Dead Heat (10 page)

“Why are the police so interested in you?”

He glanced down and withdrew a beeper from his front pocket, studied it. “Sorry,” he said. “I’d better go.” His expression
had closed. Instinct told her that the interview, if that’s what it had been, was over.

“I’ll go and see Bri, then.”

“You do that. And be sure to tell him I said thanks. He did a good job there.”

“I will.”

As she walked away, greasy paper bag clutched in her hand, she could feel his eyes follow her along the beach. She felt them
as she stepped over a handful of smooth pebbles the color of ash, her footsteps making no sound on the soft combination of
mud and sand. All she could hear was the whine of a mosquito and the occasional splash of tires from the road. Nobody was
on the beach today.

She knew she was out of sight of Lee Denham when she turned onto the track that led to the rear of the National Hotel, and
she felt the muscles in her back relax.

B
ri had tubes up his nose, down his throat, in his arms, and was surrounded with machines that hissed, wheezed, and thumped.
His legs and feet were covered in saline sheets and his head had been shaved; he had a black-clotted gash as thick as a worm
across his scalp, which was studded with stitches like barbed wire. He seemed to have shrunk, become half his normal size,
and Georgia stood there for a moment, trying to maintain a calm expression and hide her shock and alarm.

“Will he be okay?”

“They can do amazing things with burns nowadays,” said Jill Hodges. Her tone was gentle.

Georgia stood over Bri in silence. Here was the man who, eighteen hours ago, had held the stricken Piper, and managed to get
them down. He had unerringly flown them over gorges and ravines for the safest landing he could find, and had made it. Suzie
may have died, but Lee hadn’t, and nor had she. She wanted to press a kiss against Bri’s cheek to let him know how much she
owed him, but didn’t dare in case she hurt him.

“Is he in pain?”

“We’re giving him morphine. We want to transfer him to the burns unit in Brisbane, but don’t want to move him . . . just yet.”

Georgia was staring at Bri, unable to think of anything else to ask. She was sure thousands of intelligent questions would
come to her later, but right now she couldn’t think of one.

“I’d better be getting on. Please, call in anytime you want.” Jill Hodges touched her shoulder briefly, then left.

Georgia’s hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. “Jesus, Bri.”

“Georgia.” Bri’s voice was faint and slightly slurred, barely discernible.

“Bri?”

She bent close and smelled the stench of sickness on his breath, but she didn’t draw away. She watched his eyelids fluttering.
They opened. She tried not to look appalled. There was no white in his eyes at all. They were filled with blood.

“Fuck ’em,” he said.

Not knowing how to respond, she settled for a firm, “Right.”

“They fucked with my plane. The fucks.”

A frisson ran through her, as though someone had dropped a skink down the back of her T-shirt.

“What do you mean?”

“Fucked my plane,” he repeated.

Georgia saw that his blood-clotted eyes were engorged with rage.

“Are you saying it was sabotaged?”

“Damn right. Find ’em for me.” Bri made a gasping noise, then, “Bloody well kill ’em.”

“I’m not sure about that, Bri. Not my sort of—”

“I’ll kill ’em.”

“I don’t know if—”

“Georgia!” It was a hiss and Georgia knew that if he could, Bri would be shouting at the top of his voice. “Promise!”

“Okay, okay.” Her hands were raised and she realized she was drenched in sweat. “I promise.”

Bri closed his eyes briefly and for a second Georgia thought the effort had made him pass out, but then they opened again.
“Swear it, Georgia. For me. And for Suzie.”

She barely hesitated. “I swear it, Bri. Okay?”

“Okay.”

The silence was filled with the rattle of a passing trolley outside. She gave him a minute or so, then said softly, “You did
a great job getting us down. Lee says so too. I just saw him. He said thanks.”

Bri didn’t respond. His breathing was loud and rasping. Quietly she told him that she’d had her hand stitched, but otherwise
she was okay, that she’d talked with the police that morning, how juicy her oysters had been, and how Lee hadn’t a clue about
the wildlife up here. After a while she fell silent.

The minutes ticked past. Bri didn’t move.

“I’ll come back later. This afternoon. Keep checking up on you.”

She waited a few more seconds. Bri remained motionless. As she walked through the door and down the corridor toward reception,
her legs felt unsteady, her mind filled with the vision of the diminished figure in his hospital bed. Head down, chest tight
with repressed tears, she nearly collided with two Chinese men coming around the corner.

She was opening her mouth to apologize, then stopped. She thought she recognized one of them. The stocky figure, the flat
black hair. But when she looked again, it wasn’t her intruder after all, just a man with his friend, visiting a patient.

“Sorry,” she muttered.

The bigger man ignored her, but the smaller one in a leather jacket spat on the ground as he passed.

Jesus, she thought, turning to stare after them. Talk about unhygienic. Revolting.

Back on the main street outside the hospital, Georgia paused. The sky was still a heavy gray, filled with towering cumulonimbus,
the atmosphere stifling. Brushing sweat from her temple, she reckoned her mother would have arrived by now and decided to
head back to Mrs. Scutchings’s house. She hadn’t bought any fish, but since her mother loved oysters too, they wouldn’t starve
so long as Mick’s was open. She watched a ute splash past, laden with cartons of soft drinks, and saw the Fanta logo, and
a drink she hadn’t heard of before, Twango, which she took to be a combination of mango and . . . What? God, she’d be no good
at marketing, she couldn’t even work out what new soft drink it was.

She heard footsteps behind her, and a male voice said, “Are you okay?”

Daniel Carter caught her up.

“I’m fine.” She gave him the bright smile of reassurance she had perfected over the days preceding Tom’s funeral.

“You saw Bri?”

“Yes.”

“He’s not doing so well, I hear.”

“No.”

Fighting against the knot of emotion inside her, she concentrated on a bunch of Aboriginal boys walking down Ocean Street,
laughing as they ducked one another’s mock blows. Two emaciated mongrels were tagging along beside them. Despite their mangy
appearance, their tails were high and their steps springy.

“I’m sorry.”

As Daniel turned to track the boys’ progress, she felt his shoulder touch hers. He moved away at the same time she did. She
heard him clear his throat.

Shoving her hands into her pockets, she said, “You ought to know. Lee told me our airplane was sabotaged.”

Daniel stiffened. “Sabotaged?”

“Bri reminded me”—she couldn’t look at him while she lied—“that Lee said something after the crash. When we were up there.
I mean, I forgot, with everything going on, you know, Lee dragging Bri from the aircraft, his legs on fire, then Suzie dying
. . . did I tell you she smelled of jasmine? I wasn’t sure if it was perfume or just the way she smelled, maybe her soap,
but it was so pretty, so sweet, and when Bri—”

“Hey, slow down.” Daniel was holding his hands up, looking stricken. “Take a breath.”

She did as she was told. Tried not to think about the fact that she was lying to the police.

“Just before the paramedics arrived, Lee told me he saw something had been tampered with when he went to put the engine fire
out. A wire-lock.”

“I thought the airplane ran out of fuel.” Daniel was frowning. “That’s what the initial report says, anyway. That you’d run
out of juice and had a fire in the engine bay.”

“That’s what Bri said when we went down,” she agreed, “but it was Lee who saw something once we’d crashed.”

“Jesus.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Who, apart from Lee, thinks it was sabotage?”

“Bri. He told me just now.”

“Right.” Daniel glanced past her as a Nissan ute trundled past, two blue heelers hanging over the tailgate, thick fur ruffled
and tongues lolling.

A bead of sweat worked its way down his cheek and he wiped it away. “It’s the first I’ve heard of a possible sabotage. If
it’s true, I’d better alert the Air Accident Investigators. Get them to pick the wreckage over.” He turned to her. “I really
need to talk to Lee. Get it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, to know exactly what he saw.”

Georgia remained silent, praying he wouldn’t ask her if she’d seen Lee. She was sure he’d see the barefaced lie lit like neon
on her face.

“You fancy a coffee?” he asked suddenly, a definite sparkle in his vivid blue eyes. “The National does a great Irish. I think
you might need one after the past twenty-four hours. I certainly do.”

Her teenage self nearly fell over. Daniel Carter, inviting her for coffee! But the adult took over, and cautioned her to say
no, in case he pressed her about Lee. Besides, her mother would be waiting for her at Mrs. Scutchings’s.

Georgia looked at his hair sticking up as though he’d just gotten out of bed. “Sounds great,” she said. She’d ring her mother
from the National.

They were halfway down the street, discussing why Nulgarra hadn’t invested in a new community center since the decrepit old
one was home to three families of fruit bats as well as having half the rainforest growing across its roof, when a black Mercedes
cruised past and stopped fifty yards ahead of them in a cul-de-sac. Three Asian men climbed out.

Two of them leaned against the flank of their car, smoking. The third walked past them without looking their way. All wore
reflective sunglasses despite the fact that it was overcast. Georgia glanced up and down the street and saw it was empty.
No young kids or their dogs, nor a single car driving along. She felt the hairs at the back of her neck rise.

As they approached, the two men pushed themselves from the Merc and walked toward them. They were smiling. Daniel stopped
short. “Do you know these blokes?”

She thought the larger one might be the man she’d nearly collided with in the hospital, but wasn’t sure.

“No.”

“Me neither.” His hands hung loosely at his sides. “Start walking, Georgia. The other way.”

Georgia didn’t hesitate. She spun on her heel and set a brisk pace. Her heart was hammering. She glanced over her shoulder
and saw, to her horror, the two men lunge at Daniel. Daniel threw a punch at one and caught him on the chin, which made him
fly backwards, but before he could attack again, the second had drawn back his leg and kicked him hard in the groin. Daniel
staggered and fell to his knees.

“Daniel!” she yelled, and sprinted for him.

He was groaning, trying to get up, when the first man kicked him in the head. Daniel went down like a stone. She was yelling
his name when someone grabbed her and punched her just below her diaphragm.

She doubled up and collapsed on the pavement. Another blow landed deep in her ribs, another in her midriff. She groaned and
vomited. She tried to get her face out of the vomit but her head was pressed against cement. She was gasping, struggling for
air, sucking in vomit through her nose and mouth.

She thought she heard her name being yelled. Oddly, she thought it was Lee, but the next instant her ear exploded, erupted
into a single giant bloom of pain. It blossomed into crimson, then black.

G
eorgia’s consciousness crawled awake. She was lying in the corner of a dimly lit room. Vaguely she registered dusty floorboards,
bare walls with cracked and peeling paint, a handful of chairs behind a big wooden table.

She saw a Chinese man sitting behind the table. Her eyes latched onto him. She wanted to speak to him, but as she lifted her
head, he rose and left the room. She could smell cooking, and hear a television blaring, along with the chatter of Thai or
Chinese, she couldn’t tell, and the clanging of a metal pot.

Cautiously, she struggled to her knees, holding her bandaged hand protectively across her waist. A stab of pain sliced through
her ribs and she bent double, retching drily. She wiped the trickle of spittle from her mouth with the back of her right hand.
She made it to her feet and started to shuffle for the door. She stopped when it opened.

Four men entered the room. One placed a small black backpack on the table and sat down. He wore a black leather jacket over
a white T-shirt. She recognized him as the man who had spat on the floor at the hospital. Another sat beside him, older, dressed
in a suit. The others, large, bulky men in jeans and shirts, stood side by side against the wall, their arms folded. With
the window behind them, she couldn’t make out any of their features, only their silhouettes.

In what she took to be Chinese, the Suit said something to the one in the leather jacket. His voice carried the deep tones
of a heavy smoker.

Leather Jacket finally looked at her. “Where is Lee Denham?”

Her breathing was jerky, her mind spinning.

“Where is he?”

“I d-don’t know.”

He looked at the Suit, then back at her. The Suit lit a cigarette, barked a question. Dimly she took in the broad gap between
his two front teeth, stained brown with nicotine.

“And Mingshu?”

“Who?”

“Suzie Wilson.”

“She died in a plane accident.”

Leather Jacket strode forward, and that was when she saw the letters stitched on the T-shirt beneath his jacket: “Windsurfers
Do It Standing Up.”

The same as Lee’s. She didn’t know what it meant, didn’t want to know.

“Where is Mingjun?”

“Ming who?”

“Mingshu’s brother.”

“I’ve no idea. Sorry.”

As he approached he stretched a hand wide and she took in the hideous fingernail on his left pinky finger. Roughly two inches
long, it was gnarled the color of old ivory dipped in ash.