‘So, although you wouldn’t want it to rain while you’re here, the region is in dire need of water,’ she became aware of her companion saying beside her.
Danielle snapped back to attention. ‘Oh…yes,’ she replied brightly.
When she had drawn up at the tail-end of the queue of vehicles waiting to board the ferry, she had parked behind a minibus filled with Japanese holiday makers off on a day’s safari. As she had got out of the Land Rover to stretch her legs, so the driver had jumped out too, and started to talk. And once on the ferry, Phil—he had amiably introduced himself—had made a beeline for her and chatted again. Danielle shone him a dazzling smile. This fresh-faced young man would never be so impolite, nor so arrogant, as to give her the brush-off—unlike some, she thought darkly.
‘Which place are you booked into?’ Phil enquired, pushing his hands into the pockets of the khaki shorts which, with a khaki shirt and the badged hat, comprised his tour guide uniform.
‘The Fan Palms Lodge,’ she replied.
‘The accommodation’s a bit basic, but the staff are real matey. You’ll like it there,’ he declared.
‘I hope so,’ Danielle said.
A secretary at the newspaper she worked for had fixed the reservation, so all she knew was that the hotel featured wooden bungalows set amongst trees and was located several miles from the coast. But what did ‘a bit basic’ mean? she wondered, and felt a flutter of apprehension. Maybe it would be advisable not to ask.
‘You’ve got around a couple of hours’ drive through the rainforest,’ Phil went on. ‘Still, since last year all of the road to the Lodge has been sealed, so it’s easy travelling.’
Danielle cast a glance behind her at the hired Land Rover. ‘Good. What kind of people live in the rainforest?’ she enquired, deciding that this was an opportunity to start gathering a few snippets of local information.
Phil eased his hat back from his brow and grinned. There were times when the tourists’ endless questions bored him rigid, but he would be happy to talk to this girl on any subject she desired for hours. She was a beaut. Thick, shoulder-length corn-coloured hair which swung in a polished curtain when she moved, huge dark blue eyes, a dimpled smile. His gaze fell. And as for that body in the white and yellow striped top and short white skirt, and those deliciously long legs…
‘Well, obviously some folk are here because of the tourist trade: guys like me, motel employees and such,’ he said, dragging his thoughts back to a more mundane level, ‘but so far as residents go you get the odd writer, naturalist, film-maker, a painter or two.’
Danielle had decided that from now on the jeep and its occupant would be ignored, yet as Phil had spoken her gaze had slid in its direction. The driver’s window was wound down and she could see the man’s shoulder and his arm resting casually along the lower edge. His arm was firm-muscled and powerful, sprinkled with dark hairs which glinted in the sunshine. It reminded her of the kind of arm which, in days of old, would have brandished a cutlass or controlled the reins of a fast-galloping steed.
‘Painters?’ she muttered. ‘That’s interesting.’
‘There’re also some pretty weird types,’ Phil continued.
The man flexed his hand, drawing her gaze to his fingers. They were long, blunt-tipped fingers which promised to be competent and confident in whatever they did, whether it was planing wood or easing a hook from a fish or stroking a woman. Danielle hastily switched her gaze and her attention—her full attention-back her companion. One glimpse of an arm and she was winging off into flights of fantasy? She must be going troppo.
‘Weird?’ she queried.
‘Like hippies, down-and-outs, drop-outs. What we call the feral people.’
‘Why feral?’ Danielle asked curiously.
‘Because they exist on their dole cheques and go kind of wild. North of the Daintree is a great place for disappearing into and it’s reckoned that folk often come here because they’ve got a story in their background or they’re running away from something. Better get ready to go,’ Phil declared, with a nod at the concrete ramp on the riverbank which they were approaching and the ferryman who waited there. ‘Have a great stay and—’ he lifted hopeful brows ‘—who knows, we could meet again.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said, being deliberately vague, for liaisons, no matter how fleeting, were of no interest. She turned towards her Land Rover. “Bye.’
When the ferry docked a few minutes later, the dustcovered jeep was first off. As it accelerated up on to the road and disappeared into the thick wedge of trees, Danielle’s brow furrowed. His unshaven state and ramshackle vehicle indicated that the man was not a holiday maker, so could he be one of the drop-outs whom Phil had mentioned? It was possible, and yet she had perceived an inner steel and a sense of energy about him. As for being a down-and-out, that did not exactly fit either because his sunglasses had almost certainly been an expensive pair of latest model Ray-Bans. Danielle tapped out an impatient staccato on the steering-wheel. Forget theorising, she ordered herself. Forget Mr Macho. She had. She had. He might be one of the most physically compelling males she had ever seen, but she was damned if she would allow him to become mentally compelling too.
One by one the vehicles disembarked from the ferry, with Danielle bringing up the rear. Ahead, Phil tooted his horn in a cheery farewell and, as she gave an answering blast, the Land Rover’s engine cut out By the time she had managed to re-start it, she was alone.
North of the river the road was narrow, shaded by a spreading green canopy of gigantic trees, among which grew lush ferns, looping, twisting creepers and a myriad palms. At first, Danielle concentrated on driving and the possibility of oncoming traffic suddenly speeding at her from around the bends, but after a few miles when all she met was a single car, she settled down. Now there was time to think, and now she brooded on the reason for her rebellious mood—the pointlessness of her journey.
Danielle scowled. She had been despatched on what could be transparently and insultingly recognised as a wild-goose chase. Back in London, when she had been offered a three-month assignment working for The Hour, an Australian sister newspaper, she had jumped at the chance, but she had never imagined that a mere fortnight after arriving she would find herself deep in the remote, rural mañana world of tropical Queensland. Her fingers tightened around the steering-wheel. It was not fair. As an experienced political reporter—a damn good one, Danielle thought belligerently—her supposed role had been to add a more international flavour to The Hour’s political columns, but had Clive Bredhauer, the editor, acknowledged her skills and made use of them? No. Instead, on the day before she was to conduct her first interview with an Australian government minister, he had summoned her into his office, spouted some halfbaked tale about rumours of the clandestine growing of marijuana up north and ordered her to investigate. Like now. And no protests, please, poppet. So she had been forced to pass over the interview to a male windbag of a journalist with a noxious line in blue jokes, and fly more than fifteen hundred miles to what was called the Wilderness Coast. Wilderness! Danielle’s lip curled in disgust. She did not appreciate being banished to the back of beyond; she wanted to be in Melbourne where things happened. She ought to be there. She deserved to be there. It was her right to be there.
‘The last seizure of marijuana was over two years ago,’ the officer in charge had told her, when she had dutifully visited the local police station that morning. ‘Whispers of further stashes have floated around here ever since, but we’ve yet to find a single piece of evidence.’
Danielle’s dark blue eyes glittered. The obvious assumption was that harvesting of the drug had ceased, though if by some exceedingly long shot it had continued, any resultant story would