I don’t have a car. A taxi could take any amount of time. The back garden, the creek, the bottom of the rubbish bin could all fail me. Will they bring sniffer dogs?

I walk quickly to Lou’s house. I hop about on her doormat, waiting for her to answer my loud knocking. ‘Be home, be home, be home,’ I mutter.

‘Abby.’ She’s surprised, and then, in an instant, anxious. It’s been more than two months since we last spoke. She sees how flustered I am. ‘Do you want to come in?’ She steps to one side but I don’t move from the doormat.

‘I need a favour.’ I put my hand down my shirt and pull out the wad of tissue. ‘Mind this. Hide it somewhere safe and don’t tell anyone – not Andrew, not anyone – that you have it.’ I give the tissue bundle a gentle press, reassuring it and me, then pass it to Lou.

She looks down at the tissues. ‘Can I ask what it is?’

‘It’s a ring.’ She glances at my wedding finger. ‘And it’s none of your business. I need you to take care of it and not ask any questions. This is important. Okay?’

She nods earnestly, brows furrowed. ‘All right. I can do that. Are we – friends again?’

‘I don’t know.’ I look over my shoulder back at my house and then at the road, but I don’t see a police car. ‘I’m trusting you with this. Don’t let me down.’

She holds the tissue bundle close to her. ‘I’ll guard it with my life.’

The police showed up a few hours after Charlie called, which was a blessing and a curse. I’d wondered if they’d come on Sunday, in which case Mark and the children might be back. I hadn’t wanted to explain to the kids what they were searching for, nor explain to the police why Beau was here (well-rehearsed script or not). But when Mark told me, later, that I’d had the right to ask if they had a search warrant and then refuse them entry – they couldn’t have obtained a warrant in that amount of time, and on a weekend – I wished he’d been there.

They found nothing because, of course, there was nothing to find. And they had no dogs with them to sniff my track from my home to Lou’s, if dogs can do such a thing. So while the whole encounter felt awkward and shameful, they’d left empty-handed and I’d rushed to the phone to tell Charlie. Then stared at the wall until my shoulders shook and tears ran down my cheeks.

PART THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Thursday 27 March 1975

Abby

We’re at the Happy Valley campground in Caloundra, with the northern tip of Bribie Island in sight across a sparkling sapphire inlet and a white-sand beach a dozen feet away from our car. Because we’ve arrived a day before the Easter holidays begin, we have the place to ourselves and pick the best spot – close to the beach, far enough from the road that all we hear is the whoosh and crash of waves, surrounded by pandanus pines, casuarinas and a strip of green grass, kookaburras and rainbow lorikeets in the branches above us.