Free The Crocodile Nest by Des Hunt Page B

He’s to work for you for the rest of the year without payment. Is that clear, Luke?’
    Luke nodded eagerly.
    She turned to Beth. ‘You can pay his airfares and accommodation until you get to this Cape Tribulation place, but then his father has to take over. He has to pay for everything to do with Luke until you come back home.’
    ‘That’s reasonable,’ said Beth. ‘I’m sure we can work something out.’
    ‘And Luke, when you’re with your father, you’re to have nothing to do with guns. He’s sure to have some, and he’ll probably want to teach you how to use them, but I won’t have that. I’m not going to have a repeat of what happened tonight. I don’t want guns in your life at all. You’re going to have to promise me that you won’t touch them while you’re over there.’ She glared at him, waiting for his response.
    Luke gave his promise. Meeting his father now meant everything to him, and right at that moment he didn’t care if he never touched a gun again. Anyway, the promise wouldn’t stop him going pig hunting, because Ham hunted with dogs and a knife.
    Friday morning, Luke went into Whitianga with Alice. He was determined to get a full day’s work done so that Alice had no reason to change her mind about the Australian trip.
    He spent the first part of the morning digging in the back yard where Beth wanted to grow a few vegetables. Just before nine, the others left for the doctor’s to get Lora checked for concussion. After that, they were going to the travel agents to make the Australian bookings.
    Two hours later, Luke was ready for a rest and a drink. It was a timely move, for as he walked inside the phone rang. Brian from the bank had the latest news on the hunt for the scammers. The police had now established that the same person had visited all eighteen of the money transfer offices. The ID presented in every case was the fake Romanian passport used to open the bank account. One office had even photocopied the passport so that they now had a photo of the mule.
    Another line they were following was the destination of the money, as this could lead to the mastermind behind the scam.
    ‘This seems more hopeful,’ said Brian. ‘All the money was sent to offices in Australia, somewhere in Queensland.’
    Suddenly, Luke’s gut tightened.
    ‘Do you know where?’ he asked, trying to keep his voice normal.
    ‘Is that important?’ Brian responded.
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Luke, ‘but Mrs Anderson might want to know.’
    ‘OK, hang on a bit. I’ve got a fax here somewhere.’ There was a noisy shuffling of paper before he returned with, ‘Yeah! Here it is. Um, looks like they’re all either in Cairns or in surrounding towns.’
    Luke’s gut got tighter.
    ‘Anyway,’ continued Brian, ‘the Australian police have established that all the money was collected within a couple of hours of being sent. The ID used was an Australian driver’s licence, but that seems to have been a fake. The police there are continuing their enquiries. We might hear something more or we might not.’
    After they’d hung up, Luke sat for several minutes, processing the information. Was it coincidence that Hamish lived near Cairns, and so too did the scammer? It had to be: there was nothing to link the two together. Anyway, Cape Tribulation was more than a hundred kilometres away from Cairns. Still, it was strange that the money was taken in the same week that Hamish…
    That’s when Luke’s gut really started playing up. Something that had been gnawing away in the back of his mind came to the surface. Lora’s P2P program was not the only one to be installed when the firewall was down. There was another one: Hamish’s photo-viewing program—CapeTribView.exe. Eithercould have installed the Ratspyz trojan. So which one was it?
    He turned on the computer and waited impatiently for it to boot. Then he sat there, not sure if he wanted to continue. In the end, he decided to test the P2P program first.