Lowther was a pretty collection of houses but here and there on the outer edges rundown dwellings stood on largish blocks, the kinds of places defined by unexplained traffic night and day. Car bodies and truck chassis melded with unmown grass, and newish cars, utilities and 4WDs crammed the driveways, the parched lawns, the kerb outside. Inside, through the dope haze, the décor would be beer-can pyramids and pizza boxes, the detritus of the residents and assorted uncles, cousins, girlfriends, neighbours, temporary pub mates and hangers-on. Long periods of stunned calm would be punctuated by flaring violence around who swiped the last beer. On Tuesday night Grace had picked out one such house on the outskirts of Lowther, and now, 10.30 on Wednesday evening, she parked the rented Camry outside it, squeezed between a hotted-up Holden panel van and a rustbucket Kombi. No one would look twice at the Camry; it could belong to anyone on that street. She got out, carrying a nylon duffle bag. Inside it were two similar bags folded to the size of paperbacks, spare clothes in a waterproof compartment, a bottle of drinking water and the tools for this job: screwdriver, Swiss Army knife, wire cutters, a chisel, nail pullers, torch, duct tape, prepaid mobile phone, digital camera, a thin steel pry bar and the spray can of insulation foam.
