I want to run over there so bad it hurts, but the whole thing is over pretty fast. One minute Troy’s on the ground and the next Uncle is picking him up and setting him on his feet. Troy isn’t a small bloke, just young, and Uncle is good at intimidating without having to harm the young fullas in town. Uncle turns back towards me when two things happen at once.

Edna’s man Ray comes barrelling around the side of the house with an axe raised over his head, and the town cop car comes screeching in behind me. I shoot a look at the front door to see Mum step away from the screen like nothing is wrong, while Edna has gone quiet. Troy goes white as a sheet, a neat trick for a blackfulla. Ray does a weird little skid, brings the axe down and throws it under the house. All of the black people in the place throw their hands up. No silly ones here.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. This is going to take forever, chewing up time we should be using to look for Laney.

‘You really expect me to believe that you were “bringing” the axe to Joe because you borrowed it from him?’

Sitting in the cop shop with my head down, I keep pretending to read the ratty magazine I’d found in the waiting area. The whole place smells like stale things and chemicals; probably a mix of the sergeant’s illegal inside-smoking and the air freshener he’s been trying to hide it with. The cop shop is a brick square, with a tiny waiting area that started out as temporary and at some point became permanent. There are two of those old brown plastic chairs with metal legs and a small side table with magazines from five years ago stacked on it. I’d claimed one when Mum refused to sit down, somehow managing to pace in the miniscule area. Edna sat in the other chair across the table from me.

I shouldn’t be able to hear anything the cop is saying, but they only have room for Troy and Uncle Joe in the separate office and single interview room. They’d already questioned me, Mum and Edna ‘on the scene’, then piled the men into the back of the car. We’d followed them down to the cop shop. After putting Uncle and Troy in the offices, they’d brought Ray to the open area behind the front desk and tackled him first. This had been going on for roughly thirty minutes. At some point the sergeant left to go get some dinner or something, leaving the constable there to ‘finish up’. I spent the whole time trying not to laugh, and refusing to look at Mum or Edna; I could feel them not looking at me either.