‘The man told me he had “no idea” where Beth was.

‘I said, “Well, do you know when she’s coming back?”

‘The man said, “No, I don’t.”

‘It seemed to me that he was being deliberately vague, perhaps even cagey. I had a feeling – call it women’s instinct – that there was something not right. I thought, ‘Maybe she’s gone into a nursing home and he doesn’t want to tell us,’ because if she had gone into a home he’d have no right to stay in her house.

‘I said, “Well, perhaps I could come back tomorrow?” He said, “Beth won’t be here tomorrow either,” which seemed a very strange response. And then, coming from somewhere in the house behind him, there was a noise, like somebody shifting pots and pans around in the kitchen.

‘There was this long silence between us – between me and this Mark person, I mean – but then he said, “That’s not Aunt Beth.” I remember he said it like that, “That’s not Aunt Beth,” like he meant his Aunt Beth not your Aunt Beth. He said, “That’s my missus.”

‘A woman came down the hall – she was only there for an instant, but long enough for me to see that she had been the one making the noise, because she was holding a saucepan with a pink lid – and it was Snow Delaney.’

I sat there like a stunned mullet. I said, ‘Are you sure about that?’

Rebecca said, ‘I’m absolutely sure. I didn’t know it back then, of course – I wouldn’t have known Snow Delaney from Adam – but of course I know who she is now, and it was Snow Delaney.’

Again, I said, ‘You’re absolutely, one hundred per cent sure?’

She said, ‘I’m one hundred per cent sure. She came down the hall, and she was holding an old aluminum pot, like one of those pots with a pink-coloured lid, a cheapish lid, and it was definitely her.’

Obviously that doesn’t tally with what Snow told me, which was that she was in Melbourne with her mum when Beth’s niece dropped by – and that Beth was already gone by the time she got back.

I asked Rebecca, ‘Do you know if your Aunt Beth was still there?’

Rebecca said, ‘I can’t say for certain. I can only say I didn’t see her there.’

I said, ‘She had a bungalow out by the passionfruit vine where she lived, but that was out the back.’

Rebecca said, ‘Right. And I didn’t get further than the front door. But Snow was definitely there.’

I asked Rebecca if she’d swear to that in a court of law and she said of course she would, and she told me about going back to the car where her husband was waiting and calling her dad from the car. I said to him, “Well, no luck. I knocked on the door, and that man you spoke about, Mark, he was there, but there was no sign of Aunt Beth.”