‘Listen to yourself, Leanne,’ Mal said, shaking his head. ‘You’ve lost perspective along with the rest of the town. You want someone to blame, and I understand that, but you risk twisting the evidence to fit the crime. I’m not paying you to conduct a personal campaign against Declan Gallagher and Phillipa Montgomery.’

Mal didn’t repeat his threat to move her to a less challenging role, not in front of Frankie, but Leanne could read between the lines. Was he right? Had she lost her perspective? She couldn’t be sure, not enough to make it worth getting into a fight with her editor. She slumped back into the sofa cushions.

Ignoring Leanne’s sullen silence, Mal showed Frankie the mock-up of the Courier’s front page. She didn’t like it either.

‘We could use the photos from Ashley Denton’s cortège as an alternative,’ Frankie suggested, referring to the fire’s youngest victim. ‘That’s an impactful image.’

‘It might work, but we’ve used it before.’

‘What if we zoom in on the people who lined the streets to pay their respects? Make the image about the town’s mourning and not one particular victim,’ Frankie replied.

‘Ideally, I’d like to run with something uplifting. What about it, Leanne?’ Mal said, his voice loud enough to shake her from her mood. ‘Is there any hope of identifying Amelia’s rescuer? I take it we’re all agreed that whoever this woman was, she must have perished in the fire? She would have come forward otherwise.’

‘I’ve shown everyone I’ve interviewed the photos of Angela Morris and Lena Kowalski, including the man who carried Amelia outside,’ Leanne explained without meeting Mal’s eye. ‘No one’s been able to offer anything new.’

‘So that’s it then? You’ve given up?’

Leanne forced herself to sit up straight, not because Mal was challenging her, but because she was challenging herself. Had she done enough for Amelia, or had she allowed her personal feelings to get in the way? Leanne had never been that interested in finding heroes, not really, not when Lois hadn’t been able to find hers.

‘There is one lead I could pursue,’ she said, ‘but I don’t think we should read too much into it. I doubt it has anything to do with Amelia anyway. In fact, I don’t know why I’m mentioning it at all.’

‘Because you think there’s something to it,’ Mal said. ‘What is it, Leanne?’

‘I was talking to someone who saw Claudia.’

‘And?’

Leanne chewed her lip. ‘As we know, she made it out through the fire doors at the side of the theatre, but was hanging back to make sure everyone else got out safely. We don’t pick up her story again until Justin finds her wandering around Victoria Park. There’s a period of time that Claudia hasn’t accounted for.’

‘So?’ Mal asked.