Caruso had received a shouted voicemail from Dr Parker late last night saying that the teacher had supplied drugs to his teenage daughter at a house in Ainslie. He’d already tasked Gwen with locating Parrish’s rugby friends and the ‘party house’ in Ainslie. Was the house close to the church where Bella’s shoe had been found? Caruso planned to speak to Imogen and Lucas this morning to find out when they were last at the church. Earlier, he’d left a message telling Marty that he was investigating the teacher and his mates. It wouldn’t help to have the enraged doctor breaching the protection order and attacking Brendan Parrish.

‘Do you remember what this man was wearing?’ Caruso asked Mrs Ramos.

‘Work clothes. Casual—is that the right word? Trousers and a jacket.’

Bingo again. The sort of clothes a schoolteacher might wear.

Mrs Ramos continued speaking about clothes. She’d been a seamstress in the Philippines but now her eyesight wasn’t good, so she was cleaning houses for pocket money.

Caruso flipped open his iPad. He didn’t have a photo of Josh Murphy, but there was a picture of Brendan Parrish on the school website, leading an excursion to the botanic gardens.

‘Mrs Ramos, would you mind having a look at this photo, please?’

The grandmother stared down at the iPad. She squinted and leant closer. Caruso held his breath.

‘I need my glasses. Now, where did I put them?’

Suze scanned the living room, rushed through to the dining table, checked there and then continued into the kitchen. She came back holding a pair of glasses with a gold chain attached.

‘Is this them?’

‘Thank you, yes, they’re the ones.’

Caruso presented the photo to her a second time.

‘Yes, I recognise him. He was hurrying. In a rush.’

The schoolteacher had told the detectives that he would be staying with his parents for a week. Caruso put in a call to Albury Local Area Command, requesting that they visit Brendan Parrish at his parents’ house as soon as possible. In the meantime, Smithy could start driving down there. One of the Albury detectives said he knew the family—Brendan’s father was head of maintenance at the high school and his mother ran a small childcare centre.

‘Can you do a check on any missing children in your area over the past, say, five years?’ Caruso asked. ‘See if there are any links to Brendan Parrish or his family?’

Had Bella been taken to Ainslie and then to Albury? They’d searched the teacher’s Merrigang townhouse twice and found nothing. Parrish’s background check was clear; not even a speeding ticket in that high performance car of his.

They’d only been back at Woden station a few minutes when Caruso received a call from the front desk. Two parents talking about a missing girl—could Suze and Caruso come down?