On the Right Track

by Penelope Janu

  Tor stiffens. Even though he’s speaking between his teeth, he articulates each of his words precisely. ‘You’re being unpleasant again, Golden.’

  I pat Nate’s leg. ‘Do you think it’s ethical, Nate? That type of behaviour?’

  Nate seems unsure what to say, so Tor answers for him. ‘It was merely a dance.’

  I didn’t know it was possible for dancing to feel like that. I didn’t ever want it to stop. The music, the touch of his hands, the strength of his body.

  The waiter arrives with the drinks and leaves them on the table. As Tor reaches for his glass, I reach for mine.

  ‘Tor?’

  He raises his eyebrows. ‘Golden?’

  ‘Tonic water isn’t a spy drink. Why didn’t you order a martini? Or vodka?’

  Pain. It’s in his eyes, suddenly dark and troubled. It’s in the flare of his nostrils and the whiteness around his mouth. He’s bound to know that I’ve seen it because I’m staring and my eyes will be wide. Even so, he can’t shut it down. I imagine a sheet-metal roller door, rusted into an open position. He reaches up and swings on the handle until a harsh scrape signals the door is slowly moving. When it slams shut he rams the bolt home.

  His words can’t quite camouflage the rawness in his tone. ‘I don’t drink,’ he says. ‘I never have.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘My father was an alcoholic.’

  Nate looks from me to Tor and back again. I look away, attempting to put Tor’s pain to the back of my mind so I can start hating him again.

  Nate clears his throat. ‘Thanks for the insights on your list,’ he says.

  ‘All I gave you were names.’

  ‘That was enough. We’ve narrowed them down.’

  ‘Cross-referenced them, you mean? With criminals you’re familiar with.’

  Tor stretches out his legs so they rest, ankles crossed, at the side of the table. ‘You’re not to know anything, Golden. That’s the idea.’

  ‘To keep me out of harm’s way?’

  ‘Yes. Until we ascertain the facts, identify what we’re dealing with and the people involved, we can’t know what we’re up against.’

  ‘Which,’ Nate says, ‘is why we’d like you to keep a low profile while you’re working with us. If you don’t mind.’

  I frown as if I’m considering what he’s said. ‘Do you mean I shouldn’t antagonise people? Rub them up the wrong way? Ruffle feathers? But that’d be out of character. People would get suspicious. You wouldn’t want that.’

  Tor sits forward on his chair. ‘It’s common knowledge that Nate and I are in Australia because there are numerous connections here, mostly through casinos, to crime syndicates involved in money laundering. The horse racing industry is a small element of it, but it’s not going to surprise people that we’re factoring racing into our investigation too. The importance of your father and grandfather to our inquiry is unlikely to be considered.’

  ‘Hence our reluctance to draw people’s attention to it,’ Nate says.

  ‘Particularly when there’s no necessity to do so,’ Tor says. ‘Eric is a government minister and well known for his anti-gambling stance, so it makes sense I’d be speaking with people like him, as well as those involved in the industry. Angelina is Eric’s daughter, so it’s not surprising we’d come into contact with her socially. You’re his stepdaughter, and Angelina’s sister, so our connection with you also works.’

  ‘Meaning coming to my house was okay, because you came with Angelina. What about the cafe in Randwick?’

  ‘No one saw us there,’ Nate says. ‘But even if they did, like Tor said, it’s your relationship with Eric that people are likely to think of.’

  ‘The people I know in racing, they’ll associate me with my father and Grandpa.’

  ‘That’s the point,’ Tor says. ‘But five years on from your grandfather’s death, fifteen from your father’s, they’re unlikely to link your family to the lines of inquiry Nate and I are pursuing. If we suspect they think you’re assisting us, we’ll get you out and continue on without you.’

  I sit up straighter. ‘You mean I wouldn’t have to be a spy anymore? You’d let me go?’

  ‘Certainly.’ Tor’s smile is stiff. ‘And inform Eric of the circumstances.’

  I take a breath. A few breaths. What is it with men telling me what to do? I’m not sure why I feel like crying but there’s a lump in my throat.

  ‘Golden?’ Nate is leaning in front of me at such an angle that he’s almost horizontal in his chair. He has a boyish grin. ‘We’re not that bad, you know, once you get to know us.’

  I don’t want to get to know Nate. I particularly don’t want to get to know Tor.

  ‘My connection with Eric is all very well,’ I say, ‘but it’ll still look strange, me traipsing around the stables and racetracks with you in tow.’

  There’s something very deliberate in the way Tor places his glass on the table. Our eyes meet.

  ‘You’ve already considered that, haven’t you?’ I say. ‘Well? What have you come up with? Why would I put up with you?’

  He sits forward in his chair and rests his elbows on his knees. One knee is a centimetre away from mine. I’m sure he means to do it.

  ‘We could fall in love,’ he says.

  I slam my glass on the table. ‘As if you’d ever, as if I’d ever … No!’

  He raises his brows. And that’s when I get it. Our dance. I knew he was setting a scene, but I underestimated him. His breathing wasn’t unsteady like mine after all. I misread the desire in his eyes. He wasn’t reluctant to release me like I thought he was. Why would he be? Plenty of people had seen us—even the Premier. The dance would have served its purpose.

  My voice is remarkably even considering the way my heart is pounding.

  ‘You couldn’t miss the opportunity Eric presented you with, could you? No one would believe you’d be attracted to me under normal circumstances. But wearing that dress, those shoes, and …’ I can’t sit still any longer. There are chills running down my spine even though my face is burning. I stand, but have to grasp the back of the chair when my ankle seizes up.

  Tor gets to his feet too. ‘Forget what I said.’ He holds out a hand. ‘No relationship.’

  ‘Never!’

  I’m overreacting, I know I am. I should have made light of what he said. Fall in love with someone like you? Who’s out to get my grandfather? Who’s slept with half of Sydney? You’ve got to be joking. It’s too late now. I’ve made a fool of myself.

  Nate stands and smiles kindly. ‘Restroom before we leave?’ he says. ‘Me too. We’ll head over together.’ He takes my arm and turns, pulling me with him.

  ‘Wait!’ Pain travels up my leg in a thousand burning needle-points. I close my eyes and clench my teeth, panting. My eyes water. ‘Not … ready … yet.’

  Nate puts an arm around my shoulders. Tor is on my other side; I feel the tension in his body so he must be close. I open my eyes and see his fist clenched by his side. He has excellent manners—I’m distressed, he wants to help, but it’s like when we met at the cafe, when he told me I’d been raised on dirty money. He didn’t dare touch me after that conversation either.

  When I can put sufficient weight on my leg to contemplate walking, I turn to Nate. ‘I don’t want to go to the bathroom. I’m going home.’

  Tor and Nate insist that they walk me to my car. I’m capable of keeping up with their much longer strides because my ankle has warmed up, but they’re careful to keep their pace slow anyway. When Nate starts talking about my list of names, Tor shuts him up with an abrupt shake of his head. So Nate talks about inane things instead. I say barely anything, Tor says even less. He walks on the side of the footpath closest to the curb, keeping me away from the traffic. Eric does the same thing—he says that’s where gentlemen walk.

  By the time we get to the car I’m tired. Bone tired. Exhausted. Tor watches as the suit carrier I throw into the back hovers on the edge of the seat before sliding to t
he floor. I put my foot on the step to get into the driver’s seat, and I’m reaching for the wheel to hoist myself up when he holds out his hand as though he suspects I might fall. Our eyes meet for a heartbeat.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he says.

  I sit behind the wheel and watch the men walk towards the car park lifts. Nate looks over his shoulder and lifts his arm in a casual wave, and then they disappear from view.

  CHAPTER

  9

  The dream is so nice I don’t want it to end. I’m weightless, spinning, twirling. Dancing? I roll out of my bedclothes when my phone pings a message.

  Golden, you made it abundantly clear last night that, even in a fictional sense, being in a relationship with me is out of the question. Telling people we’re spending time together as a favour to Eric won’t always work—give me an alternative. Tor

  I respond:

  Tell anyone who asks that I’m helping you with your pronunciation. Your vowel sounds, particularly your E’s and O’s, are clipped (they’re too short).

  There’s hardly any traffic on the roads on Sundays so I let Pepper canter on the roadside paths that lead to the riding tracks. Once we’re in the bush she picks her way through the undergrowth at a walk. Besides the racket the cicadas make and the occasional birdcall, it’s eerily quiet. Pepper’s hooves thump softly on the damp morning earth.

  Last year’s back burning has blackened the trunks of the rough-barked trees. Most of the smooth-barked trees, cream in the sunlight, have shed their bark already. Many of the smaller shrubs are in flower, pinks, reds and yellows. Grandpa knew all of their names but I’m only familiar with the common ones like banksia and boronia.

  Pepper shies when a lizard, sunbaking on a log, snaps to attention on its short stubby legs. Losing a stirrup brings me back to the present.

  ‘Easy girl,’ I say, stroking Pepper’s neck. ‘Don’t throw me off here. I’ll be late for my briefing. We’d better head home.’

  Nate called last night, asking whether it was okay if he dropped by this morning. ‘Do I have a choice?’ I said.

  There was a delay. I could hear that he was talking to someone, but he must have had his hand over the mouthpiece. When he came back to me he said, ‘Sorry, Golden, Tor says you don’t have a choice.’

  Pepper clip-clops across the bitumen road. The red gum at the end of my driveway is on council land but as long as I can remember it’s been a marker to home. It’s over twenty metres tall and more than two metres wide at the base.

  ‘Angophora costata,’ I say, trailing my fingers over the salmon pink trunk as we pass.

  Fudge must pick up Pepper’s scent because we’re out of sight when he whinnies a welcome. Pepper pricks up her ears and trots.

  Nate leans against the stable yard railings, his checked shirt tucked into his jeans. I remind myself of the facts—he has a nice face and a friendly smile, but he’s not my friend. He’s here to do a job, to investigate.

  Fudge, his coat glinting gold, pokes his head through the railings, but Nate keeps his distance.

  I shout across the garden. ‘I won’t be long.’

  He looks at his watch. ‘No hurry. I’m early. Is that your racehorse, Peppercorn?’

  ‘Ex-racehorse. The pony’s name is Fudge.’ I ease my feet out of the stirrup irons as Pepper walks to the mounting block. ‘I presume you’ve introduced yourselves?’

  ‘He’s a friendly guy. Looks like a horse from a cartoon.’

  ‘He wasn’t like that when I got him.’

  After my fall, I left boarding school in the term breaks to stay with Grandpa. The long winter break was the first time I came home. Grandpa worked at the track as usual, but he refused to take me with him. Even though there was no chance of me riding the horses, Grandpa and his friends worried I might be bumped, trodden on, trampled. I think they worried about my state of mind as well. I flipped between anger, self-pity and disappointment. And I was frightened. What could the future hold when my hopes of being a jockey, like my leg, had been shattered on the track? Grandpa finding me Fudge marked the end of my terrible year. He just appeared in the stable yard one day. Grandpa knew I wouldn’t be able to resist saddling him up.

  ‘He was given to me,’ Grandpa told me. ‘Fellow I know up the Hunter bought him for his daughter. But the little sod’s thrown the girl so many times she’s lost her confidence.’ He ruffled my hair. ‘He’s only a pony, Gumnut, but he’ll do you for now. You’re only pint-sized anyway. And he’s pretty as a picture, so Eric will have no idea how spirited he is. Most importantly, he’s no use to anyone the way he’s playing up. Sort him out for me, will you?’

  I spent yesterday with the boxes of folders Grandpa kept above the ceiling. He lied to me about Fudge. He paid a thousand dollars for him a few months after my sixteenth birthday. Grandpa labelled all the folders in his neat italicised script. There’s one for every few months, starting in the year I was born and finishing when I was twenty-one. It’ll take me weeks to sort out whether they’re significant, and probably longer to decide what to do with them. Will they exonerate Grandpa, or condemn him?

  I swing my right leg over Pepper’s hindquarters so I’m on her left side facing the saddle, and then I lower myself onto the mounting block. Pepper waits patiently while I stretch out my knee and ankle. A few minutes later I’m on the ground and she’s ambling by my side to her stable.

  Nate is dressed like a cowboy, but he’s as uncomfortable around horses as Angelina. He’s happy to stay on the other side of the half door to Pepper’s stable as I take off her saddle and bridle. I address him as I hang them over the door.

  ‘Why did Tor send you? Why didn’t he come here himself?’

  Nate hesitates for a moment. ‘He had something else on.’

  I wet a sponge in a bucket of water and rub the dried sweat off Pepper’s coat, then I brush, feed and rug her. Nate follows me through the stable yard when I clip a lead rope to Fudge’s halter.

  ‘I have to take Fudge to the bottom paddock.’

  ‘I can walk with you.’

  We’re trudging up the hill on the way back to the house when Nate tells me that Tor wants me to introduce him to Solomon Bain.

  ‘Sol? He won’t have done anything wrong.’

  ‘Tor wants to see him anyway.’

  Solomon is a well-known horse trainer. He was quite a few years younger than Grandpa so he’ll be in his mid-sixties by now. He and Grandpa were friends until the hush money allegations were made. Sol didn’t want his reputation tarnished by association. He didn’t even come to Grandpa’s funeral.

  But Solomon Bain was on my list of names. Tor will make me see him again whether I want to or not.

  ‘Sol has horses racing in the Autumn Carnival,’ I say. ‘He’ll be at his Randwick stables most mornings. I suppose I could take Tor there.’

  When I open the gate to the garden, Nate follows me through. ‘Your race, the Golden Slipper,’ he says. ‘That’s part of the Autumn Carnival, isn’t it?’

  I stop in my tracks, and so does he. It’s disconcerting, being so much smaller than him. I’m standing on lower ground. His shoulders are massive. I’m completely in his shadow.

  ‘My father used to say I was named after the race,’ I say. ‘But it was Grandpa who named me Golden. He did it because of my colouring, and Golden was his favourite wattle. Golden Wattle. Acacia pycnantha.’

  Nate must hear the defensiveness in my voice. He doesn’t speak for a moment.

  When he smiles, it’s genuine. ‘Golden’s a fantastic name. Suits you. Thought you might’ve got it from your hair.’ He tips his head to the side and picks up my ponytail. His hand brushes my shoulder. I wait in vain for the sensations I felt when I danced with Tor. ‘It’s kind of gold.’

  Nate opens the door of a large black BMW and leans against it. ‘By the way, Tor said I should let you know. Your idea about teaching him his E’s and O’s—he’s all right with it. Which is totally dumb, considering his English is better than mine. He�
�ll have to backtrack, pretend it’s worse than it is.’

  ‘I doubt that’ll be a problem for him. He’s good at pretending.’

  I’m walking away when Nate calls me back. He’s not smiling anymore. ‘Tor’s not so bad,’ he says. ‘But he shouldn’t have said what he did at the bar, about falling in love. We’re asking enough of you already.’

  I kick at a dandelion weed with my boot. ‘Did Tor tell you to apologise? To smooth things over?’

  ‘Are you always so suspicious?’

  ‘If he didn’t ask you to mention what he said, why did you? He’s your colleague. It was disloyal. Or is this all part of your spying game? You’re the good cop, he’s the bad cop.’

  Nate puffs out his cheeks and expels the air in a long drawn out breath. Then he smiles broadly. His teeth are sparkly white.

  ‘I give up. See you Thursday night.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dinner at Clovelly. Eric said you’d be there.’

  CHAPTER

  10

  Mum’s not at home when I arrive at Clovelly, even though I warned her I’d come straight from the hospital. I park out the front of the house that she and Eric have lived in for the past twenty-six years—a two-storey Art Deco with views of the beach. I get changed in the car and send her a text. Going for a swim, back at five. I have your b’day present. Time for coffee?

  It’s late March but the evening is warm and so is the ocean. I stretch out with a lazy breaststroke to the other side of the inlet. The beach at Clovelly is U-shaped, with a broad strip of sand at its base. On one side of the sandy section is a rocky sandstone ledge and on the other side, where I left my bag and towel, is a wide strip of concrete like a deck.

  I’m floating on my back near the ledge when I sense someone watching. The sun bounces off the water and it’s difficult to see clearly, but I’m pretty sure it’s my mother. She’s on the deck, near where I left my gear. I make out my towel, teal blue with white stripes, being waved in the air like a flag.

  Mum is tall, with amazingly long slender legs. She wears bright colours like Angelina does. I’m halfway between the cliff and the deck when I hear her voice. ‘Darling!’