by KS Augustin
Alive. Her hand stilled as she rubbed her hair, the tendrils dark with perspiration and curly at the ends. But as much as she loved living in the centre of a thriving metropolis, reality had a way of cropping up when she least expected it. Just as it had three months ago.
No, she wouldn’t think about that. Not now.
Helen grimaced and turned away. Brisbane had been a home to her for all of her twenty-six years. And, until a few months ago, it had treated her well. Her gaze roamed the expanse of her loft apartment, where walls existed only to enclose a goods elevator, two bathrooms, a kitchen, and suggest a minimal attempt at privacy. The large mullioned windows let the sub-tropical sun stream through and caught the rich texture of the polished pine floors, looking warm and comforting against the brilliant white of the tall walls and high ceiling.
The whole floor was hers—the top storey of an old warehouse right in the middle of Brisbane’s liveliest inner city suburb. By the time she bought the apartment shell, the idea of warehouse living had taken off in the city, but buyers were still reluctant to purchase a residential property in one of its most notorious locations. Helen, on the other hand, had seen the location’s potential more as an opportunity and had signed a contract on the place as fast as she could pull a pen into her hand. Now, in the late afternoon, a pleasant breeze blew through the open windows, airing the large space completely and lifting the gauzy white curtains so they resembled birds’ wings fluttering in the wind. It was October, and the chill of winter had well and truly disappeared, bringing with it a balmy warmth and the promise of more heat to come.
At the thought of another humid summer, Helen started perspiring again. She turned and was about to head for the bathroom when her phone rang. Normally, she let the answering machine take it, but she was close enough to the low, teak coffee table to reach down and pick up the receiver herself.
“Hel,” she said succinctly, using her nickname. Now that she stood still, she thought she could detect the aroma of sweat and exertion on her body. She sniffed experimentally at her underarm and wrinkled her nose. It was lucky for everybody concerned that nobody shared the apartment with her.
“Hel, it’s Ryan.” The welcoming voice of Helen’s sometime employer filled her ears, and a smile instinctively curved her lips.
“Hello Ryan. What can I do for you? Do you have another workshop you want me involved in?”
“Ask not what you can do for me,” he replied with a laugh. “Ask what I can do for you.”
“Really? Like what?”
“Nothing I can really discuss over the phone. Would you care to meet me for a coffee? I can be in the Valley in about twenty minutes.”
“That sounds perfect. How about I meet you at Carlo’s?”
“Carlo’s it is. See you then.” And he clicked off.
Helen replaced the receiver thoughtfully and continued her walk to her bedroom, a roughly rectangular section of floor that was partitioned off with carved timber screens. Behind them, closets lined part of one wall, ending at a corner, behind a large futon bed.
She had been expecting a call from Ryan—they hadn’t spoken for almost a week now—but she hadn’t been expecting anything more from him, especially when she already knew his workshop and training schedule. He certainly had her intrigued.
Helen entered her bathroom, expertly flipping the damp towel into the laundry basket, and following it up in quick order with her shorts, T-shirt and underwear. Even though the bathroom was enclosed with walls, light still illuminated the space, thanks to a skylight she had installed when she first began refurbishing the warehouse floor. The other bathroom was the same—walls of small white tiles, separated by lines of iridescent blue glass squares, with the skylight illuminating everything from above.
She showered under the cool water, letting the massaging streams carry away the sticky sweat and tiredness from her body. When she was done, she towelled herself dry with a marine-toned bathsheet and padded to the bedroom to look for something to wear.
Ten minutes later, she traipsed down the small flight of steps at the front of the building and walked up the street to Brunswick Mall, less than a five-minute stroll away. Her hair, unruly at the best of times, was kept back from her face with a dark, stretchy barrette. She thought it was a simple and easy solution, unaware of how the accessory showed off the delicate angles of her cheekbones and emphasised her large, candid, blue-grey eyes. Her denim capri pants only partially covered lithe, muscular calves, and the scooped neck T-shirt outlined a feminine figure that could easily be swamped in more bulky clothing.
She walked happily down the mall, unaware of several covert and appreciative masculine gazes, her long limbs swinging freely and her bearing confident.
Fortitude Valley had always been a haven for immigrants to Brisbane, starting with the Scottish in the mid-1800s. Since that time, other communities also started businesses there—Italians, Chinese—and it was now a dynamic and cosmopolitan part of the city’s life. Carlo’s was one such example of a migrant’s small cafe that had morphed into a landmark for the suburb. It was named after the current owner’s father, who had worked the small coffee shop for more than twenty-five years, before passing it on to the next generation. Vinnie, Carlo’s son and a shrewd businessman in his own right, had extended the premises, creating a separate dining area for the evening restaurant goers, but also not forgotten the cafe’s original customers. Small round tables and wicker chairs jostled for space in the paved area outside, and it was here that Helen settled herself, after calling out her usual order to the smiling wait staff. Vinnie, a cheerful man with a smile as wide as his head, waved to her before moving to the large, chrome coffee machine that dominated the area behind the long counter, to prepare her order.
It was a nice time of the day, late afternoon before the workers in the city finished for the day, and Helen watched the grandmothers trundle along with their wheeled trolleys full of groceries. It was a time to relax, with the heat from the sun gone, and just its light left, slanting across the buildings, and throwing the elaborate sills and decorations of the mall’s historic facade into myriad lines of light and shadow.
Later on, the children and shoppers would disappear, and the Valley would be home to a different population completely—couples looking for a restaurant or bistro, and people looking to enjoy themselves at one of several bars that dotted the area. If only they restrained themselves to just enjoying themselves, she thought bleakly, and shivered despite the warmth. The partygoers wouldn’t leave the district until the early morning, and then the Valley would settle down to one or two hours’ peace, before the bakers arrived, heading for their shops, and the cycle would begin all over again.
She didn’t want to think about that. Not about dark nights, and not about what happened that had turned her entire life upside down, but her memory was relentless. She remembered Pete, tall but a little too skinny to pass for a bouncer at one of the city’s nightspots. She remembered how he’d smilingly agreed to help out a friend. And she remembered–
“I see you got here before me.” Ryan’s gruff voice boomed close to her, and she looked up at him with startled eyes. She hadn’t even seen him coming. At the same time, their coffees arrived—a latte with no sugar for Helen and a long black with two sugars for Ryan Greenwood. Vinnie had obviously spotted him long before Helen had.
She smiled and waved him to a chair to her left. “Sorry, Ryan, I must have been miles away.”
“That’s what bothers me,” he muttered as he sat down.
Ryan was a quintessential Queenslander, from his tall and broad build to the freckles that dusted his skin. His hair was a sun-bleached brown mixed with emerging grey, and his eyes were blue. The tip of his nose always looked like it was on the verge of sunburn, a redder hue than the rest of his ruddy complexion, and his hands were broad and meaty. Creases radiated outwards from the edges of his eyes, matching the frown on his forehead—a permanent reminder of decades of squinting into a bright and un
forgiving sun. He was a man who had seen and done things most people only imagined, and Helen considered him her best friend.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, although she knew very well what he was getting at.
He harrumphed and turned his attention to the coffee, stirring it carefully with a spoon and popping the sliver of accompanying biscotti into his mouth, dry.
“You know you’re supposed to dunk it first, don’t you?” Helen asked with patient amusement.
“I like it like that,” he replied, crunching through the nuts and hardened pastry. He drank deeply from his cup and, when he put it back on its saucer, half of the coffee was already gone. “So how are you bearing up?”
Helen shrugged and dropped her eyes, taking a more demure sip of her latte. “Okay.”
“That’s a pile of bullshit.” He paused. “Pete is gone, Hel. I know you were close, but he’s not coming back.”
“You know,” she said, still looking at her glass, the coffee within it the colour of pale milk chocolate. “I think I’d come to grips with it better if it hadn’t been such a senseless death.”
Peter Dodd had been a good friend and fellow martial artist. He worked for Ryan as an instructor at his martial arts academy, much as Helen herself had done before she branched out into her own business. In such a profession, it was only natural that the three of them should know, and befriend, the bouncers that worked in the city. While Helen kept the relationships light and friendly, Peter had ended up sharing a house in one of the northern suburbs with Alan, a muscled, burly man who kept order at one of the most exclusive nightclub venues right in the centre of the city. There was usually no trouble at that club—more rowdy elements stayed away from the higher prices and restrictive dress codes. Maybe that was what convinced Peter that a night covering for his friend, who had food-poisoning, wasn’t going to be a problem.
Except it had been.
A group of young men—sons of the rich cattle-farmers that dominated the interior of the state—had come down to Brisbane for a night of fun. Their parents had enough money to ensure thick wallets all around, and they chose the nightclub as the place where they were going to dance and drink away the night. When they got rowdy, the security staff inside the club walked them—quietly but insistently—to the door, and that was where all hell broke loose.
“He was so good,” Helen murmured. “The best tae kwon do instructor around.” She shook her head.
“It could’ve happened to anyone, Hel.”
She looked up at him then and her eyes blazed. “That’s just it though, isn’t it, Ryan? Despite his training, it happened to him—just one drunk teenager thinking he was on a rugby field.”
The reports afterwards had been chaotic and contradictory, but the police eventually had sorted it all out. After being ejected from the club, the group of young men had started a loud argument with the two bouncers outside. Peter had talked to two of them, trying to get them to calm down, when a third had barrelled into him from the side, knocking him to the kerb. Pete’s head had hit the concrete edging next to the road and he’d died instantly.
If Ryan thought she was taking Pete’s death hard, he obviously hadn’t spoken to Alan recently. Through friends, Helen had learned that Alan was inconsolable over a death he could do nothing to prevent. He’d blamed himself, quit his job and headed back north to his hometown of Townsville. Helen could understand how Alan felt. She was thinking of doing the same kind of thing herself.
“You still thinking of leaving?” It was as if he picked up her thoughts.
She sighed and a sad smile curved her lips. “When I bought my place here, I was so happy. I liked being lulled to sleep by the sound of life and laughter, and didn’t even mind being woken up in the morning by the occasional drunk stumbling around outside. It was all part and parcel of living in such a dynamic part of the city. But now, when I hear raised voices or people laughing, it doesn’t sound like anyone having fun. It sounds more like how I imagined it must have felt for Pete—just before he got killed. I’m thinking that maybe I’ve had my fill of Brisbane.”
“And where would you go? That place down at Byron?”
Her parents, when they died, had left their holiday home at Byron Bay to Helen and her brother, Nick. Nick, filled with wanderlust as he was, wasn’t too interested in maintaining the property. When Helen offered to buy him out of his share, he jumped at the opportunity. He used the money as a launching pad for his travels and now lived happily in northern Italy as a computer programmer. He had come back to visit and spend some time with her once, but admitted that the life of Italian coffee, fresh croissants in the morning, and cobblestoned streets was one that suited him much better than the sea, surf and open spaces of south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales. Maybe, if she could scrape together enough money—and the will to do so—she might pay him a visit.
“Byron Bay has really expanded since my parents bought the property,” she countered, knowing Ryan thought of the place as being little more than a hippie commune. “It’s a large artist hub, and there are lots of shops, restaurants, and festivals almost year round. I think I could keep myself busy in a place like that.”
Ryan snorted. “And what about your business?”
He was referring to Total Defence, the company she started after she left Ryan’s academy. Seeing a niche for a mostly female-oriented view of martial arts and self-defence, Helen had started Total Defence as a venture aimed more at companies and groups. In the three years since she’d started, she had already conducted workshops and seminars for a wide range of institutions and women’s groups. Occasionally, she also gave private tuition but, although one-on-one sessions were lucrative, they were also physically draining.
“I’ve spoken to you before about partnering with me,” she chided softly. “There’s more than enough work. You could take over the Brisbane operation, and I might set up a Byron Bay branch.”
“So it’s not the work itself that bothers you,” he asked, eyeing her intently, “it’s just being in Brisbane?”
That wasn’t what she’d first told Ryan. In the week following Pete’s death, she’d been adamant that she wanted nothing to do with martial arts—after all, if it couldn’t save Pete, what good was it? But that was the result of shock and grief. Since then, Helen had taken careful stock of her situation and realised it was the environment itself that caused her the most pain. She loved the work, loved seeing self-confidence blossom in her classes and tracking the progress of her more promising attendees. She also liked the idea of helping men and women protect themselves. Of course, there were always the burly types, who took one look at her slight frame and laughed themselves silly. But those types, she thought with an evil grin, didn’t last all that long.
No, teaching people how to protect themselves was in her blood. She could more easily stop breathing than stop her work. Which meant that, despite her love for her hometown, she was going to have to leave it, at least in the short-term.
“Just Brisbane,” she agreed. “I’m not saying I won’t consider coming back. It’s just that I think I need some distance right now.”
“And how are your finances?”
Helen frowned as she gazed at him. Her coffee, untouched since that initial sip, was growing cold. It was unlike Ryan to discuss the topic of her moving away with such calm. He hated the idea of her leaving. She had been one of his best students, one of his most personable instructors, and he didn’t begrudge her success—in fact, he often drummed up business on her behalf. But if there was one thing he usually point-blank refused to discuss rationally with her, it was her relocating interstate. Whenever the topic came up, he was abrupt, restless and irritable in his remarks and responses. Yet, here he was now, an open expression on his face, asking her on his own initiative about how her plans were going.
“I had to mortgage the apartment to the hilt to get enough money together to buy out Nick’s share of the Byron house,” she said slowly. “
Business is going well but is just paying the expenses at the moment. And I know it’s a rising property market, but it would be nice to have a bit of a nest egg to take with me when I move.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why are you so interested in my finances all of a sudden?”
He sat back and looked at her smugly. “Because I think I have a way out of your problems.”
Chapter Two
Now it was Helen’s turn to settle in her chair. She eyed Ryan suspiciously. “What do you mean?”
“I had a funny email request that came through yesterday afternoon.”
“Funny, ha-ha. Or funny?” She wriggled her fingers and decided this was exactly the moment to gulp down some lukewarm, milky coffee. For some unknown reason, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled.
He ignored her attempt at humour. “From France,” he continued. “Seems some big-shot over there wants to come to Brisbane to do some business.”
“To Brisbane?” Helen’s voice was incredulous. She loved Brisbane, its relaxed and cosmopolitan air, its varied attractions, but it still didn’t hold a candle to the banking powerhouse of Melbourne or the glamour of Sydney. Why would a European businessman choose their little corner of the world?
Ryan shrugged. “That’s what he says. His name is,” he dug around in his front shirt pocket, pulling out a white, folded piece of paper and opening it up, “er, Guy Aubrac.”
“Aubrac,” Helen mused out loud. “Can’t say I’ve heard of him.”
“Well, from what he wrote, he’s looking for,” Ryan referred to the slip of paper again, “someone capable, discreet, and socially versatile, who can blend into a variety of social and business environments and still offer top-flight physical protection in case anything goes wrong.”
