‘If it’s Saturday, I’m going to the races.’ I knew the races were on in town, but I hadn’t known, until I said it, that I was going. Somewhere in my boozy sleep I had decided that I was going to launder the money like every good crook does: on the horses. It needed laundering because TV-crime knowledge tells me the serial numbers would be marked by the banks and the police. And an innate and unpleasant sense of cunning suggested Mick could be very useful in that laundering.

Mick leaps to his feet, and rubs his hands together.

‘Bewdy. I love the races.’

The races in Waterglen are an odd affair. There are bookmakers, punters, and usually horses, but most of the action happens elsewhere: on the big-city courses watched on TV screens. The Waterglen racetrack is a pleasant enough place: a well-maintained little grandstand, a bar, plenty of white railings, and a marshalling yard that has green grass, some roses, and other areas of lawn. I guess going to the races, whether you’re betting on the local chaff-burners or some bolter on the other side of the country, can be a good day out. The idea is making me sick-nervous because I have no idea what I’m going to do. My barely-thought-through plan is to give money to the bookies in small amounts, and hopefully I’ll win some back. I know I’ll be worrying that everyone is watching me and that maybe the owner of the cash is in the crowd stalking me.

While Mick is getting himself organised, I take a brick of notes out of a bag in the linen cupboard, remove a fistful of hundreds, shove them in my pocket, and put the rest of the brick in the toolbox in the back of my ute. In the fog of my hangover, I know things are happening too quickly. I’m allowing myself to jump ahead on slim assumptions that will almost certainly lead to trouble. I should have either put the money back in the mailbox or told both Elaine and Ben that it had arrived and that I didn’t want it. Take it, and leave me alone. Instead I am creating the fabled web of intrigue, and somehow that’s what I want, I need. In my next stroke of madness, I go to the old dress-up box at the end of the house, rummage through, and find a holster and the large toy pistol that goes with it. I strap it beneath my shirt, under my arm. The motivation for doing this is unclear.