“Well there it is,” said Father Benedict, crossing himself as they gazed down at the small skeleton that they had unearthed.

“There’s not much there, is there?” commented Ernie, alarmed at how badly decomposed the skeleton was, worried that after forty years there might not be enough left to identify.

“No,” agreed the priest, realising what Ernie was thinking, “but it’ll have to be enough or Tony is doomed to spend the next twenty years in gaol.”

“But how can it be Leonard Moffett?” demanded Bear Ross when he and Mike Mannas stared down at the small skeleton after reluctantly agreeing to go to the mount to investigate what the two men had found.

“Come off it,” protested Mannas, “we saw your friend Frankland blow Leonard Moffett’s head apart like a smashed watermelon.   So whoever this was, it can’t possibly have been Moffett.”

“I assure you that that is exactly who it was, Inspector,” insisted Father Benedict, deciding that at last it was time for him to become a good priest.   “Surely you wouldn’t accuse me of lying?”

Although taken aback by the priest’s words, Mannas quickly recovered his composure, to say, “No offence Father, but if the Pope himself told me that this is the skeleton of Leonard Moffett, I still wouldn’t believe it.”

Nevertheless Mannas had no choice but to believe it, when the identification of Leonard Moffett’s remains was confirmed two days later by dental records.

“But it can’t be Leonard Moffett!” protested Mike Mannas.   However, he readily agreed to take part in a cross examination of Tony Frankland with Bear Ross.

Tony repeated to the two policemen the story he had already told Ernie of how Leonard Moffett had died on the side of Mount Abergowrie when they were playing as teenagers forty years earlier, and how an impostor had turned up to take his place.

“An impostor?” asked Mike Mannas, wondering whether he had heard correctly.

“That’s correct,” agreed Tony, who had decided that it was wisest not to try to explain to them how Agnetha Chambers had taken over the life of Leonard Moffett.

“Well it’s got me stumped!” admitted Bear Ross as he, Mannas, and Terry Blewett sat around his desk in the front office of the police station a short time later.

“He’s lying!” insisted Mannas.   “His whole story is a load of crap!”

“But what about the dental charts?” demanded Terry.

“Oh he’s telling the truth about that much of it,” conceded Mannas reluctantly, “but he’s lying about the impostor just appearing out of nowhere.   I mean let’s face it, how likely is it that a fourteen year old look-alike is going to just turn up to take the place of a dead kid?”

“A look-alike close enough to the real thing so that even his parents Doreen and Arthur Moffett never suspected a thing!” pointed out Terry Blewett.

“Exactly,” agreed Mannas.   “No, Frankland knows a lot more about the impostor than he’s telling.   But don’t worry; I’ll get the truth out of him over the next week or so.   One way or another!”

However, Mannas never got the chance to get the truth out of Tony.   To Bear Ross’ astonishment, the Melbourne Police Inspector and the whole squad of big city cops who had been swarming around Glen Hartwell for weeks were suddenly all recalled to Melbourne the next day.

Even more surprising, the next day Bear received a telephone call from the Prime Minister’s Department in Canberra, informing him that two Federal Special Agents would be coming down from Canberra to take charge of Tony Frankland.

“Yes sir, certainly sir,” said Bear sheepishly, having never dealt with anyone so high up in the Australian police system before.   Hanging up the receiver he repeated the gist of the telephone conversation to Terry Blewett, who said:

“Well what the Hell was that all about?   What does the Prime Minister’s Department have to do with a simple murder investigation?”

“You’ve got me,” admitted Bear, “I guess we’ll find out when the two special agents arrive.”

The next morning the two agents, Jon-James Spencer and Robin Harper arrived.   The two men were complete opposites: Spencer, in his late thirties, tall and lean yet with a powerful physique, fiercely blond, with shoulder length hair; Harper, in his mid fifties, short, dumpy, with a great potbelly, and crew-cut black hair.

“All right,” said Jon-James when the two agents were alone with Tony Frankland in the small holding cell at the back of the Mitchell Street police Station.   “How much of this story is true?”

“All of it,” insisted Tony.   “The dental records prove that….”

“We’re not talking about that,” cut in Robin Harper.   “As you say the dental records prove that part of it.   We’re talking about the other part.”

“The other part?”

“The part about Agnetha Chambers and the exorcism performed atop mount Hargreaves,” explained Jon-James.

“But how did you…?” began Tony, half wondering whether they had already interrogated Ernie and Father Benedict before coming to see him.   ‘Maybe one of them cracked under pressure!’ he thought.

The two special agents exchanged a glance, then Jon-James Spencer said, “Look let’s cut through the crap and get down to brass tacks.   Three days ago the Prime Minister received a special phone call in regard to your story….”

“The Prime Minister?” asked Tony in amazement.   He wondered whether Ernie or Father Benedict would have dared to ring the Prime Minister on his behalf.

Aware what he must be thinking, Jon-James smiled broadly then said, “No, no this call was from someone a little more influential than either of your two friends….”

“Then who…?”

“To put it bluntly,” said Robin Harper, “it was from the Pope!”

“The Pope?” asked Tony stupidly, wondering if they were pulling his leg.

“That’s right.   It seems that your friend, Father Benedict rang through to his Monsignor in New South Wales and related to him in detail everything that happened upon Mount Hargreaves.   The Monsignor was sufficiently impressed with the priest’s sincerity to phone through to the Vatican where he related the story.   Not directly to the Pope, of course, but to someone high enough up in the Vatican hierarchy to be able to pass the story on to His Holiness.

“Anyway it seems that although the Vatican no longer openly encourages the performance of exorcisms, there have been rare occasions in recent years when they have admitted the existence of demonic possession or obsession.”

“This apparently is one of those rare occasions,” explained Jon-James sitting on the bunk beside Tony.   “However, the Prime Minister of Australia isn’t quite as religious as the Pope and wasn’t as ready to accept a story of demonic possession, so he sent us down to verify your story, before we release you from gaol.”

“Before you release…?” asked Tony.

“That’s right,” agreed Robin Harper smiling at the seated man.

They continued to question Tony at length over the next week, during much of which time he was hooked up to a polygraph machine, operated by Harper.   Finally, to Bear Ross’ astonishment, the two special agents used their authority to have Tony Frankland released from custody.

“Oh thank God!   Thank God!” cried Samantha Frankland, crying from joy as her husband was returned to her.

“But how?   Why?” asked Rowena as Ernie brought her father home to them.

Ernie shrugged and said, “It’s a long story Rowie, and frankly I don’t think you’d believe it.”

Three days after the release of Tony Frankland, the Prime Minister’s Department released the official version of the shooting committed by Tony: “In 1944,” Ernie read out of the Merridale Morning Mirror, “a teenage boy named Leonard Moffett was murdered by the Soviet secret service and a Russian double was substituted.   The double was so exact in every particular that even Leonard’s parents did not suspect what had happened.   The double took over the identity of Leonard Moffett with the intention of subverting Australia to a pro-Soviet stance in the event of a future war between the USSR and Britain or the USA.   However, Tony Frankland, a resident of Glen Hartwell, where the real Moffett was born and raised discovered the truth and killed the Soviet double to prevent him from becoming premier of Victoria, which would have only been a stepping stone to his ultimate goal: Prime Minister of Australia.”

“Do you think anyone will believe that?” asked Tony Frankland as he and Ernie sat around the living room at the Frankland sheep station, drinking cold beer straight from the can.   “I mean in 1944 World War Two was still going strong and the Russians were the allies of the USA, the cold war was years away in the future.”

“That’s true,” agreed Ernie, “but most Aussies don’t know enough about recent history to pick that up.   Besides I think most people would find it a Hell of a lot harder to believe the truth about what really happened after Leonard Moffett died.”

“That’s true,” agreed Tony, reaching for another can of Foster’s Lager.

*      *      *

A Month Later

The small Piper Cherokee was flying over a large mountain in the southeastern Victorian countryside, when it started to develop engine trouble.

“Hold on!” warned the pilot; “we’re going to crash.”   Fighting to keep control of the plane, he attempted to glide toward a clearing that he had spotted a few hundred metres to the left.

“I think we’re going to make it,” said the young co-pilot, his eyes shining from fear.   Yet even as he spoke the plane was caught in a down draft and dropped like a rock, to smash into the side of the mountain.

The front portion of the plane disintegrated on impact, tossing the two young flyers across a clearing upon the mountainside.

The engine of the plane broke free and raced across the side of the mountain for a moment before finally coming to a halt.   After the initial tumultuous burst of sound as the plane disintegrated upon the mount, the mountain soon returned to silence.   Not a cricket chirped, nor a cicada; not a bird cheeped….

Until a few minutes after the crash, when one of the two young flyers opened his eyes and started to pull himself to his feet.   Looking down at the corpse of his companion, he said, “You were right Father Dominique…How can you find any piece of ground anywhere in the world that hasn’t had and won’t have human blood spilt on it?”

Stumbling toward the clearing jerkily, still a little unsteady on his feet, the pilot walked over to the edge of the mountain.   Looking down he saw a sheer drop of nearly two hundred and fifty metres.   After a second’s hesitation he stepped out over the edge of the cliff and effortlessly began to lope down the mountainside — running vertically down the cliff face in defiance of the Laws of Gravity.

THE END