Once we’re outside, Woof peps up. We walk down the street in the early light. The air holds a hint of tea-tree and the coming day’s warmth. Magpies offer warbles and trills. We walk, Woof in front of me, his rump swaying in a slow wag, down the hill to the side of the playing field where large rocks make a bridge across the creek.

Woof plods through the mud into the creek, snout down. He regards the trickle of water with curiosity then laps at it. I stand and watch him, and the gentle flow, until he jerks his head back. His wag quickens. He’s seen something that excites him. He makes a low growl that I know will end in a string of barks. He prances on the spot. A cluster of brown tadpoles wriggles downstream. Woof fixes his eyes on them, makes two, three short barks until I cut him off. ‘Woof!’ I click my fingers for added effect. He looks at me and appears to instantly forget about the tadpoles. What bliss such a short memory must be.

I make my way across the rocks to the other side of the creek and Woof plods through the water, eyes up now in search of fun, until we’re both standing on the edge of the field.

Woof runs off because he can, because the field is large and wide and empty. I wander to the closest tree, a towering ghost gum that appears to glow pink and cream in the dawn light. I touch the trunk. Long strips of grey bark are peeling off, draped and drooping like swathes of fabric. As I stand with the tree, the sun rises and elbows the darkness to the fringes.

How will I be able to stand in a courtroom and fight for justice after what I’ve done? So many indefensible choices. I’ve turned my back on everything I value, on life itself.

As Woof and I lope back to the house, I go over the encounter with Sergeant Doyle, trying to figure out what information he could have gleaned from our inconsistent responses. I think about why he’d been interested in how Dad met Skye and in her life before that. Perhaps he’s exploring whether someone who knew her forced her off the road, or whether someone from her past had been in the car. Maybe there’s something about Skye that the sergeant knows and Dad doesn’t. Or something they both know. Who was this woman before she met my father?

I’d forgotten we were going to dinner at Jim and Karen’s this evening. Jim is a uni friend of Mark’s, a robust, athletic man with a booming voice and strong opinions on politics, movies and architecture, especially the architecture for which he is responsible. His wife, Karen, is thin, stylish and of impeccable pedigree. When she’s given the space to speak, Karen is articulate and erudite, but in the presence of her husband she is most often silent.