‘Usually,’ Manolis said. ‘But nuisance calls are something else. These could’ve been from a friend or relative she was avoiding.’

‘That’s still a nuisance.’

‘Did she ever tell you who was calling?’

Searle shook his head. ‘Molly seemed fairly unflustered by them, whoever they were from. She just looked down at her phone, saw the number and got on with her day.’

Manolis sifted through his thoughts. ‘Did she ever mention a man named Joe Shrewsbury?’

‘Shrewsbury? No. I know who he is, of course, but she never mentioned his name.’

‘What about Molly’s friends?’ Manolis asked. ‘Did she have any confidants, maybe a close girlfriend or two?’ Someone like that would most likely have known who Molly was sleeping with or dating, or which men may have been bothering her.

Searle pinched his strawberry-red nose in thought. ‘She did have one good female friend I remember, Amy Wilkins. She was a mum of one of the schoolkids, a single mum. They used to walk home together, usually after school.’

‘Can I speak with her?’ Manolis asked, sensing an untapped resource.

‘That, uh, may be difficult,’ Kerr interrupted.

‘Oh…?’ Manolis asked, turning.

‘I knew Amy too, she’s no longer in Cobb,’ Kerr explained. ‘She and her daughter left town a year ago.’

Searle nodded, then shrugged. ‘We don’t actually know where they ended up.’

‘I see,’ Manolis said slowly. He needed to find Molly’s phone, which could at least contain Amy’s number. He turned back to the principal. ‘And when was it that you last saw Molly?’

‘Friday afternoon, as she was leaving work. She was by the front gate, talking to two men. I was inside one of the classrooms.’

‘Two men?’

Searle described a middle-aged man with sharp blue eyes and a shock of thick blond hair. He wore a white shirt and tan trousers and had a muscular chest and arms. His face was clean-shaven, his jaw chiselled and squared. Kerr scribbled furiously.

‘I didn’t recognise him,’ said Searle. ‘I suspected he was a local based on appearance, only I’d never seen him before.’

The second man was younger than the first – Searle estimated twenties – and much taller and thinner. He also had a full head of hair, though black, combined with a hairy sheepdog moustache and five o’clock shadow that made him look quite menacing to the headmaster. He wore jeans and a check shirt, half unbuttoned, that revealed a dark brown chest bristling with even more hair.

‘I’d never seen him before either, but he resembled a lot of the men who I’d told to go away.’

Manolis fixed his eyes on the headmaster, before asking the question to which he already knew the answer. ‘How so?’

Searle’s tone was measured. ‘They stick out like dog’s balls.’

‘Who do?’

‘They do. Them.’

Scratching the back of his scalp, Manolis exhaled a long stream of tight air. ‘I see.’