She could run, but she was sure this man would chase her down. Instead, after summoning everything she had, she took one long stride forward and raised the penlight.

‘Fuck me,’ she said.

The figure in her yard was a beach umbrella. She’d forgotten that was where they stored it during winter. She braced her hands on her knees and exhaled. A killer wasn’t here for her after all, but the fuse box was left open. She didn’t imagine that.

Moving fast now, she shone her penlight inside the box. The main switch had been thrown. She switched it back and power returned to the house. Light poured out from inside, illuminating the side yard and a shaggy, unkempt section of garden. Abby scanned it, half expecting the man she imagined lurking there to leap out brandishing a dagger. Instead, standing among the foliage, she spotted a teenage boy.

‘Christ,’ she said, gasping.

The boy stared quietly back at her. He was quite a good-looking kid, fifteen or sixteen, with delicate features and thick black hair, slicked back in a way she didn’t see very often nowadays. He wore blue jeans and a light-blue windbreaker. He was shivering.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to use the front door in case the cops were watching the house, but I needed to see you.’

‘Who are you?’

He took a step forward, into the soft light falling out through the living-room window.

‘I’m John Keddie,’ he said. ‘Do you remember me?’

27

THE WIDOW

Kate pulled the car into the vehicle loading area at the mainland ferry terminal, waiting for the second-last boat of the day to arrive and take her back to the island.

She spent most of the trip outside, on the ironically named sun deck, her gloved fingers curled tightly around the railing, watching Belport Island loom closer and closer. The ferry lifted wildly and fell suddenly, but it didn’t falter.

The fresh air helped clear her mind. She had spent too many hours in the car.

She had thought a lot on the drive back from South Hallston Correctional Facility, mostly about home. Mia. She missed her little girl. It had been days, not weeks or months, since she last saw her, but her heart ached when she thought about it.

Even now, out on the sun deck, she wondered if coming back to Belport was the right move. Deep down she knew she didn’t have much of a choice – she had to find out what happened to John. How could she go back to Mia and build any sort of normal life with these questions chasing her?

Still, the urge to take the Melbourne exit off the freeway had been strong. She’d have been halfway home by now if she had.