Seymour noticed that they didn’t always seem to remember her name correctly. One called her Debbo and another called her Kaye, but when he asked her why, Angie said carelessly, ‘Oh, that’s nothing, they’re just nicknames. You always cop nicknames when you work in racing stables. You didn’t know I used to do that, did you? I was a strapper, only the trainer I worked for was a real creep, so I chucked it in. But I really liked working in those stables, except the part about having to get up so early and the boss being such a jerk. You should have seen how I looked when I was taking horses to the races—skin-tight white jodphurs and a pair of gorgeous hand-made boots. They belonged to a famous jockey, those boots, Clive Trelawney, and don’t you go telling me you’ve never ever heard of Clive Trelawney, or I’ll thump you! Anyway, those boots hardly had a scratch on them and they were real kid-leather, but he was throwing them out, so I struck it lucky. Some of those top jockeys get very fussy about what they wear. Wow, you could hardly speak to me when I was wearing those boots! Jockeys usually have small feet, see, to match the rest of them, and they fitted me because I’ve got small feet, too.’

‘Have you still got those boots? Can I try them on some time?’

‘I don’t know where they are now,’ Angie said ruefully. ‘I moved around a fair bit last year, all over the place, up in Sydney for a while, then back here, stayed in a flat with some mates, I’ve forgotten half of the places. Some of the things I’d stored at home, but Mum had a cleaning fit and chucked stuff out. You lose a heck of a lot of things when you move around. But if those boots ever turn up again, I’ll let you have them to keep. No, honest, I mean it. Then we could go out horse riding one Saturday. There’s this terrific place I know out in the hills and it’s not just a namby-pamby little riding school, either. You can hire a proper horse and go across country all day. But enough of that now, let’s get down to business.’

Before Seymour could come to terms with the unlikely mental picture of himself riding fearlessly across country, she had found a vacant bench under a tree and was busily going through her form guide. Seymour was content to sit for a while, letting the cheerful, highly charged atmosphere lap about him, elated to be part of it and sitting next to Angie in her eye-catching Secret Agent outfit. She was concentrating very hard, her tasselled pencil darting like a dragonfly down the list of names.