Following her van, Marty stayed a few cars behind. He didn’t want Mel to see him and have time to prepare a speech. As he imagined how she would answer his questions, he almost missed her turning left onto Cotter Road. So, no work today. Good, they could have the conversation elsewhere. But where was she going? This road led to the river, the bush reserves and some isolated farms. Further out were some settlements: a hippie community in one, rough tattooed blokes in another; he’d seen them occasionally coming into Merrigang shops for supplies. Plus farmers, forestry workers and park rangers. The trouble with this road, though, was its lack of cars. Soon, they’d have to stop at the one-way bridge and Mel might catch sight of him. His Audi was fairly recognisable so Marty slowed and dropped back.

He dredged his memory for anything his wife had said about Mel after playgroup each week. Usually, Lexie would complain about the twins being aggressive, laugh about how Julia had parenting down to a tight schedule and sympathise with Tara’s lack of sleep. Mel’s name hadn’t come up that often. Relaxed, fun. Bella liked her son, Sammy. The two of them played together most of the time. And that was it.

But why would Mel not tell him that she was in a playgroup with Lexie? She must have worked out pretty quickly that her playgroup friend was his wife.

As the road wound down, down into the river valley, the hills on either side grew higher and the clouds above darker. Would they actually get rain today? They were driving into the Brindabella mountain range—the state border into New South Wales. I’m Brinda-Bella. I’m a mountain. He’d promised to take Bella to the Brindabellas and now he realised that he had taken her when they’d gone to Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve on Father’s Day. Driven her there on this actual road. Preoccupied with Victoria and Kimmy’s antics from the previous evening, checking they weren’t having a bad reaction to the ecstasy, he’d forgotten to tell Bella that they were standing in the shadow of her mountains—the Brindabellas. Bella and the teenagers had counted kangaroos and emus, and screamed their way across the flying fox and down the steep slippery slide.

Up ahead, Mel didn’t follow the route to Tidbinbilla, as Marty expected. Instead, she suddenly turned right into a smaller road, going deeper into the blue hills. One of the settlements flashed past. All new houses, not a hippie commune in sight. He remembered now—this area had been destroyed in the bushfires as well. Almost all the old places were burnt to the ground. I should stop, turn around, go home and talk to Lexie. Tell her about Parrish and the drugs. But he needed to know where Mel was going.