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you can sleep tonight. Do you have any questions?’
    ‘Just one. I’ll grab the aspirin now, and when your shift is over, meet me for a chat at the coffee place across the street? I’d love to catch up properly.’
    Julie’s mask slipped and she smiled. ‘See you in an hour and a half.’

CHAPTER THREE
    After buying aspirin at the chemist next to the clinic, Baxter took a walk up and down the town’s main street. Many of the shops and buildings from his childhood were still there, and brought up all kinds of fond memories.
    But he also recalled, with painful clarity, the day his mother told him with a smile that they’d soon be leaving Moondilla to live in Sydney.
    ‘But why?’ he asked, shocked.
    Frances sighed and tried to explain. ‘We were offered a very good price for our business, and we took it. Sydney’s a bigger market, with so many more people who want to dine out. We’ve already been offered a place to begin.’ She looked thrilled to be leaving their home, and Greg felt even worse.
    His face fell. ‘But I love it here, Mummy. The beach and the river are my favourite places.’
    ‘Sydney has one of the best harbours in the world, and there’s lots of beaches.’
    ‘They’ll all be crowded and ugly. It won’t be like here.’ Greg’s throat felt tight and tears stung his eyes. ‘The schools will be different too.’
    ‘Greg, you must allow your father and I to be the judges of what’s best for our family.’ She put her hands on his shoulders and gave them a comforting squeeze, gazing into his eyes. ‘I know it’s hard for you to understand, but I hope you can trust me. We’ve gone as far as we can go in Moondilla, and now it’s time to move on.’
    Greg went away dragging his feet. His mother’s announcement was the biggest item of news he’d ever had to digest, and there was only one person he felt disposed to talk to about it. This was the elderly World War One soldier who fished at the southern end of Main Beach, Albert Garland.
    Although the young Greg Baxter wasn’t then aware of it, Mr Garland had been decorated for gallantry in France. He’d also been gassed and hit by two bullets from a German machine gun. After surviving all of that, he’d lost his son in the Second World War, and then his wife had died when Greg was a baby.
    What moved young Greg was that Mr Garland didn’t treat him like a little boy, but spoke to him as he did to older people.
    Greg had first come across the old man on one of his many tramps around Moondilla. He knew every street of the town, and every nook and cranny, but he was always drawn most to the beaches and the river.
    He would sit on the rim of the beach and watch the old man fish, sometimes with a rod and at others a handline. Being a naturally curious little boy, Greg was always interested in the kinds of fish the old man caught. Soon the boy was sitting and watching every day he could, but he kept quiet, afraid that if he caused a disturbance he’d be told to go away.
    Finally, after several days of this, the old man spoke to him. ‘What’s your name, young man?’
    ‘It’s Greg. Greg Baxter. We own the restaurant in Moondilla.’
    ‘I’m Albert Garland. You can call me Mr Garland. Like fishing, do you?’
    ‘I like to see the different kinds of fish there are.’
    ‘I suppose you know them all, do you?’
    ‘No, but I know the ones my mum uses in the restaurant. Snapper and flathead mostly.’
    ‘Your mother can’t go wrong with them,’ Mr Garland said and nodded wisely. ‘Very good eating fish. I like them best myself.’
    The old man would make lunch of a sandwich and small thermos of tea. He carried them and his fishing gear in an ex-army haversack that had attracted Greg’s attention from the outset. Aside from the haversack, Mr Garland carried his rod and a sugar bag with a rope noose. He’d put his catch in the sugar bag and drop it into the water until it was time to leave, when he’d kill and clean the