Pierce might have rested but he didn’t feel rested. He’d left them for an hour hoping the woman-who was it? Shannon? No, Shanni-would arrive.

Even if she had arrived, she’d be long gone by now. The kids would be terrified.

He turned the last curve-and there was a police car in the yard.

The police…

It’d be the pharmacist, he thought, remembering the prissy set to the man’s mouth as he’d handed over Bessy’s medicine. The whole town thought these kids would be better off in care. And now…

‘I’ve stuffed it big time,’ he told Bessy as he lifted her from the car. ‘I don’t deserve to have you guys.’

Where was everybody?

Two policemen appeared from behind the hayshed.

Accompanied by a redhead.

A woman. Small. Slim. Faded jeans. Bright red windcheater, splodged with green paint. A yellow bandana catching back shoulder-length flaming curls. Green paint smeared on a snubbed nose. Freckles.

Memory stirred. One of Ruby’s family weddings. A nightmare of being alone. A kid the same age as him, taunting, ‘He’s one of Aunty Ruby’s strays. He’s a bastard. Bastard, bastard, bastard.’

Then a skinny little girl, dressed in a scarlet party frock and with a huge pink bow in her flaming hair, marching up to her big cousin and stomping hard on his foot. So hard the kid had yelped.

‘Gee, I’m sorry, Mac,’ she’d said, and she hadn’t sounded sorry at all. Then she’d turned to him and smiled. ‘Hi. My name’s Shanni. What’s yours?’

He’d remembered. That tiny piece of kindness and bravado had stayed with him, to be used as an inward smile at need.

Could this really be her?

‘Pierce, dear, we’re over here,’ she said, smiling brightly and waving to him like he was her long-time cousin. ‘How’s our darling Bessy? Did you get the things I wanted from the store?’