She considered the alternatives, shying away from any involvement in drugs (not that, it was too wicked!) to robbery – but robbing what? There were no banks in the wilds of northern Australia, no armoured vans to hold up and electronic embezzlement wasn’t an option if you could barely get a radio signal. Anyway, if he’d had access to stolen money, why wouldn’t he have paid what was owing on the Esmerelda?

Gerry had loved that boat, joking that she was his mistress. ‘There’s you, babe, and then there’s my best girl.’ It had almost precipitated their first row until Tilly had realised that the shapely body and sweet bottom he continually spoke of belonged to the Esmerelda. He’d maintained a running tease about it when kissing her and Francie goodbye each time he left to head out to sea. ‘Off to my best girl now, babe. See you in a week . . .’ Or ten days, or whenever – it depended on the weather and the season. Sometimes he was away longer and the catch would still be lighter, but Tilly, making sure that a meal was ready and the donkey heater working to ensure a hot shower, never asked for details of the trip. The job didn’t end at the dock. The iced fish had to be stored, transport organised, hands paid off, fuel and stores replaced . . . When he came wearily back to their camp, the last thing he needed, she’d told herself, was a lot of questions.

Because she loved him, and he was putting in the hard yards to keep her and Francie, and to run the business, she had swallowed her own needs to see to his. She had often been lonely in the camp when the boats were out, and occasionally bored, with long days to fill and only a toddler for company. And there were the little daily worries with Francie: the fever she had once run, the fall which had cut her lip, precipitating a screaming fit that had terrified Tilly into believing she had sustained not just a superficial cut, but a real injury. She had worried too about her daughter’s isolation, whether she should be interacting with other children at this age. Doubts and fears that she had borne alone in order not to bother Gerry with them.

And all, it now seemed, to allow him to deceive her, to lead a double life doing whatever it was that had led to his present situation. She had been a fool, suspecting nothing, blinded by her love for him, her absorption in domestic matters and raising their daughter. How he must have scorned her simplicity! Shame at her own gullibility scalded her. Nobody respected a person so easy to hoodwink. It was as if she had collaborated in her own deception.