Christ this bloody bed was hard, actually scrap ‘bed’, this was a bench, but since sleeping obviously was not an option anyhow, even if this thing came direct from Slumberland, Jamie leant his head back on the graffiti scrawled wall and closed his eyes. To tell the truth that didn’t help any. All he could see was blood red through his lids. Why the fuck did they have 100 watt bulbs in these places? It wasn’t like they gave you a book to read and were worried about deteriorating eyesight. His whole body ached now, from the punches and the traces of adrenalin seeping away, what he wanted was to be home with a smoke and a chance to think, what he had was an assault on all his senses. Jesus, they didn’t ever stop banging those doors, the sound of it clanged through his head every friggin’ single time, the plaster dug cold and hard into his back and the smell of vomit and piss and disinfectant stabbed at his nose, and Jamie pulled his legs up to his chin.

Danny, Jesus, why had he hit Danny? But try as he might his thoughts wouldn't stand still in his head, not here. Even his knuckles hurt now, rubbing sore fingers over them, the sharp of his ring made him wince and just for a moment he looked down at it, no idea where it had come from, it just had been on his finger forever, a deep groove held it right there. Scanlon, the bastard, he would have shot us

Bang! He felt his whole body lurch with the sound of metal scraping in a lock, his eyes suddenly open if not actually focussing at the back of a door, hard cold metal bolts and slats and a peep hole that snapped back shut. He couldn’t look away from that door even as a rise of cold shivers took hold. Just don’t cry now, don’t let them see yer cry. Fuckin’ hell! Who was that in his head? He was still swaying a little when the key turned in a the lock and the door swung open

“McGuire! Cooled down now have you?

Jamie gritted his teeth and made his legs stand straight as he stepped down from the bed “Am I free to go? Are yer still holding Danny Campbell?”

“I am not at liberty to tell you that sort of information of course McGuire, but since you asked nicely. No, he was released two hours ago as it happens; cautioned, seemed like a nice lad, I doubt he will be in trouble again. This is your charge sheet- you will attend the magistrates first thing in the morning”

“What? Yer can’t…”

“I think you will find I can do what I like sonny. The Officers on the scene have submitted their reports to the Crown Prosecution- affray and attempt to cause Actual Bodily Harm I believe they said. I have no doubt that their evidence will be enough to get you a hefty sentence. Nasty, that broken nose of his” The Inspector was staring right at him, daring him “Never were too good at understanding who was in charge you lot, were you? Thick see…”

Jamie felt his hands shake and stuck them further into his pockets. Just keep yer head down…I am thinking you should lay low for a while. He was hardly breathing now, a hand stretched out to take the white paper and he stumbled out of the cell and along the corridor, just praying his feet knew which way to go. Behind him the copper smiled to himself and watched the young man push open the door to the outside world

“Jamie! Are you alright?” He had never in his life been so happy to hear a voice, well aye maybe except that time his Ma had eventually found him with the help of the security guard in the shopping precinct, aged 6, after he got lost in Woolworths on account of getting distracted by super hero action figures, but apart from that.

“Megan! Lass, let’s go! Let’s get out of here” He was practically running down the road turning back to fire questions “Where’s Danny? Did yer see him? What did he say?”

“He told me to Fuck off”

Jamie stopped at last, his head back against the wall and his hands rubbing over his eyes like they could make him see clearer “This is all wrong Megan...I don’t know what’s happening now, it is like one of them Dr Who things yer know, where they are in the same place just another, what do they call it now?”

“Parallel Universe?”

“Aye that’s it. Christ I need a drink” He looked at her as if he just remembered she wasn’t really supposed to be there, this wasn’t just him and Danny. “What will you do lass, you want to come back home with me? I’ll sleep on the couch eh? What was wrong with Danny? Why didn’t he listen?” he was out of his skin, his eyes watching everywhere, his arms and his legs moving, like someone needed to tie him down, and Megan grabbed his hands

“Jamie…maybe he just got to thinking he was something else” she could feel his blood run as cold as hers “Never mind. You got any whiskey?” OK so that was a stupid question.

*

Danny moved fast, he didn’t need to look where he was going, he just knew this city, the connections and interchanges, and he let his feet take him. The cold winter draft picked up flyers for D&B club nights in places you’d never find on a street map and the wax burger wrappers spinning them all around him as he walked, but he’d not noticed the wind, he’d never even owned a coat. Jamie always said he was cold blooded…

Danny gritted his teeth and lengthened his step, his white shirt disappearing around another corner in that way he had of covering ground, nightdancer they called him. Who did?…Jesus...Danny screwed up his eyes and refused to let the jagged thoughts penetrate, they never did him any good anyhow, better to just move, get home and wash this fuckin’ blood away

*

At last Jamie turned the key in the door of his flat, almost falling inside. Christ at least he was back, it felt different for a moment- like when you come home from holidays and the place is the same but you aren’t quite, only this time he didn’t have a tan and Jamie shook his head, taking Megan’s coat to place on the back of the sofa “The whiskey is in the kitchen- will yer pour me one?” He didn’t hear her answer as he disappeared into the bathroom turning the tap on full to wash his hands and letting the water run over his fingers till it burned with cold ache. Splash after splash hit his skin before he looked in the mirror, the drips of water clinging onto his curls reluctantly deciding to slip down the sides of his face and under his collar “You gotta to pull yerself together- work it out- what’s going on and all. Aye that’s the thing” he was nodding to himself in the glass, though smoking the biggest spliff he could roll and forgetting about the whole lot of this weird day seemed like as good an option right now and funny enough he did have a large chunk of blow calling from the box in his room.

In fact now that he was home and the familiarity was starting to seep back into his body, it didn’t seem a quite so bad and his fingers crumbled dark resin over the strands of tobacco in a slow ritual that was soporific in itself, never mind the for once decent quality black he had secured from his mate down the local pub, Dodgy Dave his name, well alright so perhaps that wasn’t his real name. A single match lit the end of the rolled paper and he dragged smoke deep into his lungs, holding it right there for seconds at a time to feel it cross into his blood. Right, that was better. So, Ok, he was charged with attempted ABH but the magistrate surely would hear that he’d had just cause, Jamie swallowed a nag in his head about justice. Then there was the fact that Danny hated his guts right now, but he’d calm down, just a matter of time and patient explanation, as long as they could get past the physical violence part, maybe. Alright next- he would have to explain why he was at the magistrates court and not at work to his uncle the next morning, well that might not be all bad, Uncle Aidan never did like Danny on account of his family being ‘fuckin’ orangemen’ according to the wisdom of generations. Just as long as Aidan didn’t tell his Ma, that would be OK. All in all the first few puffs softened it all round the edges- not all was lost then. Just have to forget about seeing cowboys at the end of yer bed…piece of piss then…

He may even have been smiling as he opened the door to the living room and saw Megan’s face, expectant and worried both at the same time. She’d lit the two bars of the fire, which was good, he was friggin’ freezing, and he sat down on the couch taking a huge gulp of whiskey and passing the joint as he did. Fuck, well things were  improving rapidly.

“Nah not for me, thanks Jamie, dulls the brain”

He grinned and took another long drag, settling his back into the soft of the cushions, and stretching those long legs of his out to warm in the fire’s heat with what felt like an physical sigh of contentment, he was almost back in his skin again “I think that’s the point Lass”

“Hey you have friends in high places!” Megan slipped her hand into her pocket to find the heavy woven paper from the Hotel Metro, Primrose Hill. “Orlando Bloom said he’d bail you out!”

Jamie frowned and looked at the numbers scrawled across the paper, shaking his head with not some small measure of wonder “Christ Megan, you have Orlando Bloom’s phone number and you are sitting in my shitty flat? Must be love eh?” a sideways grin at her was pure perhaps, and Megan sighed.

“Yeah well I never fancied him anyway, was Barbossa all the way for me”  A warm glow tickled in her belly as she watched his mouth blow smoke rings into the air, alright so they had been here before and she’d woken up in his bed but still half dressed, but maybe it just hadn’t been the night for it. Maybe. If he hadn’t turned to look at her right then the hand that was almost on his thigh just maybe wouldn’t have stopped short, this wasn’t about sex and they knew it

“Jamie, tell me, tell me about why you called me tonight, why we are here and your face is a mess and Danny is covered in blood” His teeth clenched with an unconscious last ditch to stop the words before he breathed deep and opened up that box that he couldn’t keep the lock on, nothing for it but to come straight out.

“Look I keep hearing this bloody voice in my head, and I had a real weird dream, vision, something, I saw this bloke standing next to my bed, he was speaking but I couldn’t hear. I ain’t no Joan of Arc you know what I mean? I don’t know who he is but it all started with that fucking film! Christ a couple of weeks ago it was all sorted- mates, a few women” he swallowed another deep gulp of whiskey “and football, work…all that shit- now I am seeing men in me bedroom and my best mate and me slugged the shit out of each other over you...I think…what the fuck WAS that all about Megan?”

She took a breath and sat back against the slightly frayed eiderdown that doubled as a throw “you will think I have gone crazy…” she closed her eyes for a second “Me too, I can hear someone…Look I have been doing some digging about those fellas in the film, Tom Lloyd is even trying to get me an interview with that Heath Ledger next week, the one that played Ned Kelly? You know both him and Orlando said they felt something doing those parts like they were being watched, that they felt connections with the place and the past and those men that never went way beyond being an actor.” It was her turn to take a deep breath “But, well Jamie, what do you know about spirits and stuff like that?”

His face turned to hers in disbelief “Ah now come on Megan! Will yer give me a break? What you going to tell me? The ghosts of outlaws past are haunting us? Got nothing better to do down in Aus, got fed up with the surf and riding round on kangaroos- thought they come scare some poms half to death? Though” Jamie looked around the room in mock drama “if yer are there, I would just like to mention that I am in fact Irish, and not to blame for the Empire”

“Jamie be serious…”

He shook his head “Megan- you are the one talking about ghosts!”

“I never said ghosts. Come with me, I want to show you something, where’s your computer?”

Of course it was under his bed and Jamie bent to pull it out before sitting down next to her on the edge as he typed in his password “ah fuck…don’t look” as his fingers moved fast to minimise what had been an extremely fleeting image, but one involving curves nonetheless, and the flash of a site disappeared

“Jamie McGuire!”

“It’s not what you think Lass, well ah fuck! I don’t know maybe it is, but she is beautiful, yer know”

Megan laughed out loud ‘Lovely personality too, I shouldn’t wonder, what are you doing? Following her career?”

“Ah Megan! Now you are teasing me” he was squirming now, though in truth it had less to do with being caught with a woman, albeit a rather 2 dimensional one, than the prospect of being less in the eyes of the woman next to him, and he stumbled over the words to explain, the truth…that usually worked “Alright then so I don’t know ALL her hobbies and interests, but I am not some sad fucker who can’t get a woman and takes a computer and a jar of cream to bed of a night” his dark eyes looked right at her, just a crinkle of a smile at the corners to see how far to go “well least not most nights anyways...”

Megan felt herself singe a bit and cleared her throat “Oh come on Jamie, you don’t have to tell me” in truth she didn’t quite want to think about that right now, so she took the lap top off his legs and hurriedly typed ‘Iron Outlaw’ in that little window. He was still grinning a bit when the screen changed thankfully to an even less reputable subject.

“This looked to be the best one- though I haven’t had a chance to look at it all.You want to see what that Joe Byrne really looked like? I saw one of those portraits the Victorians loved so much- you know standing by the fireplace Lord of all he Surveys type thing? It was on another site, I expect it is here too” her good humour babble and warm buzz of closeness was suddenly cut with a knife as she clicked ‘Kelly Gang’ and felt him freeze right next to her.

“Jesus be fucked…” Megan watched the blood drain from his face like in one of those Tom and Jerry cartoons as the page loaded in front of them “That’s the fella I saw in me dream standing right there…fuck…” all his sure and comfortable gone in a flash of panic. “Jesus, Megan!” he could hardly speak nor focus his eyes on the text that promised and threatened more than he wanted to know

Joe Byrne, aged twenty one, was Ned’s best friend. Something of a poet and an opium addict, he was well educated considering the circumstances of his upbringing.

Flitting over the familiar words of Glenrowan Inn and Sherrit he touched her finger to scroll down the page and then it all stopped in the seconds before every single cell in his body turned full circle and his stomach retched. Megan didn't even see him go as she stared at the screen in pure white shock, a small cry breathing out through her lips the only sound in the room.

Joe Byrne’s body hanging on the Benalla lock up door.