you are in Australia?’
‘That’s because I drained my bank account and maxed out my credit cards to buy them. Some of them, I think, are rare. Seventeenth, eighteenth-century. I suspect one may be by Tamakada, circa 1775. I need to get into Sydney to get Grayson Darling, an expert on netsuke, to authenticate them and hopefully buy them from me. Then I’ll have plenty of money to stay in your precious, I mean, lovely country.’
‘What are they worth?’
Rowan tipped her head. ‘Fifteen at an average of two thousand pounds each. So, between twenty and thirty thousand, maybe more.’
The troll’s jaw dropped open. ‘You’ve got to be...joking!’ She leaned across the table and her face radiated doubt. ‘I think you’re spinning me a story; you look like every other free-spirited backpacker I’ve seen.’
Rowan, not for the first time, cursed her long, curly, wild hair and her pretty face, her battered jeans, cropped shirt and well-used backpack. ‘I’m a traveller but I am also a trader. It’s how I—mostly—make my living. I can show you the deed of sale for the netsuke...’
Officer troll flipped through her passport. ‘What else do you sell, Miss Dunn?’
‘You’ve gone through my rucksack with a fine-tooth comb and I’ve had a body search. You know that I’m clean,’ Rowan said wearily. She’d been here for more than six hours—could they move on, please? Pretty please?
‘What else do you sell, Miss Dunn?’
God! Just answer the question, Rowan, and get this over with. ‘Anything I can make a profit on that’s legal. Art, furniture, antiques. I’ve flipped statues in Buenos Aires, art in Belize, jewellery in Vancouver. I’ve worked in construction when times have been lean. Worked as a bar tender when times were leaner. But mostly I buy low and sell high.’
‘Then why don’t you have a slush fund? A back-up plan? Where is the profit on those deals?’
Fair question.
‘A large amount is tied up in a rickety house I’ve just co-bought with a friend in London. We’re in the process of having it renovated so that we can sell it,’ Rowan admitted.
And the rest was sitting in those little statues. She knew that at least one, maybe two, were very valuable. Her gut was screaming that the laughing Buddha statue was a quality item, that it was by a famed Japanese artist. She hadn’t planned to wipe out her accounts but the shopkeeper had had a figure fixed in his head and wouldn’t be budged. Since she knew that she could flip the netsukes for two or three times the amount she’d paid for them, it had seemed like a short, acceptable risk. Especially since she knew Grayson—knew that he wouldn’t quibble over the price. He was the best type of collector: one with deep and heavy pockets. Pockets she couldn’t help lighten unless she got into the blinking country!
‘The reality is that you do not have enough money on your person to last you two days in Australia.’
‘I explained that I have friends...’
The troll held up her hand. ‘Your not having enough funds has made us dig a little deeper and we’ve found out that you overstayed the visa—by six months—on your South African passport.’
Crrr-aa-aa-p!
Rowan felt her stomach sink like concrete shoes. That had happened over eight years ago, which was why she always used her UK passport to get into Oz. She’d been into the country four times since then, but they had finally picked up on her youthful transgression.
Bye-bye to any chance of getting into Oz any time in the next three years. Hello to a very sick bank account for the foreseeable future, to doing the deal with Grayson over the phone—a situation neither of them liked—or to finding another netsuke-mad collector who would pay her well for her gems. There weren’t, as she knew, many of them around.
‘You are not allowed to visit Australia for the next three years and you will be on the first flight we can find back to South Africa. In a nutshell, you are being deported.’
Rowan looked up at the ceiling and blew a long stream of air towards the ceiling. It was the only place in the world where she, actively, passionately, didn’t want to go. ‘Crap.’
The troll almost smiled. ‘Indeed.’
* * *
Sixteen hours later Rowan cleared Immigration at OR Tambo International in Johannesburg and, after picking up her rucksack, headed for the nearest row of hard benches. Dropping her pack to the floor, she slumped down and stared at her feet.
What now?
Unlike many other cities in the world, she didn’t know Johannesburg, didn’t have any friends in the city. She had one hundred pounds in cash in her wallet and thirty US dollars. Practically nothing in both her savings and current accounts and her credit cards were maxed out. All thanks to that little out-of-the-way antique shop in Denpasar...
Stupid, stupid, stupid, she berated herself. What had she been thinking? She’d been thinking that she’d triple her money when she flipped them.
‘Hey.’
Rowan looked up and saw a young girl, barely in her twenties, take the seat next to her.
‘Do you mind if I sit here for a bit? I’m being hassled by a jerk in that group over there.’
Rowan cut a glance to a group of young men who were just drunk enough to be obnoxious. One of the pitfalls of travelling alone, she thought. How many times had she sat down next to a family or another single traveller to avoid the groping hands, the come ons and pick-up lines. ‘Sure. Take a seat. Coming or going?’
‘Just arrived from Sydney. I saw you on the plane; you were a couple of rows ahead of me.’
‘Ah.’
‘I’m catching the next flight to Durban. You?’
‘Haven’t the foggiest.’ Rowan tried to sound cheerful but knew that she didn’t quite hit the mark. ‘I was deported from Oz and I’m broke.’
Bright blue eyes sharpened in interest. ‘Seriously? How broke?’
‘Seriously broke.’ Rowan lifted her heels up onto the seat of the bench and rested her elbows on her knees. ‘C’est la vie.’ She looked at her new friend, all fresh-faced and enthusiastic. ‘How long have you been travelling for?’ she asked.
‘Six months. I’m home for a family wedding, then I’m heading off again. You?’
‘Nine years. Can I give you some advice...? What’s your name?’
‘Cat.’
‘Cat. No matter what, always have enough money stashed away so that you have options. Always have enough cash to pay for an air ticket out of Dodge, for a couple of nights in a hostel or hotel. Trust me, being broke sucks.’
She’d always lived by that rule, but she’d been seduced by the idea of a quick return. She’d imagined that she’d be broke for a maximum of three days in Sydney and then her bank balance would be nicely inflated.
It sure hadn’t worked out that way... Deported, for crying out loud! Deported and penniless! Rowan closed her eyes and wondered if she could possibly be a bigger moron.
‘Can I give you a hundred pounds?’ Cat asked timidly.
Rowan eyes snapped open. Her wide smile split her face and put a small sparkle back into her onyx-black eyes. ‘That’s really sweet of you, but no thanks, honey. I do have people I can call. I would just prefer not to.’
Look at her, Rowan thought, all fresh and idealistic. Naïve. If she didn’t get street-wise quickly the big bad world out there would gobble her up and spit her out. Travelling in Australia was easy: same language, same culture, good transport systems and First World. Most of the world wasn’t like that.
‘Your folks