She led him through a warped screen door and into the kitchen. It was as unlike Nan Washburn’s as any kitchen could be: cramped; worn linoleum; elderly electric stove and refrigerator. Marie Cobb was sitting side-on to a round chrome and laminate table, one elbow propped beside an ashtray piled with butts, the other elbow flexing as she drew on a cigarette. Her hair was greasy, eyes vacant. She didn’t look at Hirsch or her daughter but flopped her arm straight down, spilling ash onto the floor, then seemed to forget that she was smoking.

‘It’s one of her good days,’ Laura said. ‘Through here.’

Down a short, airless hallway to a door halfway along. Hanging at eye height was an earthenware sign in crooked, primary-school letters: Daryls room. And Daryl—or someone—had booted the bottom of the door at one point, the plywood outer shell jagged and splintery.

‘See ya,’ Laura said.

So Hirsch knocked, and walked into a dope haze. Adam recognised him first. Seated on the floor between a narrow single bed and a plywood wardrobe, his back to the bedside table, he edged an ashtray beneath the bed with his right hand. ‘We meet again.’

Hirsch ignored him. ‘Daryl? I need you to wake up.’

‘He’s out of it, man.’

‘Anything stronger than pot? I’m not here about the pot, by the way.’

Adam smirked and Hirsch wondered if pot was a word kids still used. He took in the dirty clothes dumped on the floor and draped over a rickety chair, a pile of graphic novels under the window, and three posters: a Formula 1 car, one of the Transformer movies, the Adelaide Crows. Daryl himself was sprawled face up across the bed.

Adam grabbed one of his feet and yanked. ‘Hey, bro. Visitor.’

When the boy was upright and more or less focused, Hirsch jumped straight in with a couple of lies. ‘We have witnesses to you two boys driving off in Nan Washburn’s ute, and I’m confident your prints will be a match to prints I took from the vehicle.’

Daryl crumpled, casting his friend a sulky look. ‘Told you.’

‘He’s bluffing.’

‘You told him what, Daryl?’ Hirsch said.

Daryl was casting about for a palatable lie. ‘Look, Adam just needed to get home. Because of his mother and that.’

‘Yeah,’ Adam Flann said. ‘I mean, how was I going to get home? Mum totalled her car.’

‘It’s called theft,’ Hirsch said. ‘And I notice you’re in no hurry to get home now. Or go and see your mother, for that matter. She’s regained consciousness, incidentally.’

‘Wayne’s coming to get me. We’re going to see her.’

‘Why didn’t you call him in the first place, instead of stealing a motor vehicle?’

‘Couldn’t get hold of him. Me phone died.’

‘Perhaps you should settle on just one excuse.’

‘Couldn’t get hold of him.’

Which was probably true.