Crunch-crunch go my boots through the wiry gra.s.s. Click-click goes Bob's pocket as he strides ahead of me. I pull myself from wind-stunted tree to tree. My slippery palms squash opportunistic ants crawling up my arm. 'Whose idea was this anyway?' I try to sound a good sport, but my hat is slipping off. A swamp oozes under my petticoats and in my armpits.

'We're almost there,' he says over his shoulder. 'The view from the top will be worth it.'

'Can we sit on this log, Bob? Just for a minute.'

I collapse in the shade. The air presses in on every side. He seems pleased with the discrepancy in our energy levels. It occurs to me that this climb is his way of denying his age. Showcasing his stamina. A prize bull in the stockyard, leading himself around by the ring in his own nose.

I indulge his self-regard. 'You must be very fit. I'm done in already.'

He's looking at my hair. Remembering his suggestion, I've let a few tendrils fall around my face, albeit resentfully. Now given our exertions, my bun is threatening to come apart altogether.

'Yer new style is bonny,' he says.

I take a lungful of air ... and swallow a fly. It buzzes and twitches in my throat. A small bundle of filthy hay inside a vibrating hessian bag. It's too much to politely ignore. I excuse myself; go behind a bush and cough until it comes up.

Bob is suppressing a grin when I get back. 'Breathe through yer nose. It's the fourth rule of the bush.'

'What are the first three?' I wipe my mouth on a handkerchief.

'Carry a hat, a stick and a gun. The hat's for the sun. The stick's for snakes. The gun's for the blacks.'

The breeze catches his words, blows them through the open window of the sky. A cloud flings its net over the sun. The ravaged half of Bob's face falls into a bolthole of shadow.

'Ye asked about my past, la.s.s. What about ye? Any suitors?'

Spoken casually. But I've heard that tone before: some rattlesnake rustling beneath insouciance. Men are always eager to stake their claim.

'Not suitors, exactly.'

'What exactly, then?'

I seize on a safe subject. 'There's a lad who works for Charley in the bar - Heccy Landers.'

'I've seen him mooning.' A pinch of amused spice now. 'A lovestruck calf.'

'I wouldn't go quite so far.'

In the distance, there's a whitish line. A tear where the water catches continually on the sharp rocks beneath.

'Ye're far too modest.' He finds my hand on my lap. Squeezes just a fraction more than he needs to. 'This Heccy Landers, he's the same age as ye. It would be natural if he courted ye.'

'As you've observed, Bob, I'm a bit of an odd one out. Age means nothing to me.'

His fixed smile dries to a crack. 'It must mean something, or ye'd look at a man, not graze his face then look away.'

I hesitate, wondering how to strike the right balance between honesty and girlish reticence. 'It's the scar. Sometimes I don't know which side is in charge.'

'Ye daft donsie, there's only one of me.' But there's no heat in it. He's clearly relieved I don't find him repulsive.

'Yes, I know. Silly, isn't it? On account of my youth, I expect.' Then, because I can't resist the troublemaking imp itching at my tongue, 'Perhaps you'd be better off with someone your own age.' I feel his body stiffen in annoyance beside me.

The cicadas accelerate their clicks, reinforcing their net in every direction until the air reverberates. I see something move near a tree halfway down the hill. Put my hand up to shield the glare. It's probably the pendulum effect of the sun through moving clouds. The light playing high-alt.i.tude tricks. Or Heccy, playing unwanted sleuth.

'What is it?' Bob asks. His nose is turning pink in the sun.

'A wallaby?'

The twisting path all the way up was strewn with their spoor, the size of miniature musket b.a.l.l.s.

'A man should've brought his rifle. Nothing nicer than wallaby stew if it's done right with carrots and onions and mashed taties.'

'Do you keep livestock on the Lizard?'

'Some goats and ducks. The goannas are partial to poultry, though. We've lost some goats too.'

'Big goannas, to carry off a goat.'

When he doesn't answer, I realise they must be two-legged goannas. The kind that come over from the mainland in canoes and carry spears.

'Onward and upward,' Bob says, and I stand. Reluctantly.

There's the rub of raw flesh on my left ankle, and every time my boot moves over it a heated blade slices more ham off the bone. I hobble the rest of the way. Bob doesn't offer any help. A punishment for my earlier reference to his age?

He's right about the view from the top, though. The ocean spreads out like a sheet of beaten silver, held at just the right angle to blind the sun. It's tucked in at the horizon, and on either side by half-moons of land. On the left, tufty grey trees move upwards to the firm blue mattress of sky. Stuffing pokes out here and there in patches of white.

We find a rock large and smooth enough to sit on. I unlace my boot, wincing. The blister's bled through my hose. I take a handkerchief, pack it wadding-style over the wound and cautiously put the boot back on.

Bob watches the operation in silence. An eagle circles high, sedately looping transparent wool around an invisible pair of widespread hands.

'Ye shouldn't see Heccy Landers,' he says. 'Not if ye're considering me for yer husband.'

'I can't help seeing him. We work together.' I test my foot on the ground: a blunt pain this time. He's jealous. Not a good sign. I told Captain Roberts that, if I marry Bob, he'll likely shrug off my desertion at the end of the operation on Lizard Island. But perhaps that a.n.a.lysis was too hasty.

I search for a distraction. 'Where is the Lizard from here, Bob?'

He points to the left, over the mop-head of vegetation, beyond the long sickle of sh.o.r.eline. 'More than a hop, step and jump to the north. Too treacherous and far for ye to see.'

Treacherous? Perhaps. Some might look at that vast blue distance and imagine the million blades of reef just under the surface. I look and see a fertile field, sword turned ploughshare and just about to churn the sods of good fortune. On a day like this, my young lungs full of fresh air, anything seems possible. And no obstacle - not Captain Roberts's warning, not Bob's jealousy, not Percy's disapproval - seems a serious enough challenge.

Bob takes off his hat and wipes his brow with the back of his hand. 'It's an isolated place. Ye may not cope with it. Not many women could.'

'I'm stronger than most women,' I tell him without expression. And then, making conversation, 'Did you catch up with Will Hartley the night before last?'

For an instant he seems a startled boy, caught with his hand in the biscuit tin. The scar looks angry in the sunlight. I wonder if it ever itches.

'Oh, aye. I caught up with him eventually.'

'Did he give you a fair price for your slugs?'

His lopsided gaze falls on me. 'That's a curious thing for a girl to fret about.'

I shrug. 'It's the nature of my employment to hear rumours. Word is, Hartley's creative with his share of his clients' profits.'

'Is that so? I'll have to look into it.' His voice says he has no intention of doing so.

My foot throbs. White clouds above us suddenly sport black eyes. It's time for more feminine weakness, not altogether manufactured.

'Any chance of a piggyback down?'

At the bottom of the hill, Bob leaves me with a peck on the cheek and a doff of his hat. I head for the pharmacy to buy some plasters for my heel. I'm almost to the steps when I hear two men arguing loudly in a room upstairs in the Federal Hotel. They mustn't realise the window has been left half-open behind the curtains. I can't see them. And I can't hear what they're saying. But I recognise that French accent wound up several notches. And the other man's spitting fury. Lord knows, I was on the wrong end of it myself not so long ago.

Charley Boule and Percy. How curious.

13.

Every profession has its hazards.

From the secret diary of Mary Watson I know as soon as I walk into French Charley's for my shift that something's wrong. I grab Heccy's arm as he pa.s.ses with a tray full of gla.s.ses. 'What is it?'

He looks down at my hand then up to my face. The gla.s.ses tinkle. I see then that his fingers grip the tray so tightly they're almost transparent.

'Nicole. D-d-dead. Down near the river, l-last night.'

I breathe out audibly. Nicole! Who next? I'm not so shocked, however, that I don't notice something amiss about Heccy's reaction. His long face is bright and his eyes glinting, but he's forced the rest of his features into an att.i.tude of stillness. It's a curious contradiction. As though he's a jeweller carefully turning something over this way and that under a light, not wanting to give away the implications of what he sees. But the stammer undermines him.

'S-strangled. That's what you g-get for being a wh.o.r.e of B-B-Babylon.'

'I thought you liked Nicole?'

'She was a s-stain in front of G.o.d's eyes.'

Still that intense face. I decide to let his internal saint and awkward grief fight it out inside him.

'Did you follow me when I climbed Gra.s.sy Hill this morning?'

'N-no,' he says, but his cheeks turn pinker.

'I can look after myself, Heccy.'

'Y-you just think you c-can.' His jaw tightens. 'Bob Watson is a b-bounder.'

'Is he the one I shouldn't trust, then?'

He doesn't answer. Just gnashes his teeth. I can see them moving, top set over bottom, like a wheat grinder, just under the skin of his cheek. Time to straighten him out once and for all. I soften my voice.

'Any man in my life would be a bounder to you. There is no chance for you and me, Heccy. I'm sorry, but you must get used to it.'

His next words are almost whispered. 'M-maybe you're like Nicole. I know you d-don't really c-care for Watson.'

I feel the heat drain from my face. What's that saying? Out of the mouths of babes? I don't need reminding that I'm leading Bob on. Any reasonable critic could accuse me of something not far away from prost.i.tution.

'M-Mary. I'm sorry. I d-d-didn't mean it.'

'I know you didn't. Where's Charley?'

'In his office. M-Mary?'

'Yes, Heccy, what is it?' I'm impatient to get away from him now.

There's a hectic zeal in his voice. 'I'm glad she's d-dead. She shouldn't have spoken t-to you the way she did.'

The door's open. Charley's at his desk. I catch him just as he hastily places his head in his hands. He must have heard me coming. Anyone who doesn't know him might conclude he's devastated over the loss of a young girl in her prime of life, rather than just overwhelmed by the logistics of replacing her at short notice.

'I'm sorry about Nicole,' I say.

He looks up and nods. Then, as though deciding it's not quite enough of a performance, the pupils of his eyes move skywards and his palm comes to rest over the heavy weight of his heart.

'You despised her, yes? You wished her dead?'

'I didn't know her well enough for that sort of pa.s.sionate response.'

And neither did you, Charley. So why the theatrics?

He shakes his head. 'What a strange girl you are. Too strange even for Cooktown. Perhaps not too strange for Lizard Island.'

It's my day, apparently, for unflattering commentary on my character. 'Charmed, I'm sure. What have you heard about the Lizard, Charley? I may as well add it to the list of doom stories rattling in my ears.'

'I have warned you against Watson already. But that island - some say it is a special place to the blacks. That tragedy comes to any European living there.'

'Good old Mr Some has an opinion on everything, doesn't he? For instance: Some also say that businessman foiled in nefarious plan will find way to scare rival.'

My Confucius parody doesn't impress him, if the twitch of his nose above the manicured moustachios is anything to go by.

Thunder's wagon-wheel rattles in the sky. We both look to the window.

'I have problems of my own, cherie. You will succeed, or you will be fish food. Either way it is of no great interest to Charley Boule. Perhaps you will take that stammering dolt Heccy Landers with you, eh? Wear him at your hip to repel the blacks, the way you repel mosquitos by rubbing that lavender oil all over till you smell like a field in Toulouse. They won't kill and eat a redhead, or so it is said.'

'Who won't? The mosquitos?'

'Mon Dieu! The blacks.'

'Why not?'