‘I don’t see how that’s important,’ Dad says.

‘It’s important if I say it is. As important as searching your house.’

They stare at one another in silence. Dad wants to be top dog, but everyone knows better than to mess with a Queensland cop. Even if you’re drunk or stoned or in a rage, that awareness is something we have in our state DNA. You don’t swim against a rip or drive in a hailstorm or play chicken with a pig.

‘At the chemist,’ Dad says finally. ‘She was working there.’

‘I see. Ever make any day trips with her? Sunday drives up Eumundi way?’

‘Eumundi?’ Abby exclaims. I catch her eye and see she’s as confused as I am. Doyle notices this, too.

‘Not familiar with that area, no,’ Dad says.

None of these questions seems to surprise Dad, or if they do he’s doing a good job of hiding that.

Doyle slaps his thighs and stands up. ‘I’ll show myself out.’

When Dad hears the front door closing, he rises from his chair and glowers at Abby and me as he did when we were children.

‘What are you two playing at? Charlie’s never been carsick in his life.’

‘The jet lag –’ I begin.

‘Bullshit. What’s going on? You didn’t stop near Dalby and you –’ he points at Abby – ‘you told me you drove through floodwaters in January to stock up on food, so don’t tell me rain put you off. What happened that night?’

Abby leaps in to answer, having regained her confidence now Doyle is gone. ‘Charlie and I had a fight and I left him in some tinpot town. For hours. I didn’t want to tell the police. It’s embarrassing.’

Dad regards Abby, deciding whether to buy her explanation.

‘You’re bloody right it’s embarrassing,’ he says at last. ‘When are you going to learn to get on?’ Then he walks out of the room.

When we’re alone, I swivel around on the coffee table to face Abby. ‘What now?’

‘We stick to our story,’ she says.

‘Our story? You mean the one we made up on the spot? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘It will if I add in what I told Dad about us having an argument. That fills the gap. I don’t want to talk about this anymore, Charlie. My head is about to explode.’

‘Abby, we should’ve told the cops before now that we stayed at the pub. We don’t want them to think we’re keeping secrets.’

‘Is that a joke?’

I look away to think, out through the open sliding doors towards Mt Coot-Tha. When I turn back to ask her why Doyle would’ve mentioned Eumundi, she’s gone.

Early afternoon, before she collects the kids, while Mark takes their car to the mechanic, and Dad is catching up with a mate who runs a fishing tackle shop, Abby and I commemorate our mother’s death. We have about an hour, and that’s plenty.

We do this each year on December thirteenth. Mum died on December twentieth, but Abby decided early on that we shouldn’t mark her death too close to that festive time of year. The thirteenth is a Friday this year, but Abby reckons it makes no difference. Given the amount of bad stuff that’s happened to her she’s strangely unsuperstitious, unlike me; I’m all in with that shit – tarot, palms, witchcraft, you name it. Ignoring my reservations, Abby begins setting up the table with our mother’s things.