Murder Mystery on Thornton Peak: Jane Christie Mystery Book, #3

By Victoria Kosky

A brilliant scientist. A coveted cure. A greedy pharmaceutical company. Throw an endangered frog into the mix. What could they possibly have in common?

 

When amateur sleuth, Jane, and her private detective boyfriend Dominic go on a romantic vacation, everything goes wrong. Their personal relationship is under strain. To make things worse, Zora, Jane's strong-minded factotum joins the holidaymakers. Jane's sister-in-law is missing, and her depressed niece is attacked by a crocodile. We wonder whether the couple's relationship will survive when they set out after Jane's in-law.

 

Jane is ill-equipped to face the dangers of the Daintree Rainforest in Australia's Tropical North. Not only are there poisonous plants, but snakes and an ex-army killer to contend with. To top it off, there's an endangered frog who lives at the summit.

 

Everyone is hiking up Thornton Peak, but not all will return.

 

Romance and mystery abound in the third part of the Murder Mystery series. Will Jane get her happily-ever-after? Will her scientist in-law survive to give the world a miracle cure? 

 

If you like amateur sleuths, great characters, and quirky humour, then you'll love this suspenseful page-turner.

 

But it today to take a tromp through the Australian rainforest!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Victoria Kosky
• Release date: Jun 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201972325

Victoria Kosky

Victoria Kosky refuses to let age or approaching senility prevent her from accomplishing a lifelong dream. She writes satirical crime fiction and crafts gay, light-hearted stories of murder and mayhem. As Ray Bradbury said, ‘I don’t believe in being serious about anything. I think life is too serious to be taken seriously’.  With two degrees, she has enjoyed several diverse careers that no one is interested in. Motherhood was a highlight for her; she achieved two high distinctions in child-rearing. One of her son’s is six-foot-four-inches tall, and the other measures six-foot-five. ‘Retirement is the greatest adventure of my life,’ said Victoria. ‘Sure, the body isn’t what it used to be, but as long as I have my marbles, I’ll keep writing.’ Although her primary goal is to not die yet, she has even bigger goals: writing fifty novels before her mind goes. (I’m not kidding her father had brain atrophy in his seventies. You can see that bewildered look, and she’s only sixty-six.) Take pity on the old girl and read her books before her time runs out.

Book preview

Chapter 1

As Dr Marta Hochstetter turned into her street, an avenue of blooming Jacarandas ruffled their fronds in greeting. Branches dripping with lavender reminded her that spring had arrived in Brisbane. The lilac haze cheered her, countering the white coats and sterile surrounds of her workday. She parked her car in front of the house and paused for a moment beneath the filigreed shade. Josef proposed to her beneath a Jacaranda thirty-four years ago. Her lips tipped up at the memory. Perhaps that’s why they always touched her. She shrugged off the sudden nostalgia.

‘At least your hypothalamus is in excellent form.’ Marta shared the habit of other loners. She talked aloud to herself. The researchers at the university thought her a strange duck, but that was nothing new. She eased out of the car, locked it, and bounced up the steps, lighter on her feet than two months earlier. She had purchased the inner-city Queenslander when she’d moved to Brisbane to work on her thesis.

As soon as she crossed the threshold, she spotted the umbrella stand inside the door. One of the three crook handles was out of alignment, as though someone had knocked it. She thought it odd since her cleaner, Mrs Kennedy, wasn’t due until Monday. A central hallway bisected the house, dividing living and working spaces. She passed the kitchen-dining room and headed for her bedroom. Her eyes scanned the room. Everything appeared to be untouched.

She crossed to the chest of drawers and placed her keys in the crystal key tray. The only possession of real value apart from her spectrometers, her sapphire wedding ring, lay exactly where she’d left it. She extracted the letter and her mobile phone, and placed her handbag in its spot on the bag shelf. She removed her sturdy heels, depositing them on the shoe rack, and slipped into flats. Disorder was abhorrent to her. ‘Without structure and order, the world falls into chaos.’

In the adjoining en suite, she scrubbed her hands and washed her face. She returned to the bedroom, and pulled a comb through her no-fuss, grey-streaked hair. For a heartbeat, the face that peered back at her from the mirror caught her by surprise. Gone were the full cheeks and the double chin. Her long face was more pronounced, giving her a horsey look. ‘You won’t get by on your beauty, Marta.’ She mimicked her father’s voice. ‘So, you had best develop your brain.’ But no matter how hard she had tried, according to Bernard Christie, she’d fallen short of both her brothers. The remembrance didn’t sting anymore.

She released the catch on the window and opened it wide. A ylang-ylang tree blocked the view. As she stroked its shiny leaves, the heady perfume wafted in on the moist breeze. ‘You and I have much in common,’ she said to the tree. ‘Your flowers are not impressive, yet your scent is glorious, the fragrance valued all over the world. You are useful. That is a fine thing to be.’

Eager to get started, Marta grabbed her letter and mobile and crossed the hallway. She parted the double doors of her laboratory, expecting the usual swell of pride. The moment she entered chills skittered along her spine. Someone had trespassed. For the past three years Mrs Kennedy, her cleaner, always kept to the terms of their agreement—not once entering her sanctum. Tension lodged in her throat as she checked her stack of manuscripts. The top bunch of research papers were slanted; someone had rifled through them. ‘Why?’ She had left a specimen slide clipped on the microscope. But the eyepiece was set at a different angle.

Heart thumping in her chest, she turned slowly, dreading what she might find. The temperature-controlled vaccine fridge she kept her samples in was empty. Even though it had a glass front, she hurried across and opened it. The specimen vials, the assays, and the serum were all gone. ‘Oh my God, oh my God!’ Two years of development down the drain.

She breathed hard as she moved to her desk chair on shaky legs and slumped into it. ‘Who could have done this? I have never discussed my private work with anyone.’ Apart from a few email enquiries to other scholars, seeking guidance. She knew instinctively that this was no random burglary. If she called the police, they might find fingerprints, but there was little chance of recovering her materials; they were of no value. Unless the thief understood microbiology, the theft made no sense. She could only think of two people who might be interested in her work.

Mei Lee was a co-worker at the university. She had made many efforts to befriend her, which struck her as incongruous. Other people avoided her, as if she had leprosy. She knew she wasn’t friendship material. Over her lifetime she had worn many labels: ‘on the spectrum’, ‘awkward’ and ‘autistic’.

The only person with intimate knowledge of her work was her supervisor, Professor Yeoh. But she had never mentioned her private research to him. She found it difficult to imagine he was the thief. She’d dubbed him the octopus because of his multiple interests in academia and the private sector. He was fully occupied without pilfering her research.

She jammed her hands beneath her armpits and rocked back and forth. Though she was physically unharmed, she felt defiled, attacked in the sanctuary of her own home. ‘Someone has been watching. They know what you have been doing. They may have been following you.’ She gasped, covering her mouth at the possibility that her computer was compromised with spyware. To rein in her rising paranoia, she left the computer untouched and opened the envelope.

It contained an offer of employment from Professor Jonathan Yeoh. He plied her with compliments and spoke about her thesis in glowing terms. Her eyes popped wide. This was the last thing she’d expected. In three years, the professor had spared a minimum of time offering his oversight. He had shown only mild interest in her peptide research, critical of her focus on anti-cancer experimentation. ‘Every lab in the world is investigating cancer cells,’ he had said numerous times. Now he was willing to work with her. Could the professor be the culprit? Marta shook her head as she expelled a long burst of air, crushed the paper into a ball and binned it.

She rose from the seat, strode to the kitchen for a glass of water and gulped it down.

As she chewed on her lip, butterflies fluttered in her chest. ‘This is not the time for panic. Forget what you have lost. Seven weeks remain; one week to locate the specimen and return to the lab, one week to begin the serum from scratch.’ She nodded her head. One week would be enough to reproduce the drug. ‘This leaves another five weeks for it to take effect.’ A spark of hope ignited in her chest. She would be cutting it close but knew that she could reproduce the serum. ‘You must try.’ As the ‘what ifs’ flooded in, she refused to waste energy contemplating them.

Her mind started compartmentalising, listing what to pack for the journey. She would travel by car, leaving no flight details of her destination. She returned to her mobile and sent a quick text message to Gus. ‘I will be visiting soon. If you are available, I intend to climb Thornton Peak.’ She powered off the mobile. The paranoia kicked in, reminding her she could be traced by the phone’s GPS. She left the mobile in her drawer, deciding to buy a new disposable phone.

If Gus couldn’t accompany her, she would go without him. A critical voice that sounded like her father said, ‘Marta, you are not up to this.’ Ignoring it, she grabbed her suitcase from the hall cupboard and took it to the bedroom. In fifteen minutes, she packed her bags. She raised the mattress base and retrieved the sleeping bag, which she hadn’t used for three years.

As she stepped across to the framed photo of Josef, she said goodbye. ‘Wish me luck, my love. I will be hiking through hostile jungle and I am not a young woman. The Daintree is the oldest rainforest in the world, a treasure-trove of biodiversity, plants and fauna found nowhere else on earth. But it teems with venomous specimens.’

‘Watch out for crocodiles,’ he cautioned.

Marta barked with laughter. ‘I doubt I’ll meet any crocodiles on Thornton Peak. Do you think I can do it?’ she asked, unsure of herself.

‘I have complete faith in you. Whatever you set your mind to you have always accomplished.’

Feeling reassured, she nodded her head. ‘It is not my mind that I am concerned about. My body is the liability. I have been sitting on my behind for the past three years. The only muscle I have developed is my gluteus maximus.’

She heard him chuckling as she left the room loaded with luggage.

Chapter 2

Professor Jonathan Yeoh’s voice brimmed with excitement as he spoke with the CEO of Naturalis Novus Pharmaceuticals. ‘This peptide sequence compares to nothing I have ever seen. I checked it against every known database. We have discovered a new family with twenty functional peptides. We’re calling it FR20 for the time being.’ He could tell by the lack of feedback from the other end that Fenton Grimshaw didn’t appreciate this ground-breaking development.

‘And what does this revolutionary peptide do?’ Though he could not see Grimshaw’s face, the sceptical tone said it all. More than just the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar global company, Grimshaw had a proprietary interest in Naturalis. The self-made mogul had grown up in a poor suburb of Liverpool, England, and pulled himself up by the bootstraps.

Jonathan only tolerated the fool because he held the purse-strings. He continued his delivery. ‘During the evolutionary process, it has lost the cytolytic function. There is also an absence of pro-inflammatory agency—.’

‘I don’t care what it’s lost,’ interjected Grimshaw, revealing traces of his scouse accent. ‘Cut the claptrap and tell me what it does.’

For a moment, he hesitated. He was just beginning to unravel the mysteries of FR20. ‘We’re still in the testing phase, Fenton, but one target is the pancreas. It stimulates insulin release. With repeated dosage, it restores beta-cell function. It’s as though the pancreas rejuvenates. No more pancreatic transplants. No more diabetes.’

‘What about treating pancreatic cancer? We could make billions on that.’

‘No, it shows no anti-cancer agency, but as I said—.’

The CEO cut him off, as he shouted, ‘We can’t go around handing out new pancreases. Use your head, man. The demand for insulin and the hundred other diabetes related drugs will plummet. We have multiple candidates in development for Type 2 diabetes. Naturalis Novus has invested millions getting them to this stage. What am I supposed to do with those?’ Grimshaw’s voice became muffled as he spoke to someone else in his office, keeping Jonathan simmering on the line, grinding his teeth.

If anyone else had tried such impertinence, he would have disconnected. But funding was everything and maintaining strong relations was vital. Lately, he spent more time raising research funds than working in the laboratory.

Grimshaw cleared his throat at the other end of the line. ‘You might be a genius, Yeoh, but you’re not thinking straight. No pharmaceutical company is going to develop a drug that threatens the sales of its other products.’

‘We are exploring another 19 peptides.’ Jonathan felt perspiration bead his upper lip. ‘FR20 will rock the scientific community. It is the crown jewel of our peptide portfolio. The initial tests are very promising.’

‘I don’t deal in promises, Yeoh. Give me hard facts.’

He clenched his jaw. It was frustrating dealing with a man who had not one scientific brain cell in his head. He shouldn’t have called Grimshaw. But he was so excited about the find and wanted to crow about it.

‘Get on with the testing. Give me something tangible to take to the board of directors. After your last fiasco, they’re cautious about handing over more money. We’re investors, not philanthropists.’

‘It’s not my fault that Vortox developed Amacryl first. They have already started their prostate cancer clinical trials. I thought it was your job to keep abreast of the competition. My job is the science.’

‘Don’t sulk, Yeoh. Forget the pancreas restoration idea. When you’ve worked out what else your peptide does, get back to me.’

Silence boomed from the other end when Grimshaw disconnected. White noise rushing through his ears, Jonathan dropped the phone and wiped the perspiration from his face. Fists clenched, he remained seated, observing the lab researchers through the connecting window. He hated the demeaning way he called him Yeoh. He was a professor, with a biochemistry doctorate from Oxford University. He was a recipient of the Cambridge Award and the McKenzie Burns Medal. This new peptide offered Naturalis Novus the potential to make billions. And Grimshaw treated him like a lackey. He grabbed the hand-held recorder on his desk, squeezing it like dough before throwing it against the filing cabinet. Heads in the adjoining lab jerked to attention.

He pressed the intercom button and summoned one of his research assistants. ‘Come to my office.’ Mei Lee was the epitome of a China doll, but she was a brilliant scientist visiting from Zhejiang University. He admired her mind and her beauty. Most of all he liked that she followed orders and kept her mouth shut.

‘Yes, Professor,’ she waited deferentially, hands clasped.

‘How long will it take you to complete the primary assays?’

‘Two more days,’ said Mei.

‘I want to start in vivo testing as soon as possible. Remember, this project is highly sensitive. Do not involve the others.’

‘Of course, Professor Yeoh.’ Her dark eyes sparked with what resembled admiration. ‘I look forward to discussing how you created this analogue of yours. It was a brilliant move to support the peptide backbone using tightly folded scaffolds.’

‘I am pleased you approve. All will be revealed in good time.’ He waved a hand, ushering her out of his office.

Chapter 3

The Nautilus Restaurant was one of the premier dining establishments in Port Douglas. It had hosted such dignitaries as Bill and Hillary Clinton and Kylie Minogue. The moment Jane and Dominic entered it was as if they were transported into a different world. They had never been in a restaurant like it.

‘This is extraordinary,’ said Jane, tipping back her head to take in the towering palms overhead. ‘It is like being in the middle of a rainforest. Yet we’re just above the main street.’

As the floor manager escorted them to their table, Dominic said, ‘I’m glad you’ve dropped your resistance. Since it’s our first night here, I thought you deserved a treat.’

‘I would have been satisfied with takeout delivered to the resort. We need not have dressed.’ Jane used Dominic’s arm for support on the steps in her heels. ‘After a half-day of travel, I was rather tired.’ Surrounded by the outdoor oasis, she found a second wind.

‘Tired? After a three-and-a-half-hour flight?’ He shook his head. ‘That’s what I get for shacking up with an older woman.’

Aware he was teasing, she took no offence, elbowing him lightly in the ribs. ‘This setting is magical. How did you find it?’ She’d been to Port Douglas before, but it was Dominic’s first time.

‘Trip Advisor,’ he said. ‘I booked last week as soon as the firm confirmed my vacation time.’ Dominic grinned at her. Dressed in a navy silk shirt and his new jacket, he looked suave. Compared to the other patrons in tropical print shirts, he was overdressed. Perhaps he’d expected such a classy establishment to have a stricter dress code.

They were shown to another timber deck on a lower level, nestled in a private alcove.

Dominic helped Jane into a high-backed cane chair. The stately, cushioned chairs added to the tropical ambiance. The atmosphere reminded her of a holiday in Hawaii with Gerry over ten years ago.

The manager set leather-bound menus before them and asked for their drink preferences as he lit the candle. Jane was about to request her usual gin and tonic until Dominic piped up. ‘Let’s try something different,’ he said. ‘One of those colourful things with pineapple and a brolly. We can toast to two weeks together in paradise.’

Jane smiled at his enthusiasm and took the cocktail list that the manager whipped out. ‘I’d like the mango daiquiri,’ she said, passing back the list.

‘I’ll have a go at the Bahama mama,’ said Dominic, easing out of his jacket. It was a balmy night