‘You mean her sticky fingers?’ said Butch. ‘I barely saw her lift that bag and stuff it up her sleeve.’

‘No, I meant her — what?’

‘Nothing,’ said Butch, his smile growing wider.

‘Shit!’ Murphy ran to the door, knocking over his chair, leaping over a hissing Myrtle, stumbling out onto the street. The ever-present valley breeze of Limestone Creek brought the country town smell of diesel, smoke and gumtree.

Up the end of the street, Jasmine was already climbing into the bus. It was a good fifty metres – she must have run the whole way to get so far ahead of him. She scampered up inside.

Murphy sprinted towards the bus, dodging over broken pavers, a Jack Russell running to a nearby fence and yapping at him.

The bus pulled away. A magpie called from a gumtree above as he slowed, bare feet aching from the hard pavement.

Across the street were two young women in matching Adidas jogging gear. They giggled. Peggie and Darcy, the housemates from down the road. He knew them, of course: he knew nearly everyone who lived around here. They had their phones out, the cameras pointed his way.

He realised he was still in his undies.

He hurried back home.

The door was shut.

He pushed it.

Locked.

‘Butch, don’t be a knob.’ He pounded on the door with his fist, glancing back at Peggie and Darcy, who were waving at him.

The window beside the door opened and Butch’s face appeared. ‘Hey, everyone!’ he shouted. ‘Murph is outside in his undies!’

‘I’m gonna punch you in the balls.’

‘There’s a man who is starkers outside! Someone call the cops! Hey, how you going, ladies? Murphy’s looking a bit cold, hey?’

Peggie and Darcy laughed, a kookaburra took up the call, and the Jack Russell kept barking.

‘You’re dead, Butch,’ said Murphy. He stalked around the side of the house and pulled himself over the peeling white fence.

Their backyard was a tangle of weeds, long grass and scraggly bush. There was a chicken coop in the far corner, a shed in the other, and a rusty Hills Hoist stood in the middle. There was no back fence, the yard backing onto a line of blackberry bushes and white gums. Their property here in the outskirts of Limestone Creek bordered the Western Tiers National Park. One and a half kilometres away, hidden in all that scrub and bush, was his and Butch’s marijuana crop, the route leading there rigged up with homemade booby traps.