‘Black Wind is on the way,’ said Ahab.

Davey grimaced. ‘How long ’til it hits?’

‘An hour. Maybe two.’

Davey sucked his teeth, then turned and looked out over the water from the bow. Ahab followed his eyes. The aluminium tiller-steer boats were just in view. ‘An hour . . .’

Abalone fishing was a strange business. It required divers, who were down there under the water now, to hunt for what were technically sea snails. The thick inner layer of their spiral shells was a source of iridescent, colourful mother-of-pearl, but it was their flesh that was the prize – delicious raw or cooked, it sold like gold in Asia. Tasmania supplied about 25 per cent of the world’s yearly abalone harvest.

On those smaller boats all around the Absconder were deckhands, staying above wherever the diver was fishing below. The divers prised abalone from the rocks and sent them to the surface in catch bags, on shot lines with underwater parachutes filled with air from the divers’ regulators.

Catch bags full of abalone, but other things too, as Ahab well knew . . . things that were left out here, for Davey to pick up, bring back to shore, and sell on, right under the nose of the law.

‘It’ll still be there later,’ said Ahab.

‘Always plenty in the sea,’ agreed Davey. ‘But we’ve got a quota. Business stops for no one. I’ll signal the divers later.’

‘You really want to risk it?’ said Ahab.

Davey straightened. ‘Don’t forget who you’re talking to.’

‘I know exactly who I’m talking to.’

Chips shuffled her feet. She glanced between the two men, uneasy.

Davey laughed, breaking the tension. ‘Don’t worry, Chips. We respect the elders that have gone before.’

He might really have intended to be respectful, but all it did was wrench Ahab’s chest. There was no way to change the past . . .

Ahab gave a wordless salute as farewell and climbed back down to his boat. Ned turned the wheel, pushed down the throttle, and set them towards Shacktown.

One of these days, he would have to tell the police about the Business. But could he really do it? Ruin Davey’s life, Chips’s life, the lives of countless others . . .?

But what about the lives they ruined?

Angrily, he pushed the thought aside. As he’d done so many times before.

He couldn’t do anything – not yet. As much as it goaded him, sometimes to the edge of insanity, Ahab was a man of his word.

But his self-control had its limits. One day he would find a reason to break his promise.