And there were other possibilities. A paedophile who went too far destroying evidence against him. A terrorist. We were always told to look out for abandoned bags and people behaving suspiciously. Why, in one breath, did police admit terrorists were trying to destroy us and, in the next, blame a violent attack on an Australian teenager who never hated anyone? If I were a police investigator, terrorism was where I’d start looking. And I’d consider people like… well, say the fire expert, Oscar Lynch. He had described arsonists as being obsessed with fire – but wasn’t he, himself, obsessed? I turned off my phone and leaned against the headrest, staring out at my destroyed home.

Could this have happened? On the day of the fire, had Caleb trudged through my kitchen, down the back stairs, through the yard, past the manna gum, to the fossicker’s hut? Had he gathered sticks and twigs and bark as kindling and lit the fire? Had he wanted people to die? Even more horrifying – had he not cared who might die?

No. Not that.

No motive I read fitted Caleb. Not the Caleb I knew. What if I didn’t really know him? Caleb was quickening inside my imagination as he’d quickened inside my womb. I returned to Google. All it took was a few clicks on my phone and I had his Facebook page.

What’s wrong with you? a girl named Becky demanded on his newsfeed. I know you’ve got the hots for Penelope. But people with the hots don’t… like, burn down houses.

Further down the page, I saw photos of his old Melbourne friends. Through his Goth Chat page, I found a link to a graphic drawing group. Caleb published none of his own art (as far as I could tell) but occasionally got involved in arguments about goths and anime.

Searching his name, I read the public posts he’d made for years, including things about Stephen and me. I shouldn’t have read those. Caleb and I hadn’t always been best friends. He had opinions about me that I didn’t need to see. I went inside, fighting the feeling I was the betrayed, not the betrayer. There are some things parents aren’t meant to know.

I remembered Jack saying that old Bruntonians had been through enough fires that they would know what to do. They hadn’t known what to do. Perhaps they felt shame as well as grief. Perhaps this was one more reason they wanted someone to blame.