Thirty-eight Hudson Street isn’t a pawn shop. It’s not even a shop shop. I check the address. It could be eighty-three or thirty-three or eighty-eight or nothing to do with an eight or a three. It might not even be Hudson Street. Nate needs to go back to school.

While it may not be a pawn shop, thirty-eight Hudson Street is most definitely a brick box. The roof is flat, the front window is small and blacked-out – the whole place is narrow, decaying and sad.

I walk across the concrete front yard, past two Commodores and a ute. There are stickers on the front door: fuck off, we’re full and fish fear me, women love me.

I press the doorbell. I can’t hear it ring inside but I wait just in case. Nothing happens so I knock. While I’m waiting I text Cara: If I go missing, tell the police I was last at 38 Hudson Street, the home of a racist fisherman.

The door opens a crack. At some point this house has sunk because the bottom of the door drags along the carpet. The guy has to yank it, cursing the whole time.

‘Why didn’t you use the back door like everybody else?’ he says.

I peek round the corner of the door as he struggles with it. ‘I’m looking for Ted.’

He makes one final push and then we’re kind of looking at each other, as best we can with the door only about forty per cent open.

‘Who’s looking?’ The guy scratches his chest through his singlet, right over the ‘nt’ in ‘Bintang’. He’s about a head shorter than me, which isn’t hard because I’m pretty tall. He’s bald on his crown with a round tuft at the front like a little hair island.

‘I’m a friend of Nate Wishaw.’ ‘Friend’ is a stretch but it’s safer if he thinks he’s got Nate to contend with if he tries to screw me around. I don’t think this guy’s heard what I can do with Shakespeare.

He gives me the once-over. ‘You look his type,’ he says. ‘Come in.’

Ted stands aside and waves me into his domain. ‘But don’t touch anything,’ he says.

When I squeeze all the way inside, I immediately realise how hard it’s going to be to stick to Ted’s don’t-touch-anything rule.

Ted is a hoarder. A TV-show-worthy hoarder. The room is overflowing with boxes, rubbish, clothes and . . . stuff. There’s a grey dog asleep on the sofa and I’m betting there are a few cats lurking about the place; every bit of furniture is sprinkled with animal hair and the whole place smells like a giant kitty litter tray.

With my first step, my boot knocks against an old Chinese takeaway box. I wait for Ted to go mental at me for touching something but apparently he doesn’t rate Chinese takeaway highly. Breathing only through my mouth, I say, ‘So this place is nice.’

‘Mum’s in Bali,’ says Ted.

I want to tell him he’s a man in his forties who could pick up a piece of rubbish even while his mother’s getting drunk in Kuta.

He pulls out a tissue and blows his nose. ‘You got a name?’

‘Ava. Ava Devar.’ Teach you to steal my boyfriend, bitch.

‘And Nate sent you?’ He pockets the tissue, but not before checking out whatever he deposited in there.

I walk further into the lounge. I can hear screamo music blaring from the back of the house somewhere. When I knock over a tower of old computer parts I wake the dog. He pees himself with fright.

I look at Ted but he doesn’t say anything.

‘I sent myself, actually,’ I say.

Ted looks at my empty hands. ‘You got something to sell?’

‘I just want to ask you about someone.’ I find a section of couch without too much cat hair and junk and sit on the very edge. ‘Xavier Green?’

He laughs. ‘He owe you too?’ He shoves his hands in his jeans’ pockets and leans against the wall. He’s standing between me and the exit; an alarm bell goes off in my head. I probably could have asked him about Xavier while I was outside and free to run.

Oh dear.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘He owes me big time.’

The dog pads over to me, sitting on top of my boots. I try to pull my feet out from under him but he leans against my legs.

‘Well, I haven’t seen him since he stiffed me on some electrics,’ says Ted. ‘He knows not to come here again.’

And the list of people my darling brother ripped off just got longer.

‘When was that?’

Ted screws up his nose. ‘Dunno. Maybe a week.’

‘Was it a Thursday night? The fifteenth maybe?’

There’s a cat watching me from inside a cave of laundry. One eye closed, it’s doing that soul-piercing assessment that only cats can do. Ted’s got a bit of a cat-stare going on too.

‘Could have been,’ he says. ‘Actually, nah. Took Mum to the airport that night and I stopped by my mate’s on the way home. Didn’t get back here till the next day. That little shit was waiting for me on the doorstep. Looked like he’d slept there all night.’

‘And he had stuff to sell?’

‘Cheap shit mostly, but he said he was desperate. Prick sold me an mp3 player that didn’t work. I should have checked it but I was rooted.’

I pull my boots out from under the dog and his arse plonks on the ground with a thud. He guilt-trips me with mournful eyes. I know, buddy; I’d be depressed if I lived here too.

‘How much did he walk out of here with?’

‘These are pretty specific questions, Ava,’ says Ted. He pulls out another tissue.

I wonder if he hoards the tissues too?

‘I know but I’m trying to get in touch with him and no one has seen him.’

Ted eyeballs me, the tissue held in both hands. And then he grins. Not kindly and not in an amused way. It’s an icky-grin.

‘Yeah?’ he says.

Suddenly I’m having flashbacks to Dave. Proper flashbacks that make me hold one hand to my racing heart. I think I’m going to be sick.

Get a grip Frankie.

My phone rings. Oh thank god.

I check the caller ID as I shoot up to standing. ‘Sorry, but I need to take this.’

Ted shakes his head, smirking. ‘Be my guest.’

I look toward the door, but Ted’s still blocking the exit. So I pick my way through the piles of junk until I find the kitchen. The music’s louder here. The benches are covered with stacks of unwashed dishes, growing all sorts of crazy science experiments on them. I didn’t know mould could come in so many different colours. I’m definitely not coming away from this place empty-handed – I’ll have some kind of rare tropical disease for sure.

When I answer the phone, Cara screams into my ear and I can’t even tell what’s she saying at first.

I whisper, ‘Calm down,’ as I peek through the kitchen door: there’s no movement in the lounge.

‘Where are you, Frankie? What the hell are you doing?’

‘I’m somewhere in Preston. Off Murray Road.’

‘With a racist fisherman? Did he kidnap you? Oh my god, he’s drugged you, hasn’t he?’

‘Cara, listen. He’s some guy who saw my brother before he disappeared. I just want to find out what he knows.’ I start opening and closing cupboards. They’re full of junk – mostly newspapers and probably every edition of the Woman’s Day ever published.

‘Are you an idiot, Frankie? Get the hell out of there. He could be a serial killer. Hang on,’ her voice switches from terrified to pissed off in record time, ‘you mean you went investigating without me? What gives?’

‘Sorry. I know. But you’re right.’ I back up. ‘I was stupid coming here. I’m going now. Stay on the line while I –’

I back up into something warm and solid and Ted-shaped. I swear and almost drop the phone.

‘Thought maybe you were lost,’ says Ted. There’s that grin again.

I draw the phone to my ear again. ‘Oh, don’t worry, Daddy,’ I say into the phone. ‘You know what I’m like.’ I hold my hand over the speaker and whisper to Ted: ‘It’s my dad. He’s a cop so he’s always worried about where I am and what I’m doing. If I’m not home soon he’ll send the dog squad out looking for me.’ I roll my eyes, but all I get from Ted is a sneer.

‘Frankie? What the hell is going on?’ asks Cara down the line.

‘I’ll see you soon, Daddy,’ I say loudly. My one and only foray into acting was at St Thomas Primary. I got to be the donkey in the nativity play, but I tripped over my hooves and smashed the baby Jesus.

‘Don’t be silly, Daddy. It’s not far at all to travel back from thirty-eight Hudson Street in Preston.’

The dog has joined us in the kitchen, his arthritic legs struggling to carry him.

‘Bye, Daddy.’

‘Don’t hang –’

I shove my phone in my pocket and smile like a weather girl. ‘Parents are so lame, right?’

‘Your brother,’ says Ted. He’s not smiling.

‘No, that was my dad, Detective Inspector –’

‘No,’ says Ted. ‘You said I was some guy who saw your brother before he disappeared.’

My smile falters; storms are approaching. Lightning. Thunder. Volcanic eruptions. ‘Didn’t I mention that?’

Ted shakes his head. ‘You said your name was Devar. I thought you were looking for Xavier Green because he owes you money.’

‘We have different fathers. So we’ve got different names.’

I have never been stared at so intently in my life, not even by Buttons, Spawn of Satan.

I start backing out of the room. Ted follows, arms folded across his chest.

‘Good,’ he says. ‘Cos I buy stuff from that prick’s dad. Don’t want to find out he’s a cop and he’s stitching me up.’

‘Bill?’ I bump into a stack of boxes, filled with wires and electronic entrails. I push against the wall to help myself climb over them. ‘Has he ever said anything to you about Xavier?’

‘Just what a useless prick he is. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bill was the one who gave him the beating.’

I stop, mid-climb. ‘What beating?’

‘Friday. He was all messed up. Black eye. Cut lip. Bruised all over. Someone was mighty pissed at him. Might not have been Bill, I guess. Could have been any one of the nasty people he owed money to.’

‘Did he –’

‘I’m done doing favours for Nate Wishaw,’ says Ted. ‘It’s about time you pissed off.’

I back up until I bash into the door, the handle digging into my back. I grimace but manage to keep my mouth shut.

‘It’s actually easier to take the back door,’ says Ted. Oh god, there’s that grin again. ‘Down there.’ He nods back the way we came, toward the dark corridor, the screamo and the rape dungeon (probably).

Down the other end of the house the screamo music gets really loud and then quiet again as a door opens and closes.

Oh my god. This is it. It’s going to be some giant, hairy biker and the pair of them will do unspeakable things to me. And when they’re done I’ll be just another piece of junk they refuse to throw out of this hellhole.

Ted looks over his shoulder as a scrawny kid appears around the corner. He’s about nine, and I wouldn’t even need a hardback to break him – a bookmark would do.

Ted growls at the kid. ‘What you looking at, pus face?’

The kid flips Ted the bird and stalks off into the kitchen. The fat dog does a surprisingly tight U-turn and follows him.

When I look back at Ted, he’s sneering at me. ‘You still here?’

I shake my head. I’m a thousand miles from here.

He points at the door. ‘Twist, lift and pull.’