The Brothers

By S.D. Hinton

An isolated house. A mysterious note. Someone is watching ...

An absorbing, atmospheric mystery about families, secrets and the bonds of brotherhood set on the Victorian south coast.

Welcome home, Jake ...

When Special Forces veteran Jake Harlow returns to the hamlet of Lorne on the Victorian south-west coast for his younger brother Tom's funeral, he finds a sinister series of notes that suggest Tom's death was no accident.

With Tom's best friend Stocky, and ex-girlfriend Lucy, Jake starts to dig into secrets old and new. Who might be targeting the Harlow family, and why?

As they get closer to the truth, the danger becomes very real. But can Jake, burdened by scars both physical and mental, still protect anyone - including himself?

An absorbing, atmospheric mystery about families, hidden truths and the bonds of brotherhood.

'The Brothers is a masterclass in menacing tension ... Atmospheric and moody, the novel chills with its subtle allusions to an unknown enemy that is too close for comfort. Perfect for readers of Garry Disher, Chris Hammer and Jane Harper, The Brothers combines the idyllic Australian surf town setting with unseen dangers - both physical and mental - that lurk in the shadows.' Books+Publishing

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Aug 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781460715208

S.D. Hinton

Born in Melbourne, SD Hinton worked as an anaesthetic nurse within the public health system before moving into health education. She has travelled extensively and unconventionally and spent a year living in a loft apartment in Istanbul writing and learning Turkish. She now lives in Western Victoria and writes full time, having overcome a lifetime struggle with dyslexia. She loves crime thriller novels, particularly from writers such as Peter Temple, Dennis Lehane, Garry Disher, and Candice Fox.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

The coast was breathing out like a runner after a marathon, the long summer break over. Hordes of recharged tourists had packed up and returned to city lives, returned to jobs and schools and grinding routines. Jake had seen the exodus many times and had seen the last diehard campers leaving Lorne caravan park yesterday as he passed in the opposite direction towards Tom’s house; to put him in the ground.

Tom. His brother. It seemed every time Jake came back to the coast it was to carry a coffin. First his parents. Now Tom.

Tom’s house was made of pleated black metal and glass, and rusty Otway stone. It spread across a small clearing in the middle of ten acres that climbed away from the sea, dense with gums and acacias and banksias and grasses, same as all the plots along that secluded strip of the country’s edge just west of Lorne, on Victoria’s south-west coast; an old, never-to-be-repeated crown-land subdivision.

Ali, Jake’s sister, was finishing a phone conversation with her husband, David, as she drove Jake up the long, unmade driveway to the house. David’s grandmother had suffered a stroke earlier in the day, and he’d returned to Melbourne after Tom’s funeral service to be with her.

They pulled up to the low front landing and Jake made for the door, unlocked, and pushed inside. He felt something shift, a vague disturbance passing through the room like a dust eddy. He sensed it on his skin but had no trust in his own perception. So much was happening in his mind since Tom’s death, both real and not, and he couldn’t distinguish the two anymore.

Hollowed out was what he was – off the weary scale into the numb. Even the ever-present pain from his injuries had moved to the background, as though someone had taken the party two doors down for the night. He could still hear the heavy bass beat, but the walls had stopped vibrating.

‘Interest you in a hot drink?’ Ali asked, closing the door behind them.

‘Might pass,’ Jake said, continuing across to the hall. Focused on getting where he wanted to go. ‘Need to get off my leg. See you in the morning.’

In Tom’s bedroom, he shucked off his jacket, prised off his boots heel to toe, sat on the end of the bed and struggled with his socks. He stared at his dusky coloured foot, huffed without conviction.

He tossed his clothes on the chair and pulled back the bed covers. He straightened, frowned. There was something in his bed – small and precise, bold white against storm-grey sheets – and it certainly hadn’t been there when he’d made the bed that morning.

He reached down, picked up the sturdy card, maybe twelve centimetres square, neither side blank. He turned and sat on the bed, looked at the card, felt something cold slither down his back.

On one side, three words were stencilled in black:

WELCOME HOME, JAKE.

On the other side, someone had glued a cutting from a page of ADF honour award recipients. The cutting said:

Special Forces Soldier Sergeant H was awarded the Star of Gallantry ‘For acts of conspicuous gallantry in action in circumstances of great peril’ while serving with the Special Operations Task Group in Afghanistan.

A familiar blurb that didn’t deliver much of an impact, unlike the message on the other side. The casual nature of those three words tugged his melancholy from its mount. Innocuous words that didn’t feel innocuous, unsigned, secreted in his bed the same day as his brother’s funeral. There was menace in that.

The toilet flushed in the next room. Jake opened the bedside drawer, posted the card inside and closed it again. Then he slipped under the covers, breathed slow and, before he could think on it anymore, was bludgeoned by sleep.

Hours later, a jolt smacked through Jake like he’d hit the ground from a great height. He could see hard, bearded faces with eyes like hunters. And flames – there were always flames. His book of dreams. His eyes went wide and he dragged in air. The sound of his own heart in his ears, hair wet and clinging.

In the soft yellow light of the bathroom, he drank from the tap, ducked his head and let cool water massage the back of his neck, let it flow until the images left him.

He pulled on clothes and stripped the sheets, made coffee and carried it out to the front deck, its weathered handrail springing under his forearms. Squid boat lights bleached the horizon like day. They’d been out there every night since he’d been back. Gruelling work, tough crews, like his stint on Sea Warrior, winching cray pots from ledges under the Indian Ocean in listing swell and howling south-easterly wind every day.

Salt and eucalyptus wafted around him, and the calming rhythm of waves played nearby, certain and grounding, but that wasn’t what he was straining to hear.

He was listening for sounds that didn’t fit: a heavy snap of a twig, the brushing of fabric against scratchy bush, the slow roll of footsteps. There came a disturbance in the gum tree at the end of the deck, the pushing aside of leaves and branches. He turned to a flash of red eyes. Possum.

The sliding door behind him opened, and timbers creaked as Ali made her way to his side. ‘It’s a wonder there’re any squid left out there,’ she said, pulling a blanket tighter around her shoulders.

A wonder indeed. Jake took a mouthful of coffee. ‘Sorry I woke you.’

‘You okay?’

‘Yeah. It’s cold. You should go back to bed.’

‘I’ve got some sleepers if you want one?’

‘Thanks, I’m fine.’

She looked back at the squid lights. ‘It was a nice farewell. Tom would’ve approved. And the vibe of the wake was up, without getting messy.’

‘Didn’t stay ’til stumps.’

She shivered. ‘You’re right, it’s cold. Come back inside.’

Jake drained his coffee. ‘In a minute.’

‘Jake . . .’ He waited, crickets scoring, and wondered which of his current problems she was about to address – she was spoiled for choice. ‘You couldn’t have prevented it.’

‘Ali, it’s four in the morning.’

‘Come back inside.’

The soft hiss of a passing car climbed the three-hundred metres from Great Ocean Road below, headlights worming through the treetops.

‘Think I’ll go for a run,’ he said, tossing the dregs over the handrail.

‘Now? It’s pitch black!’

He pressed his lips to her forehead. ‘I’ll wear my headlamp.’

*

The new day was tinting the eastern horizon ice blue when Jake left the beach after his run and took the sandy track back up to Great Ocean Road, lanky silver spear grass bowing in the dunes.

The rhythmic thuds on the shore faded as he climbed, footing firmer in tea trees near the road. He crossed to the drive, stuck to the right-hand tread. It was smoother there – not suitable for patrolling though, that got you killed.

The ache in his hip had worsened, but he didn’t really mind, almost welcomed it. Pain had a consuming way of handling other troubles – shrunk them to grains. It didn’t extinguish the white card though. Welcome home, Jake? That was a boulder plonked in the middle of his mind.

A flash of colour from a gum startled him. Wings beat the air. The toe of his running shoe caught on an exposed tree root and jarred his hip. He winced and stopped, shifted his weight until the pain subsided.

Ali looked up from her phone as he came through the door, and her eyes followed him across the room. ‘You’re limping. A long run, Jake. Is that smart?’ she said.

‘Nothing new about the limp, and you’re not my doctor,’ he said in a biting tone he hadn’t planned on using.

‘I’m your sister and a doctor, doubly qualified, and I could take an educated guess at what your specialist might say.’

Jake dropped his headlamp onto the kitchen bench, filled a glass with tap water and watched her as he drank. Didn’t think it mattered which specialist in particular she was referring to – he’d had a few ‘You’re a gasser —’

‘Anaesthetist.’

‘— and I was given the all-clear over six months ago.’

‘For a three-hour run?’

He refilled his glass. ‘Walk mostly,’ he said.

Ali’s body slumped, whether in exasperation of his denial or acceptance of his need for some degree of normality, he didn’t know. She uncurled from the armchair and made her way over. ‘Your body’s been through so much. You need to take it slowly.’

Jake upturned his glass on the drainer. ‘How’s David’s grandmother this morning?’ he asked, watching her adjust to the change in topic.

‘So-so . . . Jake —’

‘Ali, I’m fine. Try to relax.’ He turned for the bathroom and heard her sigh.

‘Want to go into Lorne for breakfast before I head back to Melbourne? Menzies maybe?’ she said.

He gave a thumbs-up over his shoulder.

CHAPTER TWO

‘Brace yourself, my man,’ Stocky said to Jake as they climbed the front deck at Menzies two nights later. ‘Don’t expect funeral etiquette this time round. Not from this fucking crowd.’

Jake’s insides tightened a notch.

Menzies was a popular modern-fusion restaurant situated on the promenade in the small beachside hamlet of Lorne. It was a sizeable building, augmented for the gradient with views across grassy reserve to the ocean bay in front. The owners, Mal and Suzy Bradshaw, were bona fide locals, both born and raised in the area.

Jake had been at school with Mal, but they’d moved in different circles. Mal had been a ‘Nipper’ and then a ‘Clubby’ at Lorne Surf Life Saving Club, and had bullied his way through adolescence. Suzy was the younger sister of one of Mal’s clubby mates, the beauty queen of the beach set, leggy and blonde. They’d married young, and together bought Menzies a few years back to divert their attention from their childless and somewhat strained union, or so Jake had heard from reliable locals. He’d also heard that they often had vicious fights and didn’t care where they erupted. He hadn’t been around the two of them enough to know whether that was true or not, but he supposed a modicum of truth existed. Growing up, both had been thorny, volatile. It had been Suzy who’d issued tonight’s invitation to see the band after tonight’s dinner service.

Jake could hear the band now, and Stocky had been right when he’d said they sounded like The Beach Boys gone rockabilly.

Stocky, real name Dylan Stockwell, had been Tom’s oldest and closest friend. They’d done everything together all their lives, even bought adjoining plots of land and built houses together. Stocky stood tall and relaxed, six feet of ecowarrior, long sun-bleached dreadlocks, shoulders honed by a lifetime of paddling in surf for vocation and pleasure. A kind soul who trusted easily and believed in the inherent goodness of others. Stocky was comfortable with his life and proud of how he lived it.

‘Tom told me some of what you went through in Afghanistan,’ Stocky said, pulling open Menzies’ front door. ‘Piece of piss compared to this.’

Jake’s laugh cut across the dining area.

A few clusters of people lingered over coffee and liqueur inside, ceiling fans slow-turning above their heads, but the bulk of the crowd was out in the courtyard. Jake and Stocky stepped through the bifolds into the courtyard, and gazes swung onto Jake like spotlights. He had a vague sense of being in enemy territory, which wasn’t right. He breathed down the urge to find cover, remembered Ali telling him, You’ve withdrawn a long way, Jake. You can’t hide forever.

He didn’t consider it hiding – more like lying low out of necessity – and, as much he might enjoy catching up with some of the people he grew up with, the process was bound to come with an obligation to talk about what happened, and that was a significant counterpoise. What had swayed him to come in the end had been the white card. He didn’t know if the card had anything to do with anyone at Menzies that night, but there was only one way to find out.

The band had set up in a raised back corner and were giving it their all. A handful of people up dancing. The outside bar was open and busy, and lanterns strung above gave an air of mellow sophistication. But if past performances were anything to go by, there’d be little sophistication on display once the alcohol kicked in. Jake didn’t plan on staying that long though, which was why he’d offered to drive.

It took a while to get to the bar, what with the steady flow of sympathy, commiserations and congratulations, cheek kisses, shoulder-slaps and handshakes. Stocky insisted on buying and, as they waited, Jake felt eyes on his back. Not the curious local variety. Something weightier. He looked past Stocky and began a slow scan of the area.

‘Welcome home, Jake,’ came a booming voice from the side.

Jake stiffened, recalling the wording of the note left in Tom’s bed. A solid slap to his back sent a blade of pain into his hip. He turned and looked into the wintry eyes of Graham Smith, the local real estate shark. Not a harmless man.

There wasn’t an ethical, honourable bone in Smith’s well-fed body, and he took it upon himself to push the line on every law on the planet as a matter of civic duty. A skilled manipulator, Smith collected IOUs like a mortgage broker collected loan signatures, and he was shameless about calling them in for maximum results – always in his favour. His face reminded Jake of a giant thumb: flat broad features under a curved protruding forehead. Before turning his hand to real estate, Smith had sold second-hand cars.

‘Graham,’ Jake said, shaking the offered hand and resisting an itch to run his palm down his thigh afterwards.

Stocky nudged Jake and handed him his whisky. ‘Enjoy, mate,’ he muttered, then moved away.

‘How many years has it been?’ Smith asked.

‘A bundle.’

‘Sorry about Tom. Unbelievable. Totally unbelievable. And sorry I didn’t make the funeral. Had a Real Estate Institute meeting in Melbourne.’

‘No problem,’ Jake said, relaxing his grip on his glass. ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’ As if that wasn’t a fucking lie.

Smith laughed like he’d just heard the most hilarious joke ever told. ‘Life’s too short,’ he said, and did a small jolt. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean any offense.’

‘None taken.’ Jake could feel the heavy eyes on his back again.

A young woman with long dark hair weaved past, wearing tight mustard pants and a thin white shirt knotted under her breasts. Jake watched the rim of Smith’s tongue come to rest on his top lip and his eyes follow her as though hooked.

The woman was swallowed by the crowd, and Smith turned back with a flick of his head, closed his mouth, did several blinks. ‘Memories,’ he said. ‘So, Star of Gallantry, eh? Who’d have thought?’

Jake tasted his whisky, savoured peat and oak on his tongue and warmth in his throat. ‘Why’s that?’ he asked, and thought Smith looked mildly panicked as he dug around his annals for an acceptable reason for his comment.

‘Well, I don’t reckon Lorne’s ever had a war hero of your stature before,’ he said, finding one.

‘Generous of you, Graham, but not sure that’s right,’ Jake said. ‘Anyway, going to keep moving. Lot of people to catch up with. Excuse me.’

Jake moved off towards a group from his football days who were gesturing for his attention. He glanced around for the owner of the weighty glare as he went. A man was standing in a shadowy corner near a collection of potted trees: he was tall and muscular, with close-cut hair and what looked like a security ID on a lanyard around his neck. Jake had a sense the man was deliberately not looking his way.

‘Harlow!’ someone said. Another slap on the back, another blade of pain. Jake turned to see Andrew Dobson, aka Dobber, take his arm from around a girl who didn’t look old enough to be out this late. He stuck his hand towards Jake. ‘Fuck, long time. How ya doin’ ya bastard?’

Jake smiled, shook Dobber’s hand – or rather, held on through the vigour of it – and said he was fine. Dobber’s face turned serious. ‘Sorry about Tom, mate. Totally fucked, makes no sense. The coast isn’t the same without him. And sorry I didn’t make the funeral. Got stuck in Sydney. Bloody fog.’

‘I understand.’

‘You’ve taken a few hits, but ya look pretty fucking decent. What’re ya drinkin’?’

Jake lifted his glass. ‘Thanks, mate. I’m good.’

‘Bullshit,’ Dobber said, and sniffed Jake’s glass. ‘Whisky, right? Straight up?’

Jake gave a nod, and Dobber took off for the bar mumbling something about doubles. Jake was thinking it was a long walk home.

‘Hi, I’m Tessa,’ said the very young woman.

‘Jake.’

‘I know who you are. Everyone knows who you are.’

Then, the rest of the football crew were on him, and after another barrage of bear-hugs and back-slaps and handshakes, the pain in Jake’s hip settled in for the night.

They talked about general stuff, reminisced about old times, and Jake sipped his double whisky as they filled him in on what had been happening in the years he’d been away. It was relaxing. Until Tessa looked at Jake and asked, ‘What’s it like to kill someone?’ as she drained her drink through its straw. And as luck would have it, the band picked that precise moment to end their current song. Timing you couldn’t orchestrate. Her words hit the air like she’d used a public-address system, and the effect was breath-taking.

The jaws of everyone in the football group went slack, eyes locked on Tessa. Jake blinked, felt his body lean back a breath. All hands in the crowd fixed themselves halfway between applause and surprise, and heads whipped round with dirty secret interest. No one uttered a word. Jake could hear the electrics buzzing.

‘Did I say something wrong?’ Tessa muttered.

Jake couldn’t get his face to work, thought maybe he should make some utterance to move the elephant out of the area, he just wasn’t sure what. It was a question no combat veteran wanted to face from a civilian. Although, in truth, it wasn’t really about the question for Jake, more to do with the answer, with its unrelatable truth. Civilians didn’t actually want honesty; they wanted a sanitised response that would comfort. And he wasn’t very good at lying about killing.

Dobber laughed in a stunted, uncertain fashion, and wrapped an arm around Tessa’s waist. ‘Just a little intense, babe, that’s all,’ he said. Tessa’s face turned dark crimson in the lantern light.

The crowd reanimated itself, low voices returned, and the band edged into their next song.

‘Sorry,’ Tessa said, eyes down. ‘I’m going to the toilet.’ And she did, at speed.

Dobber rested a hand on Jake’s shoulder. ‘Sorry about that, mate.’

Jake shook his head. ‘It’s fine, don’t worry about it,’ he said, uncomfortable now, and not only for himself.

‘Not an experience your average civilian ever goes through, thank fuck,’ Dobber said. ‘But it’s curiosity, you know?’

Jake nodded, wondering if one day someone might ask him about the lives he’d saved. He drifted – that’s what Ali called the times he disappeared from right beside her, went places no one else could follow, saw things no one else could see. Standing in a packed earth room, thick sticky daylight. Two boys huddled in a corner, their wails and pleas wounding like a stiletto, bits of a man who’d been their father smearing the walls. Jake stepping in front of three American rifles, smoke threading, bodies edgy. The Americans shouting, Get the fuck out of the way, dumb Aussie cunt! Him shouting back, They’re non-combatants! Back off!

They’d tried to shove him aside. He’d shoved back, turned on his personal transmitter. They’d threatened to blow him away – accidental discharges happen all the time, they’d said. And maybe they would’ve carried out their threat, but more of his team had arrived.

‘Jake?’ Dobber said.

Jake’s eyes closed and opened like a camera shutter on timelapse. ‘Yeah, sorry mate,’ he said, tension leaving him.

‘You good?’

‘Yeah. Just thinking.’ He noticed Suzy Bradshaw weaving her way towards him. Over Suzy’s shoulder, he spotted Stocky tap a finger on his wristwatch and give him a questioning look. Jake did a subtle shake of his head.

‘Glad you could make it,’ Suzy said, gripping Jake’s arms and kissing his cheek.

Underneath her perfume, Jake could smell stale cigarettes, and underneath her makeup, he thought she looked tired and older than her years. Her hair was thin and dull, skin like baked earth. ‘Thanks for the invite,’ he said. ‘The band’s good.’

‘They are, and they don’t belt the life out of it,’ she said, letting go of his arms. ‘You look well, Jake. Did I tell you that the other day?’

‘Thanks, you too.’

Suzy laughed her smoker’s laugh – quick shots of steam in a pipe. ‘God might strike you down for that one,’ she said. ‘But thanks for trying.’

‘Mal around?’

‘He’s finishing up inside. Counting dollars and cents.’ She lit a cigarette and blew smoke above her head. ‘He’ll be out when he’s done.’

‘Expecting trouble tonight?’ Jake asked.

‘No more than usual. Why?’

‘The security guy,’ he said, and gestured to where he’d seen the man in the shadows.

‘What security guy?’

Jake looked, but the man in question had gone. Jake’s eyes skimmed over the crowd towards the front door and worked their way back into the courtyard. He saw no security guy.

‘Jake? What security guy?’ Suzy asked again.

‘He was here before, over by the pots. Big, ID on a lanyard around his neck, looked like security.’

Suzy angled her head. ‘We didn’t get any security for tonight.’

Jake judged her to be telling the truth. His feet wanted to move. ‘My mistake. Will you excuse me?’

He negotiated his way towards the bifolds, deflecting anyone who tried to speak to him, picking up Stocky on the way.

‘You right to go?’ Jake asked.

Stocky frowned. ‘Everything okay?’

‘Sure. Coming or not?’

They went out through the dining area, placing their glasses on the inside bar.

‘What’s going on?’ Stocky asked, one stride behind as they descended the front deck. ‘There a fire I don’t know about?’

Jake didn’t answer. He stopped out on the footpath and scanned left to right and back again, looking for the man he’d seen in the shadows. Nothing. The street was quiet. He hadn’t checked the toilets.

Then an engine started up down the street on his right. A dark Mercedes van pulled out from the kerb and cruised past at low speed. Jake couldn’t make out the driver, but his size matched the guy from the shadows. He clocked the registration number.

*

‘What happened back there?’ Stocky asked from the passenger seat as they left Lorne behind.

‘Thought I saw someone I know,’ Jake said.

‘Do they owe you money or something?’

‘Made a mistake.’

‘Seriously? You looked like you were fixing to shit down someone’s throat.’

Jake smiled through the windscreen. ‘You can turn a phrase, ever been told that?’

‘I’ll need time to reflect. The question?’

‘Nothing happened, Stock, let it go.’

Stocky’s eyes hovered on the side of Jake’s face for a few beats.

‘Listen, I want to ask you something,’ Jake said, further up the road. ‘But don’t want you reading too much into it.’

Stocky chuckled. ‘Any idea how you might stop me from doing that?’

Jake shot him a smile. ‘No clue.’

‘G’ahead. I’ll do my best.’

‘I was wondering . . . if Tom was in some sort of trouble, he’d tell you about it, yeah?’

‘Probably.’

‘He ever mention anything like that?’

‘What sort of trouble?’ Stocky asked.

‘Don’t know, someone he’d had a run in with, or didn’t get along with?’

‘Everyone liked Tom. He was a likable guy.’

‘Unhappy customers?’ Jake asked. About six years ago, Tom and Stocky had started a surfing and scuba diving school called Water Rhythm on the main drag in Anglesea, back along the coast from Aireys Inlet. Stocky looked after the surfing side, Tom had done the scuba. Jake had once said they should make their relationship official and adopt the same surname: Stockwell-Harlow. Tom had said, Nah, we’re not a law firm. And Stocky said, Not in advertising either.

Stocky took a moment. ‘Can’t think of any. Guys warmed to him like a mate, and women . . . well, he had a certain appeal. Why do you ask?’

Jake turned into Stocky’s long drive. ‘Money problems?’ he asked.

‘Not that I know of. He had his share of the inheritance, and Rhythm’s done well from the start. Anyway, he didn’t have time to make a nuisance of himself – too fucking busy.’

‘What about bad habits?’ Jake said, piloting the Land Cruiser around rain ruts and tree roots.

‘Like drugs and shit?’

‘Or maybe gambling?’

‘I knew Tom for thirty years; he may have smoked a number or two over that time and chucked a few bucks at a local footy match here and there, but that was about it. Light-weight stuff. What’s with the questions?’

Jake pulled up next to Stocky’s side entrance. He didn’t intend to drag Stocky into his suspicions. It was too soon, and Jake wasn’t sure he trusted his own judgement enough anyway. ‘Just curious,’ he said.

Stocky looked through the windscreen for a bit, then turned to Jake and said, ‘In your own time then, mate.’ He jumped out and waved goodnight.

Jake drove back to Tom’s, parking under the murky gums. The front sensor light came on as he neared the entrance landing, and something scratched at the base of his skull. He stopped and listened. Heard nothing but blood pulsing in his ears and waves landing in the distance – the former much faster than the latter. He shook out his paranoia, unlocked the house and went inside.

To ease his wariness, Jake turned on all the lights and checked each room. The house was as he’d left it. But still he felt unsettled.

He went to Tom’s wardrobe, pulled his holdall from the shelf and placed it by his feet, then took a knee and lifted out a padded nylon pouch about the size of a tablet. The pouch contained his personal pistol, a SIG Sauer P226 9mm, as well as a couple of small tools and several spare magazines. He wasn’t happy doing this, but something told him he’d regret it more if he didn’t. His inner voice might be weaker than it used to be and his trust in it not as sound, but he still believed in caution and the prudence in observing it. He unzipped the pouch and flipped it open. Felt a rush of heat.

‘You fucker,’ he breathed, eyes flicking out at the darkness through the bare window and then back to the pouch.

Alongside the SIG was another sturdy white card. Jake’s fingers twitched as he picked it up.

Seven words had been stencilled in neat black letters:

RECKON YOU CAN LOOK AFTER YOURSELF, JAKE?

Jake sat on the edge of the bed, took a moment to calm himself. That inner voice got louder as it began raising dot points he didn’t want connected.

He pulled out a box of ammunition and loaded a magazine, inserted it into the stock and worked the slide.

It had been a long time since he’d carried his handgun with the intention of using it. He could feel the cool metal in his palm, its ominous weight, but it didn’t feel unnatural.

He checked every door and window and found them all locked tight; no signs of forced entry on the front door, or the timber-framed glass doors to the front and back decks. He pulled Tom’s heavy-duty torch from the kitchen wall, scooped up his keys and headed outside, locking up behind.

The back of Tom’s house sat long and low to the ground, but due to the lay of the land, the front deck on the ocean side stood about three metres above it. More sensor lights followed Jake’s progress off the back deck and around the water tanks towards a front corner. A kangaroo thumped away in nearby bush and made him start.

Jake blew off a breath, aimed the beam and continued through low scrappy groundcover, stopping midpoint under the high front decking. Exterior base boards secured the sides of the house, but there were none securing most of the front – probably a breach of fire regulations – and Tom had used the under-house area like a shed, storing his scuba equipment, ladders and tools, building offcuts, assorted surfboards and skis and paddles and other unidentifiable stuff. Jake ran the beam over the large dark space, eyes moving with the shifting shadows and brightness.

He was doing this all wrong; he knew that. What he should’ve done was turn off all the lights and relied on his natural night vision, which would’ve made it easier to creep about and use surprise to his advantage. He was making a target of himself this way, and he wondered if he was doing so on purpose, trying to draw the culprit out, just like he’d done in Afghanistan. He told himself his departure from standard operating procedure had nothing to do with what had happened on the other side of the planet; he simply didn’t have time to wait for his night vision to develop when the person who’d left the notes might still be around.

He moved further under the house, hands together out front – SIG in one, torch in the other – constant small adjustments travelling through his arms and fingers, removing darkness in sections. He saw nothing out of place. Heard no movement.

As satisfied as he could be that there was no one hiding under the house, Jake lowered his pistol and continued around to the front entrance, heartrate slowing. He flicked off the torch and pulled out his keys . . . and an engine kicked into life down on the road. Jake froze. The sound faded away in the direction of Lorne.

CHAPTER THREE

By the time cockatoos screeched over the roof at sunrise, Jake felt like he’d been on a week-long reconnaissance job: mind muted, eyes stinging, muscles fatigued. He’d spent most of the night’s small hours lying in bed, thinking about the two white cards: surmising, denying, accepting, listening to the house creak and groan, straining to distinguish the natural sounds of critters moving about outside from the unnatural ones humans tend to make.

He dragged himself out of bed, stuck his phone on charge, and went for a short run to wake up.

Back at the house, he showered and turned his phone on. It took about two seconds for him to wish he