‘Dad made some enquiries with people he knew from when he and Beth were still on speaking terms, people who lived around her in Bondi. They said, “There doesn’t appear to be anything to it. There’s a bloke there, but he’s mostly helping her around the property.”

‘I think on some level, at least at the beginning, Dad was pretty pleased about it – the idea of having a bloke on the property, I mean. But over time I suppose we grew suspicious. We heard on the grapevine that Aunt Beth was telling neighbours that Mark was her boyfriend. We heard that he was “massaging her legs” – whatever that meant – and helping her into the bath.

‘My father said, “Don’t tell me he’s giving her one?” I thought to myself, “More likely if she’s demented she probably doesn’t know what she’s saying.” I’m not sure that we ever heard that a young woman had also moved in, but in any case, at some point Dad heard that the house had been fixed up a bit, at least around the front, and that the trees were being clipped into these strange animal shapes, and that was a little odd. So, at Dad’s request, I did agree to go with my husband one afternoon while we were in Bondi to have a bit of a look around.’

I asked Rebecca when this was, and she said, ‘It was September 2001, and I remember that because I guess it was a time when we were all on a bit of high alert, because of what had happened in New York.’

Rebecca doesn’t deny that she was also interested in seeing her aunt’s house. ‘Because Beth was widowed, and she had no children, Dad often told me, “I don’t expect to get a cent, but with some luck she’ll leave that house to you, Bec.” And then, after we heard that a man had moved in, we were a bit concerned. What if he tried to run off with the house?

‘So yes, I was looking after my inheritance. But Beth was my aunt, and she was getting on. I was keen to know if there was any possibility of her patching things up with Dad, of perhaps getting to know her a little better, maybe taking the kids around to meet her.’

Rebecca drove out with her husband. ‘There was a security buzzer on the fence but it appeared to be out of action, so I pushed the gate and walked down to the front porch, past those manicured trees that everyone talks about and I knocked on the door.

‘A man answered. He was short, with a sandy goatee. It could only have been Mark Delaney.

‘I said, “Hello,” and he said, “Hello.” I said, “My name is Rebecca Bannerman. I’m looking for my Aunt Beth.” And that seemed to leave him absolutely stunned. He said, “Who did you say you were?” I explained that I was Beth’s niece, and although I hadn’t seen her since I was a little girl, I was in the area and thought I might pop in.