Every time they show the autopsy photo, or show Emily Blake when she was alive, or give us her blueish body on a mortuary gurney, I can see the resemblance to Natalia, I see every fallen body on the cover of a crime novel, and I can’t help thinking that everyone wants their teenage girls ruined.

NATALIA

DAY 36

A police car fills our driveway, and when I take a survey of what other gargantuan shifts have taken place in the universe, I see the Baillieus’ front curtains twitch across the road.

Welcome to the show, everyone.

I pull my headphones off, look through the police car window to see a black leather void inside, with extra screens, extra gadgets. First the Mitchells on TV, and now this. I let myself in the front door instead of the back.

Mum is a treble clef silhouette in the distance, leaning against the kitchen counter. She’s supposed to be visiting Nan at the retirement home today. It usually takes her most of the day to drive down to the peninsula and back.

‘You’re home early,’ Mum says.

‘What’s going on?’

The question sends her slumping even further against the counter. She looks unexpectedly beautiful in this moment, pale and tense, beige and blonde, surrounded by the marble countertop and gleaming kitchen appliances.

‘It’s nothing.’

Faith emerges from the laundry holding her jacket and bag, heading for the back door fast. She’s scared of anyone in uniform, and who would blame her when she’s already survived a civil war in her home country. She has a nursing degree but works as a cleaner for several families on our street. Mum raises her hand goodbye.

A strange man walks across the picture window behind Mum, looks up at the garage eaves and makes a mark on a notepad. He disappears around the side of the house.

‘Is our house being searched?’ My mind leaps to my bedroom immediately, completing a detailed inventory of my drawers and closet.

‘Not exactly. I don’t know.’ My mum, the lawyer, doesn’t know. She worries away at a cuticle. ‘Your father is upstairs talking to the police. It’s…routine.’

I stare. When my voice comes out again, it’s high and not really my own. ‘It doesn’t sound routine. This is because I used to be close to Yin, isn’t it?’

A shower of illusions crash around me. That I can stay at a distance from the abduction, that the police won’t drag us into it anyway.

‘I don’t think so, love.’

‘Then it’s about Dad? Do they suspect him?’

‘Darling…’

Every word costs Mum energy she doesn’t have. She’s about to say more, but Dad clomps down the staircase that leads to their bedroom. He looks grey and ashamed when he sees me, the way he should look all the times he comes home drunk.

He’s followed down the stairs by a rumpled, friendly looking guy in a suit.

‘This is my daughter, Natalia,’ Dad says. ‘Natalia, this is Detective Barbero. We’re helping him with his enquiries.’