Counterfeit Love (12 page)

Lucy was overdressed and underprepared when she arrived at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club. The place was chaos, with media, salty-looking sailors and general lackeys with startled looks on their faces rushing to and fro. Lucy feared she had a similar look about her. Lucy was certainly the only one in silk and heels, and was probably the only one who had never set foot in a yacht club before. She wandered around the clubhouse looking for her camera crew until an official came to her rescue.

‘You’re here from TVi?’ the guy asked.

Lucy nodded. ‘Sort of a last-minute thing.’

‘No problem, the media launch is just about to leave. Come on, I’ll show you the way.’

The club official rushed Lucy through a rundown of events for the afternoon as he led her outside to a large boat tied up at the marina. Lucy could see a bunch of reporters huddled together on board. They almost seemed to have a uniform – all comfortably dressed and relaxed. She assumed they all knew each other. They were also all bound to know a lot more about the race than she did.

As Lucy boarded the boat, they all turned to watch. She tried to keep an easy smile on her face to hide how self-conscious she was, but it felt like she was gatecrashing a private party. Everyone was staring. Beside her, the club official continued his briefing, going through every detail of the yachts in the race – ensuring everyone knew how clueless she was.

‘It’ll get down to the three maxis for line honours,’ he said, as the crew untied the ropes and the launch pulled away from the jetty. ‘
Impetuous, Hound Dog
and
Carthage.
Any of them could do it, but I’ve seen
Impetuous
out over the last couple of days, she’s looking pretty good. They’ve got a pretty tight crew on board – a big contingent of local guys who know the course and a couple of young guns from Australia.’

Lucy nodded. ‘They crewed on
Speed Freak
– the Sydney to Hobart winner,’ she said, showing off what she’d sifted from the internet during her taxi ride to the yacht club. ‘But I think
Carthage
has the most experienced skipper, and on a race like this it’ll count for a lot.’

The club official looked surprised. ‘Sorry, didn’t realise you already knew so much about sailing.’ He glanced at Lucy’s heels. ‘I thought … ’ He stopped short of saying what he thought. ‘Anyway, let me know if there’s anything I can help you with.’

Lucy was feeling a little more confident as he strode off – maybe still overdressed for the start of the race, but definitely a bit better prepared for it. She spotted her camera crew on the back deck, setting up to film. She waved at them and then gave herself a moment to watch the yachts zigzagging through the flotilla of pleasure craft. The start of the race was still over an hour away, but it was already a festival out there. The three big maxis stood out from the rest, their massive hulls effortlessly carving up the harbour. Lucy watched
Impetuous
ploughing towards the media launch. The crew, all dressed in pink-and-white shirts to match the colours of the hull, sat on the uphill side of the boat. (
What is that called, again?
She made a note to herself to find out.) Their legs dangled over the side of the boat, metres above the water. There had to be twenty of them on board.

Lucy glanced at her watch and then pulled out her laptop and sat down to type out a story. She had ten minutes to go before her live cross. Her heart started to thump, hard.

By the time she was ready to go on air, it was thundering full volume, like a stampede in her chest. She pulled a mirror out of her bag to fix her hair and makeup, then did another sound check.

‘Conditions couldn’t be more perfect for the start of the China Sea Race … ’ she said, holding the microphone close to her mouth to minimise the wind noise.

The cameraman gave her the thumbs up. Lucy nodded and fiddled with her earpiece, waiting for directions from master control.

‘All set to go there, Lucy?’ she heard Han say via her earpiece. She couldn’t see him, but she knew he could see her. She nodded.

Lucy had prepared two questions for the sports anchor, got her answers ready and rehearsed them a hundred times. She’d checked the facts with her news releases, and double-checked them with her friendly club official. She’d checked on weather forecasts and even plucked up the confidence to ask a group of reporters which yacht they favoured to win the race. She was surprised to find that the group was evenly split among the three maxis.

She was also surprised to find the sports reporters weren’t as clubby as she had feared, and some of them knew a lot less than she did. There were even some snippets of sailing trivia that she was able to tell them. Yes, she was as ready as she was going to be. As long as she could keep her nerves under control, she’d get through it. Lucy tried not to revisit the moment at the Olympics when she froze up completely.
Breathe normally, stay calm and everything will be fine
, she thought to herself.

With thirty seconds to go until the live cross, Lucy was switched through to the audio from the studio. She listened to a football story, her pulse thundering in her ears. The football story ended and, in the second of dead air before Rolly began the intro to the China Sea Race, Lucy felt her heart miss a beat. This was it – make or break time. She fought to control her breathing as Rolly introduced the story.

‘Asia’s premier ocean yachting event, the Rolex China Sea Race, gets underway in just under an hour, with a record fleet taking part … ’ Rolly began.

Lucy swallowed hard, knowing it was just seconds before the studio cut to her. She was aware that everyone in the office would be watching her first live cross. There would also be millions of others out there too, but they mattered less to her at the moment.

Lucy stared straight into the camera. She could feel everyone’s eyes on her – her camera crew nervously watching, and other reporters, who should have been looking at the yachts, had their eyes on her too. Lucy felt every muscle in her body tense up. The seconds ticked away towards her cue. Nerves choked off her airway, leaving her light-headed. She was starting to lose it, and she hadn’t even begun! Then her mind went completely blank. Lucy was looking at a career-ending disaster.

‘Lucy Yang is at Causeway Bay. How are conditions for the start of the race, Lucy?’

Lucy opened up her mouth, terror squeezing her intestines, her brain still adrift somewhere, unsure if the live cross was really happening or just something she’d dreamed up. Her mind was empty. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, came a calm voice and a well-rehearsed answer. Lucy could hardly believe it was coming out of her mouth. It seemed to have bypassed her crippled brain and switched to autopilot.

‘Conditions couldn’t be more perfect for the start of the China Sea Race … ’ she realised she was saying, after her brain caught up with her mouth. ‘It looks like the fleet will have a fast run to the oil rigs, and with the north-easterly strengthening tonight we might even see the maxis breaking the record for the five hundred and sixty-five-nautical mile event.’

Lucy powered through her report on sailing conditions, the fleet and even a little history on the race itself, which was celebrating its centenary. By the end of the live cross, she could even feel her nerves subsiding a tiny bit.

‘Thank you, Lucy,’ Rolly said after she wrapped up her piece.

She waited another twenty seconds until her earpiece went dead and she could no longer hear the sound from the studio. Then she let out a sigh. She’d got through it. Her first live cross.

‘Okay,’ the cameraman said, giving nothing away on Lucy’s performance. ‘They’re coming back to us in an hour.’

‘That’s good.’ She guessed they wouldn’t have bothered if she’d screwed that one up. She took several deep breaths until she could feel her heart rate return to normal, and then she smiled to herself. She’d done it! And now that it was all over, she was actually enjoying the buzz of it.

‘Better you than me,’ a sports guy from
Asia Daily
said. ‘I couldn’t imagine anything worse than talking to the world like you just did.’

Lucy leant against a rail, collecting her thoughts. ‘Actually, it’s pretty fun. But probably not for everyone.’

The reporter nodded. ‘I guess it’s okay if you’re used to it, like you are.’

Lucy smiled. ‘My first time today.’

The reporter looked surprised. ‘You looked pretty relaxed!’

Lucy smiled again. ‘Thanks.’ Now she was flying.

By the time Lucy had finished her third live cross for the afternoon she was feeling almost like an old pro. She still got nervous every time Rolly crossed to her, but she managed to keep her head and mouth connected, and that made things a lot easier. She never got to the relaxed stage, but she was able to digress from her prepared scripts and offer some spontaneous commentary.

She hadn’t really had a choice; halfway through her second live report, one of the smaller yachts had come so close to the media launch that you could see the whites of the crew’s eyes. Everyone on board had gasped. Lucy carried on without missing a beat, running through the features of the boat that nearly hit them. That was the only time Han offered her any feedback at all.

‘Not too bad,’ he told Lucy. From a low reactor like him, it was high praise.

It was just after her last live cross that Lucy finally had time to kick back and actually enjoy the race. It was way more exciting than she’d imagined, with the three maxis battling for lead position on their way to the oil rigs.
Impetuous
was just ahead of the other two.
Hound Dog
powered along just behind, its massive sails blocking out the sky, its black hull slicing through the water, the crew on board a blur of matching black shirts. The boat was fast approaching the media launch.

Hound Dog
was almost on them before the skipper spun the wheel, dragging the boat through the wind. The crew leapt to the other side of the boat, the winches whirred and the sails cracked. That’s when Lucy’s jaw almost fell to the deck – and it wasn’t the excitement of the race that shocked her; it was the crew. She noticed something she should have spotted hours before. The crew weren’t wearing black, they were in grey – identical polo shirts with two letters on the pocket:
H.D.

The package she’d been given in the Art Bar was a crew shirt for
Hound Dog.

Lucy grabbed her handbag and fumbled through the contents looking for the gold key. Her hand was shaking when she finally pulled it out. She studied the initials,
H.D.
, then turned it over and looked at the dragon. She wondered what the key opened. Was it something as harmless as a locker, or was it much more interesting – a safety deposit box, or a secret compartment on the yacht? The possibilities were endless.

May the wind favour you,
she thought to herself, her mind drifting back to the Art Bar. Was Miss Chan part of the crew, or was there more to the
arrangement
, as the guy in the safari suit had called it? Byron was sure to know the answer to that, but he still hadn’t returned her text. Even a
No
from him would have been better than complete silence.

Lucy skimmed through her messages again to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. There was nothing from Byron but the text from Saturday morning, when they had arranged to meet at Vue. She gazed at the kisses on the end of the message for a moment, feeling an unexpected pang of longing, and then she sent off another message.

Hi Byron

I really want to talk about what happened on Saturday night.

Can we meet?

Lucy

She pressed the send button, hoping for a quick reply from Byron. She was already getting flutters at the thought of seeing him again.

‘You all done?’ the sports guy from the
Daily
asked, taking up a position at the rail beside Lucy and interrupting her thoughts.

‘Pretty much,’ Lucy smiled. ‘Still got a few things on my mind. What do you know about
Hound Dog
? Any idea who owns it? A
pan-Asian syndicate
according to the news release. What does that mean?’

The
Daily
guy shrugged. ‘I don’t know much about the owners – a bunch of local businessmen, as far as I know. They’re the underdogs of the maxis for this race. The crew’s hardly had a chance to see the boat, let alone get to know her; she’s just come out of her crate from the U.S. ’

‘Any idea who would know more about the owners of
Hound Dog
?’ Lucy asked, intrigued.

‘Well, there were a few
Hound Dog
support crew at the club this morning. They might still be around.’

Lucy nodded. ‘Okay. Thanks, I’ll check.’ Trying to piece together the snippets of information, Lucy returned her gaze to the big yachts as they raced towards the horizon. The snippets weren’t going together very easily at all, and she needed to know a lot more before she could decide if there was a story or if it was just a case of a harmless mix-up over a sailing shirt and locker key. She made plans to meet the crew back at the newsroom and was first off the media launch when it returned to the marina.

‘Anyone here from
Hound Dog
?’ she asked an official as she raced into the clubhouse. The guy directed her to the pool terrace.

Lucy knew she didn’t have long to check on the owners of
Hound Dog
. She still had to get back to the office to edit a final piece on the race for the late sports news. She rushed outside to the terrace, where she could see a guy in a grey
Hound Dog
shirt. He was sitting at a table with his back to her and his face in his laptop. Lucy paused for a moment to compose herself before she approached him. But before she had a chance to take another step towards him, the guy turned around and his face froze. He looked almost as shocked as she felt.

It was Byron.