‘You’re going to let go of Evelyn, get off her and lie face down while I cuff your hands behind your back,’ Jake said, keeping his voice low and calm.

‘I don’t think so,’ Kelly said, increasing the pressure of his grip on Evelyn’s throat. She whimpered.

‘Stop,’ Jake said, raising his gun and levelling it at Kelly’s head.

‘We both know you don’t have the guts.’

So, Kelly was that kind of criminal. He’d choose death by cop ahead of being arrested. It was the ultimate cowardly act—he’d force responsibility for his life into someone else’s hands and make them shoot him so he didn’t have to face the consequences of his actions. Jake had no intention of complying.

‘What are you going to do, you little poofter?’

That was something. If Kelly was resorting to childish taunts he was under more mental strain than he wanted to let on. Jake calculated his best next move. He shifted slightly to his right; Kelly mirrored him.

He wasn’t confident he could shoot Kelly without killing him. So much of his body was shielded by Evelyn that there wasn’t much to aim for apart from his head. Jake would have to somehow entice him to move enough to get a better shot.

The only aspect of Kelly’s nature he felt he could appeal to was his need to dominate—could he flatter him into a mistake?

‘I want to know if I’m right,’ Jake said.

‘What?’

‘I want to know if I figured it all out.’

‘You’re only delaying the inevitable.’ He wobbled Evelyn by her throat. She sucked in air through tight nostrils, her eyes wide and skin drained grey.

Jake contrived to shrug.

Kelly laughed again. ‘It’s not going to stop me from killing her. If I’m going down, I’m taking her with me. We both know you won’t shoot me.’

‘Just tell me if I’m right. I won’t move.’

‘Give it your best shot.’

Kelly was, if nothing else, cool under pressure.

Locking eyes with the older man, Jake edged his way over to one of the primary school chairs and dragged it into the room before taking a seat about five metres from Kelly. With a rapidly beating heart, he adopted the most nonchalant pose he could.

‘Everything was fine until Max Campbell came back to town, right?’ Jake began.

Kelly’s head dipped infinitesimally.

‘His arrival set Charlotte and Amelia talking, then arguing, and that got Ava O’Brien upset.’

Jake took Kelly’s silence as a yes.

‘And that concerned you, because you thought Ava knew what you had done to the girls at the home. And you thought she might now tell someone else.’

No response. He wasn’t getting anywhere, and Evelyn’s face was shading toward blue. Should he try for an emotional response to childhood?