MUM IS MISSING Liane Moriarty
The bike lay on the side of the road beneath a grey oak, the handlebars at an odd jutted angle, as if it had been thrown with angry force.
It was early on a Saturday morning, the fifth day of a heatwave. More than 40 bushfires continued to blaze doggedly across the state. Six regional towns had ‘evacuate now’ warnings but here in suburban Sydney the only danger was to asthma sufferers, advised to stay indoors. The smoke haze that draped the city was a malicious yellow-grey, as thick as a London fog.
The empty streets were silent apart from the subterranean roar of cicadas. People slept after restless hot nights of jangled dreams, while early risers yawned and thumb-scrolled their phone screens.
The discarded bike was shiny-new, advertised as a ‘vintage lady’s bike’: mint green, seven-speed, with a tan leather saddle and a white wicker basket. The sort of bike you were meant to imagine riding in the cool crisp air of a European mountain village, wearing a soft beret rather than a safety helmet, a baguette tucked under one arm.
Four green apples lay scattered on the dry grass beneath the tree
