*****Promises to Keep*****

[I love music]

Great writing. I love the detail you go into, it totally draws me into the story...

Glad everything was okay and they didn't hit Colleen. Her line about her admirer was soooo funny. Such a Colleen thing to say!

I like deep characters... I haven't read this story before, so everything is pretty much new to me. But I love it and really enjoy reading it. Please update soon!

Thanks for your nice comment, Adia. Considering you've never read this before, you're pretty good at figuring things out...

*****chapter 11*****

Going down to the caravan site was the first thing Kane thought of when he woke to find the clouds chasing each other through the sky. And it had been a stroke of genius to take the longer route through the little park because the trees there made the air cooler. Someone had been feeding the ducks and had left behind a cellophane bag full of broken bits of bread and cake. A couple of seagulls swooped down hopefully and a wasp buzzed nearby but they didn't stand a chance. Kane and the bag were gone in an instant.

Now he sat on the fence on the edge of the caravan site, stuffing himself with bread and cake and passing the time away by making pictures out of the clouds. A mother holding a baby, an old man with a beard, a grotesque screaming face that split and became two small, plump dancing clowns. The hard, dry bread tasted gross but the sugariness of the cake turned it into a feast. Refreshed, he jumped down from the fence and, like he did often, went to look again for the little girl who’d made that summer so special. (*See Author's Note Below)

*****

"If it's too strong, say so."

Shelley sat at the computer desk, but the computer wasn’t working and she'd had to resort to keeping notes on bookings and repairs with pen and paper. She looked up from the paperwork as Rhys set down the mug of tea. She already knew it was too strong. One look at the dark brown liquid was enough to know. But she took a sip and pronounced it fine.

The emergency generator had kicked into action since the storm cut the electrics but the lighting was dim and Rhys looked pale and tired. They were used to the Bay's sudden storms but most outsiders weren't and there were constant knocks on the door and requests for him to check out something or other. Thanks to calor gas, the caravanners could still cook and had warmth and even some light, but, while most were regarding the storm as a great holiday adventure, a few seemed to think the Sutherlands were personally responsible for the bad weather. And the site was much bigger than it had been when they used to run the park themselves. Rhys was beginning to wish that Sally and Flynn hadn't agreed with Tasha to re-introduce the larger family caravans that had been removed several years ago.

A rare break had given him the chance of this cuppa and Shelley thought he looked too exhausted to even go into the kitchen again. She’d drink the too strong tea for his sake even if it did taste bitter. As it happened, it didn't matter anyway. Tiny pieces of white from the crumbling newspaper were scattered all over the desk and as she brushed them away her hand toppled the mug, the tea soaking a fat manilla folder and dripping down on the carpet.

Rhys quickly snatched up a cloth, mopping up the spillage. "It'll dry out, Shell," he said.

"It's Kane's file."

"Ah.” Rhys stopped mopping, trying to gage whether Kane’s file mattered or not.

Kirsty’s reaction today hadn’t been what they’d expected. She was meant to understand they loved her, they loved Jamie, they just wanted to protect them. Maybe Kane wasn’t a bad person, but violence was bred in him from childhood. All it took was for him to start drinking like his father had done and he wouldn’t be able to help himself. If only Kirsty had listened. If only she’d seen that this way there would be no messy court case, no ill feelings. They’d never stop Jamie from seeing his Dad, there’d be regular supervised visits. It would all be so civilized. But Kirsty had looked at them like they hated her. So hurt, so bewildered.

"We've lost her, Rhys. We were only looking out for Kirsty and now we've lost our daughter and our grandchild."

"You don't know that..."

"Oh, but I do. Kirsty will tell Kane everything. She always does. And Kane will make us out to be the bad guys and say it’s best if Kirsty and Jamie never saw us again. Maybe he’ll even talk her into going to live in another country. Anything to keep us away.”

Rhys squeezed his wife’s shoulder. He couldn’t tell her he had the same doubts. "It won’t come to that.”

A frantic hammering on the door interrupted them. There was a hurried conversation on the porch, another problem to sort.

"Sorry, Shell," Rhys said, picking up his coat.

Then he was gone into the night and Shelley was alone once more. She had done so much work to try and keep her grandson in her life and now it looked like she had lost him forever. She felt suddenly very old and very tired.

*****

Jade lay in the dark room, listening to the storm. She had told her family the asthma attack had taken it out of her and she need to rest. But it wasn’t the asthma that had tired her out. It was something she hadn’t told anyone, not even Seb. She’d been fooling herself for so long, trying to pretend it wasn’t happening. But the truth was, she was getting worse.

The breathlessness and dizzy spells were becoming even more frequent. Deep down Jade knew the earlier nausea hadn’t been the effects of too much alcohol. Though she had got tipsy, she’d deliberately paced herself. She knew what the real reason was.

Jade had been told the De Groot family’s medical history and what she had been told terrified her. She had thought she could cry no more but still the tears fell thick and fast. She wanted so badly to talk with Kirsty.

*****

It was months now since Kirsty had stayed here. Kane gazed at Caravan 179 like he had done so often before, always hoping one day she would return. Looked like the latest occupants had left and another family was expected. Maybe, just maybe, the kid with the magic smile would come back.

The windows were flung wide open and a plump woman in a blue overall, with the Summer Bay Staff motif written on its pocket, was carrying a vacuum cleaner up the steps while Ernie Hopkins, the odd job man, was standing by a small truck and ticking off items on a clipboard.

Kane and Scotty knew Ernie well. He was the one they had to watch out for when they were stealing from the caravans. And Ernie certainly made himself easy to watch out for with his unique taste in clothes. Giant black and white cartoon characters, little men with round faces and bowler hats, adorned today’s chosen shirt. Scotty had remarked once, when they’d nicked a dozen sunnies from the reception area, that they’d only started selling them because most folk couldn’t cope with the glare of Ernie’s shirts.

Kane ducked quickly behind the walled-off garbo section as Ernie glanced round. It was a reflex action. He hadn’t been nicking stuff but he was off school when he shouldn’t be and he was sure Ernie wouldn’t lose the chance to dob him in.

“Hide and seek, is it?” Came a voice from behind.

“Just playin’.” Kane shrugged and put on his best cute-little-kid smile for the benefit of the silver-haired old lady with the Pekinese dog tucked under her arm.

“Hmm. Shouldn’t you be at school, young man?”

He looked innocently up at her. “I’ve been real crook so the olds brought me on holiday to get better. I had to have heaps of operations and nearly carked it.”

The Pekinese looked totally unconvinced. The old lady’s heart flipped. The story sounded incredibly far-fetched, but she couldn’t believe anyone with such beautiful blue sparkling eyes was ever capable of lying.

“They even had to write me a death letter for the very last time,” Kane added, for dramatic effect. Scott was always telling him to milk it for all he was worth when someone looked like falling for a sob story. You never knew what you might get out of it.

“A death letter...?”

“Yeh. I don’t remember much ‘bout it myself ‘cos I was busy dyin’, but I think everyone sat round my bed and signed it while I was in the middle of dyin’. It’s called the last writes.”

“The last rites.” Ethel Winter said. A lump came to her throat for the small, pale, skinny little boy, who had been so close to death and who must have overheard his family talking about it afterwards, but was far too young to understand.

“Yeh. The last writes.” Kane agreed. He’d seen it in a movie. The guy’s wife said they'd been sure he was gonna die and they’d given him the last writes.

“You poor child!” To the Pekinese's disgust, Ethel took some coins from her purse and placed them in Kane’s hand. “You buy yourself a nice big ice-cream.”

“Ta!” Kane debated whether or not to tell her that they’d made him eat a spoonful of soil as well. He knew that happened too when you were close to carking it because Mum, whenever she dropped food on the floor and flung it back on the plate, said it didn’t matter, you had to eat a peck of muck before you died. But the Pekinese was yapping impatiently for a walk and the wrinklie had set the dog down and clipped on its lead.

They’d demolished the caravan site shop where once he and Scotty had filled their pockets with stolen toys . There was something sad about that, like it belonged to a yesterday that could never come back.

He bought some chocolate and a can of Coke from the kiosk and for a long time stood at the spot where the shop used to be, remembering the day he and Kirsty had floated ice popsicle sticks there, in a puddle in the shop’s garden. The memories were beginning to fade now.

So much happened at home. So many times he was crushed under the weight of Dad’s blows or shivered through the nights when he was forced to sleep outside. So often he hid at the halfway point on the stairs. listening to his parents’ drunken fighting, or lived on his wits to make money, or to avoid a bashing.

There was no time for being a kid anymore like he’d been a kid that summer of Kirsty, when there’d been boat trips and theme parks and fairy floss. He tried in vain to remember the names of her sisters. She had a twin, he remembered that much, and that her name began with a J... Jessica or Jasmine or something. And the twin always carried a doll...or it might have been a teddy bear... and there was an older sister who bossed them around...And Kirsty’s Gran had worn small round glasses...or were the glasses square?...or had she worn glasses at all...? It was so hard to remember anything about that summer now.

He wove his way around every inch of the site, like he’d done so often before, always hoping one day to find again the kid with the magic smile.

The ornamental lamp, where they’d kissed and her kiss had tasted of chocolate and salty tears, was broken. Angry tears sprang to his eyes. They’d fix it some time, tonight or tomorrow or the next day, but it was broken now and that wasn’t fair, it was his memory of Kirsty. Things were meant to be how he remembered.

But each day the memories faded a little more and childhood slipped a little further from his grasp like snowflakes melting in the palm of his hand.

*****

“There’s someone tappin’ on the window,” Jamie said.

“It’s just the wind, Jamie. Only a madman would come out here tonight in this weather,” Kirsty answered absently, concentrating on the game to take her mind off worrying about her husband.

There had been some dominoes in the emergency box but she couldn’t remember how to play, and Jamie was probably too young to understand the rules anyway, so instead they’d built a tunnel with the blocks and were playing table footie by blowing balls of paper through with straws.

“Nah, it’s a man and he looks heaps mad ‘bout somethin’ so he’s prob’ly a madman,” Jamie said matter-of-factly, without a touch of irony, calmly picking up the straw and taking his turn.

Kirsty took a breath and looked slowly back over her shoulder, praying it was a figment of Jamie’s lively imagination.

The thunder and lightning were retreating towards the sea, but the lull in the rain had only been temporary and now it was being thrown wildly by the wind. So she saw Scott Phillips only briefly in the lightning flash through the rain streaming ceaselessly down, his lip curled into a sneering laugh, his knuckles tap-tapping against the glass.

And on that isolated crooked lane, in that quaint little house on that lonely night, too far away for anyone to hear any screams, came deafening bangs as the back door began to yield.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: In Always and Forever, an earlier story in this series, Kane and Kirsty first met as children.

[I love music]

Thanks for your lovely comments, Eli and Adia. I never know what to write when people have reviewed, but it really is greatly appreciated.

When I originally wrote this chapter, we’d FINALLY discovered Kane’s Dad’s “real” name was Gus so I thought I’d write an explanation for him being called Richie.

*****chapter 12*****

Richard Augustus Phillips.

Richie Phillips never got over the embarrassment of his middle name. It was a long standing family tradition for the eldest son to inherit the name Augustus. Richie’s Dad Gus told six-year-old Richie he should just be ******* grateful he got Richard as a first name, smashed his fist into his face, and went down the pub to get blotto. It was also a long standing family tradition to drink hard and answer annoying questions with your fists.

What made it even worse was, soon as he realised how much Richie loathed his middle name, his younger brother took great delight in yelling O, Augustuuus! in a high-pitched voice, preferably when Richie’s mates were around to snigger. Didn’t matter how many times Richie bashed him for it, they hated each other and Joe wasn’t going to miss an opportunity like this!

Things changed though when Joe married Rose. She had a steadying effect on him and, to his father’s and Richie’s disgust, he got honest work and wasn’t interested anymore in the “family business”. And it was a long time ago since he’d screeched O Augustuuus for the fun of seeing Richie do his block but the damage was already done. Some of Richie’s mates had begun nicknaming him Augustus, swiftly changed to Gus when they discovered his fists packed one helluva punch. Gus it was when he met beautiful, volatile Diane, who could pack one helluva punch herself. Their relationship was far removed from Joe and Rose’s calm. From the very first moment, it was explosive, exciting, drink-fuelled.

“Gus sounds like a ******* cat!” Di said. “I prefer Richie.”

So he was Gus to folk who’d known him all his life and Richie to anyone who knew him after he married Diane. It was one of the few things Di got her own way about before he tamed her.

Scott Augustus Phillips.

Richie got a sadistic thrill when he inflicted the hated name on his first born son. Scotty kept quiet about his middle name. Kane would have been astounded to learn he even had one. Like his father and his grandfather before him, there were heaps of things Scotty preferred to keep quiet about.

*****

“I could nick one from the shop,” Kane suggested.

“Nick what?” Scotty asked impatiently, squishing Kane’s school clothes into his school bag.

It was a complete mystery why everything was stained in sand. Lucky he’d thought of buying him a cheap new top and shorts from the beach shop so no one got suspicious though he resented having to spend his own cash. He hoped they didn’t ask about his kid bro’s old trainers, these guys were meant to be seriously rich.

“A pear. Or if I didn’t get that I could nick an orange or an apple, no worries.” Kane was anxious to help after all Scotty’ kindness. He’d just got some new clobber and been told he was going to a kids’ party. It was the last thing he’d expected when he’d fronted up to meet him like Scotty had told him to do or he’d dob him in to Dad for wagging school.

Dry bread and cake, chocolate, four small green apples that had fallen round the tree planted behind the Yabbie Creek war memorial, on which he’d sat kicking his heels till Scott showed, nothing had satisfied his hunger. And he was hot and tired as well as hungry. Scotty’s news about the party had startled him. His head was full of what there might be to eat and he’d hadn’t been paying too much attention.

Scotty’s eyes flashed. “Have you listened to a ******* word I said, drongo?”

“Yeh! I say I’m Wills Bennett and the pear had to shoot through.”

“The au pair, ya ******* dill, and ya’ve come for the ******* party!”

“I say I’ve come for a party or the pear’s gotta go.”

“Are you being deliberately thick?”

Kane blinked back sooky tears as his brother’s voice rose to danger level. He’d been trying his best to remember but he always got mixed up when Scotty or Dad did their block because that inevitably meant another bashing.

Scott fought back the strong urge to shake his kid bro till his teeth rattled. There were heaps of people around and they might interfere. Jeez, though, he deserved their sympathy if only they knew! He’d spent ages thinking this one out. His first big job. His first lucky break.

He’d heard the Bennett family were away on holiday and he’d been looking out for open windows when the shiny silver envelope carelessly dropped on the path caught his eye. Scott had hoped it was a birthday card containing cash and at first he was disappointed to find it was nothing more than a kids party invitation.

Then the plan hit him so suddenly that he was almost dizzy with excitement! He read the name again. Alex King. Scotty made it his business to keep his ears close to the ground so he knew exactly who that was. The little American kid. His Mum was dead and his Dad, a wealthy jeweller, spoilt him rotten to make up for it.

They were renting a huge house, once used as a small hotel, in Yabbie Creek for a month to do with his Dad’s work but the month was up and Danny King had invited all the local kids of Alex’s age to a leaving party for six-year-old Alex. Including Wills.

His family had very recently moved to Yabbie Creek and nobody had even seen him yet but they’d certainly heard about him. Mr and Mrs Bennett had been dirt poor till they won the lotto and now they’d decided little Billy Bennett should have an au pair, a private education and be called Wills just like Princess Di’s little boy in England. Small for his age, Kane could easily pass for being a year younger and he could do the working class accent, no worries. And imagine all the stuff he’d have the opportunity to nick!

If only, though, he had the brains Scotty had...

Scott put his arm round Kane's neck, smiling sweetly, the picture of brotherly love. He spoke softly.

“I’m runnin’ through it just one more time. Ya rock up with the invite and say ya Wills Bennett and the au pair dropped ya off. Ya get inside and nick whatever ya can. There won’t be no second chances. You stuff up...and I’ll kill ya.”

*****

“Ya goin’ somewhere?” Scott asked smugly, blocking their way out the front door.

His earlier visits to Summer Bay had paid off. He’d been careful to circle the outside of the little seaside town and talk only to newcomers, but people were as helpful as Summer Bay folk had always been. He’d learned so much. Like where Kane worked, what his wife and kid were called, how isolated was the long, winding country lane where the Phillips house stood. How isolated.

He looked down at them, grinning.

“Don’t think for one second I’m afraid of you. Hurt us and you’ll have Kane to answer to,” Kirsty replied levelly.

Startling him because she was unafraid. Though she held her small son’s hand, frozen to the spot, the rain and wind blowing in through the open door, knowing he was so very much stronger than herself.

It wasn’t what he expected. It wasn’t how it should be. So his grin grew wider. “Is that right? You want me to make ya scared then? Like what if I was to tell ya ya’ve got Buckleys of Kane rockin’ up? Oh, he ain’t dead. He ain’t gonna cark it. Maybe. But only if ya very, very good and do what I tell ya.”

He waited, gloating, for the power to shift back in his favour. Waited for her to beg. But she didn’t.

Her eyes flickered as if she blinked back tears. Her voice trembled but only a fraction. “We had a photo,” she said.

“What?”

She had him totally confused. By now he should have slapped her some, maybe thrown the brat around, let her know he meant business. Why hadn’t he?

Kirsty remembered Kane’s older brother vaguely. She’d seen him only twice, years ago, once when he’d come into the school playground to talk to Kane, the second time from a distance when he was being bundled into a police car. But a picture flashed into her mind. The grinning kid eating the ice popsicle. Before his and Kane’s world fell apart.

“A photo of you and Kane, your Mum and Dad. Standing by the window and there were rose bushes in the garden. And I don’t know why...I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

A single tear, silver in the moonlight, trickled down her cheek. Yet not of fear. Tears of love and concern for her husband and kid. Tears of anger and helplessness. But not fear. Like she knew. But that was impossible because nobody knew. Nobody knew Scott had kept the pictures.

Not that there were many. One of himself and Kane when they were very, very young, posed sitting on a table, Scott with his arms wrapped protectively round his baby bro so that he didn’t fall back. A school photo, probably the only one his parents ever paid for or kept, taken shortly after he’d started school, his class sitting outside on some hot sunny day and pink petals on the grass near the chick with the long blonde hair that he’d always liked. Mum and Dad’s wedding day in the neat, polished registry office, Mum looking stunning, smiling broadly, holding a posy of flowers and her hair piled up high, Dad wearing a suit, and looking proud and smart and handsome.

Because they were adorning the walls of the living room in their cracked, dusty frames, they were the only pictures to escape the shed fire when Mum had thrown photos and her wedding dress into a box, struggling to stay steady with the matches, pausing momentarily to raise the bottle of whiskey to her lips. And even the wedding picture was burnt at one corner, from the day Dad had pulled out the photo and put a lighted cigarette to it.

Scotty remembered Mum furiously snatching it from him and putting out the flame before she threw a shoe that caught Dad square on the mouth, in the days before she gave up fighting back. He remembered Kane, maybe three years old, trapped in their crossfire, his eyes wide and terrified, looking to Scott for protection, in the days before Scott gave up protecting. And he remembered well the photo she was talking about.

He had grabbed Kane by the scruff of the neck, almost lifting him, and they had knocked against the television set as they ran, making the picture frame fall face downwards to the floor, and when they’d crept back home, hours later, when Dad was sleeping off the drink, and Mum sat sobbing and wailing, oblivious to all around her, the photo still lay face down, somehow intact despite the chaos surrounding it.

“Look, I told ya, ya won’t get hurt if ya good,” he said gruffly. “All you haveta do is tell me where he’s put the stash.”

“The stash...?” Kirsty asked blankly.

“You heard. Come on, come on, I ain’t got all night!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Beside her, Jamie had begun to sob and she squeezed his hand.

Scott’s face darkened. He’d been patient long enough.

“Don’t play games with me, sweetheart,” he warned in the low, menacing voice he always used before he doled out a bashing.

*****

Kane was just two years older than the American kid, but it might as well have been twenty years. He watched in amazement as Alex threw another hissy fit, hurling the remote control car against the wall and sending the remote flying after it. Jeez, Kane's Dad would’ve really laid into Kane for that!

But Alex’s Dad was pleading with him, promising him a bigger, better car when they got back to the States, which made Alex scream all the more. The chick who’d been hired to care for Alex was busy trying to look after all the other kids, which was a pity, thought Kane, observing like a miniature adult, she never once needed to yell or bribe yet Alex was heaps better behaved when he was with her.

Alex’s nanny had thick black hair and olive skin and Scott had said she was Spanish or Italian or Portuguese or something (though she could have been from Mars for all Scotty cared). She hadn’t understood Kane’s garbled account of apples, pears and oranges, which was hardly surprising, a professor of literature would have had trouble working it out. Unaware of their plan and of Scott watching, figuring she couldn’t leave a little kid on his own on the doorstep and that he had an invite anyway she brought him inside.

There was a bouncy castle out in the garden and later a guy was going to come to show them magic tricks and how to tie balloons in the shape of animals, Maria, the chick who might have seen the job advert for a nanny in her local Martian newspaper, had told him in broken English as, picking up on one or two words from Kane’s rambling conversation, she concluded he was asking for lemonade, and poured him a long drink of fizzy orange, popping in a fancy cocktail straw.

Of course, Maria didn’t know he couldn’t be a kid. She really thought he could just play and jump on bouncy castles and watch magicians, and when she’d caught him lifting the covers from the plates and stuffing himself with as much food as he could cram into his mouth, she only scalded in a nice way, jabbering away in her native tongue, but smiling as she waved a finger in front of his face.

Kane ditched the fancy cocktail straw and guzzled back the orange drink, drained the beaker noisily, burped, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He stopped briefly in the doorway to watch with heavy heart, wishing he could stay. Maria and another chick who was helping, had organised two teams and had filled a sack with small, intriguingly wrapped prizes. Everyone, even Alex, was shouting and laughing as they made their way into the grounds.

Kane sighed and closed the door softly behind him. They were kids, not a care in the world. He couldn’t hang around playing like kids could.

*****

The dreams had been long and vivid, every moment of that terrible day etched into his mind forever.

“Kirst?” He whispered into the darkness, for a crazy moment imagining he was at home waking from another nightmare, and anxious that Jamie shouldn’t overhear.

And then, slowly, as the thunder echoed, through the storm playing out against the curtainless window, his eyes made out the unfamiliar shapes of the room and he began to remember. His wife and son were in danger, he had to get back to them!

He tried to jump up...but blackness overshadowed him and he put his hand to the excruciating pain and into the blood that matted and tangled and soaked his hair. He had to get back to Kirsty and Jamie, to protect them from Scotty, he had to...

Fighting for breath, tasting blood trickling down his face, Kane could manage only two or three faltering steps, before the world crashed again. He was sure he heard Kirsty and Jamie shouting to him for help before he plunged back into the darkness.

[I love music]

Once again, many thanks for the reviews.

*****chapter 13*****

Sunlight streamed in through the tall picture windows and out in the front garden the birds were noisily fluttering wings and twittering as they bathed in the ornamental fountain.

The room was huge. One set of windows looked out on to the front of the building, the others looked out on to the back. It was the only room which had been locked but someone had been dill enough to leave the key in the lock. Like the other upstairs rooms Kane had tried, it had been emptied of furniture, but, unlike them, it looked unused. There was a strong smell of paint from the large old-fashioned white fireplace and a roll of carpet leaned against one corner, waiting to be unfurled and cover the bare floorboards. A few years ago the building had been used as a small hotel and its new owners planned to re-open as such after their present tenants, the Kings, returned to the States. This was earmarked to be the grandest, most expensive room.

The owners hoped the immediate view of the decorative fireplace would give a favourable impression that visitors would always remember, and they had agonised for many hours over patterns and taste and which painting would eventually hang above. They’d have been very disappointed to learn that their very first guest didn’t even give it a second glance. In fact, their very first guest swore under his breath when he saw the room had nothing in it but a bloody great fireplace. Time was running out! Scotty would kill him if he went back empty handed.

Kane had half turned to leave when he noticed the cupboard, its door left ajar to allow the paint (Jeez, somebody round here was ******* obsessed with white paint!) to dry. He made his way stealthily towards it, freezing and holding his breath when he heard a sudden yell. But it was okay. The yell was quickly followed by laughter and clapping. Just kids playing in the grounds at the back, while he got on with the important stuff.

There was a large, bulging leather rucksack inside the cupboard. It seemed a waste of time checking it out, but Scott always told him never ignore anything, it could get results. Scotty himself had once found fifty bucks hidden inside an old shoe dumped in a gutter near the hell houses’ rundown block of shops. There had been blood on the shoe, but, Scott had said when proudly recalling the story, you didn’t ask questions when you got a lucky break like that.

Kane deftly undid the straps expecting to find nothing more than travelling clothes, forgotten sun block, maybe a map or, if he was real lucky, some expensive binoculars. Till he pushed back the flap and saw the contents. Scotty was gonna be stoked!

Riches! Riches beyond their wildest dreams! Rings and necklaces, bracelets and ear-rings, necklaces and broaches...Sparkling and dazzling and thrilling in a myriad of beautiful colours.

DIAMONDS!

*****

Dani sat high up on the cliffs, her legs dangling above the grey, stormy waters, till a clap of thunder, louder than the rest, suddenly roared through the sky. When the thunder came, she looked down, the sea wind icy cold on her face, at the waves crashing wildly against the rocks.She didn’t remember climbing here. Or how long it had been since she stood outside the surgery and spoke to the girl with the bedraggled hair and haunted eyes. Or when she began crying.

But it felt as though the banshee wails of the sea and the wind and the long dead had always been calling out for her to join them.

When the thunder came, she jumped up, barely managing to catch hold of a sharp rock above, gashing her wrist in her haste, and watching helplessly as a steady flow of bright red blood dripped on to the jagged cliffs below. When the thunder came, Dani screamed in terror.

But there was no one to hear.

*****

“I wanna know where the stash is,” Scott repeated. “And seein’ as ya kept me waitin’ so long ya get to pay a penalty. I want all that beaut money ya won from winnin’ that nice little Olympic gold medal as well.”

“What money? Don’t be stupid, Scott, that went on medical bills, my kidney op, Kane’s cancer...”

“Y’know, I don’t think I like being called stupid...”

Scotty drew the knife from the inside of his jacket. Despite all the years of being buried, it was still sharp. So very sharp. He lightly traced the blade down Kirsty’s face and grinned when she flinched in pain. There was still no fear. Not for herself. But she was afraid for her kid. The kid and Kane. They were her weakness.

Teasing, he took the knife down to the height of Jamie, playing the blade through the tips of his hair.

“Don’t you dare touch my son!” Kirsty pushed him back, eyes blazing with anger, standing in front of Jamie to shield him. She needed two hands to push him back, and she fell awkwardly on her ankle but she caught Scott off guard and the knife clattered to the floor.

“You better not hurt my Mum!” In the glow of candlelight Jamie’s face contorted in terror as he picked up the knife and pointed the blade.

The same knife, the same words his father had used all those years ago.

*****

“You did well,” Scott said.

It was rare that Scotty praised him and Kane’s imagination ran riot with thoughts of a glittering future career as a crim. He wondered if crims ever nominated each other for an award like folk got nominated for Logies. Maybe Mum and Dad would finally be proud of him then. He pictured himself going up on stage, to rapturous applause from other crims, to collect a cup for being crim of the year.

Scotty was rapt. He’d thought of everything! Grilled Kane on what he was to say. Bought him shorts and a Tshirt from the cheap beach shop so nobody wondered why he rocked up to a party in school uniform. It had been worth splashing out. For once in his life Kane hadn’t stuffed up, literally strolling out the front door and passing the rucksack to Scott while everyone else was busy partying at the back.

Everything had gone according to plan. But now Scott had to think carefully about what to do next. The diamond jewellery was red hot and the cops would be on the case the moment the Yank realised it was missing.

Scotty was expert in selling on stolen goods and he knew guys who would readily buy, but he also knew they would cheat on a kid and he’d be lucky if he got even a few lousy dollars. And no way would he ask Dad to help, Richie would keep the whole bloody lot! He frowned, deep in thought.

There was only one thing he could do. Hide the fortune till he grew up. He could keep his mouth shut for years if he had to, like he’d always kept his mouth shut about his middle name being Augustus and the drugs Dad dealt and the guys Richie “Gus” Phillips had bashed. But his kid brother was forever jabbering on about stuff. If Kane hadn’t looked so much like Richie, Scott would’ve sworn his folks had picked up the wrong bub. He’d been trying for years to knock the sookiness out of him. Scott knew instinctively when to get out of the way of Dad’s drunken rages, but, Jeez, Kane! That was a different story.

Scotty would never forget the day his brother had fronted up to Dad to ask why Mum didn’t hit him back anymore! Jeeeezus! Scott had moved like lightning, locking himself in the kitchen, where he’d listened to the swish of the belt and the screaming and the thudding footsteps above that had made the kitchen lightbulb swing.

Just before he fled upstairs and ended up getting thrashed within an inch of his life, Kane had rattled the handle of the kitchen door, pleading with Scott to open up but no way was Scotty going to chance a bashing as well. You looked after yourself in this life, nobody else would. Tough luck, but Scott was keeping those diamonds all to himself and he needed to figure out a way to make sure Kane was too damn scared to ever breathe a word about them to anyone.

There was the smell of smoke in the air as they got near home. That was nothing new. It could have been someone burning garden cuttings though, in Summerhill, it was much more likely to be a burnt out, stolen car or some empty building set alight for kicks.

And then they turned the corner to their own house and in the fading evening light saw the yellow flames leaping up from the bundle of clothes and letters lying in their driveway.

“Jeez, not another bloody fire!” Scotty said. A touch impatiently at first. It had happened often enough before. Yet another drunken fight, shouting and screaming, something broken or set ablaze. Scary, but you got used to it. You had to.

And then they heard Mum’s screams and Dad’s drunken laughter. The screams more bloodcurdling, the laughter more manic than anything they’d ever heard before.

Kane swung round to his older brother, the firelight glowing on both their faces. “He’ll kill her for sure this time!”

“I gotta hide the stash!” Scotty yelled back.

So.

In a moment it was decided. Which brother would pick up the knife. In that moment when Scott clutched the bag to his chest and stayed where he was and Kane ran inside.

[I love music]

Thanks for your reviews.

*****chapter 14*****

Eleven-year-old Scott Phillips dropped the rusty tin bucket and stamped out the dying embers of the fire. Sometimes he wondered if the guys who had originally built their home over a century ago had envisaged a time when two alkos with a penchant for lighting fires would live here and had put the standpipe at the side of the house for that very reason.

He stood there a for a while, only half listening to the screaming voices from inside the family home, more in annoyance than alarm. Round the hell houses fights like this were commonplace and no one dreamed of interfering. And Scott was more concerned about the diamonds anyway. Putting out the fire had been a delaying tactic to give himself time to think. He didn’t particularly care if Mum’s clothes, strewn on the path, burnt or not. What he did care about was the diamonds.

Needing to make a spur of the moment decision, he’d stored the rucksack temporarily in the garden shed and out here he could keep an eye on the garden shed. It wasn’t much of a hiding place, its roof burnt out from the day Mum had torched her wedding dress and the photos, but it was the best he was able to come up with for now. He needed to think about exactly where he was going to hide the stash and exactly how he was going to make sure Kane kept his mouth zipped. For years, if need be.

He looked up, startled, as an unearthly cry from Kane pierced the air. But it only shook him up briefly. Maybe Dad had laid into his younger brother again. The drongo never would learn to stay outta his way. Anyway, Scott had other things on his mind, like what if he...

An eerie wailing noise rose suddenly, high into the night, loud and unceasing, carried out to the darkening sea. And as night shrouded that lonely house of secrets even the hardened Scotty Phillips shivered in fear.

*****

Pale and shaky, Jade sat up in the hospital bed, Rhys and Shelley sitting at either side. She’d never been so scared in her life as she was now. She shuddered involuntarily as the consultant, accompanied by a nurse, walked in carrying her medical file and Rhys reached across to squeeze her hand reassuringly. Shelley gently stroked her hair like she used to when Jade was crook when she was small. It was a comforting, motherly gesture that made Jade long to be small again. To never know these two people sitting here had no blood ties with her. In the car earlier, she’d told them.

She was nothing to them. They had three daughters of their own, Kirsty, Dani and Laura, so why should they care? Shelley cried then and put her arm round her shoulders. Rhys said in a choked, heartbroken voice, keeping his gaze steadily on the road as they sped through the night, “You’re our daughter too, sweetheart. Nothing can ever change that.”

But that only made it worse, made her feel like she’d been cold and unfeeling. They’d been worried about Kirsty and worried now too because Dani was late but when Jade had got up for a glass of water Shelley had remarked she didn’t look too good and Rhys asked if she felt crook. It must have been something in their voices.

Suddenly she found herself telling them everything she’d kept to herself for so long. About the constant dizzy spells, the frequent nausea and the breathlessness, of how terrified she was that she too might have inherited the fatal heart condition that had killed so many of the de Groot family when they were young, even the twin brother of Laura de Groot’s grandmother on the eve of their twenty-fifth birthday. They were so concerned, these two people who were really only strangers to her. They asked Jenny and Mike Turner, who had holidayed frequently at the caravan park since the Sutherlands days and who had become good friends, if they’d temporarily take charge of the site, while they took Jade to be checked out at the hospital.

“Medicine can do marvellous things these days,” Shelley said.

“But it will cost...” Jade began.

“We don’t care how much it costs if it gets you better,” Rhys said.

The consultant, a kindly-looking man with thinning, silvery hair, pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses and through watery blue eyes glanced round at all three.

“Mrs Miller, I have the result of your tests. Would you prefer to be alone?”

Jade held tightly on to Rhys and Shelley’s hands. Strangers to her. Strangers who had loved her since the day she was born.

“No,” she said. “I’d like my...my...Mum and Dad to stay.”

*****

Afterwards Colleen would recollect the tiniest detail that she barely noticed then. The old familiar carriage clock ticking steadily on and the sudden flurry of rain hitting the window as the wind changed direction. The smell of scones that she’d baked that morning and the tea-towel hung crookedly over the top of the cupboard door. The brief icy chill creeping in from some secret gap and the hairline crack in one of the four blue-willow-patterned porcelain cups that all neatly faced the same way on the hooks of their little wooden shelf.

“Colleen, I have to go back,” Ron Wilson said. But still he held both her hands in his own and looked into her eyes a little while longer.

Through the pouring rain they heard the Sutherlands car pulling out on to the road and the shouts of good wishes from Jenny and Mike Turner. Colleen’s tongue often ran away with her, but her heart was big and she’d been genuinely upset to see Jade crook and to hear the Sutherlands had to take her to hospital.

“Now don’t you worry. Rhys and Shelley aren’t your Mum and Dad, but I’m sure they’ll take good care of you,” she said, giving Jade a hug and kissing her cheek. “I know you don’t have any family to speak of because you don’t know the de Groots and they don’t know you, and the Sutherlands aren’t your family either, but Rhys and Shelley would be so upset if you died - I mean, not that you’re going to, but if you did...”

It was lucky that Ron and Jenny gently drew her back. Colleen needed to dab her eyes and blow her nose at the sad thought of Jade dying. She had offered to help in any way she could while Rhys and Mike were busy trying to push the Sutherland’s car out of deep mud. Shelley and Jenny had thanked her but assured her they’d be fine. Privately Colleen was glad they’d rejected the offer. She was dreading Rhys and Mike saying they needed her to help push the car as well.

Besides, even without electric and with the occasional draught slipping through, the caravan was warm and cosy. The kettle would heat soon enough on the calor gas stove, the scones on the cake stand would soon be buttered and placed on the willow-pattern plates. She looked at Ron, bewildered.

“I must go,” Ron repeated. “I’ve left Mrs Phillips and Jamie all alone in that isolated house and the storm’s so much worse. Her husband’s still out at sea, her parents have gone to the hospital, now the electric and the phone lines are down. Who else is there to check on them? I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t go back.”

And then he did something Colleen would always remember. Then he kissed her.

*****

“Drop the knife, kid!” Scotty said nervously. His nephew was barely tall enough to reach up to his uncle’s waist and the blade was pointing directly at Scott’s stomach. He didn’t dare move in case he startled Jamie into action.

“Noooooo!” Jamie shook his head as he spoke to emphasise his views on the matter. He didn’t know what the hell he was gonna do with the knife. But he was sure as hell he wasn’t gonna drop it. Even though his hand was all sweaty and his arm was aching.

“You'll ******* well drop that knife or...”

“I ******* well won’t!” Jamie said.

“Jamie!” Kirsty screamed. The pain of her broken ankle was so great that for a second or two she’d felt faint. She was shocked and terrified when she opened her eyes to see her small son holding Scott at knifepoint.

Jamie knew what must have upset Mum. Her family were always telling him to say pleases and thank yous and to ask politely before he did stuff. He wondered why Mum should bother about manners at a time like this, but grown-ups thought in strange ways and he was genuinely anxious to uphold the social niceties.

“You don’t mind me swearin’, do ya?” He asked Scott.

“No-o,” Scotty answered warily.

“Thank you,” Jamie said politely, though his head was banging with fear. The sweat made the knife feel like it was slipping from his grasp and if it did the madman could pick it up again.

Scotty scowled. Was this knife-wielding kid having a lend of him? He wasn’t used to kids. Strange, whiny little creatures who were always demanding attention and whose sole purpose in life seemed to be getting in the way and making adults trip over them.

A new thought struck Jamie. Something Mum had said earlier The photo.

“You look ‘bit like my Dad...” he told the madman thoughtfully.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry about the abrupt ending to this chapter. The chapter was far too long when I originally wrote it and had to be split.

[I love music]

Many thanks for your reviews.

*****chapter 15*****

Surprisingly, Scott only ever saw the diamonds twice. The first time was when Kane came out of the party clutching the old rucksack.

Scotty cussed several times and held his younger brother in an armlock while he deftly undid the straps with his free hand, warning him he was in for one helluva bashing if this was all he could manage to nick. Then he gasped and dropped his hold on Kane in shock, so rapt he could hardly speak.

“Okay...now you gotta keep...you gotta keep...” Scott was too stoked even to find the breath to finish his sentence.

“A rabbit...?” Kane suggested hopefully.

There was Buckley’s of him getting a cat or dog, Kane knew that. But a couple of kids in his class kept rabbits as pets. He’d heard them say their olds reckoned rabbits didn’t need as much looking after as a cat or a dog. So he’d asked Mum yesterday if he could keep a rabbit and she’d told him **** off, but that hadn’t exactly been no. Now they were rich they could afford to buy a rabbit, a hutch and heaps of carrots and lettuce.

Scott stared at him, baffled. He often reckoned Kane must have been dropped on his head when he was a bub. It was the only explanation. He chose to ignore the strange answer. He had more important things than rabbits on his mind. His eyes narrowed. His voice was low and menacing.

“You gotta keep your ******* mouth shut about this or you’re dead.”

Kane froze. Sometimes Scotty looked and sounded and acted so much like Dad it was almost like seeing his father in miniature. It hadn’t always been that way. When they were younger, his older brother would look out for him, warning him if it wasn’t safe to go home because the olds were bluing again, getting him out of the way if Dad was smashing up the furniture, saving him a share if they’d been out nicking lollies from Nosey Parker’s store. Kane didn’t know how or when or why things changed, only that they had. And Scotty’s punches could hurt like hell.

“Jeez, I won’t tell no one ‘bout the diamonds, Scott, dead set!”

“Shut it!” Scott swiped him across the ear, but lightly, and out of habit. Secretly he was pleased with his kid brother. “Keep ya voice down, drongo! This ain’t kids stuff no more. You’re in the big league now, and if the cops ever catch up with ya, ya’ll get ******* years in the slammer!"

Nah, it wasn’t kids stuff anymore, like seeing how many people walking below the bridge over the wharf that they could hit with great dollops of spit or emptying all the garbo out of the park garbo bins soon as the park guy had put it all in, Kane thought wistfully and a little proudly. Scott was always telling him get rid of the sookiness and do something really big. Well, he’d done it! You couldn’t get bigger than nicking diamonds.

But you could. And that night, though neither of them knew it yet, would be the night he did.

*****

The second time Scott saw the diamonds was when they buried them, on the edge of the unused field and the graveyard, where the light summer night scent of wild flowers and grass, met with the oppressive, musty damp of the ancient churchyard and its dark, silent graves.

Listening to Kane’ scared, heavy breathing beside him, he opened the bag and took one last loving, lingering look at the glorious colours glittering in the moonlight before reluctantly fastening up the rucksack straps for the final time.

Kane looked up then, whether at the sky or the stars or the moon, Scott never knew, but he was snivelling and his teeth were chattering.

Scotty felt distinctly uneasy as it suddenly occurred to him that maybe Kane had seen the ghost of Samuel Edmund Coates, rumoured to haunt the graveyard, and said to have even been seen once by Alf Stewart when he was a boy. But then his younger brother gave an extra big sniff, wiped his nose with the back of his hand and looked down at the hole they’d dug and Scott’s moment of fear passed. Despite finding his killer instinct, Kane was just being his usual sooky self.

So Scotty only ever saw the diamonds twice. Oh, but he dreamt about them often!

Mostly good dreams, like spending all that beautiful dough, though there was the occasional nightmare about being arrested. Then he would break out in a cold sweat, tossing and turning, wondering if, after all, he should have sold them on when he was young. But they were hot, he was a kid, it would’ve been far too risky when someone asked the inevitable questions. Incredibly, however, no one ever did ask!

The Kings left for the States the day after the party. The early evening news briefly mentioned the “benevolent millionaire” and showed a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it camera shot of father, son and au pair boarding their plane home, the newscaster shuffled the papers on her desk and read a funny little end-of-news item about a thief who’d been quickly arrested because he hadn’t been able to resist taking off his mask and smiling broadly for the shop security camera.

At first Scott was on edge, convinced the cops had requested a news black-out because they were just waiting for him to slip up. But as the weeks and months passed by without the inevitable questions it finally occurred to him that Danny King hadn’t reported the theft. And there could only be one reason - the diamonds were already hot! The “benevolent millionaire” must have been a crim!

Which meant Scotty was free to dig up the diamonds soon as he looked old enough to be taken seriously. Except it didn’t prove that easy. By the time he was fifteen people had begun to take Scott Augustus Phillips very seriously indeed. Especially the cops!

They’d begun keeping a very close eye on him ever since his twelfth birthday, which Scotty and his mates had celebrated by smashing the large window of the Yabbie Creek liquor store and running off with the display. High spirits, let’s hope he gets off Scotty free, Richie said in amusement, though the station cop was unimpressed. The court ruled that Scott, being the youngest by some years, had been influenced by the older kids and let him off with a caution. But after that Scott found he couldn’t move without some cop or other breathing down his neck. Richie lost count of the number of times he was called down to the cop station to collect his sons.

Kane was too young to be formally charged, but Scotty’s criminal record grew and grew. The night he was jailed for the Shauna Bradley kidnap, the diamond situation reached crisis point. It had been tough enough trying to shake off the cops in Summer Bay, how the hell was he meant to get his hands on the fortune when he was banged up?

Scotty chewed over the options. Asking a mate meant someone else taking a big fat cut. Blackmailing Danny King, even if he knew how to contact him, was far too complicated and dangerous. Taking a chance on digging up the rucksack himself was obviously too risky. But there was an answer. Scotty grinned. Kane owed him big time for dobbing him in over Shauna. Soon as he got out his kid bro was gonna be made to cop it sweet.

*****

Scotty had told him keep his blood-stained hands inside the jacket in which he carried the knife so no one saw. Kane kept expecting someone to stop him and ask why he had both hands tucked inside the jacket under his arm in that peculiar way, was there something wrong with his hip? He’d even rehearsed an answer. Yeh, he’d say. Yeh, they’d just foiled a bank robbery, one of the robbers had pushed him over, hurting his hip and his bro was taking him to hospital before he bled to death. That’d make people get out of their way quick smart and Scotty would be heaps impressed!

When they’d stopped at the cafe-bar though, that had been a real problem. He was pretty damn sure the guys he and Scotty were planning to dine with would think it a bit rude of him to sit under the table to eat dinner, but how else was he meant to keep the knife hidden?

It had been a relief when his older brother abruptly changed his mind about dinner anyway. Kane wasn’t in the least bit hungry. In fact he didn’t think he would ever be able eat again. He felt sick every time he thought of... Jeez, the sooky tears were beginning to fall again and Scotty’d do his block if he saw them!

Kane looked up to blink them back. Between drifting clouds, one by one, the stars were slowly beginning to twinkle and sparkle in a fast darkening sky. He wondered if the little girl with the magic smile was watching the stars too. If she even remembered him.

But, like a breath on the wind, the summer he’d been a kid was long gone now. There was no going back. The moon stared accusingly down like it knew. Like it could see all the blackness inside him. He wiped his nose, shivering at the memories.

Scott threw the rucksack inside the hole, glad to be rid of its heavy weight, and nodded to his brother. The knife and jacket followed the diamonds into their burial place. They kicked over the soil and Kane looked down at his outstretched palms covered in the blood and dirt. He wasn’t a kid anymore. After tonight, he could never go back to being a kid again. He was a killer.

*****

Kane kept in touch with Scott while he was inside. Scotty never figured out why. The cops had never watched Kane as closely so, in his brother’s place, he’d have dug up the diamonds and shot through. Maybe Kane thought he owed him for squealing about the Shauna kidnap or for all those years Scott’d looked out for him when they were kids. Maybe he was petrified Scott was going to dob him in. Whatever, Scott wasn’t going to complain.

Kane was a source of extra baccy and other goodies that were scarce in the slammer so he put up with him always jabbering on about training to be a sea captain because he wanted him to believe he was going straight when he got out. Well, yeh, in a way he was. Straight to Summer Bay.

His younger brother was waiting for him in the car the day Scott was released. It was a beautiful, cloudless summer day, the sun burning relentlessly down, the car seats burning with the heat, the occasional breeze wafting refreshingly in through the open window, riffling through Kane’s hair and fluttering his short sleeves. He was tanned from working out in the open, loading boats to pay his way through TAFE, full of smiles, full of plans about them working together. Soon as Scotty felt up to it, Kane said, he’d have a word with his gaffer.

Jeez, it was easy as taking candy from a baby! Scott spent a couple of days taking it easy in the poky little flat Kane had got himself in the backwoods little town. On the third day he suggested he and Kane went for a long drive. They stopped to fill up and in the servo he pulled the gun.

Adrenaline pumped deliciously through Scotty’s veins as they yelled at each other through the bursts of gunfire, his face and neck sweating under the hood pulled over his head, the brakes squealing wildly as they made their frantic getaway. The car finally skidded to a halt in the middle of nowhere, the back tyres firing up a hail of small stones, the wildlife screeching in loud protest like some crazy background orchestra.

Scotty was laughing hard. He hadn’t enjoyed himself so much in years.

“Why d’ya do it?” Kane shouted furiously. “I told ya soon as I got my life together I was gonna go back for Kirsty! Why d’ya always have to stuff things up for me?”

Scott stopped laughing. He grinned and patted Kane’s cheek because he knew how much he hated it. “Cos it’s fun, bro. And ‘cos ya owe me. Big time.”

Kane gritted his teeth and stared straight ahead. Remembering.

“Okay, Scott,” he said at last, taking a deep breath. “Whadd’ya want?”

“Oh, I think you know.”

Promises. Promises to keep.

“Drive,” Scott ordered, grinning.

“Where?”

“Just drive.”

Kane pulled back the clutch. He drove on in silence, trying to blank out his brother’s voice as Scott gave an over-excited recount of the servo robbery.

“Did ya see the old guy’s face? Thought his ******* last moment on earth had arrived when he copped on we had the gun! Whoo-ee, wouldn’t have minded pepperin’ that place with his blood though! Jeez, we make a ******* good team!"

Kane felt sick to the stomach. Images flashed through his mind. Memories he’d hoped were buried for good with the knife and the diamonds. Memories that would never go away. Ghosts of the past that would live and breathe forever behind his closed eyes in the stillness of the night. Always, always returning to haunt him.

At the train station, Scott told him to stop. He got out and leaned lazily on the half open door.

“Now I know ya wouldn’t want ya fave bro to get nicked with all that hot cash so I wan’cha to look after the dough real careful for me till I get back. ‘Cos that’s when I finally get to collect my inheritance. Right, bro?”

He rapped his brother’s head with his knuckles, slammed the door behind him and strolled off whistling.

*****

But things hadn’t gone the way Scott intended. The cash meant to finance him while he arranged a buyer for the diamonds went up in smoke in the fire at the Drop-in Centre. Kane stuffed up doing over the Diner. Scotty’s attempted drugs snatch at the surgery went drastically wrong. Worse, Kane was allowing the weird chick who could ID them over the servo robbery to wander round Summer Bay like she was out for a bloody Sunday picnic!

After Kane thwarted his plan to silence her, Scotty took off interstate, managing to get himself arrested within hours of his arrival by ramraiding a supermarket and almost killing the assistant manager, who'd been working late alone, and who stood, startled, in the middle of the aisle, holding up two cans of baked beans as though making an offering to the gods, as the car suddenly braked in front of him.

Another five years wasted waiting. And the cops got to keep the gun as a souvenir. But it was sweet when he finally got back to the Bay. His drongo of a brother had been too madly in love with the Kirsty Sutho chick to shoot through while he had the chance. So now Kane had a wife and a son. And he owed him.

The knife slipped from his grasp. Jamie couldn’t stop it. His sweat-soaked hand hurt bad from holding the handle so tight. Mum tried to snatch it up first but the madman who looked like Dad was quicker.

Jamie felt the ice cold blade rest against his throat.

[I love music]

*****chapter 16*****

Eleven-year-old Scott Phillips looked towards the most squalid of the hell houses that was home. The small rundown town with the deceptively pretty name of Summerhill wasn’t very far from the popular little seaside resort of Summer Bay and its steep, inclining streets boasted breathtaking views of the sea and surrounding countryside, but few, if any, Summer Bay holidaymakers ever took time out to visit.

Over a hundred years ago, when its once beautiful houses were enviously nicknamed “the hill houses”, when young couples and families picnicked on the green that was now a large, ugly supermarket, Summerhill was considered a more sedate, genteel place in which to “partake of the sea air” than the noisy, crowded Bay, and it was steeped in history - pottery and bones from early Aborigine settlers had even been found close to its rugged beach - but in these more modern times Summerhill was never mentioned in the tourist guidebooks and no police officer was ever foolish enough to patrol the drink and drugs fuelled area alone.

The Phillips’ house stood on perhaps the highest points of this ancient site, its nearest neighbours, large detached houses like itself, now silent, empty and neglected. So there was only Scott to listen, frowning in concentration, on that star-studded night that echoed, as it had echoed for thousands of years, with the distant lapping of the sea and gentle whispering of the trees.

The strange wailing that had risen high into the sky and been carried out to sea might have been Mum. Sometimes, after Dad bashed her, she would sit for hours, weeping in a strange, hollow kind of way. And yet this wailing was like nothing he’d ever heard before or would ever hear again, sending icy chills down his spine though the night was bathed in warmth. He stood motionless by the garden shed, listening hard as glass smashed like the ripple of countless pebbles hitting the earth and some heavy object fell in a single dull thud. Then all was abruptly quiet.

Scotty let out a slow breath. Maybe it was over. Maybe Dad had laid into Mum again and was about to lay into Kane. Maybe it was one of those brief, terrified silences that sometimes preceded Dad bashing someone. He stared at the kitchen window, where a mysterious faint yellow glow was silently flashing like a ghostly lantern.

And then the moon suddenly rose high over his squalid home, casting grey shadowy light into a garden strewn with empty bottles and discarded food wrappings. Cockroaches swarmed hungrily around the toppled garbo bin, bloated black bodies glistening, some scurrying over his feet in their eagerness to feast. Scotty barely noticed them. He listened closely, straining his ears, but unprepared for the sound that finally broke the silence.

Laughter crashed into the stillness of the calm summer night.

Hearty laughter, like Dad had just been told some beaut joke, like he was wiping his eyes, like he was struggling to catch his breath but every time he did he remembered the punchline and laughed all over again. Scotty looked at the garden shed, reluctant to leave the diamonds for even a second. But he had to know. He had to find out what secrets this night was keeping.

He crept to the kitchen window, soundlessly dragging out of the way the empty orange crate that Kane always used as a step-ladder to climb into the house when Dad locked him out. Scott was tall enough not to need anything to stand on yet small enough to quickly bob his head back down out of sight if need be. Stretching slightly, he pressed his elbows down on the cold, rough window ledge and, cupping his eyes with his hands, peered inside.

In the flash of light Kane briefly saw his father’s grinning face, his gaze cold and unblinking, glowing red in the yellow flame of the cigarette lighter. Then darkness. And then the yellow flame illuminating the grinning devil-face once more. Now the darkness sweeping back like a flood. And the only sound the almost imperceptible click of the lighter being rapidly flicked on and off, the only light the small fire in Richie Phillips’ hand. Light then dark, light then dark, light then dark. On and on.

Till the moon rises high and in the cold light shadows stir anew.

The dark heap lying prone on the ground groans softly. Dad kicks him swiftly back into silence. The small, slight figure of Mum, who’s been kneeling, sobbing, by the man’s side, rises and, trembling, points the kitchen knife towards her husband.

“So now we’re even, Di,” Richie hisses, the moonlight catching the jagged edges of the broken bottle, and he clicks the lighter once, twice more, and laughs at their weakness.

And so it must begin again, this nightmare. How often it would come back to haunt him. How often he would remember the man with his back to him now rising, hurt and bleeding, his breathing heavy and laboured. How often he would recall his mother’s long, high-pitched wail and her hand shaking uncontrollably trying to clasp the knife so very tight, and his father pressing the lighter on and off while lazily, almost casually, finishing off the whiskey with a long gulp from the bottle.

Then another flicker of light, the empty bottle smashes down against the stranger’s head, the man falling forward and Mum falling with him, as if she too has been felled by some invisible blow, and Dad laughing at Kane forever through the wavering yellow flame.

Till the moon.

Till the slight, white-faced figure rising, trembling, stumbling to her feet. “I’ll kill you, Gus, I WILL kill you!”

“Don’t call him that! Don’t call him that!”

Because Gus is the name that his father is known by in the dark, crowded bars that simmer with violence and hate, the name the druggies shout when they’re frantically thudding fists on the downstairs windows in the dead of the night, the name Mum spits in hatred, as she spits now, on days when she no longer cares if she lives or dies. If she says Richie like she usually says Richie, in that quiet, subdued, anxious-to-please voice, then it’s alright, it’s alright, though it’s never alright but it might mean nobody will die tonight...

If he could just hold on to some normality in this terrifying, blood-drenched world of knives and broken bottles and shadows, oh, if he could...

...........just......

....................breathe.........

.......................................................for a moment...

The floor is slippy and treacherous, from the stranger’s blood, from the grains of broken glass glittering like ice, from the wet, trampled flowers, their fragrant, delicate scent mixing with the smell of stale tobacco and grog and the overpowering, sickly, smoky sweetness of marijuana. His right heel slides, carrying him to the ground, his hand touching liquid, shuddering at the thought it might be blood, his ears hearing nothing but Mum screams, his eyes seeing nothing but the knife falling by him, shining bright in the moon, and Dad raising the broken bottle towards Mum’s face, and only Kane, jumping up, and a knife to stop him...

“You better not hurt my Mum!”

Richie Phillips, laughing, sweeps his small son to one side and Diane criss*crosses her arms over her face and ducks and several times Richie slashes the air near both she and Kane, missing purposely to tease...

Behind him, like in the 2.15am zombie movie he once watched, while Dad was out dealing and Mum in one of the trances she went into after Dad beat her, and Scotty upstairs with a bottle of strong cider, the man on the ground tries to lift himself, to speak, to catch hold of Kane’s ankle, and, frantic with terror, the little boy spins around, screwing his eyes shut tight, plunging the knife that sinks into the man’s shoulder blade, drawing blood, and he slumps forward......

.........Like a puppet......

...........................................on broken strings......

And then silence.

[I love music]

*****chapter 17*****

Something icy cold hit Kane’s face, shocking him awake. The storm had almost faded now, but rain still hammered against the window and the thunder was still crashing - but, strangely, only inside his own head.

He sat up slowly, shivering uncontrollably as freezing water spilled down his face and neck and trickled through his shirt. Searing pain tore through the back of his head and he seemed to be aching in every limb. It was difficult to focus but gradually he became vaguely aware of someone sitting there. Cross-legged on the floor, next to a garbo bag, and nursing a large jug.

“I put ice cubes in the water! Found ‘em in the green fridge with the mouldy ******* cheese!” The person cried triumphantly, and then hiccuped loudly. “S’cuse me!” Giggling, Melanie put her hand over her mouth like a child.

“Mel...that you...?” He whispered weakly, thinking the voice familiar.

“Jeez, I forgot, you can’t see, I can’t see...” Melanie managed, on the third attempt, accidentally kicking over a can half full of lager and cursing in the process, to stretch far enough to plug in the lamp that Scott had dumped on the floor when he sold the coffee table for money to buy more grog. “There! Now you tell me. Why the **** would someone wanna buy a green fridge when the kitchen’s blue?”

Because the rain had drenched it, her hair wasn’t swept across her face like it normally was and the black eye and ugly bruising on her left cheek were clearly visible. Melanie read his expression and turned away, angrily pushing her soaking wet hair back into its usual place. The last thing she wanted from this guy was his sympathy.

“Yeh, well, you don’t exactly look a million dollars yourself,” she muttered awkwardly.

“Scott did that?” He was out of breath, unable to find the strength to move, and the thunder pounding in his head muffled his hearing. He was fighting desperately to stay conscious.

“Whadd’you reckon, genius? You know, maybe it’s easier if I carry this without the gift wrap.”

Melanie stood up abruptly, sobering now, but her movements clumsy and awkward, tipping out the contents of the garbo bag. A few crumpled clothes tumbled out with the old leather rucksack, blackened now with years of mud and rain, but, even after all this time, instantly recognisable. The one thing that could save Kirsty and Jamie and he was too weak to stop her.

She had her back to him, shrugging on a faded denim jacket, embroidered flower patterns on its back and a gaping hole in its elbow.

“Mel...don’t...don’t take the bag...please...” He leaned, exhausted, against the wall, trying to push himself up with the palms of his hands.

“Why not? My conscience is clear. See, in the end, I couldn’t leave you for dead like a sicko rapist once left me. In the end, I couldn’t even do that.”

She faltered by the rucksack, debating whether or not she could carry too the pathetically thin sleeping bag that she’d left behind the first time. It was easier if she didn’t look at him. But she owed him an explanation. She owed him that much at least. So she spoke without turning around.

“Look, I didn’t plan on this, okay? All I wanted was a roof over my head, see Summer Bay, have someone give a damn about me. Maybe Scott didn’t turn out how I hoped, but he told me everything. Too much. Even where you both buried the diamonds.”

He didn’t have the strength anymore to push himself and Melanie was fading in and out of his vision. It was hard even to speak.

“If you know...if you know everything, then you know Scott will kill my wife and kid if he don’t get that back! Please, Mel, I don’t give a stuff about the dough. All I care about is Kirsty and Jamie. That’s all I ever cared about.”

“Yeh, yeh! So why don’t’cha just go tell the cops? Scared Scott'll lag about the murder?”

He blanched. The image of the man who’d slumped forward with blood spurting down his back raced through his mind like it had done in every nightmare since he was barely seven years old. He never knew if it was a blessing or not that he never saw the guy’s face. In the harrowing dreams, he saw so many different faces. But every dream ended the same. With the corpse slumped forward and the bloodied knife clutched in Kane’s shaking hand.

“Like I said, Scott told me everything,” Melanie added. She smiled grimly. “Bet your wife and kid would be real proud to know you’re a killer.”

“They’ll never know. How d’ya tell people who love ya, who look up to ya, what ya really are? How d’ya break their hearts like that?”

There was a catch in his voice and her heart lurched but she steeled herself, though tears welled in her eyes, streaking her mascara. Early that morning, when the plan had seemed so simple, when Scott had given her the last of the cash to buy groceries, Melanie had carefully applied crumbling make-up from a worn cosmetic bag.

The sun hat had covered lank, greasy hair, the hanky to her eyes had covered the bruising to her cheek, nobody questioned the skinny, waif-like, pretty girl who must have been crying at the grave of some loved one, and who now ran down the curving stone steps that led to the ancient churchyard, carrying a muddy, battered old rucksack on that busy, bright sunny day.

That was when she should have shot through but instead she’d stupidly, stupidly gone back. Back to Scott and the gun and her curiosity about her boyfriend’s brother who talked about a wife and kid like he actually cared. But no man ever cared, not even her father. Men made you cry, beat up on you, left you crumpled inside and a little tougher on the outside. The really sick ones, they raped you and left you for dead. Because guys used you, abused you, took what they wanted. That was what guys did. Well, Melanie was finally going to take something back.

She sniffed, pretended to sweep back her hair, wiped away tears, managed to stem their flow.

“Yeh, well, Scott told me what you really are. The lowest of the low - a ******* rapist! And you wanna know what I saw today? A chick who was gonna kill herself because she’d been raped. Oh, she didn’t tell me she was gonna but she was gonna do it alright. I could see it in her eyes.”

“You didn’t try to stop her?”

Melanie swung round in anger. “Why should I? She’d made her choice. Maybe she couldn’t live with the memory of rape any longer. Well, I know what that’s like. I know what it’s like to have some sicko creep out the woodwork thinking he can buy you for the price of a meal, a coffee and a smoke, and when you tell him he can’t...” She drew a deep breath, shuddering. “I’ve been there myself. OD’d three times. I’m not so stupid now. I don’t trust guys anymore.”

But it had been a mistake to turn around. Their eyes locked. Melanie, who’d sworn never to trust any guy ever again, strangely she both hated him and trusted him. Not completely. Not totally. Just enough to have doubts.

She glanced at the rucksack. She could pick it up, leave now. He was too weak to stop her. She need never again doss down under railway bridges, gathered round a fire with the other derros, drinking cheap wine just to stay warm and doing smack just to forget. Once the diamonds were sold on, she could get herself into rehab, get her life sorted, buy herself a place of her own. She could have anything. Anything she ever wanted. And yet she couldn’t.

She knew she should never have come back, but she also knew she’d had to. Because that pain was in him too. Deep as the needle marks her long sleeves always covered. Oh, Scott had laughed, bragging when he told her the stories, but even he couldn’t hide it. Glimpses of a childhood as harrowing as her own.

“Okay. Okay,” she said at last. “But not for you. Not for no ******* rapist b*****d. For your wife and kid.”

She’d help him get the fortune back to Scott and then she would shoot through. And maybe she would try yet again in some new place to go cold turkey, stay clean, even hold down a job.

Because the fortune wasn’t the only reason she’d stayed with Scott but no one would ever know. No one would ever know the real reason she had had to see Summer Bay because she would never visit Summer Bay again. Except in dreams. And Melanie would keep her secrets.

Oh, so many, many secrets...

*****

Dani took several deep breaths, gazing down in terror at the storm-tossed swirling grey sea. No one was ever going to find her. She looked back at the cliff-top path she barely remembered walking along, shocked now by how narrow it was.

Signposts at the bottom of the cliffs, signposts that she’d ignored, warned ramblers of frequent crumbling rocks, to only attempt walking in good weather and to never stray off the paths marked by the yellow arrows. Every single rule she’d deliberately broken.

Slowly, carefully, she pushed her bloodied hand firmly down on the rock and twisted herself around, gulping back a scream as her heel slipped and sent several small stones flying into the water. For a moment she closed her eyes, clinging to the forlorn hope that this was some terrible nightmare and she would wake in the safety of her own bedroom, that she was shivering only because Mark had claimed all the bedcovers again.

And she would giggle when she pulled the duvet back to her side because the sudden cold always made him give a particularly loud snore that never failed to wake him and his breath would be warm as they cuddled up together, snug in each other’s arms. She screwed her eyes shut tighter, clenching her teeth, willing for it to be so. Yet knowing it couldn’t be. Because even snuggling up together was something they hadn’t done for a long, long time now.

He tried to understand, tried not to let the hurt show at her rejection, made some joke, with a catch in his throat, about never having kids till they were old and grey. All she could tell him was give her time. She forced herself to open her eyes and look down again at the sea.

And so it would all end here in Summer Bay. Where all the pain first began. She knew they would blame Kane Phillips.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks once again for your lovely reviews.

[I love music]

*****chapter 18*****

Kirsty stared helplessly as Scott calmly pressed his hand down on Jamie’s head and held the knife’s sharp blade dangerously close to the little boy’s throat. How could Kane’s brother be so evil? He and Kane had grown up together, known together the misery of a violent, alcoholic father. They should have grown up close, not with this hatred.

“Don’t...don’t hurt my son, Scott,” she said, her voice a choked, tearful whisper.

Scotty grinned, beginning to enjoy himself. Now this sort of situation he could handle! Not reminders of a long ago past when, too young to know any better, he’d actually been sooky enough to risk a bashing himself just to get Kane out of the way of the oldies’ blues. Or the time when he’d lapsed for a few stupid seconds and pulled the only remaining photos out of their cracked, dusty frames.

Why he’d done that, he’d never know. It had been during his very first stint in jail, not long after Ma died of cirrhosis of the liver, and his first long weekend out on parole. It had taken him fourteen or fifteen hours to reach home, hitching a couple of lifts, travelling part of the way ticketless on a train, and sometimes walking. But he’d gone home because there was nowhere else to go.

The large Victorian house was unnaturally quiet. Several times Scott shouted and loudly rattled the old-fashioned brass door knocker in the shape of a fiercely growling lion’s face, imagining no one answered because Dad was off his face with the grog and Kane was hiding out somewhere. Eventually he realised the door was, in fact, unlocked and, with considerable effort, shoved it open with his shoulder.

Home was so decisively, so emphatically empty that the silence screamed at him. Downstairs in the cold, deserted house, with final demand bills tightly jamming the door, the only remaining furniture among scattered boxes, drops of blood and assorted debris was in the kitchen, two small, broken chairs and a badly-scraped table, obviously of no use to anyone. It looked like there’d been a fight and Dad had scarpered, no doubt dumping Kane on Auntie Rose in Yabbie Creek, like Richie Phillips, now an old, shambling alcoholic wreck and not so able to handle himself in fights, often did when he had to lie low for a little while.

Upstairs, despite the havoc of someone having packed very quickly, the house was slightly better off furniture wise, but the upstairs rooms stank heavily of stale air and sweat, reminding Scotty too much of the slammer. Except for the boxroom, where the window that never shut to properly had at least allowed a little air to circulate. And so he’d chosen to crash there, in the tiny room that Kane would often hide out in when they were kids and Scotty had threatened to kill him yet again.

He slept restlessly, tossing and turning in confusing dreams, on the old kid-size sofa bed with its cartoon-koala-bears pattern, his long legs dangling over the end, and woke up aching, angry and bitter.

Next day, without knowing why, he’d pulled the last remaining photos out of their frames and packed them in the small, battered hold-all he'd brought with him from the prison. Then, without bothering to call at Aunt Rose’s to terrorize the old lady and catch up with Kane (officialdom deemed Kane too young to visit prison on his own, and Dad and Auntie Rose never bothered to fill in the prison visitor forms Scott sent) he shot through to Yabbie Creek, got high, got smashed, picked up a chick, picked a fight with her boyfriend, and earned himself an extra month in the slammer but, hell, it had been worth it.

“By the way, did Kane ever tell ya he killed a guy?”

He was rewarded by the shocked look on her face. Under his hand the kid flinched.

“Nah, thought not,” he continued chattily, ruffling Jamie’s hair like a proud uncle. “Let me see, he’d’a been...whooo, I reckon...oh, ‘bout seven years old. Funny enough, couple of days after Dad killed a guy too. See, the killer instinct, all us Phillips got it. Can’t help ourselves. This anklebiter now, wouldn’t be at all surprised if he kills someone before his next birthday.”

“I d-don’t believe you,” Kirsty stammered.

“We-ell, you could be right, he might decide to wait till he’s growed a little bit more.”

“Kane would never kill anyone.”

Scotty slapped his forehead. “Ah! He never told ya? Me and my big mouth!”

“And I...I don’t believe you would either.”

There it was again. That flash of fearlessness in her eyes. What was it with this chick? She spooked him and Scott Augustus Phillips was not easily spooked.

“Get The Stash, Darlin’, Or I Take The Kid? he said, through clenched teeth.

"I told you, I...”

For some time now the roaring sea and howling wind and rain had drowned out the lonely sound of the solitary car making its way along the narrow coastal path. So the car headlights that suddenly swept over them took all three by surprise.

Scott turned and started, looking like he’d seen a ghost. Jamie blinked at the sight of his teacher. Kirsty dared breathe again as through the sheets of rain and narrow beams of light she saw Ron Wilson sitting behind the wheel of the car...and the small figure that had taken advantage of Scott’s momentary distraction to tear past!

Jamie paused only briefly at the opening of the short cut to the popular cliff-top walk, unwittingly standing in the same spot where Dani had earlier stood with her bitter memories.

“I need my Dad!” He yelled, by way of explanation to Mum, Mr Wilson and the madman.

Kirsty made to follow her son, forgetting about her badly broken ankle till it suddenly crunched beneath her and she crumpled to the ground, watching helplessly, trying to drag herself up, as Scott raced through the opening after his nephew.

Dad always knew how to put things right! Jamie was sure that if he stood high on the cliffs and waved, Dad would be able to see him from his ship. At this very moment, he was prob’ly standing on deck with binoculars, looking out for pirates’ buried treasure or maybe even pirates themselves, who’d be brandishing swords and wearing the very latest in eye-patches that they’d have got from Diagon Alley, where Harry Potter bought all the stuff he needed for being a wizard.

Mum and Dad often used the short cut to take Jamie down to the beach, or on to the path that led to the safe, yellow-arrowed, breathtakingly beautiful cliff-top walk, but he’d never before been here by himself, and he’d certainly never before turned right, as he did now, running towards the grey, forbidding cliffs where normally only seagulls ever ventured and that towered high into the sky like cold, unfriendly giants. But that rain-drenched evening not a single gull was to be seen swooping and circling in those distant, dizzying heights.

Majestic and silent, the cliffs waited only for the tiny, shivering figure who was making his way closer towards them.

Jamie stumbled and tried hard not to cry. It was too dark to see properly and underfoot was soaking wet and slippy. Here and there a few thick, hardy plants had managed to shoot up in small patches of soil between the rocks and Jamie used them to pull himself up, higher and higher, along the narrow, twisting, turning trails that led higher. His teeth were chattering with cold and fear and below him the sea was roaring furiously while above the powerful wind tried its hardest to blow him back. But he pressed on. If he could only get to the top of the cliffs where his Dad could see him from his ship, it’d all be okay again.

Dad would make the madman and the knife and all Jamie’s terror go away like Dad could always chase away Jamie’s bad dreams. And then Dad would kiss Mum better and it would be like it had always been, with Mum and Dad playing last kiss and jumping in puddles and snatching up handfuls of petals to throw at each other. If he could only get to the very top of the cliffs! Dad, Dad, Dad, he chanted over and over like a mantra, each small footstep carrying him further and further upwards into the dark unknown.

Kirsty heard the car door slam shut as she tried in vain to put her weight on her ankle and she remembered thankfully that there was still a faint glimmer of hope. Ron Wilson was there. The only one who could help them now.

“Mr Wilson...Ron...you’ve got to stop him...”

Ron stooped for a fleeting second, lightly touching her shoulder.

“I will, Mrs Phillips. I promise you," he said, in his quiet, certain, determined way, before he too followed Scott and Jamie to the cliffs, leaving Kirsty all alone on the windswept deserted lane, with tears and rain stinging her eyes.

Usually so right about people, she’d been so wrong about Scott Phillips. By the look on his face just before he tore after Jamie she knew he meant to let nothing and no one get in his way.

She could only pray desperately that Ron Wilson would reach her small son first.

[I love music]

*sigh* I wish Johnny Cooper and Scott Phillips were friends...

If I had the time, Adia, I'd do a one shot of that. Maybe some time in the future...

*****chapter 19*****

The moment seven-year-old Kane plunged the knife was the same moment eleven-year-old Scott thought it high time he ducked back down out of sight. Except he wasn’t exactly concentrating now.

Instead of creeping softly away, never to be discovered, he tripped noisily over the empty wooden crate, falling against the wall and badly scraping a wrist and shin as he put out his hands to stop himself, yelling a string of colourful and imaginative swear words that were enough to make a trooper blush.

“What the **** is ******* going on? Who the ******* hell is out there?” Richie Phillips sounded like he too had joined the campaign to embarrass troopers as he ran outside and, finding Scott, threw him roughly and unceremoniously into the house.

“Dad...” Scott scrambled up quickly, before his father had a chance to lay into him.

Unlike Kane, he was too sturdy now for Richie to push around as much as he used to, but it was never wise to take chances and Scotty lived on his wits. Using other people to his advantage could often save him from a bashing and he was thinking fast as he took in the scene around him.

Mum had sunk defeatedly down into one of the little wooden chairs next to the kitchen table, staring somewhere far away, hands clasped primly on her lap, like some old-fashioned Sunday School teacher awaiting her pupils. Kane stood exactly as Scott had seen him last, white-faced, clutching the knife, staring down at the dark pool of blood on the crisp white shirt of the man he’d just stabbed, trembling uncontrollably, and his breath coming in short, shivering, hurried gasps.

Scott spoke hurriedly, anxious to keep Richie onside. “We gotta get rid of him, Dad. We don’t want no cops round here lookin' for dead bodies!”

Richie stopped in his tracks and grinned slowly at his eldest boy. The only one in the family with any sense. He drew a packet of smokes from his pocket, lit up a ciggie and inhaled.

“Ain’t that right? Can’t have dead bodies clutterin’ up the place! Now where are we gonna bury him, Di? Any ideas?” He smiled mockingly and tapped two fingers on the kitchen table.

The same kitchen table that he’d gathered the Phillips family round two nights ago to tell them he’d killed a man in a fight in a public bar with dozens of witnesses. But, funnily enough, no one saw anything, or so they’d said, Richie added, tilting back his chair and throwing back his head in laughter.

He brought the chair crashing back down to look round at their faces. In his wife’s eyes was bitter hatred but, as always since he’d begun beating the defiance out of her, she was too afraid to answer. Scott gazed at him, dumbstruck with hero worship, his mouth half open in awe. It was Scotty’s ambition to grow up to be as feared as his father and he was starting well, there wasn’t a kid in the neighbourhood didn’t quake in his shoes when Scotty Phillips was around. But, Jeez, as for his useless other son...!

Kane was shaking, trying to pretend he wasn’t, and blinking back the tears. His youngest kid, who needed to have all that sookiness knocked right out of him. Richie brought his face close to Kane’s.

“And ya wanna know why nobody saw nothin, son? ‘Cos I’m the devil and no one can hurt the devil. But I can hurt them whenever, however I want.” Smiling, he pushed Kane’s fingers back and his small son gulped in pain, knowing he couldn’t cry because if he cried Dad would bash him for being like a girl.

“Cos...awww...your boyfriend’s gone and got himself killed, Di. Die, die, die, say bye, bye, bye,” Richie said now, but the words were lost on his wife, who still stared straight ahead, still awaiting her invisible class.

It was never half as much fun when she went into one of her trances. Acting like a fruitcake, Scotty called it, and Diane Phillips could stay motionless like that for hours, seeing and hearing some faraway world that existed only in her own fragile mind.

Pumped full of grog, just two days after killing a man with an iron-hard fist, Richie needed something else to make him laugh as it had earlier made him roar with laughter to see his small son staring in terror into the flickering yellow flame of the cigarette lighter, knowing the kid was remembering the devil speech. He swung Kane around, his fist aimed at the little boy’s face.

“Can’t say I’m not glad he’s gone, but ya gotta pay for killin’ him here!”

The bloodied knife fell to the floor with a resounding clang. The child’s eyes widened in terror. Richie grinned in satisfaction, ready to aim a blow.

But Scott was worried about the diamonds. It was like having kids to fret over. They were out there, cold, alone and unloved in that burnt-out garden shed, where anyone could stroll in and find them. He wanted them somewhere safe till he could collect them again and he wanted them somewhere safe now. He needed Richie Phillips out of the way. A.S.A.P.

“We gotta get rid of that guy, Dad, before the cops show lookin’ for him. Maybe ya should get the truck,” he said, impatient, but sounding matey, watching his father, and in particular his father’s clenched fist, warily.

Richie turned, though his fist still hovered in Kane’s direction, and looked at Scotty, impressed. His eldest boy did the Phillips family proud.

“Throw him in, dump him somewhere,” Scott prompted, swallowing with relief as Richie obligingly snatched the car keys up from the table. It was living very, very dangerously, telling Richard Augustus Phillips what he could and couldn’t do, no matter how sweetly you said it.

Proud though he was of his eldest son, Richie believed in keeping people in their place. Couldn’t have Scotty thinking he’d got one over on his old man. He wrapped his arm around Scott’s neck and poked the bunch of keys into his cheek, cruelly aiming for the bad tooth Scott had lately been complaining about, but, luckily for Scotty, getting the wrong side.

“Go open the gates, smartass,” he said.

“No worries, Dad!”

Scotty ran thankfully into the arms of the warm moonlit night, while Kane pressed himself against the wall, hoping to be forgotten about, watching breathlessly as his father pulled the body through splinters of glass, streaked, smeared blood and flattened flowers towards the door, while his mother sat immobile, staring into space, lifeless and pale as a China doll. Richie paused, panting, and caught his eye.

“You’re a murderer now, boy!” He said. “Ain’t no gettin’ away from the fact.”

To Kane’s terror, the face-down corpse suddenly seemed to flex its hand, as if it had heard his father’s words and, sensing its killer was still in the room, was seeking him out. But then he realised it had to be his imagination. If you looked at a door handle long enough it would move, if you stared hard enough at a black dot it would begin to crawl as though it were a tiny insect.

He couldn’t afford to let his imagination run away with him anymore, that was what little kids did. And he had to be...much, much more than a seven-year-old kid now. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to look again, to be certain the corpse wasn’t moving on its own. To his enormous relief, this time it was still.

Grunting with exertion, Richie gave a final mighty tug and heaved the body out the door. Finally, finally out of Kane’s sight! No one but the Phillips family would ever know his dark secret and they must never tell...

Jeez, already he was thinking like a murderer! Beads of sweat formed on the little boy’s forehead. He listened carefully, burning with guilt, as the giant wrought iron front gates, that had gleamed proudly in a distant time when a well-to-do merchant and his bride travelled home in a carriage pulled by sleek, plumed horses, creaked rustily open, weary with age. The engine of the truck revved up close by. Its wheels crunched on the gravel and gradually began to fade. Taking away his victim. At last Kane could breathe.

*****

Jamie kept looking down at the sea, hoping to see his Dad’s ship but there were still no ships out there on that restless water.

The rain was lighter now, the storm sweeping back out towards the ocean, the black clouds being blown on by the wind, even a twinkling star or two beginning to dot the sky. Night was falling fast. It was becoming hard to make out anything at all except for the grey waves crashing wildly against the rocks. And he was freezing and alone and scared. Mum and Dad had always been there whenever he was scared before.

He thought suddenly that singing Mum and Dad’s favourite song might make him feel better, the song Mum had taped specially for Dad and that they had all happily danced to before the madman came along. A small, wavering voice piped breathlessly into the cold night air.

“I’m up on the roof, I’m just a-killin’ time...I’m up on...your car drive by...”

It was hard to remember the words when you were concentrating hard on trying not to slip and fall down into the icy sea..

“Hey, rock’n’roll is mine...Uh-oh, oh-oh...”

The sob in Jamie’s throat made it sound like he was constipated. He gave up on the song and looked down at the swirling sea. Still no sign of Dad. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to come up here after all. Maybe he’d never, ever be found on the cliffs and would have to live out here alone forever. He’d have to make friends with the gulls and eat worms and raw fish and learn to talk gull language. And they weren’t going to be very impressed when he told them he couldn’t fly. And that he didn’t really LIKE worms or raw fish.

Tears filled his eyes as he looked upwards at the vast, lonely cliffside. Then, for a brief moment in the moonlight, he thought he saw something. No, someone! A person! Maybe it was a ghost or a pirate or another madman ready to terrorize him again with a knife to his throat. He watched, shivering, his heart beating so fast Jamie felt it was going to explode.

Then the moon shone on the person’s face. And overwhelming relief flooded through him. It was going to be okay after all! He knew who it was...

“Anniedani!” He screamed, waving frantically, hoping that she could hear him through the wild roaring of the wind and the sea. “Anniedani, Anniedani!”

She was quite a way away, but he was sure she’d heard him. She looked around. And then she deliberately turned and walked away.

*****

“Muuum...?”

She said nothing.

When he was older he pieced the mystery together. Diane Phillips had been having an affair. Whether she ever intended to come back for Kane and Scott, he’d never know, but, under cover of darkness, she had packed her case - the letters and clothes burning away on the driveway - till she was sprung by Richie, who no doubt had had his suspicions for a long time and had just been waiting his chance.

But when he was seven years old all he knew was that a nice, kind man had brought Mum flowers, maybe because she’d been crook, and Dad, as usual, had spoilt everything. Just like the time, two years ago, he spoilt everything when, not long after Dad’s brother Uncle Joe was killed in the car crash, Auntie Rose took Mum, Kane and Scotty to catch a movie in Yabbie Creek.

They’d stuffed themselves with popcorn and choc ices and Auntie Rose had given him and Scotty five dollars each to choose whatever they wanted from the new toy superstore. Mum had smiled heaps that day and he and Scott had been a bit hyper when they got home, each carrying one of the cool new electronic hand held games, Scotty with alien killers and Kane with battleships, talking nineteen to the dozen and pushing each other round but in the matey kind of way that happened with them once in a while.

But they all stopped when they saw Dad. He was meant to be out helping a mate sell off crates of wine nicked off a ship’s cargo, but instead there he stood, his tall shadow cast ominously before them in the pale late afternoon light, arms folded, watching.

“Bumped into Frank Rimmer down the pub,” he said conversationally. “Told me how he saw y’all in Yabbie Creek. Said ya was all too far away to speak to else he’d have told Rose how sorry he was to hear about Joe’s death. Said it was real nice though to see families stay in touch like that. Real nice.”

Di Phillips turned deathly white. “Don’t be mad, Richie, please, only I couldn’t ask you, Rose phoned after you’d left, and...well, Kaney and Scotty, they never get to have much...”

“Who says I’m mad?” Richie asked, smiling sweetly. “Just because I don’t like the b*t*h who was driving the car that killed my bro don’t mean my kids can’t have nothin’ from her. Let me see what you got there then, kids?”

He held out his hand and, following Scott’s reluctant lead, Kane handed over the battleships game with heavy heart. And they watched as Richie calmly, still smiling, threw the games down and crushed them with his heel, several times, to make sure they were thoroughly, irretrievably broken.

Then he slapped his wife hard and threw her back across the room.

Kane angrily made to jump to her defence but Scotty pulled him back, hissing, “You drongo, whadd’ya think ya gonna do? He’ll kill you as well!”

And then he remembered that was his sooky side, the side he had to work hard to get rid of. So they left Mum to it and spent the evening throwing small, sharp stones at any kid unlucky enough to pass under the bridge over the wharf, returning home to find Mum alone, curled up and bruised and weeping, but still breathing, and Scotty asked her what was for supper.

“Mum...?” Kane said again.

He began making his way slowly towards her, sideways like a crab, his back never leaving the wall because somehow the wall protected him. And because he didn’t want to look down at the floor. Not at the broken glass and trampled flowers and streaks of his victim’s blood.

Oh, Jeez, say something please...don’t sit there staring, jump up, yell at me, hug me...

“I didn’t mean to kill him, ya know, only he was kinda like Billy-Bob, ya know the zombie who was a bit of a dork, only it was ‘cos he was actually an alien and so, ya know, he could take poison and not cark it and I don’t mean I killed him 'cos he looked like Billy-Bob ‘cos he didn’t, least I don’t think he did, and anyways I liked Billy-Bob, he was funny, and I wouldn’t have killed him even if he had looked like Billy-Bob but I didn’t kill him ‘cos he didn't look like Billy-Bob, that’s if he didn’t look like Billy-Bob...”

Oh, hell, why couldn’t he stop rambling? But he knew why. He always rambled like this when he was scared and he was real scared right now. His head was banging. Bile rose up in his throat. A sound crashed in his ears like the waves and, over and over, he was icily cold and then burning hot, and sooo tired...

Will ya please, please stop staring into space, will ya tell me what to do? ‘Cos I just killed a guy and I need my Mum and I don’t know what to do...

[I love music]

*****chapter 20*****

Dani listened again. It was probably only the sea sweeping to the shore. Or the cawing of a seagull in some sheltered place on the rocks, spreading wet, ruffled wings and shaking off droplets of cold rain. Or perhaps it was the wind, stealing through nooks and crannies of the cliffs that only the restless wind could find.

Anything out here could sound like a voice. When the tears had blinded her, the wailing wind had sounded like a thousand voices.

Carefully, she examined her injured wrist, wincing in pain. In her handbag was a half-opened packet of paper hankies and she fished them out and dabbed gingerly at the wound. The rain was lighter now, though it still fell steadily, and the paper tissues quickly became sodden, but at least the water helped wash away the blood and she was able to see the damage. It wasn’t as bad as she’d first thought. Just a large, ugly gash, though it hurt badly where she’d bruised the base of her thumb.

She sucked in a breath as, in pressing down to stem the flow of blood, she accidentally caught the bruising. And then the harrowing memories were triggered just as they were always so easily triggered. He was there, gripping her arms, leaving the imprint of his fingers in bruises, pushing her back, her terrified screams locked inside her throat and playing out only inside her own head, his breath hot on her face, his mouth pressing hard on her lips...

Her shoulders sagged and she sank down like a rag doll. Digging her fingernails into her palms, breathing hard, Dani finally stood shakily and looked down at the hungry sea, the wind flinging her hair wildly across her face, tears curling down the ridge of her cheeks. Soon it would all be over. One moment of terror and then endless sleep. She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut tight.

And then suddenly it came again. That cry like a voice. Dani’s eyes shot open. It couldn’t be real. Surely out here the moon and the sea and the wind conspired to play all kinds of tricks on a vulnerable mind? The rain had stopped and more stars than she ever remembered seeing before shone brightly, lighting up the sky.

Suddenly, high on the rocks, she saw a flash of white. And this time there was no mistaking the cry.

“Anniedani! Anniedani! Anniedani, Anniedani!”

She started in shock at the child calling to her. And then the answer seemed to come in a blinding flash and she turned.

*****

“Jeee-zuus!” Melanie frowned. “Why not? You think you and Scott are the only people in the world who can nick cars! How the ******* hell d’you think I got back here so fast? Jeeez!”

She gulped in yet another deep breath, fighting off an urge to fall into a sweet, alcohol-befuddled sleep. They had agreed not to call the cops. Cops would take too long and, worse, they could stuff up and make Scott angry enough to kill. All Scott wanted was the fortune and once he got that he would clear out of Summer Bay forever.

“Yeh, well, we’ll get there heaps faster if we take the short cut across the cliff top walk. Twenty minutes tops. Going along the coast road, we’d have to drive real slow on the narrow parts, be heaps slippy after all the rain. It’d take too long.”

Although he still had a crashing headache, Kane felt far less crook in the fresh sea air and was thinking more clearly. Kirsty and Jamie wouldn’t still be waiting at the school. They’d reckon the ferry was delayed due to bad weather and, unaware of how much danger they were in, would have made their own way home.

He wiped his hot forehead, glad of the sea breezes that tasted of salt and stung his face with ice cold kisses. Ever since he could remember, the sea had been able to weave its calming magic on him. His earliest memory was of watching a distant ship heading out towards the ocean, the sunlight glinting on the wings of the gulls that circled above it as if bidding farewell to old, familiar friends.

That was the very first time he’d felt the strong pull of the sea on his heart but it was never to be the last. Life then, even so young, was already all about dodging Dad’s blows, knowing there was something not quite right about Mum, looking to Scotty for protection, nicking stuff, finding someone’s weakness and using it to your own advantage. He knew he had a sooky side, Dad and Scott told him often enough, and that was bad, that was something he had to get rid of.

But he also knew, even at such a tender age, that the sea would be where he would always go to dream dreams that he never told anyone until Kirsty.

Melanie shrugged, rolling her eyes impatiently. “Okay, okay, chill, we’ll take the ******* short cut!”

The rusty second-hand car that Scotty had acquired without explanation had run out of gas and Scott had used Kane’s car which had been conveniently parked outside. Her own choice of stolen car was newer, classier, obviously well looked after and loved by its (no doubt by now) frantic owner. She suited it, had had two guys driving in the opposite direction look back at her in a way that would have made her smile if she hadn’t come to hate guys. But he was right about the coast road. In some places, high above the sea, it narrowed to almost single line traffic and its bends were death traps. Sheer luck had gotten her back to Yabbie Creek in one piece, despite two near misses when the grog clouded her judgement. But it hadn’t clouded it that much.

“But I want you to walk in front of me,” she added.

“What?”

“You think I’m stupid? You’ve already attacked at least one chick!”

“It wasn’t like that...”

“No, it never is. It’s always the chick’s fault, it’s always what she was wearing, what she said, how she was teasing you...yeh, yeh, well, I’ve ******* well heard it all before, mate. Thousands of times. I’m doing this for your wife and kid. And I want you to walk in front. So if you still want my help start walk...What?”

“Ah, someone else asked me to walk in front once. She...it don’t matter!” Kane turned towards the beach, desperate to get back to Kirsty and Jamie, glad to turn his back on her so she’d never know of the tears that he could now allow to flow freely.

“Smart chick,” Melanie commented drily.

“I want you to walk in front.”

“What?”

He stared at her blankly. All he’d done was knock a spider out of her hair. That was all. Hardly a reason to be glared at like that.

“I haven’t forgotten what you did to Dani.”

Jeez, that had cut him so deep that a knife turned round and round his heart. No use telling her how sorry he was about Dani. Sorry could never take away the pain, he knew that. He knew, like the murder, he’d done something so horrific he’d never be able to forgive himself let alone expect anyone else to forgive him. And this beautiful girl looking at him with so much disgust in her eyes as if he were the critter he’d just knocked to the ground.

This beautiful girl whom he had come to love so very, very much. Kirsty and Jamie were his whole life, his reason for living. That Scott might hurt them...

Melanie cautiously watched his retreating back, making sure he was a way ahead of her, just in case. Because if he so much as thought of trying it on with her, he’d live to regret it. She’d chuck the diamonds down from the cliff top into the sea and he’d never see his precious wife and son ever again.

Somehow though she had a feeling he wouldn’t. He wasn’t like Scott, didn’t lash out every time he didn’t get his own way. And Scott would never have turned quickly with tears filling his eyes like that for anyone.

*****

Kane couldn’t hold the bile in his throat any longer. He chucked up, unable to stop himself, and he looked up from the milky pool of vomit, hot tears of exertion from the retching pouring down his cheeks. But still Diane Phillips sat bolt upright, eyes glassy, lips tight, fingers interlaced primly on her lap, like a thin, white ghost.

“Come on, dork, we gotta go!”

Scotty’s voice cutting suddenly into the silence startled him. He turned to his brother, squinting at him in the darkness though he knew who it was, vaguely wondering in a strange kind of travelling-on-a-speeding-train kind of way why nobody had put the light on and what the kind man who’d brought Mum flowers must have thought to find the house all in darkness and why he and Scotty had to go anywhere.

“Go?”

“We gotta bury the diamonds.” Scotty’s face was red from his running and his breath was quickened with secrets.

“I don’t wanna go nowhere...”

“I don’t care if you wanna go or not! You got no ******* choice ‘cos I saw it all and I’ll dob ya in right now if ya don’t do as ya told!"

“But we can’t leave Ma, Scotty...”

“Yesss, we ******* can, she’ll be like that for ages, and Dad ain’t gonna be gone all night, we gotta bury the diamonds now! Get the knife, pick up the knife, we better bury that too! Move it!” Scott’s vicious kick, square on Kane’s calf, added urgency to the instruction.

The speeding train was out of control. Whooshing through his head, capturing vague images of the night. Their voices were hushed and yet too loud, they moved too quickly and yet too slowly, everything was strange and new, yet happened so very long ago.

The moonlight threaded through the trees, stealthily following their progress down the large back garden, and then in it danced through the gaping hole where, till it gave up the fight and caved in, a burnt-out roof once covered the woody-smelling garden shed. While the wind gave soft prima donna sighs and the sea rushed eagerly to the shore, the moon, hushed with confidences, kept silent watch while Scott brushed and blew several fast crawling ants off the rucksack, and then, noiselessly, like an ally sworn to secrecy, cast its thin triangle of light for a handful of curled, brown leaves to scurry into when Kane re-opened the strong, thick door that they’d so carefully closed behind them.

“What if we get caught?” Kane whispered, shivering, and, like Scotty had told him to, having wrapped the bloodied knife in an old, heavy jacket of Dad’s that they’d found dumped in the shed.

"We won't get caught 'cos I'm too smart," Scotty said. He narrowed his eyes at his younger brother. “I’m takin’ heaps of risks tonight ‘cos I wanna keep the diamonds safe so you better not stuff up else I’ll ******* kill ya. Got it?”

“Got it,” Kane nodded. He was a killer. He had to think like, move like, act like a killer now.

“Good!” Scotty said. “‘Cos you better!”

He swiped him forcefully across the head á la Richie to make sure the message hit home, and Kane staggered backwards for a moment.

And then, having dispensed with the necessary formalities, they set off together into the summer night, with a rucksack full of treasure and an old jacket to conceal a knife smeared with fresh blood.