Milkshake (14 page)

Anika had enjoyed a long chat with Katherine and shown her
round the house and floodlit vegetable garden. They were getting
along well and had returned to the table only moments earlier.
Anika coughed, interrupting Ed. “Honey, it’s getting late. Shall we
pick this up tomorrow?”

But Ed was on a wine–fuelled roll, “So, anyway, one day we get
a sales rep over from one of these outfits and he goes round all
the dairy farms on the island, trying to get the farmers to use
this latest vaccine which he says will increase their yield by some
huge percentage. He persuades three of the guys to sign up for it.
Then this sales joker brings over a company vet to inject the
herds. This guy, Trevor something or other, spent two weeks here
and reckoned the vaccine contained an enzyme that altered the
chemical balance of the milk suppressing a lot of the proteins,
making it cheaper to process and with a longer natural shelf life.
The three guys who signed up also had to sign a contract with the
company to say they wouldn’t sell the milk off the island and a
special tanker would come over to collect it. They got paid a
premium per litre and pretty soon another fifteen farmers on the
island got wind of the extra money being made and had also signed
up. Trevor kept coming over once all the dairy cattle had been
vaccinated and kept us local vets well out of the way. So we ended
up losing a fair amount of our regular income. In the end, the
practice could no longer justify having three vets, so that was as
good a time as any for a change in direction and here we are
running this place.”

David sat contemplating what Ed had just said. It seemed to be
exactly the independent and unsolicited confirmation he needed that
the conspiracy he and Katherine had somehow become embroiled in was
real and already happening on the very island they had come to
escape from it.

Anika pointed once more to the clock on the wall behind the
counter. “Sorry to break up the party, guys, but some of us have to
be up early tomorrow. Deliveries start arriving from seven-thirty
onwards and I don’t like chilled and frozen stuff just left on the
doorstep.”

Only when he finally laid his head on the soft
lavender-scented pillow did David think what a very long and very
bizarre day it had been.

* * *

When he opened his eyes again, the mid–morning sun was
streaming through the thin flower patterned curtains. He looked at
his watch. It was ten-thirty. In the distance he could hear
unfamiliar voices. His nose told him Ed and Anika were already busy
downstairs serving mid-morning customers their coffee and
muffins.

Katherine was already up and had gone for an exploratory walk.
Soon David was sitting in the small private courtyard garden at the
back of the café, drinking coffee, eating a chocolate muffin and
casually thumbing through the newspaper Anika had thoughtfully
supplied with his late breakfast.

His heart pounded as he read the
headline:
Logging truck kills
tourist.
Just as Hone had predicted, a
logging truck had jack-knifed in the path of an oncoming car. Both
drivers had been killed instantly. David knew different. He jumped
as he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Ed. “Morning, Dave, how’s
it goin’? Sleep well?” He sat opposite with his coffee. “Bit of a
break before the lunch rush.”

After last night’s alcohol-fuelled revelations on Ed’s part,
the pair now sat opposite each other slightly awkwardly, Ed not
wanting to disturb his guest’s newspaper reading, David desperate
to tell Ed his story, the real reason why he was on Waiheke. But
without the wine for lubrication, he was not sure how to
start.

“Ed, the thing you said last night about
why you stopped being a vet, I think it may have something to do
with why we are here.” Ed frowned. “I don’t mean here as in New
Zealand, I mean here on the island with you and Anika.”

David spent the next twenty minutes telling him as much as he
knew; the murder at Heathrow, the money on the credit card, the
encounter with Hone and what he had told them. It all seemed to tie
in with what Ed had said last night. Ed listened intently. His
coffee sat untouched, the milky froth dying away bubble by bursting
bubble.

David felt a sense of relief that he had finally been able to
tell his story from the start but there was no conclusion yet. He
had no idea what the ending might be. Ed shifted uncomfortably in
his chair. “Wow, it all sounds a bit far-fetched to me, Dave, but
it certainly fills in a lot of the gaps about what’s been going on
around here for the last eighteen months.”

A deafening ringing interrupted the contemplative silence. Ed
winced as he pointed to the large burglar alarm-like bell over the
kitchen door. “It’s ok, only the phone.” He shouted. The ringing
stopped and Anika walked through the kitchen door and into the
garden, the cordless phone held in front of her as if it was
magnetically attracted to Ed’s ear.

“It’s for you, honey. It’s Darren from the practice, says
it’s urgent.”

Ed put the phone to his ear and stood up. “Hey, Daz, how’s it
going? Shit! SHIT! SHIT!” The same small expletive became
progressively more forceful. “Give me twenty minutes, I’ll be right
over.” Ed handed the phone back to Anika. “Me and Dave are going
over to the surgery. Darren needs a hand. You and Kath will have to
take care of lunch on your own.”

He led David through the kitchen and café out into the street
and climbed into his 4x4. Ed started the engine and they sped off
down the road, Ed urgently stabbing at the keys on his mobile phone
as he drove. He put the phone to his ear.

“Daz, it’s me, listen, you’re gonna have to activate the
emergency response plan. Get whoever’s on reception to start
ringing round the farms. You need to be ready for when the guys
from the Ministry get there.”

He slipped the phone into his breast pocket, glanced at his
watch, and peered first through the front and then the side
windscreens, scanning the sky. “Tell me if you see a chopper, Dave.
Watch the eastern horizon, over there,” he said, pointing past his
passenger and into the distance towards the mainland.

“What’s going on, Ed? What’s happened?”

“I’ve been waiting for this. It’s probably that guy Hone and
his cronies. Did you say you told him you were coming
here?”

“Yes, why what’s happened?”

“Darren who runs the vet’s practice just took a call from the
Ministry of Ag and Fish. Apparently some crank has sent a letter to
the Prime Minister claiming to have infected a herd of cattle on
the island with foot and mouth. It’s not true because it would be
virtually impossible. You would have to gain access to a vial of
the disease from one of MAF’s secure labs, bring it here from
overseas or bring an infected animal onto the island. Darren said
there have been no cattle movements on or off the island for the
past three weeks, which is well outside the quarantine
period.”

“So why am I watching for a helicopter?”

“The Government will have to show they are
taking this seriously. It’ll be on the news in another hour. Darren
says they are flying in a team of vets and, as we have the only
surgery on the island, they’ll be based there.”

Ed raised his voice, his words nearly drowned out by the
deafening clatter of a large military helicopter, closely followed
by two smaller ones. They flew low, following the road ahead,
before disappearing below the tree line, and landing.

Chapter 9

They drove into the car park of the vet’s practice. The three
helicopters landed in an adjacent paddock.

David could see people, obviously unaccustomed to helicopter
travel, awkwardly disembarking. Large, heavy–looking bags were
thrust at them from inside the helicopters, knocking them off
balance They crouched as low to the ground as possible, running for
at least twice the length of the rotor blades as they struggled to
protect their heads from the fierce down draught of the blades
which kept up their deafening rotation.

Ed and David ran into the reception area of the building where
the group was already assembling. A casual nod to Ed as they
entered was the only clue David needed to indicate which one was
Darren. The group stood crammed into the small space, some talking
quietly, others silent as if they knew no–one else.

“Ok, guys, can I have your attention? Welcome to Operation
Waiheke. Now, you should all know your teams. Each group has three
properties to visit. You each have a list and the local practice is
going to assist with transport and directions.” The speaker walked
over to where Ed had just finished quickly introducing Darren and
David. “Which one of you is Nicholls?” Darren stepped forward,
shaking an outstretched hand. “Hi, Darren, Professor Eric West. I’m
an exotic disease investigator with Bio Security NZ. Can I put you
in charge of sorting out the transport and directions to this list
of farms?” He snapped a pre-typed list from his clipboard and
handing it to Darren.

David watched Ed’s face intently. It was the most serious he
had seen him since they had met. His eyes were slit in a barely
disguised look of distrust. He slowly turned to David, angling his
head back towards the door and whispered. “Walk back to my truck in
one minute.” Ed made his way behind the reception desk and out into
the rear of the building.

Darren escorted his group through the same door before
returning alone, stopping at the office space behind the desk.
“Just photocopying the list for you guys. I won’t be a minute,” he
called out.

The Professor approached David. “And you are?” he said in a
less friendly tone than the one extended to Darren.

“Oh sorry - er - Dave, just dropping the cat off to be done.
See you later.” The minute was up and he hurried out to Ed who was
already in the driver’s seat with the engine running. He barely had
time to shut the door before the 4x4 was on the road, heading back
towards the café.

“So, Dave, here’s the deal. There are fifteen farms on the
island involved in producing this modified milk which we know is
being used for the initial production of this new fuel somewhere on
the mainland. This facility is probably closely controlled by an
American outfit and our Government is powerless to intervene in the
private business of a legitimate company unless they have good
reason. So they’ve concocted this foot and mouth story as a means
of legitimately gaining access to the treated herds in order to
take blood and milk samples for analysis. They probably suspected
this was going on somewhere in the North Island. It appears you
coming here has aroused their suspicions enough to risk putting
this so-called Operation Waiheke into action in the full glare of
international publicity, risking our whole beef and dairy industry
in the process.”

“So what do we do?”

“In the short term - I mean the next twelve
hours - nothing. We need to let them get on with it. They’re only
doing their job, albeit under a bloody clever cover story. So we
just need to co-operate, not arouse suspicion and get you off this
island.”

Back at the café, Ed rushed into the small office area in the
corner of the kitchen. “Aha, good work, Daz,” he said, retrieving a
sheet of paper from beneath the fax machine, and glancing through
it. “He faxed me the list Eric West gave him. Ten of the farms on
it are using the enzyme. MAF have some good inside knowledge of
what’s been going on here.”

For the rest of the afternoon, Ed was on the phone. As he had
predicted, the suspected foot and mouth outbreak made the lunchtime
news bulletins. MAF were responding to a claimed deliberate release
of foot and mouth disease on the island. David listened as Ed
talked to local farmers, friends and concerned council members,
giving advice, sympathy and encouragement but not once giving away
what he believed to be the true reason the government scientists
were on Waiheke.

At four-thirty, Darren called again. Professor West had told
him the Controlled Area Notice for the Island was to be put in
place in the next half an hour, before the afternoon ferry was
scheduled to dock This would stop animal movements to and from
Waiheke and initially restrict human movement also.

“Clever,” said Ed when he came off the
phone, explaining that there was no scientific reason to restrict
human movement but, by doing so, the authorities would be able to
stop David and Katherine from leaving, at least by ferry. So, for
now, although he was not exactly captive, David was at least
restricted by the Government controls that were to all intents and
purposes legitimately in place.

As Ed pointed out over dinner, “It’s very clever. The
Government has obviously latched onto your presence and probably
realises that you may be of use to them. So they have concocted
this outbreak which serves two purposes - it keeps you under their
control by stopping you leaving the island, and it gives them
legitimate access to the compromised herds. Brilliant, bloody
brilliant. But they can’t be seen to be involved in anything that
might arouse the suspicions of Cowood.”

He stopped speaking and glanced at David but it was too late.
“The suspicions of who, Ed?” David had never mentioned Cowood to
him by name.