I’d never told anyone that the white dog, the one surrendered to the RSPCA at Yagoona by a man in a blue ute, the one used, perhaps, to lure Claire Bingley from the roadside, had been surrendered with a broken paw. Amanda had taken the report from the RSPCA. She’d passed that report on to me. I’d passed some of it on to Dale Bingley. So only Amanda’s contact at the RSPCA, Amanda, Dale, and I should have known the dog needed “fixing up.” Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he meant wash the dog. De-flea the dog. Put a new collar on it. “Fix it up,” the way you might “fix up” an old house.

But maybe he meant actually fix it. Fix it because it was broken.

I tried to call Amanda. Her phone went straight to voicemail. In my desperation, I tried to explain the situation to the two goons watching over me.

“He probably just meant fixing up, like … like…” Linda held a big hand out, glanced at Sharon for help. “Like a good wash and uh, clean…” He fell into Arabic. They shouted a stream of it at each other, Linda wanting to reason with me, Sharon needing him to get me in the car.

“No.” I sucked air in through my nostrils, tried to stop the shaking in my limbs. “He meant fix. I know it. He meant fix. I got a creepy vibe from the guy as soon as I laid eyes on him. He showed me a photo. I … I can’t…”

I staggered to the car, put a hand on the warm black side panel. A plane roared overhead, making my ears pulse.

“It was him,” I said. “It was him.”

“She don’t know shit.” Jay turned to his partner. “Go outside and fix the fence before one of the coppers sees it. I’ll finish this off.”

“I know where to find what you’re searching for,” Amanda said. “Just the way I know what it is. The signs are all around you. I can’t believe you’ve spent days tearing this house to shreds when it’s so close.”

The two men looked at each other, looked at the woman on the floor before them, the blood running down her neck, between her breasts.

“Let me spell it out for you.” Amanda took the lead when they wouldn’t come along with her. “You’re here for his money. Tom Songly. His buried treasure.”

Jay gave a barely convincing snort of derision.

“It isn’t hard to work out.” Amanda licked blood off her lip. “Not looking at the two of you. You’re definitely not brothers. Different eyes, different skin tones. Different hands. But you both stand the same. You got the same length stubble, meaning you shave at the same time. And you wipe your noses on the back of your wrists the same way. Not because you’ve got runny noses, not in this heat. But because you’ve developed a nervous tic. How do two guys develop the same nervous tic?”