‘OK. You’re not doing it. Full stop. Debate is the larval state of truth. Let’s skip it. And guess what? I’m actually glad you know what you’re doing. Because I like your Jenny. I liked her when I first knew her, all those years ago. I liked her when she later sought me out to start her business. And I like her now as a client and yes, as a friend. And I like you, Shane. I like your certainty. Because you’re forty-four, and life doesn’t start again at forty-four.’

  Otto had effortlessly slipped into that homiletic style that Shane disliked so much. How upright, formal and reasonable he looked; like the self-assured manager of a five-star hotel. ‘The key to these things is peace of mind. If you don’t have that, then…’ He paused and behind his glasses, squinted. ‘What’s up? Something’s off. And it’s nothing to do with my investment opportunity.’

  Shane thought of the second burglar in the laneway, the card that had come with the lilies, the guy with the shaved head outside his house and then the strange text message he’d received. He certainly wasn’t going to tell Otto about any of those things and be called paranoid again.

  Otto said, ‘Look, since we don’t know each other that well and we move in different crowds, feel free to tell me. You’ve nothing to lose.’

  Shane smiled. What Otto really meant was that he moved in a different crowd. Or rather, he moved in a crowd and Shane didn’t. ‘Otto, know what stresses me out right now? More than the break-in or the dead girl? It’s the fact that Jenny’s family is right back in our lives. That’s what stresses me out.’

  Otto’s eyes narrowed, as they always did when something interesting or inappropriate was being said to him. ‘The mother hates you, right? Because of what you did to—’

  Shane interrupted with a wave of his hand. ‘Yeah. All that. But it’s pretty much in the past. This is about now. Getting our marching orders from this house… it makes Vera an invisible presence in every room. A silent third party in every conversation. She’s driving me crazy. But Jenny won’t mention her, because Jenny never talks to me about her mother unless Vera has done something spectacularly awful to her – which is about once every three months.’

  ‘So, when Jenny talks to her mother, you consider Jenny disloyal?’

  That Otto had put his finger right on it, annoyed him. It was as if Otto had screamed his name inside the house. The fact was, he was angry and disappointed with his wife’s unending quest to get back what her family had taken from her. Sometimes, it felt that her commitment to the battle, her fascination with it, her enthrallment with them, was deeper than anything her psyche directed towards him.

  But Shane said, ‘Jenny has a right to have a relationship with her mother.’

  ‘Maybe the mother will die soon.’

  ‘Her kind don’t die easily.’ Shane wasn’t even sure if that possibility was a good thing. How would Jenny react? Would it mess her up even more than Vera had when she was alive?

  ‘Maybe a bus will hit her.’

  ‘Ah, the bus. That bus. The bus that goes around hitting people.’

  Ducking Shane’s sarcasm with a laugh, Otto clarified with, ‘What I mean is, she might die and correct the injustices that have gone before. Blood is thicker than water.’

  ‘Blood’s thicker than water? True. But with this lot, money’s thicker than blood.’

  ‘But can an old woman really be that bad?’

  ‘Put it this way, Otto, whatever good things you’ve heard about her aren’t true. And whatever bad things… they’re just the tip of the iceberg.’ Shane was beginning to begrudgingly enjoy having someone familiar with the situation to offload onto.

  ‘I know she disinherited—’

  ‘She didn’t disinherit Jenny. She stole from her and gave it to Joan, who hates Jenny and is jealous of Jenny. Joan has never done anything for herself in her life. Despite being middle-aged, Joan still sees her mother as a nurturing entity, the goddess Vishnu, the leader of the pack from whose breast she continues to suckle; the infallible source of all her happiness. And Joan will never forgive Jenny for doing her own thing; for stepping away from their glorious mother; for actually doing something constructive with her life, without their mother’s help and without their mother’s permission. Sometimes I think the reason Joan really hates her is because Jenny has done what she’s unconsciously always wanted to do – free herself of her mother’s regime.’

  Shane had seen for himself how Vera had never had any great ambitions for her two girls. She’d considered them as a collective that should concentrate on keeping their weight down, getting married and giving her grandsons. And yet, with such low expectations, they had both still failed her. Jenny was childless and Joan had only produced granddaughters, rather than the grandson Vera craved.

  Otto said, ‘Well, since Vera gained control of the family estate, she can leave it to whoever she likes.’

  ‘She was just supposed to mind it for tax reasons and then distribute it equally.’

  ‘Supposed to.’

  ‘But she bought Joan a penthouse with the funds after her separation. She then used the funds to renovate it, even though it was already fantastic. She used the money to have all three of Joan’s kids put through college. And she keeps Jenny on in the background, watching all this, seeing what is hers being flushed away. You know, Jenny asked for a single piece of jewellery? These pearl earrings she’d always liked when she was a kid. But the mother just laughed as if she was mad, and wanted to know if she also wanted her old underwear.’

  ‘Lovely – words to be treasured forever.’

  ‘Vera said that her favourite granddaughter would get the earrings.’

  ‘For Jenny to be treated like that… to take that shit…’ Otto struggled for words. ‘The best thing I ever did was tell my father to go and fuck himself. We got on better after that.’

  Shane looked at Otto as if he was insane. ‘You can’t do that with a textbook narcissist who owns your house and controls what’s left of your inheritance. Not if you still want to live in that house and ever see a cent of your inheritance. You’ve just got to take it. That’s why Vera continues to see Jenny every week. It’s to control her. Vera loved us being in this house. It gave her access to Jenny, which allowed Vera to make sure she wasn’t doing too well. And it also gave her the power to throw Jenny out. Which she’s now doing.’

  ‘Think she needs the money?’

  ‘Nope. Jenny says there should still be a few million left. So why is she kicking us out when we’re her favourite toy?’

  ‘What does Jenny think of her mother?’

  ‘I’ve given Jenny printouts about narcissist mothers. But the most Jenny concedes is that Vera is just difficult… and poisoned against her by Joan. Jenny obviously still loves the woman; the way a lot of abused people love their abusers.’

  Shane had always thought that there was an unhealthy connection between Vera and Jenny. Something in which the axe had yet to be buried. It was in the looks they’d given each other over the years. It was something that Shane didn’t know yet and, maybe, never would. ‘So, when Vera gave us a year to get out, it crushed Jenny because she’d always believed that Vera would eventually honour her husband’s intention to give her the house. But I knew it was never going to happen – not while the golden child, Joan, still lives and breathes. Jenny has never accepted that Vera will never normalise, will never lighten up. Vera, by her very nature, will only get worse. She’ll only get more extreme. She will find her way and then get her way.’

  ‘You must hate Vera for everything she’s done to Jenny and then throwing you out.’

  ‘No – I don’t hate Vera. Or any of them. My savings have reached the point – as you damn well know – where we’ve enough for a deposit on our own apartment in a neighbourhood near enough to Clareville—’

  ‘But not Clareville.’

  ‘If it gets Vera out of our lives forever, then I’m glad the house is being sold.’

  ‘And is that what you want?’

  Shane disliked questions like that. ‘Is what what I want?’

  ‘Getting Vera out of your life. Or do you want to know what really happened between Jenny and her? To know why Vera does what she does to Jenny? Or maybe you want Vera out of your life because you realise that you don’t want to know and—’

  ‘Of course I want to know. I mean, how bad can it be? It’s not as if Jenny’s hiding that her mother was a member of the Waffen-SS.’

  ‘But to know everything about someone makes them boring. Dangerous for a marriage. And yet, paradoxically, secrets are only fun when you know them. Shane, the smart thing is to ignore it. Pretend there isn’t a secret. That’s what makes marriages last – people figuring out ways to keep their distance from each other without keeping their distance from each other.’

  Shane wasn’t used to Otto speaking to him warmly and didn’t know how to react to this apparent openness and blunt honesty.

  Otto continued. ‘Stressful times can be a breakthrough. I had a nervous breakdown in my mid-twenties. I only really snapped out of it when I finally woke up and realised that it couldn’t possibly get any worse, so who cares? In other words, I’d crossed the tipping point into “fuck it” territory. That’s a great land to live in. And just like that – my recovery, my ambition, my business plan – it all came on me like a sudden urge to piss. So, I took risks again and was no longer afraid of failure. From there, I started my own business from nothing.’

  Shane had to stop himself from laughing. If Otto, the son of a German industrialist, had started his business from nothing, then Otto’s ‘nothing’ was somewhat more substantial than most other people’s.

  ‘Shane, you’ve little to worry about. Most couples married for as long as you are, are doing it for the kids. But you guys actually seem to like each other. You have it good. Get me?’

  Shane thought of all the children he didn’t have.

  ‘Look, forget about Jenny’s sister and her shit-stirring toxic mother. If Vera is the textbook narcissist you say she is, then she’ll have done everything in her power to switch Jenny’s attention from you to her. Just like she probably did with Joan’s marriage. Joan’s separated, right?’

  Shane’s phone began vibrating and he checked the message.

  BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY TO HIM

  What the hell? Shane looked out the window as if expecting to see a bearded man in a leather jacket staring in. There was no one there. He checked the number. Unknown.

  Shane looked at Otto. He had one long white hair in his left eyebrow. It was very unlike him not to have got rid of it. The air instantly throbbed with agitated atoms. The atmosphere had changed.

  ‘Well?’ Otto asked. ‘You look as if you’ve just got bad news?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Shane muttered. He looked out the window again. Was somebody outside – spying – warning him? But warning him of what? A mother rolled her buggy along the far pavement. There were a few empty parked cars. Nothing else. ‘Just give me a minute.’ He dialled the number. The tone pulsed four times before flatlining.

  Otto licked his lips. Shane knew that people who have things to hide are liars, and that all liars are anxious. Some tremble. Some talk too fast. Some only offer monosyllabic answers. Others get a dry mouth. I’m losing my mind. It had to be a mistake. Or, at worst, it was one of the weirdos that Detective Murray had warned about, trying to press his buttons; someone who had no idea that Shane was standing in his living room talking to anyone.

  Shane put away his phone. He just wanted Otto to go now. ‘Sorry but I’ve got to… get back to the work.’

  ‘Sure. We’re done here anyway. But remember what Lovecraft said – “You can always kill yourself next year.” God speed, brother.’

  After they parted at the hall door, Shane returned to the study, sat at his desk and breathed out long and hard. The morning was well gone and already the afternoon was slipping away from him. His phone buzzed with the arrival of another text.

  DON’T TRUST HIM

  Shane stared out the window. Please let there be somebody out there. That shaven-headed weirdo with the beard. If he’s there, then I’ll go out and face him.

  He remembered his one significant violent encounter: a night that had changed his life forever in ways that he could never have imagined. Twenty-six years had passed since then. Is it really that long ago?

  9

  Twenty-Six Years Ago

  Shane, seventeen years old, walked into the lounge of an inner-city bar to meet a friend, having no idea that what was about to happen would still be shaping his life almost three decades later.

  The Ploughman, infamous for serving underage patrons, was packed with teenagers. Most of the guys reeked of skunk and cigarettes, and had hoodies pulled over their heads so that their faces were in shadow, like scummy monks. The girls were underdressed and goose-fleshed, with cries as shrill as seagulls. The one sitting nearest Shane stretched lazily across the sofa, her ribs lining up beneath her pink belly-top like a row of slim book spines.

  As Shane worked up the nerve to order a pint, a new group entered the lounge. There were five of them, but the alpha was easily identifiable; his noise footprint was large, with a cloud of sycophantic laughter puffing up around him. Next was his trusted lieutenant, and then the soldier ants. They stood out for many reasons. In their early twenties, they were older than everyone else. They were tall, muscular and wearing the black-crested blazers of a prestigious rugby club. They didn’t care that people were looking at them – they expected to be marked with consequence in a pub like this. It was why they were there.

  The rugby lads crowded the space that Shane had eyed, from which to order his pint. Now he didn’t know where to stand. He didn’t belong with the track-suited regulars because he didn’t live for football and lager and had ambitions to go to university. But he also didn’t belong with the older rugby guys. Even at seventeen, he resented how such young men had already grown so comfortable with money that they genuinely believed that they were entitled to it. He disliked how this belief gave them such a glow of vigour that they actually radiated a little.

  A sixth member of the rugby crew arrived, walked straight to the alpha and asked, ‘So how’s it hanging, Hugh?’

  Hugh clapped him chum-chummily on the cheek and, as if addressing an audience, loudly answered, ‘Long and hard. Long. And. Fucking. Hard.’

  ‘Amen.’ The new arrival clinked the leader’s glass with his bottle.

  Hugh then pulled one of the girls off the sofa and started kissing her. His twenty-something-year-old tongue lapped at the pool of her adolescent mouth, his hands running up and down her back and ass. She pushed Hugh away. Hugh pushed her back. Her heels hit the corner of the sofa and she toppled over.

  As Shane helped her up, the group of rugby friends turned to inspect him. After a moment they looked away, having seemingly failed to see anything at all. Facing Hugh’s broad back, Shane muttered, ‘What a prick.’

  And just like that, a pool of silence gently spread around him. Hugh slowly turned, smiled and said, ‘A wise man does not step between the beast and his meat, you fucking tosspot. Now run along before I decide not to be so friendly.’

  Shane reddened as he stood inadequately before this muscled man, who demonstrated an enunciation that suggested locales of finicky privilege and robust breeding that he only knew about from the socialite pages he browsed at the barbers, when hard up for prose.

  ‘Are you deaf?’ Hugh then asked. ‘I mean, why are you still here, before me, like some lost little kitty? Or can your pea-brain not cope with adult instruction?’

  Shane reddened but forced himself to keep his gaze on those unpleasant brown eyes. I can’t walk away. That would be… that would be… that would not be cool. Knowing that he was probably making the first big mistake of his life, Shane said, ‘Big man, pushing girls around – you wanker.’

  Hugh’s mates, smelling blood in the water, pondered the drama unfolding before them. A thawing boredom was being replaced with cruel expectancy as they waited to see what would happen next, hoping it would be something that they’d be discussing for days to come.

  Hugh spread his arms. It was an impressive sight; a six-foot-tall, muscled gladiator accepting the crowd’s acclaim. He said, ‘In Blackrock, we’ve a saying for dickheads who get themselves into your particular predicament. It’s called – Being Completely and Utterly Fucked.’

  But, betraying his anxiety, Hugh swallowed and, instead of thinking, he charged, Italian leather thumping against the floorboards.

  Hugh smashed into Shane with the whack of skin and muscle colliding. Shane staggered backwards through a maze of limbs belonging to a gang of engrossed spectators. Colliding against the wall, Hugh shoved Shane again, ricocheting him off it before grabbing his hair and smashing the back of his head against the door frame.

  Shane felt as if he was in the midst of an exploding bomb. He half expected to see his own legs flying past his eyes. A ticker tape of data reeled across his mind – Am I bleeding? Could I be brain damaged? Is the wall damaged? Will I have to pay for it? I can’t afford it. If I can’t pay for it, could I go to jail even though I’m only seventeen and he’s what – twenty-two? Taking a beating is better than running, isn’t it?

  Suddenly, Shane was fighting back. With all his strength and determination, he pushed his entire being towards Hugh and both men bolted each other into headlocks. Hugh’s low-tide breath gassed Shane’s face, warming his skin. For a moment, Shane saw Hugh’s eyes up close, and he recognised regret and embarrassment within them. Hugh began throwing punches, his fists pounding into ribs and stomach like two bags of cue balls. Shane lowered himself closer to the carpet, pretending to shield his midriff. Then he made his play.

  In a blur of movement, he freed his right hand from around Hugh’s waist and slammed a fist into the middle of his forehead. Hugh’s body snapped up straight, air exiting his nose, his eyes wide and shocked. Reality dawned on Hugh’s older face. He was not merely about to lose a competition in front of his peers. This was the end of everything.