Lucky waited at the entrance to Victoria Park, squinting vaguely through the tinted spectacles that made him look, thought Emily, like an old-timey racketeer. They greeted each other by lightly squeezing hands and walked in the direction of Glebe Point Road. The sounds of traffic streamed like heavy colours into the park: the compression brakes, the bumpy rumble of trucks and buses. The dried-out grass, planted too late in August, blew away in dead tufts down towards a central pond. Uphill in the park stood a boy and girl flying kites, remote as statues, while the kites too looked frozen in the air.

‘Let’s begin with a mild scolding,’ Emily said playfully.

‘I can take it,’ Lucky said. ‘Don’t spare me.’

‘You weren’t truthful about the nature of your money problems after the shooting. You told me you made poor business decisions, but I know you developed a gambling problem.’

‘It’s true. For some time I had a serious problem. How did you find out?’

If Lucky held back information, then Emily felt she should, too. Her reply was instantly equivalent: ‘I’d rather not say.’

‘Hey, doesn’t matter. The gambling is behind me. I’m out!’

‘It’s bad for both of us if you lie. I have a lot riding on this job. A commission for the New Yorker is a big thing for someone like me. I have nothing else going on, career-wise. And you want your story told, don’t you? If you lie, the story might be killed during the fact-checking process.’

‘No, but I want you to make me look good, or make me look not terrible. People think gamblers are arseholes. The worst kind of addict.’

‘Don’t embellish your life. You don’t need to. You’ve accomplished a great deal already,’ said Emily.

‘I’m not so sure. If you write about the gambling, make sure you state I had a gambling problem only after the shooting. I probably burned through six hundred thousand dollars. I was a bad case. Out of my mind.’

‘How does someone lose that kind of money?’