He really shouldn’t shelve this any longer.

‘Shit. Look, it’s my fault. I let my emotions get the better of me. You know, I’ve said to you before, as coppers we need to train our minds to be strong. Dealing with the stuff we do, things we see. If we don’t, we’ll lose ourselves, get wrapped up in the horror of our job. And if we get to that point, we need to be able to talk about it.’ He stopped, but his fingers continued tapping on the desk. ‘I let this crap with my family get the better of me, and when Kim called me on it, I reacted. Badly. Took it out on her when it’s my problem.’ In a way, Dave was glad he could talk to Jack about how he felt. A long time ago, he’d worked with a copper called Spencer, who had made it easy for him to open up; he’d tried to do the same with Jack. But he hadn’t been able to express himself to his family or to Kim.

Silence filled the room.

‘What happened when you got over there?’ Jack asked quietly.

Dave shrugged. ‘I honestly don’t know. As soon as I saw the skyline, I just got angry. Like, white-rage anger. I haven’t felt that for a long time. I thought I’d got past that type of lividness.’ He paused. ‘There was no going back from there.’

Jack nodded. ‘But it’s not Kim’s fault.’

‘No.’

Pause.

‘You need to fix it.’

‘Yeah.’ Pause. Dave nodded, as if convincing himself. ‘Yeah.’

Chapter 5

Zara turned into the driveway of her family farm.

Rowberry Glen.

The sign proclaimed it was the home of Brian and Lynda Ellison. Underneath in smaller writing it also said Will Ellison. There was a sheaf of wheat on one side of the writing and an outline of a merino ewe on the other.

Zara’s name wasn’t mentioned. She hadn’t lived here since her last year of primary school.

Looking at the sign, it hit her again: soon, like Brian, Will wouldn’t be here either. The two Ellison men struck down in their prime. Were they cursed? Zara wondered. It felt like it.

It would just be Lynda and Zara left. Mother and daughter.

And memories.

The sign had been a gift to Brian from Lynda, Will and Zara when she was small. Zara couldn’t remember how old she was, just the feeling of excitement when Brian unwrapped it on his birthday and his exclamations of pleasure. That afternoon, after the home-made birthday cake, decorated with Smarties and chocolate sticks, all four of them had gone to the front gate and dug holes for the sign. Brian had used rapid cement to make sure the legs were secure, and then they’d poured a bottle of lemonade across it to christen it. She remembered her dad saying it was one of his best birthdays ever.

Swallowing hard, she pushed her foot down on the accelerator and drove on. To her right there were a few small hills that rose gently out of the earth, some prickly looking bushes growing on the slopes. There were outcrops of rocks and sheep dotted in among them. On her left ran a small gully; it was too shallow to be a creek, but occasionally, when it rained a lot, it ran with water. Small scrubby bushes lined the gully’s edge, and every so often a towering gum reached towards the sky.