Crocodile Farm

19.

They pull in to a cheap motel as the light begins to fade, and Lucy pushes Dimitri out to check in. He checks in under a different name – they don't ask for ID, it's more prudent not to at these kind of places – and gets the key for a room with twin beds in it. There is some discussion about sleeping arrangements; Lucy seems worried that Sofia and Dimitri will take the van if given the chance: eventually, it is agreed that Lucy and Benji will share one bed, Ayesha will have the other, Dimitri will sleep on the floor. and Elliott and Sofia will share the van. At first Elliott takes this as evidence that Lucy trusts him to keep an eye on Sofia, but then he realises it is probably an assumption that their youth will make them more inclined to sleep rough, while the "mature adults" need the creature comforts of a room.

He suggests that he could check in with a separate twin room, to allow everyone to have a bed, but Lucy snaps, "Why don't you leave these decisions to me?"

Ayesha says, more kindly, "Lucy has successfully evaded capture for seven years now, she's kind of an expert in these matters."

Elliott feels like an idiot. "I just thought it'd be more comfortable."

Lucy breathes deeply, as though to calm herself. "Comfort is something we're going to have to do without, for the time being."

"You'd be better not to lecture a pregnant woman on comfort in the height of summer," Ayesha says, her eyes laughing, and for a second Elliott wonders if she ever had any kids, and where they are now, and how she came to be mixed up in this mess too.

In the dark, their bodies stretched along the length of the van, with Dolphin curled between them, Sofia turns to him.

"Lucy is lying to you," she whispers.

"I know," he says. His throat sounds clouded, like he hasn't used his voice in days. Lucy gave him a spare pillow from inside, and a blanket: he has wedged the pillow underneath his back to protect himself from the hard metal.

"She was there. For the experiments. I'm sure of it."

He knows Lucy lied to him; he saw it in the flicker of doubt on her face. But he's not convinced that this was what she lied about.

"How can you be so sure?"

Over Dolphin's curled body, he can just make out her profile, looking up at the ceiling of the van.

"Our tip-off told us. He said she was the worst of the lot of them."

"And who was your tip-off?"

She shifts in the sleeping bag: could be a shrug. "They were anonymous, so I can't give you a name. I mean, I don't know a name. But all their information was good. Has been good, so far. They knew their stuff."

He lets out a low sigh.

"That's part of our problem. We haven't had anyone willing to go on the record. And I just don't get it. I mean, if this is government-run. Or even if it's not, even if it's just a private corporation, I mean it's so immoral that I can't understand why no one has been willing to point the finger and stand up and say, 'This is not OK.' What's wrong with these people?" As she speaks, her voice rises, until Elliott is afraid that Lucy and Ayesha might hear them from inside the motel room, but then he thinks, Let them hear.

"They shot Belle in the head. In front of me." He lets this sink in, then adds, unnecessarily, but he wants her to understand the cold, unyielding look in Gleeson's eyes. "Without even blinking."

Neither of them speak for a moment. He listens to his own breathing slow, feels the throbbing in his head and his ribs and his hands. He has barely noticed the pain all day, but now that night has fallen he's hurting all over. He clenches his fingers into loose fists; tries to protect his nail beds as he rolls onto his stomach, shifts slightly closer to her.

"Sofia is Russian, isn't it?" He doesn't want to think about Belle anymore, or Crocodile Farm, doesn't want to strain to remember. For a second he just wants to be an eighteen year old boy talking to a pretty girl in the quiet of the night.

"Yeah. I was born here, though," she says.

Elliott has met a lot of Russians; they are always eager to remind you that they were born here.

"Did you always want to be a journalist?"

"It was sort of expected." Something in her voice is guarded. "I mean, my grandfather came out here with the military during the American Crisis. He was a journalist in Moscow but he was frustrated by the restrictions on the press there, he wanted to run a newspaper where the objective was truth-telling, not government propaganda."

Elliott thinks of the newspapers he's flicked through over the years; the articles his more zealous political friends used to share on social media. None of them seem concerned with telling the truth, especially in the last ten years, since Wainwright came to power. "And?"

"He succeeded in running a newspaper. But as for whether it was truly the fourth pillar he was hoping for ... some of the old habits died hard, I guess."

The penny drops, but he can't quite believe it: he's unable to stop the incredulous words leaving his mouth.

"Your grandfather is Pyotr Yolkin?" He feels suddenly conscious of how close their bodies are; he shifts away. She's not just a pretty girl anymore; she's the granddaughter of the most powerful media mogul in Australia, and any kind of flirtation with her is just playing with fire.

"I take it you don't remember escaping." Her voice has that edge to it again. She's upset, he thinks: although whether it is frustration with herself, for revealing too much, or with him, for reacting so frantically, he's not sure.

"No. But when I think about it, it's always felt like we were on the run. I always put that down to our overstaying our visa, but Belle used to say that they couldn't exactly deport us. I guess I'd never really wondered that – what she was afraid of, exactly." He shuts his eyes, sees the imprint of the dormitory there, feels the warm flannelette on his skin. "Now I realise she was scared of being sent back there." He sighs. "And maybe I was, too, I just didn't know that's what I was scared of."

He feels like he's said too much, and lapses back into quiet. He must be careful. He must stay vigilant around her: she's a Yolkin journalist after all – more than that, she's an actual Yolkin (and, he realises with a jolt, so therefore is Dimitri) - and she has made no secret of her intention to make their journey a matter of public record. But there is something about her which makes him feel safe, something he trusts. More than he trusts Lucy, in any case.