Another police officer was running up the jetty road with a first-aid kit. I recognised him; he’d once dropped in to ask me to keep an eye out for a stolen boat. When he reached us, he flung himself onto his knees and tucked a silver blanket around Scott, who was starting to shiver.

‘We’d almost reached Cleveland by that time,’ Shaun went on. ‘There was a lot of mucking around, but me and Bill—we managed to get hold of the local force. That was after we couldn’t reach you by phone. No answering machine, so we knew something must be wrong.’ As the three police officers huddled around Scott, elevating his legs and checking his pulse, Shaun explained that Joyce was currently back in Cleveland, being questioned. Her grandson had been left in Joe’s care. ‘Darren was always told that his mum tried to steal him because she was worried about losing the custody case,’ Shaun said, ‘and that’s why he was sent off to live with Joyce’s cousin, way up north. He didn’t know anything about his mum disappearing, or people thinking she’d taken him—not until he talked to you. He blamed her for not even trying to come after him.’ Shaun was watching me closely, weighing, measuring, assessing. ‘He says he remembers an argument. And being told to wait in the car. He says he was sleeping a lot, so he doesn’t recall who drove him to Queensland. Some lady, he says. He’d met her at his dad’s house a couple of times.’

I could barely absorb all this. I was feeling light-headed. Shaun must have noticed because he took my arm. ‘Come and sit down.’

‘But what about Warren?’

‘I’ll take care of Warren. The medics will be here soon.’

He steered me to the front steps and left me there, returning briefly after a minute or so to drape a blanket over my shoulders. I barely noticed; I was still trying to make sense of what I’d just been told.

Scott had killed Krystal. And it must have happened that Saturday night—in Krystal’s new apartment, perhaps—because she hadn’t been seen since. Then someone had driven Aaron away forever, ensuring that Krystal would be blamed. And Aaron had been lied to. He’d been told that Krystal was about to snatch him. Hide him. Keep him to herself.

I tried to work out what had happened next. Joyce had left Otford a month after Aaron’s disappearance—or so I’d been told. She must have moved in with her cousin and pretended Aaron was her son. Changed her name somehow; it can’t have been too hard, out in the boondocks of Far North Queensland. If there was no internet, hardly any police force and a shifting, marginal populace…well, that would have worked in her favour.