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the early morning commuters. A horn blasted, but by the time he clocked it in his rear-view, the car was a speck behind him.
    Daphne was panicking. ‘He’s taking a left on St Kilda Road.’
    Four blocks later, Bishop pulled a hard left.
    ‘Are they still on St Kilda Road, Daphne?’
    ‘Yes, sir. Just crossed over Commercial Road.’
    Bishop could see it up in the shaky distance. The armoured truck was little more than a dot on the horizon, so far away that his eyes would lose it for a split second in the glare of the sun, only for it to reappear a moment later. Then it disappeared altogether. Bishop clamped his eyes shut, opened them: nothing.
    The intersection came up fast.
    The light green.
    One foot on the accelerator, the other on the brake. A yank of the wheel.
    Too fast: the vehicle’s arse kicked out and dragged against a row of parked cars. Bishop eased off, got control and floored it.
    Up in front: the armoured truck, closer now. No other vehicles between them. He closed the gap. Only a few hundred feet. The truck cleared an intersection. Bishop sailed in behind it and through a red light.
    The sun was in his eyes. He barely registered the gleaming windscreen of the Ford as it ploughed into his passenger-side door.
    Bishop tasted blood.
    The sun went black.
    *
    A sharp pain pushed through the side of Bishop’s head. It had taken out a window in the crash. People ran  forward to assist. A bus driver had pulled over and was directing traffic around the scene. Within seconds, everything came back.
    The truck.
    The robbery.
    Six AM.
    His vision blurred, Bishop fumbled for his phone. Found it on the floor. Cut himself on a piece of broken glass as he raised it to his ear. Daphne was screaming.
    ‘Where is it?’
    ‘It’s stopped. It’s stopped.’
    He pulled himself out of the wreck and yelled into the phone: ‘Where?’ His legs were shaky, but a couple of good Samaritans kept him on his feet.
    ‘Moubray and St Kilda Road.’
    It was two blocks away. Bishop staggered off.
    A woman called after him: ‘Sir? What are you doing? Sit down.’
    He pointed to the Ford with its crushed front end and water spraying out of the radiator. ‘Go see to them.’ Movement inside: the driver, alive.
    He dragged himself forward. His boot scuffed the asphalt. With each step, he could feel his coordination returning and he broke into a jog. As he neared the end of the block, Bishop heard a crack and the rat-a-tat-tat of automatic weapons. A blast echoed off the surrounding buildings.
    He pulled his weapon. Took the corner.
    Smoke hung in the air.
    It was all over.

Chapter Eight

Eight months ago
    Alice wasn’t there when Tom Bishop got home. At first he wasn’t worried, but as the hours passed he grew anxious. He paced the apartment, made coffee and turned on the television, but none of it put his mind at ease. Eventually he called her mobile phone only to find that she had left it in her room along with her purse.
    All he could do was wait.
    Everything was new to him. In the beginning, it hadn’t been easy. As Bishop had inherited his father’s temper, so had Alice, and sometimes their fights would last days. After each fight Alice would run to her room and pack the few possessions she owned. Then she would sit on the bed and wait for the bad news, the word to move on. Finally a knock at the door would come, Bishop would sit next to her and bumble his way through an apology. He hadn’t made many of them in his life up to that point; he wasn’t good at them, and most of the time he didn’t know what he was apologising for, only that it was important that he did. The words would come from his lips, strained and confused and rambling, but in the end Alice knew he never had any intention of putting her out onto the street.
    Stacy hadn’t been much of a mother, and Bishop hadn’t been there at all, so in making up for lost time they went to all the places she’d never been taken as a child. Trips to the zoo, the