Andrea nods. ‘I know he was as shocked as the rest of us, to think something might have happened to her. That’s why he took the case. He wouldn’t normally do the legwork himself.’

Isla stares back at Andrea. A gull calls out overhead. ‘Did he know the Mallories back then?’

‘Ray was Steve’s boss,’ Andrea says. ‘Steve’s been a mess since he left the force, apparently. Had a nervous breakdown, spent a bit of time in a mental health unit in the seventies.’ She pulls a long face. ‘Never got over the marriage breakup, Ray reckons.’ She crouches down to take a chipped piece of abalone from her son. ‘That’s nice,’ she tells him, turning it over to look at the colours on the inside. ‘That’s a beautiful shell, my love.’

‘What was it you noticed?’ Isla says. She watches the boy run off down the beach, stiff-legged in his red gumboots. ‘You said you noticed things, when you were out on your bike. What did you notice? I can’t shift this feeling Mandy might be dead.’

Andrea straightens up. ‘I saw Mandy leaving,’ she says. ‘She left and started her life over. I saw her go.’

‘When was this?’

‘A few days before my birthday, in March. I remember it was early in the morning and I was out the front of the house by myself. I saw Mandy on the footpath. She waved at me.’

‘This was in ’67?’

‘That’s right. Not long after Steve Mallory buggered off in his big green truck and left his wife standing in the street. That was the talk of Agnes Bay for a while.’

‘But Mandy was leaving that day? You’re sure?’

‘Yep. She stood beside me on the footpath and we chatted while she waited for her taxi. She said she was going to Marlo.’

‘Marlo? Where’s that?’

‘No idea.’ Andrea shrugs, pushing strands of hair out of her face. ‘She didn’t look so good, I remember that. And she was kind of sad, you know? But she said it would all be right when she got to Marlo.’

‘Marlo sounds familiar.’ Isla looks out to sea. ‘Why does Marlo sound familiar?’

‘Probably because I named my cat Marlo. You remember, the ginger tom? We had him for years.’

‘Of course. That’s right.’

‘I got him for my birthday that year, when I turned ten. That’s why it always stayed with me, I guess.’

‘You’re sure the cops know about this?’

‘I went down the station to speak to Ray after your dad’s birthday party,’ Andrea says. ‘There was a bit of gossip that day, once everyone was on the grog. I said to Ray, I was the last one to see Mrs Mallory, not Joe Green.’

Isla hunches her shoulders against the wind. ‘The cops treated my dad as a suspect for weeks after that.’

‘Did they?’

‘They didn’t say you’d seen Mandy leave.’

‘Maybe it’s because I was a kid back then, they think I got it wrong.’