Counterfeit Love (5 page)

‘Shit,’
he sighed, dropping the envelope on the tiled floor along with the shopping bag.

He let the door bang shut behind him and stumbled into the apartment. He flopped onto the sofa, lost in thought.

‘What’s going on?’ His flatmate, Cal, asked, wandering out of his bedroom in his jocks. He flicked on a lamp and slumped onto the sofa opposite Byron. ‘What happened?’

‘What didn’t happen,’ Byron groaned.

‘I thought you were all over it.’

Byron shook his head. ‘I was. But there was an almighty screw up. He gave it to a TVi reporter.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Some girl called Lucy Yang, she’s a TVi reporter.’

‘I thought he was giving it to one of the Cobra’s people,’ Cal said.

‘That’s what was
supposed
to happen. But the TVi reporter got the package instead.’

‘A reporter,’ Cal said, shaking his head. ‘What are the chances of that?’

‘Unbelievable, right?’

Cal went to the kitchen and returned with two bottles of beer. He twisted the top on one and threw the other at Byron.

‘Looks like you need a … ’ Cal stopped mid-sentence. He’d just noticed what Byron had left in the doorway.

‘You got the package!’ he said excitedly, picking up the envelope and peering inside.

Byron groaned. ‘I got an empty envelope is what I got.’

Cal frowned. ‘Okay, you’re gonna have to talk me through this real slowly. I’m lost.’

Byron took a sip of his beer and went through everything that had taken place at the Art Bar and then at Rusty’s.

‘Screw me,’ Cal said when Byron had finished talking. ‘The boss is gonna be real pissed about this.’

‘Tell me about it.’ Byron’s eyes drifted across the window to the lights on the far side of the harbour as his mind ran over the events of the evening. ‘He’s expecting big things out of this one.’

Cal took a swig of his beer and paced to the window. ‘My arse is swinging in the breeze here, too. We need to get this thing closed down by the end of next week. And I’d rather a stupid TV reporter didn’t know anything about it.’

Byron looked at Cal sharply. ‘I didn’t say she was
stupid
,’ he snapped. ‘She’s clever. She thinks I’m a geologist.’ He nodded to himself, picking at the label on his beer bottle. ‘I don’t mind that – a
geologist
.’

‘So,
not
that clever if she thinks you’re a geologist.’ Cal threw a cushion at Byron.

Byron dodged the missile and pulled out his phone, replaying his video of the meeting at the Art Bar. He’d played it twenty times already, but went over it one last time to check if there was anything he’d missed.

‘Can you catch any of the conversation?’ Cal asked.

Byron shook his head. ‘All I can hear is the theme song from
Skyfall.
Who invented lounge music?’

He studied the dude in the bad suit, trying to read his lips, but the guy had his hand across his face for most of the meeting, so that made lip reading impossible. Byron reviewed the recording again and watched Lucy this time. She was shuffling in her chair, furtively texting under the table – he’d thought at the time that she was nervous about the meeting. Now that he knew the real story he could see she was uneasy because she had no clue what was going on.

He paused the recording and zoomed in on her, watching her lips move. But by then he’d given up on lip reading and was just admiring how soft and pillowy they looked. And that shirt she was wearing – respectable yet sexy – it was really working for her.

‘What would you call that top – blue, aqua or … ’ Byron showed the screen to Cal.

‘Shit, bro. You’re unbelievable. Can we try to think with our brains here?’ Cal pushed away the screen. ‘
Jesus.
It’s not time for a wardrobe discussion. We need a new plan.’

‘Mmm,’ Byron said thoughtfully. Unfortunately, he wasn’t thinking of a plan – he was thinking about the way Lucy had looked at him at the Art Bar. She’d been a spanner in the works as soon as she’d sat down. Her almond-shaped eyes on him the whole time, and those perfect pink lips – what a distraction. He’d almost asked her to join him for a drink. In retrospect, he
should
have. Then she wouldn’t be the one with the Cobra’s shirt. Of course, he hadn’t known all that at the time.

He shook his head. ‘I’m such a douchebag.’

‘You got that right.’ Cal sipped his beer.

Byron had thought he was being so clever – romancing the bag out from under Lucy’s nose, without her even noticing anything.
Just a shame the bag was empty – Lucy must still have the Cobra’s shirt.

‘I just hope the Cobra doesn’t find out Lucy’s mixed up in this,’ Byron said.

‘Whattaya mean? Yang’s the one we’ve gotta worry about.’

‘She doesn’t know what she’s got there.’ Byron furrowed his brow. ‘She won’t do anything with it.’

Cal sat up. ‘Are you nuts? Of course she’ll do something with it. She’ll put the whole story on breakfast news. And then we’re really screwed. We haven’t come this far to see this end up on TVi. The boss’s gonna kill us. Have you spoken to him yet?’

Byron shook his head. ‘Leaving that pleasure until tomorrow.’ Byron pulled at his bottom lip. He knew Cal was right. They had too much at stake to leave things to chance here. Byron couldn’t risk Lucy piecing things together and the whole story ending up on TVi. ‘I’ll get the stuff back.’

‘I’m assuming there was more than just a golf shirt,’ Cal said.

Byron nodded. ‘Guess I’ll find out.’

He finished his beer and slumped back into the sofa, pulling Lucy’s card from his top pocket. He tapped the card on the coffee table as he went through some possibilities for getting in touch with Lucy. It didn’t make sense to contact her at this hour – she’d think it was a booty call. He’d have to wait until the morning. A good night’s sleep would clear his mind and it might untangle Lucy Yang’s pink lips from the task in front of him. Byron put the card back in his pocket.

‘We’re gonna nail the Cobra,’ Cal said, getting to his feet.

‘Sure, yeah, I know,’ Byron said, but he felt less sure than he had in ages. ‘I
think
I know.’

‘Bro. It’ll happen.’ Cal headed back to his bedroom. ‘Get some sleep.’

Byron ignored the advice; his mind was too full to sleep. Instead of going to bed, he switched on the TV, surfing through the channels until he found a kung-fu movie. He watched it to the end, letting the action distract him from his problems.

By the time it finished he was still wired, so he cracked another beer and flicked through a few more channels until he found TVi. He wondered if he’d see a report from Lucy, but the news was coming out of London, so he figured he’d missed her. He closed his eyes while a British presenter talked at him, but in his mind it was Lucy. He could hear her telling him the latest news from the London stock exchange. He could even smell her perfume.

A clever Chinese girl – making a success of herself, so well dressed, too!
He could almost hear his mother say. She’d be impressed by Lucy. His father, on the other hand, would hate Lucy without even bothering to meet her. He distrusted the media generally, but disliked TV people in particular because he’d had several run-ins with reporters after a family spat ended up in court. As far as his father was concerned they were all brainless parrots, squawking away, not bothering with the facts or a proper debate. It was one of the few things that Byron and his father agreed on.

But Lucy? Was she any different? He knew he’d see her again because he had to get the shirt, but there was more to it than that – he
wanted
to see her, which made no sense at all. She was too
obviously
pretty for his tastes – too much hard work. He wouldn’t look twice at that kind of girl … normally. In fact, when he thought it through, it was quite a while since he’d looked at
any
girl twice. Lately he’d spent too much time in men’s changing rooms, hanging out with soccer players – hardly the place to find hot babes. When he wasn’t doing that, he was tripping up to Mongolia, hanging out with miners. And it was too far back to remember the last time he’d been close enough to actually touch someone. He’d just been way too busy for anyone.

He really hadn’t been ready for Lucy’s pat on his thigh at Rusty’s.
What the hell was that about?
If she was trying to get his attention, it worked. He put his head back on a cushion and stared at the ceiling.
Lucy Yang, you are going to complicate everything.

Lucy woke with a start early the next morning, with three words in her head:
Byron, geology, undertaking
. She turned on her bedside lamp and pulled her laptop onto her bed, searching the internet for more details on Byron.

She had been in such a daze when he’d left that she hadn’t even asked for his surname.
What kind of reporter am I? No wonder Byron questioned my credentials.
Of course, she normally relied on someone’s business card for surnames, but Byron hadn’t given her one – unheard of, in Hong Kong. He really was being secretive about his job.

After half an hour online, Lucy was well equipped with ideas for salt-tolerant plants for gardening around Byron Bay, on Australia’s east coast; she was an expert on soil composition in southern China; and she had a workable knowledge of funeral practices in Hong Kong. She’d also reacquainted herself with some of the works of Lord Byron. But she was no closer to the identity of
her
Byron.

Lucy left the poetry site and Googled
HD, shirt
and
malaria
. Again, a lot of information but nothing useful at all. She sighed and put her mystery package back in the too-hard basket. Next she clicked open the TVi home page, checking if any stories had broken overnight. Chinese inflation concerns, air pollution and a protest in Delhi headed the page. She was relieved to see nothing too dramatic had happened; she hated to be out of the office when real news was unfolding. She browsed a few other rival sites, also glad that TVi hadn’t missed any big stories – watching the director of news hit the ceiling when TVi missed something was about as ugly as it got in the newsroom.

Lucy browsed further until a story on a news site caught her eye – a US-born mining exec had been arrested for stealing state secrets in Mongolia. It was another
Under the Wire
exclusive. Lucy wondered who the reporters behind the website were.
Some very brave people
, she guessed. They were always breaking stories on corruption in Asia. A lot of it was news that the mainstream media wouldn’t touch. She really admired them for their courage, especially M.T. Lai, who seemed to break most of the big news. She’d love to meet him – but, of course, she never would. She’d heard that
Under the Wire
reporters operated totally outside the media world and were highly secretive. She guessed they had to be – for their own safety.

Lucy closed her laptop and put it aside, satisfied that she knew everything that was going on in the world, but disappointed she still didn’t know anything about Byron. She pulled on a pair of shorts and wandered out of her bedroom. Charlotte was up and rattling around in the kitchen, and it sounded like she was making scrambled eggs. That was as close to cooking as anyone ever got in their apartment. There was way too much choice when it came to eating out, and the lonely single burner that was the flat’s sole piece of cooking equipment didn’t really make it too tempting to eat at home, anyway.

‘Hey, dancing queen,’ Charlotte smiled. ‘Fancy boating today?’

‘Boating?’ Lucy repeated, vaguely.

Lucy didn’t normally need to be asked twice to go on a Desire junk trip. Charlotte’s company boat wasn’t anything like the traditional Chinese timber boat – more of an ultra-luxurious speed boat where the champagne never stopped flowing. The guests were generally interesting, and once Lucy had actually convinced someone to do an interview. But this time Lucy hesitated, because there was a chance that Byron might call. Even though he had suggested a drink, he hadn’t confirmed a time.

‘So – when do you think you’ll be back?’ Lucy asked.

‘Around five. Why? You got some other place to be?’

‘Yeah. I mean, no,’ Lucy replied absently. She glanced at her mobile.

‘Lucy,’ Charlotte said sternly. ‘You are not going to stay at home staring at your mobile, waiting for some guy to possibly call. I know he’s cute, but you’re coming with me.’

‘Me, waiting by the phone?’ Lucy said, embarrassed that she’d been caught out. She couldn’t believe she’d even considered staying home to wait for a call from anyone. ‘Not me. I’m not
that
type of girl. Of course I’m coming out.’

‘Just one request,’ Charlotte said as she stirred the scrambled eggs. ‘Leave the guests alone. You can make polite chitchat, but don’t bother them for interviews.’

Lucy feigned a look of shock. ‘
Moi
?’

‘Yes,
you
,’ Charlotte responded with a schoolmarm expression. ‘Try and be cute and funny. Tell a few
live telly is so insane
anecdotes. You’d be really good at that. Just have one day off being a serious reporter … please.’

‘Okay,’ Lucy sighed. ‘I’ll try to be cute and funny, just for you.’