‘You can’t keep us out! This is our home!’ the father yelled loudly.

Jack pulled up. The father waved his arm extravagantly at us. ‘They got through!’ he yelled. ‘Why not us?’

The police officer explained Jack’s emergency services role. We passed. My shoe kicked something in Jack’s footwell. I stooped and discovered a black-covered notebook.

‘My inquiries,’ Jack explained. ‘People I’ve spoken to. That sort of thing.’

Jack’s writing was cramped and hurried. This morning, while I’d been with Caleb, he’d been into the Yarra Valley as far as Linlithgow, investigating the level of destruction, the number of bodies. He also had printouts of emails he’d received earlier today.

Could Jack’s notes provide evidence clearing Caleb?

‘You shouldn’t really be reading…’

But Jack had to concentrate on the road. I read an Elecnet employee’s report that, because of ferocious winds, powerlines were down all around Brunton.

‘Who was this Elecnet guy?’ I demanded.

Jack sighed. ‘He asked me not to record his name.’

‘What else did he say?’

‘Phoebe!’

‘Jack, I need to know. I have to work out what really happened.’

Muscles moved in Jack’s jaw. Finally, he said, ‘He said Elecnet upkeep has been pretty slack for years.’

‘Has he told the police?’

‘Said he called them three times.’

I flipped through the rest of Jack’s notes. Where a statement seemed interesting, I used my phone camera to capture an image of the scrawl. Driving through tough terrain, Jack couldn’t see me, or pretended he couldn’t.

Two other witnesses reported loud noises near a place identified in Jack’s notes as Caleb’s shed. They meant the collapsed fossicker’s hut.

‘These noises. Did the witnesses know what they were?’ I asked.

Jack shook his head, and a moment later gave my knee a gentle squeeze. He wanted to show sympathy. ‘The police think it was whatever Caleb was doing.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t know. The Elecnet guy mentioned clashing of highvoltage powerlines.’

Electrical wires, pulled into a treacherous melody, like an Aeolian harp, sounded through my imagination. ‘Could that be it? Electrical wires? More than ten deaths?’

Jack sighed. ‘It’s been the case before. But I don’t think it was the wires. Not unless there’s been a real cover-up. I’ve thought about it, Phoebe. The whole area was blacked out by then.’

‘A cover-up?’

Jack sighed. ‘It would be just about impossible. Look, we need to leave this until later. We’re nearly at Mum’s place.’

Jack parked beneath the Brunton Retirement Home sign, outside the jumble of multi-storey red-brick wings that were partially visible through the bush from my kitchen window. He opened my door. Perhaps being near his mother reminded him of gentlemanly behaviour.

‘I’m still uncomfortable with her being here,’ he said. ‘I kept her at home for as long as I could.’