Scott rang me at home two days later.

‘Hey, Cliff, thanks a million.’

‘You sound like O.C. already.’

‘He’s a character, isn’t he? Seriously, Cliff, I’ve got to thank you. Things were getting pretty lean what with Gina not working and the twins and all. And you must know how business has been. I’ll be able to hire some help, give Gina an easier time.’

‘Good, how are the kids?’

‘Just great. One’s as dark as me and the other’s as fair as Gina.’

‘So what’re you calling them-Cher and Madonna?’

‘Claire and Rosa. Listen, Cliff, just out of interest. Why’d you knock it back?’

Fair question. The weather had broken and we’d had a day and a half of heavy, warm rain. The damp walls were sweating and a stain on the living room ceiling that I liked to think was vaguely the shape of Australia was spreading to become more like Africa. I’d had trouble starting the Falcon after a quiet day at the office and, as I’d suspected, the non-payer had run true to form. A few phone calls suggested that he’d become a non-resident of our fair city. Still, I didn’t have to wear a three-piece suit or get my hair cut more than once every two months.

‘Too old,’ I said. ‘Also, I thought your Mafia contacts’d make you the right man for the job. Think you can handle it?’

‘No worries. But a year’ll probably do me. Be good for my book. Have I told you about that?’

‘Remind me.’

‘Dago Days: the memoirs of an Italian private eye. I’ve got to go, Cliff. I’ll be in touch.’

‘Love to Gina, Cher and Madonna.’

He laughed and hung up. I’d been to the wedding and could remember Gina clearly. She was a tall, fair-haired girl with a smooth, slightly olive complexion. Striking. Galvani, Australian-born of Sicilian parents who had wanted to give him a distinctively Australian first name, was nuggetty and dark. He had been a near-Olympic standard wrestler and his personal library featured shelves of Penguin classics. He claimed to have finished Moby Dick, making him the only person I knew who had. I got drunk at the wedding and danced, something I never do when sober, but I couldn’t remember who with. I must have gone on my own because it happened in the hiatus between Helen Broadway and Glen Withers. A bad time.