It always astounded Mackerel how straight folk didn’t understand how the legal system worked. It wasn’t like going to your GP, where if one doctor didn’t know the answer you just needed a second opinion. Navigating the legal system was a tangled mess. It was like organising a school concert combined with a work trip, mixed with applying for a job that you needed to get a university degree for first. Except you had to pay a friend to study the degree for you because all the textbooks were in another language, but your friend couldn’t read so you had to read out the foreign words to them, and then hopefully they gathered all the right information to tell you how to pass the job interview. And sometimes the interviewers were grumpy from lack of sleep, or were getting sick, or didn’t like the way you looked. Or they had already decided who they wanted for the job. And even if they hadn’t, it all still just came down to luck and money.

But there was no use explaining that. So he grimaced, nodded and followed Shelby into the house. There was Fiona, with black hair in a ponytail, square glasses, very red lipstick and a blue dress. She looked Mack up and down, making it clear she wasn’t at all impressed with what she saw. He’d seen her at Ivy’s the day Davey had ‘died’. She had been identified to him as Shelby’s best friend, but honestly, that whole afternoon had been a blur . . .

Mackerel walked past her, dragging his bags up the stairs and into the room that would be his. It was the size of Big Mane’s lounge room, with plush white carpet, a king-size bed, its own sparkling en suite, and fancy abstract art on the walls.

He looked around, open mouthed, catching his reflection in the floor-length mirror. He looked like an intruder – he didn’t belong in here.

Too intimidated to unpack his stuff and claim the space as his own, he fled back to the kitchen.

Shelby was a brisk and professional host, busying herself around the kitchen and by the heavy dining table, with Fiona in a supporting role. They were preparing a three-course meal, with prawns as an entree, a steamed-duck main, and chocolate gateau for dessert. Various bottles of expensive alcohol would accompany the meal.

Shelby went to get Kane, and Mackerel and Fiona sat down. The lawyer’s eyes bored through Mack and he shifted uncomfortably until Shelby and Kane returned.

The food was incredible. Mackerel had to fight not to stuff his face, desperate to prove to Fiona that he wasn’t the animal that, from the way she kept glaring at him, she clearly thought he was.