Falling for you

Kerr sighed. ‘The thing is, there’s nothing—’

‘You can do about it. Yeah, yeah, you say that, but we’re the ones who are suffering here and it’s all your fault.' Sara fixed him with a look of disdain. ‘Which is why we’re strongly suggesting you sort it out.’

The door slammed shut, Sara flounced back to reception and Kerr returned his attention to the computer screen. Ordering himself to concentrate, he tapped his fingers against the mouse and gazed at the trumpet-toting Dennis McKinnon on the screen in front of him. With his shiny black face and dazzling white grin he looked happier than Den would ever look; throughout the grim years of visiting him in prison, Kerr had never once seen his brother smile.

Forget Dennis. Returning to the search engine, he typed in the words Den McKinnon instead.

Last time he’d tried this, the reply, ‘no match found’, had flashed up.

This time the search engine came up with a lone match. Kerr clicked onto the site, belonging to a rugby club in Sydney, Australia.

There was the name again, Den McKinnon listed as fly half for an amateur rugby club. No photographs. No further clues. Had his brother even enjoyed playing rugby at school? Kerr couldn’t remember.

It was a long and flimsy shot, but he may as well give it a go.

E-mailing the club secretary, Kerr wrote:

Dear Sir,

You have a Den McKinnon on your rugby team who may or may not be my long-lost brother. Could you please pass this message on to him, and ask him to reply letting me know either way? I urgently need to contact my brother as soon as possible. My address and phone number are .. .

Many thanks.

Kerr McKinnon.

When it was done, Kerr pressed send and envisaged the message popping up in the inbox of a computer in an air-conditioned office somewhere in sunny Sydney, Australia. After years of e-mailing, it still never failed to impress him that it was possible to make instantaneous contact in this manner, across the world.

Whether the reply would be instantaneous was another matter. Would he even get one? What if the club secretary mentioned it in passing to Den McKinnon, a grizzled sheepshearer from the outback, who said, ‘Yeah, yeah, I’ll give the guy a call and tell him it ain’t me,’ then promptly forgot all about it?

‘Right,’ Sara abruptly announced from the doorway. ‘Got it.’

Kerr heaved a sigh. ‘Got what?’

‘That little newsagents on the corner of Tapper Street and Marlborough Hill, where I buy my paper every morning. The bloke who runs it is really friendly and nice.’

‘So?’ Kerr pictured Den McKinnon scratching his big grizzled head, going, ‘Strewth, mate, what’s an e-mail when it’s at home?’

‘So,’ Sara repeated with exaggerated patience, ‘I’m going to ask him if the Peach Tree can deliver our order to his shop every morning, and if he can look after it for us until one of us pops down there before lunch to pick it up.’

Kerr forced himself to pay attention.

‘Won’t that sound a bit weird?’

‘Of course it’ll sound weird. We’ll just have to tell him the truth,’ said Sara with a shrug. ‘That you broke the deli delivery girl’s heart and that’s why she refuses to bring us our sandwiches any more.’

‘I didn’t break her heart.’ Kerr imagined his brother shaking his head, snarling, ‘Why would I want to speak to that asshole when I haven’t even seen him for years?’

Sara gave him an old-fashioned look. ‘Of course you didn’t. Anyway, I think the newsagent bloke will do it. We’ll have to pay him, of course, but you can do that. So shall I pop down now and ask him or

—’

Kerr’s mobile phone began to ring. Snatching it up, he glanced at the caller number on the screen and felt his heart beat faster.

‘Hello?’

‘Kerr?’

It was Den. It was weird. Hearing his voice again after so long. .

‘Yes. Hi. How are you doing?’ Kerr’s throat tightened. This was his brother. He was also the reason why he and Maddy couldn’t be together.

Kerr waved Sara out of the office.

‘I’m OK.’ Den sounded wary. ‘Jed from the rugby club just gave me a ring and passed on your message. What’s this about?’

‘It’s our mother.’ God, it sounded so cold, so formal, but Pauline had never wanted to be called Mum. ‘She’s dying.’

Pause. Then, from ten thousand miles away, Den said, ‘And?’

‘She wants to see you.’

‘Really. And what would be the point of that?’

It was a chilling response from a son who, prior to his spell in prison, had been utterly devoted to his mother.

‘She’s desperate to see you before she dies,’ Kerr persisted, ‘and she doesn’t have long. She begged