Isla pushes the kitchen door open. The room is a white box of light, two faces turned towards her, open-mouthed. Her mother drops her teacup on the floor at her feet.

‘Isla. Dear God.’ Louisa stands among the shards of china with her hand at her throat. ‘I didn’t know you were home.’

‘I got back early,’ Isla says. Her voice is crisp in the bright room. ‘Just a moment ago.’

The cop looks from Isla to Louisa and back. ‘Everything all right, ladies?’

‘This is my daughter,’ Louisa says.

Isla throws the cop a smile. He is tall and stooped, grey-haired, with a dense, white moustache. Behind his glasses his eyes are small and hard. Isla takes in the three stars on each of his shoulders and the radio at his belt. ‘Isla Green,’ she says, shaking his hand.

‘Inspector Perry,’ the cop replies, taking his seat at the table. ‘Are you happy to continue, Mrs Green?’

Louisa stands by the sink, holding the pieces of her broken cup in her hands.

‘Go ahead, Mum,’ Isla says, sitting down. ‘I’m fully in the picture,’ she says to Inspector Perry. ‘Don’t mind me.’

He hesitates. ‘We could continue this down at the station, if you’d rather—’

‘It’s all right,’ Louisa says, without turning around. She drops the shattered cup into the bin. ‘Let’s carry on.’ She takes another teacup from the cupboard. They wait for her in silence. The Inspector takes a notebook from his breast pocket and opens it to a blank page. From his belt, his radio blurts wordless noise.

‘Now, Mrs Green.’ He removes his glasses to look at Louisa. She puts her tea down on the table and sits. ‘Could you repeat what you told me on the phone, if you would be so kind.’

Louisa clasps her hands in front of her. ‘I have reason to believe …’ She looks down at her hands. ‘That my husband had an affair with Amanda Mallory, thirty years ago, while my daughter and I were in England.’

He digs at his eyes and puts his glasses back on. ‘Can you remind me of when you were in England?’

‘The first three months of 1967. Between January and March.’

He writes this down in his notebook. Isla watches her mother, who is nervously turning the gold stud in her ear.

‘And your husband was alone, here in Sydney, for that whole period?’

‘That’s right.’

‘When you got back to Australia, did you see or hear from Mrs Mallory?’

Louisa shakes her head. ‘Their house was empty when we got back. They’d moved to Victoria, I think.’

‘What makes you think they moved?’

‘That’s what Joe told me at the time.’

‘I see.’ He pinches the knot of his tie. ‘So the last time you saw Mrs Mallory was January 1967?’

‘That’s right.’ Louisa watches him write it down, turning her earring at double speed.

‘Has Mr Green admitted to this affair?’

‘Not in so many words.’

‘What makes you think he had relations with Mrs Mallory?’