The Scent of Blood Read Free Page B

our fun-filled schedule of Organized Activities.
    “We’d better get going, I suppose,” I said, checking my watch. “Where exactly are we heading?”
    Graham pulled out the information sheet the spa receptionist had given him. “According to this, we have to meet by the door marked ‘Staff only’, which is right next to the proboscis monkeys’ enclosure.”
    “Funny name for a monkey,” I remarked.
    “Proboscis means nose or snout,” Graham informed me. “I believe the males’ noses are particularly pendulous. They can grow up to eighteen centimetres long.”
    It’s fantastically useful having a walking encyclopedia for a best friend. “I bet you memorized the map, too. Where do we go?”
    “This way,” he said.
    “And who are we meeting?” I looked over his shoulder at the neatly typed schedule and my mouth dropped open. We were spending the morning with someone called Kylie Milford! I pointed at her name and nudged Graham.
    “Well, this is going to be interesting,” I said. “She’s got to be related to Sandy, hasn’t she?”
    Graham looked at me and nodded. “I’d have thought it was highly likely. There would seem to be two possibilities. She’s either the dead man’s sister …”
    I finished his sentence for him. “…or she’s his wife.”

hot and humid
    When we arrived in the Rainforest, the proboscis monkeys were all lined up on a branch fast asleep. Graham was right – even the females had ridiculously large noses, which dangled from their faces like water-filled balloons. The door marked S TAFF O NLY was slightly ajar, and through it we caught a glimpse of the keeper we’d seen in the courtyard that morning. She was attacking a pile of fruit with a gleaming knife, chopping it into tiny pieces with savage relish. We stopped in our tracks.
    “Do you think that’s Kylie?” I asked nervously.
    “Could be.”
    Before we could take another step, the stick-insect man loped past us, pushed open the door and went inside. As one, Graham and I glided towards it like shadows, hoping to catch a bit of their conversation.
    “Feeling better now, Kylie?” he asked her.
    “A bit, yeah. Thanks, Pete.” She sniffed and blew her nose. “It’s silly, me getting so upset. It’s just seeing that writing brings it all back. I’m hardly likely to forget Sandy, am I? I think about him every day. Every minute. He’s always there, in my head. And when I think of the kids…!” She started crying and Pete patted her awkwardly on the back as if he didn’t quite know how to comfort her.
    He tried to lighten the mood by saying, “Hey! At least it gave old Monkton a nasty shock. Did you see his face? I thought he was going to die!”
    “I wish he would.” The bitterness in Kylie’s voice made Pete drop his arm and take a step back. “He deserves to. We all know what happened. That stupid judge can blame Archie Henshaw until he’s blue in the face. We know whose fault it really was. Look at what he’s done to this place! The man’s a joke. He deserves everything he gets.”
    She attacked a melon, splitting it in two with a single blow. Pete flinched and hurriedly changed the subject. “You doing the Behind the Scenes stuff with those kids today, then?”
    “Yes.” She checked her watch. “They ought to be here by now. I hate it when people are late.” She glared towards the door and, desperately hoping she hadn’t noticed us eavesdropping, I knocked on it to announce our arrival.
    Kylie made no attempt to explain the red-rimmed eyes or pink-tipped nose that clearly showed she’d been crying. Instead she got straight down to business. First she gave us a Health and Safety talk, then we had to don the matching green overalls she handed us, and after that she took us off to the “jungle”. She was pretty much running on automatic pilot, giving the same tour she’d obviously given to loads of kids before us, but I still found it interesting. The problem was, we couldn’t quite bring