‘You’ve had no sexual relations with women before this?’ said Tran.

‘No – I mean, yes, I have . . .’

‘How is this relevant?’ demanded Rosalie.

‘We are still building a profile for the kidnapper, including sexual appetite. What other women have you slept with, Miss Ellis?’

‘I haven’t.’

‘So Cierra was the first girl you had sex with? You lied?’ said Detective Tran.

Eliza looked away. It was getting hard to speak. She felt claustrophobic.

I am a good person! she wanted to shriek.

‘We need to know,’ Tran continued, leaning forward. ‘We have three girls still missing, and you’re the last adult in contact, and you were sleeping with at least one of them. Now that we can see some motive . . . Did you find Bree attractive? Jasmine?’ She paused. ‘Georgia?’

‘Detective, I don’t think that’s a reasonable line of questioning,’ said Rosalie.

‘I didn’t take the girls,’ said Eliza.

‘You were the only one with them on that mountain,’ said Detective Tran. ‘What was it about Cierra that attracted you?’

‘This is completely inappropriate,’ said Rosalie.

‘Well, Miss Ellis?’ said Detective Tran. ‘No answer?’ She tapped her long lacquered fingernails on the table. ‘Then the next question is going to be very uncomfortable for you. Remember, this is all being recorded and transcribed, so please be very specific and explicit: what exactly did you and the very underage Cierra Mason, your student, who trusted you, do during your sexual encounters?’

‘This is ridiculous!’ cried Rosalie.

Eliza quietly agreed. The questioning was offensive, unnecessarily vulgar.

And then, in a crashing instant, Eliza realised why.

These questions were not trying to draw anything out of her: they were designed only to put her off balance, to make her misspeak, to find flaws in her story.

She doesn’t believe me. She doesn’t believe I was with Cierra.

She had a brief moment of relief, followed by outrage – how dare she – followed by unease.

She glanced up at the camera. This wasn’t Detective Tran’s idea. She thought of Con’s deep blue eyes, back in the hospital room on that first day: his knowing gaze, his attempt to make her uncomfortable, to draw truth out of her.

Con knows I’m covering for Tom.

CHAPTER 31

CON

On the monitor, Con watched Eliza make eye-contact with the camera. She knows we’re on to her, he thought.

‘What do you see, Cornelius?’ said Commander Agatha Normandy from her seat beside him. She had arrived from Hobart an hour before and quickly made herself at home. She was a short woman, with a bob of grey hair, and wore a woollen cardigan. She sipped a cup of tea, her lipstick not marking the china.

‘She’s covering for someone,’ said Con. ‘My guess is her brother-in-law, Tom North.’