‘But every pawnbroker has one of these, or something better. Anyone would have seen the dot straight away when inspecting the quality. Sofia thought she was just selling a watch, but she was selling much more. I doubt Sofia had the bad luck to sell it to him directly, but Michael told me that stolen goods in Sydney tend to make their way through Alan’s shop. Sofia would have had to go someplace dodgy. Maybe your oxy dealer pointed you in the right direction, or maybe you traded it for drugs and they sold it on. I’m not ignoring that Alan might even be in the photographs himself and someone tipped him off. I have no idea. Either way, this is the butterfly that flaps its wings in Turkey and causes a tornado in Brazil. The short version is that the wrong watch landed with the wrong person. Alan knew the value of what he had, and, more importantly, he knew who would want it. That’s why Michael met him that night, a bag of cash in tow. He was trying to buy the microdot.’ I had everyone’s rapt attention. ‘Does anyone care to fill in some gaps here, or should I keep going?’

You call something like a microdot in a book like this one a MacGuffin. It doesn’t matter exactly what it is, it just matters that people will kill over it. You know, the thing that James Bond is always chasing after: a USB with a world-destroying virus; bank account passwords; nuclear launch codes. Or, in our case, photographs.

‘I have a question,’ Audrey offered, putting her hands out in a don’t shoot gesture. ‘Ernest, everything you’re telling us is about how small what we’re chasing is. Michael brought a furniture truck. For a tiny photograph?’

I realised that everyone in the room except for Audrey and Katherine knew there was a coffin in the truck – Erin from digging it up; Sofia and Crawford from chasing after it; Andy and Juliette from our conversation with the McAuleys; and Marcelo because I’d told him.

‘Michael needed the truck to bring Brian Clarke’s coffin with him, which he and Erin had dug up the night before. Brian is the policeman my father shot the night he died, Alan Holton’s partner. Marcelo didn’t know what he was getting rid of in the truck, but I saw what Michael wanted me to see. Brian’s coffin had two bodies in it: one of them a child.’ This, I’m pleased to report, drew my first unanimous gasp. ‘Andy, if it helps, this is Rebecca McAuley. She was kidnapped thirty-five years ago. Her parents tried to deceive the kidnappers to save a few bucks and it backfired: they never saw their daughter again.’

‘And Robert had photos of it,’ Erin said. ‘That’s what you think is on the microdot. Evidence of her murder?’