I take a mouthful of beer. ‘Don’t ask him about Skye.’

‘They broke up?’ he asks.

Of all the sick twists of fate. ‘Skye was living with my dad.’

‘What? Living with, as in –?’ Sal wrinkles her nose. ‘Ew.’

‘My dad treated her way better than that scumbag.’

‘Honestly, Charlie, what’s with the aggression?’ Sal says.

‘Skye and my dad were engaged. She was pregnant.’ I look from Ryan to Sal. They aren’t making the connection. ‘Was. I told you about the woman who had the car accident, the one who was living with my dad.’

‘That was Skye?’ Sal asks. ‘Skye’s dead?’

Ryan moans. ‘No.’

Maybe it was a good thing Finn showed up before I had a chance to tell them the whole truth. But if they see Finn again, he might tell them Dad and I tried to kidnap Beau, and I’m not certain now how they’ll take that. I want to keep them firmly in my corner.

‘Finn used to beat her up,’ I say.

Ryan scowls at me. ‘Why would you think that? Did Skye say that?’

‘That’s why Skye left him and ended up with my dad. Finn was hitting her.’

‘He’d never,’ Sal says. ‘I can’t believe she’d even say that.’

‘You don’t know the whole story,’ Ryan says. ‘They had an intense thing going on – mutually intense.’

‘She got pregnant really young. She more or less trapped him,’ Sal says. ‘We loved her, but –’ She lifts one shoulder in a shrug.

‘She was kind of hysterical, Charlie,’ Ryan says. ‘Sort of crazy.’

Sal agrees. ‘Didn’t you get that vibe?’

I’m dumbfounded by what I’m hearing. ‘Whoa, she’s dead, guys. This is not cool. And from everything I know, Skye was the victim of the story. There’s no version of crazy that makes it okay –’

‘Everything you know?’ Ryan says. ‘You never met her?’

Sal interrupts us. ‘Wait, does Finn know?’

‘That she’s dead? Yeah, he knows. You didn’t see how devastated he was? How he was mourning? Or were you distracted by his grope?’

Sal flicks me on the shoulder. She turns to Ryan. ‘I’m going to see if I can talk him into staying in town a while longer. We can all go back to Addison Street, crash there.’

Ryan nods. ‘I’ve got nothing against your dad, Charlie, but him and Skye? I don’t know, man.’

I don’t want to have this discussion. I watch Sal walk through the crowd and inside the pub. I look at the head-high wall of cream and steel-blue tiles, the rust-coloured wall above them. I see a long-haired blond surfie with his back against the tiles, blowing smoke over the head of a girl dressed like Hiawatha before moving in to kiss her. A swarthy guy standing next to the jukebox watches them like he’s at the drive-in. Finn smiles as Sal walks towards him.

‘Ryan, how can you think it was okay for Finn to hit Skye?’

‘I don’t think that’s okay. I don’t think it ever happened. They argued a lot. But I never saw him do anything remotely physical. You might want to think about why your dad’s telling you that. Sounds like a classic power move.’