Other witnesses made distressingly similar claims. Matty Shearer said he and his fiancée were looking for a refuge when they passed Caleb tying his bike to a park bench. Caleb remembered that conversation. ‘You better get away from here, mate, that front’s the biggest thing I’ve ever seen,’ Matty said.

Caleb tried reassuring him.

‘He was nuts!’ Matty said, now. ‘Fire was coming and he was hanging around worrying about his fucking bike!’ He looked at the bench. ‘’Scuse the French, your magistratcy. I mean, his bloody bicycle.’

Vanessa Thornton testified to passing Caleb. ‘It must have been about 4.40. Something like that. Twenty minutes after we left home. I stopped and told him it wasn’t safe. He said he was in the CFA and wanted to help fight fires. My husband was with me. He said, Going to light a bloody fire more like.’

‘Did your husband have a reason for suspecting the accused was an arsonist?’

‘Only that he nearly killed Sean Henderson.’

‘Objection!’

The magistrate murmured something about pretending she hadn’t heard Sean’s name. Caleb’s world went blurry, smoke in his eyes. Of course Sean would be mentioned. That was what should happen. He needed his pencils. All those emotions he drew because he couldn’t find words rose within him. Dread, shame, guilt. None of them quite right. All too heavy to carry.

Douglas turned swiftly to Caleb. ‘Are you all right?’

Footsteps echoed. ‘He’s about to faint!’ Mum’s voice, coming closer though she wasn’t allowed in the dock. The smoke stopped making sense. It was too early for smoke.

It was that day. Caleb was riding home, despite waves of dry heat and dusty wind, riding quickly, winged as the god Mercury who Mum talked about. Mercury, as a newborn god, made fire from straw by striking stones together. Mercury left his mother Maia behind the day he was born, he was so precocious.

Caleb had to get his Sean the Adventurer sketchbook. He should have taken it earlier. That was what the warnings really meant. To be prepared, to keep your precious things safe. He’d known there might be a fire but had never really believed it might come here, to Gran’s house, where everything always stayed the same. Then in a CFA briefing, the real danger became apparent to him. Caleb couldn’t forget the hours he’d put into his Sean stories. Leaving the book behind was like abandoning Sean, sentencing him to a wheelchair for a second time. Caleb couldn’t. He checked his watch, knowing that by now the CFA was establishing a refuge in St Monica’s hall. That was where Penelope should be, not at Creepy Chic. That was where he needed to take her. But first, he had to go home. It shouldn’t take long.