Black Mountain (7 page)

As she lay there trying to regain her breath she felt sharp stings on the side of her face. And then she felt things crawling over her face and neck and inside the collar of her jacket and down her back, and she was being bitten. Painful, stinging bites. Screaming, she wriggled around and sat up, her hands brushing and flapping furiously at her face. She tried to reach down inside her clothes to dislodge the myriad of insects crawling over her neck and back, but to no avail. Their painful stinging bites drove her into a frenzy. As she screamed louder she felt hands pulling her up from the ground, standing her up and tugging off her jacket, then roughly pulling up her arms to take off her top. Then she felt something swiping and brushing the creatures off her.

‘Green ants,' yelled Mitchell. ‘You've dislodged a green ant's nest from the tree. Move away from here.'

Sobbing, Elly let him lead her blindly away. Then leaving her to stand alone for a few seconds he pulled a bottle from his pack and unscrewed the top, then poured some of the liquid from it into his hands and sloshed it onto her back and neck and patted it onto her face. It eased the pain a little, but her skin still burned fiercely. She scratched madly at it, but he grabbed her hands and held them tight.

‘Oh, Elly, Elly, don't scratch! You'll only make it worse. We need to get you home.' He thrust the bottle into her hands. ‘Here, hold this.'

As she automatically took it, she tried to focus through the pain on what was happening. Mitchell was standing in front of her, a look of deep concern on his face. On the ground a few metres away, beneath the sapling she had clutched at, lay the fallen ant's nest with green ants scurrying around it and out across the nearby ground. At her feet were the top and jacket that Mitchell had taken off her and flung down. She suddenly realised she was now standing in front of him stripped bare from the waist up.

With a little whimper she made to bend over to pick up her jacket, but Mitchell stopped her with an outstretched hand.

‘No. You can't put that back on. There might still be ants left in it.' With a quick movement he removed his own jacket and put it around her shoulders, pulling it across her front. ‘We'll take those things back for your Mum to wash clean.'

He took the bottle from her and poured a little more lotion into one of his hands and loosened the jacket to reach inside and dab some more on to the bites on her back and neck, then gently patted some onto her face.

‘Try not to scratch,' he said, handing the bottle back to her, ‘it'll only aggravate them more. Now—' he took hold of her arm, ‘—let's get you home. Beth will know what to do for you.'

He was looking at her with such tender compassion, his eyes seeming to radiate concern, that Elly was overcome with a longing to be comforted and she turned and rested her head on his chest with a sob.

Immediately his arms went around her and he pulled her to him gently. As she gave little moans of pain he stroked her hair. ‘There, there,' he soothed. ‘I know it hurts. We'll go straight home and I'm sure Beth will have something to ease the pain for you. Do you think you can walk back to the car or would you like me to carry you?'

At this, Elly raised her head. Whatever was she doing, crying on Mitchell's chest? And half undressed too. Whatever would he think of her? And much as the idea of being carried in his arms was appealing, she could never allow that.

She stepped back and pulled his jacket closer around her. ‘No, no, thank you,' she said shakily. ‘I'm quite all right to walk. Of course I am. I'm sorry for being such a baby.'

‘Not at all. I've had the odd ant bite myself, though nothing like this, so I know how painful they are, and you're in a lot of pain. Come on.' He bent and picked up her clothes and shook them, then rolled them into a ball and tucked them under one arm. With his free hand he grasped her by the elbow. ‘The sooner we get going the sooner we'll have you home to your mother.'

***

As Mitchell drove swiftly but skilfully along the rough trail away from the clearing where he had parked, heading for the bitumen of the main road, he glanced sideways at Elly, huddled miserably in her seat. Every now and then she undid the bottle of lotion and dabbed it on the bites, and he could tell from the way she bit her lip that she was in pain, but she said nothing more. She had guts, he had to concede that. Apart from that one breakdown in there she hadn't complained.

Unbidden, his mind went to the sight of her standing before him without her top on. His only thought when he'd ripped her clothes off was to get rid of the ants, but when he'd brushed the insects away he'd not been able to avoid seeing her standing there clad only in her tight jeans and hiking boots. He'd had to drag his eyes away. It made him feel like a voyeur, seeing her like that. In other circumstances he would've gazed long and happily at her loveliness, but he didn't want to take advantage of her predicament, and so he'd covered her with his jacket. But he found it hard not to remember how she'd looked as his eyes took her all in, from her trim waist up to the swelling perfection of her pert little breasts. And how he had wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her hurt away. And more than that too, if he was honest with himself. He swallowed at the recollection and fixed his eyes firmly on the road ahead. He needed to keep his mind focused firmly on work, and to remember that he was working for her mother.

***

Beth must have heard Ben bark as Mitchell's Cruiser pulled up, and she was waiting to meet them. ‘You're back early,' she called, ‘I'm hoping it's because you've found the plant …' Her words trailed off as they walked towards the house. ‘Elly, what is it? You've been hurt?'

As soon as she heard what had happened, and looked at the bites, she told Mitchell she would take care of Elly, and, with a promise to ring him later, she waved him off and guided her daughter straight into the workroom. Here she removed the jacket and told her to lie face down on the couch. Taking folded gauze compresses from a cupboard she saturated them with chamomile lotion from the refrigerator. After applying the cold compresses to the neck and back areas affected by the bites she prepared another and held it out to Elly.

‘Now, hold this one to your face,' she instructed her, ‘while I prepare an essential oil potion.'

Elly pressed the compress to her face, grateful for the relief, and watched while Beth busied herself preparing a mix of equal parts of lavender, thyme and eucalyptus essential oils, and dissolved it in a small amount of almond oil. Having grown up in a home where no-one doubted the efficacy of nature's remedies, and having been treated with them for most of her childhood ailments, Elly had the utmost confidence in them and in her mother's skills, and was in no doubt that the mixture would be the best thing to relieve her pain.

By the time the compresses had lost their coldness and the bites were becoming more painful again, Beth had the mixture ready and dabbed some on each red weal.

‘Now, we'll need to keep this up every few hours today, each time they're painful again and, hopefully, by tomorrow the pain will be easing. Whatever you do, don't scratch them, or they could leave permanent scars. Now come inside, we'll find you a light top to put on and I'll make you a calming herb tea, and then you should go and have a lie down.' She paused. ‘I'm afraid you'll have to lie on your stomach, though.'

Even with her mother's potion on the bedside table where she could reach it easily during the night, Elly did not sleep well. The bites hurt and the itch was driving her mad. The urge to scratch was almost irresistible. She got up and walked around, and applied more potion several times during the night. The next morning she took a cold shower before applying it again and after drying herself she looked in the mirror and was horrified at the myriad of red, ugly spots on her face. Turning around she saw her neck, shoulders and back were similarly afflicted.

All day she kept up the treatment, with the pain and irritation becoming a bit less each time. As the pain began to ease, she became increasingly concerned by the time they were wasting. She hated missing this day's search, although she knew Mitchell would be out there. What if Jackson, or whoever had Rob's journal, were to find it before them? With the notes they would then be able to recreate the serum to the same extent as the last experiment, and perhaps take it to the next step, to completion. And that would mean the end to her parent's dream of success.

Chapter 11

In an office down in Brisbane, Carl and Marie Evert were waiting for Greg Talbot to arrive.

‘For Heaven's sake, Carl, stop prowling around the room and come and sit down.' Marie Evert's voice was sharp. ‘You're making me nervous,' she snapped.

A willowy blond, with fine lines that a weekly facial were unable to prevent around her heavily made-up eyes, she oozed the glamour she believed her position as a leading light in the beauty industry required. Today she was seated at a table in their office in uptown Brisbane, a scowl pulling down the corners of her red lips and twisting a pen between her fingers as she watched her husband prowl around the room.

‘Well, I'm already nervous,' Carl replied, but he did as he was bidden and seated himself at the table opposite Marie.

A jug of water and three glasses stood in the middle of the table, and papers were strewn over it in front of him. A tall, fleshy man with a weak chin and a receding hairline, Carl started gathering the papers and stacking them into neat piles in front of him, his face grim.

Marie frowned. ‘It's no use being nervous. We have to be firm with Talbot. Don't let him get the upper hand,' she told him.

‘It makes me sick to the stomach to even contemplate working with that bastard. Jumped up little prick he is, I hate his guts.'

‘We have to do something, you know that, so just calm down. We've been over this all before. If we continue as we are we'll go down the gurgler, and it makes sense to combine with him instead of competing. As it is, we just keep cutting margins on all the products to try and come in lower than him, and he's doing the same.' She shook her head. ‘It's a no win situation for all of us.'

‘Yes, I know all of that, and I'll go along with it. But don't expect me to like it.'

‘Well, if you'd been able to come up with some decent new products we wouldn't have to do it. You're supposed to be the hot-shot manufacturing cosmetic chemist, but your last efforts have been less than inspiring. Just the same old products with a bit of a new twist. Surely you learnt something more than that in all the years you worked in Chicago?'

‘Yes, well, things have moved on a lot since then.'

‘And you haven't, that's the trouble.' Her lips tightened. ‘You should have been keeping up with the latest developments in the laboratory, trying out new things, instead of playing the guru. The problem is you don't have any new ideas. That anti-wrinkle serum you produced last year was crap, we both know that, and the sales, or lack of them, reflect it. The therapists aren't stupid, you know. They can tell when an old product's tarted up and given a new name.'

Carl shook his head angrily. ‘All right, all right, leave off, will you. Talbot will be here any minute now and we don't want to be arguing when he arrives. Besides, it's not my fault technology's moved on.'

‘And you haven't,' she spat at him. She sat back and took a deep breath, and when she spoke again her voice was calm. ‘But you're right, there's no sense in us arguing.'

At that moment there was a knock at the door and Carl sprang up to open it. The man who stood there was of medium height, thirtyish, with a sleek handsomeness and a sensuous mouth.

‘Ah, Greg, good to see you,' Carl said heartily, offering his hand.

‘Likewise,' Greg replied as they shook hands and Carl drew him into the room. ‘Ah, and Marie.' He strode across to the table as she pushed back her chair and stood. They air kissed as Carl closed the door behind them. ‘Looking as lovely as ever, I see.'

Marie smiled at him. ‘Ah, Greg, still the silver tongue, I see.' Her voice dripped honey. ‘It's so good to catch up again, we don't see enough of you, you know.'

‘Well, that may change,' Carl said heartily, joining them. ‘Now let's all sit down and have a chin-wag, eh?'

When they were all seated Carl poured three glasses of water and pushed one across the table to each of them.

‘Now then,' he continued, ‘it was most opportune we met up with you in Cairns and had coffee together. We might have had problems in the past, but that's all forgotten now, all friends again, eh?'

‘Sure.' Greg nodded easily, watching Carl with a smile on his face that didn't reach his eyes.

‘And you intimated then that you'd like to be in the manufacturing side of the beauty industry.'

‘I might have said something like that,' he agreed smoothly.

‘Good, good.' Carl bobbed his head. ‘Well, as we said then, the beauty industry's a very competitive business these days and it makes sense for us to try and help each other, rather than compete. Now, I'm a manufacturer and you're a distributor. Between us we have two lots of skincare, and you have a make-up range. You bring your products in from overseas, which means heavy freight and import duties for you, while mine are made right here, in your own backyard.' He paused for a sip of water.

‘I should say right now, Greg,' Marie interjected, ‘that I'm interested in taking your make-up range. As you know, I have two spas here in Brisbane, and I'm contemplating opening one in Cairns. I looked at some properties when we were up there.'

‘Interesting,' Greg said.

‘But that's not the main thing,' Carl continued. ‘The skincare's more important.'

‘So what are you suggesting?' Greg asked.

‘I'm suggesting you dispense with the skincare you're currently selling and take on my range instead. That way we can stop cutting each other's throats. I'll make you a good price, there'll be a good margin in it for you. In addition you can handle any of the ancillary products we have that you want, like wax and so on. You take over the whole distribution, so I can concentrate on what I do best, which is to expand my skincare range. And Marie will take your make-up range for her spas, and we'll recommend it to all our customers. Once the salon owners know Marie is taking it, a lot of the others will be willing to try it.'