His body was now in the boot and Sidney imagined him trying to claw his way out.

Judah said. ‘None of your bloody business.’

‘Just asking,’ Sidney said.

They drove past the service station, turned down to Port Napier. Sidney looked at the cemetery through the window and wondered if there should be streetlights down the rows of plots, so the dead might see where they were going as they walked around.

They turned left, went down a few streets, and at the end of one Brendan parked and turned off the lights.

‘Good, no police car here,’ Brendan said.

‘Guess that was all of them back there then,’ Judah said. ‘You get out, see if Moore’s come back. And be quick. They’ll send somebody else out here soon to wait for Caleb to show up, I’m sure.’

‘This is his house?’ Sidney asked. The front garden was well kept.

‘What do you think, dickhead?’

Brendan clambered from the car. There were no lights on in the house but at the front door an automatic light flicked on. Brendan stood stock-still, looking like the trespasser he was. When there was no movement from within, no door opening, no curtains parting, he kept moving. He knocked on the front door. Judah lit another cigarette and Sidney coughed. Brendan lifted the doormat, moved some rocks near the front step, could find no key. He turned to the car and shrugged in an exaggerated way. He walked back, opened the door, leaned his head in.

‘They’re not in,’ he said.

‘No shit,’ Judah said.

‘Well? Now what?’

‘Go round the back.’

‘Why?’

‘Just see if you can get in that way. Make sure they’re not in there.’

Brendan took a moment before shutting the door. Sidney watched him go around the corner of the house. The obnoxious cigarette smoke trickled up his nostrils. When Brendan reappeared he beckoned them to join him.

In the backyard, Brendan led them to an old shed. Beside it Sidney noticed freshly hewn dirt.

‘There a torch?’ Judah asked.

‘Don’t need a torch,’ Brendan said.

‘I can’t see dick.’

Brendan sighed, then caught himself. ‘I think there’s one in the glove box.’

He went back to the car. Sidney risked a glance at this man who held them captive. He seemed monolithic in the moonlight and his cigarette made his face orange, some obscene traffic light. He turned to grin at Sidney, lifted his eyebrows.

‘You see that light out there?’ Judah said. He pointed out to sea.

Sidney saw a small light out in the darkness. Could be a fire. ‘Someone’s camping out on Snake Island,’ he said.

‘Snake Island?’

‘It’s just out there a bit. People camp there.’

Brendan returned with the torch and flicked it on, coating the shed they stood beside.

‘This is what I wanted to show you,’ he said. He shone the torch on an old engine, a tin of fuel, some battered life vests. ‘Boat stuff,’ he said. ‘Reckon he’s got a boat.’