'She remained looking down for a moment. Then she put out her arms for balance and performed the little dance of stamping embers to ash with one boot sole. That done, she turned and looked directly at the rock platform, the only place there could be witnesses. And saw one, must have - me.'
Graham runs a nursery in Katoomba. He and Meredith are edging towards marriage.
One morning in early spring there are sirens outside the nursery. Police and fire engines descend on the supermarket. The nursery empties - except for a young woman standing just inside the gate, watching.
Next morning a plant, scorched, is sitting on the nursery path. It is clearly a warning. But why, and of what? Puzzled and angry, Graham goes looking for the woman - and late that night finds himself in Kingsford Smith Park on a beach with his trousers round his ankles.
A modern cautionary tale, 'Zippo' seamlessly charts both the sexual awakening of a grown man and the compelling logic of obsession.
