Flush. Jane Clifton

then poured herself a steadying glass of sauvignon blanc. Her dear friend was a woman who shot from the lip. If she didn't like Alex, or thought he was wrong for Zan, she would not hold back.

      It wouldn't take Decca long to get past his appearance, but what if Alex clammed up and did not display his urbane, witty, funny, adorable side? No, she reassured herself, he may be quiet but he is not shy.

      Zan took another sip of wine, lit a cigarette, and fiddled with her bracelets. That she had managed to keep his existence a secret from Decca for two months was nothing short of a miracle. She deserved some kind of ASIO award for covert operations.

      The doorbell rang and Zan heard the clatter of little shoes down the hallway and the sound of the door being flung open by her daughter, followed by a squeal of delight.

      `Decca!'

      `Hi, gorgeous,' Zan heard her friend reply. `Goodness, look at those shoes!'

      `Mummy bought them for me in Adelaide.'

      Whenever Zan went on business trips she brought back a present for her daughter to ease the pain of separation. Lately, however, she had begun to worry that this was building up a pattern of acquisitive anticipation in her daughter, that saw the canny ten year-old beginning to relish her absences.

      `Just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz,' Decca said. `Where's Mum?'

      A second later Decca entered the room alone. Zsa Zsa had scuttled back to her videos.

      `Christ, I need a drink!' she snapped. Zan rose to greet her. The pleasantries with Zsa Zsa had clearly been a front.

      `What's up?' Zan asked. She poured the wine while Decca slumped on to the sofa.

      `Those bastards!' she cried.

      `Which bastards?' Zan sat beside her and handed her the drink.

      `The bloody police!' Decca exploded then took a gulp of wine. `I went there, of my own free will, when I wasn't legally bound to — the opposite, in fact — I went there, on a Sunday night for chrissake! And this prick starts accusing me…'

      `Whoa, whoa there!' Zan said. `Slow down there Snoop Dog. More information, please. Did you get breathalysed?'

      Decca sighed and rubbed her forehead.

      `Bloody Volker —' she began, but was unable to continue because the doorbell sounded and Zan shot up from her seat.

      `Why do you ever answer the phone to that jerk?' her hostess snapped on her way out of the room. `You should just make his caller ID read TROUBLE.'

      Decca hadn't stopped fuming since she left the station. How dare they treat her like that? They made her feel like she was the one under investigation. That Stock was obviously a misogynistic, Neanderthal troglodyte and if Crockett had another brain it'd be lonely. No way would she be setting foot inside that building again. She would write down what she had promised and be done with it.

      She sipped the wine and loosened her shoulders.

      Unbidden, niggling thoughts about Oleg crept back into her mind. Her gut feeling was that he would not and could not have killed his wife, but what was that stuff Stock had said about Inga being a prostitute? Was he just speculating to elicit a reaction or was it true? According to Oleg, his wife was a hard-working, respectable woman. He would have laid down his life for her. He was busting a gut to get a good job in order to support her and was looking forward to a time when they could raise a family.

      They wanted children badly he'd told her, especially Inga. It had been one of the disagreements that had led to the rough patch they were going through, he'd said. While Oleg wanted children straight away, Inga didn't want to start until they could provide a better life for them. She didn't want her children growing up in the sort of conditions they had grown up in, he said, which was why she had taken a trip to Australia — to experience life in a free country, to seek better opportunities.

      Yes, but why didn't he tell me she had come here six years before him? Decca asked herself. And why did she come on her own? If he'd lied about that, what else was Oleg hiding?

      The dining room door opened to reveal her adorable, sexy, best friend standing next to the plainest man Decca had seen in years. Surely this was not the `new root'?

      Inga drifts towards him, smiling. Her skin is paler than the ivory satin sculpted around her breasts. Her blue eyes flash like zircons. Platinum hair and ruby lips are ghostly through antique lace.

      Oleg's heart is pounding with love and desire in equal parts but his head is a ball of pain. The drone of a church organ is fractured by scratches of conversation about rosters and drip-feeds and someone called Rory.

      His eyelids flicker open to a blaze of fluorescent light and the nightmare begins again. Inga dead. Nothing he can do or say will bring her back.