Lethal Factor

by Gabrielle Lord

  There was a gasp from the audience as I took the replica of the weapon Digby had used to murder his wife out of my pocket. I held it up in the air so that everyone could see it. ‘I don’t know why he didn’t dispose of it,’ I said, waving the asthma inhaler in my hand. ‘Maybe he realised it was a very handy little weapon. He’d already had occasion to use it twice successfully. He’d hidden it, but I found it. He never imagined I’d spend any time in the henhouse.’ I could see people shrinking away from me in the tables nearest the podium. ‘This is not the one he used,’ I reassured them. ‘Once his wife had been exposed to fatal quantities of spores, the murderer simply switched the contaminated inhaler with a harmless one, just as I have tonight. Nobody noticed anything. We were all running around searching for and testing a bottle of aftershave that actually had nothing to do with any death.’

  I heard a murmur. People were clearly puzzled by the reference to aftershave. I decided against explaining it and glanced down at my notes. ‘Another one of our colleagues, Henry Dupont, somehow found out that the plagiariser had used his name to requisition anthrax vaccine last year, a long time before the first anthrax death. This fact alone suggests to me that the plan to murder his wife started a long time ago. The plagiariser had a terrible reaction to his first vaccination shot, not as we all believed, because he was extremely stressed, but because he was already highly sensitised by a previous course of vaccination. The plagiariser decided that Henry Dupont had to die.

  ‘He would naturally question why his boss had ordered a course of vaccination for himself well before there were any cases, so the killer went to Henry Dupont’s home lab—a place he’d been welcome to visit over the years—forced the contaminated inhaler into Henry’s mouth and locked him in his lab. Henry Dupont couldn’t escape from his well-built lab any more than I could from the henhouse I was locked into. Then the killer went back when his victim was dead, unlocked the door, left the receipt for the vaccination and placed red-foiled chocolate hearts similar to the one he’d used to kill Tony Bonning on a shelf. I found the key to Henry’s private laboratory ‘Lab 13’—his mailing address, incidentally is number 13—hidden in the box of the murdered wife’s research notes. Everyone thought that Henry Dupont was the anthrax killer and the plagiariser seemed to be home free.’

  I looked around at my audience of academics, philosophers, scientists, engineers, chemists, poets, dreamers, men and women of immense education, all of them riveted by this tale of deception, betrayal and death.

  I could have spoken longer, but I put the rest of my notes back in my jacket and I stepped down from the podium. No one clapped. It wasn’t that sort of night.

  •

  Bob came back with Jacinta and me to Iona’s place where we sat around her open fire, listening to the wind in the trees outside. Ever since we’d sat down, Bob and I had done nothing but answer questions from my daughter and Iona.

  ‘He was very clever,’ Bob said. ‘The aftershave was a brilliant touch.’

  ‘Why?’ Jacinta asked.

  ‘It pointed our minds in the direction Digby wanted,’ I said. ‘We all assumed he was the target and it looked like Livvy had died accidentally from sniffing a poisoned gift sent to her husband. When I found the aftershave in the bin, where I was supposed to, he acted the whole little drama for my benefit. That package didn’t come through the mail at all and that’s why we found no trace of contamination in the local sorting area. He set it up, put spores around its screwcap, put it in a post bag, dumped it in the rubbish, made up a story about a phone call from Livvy telling him a parcel had arrived. None of that ever happened. Poor Livvy was doomed the first time she used her inhaler.’

  I remembered the cold wind out at Seven Oaks, and Digby’s fruity voice.

  Jacinta jumped up and hugged me. ‘I’m so glad you’re okay now,’ she said. ‘And I’m glad you’re my Dad.’ I hugged her back and for a moment, I couldn’t speak.

  It was getting late. Jacinta disentangled herself from me and I stood up, Bob taking his cue from me.

  ‘See you in the morning, Dad,’ said Jacinta.

  ‘Come round for breakfast,’ Iona invited. ‘You too, Bob.’

  A half-moon lit our way back to our cars. ‘Don’t worry,’ said Bob. ‘I won’t show up for breakfast.’ He got into his car and leaned out, just before closing the door. ‘You were going to tell me what the Assumption was,’ Bob reminded me. I laughed. Bob never forgets anything.

  ‘Mate,’ I said. ‘I don’t think you’re ready for it. It’s a Catholic thing.’

  Bob slammed his door shut. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Let me know when you think I am.’

  ‘I will,’ I said, getting into my car. But Bob hadn’t finished with me yet.

  He called out to me, and I switched my engine off, to hear him.

  ‘Jack,’ he said. ‘That’s a classy woman in there. What are you going to do?’

  Twenty-seven

  Bob’s question teased me all the way to Seven Oaks. I wanted to have a look around, even though officially it was still taped off.

  All was cold and silent as I got out of the car, the moon low against the hills, preoccupied with thoughts of Iona Seymour. I don’t know what alerted me, but I stood, close to the trunk of the bare oak tree, frozen. The moonlight showed me that the front door was slightly open. It was just possible that the cops or the Decontamination team had failed to secure the place properly. But I didn’t really believe that. The house lay in darkness, surrounded by its nut trees and gardens. Either someone had been there and left, or someone was still inside. Every instinct warned me; my system went up into red alert. I strained to hear, to see, to sense who it was and what they wanted. They must have seen my headlights, heard the car pulling up in the silence of the country night. They knew I’d arrived and they weren’t moving.

  I wished like hell I still had the prohibited item that sometimes used to travel with me attached to the underside of my car seat with masking tape. But it was at Malabar, under the floorboards, absolutely useless. Whoever was in the house could be watching, knowing I was that dark shape against the oak tree, just biding his time till I came inside. Okay, I thought. I’ll go along with that. I started whistling in what I hoped was a carefree manner, went back to the car as if I’d forgotten something, and opened the front passenger door, pretending to get something. But all the time my hand was searching around feverishly for the shifting spanner, still there from my recent flat tyre. My fingers closed around its cold steel and, keeping it close to my body, I slammed the car door shut and walked towards the house. If he was waiting for me near the front door, I’d force a change to his plans by continuing to walk round the side of the house to the back door. I stepped up onto the verandah, tingling, wanting him to jump me, knowing I was ready for him. I made no secret of my presence, stepping up to the door between the brewing kit and the glass wall of ants, trembling with fear and excitement.

  As I reached to open the door, he flew out at me, his speed and agility taking me down heavily. We struggled together and the shifter flew from my hand. Marko Gavrilovic used the weight of his body to pin me down so I couldn’t escape, crushed as I was between him and the glass wall of the ant farm. I saw the knife flash in his hand, and a huge surge of survival energy drove my body. With all my strength, I pushed myself from under him, kicked out, found the shifter and grasped it. But the angle was awkward and I could get no leverage to strike down and towards him. Any second now, the knife would descend, Gavrilovic would kill me, take my car and flee. All I had was this desperate strength and local knowledge. I knew something that Gavrilovic didn’t know. Use assets already in place, a little voice said to me. I lashed out with the shifter, away from me and as hard as I could, smashing the wall of glass that housed the ant colonies. I had the briefest glimpse of the whole glass wall splintering and dropping like an avalanche in front of the weight of soil and ants be
fore it fell like a ton of bricks, covering us in shards of glass, heavy soil and ants. I had the advantage. I had taken a huge breath. Gavrilovic hadn’t. The shock of the ant farm collapsing on top of him gave me the break I so desperately needed. My face and neck burning with agonising stings, half-blinded by soil, I rolled out sideways, managing to kick the edge of the collapsed ant farm off me.

  Gavrilovic floundered, trying to free himself from the huge pile of glass and soil as thousands of enraged Myrmecia pilosula, with their venom four times more powerful than bees, poured like a river over him. I raced back to the car, brushing ants from my face, heedless of his shrieks. I left him to it.

  •

  A few weeks later came the day of our planned picnic on the riverbank a little way from Seven Oaks. Jacinta and Iona were spending the morning riding and arranged to meet me at the largest willow just past the car bridge, eat with me, rest the horses and then ride back to Seven Oaks.

  On the way to our meeting place I diverted to the Convent of the Assumption with a wrapped-up parcel on the front seat. When Ethelberta opened the door, she ushered me in. ‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘If I’d known you were coming, I’d have made some morning tea for you.’

  ‘I won’t stay, Sister,’ I said. ‘I’ve returned the crucifix.’

  Ethelberta clapped once with delight. ‘Felicitas will be so happy. Shall I ring for her?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t take her away from her contemplation.’ The truth was, I didn’t want to see Felicitas again. But a rattle of rosary beads, and there she was, bearing down on me, a small black delta, reminding me of one of Dr Who’s Daleks.

  ‘Thank you so much!’ she said, taking the package from my hands. ‘You have brought it back to us.’

  ‘How’s Father Oswald?’ I asked.

  Felicitas shrugged. ‘He’s decided to stay out at Rockwell,’ she said. ‘In indefinite retreat. He was getting too old, he told me, to continue running the sports centre.’

  I hoped he was getting too old to continue running terrorist training camps, too. But I was sure there were plenty of new people coming up the ranks to fill his shoes. None of this was my problem anymore. I’d already handed over all the information I had gathered to the security people. I indicated the package Felicitas was holding.

  ‘I also took the liberty,’ I said, ‘of mending the hands and feet properly. The glue Sister Michael Mary was using would have sweated into the plaster and eventually undermined it.’

  Felicitas gave me a long look with the olives-in-the-jar eyes. ‘That was well done,’ she finally said. ‘That will earn you a blessing.’

  ‘I need everything I can get, Sister,’ I told her, and I was only half-joking. I thanked Ethelberta and took my leave of both of them, but I turned at the portal. ‘It didn’t bleed for me,’ I said, unable to resist. But there had been miracles, I thought, as I got back into my car. A flock of black cockatoos shrieked overhead and I hoped they meant rain—but not today.

  I drove over the bridge near Seven Oaks and, a little way off the road, I parked the car and unloaded the picnic. I waited for my daughter and Iona in the idyllic clearing. Above me was a landmark old willow; its branches over the brown river showing tiny green shoots. It was one of those warm, pre-spring days, with the sky brilliant blue against the fleece of the occasional cloud and the silvery paddocks gleaming under a gentle sun. I thought of Marty Cash and wondered what had happened to him. Maybe he’d escaped contamination, although that seemed impossible, given the spore-filled henhouse floor we’d wrestled on. Had he made it to Thailand and his dream bar, using what was left from the Delmonte Deli extortion money? And was he now selling alcohol and underage girls to ugly Australian men? Or was he lying somewhere out in the bush, collapsing into corruption, his huge body melting back into the ground, spores dropping into the soil around him? Maybe I’d never know.

  Marko Gavrilovic hadn’t survived the anaphylactic shock induced in his system by the massive dose of ant venom. He was dead when the ambos arrived. Odd, I thought, how one killer’s hobby had provided the means of stopping forever the actions of another murderer.

  I unpacked the cold meat and salads Jacinta had helped me prepare the night before and unwrapped the fresh loaf I’d bought at the bakery that morning, putting out the plastic cups and plates and fetching kindling to make a little fire for the billy. I lay back again, munching on a bread roll, watching a pair of eagles circle very high up, surveilling huge tracts of country with their seven-mile gaze.

  The sound of a familiar laugh floated along the river and I saw two riders splashing across the shallow crossing a little downstream of me. It would have made a good watercolour study, I decided, the long-legged reflections of the horses, Jacinta’s Scandinavian jumper brilliant against the silvery-grey of the late winter pastures, the water churned up by the hooves, wood ducks squawking away. I waved to them, determined that as soon as I got home, I’d get the paints out and start some serious work again.

  My mobile rang. ‘McCain,’ I said, hoping it wasn’t work.

  ‘McCain junior here,’ said Greg, ringing from the UK. ‘Can’t talk for long, Dad,’ he said. ‘My pre-paid runs out in about forty-five seconds. Just letting you know I’ll be home the week before Christmas and everything is cool over here.’

  We talked a little longer, speaking too fast over each other in our excitement, and I told him how good it would be to see him again and that we were all well. There would be time enough to tell him everything later. Greg rang off, promising to write, and I put down my mobile, thinking of the two fine young people they were, my son and daughter.

  The riders were getting closer. I could hear them clearly now. I was about to call out to them when my attention was caught by fluttering white petals that suddenly appeared in the air, up and down the river banks, putting me in mind of a snowstorm and I wondered for a moment what they could be. It was too early for blossoms. Iona and Jacinta reined in the horses and called out to me, pointing at the petal-filled air. But petals don’t flutter skywards, I thought, and besides, the breeze along the river had died. Then I understood. There must have been a massed early hatching, and all along the greening willows and down the brown river as far as I could see, before the wind scattered them, and the predators dived in, hundreds and thousands of graceful white butterflies, wings edged with black lace, filled the bright afternoon.