The miner who lived here would have panned for gold in the creek before beginning to dig. There was no way to know how successful he’d been. He certainly hadn’t felt the need to take his tin plate. Perhaps he’d left in a hurry. The plate now rested in my cedar chest. I’d rescued it. It had survived a century here, but wouldn’t have survived the fire.

‘Caleb loved the lyrebird that lived here.’

‘Amazing things, lyrebirds,’ Jack said.

Suddenly I found myself crying. Because no lyrebird was here, repeating strange song stories. Because Caleb, in dressing like a goth, had been doing the equivalent of trying on the sounds and the appearance of another creature. Because this year there would be no autumn. There were no leaves to fall, no living eucalypts to shed their bark. Not a single reminder that this was once a living place. Fire had changed Earth’s rotation, stolen an entire season. Jack stepped closer like he wanted to hold me but even that kind restraint was suddenly unbearable. I wiped my eyes and tried to explain. ‘It mimicked the sound of a lawnmower, and a tractor. And a magpie. Once I heard it mimicking a police siren.’

I crouched to scoop a handful of rubble. The creek bed’s pebbles, worn smooth by millennia of running water, were still here, beneath the ash and soot. Jack bent too. Distrustful, I pushed him away. Jack pulled a torch from his pocket and shone its beam beneath the collapsed roof. For once, there was no danger of snakes. There were no snakes.

A four-wheel drive rumbled over the old dirt track, stopping nearby. Two Elecnet workers climbed out. One of them poked at the police tape with the toe of his heavy boot. ‘G’day. Is this the arsonist’s shed?’

Jack stepped in front of me, sticking out one hand. ‘Bob and Bruce. I’m Jack Laskin. CFA. We met the other day.’

‘There’s no evidence of arson,’ I said. These were the workers Jack mentioned in his notes. ‘It could’ve been clashing electrical wires.’

The Elecnet employees laughed at this possibility. Bob said, ‘They’d have to be live to cause a fire. The one time a blackout suits us. We’ve got wires to fix before it gets dark. I heard Caleb Wharton was seen prowling around here. That this is the way he’d ride to his girlfriend’s house.’

‘Girlfriend?’ repeated Bruce. ‘Heard her on the radio. Wharton killed her parents. Left her behind and murdered her whole family.’

Bob swore. ‘Fucking bastard. Deserves to hang.’