‘Ms Thomson to you, Cun-stable.’ She doesn’t wait for him to hear the emphasis on that one, barrelling right across his frown. ‘And I want it on record: Laney said she was going to see Troy after school, and Stacey saw her get in his car after school. Troy says he hasn’t seen her since last night. So take down the damn report.’

‘Well, that’s not the story Troy’s telling everyone else.’

Mum’s eyebrows climb upwards. ‘And when did gossip become an official police source? That boy told Joe that Laney never showed up where she was supposed to. I want you out lookin for her.’

‘There’s a lot of things in this world that we want Alana, most of which won’t happen for one reason or another.’

Mum looked ready to keep arguing but Uncle grabs her elbow, nods to the cop and drags his sister-in-law with him, whispering in her ear the whole way. Staying put I eye the cop like he’s a sample under a microscope. He doesn’t seem to like it much.

‘What do you want?’ he sneers. ‘Going to report someone else missing?’

‘Yeah actually,’ I drawl. ‘Your humanity seems to be missin. You might want to do somethin about that.’

Turning on my heel I follow after my family, leaving him with a bright red face. Fully expecting him to race after me and make up some charge, I’m shocked when I make it all the way to the car. Finding Uncle holding a struggling Mum against the car knocks that straight out of my mind.

‘Calm down, Al! There’s no point dealin with them arseholes, they wouldn’t do nuthin anyway. We’ll start the search ourselves.’

I can see the tears Mum is fighting behind all that rage and I stare back towards that old building. I can’t help wondering how he would’ve treated us if we were some other shade of brown.

‘If it’d been the old constable we’d have been right,’ I mumble, more to myself than anyone else.

Uncle grunts. ‘Only decent cop this town ever had.’

There isn’t much to say after that.

Day 1, Twilight

Day 1, Twilight