She finished urinating and washed her hands in the stained stainless-steel washbasin. She looked in the quarter of mirror above the basin. Today, at least, she just didn't care. The rollcall bell rang and she left the smoky, cheap-perfumey toilets.

Raz was outside the toilet block, spitting and kicking pebbles.

-Hey, Sonja, he said.

-Hey.

-Did you forget about yesterday? he asked, lightly kicking the ground.

-No. Look, I'm so sorry. I had a family thing that came up suddenly. I should have got your phone number, I'm sorry, really, Raz.

-That's okay, I thought maybe I scared you off, he said, but not with the confidence the statement should carry.

-No. I wasn't scared. I was kind of looking forward to it, actually, Sonja said.

-Yeah? Raz squinted a smile at Sonja. What cla.s.s ya got now?

-Maths.

-I got commerce. I'm thinkin' of waggin' but, Raz said.

-What are you going to do then?

-Dunno. Maybe go down Brownthistle Park, hang out for a bit.

-Oh, Sonja said. She wasn't sure if Brownthistle sounded any more exciting than maths cla.s.s, but being with Raz was certainly more enticing. It was a strange request, but then everything here seemed a bit strange. And girls did seem to suddenly get boyfriends within the s.p.a.ce of a cla.s.s. This could quite likely be how it happened. Mind if I come?

-'Course not. I was hoping you would.

Brownthistle Park lay in a gully between Rooty Hill and Mt Druitt. There was the skeleton of a children's adventure playground, and an open stormwater drain running through it. There was also an amenities shed, burnt-out, but still squatting firmly on its foundations.

Raz and Sonja sat on the slat bench outside the shed. The black and grey bricks and the blue sky above made it seem like this was a real experience, like she was doing something that would awaken her to the Aussie way of life. She was glad she'd ditched maths.

-I like your hair, Raz said, and touched it with sweaty fingers.

-Thank you, she replied. But it was a compliment she'd never expected.

Raz took out a packet of Stradbroke Blues and offered Sonja one.

-No thanks. I don't smoke. Thanks though, she said.

He lit one and touched her thigh. Sonja thought she felt a tremble in his touch, but then, it could have been her.

-I like your legs.

-Thanks, she said and looked at him. She liked it, and would kiss him if he got rid of the cigarette.

Raz blew out blue smoke and leant in to kiss Sonja. Their front teeth clashed, but so did their lips. Sonja kissed back. She'd never kissed before. She moved in closer to him. His body made her feel like getting closer. It wasn't like the feeling she got from those pictures she saw last year; she wanted to feel, not see. She wanted to be too close to see. Raz tossed the cigarette and pulled Sonja onto his lap, facing him. They kissed. She rubbed her v.a.g.i.n.a on him. It was too much. The kissing, the being inside each other's mouths. Raz touched the top of her thighs, under her panties. He tried to pull them off, but it was impossible in this position.

-Stand up, he said.

She stood. She was dizzy, but smiled at him. He moved her up against the shed wall and pulled down her panties. They kissed. Raz lifted up Sonja's school skirt and looked at her. He whispered something she didn't catch and undid his school trousers and dropped his undies. He held his p.e.n.i.s. Sonja looked at it. It was like a junior version of the one in the pictures - she suddenly remembered a junior scale guitar a friend of hers had had back in Russia. He held it up to her v.a.g.i.n.a and rubbed it on her lips. She opened her legs slightly. Raz groaned and her v.a.g.i.n.a lips felt warm and something tickled the inside of her thigh.

-Aah. s.h.i.t. f.u.c.k. Did you come? he asked.

-Um. I don't know? she said.

-I thought you were coming too.

Sonja didn't answer. She looked at the s.e.m.e.n running over her knee. She would've liked to have kissed and touched some more, but the sudden coldness of the s.e.m.e.n told her it was over. She pulled up her panties as Raz had already done up his pants and grabbed his bag.

-Listen, I gotta go, he said.

Surprisingly, there was toilet paper in the shed. Sonja wiped herself clean and walked out of the park. It was way too early to pick up Polly, so she headed home.

She felt like she was observing herself and her surroundings through a milky, amnesic filter. It didn't make them look any better. The carpark annexed by Brunei Court seemed unforgiving - sunburned, tired, and in need of sympathy itself; the broken gla.s.s sharp and aggressive. And she saw her father sitting on the first step of their stairwell. By his side was a cask of white burgundy.

-Sonja. Your mother kicked me out. Kicked me out of my own home, Zakhar Marmeladov said, shifting the cask behind his leg.

-Didn't you go to work today? Sonja asked, and walked past him.

-I was sick today, he called back to her, but she was already at the front door.

Sonja walked through the flat, ignoring her mother, and lay face down on the bed. What the h.e.l.l was that? Was she Raz's girlfriend now? She doubted it. He seemed to quite suddenly regret being with her and getting so excited. He'd come - what he'd called it - like the guy in those pictures. Why had he just left like that? Had she made him do it the wrong way? She knew though, watching his back as he walked away, that that was probably it. She wouldn't be Raz's girlfriend.

THREE.

Senior Sergeant Salvatore Testafiglia pulled into his double driveway and pressed the horn of his a.s.signed deep-blue late model Commodore. Maria, his wife, was meant to have the garage door open by the time he arrived home, but today she'd neglected to. Maria, reacting to the two controlled but urgent horn blows came out of the double ornamental front doors and ran to the garage door. She looked through the windshield to gauge his mood, and slid open the aluminum shutter.

Everything about the house was double. Double storey, double garage, double brick. Salvatore's cousin, Melito, had built it. The house was in Newington, a suburb on the Parramatta River that had been advantaged by the Sydney Olympic development and the demolition of warehousing and industry. The petrolly mud on the banks of the Parramatta River had become a valuable commodity. The Testafiglias had moved out of the Italian precinct of inner-city Leichhardt when Salvatore had been posted out to the Western Plateau Local Patrol three years earlier. He'd crowned the house with a short sandstone wall so the family could watch the fireworks from the flat roof on New Year's Eve.

Inside the leather and tile house, the family lived in the large kitchen. The formal lounge was off-limits, except to dust, polish and vacuum. The formal dining room was strictly for the favoured Aunt and Uncle, and the upstairs was for sleeping. Along with his wife, Salvatore kept two children in the house. Charlie was sixteen, and Artemesia, his daughter, was seventeen. He and Maria had tried for more children, only to be shamed by Salvatore's sister's unpaused fecundity. Salvatore had only recently ceased the constant attempts at increasing his heirs, mainly due to the embarra.s.sment he suffered when the doctor told him that he had to give Maria a break so her bladder infections would clear up.

But despite the smallness of his family, Salvatore's existence was what was expected.

And he expected things in his house to similarly conform to his wishes.

-Where's Mia? Salvatore asked as he sat down to the pasta lenticia.

-She, ah, rang earlier. She's at a friend's place for dinner, Maria said, cutting the bread.

Charlie stifled a laugh.

-Ai. What's so funny, mister? Salvatore fixed his son with a sharp look, and then addressed Maria. And do you know this friend?

-I think Mia has had her over before, Deba is her name.

-And the parents. Do you know them?

-We haven't met them, but - -Have you got the address? Salvatore demanded, mixing the pasta with his accusing fork.

-No. But I can ring her on her mobile and - -After dinner I'll pick her up. Dinner is a family time. Mia knows that.

So Salvatore re-dressed in his uniform when he went to pick up Artemesia, because she claimed, when her mother rang her on her mobile phone, that she'd already left her friend's place, and would meet her father at the train station. The uniform would demonstrate not only to Mia, but to anyone stupid enough to be hanging around, that he meant business.

-Where is your friend? he asked his daughter before she could get into the car.

-What do you mean, Daddy? Mia said, kissing his cheek.

-Why didn't she walk you to the station and wait with you? It's dangerous for a young woman, Mia, I know only too well.

-What, and it's only dangerous for me, but not for my friends? she scoffed, drawing back her long, thick dark hair.

-Don't be smart, Mia, you know what I mean, he said. And this is a girlfriend is it?

-Daddy.

-You know I don't want you to have a boyfriend. Not until you're twenty. School and family are what's important now. There'll be plenty of time for boys.

-But, Daddy, Mum said I could have a boyfriend when I'm eighteen.

-Your mother doesn't make the rules.

-Anyway, you're my boyfriend, Daddy.

When they got home Mia went straight to her room. She had everything she needed there: DVD player, stereo, telephone, floor-to-ceiling mirror, hair-straightener, double bed, and a wardrobe fit to burst.

Her brother, Charlie, knocked lightly on her door and opened it slightly.

-Mum told me to bring you up some pasta, Charlie said.

-Thanks, babe. Just put it on the dresser, Mia said, pulling off her stretch Lees.

-So. Were you with him tonight? Charlie asked.

-Sssshhh, she said, and shut the door.

-Well? He leant against the back of the door.

-Yes.

-Ah, Charlie said, blowing his sister a mock kiss.

-Shut up. He wants to meet you. I told him how you like those cars, XYZs or whatever, she said, sitting on the bed, where she could look at herself in the mirror.

-WRXs.

-Like I said, whatever. Anyway, next time we hang, he said to bring you aloa s.h.i.t, Dad.

Salvatore knocked on the door.

Charlie left, managing to avoid eye contact.

Senior Sergeant Testafiglia kept a photograph of his family on his desk. It was from several years ago, and Mia still looked like a girl-child. It was a good time. It was a family time. Artemesia loved and, more importantly, respected him then. Now she seemed only to respect people outside the family. Friends and, despite the pain it brought him to think about it, boys, he suspected. She swore she wasn't seeing any boys, but Salvatore knew liars, and there was something of that in his daughter lately. And it all started around the time he suddenly noticed that little Mia was actually a woman. A woman who would be causing l.u.s.t. And l.u.s.ting herself. He'd had to start being sterner about what he expected of her. And witness the growing contempt on her face.

But he'd decided not to think about this at work.

There'd been a new development in the community. Most of the crimes in his local patrol were related to domestic violence and drugs and alcohol. Issues that Senior Sergeant Testafiglia felt could be resolved and even annihilated by adhering to simple European family values. However, there had been a second report of a much more brutal and deliberately malicious incident.

Senior Sergeant Testafiglia prepared to give the day-shift a truncated briefing of the events, as was required.

-In both reports, he said, then paused to halt any further talking but his own. In both reports teenage girls have been coaxed into going with a group of eighteen to twenty-year-old boys to smoke marijuana and have then been raped by up to five males. Both girls were Anglo-Saxon, and both had been insulted for their backgrounds by their attackers, who have been described as Middle Eastern and/or Mediterranean, and refer to themselves as a gang. This most likely means they're not from the immediate community. You can pick up descriptions of the guys we're looking for from Clare in Communications. Any further reports of similar incidents are to be forwarded directly to me.

Salvatore rubbed his chin and walked back to his office. Now a taskforce would have to be set up, and that would mean more time away from his family. His daughter. If parents were stricter about their children's whereabouts ... At lunchtime he would drive by the school and make sure his daughter was there. He had started doing this every day. As far as he knew, she hadn't noticed him.

PART TWO.

FOUR.

Condiments were stuck to the stainless-steel tray with sugary glue. Whitey'd never seen anyone use the jars, but they were half full. Breakfast was the same every day - planks of toast, a choice of two cereals, a poached egg - if you wanted it. Lunch and dinner were determined by a roster. Today, Wednesday, was sausage rolls and dogs' eyes for lunch. It was something to look forward to, although before his stretch, which he was six months into, he hadn't gone much for the heavily salted pastries.

He'd worked, for a while, in the workshops, preparing aluminium signs for spraying. But working simply galvanised depression - the way it had outside. So he opted out. Did the exercise, ate, smoked, thought, and pushed down the realisation that time is a natural resource that men have built structures around to process - extricating it in the crudest form. Time had meant little to Whitey on the outside. It flowed with him out there. In here, you were made to feel it. A little more drawn out of you each day. Like a serrated blade being removed, an hour at a time. Well, that was when it was at its worst.

Every second morning they tried to get a man's smell out of the rooms with disinfectant. But the men sweated and farted and shat and p.i.s.sed and breathed. And came. And so, collectively, let the disinfectant in, but never let it win. This was a world of armpits, purple testi-sacs, and hairy toes with thick, tough nails.

-Hey, Whitey, ya lucky c.u.n.t. Gettin' out tamorra? Keithy said.

-Wha?

-Saw ya name on the out-board.

-f.u.c.k off, he said, to buy a moment to get his mind around it, trying to work out if it was a joke.

-Ah well, f.u.c.k ya then, c.u.n.t. I don' give a f.u.c.k if ya in or out.

Whitey had misread Keithy's intention.