Dead Heat (14 page)

“Who finances all this?” Georgia asked.

Joanie spoke over her shoulder as she walked, her huge buttocks bunching and wobbling. “’Muru charges a bloody fortune. Five
hundred bucks for a one-on-one healing session. Eleven hundred for a weekend seminar.” She leaned over and picked a tiny shred
of tatami from between her bare toes. “Mind you, if you’re broke, he’ll do it for nothing, but don’t spread it around or we’ll
have the whole bloody world on our doorstep.”

“How many people attend his seminars?”

“Anything between twenty and fifty. Depends.”

Which made Yumuru anything between $A22,000 and $A55,000 in a single weekend.

“How often does he hold them?”

“Every three months or so.”

Georgia did a couple of calculations. Not bad. Maybe her mother should have charged people for the pleasure of staying at
the commune. They might have been able to afford electricity instead of having to rely on two hours of power from the generator.

A little bubble of distress popped in her chest and she forced it quickly back down. It’s fine to think of Mum, she assured
herself. Just don’t think about where she is right now.

A woman in a white uniform, sitting behind a reception desk, said hello, and Joanie introduced Georgia. “Just going to check
on Tilly now,” Joanie said to the receptionist. “How’s she doin’?”

“Not so good today,” the woman replied. “But you know how it is.”

“You can join me, if you like,” Joanie told Georgia. “Do Tilly good to see someone new. She’s getting sick of the sight of
us.”

Hoping she’d find out more about Suzie, Georgia said, “Sure.”

The instant they entered Tilly’s room, Georgia wanted to turn around and bolt outside, away from the thick, warm smell of
suppurating flesh. Thick as custard, it coated her tongue, and it was so revolting, like rotting, maggot-infested flesh, that
she tried not to clamp a hand over her face, but she couldn’t help it, it was
disgusting.

Head turned to the wall, Tilly’s face was gray and drawn with exhaustion and pain. Georgia fought to breathe as shallowly
as she could, but she still gagged.

“Hey you,” Joanie said, apparently oblivious to the stench.

In torturous slow motion, Tilly managed to roll her head their way. Georgia dropped her hand and tried to breathe without
contorting her face.

“How are they?” Tilly whispered.

“A bloody pain in the backside,” said Joanie, scowling. “Chasing bloody piglets all over the place. The sooner you can take
them off me, the bloody better.”

“Piglets,” Tilly whispered.

“Too bloody right. Don’t suppose they give pigs such a hard time in Pitman? Guess not, being your mum and all, but they do
me. Get your ass into gear and take ’em off me, will ya? Had enough of baby-sitting your brood.”

Sweat beaded on Tilly’s face. The gray hue to her skin had deepened. She was, Georgia realized with a shock, close to death.

Yumuru entered the room, scraping tendrils of hair off his face. He wore a white coat and held a small aluminum bowl and a
syringe. “Hi, Joanie. Tilly.” His expression brightened when he saw Georgia. “How are you today?”

“Pretty good, considering. And thanks for my haircut. It’s possibly the best present I’ve ever had.”

He flashed her a smile, his teeth almost luminous white against the dusty brown of his skin. “I thought it would help you
feel better.” Small pause, then he said gently, “I just want to administer Tilly’s vitamins. Then we’re going to have a healing
session. You can come back in an hour, if you like.”

“No worries,” said Joanie. “We’re all done here now as we know Tilly’s gonna sort out her bloody kids for us.”

They left Yumuru and Tilly and as they walked down the corridor, Georgia said, “What’ll happen to her kids?”

“Nothing. She’ll be right soon.”

“But she’s
dying.
”

Joanie stopped and looked at Georgia. “Not for long, she isn’t. She only got brought in a coupla days back, so she’s still
crook, but she’ll be sitting up and watching telly in a few days. She’s not got no cancer or anything, just a sickness.”

“What sort of sickness?”

“Got chewed by a croc a while back. Silly cow slipped up doin’ a show with Jimmy. Jimmy’s her dad, right? They’ve a croc farm
over Pitman way. Opened it up as a tourist attraction. They know crocs real well, but even they get caught out, time to time.
She was waving her bucket of croc feed to the right, expecting the croc to go for it, but she slipped and the bucket ended
up between her legs.”

Georgia felt her eyes round in horror.

“Got it in one. Crocs took the bucket and half Tilly’s groin too.”

“Christ.”

“That’s not it, though. Doesn’t matter how you get chewed by a croc, it’s not the bloody bite that gets you, but the water
you fall into or the crap on their teeth. Pure poison. You get a croc bite and it’s likely to fester and eat at your body
until you die.”

“Like Tilly?”

Joanie pushed open a door. “No, she’ll be all right. Yumuru can’t cure cancer, but he’s sure got a talent for croc bites.”

T
hey made their way back to Georgia’s room. On the way they passed a steel door with a punch-key lock.

“What’s in there?” Georgia asked.

“Pharmacy.”

“Why the lock?”

“They had two hundred dollars’ worth of Chinese herbs nicked one time. Not that the lock stopped the next lot, mind, they
just smashed in the window. Happened a couple of days back. We found blood everywhere, silly buggers.”

Georgia paused outside the ladies’ room. “Joanie, I’m sorry. I’m feeling tired. I’ll just use the loo here and go to my room
afterwards, so please don’t wait for me.”

Joanie nodded. “You know to turn right at the waterfall? Otherwise you’ll come round full circle.”

“Thanks.”

Joanie raised a hand as she turned aside. “No worries.”

Georgia slipped inside the ladies’ and waited half a minute or so. Then she crept to the door and checked the corridor. Empty.
Slipping outside, she headed straight for the pharmacy door. Tried the handle anyway. Locked, of course. Walking a little
way down the corridor, she stood there, senses alert, waiting for someone to go in or come out. Without a watch she had no
idea how fast or slow time was passing. She counted sixty seconds away. Waited some more. Counted another three minutes.

Part of her couldn’t believe she was planning on seeing what was behind the locked door, but her finger pulsed and hardened
her resolve. Suzie had worked here, and the day after she’d died the clinic had been broken into. She could see the Suit holding
the floppy disk up for her to see, and hear Leather Jacket’s voice.

Where is the rest?

She couldn’t sit around waiting for answers. She had to take action.

Straightening at the sound of a small clunk inside the door, she took a deep breath, drew her shoulders back, and walked toward
the pharmacy. As it opened, she kept going, nearly colliding with a girl exiting. “Sorry,” the girl said, looking startled.

“That’s okay,” Georgia said, and brushed past the girl. She didn’t pause, or look around, simply strode inside like she knew
where she was going.

Posters of the Canadian Rockies on one wall. Two chrome laboratory benches running the length of the room. The aroma of coffee
and a spicy medicinal scent that reminded her of tiger balm. Piles of computer printouts on the floor. Files, folders, charts,
and journals all jumbled together with aspidistra and rubber plants. There was a window on the left, presumably the one used
for the break-in. Refrigerators and freezers against the wall on the right were covered in more debris. Five large stand-up
bins overflowed with paper. There was a door at the far end of the room.

A young Asian man was sitting at one of the benches in front of an electronic balance, carefully scooping soft white powder
from a weighing boat into a small clear plastic bag. He looked up, and Georgia gave him a nod and marched forward. Sweat trickled
down the inside of her arms.

Okay, so what can they do me for? Breaking and entering? I’ll get a caution, that’s all, so keep going. And don’t think about
Yumuru’s kindness. You’ve got to concentrate on Mum.

“Excuse me . . .”

She turned to see the young Asian man standing behind her. At the far end of the pharmacy a florid-faced man stopped leafing
through the mess and glanced up, gave her a narrowed look, then started sorting again.

“Are you Terry?” the young man said.

“Er . . .”

“The guy to fix our computer.” He looked abashed. “Sorry. I mean
person
to fix our computer.”

She took a step forward and shook his hand. “Yeah. I’m Terri . . . Deewell. That’s right.”

“Robert. Robert Curtis.” He looked at her bandage. “What happened to your hand?”

“Gardening accident,” she said. “A handful of stitches. It won’t hold me up work-wise, if that’s what concerns you.”

She followed him to a workstation in the corner. Photographs and magazine clippings were pinned on the partition walls, and
piles of computer printouts spilled from the table and onto the chair.

“Sorry it’s such a mess.” Robert picked up the printouts and put them on the floor. He scooped a pile of files from the desk
and put them beside the printouts. “Got burgled yesterday.”

“They find who did it?”

“Nah. One of the patients saw a couple of Chinese-looking guys prowling in the grounds, that’s all.”

Her skin tightened. She knew it. Her kidnappers had broken into the clinic. What were they searching for?

“Anything taken?”

“We’re not sure yet. Dave’s missing his computer disks, me too, and they got two of our computers. Otherwise not much. They
were disturbed before they could strip the place. We’ve a security guy, he scared them off.”

While he cleared the work space, Georgia looked at the photographs. Three were enlarged photographs of tropical rainforest,
another of a broad river with long, sluglike shapes on the sandy banks. “Are those crocodiles?” she asked Robert.

He glanced around. “Yeah. Monsters, aren’t they?”

Georgia paused at a photograph of a bound crocodile beside a tin boat on a riverbank. Its snout was tied with rope and a small
figure sat astride its shoulders, holding what looked like a giant syringe.

Georgia peered closer.

“She’s not hurting them or anything,” said Robert. “Just collecting wild croc blood. Farmed crocs have too much fat in their
systems for her to work with. Suzie was doing some private research in her free time. Something about their serum.”

“Good Lord,” she murmured, amazed. Tiny, fragile-looking Suzie Wilson, collecting wild croc blood. Who would have thought
it?

He gestured to the far corner of the room, at a worktable covered in an array of shiny, new-looking equipment. “She came to
an agreement with ’Muru so she could work after hours. Use our fridges and freezers and stuff. She was our head of pharmacy.”
He swallowed audibly, then cleared his throat. “She’s not here anymore,” he added. “She got killed in an airplane accident
a couple of days back. It’s awfully quiet without her.”

Georgia clamped down the empathetic wave of grief threatening to rise. “I heard on my way in, Robert. I’m really sorry.”

He surreptitiously brushed at his eyes, then turned on the computer and showed Georgia the problem, a corrupted file allocation
table, otherwise known as a FAT.

“Hmm,” she said. “It’s trickier than I thought. If you leave me for twenty minutes or so, I’ll see what I can do.” She paused.
“Is this Suzie’s computer?”

“Yeah. She had a laptop too, but she always took it home.” He glanced at the photographs. “I haven’t had the heart to take
anything down yet. Can I get you a coffee?”

She shook her head. “I had some before I came out, but thanks.”

As soon as Robert left, she scrolled through the computer’s directory, which, thank God, seemed to be working fine.

What shall I look for? References to Chinese things? Lee Denham? Mingjun, Suzie’s brother?

After ten minutes, she hadn’t found anything she considered relevant, so she turned to the filing cabinet placed on her left,
glad she was well tucked out of sight behind the partition walls. She checked the plastic tags and pulled out the one marked
“Personal.” A handful of household bills in Suzie’s name confirmed the cabinet was hers. She found a checkbook, and more photographs
of crocodiles along with a thickset man squinting in the sun and wearing nothing but shorts and a pair of battered heavy boots.
Pocketing a house-rental contract with Suzie’s address, she looked around at the door on her right. It had an identical punch-key
lock to the main pharmacy door.

Georgia got to her feet and checked the room. Florid-Face was on the phone, and Robert was absorbed in counting tablets and
checking long strips of computer-generated labels.

She quickly walked to the door and tried it. Locked. The worktable was next to it, and she took a hurried glance: a microscope,
something with a sticker declaring itself a centrifuge, a laminar-flow cabinet, incubator, autoclave. Under the table stood
cardboard boxes bulging with notebooks and papers and more equipment.

Now what?
Take the bull by the horns.

She walked away from the worktable and over to Robert. “Big problem,” she said. “It’s more than a FAT. I’m going to have to
bring in backup.”

He sighed. “Yumuru won’t be best pleased. But you’d better go ahead.”

She looked around. “Nice place to work.”

“Yeah. I like it.”

Gesturing at the door at the far end of the room, she said casually, “How come that door needs a lock if you’ve already got
one on the other door?”

“It’s where we keep the more expensive stuff. The boss’s special vitamins cost a fortune.”

“You’ve the code?”

He looked surprised, as if he hadn’t thought about it before. “No, I don’t. Not that I need it, I guess, since ’Muru administers
them.”

She was about to ask him more about Yumuru’s expensive vitamins when a man barked, “Get this woman out!”