‘Listen to me,’ I said hesitantly, looking around at the alleyway I was trapped in. My pursuer – dogged, like a cop with a bone – stood patiently at the entrance ahead of me, face masked in shadow. ‘This isn’t how you want to catch me! It’s such a boring story. You, what? Flipped some random person who happened to know I was in town at the same time you were? That’s boring!’
‘That’s policework,’ he said.
‘Oh, please,’ I spat, angry now. ‘We’ve been doing this too long for it to just be policework anymore. I thought we had something special.’
He didn’t answer right away – except to drop his head and sigh.
‘I’m sorry if you felt that way,’ he said. ‘But no. You were always just a criminal to me. Top of the list, perhaps – but still just a name and a photo. Whatever great Sorry Arty you think you are, I promise I’m no Homes.’
‘You’re lying!’ I shouted. ‘I’m your nemesis!’
He shrugged, trench coat riding up on his shoulders.
‘I don’t know what to tell you,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t a tip-off from a secret agent that brought me here – it was a buyer’s agent near Brighton who recognised you from a decade-old news bulletin. Apparently you made quite the impression last time you were in town.’
‘Yeah, I forgot about Brighton,’ I grumbled. ‘They all start to blur together eventually.’
‘I can imagine,’ he said, dryly. ‘And as informants go, they are the best property advocates around Melbourne, I mean. You’d be stunned by who they’ve brought down.’
‘But that doesn’t change anything!’ I called back, pointing an accusatory finger. ‘You’ve been chasing me across the globe for years!’
‘You’d have done the same,’ he laughed. ‘Non-stop travel, on the taxpayer’s dime? Jobs don’t come any nicer. Thanks for that Hawaii stunt, by the way, I needed a beachfront holiday.’
‘So, this was all just…’ I shook my head, a chasm opening in my life.
‘Just a job,’ my nemesis shrugged. ‘Just a job.’