Vernon said, ‘That’s why I don’t know you. You boys from Trenton?’ They both nodded and left, the younger one tapping him on the shoulder with his notepad, perhaps as a warning. But Vernon planned to tell what had happened simply and honestly. If he went to jail, so be it.

He went back into emergency, where a new nurse was seated at the administration desk.

‘You got Sharon Wornkin in here still?’ he asked.

‘We do. You know her?’

‘I’m an old friend.’

‘The police told me you were to wait here.’

He drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘Just tell them I’m in her room when they get back.’

She sighed, looked down at her paperwork and gave him the room number. Vernon trudged down the corridor, brushing at his blood-soaked pants.

Sharon was sitting up in bed eating a tray of hospital food. When she saw him in her doorway her jaw dropped and she scooted her body a bit higher up in the bed, regarding Vernon with solemn eyes.

‘Moore?’

‘How are you, Sharon?’

She looked him up and down. ‘Where’d all the blood come from?’

‘That’d be Brendan’s.’

Sharon said slowly, ‘Figured something like that would happen.’

‘We just brought him in.’

‘He’s alive?’

‘Yeah, he’s alive.’ Vernon rapped his fingers on the doorframe. ‘Can I come in?’

She hesitated, then nodded. He sat in the chair beside her bed and leaned forwards. Sunlight through the lace curtain dappled the floor.

‘About what you did to me . . .’

‘Yeah . . .’ Sharon said.

‘You got nothing to say?’

‘I shouldn’t’ve done it.’ She rubbed her eyes with the balls of her palms. ‘For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about it. I really am. It’s been keeping me up.’

‘It kept me up, too. Scared me,’ Vernon said. ‘Didn’t think you were a person like that.’

‘I’ve decided I won’t be from now on.’

‘Good. That’s good to hear.’ He shifted in his chair. ‘What happened to you, anyway?’

‘Brendan Cahill. And Melbourne.’ Sharon looked away, and opened her mouth to say something else then shut it. Eventually she said, ‘Guess I got what was coming to me.’

Vernon said nothing to this. He looked out of the window and then stood up. ‘I better go.’

‘No, wait,’ Sharon said. ‘You and Bill Kelly are mates.’

Vernon said, ‘Yeah. We’re friends.’

She sighed. ‘I was afraid of that.’

THIRTY-FIVE

SHARON WORNKIN

She sat with Peter in his car, overlooking the brown expanse of Port Napier to Snake Island. That muddy tide so ineffective, lapping at the reeds and muck and rubbish. The coroner, Garry, was already out in the boat, waiting. He looked unsure of himself, that man, the way he sat with his hands in his lap, looking at the water over the side like he was about to be swallowed up.

Peter said, ‘You shouldn’t go, Mum, really. Should you?’

‘I’m alright.’