by Helene Young
‘But there was nothing more anyone could do for Grant. The autopsy proved that. She shouldn’t blame herself.’ Guilt nibbled at his composure, grief swirled in his heart.
‘You were wrong then and you’re still wrong now.’
‘So what do you want?’
‘Ring, talk to her. She’s on her own this week – I’m going to be in Sydney. I’ll drop in, of course.’
‘For God’s sake, Beverley, you don’t need to do that.’ Beverley almost treated his new wife as her second daughter. In his opinion it was bizarre and he wasn’t comfortable with it. Chantelle, with a mother on the other side of the country, saw it differently. The two women had forged a friendship.
‘No, but she can always do with a friendly ear.’
‘She has her own friends.’
‘I know, Stirling. I’ll make sure you’re at work. And ring Darcy. It’s the least you can do after everything.’
The screen glowed as the call disconnected. He squirmed in his seat. Had Beverley somehow connected the dots after all these years? His first wife had been a trophy: beautiful, charming and perfect for a man who needed a leg-up out of the gutter. She’d been the ideal foil for the gifted football star. He was the one with charisma; she brought the connections, which, even after their divorce, he cultivated. He’d never thought of her as having an intellect to match his. And Darcy? He’d wanted a boy so badly. The stubborn squalling infant who took his wife from his side was not only the wrong sex, but the wrong temperament. Demanding, fractious and rebellious.
He almost smiled. Second time around he’d also wanted a boy, but Amelia with her full lips, dreamy eyes and placid disposition was at least the exact opposite of Darcy.
The phone rang again. ‘Yes?’ What did she want now?
‘Stirlo. How are you, mate?’
‘Rod, hey, my man.’ Stirling’s feet hit the floor with a thump. ‘It’s been a while.’
‘It has, it has. Couple of years, I reckon. See you in the papers all the time. The Stallions are doing great.’
‘Yeah, yeah they are. You want some tickets to the next match? I’ll get you in one of the corporate boxes. How’s the building game going?’
‘Good, couldn’t be better. GFC did us all a favour and knocked out the little guys. Left the cream for us.’
‘What are you working on?’
‘Couple of shopping centre developments. Government contracts here and there. Plans on the drawing board for another corporate tower in Sydney.’
‘Great, great.’ Stirling knew the chitchat had to dry up soon. ‘So what can I do for you this sunny Sunday?’
‘I was wondering if your ex-wife’s still in Banksia Cove. I need a favour.’
‘Beverley bought up the road a bit. Agnes Water. Close enough, though. You have a deal on the go there?’
‘I’m chasing someone. I thought she might be able to track them down for me.’
‘How about the local copper, young Noah Moreton? He used to be on the footy team. You’d remember him. Quick feet and a safe pair of hands.’
‘I do remember him. Local copper now, hey? That’s a step up in the world from all that cow shit. Still, it’d be nice to catch up with your Bev.’
‘Right. Right. I know she’s in Sydney this week so maybe she can give you a call. What’s the best number for you?’ No matter what he thought of his ex he wasn’t putting her in harm’s way and Rod meant trouble.
‘If you’ve got her number, I’ll call her myself.’
‘Gee, sorry, mate. I’ve got a new phone and the numbers didn’t transfer.’ He was barely staying ahead. ‘She’ll call before she gets here. I’ll give her the message.’
‘Right. You do that. I haven’t seen her in what fifteen, sixteen years. It’d be good to say g’day.’
‘She’d like that. Bev loves talking about old times. So, your number?’
Rod gave him his mobile number and as he hung up, Stirling took a deep breath. Could it all come back to haunt him? Should he ring Beverley back, ring Darcy even? He rubbed his temples, feeling the tension there. Rod would have picked up he was being evasive. The man had a nose for trouble. Shit, shit, shit.
‘Hey, babe, who was that?’ Chantelle glided into the room in a loose pair of pants and a soft T-shirt, one smooth shoulder bare, her hair glowing golden in the light.
‘An old coaching friend from Banksia Cove. He’s a big-name builder now. Billionaire, if you believe the papers. Hits all the richest one hundred lists every year.’ Stirling’s smile was too practised to slip.
‘Have I met him?’
‘Ah, no. Haven’t really seen him for a couple of years.’ Stirling had no intention of rekindling his partnership with Rod Reeves. He should have finished it all those years ago when he discovered Rod’s real name was Rodya Remizov and Rod’s father was well-connected in Russia. The old man was dead now. That meant Rod called all the shots, literally.
‘Oh.’ Chantelle looked disappointed.
‘We move in different circles now. You know how it is?’
‘Sure.’ Clearly she didn’t, but she didn’t press him.
‘My little girl’s sleeping?’
‘Just a short nap. Don’t think she slept that well last night. What’s in the paper?’ She pulled it across the table towards her.
‘Nothing much. Coffee?’ He stood up and headed for the shiny espresso machine.
‘Banksia Cove?’ Chantelle pointed at the pictures.
‘Yep. The one and only.’
‘Sounds dramatic.’ She read on. ‘And sordid. Drugs?’
‘I doubt it. Not up there. It’s a backwater. Nothing happens.’
‘Good looking policeman.’
Stirling grunted as he poured milk into the small stainless steel jug.
‘Do you know him?’ Chantelle insisted.
‘The copper? Sure. He tried to go out with Darcy. I made sure that didn’t happen.’
‘Oh. Protective dad. Amelia will love that.’
‘If she looks like her mother, I’ll need an arsenal to keep the boys at bay.’
Chantelle laughed her gentle tinkle. ‘So, what are we doing? Going for a drive to the Blue Mountains? Varuna has a reading on this afternoon. Or maybe drive around to Manly or up to Pittwater. Have a walk along the beach.’
He couldn’t refuse her. ‘Okay. Let’s do the Blue Mountains. You can go to the reading and I can do some work in one of the cafés and look after Amelia. It’ll be nice.’
The milk frothed up and he poured a steady stream into a mug, then pushed it across to his wife.
‘Can it really be this widespread?’ she asked, frowning at the sports article in front of her.
Stirling shrugged, the jolt of guilt hitting again. ‘Drugs in sport are as old as the Olympics. The ancient Greeks used all sorts of herbs. I don’t know why anyone’s surprised it’s still happening. Storm in a teacup.’
‘Well, yes. I’m sure no one was that surprised when Lance Armstrong fell from grace and even I remember the Chinese producing some amazing swimmers who vanished when the dope tests got more sophisticated. But this? This is giving stuff to young men in their teens. Stuff that could kill them if they don’t know what they’re doing.’
The guilt bit deeper this time and his hand reflexively rubbed his ribs. ‘I don’t think anyone’s seriously suggesting a footballer has died from taking peptides. It’s just illegal and very hard to prove with most of these new-generation drugs.’
‘Are you sure your boys are clean?’
He could only shrug. ‘As sure as anyone else is. Our pharmacist has strict guidelines and I trust him. We’ve had independent checks as well as the mandatory ones. Nothing more we can do.’
‘Right.’ For all her guileless charm, Chantelle had a shrewd mind. They’d met through mutual friends and he’d been blindsided by her beauty. At the time he was extricating himself from a long-term mistress who’d turned clingy. He was convinced he only needed sex, not the complication of marriage.
Chantelle proved him wrong.
‘I have a bit of work to catch up on if we’re going out later.’ He dropped a kiss on her shoulder, his tongue tasting the sweet lavender of her shower gel, and he stopped for a moment to savour it. ‘Love you, babe.’
‘Hmm, you too.’ She cupped his cheek as he drew away. ‘Hurry back.’
He smiled as he strolled down the corridor past the room where his daughter slept and out to his office at the end of the adjoining wing. He’d come a long way from the slums of Redfern. His parents were forgotten in their graves and perhaps that had made it easier to climb so far. No unexpected baggage or embarrassing family secrets waiting to ambush him. No brothers or sisters, no mates from the gutter who remembered Stirling, the wharfie’s son with a chip on both shoulders. His mother was beautiful before the working girl’s curse of drugs and alcohol ruined her. Stirling made damn sure he exploited his inherited striking looks to their fullest. Amelia would never know the pain of an empty stomach.
He reached deep into the top drawer of his wide office desk and withdrew a fine key. From the second drawer he slid an old-fashioned leather file case then slotted the key in and opened it. Twenty years ago, before computers ruled the world, he’d kept meticulous records of all the boys he’d trained – the successes and the failures. He knew with certainty which ones would succeed and why. He may only have been a science teacher with an aptitude for sport at the time, but even then he understood supplements and their potential to improve young men’s muscle mass and endurance. Drug testing didn’t exist in team sports in Australia at that time. You had to be an elite athlete for anyone to pay attention.
A summer sports exchange to the USA had opened his eyes to the possibilities. BALCO, a company in San Francisco, was keen to forge links with him. Their drug, The Clear, had done everything they promised and more.
He’d taken the Banksia Bears to the top of the State league and more than a few of them had gone on to become great rugby league players. They remembered his help, his advice, and had repaid him tenfold. They were the sons he never had, the boys from the wrong side of the tracks who got a second chance. He regretted nothing.
Almost.
But dead boys can’t tell tales and the coronial inquest into Grant White’s death cited drowning as the probable cause. Was it possible that Rod Reeves had guessed the truth back then? No, Stirling dismissed the idea. But Beverley? The older they got, the more he realised he’d misjudged his ex. She may well have used him as much as he’d used her. Could she know the truth about Grant?
He hoped not. Too much was at stake now. Any slur on his reputation could bring the house of cards crashing down and he wouldn’t let that happen. Amelia was too precious for anything less than a gilded life.
Time to dispose of the files. The research was obsolete now so it was only vanity making him keep them. He selected the ledger, opened it to the final page and ran his hand down the list. Grant White. Had the higher dose of Clear caused his star player to become so irrational that he’d drunk a bottle of whiskey and gone out on the water in the middle of a storm? He’d never know for sure.
Stirling closed the book. He needed to let go, move on. He had Amelia now. He didn’t need the past.
8
Darcy made it home and then back to the shop just before eleven o’clock. Sundays could be either crazy busy or slow. Rosie already had the fryers warming. A broad-shouldered youth with a cut above a black eye was folding paper napkins into imperfect triangles.
‘Rosie, sorry I’m late.’
‘No worries, love. You remember Zeke?’ The lad bobbed his head as Darcy held out her hand.
‘Of course I do.’ Her hand was swallowed by the youngster’s and she grinned. ‘What did the other fella look like, then?’
Zeke’s glance slid away. His hand dropped. ‘Okay, I guess.’
‘Missy Loulou looks just fine and dandy after all the trouble she’s caused.’ Rosie shot her a warning look and Darcy took the hint. It wasn’t the men in Rosie’s family that had the issues with uncontrollable tempers. Rosie wanted a dry community, but so far that Government policy hadn’t come further south than Cairns. Some people thought she was a troublemaker telling the women to stand up for themselves. But opinions were never going to stop Rosie from doing what she thought was right, and children going to school with a full belly was top of Rosie’s priority list.
‘So, Zeke, how’s the footy going? I heard you’re working out at the PCYC.’
‘Yeah, okay, I guess. Noah’s cool.’
‘He tells me you’ve had an offer to try out for a Sydney team.’
‘Yeah.’ He didn’t look excited.
‘Don’t knock yourself out with excitement.’
‘Lou doesn’t want me to go,’ he mumbled, his eyes downcast. ‘Reckons I should stay here.’
‘The girl’s a fool. There ain’t nothin’ but heart-ache and the bottle to keep you here. You don’t want babies when you’re barely able to feed yourself,’ Rosie chimed in.
‘Don’t hold back, Rosie,’ Darcy intervened as Zeke scowled. ‘Mate, if you could choose anything in the world to do right now, what would it be?’
He looked down again. ‘Dunno.’
‘Really? All those hours in the gym are just for show so you can pop those muscles out of a ripped T-shirt.’ She patted biceps the size of footballs. ‘Anything, Zeke, anything.’
He looked embarrassed. ‘I’d go to Sydney, play footy. My Uncle Stevo’s there.’
‘And Missy Loulou’s still at school, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So, if Noah finds out you’re messing with an underage girl and contemplating passing on an opportunity, you reckon he’s going to pat you on the back and say, “Good on you”?’ Darcy began working as she talked, closing the fridge with her hip, laying out fillets.
‘He’d be pissed.’
‘That’s an understatement.’
‘But she reckons she loves me.’
‘Great. And you love her?’
The noncommittal shrug was powerful.
‘So she’s someone to keep you warm at night and that will land you in the big house if Noah finds out. Seems to me making sure you finish school should be your first job. If you want to go do a stint in Sydney later, that might be a ticket to something better then.’
‘I’ve left school. Dad said I needed to get a job.’
‘You left school, huh?’ Darcy frowned at Rosie who rolled her eyes and threw up her hands.
‘You getting the dole?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Right.’ Darcy dipped the fillets in flour, then egg and finally breadcrumbs. She and Noah would never see eye to eye on the issue. Education was all that mattered, in her opinion, and without that any young man heading to a big city to play sport might well end up worse off than they were. Noah maintained that since their education was usually incomplete anyway sport was their only hope. He did everything he could to give them life skills through PCYC programmes and Darcy gave him full marks for all that effort, but she still had her reservations. It was part of the reason she found herself playing unofficial counselor to a passing parade. Having been there done that gave her unique insights.
‘So you handy with a shovel and a rake?’ Darcy asked.
‘Guess so.’ He looked wary now.
‘Come to my place tomorrow morning at nine and I’ll give you a day’s wage for helping me with my garden. I’ve got a pallet of seedlings to plant and nowhere to put them yet. Same wage as here.’
He bobbed his again. ‘Okay. Do you need me today?’
Rosie nodded behind his back, her henna curls dancing.
Darcy smiled. ‘Yep. I have a storeroom that needs cleaning. I’ll get set up and then show you where to start.’ Rosie turned back to the already pristine sink with a smile. Darcy wondered who was really the boss at Fish R Biting.
‘Okay.’ Zeke kept folding napkins but with a little more care now.
By two o’clock Da
rcy had run out of prepared fillets.
‘Zeke, I need a spare pair of hands.’
Darcy grinned as he ambled over to the bench and looked at her in horror. ‘It’s easy,’ she said. ‘Flour, egg, batter. That’s all you have to remember.’
‘Right.’
Darcy glanced up at the line-up in the shop. Outside the sun kissed the waters of the Cove and she understood why her shop was so busy. The day had delivered on its early promise and it was a glorious afternoon.
‘You’ve run out of Caesar salad, love,’ Rosie called, a plastic takeaway container in her hand.
‘I’ll rustle up some more, then,’ Darcy replied, wondering why she’d complicated the menu with salads and gourmet entrées. Rosie had warned her it was a rod for their backs. She didn’t miss a chance to point it out.
By the time the last orders had been wrapped in white paper and dispatched with love and a slice of lemon, the cramped storeroom had been dismantled, cleaned and re-stowed, the iceberg lettuces looked lonely in the fridge and she could see the bottom of her freezer for the first time since she’d taken over. Zeke polished off a double helping of fish and chips before vanishing into the night. Darcy was shattered, but Rosie looked as unflappable as ever.
‘You going to tell me what’s really going on?’ Darcy asked, as she finished boxing up enough fish and chips to feed three hungry people.
‘His dad doesn’t want him to go to Sydney. Zeke’s using Loulou as an excuse so he doesn’t have to admit to anyone his old man’s said he can’t go. The old fool wants to hold onto the lad’s Centrelink payment. Mind you I don’t think he’s keen on seeing Zeke and Loulou walk down the aisle either, but of course he can’t see nothin’ wrong with his life so why should his boy do anythin’ different. I’d kick his arse myself if I didn’t need two feet to stand on.’
Darcy hid a quick smile. It was no laughing matter. ‘Okay. So I’ll give him a day’s work tomorrow and apply a little pressure. I’ll make sure Noah understands the lie of the land.’
‘Thanks, Darce, you’re a good girl. Who are you feedin’ tonight?’ Rosie nodded at the box.
‘Noah said he’d come round later.’ Darcy hadn’t mentioned Tyrone. If she told Rosie, she might as well take out a full-page ad in the Bundaberg News-Mail.
