‘There’s no guard at the door,’ said Wozza, pointing to the empty chair where Randall sat last time we’d visited. He got out his mobile and pressed a couple of buttons, then listened. ‘Randall, my boy,’ he said. ‘We’re at the hospital. The bloke you were guarding on Saturday morning—who’s rostered on to guard him now?’ He listened, then, ‘Uh-huh. Hmm. What?’ He’d been looking down at the hospital floor and his eyes shot up and met mine. ‘Cheers, thanks.’ He jabbed at a button and put his phone back in his pocket.

‘Let me guess,’ I said, putting my fingers on my forehead like I was psychic. ‘Wheels called off the guard?’

‘Budget, apparently.’ The expression on Wozza’s face told me he didn’t believe that any more than I did.

Since I was the cause of Matthew Bunting’s injuries, I hung back and let Wozza run this one. From the glimpse I got of Bunting, he didn’t look like a flight risk, even without a police guard. His arm was plastered and his leg heavily bandaged and elevated. Wozza walked into the room, introduced himself and swept the bed curtain closed around the bed. This allowed me to enter the room undetected and listen on the other side of the curtain.

On the drive over to the hospital, I’d filled Wozza in on the short version of Gemma’s case. I was confident he knew enough to ask the right questions. After the tiny hospital television hanging from the ceiling was muted and pleasantries were exchanged, Wozza began.

‘Mr Bunting, can you tell me what you were doing in the shed on the property of Senior Detective Pollard on Friday night?’

‘Look, mate,’ began Bunting in that low bloke-to-bloke voice I heard so often, ‘you know how it is. I was just trying to scare the bitch.’

‘Really?’ said Wozza, in a friendly you-can-tell-me voice. He had it down pat, particularly with the slow country drawl he effected.

‘Yeah, you know, pay her back.’

‘Oh sure,’ said Wozza conspiratorially. ‘You go hide in someone’s shed with a knife that looks like it’s from a horror movie …’

Bunting chuckled. ‘Yeah, exactly.’

‘Didn’t work out how you planned, though, did it?’ Wozza managed to sound regretful.

‘Fucken dog! They never said anything about a dog.’

Wozza said in a low voice, like it was a secret: ‘You know, that dog was a police dog.’

‘Oh jeez! No fucken wonder! Look what it did!’

I heard the rustle of sheets and figured Bunting was showing the bits of him that Waffles had damaged.

‘So, what—you were going to scare her with the knife? Like wave it at her?’ Wozza’s voice was casual.

‘Yeah, fucken hold it to her throat, maybe. But I swear I wasn’t going to hurt her, like.’

‘Any reason in particular? You hate her or something?’