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heard about this double stabbing at Bourke yesterday?’ Troy had. It meant the squad—six months into a hiring freeze and already understaffed—was now desperately short of people.
    Soon after she’d hung up, Anna called.
    â€˜You hungry?’ she said.
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Dry?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Warm?’
    â€˜Of course.’
    â€˜You’re lying.’
    It was a ritual, based on some advice a sergeant had given him years ago: a cop should never be hungry, cold, wet or tired. She didn’t ask if he was tired because she knew all about the rush he got at the start of the case, the rush that could keep him going without sleep for twenty-four hours or more.
    â€˜How’s Matt?’ he asked.
    â€˜He’s good.’
    â€˜What you doing, watching TV?’
    â€˜Nothing on. I might have an early night.’
    He thought about telling her what had happened, but if he did she’d stay up for him and he didn’t want that. Not tonight. Things were not right between them, and sometimes it was easier to deal with stuff by himself. These days she slept on the couch in Matt’s room, using his condition as an excuse. As though asthma was some life-threatening disease. In some ways for Troy that was better than having her in the room with him, there but not there. When he got home tonight he knew he’d just want to sleep, not be reminded of the state of his marriage.
    He told her he had to go and disconnected, glad she wasn’t watching television and didn’t listen to the radio at night. News of the shooting would be all over the place by now.
    Maybe he should have told the man he had a gun and would fire. There was no obligation for him to do this, but maybe he should have. Like maybe he should have been up there with McIver in the first place. He puzzled over this for a while, wondering if he could have handled it differently, come out of the situation with the guy alive. Nothing came to mind. He wondered if he was being too easy on himself, if his mind just didn’t want to do that sort of hard work at the moment.
    Troy stood in the drizzle for a while, staring up at the skyscraper. It was hard to avoid looking at it, yet when you did, your mind sort of froze, as if it was just too big to comprehend. There was one light on the edge of each storey, one above the other. The mist had gone and the column of dim lights extended up higher than before. Maybe he could see as far up as level forty, when the building stepped back, but he doubted it. The rain in his eyes made it hard to count the floors. Lowering his head, he became aware there were more people around, including lines of spectators at either end of the section of road that had been blocked off. Armoured men were getting out of the back of a big van—the on-call unit from the State Protection Group. About a hundred metres away, flashes were going off. He realised the cameras might be pointed at himself. The media had arrived. Of course.
    Harmer came by, walking quickly, but stopped when she saw him. She put out a hand and touched him on the arm, asked him how he was.
    â€˜Jon will pull through,’ she said.
    â€˜You’ve heard from the hospital?’
    â€˜No, but he’s—’ She stopped, as though suddenly aware of the difficulty of describing McIver. ‘You know we just found shoes and a coat on level thirty-three?’
    This was good. ‘There you go,’ he said. ‘Mac’s instincts are all right.’
    â€˜They were near the loading platform, so she could have done it herself.’
    â€˜You’re getting it dusted?’
    She nodded. ‘It’s pretty wet. Why was Sean Randall up there?’
    â€˜I asked him to take me.’
    She looked unhappy. But all she said was, ‘How did he hold up?’
    Troy shrugged. ‘Is he okay? At his job, I mean.’
    â€˜He’s an engineer, no previous experience of security, but a quick