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  Michael turns to a companion, suited and heavyset in the shadows behind him, and speaks briefly. As the other disappears inside, he detaches from the doorjamb and walks over. His perusal of me is expressionless.

  ‘You done?’ he asks Helen.

  ‘Yes,’ she says to a spot on the pavement, and he steers her away with a proprietary arm.

  I can’t shout. I can’t cry. In Lord Place no one makes a scene — no one who doesn’t want to be noticed, that is. I feel glances from the neighbouring kegs. I pull up my hoody and leave in the opposite direction.

  More than anything right now — more than family reconciliation or my sister’s love — I want Inez’s arms wrapped tight around me.

  The Animal Protection Vigilantes never meet in the same spot twice. This week it’s a Salvation Army hall in Carlton, a suburb away from where I live. Nation First tolerates the Salvos because they shelter those in the community the NFs have no compassion for. How the Salvos cope with their massively increased workload, I don’t know.

  Inez and I go there together in her ute. It’s a throwback to halcyon days: a lovingly restored anvil-grey FC Holden that she got from her dad. The car was the thing he did to ease the boredom and disappointment of retrenchment, but he never got to enjoy the fruits of his labour, being one of those taken early by the flu. Inez, thumbing her nose at the purists, had the engine converted in compliance with the city’s strict new emission laws, and drives it in his memory.

  She parks under a big elm a couple of streets from the hall. A block out, we don our prayer shawls and walk with carefully measured steps, as if already soliciting favours from our ungenerous Maker.

  The APV is how Inez and I met. She joined our cell when she moved here from Sydney. For me it was lust at first sight, but she took a while to warm to me, and we worked together for nearly a year before the pilot light even went on for her.

  The seven of us gather in the shuttered kitchen area at the back of the hall, more than the usual level of tension in the air. We’re coming to the pointy end of an operation we’ve been planning for many weeks. This rescue is one of our most ambitious, and only countenanced because another APV cell contacted us to ask for our help. Three months ago, they were approached by a disaffected employee at Greengate Farm, fifty kilometres northeast of the city in the Yarra Valley. To all intents and purposes it’s a dairy — there are cows, and it produces milk — but the employee gave up its dirty little secret. Deep inside its rambling set of buildings, where the dairy workers aren’t allowed, is a series of connecting internal yards: a farm within a farm, for horses only.

  Of course, all the workers there know about it, but need their jobs more than they need to rock a cruel and illegal boat. Our informant, Lars, a security guard, felt the same way — until he saw something he wasn’t meant to on a CCTV screen. Something he couldn’t forget. Something nobody should do to any creature. He handed the farm’s details to the other cell and offered to stay on to help with the raid. It was too big for that group to manage alone, so they appealed to us.

  ‘What’s the latest?’ Brigid asks.

  The prayer shawl discarded, her shoulders look tense in her sleeveless top, her hands shoved defensively in her jean pockets. She’s been against trusting a third party from the start. I must say I can’t blame her — it adds an extra layer of worry none of us wants. But it’s thanks to Lars that Inez has come prepared today.

  We gather round as she unfolds a map-sized sheet of the farm’s layout and spreads it across a benchtop. A technician with Southern Electric by day, Inez is relied on by the group for her expertise in disarming things like CCTV and alarms. She earned her stripes back when she worked as a systems analyst for Defence intelligence, fighting computer hackers. Now she’s joined their ranks.

  ‘Look and memorise, folks,’ she says. ‘This is our route in and out.’

  I watch her strong brown fingers trace the lines and shapes and think of where else they’ve been recently — then force my attention back to what she’s saying.

  ‘The latest batch of stuff from Lars has this week’s entry codes and passwords, plus the digital surveillance footage I requested,’ she tells us. ‘The footage I’ll loop and doctor for time and date. When I hack in, that’s what’ll feed to the surveillance monitors. We’ll be invisible to the cameras.’

  While we have every reason to trust Inez’s hacking expertise, the interior of the farm where the horses are kept is run on a semi-automated system, and it’s made everyone jittery, especially Brigid.

  ‘What if the system comes back online while we’re still in there and triggers a lockdown?’ she asks.

  ‘I’ve a special patch for that kind of fail-safe. It won’t happen,’ Inez replies. She looks at the rest of us. ‘An hour before we arrive, I’ll start running the pirate program. By the time we get there, the “ghost” machine will have insinuated itself into the farm’s computer system. I’ll be able to control all the security functions from my palm computer.’ She glances reassuringly at Brigid. ‘One key press will disable the movement sensors and automated alarms; the next will swap the CCTV with the dummy substitute; the last will spring the doors. And then, my friends, we’ll be in like Flynn.’

  My pulse does a little flip. I love her when she talks dirty.

  She gets out a set of photos next, and we study the grainy shots, hurriedly snapped: our route through the dairy to the internal yards, and the exit where the other cell will be waiting for us with the horse trucks.

  ‘Lars has risked a lot giving us all this,’ she reminds us. ‘We need to move fast.’

  Lydia, beside me, nods vigorously. The rest of us scrutinise the layout, trying to feel confident. Only Nagid seems relaxed. A newcomer to our group but seasoned campaigner with Greenpeace, he’s seen all kinds of direct action.

  ‘Anything more to know about the caretaker?’ he asks.

  Inez shakes her head.

  We’ve learnt from Lars that the farm’s owners have become complacent, thinking themselves safely connected to the powers that be, and reduced the security detail on the overnight shifts to a grand total of one. The only other person onsite at night is the caretaker, Russ Stefanovic, in a cottage half a kilometre from the dairy. On Friday evenings he goes to the pub for his weekly binge session.

  I look around the group. ‘Lars is doing the Friday shift this week. We give the thumbs up to the other cell and the job’s on.’

  ‘Say again about the security cameras?’ Brigid presses Inez.

  ‘They’ll be effectively blind while the monitors in the security office are streaming doctored video. Anybody watching will see only a loop of old, uneventful footage. No one — not even Lars — will be able to tell there’s been a swap-over from their system to the ghost. He’ll stay put in the monitoring room and do none of his usual yard checks or perimeter inspections. Once the horses are loaded, I’ll beep him to get out of there.’ She pauses. ‘Our usual onscreen greeting will come up at the 5 am change of shift.’

  It’s become customary for each APV cell to leave its calling card after a raid: a message claiming responsibility, framed by a picture of happy horses galloping in a grassy paddock. It’s just one small satisfaction in an ocean of injustice. The farm owners can fume all they want, but they can’t make public the rustling or their outrage. Well-connected they may be, what they’re doing is still illegal and they could be charged under the Unnatural Practices Act.

  ‘Do you think we can manage twenty-one horses?’

  Brigid asks the question for all of us. Greengate isn’t the largest of the hormone farms, but has more horses than we’ve ever tackled in one go.

  ‘Absolutely,’ says Inez, refolding schematics.

  ‘Then let’s do it!’ Lydia thumps the table and we all jump.

  Lydia’s our token extremist, her fearlessness having saved and risked us in almost equal measure. Lately, she’s made us more than the usual amount of nervous, and reeling in her enthusiasm has fallen to me. Inez tell
s me it’s because I’m the only one who knows which wires to snip to defuse her. I’d hate to disillusion anyone by confessing that I guess.

  I start to say something cautionary, but Brigid beats me to it rather less tactfully.

  ‘Let’s not lose our heads and smash anything on this job,’ she says to the bench, and Lydia looks suitably shamefaced.

  The rescue before last, our extremist impulsively trashed a piece of equipment containing something volatile in the farm’s laboratory, the fumes from it dense enough to trigger the optical fire sensor and set off the sprinkler system. Luckily, Inez had already disabled the fire alarm; but we all got a soaking. Far worse, the concrete surfaces turned slippery and we only just got ourselves and the terrified horses out unscathed. It was not one of our finest moments. In fact, it was the closest we’d all come to a one-way trip to an NF detention facility, and even Lydia realises she stepped way over the line that night.

  Despite that, the rescue turned out a win, the animals placed in the care of a Mount Macedon horse sanctuary. Unfortunately, even a win feels like a pyrrhic victory these days. The level of demand is so high that when one hormone farm drops out of production, the others just collect its business.

  ‘Shall we move on?’ Max, our resident vet, breaks the uncomfortable silence.

  Inez’s answers have satisfied Brigid for now, and the rest of us are keen to focus again on the job ahead. None of us wants to rehash the mistakes of the past. I push aside a niggling anxiety about Brigid and Lydia being able to work effectively together, and look enquiringly at James.

  ‘All set,’ he says, and grins.

  At eight o’clock on Friday, when Russ Stefanovic makes his usual pilgrimage to the pub ten kilometres away, James will be there, a larrikin companion, ready to ply the man with beers and Rohypnol. Meanwhile, three large animal transports modified to take seven horses each will roll up to Greengate Farm. Once we get the horses in their variously weakened states unstrapped from the equipment and out of the stalls, it will be over to the members of the other cell to transport them to the sanctuary. There is, however, one crucial APV member we haven’t yet confirmed.

  ‘Cicada?’ I ask.

  ‘Waiting for our call,’ Max replies.

  Cicada is the closest thing we have to a horse whisperer. He moves between cells raid by raid, his almost supernatural skills in high demand. He’s also the most taciturn person I’ve ever met, his communications tuned almost entirely to those with four legs not two. An ex-stockman, his nickname derives from his almost complete silence when among humans. Max is the only one who can divine meaning from his barely audible grunts, which makes him a handy interpreter.

  The final element slotted into place, I look around the circle of faces. We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.

  Inez zips the folded schematics into the lining of her jacket and we finish with a run-through of equipment before the group begins to disperse. The next time we gather will be Friday night for the trip to the dairy, our hopes for success placed in the lap of Epona, the horse goddess.

  Dropped off in the city by Inez, I hurry down Wickerslack Alley’s steep pavement. The door to the speakeasy is where the alley doglegs before turning into Daisy Lane on the way back up. There could hardly be a less salubrious entranceway — which suits the Glory Hole and its diverse clientele just fine.

  I bypass Marlene in her hidey-hole and pick the alcove closest to the bar to wait in for Gail. The text message I got as I was leaving the Salvos’ hall had brooked no dissent, something definitely up.

  Rosie opens the door again. Several perfectly executed strides around the furniture and my boss is at my alcove. A couple of mineral waters appear magically on a tray at her elbow, compliments of Trin, one of her satisfied Ethical Hormones customers.

  Gail nods thanks to the bar and sits down, but before she can haul across the privacy curtain, we have visitors: Mojo Meg, a rival of Gail’s, flanked as usual by two goliaths. Standing demurely between them, Meg seems delicate, almost birdlike — but don’t let that fool you. She’s the doppelgänger of my food technology teacher at high school who marked all our many misdemeanours in her little black book — the wrong utensils used at table, the bowls caught mid-lick, the food chewed too loudly — her thinly veiled contempt the unbalancer that made me more than once leave the tea towel burning half in the oven door.

  Meg conducts both business and pleasure from a permanently reserved corner of the speakeasy. Her po-faced minders are light on conversation and heavy on hardware. Why they get to keep their toys when the rest of us have to hand ours in to the cloakroom attendant is down to Meg, who’s always been an exception to the Glory Hole’s rules because she owns it. I look at the thuggish duo and wonder if they know their job has turned them into clichés. The closest to me outstrips her boss by a good half-metre, her dimples turned to jowls from too much time spent scowling. The other is shorter, wider and could probably ease up now on the angry pills.

  ‘Gail,’ says Meg, bead-eyed, sweet-voiced.

  ‘Meg,’ says Gail, the air around us already chilled to one cube short of an ice cocktail.

  ‘How’s business?’

  ‘Booming.’

  Gail is the epitome of suave, nothing showing beneath that smooth professional veneer; but Meg never indulges in chitchat without a purpose.

  ‘Heard otherwise.’ She glances my way, then back. ‘If you’re thinking to downsize your operation, I’m always hunting for new recruits. Can’t have good workers put out on the street.’

  I look at her in surprise. How she can be so brazen is a sign of her and Gail’s equal standing, and the level of rivalry between them. I don’t know what’s going on, but if Meg wants the pleasure of stalk and capture, poaching something of value from a competitor, she won’t get it from this worker.

  Not one to waste energy, Gail smiles her most pleasant smile and refrains from answering.

  Meg is unfazed. ‘Leave you in peace then.’ One finger flicks a signal to her minders, who shepherd her away as if she’s made of something breakable.

  I sip my drink and wait while Gail maintains a brooding silence.

  ‘Oh no,’ she says suddenly.

  I look up. Marlene has left her nook and is a bright battleship, full steam our way. She berths spectacularly at our table, and gives me the usual dismissive once-over before turning to her real target.

  ‘Sweetie,’ she says, ‘I hope you’ll be home later, because I left my very favourite earrings at your place the other night.’

  Her body language is sultry and persuasive, every part of her playing the mating game.

  ‘I’ll give them to gate security and you can pick them up anytime,’ Gail says.

  Marlene recoils as if stung. She gathers herself up, a diamanté puff adder, and I make like a mouse against the fluffy boudoir cushions, transfixed by such flamboyance and ferocity combined. Cleopatra eyes flash; carmine nails gleam like talons on the hand splayed against the brocade. I hold my breath. But she turns without another word and steams off between the tables, back to her coat-check domain.

  ‘Hell hath no fury …’ Gail murmurs, and I think maybe I was right after all about her having ended what was a casual fuck.

  I try to say something vaguely platitudinous and she makes a wry face.

  ‘Marlene’s just jealous.’

  My look asks the question.

  ‘Of you,’ she adds.

  ‘What — of the couriering?’ I can’t believe Marlene would have any aspirations in that direction.

  Gail treats me to her patient, parental expression. ‘She thinks you’re my next conquest in the bed department.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Tell her.’

  She reaches up to yank the sash holding back the curtain and we’re enveloped in a musty aromatic dark. The lamp on the table glows like a still, red heart. She lays a delivery satchel beside it and finally reveals the emotion she’s kept in tight abeyance since her arrival. Seeing a us
ually equilibrious Gail deeply angry is an experience I don’t get often — and don’t want to. But I know her too well to think it’s to do with Marlene, or anything I’ve done.

  She takes a fast, angry gulp of her drink, untouched till now. ‘Someone’s putting bogus kit out on the street stamped with the Ethical Hormone group’s logo. People are buying it thinking it’s the good stuff selling at cut price.’

  I’m confused. ‘Are we talking about the new player?’

  Gail takes another swallow and sets the glass down. ‘I’d lay bets on it. If they’re short-termers, they’ll be trying to make a fast buck off EHg’s reputation before disappearing into the sewer hole they crawled out of. It’s that or a tactic thought up by one of the opposition to discredit us.’

  So that’s what Meg was referring to.

  Gail opens the satchel. ‘One of my regulars just gave me this.’

  She draws out a polystyrene ovoid. Where the two halves join at its midriff is a blue wax seal, the EHg trademark pressed into it. The seal already broken, Gail twists and separates the halves then lifts an ampoule from one of the neat holes in the polystyrene.

  I look at the tiny vial. The liquid is cloudy and I think I can see sediment.

  ‘You’d have to be desperate —’

  ‘Sniff!’ she commands.

  I snap the top off the ampoule then bring it obediently to my nose. The smell is unmistakeable. It doesn’t matter what form the stuff takes — pill, patch or rub-on, troche, implant or injectable — it always reeks of animal.

  It’s not just a matter of pride to Gail that she’s never been affiliated with the hormone farms; her customers buy from her on the surety. As sole distributor for EHg, and anti-animal cruelty to the bone, she’s rankled by this blatant fraud making a mockery of those long-held values. Her every bone also being an entrepreneurial one, she knows how bad this could be for business.