The grizzly office manager with that morning's razor cuts adding to his facial unattractiveness entered the general office of Farm Accounting Services Ltd and snapped, "I want two volunteers to go overnight to Mt Diamond Station on Friday β overtime will be paid."
Dapper and genial Tony Charleston put up his hand; his mother wanted him to water-blast the outside of their house on Saturday, so this job offered a convenient reprieve. He was selected immediately.
Two females also had their hands raised: the promiscuous big-busted red-head Gloria Childs, who fancied a night away with Tony and mousy-hair Meg Williamson who wanted to gain experience interfacing with clients in their environment.
The nasty manager, Craig Duncan, thought he'd deprive Charleston of a bit of nookie so selected Meg.
At 10.22 on Friday morning as the company's single-engine aircraft took off from the White Diamond Station airstrip for its return journey, Tony and Meg were in a 4WD truck being taken to the homestead.
"Do you know details of White Diamond, Tony?" asked Meg, ignoring their semi-illiterate driver.
"Yeah, 448,000 acres and approximately 165,000 breeding ewes.
"Kingston Tuson was a pilot in the Air Force before coming home on his father's death and his wife Olive is the daughter of a millionaire property developer in Melbourne.
"You were told by Craig that their farm administrator Dave Higgins has done a runner. Well, he qualified a couple of years ahead of me and probably is in Bali now lying on the beach with a couple of hot chicks in each arm."
Meg's eyes widened at that last piece of information.
"Mr Duncan said drawings of $118,000 appear to be unaccounted for. Do you think we'll be good enough to find them?"
"Probably in a couple of hours if he's confined his fiddling to the one financial year and not bothered to be too sophisticated, knowing he'd be gone before the audit was done.
"It was only because Mrs Tuson wanted to go to England to see their two children at boarding schools did they find the cash account was well into overdraft. Higgins cleaned out eighteen thou from the cash account and Olive Tuson thinks another $100,000 has gone. If she thinks that in a quick scan we will probably find as much as $250,000 has been skimmed off."
"That much?"
"Yeah, perhaps even more."
"My goodness. Oh, by the way, what do I call the Tusons?"
"Listen to how they introduce themselves. They know me so it's first names. I'll just say you are Meg Williamson; if they use their first names, use them."
"Right, where will we sleep?"
"Well, if Gloria had come she'd slept with me, simply because she fancies me. You'll have a guest room next to me."
Meg, who's been increasing in confidence, turned crimson and fell silent.
The joint-property owners came out to meet the two investigating accountants.
"Hullo Tony," called Mrs Kingston.
"Good morning, Olive; hi Kingston. This is a new person on our staff, honors graduate Meg Williamson, who'll be assisting me."
"Hullo, Meg," said Mrs Tuson. "I'm Olive Tuson and this is my husband Kingston. Welcome to White Diamond."
"Good morning, Mrs Tuson. Oh, what a wonderfully colorful garden you have despite the prolonged drought. You've done wonders."
"Well, at least there is someone noticing that improvements are continuing around the homestead," Olive said, wrinkling her noses at her husband. Turning to the nondescript Meg she smiled, "Call me Olive, dear."
Just before 2:00 the two auditors, who'd worked through lunch eating mutton sandwiches with coffee, went out on to the porch were Olive was reading.
"You look as if you've had success."
"Yes, but unfortunately its all bad news β a criminal offence has been committed."
"How much?"
Tony looked apprehensive and Olive smiled, leaning down and picking up a radio handset.
"Kingston is out with the men docking lambs β I'll call him."
With communication established, Olive took the details and relayed them to Kingston. It ended with Kingston saying he'd fly to Wyalla Crossing on Monday to consult his lawyer about approaching the Police.
"It's the old story βtrusting but you become too trusting," sighed Olive. "Well, you two have more than twenty-four hours to fill in. Can you ride, Meg?"
"Yes, I love it."
Olive used the radio to call a jackaroo (farmhand) and ordered two horses to be saddled and brought to the front of the homestead.
"Put on a light long-sleeved shirt on and wear trousers, Meg," said Olive. "I'll get hats for you both."
Meg heard Olive giving instructions to Tony.
They both mounted and set off.
"What was Olive saying to you?"
"To ride out to Diamond Hill which is that peak ahead of us five miles away, and when we return have the sun straight ahead of us and we won't miss the homestead and outbuildings. It's easy to get lost out here."
They rode to the top of the hill and saw an outcrop of very white rocks.
"Diamond Hill and white rocks β of course, White Diamond, the name of the station," said Meg, as they then sat to drink from their water bottles.
"Clever girl," Tony said smiling. Meg flushed, wondering why Tony was staring.
Meg was wearing a dark brown shirt. They were both sweating in the heat and she had two particularly dense perspiration marks under her breasts. Until that moment Tony had not been particularly aware of her physique as mousy Meg did not flaunt herself, quite the reverse actually.
"What?" she asked, as the stare continued.
Tony shrugged and turned to look at the horizon.
Meg could see that his white shirt was sticking to his back. She looked down and saw the perspiration band over her belly. Pulling her shirt outwards she saw the marks under where her breasts bottomed. She blushed but at the same time felt pleased: he'd noticed her not only as a work colleague.
"The Tusons should have picked up the unusual drawings in period checks of their accountants, shouldn't they?" she asked.
"Yes. Had it been a bad year they certainly would have. But money was flowing in and everything seemed rosy. They just became complacent."
Meg looked thoughtful.
"They should have spotted it a mile away."
"You would have, because you are trained to look for abnormalities, changes in patterns," said Tony.
"Their interest was looking at the bottom line, and they liked what they saw until checking when the check for Olive's travel to England presented for payment by the travel agency exceeded their overdraft limit. There should have been a cash surplus."
As they headed off for the homestead Olive mused that the live-in farm administrator had been so arrogant about his duplicity. All he'd done after the payment of any sizeable amount of income to the Tusons was to write out a check to Davey Associates and enter the drawing as 'Commission'.
Including the final cash check for $18,000 before the farm administrator went on 'holiday', a total of $311,321.83 had been paid into the bank account of Davey Associates, an account operated solely by the farm administrator, Dave (David) Higgins.
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They arrived back very hot to be met by an excited Olive.
"I phoned our bank manager Guy Robbins and told him about your findings. He thinks we've got a grand chance of getting most of the money back.
"This is because Higgins has made what Guy called two fatal mistakes β one was he hasn't left Australia and the other was in closing his account he didn't get the money out in cash β he stupidly transferred it to a different bank in a small settlement in Western Australia in the name of Davey Associates. The account which just over $300,000 has now been frozen and the Police informed."
The two auditors became equally excited and Meg skipped over and hugged Olive.
"Cook is preparing us a splendid meal for tonight β just for the four of us," said Olive, happily. "We've really got something to celebrate. You two go off and have a rest. We'll meet back here at 7:00 for drinks."
Tony showered and sprawled on his bed reading, then drifted off to sleep, thinking about Meg uncovering her breasts and beckoning him with a wicked look in her eyes. He woke around six and wearing only a pair of white shorts knocked at her door gently.
"Come in."
The call was soft and sleepy.
Tony entered and Meg was on the bed apparently nude, just completing pulling a sheet up to her neck. There was a chair beside the bed but Tony ignore it, preferring instead to sit on the bed and leaning over her, supporting himself with a hand on either side of her shoulders.
"Do you mind me being here like this?"
"No," she said warmly, but without encouragement.
The young man hovering over her was not unattractive to look at β wavy brown hair with sun-bleached tips, a slender and kindly face dominated by intense blue eyes and a strong chin. His mouth smiled a lot and the corners of the eyes on the tanned face crinkled to broaden his full smiles. Strong white teeth won Meg's approval and she was strongly tempted to reach up and stroke the small patch of soft-looking curly brown hair on a chest taut with almost unblemished skin.
"I dropped off to sleep thinking about you."