She took a corner so fast on the loose gravel of Lower Pinch Road that the back wheels spun out, taking her into the ditch. She righted the car, took a breath and steered back onto the road. The compulsion to speed made no sense—the police would most likely find Curtis Wigney before she did anyway. But Paula needed to use this ferocious energy before it burned itself out and left her with nothing but her own useless fucking failure.

She roared up the driveway to the Wigney house. No sign of his vehicle. No sign of him.

She saw the welt of churned-up dirt that ran from the driveway to the base of the concrete water tank. That was where Wigney had accelerated to slam the bull bar of his ute into a woman, smashing her pelvis. It was really only by chance that Nicole hadn’t been killed. It was only the difference of a few centimetres that the initial impact and the pressure of being pinned there hadn’t pounded her internal organs to a pulpy mess.

Nicole’s sandals were lying on the grass by the tank and Paula thought about the child seeing his mother lying there before he ran through the bush to the highway to flag down a passing truck.

Paula swung herself back behind the wheel of her car with the conviction that it was her responsibility to stop that man ever hurting anyone again and with the absurd belief that the intensity of her purpose would be enough to find him.

When she reached the highway, she turned south towards the town with the wrecker’s yard Wigney had talked about. It was the only other place she could think of to look.

At the speed she was driving, she chewed up the kilometres rapidly, reaching the outskirts of the next town, passing a roadside pub. A second after she sped past, her brain processed what she’d just seen: Curtis Wigney’s ute in the hotel car park. Paula swung her car into a U-turn.

Pulling into the car park, she was sure. The dusty green ute, a brawny steroidal thing—it was Wigney’s. That dickhead was in the pub enjoying a cold beer.

As she walked from her car to the entrance, Paula regretted not having her medical bag or a weapon or any means of neutralising the man. The only ‘weapon’ she had was her vehicle, and she pictured ramming him with her car, pinning his body against the side of his own ute. That would require luring him outside and she had no plan for achieving that. She had no coherent plan at all.