‘Yes, Dad’s.’
‘In the river,’ I said. Russell had released me. I pushed myself upright, so the two of us were sitting now, side by side, facing the water. How many hours had we spent just like this as kids? Watching the water. Quiet and numb, broken and trying to mend ourselves in the aftermath of something Dad had done. Russell raked his hands through his hair. Dragged his fingernails down his stubble. I could hear it. It was so quiet, now. It was like the bush was listening.
‘Why didn’t you come to me?’ Russell said.
‘Because I didn’t want to poison you with it, too.’
‘Oh, what bullshit,’ Russell moaned into his palms. ‘It has always been us against him! The two of us, together! Why would it have been any different this time?’
I said nothing. My throat was dry as bone. An engine hummed. Somewhere up there, beyond the ridge line. I turned and saw the flashing of blue and red lights against the silhouettes of gums. The lights moved on, but not completely. They were close. ‘Are you hurt?’ Russell asked.
I thought about it. About everything he’d just said. The women. Linda, Marian, Chloe, and all the others. I made a decision. I folded my arm carefully against my body. Slowly. So as not to be obvious. ‘No.’
We sat for a while longer. Russell trying to take it all in, I supposed. Trying to come to terms with the fact that his brother and his father were going to make national news the following day as cold-blooded killers. No news outlet in the country was going toleave out the fact that Russell had killed a man himself on duty that weekend. They were going to show his face while they showed footage of my father’s car being dragged from the river with his body in the front passenger seat. Nothing was going to be the same for Russell ever again. He’d hated the attention he got for coming out of the closet five years earlier. This was going to be a nuclear bomb dropped on his world. He had the jittery look now of a shell-shock victim as he turned his distant eyes on me.
‘Hey, listen,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘You and I are probably not going to get to talk for a while.’
‘At least not without a recording device being present,’ Russell grunted.
‘I want to say …’ I gripped my throbbing arm. The hotness and sickness was in my neck and throat now. ‘I want to …’
‘Jesus. Really, Evan? Now?’
‘I saw you …’ I managed. I cleared my throat, which seemed to help. ‘After the big fight. After you came out, and you clocked Dad. We hadn’t spoken for … I don’t know. Two years?’
I told him about the encounter. About how I’d been in the Sydney CBD with Delle, catching dinner and a show to celebrate her birthday. We’d been in an Uber on Macquarie Street, and I’d turned and looked out and spotted my brother sitting on a bench at the top of Martin Place, a concrete and sandstone wonderland behind him, the gold lights of fancy restaurants and cafes, legal people leaving their offices and running for the train. I almost hadn’t recognised him. He looked smart. Stylish. He looked like a man killing time before a date. All dressed up, somewhere to go. What had fallen most uneasily into place in my mind hadn’t been the nice outfit but the smile on his face. He’d been talking on the phone, an almost conspiratorial smile crossing his features, his eyes bright and full of mischief as he listened to the response and then cracked into a laugh.
‘You looked happy,’ I said now. ‘It was weird to see that.’
Russell was quiet.
‘I felt happy, seeing you,’ I said. ‘And surprised. And what a sad thing that was. Because it shouldn’t have been weird or surprising to see you like that.’
‘You should have stopped and got out and said hello.’
‘Next time,’ I said.
The sound of voices up on the hill seemed closer now.
‘Okay,’ my brother said. He took a deep breath. ‘I’m going to go up there and talk to the cops. If they lay eyes on you, they’ll probably shoot you. They’ll all be onto it by now, Evan. Dodge would have told them. It’ll be spreading like wildfire. They’ll know you did this because Dad was the one. Because you were covering for him. Now he’s missing, and they will be thinking that you’re armed. They’re going to be champing at the bit to be the person to bring you in. But I’ll tell them you’re going to cooperate.’
I nodded. With my good hand, I took my gun from the back of my jeans and handed it to my brother.
‘You didn’t call me in to help you before,’ Russell said. He groaned as he got up. ‘But I’m here now, Evan. Okay? It’s all going to be all right.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. I felt Russell’s hand on the top of my head. Reached up and touched it. Tried to stay upright, though that gentle pressure of the palm on the top of my skull threatened to collapse me completely. The waves of dizziness had started. The blood was slowing in my system. ‘Thanks, Rus.’
Russell moved off. I listened to him climbing up the embankment. When he was far enough away, I lay down and asked the venom to take me away.
After a few shallow, dry breaths, it did.
ROB
He came in just as the rain eased up and the sun started setting, lighting puddles in the gravel beyond the pub door a blazing gold. Rob looked up from behind the bar, where he was checking off the stock list before the afternoon crowd of locals was joined by the evening gaggle of out-of-towners. He felt a whump of terror hit his sternum, sharp and painful, like a thrown rock. Russell Powder wiped his boots off on the rug Rob placed there when it was wet, and came in.
