Dead Heat (27 page)

They were approaching town and even more traffic, pedestrians, and bicycles. She saw tall gleaming buildings and rows of palm
trees, people eating sandwiches and drinking from long glasses. A bunch of schoolgirls with blue pleated skirts and immaculate
white socks crowded around an ice-cream vendor.

The bike slowed to a crawl at traffic jammed in front of a set of red lights. The siren pulsed closer. Jon swung his bike
onto the sidewalk and started to force his way through pedestrians, crashing into a newspaper stall and sending magazines
and papers flying into the air.

People were shouting, horns honking. With a lurch, Jon bounced the bike back onto the road past the traffic jam, and tore
away.

Georgia turned on her seat to look behind. She couldn’t see the cop car, but she could hear it, getting louder every second.
So could Jon, who started to brake, slowing the bike to turn it into a long, dark alley, then immediately accelerating. They
burst into bright light at the other end and kept going, straight across a main road.

Two cars swerved around them and coming fast on their right was a red Grace Bros truck, air horn bellowing. Jon didn’t seem
to have seen it. He kept the throttle wide open and charged for the other side, for another long, dark alley.

The Grace Bros truck was so close that all she could see was the massive radiator grill studded with insects. She opened her
mouth to yell, her hands desperately clutching Jon’s middle, when there was a hideous shriek of brakes and, air horn still
bellowing, the truck swerved wildly sideways, four wheels locked, and with a screeching, tearing noise, scythed into a lane
of parked vehicles.

Georgia saw a car’s windshield shatter, its hood compress against the dead weight of the truck, crumpling like newspaper.
Sparks wrenched. The air was a shrieking, screaming mayhem of metal until the truck finally slammed into a department store
window, juddering briefly before it stilled.

Georgia’s ears were buzzing from the noise as she turned her head to look over Jon’s shoulder again, part of her exultant
that they’d made it, another part horrified, realizing she’d nearly been killed. Had the truck driver been hurt? Anyone in
the parked cars? And what about pedestrians? No time to think, just hang on and pray.

Diving the bike into the dark alley on the other side of the road, Jon immediately started to slow, down-changing gears, bouncing
on the rough pavement, and then he jammed on the brakes, slewing the bike to the right and down another, broader alley.

They passed people delivering cartons of lettuce and tomatoes, men shouldering whole carcasses of beef and lamb from refrigerated
trucks. She saw a woman with a tray of cheeses, another lugging two whole salmon. A hot dog stand on the sidewalk filled her
mouth with the hot savory smell of sausages, and then the air was full of Thai spices: coriander, chili, garlic.

A left turn, and they were on a broad road heading north. She saw a sign for the airport, then another. Jon was riding more
cautiously now, not wanting to draw attention. Approaching the airport, they passed an open-top Mazda, and the woman in the
passenger seat glanced across and tapped her head furiously with her hand. Georgia thought she meant they were mad, then realized
the woman was telling them they had no helmets. They were breaking the law.

Then they were slowing down, sweeping along the road to departures, pulling over gently, braking, and coming to a stop. Jon
set the kickstand, ran a hand through his hair, and switched off the engine.

The silence seemed deafening. Georgia sat there, wondering if she could move. She felt shell-shocked and tottery as a newborn
foal.

Jon craned his head around. “Best if you go first,” he said.

She realized she was still clutching his middle and hurriedly released her grip. Scrambling off the bike, she found her legs
were limp and she had to hold on to the rear of the bike frame until they steadied. Jon hopped off with seemingly no ill effects
whatsoever. He stood with his hands on his hips and looked at his bike, then at her, and said, “What a rush!”

“You were amazing.”

He grinned, and it was then that she saw Suzie in him, the same slanting almond eyes filled with humor, the same curve to
his lips.

“And you’re not a bad pillion. You done much riding before?”

“Er, no.”

“I’d never have known it,” he said enthusiastically. “You’re a natural.”

While Jon rang a work colleague from a public phone, Georgia bought them drinks; coffee for Jon, a double whiskey for her.
She was still trembling, but after a few sips she felt her nerves steady. Talk about a close call. If Jon hadn’t had that
bike . . .

She watched him hang up and make another call. Then another. When he eventually joined her, she had finished her whiskey and
his coffee was cold. Not that he seemed to notice, he just drank it down in four quick swallows.

“It looks like the Chen’s didn’t get much, if anything at all.” He looked relieved. “They disappeared pretty fast when the
police turned up. Brad got wounded, the security guard, before they blasted the padlock to pieces. I should have made better
precautions.”

He gazed dolefully at a no-smoking sign on the wall. “Cookie bit a policeman.”

“Oh dear.”

“She’s gone to the pound, poor darling. Lizzie, that’s our receptionist, is going to try to get her out. Lizzie says the police
want to talk to us. Urgently, as you can imagine.”

“I haven’t time to talk to them,” said Georgia. “It’ll take hours, and with my mother . . .”

“I’ve no time either. I’ve got to get to Sydney and meet with the AMA. Get them to fast-track their approval of the antibiotic.
Once it’s approved and in production, maybe the Chens will leave me alone.” He didn’t appear too confident about this, but
then his expression hardened. “I’ve a team of security guards turning up at the lab in the next hour. Fully armed. Twenty-four-hour
protection. All a bit late, but never mind. I’m going to hide out in Sydney and hire myself a personal bodyguard. Or four.
Then I’ll go to the police.”

He picked up his cup, realized it was empty, and put it down again. “You should go to the police as well.”

“As soon as my mother’s safe, I will.”

Georgia took an earlier return flight, having text messaged India to let her know, and spent it trying to ignore the way her
heart galloped every time the airplane’s engine note changed. After the bike chase her nerves were shot and she was convinced
they were going to crash any minute. She’d had two more shots of whiskey, but they hadn’t helped.

“Nervous flier, eh?” her neighbor said when they’d roared down the runway.

She hadn’t even been able to unclench her teeth to say yes, just gave a jerky nod.

“We’ll be fine,” he said confidently, and reached over to pat her sweat-slicked hand. “Built like brick shithouses, these
things. You know they test aircraft to hell and back before they go into service? They even chuck frozen chickens at the engines
to test against bird strikes. If they do that, you know they’ve tested for just about everything. No way can anything happen
to us. Trust me.”

Another pat, a warm smile.

She managed a tense smile back. The kindness of strangers. Her mother was like that, always kind, even to the bailiffs when
they’d appeared in Glastonbury. She’d made them coffee and given them a plate of chocolate cookies, telling them it wasn’t
their fault they had to strip the house.

Then there was the time Dick Cooper had lost his wife, killed in a boating accident off Port Douglas. Her mother didn’t just
leave casseroles or home-baked cakes on the doorstep for Dick, his six-month-old baby, and four-year-old twins, she’d moved
in.

“The poor man doesn’t have anyone,” she’d told Georgia and Dawn. “He nearly fainted with relief when I said I’d help out.
Just for the week, until the funeral’s over.”

“But what about his brothers?” Georgia had protested. “He’s got Pat and Jimmy.”

“Darling, they’re men.” She hadn’t cared that the town would go mad with gossip, and had firmly handed the sisters into Evie’s
care.

Her selfless, generous mother. It was all very well Lee saying he was going to try to find her, but surely she could find
another route? Like trapping Lee into meeting the Chens, and freeing her that way? Could she really betray the man who had
saved her from certain death? His face swam into her mind: his torn ear, the scar running up through his eyebrow, the wide
mouth that never smiled. Her heart squeezed and she shifted in her seat, uncomfortable that she could picture him so easily.
He saved your life, she reminded herself, it’s no wonder he seems to be indelibly printed on your brain.

If she couldn’t use Lee, she had to try something else. Mum . . . God, she hoped they were looking after her. And what about
her head? They’d smashed it so hard, all that
blood.

Her throat began to ache with suppressed tears and she fought against the urge to weep, desperately trying to calm herself.
She knew she was reacting from the shock of the Chens turning up at Quantum Research, the bullets fired at her, being on an
airplane, but if she didn’t get control of herself she thought she might become hysterical.

Like a whimbrel searching for crabs in the mangroves, she scanned her mind for something else to think about, and gradually
another memory emerged. She was ten years old and holding the tiny dead body of a puppy, the runt of Pickles’s litter. She
couldn’t stop sobbing, and a voice was telling her to concentrate on breathing deeply. It was her mother, and she could have
been beside her, her voice was so clear.

Concentrate on filling your lungs, darling, then feel your tummy fill with air and hold it . . . lovely. Now, release it slowly,
let it dribble through your mouth, and do the same again. Keep your mind focused on breathing slowly and deeply and you’ll
feel much better. And yes, of course we can have a funeral. We’ll bury him under the big black palm and you can pick some
wildflowers to put on his grave.

Her mother once told her she could sense her and Dawn’s distress through telepathic airwaves, but Georgia had never believed
her. Oddly enough, though, whenever she was deeply upset, like when Charlie dumped her after his last proposal, the phone
would invariably ring, and it would be her mother asking if everything was all right.

Soon, Georgia was calm. She looked out of the window at the blanket of altocumulus spreading across most of the sky, then
at her fruit-decorated watch. Not long until she met with India again and headed back to Nulgarra for barbecued chicken and
wine. She would, she decided, tell India about the antibiotic. She might even tell her about her mother. She liked the reporter
a lot, and needed someone on her side whom she could trust.

Just under an hour later, they landed at Cairns.

Where the police were waiting for her.

T
he constable behind reception looked up as Georgia entered the police station, a uniformed cop on either side of her, India
hustling behind.

“You can’t just snatch her from the airport and drag her in here,” the reporter was protesting. “What about a lawyer?”

“Like we said already, Miz Kane,” one of the cops replied. “We just want to ask Miz Parish a couple of questions, that’s all.
Then we’ll let her be on her way. You stay here and read a paper, why don’t you? Sorry we don’t have the
Sydney Morning Herald
for you to browse. Try
Fishing Weekly
instead, it might settle you.”

The two cops marched Georgia past reception and through a door on the right. Lit with fluorescent strip lights, the corridor
was icy cold with air-conditioning and smelled of french fries and takeout.

“I’ll wait for you, Georgia!” India yelled after her. “I won’t budge an inch! Promise!”

The cops halted outside a door, and one of them opened it and stuck his head inside. “Where’s the chief? Got Georgia Parish
for him.”

“He’ll be here soon. Riggs is down to deal with her.”

“Riggs?” she repeated, dismayed.

Sergeant Riggs appeared in the doorway, and her stomach dropped into her shoes. For a second she had hoped there were two
policemen called Riggs, but obviously there weren’t. She’d been dragged from the airport to be faced with the same piggy-eyed
cop who had questioned her at Mrs. Scutchings’s house all those days ago.

“Why, hello again, Miz Parish,” he said, grinning. His teeth were unnaturally small, almost like milk teeth, and when he licked
his lips, his tongue was a shocking crimson against the pallor of his face. “What a pleasant surprise, seeing you all the
way down here.”

Turning briefly to the two cops, he said, “Thanks guys, I’ll take it from here.”

The two cops nodded and left.

Riggs glanced at her breasts, still smiling. “The chief told me to take care of you till he’s ready.”

Georgia crossed her arms.

“Come to my parlor, then.” Riggs showed her through two more corridors to the squad room. He walked surprisingly fast for
a man of his bulk, and she felt she was galloping to keep up.

The squad room was huge. High ceilings, enormous desks, and an inordinate amount of clutter. People were on phones and calling
across the room, tapping on keyboards, their faces lit by computer screens. The smell of french fries intensified and she
felt her mouth water. If anyone offered her a bag of fries right now, she’d devour the lot. She was
starving.

Riggs offered her a chair, then leaned back in his own, his jacket falling open to reveal a popped button above his waistband
and some red hairs poking through. He said, “How’s life treating you, then?”

Georgia declined to respond. The last thing she felt like was making small talk with him.

“What about Danny boy? He’s been seeing a bit of you, I gather?” His eyes latched back onto her breasts. “I can sure see why.”

“What do you want with me?”

“The chief wants to ask you some questions. About that fracas in Brizzy. Sounds like you started a war down there. You want
to tell me what happened?”