He greets Abby with a nod. ‘Nice-looking family. Twins?’

‘Yes, they’re quite a handful. Please.’ She sweeps her arm towards the couch like a game-show host showing off a prize.

He sits, and the couch I’d thought of as large and long appears doll-sized.

Abby asks Doyle in an unnecessarily loud voice if he’d like a cold drink. He does not, so she perches on the edge of her armchair seat. I sit on the corner of the coffee table and reach for the packet of Marlboros I’d left there earlier, before the door rang, which already feels like hours ago.

‘You’re a long way off your beat,’ I say.

He smirks at me. But he’s hours away from Chinchilla and I know that’s where he works. Could be that beat is a word they only use on TV shows.

‘I hope you didn’t drive all this way for us,’ Abby says.

‘I have business down here.’ He looks from Abby to me and back again. ‘And we have a problem we’re hoping you can help us with.’

At that moment Dad enters the room.

‘Sergeant,’ he says, stopping on the spot when he sees Doyle. ‘Didn’t expect to see you in Brisbane.’

‘Duty calls, sir.’

‘Carry on then.’ Dad speaks to the cop as if he’s still in the army, sits in the one empty chair. He has no idea he’s regarded as a suspect.

Doyle turns to Abby. ‘We’ve been informed that on the night of the accident you and your brother stayed at the Chinchilla Hotel.’ My heart skips a beat. I’m guessing Abby’s does, too. ‘Now, given you said you left Brisbane at approximately two in the afternoon –’

‘You stayed in the pub?’ Dad interrupts.

I strike a match too hard against the box. The wood snaps. I hold my cigarette between dry lips.

‘It was raining,’ Abby says. ‘There was a storm so we stopped at the pub. I didn’t want to trouble you with the details, Dad. It didn’t seem important. We stayed there and came to yours after breakfast. It’s nothing.’

‘Why didn’t you drive through to the farm? The rain wasn’t that bad,’ Dad says.

‘Yes it was.’ I manage to light my cigarette. Small victories. ‘Totally was. The guy at the pub said we were lucky to even make it over the bridge. We were worried it’d be underwater by morning.’

Doyle furrows his brow. ‘You don’t cross the bridge coming into Chinchilla from Brisbane. You’d only cross it heading north out of town.’

‘That’s right, yeah.’ I don’t look at Abby, hope to God she’s not reacting. ‘We were going to drive over the bridge and they said it was good we didn’t.’

‘Because it might flood later on?’ Dad says. ‘You’re talking rubbish.’

‘Did you drive across the bridge that night, Mrs Campbell?’ Doyle asks.

‘No,’ says Abby. ‘We came into town off the main road and I decided we’d stop for the night. Charlie was asleep. He didn’t properly see where we were. He doesn’t know the roads around there anyway.’