Skye kept one hand on the front door, looked me over, and gave a sort of laugh. I wasn�t sure if she would even remember me, but right away she said, �Rob,� in a low drawl, �you used to seem so tall.� She stood with one bare foot on top of the other. Her toenails were painted glittery pink. A teenager now.

�Hello, Skye,� I said.

�Oh, hello yourself.� She opened the door wide enough to let me in. �Virginia�s here somewhere,� she said, and gestured with a sloppy wave.

The back of the house was crowded with people; it was Fred�s sixtieth. I�d been invited to the party but had come really for Virginia, Skye�s older sister. Afternoon sun spilled in through the open doors leading out to the deck. The house � an enormous 1970s monstrosity � was perched at the east end of the Balmain peninsula. Ugly from the street, but you forgot about that ugliness as soon as you stepped inside. It was all redeemed by the view through the wall of glass that looked over the harbor toward the bridge. There was a mooring for the family�s aging sailboat below.

Houses around them had been renovated or torn down and replaced with designer mansions since the last time I had visited, but nothing had changed at the Dawson house. The Berber carpet was worn through practically to the boards and the wood paneling was scratched; the durable Scandinavian modernist furniture had been recuperated by fashion and was cool again. I caught sight of Fred out on the deck, a bottle in his hand, his white linen shirt open at the neck by one button too many. I looked for Virginia. Everyone else at the party was about Fred�s age: women with hair dyed orangey henna red and spectacles with brightly colored frames, men wearing Hawaiian shirts and smoking cigarettes. I recognized the local member of parliament in his shorts and Blundstone boots, beer in hand, arguing with a woman drinking from a can. It was old Balmain, aging bohemians, the generation who had bought workers� cottages down the street from the housing commission flats and derelict Victorian terraces by the water in the seventies and eighties when it was cheap, and were now sitting on millions of dollars of real estate. Writers and teachers and social workers and artists, and some of them, like Fred, men who dealt in money. I never knew exactly what his work entailed: he just said �finance,� and grimaced. He was the money and his wife, Maureen, was the artist, a playwright. At university, one of her plays had been on the list of readings for an English course I�d taken, although I never actually read it. Virginia would change the subject if it ever came up.

Maureen waved at me from across the room and made her way over, voluptuous and perfumed and wearing a dress that seemed to be made of a hundred silk scarves sewn haphazardly together. She kissed me and I could feel the trace of lipstick on my cheek, the corner of my mouth. Her eyes were sharp and dark. She winked. �Robert,� she said, �we�ve missed you.� She squeezed my hand, her rings pressing uncomfortably against my fingers.

Virginia sidled up to us. �Here you are,� she said. She was wearing a man�s mirrored sunglasses, metal rimmed, oversized, and narrow trousers that showed how thin she had become. Maureen let me go and drifted away. �Why don�t you have a drink?� Virginia said, in an accusing way, as though she were scolding me for being so empty-handed.

I had been sober for several days after the kind of hangover that makes you think about giving up drinking, but I wasn�t that committed to the idea. She led me to the kitchen and elbowed people aside to get to the fridge, and pulled out a bottle of Riesling. �The wine out there is terrible,� she said, nodding toward the deck. �Someone brought a cask.� She pushed the fridge door closed. �Dad told me he�d run into you.�

I had gone to Circular Quay the day after I flew in to Sydney with the idea of riding a ferry to Manly, wanting to get out of the city as soon as I arrived, but the ferry to Birchgrove had been about to leave, and I gave in to the idea, knowing it would take me by her house. Fred was on his way home; he had seen me just a minute before his stop, and shook my hand for too long. He�d invited me to this party. �It will be really good to see you,� he�d said, beguilingly sincere, in that way he had of making you believe every commonplace he uttered.

I had thought about calling Virginia or sending her a message letting her know I would be there, but didn�t. The last e-mail had been two years earlier, and she hadn�t written back. It had been one of those e-mails I read the day after with another one of those hangovers and found it hard to remember actually writing, and regretted sending. I had written things that I probably shouldn�t have, and I gave myself a hard time about it for a while, and wrote an apology and then deleted it. I heard that she went through with it, got married, and I wrote another message congratulating her and deleted that too. There had been others composed and trashed since then, most recently in the weeks before I decided to come back.

She pushed the wine bottle into my hand and I followed her upstairs to her old bedroom. The smell in the hallway was the same: the piney scent of Radox bath salts, a note of mildew from the water, the dusty smell of the carpet. Her room had a small balcony and we sat there on wooden boards hot from the day�s sun. She had collected a couple of glasses on the way and held one out for me to fill. I hadn�t seen Julian. I felt sure that he wasn�t here, although I knew that this was just me projecting what I wanted to be true. But then she swallowed a big mouthful of her drink and gestured loosely toward the balcony doors, to the room inside. �I�m back here for the moment,� she said, and I looked back inside and saw what I hadn�t noticed, the thing she was explaining. The bed half made, the clothes draped on the armchair, and things strewn on the dresser, a lipstick, a book. �Julian�s away for work. I hate being at the flat on my own.�

Someone at the party on the deck below shrieked with laughter, probably Maureen, and there was the sound of glass breaking. Virginia pushed the sunglasses up the bridge of her nose.

�So, tell me about London. What the fuck are you doing back home?�

I started to tell her a bit about it, leaving out the reasons for returning.

�Virginia?� Skye was standing in the doorway of the bedroom. �Mum asked me to get you. Speech time.�

�Are you making a speech?� I asked.

�No,� Virginia said. �Maureen.�

Maureen was tapping a champagne flute with a fork when we arrived downstairs. It seemed rude to leave, so I stayed, standing at the back of the crowd. There was singing and toasts, a cake, a huge pavlova. I looked for Virginia, wanting to say goodbye. Fred pulled me aside and handed me a bottle of beer and a paper plate with a slice of pavlova on it. Strawberries drowned in clots of meringue and cream.

�There you go,� he said. �Pavlova and beer in hand, water view, you�re back in Sydney alright.� He smelled of beer and expensive aftershave, a perfumer�s idea of the beach. �You found Virginia?�

I said that I had.

�She�s moved back in for a while,� Fred told me. �Doing some renovations on that flat of theirs.�

I nodded at what was obviously a lie.

�You were friends with Julian, right?� He used the past tense, and I thought it was probably because the friendship was in the past, but it made it sound as though Julian himself was in the past, as though he were dead. The idea didn�t bother me as much as it should have. �Heard any news of him?� he asked, and took a long swig of his beer, looking away from me.

�No, I haven�t been back that long.� The idea of a conversation with Fred about Virginia�s relationship was about as appealing as the thought of a swim in the polluted waters of the harbor below. But I felt sorry for Fred, who seemed to be on the verge of saying something more, a worried expression on his face. �What�s the story?� I asked.

�It�s been five weeks,� he said. �No word from him. He and Virginia were having some trouble I think, but nothing serious. And then.� He lifted his hands as though describing an explosion. �Nothing.�

�He took off?�

�No phone call, nothing. Not answering his phone or e-mail, Facebook, whatever. No offense, I know the two of you had your falling out. I just thought you might have heard something. If you�re still, ah, in touch with that old crowd. Virginia�s just, she�s been wrecked by it.� I thought of the cool way she had adjusted her glasses, the way she drank her wine. She didn�t seem wrecked. But she was good at hiding things.

�Was he still working for you?� I asked.

�Yes. Left me in the lurch a bit with a couple of things.� He waved as though brushing away a mosquito. �But that�s neither here nor there.�

�I�m not in touch with that old crowd, not that much,� I said, using his words. The crowd of dealers and users that had been a big reason to leave Sydney before I found myself arrested or worse. Julian had been part of it, but it always seemed like a part-time interest for him, a hobby. His uncle was a judge. His father was a solicitor, with a house in Cremorne that made Fred�s look like a boat shed. Julian was just passing time before entering that kind of life; they would have bailed him out if any kind of serious trouble had loomed, or spirited him away to dry out if his habit got out of control. Which it never seemed to do. When he started working for Fred, I thought he had taken that step into the world of money and privilege. That happened just after he started seeing Virginia. Or just after he started seeing her publicly. I found out later that before she broke up with me, she had been sleeping with him for months. It was hard to muster any concern for Julian.

It had been me who had introduced him to Virginia, when I brought him along to a party at the Dawsons� one weekend. He was the new kid at school in our final year, arriving with rumors that he had been expelled from two others. Parents loved him, with his easy, disarming smile, his apparent lack of teenage angst, his guileless charm, his storybook name. I fell for it myself, but I was disappointed in Virginia when she fell for it too.

�Was he in any trouble?� I asked. Maybe he hadn�t left the old crowd after all.

I expected Fred to say no and I think he was about to. But he said, �I�ve started to wonder.�

I hadn�t tasted my beer and it was impossible to eat the pavlova while holding it. I looked for a place to put both of them down before I left.

�His parents have been to the police.� Fred shook his head. �It�s not like him to disappear like that.� He seemed to be wounded on his own behalf as much as Virginia�s. Julian was easy to love, and Fred was someone who loved people easily. �I�m used to seeing you with your camera in hand,� he said, changing the subject. �You know Derek, don�t you? Derek March? He�s here somewhere.�

�I think I met him once or twice.� Derek March had been a frequent visitor to the house when I was there, often around for drinks or dinner. Decades ago he had made a name overseas with his photographs of musicians and their groupies. Now he attracted controversy with portraits of young girls and boys, posed in situations from basements to darkened playgrounds. Virginia and Skye had appeared in some of his photographs.

�What�s your situation, work wise?� Fred asked me. �I know Derek�s looking for a studio assistant.� He led me through to the big living room, where Derek March was seated in a corner talking to a young woman in black, a glass of red wine in his hand and a bottle on the coffee table in front of him. He still had that slightly emaciated Keith Richards look, his face more lined than I remembered, his deep-set eyes an unsettling pale slatey blue.

�The man of the hour!� he said when he saw Fred, raising his glass.

Fred introduced me as an old friend of the family, a great talent, just returned from overseas. March was used to young artists seeking favor. The woman sitting with him was probably one of them. His gaze grew more sober as he examined me.

�Fred said you might need an assistant,� I said. I did need work. I liked the idea of being back in a darkroom, the closeness of the space, the fumes of the magical chemicals, the concentration.

�Let�s talk,� he said. The young woman reached for the bottle. He tilted his glass toward her and she refilled it. �Come and see me at the studio. Two-forty Denis Street. Not far. Other side of Balmain.�

�Thanks,� I said. �When?�

He waved his glass around a bit so that the wine came close to sloshing over the edge. �Next week will do. You can usually find me there. Don�t make it too early.�

One of his pieces hung on the wall across from us, a photograph of Virginia. She looked as I remembered her when we met in high school, her dark hair long and wavy, her lipsticked mouth somewhere between sullen and humorous. Her face was the only spot of light in the image, shadowy trees in the background, her arm on a fence collapsing under the weight of ivy.

Fred put one hand on my shoulder. �Now excuse me while I mingle,� he said, smiling, his work done, the introduction made, the favor conferred.

Frank lived in a dive in Kings Cross filled with junkies and prostitutes. Three stories high and about a hundred years old, this hotel was either rented by the week, or by the half hour, depending on your requirements. Frank had rented room 11 for as long as he could remember, because he worked as a courier for the neighboring strip joints and clubs. Now in his midsixties, he�d done the same job for almost half a century, and was ready to pass the business on.

Frank rose at about five p.m., as he did most afternoons, and showered and shaved in the shared bathroom � a mold-furred cubicle with leaking taps and a dedicated sharps bin. Back in his own room, he dressed in his best suit � the one he reserved for funerals and court appearances. His only son, Jimmy, was turning eighteen today.

He checked the duffel bag in the wardrobe, which contained thirty-four grand in cash. Frank locked the wardrobe and shoved his revolver into his inside coat pocket. As he opened the door, he glanced again at the eviction notice lying on the floor: the Astoria had been sold to a foreign company and all tenants had to vacate the premises by the end of the week. The word on the street was that it was going to be renovated into multimillion-dollar apartments.

He stepped out onto the footpath. The neon sign from a bar across the road blinked erratically. A siren wailed in the distance. In the old days, the locals had called them �Kings Cross lullabies.� And back then he used to deliver chicken dinners and hamburgers to all the hungry strippers on eight-hour shifts stuck in joints along the Golden Mile. Now, most of the clubs had shut down due to 1:30 a.m. lockout laws. These days the only orders he received from working girls were for ice and Ecstasy.

He was to meet his son at an old haunt farther along the Golden Mile, at a restaurant that had once belonged to his first boss, Lionel Silke, the former King of the Cross. Everyone around town knew that Silke had earned his title by bribing cops, blackmailing politicians, and dealing smack. His nickname had been Sir Untouchable. Frank remembered that at the height of his fame, Silke had owned five strip clubs, as well as twelve nightclubs, six restaurants, and three illegal gambling dens. He�d also bought up a high-class brothel.

Frank strolled south down Darlinghurst Road, weaving between the scores of suited professionals pouring out of the train station on their way home from work. Most of them were carrying briefcases and muttering into headsets, not watching where they were walking, and bumping into each other. These were the kind of people who would move into his hotel, once it had been turned into slick apartments. Farther down, outside McDonald�s, Frank saw a big-breasted blonde in her late sixties wearing thigh-high boots. Doris had kept an eye on him when he�d first come to the Cross, and had once given him a spirited blow job in a darkened doorway of Kellett Lane. Doris didn�t drink or take drugs; the only times she was forced to work the streets were when she ran up too many gambling debts. Frank picked up his pace and rushed toward her � a friendly face from an easier time. But when he got closer he realized the woman wasn�t Doris at all � just a grandmother with a beehive hairdo, holding a baby in her arms.

Frank crossed the road. All his mates were now dead or in jail. There were only two or three hookers left on the street, and they were just weepy teenage girls who lived under the railway bridge down the hill in Woolloomooloo. The joint that used to be the Pink Pussycat had been renovated into a homewares store, the former sex toy shop next to it was now selling scented candles and lead light lanterns.

Through the restaurant window, he could see Jimmy sitting at the front table, clutching a can of VB, gazing out at the passing parade. Father and son locked eyes and briefly waved to each other. Jimmy had been the unintended consequence of a conjugal visit at Silverwater when Frank had been doing time. The kid had grown up with his mother, in a government flat in the coastal town of Wollongong. She was a woman who preferred rough trade in the form of men who were doing time. Jimmy was a tall, pale-skinned boy with rounded shoulders, who always looked as if he�d just been punched in the gut and was still striving to catch his breath.

Frank opened the door and they shook hands. �Happy birthday, son,� he said, motioning to the waiter. Every year they did this � celebrated Jimmy�s birth � while the mother had the son at Christmas and Easter. Frank whispered an order over the bar and sat down at the booth. In the sixties, the restaurant had been filled with dark wood furniture and had served heavy Italian food; today it was a minimalist white box with a blackboard menu featuring something called �Truffle Foam.�

He took his phone from of his pocket, turned it off, and rested it on the table. �So, how�s your mother?� he asked. He automatically took out a cigarette, remembered the new antismoking laws had just come into effect, and, sighing heavily, slid it back into its pack.

Jimmy shrugged and replied, �Or�right.�

Frank saw the kid was wearing tracky-daks. Well, that was the first thing that would have to change. And he�d have to learn to speak properly. No one in this town respected a mumbler. Or a man who couldn�t look another man straight in the eye. If nothing else, Lionel Silke had taught him that.

The champagne arrived in a silver bucket and the waiter poured them two fizzing glasses. From the blackboard menus they ordered organic pizzas topped with homemade goat cheese. Frank toasted the kid�s birthday and they both began to drink. They made small talk until the food arrived and then ate in silence.

Frank wiped his mouth with a serviette and drained his glass. �Son,� he said, �now that you�re all grown up, there�s something I need to tell you...�

Jimmy stopped chewing and met his father�s eye. �Is it about Mum?�

Frank shook his head. �No, it�s about family. My side of the family.�

Jimmy sat back and fingered the stem of his glass, waiting for him to continue.

Frank gazed through the window, watching a small package exchange hands outside the railway station. �You know it was my older sister Nell who got me my first job up here in the Cross?�

Jimmy looked at him blankly and shook his head.

�She was an exotic dancer in a few of the clubs. She worked with snakes.�

Jimmy�s eyes widened.

�And it was her idea to have someone deliver takeaway food to strippers in the clubs. I worked for tips. And boy � were they generous.�

From a passing waiter Frank ordered two shots of whiskey and asked for the bill. He explained to Jimmy that when he�d first started the business, he�d been only fifteen. Within a month or so, working every night of the week, he�d made enough money to move out of his mum�s home.

His single mother had three other kids to raise and was happy to have one less mouth to feed. Soon young Frank had set himself up in an attic room on Victoria Street, two blocks from the Golden Mile, while Nell lived on her own in a posh apartment on Macleay Street. It was the late sixties and the Cross was crawling with American servicemen on R&R from Vietnam.

The bill and the whiskeys arrived and again Frank reached for his cigarettes. �It was all going along hunky dory. Business was good.� He downed his shot and Jimmy followed. �Even Lionel Silke got me working for him. Running errands and shit like that.�

Frank picked up the bill, ran his eyes over the figures, and dumped a few notes on the table. �I got you a present, son,� he said, standing up. �But I left it back at the hotel.� He pulled a packet of Camels from his inside pocket. �C�mon, Jim, let�s walk and talk.� He patted his coat pocket and was reassured to feel the lump that was his gun.

Out on the street, Frank lit his smoke and they strolled beneath the blinking neon lights. He had no other children and was greatly relieved to have this father-son discussion. He had to tell somebody � preferably his own son � before he kicked the bucket.

�There was a time when Silke owned every joint in this town,� Frank recalled, gesturing down the street. �And even though he was a gangster, he always paid on time. And he always paid in cash.�

Jimmy nodded obediently and shoved his hands in his pockets.

�You�re probably wondering why I�m telling you all this,� said Frank. �Don�t worry. You�ll see.�

They crossed the road, dodging traffic. Frank ducked into a bottle shop and bought a liter of bourbon. Back on the footpath, he cracked the top, took a gulp, and passed it to Jimmy. They kept walking north, toward the fountain.

�Then one day,� Frank continued, lighting another Camel, �all of a sudden, it�s my eighteenth birthday. And all the girls in the clubs are making a fuss of me. And then I get this message. From Lionel Silke. To meet him in his office.�

�What�d he want?� asked Jimmy, suddenly interested.

They passed a man begging for change and Frank slipped him a note.

�What�d he want?� echoed Frank, snatching back the bottle. �Well, he wanted to show me how much I meant to him.� He pointed to a corner building across the road. �See that second floor? That was his office�� He sat down on a bench and took slow swigs of the bourbon.

Jimmy remained standing, impatiently shifting his weight from one leg to another.

�So I go up the stairs and see him standing at his filing cabinet. Suddenly he pulls out a gun and points it at me. Right at my fucking head.�

Jimmy paled and glanced around the street.

�Don�t worry, kid,� said Frank, stifling a laugh. �The next thing I know, Silke is handing me the gun and wishing me a happy birthday.�

Jimmy looked puzzled and so Frank stood up to explain. �Y�see, the Yankee sailors were bringing heroin off the ships and Silke needed a go-between to get the gear around. The gun was for my protection, see?�

The kid�s eyes widened and he nodded several times.

�And after Silke gave me the gun, he told me there was only one rule...� Frank paused for theatrical effect.

�And what was that?�

Frank pursed his lips. �Only pull the trigger in self-defense.�

He passed the bottle back to Jimmy and they continued strolling north. The sickly sweet smell of the nearby ice cream shop wafted down the footpath. Frank went on with the story, saying that his job had been pretty easy at the time: getting down to the Garden Island docks before dawn, exchanging cash for small brown parcels, and transporting them back to Silke�s office, where they�d be cut, repackaged, and sold to the dancers and customers. Silke would put up the capital and split the profits with his teenage prot�g�e.

�For a while we were pretty tight,� said Frank. �He hired me as his driver, his bodyguard, and his ear on the street. Any bullshit going down and I�d report straight back to him. He gave me heaps of bonuses...� They came to the Astoria Hotel and Frank flicked his butt into the gutter. �Life was pretty shit-hot, you know?�

Jimmy smiled crookedly and let out a burp. Frank could tell the kid was already half-maggoted � the flushed faced, the swaying head. �C�mon, son,� he said, cocking his head at the double doors.

He led the way past the dozing clerk and up a flight of stairs pocked with cigarette burns. Everything smelled of stale spew and cheap disinfectant. Frank unlocked his door, kicked the eviction notice out of the way, and ushered the kid inside. He flicked on the light and opened the bay windows overlooking Darlinghurst Road. Setting two chairs before them, he told the kid to make himself at home. For a few minutes they sat side by side in silence, passing the bottle back and forth, gazing out over the kingdom that had once been the Cross. Car horns bleated and two hookers were yelling at each other in front of the El Alamein Fountain. Still, it would never be like the old days again.

Frank rested his feet on the sill and Jimmy asked what happened next, about the business with Silke.

�A few months passed,� Frank said. He shrugged. �Life was good. Silke gave me a secondhand car. Treated me like family. Quite a few times he took my sister out and sometimes we�d all eat dinner together.� From where he was sitting, Frank could still see the window of Silke�s former office on the corner of Rosyln Street.

Jimmy shifted and crossed his feet on the windowsill too. Frank glanced at him and thought they looked like the sheriff and the deputy in some Western movie, just waiting for some trouble to gallop past their porch.

�Then one night I�m walking through one of the joints backstage when I hear this terrible ruckus. Chairs falling over. A woman screaming.� Frank took a long swig of the bottle and wiped his mouth. �So I bolt up the stairs and there is Silke, beating the shit out of Nellie. Whacking her across the face. Slamming her against walls. Dragging her across the room by her hair. Before I knew what I was doing, I had the gun in my hand. I don�t think I even aimed � I just fired the fucking thing � and the next thing I know, Silke is dropping to the ground and this gutful of blood is flying all over me.�

Jimmy pulled his legs from the sill and sat up straight.

�Then Nellie went berserk. Started yelling and whacking and punching me around. How could you do that? she screamed. After everything he�s done for you? She cuffed me in the mouth. You meant more to him than any... He treated you like a...� Frank�s voice trailed off and he shook his head. �And then it all made sense, Jimmy.�

�You killed your own boss?� asked Jimmy.

�No, fuckwit. I killed my own father. I just didn�t know it until then.�

Jimmy�s expression blanched into one of shock. He was gripping the arms of his chair as if he were trapped in a plane taking a nosedive.

�You see, Nellie was fifteen when she first came to the Cross and started working for Silke. And he was already married.�

The kid frowned and wagged his head back and forth in disbelief.

�She refused an abortion.� Frank stood up, walked to the wardrobe, and pulled out the duffel bag. �And Mum � well, my grandma, really � she raised me as her own.� He dumped the bag on the bed and gestured to Jimmy.

The kid rose and lifting the bag, yanked back the zipper. A few wads of cash dropped onto the mattress. Jimmy�s eyes widened again.

Frank drew his phone from his inside pocket and clicked on his contacts list. �Two suppliers. Seventy-eight clients. All yours.� He placed the phone beside the duffel bag. �But on one condition,� added Frank, drawing the revolver from his inside pocket.

Jimmy flinched. He went to say something but stopped himself.

�Look, I never did time for the murder.� Frank stepped closer. �Nell took the rap.�

Frank leaned forward and held the gun out handle first, but Jimmy backed away. �Can you imagine the cocksucking guilt I�ve had all my life? It�s a fucking Greek tragedy!�

Jimmy glanced frantically around the room, then fixed his eyes on the mobile phone and the bag of money.

�You haven�t got the guts, have you?�

The kid ran a hand through his hair. He sat on the windowsill and then stood up again.

�Please, son,� said Frank. �It won�t be the same if I do it myself.�

The kid cleared his throat and spat out the window. For what seemed a long time he just leaned against the sill and gazed out over the street.

�You know the saying, son: An eye for an eye.�

Jimmy turned and the two men stood staring at one another.

Finally, Jimmy extended a trembling hand to Frank. He slowly took the gun and held it in both palms.

Frank raised his arms, as if in surrender.

Jimmy lifted the revolver and aimed it straight at Frank�s head. �What the fuck?� he said. He let out a crazed laugh. �You�re not my real father anyway.�

Jazz came out onto the porch in bare feet to watch the dogfight. Day or night, there was always something going on in this park. That�s why her nan kept a special chair outside with a leather cushion; most mornings she sat out here pulling faces at people who passed. Jazz leaned on the spear-tipped fence and watched a man and a woman struggling to separate their dogs. Finally the man pulled his boxer off by the collar, yelling, �Good boy, bad girl!� The tiny white shih tzu stood her ground, baring her teeth, and her owner, an old woman with see-through hair, patted her dog�s flank and said in a voice loud enough for Jazz to hear, �Clever girl.�

Backpackers were lying around on the grass smoking dope and drinking goon. In an hour or two they�d make their way down to the clubs, pubs, and cheap eateries on King Street. Jazz had lived in her nan�s house all her life and she couldn�t imagine living anywhere else. Memorial Park and St. Stephen�s Church with its graffitied sandstone walls was her front yard, though recently at night the park attracted ice addicts and undercover cops.

Newtown was the place to be, but it wasn�t always so. When Jazz was a kid, it was a different world. Her nan would call from the kitchen, �Jazz, go get your father for dinner,� and she�d run barefoot up Church Street to the Shakespeare, push on the heavy wooden door with both hands, and through the fug of cigarette smoke find her way to the back bar where the TAB was; she�d weave a path between the big bellies and tug her dad�s sleeve, looking around at the faces of the council workers and the coppers from the Police Youth Club. When he was done drinking, her dad would squeeze her hand and she would lead him home down Crooks Lane. Most nights ended peacefully with her dad snoring in his armchair, but there were other nights when he broke a glass or chipped a tooth and his mood would turn on a sixpence, and she and Nan would retreat to their bedroom and watch TV together on the portable set, fiddling with the rabbit ears, while her father vented his rage on doors and crockery, cursing her mother for dying on them.

It still surprised Jazz how many people knew her dad, for he never became a household name, but he always gave it a go, and at his memorial service in St. Stephen�s there were over three hundred people in attendance: stand-over men, boxing trainers, Bluebags supporters, battlers from the housing commission flats, and that little rooster fella from 2GB who told everyone that �Spearsy had the heart of a champion, was a champion bloke.�

Afterward there were egg sandwiches that Jazz had cut the crusts off herself, and she heard one wag say that, �Spearsy wouldna come to his own funeral if he�d a-known there was no grog.� She�d wheeled her nan home and at five o�clock she began her shift at Liquorland.

The steam had cleared in the bathroom and Jazz dried her hair and applied mascara and her favorite dark lipstick. Her childhood was rough and ready but it wasn�t as disadvantaged as her welfare officer said. She had free range of the park and the churchyard and when she was little she�d played hide-and-seek behind the headstones. Everyone�s got misfortune in their family is what Jazz figured, and if people thought they could avoid tragedy by having truckloads of money and a four-bedroom mansion right on the harbor, they were mistaken. Her mum and dad were party people and they took her everywhere. Once they left her at the Courthouse Hotel and came back after closing time to find her eating sausage rolls and drinking lemonade with the publican�s Down syndrome grandson. You learned more about life sitting in a Newtown beer garden than you did watching Sesame Street, that�s for sure.

Those old Newtowners were a different species, the way they spoke out the sides of their mouths, the way they expressed emotion with both hands.

Jazz wasn�t abused or nothing like some of them Catholic kids and she had her nan. When he passed out dead drunk on Gardeners Road, Jazz�s grandfather was run over by a steamroller. Her dad loved telling that story, how he had to identify his father�s disfigured remains in the Glebe morgue.

Jazz zipped up her giraffe-print dress, the one Lockie liked, and slipped her feet into flats. She went down the hall to find her nan sunk in her wheelchair watching Animal Kingdom, a glass of water and a box of Arnott�s crackers on her tray. Nan liked to suck on the barbecue shapes without her teeth in. Jazz changed her nan�s bag and cleaned her face with a washer. Her phone buzzed and she read the single-word message: Parking.

�You remember Lockie, don�t you, Nan?� Her nan stared blankly at the TV. Some days she appeared to understand what was going on, but mostly she occupied a different time zone. Jazz wasn�t one of those ungrateful young women who dumped her last remaining relative in an aged-care unit; she knew how to care for old people. Before her mum died, she�d promised to buy Jazz a dog but she never did. Anyway, where would she fit a dog in a single-story, two-bedroom terrace? That�s why the park was so important. She strapped her nan�s legs securely in the wheelchair so she couldn�t fall out and squashed two ants climbing up the edge of her tray.

�Won�t be long, Nan,� she said. Lockie had something important to tell her tonight and she suspected he wanted to ask her to marry him or else move in together now that he�d finished his law degree. She�d thought it over long and hard. Her nan would have to come with them or else Lockie could move in here, help out with the showering and toileting; it hurt her back lifting Nan in and out of the tub.

Her girlfriends said she had snared the man of her dreams, tall, athletic, handsome, with rich parents. Mr. Perfect. Of course Lockie had his little kinks, but he certainly wasn�t her worst BF; she�d had her fair share of disasters in the past, and it was a pleasant change to go out with someone from the North Shore. Hunters Hill was as far removed from Newtown as you could get.

The doorbell rang while Jazz was fixing her hair. She walked down the hall and opened the door.

�You look nice,� Lockie said. He was wearing a bright pink Tommy Hilfiger polo with bone-colored chinos as if he�d dropped by for a round of golf. He leaned in close: �You smell good, what is that?�

�It�s me.�

�Nice,� he said. She stepped outside and pulled the door shut and he put an arm around her waist as they walked. Up close he smelled of cologne � too much cologne.

The iron gates to the churchyard were open and the rector was chaperoning a party of Japanese guests through the grounds. The private cemetery was popular for weddings although it struck Jazz as a strange place to get married.

Lockie had everything planned for the night. A few drinks and a seafood meal followed by sex in the backseat of his father�s car.

�We need to talk,� she said.

�Later,� he said. �Let�s enjoy ourselves first.�

She took that to mean, Don�t spoil my night, but Lockie was the one who did most of the talking. She mainly listened and tuned in and out when necessary. She was happy for him to pick the pub, book the table, and order the wine. He liked to be in control, play the grown-up. From experience, she figured it was best if she just went along with things. They walked up King Street past the Tear Down Capitalism posters, the pie and burger joints starting to fill with customers, cars and buses running bumper to bumper. When did it become fashionable to eat your dinner with a lungful of diesel fumes?

Lockie was talking but she found it hard to hear over the traffic noise. �Sorry?�

�So many weirdos out,� he said. �It�s great.�

She took that as a compliment from a Hunters Hill boy who went to St. Joseph�s College and then Sydney Uni. She didn�t hold it against him, having a privileged childhood; she was never envious of others because she had a theory that it all evened out in the end.

Lockie whispered in her ear how much he was looking forward to doing it in the X5. �Hope to Christ it�s safe parked there,� he said.

A group of shaved-eyebrow guys were staring from the Italian Bowl, checking out his rig. Unlike her previous BFs, Lockie never ogled other girls, never even glanced out the corner of his eye at a pretty girl, or commented on their attributes; it was almost as if he wasn�t interested in other women. Sometimes she asked herself if Lockie was gay, but no, he couldn�t be. He was like a horny puppy dog, always rubbing up against her, always touching her butt.

He stopped at the entrance to the hotel, checked his app to make sure this was the correct address, confirmed it was. �The crispy soft-shell crab is the go apparently,� he said. If only he�d asked her instead of Google, she could have told him this was her father�s former local, transformed into an upmarket eatery. Downstairs still retained its sour, beery, wet-carpet odor, a few gray-faced men drinking alone at dark tables, a bluish flicker from Sky Sports, a buxom barmaid playing with her split ends. No different from twenty years ago, but upstairs � Jazz couldn�t recall there ever being an upstairs � upstairs there was light and a beer garden with potted plants and climbing vines and tables that faced an open-plan kitchen where short-order cooks flipped meat and fish and red capsicum over a stone grill; there was a wine list and specials on a chalkboard and photos plastered on the walls of what Newtown must have looked like in her grandfather�s day before he was run over by the steamroller. The twin barmaids were younger than she was and fashionably pierced.

�What do you think, Jazz?� Lockie asked proudly, as if he�d built this rooftop courtyard himself. Like most men, Lockie liked to be praised for little things.

�You did well,� she said.

He went to the bar and ordered drinks: a full-strength pale ale for her and a light lager for himself.

Never trust a man who drinks light beer, her dad used to say. Or was that her mum? Neither of them had worried about drunk driving.

Jazz watched Lockie return � confident, broad-shouldered, attracting male glances.

�The marinara looks awesome!� he said.

�This used to be my dad�s old pub,� she told him. �They didn�t serve food back then, only crisps and beer nuts.�

�So much character,� he said. �My parents would love it.�

�I must meet them one day.�

�Oh, you wouldn�t like them, Jazz. They�re very left wing.�

What did he mean by that? Was he ashamed of her? Did his parents even know he had a girlfriend? Wasn�t it peculiar how you could sleep with someone, go out to dinner with them, see two Ryan Gosling movies in a row, and still never really know them? Even after eleven months she didn�t know Lockie and he sure as hell didn�t know her.

�I haven�t told you my news,� he said. �I won the Sociological Jurisprudence Prize.�

�Wow,� she said.

�One hundred forty dollars, awarded to a final-year law student.�

They toasted his success. When the plates came, he talked about how this award would improve his chances of working for an international NGO. His life stretched out in front of him like a brand-new superhighway, while hers was a bumpy, winding back road filled with potholes.

�You should do a course,� he said, sifting through his marinara for shellfish.

�Like what?�

�Bookkeeping. You can�t go on caring for that old woman forever.� Soon as he said it he tried to backtrack, mumbling through a mouthful of spaghetti how it was better for senior citizens to be with people their own age, that modern nursing facilities had improved their level of aged care exponentially.

�So what are you suggesting?�

�Let�s not discuss it now,� he said.

�You brought it up!�

He gave her a look to indicate her voice was loud. A couple at the next table glanced over so she breathed in deeply and said, �I know what I�d want if I was her age.�

�And what�s that?�

�To die in my own home.�

He didn�t argue, wasn�t going to spoil the evening. His crab, he told her, was superb. She didn�t tell him her dish, the one he insisted she order, was bland, the seafood overcooked and drowning in a watery sauce.

�Don�t look now,� he whispered, �but there�s a guy who keeps staring at you.�

The man was seated alone in the corner: coarse red hair, ruddy complexion with pitted skin. She had a feeling she had seen him somewhere but couldn�t place where.

�You know him?� Lockie asked.

�Not sure.� The guy was wearing a tight-fitting white shirt, unbuttoned to reveal the links of a gold chain. He was chewing, deep in thought, but at that moment he glanced up from his T-bone and gave her a curt nod of recognition. She leaned back in her chair.

�Looks like a cop to me,� Lockie said.

Now that Lockie mentioned it, he did look like a cop. She�d met her fair share of detectives when her father was alive. His suit jacket was slung over the back of his chair and although overweight, he had the physique of a man who used to work out. He stood up, a red napkin tucked into the belt of his trousers.

�Oh shit,� Lockie said, �he�s coming this way.�

Jazz put on the smile she used at the bottle shop. The man stopped at their table and said, �You�re Spearsy�s kid. Jasmine, right?�

�Yes,� she said.

�Just wanted to say, your old man was one of a kind. They broke the mold when they made him.� He took the red paper napkin out of his belt, wiped his mouth, then balled it on the floor near her feet. �Sorry to hear about your mother too,� he said. �Real shame what happened there. Real shame.�

She nodded.

�Just thought I�d say hi.� He made no attempt to move on toward the bar, seemed to be waiting for an invitation to join them, but Lockie didn�t offer any encouragement. Jazz sensed hostility between the two men. �Decent send-off, all them speeches, Johnny woulda been proud...�

�Sorry, I�ve forgotten your name,� she said.

�Kenny. Call me Kenny.�

�Like the movie?� Lockie put in.

�What movie?� The man gave Lockie a stare, then lowered his voice: �You wouldn�t know where I can buy some marijuana, would you, son?�

�What?�

�My niece has cancer, and smoking weed relieves the pain.�

Jazz said, �There�s a guy down at Redfern Station��

Lockie kicked her under the table. �Sorry, can�t help you.�

The man nodded as if he was weighing up his response. �Nice shirt, son. Is that peach?� And turning on his heels, he walked over to the bar, bouncing his keys in his hand.

�Told you he was a cop,� Lockie whispered.

�He didn�t like you very much,� Jazz said.

�Guy�s a creep. I thought he was going to pop the buttons on his shirt. And see that hair, some kind of wig��

�Now I know where I saw him!� Jazz cut in. �At the park.� She told Lockie about the dogfight between the shih tzu and the boxer. �The guy was the boxer�s owner but he wasn�t wearing any suit.�

�So he is a cop!� Lockie said.

�How do you figure that?�

�You told me undercover cops patrol that park looking for ice dealers.�

�Did I?�

Some men were like dogs the way they took an instinctive dislike to each other and started barking. Lockie was still yapping, worked up about this stranger standing over at the bar chatting to one of the identical barmaids.

�There�s a difference,� he said, �between entrapment and a sting operation designed to catch a person committing a crime. What he was trying to do was entrapment.�

�But you don�t sell dope,� she said.

�I would never ask a complete stranger in a restaurant where to buy marijuana, would you?�

�It�s Newtown, Lockie. Forget about it.�

�I find people like that so obnoxious.�

�Let�s get out of here.�

She led him down the stairs, through the public bar, and out onto King Street. Crowds of people swept past, car horns blaring, colored lights flashing. She felt the heat of the pavement through her shoes. They looked in shop windows and walked off their dinner in silence. When they turned onto the quiet of Church Street, Lockie was still brooding. Jazz stopped outside St. Stephen�s Church. The gate was unlocked.

�That�s odd,� she said, �the rector always padlocks it at dusk.� She pushed on the heavy iron gate which gave a rough grinding sound as it swung open.

�What are you doing?� Lockie grabbed at her arm.

�I want to show you the churchyard at night.�

�It�s trespassing.�

She steered him past her favorite old fig tree, black shapes flitting between its branches. Clouds obscured the stars and the gravestones shone in the moonlight. She showed him the monuments she liked the best: the figure of a grieving woman, a ship ploughing through the waves.

Lockie displayed no interest in these stone carvings; all he wanted to do was get back to his father�s car. �This place gives me the creeps,� he said.

�Why don�t we do it here?� she suggested.

Lockie looked around at the swaying oak trees. She could sense the idea appealed to him.

�What if we get caught?�

�Who�s going to find us?� She didn�t mention the graffiti gang who scaled the walls to spray their tags or the bicycle cops who sometimes pursued them. She didn�t mention how she used to come here with her previous boyfriend. She read the names of someone�s beloved on a cracked headstone nailed to the bottom of the wall and then she knelt and unzipped his chinos and took him in her mouth. Kangaroo grass brushed against her legs. Once, she�d asked how old he was when he�d first had his cock sucked, and he�d answered, �Fifteen. At Joey�s.�

�By a woman?�

�You�re the first,� he said. Of course she�d suspected he was a virgin, all that studying law and going to the gym left no time for girls.

He lifted up her dress and rolled down her underpants. When he laid her gently on a horizontal slab, the sandstone felt cool against her bare skin but not unpleasant. Jazz closed her eyes and let the moment carry her. His breathing grew rapid and a cricket chirped and then a jet roared low over Newtown, muffling his cries. Afterward she held onto him, not wanting him to rush off.

�We need to talk,� he said. Glistening with sweat, he rolled off her onto the worn slab. Low spiky bushes surrounded them. �Don�t get me wrong, Jazz,� he began. His voice sounded nervous. �I like being with you, I really do, but I don�t know if we�re suited. I mean, we can still be friends, see each other now and then...�

She sat up and searched for her underpants, then smoothed down the giraffe-print dress she had worn especially for him.

�There�s no other woman, if that�s what you�re thinking. I just need to focus on my career. The next few years will be critical.�

Jazz let him talk. Men always let you down, her mum used to say, you can�t rely on them for anything. What would Lockie think of her in the years to come? Would he look back on their hasty sexual encounters with fondness or would she be quickly forgotten in his scramble for success? He never said it, but this is what he thought: she was not good enough for him.

He tried a change of tone, almost jocular: �You�ll probably thank me one day, Jazz.�

Something heavy moved near the wall and Lockie jumped to his feet. He buttoned his pants and grabbed a thick branch from the ground and raced over, thrusting the bushes aside. Jazz assumed it was a dog trapped in there or one of the local taggers.

A man ran out from the bushes straight at Lockie, who yelled and brought the heavy end of the branch down hard on the guy�s head. The sound it made was like a timber crate being split with an axe. Stunned, the man swayed, mouth agape, then fell forward. His forehead struck the edge of a stone urn with a loud crack and he landed sideways on an unmarked grave, arms and legs sprawled, not moving.

Jazz ran over and knelt beside him. It was the man who�d approached them in the restaurant. She saw the depression in his skull and placed two fingers against his carotid artery. Nothing. By the light of the moon she could tell he was gone. She�d seen two dead parents up close and knew that look. Wedged between the fingers of his right hand was the smoldering remains of a joint. So he had scored, after all.

Lockie tossed the branch into the bushes and covered his face with his hands. �Oh God,� he said, �I�ve killed a cop!�

�Why�d you do that?�

�He freaked me out, he came out of nowhere, I thought he was going to rape us...�

Jazz slipped a hand inside the man�s suit jacket and found his wallet. She flipped through a bunch of store cards looking for ID and there it was, a business card: Kenny Gelder. MEMBER. REIA.

�He�s no cop,� Jazz said. �He�s a real estate agent.�

�This isn�t happening!� Lockie was taking rapid breaths and looking up at the church steeple as if praying for a miracle.

Jazz touched the man�s coarse hair. Lockie had got that wrong too; it was no wig. Poor old Kenny with his bad skin and ruddy complexion.

�I�m fucked,� Lockie said.

�Tell the police it was self-defense.�

�I can�t go to the police. My whole life would be ruined. My father is a lawyer. My grandfather was attorney general.�

�Maybe they�ll get you off then,� she said.

�What was I doing in this churchyard? Having sex on a gravestone. Oh yes, that would look brilliant for my future employment. Why�d you bring me here?� His voice rose in anger. �Why didn�t we go back to the car?�

Surely he was not trying to blame her? She had a good mind to walk away and leave him to deal with it. But Lockie started to quickly backtrack. He was not the violent type, he�d never been in a fight before, not since high school. �What am I going to do, Jazz?� His eyes begged her. She stood up and held him in the dark. The moon had slipped behind the clouds and a few faint stars were the only light source.

�I�ll help you,� she said, �but this has got to be your decision.�

He wiped his nose and nodded.

�First thing, we need to get rid of his phone; second, the cops will interview everyone at the restaurant. We tell them we last saw him talking to the barmaid.�

�What about the body?� Lockie asked, staring down with distaste.

�We dispose of it.�

�I�m not chopping it up!�

�If they find his body it�s murder, at best manslaughter. If they don�t find a body it�s a missing person. Big difference in priority.� She bent over Kenny and patted his trouser pockets, retrieved his iPhone, checked a message on the display, then snapped his SIM card in half. Poor Kenny, he was out celebrating a house sale. Who would feed his dog?

�Wait here,� she said.

�Where you going?� Lockie called after her. �Jazz...�

One thing her father had taught her was to never panic when you are in a fight; keep calm and wait for your moment. When she was twelve years of age, he took her to the gym in Erskineville, put her in with a fierce girl with cornrows who tried to knock her head off, but she did exactly what her dad had taught her, slipping and countering, sliding her feet in and out of trouble, moving her head and rolling her shoulders until that big islander girl had punched herself out. Her dad and his boxing mates cheered her on from the ropes. He never encouraged her education, never took her anywhere that didn�t involve his drinking, but she�d learned how to weather life�s blows from him.

She pulled the cemetery gate shut and walked down Church Street, flying foxes squabbling overhead, then turned onto King, pushing between crowds of diners and drinkers. She dumped the phone and the SIM card into an overflowing bin, making sure the bouncer obscured her from the hotel�s CCTV cameras. Cockroaches scuttled past her feet on the greasy pavement. After the council trucks rolled through in the early hours of the morning, there would be no sign of Kenny or his phone. She went home and found Nan asleep in front of the TV. She grabbed a short-handled spade from the old brick shed under the mango tree and rolled it up in her yoga mat. At the churchyard she pushed softly on the iron gate and crept up on Lockie, who was sitting on the edge of a tombstone, hands covering his face. The enormity of what he had done had paralyzed him into inaction.

Jazz unrolled her yoga mat. He blinked at her with self-pity then followed her cautiously along the west wall until she stopped between two gravesites overgrown with weeds and tall grass. A horizontal slab covered one of the graves, the engraved names erased by the elements. Jazz worked her spade in under one corner of the slab but couldn�t shift it. She heard the woo-hoo of a powerful owl. She looked around and tried again. What panicked her most was that underage drinkers would discover them.

Lockie removed his polo and, grunting, lifted the slab off with a pop like a tight lid coming off a jar. Underneath was a deep sunken hole where the rain had got in, giving off an earthy smell of rot. How many bodies were interred below, Jazz didn�t know; she hoped poor Kenny wouldn�t mind spending eternity on top of strangers. Together, they dragged his body over by his legs and rolled him into the hole and covered him with a layer of dirt and then maneuvered the stone slab carefully back over the top. Volunteers from the church often tidied up these neglected gravesites, but you couldn�t tell the slab had been disturbed. It was airtight and partly hidden under the Chinese elms. No one was going to bother around in there.

She dropped a branch and sprinkled leaves over the adjoining grave and rolled the spade up in her yoga mat and gave it to Lockie, who looked at her strangely, as if she had done this type of thing before.

On the way out she showed him where she had scattered her mum�s and dad�s ashes at opposite ends of the churchyard so they wouldn�t argue with each other. St. Stephen�s was her favorite parish church in the world and the only one she�d ever been inside of. Years ago, her nan knew everyone on this street, families who had lived in the same houses for generations, but that sense of community was gone. People had to look after themselves these days. She secured the heavy padlock on the iron gates and slipped her arm around Lockie�s waist. She had never known him to be so quiet. Maybe this could work out between them. She could use those gym muscles. She asked him if he would do her a big favor: �Help me carry Nan to bed?�

Without hesitation he said yes.

�I couldn�t stick Nan in a nursing home,� she told him. �We need to look after her properly...�

The word we didn�t seem to faze him. Since her father had died, she had wanted a man she could rely on, someone she could trust. That�s what a real relationship was. Of course, he would need to make adjustments. She thought of his smooth, hairless chest shining under the moonlight. Her girlfriends were right. She had snared the man of her dreams: tall, strong, handsome, with rich parents. Mr. Perfect.

The week before council collection the footpaths are stacked with people�s unwanted stuff. Snapped surfboards, plastic baby walkers, stained office chairs, and dinette sets from the eighties. Rusted-out bicycles, suitcases with broken zippers, cracked terra-cotta pots, box set televisions, and weight benches spilling foam. Alf does the drive round in his dual-fuel Falcon Ute with Marnie sitting shotgun. He keeps the engine running since the Falcon can be finicky about starting.

Marnie slides out and checks the gear over while he idles beside the curb. She knows the drill by now. Does the chair have a broken leg? Has the cord been chewed by a rat while it moldered in the garage for twenty years? Seriously, though, you wouldn�t believe what people give away. Just because two-thirds of it is crap doesn�t mean that there aren�t some genuine treasures in the remaining third.

Marnie doesn�t jump at the chance to come along these days but she still does if he insists. She sits sullen and silent beside him. Used to be it was like an adventure together, a treasure hunt, some of their best times. It�s harder and harder to know what�s going on in that head of hers now. She fixes dinner like her mum used to, puts the laundry on, and sometimes even watches the telly with him, but most of the time she�s either in her room with the door shut or present but not, looking at her phone, sending messages to the friends he�s never met since she doesn�t bring them home.

Tonight they find a bedside table with all the drawers working, a set of barbecue tongs which look like they�ve never been used, an old dog house which he�ll fix up and sell on Gumtree, and half a dozen romance novels which Marnie shoves beneath her seat. He�d have thought at fourteen she�s too young to be reading that rubbish, but he keeps his mouth shut. Since her mum died two years ago � just after Marnie got her period � he�s realized that trying to talk about those things, female things, just makes it worse. Makes her face get all splotchy, her eyes squeeze shut, and the rolls of fat around her middle shake as she cries without making a sound. She needs a mum for these things, but what�s Alf to do? Not as though he can just put an ad on Gumtree for one. And the rest of the family � his and Em�s � are back in the UK. No aunties to take the girl aside and show her how to shave her legs, how to cross them when she�s wearing a skirt or dress.

It doesn�t help, Alf thinks, driving down to Marine Parade from Lurline Bay, past the huge boxy houses with tinted windows, landscaped gardens, and backyard pools, it doesn�t help that Em and he always kept to themselves. Ever since they�d moved into their flat overlooking the rifle range and the headland at South Maroubra, they�d agreed: there�s no problem worth burdening strangers with. They kept Em�s illness quiet, the years of dialysis treatments, the long absences from work which caused him to eventually lose the council job. Ten years he drove the street sweeper. Well too. Never a gutter left clogged with wet leaves. He still finds himself angling his Ute toward curbs, hugging the very edge of the road.

He drives toward the long flat stretch of beach, rolling down his window to feel the kick of the southerly wind, and pulls over to watch the surf. It�s slate blue and churny, there�s some swell at the north end and a few board riders braving the dusk for it. There�s the salty seaweed smell he�ll never grow tired of and the stretch of promenade speckled with dogwalkers and teenagers reluctant to go home. The boxy pink North Maroubra surf club building beside the showers and picnic tables, some seagulls still scavenging in ghostly flocks. Beside the curb where they�ve pulled up, someone�s left their Macca�s rubbish, crushed cups and grease-spotted bags. Lined up on the footpath are empty bottles of VB, Tooheys New, silver blue cans of UDL. Marnie ducks her head like she always does these days, he can feel her fear like you feel a dog�s. She takes after her mum, who was never keen on the beach.

�It�s hard for a big lady,� Em used to say, �to feel comfortable parading around in next to nothing in broad daylight.�

Marnie�s built like Em, solid and only more so in the past two years. Her school uniforms they buy at Kmart because the sizes run too small at the school uniform shop. Her other clothes they buy at the Vinnie�s on Anzac Parade, and Marnie won�t even try them on, just finds the biggest-size jeans or jacket, shapeless dress, and passes them to him to take to the white-haired lady with shaky hands at the register.

�Can we have KFC for dinner?� she mumbles now, looking at the phone in her lap. It�s the first sentence she�s spoken all afternoon.

�Alright,� he agrees, on a whim. �Just this once.� It�s worth it for the quick moment she glances at him, the almost smile, before turning back to the shiny surface of her phone.

As he drives away from the beach and the breeze, up Maroubra Road into the tangle of ugly shops around the Junction, he promises himself that tomorrow he�ll start talking to her about eating healthy, about losing some weight. He�ll buy the fruit and veg he keeps meaning to buy from that nice Indian couple at the South Maroubra shops instead of the frozen dinners from Woollies they started buying when Em got sick.

I was two-out in a one-man cell in the hospital wing at Long Bay, sharing a shitter with Roman Vasari, the only other innocent bloke in the place. It was a greasy Monday in December and I was awaiting trial for the murder of my best mate Jamie � who, as far as I knew, wasn�t even dead. An angry screw escorted me to the door of the cell where the Lion King lay in his underpants, too fat to stand. The Lion King pretended he hadn�t seen me and he pulled at his cock, then he looked up and asked, �Do you know who I am?�

�You�re the Lion King of La Perouse,� I said.

His cellie handed him a chicken leg. The Lion King accepted it with his cock hand.

�Where are you from, eh?� he asked me.

�I grew up in WA,� I said.

He nodded, as if he had known. Or as if he had known I�d say that. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. �I sent for you,� he said to me, �because I heard there was a white man called Chevy in a cell with Vasari. You�re as white as fucking pavlova, but your cell plate says, Chevapravatdumrong. How does a pavlova get a name like that?�

�My dad�s Laotian,� I told him.

He laughed, as if I�d said he was a Martian. �And what the fuck is a Laotian?�

�Laos is a country next to Vietnam,� I said.

�I know where Laos is, you stupid cunt.� The Lion King picked shreds of chicken from between his teeth. He scratched around in his pants. �So you�re not white?� he said, eventually.

I shook my head.

�And you�re not yellow?�

I dropped my eyes.

�And Blind Freddy can see you�re not fucking black,� he said.

I nodded.

�Do you know what that makes you?�

I shrugged.

�Dead,� he said.

Every great love affair has its origin story. You know, the thing you tell at couples dinner parties, when people ask: �So, how did you two meet?� And ours is a doozy, although probably a little more R-rated than most.

The day I met Josh my life changed, completely, and the funny thing was that in all my twenty-one years I had never believed in the concept of romantic love, let alone love at first sight. I�d never experienced it, and always thought it was a bullshit scam, laid on by corporations to sell greeting cards and Taylor Swift records. I�d always been kind of cynical, I guess. It started at my country high school where I saw all these smart girls fall for the dumbest boys. Everyone�d be drunk at a party and the guys would tell the chicks lovey-dovey shit � anything to get a blowie or a root � and next Monday the sordid details would be online for the whole school to see; the dude wouldn�t even talk to the girl and she�d be so ashamed she�d either OD dramatically on Panadol or enroll in the Christian college on the other side of town. It was pathetic, and it was never gonna happen to me, although that did leave the problem of how to lose my virginity. By the time I was fourteen masturbation just wasn�t cutting it, and I didn�t like that other girls out there knew something I didn�t, so I set about getting that monkey off my back. There was a history teacher I liked at school, Mr. Simms, and as far as I knew none of the other girls had fucked a teacher, so I figured it would be sort of cool, you know?

�OMG,� my friend Shona said. �He�s ancient. It�s gross. He must be at least thirty-five.� She needn�t have worried because no matter how much I lingered after Mr. Simms�s class, leaning over his desk with my top button undone (and I should mention I had the biggest rack in year nine) while asking insightful questions about the impact of European settlement on indigenous people, he wouldn�t take the bait. As a young girl everyone warned me about stranger danger, and older men taking advantage, but pedophiles are like cops: there�s never one around when you need one.

I finally lost it at fifteen, when a band from nearby Port Macquarie came and played an all-ages gig in the park. Drunk on a four-liter cask of goon. Shona and the other girls were giggling and swooning over the front man, but I liked the bass player who hung back, quietly confident. After their set I went up to him, no giggling, told him I liked their songs, and asked if he wanted a line of speed. He did. It wasn�t really speed, just a few crushed-up pills my brother takes for his ADHD, but if you have enough it works. An hour later we were fucking in the back of the band�s Tarago. It didn�t hurt much and there was no blood, thank god. We were together for a while, after I left school in year ten. Long story short, I ended up with another muso, Matt, who was touring with his System of a Down cover band, and at age eighteen I moved to Sydney to live with him.

All this might make me sound like a bit of a groupie, or hanger-on, but I�m not. I like to have my own money, and my own drugs, and I don�t rely on anyone but myself. I�m ambitious, you see, and I think that�s for two reasons. One, I�ve never wanted to end up like my single mother, living dole payment to dole payment and waiting her whole life for a commission flat that never materialized; and two is a book. Now you may look at me and think, She doesn�t seem like much of a reader, and you would be absolutely right, except for this one book I�ve read literally thousands of times, ever since I stole it from the Taree Salvation Army thrift store back in 2007. We used to nick clothes, not books, and my friends thought I was mad, but something about the title grabbed me: Think and Grow Rich.

In case you haven�t read it (and you really should) it was written by this guy called Napoleon Hill, way back in 1937. He basically interviewed all the mega-rich dudes of the time, and came up with �The Thirteen Proven Steps to Riches� which include stuff like desire, faith, auto-suggestion, specialized knowledge, imagination, planning, decision, persistence, the power of the mastermind, and the mystery of sex transmutation. Now, this last one tends to confuse people and it freaks out Americans, probably because of the �s� word, and I didn�t get it for a long time, but now I do. Wanna know what it is? Well, you�ll have to wait.

So, where was I? Oh yeah, the greatest love story of all time started at a Meriton-serviced apartment in Parramatta that had been rented for a buck�s party. I�d been working at the Sefton Playhouse � the strip club near the station � for a couple of years by then and some of the other girls and I were providing the entertainment. You know the drill � warm-up show, vibe show, fruit and veg, and finally the big shebang: lesbian double with vibes. I did the warm-up, which doesn�t pay quite as well as the others, but was confident I�d make it up in private dances afterward. When my show was over I went to do another line of coke in the bathroom with my best friend Kailee who was up next, then I found one of those pink Bacardi Breezers that the guys had thoughtfully organized for the dancers, and decided to go out on the balcony for a cigarette.

I was standing there in my bikini, enjoying the warmth of the November afternoon, smoking and looking out over the brown water of the Parramatta River, Sydney Olympic Park, and the city skyline far off in the distance, thinking I�d love an apartment here. Matt and I shared a crappy old house in Lidcombe with his drummer Dave, who was a total sleaze but handy to have around because of his drug contacts. They loved it, thought all the cracked plaster and moldy brown tiles were authentic or something, but I preferred new buildings, like this place. Faux-granite benchtops, gleaming bathroom fittings, and immaculate beige carpet. As I smoked I did a quick calculation about how much money I was going to make from lap dances and had just figured that five hundred bucks was quite achievable when I realized I wasn�t alone. Sitting on a chair made of gray plastic wicker, half hidden behind a potted palm, was a guy. Thirties maybe, ordinary looking, dark hair, checked flannel shirt, and glasses. He was listening to an iPod while engrossed in a book.

I nearly laughed out loud. Who in the actual fuck comes to a buck�s party to read? I stuck out my leg and tapped him on the knee with the toe of my Perspex platform. He jumped, dropped the book, then took out his earbuds and looked at me.

I get pretty chatty when I�m high, so I said, �Are you actually part of this buck�s turn, or just some random who scaled the balcony to find a quiet place to read?�

�Part of it,� he sighed. �Wish I wasn�t, but my cousin�s the buck and my brother�s the best man. We�ve been drinking since ten in the morning and were forced to play paintball. What a nightmare. I�m going to slip away before we end up at a brothel.�

�What�s the book?� I asked, and he turned it over to show me the cover.

�The Fall,� I read. �Albert Camus. Any good?�

�Camoo,� he said.

�Pardon?�

�It�s pronounced Camoo. And yeah, it is good. I�m rereading it for a tutorial I�ve got on Monday.�

�You studying?�

�I was. Finished my PhD and picked up some teaching work.�

�Whereabouts?�

�Western Sydney Uni, Parramatta.�

�Get out!� I squealed. �That�s where I�m going next year.�

�Really? What course?�

�Bachelor of Business.� This really impressed most guys I met at the Playhouse, but the dude�s top lip curled. �What�s wrong with a business degree?� I asked.

�Nothing. It�s just not really my bag.�

The muffled thump of the music inside stopped, replaced by woops and applause. That�d be Kailee�s show done and she�d be ready for another line.

�Lesbian double�s on next,� I teased. �You don�t want to miss that.�

He groaned and covered his eyes.

I was looking in my purse, checking I still had the baggie of coke wedged behind my Medicare card, when the glass door slid open and the best man poked his bald head out. He wore pressed jeans, a shiny gray shirt, and a cloud of Lynx deodorant so thick it was nearly visible. He briefly ogled my tits, then looking around the rest of the balcony, spotted his brother.

�Josh-o, you faggot. Whatcha doing out here? Dyke show�s about to start.� He made a V with his index and middle finger and waggled his tongue in between.

Josh raised his beer. �Just having a quiet��

�Lap dance!� I interjected, slipping my own fifty out of my wallet, waving it around, then sliding it back in, making out like Josh had just paid me.

I don�t know what had given me the urge to save Josh from his brother. Maybe it was because the brother had tried to stick his fingers in when I�d bent over in front of him during my show. Or maybe it�s because strippers are like cats. You know how if you love cats, and you�re all, Here, kitty-kitty-kitty, they�ll ignore you? And if you hate them, or are allergic, that fucking cat is gonna be all over you? Well, that�s what was happening here, I guess. The brother wasn�t looking entirely convinced so I swigged the last of my pink drink, strode over to Josh, planted my legs on either side of his, and held on to the back of the chair. I expected him to flinch, but he was good, hamming it up, saluting his brother with the beer bottle.

Baldy stood there, arms crossed.

�Bit of privacy?� Josh asked. �You watching is uncomfortably close to incest.�

The brother snorted and walked back out the door.

�Thanks for that,� Josh said. When I didn�t move away, he continued, �Uh, you don�t actually have to do it, he�s gone.�

�But what if he comes back? We need to keep up the act. One song. Sit back and think of Camoo.�

We didn�t have any music, so I grabbed his earbuds, stuck one in his ear and the other in mine. A Nick Cave song started playing � �Are You the One That I�ve Been Waiting For.� It wasn�t exactly Lil Wayne, but it would have to do. Then, because there were no pesky bouncers to uphold no-contact laws, I sat on his lap, and the instant the backs of my thighs touched the front of his, the weirdest thing happened. My skin burned with a fierce, inexplicable heat, and buzzed like I was touching a live electrical wire. I jumped up, startled, and as soon as I wasn�t touching him my flesh went cold. Too cold. I couldn�t bear it so I sat back down and the warmth returned. As Nick sang, �You�ve been moving surely toward me,� I leaned in and slowly rested my lower abdomen, rib cage, then boobs against his torso, and it was the same thing as with the legs: a flood of warmth and tingling that made my heart pound. Sure, I was a little high, but I�m a little high most of the time and nothing like that had ever happened before.

�Oh my god,� I said. �Do you feel that?�

�Ye-es,� he said hesitantly.

I couldn�t help it, I leaned in and kissed him. Just a short kiss, more than a peck, less than a porn tonguing, but oh my god. It was like sparks flew between our lips, and my mouth felt like it was stuffed full of Pop Rocks and Wizz Fizz and my brain buzzed like I�d just done an enormous line of the purest cocaine in all Bolivia, even though the stuff I had in the baggie was actually total shit.

Then the song finished and his phone buzzed in his shirt pocket. He fished it out and looked at it, then back at me. He smiled ruefully and said, �My Uber�s here.�

I walked with him to the front door, the other guys so engrossed in the double show they didn�t notice us.

�Well, thanks for that,� he said. �It was quite an experience.�

I stared at him, desperately trying to commit his face to memory, though it was difficult because he was just an ordinary-looking guy. Average height, dark-brown hair, not ugly, but not even as good-looking as my boyfriend Matt, who had chicks literally flinging their slimy G-strings at him on stage.

A voice in my head screamed, Kiss me, touch me, don�t go! but all I said was. �No problem, nice to meet you,� and then he was gone, and I would never see him again.

Kailee found me in the bathroom, hunched over the sink, grabbing at my stomach which felt like it was being pierced by metal barbecue skewers. She told me later I�d gone deathly pale under my spray tan and she was convinced I�d been raped.

�I feel like I�m going to vomit,� I told her. �I think I�m in love.�

I think he�s a detective until the night he gets his dick out.

He�s been hanging around this block of flats all week. Around midnight every night, he�s appeared in the back car park, camera around his neck, looking shady. I only noticed him because I�ve been up late thinking about my runway collection. I�ve been bingeing on seasons of Real Couturier on my laptop, getting myself in the zone.

I�ve started keeping the lights off so I can watch him from my window on the first floor. He�s tall and thin and pale as fuck, with long, terrible hair halfway between orange and brown. I�ve never seen him walk up the driveway from the street. He just appears. Maybe he�s been hiding in the separate laundry room out back. No one�s called the police on him yet.

So tonight it�s raining and he�s standing under the back light staring up at my studio. But this time he�s wanking.

I smoke and watch him. When the cigarette�s done, I slide the window frame up and stick my head out.

�What�s wrong with you?�

�Hang on,� he says. �You�re not Cathy.�

�Why should I be?�

�Is she there?�

�Why should I tell you?�

He puts his thing away, zips his fly. �I want Cathy.�

�You and the world. How tall are you?�

��Bout 180?�

I think, why not? That�s a good height. Let�s bring this blue dick in from the cold.

He comes up the back stairs, jumper soaked. Smells like a farm animal. But he has a good jawline and frame. Could be a good clotheshorse.

He inspects my studio like he owns it. Walks all the way through without asking. Looks at the rolls of fabric, the cutting table, my little Juki sewing machine, my voodoo pin cushion, all crammed into the living room. He touches Ludmila, my dress form, on the waist. She�s just a torso.

�Couldn�t afford one with legs,� I say.

He moves on to the kitchen, bathroom, and bedrooms, then plonks himself on the couch.

�Happy?� I say.

�I knew Cathy�s couch would be red. Cathy wears red a lot.�

�It�s my couch.�

�Cathy�s really pretty.�

�Cathy this, Cathy that,� I say.

�Where is Cathy?�

�You�re the stalker. You tell me.�

He looks at the wall, hums some tune.

�Stay for a movie,� I say, �and I�ll tell you where she went.�

I get my laptop and click on a rom-com. We watch the whole thing. Right before it ends, the friends of the main character tell him he�s made a mistake. He panics, sprints down streets, knocks over a newspaper stand, finds the girl, gets her back. I knew you were the one, he tells her. They kiss at the top of a tower. People clap. Credits roll.

The wanker asks where Cathy is again. I say I�ll tell him later.

He says his name is Mugzy. Isn�t even a nickname. Is he going to break out into some shitty rap?

No wonder he has to get his cock out in car parks.

One humid Sunday morning when the scent of frangipani hung heavily in the air, Brian Tasker stood in his yard overlooking Lavender Bay while his mother-in-law shaved his body.

Sunlight bounced off the fence of oleanders and frangipanis and flickered through the native fig trees clinging to the cliff behind the house. The cliff marked the boundary of Luna Park, the harborside fun fair, and between the loops and slopes of the dormant roller coaster that came to rumbling, screaming life every sunset, a mirage quivered on the surface of the bay.

While Dulcie Kroger was kneeling and spreading shaving cream over her son-in-law�s legs, he tried to concentrate on the way the mirage lapped like a windswept lake on the boat shed roofs across the bay. But once his mother-in-law began wielding the razor, working upward from his size-thirteen feet, up his shins and calves to his thighs, he found it difficult to maintain interest in an illusion.

It was Haklander who gave me the passenger�s name: Ramirez. He told me Ramirez was flying in from the States and would need a ride into the city. Usually I sat on the airport rank with the other drivers, but Haklander said I could make a bit extra by picking up Ramirez in person.

�You don�t have to go looking for him,� he said, tossing me the keys to the taxi. �Just hold up a sign with his name on it. He�ll find you.�

Haklander was Dutch, or maybe Belgian. You had to listen hard to catch the accent. He owned half a dozen taxis. Four times a week I paid him $120 for the privilege of spending twelve hours in a Ford Falcon with illegal tires, a clapped-out gearbox, and nearly 200,000 kilometers on the clock. I drove days: three in the morning until three in the afternoon. The money and traffic were worse but there was less chance of being beaten up. Haklander must have paid a quarter of a million each for the plates, but thanks to Uber they were practically worthless. Haklander already had his eye on other ways to make money and upgrading his taxis wasn�t part of his business plan.

�Is this guy Ramirez a friend of yours?� I asked.

�No,� said Haklander. �One of the other drivers told me about the job. He couldn�t take it himself so I�m giving it to you.� He paused. �If you�re not interested I can give it to someone else.�

The details sounded vague � deliberately vague. It wasn�t exactly a dream job: forty dollars max. I was probably better off taking my chances on the rank. But I spent too much of my life sitting on ranks. I told Haklander I�d do it.

�Ramirez. R-A-M-I-R-E-Z,� he said. �The commonest name in Mexico.�

�Someone told me Rodriguez was the commonest name in Mexico.�

�Is that right?� Haklander replied without interest.

�That�s what they said.�

Haklander held my gaze for a few moments. �Just make sure you�re on time.� He wrote down the arrival time and held out his hand for the cash. �By the way, the oil gauge isn�t working.�

�I told you that last week,� I said, as Haklander�s phone started ringing.

He waved me out the door.

The great thing about retirement is that it gives you time to do the things you enjoy, like fishing off the rocks at the point near Clovelly Beach. Which is what I�m doing right now, standing on the point, line baited for bream, watching the sea roll in and the big green swells lift the seaweed around the rock shelves where the dusky flatheads like to lurk. It�s a relaxing way to spend a morning. Gives me time to think too. Time to think about vengeance. The Lord is reported as saying, �Vengeance is mine,� but in this, as in all things, it�s my belief that the Lord sometimes needs a helping hand.

It is a perfect blue and white Clovelly day as the small breakers fall away from the rocks in sheer white waterfalls and my companion jerks his gear back after a bump on his line, hoping to jag a flattie. �Got one!� he yells.

I remember catching a big old duskie some years back who had four rusted hooks along his jaw. Out of respect, I cut him free, removed the hooks, and sent him on his way with good luck wishes, one old survivor to another. Now, I studied my companion as he played his catch along � giving the fish some slack, then hauling back on the line, bringing him in closer each time. It could be a big duskie, I thought. Or a skate.

They say it�s dangerous to go rock fishing alone, so I almost always have a companion. My usual fishing buddy, also a retired cop � we worked together in homicide years ago � is currently traveling the east coast in a fancy caravan with his missus, and over the last couple of months I�ve been fishing with this new fellow, and not just for bream or flathead. He thinks this came about because of the casual camaraderie that sometimes develops between the normally solitary men who fish off the rocks. We�ve never got round to introducing ourselves and just call each other mate on the rare occasions we need to speak. He knows nothing about me but I know a hell of a lot about him.

He has no idea that for nearly two decades, I�ve been planning to destroy him. His name is Ronald Leslie Twigg and there he stands, a few meters away from me with his canvas hat and his gear baited for flathead, playing his catch, looking south, not taking much notice of me. I�ve been keeping tabs on him since I was a senior sergeant in traffic, and he was a young thug, the baby in a family of thugs, part of the 15 percent of the population who harass the rest of us, one way or another.

Now Twigg is a weathered fifty-two, with a permanent scowl on his face and carrying too much weight. But I don�t want him to cark on me, dying of a stroke or a coronary. I want Ronald Leslie Twigg to live for many years to come. Many years.

I�ve been waiting and watching for the right opportunity. Just biding my time for the possibility that all the ducks might one day line up. It�s a big ask, and I�d almost resigned myself to the fact that it might never happen. One duck has been in place for some years, in the person of my clever young daughter Kerryanne, who works in the New South Wales Police Force in forensic services. So imagine my elation when out of the blue, a second duck settled into position. Some months back, Twigg left the inner-city boarding house he�d been living in and came to live in Clovelly, several streets away from our place, renting a shed in the backyard of a house whose owner is currently overseas. When that happened, I dared to be hopeful that there was now a real chance that our long-discussed plan, sometimes seeming like a fantasy that we�d been telling ourselves for all these years, might actually materialize. It was as if Fate had delivered him into my hands.

Some evenings, I walk past the vacant house with its blinds pulled down as the interior lights come on automatically at six thirty p.m. and I head around the block to the back lane, and peer over the fence, noting the dim light in the shed inhabited by Twigg, hearing only the sound of a TV and the occasional clink of bottles as he drinks alone. Outside the shed in a sagging box, I�ve sometimes spotted a cat, tucked up in the dodgy shelter, with a bowl of curdled milk nearby.

I�ve followed this man now for nineteen years. Unlike his older brothers, he was acquitted of a particularly brutal crime, in which a young man was almost beaten to death and then had his throat cut. This young man had been on his way home after having dinner with his family to celebrate successfully completing the first four years of a pharmacy degree, when the three thugs jumped him, threw him to the ground, dragged him into an alley, and went to work � took his wallet and phone and continued bashing him until they were interrupted by some people who heard the commotion. But it was too late for the victim, who died of massive blood loss and a heart attack in the ambulance.

I try not to be too obsessed, but it�s hard. All we need, I�d say to myself, is a violent crime in the area. But realistically, how likely was that? That�s the really hard part in a place like Clovelly: quiet, gentrified, with constant renovations and rebuilding going on; artists and journalists moving in over the last couple of decades and almost no serious crime to speak of. We just don�t have violent crimes in Clovelly, with its family-friendly beach and village atmosphere, open football field and coastal walks. Until � but I�m getting ahead of myself.

Claire and I bought our cottage in Clovelly over thirty years ago from her parents when you could pick up a nice little place for a hundred and fifty thousand � a fortune to us then; you�d probably have to pay twice that as a deposit for anything in the vicinity these days. We liked the safe little beach with its breakwater where our kids could play and swim without fearing any dangers from rips or sharks. We also liked the ocean swimming pool � washed out and topped up by the tides every day � where Claire swims her laps most mornings. A couple of other retired cops live in the area and we sometimes get together to revisit our times on the job, sitting around on the concrete terraces and steps near the pool, swapping war stories, reminiscing about the crims we helped lock up. And, less frequently, of the flatheads and crims who got away. It�s a sad fact that a lot of crims do get away with crime. Our statistics might suggest otherwise, but then, as the saying goes, there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Many crimes are never reported and policing is mostly bluff � just enough to keep a civil society behaving itself. Also, nearly 85 percent of crime is committed by around 10 percent of the population. The other 90 percent police ourselves.

Clovelly is a coastal suburb of Sydney and used to be called Little Coogee years ago because Coogee Beach is just around the corner to the south. It was also known as Poverty Point because back then it was mostly inhabited by battlers, Italian and Greek migrants trying to settle into Sydney after the war. In those days, the buildings were fishing shacks or humble semi-detached cottages. The surf life-saving club is over 110 years old and all our kids started their beach lives as Clovelly Nippers, racing in the sand, practicing with the old-fashioned line-and-reel surf life-saving equipment, learning how to bring a person in distress to shore. I think of those days a lot. Life was simpler and the job wasn�t so complex.

My daughter Kerryanne is a senior police officer now, team leader with the forensic services group. She�s among those called out to any major crime scene around the eastern beaches. A lot of crime scene work can be undertaken by specialists who aren�t sworn officers, though murder is always handled by the police forensic teams. Murder in Australia is not a common crime, averaging a fairly stable sixty-odd per year. Around Clovelly and Sydney�s other eastern suburbs it is extremely rare. Cops fight to get onto a team investigating a homicide; it�s so infrequent and everyone wants a part of it. Most of the time round here, it�s routine work � hoons who race down the hill in stolen cars, the occasional brawl at closing time at the pubs, and drug arrests. They do district patrols around the beaches and keep a lid on alcohol-fueled antisocial behavior.

Kerryanne often drops by to visit us. She knows that with Tim away in the west, and our Anthony gone forever, she�s the only one now who can do that. Over a cup of tea, we chat. Last time she dropped in I said, �You�ve got soot or something on your face.�

�Oh, have I?� she said, looking at herself in the mirror in the hall and rubbing the smear, making it worse. �I�ve just come from a job with the fireies. Fire investigation unit. Arson job, with the shop burned almost to the ground. The owner thought he�d get away with it because there he was, thirty kilometers away, sleeping the sleep of the innocent beside his loyal wife.�

As we walked into the kitchen, she put her bag down and pulled out her camera, switching it on. �See what he used as a wick? We lifted a bit of masonry from a corner and look what we found. He thought it would all be destroyed by the fire. But part of the collapsed roof had covered this corner and kept the ash intact.�

I looked at the screen on Kerryanne�s camera and saw the outline of a perfect spiral in ash. �Ha! He used a mosquito coil!�

�That�s right. A nice slow burn. He lights it, and it burns away for hours until it reaches the middle of the spiral where it was linked to combustible material and containers of petrol. The place would�ve gone up like a bomb. And he thought he was being very clever, buying hours and hours for himself to establish an alibi.�

�He was very unlucky that it wasn�t destroyed in the general fire mess,� I said, looking at the fragile damning evidence.

�Sometimes the angels give us one like this, Dad,� she responded, smiling.

I nodded, remembering a rapist who�d dropped his wallet at the crime scene. We�d driven around the corner and arrested him.

Kerryanne put the camera away, washed her face and hands in the bathroom, then joined me for a cuppa and one of her mother�s famous Anzac biscuits.

After she left, I leaned back in my kitchen chair and thought about what I�d just seen. The slow burn of an arsonist�s wick which had exploded into a destructive fire. I�ve been burning for nineteen years, I thought. And all this time I�ve been just waiting for the explosion that will destroy Ronald Leslie Twigg.

It is around two a.m. and dark; council workers stopped replacing streetlights in this narrow alley behind the old Chippendale brewery years ago, it is simply too dangerous. Stoning outsiders is commonplace for the youth down here in the slums, and good sport. The same goes for most other cul-de-sacs in the aboriginal enclave of Redfern at night: black.

Pools of several too-bright LED flashlights survey the area adjacent to the bloodied, spread-eagled body. As police vehicles arrive, headlights are left on as well as the rotating red, white, and blues, and wipers � the autumnal tropical deluge has been bucketing down for days.

I push past the first line of cops, flashing my ID card as I go, sheltering under my large golf umbrella. I am the first person police call regarding black deaths; it�s protocol. I�m black. I�m the aboriginal liaison for this region; a politically appointed watchdog, I watch cops and how they deal with aboriginal people. The history of black deaths in custody sparked a demand for oversight. The lifeless man lying in the alley is also black.

I�m from the Kamilaroi Nation. Both my mum and dad are Kamilaroi, from Coonabarabran and Gunnedah in the western region of the state, but I was born in rundown Redfern thirty-two years ago. I still live here but on the other side, it�s not as tough over there, went to school and university just up the road, played all my football here.

The middle-aged plainclothes senior detective at the center of the group looks up as I approach. Dicky Henderson is his name, Tricky Dicky, looks like Nixon too.

�Hey, Craig, good to see you. Now I can go back to bed.� He is only half-joking. He puts on that counterfeit smile. He knows it annoys me. Fuck!

�G�day.� I force a phony cheery note into my voice.

�You reckon this is a good day? It�s a bit fucking wet.�

I ignore him. I walk to the body and flash some LED of my own. So much blood and so much money, fifty-dollar bills all strewn about, then I see the battered face. �Oh shit.�

�Know him?�

�Yeah... I know him. He�s my cousin.�

�Sheeet, all you guys are cousins.�

There is much to irritate me in this man�s voice. �No, really, Dicky.� He hates me calling him that. �He�s my first cousin. I saw him last night at my aunt�s place.� I pause and lower my voice. �His name is Lally Cameron. He lives... lived a bit farther up this street, over there, second house from the end.� I point to the house.

All the residents of the street are looking on, mainly black faces, while kids and adults are being interviewed by uniformed cops.

I sit on my haunches for a closer look. Fuck! He�s been seriously bashed, very seriously bashed, something solid has been used on his head and upper torso, a tire iron maybe. His skull has been cracked open and pieces of his brain sit on the wet asphalt, his half-empty cranium is full and spilling rainwater; some teeth cling to his gums. A nauseating odor comes from the mess.

�Sorry, mate.� Dicky�s speech is muffled. He is one of those old codgers who barely moves his lips to talk. �Were you close?�

�Yeah, kind of, there were Christmases and holidays. We grew up together.�

Dicky looks up the street as I speak. I guess he is trying to figure out who Lally�s family are from the drenched rabble.

�Yeah, he lived with us for a while, just him, for a whole school term, don�t know what was going on in his family at that time. He was five years older than me. There�s a big Coonabarabran mob here in Redfern, all related. A few other Coonabarabran families live on this street as well as the Camerons.�

Just then the FSG � forensic science group � arrive and shepherd us away from the body. A taped-off no-go zone is being established. I push up against the high brick wall of the brewery; Dicky follows suit. The rain continues.

�Do you want to work with us on this or...?� He leaves the question dangling.

�If that�s okay?�

�Good, yeah, fine, let me know when and for how long.�

�I�ll talk to you, maybe at the debrief, whenever.�

�Right, say at ten this morning?� Dicky is eager to pass this mess onto me to sign off on. Black deaths in this town can have unforeseen consequences.

�Yeah, ten is good.�

We both fall into a pact of silence and listen to the waking city as early-morning workers start to fill its arteries.

A text message: WE MUST TALK. COME TO MY HOME. NOW. PLEASE.

It�s the please that stands out.

The old man never says please. You�ve spent a lifetime lifting rocks just to see what crawls out, cramped nights in cars watching the windows of his house, afternoons following him round the bookmakers� ring at Randwick, pressing up behind him, so close you can hear the click of his tongue when he settles on a bet, and yet you�ve never heard him say please. Not once. Not to anyone.

I sit at the traffic lights and stare at my phone. That please sits mute and strange. A horn blast from the rear tells me the lights have changed. A slow grind forward, but we don�t go far. The rat run past Military Road on a Saturday morning is as choked with traffic as the main road. I come to a halt, still sandwiched between a Range Rover and the horn-happy bald bloke in an iridescent-red convertible. Sunlight catches Mr. Convertible�s Ray-Bans, classic Aviators of course, and bounces off the helmet of perfect blond hair on the woman next to him.

I know what I should do. Call it in. That�d be the sensible, proper course of action. I even snap to my contacts, scroll through, and hover, but then I let the phone drop back into my lap.

Almost make it to the bottom of Spit Road before the bridge goes up. Nothing for it but to switch off the ignition and wait. The deck swings open. The tips of masts glide through the gap. All those oversized yachts heading out for a day�s racing on the harbor. Never into boats, the old man. Middle Harbour Yacht Club almost on his doorstep and he�d never spent a cent buying friends and status down here among the deck-shoe mob. That�s what racehorses were for. A more forgiving crowd at the track. More fluid. Punt up, pay up. Buy fast horses. Win big races. And watch the doors fly open all over this town.

Great place to give your money a tub too. The track, that is. A rich man once likened yacht racing to standing under a cold shower tearing up hundred-dollar bills. The track and the bookmakers, well, they�re a lot kinder to money that might have a bit of dirt under its nails.

The Saturday Spit Road traffic inches down the hill to merge and crawl across the bridge. High sandstone and scrub to my right, a deadly drop down to blue water on the left. A crane, tall enough to build an office tower, rests on a platform of concrete just off the footpath. It lowers the makings of a new harborside palace down the escarpment like a big metal bird lining a big metal nest. Cost of a suburban Sydney apartment right there just in the tool hire. Weekend rates too.

The switchback off Parriwi, past large old houses with larger leafy gardens, safely enclosed behind walls of stones and security cameras, runs down to Cyprian and into McLean. The road cuts back and forth, revealing glimpses of tennis courts, pools, rockeries, and ferns.

The old man had gone for something more classic than a glass-and-pile shard clinging to the side of a cliff. A big house, behind a big electric gate, at the end of a cul-de-sac. I like to think I sent him here. The old mansion in Balmoral was where I�d sat outside and watched him from my car as he�d go from room to room, shuttering the blinds against me. He�d been well-settled there in Balmoral. Christmas drinks with the neighbors by invitation only, grudging respect turning to abject envy once they spied the jade, the silk rugs, the museum-worthy antiques. Hard-earned, that respect. I�d chipped away at it. Evidence to various commissions, the ones that compel you to talk then lock you up for lying but rarely, oh so rarely, ever charge anyone with the dirt that gets uncovered. Reputation ruiners, coupled with the odd drop of gossip to a hungry journo. Auto-da-f� by headline. No smoke without fire. The RSVPs dwindled. And then the old man who never said please sold up and moved.

It was still Balmoral. Technically. A little pocket of park and beach and a thin golden strip of sand washed by the tide of Sydney Harbour. Safe for toddlers and waders. Quiet. Secluded. Chinaman�s Beach.

The subbies had had a bit of fun with that. If you look on a map, Cobblers Bay is written over the blue bit, Rosherville Reserve over the green bit, but everyone knows the yellow bit in between it is Chinaman�s. There�d been market gardens back in the day, parkland now where dog walkers and fitness instructors drill their charges. A perfect little piece of paradise, where the neighbors keep their thoughts to themselves and the old man keeps himself to himself, and that�s how everyone likes it.

The old man�s security gate is metal of some kind, the color of sand, inobtrusive. A security camera looks on as I roll down the window and press the intercom. The gate melts away. A walled driveway curves to the left, trees and undergrowth block any other view. The seclusion of the rich and the dangerous. I raise my foot from the brake and the car rolls through in automatic, starts dragging itself forward over the gravel. The gates swing shut behind me. Silently.

Last chance to call someone. But I dismiss it. Call who? Say what? Hi, thought I should let you know I�ve accepted the invitation of the crook I�ve been stalking for close to twenty years?

The move to Chinaman�s hadn�t changed that, my stalking. Not once I found the ruin. Great old house caught up in family hatreds. Millions of dollars� worth of art deco and views left to molder while relatives brawled over the estate of an old woman in a dementia unit. Chain wire around it. Graffiti on every wall. It was a top spot for young Balmoral kids to hide their bongs and dream of putting on a dance party.

For me, the climb up the once-grand, now-slimy concrete staircase to the turret provides an excellent view of the old man�s hideaway. Those walls. That driveway. The shrubs and trees lull him into sloppiness. A pair of binoculars and a nightscope borrowed from a tactical unit who�d left their kit bag unattended, and I can watch the old man shuffle around his back terrace in his slippers, hawking a night�s worth of phlegm into the gardenias. When his son visits, they sit for hours at a time beside the pool, papers and laptops spread around them. Occasionally the old man jumps in and strides up and down, performing some kind of angry aquatic tai chi. He�s built like a wiry old piece of teak, the kind of body that speaks of harder violent times. The old man�s wife is rarely more than a shadow moving behind curtains. Only the presence of the son ever draws her outside, to deliver tea, water, to rest a hand on his shoulder, to stand behind him stroking his head. I�ve never seen her touch the old man.

Magpies and currawongs call warnings and threats to each other from the trees when I get out of the car. The cedar door opens immediately and the figure behind it beckons me in. First time I�ve seen him up close without the benefit of a search warrant, a courtroom, or a commission, a wall of lawyers.

He�s older. Smaller. Bare-handed. In his thin knit sweater and light cotton trousers he looks ready for a round of golf.

�Thank you for coming so promptly, detective. Please come into the lounge room.�

First time he�s ever spoken to me, directly. Formal and polite, he ushers me into a light-filled room where a small woman sits on the edge of an antique ebony Chinese stool. She faces the door, a small automatic pistol in her hand, pointed at us. The gun looks heavy. She looks tired. I freeze in the doorway.

The old man�s voice comes over my shoulder, reassuring, soothing. It�s like the please � it doesn�t fit. �I do apologize, detective. But my wife is not feeling very well. I assure you that if you do what she asks, you � that is we � will come to no harm.�

I risk a glance back at him, the question, What do you mean we? forming. Sweat beads his upper lip and his forehead, and there is a small tremor in his hands as he smoothes down the sides of his pants.

I focus again on the woman. She�s sitting primly, neatly dressed in a suit, stockings, high heels, makeup in place, knees pressed together. She�s got the gun in both hands, which rest on her upper thighs. She sits on her stool, on either side of which sit two large suitcases.

I try for an unthreatening tone, inquiring, not interrogating: �What�s the problem, ma�am?�

The woman turns her beautifully outlined eyes on me. Behind the makeup they�re not so young and they�re filled with pain. �My son,� she says, and gestures with the gun at the suitcases.

�You�re leaving him? To go to your son?� I do my best to ignore the gun, hope she just wants a lift, but the woman looks at me uncomprehendingly.

The old man clears things up: �My son is in those two suitcases, detective. My wife found them at our front door this morning. She opened them. It has... disturbed her mind.�

What I�d taken for shadows in the pattern of the rug around each suitcase I see now as dark stains spreading across the thick silk.

�What does she want?� I whisper over my shoulder.

�My wife has been a very unhappy woman for very many years. I have caused that. She has never been,� he pauses to choose the right word, �comfortable with my business interests. This morning she tried to shoot me. She has decided that it all finishes. Now. She wants us to walk out of this house and leave it all behind. She wants me to tell you everything in return for protection and immunity. She wants us to leave with you, now.�

I disobey every instruction I was taught at the police academy and turn my back on someone with a gun.

Something green and glassy lies splintered all over the floor behind the old man. There�s a toppled wooden pedestal and a telltale hole in the white plastered wall at head height. A matching pedestal, still upright, flanks the other side of the doorway; a giant jade horse still prances on it, intact.

I wonder if the old man has thought to count the shots.

�Your wife arrested you?�

�She convinced me I have no immediate alternatives. She has not convinced me that we have a long-term chance.�

That we again. The old bastard�s casting me as his fucking Tonto.

�What do you mean?�

�Those who killed my son are powerful. You may know that. I thought I could control them but there are bigger players in the game than I assumed. A miscalculation of risk on my behalf. It is my belief that I have become irrelevant, therefore redundant. If we can make it out of this house, detective, then maybe we have a chance.�

Put like that, it sounded almost noble. But killing the son, chopping him up, and sending him home? That was just flamboyant. An MO that fit the old world and the new.

My sources had kept me briefed. The son with his plans to expand. The old man with his old world ties to triads and tongs and tradition, he was just slowing a young man down. Old-fashioned thinking. A biz needs fresh blood if it�s going to grow. A couple of paparazzi shots in the Sunday papers of the son riding a Harley, a custom number, throbbing up Campbell Parade for a lunch at Bondi Icebergs even gave it all a touch of glamour.

In reality, various deals with various devils on moving mountains of meth, and it�d all come down to a couple of suitcases bleeding on a silk rug.

Time to make a call. The crafty old bastard�s right. A bunch of cops, armed response, a heavy presence, and we just might make it out.

And then?

The return of the lawyers and the commissions and the deals and the negotiations.

I take another look at the woman and ask her, �What do you want?�

She stares at the old man. The gun propped between her thighs, barrel centered on his body mass. It strikes me that I�ve never heard her say a word. Even the rare occasions we bugged the office or the car. Not a sound. Maybe she doesn�t speak English.

�I want him to pay.�

Her voice is calm. Unaccented, stripped of emotion. Translucent. But I recognize myself in the eyes that meet mine. We can do business.

�Okay. Let�s go.�

�Please, detective, we will take my car, I think it is a little safer. There are certain design features, you understand.� The old man trying to keep control.

The woman gets to her feet and gestures toward her son. The old man takes hold of the suitcases, places them into a small elevator. She prods him with the gun until he steps in. The doors close and we look each other in the eye.

I wonder if she recognizes me. The stalker in the car across the road. The cop with the warrant who turned up on their wedding anniversary. I�ve grown old watching them. Maybe she doesn�t recognize me at all.

I almost tell her. Right then. Just the two of us, as the elevator takes the old man and his son down into the garage. I almost tell her what he did. And why I couldn�t � can�t � stop. But he�s sent it back up; the doors open and we step in. The hand with the gun drops down at her side. I make no move to disarm her.

The Mercedes fills the garage. I�ve tailed it often enough to know it like it�s my own. Tinted windows, bulletproof so the story goes, and bodywork that only hints at the depths of protection.

The old man pops the locks on the Merc, but as he lifts the first suitcase into the boot, his wife fires a shot into the wall behind his left shoulder. She doesn�t flinch. My ears feel like they�re hemorrhaging. The old man swings the bag out again, shuffles to the side of the car, and sets it gently on the backseat, places the second one on top. The woman climbs in alongside, rests one hand on the stained tan hide, and follows her husband�s movements with her gun hand.

The old man slams the boot shut and moves to the driver�s side, stopping to shut his wife�s door. She fires another shot through the gap, vaguely aimed at his feet; it ricochets; the old man skips and jumps, but doesn�t bleed.

�The detective drives.�

The old man climbs into the front passenger side and I slide in behind the wheel, adjust the seat. The engine turns over like a big cat being stroked. The old man rummages for the garage remote. There�s a beep from the backseat and the door opens soundlessly.

We roll out into the sunlight and I accelerate smoothly down the drive. The front gate swings open to another beep from the backseat and McLean Crescent opens up before us, houses to the left, Rosherville Reserve to the right. Barely eleven a.m., croissants and coffee still being dawdled over on the next-door balcony. A dog and kids bounce out of a car and make for the beach. In the park, flush up against the old man�s fence, a fierce game of cricket breaks out between a bunch of big blokes with tattoos. A row of motorbikes line the boundary.

By my right temple, a corner of the driver�s window crystallizes. A fine webbed tracery appears as if by magic in the dark glass, a complex mosaic of radiance and black.

No sound but the crack of bat against ball, or a sniper rifle with a suppressor from among the trees on the other side of the park.

I brake.

The old man touches me gently on the forearm. �The bulletproofing on this car is very good. It�s working as it should.�

I release the central locking, lean across him, and open his door.

�I needn�t detain you any longer. Your wife, unfortunately, I�ll need to charge with certain firearm offenses, but I think after a medical examination they may not proceed.�

The old man looks at me, unguarded. He forcibly regains control of himself. �What do you mean?� He doesn�t move.

The cricket game in the park is getting rowdy. Howzat!

�Condolences on the loss of your boy. We�ll need a statement but there�s no rush. You, sir, are free to go. Now.�

�You can�t do this. I came to you for protection. I want to speak to someone in charge. I want��

�I made him call you,� the woman says.

I lean over, unclip his seat belt, and shove. He�s old but he�s strong. He resists. Wraps his fingers around the seat belt.

�I wanted it to be you,� she says, and slides forward in her seat, jabs the muzzle against the old man�s fist, and squeezes the trigger.

The echo of the shot swallows his shriek. He tumbles out onto the driveway.

�I knew you�d know what to do,� she says, letting the acceleration push her back into her seat. I put my foot down. The car door slams shut of its own volition as I power out of the drive.

I see the old man in my rearview mirror, scrambling on all fours across the gravel, tugging to close his gates, the remote in his wife�s hand locking them open. There�s a rumble like thunder as half a dozen Harleys sidle through the gate and I turn my eyes to the road.

McLean sweeps left back into Cyprian. We glide up Parriwi but I don�t stop until we reach Military Road and the safety of the Saturday gridlock.

I turn in my seat to look at the woman. She leans forward and places the gun gently onto the center console. A small patch of her husband�s blood is smeared over her chin. I use my thumb to wipe it off. She reaches out and pushes my hair back behind my ear. Like a mother would.

�I always wanted a daughter,� she says and sits back, her arm draped around her only son.

It was the usual thing: nine in the morning, Di settled behind the reception rostrum at New Beginnings Self-Care Center, the ambient playlist (Celtic harp today) murmuring in the background, a crystal wineglass of chilled Pellegrino with a sprig of mint and a slice of lemon. At thirtysomething, or maybe forty, Di looked healthy and elegant � balanced, you might say � and not like she had to work at it.

New Beginnings took up three rooms on the top floor in the rear of Riga House, a squat blue-gray box on noisy New South Head Road, opposite Edgecliff Station, which may have been a smart address once, back in the days of brown pebblecrete and white stucco, but nowadays, as the real estate guy had said, it was all about affordability. Di had opted for the second-most affordable suite in the place, nearly at the end of the corridor, beyond Competitive Dentistry and LaMarque Depilations but not as far back as the mysterious Just in Time Credit Solutions. Right opposite her was the frosted-glass door of Good Bloke Labor and Logistical. Contract laborers, warehousing services. The business, if you could call it that, run by Justin, her ex. A whole other story.

Despite the general seediness, Di had done the best she could with New Beginnings � potted palms and silk grass, a nice lounge, a small, not-tacky fountain, and simple consultation rooms at the back. The way she had it, she could sit at reception and do her work, see the customers coming down the hall, and have a nice smile ready for them before they even noticed her there.

When she�d arrived that morning, Timmy had been skulking near the lift doors, chatting with her two practitioners, hired just for the day. Charming them. He�d given Di his lost-boy grin. The lank hair over one eye, tat-shop leather coat with frayed lining trailing halfway down his thigh over battered jeans, all made for a nicely achieved vagabond look (or was it bold musketeer?), which worked on her a bit, she had to admit, but not that much. Di had headed straight into New Beginnings, the practitioners, Maddy and Kim, behind her, and in the absence of an invitation to come inside and wait, Timmy had shuffled back into the lift.

At nine thirty the first appointment, a mother and daughter from Bellevue Hill, arrived. Di sat them down in the lounge area, made a pot of lemon ginger tea, and while it was drawing discreetly texted Kim, waiting out the back, who appeared a moment later with Maddy. Kim was scheduled to do a myofascial release for the mother, and Maddy an essential oil emotional support session for the daughter. Later, when they�d finished and the credit cards were out, Di would give them all, practitioners included, caramel truffle tea.

Back at her perch, confirming appointments, booking practitioners, processing a few late web payments for tomorrow night�s seminar (�Women�s Financial Mindfulness�), she saw Bec, the receptionist at Good Bloke, come hurrying out of the lift. She waved absently at Di, unlocked the Good Bloke door, darted inside, barely a minute ahead of the Two Stooges. No friendly waves from them.

Five minutes later the lift bell rang again and Dave stepped out. Tall, okay-looking. He called hello to her, in his clear voice. That nice smile, the manners and looks, definitely enough to cast a spell. She could see it. But there were things there not declared. Seemed so, anyway, but she kept that to herself. Try not to judge, right? Dave, like her, like all of them, even the Stooges, staying clean a day at a time, trying to be open to whatever changes they might have to go through, agreeing maybe not in words exactly that they were all kind of on the same team. None of them was perfect. None of them even adequate, really, if it came down to it. But recovering. The line she recited often to herself.

Justin was last to arrive, via the stairs, a Fitness First backpack on one shoulder, not carried loosely. Anything but. He slowed as he approached, peered through the door into Good Bloke to see who was there, then glanced at Di, nodded, gave a quick smile. He had that elsewhere look that she knew well. They�d been separated for four years now, though there was always stuff to deal with � who was taking Mimi to ballet tomorrow, to piano on Friday, to the weekend playdate � and they�d turned a corner this year, had mostly gotten past the embittered-ex thing, becoming whatever they were now. Friends. Wary friends.

But they never talked about the business, Justin�s business � Di had drawn the line there. Not to say she didn�t know a fair bit anyway. There was plenty of talk. At meetings, at the coffee shops. People weren�t happy. She understood that. The hydroponic � okay, people could sort of accept that. But powders were different. Thing is, as Di had said more than once, what do you do, form a lynch mob? Anyway, like they�d told her at the Al-Anon meetings she�d gone to when she was breaking up with Justin, ask yourself, Is it my business? Is it really my business? It was maybe a yes to the first, but definitely a no to the second.

Two minutes after Justin went in, Bec tottered out, holding her phone, cigs, and lighter, heading for the lift. She looked at Di and eye-rolled, came over to the door, and stage-whispered, �Fuck. It�s all going on today.�

Di nodded slowly.

�Something to do with�� and nodded in the direction of the lift.

Di knew. Timmy was in the shit. That much was obvious. Plus, she�d heard something yesterday. And there was that Fitness First backpack. Which she�d have rather not noticed.

But that was all the time Di had to give it: a Double Bay woman, hefty, arrived for her consultation. Di, all smiles and gentleness, ushered her into the free room, sat her down, poured her a tea. �Okay, so, let�s talk about raw diets...� and as she closed the door caught a glimpse of a distressed, harried Andy bustling into Good Bloke.