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

[I love music]

Thanks for your lovely reviews.

*****chapter 21*****

A graveyard. Icy and bleak. Shrouded in grey mist, a wailing wind furiously shaking the trees. Through the mist’s cobwebby wisps, a full moon shines coldly as dozens of bats soar noisily into the sky and the restless dead begin to topple ancient coffins and rise...

Scotty’s mind had tumbled with ideas and it was the darkest picture he could find. The graveyard would be enough to frighten Kane into keeping his mouth shut forever about the diamonds.

Their long walk through the blood-stained night had finally brought them to the foot of the curving stone steps leading to the old church. He looked down at his younger brother and Kane turned, wondering why they’d stopped, his teeth still chattering, to Scotty’s irritation.

“This is it,” Scott whispered.

Kane nodded miserably.

“You’re a killer now. There ain’t no goin’ back.”

Kane nodded again.

“Okay.” Scott tilted his head towards the cemetery to indicate the way forward. “And stop those ******* teeth chatterin’, drongo!” He added as they ran up steps that were chipped with age.

“They won’t say nothin’!” Kane promised, baffled when Scotty’s response was to angrily kick him.

Although the moon was round and full, the long-dead of Summer Bay stubbornly refused to conform to the image in Scotty’s mind.

Like the setting for some romantic movie, a slow breeze half-heartedly stirred tree branches, crickets chirped, traffic droned somewhere in the distance and across the beautiful summer night a calm sea lapped gently to the shore. Save for a handful of small black clouds drifting through the moon-bright sky and the black silhouette of the old church, the graveyard that night was hardly the stuff of nightmares.

But Kane’s eyes had seen more than many far older than he would ever see, and he shook as they buried the blood-spattered knife, every one of his shuddering breaths filled with terror. His own nightmares had begun long ago.

*****

No sound in the world could be more lonely than the ticking of a clock. When her children Lance and Maureen were small, the clock could never be heard but, busy with shopping, cooking and cleaning, bathing cut knees and sorting out their frequent squabbles, Colleen never noticed.

The years flew by and Lance and Maureen became teenagers, their loud music, louder friends and still frequent squabbles drowning out the steady tick-tock. Then, all too soon, they were grown up with children of their own. Colleen found herself in great demand as babysitter to her grandchildren and to many of the younger Summer Bay residents and, what with working at the Diner and busying herself about the Bay, there was never a minute to sit alone.

And so time ticked quickly by without Colleen realising. Her grown-up children and their families moved away from Summer Bay. The young Summer Bay residents grew old enough not to need babysitters and the new generation’s parents asked younger people to sit in with their offspring. While Colleen became old. Slow and forgetful and muddled and able to remember years gone by in great detail yet sometimes not even able to recall things that happened five minutes ago.

A couple of days a week she still worked at the Diner, but she knew Alf only let her stay because he felt sorry for her. In truth, Colleen’s “work” consisted of chatting to customers and making the occasional drink or sandwich. And the Phillips still asked her to “babysit” but what they really meant was Come and have dinner with us because they never went out and left Colleen alone with Jamie anymore. Not since the time, three years ago, when Colleen had woken up on their couch, forgotten she was babysitting and gone home, leaving Jamie in the kitchen scattering the contents of the kitchen cupboards.

Kirsty and Kane had returned from their night out to find a very tired two-year-old, lonely tears streaming down his face, jam on his nose and cornflakes in his hair, sitting in sugar and trying to “read” himself and his teddy bear a bedtime story from the back of an upside-down cornflakes packet.

But tonight, this lonely night, the ticking of the clock was loud and relentless as Colleen sat waiting and listening. Somehow she knew in her heart that Ron was never coming back.

*****

It was a while before Jade found her voice.

“I...I have to tell Seb,” she said, still stunned by the doctor’s diagnosis. “But I..I don’t know how we’ll cope...”

“We’ll manage,” Shelley said. “Whatever happens, you’ll always have your family behind you.”

Jade managed a weak smile. “And Kirsty? Mum, we promised...we promised we’d always stay twins and I need her so much more now. I don’t want to lose Kirsty.”

Rhys cleared his throat. The news the consultant had given them put everything in perspective. “We won’t lose her. We’ll make our peace with Kane and Kirsty.” He looked across at his wife.

Shelley bit her lip, understanding the silent question. Were their lives really so empty that it took something like this to make them realise how bitter they’d become? Their daughter (they would always think of Jade as their daughter) looked so young, so defenceless, in the white hospital bed. She had always been the most timid of their children and, even now she was grown up, it was easy still to see the child in her wide, frightened eyes.

Jade toyed with something on her wrist, giving a small, self-conscious laugh as they noticed.

“It’s a friendship bracelet,” she explained, pulling at the strands of pink wool. “Kirsty made us one each in our favourite colours when we were about ten. Pink for me, green for Kirst, and rainbow for Dani because she liked heaps of colours. Bigger than we needed then so we could keep them forever. We said whenever we missed each other, we’d wear them, and, well...I...I kept mine and still wear it when I miss Kirsty and Dani. Stupid, I know.”

“It’s not stupid at all, darling. It’s somehow...somehow what families should be about,” Shelley said, the friendship bracelet jogging a long-forgotten memory.

To Shelley's huge disappointment, Hannah, the little girl she was fostering, barely glanced at the pretty new dress hanging on the back of the door. Shelley had meant it to be a lovely surprise when she woke. But Hannah, in old, faded pyjamas that she refused to be parted with, jumped off the bed as usual, and, ignoring the Bugs Bunny slippers bought for her when she first arrived, toddled off in her bare feet, as always, to the twins’ room.

It had become something of a ritual. The twins were deep sleepers and so the three-year-old would stand in the middle of the room, waiting patiently for Kirsty to waken, but up till now Kirsty never had and Shelley would always gently pick Hannah up and carry her down to breakfast. But that morning out in the road a car suddenly backfired and Kirsty’s eyes unexpectedly flickered open.

“Hey,” she said, smiling at the little girl. “I see you got it on, huh?”

Hannah nodded, the first smile that she had smiled since before the accident lighting up her face, as she lifted up her hand to show off the motley strands of wool wrapped around her small, plump wrist.

Last night, doing a colleague a favour, Shelley had brought home a basket full of unravelled woollen garments, ready to pass on to the old peoples’ day care centre, and Kirsty had pestered and pestered until Shelley allowed her to take some wool. Now she knew why.

Feeling suddenly like an intruder, Shelley stepped quietly out of the room. Despite all her knowledge, despite all her exams and training and experience, it was a ten-year-old child who had provided the breakthrough that little Hannah Clegg needed to pull her through the trauma of seeing a car kill her father and seriously injure her mother.

“Friendship bracelets,” Shelley smiled. “It was the sort of thing Kirsty always did. You’re probably too young to remember, but she made one for Hannah Clegg. The little girl I fostered who went to live in Canada when she grew up.”

“Oh, I remember Hannah!” Jade grinned. “She’s training to be a child psychologist now, did you know? Engaged to a doctor and they’re expecting their first bub in the spring. They’re hoping Kirsty and Kane can make it over when they get married, maybe next year. She and Kirsty regularly write and phone each other.”

“They do?” Shelley couldn’t help the pang of jealousy. Each year she received beautiful Xmas and birthday cards from Hannah, but never any news.

“I guess that terrible tragedy when she was very young influenced her career choice,” Jade said pensively. “Somehow I can’t picture her grown up though. I still see her at three years old, standing there looking so scared you just wanted to hug her tight. She was a cute little girl.” She sighed deeply, suddenly remembering her own fears, twisting the friendship bracelet round and round.

“So were you,” Rhys said. “And, no matter what, you’ll always be our little girl.”

“Your family will be with you all through this, sweetie” Shelley added. “All of us. Seb, and Dani and Mark, Kirsty and Jamie.” She drew in a deep breath. It wasn’t going to be easy. “And Kane.. He’s part of the family too."

*****

“Anniedani!” Jamie called helplessly, his voice wavering.

His only chance and now she was gone! He wished now he hadn’t run away from Mum though it had seemed the right thing to do at the time, getting away from the madman, going to fetch Dad. Mum and Dad were the only people in the whole world who really loved him. He knew that because Gran and Grandad, Anniedani and Anniejade, they loved him in a different way. They loved him but...

The hesitation before Anniedani took his hand. The way Grandad ran his fingers through his hair. The look in Gran’s eyes. The way Anniejade curled her lip. Did they think he never saw? Did they think Jamie, the smartest kid in his class, didn’t know love shouldn’t have any buts?

And then there was Annietasha and Nanny Irene. They loved him, but Annietasha had got on a plane and gone far away, just to have her photograph taken, and Nanny Irene had got in a car and gone far away, to see her other grandkids, and when the madman had come tonight they hadn’t been there.

And Anniecolleen, who watched kids’ DVDs, played games and drew pictures with him when Jamie babysat her - the grown-ups said she babysat Jamie but Jamie knew the truth - all she cared about lately was Mr Wilson. Jamie couldn’t figure why she didn’t just pash him.

His legs were hurting from walking uphill. He didn’t know which way was forward and he didn’t know which way was back. Everywhere, the parts he could see whenever the temperamental moonlight chose to teasingly peep from behind the rainclouds, looked exactly the same: cold and wet; grey and lonely. His only hope had been Anniedani and Anniedani had left him. And it was sooo cold and he was sooo tired.

Jamie sat forlornly down on the hard ground, hugging his knees to his chin, taking deep breaths to try and stop himself from crying. But the first two large tears, mixed in with hiccups, spilled down on to his cheeks, followed quickly by several more. There were strange shadows watching him and strange noises echoing around him. As if ghosts or monsters or witches, curious to know why he was there, were gathering, discussing him in whispers that till now he’d thought were the drizzling rain and the roaring sea.

There he is, there he is, there he is... the whispers were saying, faster and faster, closer and closer, more and more of them gathering, sometimes whistling in signal to one another, no longer fooling him into thinking it was only the whistle of the wind. Like ice cold fingers, the sea breezes breathed on the back of his neck. Ice cold fingers...

Jamie sprang up in terror and ran wildly through the darkness. Far below the sea was inky black except for where glimmers of moonlight danced on the water. He tried to stay calm, to form a plan. Maybe if he followed the sea it would guide him back down to the beach. Steeling himself not to look round in case the shadows had gained on him, the little boy began to pick his way over the crumbling rocks towards the dark waters. He tried singing Mum and Dad’s wedding song again.

“I’m up on the roof...your car drive by...” The little voice was breathless with hidden sobs now.

Weird thing to sing about, Jamie thought, desperately trying to take his mind off the terrifying shadows. Rock like Mrs Parker sold to tourists in Ye Olde Summer Bay Lolly Shoppe and rolls like Mr Stewart sold in the Bayside Diner. Jamie pictured in his mind a guy sitting on a roof and opening the box that contained his lunch, only to find that the stick of rock and a cheese roll had been nicked by the person driving away in the car, and then the guy leaning over the roof to yell, “Hey! Rock’n’roll is mine!”

A flash of moonlight suddenly opened up the world. So near the edge! Jamie wasn’t meant to be so near the edge. He was meant to be much further back, not swaying like this with the wind behind him and a cold sea swirling beneath him. Okay, he had to be brave now. He had to be real careful when he stepped backwards, the wind was strong and the cliffs were slippy, and if he put his foot in the wrong place he would fa.......

........was falling.......

[I love music]

Thanks for your reviews.

No sound in the world could be more lonely than the ticking of a clock.

I think that really captures the essence of Colleen's character

Thanks, Adia. My Uncle and Aunt didn't have any kids and I remember going to visit them once when I was about five and I was amazed because I could actually hear the clock ticking! Having brothers and sisters meant you NEVER got to hear the clock ticking in OUR house!

*****chapter 22*****

Three people were to die in Summer Bay that night. The more superstitious of the Bay folk said afterwards that perhaps it was always meant to be, perhaps the stars really do sketch patterns for each of us to follow from the day we are born - and they recalled how bright, how numerous, the stars had been in Summer Bay the night three people died.

But you and I know there always will be superstitions and questions that remain unanswered. And I can’t tell you if it meant anything any more than I can tell you how many grains of sand there are on the beach. The truth is, I really don’t know.

All I can tell you for certain is that the dark night grew steadily brighter. The moon was full. Thousands of stars sparkled in the vast, calm sky. The storm had passed far across the ocean.

The night was waiting. As death does.

*****

Jeez, she’d asked him to walk in front, not to check out how he’d get on if they ever held Olympics for walking! Melanie gave another little run, trying to keep up. Kane strode on ahead, fists clenched, shoulders hunched, taking in none of the panoramic views that the cliff-top walk was famed for.

So it was Melanie, pausing to recover from the stitch in her side, who saw them first. The two people across the gap, on the dangerous, forbidden area of the cliffs, scuffling with each other to reach down to something below them on the rocks.

Noiselessly, instinctively trusting him now, she raced after her boyfriend’s brother, the stamp of her feet kicking up powdery sand that a bored wind had blown up onto the path. She caught up with him at last, pressing her hand on his shoulder.

“Kane!”

He followed her gaze.

“One of them’s Scott,” Melanie said. “I’m not sure of the other.”

“Ron Wilson,” he replied, squinting. “Jamie’s teacher.”

She swung round, startled. “You sure?”

“Positive, though I dunno what he’s doing out here. What the hell they after?”

And then they saw. Below Scott Phillips and Ron Wilson, a small figure crouched on a long, narrow ledge that jutted out from the cliff-top, arms squeezed tightly around his head, shutting out the world.

But the world was coming to Jamie. Around him crumbling pieces of rock splashed into the swirling sea, where larger, more jagged rocks poked out of the water. On the tiny ledge where he’d landed when he slipped, Jamie was safe. But only for now. More rocks were falling. The only sure way out was upwards on to the flatter, higher ground.

Above him, the madman and Jamie’s teacher had tried to persuade him to make the climb but Jamie was having none of it. One of them wanted to kill him. One of them had a knife that he’d pressed to Jamie’s throat. Around him the cliff face crumbled as it had crumbled for hundreds of years.

Its very fragility meant it often yielded fossils from the dawn of pre-history but its inaccessibility made it a dangerous place where climbers had died and ships had been dashed against the rocks. The hungry sea had been known to reveal so many secrets here, dinosaur footprints, trilobites, treasure trove, wood from shipwrecks. And sometimes bones.

*****

“Dani...?” Kirsty gasped in disbelief.

Still unable to put any weight on the broken foot, yet desperate to find Jamie, Kirsty had managed to crawl out on to the short cut, but she had made her way there with frustrating, agonising slowness and it was with enormous relief that she saw someone coming down the path towards her.

But never in her wildest dreams did she think that someone would be Dani! After Kane or Jade, the person she’d have most chosen to have by her side right now.

“Did you see them, Dan? Did you see any of them?”

Dani blinked as though the unusually bright starlight was hurting her eyes. Kirsty tried to pull herself up and the action seemed suddenly to wake her. She sprang forward to help and Kirsty leaned gratefully on her.

“I...I’m sorry, Kirst, I didn’t see Jamie,” Dani said truthfully. “I didn’t see anyone at all except...” She was bewildered. She didn’t know how she’d got here. She didn’t remember walking down from the cliffs. It was as though she’d slept for a long, long time and only now was slowly waking. “Someone was calling me and when I looked up I saw...I saw a little girl...”

“Anniedani, Anniedani!”

Dani opened her eyes again. She hadn’t imagined it. Someone really WAS calling her name.

The child who stood out there on the cliffs, pushing long, toffee-coloured hair out of her eyes and waving. For a moment Dani wondered if she had somehow already passed over into death. If she had already jumped but couldn’t remember jumping. After all, there was something so strange about this night, with its eerie calm and starlight bright as day.

“Anniedani! Anniedani!”

Realising that Dani had seen her, the little girl’s voice was less frantic, but still insistent, keen to keep her attention. She smiled at Dani, using both hands now to push back her wild hair. A habit that Kirsty had had too when she was small.

And in that moment Dani had known so much, so much that, try as she might, she couldn’t remember now. Nothing. Nothing after the little girl smiling at her till waking here with Kirsty.

Somehow she knew everything would be alright. At least, for herself. But some tragedy was to befall the little Phillips family and they would need Dani, the strong, confident Dani she had been before the rape, to help them through. And then there was Jade. Jade had some secret, Dani had known what out there on the cliffs, but now she didn’t.

She looked at her sister’s tear-streaked face, eyes desperate for news of her little boy, and her heart went out to her. It was a long, long time since she’d thought of Kirsty and Jade as “the bubs”, they were, all three, grown up now, each leading their own busy lives. But Dani always would be their older sister, always protective of them.

Way back when she first learnt that Kirsty had fallen in love with Kane Phillips her fear that he might hurt Kirsty outweighed even her fear of coming face-to-face again with her attacker. She had done everything she could to split them up till she came to slowly realise that his love for Kirsty was genuine and then she had done all she could to accept them and bury her own painful memories.

She enveloped Kirsty in a hug as tight as the hugs she’d given her when they were small.

“Kirst,” she whispered tearfully. “I...I saw the ghost of your little girl. I saw Lily.”

*****

The sea was icy though the night was warm, but Kane didn’t care about the cold. He waded further and deeper into the water till Scott suddenly yanked him back.

“What the **** ya doin’, drongo? I told ya to wash the blood off, not to drown yaself!”

Kane turned to his brother, willing him to understand. Even if Scott never understood anything else in his life, he had to understand and for once not laugh at him or smash a fist in his face. “I killed a guy, Scotty! I killed a guy!”

“Yeh. I know,” Scotty said, with unScottylike patience, after seeming to think it over for a bit. “And I ain’t never gonna dob ya in s’long’s ya keep ya mouth zipped about the diamonds. So what ya gotta do now is cut out the sookiness. It ain’t gonna do ya no good next time Ma’s actin’ like a fruitcake or Dad’s pickin’ up the belt.”

Dad! Jeez, in all the panic of burying the knife Kane had forgotten! Dad had been about to bash him till Scott intervened to remind him to get rid of the body.

“I’m dead, Scotty, I’m ******* dead! Dad’s really gonna lay into me!”

“Trust me, he ain’t. We’re gonna go home now like nothin’ happened and it’ll be apples.”

Scott was older, wiser in the ways of the world. People didn’t just turn up at back doors with bouquets of flowers to meet someone who sat waiting in the dark with a packed suitcase. Nope, the one who was really gonna to cop it tonight was Mum.

*****

“It’s Jamie, Mel! It’s my son!” Kane’s voice was thick with emotion.

He ran off the yellow-arrowed path towards the more rugged area, but she stayed where she was, staring upwards as if transfixed by the terror of the moment.

There is a point in Summer Bay, high above the sea, a gap known as Devil’s Leap, where the cliff top walk and the perilous area of the cliffs come closest to meeting. Over the years, many a foolhardy rambler has died in attempting to cross it and, back in the early Eighties, there was a particularly terrible tragedy when four drunken teenagers played Dare and the only survivor, a pretty, blonde-haired dance student, had been paralysed from the neck down.

But danger was the last thing on Kane’s mind; he saw only his son and he took Devil’s Leap without even thinking about the possible consequences, needing to suddenly grasp a particularly large boulder as yet more rock crumbled underfoot. Jamie was to the right of him, but lower down and though Kane called to him to reassure, the little boy kept his arms firmly wrapped around his head, far too traumatised now to hear anyone, even his father.

Kane clawed desperately at the cliff-side and began making his way downwards. But small rocks immediately worked themselves loose, bringing with them more stones and dirt that tumbled past Jamie like rain, falling with loud splashes into the water. He had no choice but to jump back, dicing with death yet again, or his actions would bury his son under the rocks.

Melanie had made her way to the edge of the path and he turned to her, his hands bleeding and raw, tears shining on his face, furious with himself. “I’m only making things worse! It won’t take the weight of an adult!”

“But it might take mine,” Melanie said quietly, removing the rucksack from her shoulder and laying it down on the path.

“Mel, I can’t ask you to jump...”

“You’re not asking. I’m telling.”

Before he had time to say anything more, she’d jumped, closing her eyes in thankful relief when her feet landed on something solid and the rock remained steady. Taking a deep breath, she swung her skinny, light-as-a-child’s, drug-wracked body down on to the cliffs and slithered snake-like across the cliffs, till she finally reached the narrow ledge and carefully lowered herself down.

Jamie was staring down at the water. An icy grave below, a madman with a knife above. It was a terrible choice for a terrified small boy.

“Jamie,” Melanie whispered. “Give me your hand!”

He didn’t seem to hear her. Melanie slid closer. The ledge was barely big enough to hold both of them and she needed for him to stand and edge his way towards her.

“Jamie,” she said again, reaching out, managing to lightly touch his head with the tips of her fingers.

Jamie jumped so suddenly at the feathery touch that he nearly toppled them both. He blinked at her, bewildered. But the bright, breathless night had already been so strange. Someone appearing on the ledge next to him was just one more jumbled image in a nightmarish jigsaw of jumbled images.

“I need my Dad,” he said plaintively, shivering, his lips quivering with his need to cry and his battle to hold back the tears.

“He’s here. You’ll see him soon,” Melanie smiled gently. “But first I need for you to be very brave and take my hand, then stand up real careful for me. You got that?”

More rock chippings fell from above while the sea sloshed wildly beneath them. Time was running out. But Melanie felt his small hand tightly grip her own and she guided him carefully to his feet. Now for the most difficult part. She tugged the little boy gently to her. Then she turned to him, placing both her hands under his arms, her left foot only just fitting on the ledge even here where it was at its widest.

Momentarily, she closed her eyes again, inwardly praying she could do this. She had to remember she wasn’t alone. The two men above were reaching down. But only one of those men wanted to help. The other wanted to kill him.

“I’m gonna lift you now, Jamie. Ready?”

He nodded, watching her trustingly, his sparkling blue eyes exactly like his father’s. Maybe one day he too would grow up to hurt someone. Maybe, Melanie thought bitterly, it was all that guys ever did.

She pressed herself back into the corner where the cliffs were more sturdy and, gritting her teeth, pulled the child up on to her shoulders, biting her tongue and swallowing blood. But she barely had time for the pain to register. Scott Phillips and Ron Wilson were both trying to reach the kid. She stretched, twisting towards Ron...

And then a harrowing memory suddenly came rushing back to her. She hesitated and looked back at Kane.

It would be the ultimate revenge...

Melanie suddenly fell back on her heels, twisted herself around, shuffled sideways, further and further away from Ron, reached upwards again, crying out in pain as she pulled a muscle in her back, but with every ounce of her being determinedly stretching her skinny body taut, she reached as high as she could...

.........And passed Jamie to Scott.........

[I love music]

Thanks for your really nice review, Adia.

*****chapter 23*****

Two shadows in the moonlight, they made the final leg of their journey, past the frosted windows of the pub filled with noise and smoke and music, past the derelict office block, past the drug deal being agreed with solemn handshakes, past the young girl, aged before her time, lank blonde hair falling over her face as she discussed terms through the window of the car that slowed down, up the steep hill that led to the Phillips’ squalid home.

Scott walked with a swagger, whistling snatches of the song they’d overheard as they’d passed by the pub, at peace with the world now that the diamonds were safely buried. Kane walked alongside him, shivering, water dripping from his clothes, his shoes squelching noisily as they turned into their driveway. The front of the house was in darkness so they went round to the back and in the harsh blaze of light from the naked bulb they saw their mother, face deathly white, eyes wild and staring unseeingly, standing by the sink at the kitchen window, filling a bucket with steaming hot water.

“Mum!” Kane’s relief to see her moving about again was so overwhelming that he could have cried.

Scotty let him run on ahead, like one tended to do with little kids. Time enough for Kane to find out for himself. He strolled leisurely in after his younger brother. Diane Phillips threw a bucket of soapy water over the kitchen floor and scrubbed at it furiously with a stiff-bristled broom. There was dried blood on her face and arms and she was muttering to herself as she scrubbed, oblivious of her small son trying to engage her in conversation.

Despairing, Kane ran back to Scott for guidance. “Ma’s actin’ like a choc’late sponge again!”

“FRUITCAKE,” Scott corrected automatically. He shrugged. “Yeh, well, ‘s’only what I expected. I need a smoke, it’s been a helluva night!”

He drew a packet of cigarettes and box of matches from his back pocket and, for dramatic effect, the way he’d often seen Dad do, leaned casually against the wall to strike a match against his shoe. But Scotty’s shoes were still wet from the beach and now from the kitchen floor and the effect was spoilt somewhat by the match refusing to light. Scott cursed and struck a second match, against the wall this time, lighting up with a flourish and inhaling deeply.

“See...” he said importantly, blowing out smoke and tapping ash on the floor. “She finally turned from half a fruitcake into a WHOLE fruitcake. I’ve been expectin’ it to happen for a looong time.”

He nodded sagely, like a well respected family doctor, before he and Kane needed to jump swiftly out of the way of another bucketful of soapy water that flowed past them like a stream, carrying in its wake flattened flowers, splinters of glass and assorted debris that may or may not have been bits of the victim’s skull.

Unperturbed, Dr Scott Augustus Phillips straightened himself up, took another drag on the cigarette and opened his mouth, about to elaborate on his diagnosis. But he never did. Because that was when Dad got back.

*****

“What the hell you doin’?” Kane roared furiously. “What the hell have you done?”

But Melanie only looked down at him, too breathless to answer, her face soaked with tears. Frantic to reach his son, Kane took a step backwards, preparing to dice with death and take Devil’s Leap yet again.

“Stay where ya ******* well are, ya drongo!” Scott, holding Jamie by the scruff of his neck, suddenly yelled urgently.

Something in his voice made Kane freeze. And took him far, far back to another place. Another time.

*****

TRIPLE welfare money day! Double welfare money day could occasionally happen but something to do with the way the holidays fell that year made it a rare hat trick. Dad usually spent the welfare money on drink but Richie Phillips hadn’t bothered to come home last night so Mum had got to the mail first and, having one of her good days, she playfully fluttered the cheque under their noses while they were eating brekkie.

“Smell all that lovely lolly, kids! I’m gonna buy heaps and when yas get home from school this house is gonna smell of bacon and beans and coffee and chockie...”

“Choc-LAT?” Kane dropped his spoon in the cornflakes in astonishment, splashing spots of milk on the corner of the cheque, so shocked was he by this incredible announcement.

But Mum only laughed and wiped it dry with the cuff of her faded black cardigan, the only cardigan she owned and that was badly in need of replacing.

“Dead set, Kaney!” She said, using the baby nickname that she only ever used when she was feeling particularly maternal towards him. “So yas better come straight home from school.”

“You betcha!” Scott grinned, Mum’s good humour rubbing off on him, and he even got up and rinsed his cereal bowl under the tap though he normally preferred to leave a trail of destruction behind him.

But they got home late. As pre-arranged, Scott and his mates had needed Kane to act as look-out while they did over a store in a small row of shops where they’d recently discovered the only security to be a doddery old man who stayed in his hut watching a small portable TV or drinking tea from a giant flask, reading or sleeping when he should have been out patrolling.

Kane had banged his shoulder because, bored with waiting, he’d been walking on the wooden rail that surrounded the shops, playing he was crossing swampland on a tightrope and the billowing pieces of garbo were man-eating crocodiles, and he’d jumped down too quickly to run back to warn the others when “Lightning”, waving a torch and speaking hurriedly into a crackling radio, unexpectedly came around the corner.

“Lightning” would of course have been on to the cops, which meant Scott and Kane couldn’t chance waiting for the hourly bus when they split from the others, so they’d cut across the beach and, keeping to the shadows, had walked all the way home from Yabbie Creek. Kane was rubbing his sore shoulder and limping because of a blister on his heel, but he was happy enough, looking forward to something decent to eat. He and Scotty were starving.

But alarm bells rang in the little boy’s head soon as they saw drops of blood and the loose coins that were scattered on the stairs. In a normal home it might have meant someone had accidentally cut their finger and clumsily dropped what they were carrying. In the Phillips’ home it almost certainly meant that Richie Phillips had beaten his wife (who’d been trying to flee) for spending the welfare cheque, and then taken what was left from her purse.

Sure enough, wearing the same faded black cardigan that she’d worn that morning, Diane Phillips sat immobile at the bedroom window, staring silently out at the moon, or for someone who never came, her face so badly swollen that it looked like she’d gone ten rounds in a boxing ring. She had retreated again into a world of her own and was oblivious to Kane’s anxious "Are you okays?" and tentative hand on her arm.

“You best try not to laugh,” he said finally, too young to understand the irony of his advice, and genuinely concerned that the swelling might be made worse if she did.

“She ain’t gonna ******* laugh, jerk!” Scotty said in a funny kind of throaty voice, having watched them both in silence, and now swiping his younger brother round the head. “C’mon, guess we’ll haveta do our own supper.”

“Now?” Kane looked worriedly back at his mother.

“No, two years next Tuesday. C’mon, dork!”

Kane reluctantly followed Scotty out the room to examine the contents of the kitchen fridge. He gasped when they saw. Mum had done them proud. Instead of its usual half bottle of milk, two or three eggs and maybe a few rashers of bacon, the fridge was heaving with goodies, including, what really brought a lump to his throat, two giant-size Mars Bars, obviously intended for himself and Scott. And the larder was a further revelation, packed tight with tins!

“Get plates, quick!” Scotty instructed, as though the food might suddenly run away.

Kane didn’t need telling twice. They piled two cracked, not-very-clean dinner plates with cooked sliced ham, tomatoes, lumps of cheese, an apple, cold beans and smoky bacon flavoured potato chips, smothered all except the apples in brown sauce, and then, with a Mars bar tucked at the side of each plate for dessert, sat at the kitchen table to enjoy their peculiar feast.

But Kane had barely taken one mouthful when Dad’s voice suddenly boomed, his speech slurred with drink, and they heard the unmistakable clink of the broken bike chain that Richie had lately taken to beating him with.

“Kane! You better be in bed, boy. I got the taste of blood tonight and if ya not in bed, I’m gonna give ya the hidin’ of ya ******* life!"

Richie was almost at the kitchen door. There was nowhere to run to and no time for running. Kane looked desperately at Scott.

“In there!” He said, opening the door and shoving Kane into the central heating cupboard. “Don’t make a sound and whatever happens stay where ya ******* well are!”

The hell houses had been built back in the days of coal fires and central heating had been a fairly recent addition, the boiler installed some thirty or more years ago. While it wasn’t the most efficient of heating systems, it was a vast improvement on having to go to all the trouble of lighting a blazing fire, especially when the weather was sweltering.

Days in the little town of Summerhill were inevitably stiflingly hot, but by night an almost icy chill from the sea would often creep into the air, suddenly plunging the temperatures by several degrees. Shivering, Richie flicked on the central heating switch and stared at the two dinner plates.

“What the ******* hell is THAT?”

“Supper,” Scotty said. “I made you some too, Dad. Thought ya might be hungry.”

“Supper? It’s bloody pigswill!” Richie hurled Kane’s hastily abandoned plate across the room. His wife could clean it up tomorrow.

The boiler fired up suddenly, making Kane gasp as the heat burnt his back. Through the grille on the cupboard door he saw his father swivel round, swinging the bike chain. But the ageing boiler often made noises as water gurgled its way through the old pipes and Richie turned back to his eldest son.

“And where’s the other ******* useless drongo?”

Kane held his breath and closed his eyes. The bike chain was clinking more than ever. Dad was either curling it round his fist or unfurling it. Either way, like he was ready to give someone a bashing. Everything hinged on Scott now. It seemed like a lifetime before Scotty answered.

“Bed. Ages ago.”

Jeez, he was gonna owe Scotty heaps for that one! No doubt his bro would make him pay too, but all that mattered for now was that Kane was off the hook.

“And was ya really gonna eat that muck for supper?”

“Ye-eh.” Scotty was wary.

“Jee-zus!” His father roared with laughter, wiping his eyes. Scott had always been his favourite. Nobody’s fool, was Scotty! Richie sank down, pulled a small bottle of brandy from inside his jacket and took a gulp. “Met a guy tonight, son, I hadn’t seen in years. But I never forgot what the mongrel looked like. See, he dobbed me in to the cops to save his own skin. Well, tonight it was payback!”

“Yeh?” Scott was suitably impressed, all ears as he tucked back into his supper.

The boiler fired up again, scorching Kane’s back and legs, but if he moved forward, away from it, the door would be pushed open and Dad would find him. He could only stay where he was, sweat pouring down him. And Richie Phillips was in no hurry to leave. He loved to tell long, rambling stories, about how he’d got revenge or how he’d made a cop look stupid or how he’d clinched some deal, and Scott was always a willing audience.

Scott finished off his meal and later he must have had second helpings of something or other because Kane could hear the scraping of a fork or spoon against a plate (couldn’t be Dad, someone with a much heavier tread was crashing into things) but by now he was too exhausted by heat and fear to be bothered looking.

Soon after Scott must have gone to bed because Kane could hear only Dad, laughing in the crazy, whooping way he often laughed when he was getting high. Richie stayed up late, mysteriously chopping something with what could have been a poker or an axe or even the bike chain. Kane and Scotty had long since figured the occasional night-time chopping up had something to do with drugs because always, the day after they’d heard a chopping session, the regular junkies would be banging on the Phillips’ windows to buy. The chopping went on for some time before his father finally began snoring. But nobody had turned off the central heating!

It got jauntily into its stride, flattered by its new-found popularity, firing up over and over, the scalding hot water gurgling happily through every pipe in the house. Drenched in sweat, the little boy fought harder and harder to breathe, knowing he was close to blacking out and falling against the door, and, if that happened, the crash would inevitably wake his drink and drug-crazed father.

And then the door was opened slowly and quietly. Kane staggered dizzily out, like a battle-weary soldier who’d just fought his way through a war-torn jungle, ready to collapse except Scotty was holding him up, both of them half watching Richie, who sat snoring with his head on the kitchen table, a bag of drugs in one hand, the bike chain in the other.

“You owe me,” Scott whispered as they crept out. “Big time.”

But maybe he forgot or maybe he was saving it for something much, much bigger because, somehow, Kane never did get Scotty’s usual demand for payment, though the years rolled on by.

*****

“You wanna get us ALL killed? You’re gonna bring the whole ******* lot down! Stay where ya ******* well are!” Scott roared. Like they were kids again. Like he could push him around, beat up on him, tell him what to do, but in the end looking out for his kid brother.

“Scotty!” He yelled above the thunder of the waves. “I got what you want, I got the stash right here! Give Jamie to Ron!”

“Chuck the bag up here then!”

“Don’t be ******* stupid! It could miss!”

"It better ******* not!”

Ron Wilson, with blood pouring down his face from his previous encounter with Scott, staggered to his feet. Scott dodged him easily, beginning to enjoy himself, high on the adrenaline of the moment. Teasing the older man, easily dancing round him. More rock chippings tumbled down, hurling past Melanie, who pressed herself back, shielding her face.

Vaguely Kane felt some concern for her despite her betrayal, but Jamie had to be his priority.

“Scotty! Give Jamie to Ron and I’ll chuck ya the bag!”

Ron Wilson tried again to snatch Jamie while avoiding the knife and only succeeded in earning a kick from Scott that sent him sprawling and gasping for breath. Scott paused briefly to admire his handiwork before yelling back.

“Nah! You first, bro! See, I get nervous when I go first. Y’know, kinda makes me drop stuff! I get the stash first and I promise ya the anklebiter stays safe!”

The rucksack was all he had to bargain with. Scott was balanced on the precipice. If Kane jumped across, he would bring more of the cliff-side down and the possibility of Scott and Jamie falling with it. He had no choice but to trust his brother now. Had to hope the bag would land safely and Scotty would keep his promise.

Gritting his teeth, Kane threw the bag across the gap. It landed. Just. A little distance below Scott, but it had landed. His brother would be able to reach it, bring it up, though he’d have to be real careful. Which meant there was still a chance Scott would let Jamie go. There had to be hope. Because hope was all that Kane had left now.

“Okay, you got the stash! Give Jamie to Ron!”

And then all hope was cruelly dashed.

Scott grinned.

“Ya never really thought I was gonna do that, did ya, sucker? NO ******* WAY!”

[I love music]

Thanks, Adia!

*****chapter 24*****

“I’ll do the talking!” Scott hissed, throwing down the cigarette as Richie Phillips’ footsteps drew ever nearer.

Kane nodded. Jeez, as if he was gonna argue! Scotty could talk all he wanted. He could sing, tap dance, even hire a troupe of acrobats for all Kane cared. Anything to keep Dad’s attention away from himself.

“We got rid of the knife for ya, Dad,” Scott said in the smooth, ingratiating voice he often kept for his father.

“Where?” Richie looked down at the cigarette his eldest son was stamping out. He already knew Scotty smoked and wasn’t particularly bothered provided Scotty didn’t nick any of his.

“Chucked it in the sea.”

It wasn’t in the sea. It was buried in a churchyard along with Dad’s old jacket and a bag full of diamonds. Puzzled, Kane looked askance at Scotty, but Scotty himself was too busy watching out for their father’s reaction to notice. And Richie “Gus” Phillips had quickly lost interest in his kids. Arms folded, face like thunder, he was staring intently at his wife.

Whether or not Diane Phillips was even aware of anyone else being in the room with her was anybody’s guess. As if all alone, she continued to push the broom through the soapy water, muttering to herself.

Then she picked up the bucket again, poured its contents down the kitchen sink, filled it afresh under the gushing taps, added some green, pine-smelling disinfectant from the bottle, and poured yet more scalding hot, soapy water over the kitchen’s bare floorboards.

And still the blood remained.

Stubbornly refusing to be erased, although everything else, the strewn flowers and the pebble-like glass and the brown alcohol stains and the sand and the mud, even the grease and crumbs and filth of years, yielded under the fierce cleansing.

But not the blood. The blood stayed exactly where it had been spilled.

Her audience of three watched in silence. Above the contented hum of the fridge the only sounds were the clanging of the bucket and the swish of the broom that caught pink and white petals and two dead cockroaches in its bristles, and Diane Phillips’ odd soliloquy.

“He loves me...he loves me not... he loves me not... he loves me... he loves me not...” She muttered in a sing-song voice, in rhythm with each new sweep.

“So ya chucked it in the sea?” Richie finally said, still without once taking his gaze off his wife. You done good. Used ya head for once. Now get outta my ------- sight, the both of ya.”

So they were safe. They ran out of the room without pausing even to close the door. Mum was the one gonna cop it tonight and there was nothing they could do to stop it. Oh, but the screaming...!

The screaming would haunt them forever.

They had heard Mum’s screams before. When they were very young, the sound of her screams had been strangely reassuring because then they were mixed too with her angry words and cursing and Dad was occasionally the one who limped away from battle. When that happened, life could get good.

Mum would sometimes defiantly spend all her meagre wages from her part-time cleaning job in Yabbie Creek before Dad took any of it, which meant Kane and Scotty got treats like lollies or new shoes though there was one time - it was just before a major fruitcake period - she came home and gave them both each a copy of the Australian Financial Review.

But after a while, after Diane Phillips had begun buying herself a bottle or two of plonk a night to spite her husband going out without her, after she had begun skipping meals though she insisted Kane and Scott still sat down and ate theirs, after she had lost her job in Yabbie Creek and flushed the pills the doctor had prescribed down the loo, there was a change, so subtle that at first they barely noticed.

They were used to seeing her with black eyes and bruises, used to times when she would sit motionless locked in a world of her own or when she got so drunk she passed out on the floor. One time she placed lumps of coal on every window-sill and behind every door in the house. Nobody ever found out why and nobody ever bothered to ask. Diane Phillips just sometimes DID strange things, like standing in the middle of the kitchen screaming (high pitched, monotone, fruitcake screaming, you got to tell the difference) and smashing plates against the wall.

The coal, well, Scotty and Kane simply went round collecting it, though, instead of putting it back in the coal cupboard, where it had lain undisturbed since before the central heating was installed, they carried it in an old, dented tin bucket down to Alf Stewart’s closed-up-for-the-day-owner-gone-fishing Diner, broke in, scattered coal and coal dust all over the tables, chairs and counter, and then, stoked as they looked round at all their hard work, scarpered fast.

But when her screams first came to be screams of fear, neither Kane nor Scotty knew. It happened. And then it always was.

Exactly when their once well-groomed, beautiful mother first became shadow-like and dowdy, neither of them would have been able to tell you. She gave up and nobody remembered when or how and, in truth, nobody thought too much about it. And, after a while, the family settled into a nice little routine.

Dad came home blotto. Mum got bashed and screamed. If Mum didn’t scream when Dad got home blotto, they’d have all thought she was dead. Sometimes Kane got out of Dad’s way before he too got bashed, sometimes he didn’t. Scott rarely got bashed because, as well as being Richie’s favourite, he was usually too quick - though he was prone to the occasional kick or punch.

It was the natural order of things. The world turned and the tide ebbed and flowed, rain quenched the flowers’ thirst and morning mist shrouded the mountains, the sun shone by day and the stars twinkled by night. And Mum got beaten. The simple law of the universe.

But this screaming was different.

Echoing all round the old house, ringing off walls, rattling windows, shuddering doors. The banging and crashing, Dad’s furious cussing, the names he called his wife, all paled into insignificance against the screams. Bleak, agonising despair tore through their soul, abject terror touched someplace far beyond terror, an almost tangible evil first seeped, then crept, then flooded the night and made the air heavy with its presence.

Kane tried to shut the screaming out with clenched fists against his ears and the pillow and duvet over his head but the screaming refused to be shut out. Scott sat up in bed, listening. They both stayed fully dressed although Kane was still soaking wet from the sea. Neither of them slept. Neither of them spoke. They must have breathed, but neither of them remembered breathing.

Some time between the moon skulking behind a mass of clouds and the sun finding it far too early to rise, some time when scurrying rats pierced the air with loud squeaks and the world was at its darkest, the screaming finally stopped.

*****

The blood poured copiously down Ron Wilson’s face. He stumbled to his feet and he tried to grab Jamie once more, but Scott was too quick. Grinning, he slashed the knife into the older man’s arm, tearing his skin like a ribbon.

“Try that again, matey, and I won’t just cut ya next time!”

But Ron was determined. He had come this far. Nothing and no one was going to stop him from getting the child. He had made a promise. A promise that couldn’t be broken now. It was his last chance. He made another dive at Scott, who laughed and stepped backwards.

And that was the moment Ron fell.

Suddenly, just when it seemed Jamie was within his grasp, just when he almost touched him, just when it seemed the drink had finally caught up with Scott and he was tiring. A fraction of a second sooner and he might have got Jamie away from him. A fraction of a second later and he might have kept his footing. But sometimes a fraction of a second is the difference between life and death.

And Devil’s Leap was waiting to claim yet another victim.

[I love music]

*****chapter 25*****

Sweating and gasping for air, Kane fought his way with great difficulty (it was wrapped so very tight he thought he might have to stay there forever) out of the tunnel he’d created for himself with the duvet and pillow.

Through the shaft of moonlight stealing in through the thin, badly-fitted curtains, he and Scotty eyeballed each other across the cold, sparsely furnished bedroom. Listening closely. This time not for the screams, but for the slightest sound to suggest Dad might be waiting. A creak or a drunken groan or the click of a cigarette lighter. Anything that might give him away.

They were wise now to their father’s warped sense of humour. Nights when, bellies aching with hunger, they’d creep down to hunt for food, not having had anything to eat since school, maybe not even since brekkie, because Dad had told them to **** off to bed as soon as they’d got in, and Mum was either too blotto or too bashed or too far away with the pixies to help. And then, suddenly, just when they thought it was safe and were relaxing enough to make jam sangers or even boil a couple of eggs, he’d spring out from where he’d hidden purposely to catch them, and, laughing, wildly lash out with his belt.

And so, alert, as they had learnt to be, the two kids strained their ears, wary of the quiet.

Mum always, always followed up her screams with anguished sobs and wails that were enough to rip out the heart. Yet this time nothing. It might mean that Dad had left. Or it might be one of his tricks. Richie "Gus" Phillips could have terrorised her into silence, waiting for his kids to come down just so he could beat them.

So they matched their foe in stealth and played a tense waiting game in the eerie stillness of the pale early morning light till Scotty indicated, with the briefest nod of his head, it was time to make their move.

Even then they were ultra cautious, barely making a sound. The mouse scurrying past the wainscoting paused only once, thinking it may have caught a noise, and the black mass of cockroaches, fat and feasted, crawling on the dry patches of floor not yet reached by the tide of soapy water, swarmed inside, confident they would remain undisturbed.

Quiet as shadows, Kane and Scott slowly made their way down the stairs, sidestepping places they knew creaked and expertly dodging the tangled, loose threads of the old, worn carpet. The door of the kitchen was ajar, just as they’d left it, but all was in darkness so they hesitated again, holding their breath. Listening out.

A familiar sound, like rippling water. Probably the cockies. Scotty decided they’d waited long enough and clicked on the torch. Sure enough, startled cockroaches hurriedly swept outside or ran for cover behind furniture or down through the cracks in the floorboards.

But the greyish beam of light from the torch gave few clues to what had happened.

A small breeze ruffled a few forgotten petals and a bundle of bloodied, ragged clothes left dumped in a corner had begun to float a little in the night’s sea of blood and soapsuds. And the broom and bucket had been badly hurt in a savage attack. The broom had been pushed to one side and still lay where it had helplessly fallen, in the gap between the washing machine and cooker, while the bucket had been rolled on to its side and had spewed out its soapy contents in terror. The wide open outer door indicated someone had left hurriedly. But there was no sign of either of their parents.

Despite the breath of air from the open door, the odour of grog, tobacco and marijuana blended with the perfume of flowers and scent of disinfectant and made everywhere smell sickly. Whether it was this stench or the terrifying torch-beam-glimpses of walls splashed with blood, Kane didn’t know, but his head pounded and he wondered if he was going to chuck up yet again that night.

Noticing the whiteness of his face, Scott impatiently kicked his brother. “Can it, for ****‘s sake! I heard somethin’!”

Now that the cockroach army had fled and the kitchen noises been diluted into the humming fridge and the steadily dripping tap, the brothers were aware, for the first time, of a faint shuffling sound.

“Zombies!” Kane hissed in fear.

In the zombie movie, the undead had crept from behind, to drag the cleft-jawed hero down into the ancient burial ground where the millionaire property developer had foolishly, despite the wild-eyed psychic’s warnings, insisted on building his luxury apartments, while Billy-Bob, the nice zombie who didn’t want to be a zombie at all, had watched through the window, too late to help.

Fingers had been crawling up Kane’s left arm for several seconds. Now they crossed his shoulder to reach his left cheek and through the bottom of his eyelid he glimpsed a large dark shape. With a yelp, the little boy knocked it away. A cockroach fell to the floor with a gentle clatter and would have scrambled to safety except Scott was faster and ground it to death under his heel. But silently. Scott could move quietly as a ghost when he chose to. Years of experience getting out of the way of the olds’ blues had seen to that.

The shuffling came from the rags. Moving, not floating as they’d originally thought.

“Gotta be a rat!” Scotty declared, swiftly grabbing the broom, prepared to add to his tally of deaths. But then the rags made a strange kind of long, groaning sound. And the rags even tried to sit up although they failed miserably.

“Jeeeeeeeezus!" Scott said, freezing, staring at the bundle in shock. “Sweet ------- Jeeeeezus!”

The rags were human but a grossly deformed human. Its head flopped and both its arms must have been broken, for they lay at odd angles to the rest of the body, while the two knees, one with something bony and bloody poking through, were drawn up to where the chin would have been had all of the face had been visible. But so much of the face had been cut to pulp and veiled with blood-matted hair that only the two eyes - one so badly swollen that it stared sightlessly - gave any indication at all that under the pile of old clothes covering its bloodied flesh was a human being.

With a sob that racked through his whole body, Kane dropped down and, not knowing what else to do, tenderly smoothed back the bundle of rags’ hair. Or what might have been hair.

So much of what he touched seemed to be torn clothes and blood and bone and even bits of flesh that came apart in his hand. He wanted to hold the bundle, to reassure, but he was afraid that if he did the brittle bones might snap and crumble like dust, and he wondered if he should fetch water to try and instil life into the death-like pallor, but his presence seemed calming, and so, yelling, with odd logic, Don't ya dare cark it or I’ll ******* kill ya myself!" in the end, he did nothing at all except stroke her hair, guiltily watching as his large tears splashed down and added to the terrible mess of blood and bone that was his mother.

*****

Jade clutched the phone to her chest, small tears of relief coursing slowly down her cheeks. Shelley and Rhys, and the nurse who had brought in the hospital phone because mobiles weren’t allowed, had left her in peace to make the call. It had been so good to hear Seb’s voice again. He couldn’t understand why she hadn’t told him sooner. But he said he intended to catch the next flight out and travel down to Summer Bay immediately.

“But the basketball team,” she said. “The final next week...”

There was a silence at the other end of the line and for a moment she wondered if he realised he had forgotten. Seb’s voice was strained when he spoke again.

“Jade, I can’t believe for a single second you think I’d put some stupid sporting event before you. Don’t you know I love you?”

She cried then. All this time, all this worry, and he was there for her. He always would be. Everyone was. How could she ever have felt she didn’t belong? She was still terrified of what was about to happen. But she would never be alone because she was surrounded by so much love - more even than most. Seb. Rhys and Shelley. The large de Groot family. Dani and Kirsty and the friends they’d grown up with. Little Jamie.

She remembered the last time she’d seen him, down on the beach, breaking into a run the moment he spotted her, grinning all over his face, yelling Anniejade at the top of his voice, keen to bring her up to date with all the latest news from Summer Bay.

“I got my Dad lollies for a birthday prezzie but I ate them and Mum said it’s cos I’m very, very gen’rous, and Mrs Parker got a cat but not cos she’s got mouses though she sells sugar mouses but the cat won’t kill them so it’s okay and I dropped ice cream down Katie Gibson’s neck n’accidently when I was practisin’ livin’ upside-down and Mr Wilson said...”

Kane had caught up with them then.

“Whoa, mate, whoa! Catch a breath!” he’d advised, laughing, and she’d laughed with him, thinking how strange it was she could talk to him easily now.

Jamie was the reason for that.

Like all the family, she had totally lost her heart to the little boy. Small kids had no pre-conceived prejudices, no long-held grudges, no terms. They accepted people as they were. Kirsty had always thought that way too. And, while the Sutherlands had been busy trying to tear everyone apart, Kirsty had been busy turning around their hatred of Kane Phillips and joining them all together. Links in the friendship bracelet.

Through the small window of the private ward, she gazed pensively out at the thin blue line of the sea and, in the distance across the water, the marked split in the cliffs that was the notorious Devil’s Leap. The sky looked so different tonight. Crowded with stars and the stars shining brighter than they’d ever shone before. As if the storm had cleansed it and then washed the stars and hung each one out to dry. She smiled nostalgically.

The image, the words, that flashed into her mind came from a long ago memory. A story, one of many, that Dani would pluck from her vivid imagination when they were kids. And as she watched, a red glow suddenly lit up over the age-old cliffs like a spectacular ancient sunset. It looked so beautiful, Jade thought. Blissfully unaware.

*****

The explosion happened suddenly. One moment the two sisters were locked in an embrace, the next there was an almighty bang and some powerful force rocked them both off their feet. Coughing, her eyes streaming, the heat so intense that she could feel and smell burning flesh, Kirsty dazedly lifted her head.

Across the treetops she could just about glimpse the upper part of her home, where a thick fog of black smoke poured through blackened shells that had once been windows and large red flames shot furiously upwards, as if they would never stop till they touched the sky. Fighting to blink back the smoke that stung her eyes, she looked frantically round for Dani. And then at last she saw her.

White and still as death, lying crumpled on the grass.

[I love music]

Sweating and gasping for air, Kane fought his way with great difficulty (it was wrapped so very tight he thought he might have to stay there forever) out of the tunnel he’d created for himself with the duvet and pillow.

I have a confession, *don't tell anyone* but I can kind of relate to Kane and Scott... and that was one of the things that I used to do.

Me too! And once when I was about five or six I got so tangled up in the bedclothes that I thought I'd never escape...

*****chapter 26*****

Rays of moonlight silently fell on to the whispering trees and a glimmer of clarity began to penetrate the alcohol-induced fog of Richie’s brain. He had to do something. Couldn’t just leave her there like that. Jeez, the cops would be on to him so fast! But what the **** was he to do? Think, man, think. Time ain’t on your side, Rich, nobody’s on your *******side...

Beads of sweat trickled through every pore of his being. His own rasping breaths sounded like they came from far away and from someone else. He wiped a sweaty hand across his forehead, circling and pacing and breathing hard like a savage beast stalked by hunters. And if you try to run, mate, the other blokes, they’ll find ya like they found Old Jack...

He kicked at a handful of discarded used syringes. A hundred or more years ago, in the days of the Hill Houses, as they were nicknamed then, Summerhill residents would often admire panoramic views from their beautiful gardens and listen to the lullaby of the sea, but, in more modern times, junkies found the Hell Houses, as the mostly derelict buildings had become known, perfect isolated places in which to shoot up.

For the houses had changed greatly in over a century.

The soothing ripples of piano music that would once float out from open windows on balmy summer evenings had faded forever into a distant past and wailing police sirens now jarred the gentle rhythm of the lapping sea and sighing wind.

Where roses and hyacinths once fragranced the air, creatures of the night crawled and slithered their way over mounds of stinking garbo, insects and predators swarming busily about the decaying food in a forest of grass and weeds. A lizard caught its prey in its long tongue; maggots fed and grew fat on the carcase of a small bird that had broken a wing and lain down that day to die, alone and pitifully, while a rat watched all through quick, darting eyes.

The branches on the trees shuddered and loudly shushed each other. Out on the ocean, the cold wind turned abruptly and swept determinedly on towards the coast. Sometimes in its wake it would bring the notorious sudden storms to the pretty picture-postcard seaside towns like Summer Bay and Settler Point, but to Summerhill, too high to touch, it brought only the iciness of its heart.

Richie cursed as a bitter wind tore round him, sinking its sharp teeth into his bones though the sweat of fear burned through him like a fever. He’d never been so afraid in his life, so terrified of being found out, as he was now.

Like he had done many times before, he had raped and beaten his wife. But never before had he come so close to murdering her. And he had to protect himself. Form a plan. Cover his tracks more carefully, more minutely, than he’d ever needed to cover them before. His mind raced in desperation. He could afford to leave nothing to chance.

He had driven the truck straight over to Mick’s tonight, knowing the blokes would help, knowing, like always, they would cover for each other, play dumb when the cops asked questions. It was the code they lived by and favours could be called in at a moment’s notice. Sometimes Richie might be told to bash someone or help out in some heist, sometimes he needed cash or, like he had tonight, might require a permanent solution to a major problem.

Yet he knew the same men who’d been more than willing to help him dispose of his wife’s lover wouldn’t bat an eyelid at killing him.

They were hardened crims, rough, violent men, but many knew what it was to be behind bars and have wives and girlfriends on the outside. Rapists were considered the scum of the earth. Richie had been there the day they strung up Old Jack. He had delivered some of the blows and provided the lighter that torched him, laughed along with the others when Jack swore that he’d never touch another woman and begged them yet again, just before he died, so slowly, so painfully, to let him go.

All the while in dread of someone discovering his own dark secret.

For, although the residents of Summerhill knew him to be a heavy drinker and occasional drug user, a small-time crim who’d been in the slammer for a variety of offences, that was nothing unusual in this bleak, rundown town of high unemployment and despair, and Richie “Gus” Phillips was well liked.

Not even the rumour he was a murderer diminished his popularity. It was widely believed that he’d killed the man in the bar, but no witness ever came forward and the victim, a weaselly drugs dealer and loan shark with dozens of enemies, was unmourned. Richie may have been a workshy drunk, but, handsome and charismatic, he had the townsfolk’s sympathy too.

He’d been unlucky, they said, growing up in a dysfunctional family, losing his only brother so young, never getting the breaks in life. They knew his wife was away with the pixies and they felt for him, it couldn’t have been easy, caring for her and their two wild little boys who already had quite a reputation in the district. And no one ever knew because closed curtains can hide so much and clothes can hide the scars.

Richie cupped his hands round the stub of one cigarette to light yet another, deeply inhaling the nicotine, glad to feel the warmth on his fingertips momentarily kill the chill of the night air. But at least the cold wind was helping clear his head and he was thinking more clearly. A plan was coming together.

Summerhill was far too small a town for him to shoot through. His truck was instantly recognisable. At any rate, by the time he reached the bus station or drove to Yabbie Creek’s train station, the alarm might already have been raised and, even if it hadn’t, the blood on his face and clothes would immediately arouse suspicion. No, there was only one way out of this.

He had to hope the stupid b**** hadn’t carked it. While she recovered, he would concoct some convincing story about her madness. And when - and if - she did eventually venture out and any trace of the injuries remained, he would claim she had inflicted them on herself, that he had even tried to stop her. It was the way they had always got by. She would never talk because she was terrified of what he would do to the brats.

But maybe, to make sure, he needed to terrorize his family some more...

Shivering with cold now, he looked back at the house and, with a start, saw a beam of torchlight. Now his head was clearing, he vaguely remembered. He had thrown clothes from his wife’s strewn suitcase on top of her and flicked off the light switch, in his drunken state imagining that, if he hid the evidence, the evidence might simply disappear.

The torchlight could mean only one thing. The ******* kids were stickybeaking and if he didn’t get there fast they might even be stupid enough to get an ambo! With purpose now, he strode hurriedly back.

All night, all through the wee small hours, ever since he’d plunged the knife into the stranger, the dream-like quality of the speeding train had been thundering through Kane’s head, and now, for some unfathomable reason, the floor was moving beneath him. It took a moment or two to register that he was being physically dragged away.

“Dad’s on his way back!” Scott warned, in the scuffle to keep Kane upright.

“I don’t ******* care, Scotty! I’m not leavin’ her, not this time!”

He shrugged off his brother’s hold and dropped back down to his mother’s side. It was the first time he’d ever ignored Scott’s prompting to save himself and leave Mum to it. And disobeying Scotty was never a wise move. But someone had to stay with her. Someone had to care. He was powerless to stop the beatings, but he had to let her know she wasn’t all alone in the world.

Scotty hesitated for only a second. Why did he bother? Kane always would be a sook. Never would learn the golden rule: look after yourself because nobody else will. Never would understand you had to take exactly what you wanted in this life. And survive. Sooks got trodden on. Survivors didn't. Scotty had no intention of hanging around to prove or disprove the theory. He’d wasted enough time on his kid brother already.

“Get bashed then, jerk!” He hissed, and left him to his fate.

And now Dad was heading straight for him. But Kane wasn’t gonna run, he wasn’t! He jumped up, prepared to do battle with his father.

“Leave her, leave her!” He screamed furiously, his small hands trying desperately to push back the great hulk of a man.

There was a swishing noise and something with the force of a tank collided with the little boy, turning his life into a spinning red vortex. It was the last thing he remembered before the darkness.

*****

So many secrets that night were kept. So many secrets buried for years.

The truck was cleaned. A large rug was spread over the kitchen floor to cover the bloodstains. And the kitchen was painted. Screaming red walls, deathly black doors. Richie himself did that.

Not very well. There were often haphazard streaks, and, at the very top of the door, where yet more spots of blood had hit (Kane wondered why, at school, they did sums about how much would buy how many and how long it took someone to walk someplace, and never sums about how far showers of blood could fly) the paint had run so badly it resembled a row of upside-down mountain peaks.

But the decorating served its purpose and the blood was hidden. Well, most of it. Specks of blood on the furniture were probably too minute to be noticed and, if they ever were noticed, could easily be dismissed as splashes of paint. As it turned out, none of these elaborate precautions were necessary. Apart from police visits (always in twos and always at the front door, it never occurring to the officers what heinous crimes might be revealed if only they’d thought of using the back entrance) the only regular callers to the Phillips’ home were alkos and addicts, inevitably too drunk, too drugged or too desperate to take in any scenery.

Of course there was always the possibility that Rose, Joe Phillips’ widow, might call in on the family unexpectedly but this was extremely unlikely. She knew how much Richie disliked her.

And, amazingly, the luck of the devil proved to be on Richie’s side yet again. His sister-in-law’s health had never been good since the car crash, and she suffered the first of several strokes that were to eventually leave her housebound and with her speech seriously impaired. Even phone calls were now out of the question.

Afterwards, Diane Phillips walked with a permanent limp and never regained the sight in one eye. Her mental health deteriorated rapidly and irretrievably. She shopped, she cooked, she cleaned, and she did everything as before. But what little spark of life that was left in her had burnt out and gone forever. Her mind was dead.

The times when she locked herself in a world of her own became more and more frequent. She took to wearing gaudy clothes and make-up, and sometimes she would wake suddenly, and slip from her bed, dress like some grotesque parody of a clown, her clothes too bright, her make-up too thick, to roam the streets and scream abuse at male passers-by. Neighbours often brought her back. Summerhill was a place where nobody trusted the likes of doctors or social workers so doctors and social workers were never called.

Richie invented a tale, of how his wife had attempted suicide, of how brokenhearted he’d been when he walked in as she threw herself down the stairs. That he thought he’d calmed her and had made the terrible mistake of leaving her alone for just one minute while he went to fetch a bowl of water to bathe her injuries and she’d found some scissors and begun hacking at her own hair and face. He always managed to squeeze out tears when he told his story, and listeners sympathetically patted his shoulder, gave him smokes or a few dollars, bought him drinks, often in tears themselves.

Now Scotty was the one worried Richie most. Diane would say nothing, partly through fear of what he would do to the kids, but mainly because her mind was too far gone. Kane could easily be terrorized into silence by the threat to dob him in as a killer and, at barely seven years old, was too young to realise exactly what had happened. But Scotty was far from innocent and not so easily intimidated. Richie had to work quickly to get him onside.

And so they made a deal, that very same night, while Diane Phillips lay sleeping fitfully and little Kane was out cold. Regular pocket money, regular smokes, the freedom to drink lager or cider whenever he wanted. All he had to do was keep his mouth zipped about everything that had happened and make sure no one ever got to hear about it. They even shook hands. Richie was surprised by how easily his eldest son was won over.

But Scotty had his own reasons for not wanting the cops stickybeaking. Scotty had a fortune stashed away and a date with destiny.

*****

The first thing Kane saw, just behind Scott’s head, when he recovered consciousness, his face still smarting painfully from the sting of Dad’s fist, was the red arch that had been made by Scotty where he’d struck the match against the kitchen wall.

For some strange reason, the sun was streaming brightly in through the window though it was the middle of the night and he needed to screw up his eyes to focus his vision. Using the wall as a backrest, Scotty had pulled up a pillow, planted it in the middle of the blood and glass, and was sitting beside him, waiting for him to wake.

“ ******* jerk!” He muttered, shaking his head.

Kane didn’t know why he was a ******* jerk this time and he didn’t bother to ask. Scotty always had heaps of reasons. He sat up, rubbing his eyes.

“Where’s Mum? Is she okay?”

“Bashed real bad. But at least she’s alive.”

Something in Scotty’s voice warned him it was a touchy subject and it would be wise not to proceed further with it so Kane changed tack, picking up on the fact they needed to whisper.

“What happened to the moon?”

“The moon...?”

“It’s gone, Scotty!” Kane said importantly, astounded that his brother hadn’t noticed.

“Jeezus!” Scott rolled his eyes. “It’s mornin’, ya stupid drongo. You been out for hours and ya talkin’ ******* garbo. Which is why I gotta put ya thick head under the tap.” As good as his word, Scott yanked him up and dragged him out to the ice cold water of the standpipe.

*****

Richie made it crystal clear that if any of them ever lagged about that night he would have no hesitation in killing them. So no one spoke of it again. Not a breath, nor a whisper.

The Phillips family carried on pretty much as usual. Richie still got blotto, beat his wife and continued a life of small-time crime. Diane still did the housework and still wrote Kane regular notes for school after his father had bashed him a little too badly for it not to be noticed. Scotty, now that he had a regular income and an understanding with his father, didn’t need to demand money from the kids in school to buy food and other goodies anymore, but, hey, a hobby was a hobby.

The night might never have happened at all. In fact, Kane might have begun to believe it was all some terrible dream. Except there was a red curve on the wall where the match had been struck, and, missed by the haphazard painting, left like a vengeful curse to always remind him of his guilt. And the nightmares.

Night after night after night, he would wake screaming, sweating and shouting, with Scott yelling at him put a ******* sock in it and sometimes helping him along with a well aimed punch. But ghosts cannot be silenced forever.

And ghosts were only biding their time.

[I love music]

*****chapter 27*****

Ron Wilson’s anguished cries tore through the air as his body abruptly hit the water. Rapid splashes quickly followed as a torrent of small rocks fell in after him like a hailstorm. Clinging to the narrow ledge, Melanie gave one long, terrified, helpless scream as the debris rained past her.

And then there was an uneasy silence.

Jamie had exhausted himself trying to kick his way out of Scott’s firm grasp on the scruff of his neck. Scott was unnaturally quiet, the shock of seeing Ron fall sobering him up fast. Stunned, angry with himself that there was nothing at all he could do, Kane looked silently down at the narrow gap of the treacherous Devil’s Leap, where underwater rocks would have quickly cut the man to pieces.

But, to the sea, it was just another life extinguished, in the thousands and thousands of years that tides had ebbed and flowed and waves tossed great ships like matchsticks and sharks and piranhas prowled deep oceans.

And Ron’s death meant nothing at all to the sea, so the sea swirled for a few brief seconds around the small pool of blood floating up to its surface, and then it moved on.

*****

There was no sound from the caravan.

Jenny Turner knocked several times, baffled. Maybe Colleen had fallen asleep although she was adamant that she wouldn’t sleep a wink until she heard how Jade was. And now they had news of Jade - Shelley had phoned a short while ago - but Colleen wasn’t answering.

“Got it!”

Jenny turned round to see her husband, who’d gone back to fetch the skeleton key.

“Maybe we shouldn’t disturb her after all,” she said doubtfully. “She must be in a real deep sleep not to have heard us.”

Mike grinned. “You want to be on the receiving end of Colleen Smart’s wrath tomorrow morning when she finds out we heard from Shell and didn’t tell her? And if she’s nodded off in the chair and wakes with a stiff neck, she’ll be ten times worse!”

And so it was the Turners, left in charge of the caravan site while the Sutherlands took Jade to hospital, who found Colleen. At first Jenny thought the old lady was simply asleep, she looked so happy and peaceful. As though all her dreams were good ones. And they had been.

Colleen’s life had been, generally, a happy one and in her last few hours on earth she dreamed her life again. Weeks, months, even years flew by, condensed into seconds.

She was the giggling little girl in the mirror brushing her golden curls and the smart kid raising her hand to answer the questions chalked on the board. She was the nervous teenager cringing with embarrassment as she spilled coffee on her very first date and the beautiful young woman gracefully collecting first prize in the beauty pageant. She was the blushing bride, taking deep breaths as she walked down the aisle, and the proud young mother taking her son and daughter to school. She was the cosy grandmother reading to contented grandchildren and the stalwart gossip of the Summer Bay Diner. Till, finally, she came to dream again of her very last night on earth.

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

But most of all, last of all, she dreamed of Ron’s kiss, warm and tender and sweet. And she smiled as she remembered.

Making Jenny smile too. It seemed a shame to wake her, but Mrs Smart had been so insistent. She whispered Colleen’s name several times as she lightly stroked the old lady’s wrinkled, still warm cheek.

And then she screamed in shock as Colleen slumped forward.

*****

Shards of glass cutting into her knees, Kirsty crawled towards Dani, reaching to cradle her head in her lap, tenderly wiping away the blood that trickled across her sister’s forehead, weeping in overwhelming relief as Dani’s eyes at last flickered open.

“Kirst...? What...what happened...?”

“Our house went up in flames. The candles, I guess. We left the door wide open when we ran out. It must have been the wind.”

“Can’t...can’t trust you bubs to do anything right, can I?”

They smiled through their tears. Misty memories recalling old times, carefree times, when they were all kids and Dani had been the bossy one, always regarding the twins, being two years younger, as nothing more than bubs.

“Hey,” she added gently. “ You’re bleeding.”

“So’re you, Mrs Know-it-All,” Kirsty countered in a tight, chocked voice, the nickname said in the same teasing, defiant way she had always used when they were small but tempered with affection now.

Dani spluttered with coughs. It hurt to cough, to even breathe, let alone speak but she was determined to.

“Kirst. Kirsty, I have to tell you something. I didn’t want...didn’t want Kane to be blamed. He wasn’t...wasn’t even there but I knew they’d say he was the reason...”

“Hush. It doesn’t matter, Dan, it doesn’t matter...” Kirsty soothed, puzzled. Dani wasn’t making any sense.

But, despite the tight band crushing her chest, Dani was determined to finish. “I...I posted a letter to Mark tonight, telling him everything. The reason...I...I was going to jump...”

“Dani! No!” Kirsty squeezed her sister’s hand, heartbroken to think what must have been going through Dani’s mind, what she had been keeping to herself, to make her even contemplate suicide.

Dani swallowed and gasped desperately for breath. Her voice was weak now, her strength all gone, but Kirsty caught the words just before she passed out and she sobbed uncontrollably with grief that life could be so abjectly, so unbearably cruel, hugging Dani tightly to her.

“I was raped again,” Dani had whispered.

*****

A loud bang echoed somewhere in the distance and across the cliff-tops the starry sky turned red and smoke-filled. However, recovered now from the shock of his enemy’s death, the distant fire was of little interest to Scott.

His main concern, naturally enough, was to see if his old mate, the leather rucksack, was alright. What with all the rocks that had tumbled down, it could so easily have been knocked into the sea and Scott’s herculean work tonight to collect his inheritance totally wasted.

He closed his eyes for a second in dread before he chanced looking down and heaved a huge sigh of relief when he saw it again, knocked off its perch now and hanging precariously by one of its straps, but safe! Jeez, he could have flung its arms round it and kissed it!

“You little beauty!” He muttered emotionally, a lump in his throat.

Now all he had to do was figure out how the hell he was going to reach it. It would require careful thought, meticulous planning. He frowned in concentration.

But, after his breather, Jamie had got his second wind and began kicking, screaming and wriggling with renewed vigour in his efforts to break free. And Scotty wasn’t quite sure what you were supposed to with kids.

You see, it was a long, long time since he’d been one himself.

Perhaps he’d never been one at all, he’d had to grow up so fast. One of the earliest memories was of sitting on the table, grinning at the camera for Uncle Joe, proudly holding on to his baby bro so that he didn’t fall back, the soft warmth of Kane’s head burrowing into his chest. He remembered the moment well because soon after it all kicked off again.

Almost immediately after his brother had been put back in his pram and the door slammed shut behind Uncle Joe and Auntie Rose, there were raised, angry voices. The bub’s face crumpled and a small cry involuntarily escaped his lips. It wasn’t much - Kane was learning fast - but it was enough.

“ ******* whingin’ brat!” Dad roared, and the thick, battered dictionary that the Phillips used as a door-stop came hurtling through the air, losing several of the “F” pages mid flight (fortunately, the family already knew all the swear words by heart) and landing only inches away from its intended target, who, terrorised now, began wailing in earnest.

Diane Phillips screamed and launched herself at her husband, and they staggered around the room together, Diane tugging at Richie’s hair and clawing his face with long red talons, Richie, laughing, goading her, using one hand to defend himself and the other to push her further and further back.

Scott knew that, now and again, she would emerge victorious from their regular battles by throwing a lucky punch, but he was also well aware that this rarely happened. Dad was much stronger and it was obvious to the little boy that his father’s plan right now was to make sure she had no means of escape so that he could really lay into her before turning his attention back to the whinging rugrat. So Scott thought fast.

The bub’s battered, old-fashioned pram, the manufacturer’s name of “Go-Slo” emblazoned on its side in a now very tarnished silver badge, was a great many years old when it was finally dumped on the garbo tip, from where it had been retrieved by the Phillips, to be used first for Scott and later Kane. The pram was exceptionally large, for it belonged, and was built for, a more idealistic era, designed so that mother and baby could face each other when out for their slow, gentle, civilized strolls.

It was probably this unhurriedness that had given the pram its longevity, for over a great many decades and despite the rapidly increasing pace of more modern times, its various owners had, perhaps nostalgically, perhaps because the pram was exceptionally heavy, always chosen to push their offspring in the same leisurely way that yesterday’s parents could better afford.

Little Scott’s head barely reached its lofty heights and Kane abruptly stopped crying and sucked in a shuddering breath, startled, as a hand reached up from nowhere and rammed a dummy into his mouth. Then, to his further astonishment, in the space of seconds, the brake was released, the heavy “Go-Slo” pram jerked, and two arms, two eyes and a tuft of hair whizzed him away so rapidly that the world passed by in a fleeting blur of colours.

Scott couldn’t remember too much after that. He couldn’t recall exactly where he’d wheeled the pram to. Only that they got far away from Dad before, exhausted, his arms feeling like they were about to drop off, he had to stop for breath, and his kid bro staring at him and chewing on the dummy for all he was worth. Whatever happened, Kane knew, they were in it together.

The pattern was set in stone.

It was Scott who picked up the bottle and finished the feed when Diane Phillips had been drinking or forgot her medication and slipped into one of her trances, Scott who crept into the room when Richie was blotto or Mum and Dad were fighting, to grab Kane and drag him out of the way till the olds calmed down. As soon as he could walk, albeit unsteadily, Kane, toddling like a miniature drunk, having figured Scotty was a far safer bet than either of his parents, took to stalking his older brother everywhere.

And, flattered though he was by the hero worship, Scotty quickly realised it caused heaps of problems. It was a tough bloody world and nobody got nowhere by being sooky. So Scott embarked on a toughening up regime and he never looked back.

After he got over the initial shock of the first few times his older brother slapped him round some, it finally dawned on Kane to fight back. Not that he was ever likely to win, Scotty was bigger and stronger. But, to Scott’s satisfaction, his kid bro learned some valuable lessons about life. Trust no one. Use fists first, ask questions later. Never show any weakness. It was the way Scott himself operated and there was no room for sentiment or tears in the world of Scott Augustus Phillips.

So, kids being alien to him, Scott wasn’t sure what to do with his nephew. Till he had a brainwave.

He'd noticed that, when their anklebiters whined, some olds stuffed them with lollies and chockie to shut them up and the whining stopped miraculously. Scotty flung down the knife, reached into his pocket for a bar of chocolate, expertly ripped the wrapping off with his teeth and, to Kane’s alarm, roughly slammed the whole bar into Jamie’s mouth.

“Scotty! What the **** are you doin’ to my kid?”

“Feedin’ it,” Scotty shrugged.

Now the madman was trying to choke him to death! Jamie gagged and, to Scott’s bewilderment, kicked and wriggled more than ever as he tried to force more chocolate down the kid’s throat, convinced the chockie trick had to work eventually.

“For Chrissake, Scott, stop doin’ that!”

“Look, we gotta talk before I shoot through with the dough and it won’t quit yellin’!” Scott yelled impatiently, but giving up on the chockie trick. Maybe it only worked if anklebiters were hungry or something. “See, I told ya chick about ya killin’ a guy.”

Kane could only stare at him, an icy coldness gripping his heart. Knowing he’d lost Kirsty forever. Knowing his brother had cruelly torn away all his hopes and all his dreams. How could he ever hope for her to love him still, now she knew he had blood on his hands? He would still be a Dad to Jamie, he always would, but Jamie would be the only glimmer of light in the darkness. And, but for Jamie, his life would be as it was before Kirsty, an empty shell that never knew love.

“But we had a deal! We swore on it, Scott, we swore on it! Blood brothers.”

Scott smirked. “Yeh, well, maybe there’s somethin’ you should know...

[I love music]

Thanks for your really nice reviews, Adia and Eli.

***chapter 28***

“Like what?”

Kane had finally breathed again when Scotty suddenly dropped his nephew to the ground. Whatever his brother was planning now, it obviously didn’t involve Jamie. And if there was any way out of this mess of losing Kirsty he needed to know about it, but Scott had paused without explanation.

“Like what?" Kane repeated. "Scotty, ya said there was somethin’ I should know...?”

But Scott had decided the talking could wait. There were more important things. Like a rucksack that had begun sliding very slowly, almost teasingly, further down the rock, as though it had been mulling over its miserable existence of being buried alive for all those years and was wondering if plunging itself into a watery grave was preferable to it ever happening again.

So Scott figured he had to take a chance and put the brat down. He needed two hands for this delicate rescue operation and anyhows the kid didn’t look like he was in any fit state to go anyplace any time soon. Ignoring Kane’s question, he dumped Jamie without ceremony, and, picking up the knife in his place, now fell to his stomach and crawled stealthily to the edge of the cliff.

It was only Melanie’s sudden sob as she caught a breath in silent tears that abruptly reminded them both she was there.

“You better pull her up,” Kane suggested.

“Ssshhhhh!” Scott hissed impatiently, to both, as Melanie gulped back another sob. Jeeeeezzz, didn’t folk have no consideration for others no more? He needed complete silence, total concentration.

He reached down, trying to hook the strap with the knife, and cursed as the extra length still didn’t help him connect, the rucksack remaining tantalisingly just out of his reach. So he tried again. And again. And again. And yet again. It was hopeless. And dangerous! More and more tiny rock chippings fell each time he swished the knife. He was either going to knock the bloody thing into the sea or fall in himself.

Then a miracle happened. The rucksack abruptly picked itself up off the rock and raised itself towards Scotty. And the rucksack even spoke!

“For ****s sake, here, take it, it’s all you ******* care about, and if I’m gonna cark it I’d rather cark it without ******* grit in my eyes!” It sobbed angrily, sounding like it was spitting bits of dirt out of its mouth.

It hadn’t been a good idea to stand up on the crumbing ledge, but she just didn’t care anymore. Somehow she hadn’t slipped when she had given the stash to Scott, but it could only be a matter of time. Melanie, trembling, leaned back against the cliff face, and waited to die.

*****

“Dani! Dani! Dani, wake up! Dani, wake up! Dani, wake up, please!”

Kirsty tried desperately to rouse her, remembering that once, a long, long time ago, she had done and said exactly the same to Kane.

And she couldn’t help wondering if fate was laughing at her now. If this terrible irony was to be her punishment. Because, no matter how many mediation sessions, how sorry he was, the fact remained that Kane had raped Dani and Kirsty had chosen Kane over her sister.

“Dani, we’re going to get through this. We’re Cool Chicks, remember? You said you, me and Jade would always stay together. You made us believe it, Dani, you made us believe it!”

‘Course, the three of us will always stay together and we’ll be rich and famous one day,” Dani said confidently.

She eyed with frustration the baby doll, almost as tall as Jade herself, that her little sister kept insisting was too tired/too thirsty/too upset to play anymore, and the reason she kept breaking off from the dance routine as, according to Jade, Abby needed a rest/bottle/cuddle.

“But not with a DOLL,” Dani added.

“Abby is NOT a doll!” Jade declared stoutly, clenched fists resting on her hips. It took a lot to rile the normally placid four-year-old, but insulting Abby was the one exception. Insulting Abby was a red rag to a bull.

“Well, what IS she then?” Dani sighed.

They were never going to get the dance moves or the song sorted out at this rate. Kirsty had got bored a while back and begun doing handstands on the wall and now Jade was playing up. And it wasn’t fair! Dani had been hoping Cool Chicks, the girl band she’d started with the twins, would cut a record deal before she was seven.

“Abby is MY OTHER TWIN,” Jade said importantly.

“That’d make us twiglets!” Kirsty shouted down from the wall.

“We’re twiglets!” Jade agreed, nodding emphatically.

“Don’t be silly, sweetie! Twiglets are what Mrs Parker sells in Ye Olde Summer Bay Lolly Shoppe,” Dani explained loftily. “I’ve seen them. They’re in little packets.”

Jade looked alarmed. “But I don’t want to be put in a little packet and sold in Mrs Parker’s Lolly Shoppe!”

“No, Jade,” Dani said patiently, “That’s what happens to TWIGLETS.”

“But I don’t want to be! I don’t want to be put in a little packet!” Small, worried tears began coursing down Jade’s cheeks and she clutched Abby tighter to her chest.

"You are so mean, Dani Sutherland!” Kirsty said hotly, jumping down from the wall with a thud to put her arm round her twin. “Take no notice, Jade. Twiglets don’t get sold in Mrs Parker’s Lolly Shoppe. Twiglets go to school and get Chrissy presents and have Mums and Dads and everything. They DON'T get put in little packets, Mrs Know-it-All!” She glared at Dani.

“They do so!”

But Dani’s voice lacked conviction now. She knew she was right, but she hated upsetting her little sisters. They were only bubs, after all, too young to understand anything, unlike Dani who, being two years older, knew everything there was to know in the world. So she took a breath and lied.

“Okay! Okay. I’m sorry, Jade. Twiglets don’t get put in little packets and sold. I was having a lend of you. Cool Chicks?”

She bit her lip as she raised her outstretched palm, waiting and hoping for the twins to acknowledge their usual high fives like the three of them often did after a blue.

Kirsty was always quick to anger and quick to forgive. Besides, reassured by Kirsty, and now Dani, Jade was bravely trying to smile, hiccuping back tears.

“Cool Chicks!” Kirsty said readily, high fiving Dani in return.

“Cool Chooks!” Jade said, following Kirsty’s lead as always, but getting the name wrong as usual. “Can Abby stay with us when we’re rich and famous?”

“Sure. The three of us - and Abby - we can do anything!” Dani said, smiling at Jade’s eager face streaked with dried tears. “And we’ll always stay together. Promise!”

“Dani! Dani, don’t die! Dani, you can’t die!”

Kirsty’s tremulous voice was so lonely that isolated night as she held her sister in her arms with the fire raging all around them.

*****

Jade suddenly felt unaccountably sad. One moment she had been thinking of all that was good in her life. Then the dark mood swept inexplicably over.

Instead of pressing the bed-side buzzer when she’d finished the private phone call, like she’d told Rhys and Shelley she would, she pushed back the crisp white hospital sheet and made her way to the window.

She somehow knew it was something out there, something in the distance. She gazed thoughtfully at the blue line of the sea, at the beautiful red sky on the horizon, listening to the clock on the hospital wall ticking loudly as if it were a heartbeat that counted down the years.

Last night she had dreamt she was very young and still at school and the de Groots had unexpectedly turned up to collect little Laura from the classroom.

"We thought you were our daughter but it was all a terrible, terrible mistake!” They told Jade. “You're Kirsty’s real twin and Dani’s real sister and you always will be.”

And she and Kirsty and Dani had laughed in delight and high-fived each other, stoked to know they would be together forever.

It would be so easy if they were kids again, Jade thought, turning the woollen friendship bracelet round her wrist. Oh, so easy, if they could only turn back time and start all over again.

*****

The last thing Melanie expected was for Scott to reach down again.

She had accepted her fate with a strange calm resignation now. Death could only come as a welcome relief to this terror of watching the hungry waves swirling below. There was nothing left to live for.

But the instinct for survival was stronger than she thought and when Scott reached down again, she reached up to tightly grasp his hand and, his girlfriend weighing little more than his nephew, Scotty was able to yank her easily into the air.

She had no idea why he had decided to pull her to safety. Or maybe she did.

They exchanged a look as she landed and the look spoke a thousand words. But Melanie said nothing as she breathlessly snatched up Jamie to carry him up on to safer, higher ground and, her legs too shaky to support her for long after her ordeal, she sank back into a smoother part of the cold, grey cliff top.

Scotty, for his part, only cursed absent-mindedly as he almost stumbled back over his nephew (looked like his theory that kids were strange whining little creatures whose sole purpose in life was tripping adults up was still holding good) till Melanie moved Jamie out of the way.

Kane watched cautiously, his brother’s uncharacteristic behaviour baffling him. Something was going on, some secret that Scott and Melanie shared, but he couldn’t work out what. And the main thing was Jamie was okay.

He longed to take Devil’s Leap again and go to comfort his son, but all the recent activity had taken a heavy toll on the fragile cliffside and, on the exact spot where Scotty and Melanie had stood just a minute or two earlier, small rocks were rolling over the edge and down the precipice, dislodging yet more to join in the rush, like serial shoppers who, having just had news of some fantastic new bargain in the sales, were keen to check it out for themselves.

Besides Jamie was safe with Mel. He clung desperately to her and, exhausted and badly hurt, she sat holding him close, her arms and legs wrapped protectively around the little boy, resting her chin on his head, tears streaming down her blackened and bloodied face, gazing somewhere faraway.

“So ya wanted to talk...?” Kane shouted across the divide.

After the brief calm of the sea and the stillness of the sky, the waves had begun to thunder again and an angry red glow of firelight hid the stars. The distant fire had gained pace now and the smell and taste of smoke mixed with the saltiness of the fresh sea air.

Scott had jumped out of the way of the tumbling rocks and was busy strapping the rucksack on to his shoulders. He looked up and grinned.

“Your wife - Kirsty - she’s ******* hot, mate! Pretty clued up chick too.”

Kane eyed his brother with dislike. “Whatever ya gotta tell me, Scott, leave Kirsty out of it.”

“Ah, but she’s a big part of it. Maybe she’s the reason. I dunno.” Scott looked down at the knife he’d retrieved before jumping out of the way of the falling rocks, but, to Kane’s relief, didn’t turn his attention back to Mel and Jamie.

“The reason...?” Even though Scott had got exactly what he came for, the danger wasn’t over yet. Kane knew he had to be careful to keep him onside and keeping him talking was the best way. Like Richie, Scotty always did love the sound of his own voice.

“Reckoned I didn’t have the Phillips killer instinct. Maybe she was right. Maybe. I could’ve killed the kid over and over...Ya know, thinkin’ ‘bout it, guess I still could...” Scott grinned and teasingly examined the knife, caked with old blood, coolly blew away some of its dirt.

“Scotty, whatever your issues with me, Jamie, Kirsty, Mel, they were never part of that...”

“So ya figure I came all the way up here to kill my neffie?” He turned the knife over and over in his hands, enjoying the power.

Kane swallowed. “You wanted to tell me somethin’?”

“Oh, yeh, rotten memory!” Scott opened his mouth like he was about to say something important, then slapped his forehead. “Nah! It’s gone!” Aware it would annoy his kid brother, he began whistling through his teeth.

“Scotty!”

“Watch it, bro, ya’ll send heaps more down!”

“For Chrissakes, Scotty!”

“Jeez, impatient little b******, ain’cha? Always was, ever since ya was a rugrat.” But Scott could afford to be generous now that the cherished diamonds were in his possession at last. He grinned. “Alright, alright! Remember the night ya killed a guy...?”

It was only a few seconds pause but it seemed like an eternity before he spoke again, the words echoing around the towering cliffs and carrying themselves out on the tumbling ocean. And the words themselves were so small, so insignificant, yet they carried a weight like a knock-out punch.

“Well, ya didn’t...”

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Don’t know if Twiglets are on general sale in Australia, but for any Aussie readers who never heard of them, they’re a kind of savoury snack, bit like crisps, but made with, I think, Marmite. Don’t like them myself!

[I love music]

Thanks for your review, Adia.

Aah what's going to happen!?!

I bet you figure it out. You seem pretty good at figuring things out!

*****chapter 29*****

Kane stared at his brother. “Whadd’ya mean, I didn’t kill him? I stabbed him, for ****’s sake! There was blood everywhere!”

“Jeez! Use ya ******* head for once! If ya’d killed him, don’t’cha think the knife would’ve had more than coupla spots of blood on it? It woulda been ******* drenched! Ya barely scratched him, matey! Ya was shakin’ so much ya could hardly hold on to the knife, let alone use it. The old man did all the damage with the broken bottle.”

“Dad killed him?”

Scott rolled his eyes impatiently. “Do I have to spell it out for ya? He wasn’t ******* dead, drongo, he didn’t ******* die!”

*****

Scotty was swallowing huge breaths of relief when, as instructed by his father, he ran to open the heavy ornate gates that led to the Phillips drive.

It had been a massive gamble, suggesting to Dad that they made out Ma’s boyfriend had carked it. Not the idea itself, of course. That was so ingenious and yet so simple that Richie couldn’t help but be impressed. Anyone with their wits about them would have quickly seen that the supposed corpse, though badly hurt, was moving and breathing. But neither Kane nor his mother would see that.

Even the tiniest glitch in her day was often enough to send Diane Phillips over the edge and the shock had plunged her into another trance-like state. And Kane was already traumatised by what he’d seen and heard that night. One small push in the right direction was all that it would take...

.................all that it took. Richie picked up on Scott’s words immediately, grinning slowly at his eldest boy.

“We gotta get rid of HIM, Dad. We don’t want no cops sniffin’ round here lookin’ for DEAD BODIES!”

Father and son united. One or two loaded remarks. A handful of gestures and glances. Oh, how easy it was. A little bit of broken glass, a knife, a blood-spattered room and some people will believe anything you tell them.

It suited Richie to have his wife believe her lover was dead to ensure she was trapped in his power forever. It suited Scott to have his kid bro believe himself a killer to ensure Kane never told anyone about the diamonds. Sweet as a nut.

Scott’s concern hadn’t been the idea itself. It had been how his father might react to it.

Nobody dared tell Richie “Gus” Phillips what to do and Scotty could’ve ended up with the bashing of his life for sticking his neck out like that. ‘Course, things would’ve been easier had the guy on the floor been a tad more obliging and kindly carked it there and then. In fact, Scott had been half hoping Dad would finish the job. But it wasn’t to be. Even Richie wasn’t dill enough to kill a man in his own home. So Scotty had to content himself with the status quo. Which, all things considered, was probably for the best. He didn’t want cops sniffing round here tonight any more than his Dad did.

Gritting his teeth, he pulled up the first rusty lock and ran with the heavy wrought iron gate to push it wide open, though it groaned in loud protest at the unwelcome intrusion into its quiet slumber.

The second gate was, as always, even more cantankerous than its twin. It took three attempts and a cut thumb before the lock finally yielded and, even then, the gate dragged itself along the ground, making a long, low, threatening growl, as though great age gave it a perfect right to be as awkward as it liked.

Scotty kicked it in revenge for its lack of co-operation but the kick was half-hearted. It was, after all, the only hiccup so far in his plans to stash the diamonds somewhere safe. He waited for his father to arrive with the truck, whistling a low, almost tuneful whistle, stoked that things had turned out so well.

*****

“It wasn’t my imagination!”

To Kane's terror, the face-down corpse seemed to flex its hand, as if it heard his father’s words and, sensing its killer was still in the room, was seeking him out to take revenge. But it was only 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 if it were a tiny insect. He couldn’t afford to let his imagination run away with him anymore...

“What?” Scotty’s attention had been momentarily distracted by a vague noise. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn he heard chopper blades.

“After I stabbed him - I saw the guy moving!”

“Well, bully for you, little bro! I figure we’re quits now. I got the stash, you got the story. Ain’t tellin’ no one where me and the diamonds is headed so this is it, family reunion over, have a nice life!”

“Scott!”

“Jeez, what now?” Scotty spoke as if Kane were a kid again. Maybe, to Scotty, he always would be.

First time he’d clapped eyes on his younger brother, the olds had dumped him in the corner in Scott’s old pram, where he lay, red-faced and screaming in discomfort, hot, hungry and thirsty, while his parents sat, drinking to the new bub’s arrival, and totally ignoring him.

Scott crept across the room to peer curiously in at the tiny scrap and to greet him warmly.

“G’day, ya ******* stupid whinger!”

The bub suddenly checked his scalding hot tears and...well, Ma said it was only wind as she swore and cuffed Scotty round the ears, and staggeringly drunkenly back with Kane in her arms, but Scotty knew he was right and it had been a smile!

And he realised there and then someone had to look out for the wailing little b****r.

Toughen him up, keep him in his place, teach him how to lie, cheat and steal, shove him in central heating cupboards so’s he wouldn’t get the sh*t beat outta him, shut him up fast when he had nightmares before Dad bashed him for shouting about what happened that night. Jeez, the list of IOUs went on and on.

“Scotty, why the **** didn’t ya just tell me? Why’d ya let me think I killed him?”

“What kind of fool d’ya think I am? Had to scare ya into keepin’ ya mouth zipped, didn’t I? That’s why I took ya the graveyard, buried the knife, made ya think Dad’d only buy it if I said we chucked the knife in the sea. Couldn’t chance ya laggin’ ‘bout the diamonds.”

“But I’d never have lagged! And you knew what it was like, all those years, the nightmares, almost every ******* night, the nightmares...”

Scott shrugged. No use crying over spilt milk. “Them’s the breaks, bro.”

“So why tell me now? After all this ******* time?”

“Dunno,” Scotty lied.

*****

Kane was too young to understand but Scotty knew at once what had happened to his mother. He suspected it had been happening for a long time, but he was damned if he was gonna do anything about it or the bashings. Ma was too far gone to seek help. Dad was never going to dob himself in. Kane was just a little kid. But if Scott blabbed and the cops rocked up, then he could kiss goodbye to the diamonds and the diamonds were Scotty’s future.

So, when Richie Phillips made his offer in exchange for his silence, Scott’s silence had been bought. And bought cheaply. Pocket money, a handful of smokes, a few tinnies. Wasn’t much to value to a life at but, hey, a guy had to think of himself.

So Scott got exactly what he wanted and things should’ve been apples. But they weren’t. There was one huge problem.

See, nobody told Scotty he had a conscience. Nobody warned him how the guilt would burn through him every time he saw his mother left in a bruised and bloody heap.

But Scotty shut it all out of his mind and spent years working on being Richie Phillips’ ideal son. And almost succeeding. Not even Kane saw through him. Nobody saw through him till Kirsty.

Why did she have to bring back memories?

Like she knew. But that was impossible because nobody knew. Nobody knew Scotty had kept the pictures.

Not that there were many. One of himself and Kane when they were very, very young, sitting on a table, Scott with his arms wrapped protectively round his baby bro so that he didn’t fall back.

And then there was Jamie. Why did he have to look so much like Kane when he was a kid?

“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 Kane himself had used all those years ago.

“Kane would never kill anyone. 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?

How come she knew so much?

The time he’d held the Summer Bay doc and his wife and some wrinklie at gunpoint he had no intention of pressing the trigger. The time he’d ramraided the supermarket, his foot had been on the brake long, long before he screeched to a halt, a reflex action the second he realised he’d mow down the dude stupid enough to be working late if he didn’t stop. And during the servo robbery, he could easily have shot dead the old guy, the gun was pointed straight at him, he was looking at Scotty with abject terror in his eyes, pinned to the spot by fear, but...Jeez, what was the point when the high, the pumping adrenaline, was all in the danger of pulling some job and making the getaway?

Tasha now, when he’d bundled her in the boot of the car, the plan had been to scare her into keeping her mouth shut but he had to make her think her days were numbered. Same with the kidnapping of Shauna Bradley. Scott was bloody expert at scaring people. Or thought he was.

But Kane’s wife, she just didn’t scare. Didn’t flinch, like she was supposed to, like everybody had always done before, when Scott played his favourite game of cat and mouse.

Had he still been alive, Richie would have been so disappointed at how his eldest son, the one he pinned all his hopes on, turned out. But for once in his life, out here on the cliffs, Scotty felt good about himself. Knew he’d done something right for a change. Maybe it made up for all those years of doing something wrong.

So many questions were in Kane’s mind. But one more so than most.

“So this guy...If he didn’t cark it, what the hell happened to him?”

Scott guffawed. “You mean you ain’t figured it yet? And I thought you was meant to be the one in the family with all the brains! He...”

And then suddenly it came again. The whirring sound of the chopper. Except this time it brought a crazy rush of wind and a flat moonlight shadow fell across the ocean like a giant bird about to swoop. The SES pilot circled one last time, needing to assess the second emergency situation that the towering flames of the nearby fire had originally alerted them to, so low that they could see his face at the ‘copter window.

Jeeeeezusssss, Scotty realised, he had to shoot through with the diamonds while he still had the chance! Only one thing for it now. If he took Devil’s Leap, it’d give him one helluva headstart...

Kane read his mind. Knew there was no way he could possibly make it, not now, not with the cliff edge so badly, so dangerously crumbled away.

“SCOTTY, DONNNN’TTTT!!!”

But Scott, always knowing better than his little brother, only laughed and jumped anyway, sure he could ace it.

And he might have done. He really might have done. But at the very last moment, his heel catching, sliding, twisting. And then he was falling. Falling so near to the cliffs that the jagged edges took offence at his close proximity and furiously ripped open the backpack on his shoulders.

“SCOTTYYY!!!! SCOTTTTYYYY!!! SCOTTTTTTYYYYYYYY!!!”

Kane’s desperate, harrowing cries echoing round and round and round the towering grey cliffs as though they would echo there forever. Where the breeze was fresh and the moon high and the smell of smoke tainted the night air. Where the contents of the rucksack were scattering far and wide.

Some landing on the sea-bathed rocks, some floating or sinking in the silvery waters, some disappearing somewhere into the cliffs. Rings and necklaces, bracelets and ear-rings, necklaces and broaches, dazzling and thrilling in a myriad of beautiful colours.

Costume jewellery, cheap, shiny baubles, the occasional starlit flash of diamante. Oh, but not a diamond amongst them! Not one.

And the red tinge in the sky from the fire fading now so each star taking its turn to sparkle more brightly than the rest and the white-tipped waves rushing into each other and sighing

...if only... if only...if only...if only...

If only Scott had had the chance to look into the rucksack at least once since he grew up. If only Melanie had thought to check out the stash or Kane asked his brother exactly why no one ever asked about a missing fortune. If only someone had known. That there were no diamonds. There never had been any diamonds.

Because in the end, in the very, very end, one summer afternoon long, long ago, two little boys had stumbled upon some cheap jewellery ablaze with dancing colours and had seen the world through the eyes of children.

[I love music]

***chapter 30***

“Waaall, I’ll be...!”

Watching the two kids make off with the old leather rucksack, staggering under its heavy weight, Danny King shook his head and smiled to himself. Maria, his six-year-old son’s au pair, had been frantic with worry when she realised one of her charges at the kids’ party was missing, fearing he may have hurt himself.

“It was the leetle boy much - how you say? - desperate for the drink.” Maria, unaware of the connotations, innocently described Kane’s apparent request for refresco de naranja. Her thick black hair stood on end as she ran plump fingers through it yet again and her dark brown eyes were full of concern.

Her employer remembered well the “leetle boy” she was talking about because he had been very surprised by the appearance of the small kid carrying the party invitation card for one Wills Bennett.

This kid’s Mom and Dad were meant to be seriously rich, yet his sneakers were worn and dirty and his shorts and T-shirt, though brand new, looked like they’d been purchased from a five and dime. But Danny King’s neighbors in the exclusive Australian suburb had told him that the Bennetts had only very recently come into their fortune, scooping the jackpot on the Lotto, and he figured maybe some folk, after a lifetime of scraping two cents together, would take a long, long while to get used to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“Aw, no doubt he’s helped himself to some candy and is hiding someplace to eat it. I’ll go see if I can find him,” Danny promised Maria.

But he hadn’t expected to find, rather than eating candy, the kid had embarked on a life of crime.

The American jeweller pulled back the drapes on the front upstairs window and watched in amusement as the two boys (the bigger kid looked so much like him he’d just gotta be a cousin or brother) ran down the path, their constant looking round sure making it obvious they had something to hide.

Goddamn thieving rascals, he thought indulgently. Reminded him of the days he and his own brother were kids and would do anything, legal or not, to make a fast buck, many years before they became the well-respected businessmen they were today, owning a hugely successful chain of jewellers.

Danny grinned, idly wondering what the heck these enterprising kids intended to do with the costume jewellery they’d just snatched.

The loss of the rucksack and its contents was of no great consequence. Being a millionaire several times over, he could easily afford to replace them. No, what worried the joint head of King’s Jewellery most was how he was going to tell Maria she’d lost the cheap display jewellery that he’d passed on to her after one of his stores moved premises. Sure, he could get her another lot - no problem - but he knew she’d earmarked several items to post home to her three adoring little sisters. As the two kids disappeared round the corner, Danny reluctantly dialled the Bennett kid’s folks’ number.

But two things happened that day that would set off the chain of events to our story.

The Bennetts answer-phone clicked into action as Danny King’s call connected. And when they returned home from their latest, no-expense-spared holiday, a yawning, jet-lagged Mr Bennett accidentally deleted every single message on the answer-phone. To his surprise, Danny King’s friendly, kids-will-be-kids message was never returned. Neither was the rucksack. But the millionaire jeweller was returning home to the States next day and had plenty other things on his mind.

The rucksack’s terrible fate of being buried alive was sealed.

*****

Melanie cut a lonely figure in the side ward they’d had to place her in because the constant restlessness, kicking, screaming and other strange behaviour as she spiralled down off the smack both terrified and disturbed the other patients.

Placed on a methadone program and much calmer now, she sat up in bed, her hair no longer greasy and a slight weight gain helping pad out her almost skeletal frame, but still looking pale and drawn. A glossy magazine, filled with another world of the rich and famous, was spread open before her, but Mel was staring into the distance, small, quiet tears trickling down her cheeks as a red evening sun, in one final defiant burst, cast her solitary shadow on the cold white wall.

And then, after its brief last moment of glory and finally accepting its time was past, the sun began sinking slowly down over the horizon. Unless she pulled the cord on the reading lamp, the room would soon plunge into the falling gloom of the evening.

Kane hesitated near the door and Mel, sensing she was no longer alone, thinking a nurse had come to check up on her and not wanting to talk, quickly lifted the magazine to her face, squinting at pictures and words that were already jumbling together in the thin grey light.

“Hey,” he said gently.

They’d been through too much together to pretend. The magazine dropped from her trembling hands. Fresh tears glistened in her eyes. Maybe, Kane thought, there had been a time before the bashings, a time when she had truly loved Scott.

“I miss Scotty too.” He bit his lip, not quite knowing what to say or do next, feeling clumsy and awkward.

He longed to cry again for his brother, like last night he’d wept in Kirsty’s arms. But in the echoes of memory his father was taunting him as a ******* girly sook. It was still hard to show his emotions in front of anyone but his wife and son. Maybe his childhood would always haunt him no matter how many counselling sessions he had, how hard he tried to come to terms with it. So he took a deep breath and struggled to find the right words.

“We had totally different lives when we grew up, but he used to look out for me when we were kids, save me from Dad’s belt and worse, and...well, he couldn’t kill Jamie after all...”

“You don’t understand,” Mel whispered, sniffing and pressing fingertips against her eyelids to halt the flow of tears. “You just don’t understand.”

“He was my bro...”

“More than one person died that night,” Mel said in a tight, choked voice. “What makes you think Scott’s the one I’m crying for?”

*****

Melanie never forgot her fourteenth birthday.

It was a Tuesday.

It was the day she found her mother’s body.

Slumped on the bed soaked with blood that was still dripping down from the pretty pink-and-yellow flowered duvet, and, in, the puddle of blood on the floor, where it had finally slipped from her mother’s hand, the razor blade she had gone out to buy that morning while her daughter was at school.

Melanie remembered wondering in a strange surreal kind of way how was it possible for someone to be dead when the scent of their perfume still trailed in the air, when a gentle, warm sunlight streamed in through the open window, when there was a distant hum of early afternoon traffic as people went about their usual business...and she remembered how her own harrowing, anguished cries pierced the silence of the quiet, sunlit room...

The elderly couple from next door, who’d dialled the emergency services when they’d heard Melanie’s terrified screams, tried to utter soothing words as the ambos carried the corpse downstairs and the woman cop assigned to her case gently explained what would happen now and, as if she’d suddenly become simple, everyone, wanting to help, looked at her with enormous pity and spoke slowly in sympathetic, hushed tones. But no one could help.

Melanie’s only other relative had been her father, who had died several years ago, the reason her mother had uprooted them from their hometown in the first place, and who had walked out on his marriage, never to be seen again, when Mel was barely four years old. She was taken into care the same day her mother died.

Yet again uprooted and taken far away from all that she knew. Until one day, like her father, she too walked out and never went back.

The third or fourth night on the streets - time had slipped into a blur of terror and struggle for survival - she’d met Jem. Jem was gay, a heroin addict with beautiful, soulful eyes, who loved to write long, rambling meaning-of-life poems, which didn’t make any sense, but which never failed to make her smile because he was so earnest about his poetry. He was gentle and kind, watching out for her in those early days of sleeping rough, but it was with Jem, who was to die choking on his own vomit just five short weeks later, that she first tried smack.

And, after that first heady shot, when she found that, till she came crashing down into the misery again, for a little while, she could forget the day she found her mother dead, Mel never looked back. She didn’t want to.

Not then.

*****

“I’m headed for Summer Bay,” he said. “It’s a sleepy little seaside town on the coast. You probably never heard of it.”

“Nope. But sounds as good a place as any to head.”

Mel shrugged and took another swig of beer. As if the name meant nothing to her. As if her heart hadn’t suddenly lurched and begun pounding against her chest and her throat hadn’t gone suddenly dry. Years of living rough, moving from place to place, had taught her well. No point in telling anyone anything. Let them do all the talking. That way you found out things. And they knew nothing about you.

“Look, ya wanna go somewhere more private to...uh...talk?” The guy who’d said his name was Scott added, grounding down his cigarette in the overflowing ash-tray. “I got a room in the boarding house over the way. Ain’t much, but it’s got a bed.”

He had bought her a few beers and she’d been expecting favours demanded in return. Made a change that he hadn’t demanded them immediately, but then he’d been different. Clean, not bad looking. Like the blokes who drank here at Billabong’s usually were, rough and dangerous, but, unusually, with the handful of chicks foolhardy enough to frequent the cheap, downtown bar, he had an easy charm. At any rate, Scott was a huge improvement on the guys she occasionally picked up here when she got desperate for money for a fix or desperate just to be held.

Melanie looked round at the squalid bar with its slashed seats and drink-sodden tables, with its overweight, red-faced barman puffing in exertion as he swept up shards of glass. It was a tempting offer.

The squat where she’d been crashing had been raided that arvo and she’d been feeling too crook to bother sorting out a new pitch. Rain was lashing the windows and the wind had gotten up, wailing like a demon.

But she had to make fast decisions about whether she could trust someone.

A long time ago, when she’d been stupid and naive, when she’d fled in terror and confusion the night Jem died, she’d poured her heart out to Davey because he’d sat on the steps next to her, put his arm round her shoulders, given her a cigarette and said he couldn’t just pass by and leave a pretty girl sobbing on her own. And then he took her to a late-night eatery, bought her a greasy meal and a mug of thick, strong coffee, and said he knew a place where she could go to shelter for the night.

And she didn’t think to question why they were walking through a maze of small streets at the back of some closed-down shops until it was too late, he was pushing her back, telling her he hadn’t paid ******* good money on a meal for a tramp like her for nothing, laughing at her vain attempts to fight him off...

Melanie shuddered at the memory, her mother’s bitter words coming back to her. Every man lets you down in the end, just like your father did. Men make you cry and leave you crumpled inside. Men use you and abuse you.

And over the months, after the rape had driven her to attempt suicide three times, when all that happened after swallowing the pills was that, twice, she woke, shivering and alone, among the garbo and cockroaches, with a crashing headache and feeling unbelievably sick, the third time waking just in time to flee from some drunken sicko who was tugging at her clothes, she learnt to get tougher. Started using guys like they’d always used her. They were good for a bit of company, a few dollars, maybe a fix or a bite to eat. Nothing else.

“So you wanna join me, babes?” Scott grinned, leaned closer, squeezed her knee.

Despite the booze and ciggies, he smelled of after-shave and soap and he had a nice smile. At least he’d been straight with her about just getting out of slammer. Said he planned to go down to the Bay to look up family. And it was one of those long, lonely nights when she needed so much to be held. So Mel smiled back.

“No worries,” she agreed.

She had already made up her mind that Scott, though he didn’t know it yet, was going to have company all the way down to Summer Bay. And as they left the bar together, she couldn’t help but feel rapt because she was going to see a sleepy little seaside town on the coast.

As they travelled, Mel got to know more. Scott talked. A lot.

About his family. About what happened that night. She listened. Took it all in. Especially when he talked about the diamonds. But she never told him anything in return. Never told him about the countless times when she was a kid and Mum was sobbing over Dad again, and Melanie would have to calm her, like she’d been calming her ever since she was four years old.

That very first night, woken by her mother’s hysterical sobs, she’d slipped from her bed and tramped down the steep wooden stairs, clutching the pink fluffy rabbit that was all, apart from a few clothes, that they’d brought with them from their previous life. When they’d arrived, Mum had said they were eight cities away now from where they had lived before, but it still wasn’t far enough to stop the memories hurting.

“You need a band aid?” Four-year-old Mel asked sympathetically, trying hard not to cry, chewing on the pink rabbit’s ear, frightened and upset by her mother’s distress. “To stop the membries hurting?”

Her mother laughed, stretched out her arms and Mel ran to her, relieved, thinking it was over now, vaguely picturing the mysterious “membries” as some kind of cuts beneath her mother’s hair where she’d been holding her head.

But it wasn’t over. It was just the beginning. Except as the years passed it got worse.

Sometimes Mum would get blotto and threaten to kill herself. Then the next day she would be okay again, telling her young daughter she was over it now, it was only the drink talking and she’d done all the crying she was ever going to do for a lowlife who could walk out on his wife and small child, everything would be fine from now on. And, for a while, everything would be fine. For days, weeks, even whole months. Then it would start all over again.

There were times when Mel felt she couldn’t cope anymore and longed to tell someone. But there were only the two of them. Just the two of them in the whole world. Mum said she’d never be able to stand it if Mel left her too. And if they took her mother away to hospital, who would Melanie have?

So somehow they kept it secret. With friends and neighbours, her mother never once let the mask slip. She was pretty and popular, and got asked out on dates, but always refused them, saying she didn’t want to disrupt her daughter’s life any further. Though Mel often got home from school to find her mother sobbing and shaking, the house a mess and no dinner cooked.

And then, after she had finally talked her out of swallowing a bottleful of tablets or reassured her life was worth living, she would tidy up, fix them both something to eat, maybe try to tackle a homework assignment that she usually wouldn’t have time to finish and meant she would be in for a rollicking next day.

It was a tough, harrowing childhood, in some ways as harrowing as Scott’s own, and, like Scott, she’d had to grow up fast. But Melanie never breathed a word to her boyfriend about her past.

And especially she never told him that Summer Bay was where she’d been born and had lived until she was four years old.

*****

“I never loved Scott. I stayed with him because I was using him, first to make my way to Summer Bay, then to get my hands on the diamonds - that never even existed in the end!”

Mel gave a wry smile. None of it mattered now. Nothing mattered anymore.

“Kirsty was right. Scott couldn’t have killed anyone. Closest he ever came to it was when he bashed the truckie, but how was he to know the guy had a weak heart? Sure, he could talk big and he could use his fists - I know that - but...” She swallowed. Maybe it was time, finally time after all these years of silence, to tell her story. “...up on those cliffs someone was going to kill Jamie...