Wolf in Tiger's Stripes Read online

  Me? Thanks for bagging Keene? What did I do? Judith only just managed to stifle her alarm.

  “It wasn’t until I mentioned you that he softened enough even to discuss the proposition, really,” Jeremiah said. “I gather he wasn’t overly impressed at having to be involved with Innes, or maybe it was just being involved with the greenies in general. He really gave me the third degree about you, though, and it made a tremendous difference.”

  “Which means you lied.” Judith spoke without thinking, only then realizing that Jeremiah would know every rancid detail of her fall from grace; he hadn’t become what he was in the publishing world without knowing such things. He’d obviously had no trouble tracking her down here in Tasmania, which must have been some Herculean task, she thought. Judith sighed and shook her head.

  “I may have laid it on a bit thick,” the publisher admitted, a chuckle in his voice. “But it was no more than the truth. I couldn’t have him believing I’d hire somebody who was less than the best available, could I?”

  And then there was a pause – one of those pauses referred to as a pregnant pause, Judith thought, and she normally would have laughed outright at the thoughts that created when she looked across the kitchen at her cousin Vanessa. Normally, but not this time, because this time she didn’t dare put words into the pause because they wouldn’t come out of her mouth, wouldn’t even line up properly in her brain with any sense of sanity.

  Jeremiah had described her to Bevan Keene as available. Well, I guess that’s one word for it. And this time she had to choke back an hysterical laugh.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Well, I had to mention your ... uhm ... situation with young Innes.”

  The publisher’s voice showed no sign of apology for it, either, and Judith’s heart dropped to her stomach. He didn’t know – couldn’t know – that there was no situation with Derek, that the so-called situation was the only reason she was available for this insane proposal in the first place.

  And the reason she would have to refuse it.

  So now what to say? Judith decided to brazen it out. Nothing else would serve any purpose.

  “Derek Innes and I don’t have a situation,” she said. “Never did. Nothing even close!”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Jeremiah replied, dismissing the issue. “I merely mentioned it to Keene so that he wouldn’t feel he was being set up or anything. Of course, I told him you were so professional it wouldn’t matter a whit even if you were actually cohabiting with young Innes, and he accepted that, I’m sure.”

  Cohabiting? Not if Derek was the last man on earth! The words screamed in her mind, but stayed there. Except ... how would Bevan Keene think about it?

  “How sure?” The words were out even as she thought them, out and hovering in the air before her like smoke from Hades, some omen of worse to come.

  “Oh, quite sure,” was the expectable reply. “He said it wouldn’t make a skerrick of difference, wouldn’t matter a bit.”

  “Ah,” Judith said, keeping her voice light despite the giant rock that was actually growing in the pit of her stomach. She could feel it, visualize it, almost touch it as she made the mental translation: skerrick = iota. “He said that, did he? In exactly those words.”

  “Well no, not in those exact words. But he thanked me for being so candid about it, and he certainly did imply that it wasn’t any issue at all. In fact, he seemed to just disregard it as an issue once I’d mentioned it. Did the same about the details of your ... little problem ... with your previous employer, as a matter of fact.”

  “You told him about that?” Judith was certain the rock inside her now made her look more pregnant than Vanessa, was positive she ought to back away from the kitchen counter just to make room for it. And the rock was cold, slimy, putrid – just like the knowledge that Jeremiah Cottrell had discussed her disgrace with Bevan Keene.

  “Didn’t have to tell him. He knew. Just wanted my take on the situation is all.”

  And then, while Judith was framing polite words of refusal, the publisher began speaking words of money – British pounds sterling, American dollars, Australian dollars even, should she want to be paid that way. The refusal exploded in a diffused vision of bills marked “PAID” and bank statements printed in black ink for a change, and the rock in her belly began to soften and diffuse.

  “I ... I ...” Judith wanted desperately to say she needed time to think, time to try and rationalize the whole thing. But Jeremiah Cottrell, she knew, wouldn’t give her that time. He’d already determined she was the one he wanted for the job of Official Recorder for his expedition, and any hesitation would be taken as a sign of weakness. One didn’t show weakness in front of Jeremiah – not even on the telephone.

  “What are the major problems, right off the top of your head?” he asked abruptly. All business, now, the accent thick with impatience.

  “I’m not comfortable about Derek Innes,” she began bravely. “He’s not a person you can trust, although I suppose you already know that. And he would be quite capable of turning your expedition into something different than you’ve bargained for.”

  And I didn’t cohabit with him, or anything even close! I wouldn’t trust the bastard as far as I could throw him!

  “Such as?”

  “Such as the springboard for his personal campaign into the national or even international level of the conservation movement. In fact, I’d be astonished if he didn’t.”

  “More to it than that,” her new employer growled with surprising perspicacity. “And you’re hedging.”

  Hedging? Of course I’m hedging. Do you think for one minute I’m going to spill out all the sordid details of my “situation” with Derek, which is what I’d have to do – and might, yet – if I’m going to persuade you just how dangerous a move it would be to let Derek Innes take charge of anything so potentially valuable to Derek?

  Derek Innes would, Judith knew, use anything and anybody to further his ambitions, and Jeremiah’s project was tailor-made for him.

  “Derek has some pretty big plans for himself,” she finally said. “He wants to be the next Bob Brown, or the next David Bellamy, or David Suzuki – or to be seen as being that significant, at the very least. At the political level, especially. It will almost certainly lead to some serious conflict of interest.”

  “Which you will duly record and publicly document. I daresay this Bevan Keene will be able to keep him in line,” was the reply. “What are your feelings about him, while we’re on the subject?”

  “I don’t know anything about him, really. I’ve only met him once, at a dinner party.”

  Lies, damned lies, and statistics. You know him better than you know most of the men in your life, or at least more intimately. Or you want to. Or wish you did. Or worse ...

  “You must have made quite an impression,” Jeremiah said. “He certainly took the trouble to find out all about you. Might I suggest you return the favor? You’re going to know him quite well, I expect, before this is over.”

  Judith nearly choked, suddenly stricken by terror at the accuracy of her new boss’s assessment.

  “I know enough to be sure he’s very much his own man, and likely able to cope with Derek.” She got the words out without spluttering and was sure they sounded honest enough despite her own misgivings. Bevan Keene exuded a solid, basic honesty that might be a handicap when dealing with Derek Innes. Derek, she knew only too well, was intrinsically shifty and devious, the type who always knew all the rules and how to bend them to best advantage.

  “No doubt of that in my mind,” Jeremiah replied. “And no doubt you’ll be able to keep them from each other’s throats, provided you don’t go making yourself the catalyst for real trouble. You’re not involved with this Keene, too, by any chance?”

  Damn you, Jeremiah.

  “I’m not involved with anyone!” No lie, that!

  “Well, see that you keep it that way. We don’t want a repetition of ...” He let the rest of i
t drop into an unintelligible mumble, but Judith knew exactly what her new boss meant. Knew it through and through, and hated herself – and him – for the need to bring it up at all. The publisher feigned clearing his throat, then continued as if he’d never paused in the first place. “I’ll have the contracts in the mail immediately and you can start work now, if that suits.”

  And even if it doesn’t suit. I wonder if anybody’s ever said, “No” or even, “Not yet” to you, Jeremiah. I doubt it, somehow.

  “Innes will be down from Queensland within a fortnight, and Keene already has most of the information you’ll need to start the publicity machine rolling. I mentioned, of course, that you’ll also be wearing the publicist’s hat?”

  “Are you absolutely sure you want to publicize this project before it produces any sort of results, before it actually begins? What if it turns out to be a complete and utter disaster? This sort of thing doesn’t have a great track record, you know.”

  “It’ll pay for itself in advertising and P.R. even if it does fail, which it will not.”

  No doubt in his voice, nor any sense of caution. Was that how one got to be a multimillionaire, Judith wondered – throwing caution to the winds?

  “Jeremiah, you are the world’s greatest optimist. Or have you been listening to Derek Innes too much already? I have to say this: Bevan Keene told me straight to my face that no sane grazier or farmer would ever admit to having seen a tiger. And he meant it, and I’m sure he’s right, too.”

  There was a grunt from her new employer. “He told me the same thing, but he was only talking about such sightings in relation to people’s own property. That, of course, would be nothing but common sense. But this search will be on government land.”

  “It still doesn’t promise much hope for cooperation from the rural sector.”

  “That is Keene’s role, or one of them. And a £100,000 reward for hard evidence ought to help.”

  “There has been a one-hundred-thousand dollar reward in force for years,” Judith replied, her brain scrambling to recall the details. “Put up in 1983, if I remember correctly, and nobody’s ever claimed it. The best thing it accomplished – the only thing it accomplished, really – was to force the government here into legislating a substantial penalty for anyone who caught a tiger. I don’t know if that’s still in force, but I expect it would be, and that might complicate your little project a bit.”

  “Do not be defeatist, Judith. Is there something else I should know about, or can I return to work now?”

  I know Derek Innes is a liar and a crook and an utter bastard, but I’d hardly need to tell you that. And I know he and Bevan Keene will be about as friendly as two tomcats in a sack, but I probably don’t have to tell you that either, since you’ll have researched both of them more thoroughly than I ever could. And I know that Bevan Keene and I ...

  “I’m just a bit leery of publicizing the thing too heavily in case it all comes apart before we really get started,” she finally said. “And that’s presuming we can generate much publicity. Tiger stories aren’t given much credence here, except as human interest fodder. Fluff. To get any serious coverage outside your own stable, you might need more than just a highly credentialed expedition. Honestly, Jeremiah, the majority of informed opinion is that the tiger really is extinct.”

  “The advertising dollar is not!”

  Which ended that little sortie rather nicely, she thought, and abruptly changed the subject. “May I ask exactly what role this contract you’re sending will specify for me? I mean, am I to be a journalist, or some sort of P.R. person, or what? ‘Official recorder’ seems a pretty vague sort of job description.”

  “You’ll be my official representative, and all those other things as well, my dear. As you well know, so stop being tiresome. It’s the best deal you’ve been offered in several years, and certainly the best you’re likely to see just now.”

  No mistaking that message, even without the hard edge of Jeremiah’s voice. Time to change partners again.

  “Well, I still have a few reservations, Jeremiah. You don’t know Derek like I do ... did. And I simply cannot see Bevan Keene coming to the party on this without some agenda of his own, either. There’s more to his involvement than meets the eye.”

  And that is no lie at all. I know exactly what his agenda is likely to be – and I’m on it!

  “Indeed. I just hope it isn’t something with red hair,” the publisher replied coldly. “You just remember that while each of them is in charge of his own contingent, and in joint control of the expedition as a whole, you are the one directly responsible to me. You have the final word. Your young man Innes is no more than a figurehead, in many ways, and well he knows it.”

  “He knows it? And he’s agreed?” Judith didn’t like the sound of that. It was as questionable as Bevan Keene’s acceptance. Had Keene agreed to similar conditions?

  Jeremiah Cottrell chuckled, and it wasn’t the sort of chuckle that implied humor. It had a thin, nasty tone that made Judith perk up her ears.

  “He most likely anticipates being able to manipulate you, my dear. And I didn’t think it my place to, let us say, disillusion him. Keene, of course, has a different agenda, but they’re only men, Judith. You’ll have them both toeing the line before the first camp is established.”

  “You are not a nice man, Jeremiah. Has anyone told you that lately? Because they should!”

  “Jeremiah Sir,” he reminded her quietly. But his voice made the point. Jeremiah had reached the stage of severe impatience.

  “Yes, Sir,” she replied. “I shall await the contract, Sir. And your orders, Sir.”

  “First off, go and buy a cell phone, assuming they have them in Tasmania, and assuming one might expect such technology to operate in the antipodean wilderness. Be sure it can reach me here, and make sure I know the number so that I may reach you. Second, just do your best, Judith. And please don’t let your personal feelings get in the way.”

  “You can be certain of that, at least.” And she meant it, too, although she wished she felt as confident as it had sounded. Derek wasn’t going to be an issue, but she was far less certain about the suddenly too-agreeable Bevan Keene. What on earth had prompted him to link himself to such a project, and use her name in the process?

  Damn it, Judith, at least be honest with yourself. He wants exactly what you want, and it has nothing to do with tigers and everything to do with plain, old-fashioned lust!

  5

  Judith was still having misgivings about it all when she returned from the city the next afternoon from a research expedition that was less successful than she’d hoped. But she mentioned only the project issues to her cousin. No way was she going to mention her personal difficulties at the prospect of having to try and work with Bevan Keene, much less her extremely confused feelings about the man.

  “I shouldn’t let it bother me, and I know that,” she told Vanessa. “It’s Murphy’s Law, that’s all. Everybody who’s anybody at the museum and the university just happens to be unavailable right now, when I need them the most. I got some research done at the library, of course, but still ...”

  “You should have asked me in the first place,” her cousin replied, drumming pudgy fingers on a belly Judith could have sworn had doubled in size overnight. “You’ve only got to talk to Bevan. He has probably the most extensive library on the subject anywhere.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Judith asked the rhetorical question, then abruptly snapped her mouth shut. Bad enough that she felt ridiculously drawn sexually to Bevan; she also had this insane, yet equally illogical feeling she should avoid him until she had absolutely no other choice.

  As if she could avoid him! Vanessa might be flighty beyond belief, sometimes, but she could also be frighteningly observant. Indeed, it wouldn’t surprise Judith to discover that her cousin knew exactly what had transpired between Bevan and her at the dinner table.

  “You really got off to a bad start with Bevan, didn’t you?”
Vanessa asked after a long silence in which she fixed Judith with a blue-eyed stare of clearly feigned innocence. “That’s funny, actually, because I honestly thought you’d fancy him like crazy,” she added in the vernacular of her adopted home.

  “Just because you do?” Judith replied with a sarcastic tone, then instantly relented. “It isn’t that he’s not fanciable, if that’s a word. But really he isn’t all that impressive.” And she winced inside. Lying wasn’t one of her strong suits.

  “Oh, bollocks! You’re just off all men because of that “greenie” you were involved with, the one who led you down the garden path and then dumped you in the you-know-what.”

  “I was not ‘involved’ with Derek Innes. But okay ... I might be a bit gun shy. That much I will admit to. But honestly, Vanessa, men are terribly overrated anyway. I mean, what are they really good for?” Then she glanced at her rotund cousin and couldn’t repress a smile. “Except of course to you. You couldn’t have gotten into your situation without a man somewhere in the picture. I’ll grant you that.”

  “Without the right man,” Vanessa retorted, patting herself gently on the belly. “And don’t think there haven’t been days recently when I’ve wondered if there was any sense to it at all. Charles may think pregnancy is the most wonderful thing in the world, but he doesn’t have to carry this lot around with him all the while.”

  “If men had to bear the children, humanity would die out in a generation,” Judith said sarcastically, then brightened. “And I don’t know why I’m complaining, either. You’re the one who’s going to have to do all the work. My role is to provide you with moral support, and now I’m getting paid while I do it. Although,” she added somewhat ruefully, “I’m not sure the job will be anywhere as cut-and-dried as Jeremiah thinks.”

  “Does it matter? You still get your Tasmanian holiday, only much extended, and you get paid for being here.”

  “Yes, it does matter. I already have that fiasco in Queensland to live down, and now I’m getting involved in a hunt for the Tasmanian tiger? That’s even more ridiculous, by almost any standard. Not to mention my having to try and be a buffer between Bevan Keene and Derek, who’s a total bastard. It isn’t going to be an easy task.”