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  The ocean sounded fierce. I have the deepest respect for the sea. Not a fool, blessed with some kind of innocent faith in its beneficence. No death wish. I studied the rips, which on this long beach change their position like a twisting tornado. The cold, embracing arms have shown me their strength. Getting whirled about in the centre of a wave was a terrifying experience; churned like ice-cream in a milkshake; finally, fortunately, poured out, virtually liquefied, among bits of detached salt foam on the hard wet sand. It was a wild day in Wollongong, I broke no bones.

  The wind was biting and the beach absent of human life. My wetsuit reached my knees. I found a likely spot and jumped into the ebb. I was swept out beyond the breakers. I trod water to see how far I had come. My own little extreme sport! The foreshore was a narrow strip of yellow cadmium and the scrub just daubs of terra verte in an oil painting. The inland sky to the west was battleship grey, across which thin veins of lightning silently lit up and went out. I swam, breathing beach-side, as the rollers gathered their swell under me, elevating me and dropping me in a relentless sea-welling trench. I swam rhythmically as lazy jazz.

  When I saw the surfers' signal post, I stopped the stroke and floated on my back for a while, watching the threatening greyness deepen, hearing slow thunder rumble, the clouds goaded by whips of fire coming closer. Sun lit the coastal weed, South African boneseed, to a bright lime. I turned and swam the other way, this time looking out to the crisp horizon, blue on blue and snow-cone cumulus. The sea was so buoyant, challenging, responding to the heaviness in the sky, it took my mind away from everything else. My towel on the sand came into view. The wave I body-surfed in took me all the way to the shallows. My right heel tendon was tender. Who the hell was Achilles, anyway? How would I know? Did he have the mental toughness of the sportsman? A hero in battle would have to concentrate his brain in hand-to-hand combat.

  The temperature dropped when I was out on the road, doing the cycling leg of my training. Cold and stiff, I hung my bike on its hook just as the storm hit. Hailstones hammered the roof. In a hilarity of sound, my shower was a warm dribble amid the downpour.

  Detective Constable Philippoussis waits in the foyer of the TAFE college reading the notice-board, feeling down. The weather is not helping. The advertising work in front of him reflects the aesthetics of the slum street glamorised in the claustrophobic corridors of music video clips, a style of untidiness that had come over students since he underwent tertiary studies. Litter as art. Litter as contempt. Student revolt?

  It is Tuesday morning. Raining hard. Tired rebellion permeates the atmosphere, acne and hair in lank rats' tails or knotted ringlets. It's cool to be cold. Adolescents are underdressed and shivering, making it a style. Where had his moment in history gone? The clean-cut, short-haired, non-smoking, corporate commodity, addicted to nothing more than the adrenalins of the body excited by work-outs, driven by the ambition to have work and keep it in a competitive world. History's definition of his youth, nine-to-fivers, worriers. He stares at a flier about alcohol which is so nerdy it doesn't even have the allure of grunge. Philippoussis is also depressed at the prospect of a trip to the morgue, not because of squeamishness, but because of a morbidity in his investigation. Information he has gathered so far seems swallowed up in lethargy, left to congeal like old blood. His orders don't allow him the dynamism he feels. His energy is stifled. The boys' bodies are lying in a holding bay at the hospital like parked cars. The engines of the powers-that-be have stalled. He should be busier. Information should flow through CID, pieces of paper passing through the hands of the task force like water urgently finding its level. Knowledge spread, not contained. Especially at this stage of an inquiry. Facts soured in storage, corrupted like flesh. At the base of the DC's anxiety are fears about institutional corruption. Laziness is an ethical rot situation. The regional commander, Crankshaw, is antipathetic to the likes of Philippoussis who is not, in his estimation, Aussie enough. Not enough 'she'll be right' about him. Too eager, too serious. Not laid-back. Doesn't understand mateship. Phil's sense of honour would never let him be an Anglo-Saxon oaf for whom self-respect seemed to be lack of respect for everything, even his self.

  The Greek heart falls another notch in his chest when he turns to greet Mrs Penny Waughan. The female equivalent of the mates, the helpmeet, she has the look of a soap opera mum: natural fair hair enhanced by peroxide, a neat cut strengthened by spray, a lot of make-up understated in colour, and buttoned-down lips. He stands about twenty centimetres taller. She tilts her face, its honed features sharp with curiosity. She does not hold out her hand to be shaken. He introduces himself and establishes her name and address.

  'It's about Neil, isn't it?' Eyes widen as enlightenment strikes. 'What's happened to him?'

  He nods affirmation and feels uncomfortable about telling her in the grotty reception area of the college.

  Penny Waughan turns to the door, unhooking the shoulder strap of her bag. He follows, and is ready with a light when she fingers her cigarette from its packet. She needs to smoke, suppression. He huddles with her under the narrow awning. More litter. The flattened butts from smokos outside buildings look even more miserable on a miserable day. Her shoulders curl inward tightly. Nostalgic for the black and red hyperbole of the women he grew up with, whose emotions he could handle like flailing fists on his ribcage, Philippoussis has a cigarette himself, empathically. He smokes as a part of his job, never at home.

  Penny Waughan blows out, ready for what he has to say. Detective Constable Philippoussis glances at the youths hanging against the wall watching. They walk away, patting pockets, with studied disinterest. Superintendent Crankshaw had given him a list of lads, known by some of his snouts to dress up as girls. Most of them had checked out. Alive.

  He speaks. 'I was given the name of your son as a possible identity of a teenage fatality over the weekend. Actually I have two boys around fifteen years old, unnamed and unclaimed.'

  Penny Waughan sags. She knew it. She had lived this moment before, her life suddenly switches from play to rewind.

  'You could come with me straightaway if you like. It won't be very nice. Do you have a friend you would like to bring? Or ring? Family?' From staring at the ground he now turns to see her face.

  Big tears roll lazily out of her eyes. She puffs on the remains of her cigarette, tosses it at her shoe and grinds it into the concrete. She bites her bottom lip. Although the faint possibility that it was not her son existed, she has a foreboding. But she says, 'It may not be Neil. Either of them.'

  'Are there any friends you would like to have with you?' he repeats.

  She shakes her head. 'It's amazing how few there are. How few there are when you are embarrassed by tragedy. When you really need them your idea of friendship, even family, changes.' The measured tones of one reading from a text book.

  Penny Waughan fishes a carry-pack of tisses from her handbag. 'It's all right, I'll go with you.' She tries to stop the premonition tape with an effort at hope.

  In the car, she is as still as ice.

  They enter the back of the hospital, away from the comings and goings of nurses, of therapists, of visitors, sick people, live people. An orderly shows them the discreet door beyond 'Pathology'. The white room is still and silent, no sense of the activity elsewhere in the busy building. When the attendant removes both rubber covers, Penny stands, shock-struck. The men wait. She pulls herself together, shuddering.

  She steps towards the car accident victim, shakes her head even though she recognises him. 'This is Hugh Gilmore. His mother, Gillian, committed suicide about a year ago. Hugh went off the rails about then. I suppose this was only a matter of time.'

  She keeps her back to the other body as long as possible. The wardsman wishes someone had cleaned the lipstick and foundation off the face. As if physically pulling courage around her like a shawl, Penny Waughan looks at the dead face of her only child. She shivers.

  'This is my son, Neil. He doesn't have black hair. It's a long tim
e since we played with my make-up case, a couple of years. I didn't think there was any harm in it. How would it kill him? I'm sorry I'm not making sense.' She babbles. Phil listens.

  She asks, 'Can I stay with him a little while? Alone?'

  The men move back a step. 'Neil darling, I love you,' she whispers. 'What happened to you? How beautiful you were!'

  The attendant shivers. 'It's cold.'

  Philippoussis reacts to his insensitivity. 'Appropriate temperature I would have thought. Mrs Waughan, please try and not disturb the make-up. There might be a criminal investigation and we'll need a full forensic.'

  'I just want to hold him once more,' she pleads.

  'Fine by me.'

  The attendant addresses Philippoussis. 'Detective?'

  'Yes.' The policeman is introduced to a more senior medical personage, a serious man with glasses.

  The morgue worker has something to say. 'We've orders from upstairs. You know. Do nothing. Duty doctor certified them dead. That's it.'

  Philippoussis is stunned, 'Can't be. What about the official cause of death? Preliminary PM?'

  'Very cursory,' the assistant says. 'The doctor had been on for eighteen hours.'

  'So?' Phil tries to control his hot-blooded temperament.

  'He just died. Overdose. System shock. Plummeting blood sugar levels. Teenage drug death. Plummeting blood pressure. Heart attack, maybe. How much work are you going to put into it? We've been getting too much of these lately. Not often dressed as girls, though. We faxed the interim report over to your office yesterday afternoon. You got the chemists, not us.' The man in the white coat adjust his spectacles. 'Weird, though.'

  'My office? I didn't see it.' Philippoussis reaches into his breast-pocket for his notebook, and writes. 'Did their regular GPs come here, at all?'

  'No, that was another odd thing. I faxed the death certificate to the police station, the detectives in charge of the case,' the man answers. 'I wasn't told names.'

  Phil frowns. 'Sounds slack.'

  'Sure does,' the other man agrees with the DC, then shrugs. 'But now they're identified, maybe—' The wardsman responds to his beeper, his senior nods and he hurries off.

  'Have you got the page you faxed?' Philippoussis interrupts. 'Or a photocopy?'

  The white-coated assistant goes into a small room off the morgue and returns with a piece of paper seemingly retrieved from the waste-paper bin.

  'I'm intrigued. How did you know to ask for that? Some detectives are born and others made, I suppose. A lot being swept under the carpet these days. Cut-backs,' the man in white chats.

  'Unless I can prove suicide, or the pathology report gives evidence of overdose,' the plain-clothes policeman promises, 'I'm going to worry this bone, mate.'

  Neither man notices the quiet woman standing outside the nameless door.

  'With email and faxes, privacy of official material is a thing of the past, and a lot of extra paper is shredded. And I took your shop for a shredder, a recycling establishment,' the policeman explains.

  'My money's on OD and dangerous driving, taken as said,' opines the morgue attendant with the curious indifference affected by medical personnel.

  They stand a moment in silence. 'Goes with the job, does it? No heart?'

  Defensive about his trade, the assistant expresses his opinion. 'There won't be a full post mortem. Promise you. No money in forensics. Not enough doctors for those still breathing. Hang on, I'll see if the social workers around.'

  Philippoussis is in a trance. Penny Waughan is beside him before he realises the delicacy of the situation.

  'Detective Constable Philippoussis?' The mother of the victim wants answers.

  'I beg your pardon?' Phil shakes himself awake.

  'How did he die? Exactly, I mean. And why?' Penny demands.

  'I don't know,' Phillip responds simply. 'Depends on the Coroner. If it gets that far. It was most probably an accident, overdose, suicide…but they'll have to be proved.'

  'I don't believe that, and you don't either. I can tell by the look on your face. You're worried.'

  'I am, but at the moment, my job is to get the bodies identified, correctly.' Philippoussis cocks his pen. 'Could you give me the name of Neil's general practitioner? His regular doctor?'

  'Dr Neville.' Penny Waughan supplies the address of his surgery.

  'And, ah, Hugh Gilmore?' he asks gently. 'Family?'

  Penny gives him enough information to find them. The morgue attendant and the social worker meet them in the corridor as they make their way slowly through the hospital.

  The mother and the DC wait now for the other two to make conversation.

  The social worker takes Penny aside, speaks with her, returns to Philippoussis professionally telling him he is free to pursue his work.

  Phillip, back at the station, tells his sergeant the result of his work and before he types up his record of activity, asks, 'Shall I get onto the doctor?'

  The senior detective is unforthcoming and dismissive. 'Complete the paperwork. Sure.' He looks up. 'Get the other ID as soon as possible. Take McKewen with you. Colleen is a local woman.'

  Philippoussis is at his computer when Colleen sits down the other side of his desk. 'What do you want me to do?'

  'Perhaps you could come with me to a farm with the happy news their son is dead. By the way, did you see the report from the hospital anywhere?' He looks at his watch, flicks through the handwritten list and his neat follow-up work on it, examines his desk for safe places. Shrugs, reaches for his brief-case, and slots the scrunched photocopy in there. 'Give us a couple of hours Colleen. Find out where and when we can get a four-wheel-drive and see you after lunch.'

  'We are talking dairy farming here?' WDC Colleen McKewen raises her eyebrows. 'Then we need gumboots. By the time we get there they'll be milking. But that's all right. We'll find them home. The yards around the bails are muddy. A cow paddock actually,' she jokes.

  He doesn't laugh, but watches her go, then picks up his telephone receiver, makes an appointment and lines up several interviews. He is determined to check details in all the statements, even though he has the feeling no one would mind if he was incompetent. He'll find basic inconsistencies if there are any. He will not be involved in a cover-up. Gorman was holding back something, he knew that. If these deaths were about drugs then Crankshaw, twenty years in narcotics, was the man who could provide hard information, contacts, firms, rather than an informant's pissy little scribbled list. He answers his desk phone, sighs, nods his head, 'Yes, sir. Yes. You mean now? Okay.'

  Philippoussis picks up his jacket, leaves the trail of his own scent and slams the door of the office.

  Chandra gives her walking fingers a rest and watches. The puzzle of the inexplicable fiddling with the background of the page called WebsighTlines, while intriguing, was past. Back to normal, except for a spot buzzing around like a bee. She counts the hits and intends to follow each up if she can. First she has to check which of her visitors have come to an evolution from the literal to the symbolic via the hypertext riddle, the language beneath the language. The thread through the complicated catacombs, which she calls 'the long march', is a progression through game software, news groups and email to a chatroom where the question of the practice of politics is discussed. Basement and Monkcells are, as yet, ideas for the freedom-fighters' safe refuge. Months of worming her grid for working, active women warriors, disciples, martyr-fucken-martyrs, placing hints in other sites, allowing input from understanders, interpreters of her scheme, is analogous with desk-top publishing on-line, in which design, while perfect in one's own fonts and high-standard pixel resolution, translates in untold ways according to output devices, monitors, computers, search engines of the recipients. The symmetry is lovely. Chandra sighs with satisfaction. The structure is viable if she stays in control. Even guerilla warfare requires a general. From the shopfront, her domain, Wimmin.com.au which is broad and interactive, the WebsighTlines begins the labyrinth to Kitchen.CellarOne
can have the s 'n' m girls, CellarTwo, the ravers, beneath that Cellar2chat, which can be entered through the Den, ostensibly for serious debate, or the Bedroom, sexual angst and information sharing, confessions and disclosures, or the Bathroom, pleasure substances including those for your health. The Lab has branches named for activism in appropriate sciences and scientific current affairs. DinnerTable is meeting place for general topics of interest, dilettante in tone, and eclectic. Parties are often organised around essays posted on the bulletin board, accessed at various levels.