‘Sorry to bother you early, Danny.’

‘No bother. What’s going on?’

‘I just went to ask the police about a drone.’ She told him a little of the conversation from the previous night. ‘I wondered if you knew anything about it.’

Danny nodded. ‘Sure do. I’ve heard that some people have reported it. Dave was away when the first report came in, and Jack wouldn’t do anything about it just in case it was a local who’d bought themselves a new toy and didn’t know the rules around flying it. Then I heard of others—three times over the following week, still while Dave was away. Not sure if they were all reported or what’s been done about it since.’

Zara wanted to ask how he knew the first report had been made while Dave was away, and if he knew that much, surely he knew who had made the complaint. ‘So, four people reported the same incident, or the police have been told about four different incidents?’

‘Well, I don’t know what’s been reported to them, but I know of four different times. First one was out on the road to Adelaide. There’s nothing really out there except the gun club and cemetery, so it really wasn’t doing any harm. Except Mrs Pickett could see it from her window and got worried.’

‘As you would,’ Zara sympathised.

‘The second time I heard about it was when old George Mayne from Mayne Meats came in for his usual Wednesday counter lunch. He said there’d been one buzzing near the meatworks. Never went over the top, but he could see it out on the road. It was glinting in the sun. He didn’t realise what it was until he told his grandson about it. See, now, to me that says it’s not someone with a new toy. Maybe, instead, someone who wants to stir up a bit of trouble by focusing on the meatworks. But who am I? Just an old publican who knows not much.’

‘Sounds like a perfectly reasonable conclusion to me. When was the third time?’

‘Out on Ridge Road. Rhys Aldridge said he was going down to get the mail from the roadside mailbox and he could see it hovering over his shearing shed. Said it made the sound of an oversized mosquito. Now, the interesting thing about this one is that his shed is right on the road, so the person who was driving it must’ve been close by, but he never saw anyone. I asked him straight out and he said no.’

‘Maybe casing it for fuel or something?’ Zara wondered out loud.

‘Coulda been. Or checking to see if they were shearing and there was any blood on the sheep.’

Zara looked at him, impressed. ‘Love your thinking, Danny. You’d make a good journalist, such an enquiring mind.’

Danny went red and turned to put another row of beer bottles in the fridge. ‘I just like to listen and then I think about things. I read a lot too, you know, and I’ve heard your name before. I know you reported on that court case in Melbourne where that protester was killed.’