Even after a bottle of wine, I relived today’s court appearances, I couldn’t escape them. I’d spotted Selena Branham, Caleb’s one-time doctor, outside the court. She took my elbow and peered into my eyes. ‘Are you sure you’re well?’

She was a witness. A doctor who’d sworn an oath. First, do no harm.

‘I haven’t slept in six nights.’

She frowned. ‘Insomniacs often get more sleep than they realise.’

‘I know when I’m awake.’

Another woman thrust a book into my hands – a home-printed volume that I’d seen before, put together by a group called Justice for Caleb. She wore a long patchwork skirt with sports socks and battered trainers. I flicked through the pages and tried to be thankful. But these conspiracy theory nuts, who claimed the trial was a cover-up, did more harm than good. They made Caleb look as mad as them, and their story was as much a fantasy as the prosecution case. I realised that what stories – what literature – had taught me was wrong. Milton said sunshine ripened witts as well as fruits but in this excess of sunshine, everyone just seemed stupid.

Jack called to remind me we had dinner planned for Saturday. Tomorrow. A concept I found difficult to believe in.

CALEB

The rest of Caledonia would have another normal day. Tourists ordered beer at the Caledonia Brewery, near the stage where Mum once played and probably never would again. For many of them, there might as well never have been any fires. At the Magistrates Court, concealed within his scarf and weight, Caleb cleared hair from his eyes and risked a glance around.

For the first time he noticed how much Dad had changed. Jacket over his arm, Dad looked like Grandad. If Ivy was with him, she’d pass for his daughter. Caleb’s older sister. Caleb tried imagining that. But Ivy wasn’t with Dad, and Dad no longer looked like a man Ivy would marry. He’d no longer pass as a successful lawyer. The Brunton people here who used to describe him as a local boy made good – who thought Caleb might live up to him – what did they make of Dad now?

Mum carried some sketchbooks into the conference room and flipped through the pages, pausing at a Sean the Adventurer image of Sean before the car accident, scruffy and grinning, with a missing front tooth. His right arm was wrapped around a squirming Pattern.

‘You’ve got Sean’s face just right. And the dog looks alive.’

He’d tried explaining the importance of art to Mum, even recently. ‘What was the fire like for you?’ he’d asked. ‘The flames? Were they like animals or mountains…’