They pushed through into a glade of myrtle beech – a faerie-land. The singing trickle of a mountain stream wending through the roots and blocks of dolomite, the bright-red fungus of strawberry bracket spreading over the beech trunks. A mountain dragon the size of a beer bottle clung to a rock, its wise, lazy eyes watching the brothers. Ferns tickled the edge of the glade, moving in a mountain-breeze dance.

They stopped. Murphy took breaths, tears threatening again. ‘What am I gonna do, Butch? What am I gonna do if she doesn’t come back?’

‘She will come back. You saw Sara. I reckon that means she’s sending Jasmine back to you. She can do shit like that. Talk to the Big Fella and bring Jasmine back.’ Butch was always full of such certainty.

The itch in his throat was the only warning before the tears came, hot and fast. Butch grabbed his shoulders, hugging him. Murphy clutched his brother’s broad back, fingers digging into his singlet, burying his head in Butch’s bare shoulder, stinking of sweat and marijuana.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry . . .’ sobbed Murphy, apologising to Butch, apologising to Jasmine, apologising to Sara, apologising to God.

‘Shhh, it’s okay, lad. You’re okay . . . We’ll find her. I promise, mate. I promise. We’ll find her . . .’

The myrtle beech rustled above, as though in consolation. The mountain dragon blinked its lazy eyes and looked away.

Before long they were in a gorge full of twisting King Billy Pine. Murphy’s weary mind kept spinning back to the day Jasmine had gone missing. Especially the night before. The amnesia tickled at him – something Skinner told him had come trickling back now. If I wasn’t in the house that night . . . where was I?

He stopped, but Butch shoved him forward. ‘I said, don’t stop.’

‘What?’ said Murphy.

Butch grabbed his shirt and dragged him on. ‘Didn’t you hear a word I said? There’s someone following us. Don’t turn around.’

‘Cops?’ said Murphy. He wasn’t worried. He knew they could lose them.

‘No. There’s only one of them.’

Murphy nodded. ‘The usual, then?’

They came to the head of the gorge and broke off to the right, where they came to a cave, the entrance fringed by ferns and spiderwebs and fallen branches. It was a crack in one of the smaller cliffs that held up the escarpment.

Glancing around to check the coast was clear, they ducked inside.

It was dusty, dirty, muddy, secret. Dripping bonnet mushrooms poked out of the olive-green moss near the entrance.

They stepped over discarded beer cans to get to the back of the cave, dodging a family of skinks, running their fingers over their names still engraved in the back wall, and out the back exit.