‘Not weird at all,’ said Wozza. ‘This is a small country town. My next-door neighbour on one side is my dentist, and on the other side is the real estate agent I bought our house off.’ He took a bite from his hamburger, then picked a piece of fallen tomato from his tie. ‘Did you know him?’

Memories flooded in. ‘Yeah. We were friends.’ I looked at my computer again, forehead creased in concentration. ‘There’s a case outline here, couple of key statements. Might check out the file next time I’m in town.’

‘Why?’

I considered the question. ‘I knew him and he grew up to be a killer. I’d like to try to find out why, because I never would have picked it.’ I made a call to the Homicide Squad. Turned out the file had been archived at Laverton. That was only an hour’s drive away.

‘Do you think he should tell her?’ I asked Wozza.

‘Who? The uncle?’

I nodded. The dilemma bugged me. Did the girl have a right to know how her parents died?

‘It’s a hard one,’ said Wozza. ‘If anything happened to me, I’d want my kids to remember me in the best possible light. If Russell Mowbray never says a word, then Crystal can look at her baby pictures with her lovely young parents and imagine they were good people.’

I looked over at my partner. Even though I hadn’t known him long, he had struck me right from the beginning as a decent bloke. And judging by the number of pictures on the pin-up board next to his desk, he adored his wife and kids. In the murky world of policing, the respite of family was the most important thing.

‘Still, all it would take is for one person to tell her …’

‘Nothing better than a country town to bury a truth.’ Wozza took another bite of his hamburger and changed the subject. ‘So, what’s next in building the case against Jack Barratt? We should try to get a rush on the tox screen, and I’ll talk to Wheels about extra uniform patrols around the four pubs.’

The bail hearing had given us an idea how Jack was going to play it: the innocent victim of an aggressive female police officer. I resisted the feelings of frustration that churned in my stomach. Men like Jack got their rocks off by putting women in a losing position. I was determined not to let him do that to me.

‘Jack Barratt has syphilis,’ I said, looking down at the note Norma had left for me. ‘We need to see if that has been transmitted to any of the victims. I know they check for STDs, but do they automatically test for syphilis when they do the rape kits at the hospital?’