Dead Heat (6 page)

As Dr. Ophir stitched, Georgia couldn’t feel anything through the anesthetic, just the sensation of pulling and tugging. She
watched a bare-chested man the color of tea walking down Ocean Street. He had a fishing box and rod in one hand, a big cooler
in the other, and her breath caught. She knew he was heading for the mouth of the Parunga River, where Tom used to love fishing
for flathead and trevally just after a storm. This time of year was the best angling, when the streams were full and fish
movement at its greatest. If Tom were alive, he’d be out there fishing too.

Distantly she wondered what would happen to her grandfather’s little fibro house now that he was dead. Her mother would probably
sell it and take the proceeds back to Byron Bay with her. At least now her mum would have some money in her bank account,
so long as she didn’t give it away to one of her charity cases, that was. Not for the first time, Georgia wondered at her
mother’s astonishingly carefree attitude to life. At fifty-one, her mother had no pension, no superannuation, no savings.
She lived in a rented caravan at the far end of a huge caravan park in Byron Bay, just south of Brisbane, where she drew up
astrological charts for sixty bucks a throw, and read fortunes for twenty. She sold the odd crystal at the local market and
collected her monthly state benefit check, but some days she had no money, not even a dollar-twenty for a liter of milk. It
never seemed to bother her. Inheriting Tom’s house wouldn’t change her mother’s life, but it would help stop Georgia worrying.

The doctor finished stitching. “There’s no need for you to be in overnight. Are you okay to stay with someone in town? It’s
all arranged, and if you have any difficulty, they can bring you straight back here.” He paused and gave her a smile. “But
I doubt that’ll be necessary. You’re in excellent shape, considering.”

“Where’s Lee?”

“He left after I’d sorted him.” Before she could say anything, he added, “He didn’t leave an address, if that’s what you’re
asking.”

“Is he okay?”

Dr. Ophir nodded.

“Can I see Bri?”

He shook his head. “Why don’t you come tomorrow?”

“Do you know who I’ll be staying with?”

“Mrs. Scutchings is waiting outside. She said she’d put Lee up as well, if he needs a bed.”

Georgia gazed at her mud-caked deck shoes, too drained to protest.

A
rmed with a roll of gauze bandage and a tube of antiseptic cream, Georgia watched Mrs. Scutchings march into the hospital,
sweep her arctic gaze over the rapidly filling buckets, and bark, “The roof should have been fixed before the wet.”

Irritated, Nurse Hodges tucked the phone beneath her plump chin and glanced up, but Mrs. Scutchings already had hold of Georgia’s
elbow and was marching her down the muddy path toward an ancient, rusting white Honda, which was double-parked beside an ambulance.

With a ghastly rattle, the Honda started, its wipers making screeching sounds on each downward arc. Mrs. Scutchings jammed
the stick into gear and drove down Ocean Road, past Price’s Supermarket, the National Hotel, Mick’s Café, and a Bendigo Community
Bank.

There was a new sign outside the park and adventure playground: “Welcome to Nulgarra. Population 1,800. Enjoy Your Stay.”

As if anyone would bother staying in Nulgarra with Port Douglas on the other side of the Daintree. Port Douglas had boutique
hotels, motels, countless pubs and cocktail bars, a yacht club, a marina filled with millions of dollars’ worth of oceangoing
yachts, and supermarkets that never closed their doors. If their mother had taken them to Port Douglas instead of Nulgarra,
Georgia wondered whether her sister would have stayed instead of hightailing it to Vancouver, away from the relentless humidity
and hordes of insects. Maybe, she thought. Maybe not.

Mrs. Scutchings jabbed the brakes as they approached the harbor, preparing for the sharp, right-hand bend at the end of Ocean
Road, and Georgia looked left, hoping to catch a glimpse of Three Mile Beach through the mangroves, but instead her gaze was
riveted to the mega-yacht moored in deep water at the end of the southern pontoon.

Instantly she was back at Tom’s funeral, looking at the vines creeping across the roof of Nulgarra’s crematorium and listening
to heated gossip all around her. She felt a debt of gratitude to the boat, which had enabled her to distract those who pressed
her about her marital status.

“You hitched yet?” asked some guy in his fifties, wearing an ill-fitting suit and an aggressive expression.

She’d said, “You seen that boat in the harbor?”

“It belongs to some gangster,” the man said in an authoritative tone, knowing exactly which boat she meant.

“A Triad,” another man added firmly, as though he’d met the Triad personally.

Then Bridie piped up, almost breathless with excitement. “I’ve heard it’s got gold fittings in the bathrooms and bidets in
every one!”

Considering some folk in Nulgarra didn’t even have an inside toilet, just the dunny out the back of the house, Georgia had
bet Bridie’s rose-dotted knickers that the bidets on the boat would be the only ones in town.

As Mrs. Scutchings rocketed past the Shipshape Chandlery, Georgia gazed at the gleaming white monster dwarfing its neighbors.
Who owned the thing? How much had it cost? Squillions, no doubt. Just filling the fuel tanks had to cost over five thousand
bucks, and she guessed the mooring fees were three times her annual rent.

She studied the large saloon window shaped like an almond and reckoned she could probably fit her whole house inside the one
room. No doubt it would be equipped with all modern conveniences, full air-conditioning, a bridge with an array of dials and
dozens of satellite phones. Global Positioning System, radar, compass, depth monitor, perimeter monitor, and probably a video
to oversee the engines. It was seriously over the top, and seriously out of place.

“Unreal,” murmured Georgia.

Mrs. Scutchings swung her head around. “Oh, that. Hideous. Just hideous. The sooner we get rid of it the better. Word going
round town says it belongs to some Chinese gangster, but nobody really knows as such and it’s racking up mooring costs like
you wouldn’t believe. The harbormaster, Pete Dunning—he’ll be new to you—has his lip well and truly buttoned, believe you
me.”

“Surely somebody must have seen it being moored and the crew disembark?”

“It turned up during the night a couple of days back, before the storm hit. Whole town was asleep.”

With a little lurch Georgia recalled India Kane and her questions about the man whose body had been found on nearby Kee Beach,
with a bullet in the back of his head, who should have been on the plane. What was his name? Chen. Ronnie Chen.

“What’s with the police boats?” she asked. “Are they anything to do with it?”

“Oh, no. They’ll be dealing with illegal immigrants trying to sneak in by boat. The police are trying to intercept them before
they land but they’re having the very devil of a job. They’ve missed two lots this month, boats
heaving
with Afghans, Iraqis, the whole Middle East from the sound of it. How they managed to miss the last lot is anyone’s guess,
but believe you me, our boys in blue are not happy bunnies. There’s talk of someone tipping the immigrants off. If I could
get my hands on whoever it is . . .” Mrs. Scutchings gave a gusting sigh. “You’d think they’d learn they’re not wanted, wouldn’t
you, but no, they just keep on coming. Greedy bunch of freeloaders, the lot of them.”

Georgia studied the side of Mrs. Scutchings’s face. The woman had a mole the size of a dung-beetle on her chin and Georgia
wondered why she’d never had it removed. “But you’re an immigrant.”

“I didn’t turn up expecting red-carpet treatment, free food and lodging.”

“Er, with all due respect,” Georgia said, casual tone belying the tiny prickles of defensiveness brushing over her skin, “you
weren’t a refugee.”

“They shouldn’t come here.” Mrs. Scutchings’s nostrils flared wide. “Most of them don’t even speak
English,
for goodness’ sake. I’ll have you know I’m behind the government one hundred percent. Three billion dollars to keep out asylum
seekers? Good on them. We don’t want any more. The instant they plant their grubby little feet on our land they should be
sent packing to where they came from.”

Bloody hell, was the woman rabid or what? If she went on like that in Sydney she’d be lynched. Just about everyone Georgia
knew lived in fear of being sexist or ageist, and after their ancestors’ appalling treatment of the Aborigines, the average
Australian’s greatest horror was being racist.

Aside from Mrs. Scutchings, obviously.

“But what about the Mighty Chopstick?” Georgia flapped a feeble hand behind her. She didn’t have the energy for a full-blown
argument, but she couldn’t not defend half the population of Australia. “Without Timothy Wu, we wouldn’t have a Chinese restaurant
anywhere in the area, and I’ll bet a hundred bucks Dr. Ophir at the hospital is an immigrant too. This country is built by
immigrants.”

They passed a rusting sign advertising fishing rods for hire. Just after the school’s pedestrian crossing, Mrs. Scutchings
swung the Honda right and accelerated along Jacaranda Road.

Georgia’s old headmistress said darkly, “We’re being overrun with the dregs of the world; you name it, they’re all turning
up for a free feed. We don’t want spongers. Not here.”

Three blocks from the seafront, Mrs. Scutchings’s red-brick house was on the corner of Julian and Church Streets, set in a
half acre of neat garden with the usual Hills hoist clothesline in the backyard. Each window had a fly screen. The trees still
dripped water and the light was dull, shading everything with a coppery-gray sheen.

On the opposite side of the street was the cemetery. Georgia looked through the rain pattering on the windshield, wishing
Tom’s grave was there, and felt sad that he was a clump of gray ash in a jar instead of a sturdy corpse in an eco-aware cardboard
box covered with a mound of freshly dug earth. That was Mum for you. Much more romantic to scatter ashes on a beach than imagine
her father’s body decomposing underground.

“Well, here we are!” Mrs. Scutchings announced. The instant she switched off the engine, several elderly citizens emerged
from various houses in the street to gather around and gawk. As Georgia climbed out of the car, they sheltered her with their
umbrellas, eyes bright with curiosity.

“You remember Georgia Parish?” Mrs. Scutchings said. Georgia recognized Angie Jeffrey, whose husband ran the Road House Café
just out of town, and Liz Daniels, the local GP’s wife. Both had come to Tom’s funeral, but she didn’t know the others.

Mrs. Scutchings ushered Georgia toward the house, still talking. “Bri Hutchison’s in a bad way, he’s been burned terribly
badly, and some poor woman called Suzie Wilson didn’t make it. But here’s Georgia, and we’re grateful for that, at least.”

“Becky’s already alerted the insurance company,” someone said. “They’ll be sending a man up from Brizzy to sort it out.”

“Wonder how much it was worth?”

“About sixty grand.”

“Sixty grand for one of Bri’s rattletraps? You’re joking.”

“She’s closed the airfield. Matt’s well fed up. He was hoping he’d take Bri’s flights tomorrow, make some extra cash.”

“I wouldn’t fly with
him
if you paid me a million bucks. All that beer he gets through. Aren’t pilots supposed not to drink?”

If India Kane worked up here she’d soon be out of a job, Georgia thought dimly. In Nulgarra, where word traveled at the speed
of light, there wasn’t much point having a newspaper.

She felt so drained that she had to concentrate on putting one foot after the other as she followed everyone up the concrete
path. The conversation had turned to what they’d cook for Becky and her kids, and who would make the next lot of sandwiches
and cake for the helicopter paramedics and the hospital staff.

Nulgarra may be claustrophobic, she thought, but at least it’s got community spirit.

Dressed in a thick toweling bathrobe she found hanging on the back of the bedroom door, Georgia did as she was told and gave
Mrs. Scutchings her clothes to be washed. Then she headed for the bathroom, which needed a major makeover. Tired, olive-colored
tiles were in need of regrouting, and the paint was peeling in the corners. The carpet had lost its pile and was hard as burlap
under her bare feet.

The shower looked as old as the rest of the room, and Georgia turned it on cautiously. A small clanking sound started up,
and then a torrent of hot water gushed from the massive showerhead. Normally she’d have reveled in the deluge, but having
to wash one-handed in an attempt to keep her bandage dry was more difficult than she’d anticipated, and she managed to get
shampoo in her eyes. She hadn’t done that since she was a kid and had forgotten how much it hurt.

Using Mrs. Scutchings’s phone in the hall, she called India and arranged for the reporter to collect her at nine the following
morning. India agreed to take her back to the aerodrome, and when they were there, to decide whether to fly or not.

Still in the robe, Georgia crawled into bed. It was daylight, but she didn’t care. She turned on the bedside light, hoping
to cheer up the room with its yellowing lace and faded dried flowers and a carpet the color of porridge. The windows were
tiny, barely any light leaked through, and the room smelled of mulch and damp. Georgia knew if she opened the cupboard in
the corner that anything inside would be covered in mold.

That was the trouble with living in the tropics. Everything got damp, then it went moldy.

She turned off the light, longing to sleep, not to think. She wanted it all to be a bad dream. She could hear rain rattling
against the window and women talking and the whir of a kitchen mixer. She imagined cakes being baked, lemon sponge drizzled
with syrup, carrot cake smothered in butter icing.

Her mother baked great cakes, but it didn’t always mean that children could eat them. Georgia remembered reaching for a slice
of what she thought was a chocolate brownie and having the plate whipped from beneath her fingers at the last second.