feel like I have no say in things any more,’ I say. ‘Like nothing I do can change what is and what is going to be. I’m in that car in the dream and we’re crashing through the trees towards that dam and there’s nothing I can do to change our fate. I can’t get out of the car, I can’t stop the car, I just go up and then I go down into the pool. And then all that water comes in.’
August nods at the moon pool.
‘Is that what you see in there?’ August asks.
I shake my head.
‘I don’t see nothin’.’
August looks deeper, too, into the growing moon pool.
‘What do you see?’ I ask.
He stands in his pyjamas. Woolworths cotton ones for summer. White with red stripes, like the nightwear for a member of a barber shop quartet.
‘I can see tomorrow,’ he says.
‘What do you see tomorrow?’ I ask.
‘Everything,’ he says.
‘You care to be a little more specific?’ I say.
He looks at me, puzzled.
‘I mean, it’s awfully convenient for you to maintain your sense of idiotic mystery with all these general comments relating to your bullshit conversations with your multiple selves from multiple dimensions,’ I say. ‘How come they never told you anything useful, these red phone selves of yours? Like, who’s gonna win the Melbourne Cup next year? Gold Lotto numbers next week, maybe? Or, oh, I don’t know, whether or not Tytus Broz is gonna fuckin’ recognise me tomorrow?’
‘Did you speak to the police?’
‘I called them,’ I say. ‘I asked a constable to put me onto the lead investigator. He wouldn’t do that without me giving my name first.’
‘You didn’t give him your name, did you?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I told the constable they need to investigate a man named Iwan Krol in relation to the Penn family. I asked the constable to write that name down. I said, “Are you writing this down?”, and he said he wasn’t because he first wanted to know who I was and why I didn’t want to give him my name and I said I didn’t want to give my name because Iwan Krol is dangerous and so is his boss. And the constable asked who Iwan Krol’s boss is and I said his boss is Tytus Broz and the constable said, “What, the charity guy?”, and I said, “Yeah, the fuckin’ charity guy.” And he said I was crazy and I said I’m not fuckin’ crazy, it’s this fuckin’ State of Queensland that’s fuckin’ crazy and you’re fuckin’ crazy if you don’t listen to me when I tell you that the llama hair the forensic science unit found in the Penns’ house belongs to Iwan Krol who has been running a llama farm on the outskirts of Dayboro for the past two decades.’
‘Then the constable wanted to know how you knew about the llama hair?’
I nod.
‘So I hung up.’
‘No skin off their nose,’ August says.
‘Huh?’
‘What do they care if the criminals of Queensland are slowly picking themselves off?’
‘I think they have to care when one of the people who has gone missing is an eight-year-old boy.’
August shrugs, looks deeper into the moon pool.
‘Bevan Penn,’ I say. ‘They pixelated his face in all the photos but, I swear, Gus, he’s us. He’s you and me.’
‘What do you mean, he’s you and me?’
‘I mean, that coulda been us. I mean, his mum and dad look like Mum and Lyle looked when I was eight years old, you know. And I been thinkin’ how Slim used to talk about cycles and time and things always coming back around again.’
‘They do,’ August says.
‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘maybe they do.’
‘Just like we come back,’ he says.
‘I don’t mean like that.’
I stand up.
‘Stop it, Gus,’ I say.
‘Stop what?’
‘Stop that bullshit about coming back. I’m sick of hearing it.’
‘But you came back, Eli,’ he says. ‘You always come back.’
‘I didn’t come back, Gus,’ I say. ‘I don’t come back. I’m just fuckin’ here in the one dimension. And those voices you heard on the end of the phone were the voices in your head.’
He shakes his head.
‘You heard them,’ he says. ‘You heard them.’
‘Yeah, I heard the voices in my head too,’ I say. ‘The batshit crazy voices in the heads of the Bell brothers. Yeah, Gus, I heard ’em.’
He stares into the moon pool.
‘Do you see her?’ he asks.
‘See who?’
He nods at the water.
‘Caitlyn Spies,’ August says.
‘What about Caitlyn?’ I ask, looking into the moon pool, following his gaze, finding nothing.
‘You should tell Caitlyn Spies.’
‘Tell her what?’
He