Crocodile Farm

14.

Lucy takes hold of Benji's shoulders and steers him outside. The poor kid is almost asleep on his feet. He stretches his arms out wide before she buckles him into the van. She hands him Bunny, the rabbit toy with the fur all loved off, and he snuggles down, his eyelids heavy and vacant. She kisses him lightly on the tip of the nose and he manages a tiny smile.

"Are we going to find Dad?" he whispers as sleep creeps in towards him.

"Yes, my love," she says. Beside him, Elliott shoots her a questioning look, his arm around Dolphin's neck, but she ignores it and clambers into the front, turns the ignition.

Sofia gets in first, her arms folded across her chest, while the man holds out his hand to Elliott. "Evening," he says. "I'm Dimitri Alekseyevich."

"Elliott Perlman." Elliott sounds almost as exhausted as her son; she supposes the hearty meal and the grief-and-adrenalin pinballing of the last few days has done it for him.

Sofia says nothing, just stares stonily ahead, so after a beat Dimitri adds, "And my colleague, Sofia Petukhova."

Lucy puts a hand behind her and says, "Phones."

"What?" Sofia is still surly, her eyes darting around.

"Hand me your phones."

Dimitri's smirk says he's amused by his tacit acceptance that this tiny, pregnant woman is in charge.

"What are you going to do with it?" Sofia asks as she hands hers over, but Lucy does not answer.

Out of the side mirror, she sees Ayesha remove The Midnight Cat's collar and scratch her head between the ears. The cat pounces onto the fence again, and sits, still as a shadow, its head turned towards the night sky.

Ayesha gets in the passenger sideand gives the dashboard a little pat. There are tears in her eyes as she cuffs the cat collar around her wrist.

"I'm sorry..." Lucy starts.

"Leave it, Obolowe," Ayesha says. "We got out together, we're back in together."

Lucy taps her friend's knee once, twice, and then reverses out of the driveway. As they leave, she throws Dimitri and Sofia's phones out her window, into the path of the traffic, ignoring Sofia's furious protests, and they hurtle out to the highway.

*

It is less than half an hour later that Leckie breaks through the door and barges into the house. Montville is behind him, but he knows they are too late. The place feels uninhabited, despite the warm washing up water in the sink and the car parked in the drive.

Stacked neatly by the sink are fourdishes and four sets of cultery, stained with red sauce and creamy bechamel. Montville looks over this and then calls Leckie and Gleeson over. "Four, huh?"

Leckie grins. "Could be she offered the journos some food before she abducted them."

"This is the problem with you, my friend," Gleeson says, his eyes meeting Montville's as though they must both suffer this fool. "You always see the worst in people. The Russians went willingly; I'm certain of that. And they are expecting to come back, I think. Why else would they leave their car? But four – such a strange number. Who is the fourth person? Who does Doctor Singh know, who might be of interest to journalists?"

The light flickers behind Leckie's eyes. The poor man, he's just not very bright.

"Doctor Singh has no known associates."

"Apart from ...?" Gleeson says, his voice syrupy with patience.

"Doctor Obolowe," Montvillenods.

"Oh," Oswald says. "But I thought she was dead."

Gleeson shrugs, as though he has no idea whether Lucy Obolowe might still be alive, and as though the truth might not mean much to him. His brain is filtering through the options, the phones on the road, the plates in the sink, the open book The Strangeness of Perception, methodical as a computer. Where will they go, this random band of travellers? Heis certain that the Russians did not intend to leave with them; Lucy must have given them a compelling reason to go. And he knows where they're headed; when they get there, he will be waiting for them.

Outside the window, hidden in the branches of a tree, The Midnight Cat looks up at the moon.