Perhaps, Gordon thought later, Ron had engineered that encounter on the fourth green to create confusion on the next hole. Norma took her driver out of her golf bag and climbed the stone steps to join Ben and Kelly on the fifth tee. Below, on the cart path, Gordon saw that there were only two drivers—Lou and himself—and three carts. He asked Lou to drive Ron down, while he, Gordon, would take his cart and tell Kelly to collect the third cart. But there was a communication breakdown somewhere, and when he parked his cart at the bottom of the path beneath the tee, Gordon turned to see Lou driving up alone.

‘Which is that?’ he said.

‘It’s Kelly’s.’

‘So where’s yours?’

Alarm broke over them simultaneously.

‘No, no.’

Gordon began running back up the cart path towards the turning circle.

‘No running on the golf course!’ Norma called as she laboured sideways down the stairs.

‘Dad’s been left alone with a vehicle!’ Gordon shouted. His mother’s hand went to her mouth.

Gordon’s first fear was that Ron would speed off towards the clubhouse, the exit, the street, all the way to Chester Dam. Had Gordon been thinking straight, he would have understood there was no cause for concern on that front: a golf cart could be chased down by an ambulant human, and in any case the electric Bluebird Country Club carts automatically switched off beyond the course’s gates.

Ron’s necessities were darker than escape.

As Gordon rounded the corner of the path, he saw his father, wild glee carved into his face, steering the cart right at him, pedal to the floor. The tinny electronic motor whined like a killer mosquito. Gordon jumped into the groundcover beside the path. His eyes went to the tee box. He could see no-one up there. He shouted a warning anyway, even though he knew what was unfolding. For once, he was ahead of the game.

Whether Ron timed his run in the cart to coincide with Norma’s arrival at the bottom of the stairs, nobody could say in a court of law, but Kelly, Ben and Lou thought they saw him bunch his shoulders and take aim. He met Norma the instant she stepped onto the cart path. Though it wasn’t travelling at great speed, the front wheel of Ron’s cart carried several hundred kilograms of downward momentum. When it clipped Norma’s knee, a sickening crack was heard above the engine’s protests.