Ben had flung off his cricket gloves and was smacking his hips and his chest. For a moment, Gordon thought he was having a reversion to one of his childhood anxiety attacks, those Tourettish self-smacking tics which had faded since he was nine or ten; maybe the trauma and excitement was bringing them out from wherever he had buried them.

He wasn’t having an attack. He was searching his pockets.

‘The keys.’ Ben looked at Kelly. Norma was mouthing, ‘Oh no.’

Gordon’s heart skipped a beat. ‘The house keys?’

‘The car keys!’

So it was that when the police were trying to locate the inhabitants of the burnt-down house on the cliff side, three of those residents, instead of absorbing the grief and import of what had happened before their eyes, instead of comforting each other, instead of caring and nurturing and beginning to accept the magnitude of this event, were running up the dune path to the top car park. In front of the Beach Cafe, Ben said to Kelly, ‘This is where I think I parked.’

By the time Gordon—who had lagged behind, as he was assisting Norma—caught up, his memory came back.

‘This is where we got out.’

‘Your car has been stolen?’ a policewoman was asking Ben. ‘Shitty what people will do, even in a fire.’ Kelly recognised her as the sidekick police officer who had come to their house to deliver Frontal’s letter. To Gordon she said, ‘You the owner?’

Gordon nodded.

The officer took out her notebook, still shaking her head in outrage.

‘What kind of car is it?’

She stood with her pen poised for a long moment while waiting for Gordon.

‘Sir?’

Gordon’s head was shaking.

‘He doesn’t know,’ Kelly said.

‘He doesn’t know his own car?’

‘Give him a minute.’ Kelly put a hand on the back of Gordon’s neck. ‘He’ll get there.’

PERFECT PEACE

Perfect peace

A pity none of his family had the kindness to grant a dying man his last wish. Well, not a pity, Ron thought as he sped down the dipper where the road dropped into the bushland. An opportunity.