A police car passed, perhaps the same one that passed me a year ago. Fear accelerating, I dropped the phone into my bag. I followed Main Road for a couple more kilometres, watching as blue and red lights pulled ahead. Traffic thinned. I turned on the radio with a finger shaky as strips of shedding bark.

Two police cars were parked at the top of my drive. Reporters clustered around them like flies around dog poo. Sadie Riley stood at the edge of my property, straining to see.

I climbed from my car and checked my letterbox automatically. There was a letter from the university Caleb planned – had planned (the tense of everything had changed) – to attend.

I crunched through pebbles and charcoal in my front yard, reaching my door just as Detective Hong Feng, in a plastic suit, stepped outside.

He called over his shoulder, ‘The mother’s here.’

‘Detective Feng,’ I said. ‘I recognise your…’ I touched my top lip.

Sadie Riley followed me to the door. ‘Phoebe Wharton,’ she said into a microphone. ‘Now do you have something to say?’

‘You don’t have to talk to her,’ Detective Feng advised. ‘Bloody vulture.’

I had at least one thing to feel satisfied about: Sadie hadn’t realised I had her press ID. What would the police do, finding it? What would they make of the rest of my collection? They could be examining my things right now. Perhaps I was safe. Few items were inscribed or tagged with names.

‘I’m just after a comment.’ Sadie’s tone suggested she was sick of being forced to tolerate this unreasonable behaviour. ‘Ms Wharton, police have executed a search warrant. How do you feel?’

‘I need you to remain outside,’ Detective Feng said to me. ‘We’re nearly finished.’

‘Have you found anything?’ Sadie asked him.

They brushed Sadie away like a blowfly. I waited in my car until I was allowed inside. Then I discovered my home had been wrecked. Hallway drawers were tipped out, clothes flung out of rooms, pictures thrown off walls. A lot of anger had gone into this. Dogs still yapped at the far end of the house. Caleb’s room. Yapped, and were encouraged.

In the kitchen, Detective Feng boiled water. ‘Tea, Ms Wharton?’

‘I want to know everything you took.’

‘You’ll be given a list.’

I clenched and unclenched my hands, as if the rights I wanted to assert were a squishy stress toy. ‘You shouldn’t be making a mess,’ I told him. ‘Breaking things.’

‘Breaking things?’ He mocked my small protest. ‘Let me tell you. My boss is a veteran of Afghanistan. Says he saw war horrors that’d make you sick. Slaughtered children. He never saw anything like the Brunton fire. You understand me? Brunton was worse than a war-zone. Someone needs to be punished.’