Blood Junction (37 page)

“I gather no one’s seen them for months.”

The old woman nodded, managed to say, “Not since July back,” then started to cough again. Finally she stopped, wheezing heavily.

“Isn’t there anything I can get you?”

She shook her gray woolly head and India watched helplessly while the old woman withstood another attack of uncontrollable
coughing.

India left her staring out at the hot street, at the dust devils spinning in powdery cones. Deep in shadow, she looked like
a fragile branch of mottled, rough-grained wood that had been torn from a tree.

Mikey was in the hardware store when Jerome Trumler came in. He bought some twine, a hammer and two tubs of Polyfilla. Mikey
watched him. There was something pushing at the corner of his mind. Something about Jerome. Something that Rodney Stirling
had said.

Mikey followed the solicitor outside. Fell into step with him. “How’s it going?” he asked.

Jerome sucked on his elongated lips. “The wife wants me to do some DIY. I’m not terribly good at it.”

“I’m sure she’ll be glad of your efforts.” They walked a bit farther. “I don’t suppose Peter or Elizabeth Ross left a will?”

Jerome paused, looked Mikey in the face. “I wouldn’t know. Coscarelli represents the Rosses.”

Mikey waited until Jerome had climbed into his Mitsubishi Shogun, then headed along Main Street, past the post office and
the Royal, past the little courthouse to a squat, blue-painted building next door with peeling white shutters. The window
was thick with grime, but Mikey could see Giancarlo Coscarelli at his desk, an ashtray and a whisky glass in front of him,
reading the midsection of
The Australian
.

“Hey, Mikey,” he said, shoving aside his paper, grinning widely when Mikey came through the door. His face was broad and red,
with purple veins across the nose and cheeks. “What’s happening?” He knocked back the whiskey in a single swallow, then exhaled
loudly.

“Rough day?” Mikey said.

“No more than usual.” Coscarelli mopped his forehead with his shirt sleeve.

“I need a small favor.”

Coscarelli put his head on one side. “Which is?”

“Did the Rosses make a will?”

Coscarelli considered Mikey through watery bloodshot eyes. “Yeah. They did that all right. Left their bloody ’roos to the
National Parks. It’s proving hell to sort since all the bloody ’roos have run off.”

“Did Peter Ross give you anything to look after? Anything to be opened after his death?”

“Like what?”

“A package of some sort. A book or something smaller, like a CD.”

Coscarelli was scowling. “Not that I recall. Bert Roach did, I remember that. Sent me some bloody stuff about a rustler. Convinced
he was going to get done by the bugger.”

“It could have been a while back. Maybe early- or mid-December.”

Coscarelli was still scowling. “My memory’s not so good.”

“Can you check for me? It’s quite important.”

“You working in an official capacity or what?”

“Which would you prefer?”

“Bollocks to both.” With a loud grunt Coscarelli got to his feet and shuffled into the next room. Boxes bulging with beige
files lay everywhere. There were carrier bags stuffed full of papers, padded envelopes propped against the walls, and on the
two chairs were more files stacked in piles two feet high.

“Great filing system,” remarked Mikey.

Coscarelli flapped a hand. “You find it, I’ve other more important things to be getting on with.”

Mikey decided to work from one end of the room to the other. He peered inside each envelope, every carrier bag. Scoured the
shelves and cupboards. Upended boxes, piled their contents back inside. He was a third of the away across the room when he
found it, buried in the middle of one of the cardboard boxes. A small yellow padded envelope.
TO BE OPENED IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH: PETER ROSS
.

Mikey hastily slid a finger beneath the seal and peeked inside. His heartbeat quickened. One computer disc. He resealed the
envelope, pulled out his shirt and forced it inside the rear of his waistband. He ducked his head into Coscarelli’s office.
“No luck,” he said.

“Told you so.”

“Thanks anyway.” Mikey left.

Back in Cooinda, India went into the chemist and bought some aspirin. She felt slightly shivery and her head was aching, a
tight band that pulsated just behind her eyes.

I hope I haven’t caught the flu.

She bought a half pint of Moove chocolate milk at Albert’s, to wash down the pills, then headed across the street. A horn
blasted and she leaped into the air. It was Mikey, face alight. He drew up beside her.

“Get inside!”

She yanked open the door, and jumped in.

“I got it,” he said. “I got the bloody thing!”

“Got what?”

He glanced in the mirror. “The disc! Peter Ross gave it to Coscarelli for safekeeping.”

“Where?” She was looking around urgently. “Where is it?”

Mikey reached across, snapped open the glove box.

India held the little padded envelope gingerly, reading the slanting script. “You are the most amazing, wonderful, fantastic
person,” she said.

“Aren’t I just?” He was grinning fit to burst.

“Shall I open it?”

“Go for it.”

Carefully she opened the envelope. A floppy disc lay in her hands with a pale blue Post-it note stuck on its underside. The
sticker had some Chinese character printed on it, and the initials CTW.

Mikey was craning to read the note. “What’s CTW?” he said. Suddenly he put his foot hard on the brakes, narrowly missing a
Holden turning right.

He roared down the Biolella road and turned left into Whitelaw’s driveway. They both ran for the sitting room. Mikey switched
on his laptop while India slotted the disc inside. Mikey started tapping on the keyboard.

The screen went blue. Demanded a six-digit access code.

Mikey tapped CTW anyway, and the screen responded with:
ACCESS DENIED, PLEASE TRY AGAIN
.

Mikey tried combinations of Knox’s name and initials, Gordon Willis’s and Carl Roycroft’s, to no effect.

“Hell,” he said. “This could take hours, if not weeks.”

India’s teeth were clenched. “I can’t believe Peter Ross didn’t leave some sort of clue. Why lodge it with a lawyer if it
can’t be used?”

Mikey pointed at the Chinese characters on the Post-it note.

“Great,” she said. “So which one of us can read Chinese?”

Mikey continued to tap. India picked up the envelope and turned it over and over in her hands.

“It may only need six digits,” he said after a while, “but considering they could be numbers or letters, or a combination
of both, it may take some time.”

Something nudged at the back of her mind. Six digits.

In the kitchen she put on some coffee to perk. Six digits. She stared unseeingly at Whitelaw’s Mexican red-knee tarantula
and let her mind run loosely over phone numbers, street numbers and people’s initials. She poured them both coffee, brought
the mugs into the sitting room.

“Thanks,” said Mikey.

She sank onto the sofa, mug cupped in both hands. Six digits.

Time ticked as Mikey tapped.

ACCESS DENIED
…
ACCESS DENIED
…

“We’ll have to get an expert to crack it,” he said after a while. “Take it to a computer whizz.” He opened the envelope wide
and peered inside.

“I’ve already done that,” she snapped.

“Okay, okay. Just making sure we didn’t miss a vital piece of paper or something.”

You can lose a piece of paper, darl, but you cant lose your arm.

“CTWGN1,” India blurted.

“What the—” Mikey said, but tapped anyway.

The screen cleared. It showed a logo. An image of the world spun leisurely inside a red band imprinted with:
CHANGING THE WORLD
.

Mikey gave a whoop. “You clever, clever girl!” He turned around, eyes shining. “How the hell did you do that?”

She was grinning at him. “Lauren had written it on her wrist. I guess Peter Ross gave it to her.” She moved to stand beside
him, put a hand on his shoulder as she leaned closer to the small screen.

The world faded to be replaced by a multimedia presentation program. “Holy moly,” said Mikey. “It’s a video.”

He clicked on “maximize” and the image of the slowly spinning world returned. Then faded to be replaced by a violent scene.
Men and women in some sort of square, throwing rocks at a building. The women wore striped smocks, the men dark trousers and
thick jackets. The building was alight with flames.

“Quick, the sound, the sound,” India demanded, and Mikey turned up the speakers.

The people were shouting. The camera panned back. The square was dominated by a monastery in the distance. On its roof was
a gold wheel flanked by two gold deer.

“What the hell …” Mikey was scowling.

“It’s the Jokhang,” said India, astonished. “The Jokhang monastery. They’re bombing the police station in Lhasa.”

“You mean Lhasa, Tibet? What’s Tibet got to do with …”

The image faded to be replaced by the same square, but this time there was no violence, no rock-throwing. Blue-uniformed Chinese
men, women and children walked serenely across the square and in and out of the monastery. There was not a single Tibetan
to be seen.

The picture faded again. Showed a Chinese man in a white coat sitting in front of the camera. He had thick lips and glasses
and looked comfortable and relaxed. He started to speak, in Chinese.

“What on earth—” India began as Mikey said, “Shit,” then they both went silent.

After a minute, no more, the Chinese man rose and walked to a broad expanse of window and looked out. The camera zoomed in
on two Aboriginal men weeding a patch of grass. One wore a blue shirt, the other red. A man with a white coat approached them,
gave them each a glass of water, which they drank straight down.

“Oh my God,” said India, staring at the Aborigine in the red shirt. “Stop it, stop it!”

Mikey paused the screen presentation.

“Go back. Go back to the man in the red shirt.”

“I’m not sure if I can … we’ll have to start it again.”

“Okay, do it.”

He re-ran the program and paused it exactly as the Aborigine in the red shirt raised his head to drink the water. He had a
wispy moustache and a scar like a quarter moon at the corner of his mouth.

“It’s Louis,” said India faintly. “Louis Mullett. Bertie Mullett’s eldest grandson. My cousin.”

Mikey took her hand in his and held it tight as the Chinese narration continued. The screen faded once more, than back. The
two Aborigines were lying on single beds side by side in some sort of cell. They still wore the same shirts. They were both
coughing. Great racking coughs that shook their bodies. Yellow sputum rimmed their lips and their eyes were sunken and watery.

The Chinese man came and stood between them and spoke briefly, with a smile.

The picture faded again. Bloomed to the same two single beds, the two Aboriginal men. Their skins were tinged with gray, their
eyes rheumy, and their breathing was thick with mucus. The Chinese man stood between them, looking serene as he spoke. The
camera zoomed in to show chapped lips and eyes hollowed in bewilderment and fear. Their hands were clenched into claws when
they coughed.

Fade. Bloom.

Two bunk beds. Two rigid corpses. Eyes open and opaque. Their hands were still clawed.

The same Chinese man in between. Composed, placid.

The picture of the corpses returned to the two Aboriginal men weeding a patch of grass. One in a blue shirt, the other in
red.

The Chinese man’s face split into a smile as he held up a single glass of water.

At once Scotto’s voice was thundering in her ears.

Indi, if you don’t remember anything else, remember it’s the water. It’s the WATER…

I
NDIA THOUGHT
,
OH MY GOD, MY RELATIVES WERE GUINEA
pigs for a genetic weapon
.