Butterfly Hunter 01 Read Online Free PDF Page A

Nicholas, meanwhile, had
apparently been happily occupied with the insect collections at the
university, the museum, the Department of Primary Industries, and
God only knew where else. In fact, they’d been going to meet for
dinner on the Tuesday evening, but Nicholas had been so engrossed
in his studies that he’d called to cancel at the last minute,
having let the afternoon slip by unnoticed. He’d been keen to meet
the following day, but Dave hadn’t wanted to cancel his plans to
spend a last few hours with Denise, Vittorio and little Zoe –
especially as it had been made clear that the invitation was issued
on behalf of all three of them. Dave might have worried about not
getting to know his client well enough under other circumstances,
but it seemed to him that they’d connected on that first day; he
was blithely confident that any problems between them would be
small, and that they could handle them as they came.
    After about an hour and a half,
the road started winding through what seemed to be real bush.
Nicholas smiled happily, and sank a little in his seat as if
luxuriating in it. Dave had to disillusion him.
    “ Make the most
of it,” he advised. “There’s a scrap of bush as we head through the
hills, and then we’re into Toowoomba.”
    “ The
city.”
    “ Yeah. D’you
wanna stop for a cuppa tea, or something?”
    Nicholas dragged his gaze
away from the countryside for a moment. “I’d never say no to tea,
but wouldn’t you rather keep going? We’re not even a quarter of the
way there yet, are we?”
    “ No, but we’re
not in any hurry. We might as well make the most of it. Like I said
before, I don’t think we should try doing it all in one
day.”
    “ But you would
if you were on your own. Wouldn’t you?”
    “ That’s
different.”
    “ A cup of tea,
then,” Nicholas concluded. “If you don’t mind stopping.”
    And they were into
suburbia again. Dave drove along sedately, barely a kilometre or
two – well, maybe five – over the speed limit. “You’re the client,”
he observed mildly. “You can always say if you want a
cuppa.”
    Nicholas smiled at him,
softly – and then he changed the subject. “You were right, we would
have been halfway to Wales by now.”
    “ We’d
have been in Wales.”
    Nicholas laughed, but
couldn’t help quibbling. “Driving in Britain is qualitatively
different, not just quantitatively.”
    “ Spoken like a
true scientist.”
    “ It takes a
lot longer to get around. It’s much more built–up and crowded, so
there’s more effort involved. There are far fewer empty stretches
of road.”
    “ You’ve got
the motorways.”
    “ That’s
different. And they create their own problems.”
    Dave shrugged, and found
somewhere to park.
     
    A polite request in his
English accent and a winsome smile earned Nicholas a pot of tea
delivered with a wink – in response to which Nicholas beamed up at
their waitress happily. Suzie stood there with a bit of sass in her
posture as she considered the man in turn. “Ah, Davey, you can
bring this one back any time you like.”
    “ Developing a
thing for Poms, are you?” Dave asked with mock sourness.
    “ With that
smile, who cares what flavour he is?”
    “ That smile?”
Dave echoed blankly, having to think for a moment to work out what
was wrong with the sentence. Then he got it. “Those smiles,” he
corrected her. “The man has a whole repertoire.”
    “ Does he
indeed … ?” She sounded intrigued.
    But Nicholas’s attention
had been caught by Dave. As he gazed across the rickety old cafe
table, his smile turned wistful – though when he spoke, he
addressed Suzie. “I would have thought you’d be encouraging David
to return for his sake, not for mine.”
    “ Ah,” she
grieved, taking a metaphorical step back, and snapping her chewing
gum. “That’s how it is, is it? Well, mate, Davey here is no use to
either of us, I’m afraid. He’s strictly a one–woman
man.”
    Dave tried not to