THEY’RE ALL USING the same photo of Daniel. We see it on the news the next night – barely out of high school, clean shaven, free of tattoos, hair a boyish fuzz but with those deep green eyes. It’s strange seeing him now, so much younger. Fresh and ready to face the uncertain future. I’ll never understand why the media choose to use the most inappropriate photos for victims and criminals alike. I don’t want to see this happy photo of him, this normal boy on the fringes of adulthood. I just want to see the real Daniel, the one that was going to kill me. I want the world to see him accurately. I don’t want to carry this guilt around.

‘As much as I hate what he did to us, I almost feel sorry for him. He just looks like a normal bloke,’ Cain says, beside me on the couch. ‘Doesn’t look like the sort of person who would do all this. Mind you, I saw blokes, normal blokes, become animals over there.’ Over there being his favourite euphemism for war.

When he turns to me, he realises I’m crying again – there’s been a lot of it lately.

‘Sorry, Lina. That was dumb. I don’t feel sorry for him. I don’t know why I said that. He’s a monster.’

‘It’s fine,’ I say. I can’t quite place this particular sadness. It might be the fatigue catching up, or maybe new hormones from the pregnancy. It could be everything. I remember the flash of the gun, the gurgling sound. Then I walked away and left him to die. ‘Bad people, people like him, don’t make their badness obvious. They look normal from the outside. They hide it away.’ I find my mind inexplicably going to Scotty now. He’s the type of guy that can hide something away from the world, his drug use, certain attitudes he has.

I go to the kitchen for a glass of water. From the window you can see the media out on the street with their cameras and their vans. I wonder what the neighbours think. The international media has picked it up too, all running the same footage from down at the lake house.

I go back to the living room and fall into the couch. On the TV a heavily made-up reporter in a puffer jacket traipses about at the top of the lake house’s driveway, the blue-and-white police tape rocking against the twilight breeze. They’ve staked out both our places now. The image zooms over her shoulder to the upstairs bedroom, where the tarpaulin still hangs over the broken window.

‘I’ve organised a carpenter,’ Cain says. ‘Insurance will cover the bill but we need to get it fixed to keep the weather out. It looks like the rain ruined your grandpa’s old chest, along with the carpet and bedding.’