“Are you?”

“Well, how can I be? You’ve run away, Jessa’s been taken by someone you’ve both told me is a serial killer, Ben’s reading the Old Testament and keeps quoting vengeance scenes and Jonah Griggs in the same breath, and Chaz is so down that he didn’t speak for half the time I was with him last night.”

“What did you do for the other half?” I ask.

“Very funny, Taylor. Come home and stop making things complicated,” she says angrily.

“I can’t find my mother and things are complicated.”

“Then make them simple and come home.”

“Just get Jessa back. I’ll be there soon.”

Griggs sits on the kerb with me, holding something that he’s yanked out of the engine. I can tell he has absolutely no idea what to do with cars and the more he looks at it, the more confused he is. I don’t know what to concentrate on and in what order. Should I begin with my mother, who checked out of a hospice for God knows what reason? Or with the Brigadier, who I’ve just discovered is one of her beloved childhood friends? Or maybe with Raffy, who is worried about Chaz? Or Jessa, who is being questioned as we speak? Or should I begin with Griggs, who I…who I what? I don’t even know what terminology to use. Did we have sex? Did we make love? Did we sleep together? Is he my boyfriend? And Hannah? Where’s Hannah in all this?

“We’re going to have to take the train to Yass and then make our way from there,” Griggs says. “We’ll have to leave the car here.”

I look at him and shake my head. “You’ve officially given me an aversion to trains leading to Yass,” I say. I dial directory assistance. “The Jellicoe Police Station,” I say.

Griggs is looking at me as if I’m insane. They connect me and I wait for someone to answer. I say who I am and then I ask for Santangelo’s dad. I wait less than three seconds and he’s on the line.

“Taylor? Where are you?” Shitty tone.

“In Sydney. Is Jude Scanlon there?”

“No. Is Jonah with you?”

“Yes.”

I hear the first sigh of relief. Two missing kids located. Tick.

“Can we expect you back soon?” He’s now using a measured tone.

“Depends on the Brigadier. Can you give him a message? Tell him that we’ll be at the hospice. The one he signed my mother out of six weeks ago. He can ring us there or he can ring us on Jonah’s phone. Tell him I want to know where my mother is and where Hannah is and I want Jessa McKenzie back in the dorms ASAP.”

“Anything else?” Now it’s a dry tone.

I’m about to say ‘No’ and hang up but I change my mind. “Yes, actually there is something else,” I say. “I met this boy here who I knew as a kid and his mum left him with a pedophile for two weeks when he was eight years old and I’m presuming you know everything there is to know about Jonah’s father, and that my father is dead, and my mother hasn’t been around for years, and God knows Jessa’s real story. So what I’m saying here, Sergeant, is that we’re just a tad low on the reliable adult quota so you have no right to be all self-righteous about what Chaz did and if you’re going to go around not talking to him when his only crime was wanting me to have what he has, then I think you’re going to turn out to be a bit of a dud and you know something? I’m just a bit over life’s little disappointments right now. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

He’s silent for a moment.

“We just want you back here.” The caring tone in his voice makes me want to cry but I need to keep my anger focused or I’ll stop moving forward.

“Why?”

“Because it’s what your mother wants and if she knew you were somewhere out there meeting up with God knows who, it would—”

“No lectures,” I say. “Just answers. Please.”

I hear him sigh.

“I’ll talk to Chaz and I’ll give Jude your message. He’ll have the answers, Taylor.”

I hang up, and Griggs looks at me, stunned.

“You are very scary sometimes.”

I give him back the phone and lean my head on his shoulder.

“Do you think the Brigadier will come and get us?” I ask.

“It’s eleven thirty,” he says. “It’s a six-to seven-hour trip, tops. I’ll bet you two trillion dollars that he’ll be here by six P.M. on the dot.”

When he wins the bet, I tell Griggs that it will take me a lifetime to save up two trillion dollars and he tells me that he’s only giving me seventy years.

The Brigadier pulls up in front of the hospice and as he gets out of the car, it’s very clear that he’s not happy. Like Griggs, it’s the first time I’ve seen him out of uniform and it’s really the first time I’ve got a proper look at him. I must shiver because Griggs leans over and whispers to me not to worry. The Brigadier notices the exchange and I can tell he’s unimpressed. There’s a look in his eyes that says I know what you did last night.

“Hannah’s out of her mind with worry.”

“Really?” I say. “Well, now she must know how I’ve felt for the past six weeks.”

He dismisses me with a look and turns to Griggs. “I’ll drop you off at your home, Jonah. We’ll be back in two days, anyway, so there’s no point you coming all the way back.”

I can’t move. I’m stuck to Griggs, not wanting to let go. I hate this man for even suggesting it but Griggs gently pushes me to the front passenger seat.

“I’d prefer to return, sir.”

“It’s not really an option, Jonah,” he says quietly.

“Sir, whether you drive me there or whether I hitch, I’ll be returning to camp.” Griggs doesn’t even raise a sweat, which is amazing because I know how he feels about the Brigadier. He gets into the back seat and calmly puts on his seatbelt. The Brigadier looks at him through the rear-view mirror.

“It would have been better to have left this where it was three years ago.”

“This,” I presume, is my relationship with Griggs.

“Like you and Narnie did?” I ask. “You had a choice. You could have kept away but you came back.”

He sits, staring ahead.

“Where’s my mother?” I ask.

The Brigadier starts the car and pulls out of the narrow street.

“Where are they? My mum and Hannah?”

“We can’t see them for now.”

“Stop the car!” I say angrily.

He continues driving.

“I want to see them now.” I take off my seatbelt. “Stop the car.”

He doesn’t stop and I hit him hard. The car swerves and Griggs comes over the back of my seat and grabs hold of me.

“Taylor, calm down,” he says firmly, not letting go. The Brigadier slows down and pulls over to the side of the road. I’m so furious with him I want to hurt him more than anyone I have ever known.

“Soon,” he says, and I realise that I’ve winded him. “It’s what Tate wants, Taylor, and it might seem like the most unfair thing in the world to you but we have to go by what she wants.”

I relax a little and Griggs lets go.

“Sir,” he says, and there’s something different in his voice. “Tell her the truth. Please.”

I don’t understand what he’s talking about until Griggs leans forward.

“Her mum was in a hospice. My nan was in a hospice. I know what that means.”

The Brigadier looks at me and I see him swallow hard. Slowly things start falling into place. “She doesn’t have long.”

I hear a sound. Like some kind of animal in pain and I realise that it has come from my throat. The next minute I’m out of the car and I’m running hard. I hear the pounding of heavy boots behind me and feel a hand snake out to grab me. It stops me but I wriggle out of the Brigadier’s grasp and smash him hard over and over again. My hand is a fist and I’m yelling with rage and it hurts to be feeling this much. For a while he lets me pound into him, like he’s resigned himself to this. Then he grabs my arms painfully and holds me tight, muffling my face against him and I hear the beating of his heart against my cheek.

Suddenly, I’m somewhere else, in another time. On the shoulders of a giant. I had wanted them to be my father’s shoulders and all this time they were Jude’s. But he holds on to me in a way that Hannah never has. I feel his relief, like he hasn’t held someone in a long, long time. And he’s wanted to.