 
### IN THE FIFTH SEASON

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Jonathan M Barrett

License Notes

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THURSDAY

1

From the fringes of the cocktail party, Rob Hamilton watched Owen Huntly track down an intern. Rob knew from the Discovery Channel not to interfere with Nature, but, when he saw how the giggly twenty year old in her first cocktail dress had been cornered by the wolf in Armani, thirty years her senior, thirty centimetres taller, and thirty sinewy kilos heavier, he stepped in.

"Owen Huntly! Don't tell me the Parole Board let you out early." Rob's pulse raced as he slapped the big man on the back, and grasped and shook his hand. "Only joking, mate. Seriously, well done, Salesman of the Year – yet again. Oh, Sarah, Bruce Buller from Claims needs to talk to you urgently." The intern slipped away. Huntly's eyes squinted and Rob closed his own as the big man drew back the wrecking ball of a fist that could knock you half way across the hotel ballroom. Rob opened one eye. Huntly laughed and feigned a punch to Rob's jaw. Gold flashed in vulpine teeth.

Rob ducked into the crowd. The gnawing premonitions of backslapping strangers and soggy crudités, forced bonhomie and dyspepsia that had distracted him all afternoon have been realised, but he didn't care. Perhaps the many skulled flutes of champagne had helped. He joined and extricated himself from conversations that coiled back on themselves like Möbius strips. He laughed at jokes without catching their punch lines, and suffered the bigotry already in their cups. He smiled and nodded, exchanged an occasional handshake with a manager up from the provinces. Rob reckoned if he kept moving with apparent purpose he could avoid further engagement. But, when he heard the MC say, "Ladies and gentlemen... can I have your attention... ladies and gentlemen... please... I give you the new Chief Executive Officer of the Dependable Insurance Company... Andy Wu," he froze like the slow child, petrified in the silence of musical chairs.

"Hey, wait a second." Rob downed a glass of champagne and clinked it back onto the silver tray. The waiter, too young to be quite so camp, tutted and looked heavenwards as he took another.

The lights dimmed, and a snatch of _We are the Champions_ boomed through the room. There was a general murmuring and shuffling forward as Andy Wu strode across the stage to the podium. His smiling image towered above the audience on a triptych of screens. Rob had met Andy almost daily in the two months since he took over as CEO, and yet he too was mesmerised as the handsome and youthful leader held his hands wide, today more tele-evangelist than his usual methodical actuary. "Team members of the Dependable, I want you to join me on a journey." But Andy's hyped-up opening soon lapsed into the monotone Rob had expected, and a twenty-five minute commentary on information-rich PowerPoint slides followed.

Rob was bored before the third slide and retreated to the bar. In the glare of the stage lights his photochromatic lenses had become shades, so he pocketed his glasses. Now blurry, the screens had a pleasantly psychedelic feel. Rob could make out a woman next to him, someone new enough to the Dependable not to know that drinks are never served during the CEO's presentation. He leant towards her, reckless in the near darkness. "Twenty points if he says 'going forward' again."

"And going forward–" Andy said within seconds.

Rob sensed her glance. Perhaps there was the hint of a smile in the gloom. "That was nothing," he said. "Our Stepford CEO is making it too easy." He breathed in her perfume and added, "All right, forty points for 'customer focus'." Rob realised he was swaying a little. He swigged champagne to steady himself as he tried to make out her face.

Andy said, "And, going forward our focus will sit squarely on the customer–"

"Come on, that's close enough."

The woman shushed him. He probably read too much into it, but it was a very gentle shushing, amused but proper, altogether a sympathetic kind of shushing.

Andy wrapped up, several times. After an awkward pause, a stomping ovation erupted. Once the clapping had petered out, and the lights came up, Rob turned to the woman, "Can I get you a drink?" He slipped on his glasses, and was taken aback. She was mannequin svelte. Her glossy black hair was cut in an audacious bob that revealed the nape of her neck and ironic ticks of eyebrows. She was immaculately and, no doubt, expensively dressed, but it was her sparkling eyes that belittled Rob most. Her smile was disabling as she took his nametag between her thumb and finger. "That's OK... Rob Hamilton." And she left him.

The sales prizes were next. People aahed in concert as pictures of tropical beaches flashed onto the screens. Ululating maidens in grass skirts and coconut bras thumped across the stage, and gyrated to the rhythm of tribal drums. Andy Wu stood paralysed amid the show, and Rob felt a pang of embarrassment for him, momentarily. The sales conference would be held in Tahiti – hence the African drums – Rob wished he could confide to someone.

Andy had handed out the sales prizes in an orgy of whoops and hugs, and Rob resumed his weaving through the melee, hoping for a proper chance to talk with that woman. He spotted her with Sir Gerald Leet, the Dependable's chairman, and his brutish deputy. Perhaps, she was the trophy wife of a big shareholder. It didn't matter; he'd never have the nerve to approach her again. Yet, she did look like someone who might understand the fifth season. Rob imagined himself, confident as he'd been in the dark at the bar, starting to explain it to her. He'd tried so many times with others: "When I was a young boy, Dad told me you could have five seasons in one day – yes, _five_ , not four – and me and my brother, Chris – he's a big hotshot merchant banker in Aussie these days – we used to play spotting the fifth season: raining when it's sunny, blossom in winter, that sort of thing. Of course, it's much more than that." Strange as it might sound, her being a misplaced goddess and he a crapulent toad, but maybe she was the one who could really understand it all.

It was a mistake to pause in reverie. Bruce Buller, the Claims Manager, snagged him. "Hey. Sarah the Finance intern just reminded me. I've got a claim declinature for you to sign off."

"Really?" Rob looked over Buller's shoulder, and scanned the room. "Can't we discuss it tomorrow?"

"Two million dollars – that's how much we're in for." This must count as cocktail party small talk for Buller.

"Is that so?" Rob spotted the woman standing alone, back at the bar. She had a gilded air about her as though she'd sashayed here from a Scott Fitzgerald short story.

"You won't have any problems signing it off from a legal viewpoint, will you?" Buller said. "In fact," he glanced at Rob, and then back to his glass, "I was wondering whether you need to see it at all."

Rob twigged what Buller's up to. "Well, I can't say that until I've seen the case. As legal advisor, I have to look at the legalities, don't I?" He gave Buller his disciplinary look. "Remember what the Ombudsman said in the Russell complaint?"

Buller's expression turned gloomy. "Suicide. The policy is only six months old." He gulped from his tumbler of scotch, and Rob wondered whether Buller's regret lay with the suicide or the demise of such a young policy. Buller shook his head and said, "Declinature, clear as day."

"Yeah, yeah, mate, but you know I need to see the file."

"Clear as day."

"As you say." Rob glanced over Buller's shoulder and saw Owen Huntly lifting the woman's hand to his lips. Oh brilliant, now his life had been ruined again, he might as well spend the rest of the evening listening to Buller prattle. "So, tell me, who's the deceased?"

"The name of the deceased was Artemis Washburn. It's a suicide." Buller checked his watch, emptied his glass, and walked away.

_She_ , not it, you heartless bastard. Rob surveyed the knots of people: they were starting to get rowdy. He'd had a few drinks but felt sober as a presbyter next to these amateurs. At the bar, Owen Huntly was working his seductive magic. Rob slipped out.

2

No invitation to the Dependable cocktail party had appeared on Toni Haast's desk this year. This had been a mixed blessing. On the one hand, she wouldn't have to put up with Johnny, her partner, discussing their private life with anyone prepared to listen, but, on the other hand, she wouldn't be getting an award. Toni had won 'Employee of the Year (non supervisory category)' for two years running, and chose gym membership as her prize. But this year the competition was overlooked in the company restructure, and, no matter how she cut and pasted the figures around her budget spreadsheet, she couldn't afford to pay the gym fees herself. But Toni was well practised in sweetening disappointment, and she told herself early morning walking was just as much fun as gym.

She had, of course, pictured what she might wear to the cocktail party, but she didn't have a fairy godmother, and it would all be over by now. Her twins, Byron and Kyron, were tucked up in bed, and Johnny was asleep in front of the television. She wrestled the remote from his hand and zapped the screen, gathered up toys and their parts, and dropped them into the toy box. The house needed a vacuum, but Toni sat at the kitchen table and took a file from her shoulder bag – 0002847-1: death claim. It was against company policy to take files from the office, but she couldn't get her work done otherwise. She scanned the claim summary: sum assured – two million dollars. God, a payout that big would be like winning Lotto. She allowed herself a minute to sit back to work out how she'd spend two million dollars.

Mr Buller, Toni's boss, had scribbled comments on the file. He'd drawn a deep red ring around the intermediary's name, and he'd written: 'Very fishy – decline – suicide, clear as day'. How many times had she suggested to him that it wasn't best practice to make those sorts of observations in writing? But he didn't seem to care.

Toni went through the documents and made careful notes:

Artemis Inglewood Washburn – born 1 May 1960, Santa Cruz, California.

_Occupation – dream maker_. Toni underlined this. What was 'dream maker' supposed to mean? How did that get through Underwriting?

_Purpose of insurance – security for venture_. What venture?

_Significant medical procedures in last 10 years – tumour removed (non-malignant) 27 September 2010_. Was it definitely was non malignant?

_Died Exmouth – 9 August 2012_.

_Policy taken out – 12 April 2012_.

_Cause of death (provisional) – multiple injuries; coroner's report outstanding_.

_Policy owner – Artmor Investments Ltd_.

_Intermediary – Owen R Huntly_.

How could Mr Buller have made those same facts into suicide? Toni sat back in the chair and rubbed her eyes. Did he have more experience, or was it just better understanding? She decided that neither explanation was right: her boss was plain wrong, and that was unfair to Artemis Inglewood Washburn, whoever she might have been, and it was unfair to her too.

3

Even in the dark of the car, Samantha Wu knew her husband was still smiling at his performance, and this let her relax. She unfastened her earrings and stowed them in her handbag. She was already imagining herself in bed.

"It went well, didn't it?" Andy said. "Look, I'm not saying my speech was the Gettysburg Address but–"

"Yes, darling. I told you, it was awesome."

"So, honestly, what did you really think of it?"

"It was – um – very – technical," Samantha said.

"Technical?"

"And inspirational," she added immediately. The streetlights flashed across her face as Andy drove. Samantha closed her eyes and inclined her sleepy head away from him.

"Do 'technical' and 'inspirational' really go together?"

"When you do it, they do." She yawned and squeezed Andy's forearm. Recalling the man who'd tried to get her to play bullshit bingo during Andy's speech made her smile. Now he was someone who didn't know the meaning of 'career limiting move'. "What does Rob Hamilton do?"

"Internal counsel – why?"

"He seemed quite amusing."

"A bit of a clown, actually. He asked me if he could change his title to _consigliere_ like in _The Godfather_. I don't see him surviving long. So you really thought my speech was both technically accurate – and inspirational?"

"Mmm." Should she tell Andy about Rob Hamilton calling him a Stepford CEO? No, he'd only feel hurt.

"Well, that's great."

Andy's enthusiasm for his new job was sweet, like that of a little boy fired up by the latest collectible cards. But Samantha thought he was fooling himself. None of the people who'd gazed up at him as he talked about embedded value and the cost of equity, could guess what a darling he could be when they were alone together. She couldn't tell him what she was thinking – Andy, they didn't care that it was you up there talking. They were clapping the style of the presentation, the numbers, your suit – anything but you, my you.

"Is something wrong?" Andy said.

"Oh, I don't know what it is, darling." She noticed his quick glance at her. He needed to know more. "All right, these cocktails parties. It's like you're running for president. And you have to do all that handshaking with these weird people, and laugh at their stupid jokes. It's all so fake – I just don't like it."

"No babies to kiss, though," he said.

"True, but lots of sales consultants wearing too much make up and not enough dress."

"Really? I didn't notice," Andy said and gave her a boyish grin.

"Naughty." Samantha tapped her husband's knee. But when she thought back on the cocktail party, it was more than the sight of bosomy young women with their arms around her husband that bothered her. She'd spotted the chairman, Sir Gerald Leet, and his sidekick, Michael Dyer, plotting in a corner. The chairman looked as though he'd been disinterred and Dyer's hands, knuckly and mapped with highway veins, were those of a strangler. Sooner or later they would do something nasty to Andy, Samantha was sure of that. She'd approached and hailed them brightly, and, as she'd anticipated, their conversation stopped dead. She steeled herself and kissed Sir Gerald. She was pleased to see the trace of her vermilion lipstick left on his cold, grey cheek.

And then there was the Salesperson of the Year. He swaggered over to the bar, cockily swinging a gilt trophy. He placed it in front of her. He obviously knew what impressed women in these parts.

"Salesman of the Year," he said, presumably in case she couldn't read.

Samantha tapped the trophy with a polished nail. It was so tempting to scrape off a tiny bit of the gilt to reveal the plastic that was surely beneath. But she knew that sort of behaviour was below the wife of the CEO.

"Very nice, but it says Sales _person_ ," she said.

He ignored her. "Owen R Huntly." He held out his hand.

"Samantha Wu." She held out hers.

"Woo? That's an unusual name." She guessed he meant, but you're not Chinese.

"Samantha?"

"No, the other."

"Ah, it's not that unusual in Singapore."

Rather than shake her hand, the Salesperson of the Year gently pulled it, for a dreadful moment, Samantha thought, towards his lips. She heard the note of panic in her voice as she added, "Yes, my husband is Andy Wu – your CEO."

The Salesperson of the Year did not kiss Samantha's hand but nor did he seem perturbed to learn who she was. He turned her wrist and bowed to take in her perfume. "Well lucky old Randy Andy to have a wife who wears _Banlieu_ by Vichy."

"That's clever." She didn't mean 'clever', she meant 'outrageous' or perhaps 'creepy', but she thought it was somehow clever all the same. She pulled back her hand.

The Salesperson of the Year might pass as a Greek god. Athletic, tanned and, with his greying gold curls, he was magnificent to look at – but coarse too – and she guessed pretty stupid, just how she imagined Greek gods must have been. But, like Western history, Samantha divided her life between before and after – in her case Andy. Before Andy, well, yes she might have had a fling with a Greek god. After Andy, she'd found her purpose in life.

"I've got to go," Samantha told the Salesperson of the Year. "The CEO's wife must circulate."

"Sammy." There was urgency in Andy's voice as he called her back from her reverie. "What are you thinking about?"

"Oh, nothing."

When they stopped at traffic lights, Samantha saw that Andy was no longer smiling. She touched his hand as he griped the gearstick. A car screeched to a halt next to them. It revved and lurched in a pool of violet light, and, faintly discernible through darkened glass, four pasty youths stared at them. Samantha couldn't tell whether the expressions in the shadows of their hoods were malevolent or admiring. Andy pressed the central locking.

"I saw you talking to Owen Huntly," he said.

The lights turned green, and Samantha felt Andy's hand tense on the gear stick. "Leave it, darling." The hoons squealed off in triumph. Andy pulled away slowly from the mark and the engine growled like a pit bull denied a rabbit.

"I said I saw you talking to Owen Huntly, our esteemed Salesperson of the Year."

"Oh that–" Andy always winced if she swore, "–vain twit."

"He's very good looking, though." Andy checked her face for reassurance.

"Maybe, if you like that sort of over the top, testosterone dripping, male thing–" Samantha reined in her animation; she was supposed to be too sleepy to talk.

Andy didn't seem to notice and said, "Apparently many women do. I hear he's a real ladies' man."

"Not this lady." Samantha leant over to kiss his cheek. "Andy, I'm really, really tired." She rested her forehead against the side window once more. She should tell Andy she loved him, but his constant need for reassurance sometimes drained her.

"Well, Huntly needs to watch himself," Andy said. "One step out of line, and I'm going to nail that MF," he added in a badass cop voice.

Samantha didn't respond. So Andy tried again. "If Huntly doesn't watch out, he might just find himself the prey." He glanced again at her for approval, as if he was about to say, 'geddit?'

Samantha closed her eyes.

#

Back in their apartment, Samantha nestled down among the cushions on the settee. It was her soft haven in this stark place she so regretted renting. Andy drew the blinds precisely and switched the television on. Samantha covered her eyes against the glare of the huge screen. "Please, turn that down," she said.

Andy muted the sound. He seemed more interested in images than noise anyway. Samantha covered her eyes with a pillow.

"Andy, if you could be anywhere, or do anything, what would it be?" she asked.

"Sorry?" But she knew he'd heard and eventually he said, "I don't know."

The faint clicking as Andy flitted through channels irritated her, especially as he was avoiding her question. Samantha wanted to tell him he was too close to the screen but wasn't sure what's wrong with that. "Aren't you going to ask me?" she said.

"I don't think I want to. You make me nervous when you're like this."

"Don't be."

"OK, what's your answer?" he said and turned off the television.

"I don't know either." Samantha took the pillow from her eyes and fixed him resolutely. "And I don't care, as long as I'm with you."

"Really?" Andy gazed at her. He looked delighted.

"Of course." She held up her arms, and he came to stroke her cheek. She moved into the caress like a cat. "Let's go to bed. Now."

#

When the bedroom was this silent, Samantha knew Andy would be awake, vexing himself.

"What is it, darling?" she asked. "Please tell me, I'm so tired. I really need to sleep."

"Nothing." The silence deepened before Andy said, "OK. Sometimes I feel like I'm walking a tight rope – the only thing is, I don't know how to do it – but I understand if I stop or look down or think about it, then I'll fall."

Now was the time to show resolve. Samantha sat up. "We should leave here as soon as we can. You should really find something else to do."

"What?"

Samantha caught the hurt in his voice. "I don't like these people," she said. "They're all using you."

Andy laughed. "And I'm not using them?"

"I care about you. I don't care about all the others." Samantha switched on the bedside lamp. "Let's go. Andy, I'm serious. You resign tomorrow, and we could be anywhere in two months' time." She shuddered at the torture it would be, before she added, "We could go back to Singapore, be near your parents."

Andy blinked in the sudden light. "Oh, Sammy, imagine how walking away from this would look on my CV."

"It wouldn't matter."

"And it wouldn't matter to you if we lost everything?"

"No," Samantha said, "and besides, I could go back to work if you don't find something straight away."

"What, go back to having your bum pinched in business class? I'm afraid that's a bit hard to believe." His patronising sigh stung her.

Samantha eyed Andy as he straightened the duvet. "If you really think that, you don't know me." And she snapped off the light, snatched a pillow into an embrace, rolled over, and was asleep before Andy could extricate himself from this first wrong turn.

4

No one competed with Rob Hamilton for a bottle of pinot noir in the aisles of Liquor Mega. He slapped a gold credit card on the counter where the notes and coins of student loans were meted out for six-packs of Tui and Raskalnikov vodka mixers.

At home, Rob carved the foil from the neck of the bottle, lined up the point of the corkscrew, and twisted to release the genie that would grant his wish of blissful intoxication. But, when he pulled at the cork, the corkscrew snapped. "Jesus Christ." He traced his finger across the fractured metal. "What crap!" After a struggle, he managed to push the cork in with a knife, and poured himself a glass of frothing wine.

The cat padded from his daylong slumber and arrived, tail high, in the kitchen. He insinuated himself around and between his master's legs, mewling coarsely. Rob stooped to stroke the sagging belly. The cat's name was Oggi. It was not a name Rob would have chosen. He would have called him something ironic like 'Rover' or 'Spot'. But five years ago, his friend Melissa, lawyer to the oppressed, had asked Rob to look after the cat for a while. Like the refugees Melissa represented, Oggi came with his alien name and a long, unhappy story implied. Rob picked up Oggi, careless of the white hairs that always clung to his black jacket. The cat's eyes closed, and his body vibrated with depthless joy.

Rob knew he wouldn't speak to another human being for more than half a day. That was just 0.01% of his allotted three score and ten but it added up when repeated so many times. "Fancy some fish, my furry former-fucker?" he inquires of the cat. Oggi knew the routine well. He couldn't contain his emasculated pleasure as Rob circumcised the tin. Oggi let out a belly deep yowl in anticipation, and clawed at Rob's heels. Then the powerful ex-tom hunched, obscenely noisy, over a bowl of stinking fish meal.

Rob downed his wine, poured another glass, and, turned on the radio. He was pleased to hear a familiar voice compere nostalgic music. He flitted through the identikit photos and irate residents of the local advertiser. Before dropping it in the wastebasket, he removed the home improvement supplement with its before-and-after roofs and driveways, and, best of all, the oddly pornographic pictures of coy models stepping from showers: this was reserved for the bottom of the litter tray.

The post held no surprises but his voice mail told Rob that his big brother, Chris, would be in Wellington for the weekend, and they simply must touch base.

Rob filled another glass. "'Touch base', eh? Chris, Chris, when will you ever learn? We communicate with words. We are not fucking bonobos."

FRIDAY

5

Many who attended the Dependable cocktail party the night before lay abed late, squirming in hangover and regret. But, in his hotel suite, Owen Huntly was woken by the first light pouring through the gap he'd left in the curtains. He slipped from the bed and into a thick bathrobe. On the way to the balcony he stopped to admire his sales trophy once more. He lifted it and inclined the base to read his name, recorded five times in succession. But he was puzzled. It did say Salesperson of the Year, not Salesman. He could swear it hadn't in previous years. Owen savoured the memory of the lovely Samantha Wu pointing that fact out to him.

He slid the doors open, and the noise of traffic rushing in caused the woman in his bed to turn over, but didn't wake her. Last night, she'd giggled nervously, pressing against his shoulder, as he roared from the balcony to the world, "I am a winner. I am a champion," time after time. Owen stepped out and peered down twenty stories to watch the tide of black suits. He felt an urge to piss on the drones below him. A southerly wind chilled his face but he didn't mind at all – bring it on. The city held little interest for him. He looked across the harbour to the encircling ranges, and pictured the snuffling, grunting, stickable piglife waiting for him there.

Back inside, Owen knew he was already bored with the woman in his bed. Most men would find her attractive, and, in his place, would hope to keep her, but Owen wished she'd slipped away before dawn. She'd moved across to where he'd lain, and brought a pillow into her embrace. It was a close and loving reflex, and he loathed the way a one-night stand might assume so much. Had he really thought she or any of the others could fill the hole Artemis had left? He followed the trail of strewn underwear to her jacket, and read the woman's nametag, silently mouthing the words, 'Andrea Jackson, Customer Services Manager'.

Owen took a small black book from his pocket and turned the pages of careful handwriting. "First say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do," he read aloud. "E– Epi–" He gave up on the sage's name but inhaled deeply as he pondered the words of wisdom. Then in a few quick paces Owen was across the grand room and at the bed. "Hey, Andrea Jackson, haven't you got some customers to service?" He whipped the duvet off the naked woman and strode to the shower without looking back.

6

Andy Wu's silver Mercedes purred along the still uncrowded streets. He manoeuvred precisely into one of the three reserved spaces in the basement of Dependable House. On the wall was a palimpsest: 'Wu' stencilled over the shadow of 'Gisborne'. He never failed to notice it.

Andy strolled into the foyer as the cleaners trudged out and was disappointed when their response was not as cheery as his greeting. He didn't normally use the swipe card that let him override requests for the lift, but, today, knowing the building would be almost empty, travelled straight to the tenth floor. Cynthia, Andy's executive assistant, was in already and engrossed in a magazine. The chairman of the Dependable, Sir Gerald Leet, was also visiting. He kept an office at Dependable House with red and green lights above the door like a level crossing. The red light signalled he was in and not to be disturbed – even by his CEO.

"Oh, hello, Cynthia," Andy said. "You're in early today."

She didn't respond. Clearly some newsreader's pregnancy was more interesting than his arrival.

"So, who's in with Sir Gerald?" He tried to sound matter of fact.

Cynthia shrugged and turned a page. "He was in before me."

Andy sat at his desk but couldn't concentrate. After twenty-two minutes he heard voices and looked up, expecting the chairman to come into his office for a heads up about the meeting. But a group of three men walked past Andy's door without acknowledging him. One was Sir Gerald and another was almost certainly his deputy, Michael Dyer. They obscured the third man. Andy checked whether Cynthia could fill him in, but she wasn't at her desk.

7

A black wave surged out of the railway station and, with the first hint of a green man, flooded across the street. Rob Hamilton's head hurt and he was dawdling. A sneaking suspicion troubled him: maybe he'd not been as sober at the cocktail party as he assumed. But, round the corner of Bowen Street, he joined the rush, slipping into the peloton next to a smart young woman in training shoes. She glanced across at him, and stepped up her pace. He matched her, and managed to get slightly ahead. In some cultures, he thought between ragged breaths, two adults – similar age, well, not that far apart, different sex – catching each other's eye on a street corner of an impersonal city might lead to – certainly not the two of them haring down Lambton Quay, elbows flying, pretending they're so important they must rush like this to their desks or deaths. The young woman pulled ahead and made the last flashes of a red man a few metres ahead of him. Rob was left behind a wall of buses, panting, holding a traffic light for support, telling himself the trainers had given her the edge.

When he reached his desk, hot and rumpled, Rob sat for an hour thinking what he should do, waiting for the phone to ring or an email to pop into his inbox to spur him into action. He slipped out for a latte-to-go. Back in the office, he took an envelope from his in-tray and pulled out the galleys of a marketing brochure. He scored a correction in bold red. He knew it would be ignored. Marketing couldn't care less about split infinitives or hanging participles, things he increasingly held dear.

Bruce Buller knocked on the open door and filled the lower half of the doorway. Buller was rumoured to be a champion ballroom dancer, but Rob had never believed it. Champion pie eater, maybe. And yet the man did have something terpsichorean about him, despite his egg shape and the straining belt that exactly bisected him.

"You got a few moments for me?" Buller said.

"Come in. I won't be a minute. I'm just finishing something urgent."

Rob looked for the tell-tale signs of a ballroom champion. And, indeed, the head of the National Claims Team – its acronym unfortunately pronounced 'nicked' – didn't move like a fat man; he arrived, elegantly, as if on castors.

Buller clutched a file to his belly while Rob finished his important work. He flashed a disapproving look at the mess of papers on Rob's desk, and said, "Confucius, he say 'tidy desk, tidy mind'."

"Really," Rob said, well aware of Buller's fetish for tidiness, "and what does Confucius have to say about an empty desk?" He made a final correction to the marketing brochure, and gestured Buller to his conference table.

"Did you have a good time at the cocktail party?" Buller said. There was a sly note in his voice.

Rob avoided his eye. "Always do, but I don't suppose that's why you're here."

"No. It's that claim I was telling you about yesterday."

And thereby stuffed up my chances of happiness, Rob thought. "Artemis Washburn, wasn't it?"

"God, you've got a good memory. Well, it's a right old rort," Buller said and tapped the file. "Two mill sum insured. Less than a year old. The life insured fell–" He made speech marks with his fingers, and paused for comic effect, "–off a cliff." He pushed the file across the table to Rob and added, "It stinks to high heaven."

"Who's the intermediary?" Rob said.

"Who do you think?"

Rob wouldn't stoop to answer such a question and turned the pages to scan the application form.

"I'll save your time – Owen bloody Huntly. Jack the lad himself."

Rob thought, Oh crap! but said nothing. Buller's smug smile told Rob his body language had given him away. He looked down and flitted through the file.

"The deceased was quite a looker," Buller said. "You can be sure she was one of Huntly's conquests."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is everything here?" Rob asked, knowing Buller would take this as an insult.

"I think you'll find everything you need."

"Leave it with me then." Rob shut the file, but, as he did, the image of the first document registered in his consciousness, and he opened it again. "Hold a minute. Don't you think it might be a tad premature to draft a letter of declinature before I've even looked at the case?" Rob said. He'd meant to sound sarcastic, it probably came out indignant.

"Come off it, mate," Buller said. "You know as well as me it's a suicide. And suicide is excluded in the first year."

"Actually, I don't know _she_ committed suicide. Sure, perhaps she did, but accidents do happen."

Buller folded his arms and flushed at the neck. Rob felt blood rushing to his cheeks. He made a display of reading Buller's letter and marked a correction with a big X. Can't the man just get and go?

"Look, Bruce, you may well be proved right. But, until we've properly investigated the claim and made sure our case is watertight, we have to assume everything is above board. I don't need to tell you, if this gets to court – and of course it will – we'll have to prove she committed suicide."

Buller relaxed a little in the light of Rob's flattery but wouldn't give in. "I'd bet my pension it was suicide."

Despite knowing Buller was about to be nudged into early retirement, Rob didn't say what he was thinking – I wouldn't do that if I were you – you'll be needing it soon enough. But he saw that Buller, a man who'd spent his entire working life suspecting others, had detected his unease.

"Hey, have you heard anything about what they're planning for me?"

A vindictive person would have told the truth, but Rob said, "This place lives on rumours. I wouldn't give it a second thought until Miss Gore invites you in for a friendly chat with–" He hesitated; he didn't think he should pronounce the acronym as he normally did as 'hurt'; "–the Human Resources Team."

"No. I suppose not."

After Buller had gone, Rob returned downcast to Artemis Washburn's file. He knew Buller was on his way out, and his own complaints about his unprofessional behaviour had probably played their part in his downfall, but he couldn't understand why people like Buller didn't just do their jobs properly. If you spend a third of your adult life working, why not do it well? Rob scanned through the file again. No body shots, thank god. But, when he looked at the passport photo of Artemis Inglewood Washburn, Rob was struck by her image. It was more than the brightness of her eyes, her cheekbones and the marvels of American dentistry, he was reminded of a song from his youth – _the light pours out of me_. That was it: Artemis Washburn looked radiant.

8

In his day dreams, Andy Wu often imagined an in-depth _Fortune_ article charting his success against the odds _. Andy Wu (29) casually sits_ – no, _stands_ – _on the windowsill of his office, high above Wellington harbour_ – previously imagined as Singapore and Hong Kong. Occasional reveries have featured backdrop vistas of Toronto, London, New York, although Samantha's heart remained set on Sydney. The observant eye would note evidence of Samantha's aesthetic feng shui audit, a tasteful constellation of Zen pebbles aligned on the vent of the air con. _Young Cambridge graduate grows the dowager of New Zealand insurance into Asia's hottest company._

The psychometric tests Andy took before his appointment as CEO classified him as an upper range hyena, combined with mid-range dolphin – and no more than traces of bonobo.

"What on earth does that mean?" Samantha asked.

"Hyenas are natural team players," Andy told her. "And an upper range hyena is a natural leader. Dolphins are highly intelligent and creative. It means I fit the CEO profile exactly."

"And bonobos?"

Andy blushed. "Um, apparently they touch each other a lot."

"But you hate team sports."

Samantha was of course right but today Andy craved the company of a team of bright others, and so he'll be the first to arrive at the meeting, even though it would be more becoming for him to sweep in at the last moment, settling urgent issues on his mobile, to take the empty chair at the head of the table. Andy smiled as he recalled that only once, and then half in jest, he'd referred to the executive meeting room as 'the ideas incubator'. Straight away, the New Strategy Team – invariably referred to as the NST, to save time – had adopted and refined it. 'Brainstorming in the double-i with the NST' sounded so much more bleeding edge than 'a meeting with the consultants in the tenth floor meeting room'.

Andy picked up his portfolio, marched down the corridor and pushed open the dark-wood doors. The lights were dimmed to a sepulchral gloom as though the beached whale body of his predecessor, Ralph Gisborne, might lie in state on the long table. Andy switched the lights on full.

After the rancorous demutualisation of the Dependable and the subsequent shareholder coup, Sir Gerald Leet had headhunted Andy to be its new CEO. Plenty of eyebrows were raised about Sir Gerald's choice of this young foreigner to lead the country's second oldest insurer. But his glittering CV had persuaded the financial press to give him the benefit of the doubt. Within a month, Andy had rid himself of most of the previous upper management, 'the old school' as he described them to Samantha. Despite their generous severance packages, they persisted with their vexatious demands that ranged from sponsorship of a pensioners' golf day to a further share in what remained of the company's superannuation fund.

Andy tugged the cords of the window blinds to let in the maximum of disinfectant light. Half the framed photographs on the walls recorded the old school at golf tournaments. Andy loathed golf, a complete waste of time and prime real estate. His other major occupational dislike was black tie functions. The rest of the photographs showed the old school at formal dinners. Their faces were red from port; their jug ears and golf ball noses alight. And, in clouds of cigar smoke, they swilled brandy balloons capacious enough for carp.

The photos were screwed to the walls and, rather than find someone to remove them (facilities and utilities being in the process of an outsourcing tender), Andy had covered them in brown paper systems diagrams. But, occasionally, in a groundbreaking meeting, the weight of the new ideas caused a corner to peel-off and, gathering momentum, revealed the old buggers, smug in their golf shirts or dinner jackets, laughing at the youngsters' efforts.

Through the stiff paper, Andy kneaded adhesion back into the putty, securing the corners to the wall. Then he greeted the NST, all seconded consultants, as they joined him, their agendas and buzzwords well prepared.

It was an awesome meeting. Team members referred to _Harvard Business Review_ papers as fluently as Cynthia could explain the plot of last night's _Shortland Street_. Their PowerPoint presentations on the effective use of capital were as slick and hip as a Lady Gaga video. Andy promised to take their outsourcing recommendations to the impending board meeting for approval. "A matter of rubber stamping," he assured them. The Customer Services Team – 'cost', as one of the consultants had so aptly pronounced its acronym, would be first to go to Bangalore. Then, the Treasury Investment Team will be outsourced to Dubai. Andy knew this wasn't all they had in mind, but he held up his hands and said, "Enough, I think, for today."

Back alone in his office, pumped with adrenaline yet feeling lonely, Andy sifted through the papers on his desk. These were mundane things, not great matters of strategy. After a cursory glance, he authorised a high denomination cheque, but then a memo headed 'strictly confidential' caught his attention. A week before he'd instructed Rob Hamilton to analyse the contract between Owen Huntly and the Dependable, with a view to termination. Andy had calculated Huntly's special commission rate meant the Dependable lost at least a thousand dollars on every policy the man sold.

Andy started to read his internal counsel's memo, but it was written in such cautious legalese that he gave up and dialled Rob's extension.

"Hello. Rob Hamilton."

"Andy here." Like Elvis and Madonna, 'Andy' is enough. "I've got your memo on the Huntly contract."

"Ok."

"I appreciate we need a formal opinion for our records but I'd like you to tell me our options in one sentence." Andy could hear Rob rustling papers but no answer comes. "So?"

"How long can the sentence be?" Rob laughed, but Andy didn't.

"Ok, the old contracts, like Owen's, are pretty much weighted in favour of the salesperson – you can thank Ralph Gisborne, as ex-Sales himself, for that – but, if we can prove Owen has committed a serious breach of the contract, for example, some type of fraud against the Dependable or withholding good faith information, then we can terminate his contract forthwith without any further obligation to pay him commissions, even on policies he's already sold."

Andy couldn't resist a smile at Rob's managing to deliver his opinion in one breath. "All right," Andy said. "I want you to go down to check out Owen Huntly on his own turf, and I want you to investigate him thoroughly."

"Is there any particular reason you want to terminate the contract of our top salesperson?"

Andy caught a patronising note. "I have my reasons," he said. "I'll also find you someone competent from the NCT to go with you to help with this Washburn claim."

"Washburn?"

"Yes, the big suicide claim. Huntly sold the policy. You have seen the file, haven't you?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Rob sounded grave. "Tell me something, Andy. You're an actuary. In your opinion, what is the statistical probability of a healthy, wealthy and, well, beautiful fifty something woman committing suicide?"

Andy didn't need to think about it. "Approximately nil."

"That's exactly the number I had in mind."

Andy suspected he may have been bettered. "Oh, by the way, have you been for your medical yet?"

"Actually I'm going this afternoon," Rob said. Andy had not expected him to sound so willing.

9

At first Rob was outraged that members of the New Management Team should need to undergo a medical check up. "I think you may be taking the team metaphor too far", he emailed Miss Gore, leader of the Human Resources Team, only to have a pedantic explanation of the company's significant investment in the NMT's human capital, and its concern, of course, for team members' health. But, since she didn't specify a particular doctor, Rob took the opportunity to look up Phil Denniston, an old university friend. He reckoned the indignities of a medical could best be mitigated if the examining doctor was someone whom he'd witnessed engaging in undignified behaviour on countless occasions. And, since Rob had kept Phil's stag night infidelity secret all these years, surely Phil would not reveal anything inappropriate about Rob to his employer?

At Phil's rooms, Rob had been pricked and prodded and was now being auscultated.

"Do you keep in touch with any of the old crew?" Phil said. "Cough."

Close up like this, Rob observed how his friend's ears had sprouted a rich growth of hair, presumably to offset the loss from his crown.

"A few, occasionally. I send all my problem employees to Melissa at the Community Law Centre. You'd be amazed at the number of people we have with bailiffs at the door or abusive partners. Then, I buy her lunch once a year to assuage my guilt."

Phil returned to his desk. Rob swung his legs off the examining couch and stood. He buttoned up and stuffed his shirttails into his waistband, then started to nose around the surgery.

"Hey, it's a bit freaky, all these things you've got for probing bodies. Aliens would love to get their hands on them."

Phil looked up from the form he was completing to flash Rob a look that said keep your hands off my equipment.

"So, what's the damage?" Rob asked, his fingers poised above a scrutinising device with tubes and dials.

"Please don't touch that, it's been sterilised. OK, your blood pressure is looking normal, but we'll have to wait a few days for the test results."

"Perfect specimen then?" Rob said.

"Actually, no. You're now officially overweight."

"That's ridiculous. I've never been overweight." Rob looked at his side profile in the mirror, and practised breathing in.

"Well, you are now. Look: height – weight." Phil pointed to a crude chart, clearly designed for scaring greedy children. "You're significantly into the orange – overweight. In fact, you're not far from getting a Mr Blobby sticker. There's no arguing with the body mass indicators."

"Well, there ought to be." Rob pulled the shirttails from his waistband. That looked better. "Anyway, you're as overweight as I am."

"That's not the point," Phil said, "and besides I'm not – I'm slightly under overweight."

"I'm afraid I can't agree with you there. You're fatter than me. You always have been. Really, have you looked at the size of your arse in a mirror recently?"

"That's irrelevant. I'm taller than you." Phil started to point to the chart but must have realised how silly this would be. "Anyway, Rob, as your medical adviser, I'm advising you to lose weight."

"You've got to be joking. 250 kilograms and 20 Big Macs a day is overweight. Not a bit podgy around the belly."

"That's the worst kind of fat," Phil said, without conviction.

"Come off it – are you telling me that's worse than being super sumo size, your fingers too fat to operate the TV remote?"

"The indicators tell me you're overweight." Phil looked back down at the form, even though he'd already completed and signed it.

"That's crap and you know it." Rob tried to look over Phil's shoulder at what he'd written but retreated to the patient's chair when Phil warded him off with a glare. "Anyway, what time will you be finished up here?"

"Last appointment is 5.30. I should be done by six."

"Great. We could go for a drink," Rob said.

"I can't."

"It's Friday night for Christ's sake, Phil."

"Friday afternoon. Anyway, I told you, I can't. I'm going to gym." It sounded like a confession but Rob assumed he'd meant it as a boast.

"You, gym, since when?"

"It's amazing what passing 40 and wanting to be around to see your kids grow up can do," Phil said.

"Oh." Rob paused before adding, "So just a quickie, then, before you go to gym?"

"I really can't. And that's the other thing. Your alcohol consumption puts you into the category of habitual heavy drinker." Phil reached for another colour-coded chart but stopped when he saw Rob's smirk. "So, I'm telling you straight. You're drinking too much."

"That's bollocks and you know it is. Face down on Cuba Street with a bottle of meths is drinking too much," Rob said, "not a few sociable beers, once in a while."

"Look, I've done my duty. I've warned you. And now it's on your file."

"What? Have you honestly told my employer I drink too much? You Judas."

"Hold on a minute," Phil said. "You told me how much you drink. All I did was write it down."

"Well, thank god I didn't tell you the truth."

Phil pretended not to have heard and said, "At least you've given up smoking. You have haven't you?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"Look, you're not 21 any more, Rob. It's quite simple: as you get older, the body stops forgiving you when you neglect it."

"Ah, but that's it, isn't?" He didn't feel like a lecture, and fetched his jacket from the examination table. "I do feel like I'm still 21. I just don't know where the last 20 odd years have gone." He struggled into his jacket and stuffed his tie into a pocket. "Some bloody lost weekend."

"Are you seeing anyone?" Phil said.

"Fat chance of that."

"I'll tell you something," Phil said, "you're more likely to meet a nice, healthy woman at gym than in a bar."

"Who says I'm looking for a _nice, healthy_ woman?" Rob hadn't intended to sound quite so bitter.

"So what are you looking for?"

Rob shrugged.

Phil stood and approached with a grave expression. "How long is it since your parents passed away – three, four years?"

"Five."

Phil placed his hand on Rob's shoulder. "That's plenty of time for closure."

Rob felt his eyes sting. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am over it." He didn't feel like Phil practising his pastoral stuff on him.

"Hey, Rob, we're getting to that age when we lose our parents. I guess it's another phase of growing up."

"Yes." Oh god. Had one of Phil's parents recently died? No, he'd been talking about them earlier. Rob glanced at Phil's hand, well meaning, but unwelcome on his shoulder.

Phil clenched his fingers into a fist and tapped Rob on the arm. "God, you were always such a pain with your causes and quests. What are you tilting your lance at now?"

Rob squirmed. "I've got a job and a cat. What more could a man want?"

"Maybe you need to get yourself a hobby."

Rob saw that Phil really was serious about a hobby, and cringed.

At the door, Rob stopped. "Hey, Phil, you're a doctor. Tell me something. Why would a woman, who seems to have everything going for her, kill herself?"

"Who knows?" Phil looked nonplussed and offered, "Clinical depression?"

"No. I don't think so. She looked really happy. Actually, radiant."

"Who was she?" He sounded genuinely concerned.

"Oh, no one we knew. She was insured with the Dependable. It pretty much looks as though she committed suicide but the thing is, it seems impossible to me that you can look as radiant as she did, and yet be suicidal."

10

After the excitement of the outsource meeting, and, now the Huntly affair – he meant Huntley _business_ – was in hand, Andy was bored. He was tempted to try a computer game, but Cynthia had once caught him playing Solitaire. She must have seen the reflection of his screen in the window, and helpfully suggested he could move the eight of diamonds. So Andy didn't dare risk a quick Tantrix tournament. Cynthia was too much like Ma for that. And how it would have hurt Ma after all the sacrifices she made for his sake to find him wasting his time, playing a silly game like that.

Andy picked up the company newsletter – the _Dependable Update –_ and, reading once more his editorial that the spin consultant had penned so well, was very pleased. He would show this to Samantha tonight, and she would probably offer to stick it on the fridge. Then he turned to the article on the Salesperson of the Year, and there, of course, he was: Owen R Huntly, confident, charismatic – taunting?

When Andy strode through the vast open office to find the leader of the National Underwriting Team, junior team members scuttled away like crabs. Others muttered, "Hello, Mr Wu, er, Andy." But the Underwriter seemed unperturbed by an unannounced visit from his CEO. He was engrossed in a printout that, metres long, flowed across and over his desk like Rapunzel's hair to the floor. He continued his examination with his nose pressed to the paper while Andy folded his arms and tapped his foot. This old man, who Andy would have guessed is seventy if he didn't know the company's ready or not retirement age is sixty, was one of the few of the long-term employees who hadn't jumped or been pushed. After several prompting coughs, Andy managed to draw the old man away from what he said was is an absolutely fascinating ECG.

"I wanted to talk to you about Owen Huntly."

The Underwriter sat, made a steeple with his fingers and stared at Andy over his half glasses. "A remarkable man."

"So I hear. In particular, his promiscuity."

"Indeed."

"Do you realise if this Huntly character ever contracted an STD, the South Island of New Zealand could be facing an epidemic that would make AIDS in Africa look like–" Andy searched for an appropriate simile.

The Underwriter offered, "A one-off dose of the clap in a Shanghai brothel?"

"Well, yes, I suppose you could put it like that."

"Of course, it would have been far worse for the Dependable," the Underwriter added, presumably by way of comfort.

"What do you mean?" Andy didn't understand how things could be worse than his own worse case scenario.

"You see, we can safely assume many of Owen's sexual partners are Dependable policyholders."

"Jesus Christ! What's the man's state of health?" Andy's human curiosity had turned to professional panic.

"Robust. As you can imagine, it would have to be." The Underwriter paused, presumably out of respect for Owen Huntly's amorous capacity. "Look, Mr Wu, er Andy, I think I understand your concern, but I've known Owen Huntly for twenty five years, and he always takes measures. I can assure you of that."

11

At five o'clock, Toni Haast decided to give Mr Buller ten more minutes to get back from his appointment before she would need to run for her train. She'd fretted all day about disagreeing with his conclusions on Artemis Washburn. This morning, she'd tried to argue with him, without saying outright she thought he was wrong, but his neck flushed and finally he said. "Fine, never mind my forty years' experience, I'll take it up to Rob Hamilton. Let's see what old Perry Mason makes of it." Referring the claim to Mr Hamilton was a compromise, but, if Mr Hamilton was a Mason like Mr Buller, Toni wasn't sure this would progress the case forward.

Toni checked the clock on her screen again. 5.06. Her bag was packed. She started to log off. In truth, she wouldn't be disappointed if she missed Mr Buller. She didn't like being alone with her boss after one of his afternoon appointments, which often involved too many drinks with brokers. Then it becomes 'call me, Bruce, love'; 'I could teach you to tango', and shameless brushings against her. Toni had been a nurse and wasn't easily disgusted by the human body, but her boss's belly nudging her shoulder as he lectured her about fishy claimants sorely tested her gag response.

Mr Buller returned just as Toni was about to leave. He looked shrunk and gutted, not puffed up and bouncy, as she'd expected. He carried a cardboard box. He didn't attempt to flirt with her, he just muttered something about Miss Gore, the horror, the horror, went into his office and shut the door without even a glance into her cubicle. After a few minutes, Toni knocked. She had a vague premonition of him hanging from the light fitting. She knocked again and opened the door.

"Mr Buller."

He hadn't hanged himself. He was packing personal things into the cardboard box.

"Oh, hello, Toni." He looked surprised. "Are you still here?" His voice was soft, evenly kindly.

"I wanted to talk to you about the Washburn claim," she said.

His expression was blank as though the HRT had erased his memory.

"That _fishy_ claim we discussed this morning," she said.

"Oh that. I handed it over to Rob Hamilton. You'll have to speak to him about it." He struggled to fit a framed certificate of obsolete competence into the box. "Thirty five years. How old are you, Toni – if you don't mind me asking?"

"Twenty eight."

"Here's a thought, I started working here seven years before you were even born." He laughed. "You know–" He coughed and brushed the corner of his eye with his knuckle. "When someone retired from the Dependable, it used to be a celebration of a working life."

"Are you retiring?" This could not be true. How many times had he told her about his plans for retirement, starting with his trip to the Blackpool International Foxtrot Festival in 2015?

"Oh yes. I'm not saying I should get fireworks and a gold watch, but I did expect something more than, 'Would you like security to help you with your box, Bruce?'"

Toni wanted to ask him outright – so what's going to happen to the team? I mean, am I going to get a promotion or will they bring someone else in? But she'd never ask anything so insensitive. "So that's it? They terminated you, just like that?"

"That's about it. I've got plenty of accrued leave, so I'll officially retire at the end of the year. Miss Gore said they'd arrange some kind of function then –but they won't, of course."

Toni nodded. She guessed they wouldn't make a decision about the team leader until he's officially gone.

Her ex-boss held up a certificate. "Look at this." Bruce K Buller, Employee of the Year (senior clerical category) 1978. Neither sure why, they both laughed.

Toni didn't tell Mr Buller that this afternoon Mr Wu had phoned Toni personally to ask her to go down to Exmouth with Mr Hamilton to investigate Artemis Washburn's claim.

12

When Andy told Samantha about the Underwriter, the Salesperson of the Year, his amorous capacity, and the measures he always takes, she said, "Well, how on earth would he know?"

"Exactly." Andy said. "I didn't dare ask."

"Why ever not? I would have."

"Yes, well. It was very odd. The whole thing is too weird for me to be seen showing too much interest." He straightened the orchids in their rectilinear vase. "It would be prurient."

Samantha thought he did, in fact, seem very interested.

Andy fetched his brief case and took out a copy of the _Dependable Update_. "Here's a picture of the man, what do you think?"

It was strange. Static, in the photo, the Salesperson of the Year didn't look like a Greek god at all. His silk suit was crass, and, with his perma-tan and primped curls, he had the air of a Dorian Gray rock star. Actually, he looked comically vulgar, but, all the same, sad. Despite the bravado, his eyes weren't smiling. Samantha turned the page to the picture of her husband under the banner _Direct from Andy's desk_ and said, "Mmm, I think he's seriously gorgeous. I certainly wouldn't be able to resist him." She opened the magazine wide to show Andy that she was swooning over his picture, but Andy didn't look.

"Jesus Christ! Why am I showing _you_ his picture? You know exactly who he is. You were all over him at the damned cocktail party, weren't you?"

Samantha was too shocked to respond.

"We're going on conference to Tahiti with these people." Andy ran his hand through his hair. "And is that what I've got look out for – you fawning like a schoolgirl over this lecherous old goat?" Andy stormed from the room before Samantha could explain.

Andy's outburst had exhausted Samantha, and she went to bed early. But, like a child, he soon forgot his tantrum. She left him to watch the business round up. When he came into the bedroom, she was reading a glossy magazine. "Ah, good old _Cosmo_ ," he said, without checking the title, "50 new ways to please your lover, is it?" And he went to the bathroom with a knowing smile.

Samantha switched off the bedside lamp and pretended to be asleep when Andy returned. Oh god, he really has misinterpreted things, she realised, as he snuggled naked and tumescent next to her. She felt his hand trace the contour of her thigh, over her hip, her waist. He gently clasped her breast, and pressed against her.

"Please, darling, don't." She wriggled free from his embrace. "Sorry, I don't feel like it."

Her rebuff was hardly likely to please him, but she hadn't expected his reaction. "Don't feel like it – with me? Is that what you mean?"

Samantha didn't respond immediately.

A week before their wedding, she'd come close to calling it off. They'd been making love. She was lying across Andy's chest, sated and sleepy, and, when he'd murmured her name, she'd looked into his eyes, expecting some soft utterance. But his voice was cold. "I really do dread to think what you got up to before you met me."

"What's that supposed to mean?" She'd asked, so shaken she could hardly get the words out.

"Oh come off it, everyone knows what airhostesses are like."

"Well, I don't."

"Fine. Forget it," he said and manoeuvred from beneath her.

"No, let's not forget it." Samantha wrapped a sheet around herself and knelt up. "You as good as accuse me of being some kind of slut. And then say let's forget it."

"I didn't mean that. It's a cultural thing. I don't expect you to understand."

Samantha didn't remind Andy it was her copy of Lao Tzu on the bookshelf, that her apartment, not his that had feng shui. And when he'd explained how he was really a banana – yellow on the outside, white inside – she'd declared herself to be a boiled egg. "Go on, I'm listening."

"I know my parents wanted to me to become the image of the little Englishman – St Werbergh's College, Cambridge, and so on – but they didn't expect me to take it so far as to marry an English girl. It's a Confucian thing, respect for elders, female modesty." Andy had flashed a nervous glance at her, as though he'd expected her to slap him.

But Samantha had gently pulled at Andy's stubborn shoulder until he faced her. She straddled him, took his face in her hands and fixed her gaze on him. "Listen to me, Andy. You're not the first man I've slept with, but you are the first and only man I will ever love. If I hadn't known other men, I could never have been so certain about you." She pressed his face. "Do you understand that? You are my life." He'd seemed to understand then, and she'd heard no more of that sort of nonsense until now.

Tonight Samantha was not so tolerant. "Oh, for Christ's sake, Andrew! You really are such a cretin sometimes." She snatched up the duvet, turned on the light, and stomped to the guest room. There she writhed in guilt as she imagined her poor, silly darling, illuminated, perplexed, and priapic.

SUNDAY

13

By Sunday morning, Samantha Wu had forgiven her husband's jealous outburst, and with a full day away from the office he seemed to have forgotten Owen Huntly. She told Andy she didn't want to do anything energetic that morning. If the weather was right, they would often cycle along the corniche in matching Lycra bodysuits on bright green racing bikes; today a leisurely walk to Te Papa to see an exhibition would be good for her.

"Ready, for your Oriental parade, Mr Wu?" she said. That was their private joke, and Andy would understand everything was back to normal. Too elegantly dressed for Wellington, they stepped out into the gusts and sunshine.

#

In the Shannon-Haast house, Sunday was the only day Johnny was up before Toni. Half asleep, she heard him preparing to play guitar at the Warriors of Christ mega-church. Johnny stepped on a block of Lego as he crept into their bedroom to fetch his washable suit. "Fuck," he whispered, "I mean heck."

"Johnny!"

"What? Sorry, did I wake you up?"

"Get real. How I am supposed to sleep with you crashing around?" From down the hall she heard Byron announcing Kyron had wet his bed. "Oh thanks, now you've woken the boys."

Johnny stood paralysed in the middle of the bedroom. He was wearing a plaid shirt with a stripy tie, his suit draped over his arm. Toni propped herself up on her elbow. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Eh?"

"You can't wear that tie with that shirt."

"My Sunday shirt isn't ironed."

"You've had all frigging week to iron your shirt. What the hell do you do with your time?"

Johnny didn't seem able to answer. He was rooted there, pathetic.

"OK." Toni sighed. "Make me a cup of coffee, and I'll iron your shirt."

Johnny didn't move.

Toni was only wearing a t-shirt and wouldn't get out of bed until he was out. "Hello!" Johnny's breathing deepened; he was building up for something. "Forget it," she said before he might ask. "I'll iron your shirt, but I'm not coming with you."

"Oh, no, no. I knew that. But I thought maybe I could take the boys – just this time. You know how much they like to see me play. Please, love."

Toni normally said no. She didn't mind the happy clapping so much, but, with their marriage on the rocks, she had a nagging suspicion that, if they did actually split up, somehow his church going with the boys would count in Johnny's favour. She was not sure why this might be so or why it mattered, but today she imagined herself going back to bed. "OK. But just this once."

#

As he'd anticipated, a throbbing headache woke Rob Hamilton. He nudged the contented weight of the cat from his chest, popped two Nurofen from the packet next to the bed, swigged them down with a generous draught of water, and went back to sleep. At eleven, he woke again and fetched the newspaper from the doorstep. He flitted through, mechanically turning and scanning the pages, lingering on the business then sports sections. He put the magazine to one side, another perfect fit for the litter tray perfectly. What would be the absolute minimum of domestic chores he could get away with? He searched out a yellow rubbish bag and bustled around his apartment throwing in pizza boxes, newspapers and bottles. Then he remembered his commitment to recycling and threw the bag in the laundry for sorting later. There he saw the pile of ironing on the dryer. Cigarette in mouth, mug of coffee to hand, swaying slightly to the too loud golden oldies, Rob pressed the cuffs, collars and fronts of his shirts. He learned long ago that's all you need to iron if you don't take off your jacket.

Rob fancied doing a Sunday kind of thing. What he'd really like to do is take two small children and a wife, maybe someone formidably intelligent like his friend Melissa, lawyer to the oppressed – only sexually attractive – to visit his parents in, say, Plimmerton. He told Oggi if he were a dog he'd take him for walk in Central Park. The cat purred at the sound of his name but slinked away to curl on a sunny windowsill and sleep.

Rob cleaned and replenished the rank litter tray, and booked a pet minder for his trip to Exmouth, where he must find grounds to terminate Owen Huntly. He made more coffee and took a cup to the cat's perch to look across the city bowl. Rob buried his hand in the thick fur and fat of the supine cat, whose claws and teeth lightly grip him in practice of slaughter. A dog, a wife, a cause – there was certainly something missing. Rob decided it would be good for his soul to take in some culture.

#

In the gallery at Te Papa, Rob didn't know how long he'd been staring at Andy Wu and his wife, before he looked away. They reminded him of the couple in that film (he'll look it up later – Won Kar-Wai's _In the Mood for Love_ – updated of course, with no smoking). And, although he couldn't see the wife clearly, he simply knew she would be making the wittiest and learned observations about the paintings and their audience.

Two old women hogged the view of Salisbury Cathedral, then one shouted, "Oh no, this one's no good at all. It hasn't even got a dog in it." What a joy it would be to share that moment with a woman like Andy's wife.

#

It's a small thrill to try on the clothes she'll take on her first ever business trip. The last time Toni had been alone like this, choosing and folding outfits, packing them, imagining how things might be but having no real idea, was when she left home to study nursing. She felt unusually light. When her men got back from worship, she hugged the boys, and even listened to Johnny as he bragged about how Pastor Kelvin had praised his playing in public.

#

The squeal of outrage did not travel far in the deep forest, and you'd need to be at Owen Huntly's shoulder to hear the patter of blood on the humus, as with a well-practised thrust he plunged his knife into the boar's throat. He roped the trotters together, and knelt to heave the beast around his neck. Owen caught his reflection in the dead pig's eye that at last could look at the sky.

"You hate it that I have to hunt, don't you?" he'd asked Artemis, not long after they'd first met.

"No, my love." She stroked his curls; his head lay in her sated lap. "It's in your nature."

And Owen had understood then Artemis was forgiving him for more than killing animals.

#

Did Samantha Wu sense she was being watched? She turned and looked directly at Rob Hamilton, ten metres across the crowded gallery. But she didn't show the slightest twinge of recognition, and he hid immediately. Now Rob knew that she was the woman at the cocktail party, the one he'd thought might understand the fifth season, the one he'd tried to subvert against her husband, his CEO. No wonder he was been sent to Exmouth with Bruce Buller – cruel and unusual punishment indeed. Oh well, alcohol had taught him to bear worse shame. But culture had not been good for his soul. And, on top of this newest embarrassment, Rob must meet his brother this evening, and that was always an opportunity for depthless humiliation.

14

Chris Hamilton showed little surprise at his brother's choice of bar. "Still pining for a bit of student squalor, are you?" he said.

"Got to get it while you can. Even this place is about to be turned into a yuppie gin palace."

Chris looked around. "That'll take some doing."

When they ordered their drinks, the barmaid smiled at Chris in a way that no barmaid has ever smiled at Rob. Of course she would. Chris had taken all the useful genes: charm, the extra centimetres, the discipline, drive and ambition to acquire. What had he left worthwhile for his younger brother – the irony gene? Cheers. But Rob was no longer convinced Chris was a real person. He suspected his big brother might be the construct of a committee of advertising executives. On the cusp of 50, Chris was a big, handsome ideal of a man, the one you'd want to advertise your lowest cholesterol margarine.

"Annie is visiting a friend she flatted with in London," Chris told Rob. "She's become obsessed with those alumni websites, and when I told her I was popping over to Wellington, she went online, and said old Samantha Lewis is there now, so I'll tag along."

"So, why are you over here?" Rob asked.

"Can't say."

"Thanks for the confidence." Rob wondered if he could get away with another beer without further oblique reproach. Earlier, Chris had picked up the decorative bottle and observed he didn't know it was possible to make beer that strong.

"It's brewed by monks," Rob told him. "Très-pissed monks."

"Oh."

"So, how are the littlies?" Rob said. Chris was on his second wife and second round of kids. Rob seemed to remember the first wife started to look old and the first round of kids went bad, turned Green.

"We left them behind. Silke is fine with them for a few nights."

"Silke? Is that wise?" Rob managed to maintain a look of concern. "Silke's your dog, isn't she?"

"No." Chris sighed. "Silke is the demi pair. The dog is Boris, a saluki."

"Oh, right."

The conversation went in stops and starts. Irony was mistaken for ignorance, olive branches for cudgels. Anything Rob could say was immediately trumped by something massively bigger and better by Chris. It had always been this way.

"I'm going down to old Exmouth tomorrow," Rob said.

"Oh really? I'm off on a little trip myself, once I've wound things up here."

"Anywhere exciting?" Rob asked, despite himself.

"Prague. Budapest. Riga. A spot of bargain hunting," Chris tells him as casually as if he were planning a trawl around suburban garage sales.

"Riga? Where's that?" Rob asked.

"Latvia, I think. In fact, the Balts have become very entrepreneurial," Chris said.

"Yeah, not like those lazy bastard Lapps."

Chris must have sniffed sarcasm and wound the meeting up. "Anyway, it was great catching up with all your news. You should learn how to use a telephone. I've got to do dinner. Duty calls." Rob felt the slap of a big hand on his back.

"Wait a minute." Rob said. "Before you go, I wanted to ask you something." He cringed as Chris reached for his wallet. "Not that. Do you remember when we were kids, and Dad told us about the fifth season, you know, when all the magic is supposed to happen?"

Chris eyed him with suspicion. "No. I've told you before, that doesn't sound much like Dad at all."

"No, I suppose it doesn't. Maybe, I dreamt it."

At least Chris didn't ask what he was smoking when he brought up the fifth season this time.

"Cheers, then, bro." Rob waved a hand at his brother.

"Yes." Chris started to leave but turned. Standing, as Rob sits, he loomed over his little brother more than ever. "Look, Rob, Mum and Dad's accident was as big a blow for me as it was for you."

"Yeah, of course. Why would I think otherwise?" Rob signalled another beer to the barmaid. "Oh, but then again, you weren't driving, were you?"

"Jesus, man. No one blames you for that." Chris's hand rested on Rob's shoulder. If he squeezed he would probably snap something. "But you've got to pull yourself out of this bog of self pity."

"Sure." Rob took a long swig of beer. "Almost there."

"Look, why don't you come over to Melbourne and have a look at opportunities there? There's nothing for you here in the long-term. I'm serious. I could introduce you to some real players in the financial services market."

Rob raised his bottle. "To money!"

"Jesus, Rob, you've always been such a difficult little prick. You need to get yourself a life." Chris left and Rob should have followed.

"Hey." Long after Chris had gone, Rob called across to the barmaid. Like a tulip, her heavy head rested in the cup of her hands as she stared at the TV screen on the far wall. She slouched over to him without taking her eyes from the celebrity poker game.

"Where's all the stuff from the walls?" Rob said. He was thinking in particular of the stag's head that was slightly charred at the muzzle from the cigarette he'd inserted one night many years ago.

"They're renovating," she said.

"Putting in a roller disco, are they, eh?"

"No, I don't think so." The barmaid looked at Rob as though he were a gibbering idiot and walked away.

Despite the piercings, vampire-caught-in-the-rain make up, and serpentine tattoo that disappeared beyond her thong, the barmaid was without doubt the most elegant and beautiful woman Rob had ever seen. He tried not to stare at her as he unpeels the gold foil from the bottle.

Two obscure Belgian beers later, Rob glimpsed his reflection in a mirror as he stood to charm the barmaid. Tomorrow, when he relives his evening in cringes, he will imagine himself as a reptile stalking a defenceless mammal. He had noticed earlier that the barmaid was definitely a mammal. But now he was at that point along the continuum of drunkenness – somewhere between maudlin and vomit – when he thought it would be good to tell the barmaid about the fifth season. She would be transfixed by his lyricism. She would see through his slob's carapace to his inner beauty. And, then, could the revitalising love of a younger woman be far away? Yeah, right.

"Do you know what?"

The barmaid moved her head to show she was wearing earphones. Rob took that as, I didn't hear you. Anyone else would have understood she meant, I don't want to talk to you.

Lip writing, Rob said, "I said, do you know what?''

"What?" She stomped over, and snatched out her earplugs.

It seemed the fifth season would have to wait. "Do you know who I hate?"

"Who?" She didn't have her hands on her hips, but she should have.

Rob took a deep breath. "First of all, I hate estate agents. Above all others. Gold medal, top of the list. Although to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I understand why I hate estate agents more than, I don't know, someone like John Key, but I do. I hate estate agents more than anyone."

"OK." He heard the fizz of drum 'n' bass escaping from her earplugs as she started to re-insert them.

"No, wait. I hate lots more people than estate agents, but I do hate them the most. And it's funny because it's not as if I was molested by one or something as a kid. As far as I know. Then again, maybe I was. I don't know. Anyway, I just hate them, that's all. It's like a kind of natural talent thing, an intuition."

"OK."

"No, no wait. There's more. Obviously, I hate National, and everyone who's ever voted for them. ACT and United Future, of course.

"That's a lot of people to hate," the barmaid said.

"No, not really, I haven't even got going yet."

"Isn't there anyone you actually like?" Now her hands were on her hips. She didn't look as if she liked him much.

"Of course, I do." Rob sighed. "I think I would have liked Artemis Washburn."

"Who's she?"

"Never mind."

"I've got to go." The barmaid walked away.

"Property developers," Rob shouted after her. "How could I have forgotten them? Bastards, every one of them."

The barmaid came back and, with a sweet smile, asked him, "Have you finished?"

"No. I've got a stack more."

"I meant your drink." Rob peered down the mouth of the bottle, and then slugged the remnants. "All right, you've twisted my arm – one absolutely bloody last one for the road."

"Sorry. I can't serve you – you're drunk." The barmaid brandished a red card like an implacable Welsh referee.

"That is such bullshit."

Outside the pub a vicious southerly whipped icy rain into Rob's face. So, another opportunity to explain the fifth season had been royally stuffed up. But he laughed out loud as he walked away. As the barmaid had waved the red card in his face, a pool player had slowly placed his cue on the table and moved towards them. Rob held his palms up. "Whoa. I'm on my way. No need for trouble, bro." And he edged his way to the door, with his back to the bar. In the doorway, Rob turned to the barmaid and said, "Do you mind telling me your name, miss?"

"Piss off, you wanker."

"It suits you." And he'd slipped out.

15

Toni Haast's Sunday ended without incident. The boys didn't understand that tomorrow evening she wouldn't be there, and went to bed without protest. Johnny skipped the issue of whether his place was in the marital bed by passing out in front of _Wayne's World II_.

Toni lit scented candles – the two-dollar version of Body Shop with a whisper of kerosene – and turned off the bathroom light so she wouldn't see the patches of damp on the ceiling from the bath. She lingered long after the last of the hot water, going over just one more time her plan for tomorrow.

16

Andy and Samantha Wu lunched on prawns at a table overlooking the harbour. Afterwards, when they shopped for beautiful things, who had the greater pleasure – Samantha receiving the exquisite paua necklace or Andy buying it for her? At home, Samantha napped, while Andy starched his shirts. But, when she took a cup of green tea to his study late that evening, Samantha was alarmed to see Andy staring at the photo of the Salesperson of the Year. She pretended not to notice, and, as she stroked his shoulder, told him to come to bed. Soon.

"Sammy." From the scented and expectant bed, Samantha heard Andy's voice break as he battled to control his anger. He strode into their bedroom. "I want to get something absolutely straight in my mind about you and Owen Huntly." Andy was about to ruin his opportunity to consummate the Wu's perfect day.

MONDAY

17

Wet-foot from the shower, Toni Haast craned towards the radio for the weather forecast and thought, Yes! when she heard it would be fine. She wriggled into the skirt of her business suit, and felt the prickle of static and the fabric come tight on her hips with the pull of the zip. She checked from different angles in the wardrobe mirror that the ladder in her tights wasn't on show. She audited the contents of her travel bag once more and placed it with her shoes by the front door. Only now was it becoming light outside.

Toni planned to sweep the boys up and into the car at the last moment, still in their pyjamas, befuddled, a little shivery. Before that, she made coffee and took a mug to Johnny, sprawled on the settee as awkwardly as if he'd fallen there from the ceiling. He was crumpled in his Sunday clothes, partly covered by an old blanket. She crouched in the fettering skirt and swapped the mug for a thick paperback splayed open on the floor next to him. _Warriors of Christ: The Final Stoush._ The front cover showed Christ the Bodybuilder in a suede loincloth, bandana, and motorcycle boots. A writhing snake-dragon was embossed in silver. The Messiah, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Pastor Kelvin, was stamping on its throat, and, with his huge sword, was about to lop off its head. Toni closed the book and left it front cover down. She didn't want the boys seeing that sort of thing and having nightmares. She shook Johnny, surely but gently. "Fifteen minutes until we leave for the airport – hey, Johnny, fifteen minutes."

Leaving the twins with Johnny wasn't easy for Toni. He might see himself as a Warrior of Christ today but, left for a few nights without her firm guidance, and he could be back running with the biker gang, if only in their '98 Mazda 323. But her worry has stalled and been overtaken by relief at escape from their disintegrating home for a few days.

At the airport, Byron and Kyron clung to her as though it had finally dawned on them that she was leaving. This hurt but Toni remembered reading that at three and half children have short time horizons, an inability to gauge the future. She crouched to hug them, fighting back her own conventional tears, wary of extending the ladder in her tights. She noticed the steady, lurid flow from Kyron's nostril, but she'd had enough of dealing his effluvia for now – Johnny could sort that out.

Over the twins' shoulders, merged in her embrace, Toni saw it really was going to be a fine day, and her long awaited flight over the Cook Strait wouldn't be a disappointment. But Johnny didn't let her get away that easily. She rebuffed his offers to fetch a trolley and help her check in, partly to leave the boys before her dams broke, but mostly, because, among the businessmen dropped off in smooth manoeuvres by wives, high in 4 x 4s, more than ever she felt the grinding shame of material lack. The need for the things other people have, growled like an ulcer in her gut, and, Johnny was the badge of debit, a man with a market value of less than zero.

His delaying tactics now stymied, Johnny was on the verge of a meltdown, here in the drop-off zone, as a last ditch effort to hold up the inevitable. Toni could read the signs. His breathing had become shallow and audible. He stroked his head, running his hand from the promontory of his widow's peak to where his ponytail disguised the beginning of baldness, and said, "I was thinking." This was where, in the films he loves/she hates, Johnny would pull out a gun and set off the bloody hostage shoot out. But Toni steeled herself and cut him short. Beyond Johnny, through the automatic doors – opening and shutting, taunting – lay the possibilities of a new world. To get there, she needed to keep control.

"Johnny, you know you'll get a fine if you park here." And for good measure, tapping into his deep-vein fear of uniforms, she added, "You'd better shift yourself before a cop comes along." Toni stood, ruffled the boys' hair and, in one movement, picked up her bag, air kissed Johnny, and turned. The doors swished open and, stepping inside, as if she was confident, she left them behind.

Toni spotted Rob Hamilton in Whitcouls. He seemed to be rooted in front of the magazines as though choosing a newspaper might be the biggest decision he'd ever made. In fact, he looked ill. Perhaps he was scared of flying. She approached him. "How are you doing?" And, thinking it the right thing to do, held out her hand in greeting. It was like a light bulb had switched on in his head when he recognised her, but he seemed confused by her hand, offered and hanging in the air between them. Or, perhaps, he was close to Mr Buller: hadn't he said they were both Masons? Rob took Toni's hand in a limp grip and shook. She tried some conversation openers on the early hour, the fine weather, but he cut her short and said he needed to go to the Koru lounge for coffee. When she asked him whether that was open to everyone, he said he didn't think so, and rushed off without her.

Despite all her planning, Toni felt like a lab mouse as she skittered back up the wrong corridor and down to the right boarding gate. She guessed everyone was looking and laughing at her as she carefully followed the white lines on the apron, while the other passengers walked straight to the plane. The wind doused her in kerosene fumes and threatened to splay open her skirt as she climbed the steps. The stewardess motioned for her to dip her head in the doorway, and she hunched all the way down the tube of the cabin. Rob was sunk low in his seat near the front, engrossed in the airline magazine, but her place was at the very back. This was not how she'd imagined things. Surely they should be sitting together discussing Artemis Washburn?

Toni paid full attention as the stewardess chanted the safety procedures. Then she realised she's the only one watching, and of course the only passenger rehearsing in her mind following the lights in the floor that would guide her to the emergency exit located in row 10, in the unlikely event of an emergency landing at sea. Worse than this, after they've taken off and flown over the city bowl, she was the only one with any interest in the view beneath them, and she had an aisle seat. The man next to her blocked her view with his spread _Dom Post_ , dropping it only to smile as she contorted to see through the window and surreptitiously to check out her legs.

What was the point of being alone now? Toni imagined her family with her – yes, Johnny too – as she pointed out to them how the promontories and rocky islands of the Sounds were like dragons lounging in the water, how the boats and their wakes in the Tory Channel could be white tadpoles. And over there, in the far distance, could that be the tip of Taranaki poking through fields of clouds? Yes, Byron, the clouds do look like that stuff in the ceiling. In-sul-a-tion, she would have enunciated for him.

Soon the plane dropped and banked sharply, and, if only her view had not been of this morning's front page, Toni would have seen how the clouds cleared, fully revealing Tasman Bay in sunlight, as though a curtain had been whipped open.

Toni was seething by the time they landed and, reunited with Rob, slouched behind him to the car rental office. The car had been booked in his name, so, of course, this would be the next humiliation. But Rob surprised her. He arranged for the car to be in both their names and, as they walked towards the car lot, he held up the keys, and asked if she wanted to drive. She noted the chrome '2.0i' on the car's boot with approval. Yes, she would. Toni always wanted to drive.

18

Johnny wasn't the only dad who took his kids to the Early Advantage Education Centre Inc. He was, however, the only one who wore a wasted fleece, Kurt Cobain t-shirt, bobbly tracksuit pants, and jandals with socks. Against his wishes, Toni had insisted the boys move from kindy to the Early Advantage Education Centre Inc as soon as two spaces became available. Johnny had liked Kindy Korner. It was much cheaper, and the young solo mums, looking him up and down, made him feel good, like he might have some value for someone. But Toni said Byron needed the extra stimulation. The other dads here were businessmen or government workers in black, always rushing off to do something important, yet able to discuss with the teachers, so everyone could hear, how well their kids were progressing.

If it weren't for the pushy parents, Johnny would like to stay at the crèche all day. It was warm and bright, they played learning games, and did hand print paintings. The teachers always smiled and never flipped, even when the kids were little shits. But he thought he ought to make out he was in a hurry too. Some of the mothers looked nice. And Johnny thought he could probably stand going to coffee mornings, talking about children, Oprah things. But Johnny knew that was never going to be on offer. Today he stood back from the door to let a woman out, one of those Toni wants to be like, with all the things Toni wants. He'd looked at her expecting a smile, some sign she recognised him as a person too, but he saw no more than a flick of her hair as she turned her back on him. She'd probably use antiseptic hand wash if she realised he'd touched the doorhandle before her.

Back at home, Johnny looked around the house and decided to fix things up a bit while Toni was away. First, he would rehang the cupboard door that fell off last year. He went to the garden shed and parted lace thick cobwebs from the doorway. Inside, he sniffed the funny chemical smells he could remember from childhood – turpentine, linseed oil, paraffin and others he couldn't place. He picked things up, shook and prodded them, prised open half-sealed tins to poke at their thick skins of paint, and held yellowed jam jars with their jellied solvents to the light. All this great stuff left by previous tenants, every one of them handy around the house, no doubt.

There was the old biscuit tin he was looking for. Screws, tacks, nails, drawing pins – Johnny felt little sharp pricks as he spread them around looking for just three screws the same. But there was never more than a pair. Oh for fucks sake! He threw the tin to the floor, and immediately regretted it. He could blame it on the cat if Toni ever cross-questioned him. But what if the boys came in here and stepped on a nail? As sudden as his anger, Johnny was filled with panic. Worse than the most nightmarish ACC advert, he was seized by a vision of Byron and Kyron, their feet spiky with nails like a tortured saint, offering each other swigs from the fifty different poisons on the shelves.

Johnny shoved the sagging door shut and wound a length of wire round and round the bolt to secure it. Sure, Toni would moan next time she needed the lawn mower, but nothing was more important than the safety of the boys.

Back indoors, Johnny turned on the radio and started to do the dishes. The morning crew were talking about farting – even the woman one. Toni would have told him to turn it off, and he did. But the silence reminded him how empty the house was. He left the dishes. He had all day to do them, in fact, he had four days until Toni got back.

Johnny was careful not to step on toys as he crossed the lounge. He'd never got rid of his guitar, and Toni had never asked him to pawn it, however tough things had been. He'd always kept his hair long and worn an earring. Maybe that hadn't helped secure employment. He could never find the right words to explain to Toni, but he had to keep on waiting for the call, and he knew, if he didn't look the part, the call would never come. He'd been gutted, of course, when Kurt Cobain had died, but still somehow he'd thought he might get the call – "Johnny Shannon? Dave Grohl from Nirvana here."

Johnny strummed the first chords of the song he wrote for Toni. He'd called it 'Toni's Song'. OK, the riff was taken from Pearl Jam and the lyrics borrowed mostly from Oasis, oh, and the chorus from U2, but the feeling had come from his own heart. And, once, although it seemed so long ago now, he was sure Toni had known that last bit too.

19

"I really do appreciate you letting me drive." Toni was back to her normal bright self but Rob's response was little more than a grunt.

"Yeah, as far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to drive." She would like to have sounded cool but she couldn't help beaming.

"Oh."

"Yeah. Some girls I knew were mad about horses, but, for me, it was always cars," she said.

"Oh."

Rob reclined his seat and rummaged in his brief case. He pulled out a CD. "You don't want to listen to the radio, do you?" Before she could answer, he added, "It's all crap adverts, so-called golden oldies, and talkback fascists."

This didn't appear to leave much room for discussion. Then he asked her if it was OK to play the CD, but the disc was already disappearing into the machine. Toni didn't think Rob's behaviour boded well for the trip. But she liked the sophisticated night music that followed: a big city woman's voice like dark chocolate melting, soaring over blips and whirs, scratches and stealings. It was a music that beckoned seductively from funky cafés, whose cappuccinos she doubted she could afford. Besides, on such a rare treat as venturing downtown, Johnny and the boys would drag her past for the glare and giveaway toys of Maccas.

On the open road Toni lost herself in driving and soon they were passing through neat and gentle farmland. It was only when she saw a bird fly up from the road ahead, and, supposing Rob might know its name, she turned to him and realised he was sound asleep. Toni thought, I haven't slept with a man apart from Johnny for six years. She doesn't mean it like that. She hasn't had another man sleeping so close to her for six years. It was strangely intimate, and her wariness about Rob slipped away as he became vulnerable.

Toni glanced across and saw how young and old at once, Rob looked. His hair was reddish blond and long on top, yet thin and brittle, and greying at the sides. His mouth scowled as he slept but around the eyes, his face looked as unaged and cherubic as her boys'. His brow furrowed in his sleep, and she felt the urge to smooth away the puckering. A day ago, the only interaction she'd had with this man had been the exchange of business-like smiles when she took a file to his office. And now?

Toni pressed herself forward over the steering wheel to watch the bird hanging above them like a well-controlled kite. She liked the misplaced parrot's head set between hawks' wings, but felt a little let down by Nature as, in the rear view mirror, she watched it swoop back down and bury its clown's head in the spilt guts and mangled fur of road kill.

Now certain her passenger was fully asleep, Toni challenged the car. The road wound through forest, alongside a fast moving river. She flowed with the rush and overtook dawdling tourist camper vans in 160kph bursts. The muted roar was luxurious as she mustered the torque to pass two train-long logging trucks in one manoeuvre.

A small hamlet appeared out of the forest, and Toni pumped the brakes hard to regain a reasonable speed. A little skid followed and an outward kick from the back wheels, but nothing she couldn't handle. Rob jerked awake. Dozy from sleep, he stared around. Toni expected some reproach but, when it didn't come, she realised he had no idea she'd just taken him on a one hundred-kilometre roller coaster ride.

"Exville," Rob said. "Let's stop here. Oh, it's a great place this, and I'm dying for a smoke."

Toni scanned the tiny settlement: a picnic table was too close to the road for children to play, a dairy, garage, and scary looking tavern. Some tourists were taking photos of a Masonic lodge, more shed than temple, that had listed off its piles.

"This," Rob said, "is the real New Zealand."

Toni looked around her again, and tried to smile in agreement.

20

Andy Wu was in a sour mood. Samantha had slept in the guest room last night. Although she had been back in their bed by the time he woke up, she didn't bother to see him off. Watching his wife curled silkily around his abandoned pillows did nothing for Andy's motivation for work.

His executive assistant arrived late. "Good morning, Cynthia," Andy was sitting on the corner of her desk reading the business pages. He snapped the newspaper down to show his watch. "A bit late, aren't we?" He hated it if Cynthia was in before him.

"Hello, Mr Wu, er Andy. The buses were–"

He cut her short. "Please get me a cup of coffee. A short black."

Cynthia hung up her coat and started to sort through the pile of mail. "Oh look, here's a fax for you from Ralph." She announced this news as brightly as she might a postcard from their favourite niece on her OE.

"Ralph who?" Andy was well aware who Ralph was, but certainly didn't like the tenderness in Cynthia's voice. She didn't answer but handed him a fax from Ralph Gisborne, as representative of the Dependable Action Group. Andy pondered what kind of dinosaurs sent faxes, then, wondered whether you can sack someone in this country for loyalty to the previous CEO. Anger surged into his head like a geyser. He screwed the fax into a ball and tossed it back to her.

"Cynthia, kindly inform Ralph Gisborne that the current CEO of the Dependable respectfully tells him to go fuck himself." And, feeling greatly relieved, he marched into his office.

After eleven minutes without his coffee, Andy went to look for it. But Cynthia wasn't at her desk. In her place was Miss Gore, the HRT leader.

"Do we have a meeting?" Andy asked, not attempting to hide his irritation.

"Don't mind me. I'm trying to picture the scene," she said, all Miss Marple-ish.

"The scene of what, exactly?"

"Andy, I regret to inform you," Miss Gore said with barely disguised joy, "Cynthia will be lodging a formal complaint against you for addressing her with foul and abusive language."

"What did I say?"

Miss Gore smiled. Her look was all-knowing, as though she'd been caught out that way before. "Cynthia wasn't sure of the right procedure, so I'm helping her to formulate her complaint."

Andy would have like to help Miss Gore picture things better but retreated to his office. He tried to slam the door, but the thick pile of the carpet wouldn't allow this. Maybe he should have asked Miss Gore why the hell she could get away with being called 'Miss' and not whatever her Christian name is, but he thought better of it.

Later Cynthia would tell Andy that she hadn't been distressed in the slightest. The executive espresso machine had needed restocking, and she went to borrow beans from a colleague on another floor, where she bumped into Miss Gore, who, as always, was eager for gossip. Since Miss Gore also loved to chair formal hearings, the chance of an official complaint, with all its precedents and procedures, would be too good an opportunity not to talk up. So she had urged Cynthia to take the rest of the day off to overcome her distress.

Andy sat at his desk ironing the crumpled fax with the palm of his soon inky hand. Gisborne and his crew were demanding a special general meeting of the shareholders: another tiresome diversion for Friday's board meeting. It was nine thirty, he'd not yet spoken with Samantha, and he was not at all sure his day was going to get any better. But the NST was due to make a presentation on marketing strategy, and his anticipation of this coming enlightenment raised his spirits.

For as long as anyone can remember, the Dependable's marketing campaign had featured a comely young woman in widow's weeds gazing alluringly into the viewer's eyes, over the legend: _The Dependable – there when you need us most_. Dated, derivative, and uninspiring, as it is, Andy suspected the campaign's unlikely longevity lay with its appeal to the sexual fantasies of middle-aged insurance men, rather than speaking to the needs of heterogeneous consumers of financial products. Indeed, there was something vaguely music hall about it: the insurance agent seeing to the lovely widow's _needs_ , drum roll. But worse, he shivered at the thought of Samantha being unfaithful to him, even after death.

In the ideas incubator, a smart young woman, whom Andy didn't actually recall being officially appointed to the NST, performed a slick presentation on competitors' marketing messages. Andy was particularly impressed at her use of words that were new to him – 'signifiers', 'referents', 'interpretants' and more _–_ indicating an enviable level of professional specialisation.

"Let me synopsify it for you, Andy." It was a confident neologism, and Andy jotted it down. She concluded with a montage of images. "When I think of life insurance, first, I think of the Dependable. Then, I think of joy and life, new born babies of indeterminate ethnic provenance, happy weddings, impossibly good-looking retired couples in Aran jumpers walking a Labrador-retriever on a beach, a mother duck and her ducklings, lighthouses, first sons graduating, women generally achieving, spotless operating theatres, vintage sports cars, girls and boys playing soccer together, like they do in the States." A rich, baritone boomed from the laptop, "The Dependable – for those who love life."

Once the team members understood the consultant was not channelling the voice of the well-known actor they've just heard, they broke into applause. She clutched the table. This consultant with mannish hairstyle and a gunmetal grey suit turned and stared at Andy. He could swear he saw a tear corrugate the steel blue of her eyes.

Andy eventually plumped for a mix of ducks and babies as the new motifs for the Dependable. When he synopsified the new image to the NMT, they were struck dumb, with awe he presumed, until the Underwriter eventually asked what had happened to the bird with the come-hither eyes. Andy was reminded when he first referred to the New Management Team as the NMT, Samantha pointed out how it sounded like 'the empty'.

"You're spot on there," he'd said and laughed. But his laughter stopped when she added that the acronym for the New Strategy Team sounded like 'the nasty'.

Andy planned to synopsify his vision for the Dependable to the board for approval on Friday. He regretted the barrier that would always lie between Samantha and him. If he were to ask Samantha to synopsify her day, gently but firmly, she would tell him to speak English. And then he remembered there was something much worse, and his spirits plunged.

21

Rob closed his eyes as if in ecstasy as he sipped his coffee and sucked his Dunhill superior mild to a glowing stump. Then he said, "Now, that was a bloody good cup of authentic Kiwi tea-house coffee," and, as he wandered off to find the toilet, called back, "Hey look, this is called 'Ao-Tea House' – that's clever." The coffee was cold and insipid, and the pun was crap, but Rob thought he should try to be better company. And Christ, he ought to give up smoking.

When he got back, she was perching, straight backed on the bench, roasting in her business suit. He sat opposite her. "This is nice – catching a bit of sunshine on a working day."

"Yes." Her laugh was strained, an interviewee's complaisance.

Rob had avoided her at the check-in partly because he couldn't remember whether she was Terri or Toni, and partly because he couldn't trust his suspect stomach with its fill of alcohol and aromatic falafel. Of course, it was brilliant news that he wouldn't be spending the next few days with Bruce Buller, but, when she'd tried to engage him in conversation, as all the while magmatic water surged up into his mouth, he'd had to escape to the toilet, and blurted out the first excuse that had come into his head.

Then he'd fallen asleep in the car, and the next he remembered was jerking awake in Exville to see a generous prospect of her leg, taut and revealed in braking, with a ladder in her tights. A ladder to where? He'd dared to wonder in hangover lechery. Now he felt bad. She was clearly a nice girl, and he would make it up to her.

They drove on, and Rob asked her about herself, her job, what she'd done before. Her proper name was Antonia, Antonia Haast, but everyone called her Toni. She was, he guessed, about thirty. She'd picked up her medical knowledge as a nurse, that's why she could move into insurance, and more money, after her twins were born. Shelley and Kelly, he thinks she said. No, whatever: one was named after a Romantic poet, and the other, a character in _Star Trek_. With names like that, it's no wonder she's concerned her twins might be developing at different rates. She hadn't mentioned her partner, which was always significant. In fact, Rob now recalled noticing her embroiled in a trailer trash drama in the drop off zone at the airport. Later, through the shared wall of their chalets, he would overhear the muffled discourse of domestic unravelling, unmistakable, not because of the odd discernible word, but the tones: soft, lulling, mummy tones, followed by the steeliness you need for dealing with an unreasonable adult. He would even hear his own name being dragged into it. Rob made a mental note to put Toni in touch with his friend Melissa at the Community Law Centre if her domestic problems came up in conversation.

Rob liked Toni, or, at least, he liked her type. He'd dealt with her before, of course, many times, but had never spoken to her as a person, only as a functionary. Although, he must confess, he'd had occasion to observe her rear with approval after a few lunchtime drinks. She was a bit earnest, but had a definite spark and a nice face, not exactly pretty but strong and sculpted. Her hair was cut with what he guesses was a fashionable asymmetry, but maybe she'd just done it herself: whatever, it suited her features. Toni was clearly trying to get across the tracks. She told him she was studying for some vocational qualifications, so he could probably give her some help on that score. She was fighting all of life's crap, and Rob respected her for that, perhaps, even envied her.

#

Toni hadn't spoken so much about herself since her job interview at the Dependable. She liked it. But eventually the conversation turned away from her to what must be Rob's favourite subject – what was wrong with the world. This mostly seemed to be estate agents, subdivisions, 4 x 4s, and the Warehouse but he calls it 'the Whorehouse'. He said this several times to make sure she'd got it.

"Do you know what puzzles me?"

Toni shook her head. "Uh, no."

"What puzzles me is why people bother to make and sell all this crap. Let me give you an example. Last week I bought a new corkscrew, well, it had the form of a corkscrew, but it fell apart the first time I used it – might as well have been made out of biscuit."

Toni's laughing egged him on.

"And the problem is, everything is like that today. Things look like the things they're supposed to be but they're not. And do you know why?"

"Um... I guess... " Toni was still under the impression he expected her to say something, but he carried on before she could answer.

"It's because everyone wants too many things, but there isn't enough money to pay for them all, so they buy cheap imitations of the real thing. People fill their houses with all this crap because adverts tell them to. But they can't use the stuff because it's not real. It's all, well, crap."

Toni's smile faded as Rob's observation hit home.

"And I don't mean no name brand stuff or rip offs of big name brands. Things just aren't what they're supposed to be. Chairs you can't sit on for more than a week before they break. All those electrical appliances that pack in after a month, and you have to go through all the hassle of taking them back or chuck them in the landfill. But, if only we all settled for having fewer possessions, we could have things that are real. Things they're supposed to be, and last a lifetime." He paused, and added with a straight face, "Things made of wood."

With Rob awake, Toni kept closer to the speed limit, but, when they reached Exmouth, he looked up at the clock of the post office and said, "Ha, look they must have forgotten to put the clock forward." Then he checked his watch. "Jesus! My record for Nelson to Exmouth is six hours, and that was on a motorbike. Hold on a minute. It's about four hundred ks from Nelson, and we took a little over five hours. Taking into account a couple of pit stops – actually this sort of higher maths is a bit beyond me right now – but it does seem unfeasibly fast."

Toni said nothing but allowed herself a smile.

Until they'd arrived at Exmouth, neither of them had raised the subject of Artemis Washburn and her death claim. And so Rob seemed to be as relieved as Toni felt when he phoned Owen Huntly's office to confirm their meeting, and was told by the personal assistant that her boss has been called to an urgent client meeting and would be out all afternoon.

Rob made sure he had Toni's eye, before saying, "'Kylie', isn't it? Kylie, is it usual for a life insurance salesperson to be called to an urgent client meeting unless death is imminent?" But clearly the personal assistant hadn't got his joke, and Toni looked away to avoid witnessing Rob's deflation.

Toni hoped she was not revealing her ignorance of company procedures when she said, "I couldn't see the hotel name on my travel itinerary."

"No, I told them not to bother booking one." Rob had a guilty look. "To be honest, I thought they'd be sending Bruce Buller down with me. I reckoned I'd be able to find somewhere for myself he'd refuse to stay at."

"Why wouldn't you want to stay at the same place as Mr Buller?" Toni said, even though her own list of reasons would be long. Rob didn't answer but gave her what she took to be a conspiratorial look, and she understood that he was no friend of Mr Buller after all.

"But don't worry, we'll have no problem finding a decent place this time of the year," he said. "We can see what takes our fancy. Let's go and have a look around."

Their trawl of Exmouth's main street didn't take long. They headed south from the centre, passing empty shops, some civic buildings, a few grand old houses now mostly tacky backpackers, cheap housing, and then the town ended, and bush quickly started. Back through and out the other side: the train station, ghosts of industry, then, the old wharf. Toni slowed down at each motel sign, but they all said 'NO Vacancy'. Rob didn't seem to care but commented on everything.

"Do you know this was a boom town once?" he said. "One of the busiest ports in Australasia. But you can see the locals don't have much money any more."

"How can you tell?" Toni asked, dreading he would recognise the signs in her.

"Well, for one thing, I know they don't because the mining and most of the logging have stopped. Only so many ex-miners can drive tourist shuttles, the rest bugger off to Queensland or find a way to go on disability benefit. But you can also tell by looking at the colours of people's clothes. If they're faded, that means they're old and they've been washed so many times all the dye has gone. The funny thing is, it's usually the reds that give it away – the colour of a workingman's pride. Look for yourself."

And, sure enough, they passed a couple in distressed clothes pushing an upright pram stacked with junk mail. The man's hoodie was stretched across his broad but stooped shoulders.

"'The post-industrial society', they call it," Rob said.

For once, Toni felt well off. "So how can someone like Owen Huntly make so much money in a place like this?" she said.

"Now that's a very good question. You see, there is plenty of money around, but it doesn't trickle down, a little bit to everyone, it all gets sucked up into the hands of the rich few. And it's a funny thing, but the more people have, the less willing they are to pay their taxes to help everyone else out. You know the old saying – only the rich can afford to avoid tax. So jokers like Owen Huntly make most of their money flogging dodgy tax avoidance schemes."

"That doesn't seem right."

Rob looked across at her. "No, it's not."

Once they had slowed then driven past the last likely place, Rob suggested the YHA. Toni hadn't found it funny when he'd made that joke the first time. She was determined not to slum it when she was away from home on company business. It wasn't possible that all accommodation could be full at this time of the year. Toni insisted on trying each motel in person, starting with the smartest first, but she soon discovered that they were, in fact, closed.

"They're hibernating," Rob said. "They store enough fat during the holiday season not to worry about the rest of the year."

"Why didn't you tell me before?" Toni said. She didn't attempt to hide her irritation, and was unconvinced by his 'I forgot'.

The ancient woman at the tourist information centre, rapt to have visitors, tried to give them tea, and not fooled by their black suits, asked them whether they're on honeymoon. Toni felt herself blush. After a few drinks, Rob would claim he'd been tempted to say, "IRD, come to bust a prominent local businessman," to see how fast the woman could get on her mobility scooter to spread the news around town. But, satisfied with 'down here on business', she told them the Five Seasons Motor Camp never closed.

"The what?" Rob looked dumbfounded.

"The Five Seasons motor camp. Oh, it used to be called the Sunny Days back in the day. I can give you directions."

"No need for that," Rob said and grinned.

22

Andy looked up from his desk. There was a commotion growing louder as it surged along the 10th floor of Dependable House. He guessed that the consultants were up to something wacky, but, no, it couldn't be that – there was a flood of women shrieking at outrageous flattery and dull men cracking into bonhomie. Then Owen Huntly strode into Andy's office, near crushed his hand as they shook, and all but stoved his spine in with a back slap.

"No need to rattle your dags, my old mate," Owen said and enveloped Andy in a bear hug. "This is only a flying visit from your friendly neighbourhood Salesman of the Year. It's chocks away for me in 40 minutes."

Bawdy predictions for the upcoming conference in Tahiti and many references to 'Randy Andy' followed. But the comments Andy didn't grasp about his lovely wife being a lady who lunches and a woman of exquisite taste took him most by surprise. Then to cap it all, Huntly took a phone call mid conversation and engaged in outrageous flirting, winking at Andy as he did. He left as quickly as he arrived, waving a great hand in the air in farewell. "Got to get back to service my client base."

Once hurricane Huntly had subsided, Andy rose from his desk, crossed the office, and shut his door. He lay on the settee, picturing himself back in therapy. But Andy didn't imagine the promptings of a wise analyst, he heard Ma, who, when she'd first met Samantha, stunning in her mini skirt and knee-length boots, said she looked like a Spice Girl. Later, naked in bed, they'd laughed at Ma's ignorance of Western women, and drawn so much closer. But, then, Andy had realised how Ma's comment was animated by spite, not ignorance. As far as he knows, the Spice Girls had the probity of Mother Theresa but, in Ma's narrow mind, they must have been decadence incarnate. What was Samantha supposed to do? She'd look gorgeous in a burkha. And yet, over time, the insult had wormed into his mind. Samantha was just too attractive to other men. He would never be able to keep her. Andy drifted off into vicious dreams of jealousy and betrayal.

After an hour or so, Andy roused himself. He failed to get hold of Samantha despite several attempts, and, in horror, he dared to think, What if she really was having an affair? On his whiteboard, he drew a large 'S'. She had been acting out of character lately, and almost furtive in her behaviour. He drew a question mark next to the 'S'. He underlined the question mark. Then it came to him in a flash. He wrote 'OH', and drew a dotted line to the 'S', and added another question mark. Owen Huntly could easily have seduced Samantha: he had the ability and the opportunity. Oh god, it was probably Samantha the bastard had been flirting with when he came into his office. It was so obvious; Andy couldn't believe he hadn't worked it out sooner. Hadn't she confessed she couldn't resist the man? Sure, she'd quickly tried to turn it around when his suspicions were raised, but women always left clues about their lovers. He must have seen that a hundred times in movies, especially the French ones Samantha dragged him along to. And worst of all, it was his fault, leaving her alone in a strange city so he could grow his career. And, of course, he'd spent so much time at the office he'd not given her attention in a certain regard even women who are not French obviously need.

Andy paced his office until he found himself staring down ten stories to the unforgiving pavement. Thank god he was not the suicidal type. He wiped the diagram from the whiteboard. She had done a terrible thing, but he would have to forgive her. He had no choice. Life without Samantha would be unimaginable. She was his ideal. If he were to draw – in fact, he now did this – a quadrant diagram to represent the qualities of his ideal woman, Samantha would be top right hand corner of quadrant four: high in looks, high in intelligence, high in loyalty, high in everything that matters. Well, now she had dropped down the loyalty axis. Andy amended the diagram accordingly. But that's what made it all the harder for him to accept the bitter truth. To this Don Juan, she would be no more than a notch on his bedpost, but to Andy, Samantha was all of womankind – excepting Ma, of course.

Andy finally managed to get through to Samantha at home. "I'd like to meet you for tea or something," he told her.

"No, sorry, darling. I've just got in," she said. "I had lunch with a friend. I'm too tired to go out again."

"What friend exactly?" he said.

"An old friend from London. She was very tiring."

What friend? She hadn't mentioned a lunch date. She must have been with you know who. He's got his own little plane. He can fly in and out whenever he wants. And how come she's so tired at this time of day? Shagged out, no doubt.

"OK." Andy was pleased his voice didn't waver despite the churning in his gut and mind. "I'll make sure I'm home early. I've got some important things I need to discuss with you."

"I'll look forward to it. See you then, my darling."

When he put down the phone, Andy was not at all unhappy with his self-restraint. Cuckolded he might be but he was still in control. He decided to send Samantha to stay with Ma in Singapore to learn how to behave like a proper wife. His dignity would win the day. Also, his plans for dematerialising the Dependable, on the one hand, and expanding its reach into Asia, on the other hand, made Singapore the ideal place for him to be based. Sydney was fine though, if that's where she wanted to go. He would pay her more attention from now on and, really, one slip in the half a century he expects them to be married (in fact, he'd calculated the life expectancy of their marriage to be 62.8 years) was surely forgivable. If anything, bonds would be stronger after this little slip, and, once she sees his dignity in forgiveness, Samantha will realise what a stupid mistake she's made.

23

Samantha Wu failed to recognise the pain and dignity in her husband's voice. In addition to the five ostensibly patient yet demanding messages on her cell phone, he'd left two at home, plus an e-mail, and a text. For sure, if he had access to carrier pigeons, a pair would now be cooing on the balcony. Andy could be so obsessive on small issues, and Samantha sometimes wondered whether he really was suited to running a big company. Perhaps he'd be better off doing something more specialised, less stressful. In truth, he never seemed happier than when he was arranging their books into chromatic order.

Samantha kicked off her shoes and stretched on the settee. She wanted to make sure before breaking the news to Andy, but had the feeling he may have already guessed. She'd kept the home test indicator with its precious blue line in her underwear drawer for a few days while she waited for the appointment, but she couldn't imagine him rifling through her lingerie. This morning, the gynaecologist had confirmed she was definitely pregnant – six weeks – and the relief after five years of unspoken trying had drained her. How she wished it had been her darling Andy and not Annie Cobb, or rather Annie Hamilton, as she now was, at lunch. She was bursting to announce her news – not that she could have got a word in edgeways – but couldn't possibly tell anyone else before her husband.

Samantha tried again with her maternity magazine – so many lovely baby things to buy – but it soon became too heavy to hold and the text blurred. She was showered in sunlight, superheated through the French windows. The room temperature rose to an equatorial level and, snug and blissful, Samantha fell deeply asleep, imagining her husband's boundless joy when she told him her news.

24

Kylie Clyde felt her boss's breath on her neck. He pressed his head close to the receiver as she lied to the people from head office. When she'd finished, Owen said, "You did real good." But he didn't move away when she put the phone down, and the L-shaped desk penned her in. "I brought you a little present from the windy city for being such a good girl."

Kylie guessed it might be a chocolate saved from his pillow, but Owen pulled a narrow red case from his pocket. He opened it slowly to reveal a beautiful paua necklace. She'd never had anything like this before.

"Is this really for me?" she said. "You're not serious, are you?"

"Yes, I am. Let's put it on." But she knew he meant, now I'm going to put it on you.

Owen took the necklace from its case. Kylie lifted her hair, and he positioned the necklace and united the clasp.

"Here, let's look in the mirror," he said and led her to his private anteroom.

"Oh my god!" Kylie squealed, "I'm so stoked. I've never had anything so cool."

She could hardly recognise her own reflection being touched by Owen's strong fingers: first, the necklace and, so gently, she almost didn't feel the caress that started with her neck, then, traced her breast, her belly, and down beyond the gold frame of the mirror.

"Tonight, I'm taking you out to dinner – at the wine cellar of El Maximo," Owen whispered in her ear.

Kylie would like to say thanks but no thanks because her mum was expecting her for tea, and, although the necklace was awesome, she couldn't keep it. But young as she was, she understood it was already too late to escape Owen Huntly.

25

"So the old Sunny Days is now called the Five Seasons," Rob said several times as they drove out of Exmouth.

"So what?"

"Well, first of all, we used to stay there as kids. I don't know why I didn't think of the Sunny Days before."

Toni looked straight ahead. She had no intention of fostering someone else's sentimentality.

"Well, I suppose I didn't think it would be running, after all these years," he said. "And there's that name, of course."

"Yes. It's weird."

"Maybe." And he gave her a cryptic look that said, why don't you ask me to explain it to you?

Toni wouldn't ask and she certainly didn't want to stay in a motor camp when she's away on her first, perhaps only, business trip. She'd anticipated and wanted a nice hotel. "The woman at the information centre said it's a motor camp. Don't you have to have a caravan or a camper van to stay in place like that?"

"No worries. They've got a couple of luxury chalets there. Well, they did. We used to pitch a tent outside Mum and Dad's caravan, and, Chris, that's my brother, and me, we always used to say that, when we were grown up and we'd made it, we'd only ever stay in the chalets. And who'd believe it? – here I am. In fact, here we are. That's the turning over there, on the right by the old freezing works."

Toni's heart fell with the steep descent through thick bush to the camp. At the bottom, she saw old caravans corralled together against the wind. In the centre of the empty clearing was a dark ablution block, no doubt running with spiders. Half of the ice cream sign on the shuttered café had peeled away so it now read 'Tip'.

"This place has got to be closed," she said. "There must be somewhere else."

"No, no. There's the reception. I'll book us in."

Toni watched Rob try the reception door, look through its windows, and then he wandered out of sight. She flicked the central locking. After ten minutes, she began to wonder whether she should drive back to Exmouth and fetch the police. But Rob came walking across the field with a great bear of a man in an orange boiler suit. He motioned at Toni to join them in the reception.

Toni didn't bother to hide her disappointment with the Five Seasons or her disillusionment with Rob. It wasn't because he'd had such a pathetic childhood fantasy – she was pissed off that he should be so happy about it coming true.

"So what do you think?" Rob said, obviously unable to read her expression.

Toni was too choked with anger and frustration to speak her mind. She couldn't even stop herself being offish to Adam, the man in the orange boiler suit, who looked after things at the camp. Like the shrew she was not, Toni drew her finger through a layer of dust on the dresser cabinet as Adam showed her around her chalet. Then she recoiled in horror, like a soccer player's wife, when he suggested they come and check out a Bedford truck he'd converted himself into a very nice home. He said his bedridden partner would welcome the female company.

Adam didn't react to her rudeness, and Rob didn't seem to notice a thing. He looked perfectly satisfied as he checked things out. He said to Adam, "So, tell me something, mate, why is this place called the _Five_ Seasons and not the Four Seasons?"

"Ah." Adam chewed his lip behind his prospector's beard. "Someone told the boss there's a hotel called the Four Seasons. And he didn't want any more trouble after that nasty business with the Swedish tourists and the Sunny Days. So after that–" Adam's voice dropped to a murmur as he adds, "–the boss called the place the Five Seasons instead."

What? Despite her better instincts, Toni had to ask, "What nasty business with the Swedish tourists?"

"Reported us to the Commerce Commission, they did, for having a misleading name. They camped just over there."

26

In _Starboard_ , his chalet, still wearing his city clothes, Rob spread out etiolate on the spongy bed and plucked tufts from the orange candlewick bedspread. The bed frame lurched as he struggled to kick off his shoes. Satisfied with removing one, he took a last draw on his cigarette and reached for an icy brown bottle. The butt made a satisfying fizz on the cap when he stubbed it out. Rob swigged, long and therapeutic.

Looking around the room, he approved the watercolour of a marine vista on the far wall, the dark and curvilinear, pre-MDF furniture, the bedside clock that only flashed a luminous digital rune, and the library of Readers' Digests. He used the brick of a remote to discover the TV had only two channels, just like things used to be. He Zenned out the marital discord percolating through the wall with another stubbie. The rain on the roof stepped up a gear, and his consciousness drifted. He could picture Mum and Dad in the caravan, bickering but safe, and Chris, no longer a rapacious merchant banker, just an envious boy, soaking under canvas outside. He might have a game of Scrabble with Mum and Dad later, then let Chris in to kip on the couch.

#

In _Port_ , Toni wasn't as happy as her neighbour with the way things have turned out. Johnny was very difficult when she phoned home. As she'd anticipated, the stifled drama at the airport was just a trailer for the main feature. She tried tough love on him, but they both suspected she no longer loved him, and, besides, the distance had taken the urgency from her toughness.

"It says in the good book a woman's place is in the home. It's the warrior's place to provide," he told her.

"That's great, Johnny, yeah I could go with that. But you don't provide – do you? You never have and you never will."

Johnny's reading of his good book so far obviously hadn't prepared him for this response. He ignored it and resorted to his usual fallback of unreasonableness. "Now that I think about it," he said, "it would have been a _heck_ of a lot easier if you'd taken the boys with you."

Toni wondered why she found Johnny's new way of cursing so much more offensive than the casual blasphemies of his previous life. She was seized by an urge to lash out and smash his irrationality, but she patiently explained some of the reasons why that had been impossible.

"Maybe I should take them up to their Nana's," he said.

"For Christ's sake. She's in frigging Hamilton!" Toni calmed herself. "Never mind everything else, there's not enough petrol in the car for you to do that."

"I guess we could try hitching," Johnny said. His tone told her that even he knew how lame his suggestion was. Then he shouted at the boys, setting off a stereophonic wail that even she would admit was a well-executed bonus twist of the blade.

Now Toni wanted to let go, to be the one blowing the emotional budget just for once, to break down, and wallow in self-pity. She had two minutes left on her phone card that she'd reserved for phoning the boys in the morning. For a moment, she contemplated the special luxury it would be to squander this meanly rationed time, sobbing. She would do this, not to win over Johnny, who would in any case probably see it as surrender, but simply because she can't afford to, because her normal discipline and sense of duty wouldn't allow it. She fancied her unbound wails amplifying logarithmically as they bounced off every hilltop transmitter and circling satellite, until the whole universe was filled with her misery. But this moment of self-indulgence passed within a few cents of airtime.

"Listen to me, Johnny. I'll tell you what, if you've got a problem, I'll phone Pastor Kelvin and ask him to come round to talk it through with you." No response. It had worked this time. Pastor Kelvin, Johnny's spiritual leader, was not only one of the holiest men in the Hutt Valley, but, before his rebirth, had also been one of its most fearsome. Toni wondered whether Pastor Kelvin's current bling-bling godliness or his reputation as a gang leader was the bigger influence on Johnny's behaviour. "OK, I'll phone you in the morning," she said.

Toni unpacked her bag and hung her clothes in the wardrobe that smelt of damp. She changed out of her work outfit and showered quickly so as not to keep Rob waiting. Now she felt in control again, but hungry. She closed the windows she'd opened to let out the must that overwhelmed her when Adam wrestled the door wide to show off the chalet. The rain had stopped, and she watched the light leach from the sky, pink to purple, blue to black. She rearranged her clothes in the wardrobe; checked herself once more in the pitted mirror; sank into the bed, in the depression she'd made when flitting through the airline magazine the first time; cleaned her teeth again, pleased the water tasted less brackish this time, all the while willing her neighbour's knock summoning her to dinner as they'd arranged. All light had gone from the world. Dressed for an evening out, but now with a fleece on, Toni sat on the bed in darkness, save for the nuclear glow of the clock flashing its incomplete message.

27

Samantha was asleep when Andy arrived home but the familiar click of his shoes on the marble tiles woke her. So when he came into the lounge, her arms were already raised, inviting him to lie with her on the settee. She realised immediately he wouldn't. He stopped a good three metres from her. "Did you go to lunch with Owen Huntly today?"

"Who's he?" Samantha was still befuddled from her nap.

"You know very well who he is."

What happened to hello, darling, how's your day been? "Of course. Yes, I know the man's name, since you keep dragging it up, but I don't know him. Look, I don't want to talk about anybody else – I want to talk about us."

Andy ignored her plaintive look. "You were talking to him at the cocktail party. Do I really need to remind you?"

"Yes. 30 seconds of phatic conversation with one of your employees. Isn't that what you expect of me?" Barely awake, she couldn't handle this nonsense.

"Not with employees like him, though. You're supposed to behave like the CEO's wife."

"All right." She sat up and met his accusing gaze. "You might as well know, I pashed Sir Gerald in the lift. We were probably caught on CCTV if you missed it."

"That's not funny. This Huntly is dangerous."

"No, he's not, he's only a salesman. That's the way they are. Not dangerous – amusing. They're like clowns. All that bravado, but nothing behind the mask."

Andy looked at her as though she's just confessed to sexually servicing the entire Dependable sales team. The maternity magazine had fallen shut. The back cover revealed nothing of its contents – no more than a photo of a beautiful woman in designer clothes, a woman rather like Samantha Wu. She thought, If I turn the magazine over, to show him the front cover, its title and photograph of a woman big with child, as I will be, this nonsense will stop here and now. She left the magazine as it was.

"How do you know salesmen are like that?" Andy said.

"I should tape this. You're being such an idiot – again."

"OK." He paced the room, as if an attorney playing to a jury. "So, with who did you lunch today?"

With _whom_ , Samantha thought. But it didn't matter because Andy spoiled the effect of his cross-examination by straightening ornaments as he went.

Samantha pulled a pillow to her chest. She was not nearly as strong as either of them might have thought. "A friend," she said, "I told you."

"Oh really? I didn't think you had any friends here. That's what you're always telling me."

"She was on a flying visit from Melbourne," Samantha said. Deep breathing allowed her to stay calm.

"Who is she? Do I know her?"

"It doesn't matter. It was someone I flatted with before I met you," she said, although she knew this information was hardly likely to chill his jealousy.

"And this _she_ really was a she?" he said.

Samantha didn't appreciate his sarcastic tone but thought a touch of humour might restore his sanity. "A bit jolly hockey sticks, a bit too much down on the upper lip but, yes, a she." Apparently not. "Andy, I'm actually getting very tired of this." Samantha only wanted her darling husband to laugh with her about the one-time friend and her arriviste pretensions, and then they could move on the real thing.

"Where did you go?"

"I don't know." Her mind was spinning, flinging away details. "Um, it was the restaurant of her hotel, downtown. I don't know if it even had a name. Please. You're not being very nice."

"Fodder?"

"That could be it," she said. "Yes, I think it was."

"Do you know who else was lunching there?"

Samantha sighed. "That's not a very good question."

"Ok, I'll help you." Andy added without embarrassment. "Owen Huntly."

"So what?"

"Because – look, I'm seriously thinking about having criminal charges pressed against him, and the insolent bastard came unannounced into my office to infer he'd met you for lunch."

Samantha didn't bother with 'infer'. "That's not true. He's lying." Damn it. She felt tears coming.

"All right. Do you promise me you didn't meet Owen Huntly for lunch?"

"Yes, I do." And don't you dare straighten the fucking CDs when you're accusing me of adultery. Samantha took a deep breath. "Look, I did bump into him at the restaurant. Annie, that's my friend, and I were having lunch. He was with his wife at another table. And, at one stage, he came over to say hello, that's all. So, in a way, yes he could claim to have met me at lunch, but not for lunch."

Andy moved towards the French windows but stopped halfway and turned on Samantha once more. "Do you know what? It was like being visited by royalty when he made his state visit to head office."

He sounded so pathetic Samantha wished she could comfort him.

"It seemed like everyone came out to meet him. I'm surprised they weren't waving flags or putting on a tickertape parade. But what really interested me was that he took a phone call in my office – no doubt, so I could hear – obviously from one of his conquests."

"I don't understand." Samantha dabbed at her eyes but was determined not to show weakness over this. "What are you insinuating?"

"Let me explain. I think you met Huntly for an assignation. This mystery friend from Melbourne story is bullshit. I think it was you he was phoning outside my office with all that 'Was it good for you?' crap."

"Yes, it is true, I did phone him. I didn't tell you because you've been so funny recently." She laughed. "Believe or not, I didn't want you to get jealous." Andy didn't respond, and she added, "He wanted to buy a present for his wife and he asked me where we bought my paua necklace. When I got home, I phoned him and gave him the address. We talked about the food. He told me the chef is a close personal friend. That's what you must have heard."

"Great story. The only problem is this, Huntly is famously unmarried." The poor man had a look of stupid triumph.

"Well, maybe it wasn't for his wife," Samantha said. "They seemed very intimate. I assumed it was for the woman he was with."

"Maybe – but do you know what? This whole thing makes me feel sick to my stomach."

But it was Samantha who rushed to the bathroom.

"Are you all right?" Andy called to the bathroom door.

"Leave me alone."

"OK. I'll get to the point." Andy crouched to talk through the keyhole. "I think you've had a fling with Owen Huntly. I've got a plan to sort things out with us. But first of all, I'm going to make sure he gets screwed too."

Samantha opened the door. "What are you doing down there? Never mind. Andy, listen to me – you are so completely wrong about me and him."

"Why do you care what happens to him?" Andy said.

"I don't particularly. But I do care what this job is doing to you, it's corrupting you."

"Me corrupted?" Andy said. "That really is a bit rich coming from you. Don't make me laugh, please."

Samantha slammed the door and this time bolted it.

28

Toni tapped, knocked, banged, hammered on her neighbour's door. Rob eventually opened it ajar.

"Hi, Terri. Um, isn't it the middle of the night?" Rob rubbed his eyes.

"No. It's only half past eight. We were going to find somewhere for dinner."

"Oh, you go ahead without me. I can't be bothered with dinner tonight." Clearly, he intended to return to the musty gloom.

I'm very hungry, Toni imagines herself saying. Remember I turned down your kind offer of a genuine West Coast meat pie when you insisted on stopping to buy a six-pack. I've left my children in the hands of their unreliable father. Because I can't pay for myself, I've been waiting two hours for you take me out. I've got less than $50 in my bank account until payday. OK, until Working for Families makes a payment, but that's my business. The bank took away my credit card after Johnny got hold of it and went online to buy all the family presents (especially himself). Accounts said you've got a company credit card and would pay for everything when I asked for a cash advance. I do have a little bit of pride left, but I'm hungry, and I'm sick of having unfairness heaped onto me all the time. And it's _Toni_ by the way. So, don't be such an arsehole and get in the frigging car!

"I don't know this town," Toni said. "I really don't like eating out at places on my own, yeah." And I'll damn well stay here until you take me out.

Rob asked Toni to hold on a second and retreated into the darkness. She heard him scuffling back across the room, forcing on a shoe. Then he stepped outside and closed the door.

"Don't you want to change?" she said, taken aback by how scruffy he'd become so quickly.

"No, I always dress for dinner," he said and gave a weak smile. He probably used this line all the time and couldn't remember whether he'd tried it on her before. He took off his half-mast tie and pocketed it.

When Rob stepped into the porch light, Toni noticed a dusting of orange pollen on his jacket, but she felt she didn't know him well enough to mention it, and resisted the urge to brush him down.

#

Exmouth seemed dead. But, after driving through the town twice, they found El Maximo, a real Italian restaurant with fishing nets and Chianti bottles bound in raffia on the walls. They were led to a table for two, next to a small stage arranged with a stool, guitar, and microphone. Rob ordered a bottle of pinot noir, impressing Toni when he chose by estate rather than price. He tasted the wine, raised his eyebrows in approval, and told her he hadn't realised how hungry he was. Toni might have wept at this, but managed to laugh instead.

"Cheers." They clinked glasses, and Toni slipped easily into the geisha role, offering the man with the company credit card laughter, query and deference as he needed them. But, when the conversation stalled, and Rob started looking around at other people, Toni decided it was time to promote her own interests. "I had to use my phone for longer than I expected, and now the card's about to run out. Do you think there's anywhere around here still open where I might get a top up?"

"Oh there's bound to be," Rob said. "I doubt there's anywhere you can get away from bloody cell phones these days. There was that poor bugger up Everest, wasn't there, a few years back, with a cell phone but no oxygen?"

Why could she never speak her mind? In the roundabout way that lets me keep my self-respect a little bit intact but stops me from asking you straight out, what I really want is to borrow your phone. It would be such a luxury for me to check things are OK at home, and it would make everything so much easier if you'd just let me use your phone. Please shut up for one minute and try to read my mind.

"Cell phones are so intrusive," Rob said.

"They're very useful though."

"I suppose so – if you're a fucking estate agent."

A stylish woman, lavish in gold jewellery, looked daggers at Rob, but he didn't notice.

"And you need to have a phone so you can lie through your teeth as you mow down cyclists in your 4 x 4 on your way to another subdivision." He paused for breath and took a huge slurp of wine. Toni watched amazed as Rob's lips hardly seemed to part and yet the glass was almost empty when he put it back on the table. "I keep mine off most of the time," he said as he tapped his temple. "I don't want my synapses getting fried. They're scrambled enough already."

Almost in a whisper, Toni said, "I don't know what I would do without mine, if there was an emergency with the boys and Johnny couldn't get hold of me."

Rob seemed blissfully unconscious of a mother's cares as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a sleek model she's envied from adverts in glossy magazines, catalogues of things she'll never have, scanned in the doctor's waiting room. He peered at the screen. "Four messages," he said with an undertone of won't-they-ever-learn?

"Aren't you going to listen to them?" Toni said.

"Nah, there's no point now."

Toni could resist watching Rob's hand as it pocketed the phone.

"What was I thinking? If your card's running out, you can use my phone. Oh, and don't worry about how long you are, the Dependable picks up the bill." Rob handed Toni his phone.

Toni closed her fingers around the precious device in the palm of her hand, and felt it, heavy as an ingot, and warm from another's touch. She stifled the urge to tap in the familiar number right off. Instead she tried to concentrate on what Rob was saying. He was explaining why some government spy station near Blenheim was so important for her. "Whenever you use your cell phone, John Key could be listening in on everything you say."

Toni was tempted to suggest that the prime minister might have better things to do than listen in on her telling Johnny to hang up the washing or get fish fingers out of the freezer for tea but managed to raise her eyebrows in horror.

She watched Rob's lips moving but she wasn't listening, her mind was outside phoning home. Then she couldn't wait any longer for the right moment to make her polite excuses. She stood, and, with Rob still talking, left him.

Outside, the wind had risen and rode unchallenged through the ghost town. Toni was spooked. From the corner of her eye she spotted a corpse mound of leaves. The wind animated the pile as though raising a body but it dissipated, scattering plane leaves the size of dinner plates around her. A supermarket bag rolled past as urban tumbleweed, a rotating advert for beer span fast as a turbine. Out on the street, Toni felt alone and uneasy. But after her phone call she went back into El Maximo with a feeling of unusual lightness. She'd drunk half a glass of wine on an empty stomach, but alcohol never made her feel this relaxed. The threat of a call to Pastor Kelvin had worked a miracle on Johnny, like he'd been filled with the Holy Spirit, or, at least, Prozac. He told her several obvious lies. Even so she was sure everything was all right at home.

A sharply dressed man, someone vaguely familiar, perhaps, from a television programme half-watched over the ironing board, held the door open for her. He smiled at her and, with his gorgeous young companion, passed in a cloud of aftershave and perfume.

The atmosphere inside El Maximo had changed. The lights were low and intimate. Toni weaved her way back between the tables, vaguely conscious of male glances at her hip sway. She saw the piled plate of food that awaited her. Rob's eyes were latched onto a much pierced, overweight girl with a guitar, who was singing badly. Although his smile was warm when he saw Toni, Rob said nothing until the song ended, then, clapping, leant close enough for her to feel his breath against her ear, and asked if everything was OK. She nodded and hid a yawn behind her hand. For once, everything did seem to be all right.

Toni laughed without her normal restraint when Rob beckoned her near during the next song, glanced up at the unfortunate singer and whispered, "I'm afraid she's more out house that Winehouse."

Although Rob was clearly slammed by the end of the evening, Toni didn't detect any lechery or threat. Instead, he became pompous, using long words he must have known she didn't understand but made up for it by swearing too much. Barely suppressing a belch, and, assuming what he must have thought was a charming expression, he told the waitress, when she asked how dinner had been, it was 'execrable', and she said, "You're welcome". The joke fell flat though because Rob had to explain the meaning of execrable to Toni. She guessed saying that to the waitress when he'd anticipated her response might have been funny but, too tired and bored now, couldn't bring herself to laugh in hindsight.

Rob protested when Toni blocked his suggestion of a last bottle of wine or a beer to cleanse the palate but, waving a gold credit card, he called for the bill.

As they drove back to the motor camp, Toni said, "Well, I thought the food was pretty good."

"It was OK. I'm not sure my fish of the day was actually blue cod though. How was the veal?"

"Good." Toni wanted to change the subject quickly. She'd never been able to afford veal. As she took her first bite, Rob had explained in great detail about suckling calves. "The music was terrible though," she said, remembering how Rob had clapped with such enthusiasm.

"Abysmal."

"But you even gave her a standing ovation."

"Of course I did. Live entertainment performed in a fake Italian restaurant, in a town as small Exmouth on a Monday night, ought to be that fucking bad."

Toni couldn't help laughing.

"No, no, it was authentic," he added with a straight face.

"OK, if you say so."

Toni was uneasy arriving back to a flimsy chalet in a deserted camp to sleep in a room next to a drunk she hardly knew. So she was relieved there was no suggestion of having coffee or any other offer that might lead to awkwardness or compromise.

Once she'd again checked her door was properly locked, Toni turned off the light, immersing herself in the complete black of the country night. She lay tense and anxious a while, as she strained to identify the amplified noises of nocturnal animals. First, she adjusted to the insect butt and flutter, then to the hopeful call of a distant morepork. She managed to drift off, but was jerked back awake by the nasty laughter of possums clattering across the roof. She accepted that. Then she heard a growling that was alien and disturbing until she realised it was not, as she feared, a monstrous wild pig rooting outside her door, but her neighbour's snoring. She wrapped a pillow over her ears and fell into deep sleep.

TUESDAY

29

"Daddy. Daddy!" Byron tugged at Johnny's shoulder. "Daddy, Kyron wet the bed."

"Uh, what about his nappy?" Johnny said, thinking that he'd got one over Byron for once.

"He takes it off in the morning. Don't you remember, Daddy? Duh!"

For a moment Johnny smiled and thought, If our family life was a sitcom, Byron would have to be played by a dwarf – I mean someone vertically challenged – the boy was so bright. Then Johnny took in what Byron had said. He jumped up and whipped off the duvet from the other side of the bed. "Oh fuck, I mean, heck."

Kyron was missing but it was obvious where he'd been. Oh, why had he been such a wimp and not made them sleep in their own room? They all knew it was a lie that Mummy would have said it was OK. Now the marital bed, which hadn't been the marital bed as such for the last month, was saturated and already starting to stink.

"Where is he?" Johnny asked Byron.

"He's hiding from you," Byron said, calm in the face of his father's panic.

"What?" Johnny scratched his head. "Why's he hiding from me?"

"He's scared of you," Byron said. "He thinks you'll be mad."

"Is that what he thinks – that I'd be mad at him for wetting the bed? Oh God, I mean, gosh." What a cunt I must be, Johnny thinks, not knowing the righteous substitute – he'll have to ask Pastor Kelvin about that one.

"You shouted at us yesterday, remember?"

"No, that wasn't at you, mate. That was for Mum. Oh forget it. Where is he?"

Byron shrugged, but it didn't take Johnny long to find Kyron, sodden and shivering behind the bathroom door. Johnny reached out his hands. "Come on, mate, in the shower with you."

Foetal and wide-eyed, Kyron wouldn't move. But Byron appeared in the doorway. "It's OK. Daddy isn't mad." Trust me – I'll probably become a doctor.

Johnny laughed. "Look, I must admit, I could have done without this, but I'm not mad with you. Promise. Come on, Ky. You too, By. Big hug." Johnny felt cold osmosis on one half of his t-shirt, and burning in his eyes.

30

After the birth of the twins, Toni had exercised herself back into good shape. There was gym for a few years. And, after her gym membership ran out, almost every morning, no matter how many times she'd been up for the boys in the night, in rain and cold, she walked five brisk kilometres, up and out of the pall of smoke that, in winter, hung as a cloak around the state housing, and left a taste of carbon, tart and particulate on the back of her throat. Up the steep gradient to crescents where 'turning difficult' signs meant 'keep out', and estate agents' boards showed the tasteful interiors of executive homes, viewing by appointment only.

It was hardly light but Toni was wide-awake, fired up by the faint sound of the ocean and the promise of her morning walk on a wild beach. Across wet grass towards the increasing noise of the breakers, she passed the hibernating play area where the go-karts were mothballed and the crazy golf course sedated. At the looming waterslide, more like a watchtower from below, the smell of chlorine lingered and the echoes of children's wild screaming could be imagined. She followed the path through a copse of ferns and twisted trees, sunless and suddenly chilling like stepping into a chiller room. A hair thin strand of cobweb trawled across her cheek. She batted it away in panic, then wondered when she first became scared of things like that – perhaps, at the moment of parturition.

Toni quickened her pace, and reached the beach. It was long and deserted, as Rob had promised. Her feet sank into the dune sand as she looked around. She saw Adam, the camp handyman, combing the beach with a metal detector and feeling better in herself today waved to him but he was too engrossed in hunting and gathering to notice. She decided to head south, away from Exmouth.

Once on firm ground, Toni was soon into her long stride, thoughts flowing into her mind, half forming and flowing out. She still had Rob's phone. She'd called Johnny before she left and, more personal assistant than husband, he handed over straightaway to Byron, who always led in these things. It was funny – actually, worrying – how different the boys were, even at this age. And poor Kyron seemed to have inherited his father's particularly slack strand of DNA. Perhaps she should have insisted on naming both boys. Never mind, everything sounded fine at home. Without her to boss them around, they were probably having a great time. And, no doubt, Johnny was giving them ice cream with their cornflakes. She smiled at the sitcom image, well aware that she would make his life hell for a week if she caught him doing that.

The tide was far out. The waves had retreated behind the reef, leaving tepid pools and killing fields. Haggling sea birds scattered at the shoreline as she approached. Toni didn't like sea gulls, they screech and shit on children, but the fat black ones with long, orange, pencil beaks, makeshift disguises that didn't fool anyone, they appealed to her.

Toni did know a few birds' names but was never sure which name belonged to which bird. Birds and bird's names flew around in her mind without ever coming together. The same was true for trees and fish, anything really except parts of the body and cars. And even studying anatomy for nursing had been a slow battle of hours conquering the instinct to call a 'femur' what everyone else called a 'tibia', or was it the other way round? Only cars have never presented a blind spot for her. With taxonomic certainty, she can identify a shape passing at speed – manufacturer, model, often, even the year. She's often wondered whether there's a market for that skill.

Toni walked on, looking all around her. She examined the clouds but sees little in them – maybe a face, a VW Beetle. Emptied shells and hollowed crabs cracked and crushed beneath her feet. In the wet sand of the water's edge, her footfalls left mirror pools, soon reclaimed and forgotten.

The beach was bisected by a promontory that would be impassable at high tide, but Toni reckoned she could scramble over it. She checked the time on Rob's phone. The walk had taken her about three quarters of an hour so far. She thought she ought to turn back but clambered over the rocks to a small cove. It was a deserted amphitheatre with steeply banked bush leading to matted forest and a brutal cliff-face. Toni became hot in the shelter of the cove. She took off her fleece and knotted the sleeves around her waist. Then she was overcome by the sensual – near sexual – urge to go further, to plunge naked into the surf. She freed her t-shirt from the band of her jeans and her fingers went to the button, but a stern voice arrested her. "This is private land, you know." A tall, old man in waterproofs stepped out from the bush. He wore binoculars around his neck.

31

"I'm going to work now." Andy stood in the doorway of the guest room.

Samantha's back was to him. The pillow she clutched was damp. She couldn't recall sleeping and supposed she'd wept all night. She said, "OK," but didn't turn towards him. She guessed her eyes must be swollen and her face puffy. She would never want her husband to see her like that.

"I'll be back about seven this evening," he said.

"OK."

"Fine." He turned to go but stepped into her sanctuary. "Look. What I don't understand is this. It's you that's been sleeping around and yet it's me in the doghouse."

Samantha snatched the duvet over her face and screamed. "Go away. Get out. Just leave me alone, you moron."

33

On the porch of _Starboard_ , Rob reclined in a plastic bucket chair he remembered as a sophisticated orange, but was now bleached beige from the UV rays. His bare feet on the porch rail shone white in the sunlight, but the rest of him, in his black suit, slouched in shadow and cigarette smoke. He'd rooted around in the kitchen of his chalet and found a rust freckled canister with 'Coffee' written in groovy font and a supply of Air New Zealand UHT milk pots. He was delighted that the kettle, with its stony furred element, only worked if a match was wedged into the switch, and it was Adam, for sure, who'd thoughtfully left a match by the kettle. This wasn't a few days away from the office – it was time travel. No wonder they'd renamed the place the Five Seasons.

Rob could already recognise his neighbour's form from a distance, her long purposeful stride, perhaps, a little too much hip sway. He wondered whether she would insist on shaking his hand again but, when she reached him, she smiled broadly, Howyadoin – not intimate, but close. She sat on the step of the porch and, letting out a long sigh, held her hair up. Now, this was intimate – the way the nape of her neck was revealed, damp at the hairline, the vertebrae like half-submerged stepping-stones.

Rob made Toni a mug of coffee. "Do you do this walking thing every day?" he said and handed her the mug.

"Thanks. Almost. I started when my gym membership ran out."

"Oh really?" He sat on the step next to her. "I get gym membership as part of my remuneration package – it's a fringe benefits tax dodge. But I've never got round to using it." He regretted telling her this the moment the words were out. He always forgot when it was the right time to brag about remuneration (networking sessions at conferences of peers) and when not to (conversations with organisational underlings).

Toni looked down. "Maybe you ought to," she said.

It was too late now to breathe in. "So, my doctor tells me."

Toni didn't need to explain to Rob how unfair she thought his having free, unused gym membership was – her eyes told him that well enough. And Rob would have been happy to transfer his gym membership to her, there and then. But he could no more assign to her those benefits of status that meant so little to him than he could gift to her his qualifications or vocabulary or the dreams he'd had last night.

Her affront seemed to pass quickly, and she told him about her walk.

"We'd–" Rob hadn't expected his voice to crack like that. He didn't want to cut short this brief idyll but tried again, "We'd better get going. We've got to meet with Owen Huntly in less than half an hour."

#

On the way to Exmouth Toni told Rob how Mr Wu had phoned when she was out walking but he didn't seem impressed. She asked Rob what he thought of Andy Wu, for the first time trying out his name, without 'Mr'. Rob's expression clouded. For a moment Toni wished she hadn't asked. Had she perhaps overstepped the mark and was Rob about to put her in her place, as Mr Buller might have done?

"Well, he's a nice enough bloke is Andy," Rob said. "But he's a bit naïve."

"What do mean? How can Andy be naïve?"

"You know, he's the sort of guy who thinks the daily practice of law bears some resemblance to a John Grisham novel," Rob said.

Toni guessed this might be funny and laughed.

"Look, I will say, to his credit, he isn't a shouter or name-caller like Ralph Gisborne. You know," Rob said, "Gisborne once accused me of being 'a dissembling bloody Marxist' at a volume that registered 4.1 on the Richter scale."

Toni said nothing. She'd never come into day-to-day contact with Mr Gisborne. He'd presented her with the Employee of the Year trophy but had to read her name off a card, even when she won it the second time. He'd kissed her though, rather than shake her hand; his leathery jowls momentarily abraded her skin, and his hand ventured too low on her back.

"Well, that's right. I put him straight. I explained to him that at uni I had applied _Marxian_ theory, but I was not a Marxist, per se."

"OK." Toni had no idea where any distinction might lie.

"And then he said to me, 'When you draw a salary from my company, you'll be a fucking _Martian_ if I say you are'. Ralph Gisborne was the bull-shagger, and there was no mistaking that."

"So, you must be pleased now that Andy is in charge?" Toni says, far from certain that he was.

"Well, yes and no. At least you knew where you were with an old bastard like Gisborne but, with Andy, I'm not so sure. For instance, I don't really know why we've been sent down here."

"Because the Artemis Washburn death claim is suspicious." Toni regreted her answer straight away.

Rob smiled and said, "Me, I'm suspicious of any death claim. I mean, why would anyone take out life insurance if they didn't think they were going to die?"

Toni was about to explain why but realised he was being ironic.

"No, I've been sent along because Andy wants to sack Owen Huntly and wants me to make sure there's no legal comeback. He said I've got to investigate Owen's business practices, but the result is a foregone conclusion. Now there's one thing that puzzles me – why the hell would you want to sack your top salesperson?"

Unconvinced by Rob's confession of ignorance, Toni felt even more remote from the centre of power. She'd already learnt when Rob said he was puzzled by something, he generally wasn't. She'd thought when she asked him about Andy he'd confirm her own admiration but, not only has he criticised their leader, he's hinted at things she could never have thought. It was like when she read a medical journal for the first time and was overwhelmed by the arcane technicalities and differences of opinion about things she'd assumed were straightforward.

"I'm certainly not complaining though," Rob said, "a little holiday at company expense isn't to be sniffed at but I do wonder why Andy thought I should come down in person. I think he probably saw someone being investigated in a movie. You know, detectives sitting for days on end in an unmarked van outside the suspect's office, listening in with sophisticated bugging devices, going through dustbins. But I'll be buggered if I'm going to _investigate_ Owen Huntly. If Andy wants him sacked, I could think of half a dozen reasons without any of the nonsense he has in mind."

When they reached the outskirts of Exmouth, Toni thought the roads and buildings were beginning to look familiar. It was probably not such a bad place once you got used to it. She wondered whether the primary school was a good one. "I hear Andy's wife is absolutely stunning," she said.

Rob looked out his side window. "I have absolutely no idea."

"But I heard you were hitting on her at the cocktail party," Toni said. "Mr Buller told me all the scandal the next day."

"I was merely commenting on her husband's presentation. Take it from me, Bruce Buller is full of shit."

Toni was intrigued to learn more about Rob's opinion of her ex-boss, but Andy Wu was a far more interesting subject of conversation than Mr Buller. "Andy dresses so well. And that Mercedes SRL Kompressor is to die for."

"What's that?"

"A car." She suspected he knew exactly what it was. "Apparently they have this penthouse apartment on Oriental Parade with windows from ceiling to floor."

"So what?"

"He's almost like a celebrity. It's interesting."

"No, it's not. It's tacky. Tell me something, do you know how much Sir Gerald Leet is worth?"

"Who's he?" Toni said.

"That's my point. Sir Gerald personally owns at least 20% of the Dependable. And yet you'd never even know he's alive if you didn't read the business pages. He can buy and sell people like Andy Wu with his spare change. But if you saw Sir Gerald in the street, you'd think he was, I don't know, a country bank manager."

"I don't get it," Toni said. "What's the point of being like that if you've got lots of money?"

"It's the whole point about having lots of money," Rob said. "It's called discretion."

"Oh. So what would you do if you won Lotto?"

"I did last year," Rob said with a straight face. "Ten million dollars."

"What!" They nearly left the road. "Did you really?"

"No, not really, but you wouldn't have known if I had. That's my point."

"Well, you'd sure as hell hear all about it if I won. I know exactly what I'd buy." Oh yes. Toni could name all the things she lacked but longed for. In brands and trademarks, she could dress herself and fill her world with the things she didn't have. From Italian stilettoes to the right car in the garage, she could name everything that was missing. But when she and Johnny played spending the Lotto winnings, he just didn't get it. He would say maybe he could buy a jet pack or a helicopter, something flash and expensive he thought might please her. But he didn't really understand or care what big money might buy. She certainly did though, and could describe everything: the renovated villa high on the hill with its teak blinds, each brushed metal appliance, and the shade and thickness of the carpets. When she pushed Johnny for something specific, he might say, "OK – one of those big Holden utes – a red one." And she would patiently explain why it would have to be a Audi A5 in obsidian black pearl. She smiled at how clueless Johnny could be.

"What's amusing you?" Rob said.

"Oh nothing," Toni was still spending her imagined wealth.

"Ah, this must be Owen's office coming up," Rob said. "Oh, very nice. There's parking over there." He pointed to the space Toni was already manoeuvring into.

34

Andy was relieved that Cynthia wasn't back at work, and he only had a few meetings today. If he couldn't talk to Samantha, he didn't want to see anyone else. He hadn't expected her to react the way she did. In fact, abject contrition had come top of his list of probable reactions. Maybe it was more serious than a once-off fling. One thing was for sure, he needed Owen Huntly nailed, and he was not convinced that Rob Hamilton was up to it. Perhaps he should hire a private investigator. Andy wondered whether you just Googled one, whether they carried guns.

Andy picked up the phone several times before he could pluck up the courage to call Samantha. When he did, her greeting was warm and dreamy but hardened when he spoke.

"What do you want now?" she said.

"I want to talk to you."

"OK, go ahead."

"I – well, there was nothing in particular," he said. "I just wanted to talk to you."

"Andy, you've been putting me through hell for the last few days. It really isn't a cliché when I say I feel like my heart is broken. If you can't say anything to stop that, I don't have anything to say to you."

"All right. I'm sorry."

"What for?" Samantha said.

"That you're upset."

"I'm not upset." Her voice was shrill and brittle. "I am fucking heartbroken."

Damn it. If they were going to argue, Andy wanted to be the one to slam the phone down, but Samantha beat him to it.

35

Kylie Clyde, Owen Huntly's personal assistant and latest conquest, listened to the visitors' voices echoing up the stairwell. The man said, "Oh, look at the craftsmanship on this stairwell. This was probably the residence of one of the local coal barons. Thieving bastards, but, at least, they knew how to spend what they stole."

Kylie sniggered. Owen had told her the building had been a brothel.

"Hello, I'm Rob Hamilton and this is my colleague, Toni Haast. I spoke to you yesterday about meeting with Owen."

Kylie and Toni exchanged smiles of recognition. In daylight, Kylie could better weigh Toni up: tall with a good figure. No wonder Owen turned around to check her out last night at El Maximo. A little heavy around the hips, though, must be from having kids. Good cheekbones but skin a bit weathered – she should have stayed out of the sun more when she was younger.

Kylie invited them to sit on the big red settee to wait for Owen, although she had no idea where her boss was. Well, she knew he wasn't in his office and that he'd gone hunting. In fact, telling her he'd go hunting in the morning was the first thing Owen had said to her after they'd finished thrashing around on the table in the wine cellar last night. Kylie's sexual experience wasn't broad, even so, she'd been surprised that someone as sophisticated as Owen would withdraw from her and say, "I think I'll stick a pig tomorrow." Dylan, her ex, after the first time swore he'd die for her and love her forever. Kylie hadn't wanted Dylan to die for her or really believed he'd love her forever but it had seemed the right thing to say.

Kylie watched the people from head office sink into the plump lap of the settee. Its overstuffed cushions pushed them together. The woman's skirt had risen up, and she tried to pull the hem back over her knees; he wriggled to keep his distance from her. They were like first time ice skaters on a crowded rink, struggling not to make contact. Kylie guessed they were having an affair, that was why they were so keen not to touch in front of her.

Five minutes after the meeting should have started Rob asked the question Kylie hoped he wouldn't. "Is Owen actually in?"

"I'll see." She dialled the connecting phone, then went to the double office doors, peeked inside, and shut them again. She didn't know what else to do except carry on with her typing.

"Well, is he in there?" Rob said. "He's a bit big to miss."

Kylie didn't like his sarcastic tone. "Not yet."

"Not yet? Does he actually know about this meeting?"

"I put it in his diary," Kylie said.

"Right. Has he actually seen his diary since he skipped our meeting yesterday?"

"How would I know?" It came to Kylie that hiding in the toilet might be a good move.

"Well, I don't mind telling you I'm actually getting really pissed off with this whole business," Rob said. "If I have to tell Andy Wu your boss has disappeared again, he'll be in deep shit."

Rob avoided Toni's knee for support as he struggled to his feet. Kylie stifled a laugh as she watched him fight against the vacuum suck of the settee. Wanker.

"I'd like to see Owen's file on his client Artemis Washburn, please."

"He keeps his files in his office," Kylie said. She heard herself the panic in her voice.

"Right, then I'd better have a look in there, hadn't I?" Rob moved towards the doors.

"That's Mr Huntly's office." Kylie felt her heartbeat race.

"It's also the property of the Dependable." Rob pushed open the doors.

"OK, I'll get the file for you." Kylie glanced at Toni, hoping for rescue, but she seemed miles away. Kylie ran after Rob and overtook him.

#

Toni was not impressed by Rob throwing his weight around and assumed his rudeness was more to do with a hangover than Kylie's delaying tactics. Now alone, Toni drifted into daydreaming. Meeting the old man in the cove had upset her. He must have watched her through his binoculars. If she had given into her urge to skinny dip, it would have been horribly embarrassing at the very least. Toni shuddered at the thought of being spied on while naked. That's why she hadn't told Rob about it. Then Andy had phoned as she was tramping along the beach, not a care in the world, high on ozone and endorphins – on a working day. This had completely flustered her. Sure, Andy was so cool when she tried to explain why she'd answered Rob's phone. She'd prayed he couldn't hear the ocean and seagulls in the background. She would laugh about it in time, but not yet. Toni also felt a pang of nostalgia for Johnny.

For all his faults, Johnny had followed the events of Toni's work with a fan's fascination. Sure, the better she did the better he did but he did have a genuine curiosity about her career, if only because he'd never had one himself. If she'd told Johnny about Andy phoning her, he would slap his knee and shout, "Fuck me!" – well, "Heck!" these days – and then he would analyse the situation and tell her what he would have done in her place. And they had an understanding: when he gave her advice and told her what he would have done if he'd been in her place, she wouldn't point out the obvious – it could only have been a wrong number if someone like Andy Wu had phoned a loser like him.

Toni had told Rob about Andy phoning when she was out walking, but he just asked what the hell Andy had wanted. Andy was always phoning Rob and sometimes Rob didn't even bother to phone him back.

Toni sighed and stood. She followed the others through the opened double doors.

#

Rob looked totally fazed by Owen's office. "Jesus. Look at the size of this place," he said and wandered around touching things. "Nice woodwork. Oh, real craftsmanship." He stood before Owen's wall of photographs.

"Oh, so that's Owen Huntly," Toni said.

Kylie blushed.

"The man himself," Rob said. "Funny, isn't it? Having so many pictures of himself around, you'd think he'd have no self confidence."

"Maybe he hasn't," Toni said.

"Get real."

Rob seemed so rude as he dismissed Toni, but Kylie thinks maybe she was right. Her mum, who'd gone to school with him, said Owen Huntly was 'all shit and no shovel'? Kylie had never understood before, but maybe that's what she'd meant.

Kylie found the Washburn file, but Rob seemed to have lost interest in playing the big noise from head office. He was examining the photos one by one and making comments he probably thought were funny. "So, Owen Huntly is a Mason. Well, well, well, now there's a surprise – My god, look at those sideboards! – Ralph Gisborne is wearing flared trousers! – Jesus, is Owen having carnal relations with that pig?"

Kylie handed the file to Toni, who methodically checked it, and gave it back. As they waited for Rob to finish his commentary on the photos, Toni said, "I really love your necklace, Kylie. Is it paua?"

Kylie nodded. Her face was now burning. Toni seemed to have seen right through her. She might as well have asked, "Is that what you got for screwing your boss?"

Rob turned to them at last. "I bet the old dog has gone pig hunting. Kylie, tell me straight, has your boss gone hunting?"

Kylie couldn't answer that.

"Has he?"

She wouldn't answer.

"He has, hasn't he?" Rob sounded like her old college principal cross-questioning her about smoking in the woods.

Kylie nodded and added, "Owen told me not to tell you."

She wished the earth would open up and swallow her until she felt Toni's hand on her shoulder and heard her say, "You didn't tell us, Kylie. We guessed."

"Rob," Toni said, "let's face it, we're not going to see Owen today. Kylie, please try to get hold of him somehow and tell him we really do need to meet with him, and it's urgent." Toni wrote Rob's cell number on a post-it, and handed it to Kylie, who clutched it like a life saving prescription. "He can get hold of us at this number." She turned to Rob. "We need to talk to the police about the deceased, and we also need to speak to her partner. We can do at least one of those this morning."

Kylie found Dr Washburn's details before she was asked. Toni phoned, but he could only see them the morning after next. "Right, that leaves the police," Toni said. "Let's see if they can help us."

Kylie would have given anything to go with them, to get out of this place she now hated. Sure, Rob may have been a bit of a dickhead, but she could see in Toni everything she would like to be – so smart and decisive. Toni would never have stuffed things up and been done by a man more than twice her age who was obviously thinking about killing pigs as he did it. Well, that's OK because she'd been imagining Owen was Dylan. They didn't offer to take her, and Kylie was left to dream.

#

"I think it's better if you speak to the cops on your own," Rob told Toni when they were outside Owen's office.

"Why?" she asked.

"I have a thing about the thick blue line."

"What do you mean?"

"Let's just say getting roughed up in a police cell during the Springbok tour demonstrations might just colour your views a little bit," he said.

"Oh right, we did something on that in social studies. Were you badly hurt?"

"Look, I'm not saying I was personally beaten up." He straightened his tie. "But I know plenty who swear they were."

"Right."

"I'll go to the library," Rob said. "Let's meet at the Anzac memorial in an hour."

36

At dawn, Owen Huntly was up and ready for the chase. He stowed his rifle in the cabin of his sheik's ute and no more than glanced at the boxes on the back before his handsome dogs were inside, circling, restive for the hunt. He drove deep into the forest and then set off on trails he'd used since he was a young boy and knew better than anyone else alive.

Owen rested at the top of a steep climb from where he could see down to the ocean. He spotted a woman scrabbling over the rocks and, for a moment, let himself believe it really was Artemis. But Morgan Washburn appeared from nowhere like a crabby old caretaker to shoo the woman away. Why does Washburn always hang around the spot where Artemis was found? Maybe the dried up old bugger had some feelings for her after all.

The nudge of the bitch's muzzle against his thigh brought Owen back from his reverie. There was concern in her eyes. What's up with her? Ah, clever girl, she must remember how the day Artemis was found, he came to this very spot, how he sat on this log and took off his boot, then his sock and wedged the rifle upright. He could again taste residue, smell the gunpowder, and feel the sharp rim of the barrel against his palate, just as it was when he itched for the trigger with his toe. How had he found the strength not to do it? It was enough to make you believe in something.

Owen looked into the amber eyes of the bitch. What should he do? She didn't know the answer, but the ridge on her back bristled, and a transverse wave rippled the length of her spine. He stroked her neck in reassurance, prompting the jealous male to muscle in for a blessing touch. Anyway, he hadn't come here to daydream. He took his notebook from his poacher's pocket and read aloud, "'Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster' – Theodore Roosevelt." Right. He stood. A pig would be nice, it must be said, but what he really needed to do was settle a plan for dealing with the bloody Gestapo on his tail. Wait a minute. What the hell does he mean with that stuff about men not being oysters? Owen took a pen from his pocket and drew a line through the quote. Wanker.

His informant at head office, whose intelligence was always worth the price of a generous present at Christmas and a seeing to when it couldn't be avoided, has advised Owen that this Andy bloody Wu wants to terminate him and is looking for an excuse to do it. That's why they were auditing Artemis's claim. No worries. He could think of half a dozen reasons why they could shut him down right now. But, by concentrating on Artemis's policy, they were throwing themselves off the scent. Sure, it might all look a bit dodgy, what with her having the accident so soon after taking out the policy, but her death was one claim that was totally above board. Owen realised that, as long as the investigators' suspicions stay with how Artemis died, he had nothing to worry about. He could give them all the help they wanted on that score. And he knew how to make up for avoiding them: no one could fail to be won over by a slap up dinner in the wine cellar of El Maximo.

A sudden thought came to him. Could that tasty woman he didn't recognise at El Maximo last night have been with Rob Hamilton? He'd spotted Rob sitting on his own, but his informant said there would be two of them. An unanticipated score would be too good to be true. He picked up his rifle and focused the telescopic sight on Morgan Washburn, then tracked to the woman but she'd already climbed back over the rocks and was gone.

37

Johnny ran to the phone. It might be Toni, and, if it wasn't her, it might be someone with challenging survey questions for him to answer.

"Hello, is that Mr Shannon?" The woman's voice sounded very official.

"Yeah," Johnny said.

"You are the caregiver of Byron and Kyron Shannon-Haast?"

Oh God! Gosh. Johnny's mouth went desert dry, his legs weakened, a thousand accident scenarios previewed through his head. He managed to say, "Yes."

"Oh, hello Mr Shannon." The voice turned warm and chatty. "It's Julia Foxton here, Principal of the Early Advantage Education Centre Inc."

"There's nothing wrong with Byron or Kyron?" he said.

"Oh no, not at all, they're progressing marvellously. Although you may want an ENT specialist to have a look at wee Kyron's runny nose."

Only bills then. Toni would handle them when she got back. Johnny wanted to say, "So what the heck do you want?" But he didn't think Toni would approve.

"Actually, we'd like to ask a favour," the principal said.

Johnny was proud to tell her, "Sorry, Toni is away on business,"

"No, a favour of you, Mr Shannon."

People didn't ask Johnny for favours, especially principals of incorporated early learning centres didn't. He didn't have any money, he didn't own anything worthwhile, like a ute, he wasn't exactly reliable, and lacked the bulk or mongrel for debt collecting.

"It's a bit embarrassing actually," the principal said, "and I'd understand perfectly if you said no – or you don't have the time – or something like that – um, Sarah – our early music learning specialist teacher – has left us unexpectedly. Um – she's got herself a bit pregnant. One of the children's caregivers is the father it seems. That's between you and me, of course. And, I was discussing our little problem with our mutual acquaintance, Pastor Kelvin, and your name came up. He said you're a talented guitarist and you might be able to help us out at short notice. We've got an auditor from the Department visiting tomorrow actually. And unfortunately we were marked down on our musical capital at the last audit."

So, this was it; the call had finally come. Johnny didn't need to give it a second thought. "Sweet as," he said.

"Oh, that's absolutely marvellous. We can discuss your fee when you pick up your lovely boys this afternoon."

Johnny fetched his guitar and gave it a gentle kiss. He slipped the strap over his shoulder and stood, his legs akimbo in Warehouse jeans. In a circular motion, he strummed a power chord and brought his hand to a stop above his head. Maybe he could do some Red Hot Chilli Peppers numbers. Everyone likes the Chilli Peppers. But it was for kids, wasn't it? He decided that the Chilli Peppers would be fine if he used 'flips' instead of 'fucks'.

37

Things went smoothly for Toni at the police station. She met with the investigating detective right away, and he was open and helpful. Toni had dated a few cops when she was a nurse and felt a rapport with them. Funny she married Johnny.

"The whole town was gutted," the detective told her. "No one in Exmouth had a bad word for Artemis Washburn. And she was a councillor too. Not that I'm saying people would have a bad word for any of the other councillors," he added quickly. "We had more than 50 traveller trucks pitch up for the funeral. You see, Artemis had arranged a gypsy fair up at Arcadia for the past five years. And there were bikers from the Christmas teddy bear run she started. Farmers on tractors. A pipe band, of course. The local iwi arranged a hangi."

Toni saw tears welling in the detective's eyes. She cleared her throat. "On the application form, the insured, Mrs Washburn, put down her occupation as 'dream maker'".

"Ha. Did she? Good on her. That would be about right." The detective seemed to be in a daze. "Excuse me." He blew his nose. The muscles in his forearm tautened.

"Um, do you know what she meant by that?"

"Yes, I think I do," he said, but added nothing more.

"O-K. And Dr Washburn?"

The detective shrugged. "He keeps pretty much to himself, always has done. When they bought Arcadia, about 10 years ago, he was still a specialist in Christchurch. He wasn't here that much, until he retired. We don't see much of him, even now. I think that's why Artemis threw herself into community work."

"Do you happen to know what Dr Washburn did as a specialist?"

"Oh, now you've got me." The staunch detective was like a little boy as his eyes rolled up, looking for the word in his mind. "Endocrinologist, I think."

"Diabetes."

"No." He looked puzzled. "Cancer."

"Oncologist."

"Yes, that's it," he said and grinned.

"Did you think there was anything suspicious about her death?" Toni said.

"No. There was no trace of alcohol in her blood, but there was a significant level of tetra hydro cannabinol. That's dope, to you and me," the detective said, and then blushed, perhaps thinking he'd overstepped the mark. But, perhaps guessing that Toni had also worn a uniform once and could be trusted, he said, "Look, Artemis was a bit of an alternative lifestyler, a free spirit you might say, so it wasn't exactly a shock to anyone that she might have been smoking something she shouldn't."

"Could it have been suicide?"

"Why do you think she'd do that?" The detective looked shocked at the suggestion. "Artemis Washburn? Look," he said, regaining his professional voice, "we investigated all possibilities, and we're pretty sure the coroner won't find anything suspicious. Between you and me, I think she was having a bit of a puff at the top of the cliff, watching the sunset, got a bit disorientated and fell. It's tragic, but it could happen to anyone." He blushed more deeply. If Rob were in her situation, Toni knew he would raise an eyebrow to imply the nice detective himself smoked cannabis, and she resented Rob a little for that.

"Could she have been murdered?" Toni felt a bit stupid asking such a melodramatic question.

The detective breathed in deeply before he answered. "We considered all possibilities, of course. But we couldn't find anything suspicious. As I said, the whole of Exmouth was gutted about it. You'd need a motive." Toni saw the detective's fist clench. "And nobody, who met her, would ever have wanted to harm Artemis Washburn." The detective relaxed, and glanced at a framed photograph on the wall behind him. Artemis was in the middle of a semi-circle of uniformed policemen. She looked elfin among the big men, but she was laughing, and the men's eyes were focused on her, with love.

The detective was about the same age as Toni. His sandy hair was cropped short, and he had a small goatee. She saw in him the physical confidence of a man who could look after himself on a Saturday night, and yet his eyes were boyish, kind. She thought towards the end of their meeting he would ask to see her later, and, in fact, in a parallel universe, Toni's doppelganger would meet the detective's at 7.30 in Rosy O'Malley's Irish style pub.

"We do have beautiful sunsets here," he said.

"Yes, I noticed last night." Toni thanked the detective before he could pluck up the courage to offer to show her a sunset. He blushed a last time when she shook his hand, and she enjoyed that.

#

Toni climbed the steps of the Anzac memorial and saw Rob reading the list of names carved on the obelisk. He seemed engrossed in the directory of loss. He smiled when she greeted him and pointed to a name. Lt William Hamilton. "That's my great grand dad."

Toni places her hand on Rob's shoulder. "Really?"

"No, not really." And, clearly not understanding his joke might have pissed her off, he said, "Nice little library they've got here."

"And?"

"I went online to check out the shareholders of Artmor, the company that owns Artemis's policy. Nothing strange there – she and her husband are recorded as shareholders. But, if you ever want to feel the pulse of a town, have a look at the petitions table at the public library."

"What did it tell you?" she asked, practising the nurture of a bright child.

"Lots," he said and walked down the steps ahead of her towards the car. "The most interesting thing was the proposal for a huge property development out on the Washburn land. It sounds awful. It's called 'Onion Park'. I assume that's got something to do with the Italian settlers who used to run market gardens around the outskirts of town. Fifty luxury lifestyle units. But there can't possibly be fifty people in Exmouth who could afford that sort of thing."

"Do you think this property development could have anything to do with Artemis's death?" Toni said.

"I said 'interesting' which isn't the same as 'relevant'. But who knows? We can ask her bereaved partner on Thursday." Rob looked at the sky. "Weather doesn't look too good."

#

They took refuge in a café against the storm that came barrelling in from the west. Once the group of mothers and their toddlers ventured back out into the abating rain, they were the only customers. The circles they'd cleared to watch the breakers through the rain condensed over again. Rob restarted the stalled conversation. "I was thinking over what you were saying about Andy Wu this morning."

"What about him?" Toni was flattered that anyone outside her family might think about something she'd said, but he soon deflated her.

"Your interest in him, like he was some sort of celebrity." Rob winced as he sips his tepid cappuccino. "Why are we all such sheep that we've got to have these leaders? Take Andy Wu: look at him. He's probably only out of short trousers a year, and everyone queues up to kiss his arse like he's god's right hand man."

"Well, he is our boss," Toni said.

"In point of fact, he's not my _boss_."

Toni flinched, but she guessed he hadn't meant to come across so aggressive.

"Look," Rob said, "Andy is someone who happened to be in the right place at the right time. I bet old Sir Gerald and his cronies had a mail order catalogue of CEOs. Flitting through it, Oh, he's got a nice suit and haircut, he'll look good in the annual report – we'll have him."

"Do you know something?" Toni said. "You sound jealous of Andy."

"No. You're wrong. I'm not jealous of Andy Wu. I would just like to see some reality in the world, that's all. He's got no control over what happens to the company. He's only twelve years old after all, and if some other twelve year old sitting in a trading desk somewhere – I don't know where, London, Tokyo, wherever – clicks on 'Dependable' instead of 'Defendable', and our share price goes through the roof, Andy Wu would be the greatest thing since sliced bread. And, if they click the other button, he's toast. This leadership and strategy stuff, it's all a bunch of crap. Downsizing, outsourcing, whatever fad everyone's into today – if it works, it will all come down to luck."

Toni met Rob's bolshy look. "I don't know much about you, but you seem to have a pretty cushy life, and yet you seem so angry. What do you want? Or is that the problem, do you actually know what you want?"

"Excuse me? I don't understand how the conversation switched to my inadequacies all of a sudden, but, fine, no problem." He drew in the condensation on the window with his index finger. '1. Authenticity.' "I want things to be as they're supposed to be. So that means I don't want corkscrews made of biscuit and I don't want the CEO of my company to be an Armani suit stuffed with this year's buzzwords. 2 – Do you want more?"

Toni raised her eyebrows.

"Ok, 2." And he wrote on the window, 'Love' but immediately effaced it with his palm. "No. That's not what you think. I want everyone to deal with each other with respect." He looked at her as though issuing a challenge. Maybe he'd thought she might laugh.

"Cool."

Rob seemed uncomfortable with her composure. "Actually, I don't think you would understand." He picked with his spoon at the hardened froth around the rim of his cup.

"Try me."

Rob looked at the window. The letters of his manifesto had dribbled into stalactites. He struggled out from between the table and the banquette. "I'm going for a smoke."

Now on their second coffee, Toni's bottom was getting numb. The flip flopping conversation had stalled once more, and they were gazing into the mist when Rob's phone started to flash and vibrate on the table. Forgetting herself, Toni picked it up, looked at the screen and said, "It's him. It's Andy," and handed Rob the phone. He took it but seemed uncertain what to do next.

"Aren't you going to answer it?" she said.

"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah." He rolled his eyes. "Hello, Andy."

Andy must have been too busy for greetings because Toni could hear him say straight away, "I've had an anonymous tip off about the Artemis Washburn claim."

"Who from?" Rob said.

"I don't know – it was anonymous."

"I mean, what did they say?"

"They said that–" There was a pause before Andy said slowly, "–she was murdered by Owen Huntly."

"Have you informed the police?" Rob didn't seem to be moved in the slightest by the news.

Toni was thinking, Jesus Christ! Jesus Frigging Christ! That bastard Owen murdered Artemis! But she understood that you're not supposed to listen in on colleagues' phone calls and managed to mask her shock.

"No, not yet." Andy must have been expecting more of a reaction than that and sounded a bit deflated.

"Well, maybe you should hold back, because she died the night of the cocktail party, and we all know Owen was there."

Toni was surprised to hear Andy say, "Shit!"

"Sorry?" Rob was battling to keep a straight face. "Was it a woman who gave you the tip off, by any chance?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, it was."

"Could be someone with a grudge against him, maybe an old flame. Only about 2,000 odd possibilities there," Rob said and held the phone away from his smirking mouth.

"OK. Keep me informed of developments."

"Absolutely." Rob snapped the phone shut and pumped his fist. "Yes!"

"What are you so stoked about?"

"Life does not get much sweeter than this. Your beloved leader has just told me he's received an anonymous tip off that Owen Huntly murdered Artemis Washburn."

"Really?" That could have done with more surprise. "Oh my god! Do you think he did?"

"Of course not. Owen was at the cocktail party the night she died." Rob rubbed his hands together in glee. "Oh, what I would have done to see Andy's face when I pointed that out."

Toni didn't say anything but took the Washburn file from her bag. She pretty much knew but needed to be certain. She checked the dates. "Owen could have done it," she said. "The cocktail party was on 16 August, and she died a week before on 9 August."

"Oh bugger." Now it was Rob's turn to deflate. "Do you think Andy will bother to check?"

"That's not really the point, is it?" she said.

"No, of course not, but I don't suppose he will though, will he?"

Toni shrugged. Rob seemed pensive, and was quiet for a few moments. "It's bizarre though, isn't it? Andy really does seem to have it in for Owen. I mean, to the extent he can actually believe Owen might have killed one of his clients."

"But maybe he did," Toni said.

"Crap. You must watch the same TV bollocks as Andy Wu. But, maybe I am right. Perhaps Owen really did score with the orchidaceous Mrs Wu – he was certainly hitting on her at the cocktail party – and that's why Andy is prepared to believe any old crap about him."

"Oh right! So what TV bollocks have you been watching?" Toni said, wondering without caring, whether she'd pushed the envelope too far. But it was like Rob thought she'd levelled the playing fields between them, and he didn't seem at all upset by this.

His smile was warm as he asked her, "So, what do you reckon happened then?"

"Mr Buller – Bruce–"

"Whatever – we don't care what he thought any more."

"Well, he thought it was suicide," she said.

"Bruce Buller is a fuckwit. He thinks everyone is a crim out to screw the Dependable. We can leave that to Sir Gerald Leet."

"OK, what do you think it was?" Toni said.

"Suicide, of course – but not for the same reasons as Bruce Buller might think."

"Are you serious?"

"No, not really. I don't have an opinion. No, that's not true. I've got some real concerns about this case. Anyway, I take it you disagree with Bruce."

Toni was becoming animated. "Yes. It doesn't make sense," she said. She wished he wouldn't stare at her hand gestures. "Artemis had all that money. She had everything going for her, why would she do something like that?" Toni paused, thinking maybe she should sit on her hands. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I didn't realise I was looking at you _like that_ – I'm waiting for you to tell me what you think."

"I think it was probably an accident. And that's what the police report said," she said.

"Oh, definitely suicide then."

"The detective I spoke to–"

"Whoa! Hold it right there. I forgot to ask you, did he let you have a go on his Tasar?" Rob said and gave her an innocent smile.

"He wasn't like that at all. He was young, bright and cute as, actually." That was well aimed, judging from the change in Rob's expression. "He said they thought she'd been smoking a joint, watching the sunset, and slipped."

"Sounds fun, but Exmouth is not the land of the midnight sun."

"What do you mean?"

"Look, the police report said Artemis died some time between 10.30 pm and 1 am. The sun would have set hours before, especially at that time of year. So your cute detective was talking crap."

"OK, what do you think happened?" Toni said.

"I told you, I don't know. But remember, we're not the police. We only care about two possibilities." Rob counted on his fingers. "One, whether she killed herself – all right three. One, whether she killed herself during the suicide exclusion period. Two, whether she lied or withheld information material to our assessment of the risk. Or three, whether the beneficiary killed her. In the first two cases, we don't pay anything, and, in the third, we pay to the owner – that's Artmor Investments. So, as long as none of those apply, we don't care what happened to her."

"I do."

"Ah, but you shouldn't," he said. "Sure, from a human interest angle, we'd all like to know the full story but, professionally, you've got to keep your eye on the ball. If you're going to take over Claims, you've got to detach yourself from the people involved. That's why Bruce Buller was always so dangerous. He took everything personally. It was like anyone making a claim was going to be paid out of his back pocket. Now, this is your opportunity to change the culture of that department. Take out the emotional element. If you do that, I think you could turn things around." He looked her directly in the eyes. "And from what I've seen of you, you seem to have the ability to do that. In fact, I'd be happy to act as your mentor, if that would work for you."

Toni's cheeks were burning. "I've got to go to the, um–" She hula-ed out from between the table and banquette. If she hadn't gone to the bathroom, she might have hugged Rob or burst into tears. In the mirror, she saw that her mascara has run. This morning had been all too emotional what with the detective going on about how nice Artemis Washburn had been. And now these things Rob was saying about her. No one in authority had ever shown such confidence in her. Sure Papa and Johnny think she's great for different reasons, but here was someone, who really was in a position to judge – a member of the New Management Team – asking her opinion, helping to plan her career, offering to be her mentor.

Rob held open the door of the café for her as they left. He had the same uneasy look the detective had when Toni thought he was going to ask her out.

"I hope you don't mind me asking–"

"Yes?" she said slowly as she racked her brains for a way to let him down gently.

"–But have you got a coffee plunger in _Port_?"

"Excuse me?"

"In _Port_ – your chalet. You're in _Port_ and I'm in _Starboard_. They're the sides of a boat."

"I know," she said. "Oh, no, I just used some instant stuff I found."

"Me too, but I'm useless unless I get a decent cup of coffee in the morning. Do you mind if we go and buy one?"

"Sure."

"Great. Right, I point blank refuse to shop at the Warehouse, so let's go to BigBargainz. I saw one on the other side of the post office near the railway station."

For someone who claimed to hate shopping so much, Rob seemed pretty excited about buying something. In fact, Toni had to quicken her pace to keep up.

Past the unmanned security post, the huge pink hangar was empty of people. Aisles stretched so far they seemed to converge. _Four seasons in one day_ fell faintly from speakers high in the rafters. Toni hummed along.

"Jesus. How do you ever find anything in this place?" Rob said, close to a shout.

"There's someone, let's ask him." Toni moved towards a far off assistant. "Excuse me–" But the timid figure in a pink shirt disappeared at the sound of a human voice.

"What is the point of employing fucking hobbits?" Rob bawled after him.

"Hey!" Toni tapped his arm.

"Sorry. Fucking orcs."

They tramped among house high shelves stacked with everything you'd need for ten lives until they found kitchenware and, eventually, twenty kinds of coffee maker. "Look at this." Rob took a coffee plunger from its box. "It's already cracked. Can you believe it?" He looked very pleased, not at all disappointed.

Toni also opened a box. "Here you are – this one's fine."

"That's not the point, is it?" Clearly he was not impressed with her discovery. "Tomorrow morning, I could have taken this out of the box, all ready for a good cup of coffee – and this." He showed her the cracked glass once more.

She didn't get his point.

"If they didn't disappear every time they saw someone coming, I'd complain." Rob looked around for signs of staff. He gave in. "I suppose I'll have to take the one that isn't broken."

"Do you need anything else?" Toni said.

"Coffee, I suppose." He sounded defeated. "Oh, and the essentials – a box of Blenheimer, oh, and some double strength Nurofen, of course. A packet of Mylanta wouldn't go amiss either. Gerontson C. I wonder if they sell vitamin pills."

#

The rousing knock on her door told Toni her reading on the bed had slipped into an afternoon nap. She felt to make sure her buttons were done up and finger combed her hair in the mirror before opening the door.

"Sorry, did I wake you up?" Rob looked sheepish in her doorway.

Toni yawned. "No, not at all."

"I thought you might fancy a little drive. There's somewhere really special I'd like to show you. It's only about 20 ks inland."

"Ok. That would be neat. Give me five minutes." She didn't invite him in to wait.

At the car, Toni said, "Do you want to drive?"

"No, you can."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely."

"If you don't stop me, I'll always drive."

"That's OK, you're a good driver."

Toni glowed at the compliment but thought he looked a bit shifty. She wondered whether he was disqualified for drink driving. "You do have a licence, don't you?"

He looked at her squarely. "Yes. I do have a licence – a clean one, believe or not – but I choose not to drive."

Toni hadn't driven much on gravel, but the car handled well, and she was soon into it as she got a feel for the camber of the road and the fun way the back wheels drifted out on the corners. She snatched a glance at Rob. "So, is it a sort of green thing, you not driving?"

He turned and stared at her, before looking out the side window. "My parents were killed in a car crash. I haven't driven since then."

"Oh my god, Rob, I'm so sorry."

"It's OK, it was five years ago now. That's plenty of time for closure, so I'm told. The turn off to the lake is over there on the right."

As soon as they stop, Toni unbuckled and reached across to touch his arm. "Rob, really I'm sorry. I'm so frigging nosey. I just can't help it."

He half smiled. "I said it's OK."

"So, can I ask you one more thing?"

"Sure."

"Was it an estate agent, in a 4x4, that killed your parents? It's just that you seem so angry about them."

Rob stared at her again, and Toni thought he might be on the verge of tears, but he started to laugh.

"I don't see what's so funny." Then it dawned on her that he may have lied about his parents. "Was it true about your parents?"

"Yes, it was. I promise. But it's taken five years for me to find anything funny about it. No, they were not killed by an estate agent," he said. He was no longer laughing.

After the echo of door slams and the crepitus of their feet on pebbles, the silence was perfect.

"This lake is sacred to local iwi." Rob's voice was close to a whisper. "Waitapu. They used to call it 'Windermere' when I was a kid. It must have reminded some moron of the Lake District. Probably because it's wet."

Toni shushed him, and they stood without words. Later, Rob would tell her he found it 'effing ineffable' but, then, he said nothing. They each picked up a pebble and threw together. The water didn't shatter, as it seemed it might, but sucked the pebbles in. For that moment, impressed into the meniscus, two navels were formed. Then ripples spread out in rings from the penetrations until they met and merged in a mesh of interstices and interference. They watched as the ribbing of the water dissipated – micro, pico, nano, femto – until no trace of the disturbance could be imagined.

Rob's voice sounded choked. "The Japanese have a word ' _aware_ '. It means the feeling of sadness that comes from witnessing the passing beauty in Nature."

"I like that." Toni said carefully, " _Aware_."

#

Rob insisted on going to El Maximo for dinner again, but it was closed on Tuesdays. So, back at the Five Seasons, they sat on Toni's porch eating fish and chips, drinking box red wine from mugs.

"It's incredibly sad, this business with Artemis," Toni said.

"How do you mean?"

"It's like she was, I don't know, really special."

"I know, I know, I know," Rob said. He must have been bottling this up. "I thought it was only me but the photo in the file, she just looked so beautiful."

Toni glanced at him.

"I don't mean I fancied her," he said.

"I know."

"It's like she was radiant. That sounds stupid, doesn't it? But when I first saw her photo, for me, it was like light was pouring out of her."

"Yeah, I get you. You don't think she committed suicide, do you?"

Rob hesitated. It seemed difficult for him to answer. "Look, I just don't understand why she would."

"Did you know Dr Washburn was an oncologist?" Toni said.

"No, I didn't. Why do you ask?"

She shrugged. She'd hoped Rob might have found it important.

Though she could no longer see Rob in the dark, Toni could hear the sloshing as he helped himself to mug after mug of wine. The cold was becoming too much for her. Eventually, he must have heard her shivering and said, "One last smoke." The struck match illuminated his face, and Toni saw the red tip of his cigarette repeating an arc, like the flight of a fire fly.

"Have you ever been married?" she asked from beneath the blanket she'd wrapped around herself.

"A couple of close shaves," he said. "But no."

"Why not?"

"I guess deep down, below this sophisticated, lovable exterior, I'm a complete jerk."

Toni stayed silent.

"At this point, you're supposed to disagree," Rob said.

"Yeah, I know that. Look, I do think that you must be very difficult to get to know properly. If you take Johnny, well, with him, he's always Johnny – you get what you see. But with you, one minute you're like this dead serious, know it all lawyer, and the next you're like a five year old with ADT. I think that would be very tiring for someone to live with."

Rob didn't react. Toni watched the glow rise and quiver as he inhaled, then the parabola as he flicked the butt away. Her feet were stiff from cold when she stood. "I've got to be up early for my walk – see you tomorrow."

Rob said nothing, and Toni didn't hear him move from the porch before she fell asleep.

WEDNESDAY

39

She was early again for her beach walk. Toni stepped onto the deck of _Port_ and turned to shut her door.

"Don't get a shock, but do you mind if I keep you company this lovely morning?" Rob was waiting for her but not in his black suit. He was wearing a t-shirt that recorded his membership of the Otago Rag Committee 1989, jandals, and shapeless khaki shorts. He was also half-shaved so that the reddish shadow of a future goatee could be seen.

"What's so funny?" Rob said.

Toni could offer plenty of reasons for her uncontrollable sniggers but settled on, "It's your face. I mean beard. What have you done to it?"

"I thought I might try growing a goatee."

"Like the cute detective I met?" she said.

"No, no, not at all. I've been thinking about it for a while actually." Rob said as his cheeks reddened. "Well, yes, come to think of it, you did mention he had one too. That must have subconsciously reminded me."

Toni wasn't sure whether she should be flattered, amused or concerned that he was prepared to make himself look an idiot for her sake. She had commented on the detective and how neat his goatee looked, but she hadn't thought for one moment that Rob had taken it in. She certainly hadn't thought he'd try to grow his own. "It's, um, very–"

"Very what, exactly?"

"–Unexpected," she said.

"Is 'unexpected' good or bad?"

Toni started to walk. "I'm not going to answer that."

"I see." Rob hesitated, and then followed. "Oh, by the way, I'm sorry. I meant to lend you my phone last night, but your lights were off by the time I remembered, and so I didn't want to disturb you. I can get it for you now if you like."

"That's OK," she said. "If I can use it later, that would be cool,"

He caught up with her.

"So how long did you stay out there in the dark last night?" she said.

"Oh, I meditated for a while."

"You mean sulked?"

"No, meditated, really. The stars were amazing. Oh, and I've given up smoking, by the way."

"Good," Toni said. "It's a filthy habit."

At the playground, Rob ran ahead and scrambled up a concrete whale. He stood on the blowhole, feet wide apart, as though Toni might want to take his kingship of the world. "This whale was here when I was a kid," he shouted down. "Chris, my brother, is three years older than me, and he could never push me off. And one day he fell over trying and broke his arm." He climbed down, cautious of the dew. "Actually, looking back, I'm surprised he didn't sue me. I bet he would these days."

Rob checked out the other playground equipment, test pushed a swing, gauged the incline of a slide, and twirled the roundabout, no doubt imagining the centrifugal effect on its joy riders. "Of course, all this wussy stuff wasn't here then," he said. "When we were kids, playgrounds were all about having fun. No one was obsessed with safety like they are now. In those days, someone was always losing their front teeth or breaking an arm, but no one seemed to be worse off for it, and do you know what, it was real fun."

"Was _it_ made out of wood?" Toni said.

"Sorry?"

"Nothing. Let's go to the beach."

They get no further than a reef of rocks, some fifty metres from the start of their beach walk. Rob climbed up and looked down at her. "Have you ever thought what a waste of time the type of insurance we sell is? We insure people for when they die, and that's about it. And they don't even benefit from that themselves. When you're dead, you're dead, so what? We ought to offer the kind of insurance that lets people be happy while they're still alive. Happiness insurance. If you think about it – there are so many things in life we could insure against but don't. All those events that make us unhappy."

"Like what?" Toni said.

"Well, how about losing your cat – or your kid becoming a heroin addict – or, maybe, just being lonely."

Toni smiled. She blinked in the sunlight and made a visor with her hand.

"All right, take something like a failed relationship. We could issue you with a policy against that," he said.

"Would you insure against someone marrying the wrong person?"

"Better than that, we'll indemnify you for falling for the wrong person in the first place. I'm not saying we'll hand out money, but we'll put things right. If you're unhappy, we'll make you happy. Simple as that."

"Sounds cool," Toni said. "But who could afford that sort of insurance?"

"Obviously it's something only the government could do. We could set up a sort of ACC for happiness. And there would be one great big Ministry of Happiness, and we could make you the Minister."

"That sounds even better," she said. "Would I get a fat salary increase?"

"Of course, we'd have to keep the Minister of Happiness happy – and you'd get a monster bonus for every smiling face."

Toni scaled the reef next to him. Rob skimmed pebbles. "Five. Beat that."

Toni bettered his exaggerated score by two, and gave him a shove. "I could have pushed you off the whale, no problem."

"Yeah, I bet you could have."

"It's getting warm." Toni sat and pulled her hair up into a ponytail, tying it with a band she took from her jeans' pocket. Would she have done this in front of him if she'd known he'd be captivated by the action, that, when she stretched her arms up, she'd be as lovely to him as a Degas ballerina, with her vertebrae faintly revealed once more? Yes, today, she probably would.

On their way back, Rob spotted something in the copse between the beach and the camp. He peered at the branch of a gnarly tree. "Hey, come and have a look at this." He pointed to a cobweb.

"No. I don't like spiders," she said.

"It's not a spider. Look."

A tissue of blossom had fallen into the plexus and, delicately suspended, it fluttered as Rob breathed on it. Toni looked over Rob's shoulder, and said, " _Aware_."

#

They were heading south along the highway at a speed that unnerved Rob, so he stared far out to sea. His suggestion that they might spend their free day driving down to see a glacier had been his last wild bid before, he'd assumed, they'd settle on a few drinks and a drifting lunch. He'd been floored when Toni agreed. How could he have known she'd always wanted to see a glacier? And so they were now twenty, thirty kilometres from Exmouth on the vertiginous road that plunged without warning into forest and emerged to reveal a precipice and the breakers and rocks tumbled below. Into and out of a green night to be blinded by sunlight gushing down through a hole in the cloud ceiling that turned the endless ocean silver, undulating mercury all the way to Argentina.

Rob fancied that he possessed a fisherman's understanding of the sea – that every wave was a fractal of a tsunami, and no one could tell which one held the greatest power to destroy. He watched a boat far out, a trawler probably, and felt a pull on his gut each time it dipped out of sight, and proxy relief when it appeared again. Toni drove faster than he would ever dare, and the way she turned her head to talk to him was disconcerting, but it was her hair blowing across her face from the open window, and the lightness about her today that put him on edge. An extract of a female body, an unexpected glimpse of leg or cleavage – a snapshot to be surreptitiously consumed – that was part of working with women, but this recurring image, the nape of _this_ woman's neck, haunted him. He thought of the last snowflake setting off an avalanche, how the wrong turn of an Archduke's car could trigger a world war.

Before they'd set off, Toni had lifted her hair once more, this time to insert an earring. Engrossed in this intimate task, Rob didn't think she'd noticed him watching, staring at the confluence of her neck and jaw, the dewdrop of her earlobe, as she performed the delicate penetration. Could the revelation of her neck be the spark that would plunge him, like a fusty empire into war, in love with her? He looked away from her lips, and her eyes that flickered behind the fluttering habib of hair.

"Hey, what are you doing?" she said.

"I'm taking your picture."

"Not like this with my hair all over the place. I must look terrible."

"Not at all," he said. "Look." Rob held out the screen of the phone for Toni to see. "I haven't used the camera function before. But it's not bad at all." He aimed again. "Smile."

When the road fell to run level with the ocean, they passed an old man in wading boots and woollen checks, salvaging driftwood from the beach. Tyres held down the roof of a rust red bach. The daily gales had shaped the manuka bushes into hip Afro hairstyles. The spray rising from the breaking waves reminded Rob of a herd of white horses in a kitsch painting. "Do you think the waves only look like white horses because we've been told they do?" he wondered out loud.

The car shuddered sideways in a gust of wind. Toni gripped the wheel against the spasm but stole a glance across surf.

"Yeah, it really does look like horses," she said.

"Ah, it does to us, but what would it look like to someone who's never seen a horse?"

"I don't know." Toni hesitated before telling him that when she was a little girl she thought the frothy after-wave was made of meringue. All he said was 'how bizarre' and didn't notice her smile leach away. Now he would never know she hadn't told anyone before about sea froth and meringue, not even her Papa on their precious beach walks. This silly, fragile fancy of a little girl's imagination. As Rob pondered exactly how attractive he found her, she was thinking, Fuck you, mate. Fuck you, for making me want to tell you something precious, and, then, crushing it when I did.

Was the attraction mutual? Rob wondered while Toni used the excuse of the buffeting wind to concentrate on the road, silent lest she let slip what was on her mind.

#

After a few hours, the road led inland from the coast, and Rob told Toni about a detour to a spectacular waterfall.

"Cool. I need to stretch my legs."

Toni ran ahead to the viewing platform. The forest above them was littered with rags of mist, but the air down in the valley was thick and humid. Bird and insect chatter performed a descant over the bass rush of the falls. When Rob caught up, Toni played a fashion model, all pouting lips and thrust hips. He snapped around her.

Their hands almost touched as they gripped the balustrade, and they stared down at the foaming water long enough to become uneasy with being together and alone. Rob made a show of slapping at the sand flies that commingled their blood. Their growing discomfort was eased at last by the squeal and hiss of a bus arriving. Stiff, blinking tourists stepped out and politely but surely nudged Rob and Toni apart and away from the centre of the viewing platform.

The tourists showed off their innate knowledge of the right spot and took turns in photographing each other in the same position. The male of a young couple broke away and climbed down to the river to contort himself into a casual pose on a rock. His partner aimed the camera, and he broke into a wild laugh, flailing his arms and legs. Across the platform, Rob caught Toni's eye. She must have known what he was thinking: Please let him fall in, not seriously injured, of course, but soaked and put in his place. The dowdy partner snapped her peacock mate who checked the screen, then clambered unembarrassed, unsmiling back up and into the group.

"Let's go." Toni pressed Rob's forearm. This was the first time since their clumsy handshake at the airport he'd felt her touch on his bare skin. Now the contact was intimate and lovely for him. He wished she'd touched him like this ten thousand times before; he wished for ten times as many more touches in the future.

#

They passed a signpost to Haast, and Toni said, "I've often looked on a map, and thought I'd like to come down here one day."

"No. It's not like it was," Rob said. "It's far too touristy these days."

"Well, I wouldn't know, would I? I wanted to see it because of my name."

He didn't seem to have a clue what she meant.

"Haast."

"Oh. He was Austrian, not Dutch. You couldn't be related."

They were closemouthed and crabby with each other by the time they arrived at Franz Joseph. The town was acquisitive and dusty, uncomfortably crowded. Every time a thundering helicopter took off, Toni jerked in surprise. Tourist buses grunted and hissed as they jostled for parking space, and carelessly gassed Toni and Rob as they ate at a pavement café. After minutes of avoiding each other's eyes, Rob said, "I'm so mind numbingly bored working at the Dependable."

"If you're so bored, why don't you leave?"

"The money is good."

"Money isn't everything," Toni said. "So you tell me."

"True. But, as my big brother always says, 'Life is a shit sandwich – the more bread you have the less shit you taste'. You'd like Chris. He's tall dark, handsome and worth a fortune. And he's always right."

"Married?"

"At the moment."

"Damn." Toni punched her palm.

"I also hate job interviews. That's where all the power bollocks starts. You have to whore yourself to a panel of people you wouldn't waste a minute of your life with normally. And it's all that 'Tell us about what a great team player you are, and how you averted a world crisis before morning tea' crap. So, I suppose I don't leave the Dependable because I can't face going anywhere else. Despite everything, I guess I'm used to things there. Bored but comfortable."

Rob seemed to brighten up after he ordered another beer, and told Toni a story about how at his university all the campus buildings were identified alphabetically, with the law faculty marked F.

"One day, this student asks me if the philosophy department is in F block. When I tell him F block is the law faculty, he says to me that he thinks it's a pretty stupid way to identify the buildings."

Toni didn't laugh but looked at him closely.

"Duh! He obviously thought philosophy began with 'F'."

"It does in Dutch," she said.

"Well, this wasn't _Omsterdom_ ," he said in what he must think is a Dutch accent. "And, for your information, he wasn't Dutch. He was a pig ignorant rugger bugger whose family owned half of Otago. And he happened to become the youngest ever National Party MP."

Rob looked at her as if to say, "Go on, accuse me of making it up." Toni was tempted to do just that. Like a lightening storm, a full on fight might just clear the air between them. But she held herself in check.

Before they get back to Wellington, Rob would confess he had no idea who the student was. He'd looked like someone who was a rugger bugger whose father might own half of Otago and who might become the youngest ever National Party MP. Whenever he'd told the story before, his peers had been so open to a tale of plutocratic stupidity that minor issues like plausibility and the truth had not been raised.

Toni made a show of waving away Rob's cigarette smoke. "I thought you'd given up those disgusting things," she said.

"It's only my second today. That's not bad. You can't just go cold turkey." He looked away from her, no doubt ashamed of his weakness.

The silence between them deepened, but tourist noise was all around. Rob looked as though he planned to sit there all afternoon drinking beer, but Toni called for the bill and escaped to the bathroom while he paid.

#

Dust billowed out behind them on the road through forest to the glacier. Their conversation went back to Andy Wu, as it always seemed to. Rob told Toni about how he'd managed to get some big movie-style reaction out of Andy at a meeting. She sighed. She pulled into the car park and manoeuvred into a space between camper vans.

"Do you know something?" she said, unable to bite her tongue any longer. "You like to pretend you haven't bought into the company thing, but you have, and you're just as competitive as people like Andy Wu and Owen Huntly."

"How can you say that? Do you really think I'm some kind of alpha male?"

"Yes, that's exactly what you are, deep down," she said.

"No, no, no. I'm not an alpha male. I'm not a gamma male. I'm not even a bloody pi male."

"Yes, you are," she said.

"Crap."

"Right. That's it." Toni unbuckled her safety belt and snatched the keys from the ignition. "I've had enough. If you don't agree with me about something – fine. But you're always saying whatever I think is 'crap' or 'bollocks'. And that really pisses me off. All the time, you're trying to make me sound stupid. I don't know why – maybe to make yourself look clever. But I've been put down enough in my life. I don't need it from you." Toni slammed her door. She wouldn't give Rob the chance to apologise yet, as she knew he sincerely would. She didn't want reconciliation and paced away from him into the forest.

#

Had Toni imagined a glacier would be a frozen avalanche, a great tumbling river of snow and ice put on pause forever? That's how she thought she would describe it to Byron and Kyron before she saw it. Now, standing in front of the glacier, she found it grubby and despoiled, like an ice block dropped in gravel. Hunched in contrition, Rob pointed out various features. He sounded embarrassed to know the technical terms. "Um, that's called 'terminal moraine', and that snowy stuff up there is called 'névé', and that crevasse at the very top is the 'bergschrund'. Well, I think that's how you pronounce it."

She knew it would sound sulky, but Toni told Rob she didn't need him to take photos for her. He took them all the same and offered to email them to her for her boys. She didn't commit.

It was late afternoon by the time they finished at the glacier. When Toni told Rob they needed petrol for the journey back, his normal casualness about money faltered.

"Damn it," he said. "Accounts will pick up on my credit statement that I bought petrol right down here."

"Does that matter?"

He didn't answer but looked at her as though she was the most stupid person on earth, and, in return, she hated him.

"I suppose I could get cash out and pay for it myself. No, stuff it," he said, "what do I care what Accounts say?"

Toni drove back as fast as she dared, the last few hours in real darkness, evermore tired and stiff. They stopped off for a burger that gave her heartburn. Rob didn't sleep as she'd expected – hoped for. He stared straight ahead so the occasional passing headlights, sparkling across the lenses of his glasses, illuminated zombie eyes. Several times he pressed all the buttons of the radio, giving a commentary on each station. "In the blue corner we have the vicious harridan and, in the red corner, the Minister for Public Deception – golden oldies for old morons – adverts, adverts, adverts – oh, brilliant, country and fucking western – god, why is it all such crap?"

Then Rob inserted the CD he'd brought with him, but, as Toni started to listen and relax, he told her he was bored with it, and clicked it off. Once the Geiger countable green numbers of the dial had faded, he carried on staring straight ahead.

Toni watched the windscreen become freckled with raindrops. It seemed so long before the wipers cleared them away. Then again. And again. Again. She shook herself awake.

When they finally drew close to the motor camp, Rob brightened up, saying they were almost at home sweet home. The day had been too long for Toni to muster pleasantness, but there was time left for more friction. A chain of bobbing lights snaked down the hillside ahead of them.

"What's that?" Toni was panicky, tense and brittle from all the driving.

"Miners," Rob said.

"No," she said, "it can't be. You said all the mines had shut."

"Ghosts of miners killed by capitalism."

Toni glanced at him, he seemed serious enough.

The lights were moving fast, and Toni could see they would soon converge with the road. She tried to ignore his nonsense, but she really was scared, her heart was palpitating. But, when they met, she saw the lights were on the helmets of mountain bikers. She laughed, uncontrolled and derisive. "Look at the ghosts of the miners," she said, "they're all wearing Lycra. Oh and there's my cute detective." Toni tooted and waved. "Nice legs too."

Toni couldn't bring herself to ask for Rob's phone. Johnny and the boys would survive another night without talking to her. She fell asleep thinking fondly, even longingly of her partner and children. Would she care if she knew that, on the other side of a thin veil of timber, her colleague would lay awake thinking only of her, analysing how a day of such promise could have ended so empty and bitter? Probably not.

Rob was scanning through pixelated images of his colleague. The first picture he'd dared to take in the car – the flutter of her hair and that smile. The poses at the waterfall, then all the others she hadn't known about. The colours were lurid. Toni's hair looked redder now than it did in sunlight, her eyes cat green. The images rippled slightly as Rob's fingertip touched the screen.

THURSDAY

39

The Arcadia estate abutted the Five Seasons Motor Park but was so vast that Toni and Rob travelled several kilometres before they spotted the sign, 'Arcadia, ----- Morgan Washburn.' Though painted over, 'Artemis and' could still be read like tagging buffed on a shop wall.

"Look at that," Toni said. "He didn't waste any time."

The driveway curved through indigenous forest to a magnificent old house. "Jesus! Now that's what I call a bach," Rob said.

Dr Washburn didn't recognise Toni when Rob introduced her, and she was pleased about this. The old man had not been menacing that day in the cove. In fact, he'd been quite patient as he explained how people had disturbed the nests of an endangered penguin, whose name she forgot, if she ever took it in, and that's why he had to ask her to leave. Yet it was a shock to discover Dr Washburn was the man from the beach, and her unease returned as she glanced down at his hand that didn't shake hers. She saw how it was curved and gnarled like a claw. Toni was glad to have Rob with her, although she might have preferred the detective as company.

It was obvious that Rob didn't share her impression of Dr Washburn. In fact, he seemed blown away by the man and his house. For someone who took so much pride in how he treated everyone equally, Toni was taken aback by Rob's fawning over this scary old man.

Rob and Dr Washburn walked ahead of Toni down a long corridor that was cold and poorly lit, and smelt of damp. She was taken back in time: the surgeon was in front with the junior doctor aping him, his hands clasped behind his back too, and she, the invisible nurse, silently behind them. She noticed shapes of discolouration on the walls where pictures must have been removed. At the end of the corridor, Dr Washburn led them into his study. Here it was warm and sun-filled. At his invitation, they sank into the comfort of old leather armchairs and looked around, admiring the delicate paintings of birds, and towering hardwood bookcases.

"To be perfectly frank," Dr Washburn said, "I didn't even know my wife had taken out a policy on her life. I found it when I was going through her papers. I'm sure you're aware, she came from a very wealthy family, and I don't understand why she felt it necessary to generate more money on her death. She certainly left me more money than I could spend in my lifetime."

I bet not in mine, Toni thought.

"Can I confirm something, Dr Washburn? Are you the sole shareholder of Artmor Investments Ltd, the owner of the policy in question?" Rob said.

"Indeed, I am the sole beneficiary of my wife's estate."

For a moment, it seemed Rob would take the question further, but he said nothing more. After a long pause, Dr Washburn broke the silence. "I suppose your Huntly chap could have persuaded her to take out the policy. He had a fair bit of influence over her business decisions. Have you spoken to him?"

"Yes, of course," Rob said, and looked away from Toni's frown.

Another awkward silence ensued before Toni dared to ask her first question. "Dr Washburn, can you tell us about the property development that's planned for Arcadia?"

Dr Washburn stiffly turned his neck to her. His expression suggested his surprise at Rob's allowing her to talk, and she wished she hadn't. But, at last, Dr Washburn said, "Ah, the infamous Orion Park."

Toni glanced at Rob. The idiot had told her it was _Onion_ Park, but he seemed too engrossed by the old man's every word to realise his mistake and be embarrassed.

"The greenies made a bit of a fuss about it," Dr Washburn said. "But my wife was only toying with the idea of the development. She wanted to revitalise the town, and she also felt it was her duty to provide sanctuary for likeminded compatriots in the event of a major war or some other event."

"Dr Washburn, on the application form, your wife put down her occupation as 'dream maker'," Toni said. "What do you think she meant by that?"

Dr Washburn's laugh was unconvincing. "I'm afraid my wife was what her countrymen call a bit of an 'airhead'. Orion Park was never going to come to fruition. It was a pipe dream, no more. In the event, I will be leaving everything exactly as it is now. And, when I go, all of Arcadia will become a reserve – irrevocably, in perpetuity. It will be one of the most important sanctuaries for bird life in the South Island."

The expression on Dr Washburn's face was so smug Toni couldn't resist asking, "How did you and your wife meet?"

He didn't respond immediately, and Toni could feel Rob's glare boring into her.

"Some people might consider that an inappropriate question," Dr Washburn said.

"I'm sorry," Toni said softly.

"But I don't." Dr Washburn attempted a smile, but his jaw wasn't designed for that. He looked like an eagle trying to be endearing. "My wife was formerly my patient."

"What for?"

"Now that is an inappropriate question." This time, Dr Washburn didn't bother to smile but stood, and told them he would find his housekeeper to make tea.

Once she was sure Dr Washburn was out of earshot, Toni leant forward from the fat armchair. "What do you think of him?" she whispered to Rob.

"Wonderful man," Rob said. He had a dumb smile. "Actually, he reminds me a lot of my public law professor at uni."

It was not the answer Toni had expected, but Rob didn't seem to notice her frown, and she didn't press him. She snuggled down in the solid luxury of her surroundings, comforted by the flames in the open fireplace and the diamond patterned view through leaded windows across forest to the ocean.

Rob was soon up inspecting the study, touching things like a cat slinking around an unfamiliar room. There was a large box, overflowing with books in one corner. Rob picked one seemingly at random. He held it up and read out, " _Therèse Raquin_. A sorry tale – heroine commits adultery, all ends in tears."

"That's weird." Toni pushed herself up from the armchair and went to Rob. She forgot herself and rested her chin on his shoulder, pressing close to see.

Rob chose another book. " _Anna Karenina_. Wife commits adultery. All ends in tears – wife commits suicide." And another. " _Madame Bovary._ Wife – of a country doctor – commits adultery – with a life insurance agent."

"An insurance agent? You're joking!"

"Yes," he said, "I am, but it all does end in tears, and the wife does commit suicide."

"I bet these books belong to Artemis, and he's dumping them," Toni said. "Do you think they can tell us anything about her death?"

Rob seemed to be considering her suggestion, but perhaps he was enjoying being so close to her. "Maybe," he said at last.

"Do you really think so?"

"Then again, it might just show nineteenth century authors had very small moral imaginations."

"Don't be a smart arse." She pinched his arm. "Do you think it's relevant, or not?"

Rob turned to face her. "OK. It doesn't seem likely to me that the radiant Artemis Washburn would commit suicide over an affair. Would you?"

This close, they could be slow dancing. "For one thing, I'm in the middle of a divorce." Toni didn't flinch as she lied. "That means I'm not really going to have the chance to commit adultery and–"

"And?" Rob said, his voice catching.

She looked him boldly in the eyes, "I have children. And they would come before any lover." 'Lover' is a word Toni had never used before, a possibility she'd never contemplated.

When Dr Washburn and his housekeeper returned with the tea tray, Toni was looking at a chart of birds. On the other side of the room, Rob was checking the much-read file on the doctor's dead wife. The housekeeper left without speaking.

"Beautiful aren't they?" Dr Washburn said as he approached Toni. "And every one of them endangered, you know. I sometimes wonder whether it would have been all for the better if birds had dominion over the earth instead of Man. They could wipe us all out, if they wanted to, you know, but, unlike us with them, they do not."

"Dr Washburn, something puzzles me." Toni is so relieved when Rob called the old man away. "It says in the police report you found your wife on the morning of the 17 August, yet it's assumed she died late the previous day."

"I'd been in Nelson overnight. We had a fund raising dinner for the kakapo programme. I stayed overnight and came back first thing. I went straight to the cove to check on the penguin nest. That's when I found her." Dr Washburn looked through the window towards the ocean, and Rob and Toni exchanged glances, respectful of his stoic grief. In fact, he was recalling the relief he felt when he discovered that the body, so close to their nest, had not distressed the penguin chicks. He was sure his wife died immediately, with no prolonged wailing to disturb the hatchlings.

Toni shivered. "Artemis died at the cove where I met you?"

"We've met before?"

"Yes," Toni said. "I climbed over the rocks to your beach by mistake. You told me I might disturb the penguins."

Rob looks puzzled. She should have told him about this before.

Dr Washburn turned and fixed her with avian intensity but showed no sign of recognition. "Ah, yes, that's right," he said. "The most northerly nesting colony of the Fjordland crested penguin. They mate for life, you know."

40

When Johnny arrived at the crèche, he was not ignored. In fact, as soon as she spotted him, the principal left a whiny mother in mid-complaint to greet him.

"Mr Shannon."

"Johnny."

"Johnny, I'm so pleased you could make it."

"I've put together a play list, Jules." He handed her a crumpled sheet of paper.

"Julia. That's lovely." She looked at the list carefully. "Hmm. These are some of the songs the children are more familiar with." And she gave Johnny a list of her own.

He pushed his shades up his forehead and read aloud, " _The wheels on the bus – Postman Pat–_ "

"Do you know them, by any chance?" the principal asked.

Anyone who's watched as much pre-school television as Johnny would have to know the full repertoire of kiddie tunes by heart. And, with his ear for music, well, if he could pick up a passable _Stairway to heaven_ by ear, he could certainly do _Wheels on the bus_ justice. "No worries."

Johnny didn't have time for a sound check, and he was soon set up, with the audience gathered around him, cross-legged, in a semi circle. He dared to close his eyes and imagine the scene: Johnny Shannon unplugged, soon to be a You Tube sensation. There was an expectant silence. In the front row, his boys gazed up at him. Byron radiated concern, Kyron stoned love. Johnny arranged his fingers on the frets, he coughed, and his thumb eked the first note from the strings. "The – wheels on the bus–"

The gig was a knockout. Sure, the fans didn't cheer or whoop in recognition of the first chords of each song, or even clap, or hold cigarette lighters and cell phones aloft, or stomp for encores, or heft their fat-arsed girlfriends onto their shoulders, but the teachers beamed, the excited children joined in, and even some of the mothers stay behind to listen. As the last note faded, Johnny did not confess through tears, "Hutt City, we love you." But he did.

As soon as the set was over, Byron and Kyron rushed to cling to a leg apiece lest any other fans might try it on. The teachers flocked like groupies and the auditor from the Department extravagantly ticked a box. The principal stayed in the wings, an A&R woman, ready to sign him up.

"Johnny, you really do have such a gift for entertaining children," the principal told him and handed him an envelope.

He'd landed a residency, a confirmed gig every Thursday morning. And the principal was sure some of the other crèches would also be interested in talking to him. A tour was on the cards too. Johnny strode out of the Early Advantage Education Centre Inc with a swagger in his step. It was a little after morning tea, but he felt like the midnight rambler.

41

Overnight, Owen Huntly stayed in an emergency hut deep in the forests of Arcadia. There he revelled in the company of his dogs and their worship. He fed them first when he returned home at daybreak. God, he loved it every time, the way they waited slavering, taut as athletes at the mark, before he gave them the nod of consent, and they ravaged the cylinders of meat stuff and butted the bowls around the kitchen floor. Then he prepared himself to visit his empire. He showered away the scent of the animal forest, and admired his still buff body and manly abundance in the full-length mirror. He dried and quiffed his hair, slapped on his pheromonal cologne, chose a rich tie from the rack where they hung like an exhibition of exotic snake skins, slipped into his most ducal of business suits, and was ready. Almost.

Owen tried to pronounce the sage's name. "'Frederick Night – nights – z – sch' – oh fuck it. 'Overcome the little people; they are the enemy of the superman'." He paused to consider these words of wisdom, inhaled deeply three times and said, "Right, Owen R Huntly, you superman. Up, up and away."

When he travelled, Owen liked to bring ideas back from the smart restaurants where he ate. That's how he'd recently discovered authentic Italian fishing motifs were no longer the very latest thing, and so he planned to have El Maximo redone in the style of a Tuscan palazzo. Actually, some smart arse has suggested that 'El' was Spanish, not, strictly speaking, Italian, so he might even be changing the name – maybe to something even classier like La Maximo.

The painting of him and Artemis would be delivered today, but Owen decided to store it in the cellar until the restaurant could be suitably redecorated. He gave precise orders to fawning minions for tonight's dinner with Rob Hamilton and his sidekick.

At the backpackers he's recently bought into, Owen was gutted to learn the Scandinavian girl – from Belgium, he thought she said – who'd accepted free accommodation in exchange for a few hours work, and the unspoken understanding, on his part at least, of certain favours, had left for the bright lights of Greymouth. Then, at the office, there was no Kylie and, in her place, a neatly typed notice of immediate resignation was waiting for him. Although the message was coldly professional, and mentioned nothing personal, he hoped she would have enough pride to return the necklace he gave her just two days ago.

42

Kylie had no intention of returning Owen's necklace. She was on her way home to pack a bag. In her sky high heels, her ankles twisted on the lumps of coal that seeped up from the earth along the lane to her mum's house. She squeezed past her brother's low-slung hoon-mobile, a nudge of her hip sent the high spoiler on the boot wobbling. Poor kid, bits stuck on to a mum's taxi. That was so him: sixteen and stunted, shuffling and wary in his hoodie and baggy jeans, as if he'd just stolen them from a big man's washing line. Once she was settled in Sydney, maybe he could come and stay with her. She was sure Dylan wouldn't mind.

Kylie let herself into the dark sleep out, her place. She kicked off the crippling shoes and slipped out of the slinky dress, which coiled and shimmered at her ankles. She thrilled as the gorgeous young men ogled her near nakedness from their posters, chose low waist jeans and a midriff top, all the better to show off the navel ring Owen had forbidden her to wear. On the bed she counted out the money the jeweller had given her for the necklace, and, adding that to the tally of her bank account she carried in her head, she came to a magic sum. Kylie found the scrap of paper with Rob Hamilton's mobile number. Her thumb tapped the message, '4 Toni - yr a rl m8 b4 u I h8d me life – off to Oz K'.

"Mum," Kylie shouted to her mother, who was hanging washing on the lines strung under the eaves. She had enough money for a flight to Sydney to look up her old boyfriend. "Mum, I'm getting out of here. I'm going to stay with Dylan."

43

In the office of Huntly Insurance Services, Owen sat at his desk and shook his head as he pondered the unfaithfulness of women compared with the steadfast loyalty of his dogs. He flicked through his notebook once more. "'When the going gets tough, the tough get going' – Joseph P Kennedy." He pondered the quotation for a moment and said aloud, "Very wise, very valid."

Owen left a message on Rob's mobile, inviting him and his colleague to dinner tonight, refreshed his standing order at the job agency for a highly presentable personal assistant, and set about phoning potential clients for a tax avoidance package he'd recently invested in.

"We'd never have heard of him if he'd been called Kublai _Khan't_." Owen chanted his mantra between calls.

44

Andy Wu received an email from the consultant with the mannish hairstyle and gunmetal grey business suit, whose previous presentation on marketing strategy – and, it must be said, her impenetrable technical vocabulary – had impressed him so much. She was asking for an OoO. After Google told him she wanted a one on one meeting, Andy readily agreed. But, this time, he was not blown away by the slickness of her presentation; he was completely rattled by its message.

Through the Babel of jargon and feast of pie charts, it became clear that the consultant's key recommendation was to do away with the name of the Dependable, and replace it with an exclamation mark. She was very passionate about it. "Semiotics is so twentieth century." She pronounced it 'semi-otics'. "No half measures. Today's business _Lebenswelt_ needs total otics, _über_ otics."

"Otics?" Andy asked. "Isn't that to do with ears?"

She didn't answer but added, "Names are an obsolete relic of the Guttenberg Age." And, with the blind stare of the evangelist, pressed home. "A dematerialised enterprise in the electronic paradigm demands a dematerialised signifier."

Andy was speechless.

"As our leader, you must liberate us from the legacy of a name," she said. "Kill it. Dead." She sighed, exhausted. "No more words."

Andy thanked the consultant, agreeing how necessary such a change probably was, and promised to consider putting her proposal to the board. He thought he might need to prise her fingers from his desk otherwise. But when she'd gone, doubt struck him. Could you actually say it? He tried. The best he could manage was an enthusiastic grunt. Perhaps that's what she'd meant by 'post-language'. Certainly it might look cutting edge on the company website, but how would the sales people introduce themselves? The consultant had pointed out that a certain artiste who replaced his name with a symbol didn't suffer sales-wise from it. Andy had been on the verge of arguing with her, but the way she gripped his desk and stared, told him reason might not be the best option. Her advice was clearly detached from human reality, and suggested to him the possibility of alien infiltration.

What if all the other radical business solutions the consultants had recommended and he'd so blithely adopted were equally detached from reality, and he'd not recognised it? Disquiet growled in Andy's gut as he remembered how another consultant, apparently without irony, had recommended a classic paper on process reengineering that showed how the hours long Japanese tea ceremony could be cut down to a hyper efficient ten minutes through the judicious use of an electric kettle and tea bags. Had he himself not clapped his hands, leapt to his feet, and exclaimed, "That is precisely the kind of quantum leap in efficiency we need for the Dependable?" Now he cringed like a repentant drunk piecing together last night's escapades.

Andy stumbled over the words as he repeated the maxim he himself had composed. "Only by outsourcing non-core functions, can we liberate our core functions." But, as that old fool, the Underwriter, had asked at a recent meeting, "What exactly are our core functions, Mr Wu, er Andy?"

"I think that should be obvious for anyone who's been paying the slightest attention around here for the last few months," Andy had replied.

The others in the room nodded knowingly as the horde instinct kicked in, and would, no doubt, have ripped Methuselah to shreds at the pack leader's signal, but the old buffer simply wouldn't let go. "You see everything we used to do seems to be going to China–"

One of the Business Unit Managers stepped in. "Only policy issuing is pencilled in for China."

"–All right, China or somewhere," the Underwriter said. "Now, that's fine for old Johnny Chinaman, but I don't understand what we're going to do anymore."

A few smug sniggers and derisive splutters had, of course, erupted around the room, but Andy was no longer certain about much at all, and the _Fortune_ article had taken a different direction in his mind – _One Man's Folly: How A Venerable Institution Was Brought Low_. He needed some fresh air.

#

Back from the street, Andy was slumped, staring vacantly ahead, even more dispirited, when Cynthia brought him an unbidden cup of coffee. "You look like you could do with a pick me up."

"Thank you." Andy had assumed Cynthia was plotting her official complaint and wouldn't want to make concessions to the enemy. He didn't like to have his underlings at war with him, especially one who was as formidable as Ma, and was so pleased with Cynthia's rapprochement he told her, "I'm sorry I lost my cool with you, Cynthia."

"Oh, don't be silly, Andy," she said. "You can't imagine the things Ralph Gisborne used to say." She smiled in reminiscence. "He was always screaming that he was going 'to fucking castrate' someone or other."

"I see." Andy coughed. "Obviously it's your right, and I wouldn't think of interfering with that, but do you mind if I ask you whether you're going to continue with your complaint?"

"Oh Andy, I was never going to make a complaint against you. I think of you as the clever son I never had. That was all just Shirley Gore stirring things up again. That woman spends her life causing trouble. She needs a bit of male attention if you ask me. I was a bit tired, that's all. I've had my daughter-in-law and my grandchildren staying with me. It's all been a bit much for me, to be honest."

This was more insight into Cynthia's personal life than Andy needed. "Well, that's great," he said and glanced down at his papers. Cynthia took the hint and left. Alone once more, Andy was overcome with panic about tomorrow's board meeting. He flitted through the reams of financial data appended to the board papers but couldn't take them in. He knew the Chairman and his deputy, Michael Dyer, would have parsed every word and analysed every number.

The consultants' fees now exceeded the salary bill for the remaining staff. This meant costs were increasing, despite the retrenchments and the radical outsourcing Andy planned. On top of this, the consultants were entitled to a generous bonus based on costs permanently reduced, which excluded their own fees. And so, they would earn a huge premium for increasing current costs. Andy was no longer convinced of the wisdom of this arrangement he'd championed, and was far from confident he'd be able to persuade the board about its desirability.

Indeed, Andy remembered how Sir Gerald had avoided making any decision on strategy. "That's your call, Andrew," he'd said.

"He means 'it's your cock on the block', mate," Michael added. His grin had been memorably unpleasant.

45

Toni negotiated the curves of Washburn's driveway at speed, and wheel span on the gravel as she pulled out onto the highway. Rob was gushing about the wonderful man and his beautiful property.

"Are you serious? God I just had to get out of there. That man gave me the creeps."

"No, he didn't," Rob said. "Finding out you'd been walking where he found Artemis's body gave you the creeps."

Toni thought, Don't you dare tell me what gives me the creeps, but didn't bother to put him right. "And to tell you the truth," she said. "I don't like birds either. They've got mean eyes – and so did he."

"He did look a bit like a bird, didn't he? Perhaps he's part penguin on his mother's side."

"No." Toni was certain. "She must have been an eagle or something spiteful like that."

Rob said nothing. Perhaps he was beginning to see the light about Dr Washburn.

"And what did you think when he called Artemis 'an airhead'?" she asked.

"That did seem a bit off."

"Yeah, a bit." She dropped to third gear and powered past the truck in front of them. "No one can say a bad word about her – except her husband. How horrible is that?"

"That's true. Something else strange – Washburn and Owen are both Free Masons. You'd expect them to be arch enemies, and yet they're the best of mates when they're spanking each other's bums down at the Masonic temple."

"What makes you say that?"

"The photographs on Owen's office wall make me say that. Of course, I didn't recognise Washburn as one of the men with Owen in the fezzes and leather aprons, until we met him at Arcadia. But it was definitely Washburn.

"Weird. Do you think that means anything – about Artemis?"

"I don't know." Rob looked troubled. "I suppose everyone around here of any consequence is a Mason but I think Washburn was trying to give us the impression that he doesn't have any contact with Owen, but obviously he does."

"And why do you think all the pictures had been taken down from the hallway?"

"You noticed that too? I think it was probably a matter of good taste. I spotted one of them on top of a stack in the conservatory. Let's just say it was a bit bizarre."

"Yes?" Toni said.

"Actually very bizarre. It's not possible. No one's got, you know, a thing that big." He looked out the side window.

"Jesus Christ, Rob. Tell me what was in the frigging painting?"

"Ok. I can't remember their names but it's a Greek legend," Rob said. "A famous huntsman comes upon a goddess bathing."

"And?"

"Well, everything ends in tears, of course, it's a Greek legend after all. But the really strange thing is, in this painting, it was old Owen who was the hunter, and Artemis Washburn was the goddess."

Toni checked his expression to make sure he was not taking the piss, but Rob looked as baffled as she felt.

#

Toni and Rob followed a school bus down the hill to the Five Seasons. "I wonder if they're going to open up the waterslide for the school kids," Rob said. "We've got to have a go if they do."

"Are you serious?"

"Of course. When we used to come here as kids, they didn't have a waterslide like this. The best we had was a rope swing over the creek."

"So, some things have got better then, eh?" Toni did not expect or get a response.

Once they'd parked, Rob headed off towards the waterslide and, from her porch, Toni saw him coming back at a trot, barely able to contain his excitement.

"Right. Adam says he's going to open the waterslide for an hour as a treat for the school kids, and he says we can go on as well – and, here's the best part, we can go for free because we're residents."

Residents? The word grated in Toni's ears. Was he totally insensitive? God, it was so easy for him to make comments like that when for him a trailer park was nothing more than the setting for a redneck joke. You can be sure a caravan has never been a real option as a place to live for him. "I can't. I don't have any togs with me or anything like that," she said. "And it will be freezing."

"Don't worry about that, you can wear shorts and a t-shirt, and it won't be that cold once you've gone down the first time."

Toni knew she ought to laugh at Rob, tell him to grow up, and wondered whether in a flat organisational structure she could refuse to go down a waterslide. But, realising how it will impress the boys, she gave in, and he looked absolutely rapt.

Soon Rob and Toni were walking across the field, barefoot in shorts and t-shirts. Close to the waterslide, they exchanged apprehensive looks. An ant trail of children clutching mats zigzagged up the steps to the mouth of the tube, and they could hear the drone of an engine and rushing waters. Above them, banshee screams of thrill and bravado echoed amplified and distorted through the tube.

As they stepped into the shed that housed the catchment pool, they tasted chlorine in their throats. Two teachers looked up from their conversation and smiled knowingly, as though the newcomers had special needs. There was a tumble of limbs as a knot of children flew from the mouth of the tube and into the frothing water. One of the teachers shouted a hopeless caution, and the kids struggled out, ecstatic and unbowed against the maelstrom.

The two officials of the country's second oldest life insurance company stood useless at the bottom of the stairs until a girl with incontrovertible ginger plaits told them to take a mat and pointed to a stack of multicoloured luges. They followed instructions and warily climbed the stairs towards the top. When an itching queue of children formed behind them, Toni motioned Rob to step aside, and eager, small, wet people ran past them and up.

Above the trees, the top of the tower was sun blasted. The fibreglass walls were roughly painted sky blue and white like the basilica of a Greek island church. Adam was wearing faded blue overalls, his beard as full as an Orthodox bishop's. He regulated the flow of children with his back to the mouth of the tube. He radiated kindness but barely greeted Rob and Toni. On one side of the mouth, a laminated poster explained step-by-step how to go down, and Rob immediately set about analysing the list of instructions as though it were a new Bill of Rights. On the other side of the mouth was an exhibition of pictures of how not to do it, each prohibited example crossed by a red X. Adam waved the children down with the slightest blessing of a movement. Then, every other boy, once out of eyesight, practised one of the forbidden methods of descent.

"Ladies first," Rob said.

Toni hesitated on her mat before her body remembered how she always out dared the boys, and, as she pushed off into the flow, she let out a girlish squeal she'd kept inside for fifteen years. Only vaguely could she feel the sensations of the fall: first the ickyness of sitting in cold water, the acceleration, the stomach churn of unexpected directions, the fearful possibility of looping the loop, then, she saw a bright light ahead and plunged from the tube. Powerful currents pushed her to the side. Her face was stretched in a blissful grin, and she wondered whether Johnny's rebirth had been like this.

She scrambled out, dignity left long behind, and waited to watch Rob ejected head first like a salmon making for home. He was quickly splashing over to make sure she wanted to go again. This time they ran up the stairs, and again and again, until Toni realised Rob wasn't with her at the top. He arrived at last gasping for ragged breath. He didn't look good, wet and bedraggled, with his potbelly and skinny arms, and haphazard clumps of body hair evident through his sopping t-shirt. "Had to let the kids past," he said, and leant forward, his palms pressed against his lower back. "Lovely – uh – view." He moved to the window, shaking cramp from his thighs. He pointed out places of interest – the old coal terminal in Exmouth, the start of Arcadia – until he'd recovered.

Wind buffeted the structure and chilled as it penetrated the gaps. The creaking of plastic against metal, the shudder and sway discomfited. It would be ghostly here alone at night.

"I'm going to try it backwards," Rob told Toni in a conspiratorial, double dare sort of way. He checked lest Adam had overheard, but Adam was staring straight ahead, his eyes blank from the enlightenment of all thought gone, as he controlled the flow; a transcendental traffic cop. Behind him, children crouched to surf down, go without mats, or reckless in forbidden, squealing clusters.

When Rob had exhausted his repertoire of riding styles, he suggested they go down together. Although it meant being cramped and close as figures in a sex manual, Toni understood his intention was innocent, no more than a need to share the fun. Yet she knew her underwear and body beneath were obvious through the clinging wetness of her t-shirt and shorts.

"OK."

They were locked together, their clammy flesh meshed. He wrapped his arms around her in pillion, careless of her breasts, but, once they splashed down and were separated by the currents, he told her he wanted to do it one last time but on his own – kneeling.

Outside the waterslide, Toni saw how Rob like a horny teenager with X-ray specs couldn't resist stealing a peek at her body beneath the sodden veil. She pulled the sticking fabric away from her and folded her arms, but little has been left to the imagination. Rob saw that she'd noticed, and kept his gaze above her neckline as they walked back. They were still enthusiastic about their manoeuvres and derring-do but no longer so innocent.

#

The waterslide had washed something out of Toni. Showered and dry, and with plenty of time before dinner, she suggested they visit Adam's bed-ridden partner. As Adam's proxy, Rob looked tearful in gratitude. "She'll love that, I know she will," he said, even though he'd not met her either.

Rob gushed about the authenticity of Adam's lifestyle as they walked. "When you think about it, old Adam, he's nothing less than a hunter gatherer, and that's what we human beings evolved to be. That's what we're supposed do, not sit in an air-conditioned office staring at a computer screen all day long. He's got a plot where he grows his own veggies, probably got somewhere in the forest to grow his own recreational produce. If there's a nuclear war or a plague, and all the computers and the machines stop working, we'd have to make Adam our leader because we've forgotten how to live from the land. But he certainly knows how."

Toni said nothing but smiled as she imagined what Byron might be like as a man.

They skirted the bank of trees that screened Adam's place from the onshore winds. Outside the Bedford truck he'd converted into a fairy tale woodcutter's cottage, three faded boiler suits – orange, blue and green – hung on a washing line. Toni wondered what colour boiler suit Adam wore to relax in – or go to a wedding or funeral – but she spotted him sitting on the step of the van in a tie-dyed t-shirt and faded sarong, his beard down to his chest, deep in contemplation; definitely a guru. But even Rob would have to admit, it was not obvious what Adam might be a guru of.

Adam stood to greet them with a look that told them he couldn't believe they'd actually come to visit after all. Toni would lead from here. "We're leaving tomorrow," she said. "So we thought we'd pop in to say hello to–"

She didn't know Adam's partner's name, but no worries, he called inside. "Maia, we've got visitors." And he ushered them in. Tears, as Rob had anticipated, clouded Adam's eyes.

Inside was a pixie cabin with intricate woodwork fretted into curlicues and fronds. And, on a dais of cloths and quilts, Maia lay patient and ready, as though she'd been expecting them all the time. She was pale and unfamiliar with sunlight as Adam was burnished and beaten by the weather: moon-blanched to sun-ruddy. Maia was decked in layers of lace and shawls like the antimacassars of an old lady's settee. And flowing over her shoulders, across the pillows, and – if she ever were to stand – beyond her waist, tresses of wavy silver hair. It was impossible to tell what was Maia, what was silk or wool, or what was the well groomed spaniel nestling under her arm.

Toni was brilliant. Her talk of Byron and Kyron was free and intimate as though Maia were their long lost godmother. She admired features of the caravan; she marvelled and congratulated. And, in turn, Maia was gracious and shone as the berries of mistletoe glow in the northern winter. She caused tea to be made, and poured for Toni into bone china cups. The men said little, but clasped tankards of home brewed beer to their sternums. They were creatures of a lesser species, lowing cattle at the manger door. Occasionally they peeked in, lest anything needed fixing or replacing. When the women stopped for breath, they heard the low drone of male conversation, all about how things are made and work. They laughed and the men were abashed. Rob would tell Toni much later it was then he realised omnicompetent Adam wasn't wise at all, he was simply sad to his core he wasn't enough for Maia. With Artemis gone, from time to time, more than anything, Maia yearned for a lovely, garrulous woman to visit and be served tea in bone china cups.

#

Toni and Rob had no words as they walked back from their audience with Maia, but unlike other times this silence was serene, not seething. They agreed to leave in an hour. When he sees Toni then, Rob will tell her, "You look lovely," because, dressed for the evening, faintly perfumed, a gilding of make up, and, with her hair pulled up from her neck, for him, she undoubtedly will be. He'll be overcome by her beauty, her woman-ness, in thrall of simply being-with her, and will need a few drinks to balance something in his blood, to calm the emotional arrhythmia. But he'd never learnt when to stop.

46

The ringing of the phone shook Andy from his reverie. He fumbled as he picked up the receiver. "Um, hello."

"Andrew?"

"Yes?"

"It's Sir Gerald here. We'd like to have a little chat with you ahead of the board meeting."

"We?" Andy said.

"Me and Michael." Andy heard hushed muttering, a hand no doubt pressed against the mouthpiece. Sir Gerald added, "Oh, and we'll also bring along a chap whose firm might be interested in buying into the shareholder consortium."

"Really? What's the firm's name?"

"We'll talk about it later. Today at five all right with you?"

Andy desperately wanted to leave early. "Yes. Of course," he said.

"We'll see you then."

Andy slammed down the receiver and ran from his office. He had ninety minutes. He used his override card to get to the basement, sprinted to his car and wheel span as he accelerated through the chicanes of the car park. He knew his life depended on sorting things out with Samantha and calculated he could make it home, deliver his wise, stern, forgiving, incontrovertible paterfamilias speech and be back in the office by five.

When Andy let himself into their apartment, he was disappointed Samantha didn't react to the noise of his arrival, as he'd anticipated. He checked the lounge. Seeing her curled foetal on the settee and lovely to him, his resolve dissipated. Away from Samantha, cold reason could keep its form but now in her presence it melted, and tears, so poorly remembered he'd forgotten how to staunch them secretly, seeped from his eyes. His pride counted for nothing. If that's what it would take, he would beg Samantha to stay with him.

The marble tiles hurt Andy's knees as he knelt next to her. His trembling hand hovered above her face before he moved a lock of hair from her cheek to behind her ear. There was a magazine caught in the crook of her arm; it must be uncomfortable for her. Andy eased it out. He'd not seen her read this one before. He flitted through the pages, puzzled to see picture after picture of models in maternity wear. A card fell to the floor. Oh my god. His heart started to race. Samantha had an appointment in two months time for an obstetric ultrasound scan.

"You're pregnant."

Samantha opened her eyes. "How did you know?" Her smile was full of love for him.

Andy shrugged, hoping to disguise the shaking of his shoulders.

Still a little sleepy, Samantha said, "I know you'll object, but if it's a girl, I want to call her 'Victoria' after my grandma, well, second or third name, then. And definitely 'Robin' if it's a boy."

Andy laid his head on Samantha's belly to listen for the embryonic life. His tears anointed his beloved.

"Oh, my darling, you've been so silly." She ran her fingers through his hair. "How could you have ever doubted me?"

#

Andy was late for the meeting with Sir Gerald. As he hurried down the corridor, he saw the door of the ideas incubator was open. He took a deep breath and went in.

"Ah, here he is, at last." Sir Gerald seemed jovial enough. "Oh, have you got hay fever, Andrew?"

"Sorry?"

"Your eyes look all red."

"Oh, yes, yes. It's an allergy."

Sir Gerald turned to a man sitting on the windowsill looking at the view.

"Christopher, this is Andrew Wu, our current CEO."

The man waved a languid Hi to Andy.

"Andrew," Sir Gerald said, "this is Christopher Hamilton of – now, Christopher, how do you actually say it, the exclamation mark thingy?"

"You don't," Chris said. "You just give 'Partners' a bit of oomph."

"All right, Christopher is with _Partners_."

"Spot on, Gerry," Chris said.

"And they run a private equity fund, based in Melbourne focusing on small and developing markets," Sir Gerald added. "That's right isn't it, Christopher?"

"Between you, me and the tax office, you'll probably find we're legally domiciled in the British Virgin Isles."

Everyone laughed and Chris finally came over and shook Andy's hand. Andy thought, We've got an internal counsel called Rob Hamilton, maybe I should ask if they're related. But he stops before he can make such a stupid suggestion. This man is clearly a player.

"So Andrew, what are you going to tell the board on Friday about your steps to improve shareholder value?" Sir Gerald said. He still sounded friendly.

Chris Hamilton seemed uninterested in what Andy had to say, and went back to looking out of the window, probably searching for landmarks, perhaps things to buy.

Sir Gerald nodded with encouragement as Andy explained the various measures he'd put in place, and Michael took notes.

"And there are, of course, the outsourcing initiatives I'll be asking the board to approve on Friday."

"Ah, yes, the outsourcing thingies," Sir Gerald said. "I think Michael has got some views on them."

Michael stopped writing and eyed Andy as though he was measuring him up before a fight, but said nothing.

"Christopher, why don't you come over here with us?" Sir Gerald said.

"Exactly what views do you have?" Andy asked Michael directly, but he still didn't answer.

"So what do you think about outsourcing, Christopher?" Sir Gerald said when Chris rejoined them.

"Outsourcing non-core functions is an unspoken market expectation." Chris smiled at Andy. It was bizarre, but this Hamilton guy had just given him the same patronising look Rob Hamilton had given him on occasions. Perhaps they were related after all. But there was no time for small talk now. He should have asked about it when it first occurred to him. Maybe things would have gone better.

"It's got to be done properly though. Get it wrong, and you can be left with little more than an empty shell, and, of course, the market will punish that. But get it right and, well, I think that's why you wanted to talk to us. And who knows, going forward, depending on how things pan out, we might consider outsourcing some of our own Pacific functions to the Defendable. We'll have to understand core competencies first." Chris meshed his fingers in a sudden dramatic gesture. "Where the synergies lie."

Andy couldn't agree more. Chris and he had probably read exactly the same papers. Then Chris added, "No offence, Andy, but if !Partners do buy into the Defendable consortium, we'd want to put our own man in – as CEO, I'm afraid."

"I think we could come up with a nice severance package to sweeten things – if it comes to that, of course," Sir Gerald said. "Perhaps, you'd like to have a bash at CEO yourself, Christopher. Oh, and it's 'the Dependable' by the way, just for the record."

Chris's laugh is loud. "Never trust a man who can't tell the difference between an 'f' and a 'p'." And, the first man to do so in twenty years, he slapped Sir Gerald Leet on the back.

47

At El Maximo, their joints stiffening and bruises rising from the waterslide, Toni and Rob asked for Owen Huntly, and were ushered with new respect through the dining area to the door marked 'Private: wine cellar'. On the ill-lit spiral staircase, Rob cackled demonically and, vampiric, touched Toni's neck with two licked fingers. She screamed and slapped his hand.

At the bottom, a hundred candles flickered among the stacks of wine bottles, and at the head of a rough wooden table, theatrical, faintly satanic in the half-light sat Owen. He stood, his arms outstretched, and his appraising gaze fell on Toni. "I've messed you guys around," he said. "I want to make it up to you."

Rob stared beyond his host as he eyed the aged bottles, stacked like saintly corpses in their catacombs. He shook Owen's hand and says, "Let me advise you, redemption is possible but it won't come cheap."

Toni was not, however, for sale. When Owen, rather than shake her hand, held it to his lips and lingered as he kissed, she vowed this would not be a pushover.

Rob started the bidding. "Do you know something; I've always wanted to drink a bottle of wine from the year I was born."

"When was that?" Owen said.

"1926," Rob said with a straight face. "All right, 1968."

"Jesus. At that age, it'll have to be French, if that's OK?"

"I don't think we should bear grudges."

The wine tasted opulent even to Toni's unaccustomed palette. She relaxed and savoured the velvety liquid. But she became wary when she noticed how Owen raised his glass to his lips, yet returned it to the table hardly touched. Meanwhile, Rob half emptied his goblet with each gulp, and refilled it straight away.

A handsome young man and pretty girl in black and crisp white arrived to serve bread and saucers of olive oil. They said nothing and went about their duties with exaggerated deference. Toni detected something nasty and proprietary in the way Owen watched them: contemptuous of the boy's ponytail, lecherous of the girl's butt. She became warier still.

They were into the main course already, and Rob was obviously avoiding the issue of Artemis. He gave Toni a disapproving look when she said, "So, Owen, what can you tell us about the Artemis Washburn policy?"

"Artemis was a dear friend of mine." Owen flashed them a conspiratorial smile.

"You mean mistress," Toni said.

"A gentleman never tells. As I was saying, she was a dear, dear friend of mine. I did her some favours and she thought it would be a good thing to take out a nice fat policy to do me a favour."

"So she didn't need it?" Toni said.

"Of course she didn't need it – you've been out to her place, haven't you?" A flash of anger flared in his eyes but extinguished immediately. Owen smiled and added, "Look, gorgeous, you tell me, do you think she needed it?"

Over the last three days Rob had taught Toni plenty about the business she worked in, so she now had a good idea of the dodgy ways Owen had made his money. With Rob sedated by Owen's generosity, she was determined to do the job Andy Wu would have expected of his internal counsel. "Company policy says you must perform a proper analysis and only sell according to the customer's needs," she said.

"What can I say?" Owen extended his open palms and turned to her colleague who was back among the stacks of bottles. "Hey, Rob, will you please call her off. She looks like a poodle but she's biting my arse like a pit bull." Owen turned back to Toni and engaged her with an expression he must have thought was irresistibly boyish.

"Artemis wanted to buy something from me. Am I supposed to tell her she can't have it? Is that what they do on your planet?" He stabbed a ball of gnocchi with his fork.

Toni met his look. "The type of policy you sold her gave you maximum commission, of course."

"I told you, she wanted to do me a favour."

Toni waited to see if Rob would come to her assistance, but he didn't. "OK. Let's forget about commissions. Do you think she might have committed suicide?"

"No way, Artemis was very content." Owen leant back in his chair and smiled broadly.

"And how about Dr Washburn, could he have killed her?" Toni said.

Owen's smile faded. "Look, I can't stand the old bugger. But no way, no one in their right mind could think that Morgan Washburn would have the balls to do that."

"What about the property development?"

Owen threw his hands wide. "What property development for Christ's sake?"

"Orion Park – fifty luxury lifestyle units on the Washburn estate. Rob saw the plans at the library." Toni hoped the mention of his name would bring him to her aid, but he was too busy among the wine racks.

"It was an idea, that's all, something I was helping Artemis with."

"Did you have an interest in the development?"

"I earned some fees for advice." He coughed. "Some compensation. Look. I don't know if it would ever have come to anything, but Washburn has put the kibosh on it now anyway. Silly old bugger is going to turn the whole estate into a bloody bird sanctuary."

"So that's it, then, isn't it?" Toni said, battling to contain her excitement. "If Dr Washburn was totally against the development, the only way for him to stop it would be to kill Artemis." Owen rolled his eyes. Toni turned towards the noise of bottles being assayed. "Rob, will you please come over here?"

Rob wandered back to the table swinging a dusty bottle of wine. His lips moved as he practised pronouncing its French name. He sat and presented the bottle to Owen for opening. Rob looked at Toni and said, "Even if Dr Washburn did do his wife in – bearing in mind he was in Nelson that night and the police don't suspect him – that's got nothing to do with us. The death benefit was payable to her estate not to him directly."

"Dr Washburn still benefits," Toni said, protesting as much against Rob's patronising tone as his argument.

"It's up to the trustee of Artemis's estate to question whether or not Washburn is disqualified from inheriting."

Rob was lecturing her in front of Owen, and that hurt Toni her to the core.

"But he's the trustee of the estate too," she said, hearing herself the whine in her voice.

Rob shrugged and failed to hold in a belch as he said, "Whatever."

It was then that Toni understood she really was an idiot in Rob's eyes when he added, "It's none of the Dependable's business. We'd have to pay to the estate whether he killed her or not. From what your cute detective told you, we might have something on non-disclosure of the use of non-prescription drugs, but I don't really think we want to go there. We don't have a specific exclusion, and prior use would be all but impossible to prove. Nah, if there's no hope of showing suicide, we'll just have to pay up and shut up."

Toni wanted to protest but didn't. The feeling that she and Rob had become equals over the last few days – never mind the attraction – were obviously an illusion. Rob had made the decision without her, and it was the easy one – that left everything intact except what was fair.

"Where does that leave me, then?" Owen said.

"Oh, I think you'll probably survive to fight another day," Rob said. "All the same, I'd keep a low profile with Andy Wu if I were you."

Owen stood and slapped Rob on the back. "Good on you. A wise man once said, 'Every man has his price'." He took the bottle Rob had chosen, and said, "Shall we open another one to breathe while we see to this one, my learned colleague?"

"Absolutely." Obviously blind to her anger, Rob turned to Toni, and said, "So, when were you born, Toni?"

"1984. I told you before, but you weren't listening."

"Anything that young won't present any problems for me," Owen said and gave her a wink, for God's sake.

The waiter and waitress returned to clear away the main course. Toni was grateful for a desert menu to hide her fury behind.

"Tell me something," Rob asked Owen, "what does the 'R' stand for in Owen R Huntly?" His speech was already slurred.

"Ryan. It was my mum's family name."

"'O. Ryan Huntly'. Sounds like 'Orion Hunter', if you say it fast enough. That's what Artemis called you, wasn't it?" Rob said.

"Yes, she did. How did you know that, you sneaky bugger?"

"Orion, out hunting in the forests of Arcadia, came across the goddess Artemis bathing in a lake."

"It was her hot tub, actually," Owen said.

"A bit bizarre but obvious really," Rob said. "I've been trying to think of their names all day. They just came to me now."

"I had a painting done."

Toni's ears pricked up: was that a choke in Owen's voice? No, it must be a salesman's trick. He coughed and added, "For her, of the story."

"Oh right," Rob said. "I think I spotted that up at Arcadia this morning."

Owen gestured to a corner of the cellar. "Well, it's over there now. I'm going to have the restaurant done up to show it off properly."

"Can I have a look?" Rob said.

"Sure." Owen led the way. "A bit of an art lover too, are you?"

"Well, I know what I like."

Rob's arm was around his new best mate's shoulder. Vintage French wine sloshed in their Vikings' goblets as they took turns at ripping at the layers of bubble wrap, revealing through shreds, the torrid cartoon beneath.

"What do you think?" Owen stood back, indicating that art of this nature needed to be stood back from. Rob swayed as he examined the painting. Toni was glad she was well away from all the glistening buttocks, breasts and manhood.

"I wouldn't say it's hyperbolic, more hyper bollocks," Rob said with a straight face but Owen obviously wasn't listening. "The artist must have had a pretty vivid imagination."

"Unfortunately, they had to crop a certain thing to fit it into the picture," Owen said and looked around to check whether Toni had caught the joke. But he would have only glimpsed her silhouette clutching Rob's phone as she escaped through the cellar door.

#

Toni hadn't called home since yesterday morning despite plenty of opportunity and she would admit she'd been playing out another life in her imagination – one in which Johnny and, perhaps, even the boys didn't exist. Until this evening Rob had shown her increasing respect. He had a crush on her for sure, and she'd done nothing to discourage that, probably done everything to egg him on. She knew talking about adultery, when they were at Arcadia, was outrageous. And then, being so close together on the waterslide. When they'd set out for the restaurant this evening, Toni had assumed she and Rob would end up in bed that night. But he'd chosen to get more and more drunk with Owen. He'd betrayed her and that was unforgivable. She dialled home.

Toni and Johnny had met in Casualty after he'd crashed his motorbike – a furious friend's, in fact – and she was on duty. He suffered a compound fracture of his left tibia and, because he needed extensive reconstructive surgery, she often bumped into him, hobbling around the hospital, chatting to everyone. Johnny was charming and good looking in a battered surfer sort of way, but Toni was struck most by his lack of self-pity and his innocence. They dated, and, for no reason obvious to her, got married, produced the twins, and now seem to be on the point of separating. She'd changed over those years, of course, warped by the frustration of living on a single income, working her butt off, yet always on the margin. So maybe it wasn't Johnny who'd got worse. Perhaps, only in her eyes had his lack of self-pity become an inability to improve, his casual approach to life morphed into paralysing laziness and his innocence shown to be infuriating gullibility. And worse, somehow, bit-by-bit, Johnny had slowly disappeared as a person. When the cast was finally cut off and the pins taken out, his leg had withered and, now, the rest of him seemed to have gone the same way. All their mail was addressed to her. Why would anyone write to him? Johnny has become an after-thought, to be ticked as 'other' on official forms. When was the last time she'd asked about his day? Well, for one thing she'd stopped asking because he didn't have 'a day' like other people, and it would only embarrass him if she quizzed him on what he'd actually done. Then she'd stopped thinking about his life altogether. Poor Johnny.

"Hello." Toni spoke first.

"Tones?" Johnny sounded elated at the sound of her voice.

"Did I wake you up?"

"Oh, no, no, not at all." Clearly, she had. "It's awesome to hear from you. I'll get the boys, shall I?"

"No!" She hadn't meant to sound so bossy. "No, no, no, it's OK, love. Look, I'm sorry I haven't phoned. I haven't really had the right opportunity."

"Oh right. Yeah, yeah, yeah – meetings and all that. Heck, I know what it's like when you're away on business. Yeah."

"Yeah."

"When are you coming home?" Johnny said, breaking the lengthening silence.

"Tomorrow."

"Awesome. What time?"

"We land at 4.30." Toni wondered if the 'we' registered so clearly with him as it had with her. "Will you pick me up?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. The boys are fine. They've been awesome." Johnny started to gush. He probably hadn't spoken to another adult since she left. "Byron didn't want a nappy last night, and Kyron wasn't that wet either. And Byron drew this brilliant picture of you on a plane flying over our house with all of us in it – it's really cool, yeah. And Kyron, I couldn't really make out what his was about. I think it was the cat or maybe a doughnut. Anyway, we've really missed you, love. Are you sure you don't want me to wake them up?"

"No, let them sleep."

"In our bed," Johnny added sheepishly, no doubt expecting her to tell him off, and well aware it had been her, not their bed, for at least a month.

Toni laughed but her voice cracked and she must go. "See you tomorrow. I miss you guys." I miss you guys so much it's ripping my heart out.

Toni rested her forehead against a pillar of the restaurant portico. Her eye fitted plush in the plaster groove, and her tears trickled down the gully. She didn't know whether she had the strength to go back inside, but she did.

#

When they'd finished dessert, Rob started to lecture Toni and Owen about some obscure politician who'd sold out. By now he was all but unintelligible, except for the swear words and even those were becoming more difficult to understand. He fumbled with a candle, trying to ignite the sticky drink he'd insisted Owen find. Wax dribbled into the glass making amoebas of yellow grease. He finally managed to light the liquid but Toni knocked the flaming glass from his hand as he shakily raised it to his lips. A pool of blue flames flared on the table.

"What the–?" Rob managed to say. He looked more puzzled than angry before his head fell towards his chest, lolled, and he was out.

Owen, who'd been watching Rob's performance without saying a word, turned to Toni and said, "I think your little boy may have had a bit too much jelly and ice cream. He'll sleep well tonight." In a smooth movement, Owen reached across the table, took Toni's hand and guided it towards his lips. This time he didn't kiss straight away but gently turned her wrist upwards, bowed forward and inhaled. " _Geisha_ by Ishiguru."

He was right. Every birthday, since she was sixteen, Papa had given her a bottle of expensive perfume, and, though more recently, she'd hinted money instead would come in handy, he'd carried on, both of them understanding he wanted this to be something impractically luxurious for her alone, something Johnny couldn't drink, drop or hock.

"Yes, it is. That's amazing," she said, and pulled her hand away. "But I want to know about you."

Owen smiled at her across the flickering candles. "You will." He gazed without flinching. "You will."

Toni felt drained. Owen easily outstared her and didn't take his eyes from her as he reached again for her hand. She felt his firm yet gentle touch on the soft flesh of her inner wrist. It was very pleasant. Maybe she'd drunk more wine than she thought. And now she was feeling very sleepy. Toni watched Owen's suntanned fingers like shadows tracing the pale line of a vein, and, as he pressed her quickened pulse, immediacy drifted away from her. His voice sounded creamy and lulling. "I know how to make you happy."

"What makes you think I'm not happy already?" she murmured.

"I know."

Rob grunted in his stupor. Owen flashed him a look and back to her: see that drunk, all the learning in the world but he hasn't got a clue about treating a woman right. Toni looked at Rob and despaired. In that brief moment, and without a sound, Owen had stood and moved behind her chair. She felt his strong touch as he began to massage her shoulders.

"I've been stressed," she said. "I shouldn't tell you, but that feels very nice."

"Shh. I know it does."

47

"Sammy," Andy called into the darkness. "Are you awake?"

Samantha thought, I am now, but said, "What is it, darling?" as gently as she could manage.

"I've been thinking."

"Oh."

"It's like I've lived all my life in a bubble," he said.

"Uh, what do you mean by that?"

"My credit card always works. I've never failed an exam or missed a plane. When I played rugby at school, after the game, my kit was always still as clean as when I'd put it on. It wasn't as if I hung around on the touchline. There was always some rough and tumble, but I've never hit anyone or been hit by anyone in my life."

"That's good; you're lucky," Samantha said. "Let's go to sleep."

"Yes, I have been lucky."

Samantha felt the mattress shudder as Andy sat up.

"But today," he said, "I went out for some fresh air at lunchtime, before I came to see you. I was walking along the pavement, I couldn't have been looking where I was going, and I walked slap bang into this guy. I think he might have been a biker or something – he was this huge monster, with tattoos on his face, all in leather. Maybe he did it on purpose, I don't know. But he stared at me, like he wanted to fight, right there on the street at lunchtime. And I just bounced off him into the road. Then suddenly this bus was almost on top of me with its horn blaring. So, I had to jump right back in front of him."

"Oh no." Samantha sat up and took him in her arms. "What did you do?"

"A lightning kung fu chop to his throat," Andy said deadpan.

"Really?"

"I wish. No, I did this grovelling apology and made off down the street as fast as I could. And when I looked back, he was standing there, staring after me."

"He was probably on P," she said.

"Who knows? It scared the shit out of me though. It was like my bubble had finally burst."

"He was a jerk, nobody, forget about him."

"I know I should," Andy said. "But I thought, This is it. It's all going to start falling apart now – my career, us, everything. That's why I needed to see you so much."

"Nothing's going to happen to us." Samantha held Andy's head to her breast as she might a child woken by nightmares, and combed his hair with her fingers.

"How could I be so stupid?" He was sobbing again. "I really did think you were having an affair."

"Well, that shows you how wrong all this bubble bursting is."

Andy stroked Samantha's flat belly through her silk pyjamas, imagining it full and convex. "Yes," he said, but he hadn't told her about his meeting with Sir Gerald and the others.

FRIDAY

48

The wine cask had leaked. When Rob picked up the box, a wobbly silver bladder plopped through the sodden cardboard base. He gagged: it could be android medical waste in the pool of medium dry red.

Once a vitamin tablet was fizzing in a glass of water with two Nurofen beside it, Rob sliced open a brick of coffee that hissed and spewed grains over the counter. He couldn't find the match to make the kettle work. He went outside to find a twig. Scalding water spurted over his fingers as he plunged the coffee. A good bout of effing and blinding would be in order but he always held back at times like this. With his hand in the meagre stream from the cold tap, Rob sighed but thought he could easily weep. He managed to salvage a cup of coffee, and went outside to smoke. The chair was wet and the porch rail hurt his heels.

There was no way Rob could have been up early enough to walk with Toni, but soon he saw her striding towards him from the beach. His quickening pulse told him he was probably in love with her but maybe he was just still drunk. She stood before him, fresh and vital, as he squinted like a nocturnal creature thrust into the light.

"I know it's none of my business." His voice croaked. "But did anything happen between you and Owen last night?"

"Hello. I'm good, how are you?"

He shook his head; this was no time for manners.

Toni smiled and said, "Let's just say when Owen Huntly turns on the charm, wow, he can be pretty persuasive – and he's got a very good routine."

Rob looked to the ground. He wished he could avoid being so transparent but at least this way Toni wouldn't see the look of desperate jealousy he'd otherwise betray. She placed her hand on the back of his head then ruffled his hair hard. "Yeah, he's got a very good routine, has Owen. He tells you what perfume you're wearing, which is pretty amazing, if you think about it. Then a shoulder massage to die for. Next he tells you about his life, which is pretty amazing too. Did you know he left school at fifteen to go down a coal mine? He couldn't read or write when he left school."

"There you go, I always thought he was stupid," Rob said.

"No. Owen isn't at all stupid."

"Oh."

"Yeah, and if he hadn't broken his leg, he could have become a professional league player. That's when Owen turned himself around. He taught himself to read, and became a salesman. Actually, I think he's inspirational."

"Tell me, did he inspire you to fuck him?" Rob said.

"Don't be a pig. He did try it on but, when I made it clear I wasn't interested, he broke down like a little boy. And it's all about Artemis. He was in love with her – absolutely, no holds barred."

"Yeah right. Owen Huntly told you that?"

"He didn't say that exactly, but I know that's what he meant."

Rob laughed.

"Don't believe me then," she said.

"I don't. I mean, I do believe you, but I don't believe him. It was just some line he was spinning to get you into bed."

"No. For once, you're wrong." Rob hadn't seen Toni's anger rear up like this since the time at the glacier. "He showed me this book that's got all these inspirational sayings in it. That's what keeps him going and–" She must have realised how stupid that would sound to Rob and stopped.

"Look," Rob said. "I could handle old Owen seducing you because he's supersalesman, cocksman supreme, but I can't handle you falling for his hidden depths. What's left for men like me?"

"I didn't fall for him."

Rob inclined his head with one eye daring to look directly at her. Toni turned his head up to face her fully. "You never listen to a word I say, do you? I said he's not really like his image. That doesn't mean I like him. In fact," she added, her voice shaking, "I was scared shitless when you passed out and left me alone with him."

"Sorry."

"No, no. Don't say you're sorry. It's only self-pity and I can't stand that."

Rob stopped himself from apologising. "Um, changing the subject slightly," he said. "Did you have to undress me?"

"Do you really want to know?"

Rob heard the mischief in Toni's voice, and said, "Actually, not anymore, no."

"Well I managed to get your shoes and jacket off, and then you seemed to go onto automatic pilot so I got out quick."

"Not too bad on the behaviour front then, eh?"

Toni didn't remind Rob there was more. On the way back from El Maximo, he'd seemed coherent enough as he outlined a plan for her to leave Johnny and live with him.

"Ask me again in the morning when you're sober," she said.

"I love you, Toni. I really do. Do you love me?"

"Ah–" Too high in the register. "Uh – look, Rob, I like you a lot. It's been real fun with you. I can't remember laughing as much, ever."

He'd started to slur again and was tearful. "So you don't love me?"

"It's not that I don't love you. It's just that–" Where should the stress go – on 'I', 'don't', 'love', or 'you'? "–My mum left Papa and me. I could never do that to Johnny and the boys. So I can't think only about myself – what I might want. I can't separate them from me." She'd turned to gauge his reaction: with his forehead flat on the dashboard, he'd passed into noisy sleep. And now he can't or won't remember.

"I'm really glad nothing happened between you and Owen." Rob reached out and touched the dew-wet hem of Toni's jeans. He traced her calf, and she felt his hand daring to follow the curve of her hamstring that tautened as he pulled her belly to his face. It was unpleasant to be close to him now, and yet, less than a day ago, Toni had assumed the fullest intimacy between them was inevitable. And that might have led anywhere. He stank of cigarettes and wine. She freed herself. "You need to sort yourself out, mate," she said. "And I want to go home." Toni knew moving on meant leaving behind freedom, but the pull of family and the need for home was a rip dragging her away from him and here.

Toni went to her chalet. When she came back with coffee, she saw Rob hadn't moved. "Tell me something," she said, "why the hell do you drink so much?"

"That's easy," he said. "I have to drink that much to disguise how clever I really am."

Toni handed Rob a mug. "Well, it sure as hell works." She sat next to him, and, seeing him smile at her riposte, felt confident enough to ask, "So what did it mean to you, this trip?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake! Get real, will you." He threw his cigarette away.

Toni was instantly chilled and her mind went blank.

"Do you really not understand that real people don't ask things like that? Only managers do – and you are not my boss." A horrible silence seemed to go on forever before Rob added, "Look, I admit maybe you should be the boss. Frankly, I wouldn't have any problems with that, and one day you probably will be. Until then, please don't try any of that management crap on me."

Toni was caught between fight and flight. She glanced at her open chalet door. "I – uh – what do you mean?"

"You know. 'Let's share with the team three things you've learnt from this course' _._ "

"I didn't mean anything – fake – like that. I thought I could ask you about what you felt, after all that we've been through together." She hesitated before adding, "Or maybe, I hoped you might ask me."

Rob waited a while, probably enjoying her discomfort, before he said, "OK, Ms Haast, tell me what value has this trip added to your life? How has your career benefited?" He didn't disguise his bitterness.

"I'll tell you something." Toni chose flight. "One thing I have learned is how pleased I'm going to be to get home, back to Johnny. He may not be half as clever as you, but, sure as hell, he's a lot nicer person."

"Well, there's a valuable lesson to take back to your team." Rob lobbed his retort at her back as Toni retreated into _Port_.

Toni threw water onto her face, breathed deeply, and returned to the fray. "I think you want it to end like this," she said.

"What to end like how?"

"You know, this trip, with nastiness." Her hand hovered before she rested it on his shoulder. "Please, Rob."

"What do you honestly expect me to say?" He looked up at her. The pain was obvious. "I fell for you. You rejected me."

"I really do like you, Rob. And if things had been different–"

"Right, like me being someone else."

Toni took her hand away. "No. I like you as you are. If I didn't have children and responsibilities, things might have been different. I really thought we could be – friends. I've never been able to talk to anyone like I have with you over the past few days. And you've made me laugh like no one else has before. I'll always remember that, even if it was only me who got anything out of it. I'm sorry if that was selfish of me, I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, I didn't mean to."

Rob sighed deeply and struggled to his feet. He took a few paces away from her, and arched to stretch his lower back. "Right, my moment of self-pity has passed. So, what have you learned during this trip?" he asked.

"Forget it," Toni said. "The last thing in the world I wanted was for you to think of me as some scheming bitch."

"I don't. Honestly. You're anything but. So, please, tell me."

"OK." She hesitated before adding, "I feel good about myself."

"Is that all?"

"Yeah, just about."

"Oh."

"Rob, can't you see, for me that's brilliant." Toni knew her hands were going out of control. "I never feel good about myself. I always think I'm too stupid, too broke, too fat, too married to a loser. Not now. I'm not going to give up wanting other things and trying to do better. But I'm not going to hate myself until I get there. And it's you who's helped me to think like that."

She knew what she was saying might sound actressy and insincere but he offered her a slight bow and said, "Robert K Hamilton, soul doctor, at your service."

"Yeah, I suppose you have been, in a way."

Then he said, in what must be his psychiatrist's voice, "So, tell me about your childhood."

"I did." And she jumped back, nicely anticipating his mock smack. "You were too drunk to remember."

#

After packing up, they took a final walk to the beach where they threw pebbles across the rocks towards the distant surf. Rob stared at the sky.

"What do you see?" Toni said.

"OK. The sky is a tightly stretched skin." Rob pointed. "See that plane – Christchurch to Sydney – it's the tip of a scalpel that's starting to incise the flesh. And, as it cuts, you can see a wound opening up. You'd think the whole sky might burst, but the speed of the plane is cauterising the incision. See, behind it, there's the contrail turning into scar tissue."

Toni looked along Rob's arm, beyond his fingers, towards the images in the sky she could never have seen alone. She'll never sleep with him, but she did want him in her life. "Do you know why I was so pissed off with you last night?"

"No, why?"

They avoided each other's eyes as they stooped to gather more pebbles.

"I felt you'd betrayed me," she said.

"What, because I got drunk and left you to the mercies of Owen Huntly?"

"No." Toni fixed him with an accusing look. "I could handle that. It was because you let him get away with his cheating. It was so wrong and made me want to blow my top with the unfairness of it all."

"I don't really see how that was betraying you, but, anyway, he hasn't got away with anything." Rob threw a pebble high and far.

"Yes, he has – you told him everything was going to be OK."

"I was drinking my way through the man's best wine," Rob said. "I was hardly likely to tell him he's getting the chop come what may. Besides, he thought he'd bought me off, so the least I could do was let him have that satisfaction. I dread to think how much that wine must have cost."

"God, you do amaze me sometimes! But we couldn't find anything wrong with Artemis's claim."

"There's plenty wrong with it. I'm just not exactly sure what yet. What I do know is that Owen will be getting the boot come what may."

"So why didn't you confront him?" she said.

"Get real. You must be absolutely nuts if you think I'd accuse someone like Owen Huntly face to face in his bloody wine cellar. He's got the anger management skills of Sonny Corleone but I will nail him all the same."

"But we haven't been able to prove anything."

"Will you please stop saying 'but' to everything I say. I'm sober now and not so scared of you." Looking down, Toni didn't see his grin. Rob put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed as a big brother might. "Cheer up." She managed a small laugh. "This thing with Owen is like when the FBI wanted to nail the gangster Al Capone. He'd been whacking people left, right and centre for years but in the end he went to jail for tax evasion. That's how it's going to be with Owen. God only knows what he's got away with over the years when his fellow Mason Ralph Gisborne was there to protect him, but we'll probably end up getting rid of him for making a spelling mistake in an application form."

"That doesn't seem fair either," she said.

"You really do like things to be black and white, don't you?"

"Yes, I do."

"Well," Rob said, "I'm afraid, in this life, you're going to be disappointed."

Toni hesitated, concerned she would seems even more naïve in Rob's eyes, but said, "Whatever he's done, I still can't believe Owen had anything to do with Artemis's death. You can't fake love like that."

Rob studied her face before he speaks. "For what it's worth, I don't either." He threw a last pebble. "We'd better get going."

Darkening grey had already displaced the blue of the early morning sky, and rain would come in curtains before they leave. Rob touched Toni's arm. "Don't you find it strange this place is called the Five Seasons?"

"It's only because they couldn't call it the Four Seasons," Toni said. "I heard Adam tell you that."

"Yes, yes, but why should they want to refer to any number of seasons? If they're going to change 'Sunny Days', they could call it, absolutely anything. I don't know, 'The Exmouth Hilton'."

"Now, that really is asking for trouble," she said.

"You know what I mean. It's called the _Five_ Seasons, we're here, and that can't exactly be a coincidence, can it?"

"Sorry. I really don't get what you mean."

Rob looked at the sky before speaking. "You see, when I was kid, my dad used to say we can have five seasons in one day. If you think about it, we've had two in the last half an hour."

"It's four seasons in one day," Toni said. "Like the song."

"I know it's supposed to be four, but Dad was an engineer, so believe me, if he said five, he meant five." For the most fleeting of moments, Rob thought of his father in pressed khaki shorts on Exmouth beach pointing at a cumulus nimbus cloud formation. What if he had meant to say four? What if Dad did say four, and I misheard him? Rob dismissed this heresy right away. "It was always a game between Chris and me, seeing if we could spot when it was the fifth season. He says he can't remember now, but we did. So you knew if there was snow it was winter, sun it was summer, and so on, but if there was rain and sun at the same time, we'd say it was a sign of the fifth season."

"I like that," Toni said.

"And, as I got older, I carried on trying to spot the fifth season in different places."

"I don't understand."

"The thing is, it's not only about the weather, the seasons as such. It's much more than that," he said. "I'll give you an example: I have to confess I went through a religious phase when I was younger. And then I thought, if the first season is spring and is represented by birth, and the second season is summer, when everything comes into bloom. Then, in autumn, the third season, things start to decay, and winter is death, then, the fifth season must be the resurrection." He pauses. "Look, I was only thirteen, and I soon grew out of it. But I still sometimes think about what the fifth season might be."

Though Toni said nothing, Rob understood she wanted him to carry on.

"All right, take this one: if we say enquiry is the first season, knowledge is the second season, doubt is the third, and ignorance the fourth, what would be the fifth season?"

She was lost and frowned.

"Don't worry, I don't know either, and I've been playing the game for years." Rob realised he might be babbling, but he's never got this far with anyone before. "Look, maybe the story is this: if it was the fifth season we'd be able to understand everything. Then again, sometimes I think it would probably be the opposite, and everything would become so mixed up, we wouldn't be able to understand anything anymore. Or maybe it's something so different from that, we wouldn't have the words to describe it, not even think of it. Perhaps trying to think how things would be in the fifth season would be like imagining a new colour and how that colour would smell."

Toni took a pace ahead of him, and didn't look back when she said, "I think I may have been living in the fifth season since we came here."

Rob could have fallen to his knees. For the last forty odd years, he'd been searching for the fifth season, and Toni had found it by being with him. He shook his head. "Let's go."

Before they entered the copse that led to the camp, they stopped and turned to look at the ocean for one last time. Rob didn't know when it happened, but he was holding Toni's hand. It was a lovely human weight, not small but soft, yet strong too. Passive in his tender grip, he could feel the pads of flesh locked with his, the intricacies of her bones. He wished he could bear this weight forever, it was all the intercourse he would need with her.

The light was queer and shadowy, and the water by the shoreline had become black and listless. The sea flopped in slow viscous spasms. Then angular beams shone down like searchlights as the crust of cloud ruptured. Toni looked him in the face as he stared at the clouds. "What's wrong?" she asks.

"I thought god was going to talk to me," he said. "But I guess he couldn't pluck up the courage." Rob sighed deeply, knowing this idyll had to come to an end. "Let's go into town on the way back. I expect you'll want to say goodbye to your new best friends."

"What?" Toni looked betrayed, and Rob hated himself.

"Well, there's your cute detective – and, Owen, of course."

She pulled from his grip. "I told you, I don't like him."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Rob covered his eyes with his hand. He felt like punching himself in the nose. "Actually, I need to take the coffee plunger back."

"What? How can you? You've used it."

"I know I've used it. That's the whole point. It's faulty – just as I said it would be. It nearly burnt my hand off. So I'm going to get my money back." He bounced a little on his toes like a washed up boxer promising one last comeback. "I'm going to exercise my consumer rights. That's my revenge on them all for selling crap. God, I love doing that in a packed store in front of an audience."

#

The BigBargainz store was not heaving with an audience of impressionable customers; it was as deserted as it had been the day they'd bought the coffee plunger. Rob seemed happy enough though with Toni as his sole witness, and he turned to her, raised his eyebrows, priming her for the display he'd promised. He stood at the empty customer service booth coughing loudly until a woman from the checkout slouched over.

"Good day. In terms of sections 5, 6, 18, 20, 21 and 22 of the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993, I hereby reject this good as unsafe, and demand my money back." Rob glanced at Toni to see exactly how impressed she was.

The woman from the checkout was no more impressed than Toni. She said, "Do you have proof of purchase?"

"No – but it burnt my bloody hand."

"I'm sorry about that, sir. Do you have proof of purchase?" the woman said.

"You know I bought it here." Rob pointed at her. "You served me."

"I'm sorry but you need proof of purchase. Do you have proof of purchase?"

"What more proof do I need than bringing it back to the person who sold it to me, eh?"

"The till receipt?" the woman said.

"No, I threw it away. I had no idea the thing was going to explode in my face like that, nearly blinding me."

"Bank statement?"

"How on earth could I have a bank statement? I only bought the damned thing three days ago."

The woman pointed to a large sign at the exit. "I'm sorry, sir, it's store policy not to accept returned goods without proof of purchase. But you can exchange it for another one." And she added, "They're on special today."

"What? Why would I want to swap it for another one? Clearly the design is faulty," he said. "And, wait a minute, how come you'll let me swap without proof of purchase, but you won't give me my money back? You know something, I could go to _Fair_ _Go_ with this sort of treatment."

The woman could hardly keep a straight face. Rob must be the best thing that's happened to her for a long time. "Head office set the rules, sir."

"OK. I want to speak to the manager," Rob said.

"He's on stress leave."

"Fine, the assistant manager."

"I am the assistant manager. I'm sorry, but it's store policy. No money back without proof of purchase."

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Rob looked as though he might throw the box to the ground in frustration, but Toni gently prised it from his fingers. The fluorescent lighting and last night's drinking have left him looking ghostly and pathetic.

"I'm sorry to be a pain. But–" Toni glanced at the woman's name badge, "Jayne, we need to get back to Nelson today to fly home to Wellington. Is there any way you could give us our money back? As assistant manager, you can do that, can't you?"

"We don't normally do refunds without proof of purchase, but OK. $29.99 wasn't it?" The woman took money from the till and hands it to Toni. "Have a nice trip."

Rob stomped ahead of Toni and seemed furious. He turned to her once they're outside the store. "Jesus Christ, woman, won't you leave me anything?"

Toni stopped still. "I'm so sorry. I thought I was helping."

He patted her arm. "Only joking. I'll get you to take all my stuff back in future. You've got a way with remedies." He looked heavenwards. "That must be it. Remedies...restitution...compensation. Owen said he'd received compensation. But salesmen get commissions, not compensation. Let's go the library."

"Why?" Toni felt drained, almost faint. She'd really thought Rob was mad at her and now he seemed as happy as a child off to the zoo. She didn't think she could stand this any longer; she just wanted some constancy, some stability.

"You'll see when we get there." He smiled and took a pace.

"No." Toni didn't move. "Rob, don't play games with me. Tell me – right now – why do we need to go to the library?"

He turned and touched her arm. "Are you all right?"

She nodded.

"OK, then. Who took out the policy on Artemis's life?"

"Artmor Investments Ltd," she said.

"Who owns that?"

"Artemis and Morgan Washburn. You told me they did." There was a throb at her temple. She closed her eyes. "No wait. Only him now, I suppose."

"Any reasonable person would. And that's what he implied. But what if he misled us? Let's go and see if he still owns it. We can check out the shareholders on the Registrar of Companies website. And the library has Internet access."

"But you've already checked."

"That was then, and this is now."

Toni mouthed 'fuck you' as he turned and led the way.

At the library, Rob typed as Toni watched over his shoulder. "Look here." He pointed to the screen. "We can search for the company name and see who the shareholders are. So – Artmor Investments is owned by Arcadia Lifestyle Ltd."

"But you said the Washburns owned it." Toni said.

"They did when I looked before. The important question is who owns the holding company." Rob typed quickly. "Well, who would have guessed it?" He sat back and grinned. "The sole shareholder of Arcadia Lifestyle is none other than one 'Huntly, Owen Ryan'. This means Owen effectively controls the proceeds of the policy. That was his compensation. And, in the words of a great man, this is all very fishy indeed." He looked up at her smug, triumphant.

Toni was on the verge of hyperventilating. She sat down and held her palm across her forehead.

"Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's bit stuffy in here, that's all," Toni said. "So tell me – honestly – how long have you known about the shareholders?"

Rob looked at his watch. "Approximately ten seconds." He must realise she's not happy about something. "I promise. Although I did get suspicious last night – actually, when we were at Arcadia. Anyway, Owen mentioned something about getting compensation."

Toni breathed deeply. "OK. Now, let's go and confront him."

"You're serious, aren't you? God, you scare me sometimes. No way. We've done what we needed to do here. I for one do not want to end up mounted as a trophy on Owen Huntly's office wall."

Outside the library Toni turned to Rob. "Oh, I really don't understand it. Owen seemed so, I don't know, heartbroken last night. How could I have been taken in like that?"

"Maybe you weren't." She felt Rob's arm envelop her shoulder and pull her close. "Not long after I started at the Dependable," he said, "I got stuck next to Ralph Gisborne at a company dinner. It was before he was MD. He was sales director at the time. And, among all the crap he told me about taking up golf and buying a good dinner jacket, he said, if I wanted to get on in this business, I'd have to understand how the salesman thinks. He reckoned the salesman is like a shark. Not because he's dishonest but, you know that thing about the shark – if it ever stops moving it dies – well, if the salesman every stops to think about what he does, he wouldn't be able to carry on. Maybe it's like that with Owen and his women. Maybe he made the fatal mistake of feeling something for Artemis. And now he realises he'll sink if he doesn't keep moving."

"I want to go home," Toni said. "Now."

#

On the journey north, Rob led their conversation all over the place. "I think I might look for something else when we get back," he said at one point.

"Like what?"

"Well, I always fancied opening up a left wing book shop, somewhere quiet like Exmouth – or maybe a place selling fishing requisites. Or why not both? Rods 'n' tackle on the right hand side, Marx 'n' Engels on the left."

"Are you serious?"

"No, not really. I might have been once upon a time, but this trip has reminded me how much I hate small towns, run by their little Masonic mafias. I guarantee if you scrape the surface in Exmouth you'll find some dodgy conspiracy at work."

Toni laughed. "Been watching too much TV again, have we?"

"Maybe. But all that business Morgan Washburn tried to sell us about Orion Park being just an idea Artemis was toying with was crap. There were full on plans for a huge property development. I should know, I signed the petition against it."

"What?" Toni wasn't sure she him heard right. "Did you say you signed the petition?"

"Yes. Of course I did."

So he could still surprise her. "How could you sign the petition when you don't live in Exmouth?"

Rob looked as puzzled as Toni felt. "I always sign petitions," he said. "In fact, I wrote on it 'Fuck off back to La La land, and leave your dollars behind'."

"I suppose I should ask why."

"The whole development was aimed at rich Californians looking for a nice safe bolthole once all their water has run out."

"What?"

"Artemis – I can't believe it was Owen – had figured out sooner or later all the water in California would be used up. So, Exmouth has more rain in a year than the Amazon jungle, and that means the one thing it's never going to run short of is water."

"How do you know all this?" she said.

"Owen can't keep his mouth shut, especially with you out of the room. Remember, he thinks I'm his best mate. He even told me about an abandoned mineshaft in the forest they were going to convert into a nuclear shelter. There was big money involved. I mean the standing timber is all native, and that alone is worth millions, even if they only cleared a fraction of the estate."

"So, no bullshit," she said. "Do you think Dr Washburn killed Artemis to stop the development going ahead?"

"Look, that does seem to be the likely conclusion to me but, if that is the case, why isn't Owen screaming bloody murder from the rooftops. Why hasn't your cute detective arrested him?"

"He wasn't _my_ detective."

"OK, why haven't the police arrested him? It must have been even more obvious to them than it is to us."

"Maybe we should go back and talk to them again. Surely, the fact that Owen is getting the proceeds must make a difference."

Rob mulled this over. "No. The business of Owen having an interest in the policy matters to us at the Dependable because he's an employee. But we don't have proof anyone has done anything wrong beyond Owen breaching his contract. Without proof of suicide or some solid non-disclosure, we have to pay up and shut up. We can go home, forget about it and not look back." He sighed. "And I doubt whether either of us will ever come here again."

"But I thought this was one of your favourite places," she said.

"It was," Rob said softly, "it's all ruined for me now though."

"Is it me? Have I ruined it all for you?"

"In a way, I suppose, but only because you made me face up to things, maybe made me grow up a bit. And that's good."

Toni drove on. Rob started rambling again. Once he gets home, she guesses, he probably won't speak to another sober person until Monday.

"When you think about it," Rob said, "memory is all a lot of crap, isn't it? I don't understand why we humans ever evolved to have long-term memory. Obviously short term memory is important, for remembering where you've put your car keys – and hey–" He reached across and lightly touched Toni's knee in a gesture she knew was sexually innocent, and added, "We'd have to keep introducing ourselves every five minutes."

Rob sat back savouring his joke. "Remembering the long past, though, what's the point of that? If I hadn't come back here now, it would have all stayed pristine in my memory, like it was when I was a kid. And I suppose that would have been a happy illusion but an illusion all the same. But one thing, coming back here has made me think about how well Chris and I got on as kids, and maybe, with the folks gone, I need to put a bit more effort in that direction – families are important, you know."

Driving more slowly today, Toni could take in the scenery. At Exville she asked Rob if he wanted to stop. He said it was a pit and they drove on.

"Rob, I've just thought of something. Did you tell Adam why we were in Exmouth?"

"No. Why should he be interested in what we were doing?"

"He might not be – but we might be interested in what he's been doing."

"Uh?"

"Look," she said, "you yourself said Adam grew his own dope."

"Careful now. I was only speculating."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. But let's say he does. Do you think he might have supplied Artemis?" She waited for the inevitable 'crap' or 'bollocks'.

Rob slapped the dashboard. "God, I bet you're right."

Toni thought he might climb out his seat with excitement.

"And more than that," he said, "Maia told us she'd had a terrible loss recently. She must have been a friend of Artemis."

"Have we got time to go back to talk to them?"

"I think we have to," Rob said and added with a straight face, "even if it means staying for another month. You could try _Starboard_ this time. No. What am I thinking? We must try to keep on the right side of Accounts – we'll share."

Toni laughed. "Phone Adam. And put him on the loudspeaker."

"Yes, ma'am." Rob dug out the Five Seasons card from the sheaf of receipts in his wallet, and dialled. "Hello, Adam. It's me, Rob Hamilton – we booked out this morning."

"Did you forget something, mate?"

"Well, yes, in a way," Rob said. "Adam, we never told you why we were down in Exmouth."

"That's none of my business, mate."

"Actually, we're from the Dependable insurance company, we're investigating the death claim for Artemis Washburn – Adam, are you still there, mate? Did you perhaps supply Artemis with any, um–"

There was a catch in Adam's voice; then he was resolute. "Maia told me Artemis was dying of cancer. She'd had it before years ago, but she said she couldn't go through all the pain again. She knew it was going to be the end this time."

"That's it. Oh, thanks, Adam mate. I promise this will stay between us."

He exchanged glances with Toni. She said what they were both thinking. "But she wasn't dying, was she? She was given the all-clear after the tumour was removed."

After this news, neither could speak for a while. Toni was first to speculate. "Owen might have been able to fix the information supporting the application so it looked as if the tumour was benign. Maybe Dr Washburn helped him."

"No. The medical information came directly from the hospital, not from Huntly or Washburn." Rob sighed. "There is an explanation but it's not very nice." He rested his hand on Toni's, as she gripped the gear stick. "You told me Washburn was an oncologist but I didn't think about it at the time. I'm sorry, because if had, we'd probably have worked it out sooner." He pressed her wrist. "Washburn told us Artemis had been his patient before they got married. So, although she'd had the all clear for her latest tumour, if Washburn, as her oncologist who'd cured her all those years ago, could persuade Artemis the hospital was wrong, and this tumour really was malignant, perhaps he knew she'd kill herself."

Toni turned the air con up into the red. "Oh my god, that's so horrible."

"Yes, it is, isn't it? But it all makes sense. If Artemis is dead, Washburn inherits Arcadia. Now he can make it into a reserve, and it will never be developed. Although Huntly loses the money he would have made on the development, he gets compensation through the policy his company owns. Everyone's happy."

Toni sniffed and said, "Except Artemis Inglewood Washburn – death claim."

"Ah yes, that small detail," Rob said.

Toni noticed how Rob took his hand from hers to pinch the bridge of his nose.

They drove for more than twenty minutes in silence, each of them trying to come to terms with this human vileness. Eventually, Rob laughed without conviction. "Look on the bright side; you've saved your employer $2 million dollars."

"Me?" she said. "Why me, not you?"

"I've already got what Andy Wu wants – Owen Huntly's head on a plate. Failing to reveal his interest in the policy proceeds is an immediate sacking offence. And, if he's sacked for misconduct, he loses all rights to future commissions. The shark is basically dead in the water."

"He'll still get the money from the policy though, won't he?" Toni said.

"No, actually he won't. This is one declinature I'll be happy to go to court on. And if he wins in the High Court, we'll appeal it. He'll never see a cent of it. I promise you that."

Rob held out his right hand. "Put it there, partner." Without taking her eyes from the road, Toni shook.

"You know something, Tones?" he said. She glanced at him – only Johnny had ever called her that – but he was oblivious and added, "We make one hell of a good team. And this is going to make our Mr Wu a very happy man."

48

Andy was still smarting from Samantha's snapping at him. It was only the third time he'd phoned this morning to check everything was all right. But the newsletter for expectant executives he'd subscribed to had warned him that the little hostess could become unusually temperamental in the first trimester.

"Andy." Cynthia took his jacket from the coat stand and held it open for him. "Two minutes to go. Sir Gerald has already gone through." As Andy slipped his arms into the sleeves she whispered, "Good luck," and left him.

Andy went to the window to touch the pebbles on the air con, one by one. They wobbled but kept their position. He breathed deeply three times and pictured the directors gathered in the Dependable boardroom. Most of the non-executive directors – the retired appellate judge, the liberal professor of economics, and the dame who's a champion of worthy causes – would pass for the members of an august civic body, perhaps the trustees of a generously endowed school or a commission of inquiry. They were worthy, earnest and good. Yet Andy suspected they must all the same be secretly thrilled to be rubbing shoulders with big money, and there was no mistaking who'd claimed that. When he'd first Googled Sir Gerald Leet after the head hunters contacted him, the phrases 'ennobled carpetbagger', 'capitalism, red in tooth and claw', 'insider trader suspect' had come up several times. Andy had ignored them.

In the boardroom, Andy greeted each of his fellow directors, and took his place to the left of Sir Gerald at the head of the boardroom table. Andy knew it would be a breeze to deal with the issues dear to the civic worthies – compliance couldn't faulted, social investment was up, cultural awareness never so alert – but he was not so sure about issues of money. And rightly so too, because soon it would become clear this meeting would not be a convivial exchange of mutual respect, a cross pollination of catholic ideas, followed by an excellent lunch. Rather, the two financiers, for whom there could be no greater concern than money, and no more heinous blasphemy than its slighting, intended to use the occasion to hold Andy Wu's arraignment, trial and, execution.

Sir Gerald skipped the usual opening courtesies. "Let's get to the key point. I've had a brief look at the numbers, Andrew, and frankly they don't look very impressive." He turned to his right. "Michael, you've done a bit of analysis."

On this cue, Michael piled in. First, he warned off the company secretary, with her fingers poised above the keys of her laptop, as though she were a pesky paparazza. "Don't you minute this." Then he pointed at Andy. "Have you been smoking something you shouldn't? Otherwise, I just don't get it. I mean, are you trying to wreck this company? And what's all this outsourcing to China crap? We won't have anything left of the company if we go the way you're proposing."

With the slightest movement, Sir Gerald touched Michael's arm. Michael shoved his board papers away, and sat back in his chair, arms folded. Andy noticed a twisted wire of a vein appear at Michael's temple.

"Mr Chairman," Andy said, "if I may talk to that point." He turned to the company secretary, smiled and said, "You may minute this". Certain he had the eye of the retired judge, he then said, "First, I can assure my fellow members of the board I am not on drugs of any description." This elicited some appreciative smiles and even a titter amongst the worthies. They were on his side but that didn't count for much. The other board members had been invited as witnesses, to make up the quorum and act as mute chorus; they would not be required to participate today.

Andy now alternated his gaze between the Chairman and his deputy; the time for courtesy to the others was over. "Second, I wish to confirm my strategy aims for superior growth, not immediate short-term gains that cannot be sustained in the longer term. And, as a key element of this strategy, it is my contention, that, by outsourcing non-core functions, we will be freed up to concentrate our efforts on more profitable core functions." Andy wished Samantha was here to listen to him.

For the briefest moment, Michael seemed lulled by Andy's eloquence but then said, "Profitable? Don't make me laugh. You and your gang of MBAs have wiped out any profits we might have hoped for."

"Michael does have a point there, Andrew," Sir Gerald said, as though he were an honest broker between them.

"With respect, Mr Chairman, I think one quarter is an unrealistically short period to judge a long-term strategy," Andy said.

"If we give you any longer, we won't have any more quarters to report on." The vein on Michael's temple had swollen, incipiently varicose. Andy couldn't take his eyes from this throbbing embossment and a cruel thought came to him: was there any chance it might rupture and give him some respite? Not yet, and Michael continued, "I mean, have you seen our share price today?"

"I think you'll find the whole market is down," Andy said but had forgotten the current share price. He'd meant to check market data before the meeting, instead he'd phoned Samantha. She apologised for snapping at him. She felt fine now the nausea has passed. They were pretty much settled on 'Victoria' for a girl and 'Robin' for a boy. Andy playfully asked Samantha how Robin was behaving today.

"Victoria has been a model of good behaviour."

Andy said nothing more. He held the receiver to his dumb, smiling mouth when he could have been checking essential financial information. Now he battled to retrieve an image of his computer screen: there were columns of prices, historical highs and lows. The numbers were in blue Courier but he can't remember whether the values were in cents or dollars.

"No, it is not," Michael said. His eyebrows resembled two black cats arched in spitting fury. They probably made him look angrier than he really was – perhaps not. "The market is way up, and we're way down. Let me educate you about our share performance," Michael said and reached into the briefcase by his feet. His face took on a purple tinge as he bent. "I've got a slide here that plots our share price."

Andy glanced at Michael's apoplectic head and thought, He can't be much over forty, but I wouldn't insure his life.

As the transparency wobbled in Michael's hand, ripples of light were cast onto the table. "Do we have an overhead projector handy?" he said.

Over there by the telex, dinosaur. "There's a digital projector built into the table." Andy said, as if helpfully. "You don't you have an electronic version do you?"

"No, I bloody well don't." Michael stood and held up the slide. "Look here."

There were axes with minute gradations and, hand-drawn between them, blue and red lines, closely parallel then diverging, all but unintelligible against the candy stripes of Michael's shirt and tie. "We're red, a notional composite index of quoted insurance companies is blue. Look, historically we're running with the pack, and, here, we're even a bit ahead but, there," Michael pointed smudging the line, "you take over, and it's all down hill." Michael flicked the evidence towards Andy.

Blue ink from the transparency was smeared like a daub of woad on Michael's forehead. If she were here, Samantha would stare ingenuously at the mark until Andy could no longer hold his laughter in check. Instead, he said, "Research has shown that obsessing about the day-to-day share price is strategically counter productive. That's old paradigm thinking."

Sir Gerald's mouth pursed in disapproval when he heard Andy's apparent disregard for money; it was the look of a presbyter eying a scanty collection plate. "I really think you need to make yourself clear on that point," he said. "Do I understand you right – you don't care about the share price?"

"Not at all, Mr Chairman," Andy said. "It goes without saying that increasing shareholder value is my principal concern. Simply, in my opinion, we shouldn't compare our short term share performance with traditional insurance companies."

"What do you think we should compare it with," Michael said, "the price of cocoa futures?"

No one laughed.

"I'm simply saying the market needs to understand our strategy is different from a traditional life insurer. We need to educate investors and analysts about the new paradigm we're forging and, once they understand, I'm confident the share price will reflect our real market value, with a premium, of course, for being market leaders." In the lengthening silence that followed, Andy realised his eloquence had not won over the decision-makers. Sir Gerald looked down at his papers as if in prayer. Then, oblivious to the shudder of disapproval that went around the boardroom table like a Mexican wave, Michael said, "Do you really not understand? This is not a dot fucking com start up we're talking about here, mate – it's a hundred and twenty year old institution."

Perhaps to postpone his deputy's imminent detonation, Sir Gerald now spoke. "Yes, Andrew, we need to get something clear. The shareholder consortium invested in an established insurance company – if we'd wanted something else we would have bought that. Frankly I've lost a lot of money by investing in the Dependable under your leadership."

"With respect, Sir Gerald," Andy said, "I hardly need to remind you that you won't lose any money unless you sell your shares."

"Oh, for Christ's sake!" Michael said. "Don't try to give us Finance for Dummies. We made more money before breakfast than you'll make this year."

Andy didn't react. "May I continue, Mr Chairman? I accept the share price may have fallen – temporarily – but I repeat, I am confident our strategy will more than compensate for this setback in the medium and long term."

Michael slipped his leash once more. "Hold on a minute. Let's get one thing straight here – whose strategy are you talking about?"

"The strategy I have crafted for the company in conjunction with the NST."

"What the hell's 'the nasty' when it's at home?"

"The New Strategy Team."

Michael shook his head and laughed. "With respect, mate, I think you'll find it's the board's prerogative to set strategy, not you and a bunch of kids wet behind the ears, straight out of business school."

Andy felt a rising urge to punch Michael in the face, but he'd never done that to anyone before, and Michael, who had aggression in his blood as naturally as others have haemoglobin, was an unlikely candidate for his first victim.

"I understood the board had delegated strategy to me," Andy said.

"I'm afraid that's not my understanding, Andrew," Sir Gerald said. "Certainly, it was your call to bring in the consultants – and, of course, you are accountable for that decision."

"I'm happy with my decision," Andy said. "I am confident we have applied bleeding edge business practices to turn the Dependable around."

Michael pointed an accusing finger at Andy's face. "Hey, let me tell you something, sinking a company is not the same as turning it around. This is a not a computer game you're playing. It's not Sim bloody insurance company. You can't press 'new game' once you've cocked everything up. This is real life, and it's all about real money."

An elegant voice came from the far end of the table. "And real people."

For a moment it seemed that Michael might turn on the heckler, but Sir Gerald intervened. "Indeed, Dame Ngurua, real people too, but our current concern lies with the financial aspects of the business." He gave her a cold look, then turned back to his deputy, and said, "So, Michael, tell us what changes to strategy would you recommend?"

Michael was clearly well prepared and could, no doubt, pull another scrappy but incontrovertible transparency from his brief case. "First of all we need to stop all this outsourcing to China crap, I mean, how the hell are we supposed to take a turn on assets when someone else has got their hands on them?"

Andy raised his hand. "Mr Chairman, I wish to have it minuted that if the board changes the strategy I have spearheaded, I will have no option but to resign as CEO."

"Well, that should boost the share price," Michael said with a snort.

Sir Gerald gave his deputy a reproving glance, and lightly touched Andy's arm. "Principle is a very nice thing for a young man to have, Andrew," he said, then added, "as, of course, is a good severance package." Turning back to Michael, Sir Gerald said, "What do you think about getting Ralph Gisborne back in as a caretaker CEO, Michael, while Christopher and the boys make up their mind about buying in?"

"He's a good man Ralph Gisborne – old school. And he knows the business inside out." Michael pondered the suggestion as though they hadn't made up their minds the day before. "And the market does always like that story about the wise old head brought out of retirement to save the company from the cowboys. Yep, that sounds good to me." Andy must have become invisible to them, because Michael added, "And we won't get any of this business school playground crap with Ralph Gisborne."

49

Owen Huntly sat in the same plump armchair in Morgan Washburn's study that Toni Haast had sat contemplating adultery. Owen would have liked the coincidence, had he known. He leant forward. "Here's a copy of the share transfer certificate of your interest in Artmor Investments." He slid the papers across the coffee table. "And here's the surrender of all my rights in Orion Park."

"So we're all settled then?" Washburn said. "And this ghastly business is finally dead and buried."

"Looks like it." Owen sat back and stretched his legs. "Pity about Orion Park, though," he added and grinned. "It really could have put Exmouth back on the map."

"Well, you know my views on that. If I'd had my way, Exmouth wouldn't have been on the map in the first place." Washburn rose from his chair and walked to a decanter on a silver tray. "Scotch?"

"Ok, why not? I don't pocket two mill every day."

"Water?"

"No, that's fine," Owen said and reached out for the tumbler. He took a sip, before he noticed that Washburn has poured himself only water. "Aren't you having one yourself?"

"No, no, I must go down to check on the fledglings – and we both know how hazardous the cliff path can be."

Owen thought this may be a hint about Artemis and glared at Washburn's back. Three paces across the room and with one strong fist, he could have pinned Washburn to the wall and throttled him until he spilled the beans about her death. Owen weighed up the heft of the lead glass tumbler in his hand. Right now, in one blow, this cold, scrawny man could be dead. And if he knew Washburn had killed her, he would have no choice. He would have to take revenge if he knew because when he was with Artemis he'd never looked over her shoulder at passing women. After sex he'd never imagined himself in the forest, fast after the quarry. But of course he didn't know Washburn had anything to do with her death and he didn't want to know. Artemis had called it his life force, his unstoppable urge to push on through. No one, she told him, had a life force to match his.

Owen had led Artemis up through the forest paths to an outlook. He took off his Swanndri and spread it over a mossy log the earth was reclaiming. He sat next to her, and looked down at the humus, aware, as she was not, of the business of death and decay taking place beneath the leaves.

"I've killed too many animals. My heart must be dead inside me."

"No, my love." She gripped his curls. "You are Orion the hunter. Every death has given you more life."

Owen smiled as he remembered a particularly athletic coupling in this very room but his head dropped as he thought, I would swap every woman I've ever had just for one more night with you, Artemis – my love.

Washburn brought Owen back from his reverie. "Did my wife ever tell you how the legend of Orion the hunter ends?"

Owen felt uneasy. There had always been something creepy about Washburn. He'd never said a word about their affair. Perhaps, the old bugger really had poisoned the scotch. After all, it was Orion, not Artemis who died in the legend. Well, if Washburn had poisoned him, Owen would make sure there would be two bodies to be picked up.

"No." Owen cleared his throat. "No, she didn't."

"Pity."

"Um, after Artemis – the goddess – found Orion's body, she turned him into some stars – that's the belt of Orion. Didn't she?" Owen said, hearing himself the trepidation in his voice.

"Quite right, she did. That's not all, though." Washburn paused, no doubt relishing Owen's unease. "Once he became a constellation, the hunter soon recovered from his loss and spent the rest of eternity chasing the Pleiades, seven beautiful nymphs in the constellation of Taurus."

Owen relaxed. "Only seven?" he said and broke into such a belly laugh that even Washburn couldn't resist joining in.

50

The soundtrack of their journey to Nelson consisted of Rob's broken talk about so many different things and Toni's distracted 'Yeahs?' and 'Reallys?' as she concentrated on the road. Near the airport, the same bird she saw on the way down hovered above the road and Rob told her it was an Australian harrier before she might ask him. They passed beneath its shadow, over fossilised road kill. From the charts on Washburn's study wall, Toni now knew the bird's name but she didn't correct him.

Rob guested Toni into the Koru lounge and made sure they sat together on the plane but she spent most of the flight observing through the window. She had no idea if or when she might fly this way again and wanted to take everything in. It was not so clear today, but Farewell Spit, the inlets of the Sound, a ferry ploughing the strait, an imagined glimpse of Taranaki snow would inform her dreams for years to come. The clouds thickened as they approached Wellington, the sea became flecked white and winds buffeted and shunted the plane around. The fuselage was shaken as though someone was trying to break in. They were rocked in their seats, but in parallel, not touching. It would have been the most natural thing in the world to hold hands now, but they resisted the urge.

After they've landed and the thought of parting became real, Rob speculated on ways to delay separation. The best he could manage was to offer Toni a ride in his taxi.

"Thanks, but Johnny is coming to pick me up. We could give you a lift too if you like," she said, but they both know how freaky that would be and could imagine the pathetic comedy of the situation.

"So, I'm sure we'll bump into each other tomorrow at the office," Rob said.

"Yeah. It'll seem strange though."

"Yes."

"Oh, it's Friday today. So it'll only be on Monday."

Kiss, publicly copulate, shake hands, or walk away without a sign of recognition: in the fifth season, surely they would have known the right way to part? They settled on a hug, made clumsy by their bags.

"Rob." Toni called him back. "I was thinking. You know when your dad told you about the five seasons, well, maybe he meant _you_ could go through five seasons in one day."

"You mean moods?"

"Well, yeah."

"Maybe. Thanks – I'll think about that. Um, Toni, I need to tell you something. It was me – I was driving when my parents were killed."

She swallowed. "I realised that."

Toni watched Rob as he turned to look at her through the back window of the taxi. She waved, but her mind was now with her husband and their children.

#

Despite spending all day getting ready, Johnny arrived late, breathless and apologetic. He offered her the car keys, but she let him drive. She saw familiar places anew, as if she'd been away for years. Once they were off the clogged highway, she relaxed and stretched her arm across the back of his seat and playfully tugged at Johnny's ponytail before settling her hand on his shoulder, inside his t-shirt. She turned to the back, let the boys risk spoiling their tea with the small treasures she'd gleaned from the trip, and mediated impartially, without threat or punishment, on the tales told on one another.

Toni will tell her family stories about Rob that make him sound like a harmless eccentric, not a potential rival for the marital bed, someone the boys must be persuaded to call 'uncle'. She'll show off a little, and Johnny will smile, not wholly certain about the technicalities of why but endlessly proud of her all the same. She'll forget her disappointment and promise a trip to see a glacier one day, and she'll let herself believe, for the while, that Johnny really is going to make a decent living from singing _Wheels on the bus_ to pre-schoolers. As she eats and praises the tea he's prepared, she'll listen to all the domestic news, and allow the cat for once to warm her lap at the table, and, in time, but not too soon, she'll invent a special family game that requires young boys to spot signs of the fifth season. She'll have secrets and no one to share them with, and, for this night, at least, her house will hold everything she'd ever wanted. Tomorrow is Saturday, and Toni won't get up early to walk. Instead, she'll nudge Johnny, naked and sated, from their bed to make her coffee.

#

After being with Toni for so long, Rob couldn't face home alone, and, besides, Oggi preferred the pet minder. He decided to go into the office to wait for dusk and a respectable drinking time. Hoping to connect with the open ocean once more, he asked the taxi driver to drive along the coast and into town through Brooklyn. He anticipated waves rolling in from the south and surfers bobbing like seals in the water, the white points of the Kaikoura ranges floating in the distance. But, ruffled by a northerly, it was an unsurfable rabble of a sea and the cloud had fallen low. Rob asked the driver to turn inland at Lyall Bay.

The overhead trolley wires along Onepu Road resembled musical staves. If they did record a tune, with the connectors as semibreves, spaced so far apart, it would have to be the most miserable of dirges. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Nothing is more human than regret; nothing is more regretful than being human. Who said that? Maybe no one has before. Rob thought he might write it down and send it to Owen Huntly for his _vade mecum_.

Downtown, Rob watched the home-going crowds on Lambton Quay, and looked up at the names of the long forgotten insurance companies that erected their grand buildings before disappearing along with their legal advisors. " _Sic transit gloria_ ," he said to himself.

"Hey, man, did you say you're going to be sick?" The panicky taxi driver shouted.

"No, mate. Never mind. Drop me here, please."

Rob had spotted the Wolseley from the taxi and watched it splutter and shudder to a halt, one skinny wheel on the pavement. It had the same cream and lemon paint job as the old family car. Rob dodged across the street to look inside. There was the red leather bench seat where Chris had stretched out, inch by inch, until he was fully reclining, his comic spread wide, his feet pressing his little brother against the door and its chrome blade of a handle. Rob had fancied himself snatching the splayed _Beano_ and scrunching it, but Chris was a strapping eight year old and Rob a mollycoddled five. Instead, he wriggled free and climbed between the seats to nestle on his mother's lap. Dad glanced his disapproval but said nothing.

He must have dozed in the soft, floral embrace for hours. They were already by the ocean when he woke fully, and Dad was in full flow. "Now, that is a sign of the fifth season."

Chris performed a push up on the backs of the front seats as he leant forward. The windscreen wipers flailed away the heavy rain, yet the sunlight was dazzling. Dad didn't take his eyes from the road for a moment as he reached into the glove box and clipped the shades onto his glasses.

"But, Dad," Chris said, "Miss Bethell told us there are four seasons."

"Ah, did she say there are only four seasons or did she only tell you about four? Because, if I'm not mistaken, when you have rain and sunshine together like this, it's a sign of the fifth season."

Mum sighed. She continued to smooth Rob's hair but reached for Dad's bare knee with her free hand. Chris launched himself backwards, trampolining onto the seat but no matter how long he stared Rob couldn't tell whether or not Dad was smiling; he still didn't know.

A tide of people was leaving Dependable House as Rob walked among the cubicles to his office. His departing colleagues greeted him like a man returned from a long sea journey. The warmth and familiarity of the organisation are at once comforting and stifling. On his desk, someone had neatly stacked five days' _Dom Posts_ , files, and notes in different piles. Numerous requests were recorded on his voice mail, and the inbox of his e-mail was dark with new messages. He touched familiar things: the gilt letters on the spine of a well-used textbook, the inside right hand corner of his in-tray where only he knows the metal is sharp, and he can flirt with laceration.

Rob picked up a message from his desk. He couldn't resist analysing and solving the problem in his head. He realised these things were part of him, and he of them. Comforted but restless, Rob prepared to leave. Just the weekend until he would see Toni again. He logged off his computer, snapped up the handle of his wheelie case, and, at the doorway, flicked the light switch. In the half darkness, he tried to picture her in his space. There was nothing, she'd not been part of his world at the Dependable – yet. He patted the phone in his jacket pocket. Compositions of lurid pixels, for sure, but he's got his treasured gallery – image after image of Toni, his new cause.

#

When the doors of the lift opened for him, Rob saw Andy Wu, ashen but strikingly handsome. He really did look like a movie actor from something arty, urban Japanese. But Rob couldn't suspect that Andy was already untouchable to those who knew about the coup.

Decommissioned, the consultants had decamped. Andy had gone to say goodbye to them and to hear one last time their 'Thank god, it's Friday – just two working days to Monday' banter, but the ideas incubator was empty. The rolled up systems diagrams stuck out from bins. Ralph Gisborne and his cronies were on show once more. Only Cynthia hadn't avoided Andy. She'd hugged him tearfully. "You were too good for this place."

Rob searched for an excuse to let the lift go, but Andy reached across to the control panel and held the doors open. Rob stepped in. Andy greeted him with a nod and said, "Is everything sorted out with Huntly?"

"Pretty much so. He's toast. I'll prepare a report for you on Monday." Rob fixed his gaze on the floor numbers that lit up and extinguished as the lift descended and counted down with them to his escape.

Andy drew him back. "You'll find out soon enough, so you might as well hear it from me – there's been a coup, and I'm out."

Rob looked at Andy. What could he say? He felt a pang of something like sympathy, but it wasn't that. It was more like the feeling of relief when, at the after match interview, the captain of the winning team is gracious and doesn't bring up the gouging at the bottom of the maul. You may recognise the feelings of the opposition: the exhausted players, fallen on their knees in despair, especially the one who fumbled the ball on the try line in the last move of the game. You understand the factors that might lead to sympathy, but a primal urge triumphs. No, Rob felt nothing for Andy. He had everything going for him, and this set back would be nothing more than a bullet point to be fudged on his glittering CV. Yet Rob's prolonged and all knowing 'OK' was open enough to imply sympathy.

They reached the parking basement and Andy held the door open for Rob. They stepped out although rob had no car. Should he ask Andy why he'd been axed? No, Miss Gore's version would be far more entertaining than Andy's self-serving exculpation. Oh well, Rob didn't claim to understand the ways of the boardroom. Everything he'd ever read about Sir Gerald Leet told him the man was a cold-blooded, money-grubbing bastard. So Andy had miscalculated somehow. Who could care? It was only the surprise of his sacking that could be interesting. And it would be heartless to ask who would be taking over. Besides, he'd never heard of Andy Wu before his appointment, so why should he know his replacement? Perhaps, this time, they'll head hunt, not just outside the country, but outside the bloody solar system. Vulcans are probably hot on downsizing.

Andy seemed to be struggling for words but Rob couldn't stand the silence any longer and said, "So, what are you going to do now?"

Rob thought for him, Get absolutely pissed, but Andy said, "My wife is pregnant. I want to take time out to be with her and the baby. We've decided on Victoria for a girl, and Robin if it's a boy." And, with this revelation, Rob thought he could have liked Andy Wu after all. But, if he was going to weigh up what might have been and what had actually happened, he would concentrate on why Toni had gone home to her family, and, late tonight, he'll get back to his apartment alone and more than a little drunk.

"Oh, good on you," Rob said and he reached out and gently patted Andy's shoulder. Andy laughed, boyish and vulnerable, human to the other at last. A long moment followed when neither man could muster anything to say and so they settled on another awkward laugh.

"Well, good luck, whatever you do," Rob said and they shook hands.

"Yes, you too – mate."
