I was putting the finishing touches to a report on a small-time insurance fraud I’d investigated and casually watching the clock hands crawl towards six p.m. when the phone rang. I let the answering machine pick up the call, thinking that tomorrow would probably do for whoever or whatever it was. When I heard Tess Hewitt’s voice on the line I sighed and picked it up. Our affair of a little over a year had ended a couple of months back. It just ran out of steam and on my last visit to Byron Bay we’d quarrelled over small things and agreed to call it a day. She’d wavered a few times since; I hadn’t.

‘Who’re you trying to avoid?’ she said.

‘Hordes of people. How goes it?’

‘Okay for me,’ she said. ‘You?’

‘Yeah. You’re delaying my first drink till after six — kind of you. I’m fine. A few things on hand. A dollar or two in it. You coming down? The room’s there.’

That was an arrangement we’d agreed on — that Tess could stay at my place when she came to Sydney. It hadn’t happened yet.

‘No, not for a bit. At least I hope not.’

‘Come again?’

‘Well you know I’d been thinking about doing this naturopathy course at the uni up here? Well I’ve taken the plunge. I’m going full-time and they keep us at it with essays and everything. It’s got a lot of chemistry and biology in it — pretty tough course.’

‘And you’d be trying for first class honours,’ I said.

‘You’re behind the times. It’s called an HD now — High Distinction.’