My first step was a search on the name Shirley. I don’t know what I expected to find. Perhaps an email from the Retirement Home apologising for her escape before the fire, or evidence that she had previously tried to light a fire. I found nothing. I searched next for files saved recently. Some were autopsy reports, with harrowing details. A child who died in her parents’ laundry, unable to unlock the door. (Why weren’t lock makers being blamed?) Others were Jack’s memories and personal thoughts. He’d once told me that from fear he’d forget things, like his mother, he kept a journal. I found an entry about his earliest involvement with Taskforce Phosphorus and imagined him, footsteps angry and heavy on the floor. Thump. Thump. Ears still buzzing from the inferno, tuning in and out of conversations. ‘We’re Taskforce what?’

‘Phosphorus. I heard.’

‘Oh yeah? And what does that mean when it’s at home?’

The police commissioner appeared, Jack’s boss with him, arguing about who should have known what, and when. The commissioner began, Jack recorded, by spouting off about taskforce figures and other bullshit.

‘We can’t brief the press fully. Not yet. Some fires are still burning.’

‘Then let us get back to bloody work,’ Jack growled.

‘About this alleged arsonist,’ one of his colleagues said. ‘It’s time for a name.’

‘I don’t need to emphasise that this information stays here. With us.’ The commissioner paused, looking around the room for assent. There were grunts and nods.

‘The possible offender is one Caleb Wharton.’ Backdraught, Jack thought. A dying fire suddenly exploded when more oxygen was added.

I learned more about Jack’s emotions in those files than about facts that could help free Caleb. I discovered reasons to feel guilty, for not trusting him, for being, myself, so untrustworthy. But I still didn’t trust him. If Shirley had been in Anzac Avenue, in the creek bed that separated my house from her Retirement Home, Jack knew. I wouldn’t allow him to sacrifice my son to save his mother. But how could lying about where she was really matter? Could Jack’s motives be more mercenary than that? Jack had a file labelled FINANCIAL. Documents within confirmed a detail I’d forgotten – just as Caleb owned our home, Shirley owned Jack’s. If Shirley was found guilty, Jack risked losing all that property that still existed. I googled dementia and arson. I made plans to visit Shirley. I’d bring her to the stand, get Jack to admit she was in Brunton that day. If necessary, I’d talk to her carers and demand that they testify. It might hurt Jack but that wasn’t my fault. I had to free Caleb.