I took advantage of his rant to regain ownership of the Tim Tams and was in the process of hiding them in the vegetable drawer when an item on the TV news caught my attention.

  ‘… Authorities are seeking to identify a man who was killed this afternoon in a hit-and-run incident in Melbourne’s inner north.’

  My breath caught in my throat. I slammed the fridge shut and ran back to the TV in time to hear the man’s description: aged in his seventies, Caucasian appearance. It didn’t sound like Baz.

  I went back to the kitchen and made us double-shot coffees while Mitch divvied up the boxes for us to sort through. He assigned me to a box containing a jumbled mess of photos. I sipped my coffee as I flipped through the photos: rows of kids lined up in formation, squinting above frozen smiles, hair brushed, knees scrubbed, but still with that shabby, second-hand look. Where were the kids in these photos now? Dead? In prison? Living the Aussie dream in the suburbs, creating the families they’d never had as children?

  I was well into the third box of photographs before I found something. There in the front row—pride of place—were two little boys who looked like the same child twice over. I’d always found identical twins fascinating, if a little creepy. These twin boys were cute, but I can’t say they looked happy. Grim would be a better description: their little mouths set in identical lines. The only difference I could see between them was that one had extensive scarring on one arm.

  ‘I’ve found some twins. Take a look at that,’ I said, holding the photo out to Mitchell. ‘Does it look like that kid’s been burnt?’

  ‘Yeah. I’d say so. Saw a lot of that in Afghanistan.’ He squinted closely. ‘Are there any names for the kids in the photo?’

  I turned the photo over, but it was blank. ‘No names, no date. So what’s our next move?’

  ‘Well, my next move is to analyse these documents. Unless you have a degree in property law, I don’t need your help.’

  After that putdown, I was only too happy to give Mitchell some peace and quiet. I reclaimed the Tim Tams from the fridge and went to have a bath. It had been a long and grimy day and I did some of my best thinking in the bath.

  Since it was raining, I put some bubble bath in the steaming water; I wouldn’t need to save the water for the pot plants. Melbourne’s residents and their gardens were still scarred by the drought years. I barely remembered a time when people could water their gardens with impunity.

  I lit a candle, switched off the light and pressed play on a portable CD player that was on the bench—my favourite Billie Holiday compilation. My voice, though adequate for back-up vocals, was too light for the intensity required to fully carry the Blues. ‘Give it another decade,’ Baz used to say. ‘Sometimes a voice takes time, like a good whisky.’ Or a heroin habit, in Billie’s case, and that seemed a pretty high price to pay. I removed Billie Holiday and looked around for something more cheery. My eyes fell on a meditation CD I’d found in Bunny’s collection, a gift from her father in Byron Bay. It involved a woman whispering and the sound of waves in the background, which sounds creepy but was strangely soothing. I put in the CD and pressed play before sinking into the bath. The hot water was a welcome relief to my muscles, still recovering from the rope-climbing episode.

  I was also exhausted due to disrupted sleep. I’d had night terrors my whole life, but they worsened during periods of stress. The dreams were confusing collages of places that were strange and yet familiar—and people whose faces were blurred when I tried to look too closely. I didn’t need to see a specialist to know that the dreams were probably due to my early childhood—the time before I was adopted by Baz.

  In general I had a good memory; it was probably how I made it through Year 12. When it came to my past, however, my memories were blurry, as if viewed through water on a windowpane. And some parts of my early life were blank altogether, like I’d shut them behind a solid door. I didn’t know if these memories were gone forever or if they were buried somewhere inside my head.

  I took a deep breath and searched for my earliest memory of Baz. I had the sensation of being pulled into a river: submerging, losing breath, feeling pressure around me and something moving—a current carrying me. Then I saw myself as if from above. I was no longer in the bath, instead I was a child again and I was sitting on the couch—the same couch Baz still had in his flat. I was sitting next to a woman.

  There was a tugging sensation and I found myself pulled down into my child self. I became aware of the sounds around me. The woman next to me was weeping. I looked at the photo of Lionel Rose—his arms raised in the ecstasy and exhaustion of victory—then I looked back at the woman next to me. I could see the delicate swirl of her ear, adorned with a pearl stud earring. I could feel the woman’s anxiety. It came off her like waves, like radio static. A man came into the room with a plate of biscuits. He gave me one. It was pink like my dress and I tried to eat it quietly; I didn’t want the man to notice the crumbs in case he got angry. This man didn’t get angry, though. He was nice. He didn’t ask me to speak. He gave me another biscuit. My adult self recognised the man as Baz, and a wave of warmth washed over me … and then I was back in the bath.

  A bump on the window roused me from my reverie. I looked at the window, expecting to see the outline of one of the cats, but instead I saw a shadow that was way bigger. In under five seconds I was out of the bath and in the loungeroom—just enough time to grab a towel to preserve my modesty.

  Mitchell had been joined by Timmy and they both looked somewhat stunned at my sudden and wet appearance.

  ‘Am I interrupting something?’ Timmy asked.

  ‘I think I just saw someone out in the garden. Was it you?’ I asked, wishing I were the kind of person who kept a bathrobe handy.

  ‘Uh, no. I’ve been in here about ten minutes. I was wondering what Mitch Mitchell was doing in your lounge room.’

  Cripes, even Timmy knew who Mitchell was. I didn’t realise I’d been so far out of the loop.

  ‘Yeah, we were thinking of ordering pizza,’ Mitchell said.

  ‘Did you just hear what I said?’ I asked, outraged that these men were more interested in pizza than in protecting a defenceless—and some would say attractive—woman who was dressed in only a towel. A small towel at that.

  ‘Are you sure you saw someone?’ asked Timmy. ‘It’s pretty dark out there.’

  ‘No, I’m not sure. But it would be nice if one of you men were concerned enough to check it out.’ My tone conveyed that their status as ‘men’ was in doubt.

  Mitchell didn’t look about to budge, so Timmy decided to assert his manhood. Our garden’s not that big so it only took him about thirty seconds.

  ‘I can’t see anyone. It must have been Head-butt, he’s butted the side gate open again,’ he said as he returned. ‘Man, it’s freezing out there.’

  The cold blast of air reminded me that I was soaking wet and wearing only a towel.

  Mitchell was looking at me as though he didn’t need reminding. I retreated to my bedroom and hastily pulled on a tracksuit. When I returned to the lounge room, Timmy was on the phone ordering pizza.

  Timmy and food. You’d think he was still growing. I was often just tucking into dinner when I’d look up and find him staring in pitifully through the glass door like one of the cats. Actually, the cats don’t so much look pitiful as accusatory. I’m not sure why that is, but it may be because they’re basically just mini psychopaths with fur. Head-butt’s the exception to the rule, but only because he’s so stupid.

  Over pizza and beer, Mitchell and I gave Timmy an abridged version of our adventures. I said I was helping Mitchell with a story he was researching—mostly the truth. Mitchell also seemed happy to keep Timmy in the dark, and Timmy, bless him, was a trusting soul.

  ‘So you’re looking for these twins now they’re grown up?’ ‘They could potentially help us, yes,’ said Mitchell.

  ‘I have some software that might be useful. It’s one of those freeware apps, just for messing around. You put in a photo of a kid and you’re supposed to be able to see what they’d look like grown up.’

  Mitchell and I looked at each other.

  ‘It could be worth a shot,’ he said.

  Timmy looked pleased to have been given a project by Mitchell and darted out the back door to his den with half a pizza under his arm. I was left alone with Mitchell, wondering if I should offer to call him a taxi, but then I gave in to the same urge that let Head-butt get a paw in the door.

  ‘You can stay in my housemate’s room if you like. She’s overseas. Just don’t touch the aquarium. There’s a snake in there.’

  ‘Uh, thanks.’ Mitchell was begrudging in his gratitude. ‘I was a bit afraid of taking all this stuff home. Someone broke in the other day and turned the place upside down.’

  ‘Doesn’t that make you concerned for yourself?’

  ‘No. It only confirms that I’m onto something. And I take my laptop with me everywhere, so I didn’t lose anything. But I’d hate to lose Margaret’s files.’

  ‘Well I’m worried … I’m worried about what it means for my uncle.’

  ‘How is Baz your uncle? Through your mum or your dad?’

  Just when I was feeling a bit sorry for him, I remembered he was a journalist with a different agenda from my own. ‘He’s my uncle through both sides if you must know,’ I lied. ‘We’re all inbred, like the royal family. Why did you come back to Australia? I gather war zones are your speciality. Was it a woman? You don’t strike me as the type.’

  Mitchell gave a rare smile. ‘Are you trying to ask if I’m gay or single?’

  Before I could think of a witty—and slightly sexy—comeback, Timmy came bursting back in.

  ‘Am I interrupting?’

  ‘No, you’re not interrupting,’ I sighed. ‘What are you, a stuck record?’

  ‘What’s a stuck record?’

  I went and flicked on the kettle on again. How could Timmy make me feel so old? There was less than a decade between our ages.

  ‘I take it you’ve got something,’ said Mitchell.

  Timmy handed Mitchell a few printouts. ‘Well, I tested out the freeware app on a picture of me first and it wasn’t too inaccurate—hairstyle aside—so I put in the picture of those twins and this is what I got.’

  I looked over Mitchell’s shoulder. The black and white images looked somewhat like a police photofit.

  ‘Thanks, Timmy,’ I said. I could see by his excited-puppy stance that he was just dying for a pat on the head.

  ‘Yeah, thanks, man.’ And of course, a pat on the head by a man was worth more than anything I could offer.

  ‘I can’t say I recognise them immediately,’ said Mitchell. ‘Although there is something slightly familiar. I’ll have to check through my files and do some comparisons.’

  ‘Maybe we should do an internet search for any newspaper stories about reunited twins,’ I suggested. ‘If they were put up for adoption then they could have been split up as children. People love stories of twins being reunited.’

  Mitchell looked at me through narrowed eyes. ‘That’s actually a good idea.’

  ‘I can do that!’ said Timmy and he was back out the door to his caravan.

  ‘He doesn’t sleep at night,’ I said. ‘We may as well make use of him. I, on the other hand, need my beauty sleep.’

  There was a moment of weirdness between us. Or maybe my months of celibacy were clouding my ability to judge a situation. It had been some time since I’d been alone with a man late at night. And after all, Mitchell and I had just had pizza together—and some beer. It was almost like a date. Better than most dates with the average Australian male.

  ‘I mean alone—I’m going to bed alone. I’m not hitting on you. Don’t worry.’

  ‘I didn’t think you were.’

  I should have shut up while I was ahead.

  I went to bed and set my alarm for 5.30am. Mitchell was using me as a safe base for now, but he might do a midnight flit if he could find somewhere else to stay. Then I settled under the doona with my hot water bottle. It wasn’t as hot as I’d like, but I hadn’t wanted to go back into the kitchen to the kettle after making such an idiot of myself. I had to settle with water from the hot tap in the bathroom.

  The rain outside was turning into a storm, the wind rattling the windows. Hopefully the bad weather would keep any potential housebreakers away. I was still worried that someone had been nosing around earlier.

  Finally I resorted to an old paperback to put me to sleep—a copy of Oliver Twist that looked like a leftover from Bunny’s school days. I was around a hundred pages in when I eventually dozed off, only to dream I was being pursued through the back streets of Fitzroy by a horde of ragged children with evil intentions.

  As was the way of dreams, I ducked into an alleyway and their little feet went pattering past. I hoped the dream would end there, but for some reason I felt drawn to continue down the dark alleyway, which became narrower and narrower, and just as I decided I would turn around and run back into the light, I became aware of heavy footsteps. Someone was following me. I shrank into the shadows and saw the figure of a tall man approaching but I couldn’t make out his face in the darkness.

  I woke with a start to find it was five in the morning and I was desperate for the loo. I pulled a large jumper over my pyjama top, slipped my feet into my tattered ugg boots and ventured out into the corridor. The door to Bunny’s room stood open and her semi-bald teddy bear mocked me from where it was perched on top of the pillows. The bed had not been slept in; I’d been right to suspect Mitchell would be out the door at the first opportunity. I should have rigged a fishing line trap at the front door to wake me up.

  I braved the frigid bathroom and then decided to make myself a hot Milo. As I opened the door to the lounge/kitchen area I was hit by a wall of warm air. The heater was still on, as were all the lights, and there was Mitchell, asleep on the couch. Head-butt the cat was sprawled on his chest.

  I picked up a half-empty packet of pills that was lying on the floor near the couch. It seemed I wasn’t the only person having trouble getting a bit of shuteye. The pills were on prescription, too—the good stuff—made out to Muggerdich Mitchell. No wonder he called himself Mitch. I smiled and then I checked Mitchell was breathing before turning off the heater. There was no danger of him freezing with the cat on him, although Head-butt did have a drooling problem.

  Mitchell actually looked quite sweet asleep. The frown lines that made him look overly serious, if not downright hostile, were softened. He looked less arrogant—even likeable. I made my cup of Milo and used it to swig down one of Mitch’s pills. Then I turned out the lights and went back to bed for another forty winks.

  The next thing I knew it was nine o’clock. I’d had three hours of dreamless sleep, but rather than feeling refreshed, it had left me fuzzy-headed and dry-mouthed. I stumbled to the kitchen to find Mitchell frowning at the coffee percolator as it bubbled on the stove.

  ‘Good morning.’ I brushed past him to fill a glass with water from the tap. I took the grunted reply to mean that he wasn’t a morning person.

  I plonked the bread and Vegemite on the bench and started making toast. ‘What kind of a name is Muggerdich?’ ‘Armenian.’ The percolator finished hissing and he poured himself a short black. ‘My mother was from Armenian stock.’

  ‘Sleep well?’

  ‘I think your cat peed all over me.’

  ‘It’s drool, and it’s not my cat. It just turned up here one day and wouldn’t leave. Help yourself to toast.’

  Mitchell put a couple of slices of bread in the toaster.

  ‘So, what’s our next lead?’ I asked. ‘Find out anything last night?’

  ‘No, I get a feeling someone might have been through the boxes before us and removed certain documents.’

  ‘Maybe Timmy will come up with something,’ I said.

  ‘He was just in here. No luck.’

  I wasn’t really surprised. ‘Those twins probably wouldn’t be able to help us in any case. They look pretty young in the photo. Five years old at most.’

  ‘You’d think they’d remember something about their mother,’ said Mitchell.

  ‘They may have memory issues, especially if they’ve been through a traumatic incident, like a fire.’

  ‘You have a degree in child psychology, do you? Is that why you’re working in PR?’

  I decided to ignore Mitchell and make myself a coffee since he hadn’t been gracious enough to offer me any.

  ‘Where would your uncle put something if he wanted to keep it safe?’ Mitchell asked as if he hadn’t just insulted me.

  ‘In his office desk. But there was nothing much in there.’ I didn’t mention the wad of cash. ‘And he still has an old safe from back when banking was more of a hassle. I think he still uses it to keep his rare 45s.’

  ‘Well, let’s go and take a look then,’ said Mitchell. ‘Can we get into it?’

  ‘Sure, I have a key to Baz’s place. But you might want to take a shower first—wash off the drool.’

  * * *

  I was nervous about going to Baz’s flat again in case we found something awful, but it looked unchanged since my previous visit. Baz’s safe was screwed into the floor in the linen cupboard. I didn’t know the combination so I ran through the birth dates of various Bluesmen. Lead Belly did the trick—20-01-1888—although, like my own birthday, it’s unlikely to be accurate. (Don’t get Baz started on the subject of Lead Belly unless you’ve got a few hours to kill.)

  Mitchell didn’t look so much impressed as suspicious. ‘This really is your uncle’s place, isn’t it? Is there a photo of the two of you around here somewhere?’

 

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