Wozza disagreed. ‘I’ve seen it before,’ he said. ‘Parents who blame everyone but themselves when their kid does the wrong thing; they blame the kids he hangs out with, they blame the school, the teachers—shifts the blame away from the kid or their own parenting. It’s much easier when you think about it. But one day, they run out of people to blame. Here in the country it’s worse, cos the kid who won’t take responsibility for his behaviour can end up in a car wrapped around a tree, drunk and dead.’

I nodded, pondering this. From that angle, it made sense. Noah Shepherd’s predicament was all my fault, because I pursued him; it wasn’t because of what he had done.

‘Looks like you’ve got some bank records to check,’ I said, knowing in my heart what Wozza would find. ‘And I’ve got to go tell Wheels that I accosted his good mate Richard Tippet in the tea aisle at the supermarket.’

CHAPTER 24: THE DEVIL’S CORNER

CHAPTER 24

THE DEVIL’S CORNER

I left work the minute the shift finished at 3 pm. I needed to go home and shower Merv’s frosty smell from my hair. Change my clothes and quieten the reverberations of Wheels’s rant from my mind. Who do you think you are? What gives you the right to … ? How dare you … ? I took my telling-off in a judo stance: feet apart, balanced, hands behind my back, full eye contact, silence. As Wheels vented, I thought about the principle at the core of judo—use your opponent’s strength against them. When pushing against an opponent, the strongest wins, but when one pushes and the other pulls, the one pushing loses balance.

It was true in life as well.

‘You just think you can come to Deception Bay and push your weight around?’

‘No, sir,’ I said with mock sincerity. Funny how men like Wheels always accused others of engaging in their own behaviours. I took the first part of the rant on the chin, then simply walked out the door. Sometimes that’s the only way to stop your boss from an angry tirade. With me present, he had power. With me gone, he either stops ranting or he’s just yelling at a wall.

Waffles met me at the gate and rode up in the car with me to the front door. I gave him the short version of my day. He sat without comment, quiet in his expectations as only dogs can be. The look in his gentle brown eyes said: Sorry about your day. A run with me might make it better.