The Other Side of Sorrow by Peter Corris Page A

his adolescence, delaying her marriage to do so. Ramsay had spent the next few years as a part-time student of this and that, dropout, trainee at a variety of things and dole recipient.
    â€˜Somehow, he just couldn’t let go of me. Phillip, my husband, eventually got sick of it. I can’t blame him. Ramsay’d turn up at just the wrong times. Stay too long. Cost too much. I don’t know whether Phillip and I would’ve made a go of it anyway, but certainly not with Ramsay hanging on. He was a sort of catalyst for our breakup.’
    â€˜Difficult,’ I said, thinking:
spineless bludger.
    â€˜This was our parents’ house, where we grew up. I rented it out while I was married and moved back after the split. Phillip and I had a flat. That was sold and we divided the money. I had just enough to clear the mortgage on this place. Not enough to maintain it, really. Ramsay helped for a while, but he moved on, like always.’
    So I’d read the signs wrongly. The teamwork had been between brother and sister, not husband and wife. I wasn’t sure whether that was better or worse. It sounded as if Ramsay Hewitt had certain characteristics in common with Damien Talbot and that might explain their antagonism. That thought put me back on what was supposed to be my track, locating Megan French.
    â€˜Tess, you’ve seen Megan French and Talbot together. What’s the attraction? She seems to be a pretty smart kid and he’s …’
    â€˜I’m no psychologist. He’s charming, persuasive.’
    â€˜There must be more to it than that.’
    â€˜Haven’t you ever been attracted to someone who was wrong for you? I have.’
    â€˜I suppose. But not that wrong.’
    â€˜It’ll be there in her background somewhere—some lack of love, abuse maybe. Some wildness. I don’t know.’
    â€˜And you’ve no idea where Talbot could have gone?’
    She shook her head but I wasn’t sure that she’d taken in the question. She was off on a path of her own. ‘No one in our family’s ever been arrested,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anything about bail and things like that. Do we have bail bondsmen like they do in America? You know, like in
Midnight Run?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜How does it work?’
    â€˜Someone usually guarantees the amount. Puts their assets on the line.’
    â€˜Jesus. All I’ve got’s the house. I can’t lose the house.’
    â€˜You’re saying Ramsay’d jump bail on you? Surely not.’
    â€˜There’s no way to tell what Ramsay would do. It’s not his fault, he was too young to lose his parents like that.’
    I had my doubts on that score. Plenty of people took worse knocks and made out all right. And from what I’d seen Tess would have made a pretty fair substitute parent. Still, there’s no knowing. I tried to tell her not worry and that the laying of the charge might be just a way to put pressure on her brother, to get him to steer the police to Talbot. And that if bail was required the amount wouldn’t be too large.
    â€˜How much?’
    â€˜Tess, I don’t know. Anyway, couldn’t whoever’s behind the protest put up the money?’
    She was suddenly alert. She put down her coffee mug and turned on me. ‘What? Who?’
    Wrong thing to say, Cliff
, I thought, but it was too late. ‘I was told that the Tadpole Creek protest has a backer of some kind. A supporter.’
    â€˜Who told you that?’
    I saw where this was heading but I had no escape route. ‘Someone from the security firm.’
    â€˜What the hell are you doing talking to those Millennium bastards? God, I should have known it. You’re a plant, a bloody spy. Ramsay was right.’
    I tried to tell her that the Millennium people had come to me, not the other way around, and that I wasn’t a spy or anything like it.
    She shook her head, stood up, and