The Amber Trail (19 page)

“
Trouble at home?”
Dig said.

Jules’ lips thinned. “I had a car
accident, and the police want to lock me up for it.”

“
What
happened?”

“
Ran over my step
dad. Put him in wheelchair.”

“
Man. That's pretty
hectic.”

She shrugged and blew on her
chai. “He won't be beating on Mum again.”

Dig raised his
eyebrows.

“
So I came to Goa.
And for a while things were good. Nice beaches. Lots of friendly
people and big nights out. Got caught up in the whole atmosphere.
Then Shiv offered me a few shifts in the bar in exchange for free
board and some spending money—and well, it was too easy to
refuse.”

“
Mind if I ask how
you ended up with him?”

Jules’ eyebrows drew together.
“He was different when I first met him...friendly...caring even. He
used to make me dinner. Maybe I didn’t think it through at the
time, but he helped me through a pretty tough stage. But the longer
I stayed, the harder it was to leave. Before I knew it, I was part
of the whole business and getting into the...extras.”

“
The opium in that
place seemed pretty rampant.”

She blinked. “I mostly had it
under control. But yeah, with the amount of free stuff floating
around it was hard not to get involved.” She placed her elbows on
her knees, and leaned forward with her chai cupped in her hands.
“But once Max found out we were together she lost it. Told him he
was putting the whole business at risk. Threatened to cut him out.
He changed after that—resented me or something. Didn’t trust me
around other guys. Started getting violent.” She stared out the
window. Wide fields of rice and maize ran out to the horizon in
rows, dotted with farmers driving bull ploughs through the earth.
Jules sighed. “Chook figured out I was struggling and came over to
get me. Wanted me to go home and face up to things. Get the family
back together. But it wasn’t that easy. I wasn’t ready to deal with
it. So...I blocked it all out, and pretended it would get better.”
She took a sip of chai, then shook her head and stared at her cup
for a long moment before looking up. “What was your argument with
Max about anyway?”

Dig explained everything that had
happened over the last week. The funeral, Shiv’s visit to Sydney,
and then his efforts to track down Max. Jules listened, and as the
story progressed she frowned.

“
Why would they
bother exporting them? Seems pretty risky.”

Dig shrugged. “More money I
guess.”

“
That doesn’t sound
like Max. She wouldn’t trust just anyone with those
hops.”

“
Well we used to get
regular deliveries. The hops were used for our most popular beer.”
He scratched at his face. “But all that opium bioengineering
stuff...it doesn’t make sense. I know for a fact our beer back in
Oz wasn’t as potent as the stuff back there in the brewhouse. It
tasted the same...but at the end of the day it was just a normal
beer.”

“
There wouldn’t have
been enough in there for you to notice.”

Dig looked at her
blankly.

Jules sighed. “They produce two
types of beer at the Banyan. One is the raw material, the
unrefined, strong stuff they only sell under the table at the
brewhouse. With the normal batches they sell commercially, they
extract almost all the opiate during the brewing process until it
scrapes under the relevant regulations.”

Dig nodded. “Packages,” he said
under his breath.

“
What?”

“
Packages,” Dig
repeated. “That’s what Dad was doing back home. Extracting the
opiate during brewing and passing it back to Shiv in packages for
distribution.”

Jules nodded and pulled back her
hair, exposing a slender neck and earrings made of small white
shells. “I bet your beer was popular too, like the refined version
of Banyan Bitter.”

Dig frowned. “It was very
popular. It was becoming the biggest selling Pale Ale in
Australia.”

“
That’s
understandable. With all that trace opiate still in it.”

“
But that can’t be
legal?”

“
Don’t you get it? As
long as it’s below the legal limit it is. It’s the same principle
that some big cola companies use.”

Dig furrowed his brow.
“Huh?”

“
Cola,” Jules
repeated. “They still use coca leaf extract as part of their
recipe...the same type of leaf that cocaine’s produced
from.”

“
That’s got to be
bullshit.”

“
It’s not. The
cocaine gets extracted from the leaf until it gets below the
regulatory limit—but the flavour’s still there.”

“
That’s
nuts.”

Jules shrugged. “That’s common
knowledge.”

“
What about Banyan
Bitter then?”

“
Even worse,” Jules
said. “The trace opiates in the beer trigger subtle cravings for
every person who’s ever had opiate based products in their
lives—and that’s not just for drugs like opium and heroin, it also
applies to people who have taken things like codeine, an addictive
drug found in over the counter pain medicine.”

“
But that’s pretty
much everyone.”

“
Exactly.”

Dig shook his head. “So that’s
why the beers are so popular. The flavours tap into opiate
cravings.”

Jules nodded. “And that’s why Max
is so keen to keep it a secret.”

Dig blinked rapidly. “We’re
totally stuffed here aren’t we?”

“
For
sure.”

“
They aren’t going to
let us walk away from here.”

“
No
chance.”

“
What the hell are we
going to do?”

“
I don’t know.” Jules
rummaged through her pack. “But we need to get off this train. They
know we’re on it.”

“
Big
time.”

The man in the seat opposite them
had woken up and was now eating yellow rice from a plastic bowl.
Across the aisle, an elderly couple sat together. Their possessions
were balled between them in a faded blanket. Through the window
behind them a mountain range tracked past a gloomy sky, and a
multi-coloured bird floated through the air.

The brakes squealed and the train
began to slow. Jules straightened and leaned out the window. Her
forehead furrowed. “The next stop’s coming.”

Dig nodded.

THE TRAIN CRUISED INTO THE STATION
and shuddered to a stop with a hiss. As they rose from their seats,
Dig glanced through the window to check the platform. People
crowded against the doors of the train
.
M
en dragged bags across the platform tiles and women hoisted
children onto their hips.

Dig looked past the crowds to the
station building behind, and his eyes caught on a group of figures
standing against the weathered brick wall. One of the men scanned
the crowd. Dig’s stomach fell when he recognised him. It was Shiv,
wearing a dour expression.

Dig dropped to a squat and shook
Jules by the wrist. “He’s here again!”

“
Shiv?”

“
Outside!”

She looked out the window,
grimaced, and ducked down beside Dig. “Damn it.”

“
We can’t get off.
Let’s just see what he does.”

They sat on their heels inside
the passage of the train, keeping out of sight. Passengers crowded
past them through the aisle, pulling luggage. Vendors holding trays
of samosas followed behind.

Eventually a whistle blew—long
and loud, and Dig snuck a glance above the sill. Shiv looked up and
down the platform. Suddenly, the train gave a jerk forward and
began to accelerate. Shiv nodded to the thugs beside him, and the
three men jogged toward the head of the train.

“
I think they’re
going to get on.”

“
Where?”

“
A couple of
carriages up.”

Jules bit at her lip. “We’ve got
to get off.”

They scampered through the
carriage toward the rear exit, keeping low—but by the time they
reached the doorway the end of the platform had dropped away to a
blur of ballast and concrete. “Too late,” Dig said.

Jules pressed her palm against
her forehead. “Shit.” Her chest rose and fell rapidly.

“
Come on. We need to
hide.”

They hurried through the carriage
toward the back of the train. As they moved, Dig scanned the
carriage for a place to take cover, but there was nothing. The
seats remained full of people
,
the
baggage areas
were
jammed with
luggage.

At the start of the next
carriage, a side door revealed a toilet—dank and dirty and smelling
like an open sewer. It was a small space, with barely enough room
to squat over a shit-streaked hole in the floor. Above it, a
cracked mirror hung above a murky metal sink. Dig glanced at Jules.
She grimaced, put the back of her hand to her nose, and shook her
head. They continued on.

The seats in the next carriage
were also full, and they moved through quickly, casting furtive
glances over their shoulders. At the end of the second carriage,
their path was blocked by a closed metal door, marked with a sign
that read
Guard Compartment
. A steel garbage bin was fixed
to the wall beside the door, full of crumpled newspapers and
plastic drink containers.  

“
That’s it.” Jules’
eyes were wide.  “No more carriages.”

Dig swore, then looked around
him. “You smoke right?”

“
Yes,” she said in a
strained voice.

“
Give me your
lighter.”

Her brow furrowed before she
unzipped a pocket in her skirt and handed it to him.

“
I’ll be back in a
sec.” Dig sifted through the garbage bin beside the door and
extracted some newspapers and drink containers. He then ran back
through the passenger cabin.

When he reached the toilet, he
dropped the newspapers to his feet and began ripping the pages
away, rolling them up into crude balls and throwing them onto the
floor. He continued until he had covered the cubicle in paper. He
placed the empty plastic water bottles on the centre of the pile,
and with a shaking hand he knelt down and held the lighter to the
bottom of the heap in several places.

The flames flickered small at
first, then climbed and spread throughout the pile. As the heat
intensified, Dig pulled the door to the toilet closed. He peered
into the next carriage and sucked in his breath as three men
entered. Shiv had arrived.

Dig ran back down the aisle to
where Jules was standing at the end of the train with her hands on
her hips. “What’s going on?” she hissed.

“
Shiv’s coming. Next
carriage.” He reached out to the Guard Compartment door and rapped
on the metal.

He waited a few moments, then
pounded again, the force biting into the point of his knuckles.
“Come on...” he said under his breath, and glanced back over his
shoulder.

The handle turned and the door
creaked open enough for a man in a faded blue shirt and peaked
black cap to ease his head through the gap. “Yes?”

“
Hey. There’s a fire
in the toilet of the next carriage. There’s smoke coming out from
under the door.”

The man looked at him blankly.
“In the toilet?”

“
Yes. You should
hurry!” He turned and pointed into the carriage— now filled with
the brown haze of burnt plastic.    

The man opened the door and
squinted further down the train. Strained voices  now echoed
down the aisle. He nodded, adjusted his hat, and hurried into the
carriage.

Before the door to the guard’s
compartment swung closed, Dig threw his foot out to catch it
between the door and the frame. He glanced behind him, but the
guard was already halfway down the coach.

Dig pried the door open. “Come
on.” Jules followed him in, and he pulled the door shut with a
click.

The guard’s compartment was a
small room with a desk
in front of
a rear
facing window. The room stunk like stale cigarette smoke, and was
flanked by open doorways on both walls with only links of chain
separating the compartment from the speeding ballast below. A
chipped speaker hung from the ceiling. Behind the train
,
the tracks ran away at a rapid pace.

The train bounced to the left,
and Dig put a hand out to steady himself. “Looks like we’re stuck
in here for now.”

Jules fingered her necklace, then
sat on the floor with her back to the door. “I can’t believe they
got here so fast. They must have sped from Goa.”

Dig pressed his ear against the
door, listening. All he could hear was the clackety-clack of the
wheels below. The smell of burning plastic intensified, and a plume
of brown smoke choked the air behind the train.

Jules pointed to the base of the
door, where a sliver of light beamed through the gap between it and
the floor. A shadow materialised in the light. They held their
breath.