Lawson Brighton-Gale

 

 

“Jack?” I’d just opened and read an email that was quite interesting. I picked up my laptop and closed up the butterfly house, going in search of Jack. It was a Sunday, and he’d been busy tending to the gardens and pottering around while I was holed up in my lab. I found him in the kitchen, slicing apple and cheese, one of his favourite snacks for TV watching. “Oh, there you are.”

“Hey,” he said with a smile. He looked at my laptop. “What’s up?”

“I just received an email from Piers Bonfils.”

“Oh, how’s he going? The Ulysses still breeding okay?” He held a small slice of apple to my lips, which I took into my mouth. Then he frowned. “It is okay, isn’t it? The Ulysses, it’s not dying again, is it?”

I finished chewing the apple and swallowed. “Oh no, all is well in that regard.”

Jack slid some crackers straight from the box onto the plate of apple and cheese. Then he tossed a small square of cheese into his mouth. “So, what’s up?”

“There’s a fellow who wanted help identifying a butterfly. He took photographs and sent them to Piers. Piers confirmed it was definitely worth looking into, but he was simply too busy with the Ulysses, so he recommended me.” I turned the laptop around and showed Jack the photograph. “It’s a Charaxes brutus, the White-barred Emperor, by the look of it. Very remarkable.”

He studied the picture for a moment, then me. “Is it endangered?”

“It is on a watch list, but that’s not what makes it remarkable.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What makes it remarkable?”

“Because it’s only found in Africa.”

Jack’s eyes widened. “Africa? He wants you to go to Africa?”

I smiled at him. Lord knows, he was probably envisioning me being eaten by a lion or hippo. “No, the Northern Territory.”

“Oh.” He huffed out a breath in relief. Then he mumbled, “Thank God for that.”

I ignored that and went back to the email. “Do you know a Charlie Sutton?”

Jack choked on a piece of cheese.

How odd.

“Are you all right?” I patted him on the back.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, swallowing hard. “That’s just a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”

“Well, I take it you do know him. May I ask how?”

He nodded slowly. “We went to uni together.”

“And you were sexual partners,” I deduced. “Your reaction said enough.”

Jack made a face and went a little red. “Well, yes, but that was a long time ago. We were at uni. You know how that is.”

I chuckled at his horrified expression and stole another piece of his apple. “Well, yes. You have no reason to worry, Jack. Or to be embarrassed.”

“It just kind of came from nowhere,” he said, back under control now. “Remember when we were in Cairns that time at the CSIRO building and I sat in the waiting room and was reading a magazine article? I said it was of a guy I went to uni with. Well, that was him. Some big-shot farmer he is now. Well, he was. That magazine was a few years old even back then.”

“I think I remember that,” I answered, when the truth was, I hadn’t a clue.

Then a look of confusion crossed Jack’s features. “If the email is from Piers, what on earth does Charlie Sutton have to do with anything?”

“The butterfly was found on or near his property.”

Jack gave a piece of cheese to the patiently waiting Rosemary. “Oh. The African butterfly?”

I nodded and smiled at the idea of going on another butterfly hunting expedition. “What are the chances of you taking some time off work for an Outback adventure?”

“Well, if you think I’d let you wander off on your own into the desert where the deadliest snakes in the world call home, you’ve got another thing coming.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Barely. “Not forgetting the fact I’ll be meeting a man who you’ve slept with.”

Jack pouted, most adorably. “That too.”

“Excellent. I’ll reply in the affirmative, yes?”

“Uh, I guess.”

I sat myself on the sofa with my laptop and replied to Piers. By the time Jack sat down beside me with his plate of snacks and two glasses of wine, I’d already had a response. I took the offered wine glass and gave him a grateful smile. “I have contact details. Piers said this Charlie fellow said it was urgent. Should I call him now?”

Jack bit his lip and nodded, so I took out my mobile and called the number in the email. It answered on the third ring. “Hello? Sutton Station,” an older female voice said.

“Yes, good afternoon. My name is Lawson Brighton-Gale. I was hoping to speak to a Mr Charlie Sutton.”

“Can I ask what it’s about? If you’re selling something, I’ll save us all some time and stop you right there.”

I almost laughed. “No, I’m not selling anything. I’m a lepidopterist.”

Silence.

So I elaborated. “I’m calling about the butterflies.”

“Oh! Oh, sorry, yes, he’d be real interested in speaking with you. Please just hold on and I’ll go find him. He was out the back.” There was a dull clunking noise followed by the sound of a screen door slamming, then a faint, “Charlie! It’s a man about the butterflies!” Then silence for a short while, more footsteps, and then a gruff, warm voice spoke into the phone. “Hello, this is Charlie Sutton.”

I smiled at Jack. “Hello, Mr Sutton. My name is Lawson Brighton-Gale. I have received your email from the Cairns Butterfly Conservatory. Professor Piers Bonfils thought I might be able to offer some assistance.”

“Ah, yeah, we found a kind of butterfly we couldn’t find in no book, and we were hoping it was some kind of new or endangered species?”

“Well, from what I can assess by the one photograph, if it’s the butterfly I’m thinking it is, it’s neither new nor endangered.”

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed.

“But there’s never been one found in Australia, Mr Sutton.”

“Really?”

“Yes. From the one picture, I would be confident enough to name it. Though I was hoping you would have more photographs you could send me. I’d like to determine if it is indeed a White-barred Emperor before I trek a few thousand kilometres to see it for myself.”

“Oh sure!” He was excited now and talking to someone else, asking them about the photos. I gave him my email address, and as we waited for them to arrive in my inbox, he asked, “So, you’d need to come out and take a look?”

“Yes. Is that a problem?”

“No, no, not at all. If it is one of those White Emperors―”

“White-barred Emperor,” I corrected.

“Right. If it is one of those, then what happens next?”

“I would confer with the Lepidopterist Society of Australia.”

“And?”

Hmm. “Mr Sutton, may I ask why the urgency? You’re very keen for this finding to be in your favour.”

It sounded as though he ran his hand over his face. “I’m gonna be honest with ya, Mr Brighton-Gale. We’re running outta time. Ya see, the government wants to run a pipeline through my neighbour’s place, right where we found these butterflies. Or close enough to ’em. And we were hopin’ if these butterflies were special enough, it just might stop the pipeline.”

Just then, my laptop pinged with an email from Sutton Station. I clicked on the attached photographs. “I’ve just received the photos,” I said, in case Mr Sutton was beginning to question my silence.

The pictures weren’t perfect, but I could see enough. The butterfly itself looked like a Charaxes brutus, though I was more interested in seeing what plant the butterfly was on. That would tell me more. I pointed to the green foliage on screen and looked at Jack. “What kind of plant is that?”

He studied the photo for a moment, squinting and frowning. “It looks like Grewia insularis. It’s a species of flowering plant in the Malvaceae family, but I’d need better photos to be sure.”

I didn’t really need to know any more. If there was a White-barred Emperor in Australia, the only type of plant the caterpillar would feed upon was the Grewia insularis.

“Mr Sutton, those specific plants in the photograph, do you have those anywhere else on your property?”

“No, we don’t. Not that I’ve seen. These were along a creek on Greg’s property. We were fixin’ fences and stopped to water the horses when Travis saw them. The butterflies, that is. That’s when he saw the butterflies. They’re kinda big, and we thought they were little birds at first, so he took some photos, and when we got home, he couldn’t find them in any Australian butterfly books.”

“Because they’re not Australian. They’re African. And Mr Sutton, if you’re agreeable, I’d like to come and see them for myself.”

“That’d be real great, Mr Brighton-Gale.”

“I should tell you now, I’ll be bringing my husband along with me.”

A brief pause. “Husband?”

“Yes. Is that a problem?”

He snorted into the phone, then laughed. “Uh no. No problem at all.”

“Good. Because I believe you know him. His name is Jack Brighton.”