The Peco Incident (15 page)

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.’

A
fter 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.’

‘You can’t do that,’ said Nick, quietly. ‘What we said was true.’

She turned and studied him. ‘That may be so, but it didn’t help that you’d been dishonest with me in the first place. If you hadn’t been, I might have been able to support you. As it is, I don’t know what to do.’

‘You could test the lupins for viruses,’ I said.

She shook her head. ‘I already thought about that. I went out there this morning to take a look. But yesterday’s rain has washed everything clean. There’s no sign of any egg spray. I collected some samples, but I doubt it’s even worth testing them.’

‘Does that mean the penguins will be all right?’ asked Nick.

‘No. They wouldn’t get infected from eating the lupins — it
would be from inhaling the spray. That’s if there were birds in the area.’ She paused as a cup of coffee was placed in front of her. ‘And, of course, if the spray did contain a virus,’ she added quietly as the waitress walked away.

‘It did!’ I said firmly. ‘I just know it did.’

‘But why?’ she asked. ‘Why would someone who does nature photography want to kill wildlife?’

I didn’t have an answer to that.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Nick.

We looked at him.

‘She’s an animal-rights activist,’ he said. ‘She and Roost put the virus in the Peco sheds. They wanted it to spread to the penguins so it would get more publicity. And when it didn’t, they decided to make it happen anyway.’

Cathy looked doubtful. ‘Everything points to Shreeves bringing in the virus,’ she said. ‘Have you any evidence?’

‘We didn’t cut the wire to get into the compound,’ I said. ‘It was already cut.’ I then went on to describe our first meetings with Brio and Roost, and how they had encouraged us to first find the dead birds at Peco, and then report it.

‘That’s not really evidence,’ said Cathy. ‘But it makes sense.’

‘What are you going to do, then?’ asked Nick.

‘Well, I can’t tell Colin or I’ll get another bollocking. I suppose the only thing I can do is keep an eye on the penguins at Allans Beach.’

‘Can’t you inject them with something?’ asked Nick.

‘A vaccination,’ I suggested.

Cathy shook her head. ‘A vaccination wouldn’t work.

Vaccinations have to be given well before contact with the virus. Anyway there isn’t one for this strain of H6N3.’

‘Is there nothing else?’ I asked.

‘There are antiviral drugs, but I’m sure nobody knows how they might work on penguins.’ She thought for a while. ‘A serum would also work, but again, there isn’t one for H6N3. One would have to be made, and that would take weeks or even months. Sorry, but if the penguins are infected, then we’re just going to have to watch it take its course.’

After Cathy left, Nick and I went up to Murph’s to check the place over.

The first thing I noticed was the silence. On every other visit, I’d been greeted with the chatter and whistling of birds. That day there was nothing. Even the wild birds seemed to have abandoned the place.

The plastic wrap had been removed from the aviaries and replaced with a broad, white tape with the message
Quarantine — keep out!
repeated over and over.

We kept out. Not because we were worried about infection, but because there was no point in going near them — there was nothing left to see.

As I walked around the place that had always seemed so much alive, I thought of Murph and how he would feel when he came back to this emptiness. He would be shattered. The birds had been his family, and now they were gone. All he
had left was Harriet. It made me all the more determined to make sure that she was there when he came out of hospital. Otherwise, I doubted that he would want to return.

That afternoon we had the first of our adventure tourism trips — the quad-bike safari.

Although I was looking forward to it, I was also concerned, because I’d been given the job of keeping Nick under control. Mum and Dad weren’t doing the safari. Instead they were off to a country fair, where Dad was hoping to pick up some junk that he could repair. That left me with Nick, and once again it had been made very clear to me that if anything went wrong I would be responsible. The brochure showed that we’d go over some farmland, down a riverbed, along a beach and then up some steep cliffs — plenty of situations for me to worry about.

I needn’t have. Nick proved to be the model tourist. He’d ridden quads before and, compared with the rest of us, was a bit of an expert. The main guide chose him to demonstrate how to move the body when cornering and climbing steep parts. Nick did it so well I was actually proud of him.

On the trip itself, he continued the leadership role, helping a German couple who found the bikes a bit of a handful. This was a side of him I hadn’t seen before. Maybe it had always been there, but I suspect that Harriet had a lot to do with it. While her living self wasn’t present, her image was dangling around his neck. More than once I saw his hand reach up to rub
the pendant, and each time his face would soften in much the same way as it did when Harriet herself was on his shoulder.

On the way home, we called into the hospital to see Murph. We marched into the room where we’d visited him before, expecting to find him in the same bed, but he wasn’t there. My first thought was that he’d died. I think Dad and Nick thought the same thing. Mum was the only one to show any sense. While we stood around panicking, she went off to the office, returning a while later to tell us that Murph was now in his own room.

We soon found out why he’d been shifted. He was now connected to more machines. His breathing and heart rates were being monitored, along with his temperature and blood pressure. The reason was obvious — he was a whole lot sicker than before.

Conversation was difficult, as he could speak only a few words at a time before needing a rest. Even those words were hard to make out because of the rasping from his lungs. It was only when Nick reported on Harriet that he showed any real interest. He wanted to know everything about her, and Nick was happy to oblige.

After that he seemed to doze off, so we quietly said our goodbyes.

‘Hold it,’ he whispered, trying to raise an arm. ‘Bob, can we have a word?’

Dad nodded and moved closer to the bed.

‘Come on boys,’ said Mum. ‘We’ll let these two have their man-to-man talk in peace.’ She tried to say it jokingly, but it was easy to see that she was concerned about Murph and why he might want to talk to Dad alone.

We went into the corridor, walking slowly towards the exit. Dad joined us before we got back to the car. He looked pretty upset by whatever had been said. Mum raised her eyebrows in a question. He shook his head grimly. ‘He wants me to arrange a solicitor to visit,’ he said. ‘So that he can make out his will.’

Mum took hold of Dad’s arm. ‘Oh, Bob’ was all she said. After that, we drove home in silence.

W
e got a big shock when we arrived home. A BIRT vehicle was outside our house and three security guards were patrolling the front lawn.

‘What’s the problem?’ asked Dad as we climbed out of the car.

‘This house is under temporary quarantine,’ replied one of the guards.

‘Why?’ asked Mum.

‘We have reason to believe there may be a diseased animal inside.’

My heart sank. It had to be Harriet.

‘There isn’t,’ said Dad.

‘There is,’ replied the guard. ‘There is a parrot. We can see it through the window.’

‘She’s not diseased,’ said Nick, showing the first signs of distress.

‘That’s not for you or us to say. The house is quarantined until the Incident Controller arrives.’

Dad gave an angry snort. ‘Well, we’re going in anyway.’ He moved towards the door. Straight away the other guards moved to block his way.

‘No one goes inside,’ said the leader. ‘Not until the Incident Controller gives the OK.’

Dad stiffened. ‘Are you saying I can’t go into my own house?’

‘Yes. Not until a decision is made about the infected bird.’

‘She’s not infected!’ screamed Nick.

The leader sighed. ‘That’s a decision that the Incident Controller must make.’

‘And who’s that?’ Dad demanded.

‘Mr Colin Saxton,’ replied the leader.

My heart sank even further.

‘And when will he be here?’

‘Right now,’ said one of the other guards, pointing to a vehicle coming along the road.

Saxton parked so that his car blocked our driveway, as if it was likely we would try to escape. He marched up to the leader. ‘Any problems?’ he asked.

‘Yes!’ answered Dad. ‘I’m not allowed into my own house. That’s a problem.’

Saxton turned to him. ‘One that we will soon rectify, Mr Masters. Once we have established the status of the bird inside.’ He waved an arm at Nick and me. ‘I have to interview
these two boys again. We can do it here or we can go back to our temporary office in Portobello.’

Dad breathed deeply for a while, before saying, ‘Do it here.’

‘Good!’ said Saxton with a slimy smile. ‘We’ll use that barbecue table over there.’

When we were seated, he placed a tape recorder on the table. Then he gave his name, ours, along with the location, date and time. I have to admit that by then I was very scared. He’d promised big trouble, and now it looked like it was happening.

‘At our last interview, I asked if there was anything else you should tell me. Why did you not tell me about that parakeet?’

‘She’s got nothing to do with this,’ said Nick. ‘That’s why.’

Saxton pointed towards the house. ‘That bird was at Mr Murphy’s house along with all the other infected birds.’

‘No, she wasn’t!’ shouted Nick.