37

They stopped for petrol, edamame and average coffee at the good service station, and ate their food outside, leaning against Alice’s Golf so Teddy didn’t get edamame shells all over the car.

Alice was watching Teddy. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I don’t know. No? Not today, at least. Are you all right?’

‘Not even slightly,’ Alice said. ‘I feel like every case we’ve ever done has been logical in comparison to this one.’

‘Me too,’ Teddy said.

There was a long moment when Alice was quiet, and unmoving. Teddy saw the hard thinking in her face, and let her have the time, methodically sucking on beans until she was finished.

When she returned from throwing them out, Alice, now animated, said, ‘I also have a theory.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘It doesn’t reflect well on me,’ she said. ‘And it could be ridiculous.’

‘Come on, Al. It’s me. I’ll believe anything.’

‘If I’m wrong, fine. But if I’m right … maybe we need to be careful at Toby’s.’

‘How careful?’

Alice paused. ‘Did you bring a gun?’

Teddy flinched at the word. ‘Bit late to ask me now, isn’t it?’

‘It’s rhetorical,’ Alice said. ‘I know you brought one despite your feelings for them.’

‘Of course I did,’ Teddy said quietly.

‘Make sure you bring it inside. Or should you stay outside?’

‘Just tell me,’ Teddy said. ‘I can’t be that prepared if you don’t.’

‘Don’t laugh,’ Alice said, and then she told her.

Teddy laughed anyway, despite it all.

‘Are you sure?’ she asked, when she recovered.

‘If I was sure, I wouldn’t have been hesitant. No, I’m not sure. I’m just wondering. It would explain a couple of things. But it might mean he’s more prepared than we expect.’

‘Do you think he knows we’re coming?’

Alice wiped the top of her Golf with the sleeve of her jacket. ‘I’m not confident enough to say no.’

~

Two hours later, Alice pulled the Golf into Toby’s street. The wind had picked up; dust was blowing over the house like the rain hadn’t been bearing down over this side of the state the way it had in Melbourne. It was quiet when they got out of the car.

‘Do you think he’s home?’ Teddy asked.

‘Well, I fucking hope so.’

He was not. They rang the doorbell, knocked, waited, circled the property. Three towels hung on a clothesline out the back, getting dirty in the wind.

They got back in the car. They had no phone number for him; their only contact was this house. Alice watched his front door, thinking.

‘Would he have opened the door for us even if he was home?’

‘You want to break in?’ Teddy asked, primed.

‘I sure do.’

The back door lock was easy to pick. Teddy pushed the door open and said, ‘No alarm.’

‘No point in a loud one if your neighbours are that far away,’ Alice said. ‘Can’t see a silent one, either, unless I’m missing it.’

It was small and sparsely but well furnished. Two bedrooms. A fridge full of luxe deli products and instant dinners, a row of wine bottles labelled Flank Plains, which Alice showed to Teddy: they matched the ones in the Gorilla & Giraffe fridge, because of course they did. There was a big fucking television in the lounge and a tastefully understated white leather couch.

‘This looks non-permanent,’ Teddy called out. ‘Not lived in, not loved.’

Alice was elsewhere in the house, looking for her proof, and she found it in Toby’s bedroom, under the bed. It was in a silver briefcase that looked like it should have been full of money but was full of something else instead, something she had told Darwin all about. She opened it up, and showed Teddy.

‘He bought all the most expensive brands,’ Teddy said. ‘Goddamn.’

‘I guess when you are bankrolled by one of Australia’s richest men, you can afford the very best.’

Teddy drummed her fingers on the suitcase. ‘This is a lot. Are we still going to visit Chetna at the hotel, or Elinor with her roses and guns?’

‘I don’t think we need to,’ Alice said. ‘I think we need to tell Choker.’

Suitcase in hand, they went back to the lounge to leave when Alice’s phone rang. She looked down, furrowed her eyebrows, picked up.

‘Alice,’ the man on the phone said.

Alice put the phone on speaker and looked carefully around.

‘Eddie,’ she said neutrally, and Teddy moved her hand to her back. Alice thought: that is where the gun is.

‘You were wondering if there was a silent alarm you missed,’ he said. ‘Well, guess what? I’m watching my investment. You were right.’

‘How about that,’ Alice said.

‘So here’s how it is,’ he said. ‘You’ve already made your mark on this whole situation by crashing your boss’s car and opening something that wasn’t yours, and somehow you’re still alive afterwards, but now you’re here, aren’t you? Trying to make things worse for yourself.’

He was a heavy, wet breather; it was like standing at the mouth of a cave, listening to him. Alice was looking around, trying to see a camera, when he added, ‘Don’t take anything. Get out, and never, ever come back.’

‘Done,’ Alice said, and hung up.

Teddy said, ‘Why would he tell us he saw us?’

‘I think he’s too far away to do anything.’ Alice couldn’t see the camera, not this fast – whoever did the install was good. ‘But in case there’s someone nearby, we should get the hell out of here.’ She paused. ‘Take a picture of what’s inside, but put the suitcase back. There’s less chance of a camera in the bedroom that saw us open it, and if Eddie hasn’t seen inside it, he probably just thinks it’s full of cash.’

‘It basically is,’ Teddy said. ‘But fine. I’ll put it back.’

Outside, as they walked towards the car, Alice felt like a migraine was wending its way through the crevices in her brain like a snake. It was too much, all at once.

Then she saw the man at the gate at the end of the driveway.

Shaved head, sharp cheekbones. Alice reached out for Teddy and stopped her.

‘Toby?’ Teddy said.

‘Darwin,’ Alice corrected. ‘One and the fucking same.’

And then she ran at him.

As she ran, the force of the anger she’d felt over what had happened in the weeks since she thought he was dead was at her heels, pushing her along. The suitcase they’d left behind was full of stage makeup, putty, toupees. Enough for a man to look like somebody else. Enough to pose as your own cousin to somebody who had met you, who thought they knew you. That knowledge was a fire, fuelled by all that she felt weeks ago when she had thought that he was fucking dead, this man she thought she knew, who did God knows what to be here now.

He had turned and was running, and he was fast, and he had the advantage of distance. Alice screamed at him – ‘Get back here, you ratshit bastard!’ – but there was a car ahead, a whisper-quiet electric car, goddammit, parked out of hearing distance, and the passenger door stood open. Darwin jumped into it, and before she could make it there, it peeled off in a cloud of dust and gravel that spat up in Alice’s face.

She spun around, sprinting back to her car, and hollered, ‘Teddy, get in!’

But Teddy was next to the car, shaking her head. When Alice caught up with her, she saw why: the tyres were flat, cut with something sharp.

Alice stared down, breathing hard.

‘We were so close to the answers,’ she said.

Teddy took her arm.

‘What we need,’ she said, ‘is a new car.’

‘My Golf,’ Alice said. ‘I’m not leaving her here. She just needs new tyres.’

Teddy looked around. ‘She does. But right now, we need a new car that Darwin won’t recognise, now that he’s seen yours. And we need to do it away from any cameras he’s got out here to watch his property. So we start walking, and I’ll start calling.’

‘I’ll call,’ Alice said miserably. ‘Pia probably knows someone who can hook us up for cheap, and she might not tell Choker.’

‘Just in case Pia doesn’t want to speak to you right now,’ Teddy said gently, ‘I’ll call.’

Alice wiped her nose. ‘Okay.’

And, with nothing else in sight but dust, gravel and sparse grassy fields, they started to walk.