Eventually the line thinned, the happy shoppers of the Buy & Bye drifted back out into the cold, and Abby and Biller had a moment to think. Biller didn’t waste any time.

‘What do you know, Abby?’ he asked, mopping his slick brow with the front of his polo shirt, exposing the soft white belly beneath it.

‘What do I know about what?’ she asked, but she knew exactly what he was asking. Biller waited. ‘A lot of gossip and not much else,’ she said.

Biller hoisted both garbage bags from each of their registers – neither had been emptied for over a week – and twisted the tops. He started hauling them towards the doors, moving with a spring in his step. ‘Do us a favour, Ab, and restock the Coke fridge, and, oh, check aisle three for vomit. Rose Furleo had her little Bernie in here and she lets that little brat run riot. Who names their child Bernie, by the way?’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you buzzing like this,’ Abby said.

He stopped halfway to the door, then plopped the bags down on the floor. They landed with a wet smacking sound. ‘Well, it just so happens I have a juicy little nugget of murder gossip, if you’re interested.’

‘Actually, Biller, I’m not so sure we should be sharing nuggets of gossip anymore, juicy or otherwise. Don’t you think it’s sort of disrespectful?’

Biller fixed her with a look she read as either vaguely suspicious or vaguely constipated. ‘How’s the view from up there, Abby?’

‘Huh?’

‘From up there on your high horse.’

She rolled her eyes and said, ‘Fine, what’s your juicy nugget?’

He grinned. ‘Okay, so have you ever met my ex-wife, Helen?’

‘Not officially, but I’ve heard so many stories about her I feel like I have.’

Going by what she’d pieced together from Biller’s accounts, Helen Biller née Watts was a demon-headed monster ripped from folklore: a creature who collected the hearts of brave and gallant men to feast on in the three-bedroom Barwon Heads townhouse that she bought with her share of the settlement money.

‘Now, I have a, well, I suppose you’d call it a habit,’ Biller said. ‘Of calling her up on the phone anytime I get shit-faced. Sometimes I tell her I’m still in love with her, occasionally I tell her I wish she was dead, but mostly we just talk.’

‘Lucky lady,’ Abby said.