The image was faded, but James reckoned he recognised a young Andy Jones standing at the back of the group.

‘Ready,’ the teenager said and shoved a tray to the front of the counter.

James found a table on the terrace overlooking the bridges, as far as he could get from the two middle-aged couples who must own the campervans in the car park. The drink was hot and bitter, so he emptied a sachet of sugar into it and allowed himself to be mesmerised by the eddies that formed where the river curved between the great pylons far below. Around their feet, reeds spread into deep thickets, unlike the bare branches of the tall European trees dotted on the banks either side of the bridge.

Tony’s body had been lying there while tourists stopped at this terrible eatery and admired this view. By day, a tourist panorama like nothing else in the whole region. By night, a death trap for the local gays, and plenty who wouldn’t have called themselves gay.

Newshound knows a murder when he sees one.

Murder felt too strong, but could it be the right call? James had heard about a couple of the attacks on gays in Sydney. It was usually a body found at a picnic spot, just like the parkland under Kippen Bridge. Ever since starting his cadetship with the paper, he’d pretended to have no interest in this type of police report, fearing he’d be earmarked as a poof. That would have meant kissing every one of his few promotions goodbye, perhaps even his job.

But James sensed the question clearly now with the kind of angry sarcasm that always inspired him into writing: murders only ever looked like suicides in tacky thrillers, but might the suicide of a closeted country boy really be a killing? And who would do such a thing to one of their own?

He checked his phone. Still twenty minutes to go. He finished his coffee while searching for his brother’s number.

‘Hi, Alan’s phone. Leave a message, go on,’ his brother said, with the hint of a laugh.

Brother’s jokes keep demons at bay.

‘Alan, it’s James. I’m at Kippen for Tony’s funeral. Aunty Doris said you couldn’t get the time off,’ he said, keeping it light. ‘Anyway, I know it’s been a while, but I just wanted to ask you something quickly. Remember that time we came up here on the train, for Tony’s wedding, and you were all in that car crash? Was there a guy called Johnny Jones in the car that night? I want to look him up before I come back to the city. Please give me a call as soon as you can.’