Aaron blinked. So did Shaun. I hadn’t told anyone about the name-change business in case it threw doubt on my whole story. Claiming I knew Aaron was one thing. Claiming he’d changed his name was another.

Shaun suddenly looked perturbed. But I was more interested in Aaron. A pink tide was creeping across his sallow cheeks. ‘I dunno what you’re talking about,’ he said.

‘You used to be called Aaron.’ I was carefully monitoring every shift. Every flicker. Every breath he took. ‘I tried to help. I really did. You were probably told a lot of lies about me.’

‘Fuck this.’ Aaron’s tension exploded into a whirlwind of movement. He spun around and flung himself at the door. ‘She’s crazy! I’m outta here!’ Then he vanished, leaving Shaun rooted to the spot.

Silence fell. I could almost see the world realigning itself in Shaun’s head.

‘He does remember me,’ I insisted. ‘At least, he does now.’

‘Robyn…’ Shaun trailed off.

‘I’m not sure he’s the vandal, though. I couldn’t tell.’

Shaun took a deep breath. ‘Why would he have changed his name?’

‘A lot of reasons.’ Marriage. Fear. ‘I think he’s hiding.’

‘Why?’

I didn’t want to go into it. I didn’t want to expose myself. ‘It’s a long story.’

For a few seconds Shaun was silent. I could feel him withdrawing, even though he was still in the room. At last he said, ‘Well—we’ll keep asking questions. See if we can get to the bottom of this. In the meantime, I’ll leave you to it.’

He was out the door and clumping down the front steps before it suddenly occurred to me: what if he’d added me to his suspect list? What if he was wondering if I’d dumped garbage on my own bed? I was a middle-aged woman living alone. I had to be crazy. Neurotic. Paranoid.

Stop it. I abandoned my invoices and went to sort out lunch.

There was a hill on Finch Island. From the peak you could see all the way to the mainland, across a wide expanse of brilliant sapphire bay. But the view was splintered into little shards by a network of tree trunks because the entire hill was heavily wooded. Only one small section had been cleared: a narrow strip that led from the base of the eastern slope to a spot about two-thirds of the way up.

This was where someone had put a zipline.