I said, ‘And why is that?’ And he said, ‘Police are digging the place up.’

I’m not going to deny that I was stunned. I said, ‘What are you talking about, they’re digging the place up?’

He said, ‘It’s in all the papers: police moved into the back yard about a week ago. They’ve got earth-moving equipment, and cadaver dogs.’

At first I didn’t get what he was talking about: cadaver dogs? But then he said, ‘They’re the dogs that sniff out bones. They’re looking for your sister, Agnes Moore. There’s been a story about it in the paper, pretty much every day.’

I said, ‘That’s outrageous. How is it they’re allowed to just march onto our property and start digging it up?’

Barrett seemed to think that was an idiotic question. He said, ‘It’s a crime scene, Snow. They’ve got a warrant. Of course they can dig it up.’

I said, ‘Well, whatever. Tell them from me to make sure they put everything back like they found it, and I don’t know what they think they’re going to find.’

He said, ‘Agnes, obviously.’

I told him, ‘That’s just ridiculous,’ but then a week later he was back saying, ‘They’ve found a skeleton.’

Snow

Chapter Twenty-three

Pretty much the instant I heard that police had moved cadaver dogs into Delaney House, I went down to Bat Street in Bondi and knocked on Bill Carson’s door.

‘I thought you’d be back,’ he said as he led me through the house. ‘I hope they don’t find anything. Shirl’s having nightmares and she keeps saying we won’t be able to live here any more if that poor lady turns up under a rose bush.’

I couldn’t help feeling bad for her when the Telegraph scooped the rest of us with the headline:

‘SKELETON FOUND AT BONDI’S HOUSE OF HORRORS.’

As is normal practice, the cops didn’t say who it was, but I suppose, like pretty much everyone else, I thought, ‘Well, we hardly need to wait for forensics to know that it’s going to be Agnes Moore.’

But Snow wasn’t wrong when she told her lawyer that her sister wouldn’t be found on her property, because the skeleton wasn’t Agnes Moore.

It was Beth Bannerman.

Dear Jack,

Do you ever have those days where you suddenly think, ‘I could really do with a bit of good news for a change?’ Because that’s exactly what I thought when Barrett came to tell me that police had found a skeleton at Delaney House.

I said, ‘A skeleton? What next, a ghost?’

It sounded ridiculous. I said, ‘First they try to pin child-abuse charges on me when all I’ve done my whole life is try to help children, and now they say I’ve got a skeleton buried in the back yard? Don’t tell me it’s supposed to be Agnes?’

Barrett said, ‘No, it’s not Agnes. The police are waiting on forensics to come back but to us they’re saying the bones are much older.’

I said, ‘Well, that’s fine. Delaney House is ancient. The skeleton is probably ancient. It’s certainly got nothing to do with me.’