She closed her eyes, swayed and toppled. Hirsch caught her, set her upright. ‘Let’s get you to the doctor.’

He expected resistance but Joyce Gwynne shuffled out of the shop with him and across the road to Dr Pillai’s Friday clinic. The waiting room was unoccupied; the surgery door open, Dr Pillai at her desk, tapping notes into a laptop.

She rose to her feet. ‘My first customer,’ she said, helping Hirsch settle Joyce onto a narrow bed under a mothercraft poster. The only other furnishings were a sink, a cabinet and a set of steel shelves containing bandages and surgery gloves.

‘What seems to be the problem?’ Pillai said, her hand on Joyce’s forehead.

‘I had a dizzy spell in the shop,’ Joyce said. She looked comfortable on the little bed: eyes closed, limbs loose.

The doctor looked to Hirsch for confirmation. Jerking his head towards the door, he mouthed, ‘Quick word?’

She nodded, said, ‘I’ll be right back, Mrs Gwynne,’ and joined Hirsch in the waiting room.

Keeping his voice to a murmur he said, ‘She dropped a jar on the floor, and I saw her looking at her hand as if she had no control over it. Which may or may not be related to the fact she’s got bruises on her upper arms and under her collar.’

Pillai cocked her head. ‘She falls down a lot? Or she falls down a lot.’

‘Exactly.’

‘I’ll see if she’ll open up to me.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’d like to know, either way?’

‘Yes.’

Hirsch finished his shopping, stowed it away and returned to the clinic. Three people in the waiting room now, a teenage girl with her mother and a windfarm worker holding a bandaged hand upright, face tight with pain.

Hirsch waited. When Joyce emerged, she hurried past him with a shy, frightened, ‘Thank you.’ Then Dr Pillai appeared, spotted Hirsch and beckoned him into her room.

Shutting the door, she said, ‘Mrs Gwynne wasn’t forthcoming. She said some cans fell on top of her when she was cleaning the pantry. I didn’t press it, and when I raised the issue of the DV support options available to her, she shut me down.’

Hirsch nodded. ‘Thanks for trying.’

‘But for what it’s worth, I think someone hit her.’

Hirsch returned to the police station and a short time later Laura Cobb came in. ‘Please, Mrs Flann’s upsetting Mum.’

They trotted along the footpath. ‘What’s she doing at your place?’

‘Apologising.’

‘For what?’

‘Wayne and Adam.’

They reached the house, Hirsch recognising the station wagon at the kerb. It had been repaired with wrecking-yard panels and hammered-out dents.

‘Is she drunk?’

‘I don’t think so. She keeps going on about how it was all her fault her boys turned out bad and got Daryl into trouble.’