It had been months in the planning.
His capacity for punishment, whether taking it or meting it out, was the stuff of lore.
In the gym, nobody pushed harder. Five nights a week he'd pound out eight kilometres on a Vision Fitness treadmill at 12km per hour, with the hill incline set to two so it accurately simulated the intensity of a road run.
He'd follow that with a full abdominal workout - 50 crunches, leg raises and two minutes of air bicycle – then repeat.
Mondays and Thursdays he'd focus on upper body – triceps, biceps, shoulders, chest and back. Tuesday and Friday were legs – calves, quad extensions and leg press, hamstring curls. Three sets of 15 and only then would he increase the weight.
Saturdays were just the run and a double abdominal workout, Wednesdays and Sundays were his days off.
It wasn't the most intense regime in the world, but for a guy that had spent his university years and his entire twenties putting the same kind of application into his drinking, it was something.
At the end of it, he'd take stock of himself on one of the gym's many mirrors.
The old style scales tattooed on his right bicep in stark black ink against his porcelain skin pleased him every time he looked at them, as did the etching on his rib cage, in flowing cursive script – the word 'free'.
He'd look at himself for a moment before running a hand through the closely shaved salt and pepper stubble on his head and walk to his car.
His friends called him 'the extremist'. Partly for his nature, this constant need to be pushing at something, chipping away at himself in some way. But it stretched back further than that, to high school – when as a budding young guitarist he worshipped the American rock virtuoso Joe Satriani. His favourite album of Satriani's was called, aptly, The Extremist, much to the amusement of his friends more content with the Top 40 of the day than some wailing instrumental guitar rock.
At 36, he seemed settled.
He'd worked at the department of public prosecutions since graduating from university with a law degree, and had finally made it to the level of prosecutor.
After serving as a junior for five years, he was now being entrusted with his own cases.
It was a job he loved, and he had put away car thieves, small scale drug dealers, muggers and thugs who had assaulted and beaten people.
He was coming up in the world, and one day he'd be asked to lead cases against rapists, murderers, drug traffickers and the like.
She knew most of this, because she watched and listened.
She was a widower, whose husband had dropped dead one morning on a golf course at the age of 46.
She'd watch him on his runs, as she read her New Weekly or Who on an exercise bike from the bank at the back of the gym.
She'd pedal, not particularly hard, but she'd pedal. She'd pedal and she'd watch.
She was a 54-year-old, pleasantly chubby up top, with red hair flecked with grey, but with strong, toned legs from all those hours spent on an exercise bike. Watching and planning.
One night she left a little early and sat in her car in the small, almost-empty car park. She must have sat there for 15 or 20 minutes until he emerged in his sweat-stained t-shirt and shorts and threw his bag in the back seat of his Ford Focus.
She waited for him to start backing out of his space before quickly reversing out of her own, clipping his car with her rear bumper.
The two of them stopped and locked eyes for a moment in their rear-view mirrors, not sure whose fault the accident had been.
They got out of their cars and met at their bumpers, still touching with the barest of damage to each.
"Oh shit," she said in an upper class English accent. "I'm sorry. I didn't see you."
He should have been angry, but after 8km on a treadmill and a sweat like the one he'd just worked up, it was hard to be angry at anything.
"Look, don't worry about it," he said. "I should have been looking, and I didn't see you either. How about we swap details and we'll get this sorted out."
He was tempted to just let it go, call it even and they could just each pay for their own cars to be fixed. But he'd only had one car accident before, much more severe, and going from that experience he knew better than to leave things to chance.
"Do you have your drivers' licence?" he asked.
"I don't, I'm sorry," she smiled apologetically. "I travel pretty light when I go to the gym. I'm just round the corner though. Gillies Street – you could follow me home and I'll give it to you."
He really just wanted to head home, shower and put his feet up. He had a long day of meetings ahead of him tomorrow, and needed the rest. But again, he thought, he should do the right thing.
"Alright, you lead the way," he smiled. He got back into his Focus and moved back into his space to let her exit the car park first.
