He spoke quietly into her ear, explaining what they’d seen on top of the cliff. He didn’t want it getting out, not with so many people up on the mountains who could disturb the evidence. And because of the hysteria it might bring – in 1985 they had found the shoes of one of the victims, Rose, neatly tied on the edge of a cliff.

He glanced at the group of people milling about them, looking their way curiously, waiting for Con’s order to move, perhaps wondering what he was whispering to Tran about. Their nervousness and excitement palpable.

A woman in an orange vest and baseball cap approached them. ‘Welcome, Detective. I’m Anaya, I’m with the SES.’ She pointed at her uniform, perhaps unnecessarily. ‘Constable Darren was going to be here, but he’s trying to sort out the nightmare at the start of the track.’

‘That’s okay, Anaya, I just got off the phone with him,’ said Con.

Con and Detective Tran followed Anaya into the bush, picking their way over the trail of debris the SES workers were leaving in their wake, the sound of their chainsaws startling some kookaburras into flight.

On our way to the first dead body of the case. Please, God, let it be the last.

‘What did Constable Darren have to say about the search? Any updates?’ asked Tran. ‘I’ve only spoken with him briefly – I’m surprised you even have reception down here.’

‘Officially they called the search off when the sun set last night, but there were still people out there, all night,’ said Con. ‘We’ve been lucky: plenty of sprained ankles and at least one broken leg, but nothing worse. We’ve had drones and two choppers searching the area all today, but the canopy is too thick for them to see much, although one of them found this body. On the ground, the SES is leading teams of searchers, with Darren coordinating, but that’s a mess now that Madison Mason brought the entire population of YouTube to the mountain.’

‘I’ll work closely with Darren to get that sorted, don’t worry. And then I’ll filter anything important from the search through to you, so you can keep focusing on your investigation,’ said Tran. ‘Again, just wanted to say good job on the Jaguar case. I remember that when it was all over the news.’

‘Thanks,’ said Con. He was used to the congratulations. He accepted them on autopilot.

She caught his tone. ‘I get it,’ she said. ‘Didn’t feel much like a victory.’

He gave a wry smile. ‘Something like that. But as everyone keeps telling me —’

‘It’s not your fault they died,’ finished Tran. ‘I get it.’