That was the last bit of news I’d heard about Krystal. Joyce had left Otford a month after the car was found in Coffs Harbour, telling everyone she would go look for Aaron herself, since the police couldn’t seem to locate him. I never saw her come back; I wasn’t there to see it. But what if she hadn’t come back? What if she’d found Aaron, sent for Scott, moved to North Queensland, changed her name and started a new life?

Fetching the bin, I kept circling back to that question: why? The Rooneys weren’t scared of Krystal. They’d never been scared of Krystal. And they couldn’t have been scared of the Family Court; they must have known they’d be a shoe-in to get full custody once Krystal ran off with her son.

Unless Krystal hadn’t run off with her son?

No, I thought. She must have. Someone had driven her car to Coffs Harbour, and it couldn’t have been Joyce or Scott. Neither of them had been the slim woman who stopped for petrol. Anyway, Mitch had seen them both in Otford on the Sunday morning.

I was dumping rubbish in the bin when I dislodged a fly, and suddenly thought about cockroaches. Somehow Joyce had persuaded Pat Haas to put roaches in Aaron’s bag. She’d also persuaded my former landlord—or Scott’s best friend’s girlfriend—to hand over my Otford house key. If Joyce was that persuasive, could she have convinced someone to drive away with Aaron? Was Scott’s best friend’s girlfriend a slim woman with a driver’s licence?

But if Krystal hadn’t been the woman filmed buying petrol, where could she have gone without her car? Even if she’d borrowed someone else’s car in Otford, why would she have abandoned her own? Had the Rooneys somehow stolen her car—and her son?

If they had, why hadn’t she screamed blue murder?

No, I decided; she must have packed up her car and headed for Coffs Harbour. And Joyce must have finally caught up with her. And then Krystal must have been so terrified that she’d run away, leaving Aaron behind.

But once again, that begged the question: why had the Rooneys changed their names? What were they really hiding from? Not Krystal; I refused to believe that. Were they criminals now? Drug dealers? Had they stolen something? Murdered someone?

Murdered Krystal?

‘Shit.’ I realised I was standing motionless in the middle of the dining hall, a brush in one hand, a pan in the other. Something had roused me from my distracted state. Thinking back, I remembered three long blasts from a horn.

The ferry was leaving.

I dropped my equipment and rushed out the door, down the steps, across the parade ground. But it was too late. The ferry had gone.