When she tried to give him some money, he said he wasn’t going to let her pay for either the tea or the fuel, and instead of telling her to make it quick, like he’d always done, he said to order whatever she wanted.

‘Just dig out that flyer of the place where Tony and Leanne are staying,’ he added.

She nodded, ordered, and retreated to the table beneath a terrible mural advertising the sun and fun of a holiday at the coast. Wrapped around itself, shoved into the inner pocket of her sling bag, Beck found the leaflet. It was the colours of sunset, with a tower rising from a cluster of palms, proudly promoting the Sunset Grove as “The Gold Coast’s Finest Destination for Honeymooners”.

Her tea was ready. Daniel smiled at her as he paid, brought it across to her, and went outside to clean the windscreens just like he always did, leaving her to wrangle the boys.

Only there were no boys. She watched Daniel through the rain-flecked glass. He was going about his tasks with a quiet confidence she’d not seen for many years.

When the job was done, she noticed herself smiling as he smoothed down the ends of his light jacket, and she laughed a little as his hands searched for his car keys by patting down his pockets and his bum, and the way he shook his head when he finally found them inside the chest of the jacket.

‘You’ll enjoy the Sunset Grove,’ the waitress said, clearing a table by the door and following Beck’s gaze towards Daniel. ‘You’ve got a nice one there, love.’

Beck looked up and stifled a laugh, shrugged and nodded. ‘Is there a ladies’ room?’

‘Around the side,’ the woman said. ‘You’ll need this,’ she added, and retrieved the orange plastic pineapple the size of a brick with a key hanging from it.

In the stark light of the single bulb, Beck avoided looking at herself in the tiny mirror and sat to pee. Her exposed clothes sent the smell of sweat up into her nostrils. She flushed, washed her hands and used a handful of towelettes to wipe out her armpits. With two over-confident swipes, she replaced the colour on her lips.

Back on the road, Daniel was patting his knee contentedly with the flyer.

‘It’ll be on the main strip, this place. We can start by dropping in on the honeymooners, see if they’ve got any light to shed on the case of our missing kid,’ he said.

It made the whole thing solvable, all in a moment. Beck smiled to let him know it made her feel a bit better, then turned to look out her window. Couples were on the move everywhere, interspersed with well-scrubbed, sunburned children, filling the brightly-lit restaurants.

The words sprang out of her like water: ‘Hey, how did you know about the flyer?’