He settled himself and looked at his watch: it was 7 a.m. and dawn was breaking. Cavalier was sweating from a heater turned up too high. He’d had two hours’ sleep and the events of the night rushed into his consciousness. He wandered into the main room and looked at the staircase, which in the half-light filtering from the bedroom skylight looked eerie. It seemed funereal, a bit like a modern morgue.

Cavalier could smell coffee wafting from the kitchen. Haut was up after managing just an hour’s sleep following a long period of prayer, in which he was thankful he had been spared. He began to face the fact he would have to escape Australia. Because of the oil business at stake, he felt there would be further attempts to kill him. It was better to go into hiding until a more propitious, safe time to return to Tasmania. The thought of leaving hurt him. His family, friends and business were in the state. Despite all the corruption and hurdles put in front of him, this was home. It offended him to have to run.

‘I’m going to be around for a few days,’ Cavalier told him over breakfast in the kitchen, ‘just in case there are any more cowboys about.’

‘You’re welcome to use the house …’

‘Thank you,’ Cavalier said, ‘but I’ll check into a hotel. I thought about Wrest Point but Farquar may be there. He’ll be waiting for a confirmation of a kill from his three amigos. When they don’t appear, he’ll become twitchy.’

‘Do you think he’ll come after me?’

‘You have to consider that possibility. Otherwise, he might not receive his property in Texas and, it’s now thought, ten million in cash due to him.’

*

Cavalier booked into Rydges in North Hobart, a quiet hotel nestled next to a cricket oval. He drove the would-be killers’ hire car to a wood near the city’s Royal Botanical Gardens, left the keys in the car and rang the hire firm from a public phone booth to say where the car was.

The morning was cold and damp. He pulled his coat collar up, put on a scarf and made the five hundred metre walk through the gardens and scrub, over the Brooker Highway and down back lanes to the hotel.

He checked in with Haut twice a day. After two days, Haut rang him.

‘Farquar wants to have a meeting.’

‘Did he say why?’

‘Wants to settle differences between us.’

‘What differences?’