‘The crazy thing is, if Pam were here, she’d be able to do it,’ he said, his voice soft. ‘I know you probably think she’s crazy, and I guess she is sort of crazy, but that woman’s faith is strong enough to get her through anything. It would be strong enough to get her out of this car; strong enough to get her inside.’ He turned to her and asked, ‘Are you sure?’

Kate nodded, closed the car door and walked towards the hospital. A heavy-set, plain-clothes detective was waiting for her in the reception area. She was slumped in a plastic chair, deep in thought, picking at her nails. She stood when she saw Kate approach.

‘Mrs Keddie, hello, I’m Detective Barbara Eckman. I spoke to your father-in-law on the phone.’ They shook hands.

‘Pleasure to meet you,’ Kate told them, even though it seemed an absurd thing to say. She smiled on reflex, then, remembering where she was, frowned.

Eckman cocked her head at a curious angle and stared briefly into the middle distance, as if trying to remember something she’d rehearsed. Then she said softly, ‘Are you ready?’

Was she? Her heart was pounding. Her body was trembling and cold. She sensed a primal darkness standing over them, following her like a shadow, and when she went downstairs and saw that body, it would clap around her shoulders, drag her down and stay with her forever.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m ready.’

Eckman led her to a bank of elevators and pressed the button. Stepping through the doors, Kate felt claustrophobic and tight. She pictured a fat cow being led down a pathway flanked by steel fencing, unaware of what lay ahead in the slaughterhouse.

‘When was the last time you spoke with your husband?’ Eckman asked. Her tone was much more serious than the duty sergeant’s had been back in Melbourne. He had been talking to a paranoid woman with an overactive imagination. Eckman was talking to her as if she was a widow, even though she hoped desperately that she wasn’t. She clung to the dream Pam had described – John’s empty throne in the kingdom of heaven – and hoped it really was prophetic.

‘Two days before he was meant to arrive home,’ Kate said.

‘Do you have any idea why he might have come to the island?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I didn’t even know he was here until the alarm company notified me. He told me he was in—’

‘London, yes,’ Eckman finished her sentence. ‘I read the missing person report you filed.’