Nina shook her head. ‘I’m not sure what you’re objecting to, gentlemen. Perhaps you think this evidence is prejudicial. I remind you there’s no jury. I assure you no evidence could unreasonably prejudice me.’

Douglas was bewildered. ‘I do accept that. Nevertheless… Your Honour, this is news for me too. I request a short recess.’

Nina nodded. ‘Mr Scott, I assume you’d have no objection to that?’

A recess? Would they be sent back to the conference room? Would Caleb have to talk to Mum? Could he refuse? He collapsed back against his seat in the dock while the rest of the court attendees slowly filed out.

Sometimes Caleb imagined he really had been responsible for the fires. The day really might have unfolded as the prosecutors claimed. Sparks might have fallen from his hot, guilty fingers or rays flashed from his bloodshot, guilty eyes. He could nearly see it. Himself with a box of matches, lighted cardboard strips falling from his fingers – here, the fantasy faltered. He didn’t use matches. He had a Bic lighter. The prosecution had never found that.

He remembered the days after the fire, being in hospital. He heard a patient in the next ward suffered burns going right down to his bones. So much nerve damage, he couldn’t even feel pain. No pain. It was actually a tempting thought. Just how much damage to his mind would Caleb have to do, before emotional pain went away? Perhaps he was tempted by drugs after all…

Then, returning home from hospital, head bandaged, hands burned, Caleb felt like the dead protagonist of one of those movies where selfish people are given a second chance at life. Ashes fell on him but they only provided the outermost layer of his filth; what they concealed was what was foulest about him: his rottenness, all the way through.

Crows had returned before him and they screamed, swearing and full of scorn. Death hadn’t left, and never would. It was a town that flourished and faded along with the Gold Rush, leaving fewer people walking the streets than lying in the cemetery. There, greying stones leaned listless as broken teeth in a scab-coloured mouth of rusty fences and exposed dirt. Like someone had punched the place in the face and left it there, unconscious, while the blood dried. Each building sparked the memory of someone: store owners, bitchy Ingrid and dishonest Darren – his teacher, kind Ms Tillman, old school friends, angry Rosie.