5

I

“YOU HAD lunch with Romy today,” said Malone. “What did you talk about?”

“World politics,” said Lisa. “Women's rights. Public transport.”

“Neither of you ever travel by public transport.”

They were in the kitchen, she at the stove, he sitting at the table sipping a light beer. It was a very modern kitchen, refurbished a year ago at what was, by Malone's standards, great expense; but it was a workplace, not a sterile display of kitchen furniture. Lisa's touch, that of home, was in every room in the Federation house. The house was a hundred years old and year after year it had survived, under various owners, as a home.

“Did Russ ask you to ask me what we talked about?”

“No. I left him at the Aurora building—they've got a stake-out there. What did you talk about?”

“Stupidity. Men's. Open the wine, give it some time to breathe. Why on earth did Russ risk all that money?”

“He's admitted it. Greed. What are we having?”

“Chicken stroganoff. The whites are in the fridge. Sixty thousand dollars. Romy said she wanted to cut his balls off.”

“She said that in a restaurant? Out loud? Where were you, at Machiavelli?” A restaurant for suits, where balls, metaphorically, were cut every day. “We'll have the Semillon. I'll give Con Junior a sip or two, start him young as a wine connoisseur. He's already got as much sense as some of them.”

Tonight was family night. Claire and her husband Jason were coming, bringing six-month-old Cornelius Junior with them. Maureen would be bringing her favourite of the moment, an ABC reporter named Eddie or Freddie or Teddy. And Tom might or might not be bringing a girl: his whims were below his navel, an unreliable region. It was a weekly ritual that Scobie and Lisa looked forward to, a small reward for all the effort of bringing up Claire and Maureen and Tom. Malone, an Old Testament sceptic, sometimes wondered how much Adam and Eve had missed out on. Family night in the suburbs of Eden couldn't have been a ball of fun.

“Is Russ on the I-Saw case? The murder?”

“Yes and no. I kicked him off to start with, then I needed him.”

“How's it going?”

“Nowhere, so far. The murder of the maid seems to be getting lost in the kidnapping. Everybody's talking ransom so much, or how much money has gone down the gurgler at I-Saw, the maid's on the back burner. If they have back burners in morgues. Do we have to talk about this?”

“You brought it up.” She turned from the stove, pressed herself against him and kissed him. “Resign tonight and let's fly.”

Then Tom came in the back door. “Oh hell, you're not at it again!”

“You're just frustrated,” said Malone. “You didn't bring a woman?”

“She'll be here in time for dinner. She's having drinks with a guy about a job. She worked for I- Saw till yesterday. You told me to look into I-Saw, remember?”

“How do you know her?”

“I dealt with her on the internet.”

“You've never met her?” Lisa was back at the stove.

“I took her out once or twice.” Tom turned a blank face towards his father; and Malone knew he had taken Whoever-She-Was to bed once or twice. “Her name's Daniela. Daniela Bonicelli. She's half- Italian.”

“Which half? Bottom or top half?”

“All right, cut out the juvenile jokes,” said Lisa. “We don't talk police business at the table, understand?”

“How long's she been with I-Saw?” said Malone.

“Almost since it started, I think.”

“Is anyone listening to me?” asked Lisa. “Police business is out. O-U-T. If you want to grill Miss—what?—Bonicelli, if you want to question her, you can drive her home.”

“What's she like?” asked Malone. “Attractive?”

“A dish. Sexy as all get out,” said Tom.

“Then I'll drive her home,” said Lisa.

“That's a drag. She lives out at Hurstville.” For Tom, like most of the young from the eastern suburbs, anything south or west of Central Station was a suburb of Jakarta (“there are so many, y'know, Asians out there”).

“There's the doorbell,” said Lisa. “Answer it.”

“How do you stand her?” asked Tom, grinning.

“A cop's patience,” said Malone and went through to admit Claire, Jason and baby Con.

Claire had matured into a younger version of Lisa: blondly beautiful, serene and in calm control of her husband. Malone kissed his daughter, shook hands with his son-in-law and tickled his grandson's two chins.

“You want to hold him?” Claire proffered the baby.

“No, thanks.” He was not an infant-loving grandfather; they were too often wet and smelly, they had no conversation and they were all autocrats. “Send him along to me when he's twelve. I'll tell him about the birds and the bees.”

“They learn that at day care,” said Jason.

He was a very tall beanpole of a young man, but moved without awkwardness, almost gracefully. One had to look twice at his face to discover he was good-looking; it was almost as if he had chosen anonymity as a look. He was relaxed, but still cautious. His mother and her lesbian lover had murdered his father; he had a dichotomy of feeling towards her, he still loved her, yet hated her for what she had done. How he would explain his feelings to his own son in later years was something that Malone often wondered about.

“How's work?”

“Round and round,” said Malone. “How's it with you?”

Jason was a civil engineer. “Enough to keep us going. Just.”

“Just as well I'm going back to work,” said Claire. After nine months off, she was starting as an associate with the biggest law firm in the State. Malone, a cop, wondered at the future: not only too many lawyers, but too many women lawyers. “I've never learned to spell budget.”

“She didn't inherit any of your tight-fistedness, Scobie,” said Jason.

“I think we adopted her.”

It was banter, the sort of lightweight glue that holds families together when nothing serious is threatening.

Then Maureen arrived with her man of the moment; or the nano-second. Her tastes changed too quickly for her parents to keep up with her; they just prayed that these playthings never hurt her. She referred to them as her toy-boys, but never in front of them. This latest one was Neddy: Neddy Brown. Malone recognized him. He was an ABC reporter, one of the new breed who referred to the de-bree left by floods and bushfires and thought fantastic a cover-all adjective for everything from delight to disaster. Tertiary education, Malone often thought, taught them not to waste words.

He was short and compact and amongst Malone, at six-one, Tom six-three and Jason six-four he looked like a rugby scrum-half waiting to be thrown the ball by the big men in the line-out.

“This is a fantastic coincidence, Mr. Malone. Only today I was assigned to the Errol Magee kidnapping, so I guess our paths will be crossing—”

Malone decided to cut him off at the pass: “I'm not on the kidnapping. I'm just handling the murder of Magee's maid—”

“They're connected, though, aren't they?”

“Drinks, anyone?” said Lisa, doing her own cutting off at the pass. “Get that, will you, darl?”

The front doorbell had rung. Malone escaped, went down the hallway and opened the door. Daniela Bonicelli had arrived; a dish, sexy as all get-out. She had dark, appraising eyes, a short straight nose and lips like a baby's teething ring. Malone marvelled at his son's luck, at all the bon-bons that just seemed to fall into bed with his son. Fantastic!

“Daniela? I'm Tom's father.”

“I can see the resemblance. The eyes, the widow's peak—” Without moving she was all over him, like a silk rug.

“Come in. Did you get the job? Tom told me—”

“It's mine if I want it. I'll decide tomorrow—”

She turned her back for him to take off her jacket, looked back at him over her shoulder. All of a sudden he wanted to laugh: she was a Late Late Movie fan, she had seen Lana Turner and Lauren Bacall do this. He had always told Tom to find a woman with some mystery to her. Daniela Bonicelli was as mysterious as Marge Simpson. She would be no help at all on the I-Saw case.

Then Lisa, cruising like a destroyer escort, was in the hallway. “Oh, you must be Daniela. Has my husband—” Malone could count the space between the letters—“has he made you welcome? He's gauche around women. Come in and meet the younger men.”

“I'll get some more drinks,” said Malone and went down to the kitchen. A minute or two, then Lisa came in. “What were you expecting? Me to rape her in the hallway?”

“She wouldn't know what rape is. How does Tom get himself involved with girls like her?”

“He's not involved. He's like Maureen—she's one of his toys. I think.”

“How did we raise such libertines? Will you be driving Miss Bonicelli home?”

“Not unless you hold a gun at my head.”

“Fat chance. Kiss me.”

He did and Maureen, in the kitchen doorway, said, “Don't you two ever stop?”

“Only when we're interrupted. Did you bring Neddy here to interrogate me?”

“Come off it, Dad. You know I wouldn't do that. He's a nice guy, he understands family. He's got four brothers and four sisters, his mother was a nun.”

“She must be wishing she'd stayed one. How are Neddy and Jason getting on with Daniela?”

“Boy, she's a bundle, isn't she? Did Tom win her in a raffle? She worked at I-Saw, did she? How well did she know Errol Magee?”

“Why?”

“We had a Four Corners meeting this morning. We're going to do an investigative piece on I- Saw. Who lost money and how much. I might talk to Daniela.”

“Not tonight, you won't,” said Lisa. “Get everyone seated. I'm bringing in the first course.”

“Where do I put everyone?”

“Put all the men in Daniela's lap. That should please her.”

But dinner, as it happened, went off beautifully. When Lisa brought in the dessert Daniela rolled her dark eyes. “Diplomat pudding! My favourite—my mother makes it.”

Lisa warmed to her; or anyway turned off the refrigeration. “Do you like to cook?”

“Love to. I alternate between the kitchen and the gym—it's the only way I can keep my weight down. Errol used to laugh at me—”

“Errol?” Malone couldn't help himself.

“Errol Magee. We lived together for six months.” Then she looked around at the silent watchers. “Have I said something wrong?”

Malone looked down the table at Tom, whose smile was almost a smirk. As if to say, This is why I brought her.

“Not at all,” said Claire. “We're always interested in the rich and famous.”

“Errol?” Daniela had a nice laugh; it shook every rounded inch of her. “He was rich, sure—once. But he was never famous, never wanted to be, he said. He hated being photographed.”

“When did you—er—live with him?” asked Malone, avoiding Lisa's stare from the far end of the table.

“Oh, three years ago, maybe a bit more. Just when things were starting to click for him. Oh, this dessert is fantastic!” She swallowed a mouthful. Then we sort of broke up—”

“But you stayed on at I-Saw?” Tom, also avoiding looking at his mother, put the question.

“Of course. The pay was fabulous and I was worth it.”

Malone had to bite his tongue not to ask what her worth was. He looked along the table at Lisa, who just smiled: she knew what Daniela was worth.

“Those of us who were there early got stock options.” Daniela grimaced; then saw the look on Lisa's face. “Oh no, it's not the dessert! It's fantastic—I'm loving every mouthful. I'll tell my mother about this . . . No, the stock options. One week they were worth eighteen dollars, a month later—” With her spoon she made a sharp downward motion. “That's the story of life in IT, isn't it? Never knowing when to sell.”

“And you feel no resentment at the way things have gone?” It was Claire, the lawyer, who asked the question in Malone's mind.

Daniela put her spoon down on her plate, as if her appetite had suddenly been spoiled. “Yes, we all do. We'd wring Errol's neck if we could find him.”

“Did he have any other girlfriends at I-Saw?” asked Malone, risking his own neck as he avoided Lisa's look. “He had a wife, you know.”

“Did he?” Daniela looked genuinely surprised. “Well, how about him! Yes, he had other girlfriends from I-Saw, but they were just, you know, one-night stands.”

“What an exciting life you modern girls live,” said Lisa and closed the subject; one could almost see her slamming the door on it. “More pudding? Mo, when is Four Corners going to do an investigative piece on TV cookery shows? There were thirty-seven, last time I counted. Cooks are taking over TV, not Murdoch and Packer.”

Malone smiled in resignation at her. She could run a UN peace conference and get peace, even bring order to an Italian or Japanese parliament. He would have to talk to Daniela Bonicelli tomorrow morning.

The phone rang in the hallway and he got up and went out to answer it. It was Clements, sounding dispirited: “I've just got home. We had no luck—Miss Doolan's disappeared. We kept surveillance on the garage for two hours, but there was no sign of her. Okada came down at six-thirty and drove out in a Lexus 400. No sign of the other two Japs. I went upstairs and checked on Kunishima's trading floor. Nobody had seen Nakasone or Tajiri. I think we might have another kidnapping on our hands, mate.”

“So long as it's no worse than that.”

“Who'll pay ransom for her?”

“Maybe they'll be ransom for each other, her and Errol. At the moment, mate, I don't really care. Have you sent everybody home?”

“Everybody but Sheryl and The Rocks girl—Paula? They're spending the night at Magee's apartment, case Kylie decides to come home. But it doesn't look good . . .”

“How's it with Romy?”

“Still chilly. See you tomorrow.”

Malone hung up, checked his notebook, then rang Sheryl Dallen at the Magee apartment. “She come back yet? No? Righto, Sheryl, call her sister, tell—Monica?—to call you if Kylie shows up. Tell her not to panic, that Kylie may have her own plans.”

“Do you think she does?” said Sheryl.

“No,” he said and hung up, suddenly tired. It was not physical weariness, but exhaustion of the spirit. Like Whoever-it-was, he had “seen the future—and it stinks!” Or was it not the future, but the past? He remembered a toy from his childhood, a glass globe with a landscape inside it, that changed from sunlight to darkness as one turned the globe, as if one held in one's hand the prism of life. His seven-year-old mind had grasped none of the message, it was a toy for wonderment, not enlightenment. Only now did he read the message.

The Magee case, in terms of the murder in it, was not a major one. He had experienced much worse and much more dangerous. A strike force was to be set up to handle the Magee kidnapping; Homicide would be a player in it because of the Marcos murder. Yet suddenly he felt weary of it all. Of twenty-five years of other people's crimes, of hatred and cruelty and prejudice and, yes, greed, for power and money. All at once he thought not just of promotion but even of retirement.

Then Claire, on her way to a bedroom to check that Cornelius Junior was still asleep, paused beside him. “You okay, Dad?”

“Does the, y'know, human condition ever get you down?”

She took her time, reading him well. “Sometimes, yes. Jay's mother is coming out of jail in six months, maybe a bit more. She'll want to come and see the baby, her grandson. I'll look at her and remember what she did to Jay's father . . . And yet—” She paused, then went on, “I have to give her another chance. For Jay's sake and maybe young Con's.”

He looked at her with love. She and Maureen and Tom, even Lisa, had not been in the toy globe; the landscape therein had been unpeopled. Shadows would come and go in the future, just as they had in the globe he had held in his hand all those years ago. “Take care of young Con.”

She looked at him, understanding. “I'll do that. You take care, too.”

II

Darlene Briskin had been waiting outside the hospital when her mother arrived. “God, I was afraid I'd miss you! There are cops inside—” She nodded at the police car and the paddy-wagon parked in the nearby ambulance area. “God, Mum, what else can go wrong? It's been a bloody disaster from the start—”

“How's Pheeny?”

“He's still unconscious, but he'll live, they say. There are six kids in there—”

“Relax, everything's gunna be all right.” Generals need a certain heartlessness; Shirlee had to put a bit of spine into the backs of her troops. “We'll just go in there and talk to the police as if nothing's happened—”

“For Crissake, Mum, everything's happened!”

But Shirlee was already on her way into the hospital. Darlene shrugged, then followed her.

Phoenix was still in intensive care, tubes coming out of him like tentacles feeding on him. His face had not been injured and Darlene, looking at him, thought he looked more innocent and, yes, intelligent than the brother who had irritated her all her life. If only he would stay like that . . . Then the big-shouldered, blunt-faced sergeant approached them. Shirlee was ready for him.

“I understand he was hit while on a pedestrian crossing. Are you charging the driver?”

The sergeant was patient. He had spent thirty-five years dealing with voters who never looked at anything from the other side. “The driver of the vehicle will be charged with having children in the vehicle without seat-belts. But the accident was not her fault. Your son—” He looked at his notebook, blinked as if there was an entry there in Sanskrit—“Phoenix? That his name?”

“Yes. Phoenix Glen Campbell Briskin.”

His face was a mixture of unspoken comment; but he said, “We have witnesses who say the accident was his fault. He stepped off right in front of the Range Rover—”

“He was on a pedestrian crossing.”

“Mum,” said Darlene, “let it lay. Till later—”

“I believe in the law being the law.”

Darlene felt a faint swooning fit and the unconscious Phoenix seemed to wobble his tubes. The sergeant said, “We'll discuss it in a day or two, Mrs. Briskin. In the meantime—”

“In the meantime?” said Darlene, getting in ahead of her mother.

“The parents of the children may sue. The driver of the vehicle and your brother. Everybody's for litigation these days. Don't quote me.” He folded his notebook, put it away. “We'll be in touch. At your residential address or your place down the South Coast? Where?”

“At home,” said Darlene, silently telling her mother to keep her mouth shut. “Hurstville. You've got the address?”

“Oh yes,” said the sergeant. “We're organized.”

When they were alone beside the silent Phoenix, Shirlee said, “You didn't have to take over like that. I'm not a heart-broken mother.”

Darlene tried for the image in her mind, but gave up. “Mum, you were rubbing that sergeant with sandpaper. He was doing his best to be sympathetic—”

“Sympathetic?” Shirlee grunted in disgust. “He was blaming Pheeny for what happened—”

“Mum—” Darlene wanted to belt her mother. “Maybe Pheeny was to blame—”

Shirlee wasn't paying attention. She was going through the plastic bag containing Phoenix's belongings. “What's this? From Centrelink—lavatory attendant? They were sending him to clean out toilets?”

“Mum . . .” Darlene was holding in her temper and frustration. “Mum, we're gunna have to move that guy Magee. If the cops come down there—”

“They've already been.” Shirlee put Phoenix's belongings into a drawer of the table beside his bed. Neatly. “They come to tell us Pheeny was in hospital. We headed ‘em off down at the gate. Did you talk to Chantelle today?”

“Yeah. She said to be patient. But that was before this happened—” She gestured at her inert brother, for once keeping his mouth shut, “I think we oughta call her again, see what she advises.”

“I think she oughta come and see us. We might have to change our plans,” said Shirlee, tucking in the sheet around her son, shaking her head at how un-neat nurses were these days.

“I don't think that would be a good idea. When I talked to her this morning she said she thought everyone at I-Saw was being watched by the cops. She said she'd heard something else. That the bank—Kunishima?—they'd never pay up for Mr. Magee. They're saying he syphoned off a load of cash before the roof fell in.”

Shirlee found an unbandaged section of Phoenix that could be stroked. “Will Medicare pay for all this?”

“Mum, are you listening to me?” Darlene was going to blow her top any minute now. “I think it's close to time we unloaded Mr. Magee and put it down to experience. I don't believe in omens, but we've had so many things go wrong—Mum!”

Shirlee looked at her across the still form of Phoenix. “I'm listening. If Mr. Magee's the one with the money, wherever he's got it hidden away, then he's the one gunna pay for himself. We start cutting bits off of him, a finger or something, till he tells us where the money is. It's the only way.” She sounded now like a surgeon, one in a field casualty hospital in World War One. “He'll talk, leave it to me.”

“Mum, I'm not gunna be in anything like that—” She shuddered at the thought.

Then a nurse came in, young, pretty and brisk. “You're not expecting the worst, are you? He's going to be fine. He looks as if he was as strong as—as a horse. What did he do?”

“He was a gym instructor,” said Shirlee. “Black belt.”

Darlene waited for the impersonator on the bed, the gym instructor with the black belt (in what?), to twitch. Phoenix remained still. “When he comes out of the coma, will he know where he is? I mean, will he be incoherent or anything? You know, babble?”

“Possibly,” said the nurse, re-arranging Shirlee's neat bed-straightening. “He'll be disoriented. He might think he's in the gym, that he's been knocked or something.”

“Then I'd better stay here,” said Shirlee, planning once again. “Just in case—”

“Good idea, Mum,” said Darlene, trying to avoid being at any dismemberment. “I'll go back to the cottage, see that Corey is okay. My other brother,” she explained to the nurse.

“Are they close?”

Like Cain and Abel. “Bosom buddies.”

“Maybe you should tell him to come up here. It often helps, I mean if the patient is disoriented, if they have close family around when they come to.”

“I'll do that,” said Darlene.

“Take the car,” said Shirlee and passed her the keys. “I'll hold Pheeny's hand while you're gone.”

“Pheeny?” said the nurse.

“Short for Phoenix.”

“Oh yeah. That was the bird that rose from the ashes, wasn't it?”

“I dunno,” said Shirlee. “Glen Campbell never sang that verse.”

Darlene rolled her eyes at the bird on the bed, which didn't stir, let alone rise.

The nurse left and immediately was replaced by a man in the doorway. “Relatives?”

“Yes,” said Shirlee.

“Fantastic! Mother and girlfriend?”

“No,” said Darlene. “Sister.”

“Fantastic! Close family, that's what we want. Allow me to introduce myself. George Bomaker, solicitor.”

He was short and round, and his clothes looked as if they had been pressed while on him; he had a glazed look, like toffee on an apple. He had a rapid-fire delivery, at least 165 words a minute, and apparently only one adjective, fantastic. He was a natural-born sports commentator, but somehow had become an ambulance chaser.

“I'm rounding up the families of the six poor little dears who were in the accident—a class action, that's what I'm suggesting. In your case, a separate action. I've checked on the lady who drove the Range Rover—her husband's a property developer. We'll sue—”

“How much?” said Shirlee.

“Too early to tell,” said Bomaker, looking at the dead-to-the-world Phoenix. “If there's brain damage or paraplegic damage—”

Darlene felt faint, leant against the bed. She hadn't even considered those possibilities. Shirlee, a true commander, kept a stiff upper lip. “He's got a broken leg and a broken arm and smashed ribs. We dunno if he'll be worse—”

“Let's pray he won't be,” said Bomaker and looked towards the ceiling; God was on the side of litigation. “First things first. I can represent you, I and my two partners?”

“You're experienced at this?” said Shirlee. “I mean, I've read about these cases, they're all the go, aren't they?”

Bomaker tried hard to look offended. “I wouldn't put it like that, not exactly. But yes, careless people and corporations are being made to pay.”

“And how do we pay you?” said Darlene.

Bomaker spread a generous hand. “No win, no pay.”

Then Darlene's mobile rang.

“I'll take it outside,” she said and left, wondering at the risk of leaving her mother and Mr. Bomaker together. But then, she told herself with resignation that was new to her, things couldn't get worse.

III

Errol Magee, depressed in his straps, having exhausted all other subjects to keep his mind alive, had been summarizing his sexual encounters with women. At school in the eastern suburbs the girls at Ascham and Kambala had written him off after single encounters; he had been a nerd not only in class but in bed. It was Caroline, in London, who had educated him; but she had been a clinical lover, like a therapist. On his return to Sydney there had been one or two brief flings before Daniela; she had been completely different from Caroline, basing her bed technique on World Championship Wrestling. Then there had been Louise, who was dreamily romantic in bed, but spoiled matters by murmuring Oh Bruce! (who the hell was Bruce?). Finally there had been Kylie, whose favourite position was soixante-neuf, which was okay up to a point but had its dark moments and rather muffled any love talk. He had never been completely successful in love and in the end he had put it down to the influence of his mother, that squash-playing, tennis-playing, golf-playing bungee-jumper who had wanted him to be nothing but a sporting hero.

It was then that he had let out the scream of anguish that had no meaning but the sound of the emptiness into which he had fallen.

Corey Briskin, wrench in hand, was down at the road, tightening the bolts that held the sagging gate to its upright. He was a natural handyman, something his father had never been, and he was always looking for things to be fixed. He had seen the state of the gate when he had been down here earlier and now he was doing something about it.

Then he saw the police car coming at a steady pace up the road. He stiffened, the wrench tight on a bolt; but all his strength had drained out of him. The car drew in at the gate and Constable Haywood got out. He was a handsome young man, the sort featured on posters; but they were all bastards underneath, Corey knew for a fact. Haywood bent to reach in for his cap, then decided against it and left it on the front seat. He came round the car bare-headed, smiling warmly. This was an informal visit, police public relations, as the Commissioner kept advising.

“You come down here often? I haven't seen you before.”

“We don't use the place much.” Corey straightened up, satisfied all the bolts had been tightened; his stomach, too, was tight. He wasn't going to offer the bastard a cup of tea or a beer. “We're thinking of putting it up for sale.”

Haywood looked up towards the house. “Yeah? I might be interested. I'm renting at the moment.”

Don’t ask to look over the place. “Yeah, well, you'd have to talk to me mum about that.”

“You heard yet from her? How your brother is?”

“Not yet. She'd of only just got to the hospital, I think.”

Then there was the terrible yell, scream or whatever it was from up in the house. It seemed to Corey that everything around them had fallen silent, so that the yell was amplified. Constable Haywood's chin shot up.

“What was that? It sounded like a yell for help! Who's up there?”

Without thinking Corey hit him on the side of the head with the wrench. Constable Haywood, a tall man, went down like a falling tree, slowly at first, then crashing into the dirt. Corey looked down at him, then at the wrench as if it were something that had suddenly and uninvited appeared in his hand.

“Oh Jesus Christ!” He cursed himself, as if he were twins. His father, the fucking hothead, had come out in him; his mother would never have lifted the wrench, would have planned how to distract and get rid of Constable Haywood. He knelt down and felt the pulse in the policeman's neck: he was still alive, but absolutely dead to the world. A case for intensive care . . .

So am I, he thought with a brain that was a stew. He looked wildly around him; but only the timber stared back at him. Then his mother, the planner, abruptly took over in him. He opened the second gate, the one on to the track that led up to the house. He picked up Constable Haywood, staggering a little under the bigger man's weight, carried him to the police car and dumped him on the back seat. Then he got into the car and drove it up to the house. His mind, his mother's mind, was beginning to work.

He got out of the car, went up into the house and put on a hood. He picked up a second hood and went into the bedroom where Errol Magee, exhausted by his thoughts and his scream, lolled in the chair.

“You should of kept your mouth shut, sport. What the bloody hell was all the yelling about?”

“I'm fed up,” said Magee. “Kill me.”

“Don't be fucking stupid. What would you be worth dead? Here, put this on. Back to front, sport. I don't want you to see where we're going.”

He slipped the hood over Magee's head and instantly there was a protest inside it. He lifted the hood. “What's the matter?”

“I'm going to smother in that—”

“Jesus, you're a whinger!” He slipped the hood back over Magee's head. “Shut up and save your breath.” There was another murmur from inside the hood. Corey put his ear against it. “What'd you say?”

It was smothered but it was distinct: “I said, fuck you.”

“Yeah,” said Corey but to himself, “I'm doing that without any help from you. What now, for Crissake?”

He put his ear close to the hood again: “Where're we going?”

“I dunno. I'll let you know when we get there.” The planning, so far, didn't extend to a destination. Where did you dump an unconscious cop you'd just clouted?

He undid the straps, but bound Magee's hands together behind his back. Then he led him out to the police car, guiding him down the front steps, opened the boot and pushed him in.

“Just lay still, mate, and you'll be okay.”

He closed the boot, went round and checked on Constable Haywood. The big young copper was still, but he didn't look too hot. Corey stared at him a long moment; shook his head at how things today had suddenly started to go wrong. Then he stripped off Haywood's shirt, with some difficulty, and slipped it on over his own.

Then he walked away from the car, so that Magee wouldn't hear him, and called Darlene on his mobile. It seemed forever before she answered: “Yes? Who's that?”

“It's me, Sis. We got a problem—”

“What sort of problem?”

“Listen. Are you with Mum?”

“Yes, we're at the hospital. Pheeny looks as if he's going to be okay, but only just. Corey, what's the problem?”

“I'll tell you when I see you. Get the car from Mum and head south. Just after you pass Heathcote—” He paused, closing his eyes, seeing the main road in his mind. “Just after you pass Heathcote, maybe less, there's a road goes off to the right into the bush. Take it and keep going up till you see a police car—”

“Till I see a WHAT?”

“I'll be in it—I'll explain when I see you. Leave now.” He clicked off the mobile, closed his eyes and lifted his face to the sun. But there was no sun. Just low dark clouds that had crept up on him like everyfuckingthing else. Then it began to rain.

Only then, his mind working again like his mum's, did he recognize that the rain might be his one piece of luck. It would wipe out the tyre-marks of the police car if anyone should come up here looking for Constable Haywood.

Ten minutes later, behind the wheel of the police car, capless but wearing Haywood's shirt with the insignia on the shoulders, he turned out of the side road into the main road and headed north. The rain was heavy, flooding gutters, smearing his view of the road ahead. His inclination was to put his foot down hard, but he restrained himself and kept the car going at a steady seventy. He went through Dapto, circled Wollongong and began the long climb up the Bulli Pass. He had just reached the crest when, through the rain, he saw the other police car coming towards him. It flashed its lights and, without panicking, he flashed his own lights in return. Then in his rear-vision mirror he saw the other car do a U-turn and come after him.

Oh Christ, he was done for! His first reaction was to run for it, to put the foot down and try to lose them. But the foot and the leg were paralysed. And then the white Subaru Impreza, trailing a comet's- tail of water, went by as if his own car were standing still. A moment, then the police car behind him drew out and, siren wailing, lights flashing on the roof, fanning a blue-and-red kaleidoscope of water, went after the disappearing Subaru. Corey hadn't realized he had stopped breathing; suddenly the air spat out of him in a long gasp. Saved by an idiot revhead!

He drove on through the rain, passed the Subaru and the other police car by the side of the road several kilometres further on, flashed his lights at them and continued north. Twenty minutes later, now out of the rain and into thin sunlight, he came to the turn-off into the bush. He swung off and drove up the narrow tarred road, which he knew led nowhere. He turned into a cleared patch surrounded on three sides by thick bush that was like a rough wall. He had come here with girls, parked in this clearing at night and done them in the back seat where their cries of ecstacy had got puzzled replies from the wakened birds in the trees. The good old days, or nights, the last time only a week ago . . . But he had forgotten her name. He was going senile at twenty-two.

Darlene arrived ten minutes later. She came cautiously up the road in the grey Toyota, pulled in behind the police car and got out as if expecting to be arrested. There had been no traffic on the narrow road while Corey had been waiting, but with their luck breaking the way it had been he would not be surprised if a gay Mardi Gras procession suddenly appeared.

“Corey, what's going on?”

He led Darlene away from the police car so that Magee, in the boot, would not hear what he had to say. He explained as quickly as he could, trying to stay calm but the words spewing out of him as if they were choking him.

“Jesus!” Darlene threw up her hands. “Christ Almighty, how did I ever cop you two as brothers? Corey, do you know the shit we're in?”

He nodded. “You think I haven't thought about it?”

“How's the cop?” Darlene walked back to the police car, opened the rear door and looked in. Then she bent forward and put her finger against Haywood's neck pulse. She stayed like that, as if she couldn't straighten, as if her back had suddenly locked. Then she came up slowly, turned and said: “He's dead, Corey.”