‘Her and the two kids were living at a friend’s place,’ said Bronwyn.

‘The friend was a doctor? Is it that one?’ Yianni asked.

‘Yep. The GP. That’s who found the bodies.’

They were talking about Stacey and Paula.

Anita kept her head down. Presumably they didn’t know about her connection to the case. Just as well—she’d prefer not to get into a discussion about it with them.

‘Apparently, no one even told her the husband had been let out of jail,’ said Bronwyn.

Yianni responded with a groan of disapproval.

‘I know—terrible,’ Bronwyn agreed. ‘Have you seen the photos yet? The two kids were shot in the back of the head. Execution-style almost.’

‘By their own dad.’

‘Yeah, it’s a nasty one. In the end, he shot himself in front of the wife’s friend,’ she added.

This wasn’t a moment of necessary professional discussion of the case. This was straight-out gossip. It hit Anita how ugly gossip could sound. She’d often heard the horror-movie thrill in people’s voices, the titillation they felt, when picking over the details of shocking cases. Anita had been guilty of indulging in such talk plenty of times and she must’ve sounded as unattractive and sticky-beaky as these two. She felt a pang of retrospective shame.

When Yianni started speculating about the order in which the family members were killed, Anita struggled to tune out their voices and focus on her email.

But then she heard a different voice.

‘Please. Please.’ It was Stacey’s voice.

Anita jerked her head up and Bronwyn must have mistaken the shock on her face for curiosity.

‘Yeah. Come and look at this, Anita.’ Bronwyn beckoned her closer to the computer monitor. ‘You know that guy who killed his family? The police got this off his phone.’

Anita moved close enough to see the footage playing on Bronwyn’s screen. She recognised the interior of Paula’s house and the sound of Matt’s voice, his breathing. He walked past the hallway mirror and there was his reflection, holding the phone out in front of him. As he moved into the living room, the picture lurched around, so you could see his runners clomping across the floor. Then, for a brief flash, the rifle was visible in his free hand.

The image tilted up again and Anita saw Stacey scrambling to her feet near the living room fireplace. Her neck wasn’t bloody—this had been filmed in the moments before he shot her—but she was groggy, as if she’d been knocked down.

‘Matt, what are you doing?’ Stacey was saying. ‘Cameron! Cameron, sweetheart—I’m here. I’m here. Please, Matt. Let’s talk. Can we talk? Please.’

Next the camera angle jerked around to show Matt’s shirt up close and the picture went dark. He must have put the phone in his pocket. But it was still recording audio.