‘Are you looking outside of New South Wales? If Mandy moved to Victoria—’

‘I suggest you leave the police work to me, Miss Green.’

‘But if she moved away—’

‘It seems she did not.’ He glares at her, rattled. ‘Steve Mallory claims his wife didn’t go with him when he sold the house and moved away.’

‘So you did question him.’

He moves to push past her. In the corner of her eye, Isla sees her mother shake her head.

‘Do you think Mandy’s alive?’

He shuts his eyes. ‘I hope so.’

‘But you think it’s unlikely?’

‘I think thirty years is a long time to live with no record at all.’

Isla waits in the hall while her mum shows the Inspector out, shuts the door behind him and stays there, watching through the peephole. They hear the chink of the gate.

‘Did you have to do that?’ Louisa turns her back to the door. ‘Did you have to cross-examine him?’

‘Someone had to fight Dad’s corner.’ Isla shuts the kitchen door behind her, darkening the hallway. She steps closer to her mother, pausing at the door of her parents’ bedroom, where the laundry basket is disturbed and the drawers stand open. ‘Sorry to spoil your plan.’

‘I don’t have a plan,’ Louisa says.

‘Oh, really? It looked to me like you were planning to land Dad in jail.’

‘I thought it might be important. The watch. After I showed it to you I started thinking—’

‘What?’ She is just about keeping her voice steady. ‘What did you think?’

‘I’d have been withholding evidence,’ she says.

‘We could have got rid of it.’

‘I thought they should know.’

‘You thought it might make Dad look like he was obsessed with her,’ Isla says. ‘Like he killed her and kept a memento.’

‘It does look like that, doesn’t it?’

‘Not to me.’ She feels a swell of rage and she is glad of it, its familiar heat. ‘I think you’re deflecting attention from yourself.’

She laughs. ‘Don’t be absurd, Isla.’

‘I don’t think it’s absurd. Mandy betrayed you. I think you’re sucking up to the cops so they don’t look too closely at you.’

‘I would never—’

‘I think you would,’ Isla says.

The house is still and quiet. Isla hears her mum breathing; her own breath and her blood in her ears.

‘I haven’t told you much about Mandy, have I?’

‘No,’ Isla says. ‘Maybe you should.’

Louisa meets her at the bedroom door. She eyes Isla apprehensively. ‘Mandy saved me when you were a baby,’ she says. ‘She was the only person who understood I wasn’t coping. I didn’t have to tell her, she took one look at me and she knew. She helped me with you. When you wouldn’t settle she picked you up and calmed you down. She took you out in the pram so I could have a break. She stopped me going under.’

Isla finds she is mirroring her mother, her stance and the tilt of her head. She stands up straighter. ‘Go on.’