The roos spooked and followed the sun, which made James laugh and raise a hand, but the woman driving the small white car was in no mood for jokes.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ she shouted. It was Cassie from the real estate office, and she looked really pissed off. ‘I got my kids in here!’

He saw faces in the back of the small car, and a spooked-looking teenager in the passenger seat. When he didn’t answer straight away, James realised the sun at his back was in Cassie’s eyes and he was holding a beer next to a Ford parked in the middle of the road. She shook her head and reversed out of the way.

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘Jamie?’ she asked, jerking the handbrake on. ‘Wait here,’ she barked to the kids, and got out.

‘I’m really sorry.’

Cassie started scanning the fields over his shoulder. ‘That mob of roos get ya?’ she said.

He nodded. She dropped to her knees and started checking under the Ford.

‘Nothing’s leaking,’ Cassie said, getting up. ‘You going back into town?’

James shook his head.

‘You should know better than to swerve to avoid a bloody roo, mate,’ she said. ‘Turn her over, see if she’s still working.’

James dropped the bottle, let it roll into the grass and got back into the car. As he turned the key and the engine came to life, Cassie approached the driver’s window.

‘Mr Jones called me about you,’ she said. ‘Told me to call him quick if I saw you on my way into Kippen.’

James shrugged. Cassie leaned in closer.

‘When people are after you, best thing to do is just keep running,’ she said.

He nodded. She clapped her hand flat on the side of the car like she was encouraging a horse. He turned the wheel, accelerated in a slow circle through the high grass until he was heading for Wishaw, and watched her laughing in the rear-vision mirror as she disappeared around the bend.

As James reached the top of the ranges the road started meandering through tracts of bush split by shafts of late-afternoon light. Still, there was absolutely no sign of Wishaw, just endless trees.

Traversing the highest country, where hints of mist gathered around the peaks, every view drew his eyes upward and he was pretty sure he spied his airplane heading for the city long before the outskirts of town finally showed.

James placed no alternative version of himself up there in his allocated seat, settling back to sleep his way back to the big city. That lie was for his father to imagine. Instead, James pulled into the fuel stop past the Wishaw crossroads.