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‘Yeah. Sorry. You punched me.'

‘Yeah, I did. Ha. Good.'

Daniel stayed sitting on the ground. He said, evenly, ‘I shouldn't need to prove to you I'm not a madman.'

‘Why's that?'

‘Helen, you know me. You know me better than that.'

‘But I don't, Daniel.'

He looked up at her. She meant it. She wasn't asking. He didn't know where to start with her confusion. He did everything for her. Everything for her and the kids. Gave them everything.

She must have seen something, forgiven him something because she said, ‘Get in the car. And tell me from the beginning.'

‘There is no beginning. That's the problem.' Daniel got up. He'd tell her. He'd tell her all that he could think of. He needed to tell.

The police car was parked outside the house when Helen arrived. A couple of cars remained on the front lawn. Helen parked in the garage, her headlights catching the drop sheet that the kids had draped over their work in progress, a wonderfully misshapen eagle that they were making for Daniel for Christmas. It had refused to take shape until Samuel had come up with the idea of putting metal spikes onto the tray, so they could build its legs and its outstretched wings.

She went back out the front and asked the police if there was anything she could get them but they had takeaway coffee and the police radio on.

Inside, the party was over. Rosemarie was asleep on the couch with a leather jockstrap on her head. Someone had written on her forehead in texta.
Property of Rock Machine MC.
Helen hoped it was not permanent marker.

Leonie came in from the kitchen. ‘Bumpy night.'

Helen nodded.

‘Kids are good. Other girls have caught taxis, pretty soon after the police car arrived.'

‘Can you look after the kids tomorrow?'

Leonie nodded.

Helen went on. ‘You're going to hear strange things. Maybe in the newspapers. None of it is true.'

Leonie's lips went tight like they had always done when she was angry and trying not to show it.

‘Helen! Great party.' Rosemarie was pointing at Helen from the couch. Helen squeezed her sister's hand but went to the couch to give the bad news. Rosemarie was very drunk. ‘I gotta say this, as a friend. Your husband has fucked up my husband's business, but you, you're all right by me.'

‘There's been a fire. At the factory. Brian has been hurt.'

‘What? No.'

‘I'll take you to the hospital.'

Rosemarie started keening. It was a shrill, piercing howl that wouldn't stop. Helen tried to hug her but she kept screaming in her ear.

The half-moon tumbled in the river like a discarded piece of paper. It lit the debris and building materials in front of the old hotel and made oddly shaped shadows that reached towards Daniel as he stood at the front door, looking out. The neighbourhood kids had long considered the place haunted, even before the mad Italian had offed himself inside.

Daniel closed the door and bolted it. He could still see because the moonlight was everywhere through the front windows, not blue like in the movies, but a dull white. He went up the stairs. He went to the spot on the first landing that overlooked the bar area where he knew the wood was scored by a rope burn. It could have been anything really. The whole place had dings and scratches and lumps and wounds. But Daniel knew what the mark was.

He'd lied to Helen when he'd said he knew what his father was like. He didn't. He knew he needed company, that he could not be too alone, but he had seemed fine just before the end. No fierce-eyed screaming at postmen, all of whom young Danilo's father had considered spies or cuckolds. Nothing like the afternoon he'd chased, cornered and tried to strangle the cat after it had scratched him. There had been no displays, no outward symptoms or cries for help.

He smoked like a chimney, of course. Pieta Longo had given up the grog, when Daniel came back. Drank black tea all day. And he had mantras and pride. ‘We're building this, Danilo. We're building this thing. That is all that matters.' Daniel's father taught him the trades,
enough to get by on. He got him an apprenticeship as a plasterer. He'd ensured that Daniel got an electrician's ticket too. And he gave him advice. ‘A man looks after his family. Not like me, Danilo. You are strong.' Call me Daniel from now on. ‘A man is strong, for everyone. Respected. Looked to.' It was possibly old village stuff, Daniel now thought, or what Pieta had failed to do, but Daniel loved his father and he had not had his father for so many years and the truths and tips Pieta handed him were like a pat on the head and a kiss on the cheek. Daniel had hungered for them. And also the easy company of other men working without much talk, just odd swearwords or the occasional complaint about the radio station.

Daniel had gone to Bali with a couple of workmates. His father had insisted. His father had never told him about the debts. Nor about the worry. Nor that he had started drinking again. Daniel didn't know him at all.

And now there was Blyte and now all of it was gone. Daniel grabbed the balustrade and yelled into the empty bar. ‘You prick. You fucking prick. You fucking, fucking, fucking prick.'

Daniel slept on a pile of drop sheets upstairs woken only occasionally by the scampering of river rats on the warm December night. The sunlight surrounded him early so he started working.

He found the replacement rosette out in the yard and dragged it onto a trolley, pushing it into the bar room. He found the cable Hua and Nadif had been using and rigged a pulley leading to the upstairs balustrade. He went up into the manhole and crawled his way along the roof cavity and dropped a weighted line down through the hole for the electric light. He went back down to the floor and tied a stronger wire to the string and went back up again and dragged wire up through the ceiling attaching it to a hoist. It was an easy job for two workers, but not an impossible one for Daniel alone. His shoulder felt pretty good. He worked slowly, hoisting the rosette up a metre at a time until it clunked into position up on the ceiling.

Then he tied the cable off right next to where his father had once tied his rope.

After breakfast the kids went with Aunty Leonie to her house so they could go to swimming lessons from there. Maybe they'd have lunch with their cousins. No, they couldn't take the puppy.

Helen drove to the address Daniel had given her. The house had no garden at all. It was like a prison.

The woman who looked at Helen through the security screen was small and ungroomed. Her eyes were dull. She might be medicated.

Helen said, ‘I'm looking for Amis Blyte.'

‘He doesn't live here.' He used to. It was clear. A bad past.

‘Could you tell me where I can find him?'

She shook her head fearfully. ‘No.' She started to close the door.

Helen said, ‘Please, Mrs Blyte. He's doing something to my husband.'

The door paused halfway.

Helen said, ‘I don't know what or why but I need to find out. I need your help to try to stop it. Please.'

She was looking at Helen with sympathy but her head was shaking.

‘So I can speak to him.'

‘Don't do that. Don't.' She opened the security door and Helen followed her into the lounge room.

A sullen fat boy sat on the couch playing a computer game. He looked up at Helen as though she was a passing fly.

Mrs Blyte said, ‘I told him, if Amis was after him, there's nothing he could do.'

Helen looked at the trembling mouse of a woman. It was inconceivable, but she had to ask. ‘Are you and Daniel, were you ... seeing each other?'

The woman looked agog.

‘Is that it? The reason.'

‘No.' She looked at the boy as she said, ‘A very kind man took me to coffee twice. And he died. I know it was Amis. I know.'

‘But why would ... Why is Amis after my husband's business?'

She flicked her eyes to the boy again, but tossed her head away from him in a tiny act of defiance. ‘He's probably not. Amis likes doing things to people.'

‘But why choose Daniel. Why do it to us?'

‘Run. Get your husband and go. Go anywhere. Go.' The woman was terrified. Terrified for Helen.

It made Helen whisper, ‘Why don't you?'

She smiled like a twisted grimace. She shook her head.

Helen saw the framed photograph on a dresser in the corner. She went closer. The woman and the boy and...

‘Amis insists.'

Helen felt her stomach lurch.

‘If I take it down, Trent tells him.'

Helen thought she might be sick.

Amis has a radio on but hears no news reports about a mad pyromaniac. He looks at the Daniel file on his computer. An insurance enquiry about the factory might legitimately be made to police.

The telephone rings. Not Amis's mobile. The landline that Amis uses when he's not being Amis. He picks it up, says simply, ‘Yes?'

‘Mr Armstrong?'

Ha. ‘Helen! What a wonderful surprise.'

‘Look, I know this is out of the blue, but ah, you said if I ever needed to talk.'

‘It would be my pleasure, Helen. How's that puppy doing?'

‘Good. This isn't a social call, Mr Armstrong.'

‘Yes, Helen.'

‘It's my husband. He's got into all kinds of trouble. And I don't know what to do. Who to talk to.'

Amis notices his left hand is squeezing him, kneading his erection.

‘Can we meet?' she asks, scared and breathless.

Helen watched Armstrong who was really Amis Blyte come down the steps of the flats. He got into a white car and drove out towards the park she'd mentioned on the other side of the city. She'd used the card he'd left her for the phone call and the real address from his ex-wife Sharon Blyte to find him.

She grabbed the multigrip from the car seat and went up to Amis's
flat. She placed the open mouth of the tool around the doorhandle as Daniel had once shown her. These kinds of locks were weak, but it was all in the timing. She gave it a sudden wrench but it slipped. She tried again, but didn't have the strength to make the trick work.

The kitchen window was next to the door. It had flywire but no security screen. She pushed at the aluminium but the window was locked. Helen looked around the courtyard of flats. Amis's car had been the only one in the car park. She lifted the multigrip and hit it against the window near the handle. The glass cracked and when she hit it again it smashed and fell, half the window collapsing inside onto the sink. She took down the now slashed flywire, reaching in to unhook the lock. She slid the window open before hoisting herself up and into the sill, her knee getting caught in her skirt as she tried to scramble in. Some burglar.

The flat was barely furnished. On a table in the lounge room was a computer. There was half a bottle of scotch and a glass, and on a manila folder, Daniel's paperweight. It was the misshapen clay stove they'd bought in Tasmania. She turned on the computer and opened the manila folder. She found a hairclip. It was one of Frances's, a colourful mermaid. The file was full of personal and business details, facts and figures; bank statements and insurance summaries; a recent letter from Daniel's mother. Helen found the committal form with her signature.

She found another page full of doodles and writing. She noticed her name.
Helen.
It was circled a lot of times.

She closed the file and turned to the computer. It was password protected. Reflected in the screen she could see Amis standing inside the room. She turned.

He smiled. ‘Saw your Volvo round the corner. It did seem unlikely. You've got too many friends.'

She edged back until she was against the table. She reached behind her, trying to clasp the paperweight.

He said, ‘Daniel has perseverance, but you have guile. Much more dangerous than brute force, I think.'

He stepped forward and she flinched which only seemed to make him smile as he snatched the file from her hand. ‘Is Daniel here?'

Helen thought quickly. She might be able to escape if he thought Daniel was in the bedroom.

‘No he's not. You're not a good liar, Helen.'

He took out a gold lighter and set fire to the file holding it up under the flame. ‘Don't you two do anything together?'

‘Your wife will be talking to the police about now.'

He dropped the flaming file into the metal rubbish bin. ‘I don't think so. She's tried that before. The police are wonderfully logical. They like reasons. Nice little breadcrumb trails that they can follow. She's cried wolf too many times before.'

He came towards her again and she stepped back into the middle of the room.

‘Helen, you're breaking my heart, girl.' He typed in a password and called up a folder. He deleted it.

Helen drifted towards the passage ready to make a run for it.

‘How are Sam and Frances?'

She stopped. ‘They're safe.'

He had the paperweight. He was turning it. ‘You sure?'

She was less sure now than she had been. He could know about Leonie. And swimming lessons and all kinds of things that weren't a secret. She wasn't sure. He had Frances's hairclip.

The computer had deleted the file. Smoke rose from the rubbish bin. He moved towards her.

She said, ‘Why are you doing this?'

He grabbed her arm above the elbow.

She tried to shake him off but he held tighter until it hurt.

‘Sharon has delicate arms, like a bird. Yours are stronger. You're like a filly. A strong young filly, not yet broken in.'

He made her drive him to the old hotel in her car. Helen couldn't think what else to do. If he did have the children she needed to buy time. She hoped Daniel would know what to do – something spectacular that would rescue them both from this evil man.