Finally, Mr Millard stopped, snapped the cane in half over his knee, and threw the pieces at his son, who cowered in a squat, arms around his head. The door slammed behind him. I took a gulp of air and ran over to Brett. I clung to him, crying.

‘Are you okay?’ I said, my voice no more than a whimper.

Brett pulled himself upright and choked back a sob. His cheeks were wet with tears, but I watched a transformation: Brett’s face uncrumpled and he gave a weak grin.

‘I’m okay,’ he said.

I looked down at his legs, which were crisscrossed with angry red welts. I didn’t know what to say.

‘Don’t tell anyone, okay?’ he whispered.

‘Why not?’ I said, even though I couldn’t think of anyone I would tell.

‘If your nan knows, she won’t let you come around and play anymore.’

I knew that was true.

Just as I was about to leave, I turned to Brett and whispered, ‘Did you take the money from school?’

Brett met my eyes. Then nodded.

Not long after that, I had moved back to Melbourne with my mother, and by the next stay with Nan, Brett had moved on to hang with a tougher group of like-minded young kids, and I found others to play with. Our time together had been intense but brief. I wondered if I had unconsciously repressed the whipping Brett had taken.

It can be confronting to look back at childhood through an adult lens; a police lens made it worse. As an adult and as a cop, I could only shake my head at my behaviour. Brett had needed me to speak up not cover up. Had my silence subjected him to years of beatings until he found Shayna and married young? And what sort of father had Brett been to his daughter before he lost all reason and murdered her mother? Did it all stem from that day in his bedroom? Or was that just one incident in a long line of incidents?

It was like I had put the memory of what happened to Brett in a box in my mind and locked it shut. Now that my own complicity came flooding back, I wondered how this event had subconsciously shaped me. Did I see shadows of Brett’s childhood vulnerability in Gemma? Was I destined to meet a string of damaged vulnerable people who were doomed, no matter how hard I tried to be there for them? I pushed the thought from my head.

Thinking like that was not helpful.

I set the photo aside, then piled the rest of the contents back into the suitcase and clicked the latches shut. At the doorway of the attic, I flicked off the light.

At that moment, Waffles started barking.

CHAPTER 16: THE INTRUDER

CHAPTER 16

THE INTRUDER