Crocodile Farm

15.

They drive late into the night. Elliott and Sofia and Ayesha sleep, and then Lucy sleeps while Ayesha drives, and then she wakes and takes over the wheel again. She would prefer that she is the one to drive, even exhausted and with a belly uncomfortably wedged close to the wheel.

"So," Dimitri says, up front this leg, his eyes on the road ahead, "Did you fake your own death?"

Lucy snorts out a laugh. "Um, no." For a journalist, he's crap at asking questions. She doesn't feel compelled to answer; but then, she never feels compelled to do anything. Sofia has more authority, he has a bumbling kindness which, she suspects, makes him bad at his job.

"So..?" He seems to expect an answer.

She says, carefully. "I thought it prudent to disappear."

"No one's heard anything of you since 2026."

"Are you interviewing me?"

"Interviewing? No." He laughs a little to himself. "I leave that to the journos. Actually, I'm here because I've been tasked with keeping an eye on that one." He nods towards the back, to Sofia, who sleeps, curled against her seat belt.

"She seems very ..." Lucy can't think of the polite word, so she chooses the less polite one. "Dogged." To soften the blow she adds, "For someone so ... junior, I mean."

"Ha," he smiles. "Dogged. That is it. She's my niece. My sister's girl."

Lucy nods. She can hear a mosquito in her ear, trapped in the van with them; she hasn't felt its bite but she's certain it will get her. She smooths her dress over her belly and legs, tries to reveal as little skin as possible.

"She really wants to make a name for herself. She thinks this story might be it."

"What is the story, exactly?"

"I thought you overheard everything," Dimitri says, a sly smile.

Lucy shakes her head. "I can't work out what you wanted. From Ayesha. What you were doing there."

"It was such a lead, finding out one of the doctors might be willing to talk."

"One of the doctors ...?"

He looks at her sideways. "Crocodile Farm."

Lucy had suspected this was coming. How else would they know about both her and Ayesha? She's surprised they tracked down Ayesha, actually, or that they recognised her - they must be good to have made it so far. And who could blame them for following the lead? It was a hell of a story, especially for a rookie journalist who thought they could get away with anything, who didn't believe that there were organisations which would stop at nothing to keep their secrets safe: whose uncle was one of the senior cameramen. Of course Sofia had pursued it.

"We couldn't risk telling her we were coming, putting her on the back foot, or pre-empting her responses. We felt like we had one shot," Dimitri is saying. "We certainly weren't expecting you to be there too."

"I was only going to stay there for a night," she says. "Ayesha was just giving us food and board, a place to crash while we got our bearings." She feels heavy when she thinks of Ayesha giving up her house, cluttered with the objects she's collected, the pension she'd agreed when she left medicine, and her beloved Midnight Cat. And for what? To come on the road with Lucy, on her personal quest? To be dragged back into the mess she'd been so careful to avoid?

She looks at Dimitri, his face clouded then bright, clouded then bright, as they pass under the lights of the highway. He could be useful. A man with a camera is always useful. And Sofia – well, if she could be talked around to understand their point of view, she might be useful too. She'd said dogged before like it was something to be ashamed of, but in fact Lucy finds this trait appealing. Exacting, that's the word. With her stern eyes and her pursed lips, like she could see through everything you said. A good trait in a journalist, probably. Just annoying to be on the receiving end of it.

"So, Doctor Obolowe," Dimitri says now, leaning back against the window, his eyes fixed on her, "Where are we going?"

She's expected this. She's surprised that Elliott wasn't the one to ask it, actually, but he passed out in the back within minutes of the car taking off and has slept like a baby since. Ayesha didn't need to ask, because it was clear the minute Lucy showed up, without Matthias and with Elliott in tow, where she was going. No explanation was needed for her.

Lucy weighs up the option of lying, but she's going to need to tell the truth eventually: Elliott is going to need to know the truth, as soon as he wakes up and they can stop long enough to tell him. And she can't see a reason why she shouldn't nudge the journalists along on their journey, assuming their intention is truly to expose everything as they say it is. It can't be a bad thing if word gets out. It can't be as bad as keeping everything secret.

But she can't go on the record. She can't be the one to blow the whistle; they can't see her face. She has Benji to consider, and the little one inside her – hold on, baby, hang in there – and she has their dad to think of. He's all she ever thinks of.

So she turns to him. "What if I said I could take you to Crocodile Farm?"

He doesn't seem surprised, just trains his eyes on her. Sofia, she is sure, would have been suspicious, but Dimitri just watches her, waits for her to continue.

"If I took you there, would you film it?"

He says, slowly, "You're saying they've started again?"

And now she is the one to smile, grimly, because she can sense that he will see the black humour of it. "I'm saying that they never stopped."