Nearly two months had passed since the fire. One Saturday morning, I got up early to deliver Jeannie’s photo booklets to survivors at the relief centre. Outside, I discovered strips of toilet paper clinging to our house. Toilet paper. Like obscene strips of lichen, like burial winding clothes. Someone had thrown it there overnight. Caleb, who had come outside for a cigarette, stared, arms folded over his chest like a dead boy pharaoh. He promised he’d remove it by the time I got home. Shaking and uncertain of the reaction I’d get, I continued on to the relief centre at St Monica’s hall.

A new social hierarchy had been established at St Monica’s. The most important people were those who had lost the most. I was at the bottom of the heap. I had lost no one. Worse, they thought I had raised the arsonist.

They wouldn’t talk while I was there, even though they valued the photos. My heart sank. I’d hoped to find answers to my own questions. I had so many! Someone knew something. Who? Someone’s house had not yet been searched. Someone was getting away with this. Someone was protecting someone and doing a better job than me. But how? What legal recourse did I have?

Home, late afternoon, I dialled the Hawthorn house. Stephen answered but faint, and far from the receiver, I heard Ivy’s voice. ‘Who is it?’

‘Phoebe…’

Footsteps. Ivy again. Her voice in the background. Perfectly, intentionally audible. ‘I’m sick of this. The fire is a perfect excuse for her to—’

‘Phoebe, maybe talking over the phone isn’t the best idea,’ Stephen said. ‘Shall we meet at the Brunton Hotel? I can be there tomorrow.’

He kept talking while ringing off. ‘I have to do this,’ he told Ivy. ‘We share a son.’

So after school the next day I drove into town. The streets were deserted so it was easy to park near the Hotel. Scaffolding had been erected over its historic façade. Painters were doing their best to return the soot-stained tower to its usual pristine white while wind crackled, still hot, through charcoal and rising gusts of soot. New posters, encouraging locals to attend a climate change rally in town, provided the only colour.

Stephen was already seated near the bar’s broad front window, tapping on his phone and sipping from a large cup of coffee. He caught my eye and slid the phone into his grey suit pocket. We hadn’t met like this since I learned about Ivy. To be honest, we hadn’t had a serious conversion for a long while before then.

I sat opposite him and ordered a bottle of local shiraz with two glasses.

‘One glass. It’s still my working hours,’ Stephen said.

‘You want me to look like an alcoholic?’