On the way home, Lukas was quiet, but it had been a good day, the best day at the beach they had had.

‘Do you want to see something?’ Lukas said, after Matthew had parked the car in the garage.

They were in the small dark hall and the back of the house, and Lukas had stopped there, and turned to Matthew.

Matthew knew this hall. He knew that they had played here as kids. The stairs went up to Mr Sorensen’s apartments, on the second floor, though the door there had always been locked. On the third floor, in the attics, there was no furniture in the rooms, or very little, and Matthew and Lukas had used to lug their bikes up there and ride through the rooms, riding a circuit. Racing each other.

Below them was the basement. These were the stairs that led to the basement, to the basement where Lukas had his workroom, to the basement where Lukas had cast Matthew’s body in plaster, while Matthew stood naked.

He knew that now.

He didn’t know why he’d forgotten it.

But Lukas wanted to show him something.

‘What?’

‘Can you go and see where McCady is?’

‘Do I have to?’

‘Go on.’

‘What if she sees me?’

‘Just tell her you’re looking for me. Get her out of the kitchen.’

Reluctantly, Matthew went in search of McCady. She wasn’t in the kitchen, though at the end of the corridor that led off it, to her flat, the door was open, and Matthew could see the flashing lights of a television in a lowly-lit room. He wasn’t going to walk down there

He stepped out of the kitchen quietly, closing the door behind him, and went back to Lukas.

‘Did you see her?’

‘I think she’s in her room.’

‘Is the door open?’

Matthew nodded.

‘Well did you go down there and see?’

‘She would have seen me.’

‘You could have just asked her if she knew where I was.’

Matthew said nothing.

‘You’re not still afraid of her are you?’

‘Kind of.’

‘Oh for god’s sake. Hang on,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

When he came back, he had McCady’s keys.

Matthew recognised them instantly. He had been caught with them as a kid, having taken them out of her room as a dare. She had smacked him, pulled down his pants and smacked his bare bottom. It had really hurt.

‘Didn’t she see you?’

‘She hangs them up in the pantry now.’

Lukas mounted the stairs and started to walk up them. Reluctantly, Matthew followed him.

On the second floor, where there was a single light on the landing, Lukas turned the key to his father’s door.

‘He’s in Melbourne,’ Lukas explained. ‘He won’t be back till Thursday.’

Matthew had never been into Mr Sorensen’s apartments. They had always been off-limits. Always closed.

Lukas led the way down a wide corridor, richly furnished, but dark with mahogany panelling. He opened the door to his father’s study, and led the way inside.

This was dark too, with heavy wood panelling and red walls.

There was a large, wide desk, with a green leather top, a single laptop sitting open on it, aside from some papers, a paper weight, pens, pencils, a ruler, and assorted bits of stationery, neatly arranged. The wall behind the desk was lined with books, and by the fireplace, there was a single armchair.

Matthew was expecting McCady to appear from somewhere and surprise them, as she had always used to.

‘This is pretty full-on,’ Lukas said.

He stepped toward the bookcase behind the desk, pulled a book out of it at knee level. He bent down, put his hand into the cavity, and felt for something. Matthew heard a large “chock”, as though a lock had been released.

Lukas stood up again.

‘Give me a hand,’ he said.

He was pushing on part of the bookcase. Matthew stood beside him, their bodies pressed up against each other as they pushed. The bookcase swung into the wall, pivoting in the centre. It was just like a movie.

They grabbed the other end of it and swivelled it around, until the side with the books on it was hidden.

It wasn’t easy to do. The thing was heavy.

On the other side of it, now facing into the room, there was a large collection of what Matthew recognised as BDSM gear, arranged as though it were a wardrobe on display.

Whips, chains, handcuffs, gags, masks, clamps, red and leather outfits meant for both men and women, things meant to restrict, to insert, to hurt, to give pain and pleasure. One of the masks had little bars over the mouth, like Hannibal Lecter’s mask, and there was one little cage that was obviously meant for balls. That was kind of okay, but the whole of it looked tawdry and cheap, the sort of thing Matthew had seen on television.

Matthew had thought of Mr Sorensen as a remnant of some former time, of some former time before Matthew was born, where people had been kind, and things had made sense. Mr Sorensen as a bondage master or slave didn’t fit into this idea, and Matthew wanted to reject what he had seen.

‘Do you want to see something else?’ Lukas said.

Matthew didn’t know if he did, but he nodded.

They closed the bookshelf. And then Lukas got down on his hands and knees, underneath Mr Sorensen’s desk. He turned over onto his back, and reached his hand up inside the desk, reaching his hand into the back of one of the drawers from behind.

He struggled, and contorted his body, strained to reach something, and eventually emerged with a key. An old fashioned key. Large. Made of iron. And with a floral head.

‘Do you think you can put these back?’ Lukas said, when they were back on the landing, and he was locking Mr Sorensen’s door.

He was talking about McCady’s keys.

‘Do I have to?’

Lukas finished locking the door. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll do it.’

‘Did she see you?’ Matthew said, when Lukas rejoined him in the hall again, at the bottom of the stairs.

Lukas shook his head, and led the way down to the basement.

Matthew didn’t want to go down there, but supposed he had to. Lukas was already half way down.

‘Come on,’ Lukas said.

At the bottom of the stairs was a wine cellar. Beyond this, in one direction, there was a door which led into Lukas’ workroom, where he painted, and did his sculptures. And beyond the workroom, after you’d walked through it, was another room, a smaller room, sound-proofed in corrugated foam, a room where Lukas practised the violin.

Matthew had never been in the other direction. He had never been to the end of the wine cellar in the direction that led away from Lukas’ rooms down here, and he was surprised to see Lukas turn that way. When they were kids, they had always been too scared to come down here. And now, as Matthew followed Lukas, he wondered what could be up here. Lukas led a torturous route through rack upon rack of wine. They turned a corner, and started down a separate passageway, about fifty feet wide, still crowded with wine racks, some of them coated in dust and cobwebs.

It was dark down here.

And utterly silent.

Lit by single globes.

Swinging from a ceiling that was too high.

And dark above their heads.

At the end of the passageway there was dark expanse of emptiness. They crossed ten or fifteen feet of it and came to a brick wall.

Lukas stopped at the wall and turned to him.

‘Do you really want to see this?’ he said.