‘Upset, angry parents say things in the heat of the moment. You know, in the shock of finding out their child has a terrible disease, moments like that. But they don’t mean it.’

‘Can you give me an example?’

Marty closed his eyes again. He didn’t want his patients’ pain entwined with his own.

‘It doesn’t happen often. Stuff like: I wish this was happening to your child, then you’d know what it’s like. I haven’t had any in Canberra.’

Mostly, it was the fathers who shouted at him in the hospital. The ones who thought life could be controlled. Like he once had.

His body ached and his mind was at a standstill. He’d been awake for almost twenty-four hours. Was it only yesterday morning that he’d checked Bella’s cast, hugged her carefully, kissed her cheek and left the house at seven thirty? And this policewoman—Marty didn’t even know her name—wanted to question him now. A logical thought clicked through his exhaustion. She wants to catch you off guard.

At last they were pulling into his driveway, a five-minute trip that had felt like hours. He hoped that Lexie was asleep inside. Marty couldn’t bear to see her expectant face.

‘And what about your wife? Has anyone threatened her?’

Marty ignored the question and pushed open the car door. He heaved himself out of the seat, fighting the lethargy in his body. Focusing on the house, he almost missed the policewoman’s last words.

‘Have you threatened her?’

No, I’m not to blame. I’m NOT.

If he shouted it loudly enough in his head, perhaps he could force himself to believe it.

All over the TV news. Bella everywhere. Like a celebrity.

The media should be focusing on those protesters at Parliament House, not on Bella.

Police crawling all over Merrigang.

Her last steps. Her last movements.

Too much attention, too many people searching.

Yes, she’s special to me, but not to the rest of them.

They don’t know the real Bella.

They’re just pretending to care.

All those people on the news, they didn’t care before.

Don’t look. Turn it off.

FRIDAY

15 LEXIE

15

LEXIE

THE SOUND OF THE TOILET FLUSHING IN THE ENSUITE WOKE ME. IT MUST be Bella, I thought groggily. But when the bathroom door opened, Marty stood there in the same clothes he’d been wearing the day before. In an instant, that sick feeling gripped my gut again. How could I have slept while my daughter was outside in the cold? I’d wanted to keep searching all night, but when I kept stumbling and tripping on tree trunks, Imogen had insisted on taking me home.