Jake had never come across a police officer so apt to press his own family members into service.

‘So you think Ava was keeping girls born at the home but adopting out the boys?’ Kelly said.

‘They had to have been going somewhere,’ Jake nodded. ‘Selling them on the black market would explain how she managed to stay financial. But she would have needed a partner to transport them.’

‘Not necessarily. If what you say is true, she could have arranged for the purchasing parents to meet her somewhere close by so she only had to leave the home briefly.’

‘Okay … and what about the genital mutilation of the girls?’

‘You said the girl in Melbourne and the one here both thought it was O’Brien’s sister who did that to them, not O’Brien.’

Jake huffed. ‘Ava couldn’t have done it to herself.’

‘But her scars were decades old. It could have been done anywhere, anytime.’

‘She couldn’t have gotten Lilith pregnant on her own!’

‘There is that. But even if the girl is telling the truth and she was raped or impregnated without her knowledge, the man responsible wasn’t Liam O’Brien. You said pathology confirmed that.’

Jake clenched his fists.

‘Look, Hunter, it’s my job to ensure that, as a unit, we get things right,’ Kelly said. ‘What I’m hearing is that all the abuses of the girls at the home could have been perpetrated by Ava O’Brien. And since we know the father of the Melbourne girl’s child wasn’t Liam, at the moment we have nothing to go after him for.’

As much as it pained Jake to admit it, Kelly was right. He had nothing solid on O’Brien … yet. He couldn’t let anyone else know about the conversation he’d recorded between O’Brien and Campbell in the hospital, but it proved to Jake that they were guilty of something. O’Brien’s reaction to the sight of his sister’s mutilated fingertips spoke louder than any words could, and his reaction to the word Castlemaine was further proof he was hiding something. But what?

Kelly sat back and sighed. ‘You’re doing good work here, Hunter. Keep going and I’m sure you’ll crack it.’

Jake stood up. ‘Sir.’

‘And Hunter?’

‘Sir?’

‘Take care of the paperwork on this from now on. It needs to be impeccable.’

Jake had been expecting that. He wasn’t sure how his constable had passed the academy given his literacy deficit. Multiple choice questions, presumably.

‘I’ll keep Murphy looking through records of vehicles on the ferry during the time we’re interested in.’

‘He must be loving that,’ Kelly snickered.

‘So much,’ said Jake with a grin.

Jake returned to his desk and spent a long, fruitless afternoon and evening searching records for any trace of other children from the girls’ home. Finally, he decided to turn in early.