Rachel could hear herself breathing raggedy gasps. She wanted to lunge into the television and drag Janie away. What was she doing there? She must be in Connor’s bedroom. She was not allowed to be on her own in a boy’s bedroom. Ed would have a fit.

Janie Crowley, young lady, you come back home this minute.

‘Why do you need me actually in it?’ asked Connor, his eyes returning to the camera. ‘Can’t I just sit off camera?’

‘You can’t have your interview subject off camera,’ said Janie. ‘I might need this tape for when I apply for a job as a reporter on 60 Minutes.’ She smiled at Connor and he smiled back: an involuntary, smitten smile.

Smitten was the right word. The boy was smitten with her daughter. ‘We were just good friends,’ he told the police. ‘She wasn’t my girlfriend.’ ‘But I know all her friends,’ Rachel told the police. ‘I know all their mothers.’ She could see the polite restraint on their faces. Years later, when Rachel finally decided to get rid of Janie’s single bed she’d found a contraceptive pill packet hidden under the mattress. She hadn’t known her daughter at all.

‘So Connor, tell me about yourself.’ Janie held out the pencil.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Well, for example, do you have a girlfriend?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Connor. He looked keenly at Janie and suddenly seemed more grown-up. He leaned forward and spoke into the pencil. ‘Do I have a girlfriend?’

‘That would depend.’ Janie twisted her ponytail around her finger. ‘What do you have to offer? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? I mean, you need to sell yourself a bit, don’t you know.’

She sounded silly now, strident and whiny even. Rachel winced. Oh, Janie, darling, stop it! Speak nicely. You can’t talk to him like that. It was only in the movies that teenagers flirted with beautiful sensuality. In real life it was excruciating to watch them flailing about.

‘Jeez, Janie, if you still can’t give me a straight answer, I mean – fuck!’

Connor stood up from the bed and Janie gave a disdainful little laugh, while at the same time her face crumpled like a child’s, but Connor only heard the laugh. He walked straight towards the camera. His hand reached out so that it filled the screen.

Rachel held out her hand to stop him. No, don’t turn it off. Don’t take her away from me.

The screen instantly filled with static, and Rachel’s head jerked back as if she’d been slapped.

Bastard. Murderer.

She was filled with adrenaline, exhilarated with hatred. Why, this was evidence! New evidence after all these years!

‘Call me any time, Mrs Crowley, if you think of anything. I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night,’ Sergeant Bellach had said that so many times it had got boring.

She never had before. Now at least she had something for him. They would get him. She could sit in a courtroom and watch a judge pronounce Connor Whitby guilty.

As her fingers jabbed at Sergeant Bellach’s numbers, she bounced up and down impatiently on the balls of her feet, while the image of Janie’s crumpled face filled her head.

Chapter seventeen

‘Connor,’ said Tess. ‘I’m just getting some petrol.’

‘You’re kidding,’ said Connor.

Tess took a moment to get it. ‘You gave me a fright,’ she said with a touch of petulance because she was embarrassed. ‘I thought you were an axe murderer.’

She picked up the nozzle. Connor kept standing there, without moving, his helmet tucked under one arm, looking at her as if he expected something. Okay, well, that was enough chitchat, wasn’t it? On your bike. Off you go. Tess preferred people from her past to stay in the past. Ex-boyfriends, old school friends, past colleagues – really, what was the point of them? Lives moved on. Tess quite enjoyed reminiscing about people she once knew, not with them. She pulled on the petrol lever, smiling warily at him, trying to remember exactly how their relationship had ended. Was it when she and Felicity moved to Melbourne? He was a boyfriend in between lots of other boyfriends. She usually broke up with them before they broke up with her. Normally after Felicity had made fun of them. There was always a new boy to take their place. She thought it was because she was the right level of attractiveness: not too intimidating. She said yes to whoever asked her out. It wouldn’t have occurred to her to say no.

She remembered that Connor had always been keener than she was – he was too old and serious, she’d thought. It was her first year at uni; she was only nineteen, and she’d been somewhat bemused by the intense interest this older, quiet man was showing her.

She may well have treated him quite badly. She’d been lacking in so much confidence when she was a teenager, worrying all the time about what people thought of her, and how they might hurt her, without even considering the impact she might have on their feelings.

‘I’ve been thinking about you actually,’ said Connor. ‘After I saw you at the school this morning. I was even wondering if you’d like to, ah, catch up? For a coffee, maybe?’

‘Oh!’ said Tess. A coffee with Connor Whitby. It just seemed so preposterously irrelevant, like those times that Liam suggested they do a jigsaw puzzle just when Tess was smack bang in the middle of some computer or plumbing crisis. Her whole life had just imploded! She wasn’t going to go for a coffee with this sweet but essentially dull ex-boyfriend from her teens.

Didn’t he know she was married? She twisted her hands on the petrol pump so that her wedding ring was in full view. She still felt extremely married.

Apparently moving back home was just like joining Facebook, when middle-aged ex-boyfriends came crawling out of the woodwork like cockroaches, suggesting ‘drinks’, putting out their little feelers for potential affairs. Was Connor married? She glanced over at his hands, trying to see a ring.

‘I didn’t mean a date if that’s what you’re thinking,’ said Connor.

‘I wasn’t thinking that.’

‘I know you’re married, don’t worry. I don’t know if you remember my sister’s son, Benjamin? Anyway, he’s just finished uni and he wants to go into advertising. That’s your field, isn’t it? I was actually thinking of exploiting you for your professional expertise.’ He chewed on the side of his cheek. ‘Maybe exploiting is the wrong choice of word.’