Red Centre

by Chris Ryan

  5

  A TIGER BY THE TAIL

  It was morning, time for Alpha Force to leave. By lunch time six teenagers, the children of assorted celebrities, would be arriving at the camp which would be their home for seven days as they coped with rainforest wildlife and jungle games – and each other – in front of the TV cameras.

  Alpha Force worked in silence, tidying their camp and removing all trace that they had been there. Sleeping out in the rainforest wasn’t everyone’s idea of five-star comfort, but none of them would have swapped it for the best hotel. The air was already humid but still just pleasantly warm – not yet the drenching heat of midday.

  Li rolled up her sleeping bag and stood with her face turned to the sky. Far above in the canopy, a striped possum performed a spectacular leap from the high branches. Its body and tail were silhouetted in a graceful shape against the sunlight as it stretched through the air, then it landed with a crash in the fan palms below the high canopy.

  ‘I’m sorry we’re leaving,’ said Li. ‘Thanks, Amber, for getting us this gig.’

  The hotel had sent a car to pick them up. As they settled into the seats, the air conditioning washed over them like ice water. They left the lush green twilight of the rainforest and headed out through diamond-hard sunlight along the coast road.

  After a little while they drove round a bend and the driver slowed. The road had been empty, but here it was blocked by a queue of traffic.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting a rush hour out here in the boondocks,’ said Li.

  Paulo was the first to recognize where they were. ‘Hey, is this the same place we came yesterday?’

  ‘That little store?’ said Amber. She peered out of the window. ‘Yes, there it is.’ She pointed to the shop, which was just visible between two parked lorries.

  The previous day it had been a quiet coastal road with a petrol station and a shop. Today, the outside world had arrived in force. Location vans as large as removal lorries carried TV equipment and catering facilities. A couple of limousines were on hand, presumably for the presenters of the show. There was even a first-aid truck. And all needing petrol. The queue stretched out of the forecourt and into the road.

  ‘Looks like the circus has come to town,’ said Alex.

  On the other side of the road a mobile news crew was setting up. A technician was hoisting a shoulder-mounted camera into position and a sound man was adjusting a boom microphone. Their equipment was plastered with the logo of the game show company. A journalist did a brief speech to camera with the line of vehicles in the background.

  Hex pointed at them, incredulous. ‘Are they actually filming a queue at a petrol station? Does nothing ever happen here?’

  ‘First time I’ve ever seen a queue out here, that’s for sure,’ said their driver. He pulled in and joined the back of the line. ‘Long as we’re held up by this lot anyway, I might as well fill the tank. You never know when you’re going to see a roadhouse, and you don’t want to run out in the middle of nowhere.’

  ‘Someone else is prudently filling up too,’ said Amber. She looked pointedly at a jeep parked at one of the pumps. The owner was not in sight.

  The others followed her gaze. ‘Is that our friend from yesterday?’ said Hex.

  ‘Sure looks like his car,’ said Amber.

  The camera crew had moved to the forecourt of the petrol station and the journalist was scanning the customers paying at the kiosk. She seemed to be looking for interviewees. A figure came through the automatic doors. He had a slight but distinctive limp.

  Paulo’s eyes narrowed. He leaned forwards to get a better view. ‘Go on, interview him,’ he said quietly.

  To his astonishment the journalist stepped forward and stopped the man.

  Hex started to speak but Paulo and Alex waved at him to keep quiet. As one, Alpha Force held their breath. They watched the scene in silent tableau.

  The journalist spoke a few words into her microphone before holding it out to the man for his reply. The man hesitated.

  Paulo nodded to himself. He dared the man to reply.

  The man smiled at the journalist and began to speak. From inside the car, none of their conversation could be heard, but it looked quite normal and friendly. The journalist was smiling; even the man seemed to be smiling. He talked to her for about a minute, then they seemed to part cordially and he walked awkwardly back to his car.

  ‘She’s just had a tiger by the tail,’ said Paulo quietly. He exchanged a glance with Alex.

  ‘A piranha,’ corrected Alex softly.

  ‘Leave it out, you two,’ said Amber. She peered at the parked jeep. ‘Anyway, he’s brought his girlfriend or wife or something. Hardly what you’d expect of a terrorist in hiding.’

  Ignoring the scorn dripping from Amber’s voice, Alex and Paulo watched the jeep as the passenger door opened and a blonde woman climbed out.

  ‘His girlfriend,’ hissed Paulo. ‘What’s she up to?’

  The man started the engine and manoeuvred out of the forecourt and away up the road.

  ‘He’s leaving her,’ said Li. ‘I wonder why?’

  ‘Lovers’ tiff?’ said Amber.

  ‘She’s talking to the reporter,’ said Hex.

  The cameraman adjusted the focus to get her in the picture but the woman held her hand up to block his view.

  ‘The lady is camera shy,’ said Paulo.

  The reporter was shaking her head at the woman. The cameraman lowered his equipment with a shrug and the sound man walked away. Obviously the conversation wasn’t for public consumption.

  ‘She looks quite upset,’ said Li. ‘Look at her body language. Her head, her arms . . .’ The woman had her head on one side as though she was pleading, and was gesticulating with her hands. Finally she lifted her arms in a gesture of exasperation and turned on her heel. She marched across the forecourt and broke into a run, heading away along the road.

  ‘That looks to me like a very unhappy woman,’ said Hex.

  ‘I’d say she was very frightened,’ said Alex.

  6

  THE MASK

  The face of the lame man filled the screen. He looked genial and was smiling at the reporter.

  ‘It’s a hit of a surprise for us all,’ he said. His slight foreignness came through in the careful way he spoke.

  ‘And how do you feel about Daintree being the centre of attention for a few days?’

  ‘It will be hard to get used to. Usually it is very quiet around here.’

  Alex was surrounded by bustle but his full concentration was directed at the screen in front of him. Alpha Force had been invited into the production suite at the TV station’s local office near the hotel to watch the day’s footage being edited. An hour-long programme would show antics from the camp, cut together with interviews where the contestants, their parents, the presenters and local people talked about what they expected. A bank of screens showed different views of the camp. They flipped between the first of the teenage contestants, who were now exploring their new home. They seemed to have forgotten all about the cameras that were catching their every action to broadcast to ten million viewers in Australia and the UK.

  Sequences were being run backwards and forwards as they were copied onto a master tape.

  Alex had watched the interview with the lame man a couple of times, and each time something about it bothered him. He racked his brain for the detail that was nagging at him.

  The reporter’s to-camera piece was being spliced in after the lame man’s interview. ‘So there we are. Residents of the Daintree area are braced for a week of notoriety as the children of some rather famous people prepare to make the jungle their home . . .’

  The editor cued up some shots of the contestants. He ran through the tape backwards at high speed until he found a close-up of a face and copied it onto another tape for use in a montage. Then he looked for another.

  ‘It’s funny to be looking at it from here,’ said Li.

  ‘I’m glad I’m not
being filmed,’ said Hex. ‘Look at that guy.’

  A fat kid was sitting on one of the camp beds, fanning himself with his bush hat. He’d only been in the camp a few hours and already he looked thoroughly fed up.

  ‘That’s Peter Bailey, son of the former middleweight boxer Bill Bailey,’ said the producer, a square-built woman with a grey T-shirt bearing the TV company logo. The screens around her were reflected like postage stamps in her small glasses.

  ‘His dad’s a middleweight but he’s a heavyweight,’ said Hex. ‘There’s a turn-up for the books.’

  The producer clicked the mouse and a good-looking girl with two blonde plaits appeared on the screen. ‘That’s Milla Davey, daughter of Debbie Lynn Davey—’

  ‘Who’s she?’ said Li.

  ‘Soap star,’ said the producer. ‘It’s strictly C-list celebs.’ She clicked to another contestant, who was polishing her glasses on her T-shirt. ‘Holly Ferrian, daughter of McKenzie Ferrian, the rock singer.’ The producer clicked again. ‘And that’s Mark Roland, son of the athlete Rocket Roland.’

  Mark Roland was lifting a billycan of water onto the fire, the muscles in his golden tanned arms taut with effort.

  ‘He’s rather nice,’ said Amber.

  On the screen, the handle of the billycan gave way and the contents splashed all over Mark. The producer gasped. ‘I hope that wasn’t hot.’

  Mark was shaking a soaked trouser leg and grinning at the others goofily.

  ‘No, just wet!’ said Amber.

  ‘Good. We don’t want them killing themselves or being carted off to hospital with multiple burns.’

  ‘When’s the first programme due for transmission?’ asked Alex.

  The producer was busy making notes on a chart. The editor looked up. ‘This evening,’ he said. He was cursoring through some footage at double speed as he spoke. ‘We’re still waiting for some contestants to get out to the camp.’

  Alex turned to the others. ‘We’d better make sure we’re back at the hotel so that we can see the show properly,’ he said.

  ‘We don’t need to wait until this evening,’ said Hex. They were back at the hotel and had crowded into his room. ‘I took a feed from the mixing desk.’ He was calling up the programme on his palmtop.

  ‘If the producer knew . . .’ said Paulo, shaking his head. ‘You’re a brave man to risk her wrath.’

  There was some background material on the camp and then the TV reporter’s spiel started. Next would come the interview with the lame man. ‘Stop it there,’ said Alex, just at the point where he knew the interview with the lame man had been edited in. ‘Can you play it very slowly?’

  He and Paulo leaned down to squint at the tiny screen. Alex turned to Paulo. ‘There it is. Right at the beginning, when the reporter first approached him.’

  ‘What?’ said Amber.

  ‘Watch,’ said Alex. He clicked the cursor a few times and handed the palmtop to Amber. On the screen, there was a long shot of the petrol station that morning, and then the view switched to the face of the lame man.

  Amber was shocked at what she saw. When she had talked to him in the car park, he’d struck her as friendly and charming. But the expression she saw on his features now was quite different from the images that had been playing in her peripheral vision while they were being edited. Slowed down, his first reaction to the reporter was blazing anger, like a furnace door being opened. Then it was swiftly brought under control and the normal, charming, slightly foreign resident of Daintree resurfaced.

  Silently, she handed the palmtop to Hex. He watched it and passed it to Li.

  When they had all seen it, Alex spoke. ‘He’s very controlled, very convincing. But you can’t hide your micro-expressions. They’re emotions that show on your face even before you’re aware of them. When your auntie gives you patterned socks for Christmas, you pretend they’re just what you wanted, but for a split second there’ll be a curl of the lip or something that says the opposite. Only these expressions are normally too fast to see.’

  ‘I see I’m going to have to get you a different Christmas present,’ said Li.

  Alex had the bit between his teeth now. He ignored Li’s quip. ‘This man was furious at being caught on TV But then he decided he’d better make the best of it.’

  ‘Lots of people don’t like being photographed,’ said Hex. ‘What does that prove?’

  ‘Very little, at this stage,’ said Paulo. ‘Hex, could we do another search on Sancho Pirroni? Let’s see what we can find out.’

  7

  WAKING THE DEVIL

  Sancho Pirroni was watching the TV. He was sitting on a wooden stool at a breakfast bar in a small kitchen. A half-door stood open to the back yard, letting in afternoon sunlight that bathed the pine units in a honey glow. Sensing the day’s fiercest heat was now past, the crickets were ticking in the shrubs around the house. in all respects it seemed like a tranquil afternoon in an ordinary dwelling at the edge of the Daintree Rainforest.

  Heather, his girlfriend, walked in from the yard, shopping bags in each hand. ‘Hi, Peter,’ she called cheerily. ‘Peter’ was the name Heather knew him by, like the other locals. She had no inkling of his past, though she did know he wasn’t the kind of man who liked to be crossed.

  Pirroni spoke without looking at her. ‘Where’s the tape?’

  Heather had been dreading this moment. She didn’t know why she had been sent to get the tape, or how her boyfriend had expected her to do it, but she was absolutely clear about one thing: failure was not an option. Yet she had failed. She had walked around crying for a while and had then called in on a friend. After a few hours of chatting and shopping she started to think it might all somehow blow over, and by the time she stepped out of the taxi with her bags she felt a lot better. But when Pirroni asked that question it was as if icy fingers had gripped her heart.

  ‘I couldn’t get it, darling,’ she said quickly. She didn’t dare look at him, so she busied herself packing away the shopping. ‘Short of mugging the journalist, what could I do? She wasn’t letting it go. Anyway, I thought you wouldn’t want to attract attention. How would it have looked if I’d done something silly?’

  Heather realized she was talking too fast. She forced herself to slow down: ‘The programme’s tonight. Maybe they won’t show your bit. Or we could have another go. It’ll probably be all right anyway. I’m sure I can get it later.’

  Pirroni didn’t look at her. His expression was blank. That made it easier for Heather to look at him. She wished she hadn’t. From where she stood at the worktop, she now saw that, tucked into his waistband, was a pistol.

  Heather took three deep breaths and then moved to the bread bin. ‘I was going to make some bruschetta. What would you like on it?’ She spoke brightly. Doing something domestic made her feel she could restore normality. She hoped he would play along.

  Pirroni was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘No, I don’t fancy bruschetta. In the larder there’s a margarine tub, though, with a snack in it. I’ll have that.’

  Heather looked at the shelves and saw a small plastic container. She pulled it out. ‘It feels empty,’ she said, weighing the tub in her hand.

  She realized that Pirroni had got up and moved across the room. She peeked around the larder door and saw him pick up the phone and pull out its aerial.

  ‘Who are you phoning, darling?’

  ‘The flying doctor.’

  ‘Are you feeling ill? Do you need the number?’ Anxiety was making her gush, try to be over-helpful. She told herself to shut up.

  ‘I’ve got the number,’ said Pirroni, tapping on the keypad. He entered the number but did not press dial. ‘Now, why don’t go ahead and fetch me that snack.’

  Heather started to relax. She even managed a smile. ‘Sorry about the tape, darling,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Pirroni said.

  Heather peeled the lid off the box.

  She found herself looking at a large black spider. Its body was longer t
han her finger, and it had a hard, glossy carapace. To her horror it reared up on its hind legs. She screamed and tried to fling the tub away from her.

  The spider moved like lightning. Its long fangs made contact with her finger and sank in through the nail. Heather immediately felt a pain searing through her finger and up her arm. She tried to jerk away, to shake the spider off, but it clung fast, gripping her finger, repeatedly injecting pulses of venom as it bit and bit again.

  ‘Help! Help me!’ she screamed.

  Pirroni stood looking at her, his eyes cold. He glanced at his watch.

  Finally the spider let go. Pirroni studied Heather with detached interest, as though examining a specimen in a lab. Heather’s eyes bulged. She was still on her feet, but she was gasping, and her face was slick with sweat. Dark patches of perspiration had collected under her arms, staining the pale-brown fabric of her shirt. Tears poured from her eyes and she clutched at her chest with her left hand. Her face started to twitch.

  Pirroni glanced at his watch again, then pressed the phone’s dial button. ‘Yes . . . hello,’ he said in a calm voice. ‘I need an air ambulance right away. My girlfriend has been bitten by a spider.’

  There was a pause as the voice on the other end asked him some questions, then he spoke again. ‘Symptoms? She’s twitching - yes, quite badly. Yes, all over. She’s salivating a lot and crying. And I think she’s finding it hard to breathe.’

  The doctor asked for some more information. Calmly Pirroni gave him directions to find the house. He kept one eye on Heather all the time. While he was talking she had collapsed onto the floor and begun twitching violently, her face contorting as though electric shocks were travelling under the skin. Her intercostal muscles were spasming, causing her lungs to fill with fluid. She gave a guttural cry and began to vomit.

  ‘You’re coming right away, are you?’ said Pirroni down the phone.

  The spider skittered across the worktop and dropped onto the floor. It came towards Pirroni. He stepped forward and trod on it firmly. Heather, slumped on the floor by the breakfast bar, her face grey, was barely aware of it.