I follow her into the kitchen, where she beckons me to come deeper into the house. In the hallway, with instantly forgettable landscape paintings either side of her head, she says, ‘Constable Roberts called to say none of us should go anywhere.’

‘How’d he get your number?’

‘Dad gave it to him. That’s not the point. The point is we can’t leave because Dad’s a suspect and we might be . . . accessories or something.’

‘Where were you going to go?’

‘You, you idiot. You need to stay in Brisbane until they say you can leave.’

‘No way. I have a return ticket. I can’t just cancel it.’

‘Did you hear me? Dad’s a suspect. Constable Roberts asked if I thought Dad could’ve been in the car and then walked home. I told him that was the craziest thing I’d ever heard, and hugely insensitive.’

‘Why would he ask if you thought your father committed a crime?’

‘To hear how I’d react, I guess.’

‘Abby, this is getting out of control. We have to give them an alternative to Dad, to us.’

‘Like who? Mick Fleetwood?’

‘Okay, I’m going to find an album and show you. She’s the spitting image of Stevie Nicks.’

‘She’s not, but it doesn’t matter.’

Why do we do this? ‘Whatever. What if we say the car was smashed into the tree when we found it.’

‘And we left her there and never said a word until now?’

‘Okay, yeah, so, what if we say we drove past and didn’t see it?’

‘What? How does that prove anything, or get Dad off the hook? Also, who took her out of the car?’

‘Well, we need to think of something to say to the cops. Dad can’t be a suspect.’ I push my greasy hair off my forehead. ‘Where is he anyway?’

‘He went for a walk.’ She makes a loud exhale. ‘Charlie, I’m not going to say any more to the police. I’ll . . . stall. And you should stay silent, too. You’ll only make it worse.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

Thursday 12 December 1974

Abby

Mark is snoring, though it sounds like a purr. I watch him for a while, admiring the smooth skin on his cheek, the line of his nose. Would he leave me if I tell him about this? He’d definitely be angry. He likes Charlie in small doses, but he’s told me a million times to stop mothering him. Even though he knows that’s what I’ve had to do since we were kids. If he knew how far I’d gone this time to protect him – and myself . . .

While Mark sleeps, I play out in my head the most likely chain of events if I told the truth. Dad would disown me. Charlie and I would be involved in a legal case in which our best outcome would be a short jail term for a hit and run. The fact the victim was pregnant would make our crime seem all the worse, though the fact we stopped, took her out of the car and at least checked if she was alive might go in our favour. That shows good character, surely? Perhaps our lawyer would argue we’d tried to move the woman’s body up to the car, but that Charlie had . . . an arm injury? But we didn’t ask anyone in Chinchilla to drive out and get her, or fess up the next day. How could we explain that?