Penelope took the stand. Looking like what she was, a (very) young matron in a grey dress. Caleb watched her with eyes that seemed hungry and a little ashamed. He wasn’t surprised about her pregnancy at all. They must have kept in contact with each other.

Douglas asked, ‘You say Caleb came back and rescued you?’

Penelope was firm in her answer. ‘I would have died without him.’

Years ago, Stephen and I argued, and made up the only way we knew. Then Caleb existed. As easy as that. Not planned, but wanted. Then when we planned a sibling for him, I had one miscarriage and couldn’t get pregnant again. I never knew if the failure was Stephen’s or mine – well, not before Ivy got pregnant. Now I knew. But perhaps it was better, after all, that I’d never had another child. How would a sibling fare, related to this accusation? Caitlin, Stephen and I would have called a daughter. Would things have been different if Caleb had a sister, if Caitlin was more than a ghost? Maybe there wouldn’t have been any bushfire. I couldn’t let myself think like that.

Next, I remember Caleb as a sleeping child. My hand on his forehead, I’d wished to keep him innocent, forever.

CALEB

Hard as it had been to see Penelope’s pregnancy, at least he’d known about it from Facebook. And he’d known what she would say. He had texts from her, agreeing to that. But worse was coming now. Mum’s testimony. Caleb couldn’t look at Mum without seeing her shame about all those stolen things. What had she been thinking? Where were they from? His mind spun. Mum was a human being, faulty as anyone else, and the darker the rings beneath her eyes, the harder her actions were to predict. He had no influence on what she would say. It’d be what she thought was best, never considering what he wanted.

She took the stand. Everything would look so different from there! Mum would have an even clearer view of him, isolated in the dock that surely had been architecturally designed to make him look guilty.

Douglas began again, giving Mum the same smile he’d given Rosie. A glance that suggested attraction and communion. What a theatre this courtroom was!

‘You are Phoebe Elizabeth Wharton? Principal of Brunton Primary School? Can you explain why your son joined the CFA?’

Mum clenched her fists. ‘I can. Because Jack Laskin suggested it.’