By the time Shirley arrived at Parkside she was beyond hot and bothered. After sports day had ended, she’d had the mother of all rows with Kayla. She had wanted to go shopping in town with her mother’s credit card and was firmly told no, at which she had exploded into an ugly teenage rage.

Once at home, Kayla had stormed up the stairs and slammed her door so hard that the entire house shook. Shirley discovered that Grant had not mowed the lawn as he had promised, and she found him sitting in the living room, in his pants, watching a World Cup football game.

Not wanting her husband to know that she’d been called in to speak to the police, Shirley made an excuse that the book club was meeting and left her hopeless husband and foul-tempered daughter at home to feed themselves. She was not in the mood for cooking, even if it would only have involved removing some nuggets and chips from the freezer and putting them in the oven.

The traffic was slow and the air conditioning in her car had packed up, so by the time she turned up for the interview she was not feeling much like talking.

Barrett and Palmer ushered Shirley into the interview room and sat opposite the red-cheeked, sweaty woman, who had a face like thunder.

‘Thank you for taking the time to come and talk to us.’ Palmer had decided to play good cop.

‘It’s fine,’ she said, although the officers could see from the expression on her face that it clearly wasn’t.

‘We’d like to know a bit about your relationships with both victims.’ Barrett watched the beads of sweat collect on her temples – a result of the interview room having a lot in common with a sauna.

‘I’ve known Janet for a good few years.’ Shirley realised she was talking about Janet as if she was still alive, but continued anyway. ‘She’s a good friend. Always had my back, you know?’

‘Outside of the book club, did you spend much time together?’

‘Oh yeah, quite a bit. She was a bit lonely. I think she found it tough raising Dean on her own.’

‘Do you know anything about the young man’s father?’ Barrett did not like the fact that so much mystery surrounded him.

‘A bit. Janet told me it was a one-night stand. She was young and when she told him about the baby he said he wanted nothing to do with it.’

‘I see.’ Palmer despised those kind of men.

‘As far as I know, he moved away not long after Janet fell pregnant and she’s never seen him since. She never mentioned him much. It was a long time ago.’ Shirley wiped the sweat off her face with the back of her chubby hand.

‘Did she ever tell you his name?’