‘Nope. The pharmacy?’ That’s where he’d been headed, I thought.

‘I’m just about to check. There’ll be things we need to secure.’

I fell into step beside him.

The side wall of Brunton Pharmacy had caved in, blistered and blackened. What might have been a skylight had melted like ice and resolidified into a misshapen puddle on the ground. Something had prevented the fire from moving further, or perhaps it was nothing. The door fell away in Jack’s hand, crashing into the rubble and debris beyond. He walked through the crooked frame. ‘We could do with extra bandages.’

‘It feels like breaking in.’

‘It isn’t.’

Like other locations we inspected, the pharmacy had areas that were destroyed and areas that survived. The storefront – once displaying make-up, soap, cameras – all of that was smoke and ashes. But the dispensary at the rear still had boxes and bottles leaning sideways on collapsed shelves. The till was ready to register a sale. I thought of stories I’d heard, of the lengths addicts would go to to obtain stolen drugs. Jack’s need to secure the place made sense. I watched him packing the drugs. His hand hovered over a shelf of Tramadol and he glanced up. ‘I’ll get you to sign that you witnessed this.’

‘Maybe you should have someone here with you?’

‘You’re someone.’

‘I mean, someone official.’

‘If people won’t trust the local school principal, who will they trust?’

I raised my eyebrows as he pocketed a box of nicotine patches. ‘So much smoke around. But I’m still gunna need these.’

Maybe then I could have told him about my own addiction, the collection I’d have to confess to if I ever wanted again to share a house with a partner, the way I’d once had to confess it to Stephen. I don’t know. The moment didn’t last.

Jack frowned. ‘Yeah, I’ll pay for the patches.’

‘That wasn’t what I—’

Jack pulled out a torch because even at 10 am we remained in smoke-induced night. He peered into corners and drawers. ‘We’ve secured everything dangerous. Let’s move on.’

After a soaring eucalypt that played guardian to the crossroads near Setback Mountain, we passed tree trunks strewn over the road: a giant game of pick-up sticks. Coroner’s notices and more tape appeared on the gates to properties where people had died. The entire town was a crime scene. Where fire had been strongest the road finally failed, fading into the ashes of the Caltex as if that collapsed and deadened place had always been its final destination.

‘The fire reached this exact spot when the wind changed.’ Jack stood, one sturdy boot on untouched grass, the other on charcoal and ashes. Between his legs, the line marking what was burned and what survived ran uphill and out of sight, a demarcation between limbo and hell.

Fallen trees, still smouldering, made it impossible to stay on the left side of the road, so Jack kept his lights on and drove slowly. Closer to town, a block or two from the St Monica’s hall refuge, a horrifying sight took me back to the fire. A bloom of three cars huddled near a collapsed tree that blocked the road. I’d been here before with Caleb. The vehicles’ occupants had become trapped.