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It was September, Spring time. Philip was standing beside the mailbox at the fork in the road where one way led to his farm, Gresham Hills, while the other branch led to Greg's farm, Te Kouka Flats.
He held disaster in his hand. The letter he was holding said that Farm Finance Trust had gone belly up, owing over $140 million dollars. The firm had been placed into bankruptcy and the accounts had been handed over to an accounting firm that specialised in selling off assets and paying out anything left over to the investors. He would be lucky to get five cents in the dollar. Philip's plan to buy out Greg when Sally asked for a settlement were blown to the four winds. Both of his schemes for gaining control over Te Kouka Flats Farm were in ruins. He would have to think of another way, and quickly, because when Sally had been with him for two years, she could claim half of his assets if he forced her to leave.
But all was not lost. Usually, banks made both partners take out wills in favour of each other so that if one spouse passed away the other would not have to sell up. That would have happened when Greg and Sally married. Philip had seen Sally's copy of the will in her bedside drawer. It was not with her usual solicitor, having been drawn up by the firm she worked for before marrying Greg Somerville. He doubted that Greg had changed his will as he still owed money to the bank. Philip thought for some time, standing in the sun, beside the mail box. Finally, he thought of a way to get Greg, Lance and Ashleigh together, where he could kill them.
He would set fire to a corner of the cottage. While the adults were putting out the blaze, he could deal with the idiot kid then knock Greg and his housekeeper out with an injection of Etorphine he used to drop animals. He had the tranquiliser gun, and the drug left traces of morphine, evidence that the adults had been using drugs. Or he could simply inject them with Valium, as he had done to stroppy patients so many times while working in a mental hospital. Once they were unconscious, he could put them in the burning house, job done. Another farmhouse fire. The tragedy at Te Kouka Flats.
Zinsli needed Sally to make a will. A will in his favour, dated some months previously.