But the vet was waiting, and her silence was beginning to overwhelm him. He undid the straps, removed the lid, stepped back from the crate. The vet moved forward, looked inside. Ned stared at her garden, at the grazing mare. When he could stare no longer he looked back at the vet. She was still engaged with the crate’s contents. Her face remained impassive until she finally spoke. ‘You trap it?’

‘I did.’

She straightened up. ‘On purpose?’

‘No.’ He nearly told her about the hawk, about Callie’s chickens. But he realised immediately how foolish it would make him seem—how it would reveal the lack of thought that had resulted in the quoll’s wounding—so he added nothing else.

The vet did not ask for a further explanation. Neither, to Ned’s relief, did she ask what he intended to do with it, why he hadn’t killed it. She just dipped slow hands into the crate, positioned them carefully, and lifted the quoll out onto a blanket. It was limp in her grip.

Ned clenched his teeth, sucked his tongue. He noticed the lethargy in its body, the darkness of its wound. The weakness in its breathing.

The vet lifted the damaged leg. The quoll was awake, but it did not move to bite or stop her. She inspected the blooded fur, the exposed flesh. ‘You’ve done some damage to this fellow.’

She took a small knife from a leather bag on the bench. Ned felt panicked, felt sick. But the vet only used the blade to push back the fur so she could see the torn flesh in greater detail. She ran her eyes over the extent of the injury, sometimes moving her face so close to the wound that her nose brushed fur and scabs. Once she had finished inspecting the rent leg she began looking over the rest of the quoll. She placed a firm hand on the back of its neck, then leaned in to see its eyes, its small, neat ears. She put the knife back in the bag and placed a finger on its neck, feeling for the rhythm of its heart.

At no point did the quoll react to her attentions. If anything, Ned thought, the creature kept its dark eyes on him.

‘What have you been feeding it?’

‘Rabbit.’

‘Rabbits eating your old man’s apples, are they? Strange rabbits up your way.’

He reddened. ‘I’m selling the pelts. Army uses them for hats.’

‘You caught many?’

‘Plenty.’

‘And one harmless tiger cat.’

Her tone did not invite a response. A minute later she asked him to wet a cloth under the garden tap. When he returned, her hand was still on the quoll’s neck but she had retrieved a roll of gauze from somewhere. He handed her the cloth, and she began to wipe and excavate the wound. The quoll squirmed, but it did not have the strength to fight her grip.