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is linked to a much wider history. I could go all the way back, ten years and more, to September 11 and the Twin Towers. (And who’d have ever thought that we’d reflect on
that
particular day as a happier, saner, safer time?) Truth is, I could go back even further than that. But I won’t. I’ll go back just over two years. I’ll start with the dreadful events in Canberra.
    I was there when all that happened—as I’m sure I’ve told you. An eyewitness, by chance, to the greatest disaster of the age. It was also the last time I saw my brother. And you know who he is, of course. None of this nightmare would have happened at all, if I wasn’t his less famous sibling. I would never have been kidnapped, yet alone ended up in this curious dungeon of yours. So I guess I have to start with him too.
    The Honourable Bernard James, Prime Minister of Australia.
    My twin brother, fraternal, I should say.

THREE
    In fact, Bernard was the only reason I ever went to Canberra. I didn’t much like the place, but for a developer and real estate entrepreneur of dubious repute, like myself, to have the Prime Minister as a brother. . . Well, you can imagine the opportunities. Because of him, I was known the country over, and got to stalk the corridors of power with the best of them. Of course, I had absolutely no power of my own, and everyone else in those corridors loathed the sight of me. Indeed, I was usually being escorted out of those same corridors by overly polite security guards. But access is access—or the illusion of access anyway.
    For instance, the day before it all went haywire, I was in town on business, trying to tie down some investments for the resort. The potential investors were a consortium of Fijian politicians who were visiting the capital to negotiate an aid package—their country is sinking—from the Australian government. Much of that package was never going to goanywhere near Fiji, obviously. The delegation fully expected to reinvest the cash portions of it into various money-making ventures of their own—my resort amongst them. God only knows what happened to the poor bastards. They never did get their money. Now probably half of their islands are underwater at high tide, and there sure as hell isn’t any foreign aid around anymore.
    But on that day at least, they were junketing in Canberra, and I, the PM’s cherished brother and confidant (according to my own PR), was showing them a good time. We spent the afternoon boozing and schmoozing around the city’s finest restaurants and bars, with me assuring everyone constantly that I was on the best of terms with a whole raft of government ministers and planning agencies, state and federal. My resort was thus a mortal lock of an investment. None of which was exactly true, but it was all part of my trade—to be a recognisable face, a player who looked connected and sounded influential. And the Fijians obediently lapped it up.
    None of us had a clue that we were drinking through Canberra’s last day of normality. Still, by about nine that night (and lunch had started at midday) everyone was well and truly lubricated and I’d been promised wads of cash. Satisfied with my efforts, I packed the Fijians off to one of the better brothels, and swayed drunkenly back to my hotel room.
    But even before I took off my shoes, the phone rang.
    It was Bernard.
    Now, admittedly, I’d just been telling the Fijians that I spoke to my twin all the time, that I had his ear, that he trusted me and
listened
to me. The truth was that in those days a phone call from my brother was a rare event indeed.
    Okay, the fact is, we hated each other, and hadn’t spoken in months. I’ll go into all the history of it later, if I can bear to, but to put it briefly, I thought he was a pompous worm, and he thought I was a walking, talking embarrassment to hisposition. And we were both right. Still, publicly, it was in our interests to pretend to be civil. So I’d always supported him,