David McRobbie Quotes

“While Dad often made wisecracks about his origins, he always promised that one day the four of us would visit Australia, maybe even stay for a while.”

“All presente and correct,′ the driver added. Ahead of us, the other Granada was already parked near the front entrance - but there was no sign of Dad or Nicola. Our driver switched off the lights and the engine. ‘You folks go in, I ‘ll bring the bags,’ he said as he got out.”

“How could someone like my dad be in trouble? It wasn’t the sort of thing you’d expect of him. He’s a big, open, easygoing Australian. He came over from Brisbane with qualifications on accountancy, intending to study economics -which is how he met Mum, who was reading English Literature at the University of Manchester.”

“But- ‘I started to say, looking from one to the other of these strangers. Who were they? What was going on? There was another man in the living room, half of head shorter than the first, with a bushy moustache that spread across his cheeks.”

“Things went bad for a while. The accounting practice he’d had been with for years folded suddenly. Then Dad joined with a friend, Alec Cowan, to start their own consultancy.”

After moving around to several towns in the UK, the family finally emigrates to Australia, but trouble still follows them there.

“When I reached home, parked in front of our house were two dark cars with tinted windows -Granadas, identical except for their registration numbers. I saw them as soon as I turned the corner into Stretton Road, but because of those windows it was impossible to see if anyone was inside.”

Emma and her family are abruptly torn from their home and everything they know when their father is placed on the Witness Protection Scheme.

“But in the busy foyer of Knutsford Inn there was to be no giggling between Nicola and me. Already we have a sense that in the morning we wouldn’t be going back home. The whole situation was so unusual, so dreamlike.”