“The original police report was incomplete. That’s why we are here—to fill in the blanks.”

“Okay.” I lick dry lips. “Yes, that’s fine. I should text my father to join us. He can answer more questions than I can. He remembers more of the details.”

The woman removes the mobile phone from my grasp. She places it on the coffee table, where I would have to get up to reach it.

“That’s not necessary. We will interview him in due course. First, we are speaking to you, and then we will speak to him.”

“Right. Absolutely. That’s fine. I’ll let him know you’re coming so he can clear his schedule.” My father doesn’t like being caught by surprise. I want him to have time to prepare for this interview. The police officers say nothing. I take this as tacit consent. As soon as they leave, I will let my father know that they might be on their way.

“The night you were attacked on the farm, did you recognise any of the men who came into the house?”

Well, there was Petrus.

I nearly say it, but manage to stop the words in my throat before they emerge.

“Who is Petrus?”

I did say it. Out loud. The veil between reality and fiction is in tatters.

“Petrus is no one. He is a character in a book. Even in the book he didn’t do it. I don’t know why I said that.”

The police officers are on high alert now. They lean forward in their chairs—teacups abandoned on the coffee table—notebooks at the ready and pens poised.

“You say that one of the men was called Petrus,” says the woman. “Was he a farm worker you recognised? A piece-worker, perhaps, or a seasonal labourer?”

“No, no. I made a mistake. Petrus isn’t real.”

“You don’t have to protect anyone,” says the man. “After what he did, he doesn’t deserve your protection.”

“Can I fetch something?” I don’t know why I feel the need to ask permission to stand up in my own home, but I do.

They nod. I walk to the bookshelf and pull out John Coetzee’s book. Then I sit down and show it to them.

“This man wrote a book about what happened to me. He called one of the men Petrus, so that is a name I always associated with them. But it’s not real.”

The policeman makes a note of Coetzee’s name. “Did this writer have special knowledge of the attack? Where does he live? Perhaps he can tell us where Petrus is now.”

As tempting as it is to sic the police onto John Coetzee, I have to concede that there isn’t much point. If he lives in Adelaide, they won’t be able to make his life difficult.