Oli flips to the notes section of the diary. She scans a few paragraphs of fine handwriting. Some sections are more organised, grouped into themes, while some are shorthand summaries of interviews. She forces herself to start again and read every word. It’s not until the third page that there’s any reference to the Housemate case. Oli’s breath catches. There are a few neat lines of notes from a conversation with Mitchell Stanley, but they’re just details about Evelyn as a teenager, such as her high school boyfriend and her part-time job at Coles. There’s a list of phone numbers with initials that don’t seem related to the case. Oli’s eyes burn as she reads without blinking, desperate not to miss anything. On the next two pages, Isabelle put together a timeline of the evening before Evelyn died. Oli conjures an image of Isabelle writing out the sequence, her elegant hand moving across the page. There are a few comments about evidence, all of it pointing to Alex. And then there are pages of notes on Evelyn: her movements on the day she died, recent phone calls, her babysitting jobs, university grades. The word ‘rabbit’ is question-marked and circled further down the page, next to a question: never let out in the yard, where is it? Oli wonders about this. Had Isabelle known about the rabbit? Had Nicole got rid of it before she left the house?

On the next page Oli traces some notes about Louise Carter with her finger. She’d forgotten that the little girl’s uncle, Jason Carter, a telecommunications technician, was charged with a violent date rape several weeks after his young niece went missing. The media collectively bared their teeth and seized on this fact, publishing pages of copy with the word ‘allegedly’ scattered throughout. But nothing came of it. Jason served a few years in gaol and slithered back into the general population, never to be heard of again.

Oli becomes aware of the crowd around her, the noisy chorus blaring into her eardrums as the past fades into the present. She gets the feeling someone is watching her.

When she looks up, she gasps, clutching her throat. ‘Dean!’ He’s looking down at Isabelle’s diary, which Oli slams shut and thrusts into her bag. Bringing her hands to her thighs, she jumps awkwardly to her feet. ‘What are you doing here?’

He gazes into her eyes for an impossibly long moment before slowly lifting her chin with his index finger. He kisses her hard. In her peripheral vision, she sees Linda-Belinda and another couple watching them.

‘We wrapped earlier than I expected,’ he says, ‘so I thought I’d come and see my girls.’ He squeezes her hand and smiles down at the pool. ‘Are they still racing?’