‘One night, I went to a bar he owned, the one where Kendra worked. I was sitting on a bar stool, chatting to Kendra. She was due to finish her shift in half an hour and we were going out to catch up. We must’ve been laughing about something because behind me I hear, “What’s so fucking funny, mate?” Really aggro voice.’

‘And this was the accused, John Santino?’

‘Yes. He grabbed me by the shoulder and said, “Getting a good fucking eyeful of my girlfriend’s tits, are you?” He was making a fist with his other hand and the veins on his temples were bulging. The guy was ropable. I thought for sure he was going to hit me. Kendra quickly explained who I was and he calmed down. He told me he hated men staring at her in the bar. He was okay with me because I was gay.’

Soon after that night in the bar, Santino persuaded Kendra to give up work entirely.

‘He boasted to me about how he was going to support Kendra,’ explained Ross. ‘He said—and trust me, this is word for word, because he sounded so up himself, doing his charming routine, it’s burned into my memory—he said, “I’m gonna support Kendra to be an actress. My princess won’t need to do any more shit jobs. I’ll pay for the acting classes, clothes, photos, cosmetic surgery, whatever she needs. I’ll be like a patron of the arts. I’m Italian. There’s a long, long history of rich Italian families being patrons of the arts. Heard of Lorenzo de Medici, mate?”’ His impersonation of Santino was so plausible and sharply funny, some of the jurors had to suppress a smile.

At the beginning, Anita had feared this trial would be too distressing, too close to Stacey, too much. She’d gone into it with muscles clenched tight, guarded against letting any excess emotion leak into the process. She’d avoided discussing it with Paula, mentioning it briefly, but nothing compared to the detailed accounts of fascinating court scenes she used to offer as entertainment over dinner in the past. She figured it was best not to add to the store of horrible images in her friend’s head.

But seeing Damien Ross on the stand, bearing witness to Kendra Bartlett with such precision and strength, changed Anita’s mind. There could be consolation in seeing the dead woman and her story acknowledged through this formal process, seeing her killer held to account by Irene Pileris’s methodical work, by the evidence the police had piled up and by the testimony of Kendra’s friend.

That afternoon, she sent Paula a text—I’m bringing dinner to you—and arrived at the Earlwood house with wine, cheese, bread, prawns and salad stuff.