Later, with all that time in prison to think about what had happened, Mackerel put that moment down as one of the things that had motivated him to start building his own drug dynasty. What Jesse had said was one thing, but Davey’s offer of charity had confirmed it. They both assumed Mackerel would grow up to be a failure.

And now, even if by some miracle Mackerel ever made something of himself, Davey would never be around to see it.

He drove back to Big Mane’s. Back to his real life.

CHAPTER 22

FOREST

Forest had ‘borrowed’ a child’s bicycle he’d found leaning against a back fence – it was a BMX with pegs, and slightly too small for him. But it had a light, which was what he needed. By moonlight bright and clear, and this butter-yellow torchlight, he followed Huck’s map to the cave. He had to be sure.

It was a good 3 kilometres away. He pedalled along suburban streets until they gave way to a gravel track that ran up the hillside, framed by short, wiry bush pea scrub. Rising from the seat to pedal against the slope, he rode up the track until he was taken in by the taller Tasmanian blanketleaf and she-oaks. Now he was away from prying eyes, but he was against the clock – at any moment Ivy might angle open the bedroom door to check on him.

He kept his eyes on the track – the larger rocks thrown into jumping shadows by the bike’s headlight – always pushing against the ever-rising slope, sweat stinging his eyes. Finally the track dipped down and the trees gave way to moonlit water, a tangy salt breeze and, like toppled gravestones, a field of fallen dolerite pillars.

He slowed to a stop and left the bike in the bushes, bringing the headlight with him, and walked out to the patch of fallen pillars. He was closer to the shore than he realised, and the breeze whistled through them.

‘So this is where I died,’ he murmured.

A sharp memory made him flinch. A back-alley tattooist buzzing those words into his shoulder. Once Forest had given him the money, the man had insisted on first going out and buying cocaine, snorting half the bag by the time he was done with the tattoo.

Forest pulled his hand away from his shoulder and the fresh memory of pain.

Don’t look back. You know what to do.

He scrambled up to the closest boulder. Nothing at all grew on these, so his shoes scrabbled for purchase and he scraped open the scabs on his knees. After that he held the light under his armpit, crawling to the top.