youth Ernie says, “Moving slow, kick those knives over here, drag those two up against the wall, and get a photo ID off each of them. Then add your own photo ID to the pile and bring the lot to me. After that you can sit on the floor, the same as your mate.” It takes him about a minute to do as ordered, and all is soon as requested.

Ernie uses his cane to knock on the door of the apartment they’d been at as he shouts, “Jenny? Alice? It’s Ernie and it’s safe to come out now.”

The door opens and he sees Alice standing there with a large bread knife in her hand. She looks about then lowers the knife. With a smile he says, “I want you to use two plastic bags to pick up the knives without getting your prints on them. I also want a high resolution copy of these IDs, please.” Alice nods yes as she reaches for the IDs he’s holding.

She disappears into the apartment for a minute or so, then returns with the IDs, two prints-outs of the four youths’ IDs, and two plastic bags. After picking up one of the knives by holding a bag over her hand while lifting the knife by its hilt she folds the bag over the knife and slips it into Ernie’s coat pocket, then she repeats with the other knife. A copy of the IDs goes into his pocket and she hands him the IDs.

Ernie takes the IDs and flicks them, one ID at a time, across the hall to the one who got them together while saying, “Put these back, then you and your mate can drag these two out of here. I don’t care how you do it or where you go, but you’ve got two minutes to get out of here and five minutes to be over five hundred metres down the road.” The two uninjured youths nod yes, slowly stand, grab their injured mates by their coat collars, and drag them toward the lift.

When the lift doors shut Ernie goes into his apartment and walks to the small verandah he has overlooking the front of the building. He soon sees the four of them leave the building, get into a car, and in a moment they’re out of sight around the corner. He walks back to his front door, and he finds Alice still standing in the hallway.

He nods at her while saying, “Lock your door and come in for a cup of hot chocolate. I think we both need a sugar boost after dealing with that lot.” She nods yes and turns to her apartment to grab her keys and lock the door.

Visiting

A moment later Alice is sitting in Ernie’s apartment. They’ve both lived here for about two years, and while he’s been in her apartment to help her and Jenny out with a few things this is the first time she’s been inside his apartment. While sitting at the morning-bar dividing this big open area from the kitchen she looks about the large living room taking in the various items on display. The combination dining / living / lounge room is a five metres wide and fifteen metres long area. The open style construction is to let the owners split the area how they want by using temporary walls or furniture. The same room in Alice’s apartment is split into rooms by floor to ceiling room dividers while Ernie has left it all as one big open area. She can see he uses different parts of the room for different things due to the way the furniture is set out. One corner has a large desk, office chair, filing cabinet, and computer desk in it. The other corner at that end has a television and DVD player against the wall with a lounge dividing it from the office area. Next along, opposite the morning-bar, is a nice dining table with six chairs. The rest of the room, about half of it, is all open space with some lounges, tables, and chairs around the walls, plus a nice cabinet containing a sound system in the front corner. She likes the layout because it allows for a large party area with easy movement between the zones. While grinning she says, “I prefer this layout to the way they’ve got the room in my apartment.”

He smiles as he says, “The open plan makes it easier for me to move around and it’s a lot easier for Maria to keep clean for me.”

“You pay to have the place cleaned?”

“Yeah! I can’t do a good job and I hate half-arsed ones, so I pay for it to be done well. Maria and Tony had some temporary money issues so I paid her well to clean for me. We’ve just kept it going since then. She does a great job, I don’t have to do it, and they can use the money.”

Ernie is busy in the kitchen while they talk, and he soon has two mugs of hot chocolate on the bench. He walks around to sit on a stool near the end. They both pick up their mugs and have a long drink before putting them down to talk some more.

He asks, “If you don’t like the way the apartment is why don’t you change it?”

“It belongs to another family member and I’m only renting it. It’s allowed because it’s to family and there’s no lease agreement. Thus it isn’t in violation of the Incorporation Articles.” Their building is one of three apartments blocks in a ‘U,’ each with nine floors of six apartments on each floor. The buildings and grounds are owned by an incorporated body with each apartment owner having an equal share and say in the company. The company articles and rules say the apartments can’t be sub-leased or rented to strangers, but the owners can rent to family. Thus the residents are the owners or family of the owners. This is to maintain a high standard of quality of living by those living there.

When looking at the buildings from the street this building is the one on the left and Ernie has the apartment on the front right corner of the top floor while Alice is in the apartment opposite in the back corner. He has a view of the front of the building and, from the side, out to the east and over the city of Sydney while she has the same side view and one to the north of them. The buildings are on a ridge which is a bit over a hundred metres above sea-level, thus the residents are much higher than most of the city and they have a good view of the city when looking out. Those on the top floors are about another thirty metres higher and have a much better view than the lower floor residents.

Ernie picks up the phone in one hand and the printout of the IDs in the other. In a moment the number he dials is ringing and answered. He says, “Dave, it’s Ernie Wells, there’s been an incident here at home and I want some advice on how you may want to handle it.” He goes on to explain the confrontation before he gives the names of those involved. Alice is frowning while he talks on the phone because she can’t work out what he’s up to. Ernie finishes with, “I’d like you to organise a few extra patrols of the area and I’ll take your advice about a complaint.”

Dave replies, “I’ll talk to the duty crews about the patrols and I’ll call you back about the complaint.” They both hang up.

Ernie looks at Alice as he says, “I’ll let the police decide if they want to make this official or not. They’ll call back.”

Alice gives a shrug and says, “I always thought that cane of yours was a bit weird, but seeing that staff beside the desk makes me think it’s part of a special set. What do you need such a staff and cane for?”

He grimaces and says, “That’s a long story. However, a friend of a friend makes special objects for people into medieval re-enactments and cosplay stuff. When he was asked to make a staff for me he spoke to me about what I’d want as far as physical use concerns were then he made that thing and this cane to go along with it. All I asked for was to have it two metres tall with an area near the top I can grab and use to pull myself up out of a chair. He measured my hand while grasping something and he came up with a diameter for the staff and the handle of the walking stick. I’ve no idea of what they’re made out of, but I can tell it’s some sort of alloy due to its very light weight. The staff has a minimum diameter of sixty millimetres for its length and the cane is thirty millimetres in diameter. The cane handle is seventy by one hundred millimetres. I can see he anodised the metal, but I don’t know how he got the mix of colours done. Also, most of the places where the colour changes are engraved. So I think he did it one colour then engraved some shapes and did the next colour on the new exposed metal, and so on for each colour used. They both really stand out. I like the fact they’re both very strong and easily take my weight.”

She smiles, “They’re brilliant and beautiful works of art! Both look very realistic and look like they’re columns of fire. So why the flame theme with the helmet on top?”

“They relate to my previous employment. I was a fire-fighter before I got badly injured on the job. The top of both is like a fireman’s helmet. If you look closely at the top of the staff you’ll see it looks a lot like me wearing a helmet. That part was done from a photo of me in full gear.”

She stands and walks over to the staff. Taking hold of it she turns it around and gives it a close examination. While putting it back in its place she says, “I see it’s a sorcerer’s staff for the Wizard of Fire. That explains the pillar of fire theme and the cane to match it. Cute! I like it.”

The phone rings, and Ernie answers it. After listening for a moment he says, “Right! Will do. See you then.”

While hanging up the phone Ernie says, “The police are coming down to take an official report and complaint. We need to sit down and type out statements of what happened so we can hand them over when the cops get here. They’ll be about fifteen minutes to get here. Make six copies when you print it out, but don’t sign them.” Alice nods as they head to the door.

Ernie looks out his peep-hole then he opens the door. He stands there to watch her until Alice locks her door behind herself. Then he closes his door and he goes to his computer. Several minutes later he has six copies of his statement being printed while he copies a video file from his coat camera onto CDs, six copies of it. Ernie also makes six copies of the photo IDs. He soon has it all done and set out on his dining table with five A4 sized envelopes, each with his name and today’s date on them.

Police Concerns

There’s not much of a wait before the police arrive: Sergeant David Bannerman with two detectives Ernie doesn’t know. When they knock on the door Ernie checks the hall then he lets them in while saying, “I’ll get my neighbour.” He walks across to knock on Alice’s door, and she soon joins them while carrying six sheets of paper.

They all take seats around the table and Ernie says, “Dave, please witness these statements while we sign them.” He picks up his papers and signs each sheet, handing them to Dave to sign as a witness before he hands them back. Then the same is done with Alice’s statements. Ernie slips a copy of each statement, the CD, and a copy of the IDs into each of the envelopes. He hands the open set and an envelope to Dave, two envelopes to Alice, and puts two aside for himself. Dave passes the open set to the detectives and he keeps the envelope. Ernie looks at Alice as he says, “One copy for you and one for your solicitor.” She slowly nods.

All is quiet while the detectives read the statements, then they ask them a bunch of questions while making notes in their notebooks about the replies. A few minutes later they’re finished and Ernie hands over the bags with the knives.

Dave shows Ernie a photo while saying, “This is the brother of the leader of this group. He has a reputation for beating up witnesses.”

Ernie looks at the photo and replies, “If I see him I’ll make a point of keeping away from him, just to be safe.”

Dave nods agreement, “Good,” and the three police officers leave. Alice goes back to her apartment at the same time.

After locking his front door Ernie goes to the morning-bar and he starts to go through the mail he collected earlier. When he got it out of the mailbox he put it in his coat pocket, then he moved it to the morning-bar when he came in to make the hot chocolate. So it’s been sitting there and waiting for him since then.

Mail Call

As is usual there’s not much mail for Ernie to go through. A power bill, a statement of royalties from his book printer and distributor, the minutes of the last meeting of the body corporate, and a letter from a Mr William Dunn of Malcolm, Dunn, Wright & Goode, a firm of solicitors in the city of Rivers, about an inheritance Ernie is entitled to. He doesn’t understand it so he decides to give them a call since it’s just going on four in the afternoon. Ernie is soon talking to Mr William Dunn, and he’s answering questions to confirm his mother is the late Athena May Wells nee Mount whose parents were Michael Mount and Elizabeth Mount nee Meadows, and his great-grandfather was Charles Percival Mount.

All this talk of family is upsetting Ernie because he has no family now. Both his parents with his aunt and uncle, his father’s brother and wife, died in an accident when a man in a truck going the other way had a stroke and crossed the road to hit the car with his family head on, and all involved were killed. The Coroner ruled it an accident based on the post mortem evidence of the stroke. To find the next relative on his father’s side would mean going back a hundred years to find a distant cousin in England, but he has no data on his father’s grandparents other than they have very common names. His mother’s side he knows well because she was into tracing her family history. From those records he knows the nearest living relative would be a third or fourth cousin descended from a brother or uncle of his great grandfather Charlie Mount. However, he’s never met any of them, nor does he know where any of them live.

Will asks, “Ernie, have you got certified copies of all the documents because we need to prove what we’ve been talking about?”

Ernie replies, “Mum was well into genealogy so I’ve got the original birth, marriage, and death certificates back to Charles Mount with NSW BDM certified copies of all of the rest in the direct line back to the first Mount to die in Australia. That’s as far back as she got.”

“When can you come down here to show us all this evidence so we can certify you’re the nearest living relative and process the will. We’ve been several months tracking you down, so we want to get this done.”

“Whose will is this, Mister Dunn?”

“Let’s see if I can explain this right. Your great-grandfather, Charles Mount, was the youngest of six children. I won’t go into the details but on paper there were over thirty relatives with a closer claim than you, except they’ve all died and the last one was Graham Mason, a second cousin once removed. He was the son of the daughter of the son of Charles’ eldest sister. The next nearest relative alive is Howard Mount, a fifth cousin. He’s very insistent he should get the estate because he’s a farmer and his name is Mount. But that’s not what the will or the trust deed says so he’s out of luck, and he’s very angry about it.”