Geoff Parkes

" It was beer for the rousies too. Perhaps the bourbon would come out later; truth serum as Carl described it. For her size, Crystal could put the beer away. She’d grown up in a drinking household, telling stories of her and her brothers and sisters, not even at high school yet, finishing off the leftovers after the adults had flaked out, the strains of popular local artist Prince Tui Teka fading into the night sky. Aping their parents and their friends, stumbling around acting drunk. Until they actually were."

" No matter the conviviality among the players, the vibrant positivity that permeated the atmosphere a week ago has been drained from the building. Conversations are fewer. Softer. Less animated. Already, the office is looking sparse in places, untidy in others: a classic case of a tenant in the midst of sorting through their shit, packing and moving on. The Weary Dunlop Shield sits on a bench in the kitchen, alongside a tray full of plastic tomato and bar-b-que sauce bottles. The sauce will be divided amongst staff; nobody is quite sure what to do with the shield."

" Dicko lost himself in his work, testing the sleeper pins, looking for any that might have popped up like cloves out of a baked ham, using the weight of his sledgehammer to pound them back in. He enjoyed that aspect of his job, putting his large, heavy frame to good use, and once he found his rhythm there was usually nothing that could distract him. That’s why, minutes later, just after a southbound diesel locomotive came onto the viaduct, when he launched off the side, cartwheeling onto the river rocks 259 feet below, Dicko had no idea what had hit him, and why nobody would be able to make any sense of how and why he had met his death. "