‘Fire away,’ he says, too loudly. ‘What’s on your mind?’

‘Are you sure Mandy left with Steve? They moved away together?’

He finishes his cigarette before he replies. ‘Where’s this coming from? Haven’t we talked this over already?’

‘I don’t think so. Not really.’

‘I thought we had. I thought I’d told you they moved away. Wasn’t I clear about that?’

Isla makes herself face him. He stares back at her, drunkenly belligerent.

‘You don’t believe me,’ he says.

‘I think you might be sticking to your story.’

‘Lying, you mean? Is that what you think?’

‘Maybe.’ A cool wind blows in from the south, spinning the Hills Hoist, lifting her costume into the air. ‘Maybe you told me the same thing you told Mum when we got back from England. Mandy and Steve moved away.’

‘They did.’

‘Please don’t lie to me, Dad.’

He drains the contents of his mug, opening his throat, tipping his head back. It’s not coffee. Isla knows the burn in his chest as he swallows, the warmth in his head.

‘I’m not lying,’ he says.

‘Steve Mallory says you are.’

He becomes very still. ‘What?’

‘He says he left without Mandy. He left her behind with you. He’s told the police you’re lying.’

‘And you believe him?’

Her throat aches. ‘I want to believe you.’

‘But you don’t.’

‘I think you might be keeping something from me.’

He pats his pockets for his cigarettes, lights one with a shaking hand, smiles at her unconvincingly.

Surely not, she thinks. Surely not.

‘I’ll tell you something, Isla. Something I didn’t tell you before.’

‘Go on.’

‘Steve Mallory took a baby. An Aboriginal kid. A baby boy.’

She looks away. ‘You already told me about that. I know he removed kids.’

‘But he kept this one.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Little black fella. Screamed all night,’ he says, leaning dangerously out of his chair to gesture towards the yard next door. ‘Screamed all night and half the day too.’ He rocks back towards her on his chair.

‘I don’t see what this has got to do with Mandy.’

‘You don’t want to hear it. Nobody ever does.’

‘I want you to tell me about Mandy.’

He stabs at the table with his forefinger. ‘This is about him. Steve Mallory, the bloke whose story you’re swallowing. He kept a baby for himself. He wanted a child of his own so he kept one.’

She takes a mouthful of coffee and lets him talk, half listening.

‘He gets to have a family,’ Joe says. ‘Never mind about the family he broke up.’ He lifts his mug and finds it empty.

‘Steve doesn’t have a family. He’s on his own.’

‘Who told you that?’

She wants to tell him: I went to see Steve and he badmouthed you. He tried to turn me against you. There’s a time she would have said that. She would have known whose side she was on.

‘I’ve been asking around,’ she says. ‘Trying to get to the truth.’