‘What do you mean you were robbed?’ said the larger bloke.

Sharon had moved closer to Brendan, whose eyes met Ernie’s, and something passed between them to which Sidney was not privy.

‘Sidney was in the car, waiting for you,’ Ernie said. ‘A place I’ve often spoken about being unsafe with you lot.’

The young one said, ‘We don’t know anything about all that. We’re just here to pick up the stuff. That’s it. Just stick to what happened.’

‘I’ll say what I like in my own house.’ Though the venom in Ernie’s words was still present, the Melbourne blokes seemed far less affected by it.

The younger one smirked wider still. ‘Meant nothing by it.’

Ernie did not seem appeased. He looked at Sidney before saying, ‘He was in the car waiting. Weren’t you, mate?’

Sidney nodded, winced, trying to make it plain to them all that he was still hurting. His thoughts on his daughter.

His father continued, ‘And this bloke comes up outta nowhere and sticks a gun in at him and orders him to drive the car someplace else. So he drives out of there and on the way to wherever this bloke was taking him, he hits a roo. We went looking for him when he didn’t come home. Found him on the side of the road, all banged up.’

‘Sharon here said the car we found belongs to some old man named Moore?’ the young one said. ‘Isn’t that right, Sharon?’

Sharon said, ‘I could’ve been wrong about that.’

The younger one smiled. ‘Could’ve been. But were you?’

‘It looked like his car but could’ve been someone else’s.’

‘But you don’t know him?’ the young one asked, looking pointedly at Sidney. ‘Was he an old guy? This was completely unprovoked? How’d he know you were out there?’

It wasn’t unprovoked. It just had nothing to do with these blokes from Melbourne. Sidney knew his father couldn’t let them know that, though. If Ernie lost this client in Melbourne because of this mess at the very best he’d be out of business. Who knew what the worst looked like?

Ernie answered for him. ‘No idea.’

‘You telling us all that product’s in the wind, so to speak?’

Ernie shrugged. Brendan, who up until this point had seemed fitted to the wall, said, ‘We’ll get it back.’

‘How?’

Now Brendan seemed adrift. He said, too quickly, ‘Whoever it is, they’ll be local.’

‘How the hell would you know that?’ the big one said.

Brendan shrugged. Didn’t look directly at them.

Ernie finally said, ‘They wouldn’t’ve known we were out there otherwise. Unless someone from your neck of the woods let the road name slip? That amount of product worth stealing?’

The big one answered, ‘No amount of anything is worth stealing from us.’

There was a pause. Sidney felt the tension in the room, felt how defensive and bitter each of the men were. The younger one, though, seemed at ease. Like he had been born in these types of situations.