‘So you’ve said before. But you remembered Charlotte’s and Amelia’s names at the hospital when I asked you and Mason Campbell if you’d like to see them.’

‘That’s different. They stayed in Dunton, so I see them about the place every now and then.’

‘Matilda—who definitely remembers you—was taken from the girls’ home and dumped on St Kilda beach approxi­mately eleven years ago, about a year before the home closed. Did you help your sister to transport her there?’

O’Brien’s expression remained neutral, if somewhat strained. ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

‘We’ve also learned that a number of local girls went to the home to give birth over the years and left their newborns there, expecting that they would then be adopted out.’

‘I don’t know about that either.’

‘Where did the girls who lived at the home come from?’

‘I told you before, the government.’

‘We’ve found no government records of the home ever existing, Mr O’Brien.’

‘I’ve told you—the only thing I did was mind the place for a few days whenever Ava took a trip.’

‘Was Ava transporting children each time she went to Melbourne?’

O’Brien snorted. ‘Not unless she had one in her suitcase.’

‘The children left somehow, Mr O’Brien. And if your sister wasn’t the one taking them away from the home, then you are the next most likely person to have done that.’

He shook his head, blue eyes wide in denial. ‘No.’

‘Were you the person who mutilated the girls? Cut their genitals to shreds and ripped out their fingernails?’

O’Brien licked his lips nervously and glanced at the cameras in the corner of the interview room. ‘That’s sickening. No. I don’t know anything about that.’

‘Were you the man who raped the girls?’

‘No, I’ve never! I never … I never … Why are you asking me these things?’

‘It was you who sliced off their genitals, wasn’t it?’

‘No.’

‘You were the one who raped them and tore out all their fingernails, aren’t you?’

‘I said no!’

‘You practised on Ava when you were younger. And lately you were concerned she was feeling guilty over what you’d both done to those girls. You worried that you were finally going to be caught. So you took Ava to the girls’ home, killed her, ripped out her fingernails, and left her in the vineyard. Your own sister.’

‘It wasn’t me.’

Jake leaned in closely to O’Brien and whispered, softly enough that the microphones in the room could not pick it up, ‘Castlemaine.’

Liam O’Brien jumped in his chair, tipping it over. He fell backwards on to the floor almost in slow motion, the shock on his face suddenly making him appear innocent and childlike.