The Peco Incident

by Des Hunt

‘No!’ said Brio firmly. ‘Not until I have taken this photo. It’s important.’

  ‘We should have left yesterday,’ insisted Roost. ‘There was no need to do this. We’d already done what we came to do.’

  Brio gave us a quick glance, before going up to Roost and sticking her face close to his. ‘I said: shut up! I’m in charge here. This had to be done, and now I need the photo. So get back to the van and pack everything up ready to leave.’

  After defiantly holding his position for a few moments, Roost let out a noisy sigh and turned away. ‘I’ll wash this in the sea,’ he said indicating the spray-pack.

  Brio shrugged and let him past.

  He looked directly at me as he walked towards us, slipping a hand to his pocket. Then, as he passed, a piece of folded paper dropped by my side. Without really knowing why, I slid my hand over it, before looking up to check if Brio had noticed anything. She was staring up the path to where she hoped the penguin would appear — she’d seen nothing.

  I closed my fingers over the paper and quickly moved it to my pocket. I’d check it out later. But already I knew that it was important in some way: Roost had not dropped it by accident.

  ‘Later’ ended up being more than an hour after Roost had left. For all that time, Nick and I sat under the bush where Brio had moved us after Roost had gone. She had hidden herself behind another bush closer to the camera. She sat absolutely still, except for a couple of times when she took out some gum and restocked her mouth.

  Of course Nick could never stay still like that. However, he kept his hyperactivity under some control by slowly rocking back and forth, which meant that I, too, had to rock back and forth. Surprisingly, I found it quite calming.

  Towards the end of the hour, the penguins decided it was safe to leave their hideaways. Except that they emerged onto paths where it was impossible to get a clear view of them; that was until one appeared out of the bushes exactly where Brio had aimed the camera. Next, like a movie star emerging from a limousine, it stopped and posed, begging to have its photo taken. Brio obliged by taking a continuous string of shots. Nick pulled out his phone, and after pressing a few buttons, quietly took some photos of his own. When he’d finished, he held the phone up so I could see the photo. It was brilliant. The orange glow from the sun made everything look golden, especially the yellow stripes that ran through the penguin’s eyes. The contrast with the shiny foliage was just right: without the spraying, the photo wouldn’t have been half as good.

  Eventually the penguin moved on, waddling its way down to the sea. Immediately, Brio began packing up the camera. When that was done, she turned to us.

  ‘What did you think of that?’ she asked, pleasantly.

  ‘Very good,’ said Nick.

  ‘It wasn’t just very good,’ she said. ‘It was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.’ She gave us a self-satisfied smile. ‘You just wait: that photo is going to be shown all over the world.’ She raised her hands in the air at the wonder of it.

  Then in an instant she changed. She put her hand out to Nick. ‘So, give me your phone. I’m not having you claiming the photos to be your own. Come on, give it to me.’

  At first Nick looked about to argue. That changed when Brio lifted the stick. He handed over the phone. She fiddled with it for a while before holding the screen up so we could both see the message: All images deleted.

  She gave us an artificial, beaming smile. ‘All gone!’ she sang, like a little kid who’s just finished an ice cream. ‘All gone!’ She tossed the phone onto the sand in front of us. ‘Now, this is where we must part. Roost and I are leaving.’ Her expression hardened. ‘But if I find that you’ve been blabbing about what you’ve seen here, then you two and your families are going to end up in serious trouble.’ She patted her camera bag. ‘These photos are my passport to fame, and I don’t want anyone messing it up.’ She leaned forward. ‘Do you understand?’

  We understood.

  ‘Promise!’ she demanded. This was the little kid again.

  So we promised. Anything to get rid of her.

  Again we got a beaming smile, and then she was gone, leaving us to free ourselves.

  At last I could look at the note that Roost had given me. It didn’t surprise me that it was a map — the one they’d made on Christmas Eve showing the penguin hideaways. It wasn’t much of a map; in fact, it looked like something a kid could have drawn. Yet it was good enough for us to recognize the features and see that the spraying had covered all the places marked with an X. Presumably they were where the penguins roosted.

  We followed it to one of the crosses. There was no penguin there now, but clearly there had been earlier; the undergrowth was squashed down and still warm to the touch.

  ‘What’s that smell?’ asked Nick.

  I stopped and sniffed the air, expecting to sense a bird smell. There was certainly something, but it was not what I expected.

  ‘Egg!’ exclaimed Nick. ‘Raw egg!’

  It was, too. The distinctive smell of a broken egg.

  I searched around expecting to find a penguin egg, but soon realized that the smell was not coming from the ground — it was coming from the leaves. Without speaking, I pulled off a bunch and held it to Nick’s nose.

  He sniffed it and looked at me grimly. That was the moment when we knew that the promise Brio had so stupidly demanded would soon be broken. We couldn’t know whether her threats to us were real or not, but we did know that the threat to the penguins was very real. Our lives weren’t at risk, but theirs definitely were.

  CHAPTER 18

  Breakfast on the beach was far from the happy event I’d visualized the night before. We had one of our rare family arguments. Dad didn’t believe our theory about the spray; Mum did.

  ‘Seems to me that this Brio told you the truth,’ said Dad. ‘She wanted a good photo and spraying the lupins was the way she did it.’

  ‘So why did she tie up Danny and Nick?’ said Mum.

  Dad pointed at Nick. ‘You’ve seen how he goes off. He rushes all over the place. She was just trying to keep him in one place.’

  ‘She hit them with a stick!’

  ‘Yes! And I felt like doing that, too, when he broke into the Peco compound.’

  And so it went on. I think if Dad had ever met Brio and seen how evil she seemed at times, he might have thought differently. As it was, he was assuming that she was a reasonable human being who did reasonable things. Nick and I knew otherwise.

  In the end, both parents agreed that we should go and see Cathy Andrews. We would tell her about what happened and let her decide what to do with the information.

  Unfortunately, Cathy was not at the motel. Instead there was a sign saying that the office was temporarily closed: contact could be made through BIRT’s hotline. But I didn’t want to use any hotline that might end up at Colin Saxton. It was as we were cycling home that I remembered that Cathy’s business card was sitting in my pocket. We stopped and sat on the sea wall while I made the call.

  Cathy listened without comment until I got to the names Brio and Roost.

  ‘Do you know their full names?’ she asked.

  ‘Sorry, no,’ I replied.

  ‘That will make them hard to find.’

  ‘They were on TV,’ I said. ‘They were interviewed the day you busted Peco.’

  ‘Were they the ones in front of that colourful camper?’

  ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Ah, then I’ll have that video on my computer somewhere. We may be able to trace them through the hire company. What else have you got?’

  There was little more to tell her, and, after she promised to ring back, we disconnected.

  The glorious morning turned bad in the afternoon, with heavy rain moving in from the south. I didn’t mind too much, as I had something I wanted to do in the workshop. Murph’s response to the pendant I’d given Nick gave me the idea to make another which I’d give to him. After the tension of the morning I found it calming to work away with the Dremel, turning o
ld bone into something that could be treasured.

  Cathy didn’t make contact until late in the evening when Nick received a text message.

  Can u meet me @ motel 2moro 9.30am?

  Nick sent an OK and we went to sleep, happy that after the meeting we’d be able to forget about the matter. In the afternoon we were going on a quad-bike safari further up the Otago coast. It was the first stage in spending Nick’s holiday fortune. Hopefully the rain would have stopped by then.

  It was still overcast in the morning, but there were patches of blue sky by the time we got on our bikes and rode to Portobello for the meeting.

  We got a shock as soon as we walked into the motel room — Colin Saxton was there. Cathy welcomed us by offering biscuits and drinks; Saxton barely acknowledged our existence.

  When we were all seated, Cathy took us through the statement I’d given on the phone. We expanded some bits, but still left out anything that might get us into trouble, such as Brio’s threats to expose Nick as the source of the Peco photos.

  Saxton seemed to be barely listening. Most of the time he was doodling on a laptop, in a way that suggested he was playing a game.

  We soon found out that he was, although it was not a computer game — he was playing a game with our futures.

  When Cathy finished, she turned to her boss and asked, ‘Have you got anything you want to add, Colin?’

  ‘Thank you, Cathy. Yes, I do.’ He turned to us. ‘These people that you call Brio and Roost, what do you know about them?’

  I looked to Nick, who shrugged. ‘Not a lot,’ I said. ‘They’re from Scotland and are here for a holiday.’

  ‘Mmm,’ said Saxton, before turning the laptop so that we could see the screen. On it was an image of Brio and Roost standing at the back of their rental van. Judging from the quality, it was a frame taken from the television interview.

  ‘These are the people we’re talking about?’ he asked.

  We both nodded.

  ‘Good!’ he said giving us an artificial smile. ‘Just wanted to be sure.’

  I looked at Cathy, trying to work out what was going on. She was staring at the tabletop, unwilling to look at us.

  ‘Moving on,’ said Saxton. ‘Take us through that business about the woman’s photograph again.’

  I did so.

  ‘But it was all to trick us,’ Nick added when I had finished. ‘It was a trick so that they could spray all the penguin places on the map.’

  Saxton nodded. ‘Have you got that map there?’

  I handed it over.

  He studied it for a time. ‘Mmmm. So this is the only evidence to support your theory that they meant harm to the penguins?’

  ‘That and the smell of eggs on the lupins,’ I said, my voice showing signs of annoyance.

  Silence followed. Saxton let it drag on, as if hoping we’d say something more. When we didn’t, he pulled a notebook from his pocket, which, after thumbing through to find the right page, he laid carefully on the table.

  He then tapped the computer screen. ‘I’ve met with these two people. We traced them through the rental company. They had already returned the vehicle and taken the shuttle to the airport, which is where I interviewed them.’ He consulted the notebook. ‘The woman you call Brio is Talia Cottingham, and the man Roost is Jamie Fredericks.’

  He looked at us for a response. Again, we gave nothing.

  ‘Back in Scotland, Talia Cottingham is a well-known photographer. She specializes in creative photos of wildlife.’ He paused to let us process that. ‘She showed me some of the photos she’s taken while she’s been in New Zealand, including one of a yellow-eyed penguin amongst some glowing foliage. It is absolutely stunning. Do you think that might be the photo you saw her take?’

  Reluctantly, I nodded.

  ‘Yes, I thought it might be. Talia explained to me how she got the foliage looking so great. She sprayed it with a mixture made from raw eggs, or at least her partner did. So that explains why you detected a smell of eggs around the lupins.’

  ‘What about the map?’ I exclaimed.

  Saxton gave us another of his smiles. ‘Ah, yes, the map. It all comes down to the map, doesn’t it? You see, they say they never made any map. In fact, the only thing they can think of that might have been a map was a sketch they saw young Nicholas here making while they were preparing for the photo.’

  ‘I did not!’ yelled Nick.

  Saxton picked up the map. ‘Well, when I look at it I see a kid’s drawing, not something that an adult would do.’ His face hardened. ‘Have a look at this …’

  He turned the computer back so he could press a couple of keys, before moving the screen so that we could all see it again. A movie began to play. It was the complete interview Nick had given after BIRT had moved into Peco. I’d only seen the bit on the news where he’d talked of viruses from outer space. The rest of the interview was just as stupid. But it was the bit at the end that filled my stomach with lead; the bit where Nick was holding his phone out to the interviewer, Jim Black. The sound of the approaching fire engine made it difficult to hear what Nick was saying, but there was enough to work out that he’d said, ‘I’ve got evidence.’

  When the video finished, Saxton held his hand out to Nick. ‘Give me your phone.’

  ‘No!’

  Saxton leant back in his chair. ‘Give me that phone or I’ll have the police here within minutes.’

  Nick clamped his jaw in defiance.

  ‘Give it to him,’ I said. ‘He’s going to get it anyway.’

  Nick reluctantly slid it across the table.

  ‘Great,’ said Saxton, but, instead of picking it up, he fiddled with the computer. A moment later one of Nick’s leaked images was showing on the screen. ‘Recognize that?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got a program that can tell me just what sort of device took that photo.’ A few key presses later, a list of details appeared on the screen. ‘Oh look!’ he said. ‘It was taken with a Totalcom 5G.’ Only then did he study the phone in detail. ‘Well, well, well,’ he gloated. ‘Surprise, surprise: it’s a Totalcom 5G. What a coincidence.’

  I looked up at Cathy. No longer was she studying the tabletop; she was looking at me, her face showing intense disappointment. She had trusted us, and we’d let her down.

  ‘Did Brio tell you about that?’ asked Nick.

  Saxton looked surprised. ‘No! I’m sure they knew nothing about it. Why would they? They’re just a couple of innocent tourists caught up in your stupidity. I was the one who worked out the phone piece. I first knew something was wrong when the police reported that you two had been sniffing around the compound the day after you reported the dead birds. You see, guilty people often return to the scene of the crime. From there, it was easy.’

  He leaned forward and closed down the computer. ‘You two have been incredibly stupid. But in a way, I can understand how it happened.’ Now he was the reasonable man; the one who knew about young people and the sort of things that they did. ‘School holidays arrive and you’ve got nothing to do, until you find some dead sparrows. Then you sense there might be an adventure. So you break into the Peco compound and find there is more than an adventure, there is a disaster and you’re the heroes who discovered it. There’s a bird-flu epidemic that threatens the local wildlife.’ He paused long enough to look at each of us in turn.

  ‘But then, all too quickly for you two, the epidemic is over and the wildlife hasn’t been affected at all. So you decide to be heroes again. But this time you make something up. Or maybe you convinced yourself that Cottingham and Fredericks were actually trying to kill penguins.’ He gave a little shrug. ‘I don’t know. What I do know is that if we hadn’t caught up with that Scottish couple before they left for Australia, we would have chased around wasting time and money investigating your claims.’

  He glared at Nick before fixing me with his gaze. ‘You seem to be the sensible one. Is there anything else you should tell me?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I
hope you’re not lying to me, son. For, against my better judgement, I’ve decided not to take this to the police. They’ve got enough on their hands sorting out charges against Bryce Shreeves. They certainly don’t need any of your nonsense getting in the way.’ A pause. ‘It’s all over, boys. There will be no further incidents. Do you understand that?’

  We nodded.

  ‘Well, I hope you do. But just in case you don’t, here’s what will happen if there is anything more.’ He waved his hand over the notebook and laptop. ‘I will take all this information to the police, and I can guarantee they won’t be as friendly as I’ve been. You need to understand that each of you will be in deep trouble. Enough trouble that it could seriously affect the rest of your lives.’

  CHAPTER 19

  After the tension of Saxton’s interview, I felt we needed a chance to wind down before we went home. Nick agreed that cream doughnuts and drinks at the café would be the perfect way to do it.

  We said little as we ate and drank. I suspected we were both thinking about the same thing: how was it that Brio had tricked Saxton so successfully? Of course the map was the answer. But I was certain that Roost hadn’t given it to me as a set-up; he had given it as a message. It would have been when Saxton asked about it that they turned it into a weapon. That would have been Brio; Roost wasn’t clever enough to work out something as complex as that. Saxton was right: the map did look like something done by a kid.

  Our thoughts were broken by a car screeching around the corner and roaring off towards Dunedin. It was Saxton. Nick marked his departure with a rude hand signal. Soon afterwards, Cathy’s car appeared. But instead of heading back to town, she parked alongside the café.

  ‘I thought I might find you two here,’ she said as she walked towards us. ‘I also need sustenance. Don’t go away.’

  She returned, carrying a table number and a chocolate éclair, which she bit into before sitting down.

  ‘Oh, do I need this,’ she said, letting out a long sigh. ‘After you’d gone, I got the treatment. He blamed me for everything. Said that I’d led you on; that if I’d given you a telling off when we found Murph’s birds then this wouldn’t have happened.’ She breathed deeply. ‘Now I’m included in the order to leave everything alone.’