Deb’s sister Sammy was holding forth to a rapt audience on Sunday when I walked out of Deb’s kitchen clutching a cold drink. Sammy was a bank teller with two children and a big, bald husband named Clarke. The tiny woman next to her was a manager at Foodworks, where Deb had once introduced us. (‘Peta’s got four kids. Hard to believe, eh?’)

I didn’t recognise any of the other people in the Olsens’ backyard except Deb’s husband, who was stationed at the barbecue in a cloud of smoke and flies. The men gathered around him were holding stubbies. A swarm of kids shuttled between a wading pool and their mothers, who were huddled on the back patio under a shade cloth, hanging on to Sammy’s every word. Water pistols were squirting. Someone was screaming. The sun beat down like a hammer because there were no trees in the garden; Deb’s house was part of a new mini-development stuffed with oversized dream homes on looping cul-de-sacs—the kind of buildings my dad called ‘bob-a-jobs’. The few saplings scattered around were spindly and parched-looking. The grapevine wasn’t doing well.

I could feel a headache blooming behind my left eyebrow.

‘Wait. Who lost it?’ Peta asked Sammy, as I drifted towards them. ‘Scott or Blaine?’

‘Blaine,’ Sammy replied.

‘That’s what the cops say, at least.’ Clarke was one of two men listening to his wife. The other man was elderly and bald, with the raw, freckled skin of a redhead who’d spent too much time in the sun. I wondered if he was Deb’s father.

‘Yeah.’ Sammy nodded. ‘I mean, who knows? The police reckon Blaine attacked Scott but…’ She trailed off, shrugging.

‘Blaine Fryer’s about forty kilos wringing wet,’ said Peta. ‘I don’t see why Scott Rooney had to put him in hospital.’

‘Concealed weapon,’ the old bloke growled. When everyone looked at him, he said brusquely, ‘Why not? I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s all about drugs, with that mob.’

‘Yeah, but just think about it.’ Clarke’s voice held a slight edge as he addressed the man who may or may not have been his father-in-law. ‘You’ve got two parties on opposite sides of a messy divorce. You don’t think that’s significant?’

The old bloke sniffed. Sammy said, ‘I reckon there’ll be a complaint.’ She was darker than Deb and more angular.

Her husband shook his head. ‘In this town? Not a chance.’ ‘What about the Police Integrity Commission?’ someone chimed in.

Someone else laughed. ‘I’d back Joyce Rooney against the Police Integrity Commission any day.’