‘My mother likes trsss,’ Annaliese had said to me. ‘That’s why we live out here.’

Maybe Kate did like trees. I knew that she ran on the bush tracks on the back of Mount Coot-tha early in the morning. I couldn’t picture her in the statement house, or the life that went with it, even if she had downsized unwillingly to get where she was. Annaliese had a better version of the story. I could see Kate saying it, however many years ago, as they drove along Gap Creek Road, past caramel-coloured cows and landscape gardeners, high eucalypts and dense bush, signs advertising horse poo for two dollars a bag. Maybe it was a dollar back then.

‘Look at the trees, look at the trees, and we’re still close to everything.’

She was finding the best way through for all three of them.

She phoned me later in the afternoon. ‘I’m on the back verandah,’ she said, in what sounded like a harsh whisper. ‘It’s cordless. The phone.’

I rolled my chair forward and looked up through the studio window, but couldn’t see her through the bushes.

‘I’m in the studio,’ I whispered back. ‘Phone with a cord. Old school.’

She laughed, and said, ‘All right. What I meant was ... I was just about to put some laundry on and I found a bank slip in Mark’s pocket. I’ve just seen how much money he’s got.’ So she was outside, hiding from him to make the call. ‘I don’t know where it’s coming from and I don’t know what he’s going to do with it.’

‘Well, unless it’s a middling two-figure sum, it’s not all from me.’ I stood up, and walked as far as the cord would let me. My back was stiff from sitting.

‘No, I figured that. But thanks for confirming. It’s not a two-figure sum. More like a four-figure sum. We all know he’s ripping you off, but he’s not ripping you off that much.’

‘All? Who’s all?’

‘No one. It’s ... I can’t ask him. I haven’t even been into his bedroom this year. I just demand his sheets fortnightly. And don’t think I didn’t try for weekly. I assume he puts the clean ones on when I give them to him. I’ve got no idea how he could have so much money.’

‘So, you want me to go undercover and find out?’

‘Yes. Yes, I do. That’d be great.’

It had been a joke, and then suddenly it wasn’t one. It was a straw, and she was clutching at it. ‘I’m not sure that I do undercover.’

There was nothing from Kate in reply. Nothing. Maybe a small ‘Oh’.

‘But maybe I could have a word with him.’ And what would that word be? I had no idea, but every other thing I could think of to say next – every way out – failed me, didn’t form itself into anything I could decently say. ‘I’ll do what I can.’

I heard her breathe out, and then she said, ‘Good. Thank you. Don’t feel you have to though. Only if it comes up. I was just a bit surprised by the amount of money he’s got. Don’t go thinking I’m totally crazy.’

‘Not totally.’

She laughed. ‘Thanks. That’s about the best I could hope for, I guess. If you need any help with the undercover thing, call me. I’ve got years of costume parties behind me, remember.’