When the man gets within ten metres I draw myself up to my full height and lift my feet, making sure I look carefree and energetic, as if I could run at this pace for hours. I consider spitting on the ground to gross him out.

Out of nowhere, Arnold growls. He never growls.

The man—balding, white, dad-aged—assesses me below the neck, but never meets my eyes. We pass each other. I continue up the hill, he continues down. The moment passes. Even Arnold relaxes.

At the top of the hill, I pause to catch my breath. Arnold lifts a leg to pee and scratches in the dust.

I practise looking and seeing, like I always do. Across the valley, past the vacant lots and teeming highway, to lit-up construction sites topped with cranes. I make a square-ish frame with my hands and hold it in front of my face. I’ve been wondering if I have the skills to do something photographic for my major project.

The truth of this scene is beer bottles mixed in with weeds, a wire fence falling down, fluoro traffic cones, the word CONPLEX painted along the boom of a crane.

The truth is cars scuttling like beetles, neon-painted streaks, a mysterious glowing civilisation across the highway, a hushed park where lovers meet under pooling lights. It’s all in my power to make this ugly or beautiful, gritty and real, or not.

But I can’t stop my mind turning towards the ways you could trap someone in a park. You could use people’s kindness against them and pretend to be hurt, setting up a fake bike accident. You could blend into the environment, dress up as one of the council rangers or rail workers. Or you could carry a tricycle or a children’s backpack, pretending you were a dad. Fathers appear more trustworthy than childless men, even though I know that’s not the case.

At my back, there’s a rumble and a rush of wind as a train screams past. A streak of light in the dusk, people flashing by, all of them strangers.

Mr Mitchell’s face looks like a sunken cake. Yin’s mum keeps her face turned away. The reporter says Mr Mitchell is a ‘prominent Melbourne lawyer’.

I was going to have a shower and change out of my sweaty running gear straight after dinner, but the police are finally having another press conference after being silent for days. Yin’s parents and two detectives sit in front of a crowd of journalists. I sip on my custom blend of Milo and instant coffee.

‘That’s Yin’s mother?’ Mum says. ‘She was the one that was nice to me at that Mother’s Day thing. Did you know she’s a neurosurgeon?’