As a print journalist, Anita wasn’t right in there shoving a microphone in anyone’s face. Unlike the TV journos, she wasn’t required to provoke distressed people into blurting out a sound bite in the street. But she was still obliged to hover close enough to hear if anything was said that should be part of the coverage. In a way, she got the benefit of the TV journos badgering these poor people, so she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t morally complicit. What did that make her? A scavenger bird? Maybe best not to run the birdlife analogy too far.

This morning, waiting to cross the street, she saw the media flock around a figure emerging from a black hire car. Then she recognised Gilbert Woodburn’s luxurious curve of silver hair, always easy to spot because he was several centimetres taller than anyone around him. Woodburn, one of the most expensive criminal barristers in Sydney, still handled a hefty case load at the age of seventy-two. He’d made a career of renting his authoritative presence (the hair, the height, rich baritone voice, patrician demeanour) to clients of questionable reputation.

Woodburn moved calmly towards the main doors of the building as if the flapping media pack were not even there. He was followed by his courtiers (junior members of the legal team), who kept their arms tucked in to their bodies, making themselves physically small so as not to draw attention away from the magnificence of their boss.

When a second vehicle pulled up, Woodburn turned and walked at a stately pace towards it. His courtiers clustered around him to form a human shield so the passengers emerging from the car wouldn’t stumble directly into the media scrum.

First out onto the footpath was Woodburn’s client, John Santino, charged with the murder of Kendra Bartlett almost two years ago. He was pleading not guilty, claiming his girlfriend had committed suicide by jumping off a motorway overpass into oncoming traffic.

Santino was thirty-six, with Italian-pretty-boy looks and a gym-muscled body visible inside the sober suit he’d obviously been advised to wear to court. Whenever Anita saw pictures of Santino, she was puzzled that his face was so shiny, you could even say glossy. In person, his face looked as if it had been lacquered. It must be the skincare regime he followed.