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‘Um, yes, sir, it is clear. But…what does he look like? How will I know—’

‘I want no questions from you—just answers. You give Bob all the information he asks for. I do not need to know any more of the sordid details of this mess you and my son have made. I will leave you two to discuss this further.’

Jack Cavanagh stood up from behind his massive mahogany desk.

‘I am very disappointed, Simon.
Very
disappointed. I don’t want this situation spoken about to anyone,
ever.
Not even to me, unless I ask you directly about it. Is that clear?’

Simon nodded. ‘Yes, sir, it is.’

‘If I discover that you have not been truthful with me or with Mr White here, or that you mentioned this conversation to anyone at all…Well, I know my son will be very sad to lose his friend.’

Simon accepted his orders, and Jack Cavanagh left him with The American, his notepad, and the certainty that this was indeed serious. Simon would have to tell it all. No amount of charm would get him out of this one.

At eight o’clock, Mak was still sitting in the childhood bedroom of the deceased young Meaghan Wallace, talking with her bereaved mother and being shown album after album of family photographs. She found herself being sucked into the woman’s raw grief. Seeing all these photographs of Meaghan when she was a baby and a toddler, and going to school for the first time—it was not helpful. Things had gone completely off track, but Mak found it difficult to break away. This woman seemed to need her there. She just wanted someone to listen to her stories about her daughter. She wanted someone to see the albums and the memories, and see Meg as she did.

Mak looked over at a bedside clock and saw the time.

Damn.

She and Andy had an eight o’clock dinner date at Icebergs restaurant. She would be at least thirty minutes late now, and she still didn’t have what she needed. She had to wrap it up.

‘Um, Mrs Wallace,’ Mak started.

‘Call me Noelene.’

‘Noelene, may I use your bathroom?’

‘Oh yes. Yes, of course.’ Noelene closed the album she was showing Mak and put it lovingly back into its place in the stack on the bedroom dresser. She pointed the way and Mak walked out of Meaghan Wallace’s bedroom and down the hall to the toilet, feeling relief in having escaped the room.

Oh God, poor woman. Poor woman.

Makedde flicked the light on. The bathroom was wallpapered with teal flowers; the towels were all in the same shade. Mak closed the bathroom door behind her and snatched her phone out of her pocket. It had a number of voicemail messages and missed calls. She had switched it to silent so as not to disturb the Wallaces.

Mak didn’t bother to check her voicemail messages. Instead, she called Andy right away. He was probably waiting angrily in the living room for her to return, or worse—he might be at the restaurant sipping a drink by himself while she stood in a sea of teal in a bereaved stranger’s bathroom.

‘Flynn,’ he answered.

‘I will be there in twenty minutes. I’m so sorry,’ Makedde said in an apologetic whisper.

‘Why are you whispering?’ he asked.

‘I can’t explain right now. I’m in someone’s bathroom, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ She
cupped her hand around the phone to further muffle her talking.

‘Bathroom? I’m not at the restaurant yet. The reservation isn’t till nine. I couldn’t get us in until then. I’ll meet you at the house at quarter to—I’m still with Jimmy,’ Andy said.

He’s still at work?
Suddenly Mak didn’t feel so bad.

‘I’ll be home in half an hour, tops,’ she told him. ‘I love you.’

Mak hung up and tucked her mobile phone away. Before she stepped out, she caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror. Her eyes were red, and there was an unmistakable sadness in them. Mak noticed some vague similarity between herself and the photos she had seen of Meaghan. It was far from a strong resemblance: Meaghan had been shorter, younger and more of a yellowy blonde, but perhaps Noelene was opening up to Mak in part because she was a young woman a bit like her daughter.

What would it be like to lose a daughter?
She knew what it was like to lose a mother.

Mak shut the light off and stepped back into the hall just as Noelene was closing the door of her daughter’s room. Mak had spent over an hour and a half with her and had well and truly let things get off track. Now, before she left, it was time to broach the difficult subject of Tobias Murphy.

‘Mrs Wallace, how do you feel about the police case? The suspect they have, Tobias Murphy—’

‘Oh,’ Noelene said, and shook her head back and forth. Mak could see that the name had struck a chord. How would it be to have someone mention the name of the person accused of killing your own child? Noelene took a few steps down the hall and paused, and Mak became worried that she’d lost her. Mak had waited as long as she could, and been as gentle as she could. Perhaps she had asked the wrong way? She probably should have taken a seat somewhere and had more tea first.

‘My sister…she was the black sheep of the family…after what happened,’ Noelene said, and touched the doorknob of her dead daughter’s bedroom thoughtfully. She seemed reluctant to move from that room, and those memories.

Mak was confused. ‘Your sister?’

‘Tobias always seemed like a nice enough kid,’ Noelene offered graciously. She looked down the hall to Ralph, who still sat in place in the living room, his arms crossed, the television volume up.

‘Are you saying that you
know
Tobias?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘He’s our nephew.’

Mak reeled at the news. Tobias Murphy was Meaghan’s cousin?

He killed his own cousin?

‘You know, that poor kid had a rough time from the start. I loved my sister. I will always love her, but she let Tobias and Georgina down. She just wasn’t strong enough for what happened. She never forgave herself.’

Mak waited, her eyes wide.

‘Barbara finally killed herself two years ago.’ Noelene crossed herself and shook her head. ‘She’d tried so many times before.’

‘Oh. Oh, I am so sorry to hear that.’

‘She had been depressed for a long time. She never really got over what happened to…Krista. Or to Georgina.’

The names squeaked out unwillingly. Mak didn’t understand—who were Krista and Georgina? She took mental notes as she listened, but did not interfere as Noelene spoke. She obviously had a lot more homework to do if she had let such an important piece of information slip past.

‘She didn’t take proper care of them after that,’ Mrs Wallace continued. ‘She couldn’t even take care of herself. None of us was surprised when Kev left.’

Kevin Murphy. Tobias’s father.

Mak nodded solemnly, pretending she had already figured it all out. ‘And then Kev…?’ she prompted.

‘Remarried. He got married a number of years ago. He has kids with his new wife now.’

Mak nodded.

So Kevin Murphy had moved on and started a new life for himself. Mak wondered how open he and his new wife had been to young Tobias, the one remaining tie to Kevin’s first marriage—and she wondered how open Tobias had been to
them? Mak had seen the name ‘Kevin Murphy’ in the Tobias Murphy file, along with the name of a woman whom she had initially assumed was Tobias’s biological mother. A lot of women didn’t change their names after marriage any more, so it was foolish to assume anything.

Mak looked at her notepad. ‘You mentioned a Georgina?’

‘Barb’s daughter.’

‘And where is Georgina now?’

‘She suicided when she was fifteen. It was an overdose.’

Mak nodded solemnly.
Fifteen.
‘I am so sorry to hear that. She was Tobias’s older sister?’

Noelene nodded.

One suicide at fifteen, and a runaway at fourteen who is now charged with murder.
Mak could see how lucky she had been in her own life. Up until her mother had passed away from cancer, her family life on the west coast of Canada had been idyllic. The Vanderwalls had been a strong family, and seemingly one of the few families at Mak’s school which had not been fragmented by divorce or death. Mak’s schoolfriends had always wanted to come over to her place because her parents were so normal. No evil step-parent or drunken brothers—just a normal and safe family home, with the added bonus of the mystique of having a powerful police officer for a father. They’d always wanted to sneak into her father’s office to see his trophies and awards, his handcuffs—and his gun.
He must have known, too, because he never left it out.

‘Did Meaghan and Tobias know each other well?’

‘When they were very little they were inseparable.’ Noelene looked towards her feet. ‘Barbara was sick a lot. Tobias often stayed with us when she wasn’t well. Meg and Toby played and played. Meg liked to take care of him. In those days Kev couldn’t care for Toby on his own, so we saw a lot of him. They didn’t have stay-at-home dads back then.’

She said this last sentence pointedly, as if she held some bitter feeling that Makedde’s generation had it easier.

‘Meg used to take care of him all the time…like she enjoyed playing mother to him. When she was twelve she used to put him in the pram and push him around the yard…’

This memory seemed to be too much for Noelene—she finally broke down. Her face crumpled, tears springing from her eyes.

Mak felt responsible for Noelene’s rehashing of painful memories, for her tears. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ she said feebly, and placed a hand gently on the woman’s arm as she shook and wept.

‘Did he really murder my girl? Did he?’ Noelene cried.

Who on earth—let alone Meaghan’s mother—would want to believe that Meaghan’s own
cousin could have stabbed her for nothing but a hit and a bit of cash?

‘Did he really do it?’ Noelene repeated, sobbing. ‘Do you think someone else might have done it?’

Back in the living room Mr Wallace seemed tense at the sound of his wife’s tears. His response was to turn up the volume on the television while Noelene wrung her hands, wrinkling her dress. Tears continued to roll down her face.

‘I’m very sorry,’ Mak said, feeling helpless. She stood in the hallway next to the woman, touching her arm, and wishing there was something more she could do.

‘Toby could not have done this,’ Noelene said, this time with certainty. ‘If we had the money, we would hire someone like you to find the real killer.’ She spoke with such clarity that it took Mak by surprise.

‘You think they have the wrong person?’ Mak asked in response, and immediately regretted her choice of words. It wasn’t fair of her to confuse this woman at a time when she was so vulnerable. Making a baseless suggestion that the police might have the wrong suspect was irresponsible and wrong. She felt like she was getting everything wrong.

‘Meg was…She was doing things that…that she wasn’t telling us about,’ Noelene said between sobs. ‘I knew it. I knew something was going on.’

Mak could see that the older woman had thought this through, probably obsessing over everything her daughter had said to her in the months before her death.

‘Miss Vanderwall…as you can probably tell, my husband and I aren’t rich. We get by, but we aren’t rich people. Meg used to give us stuff all the time. There wasn’t a single visit she made in the past two years where she didn’t bring something for us. Like that TV that Ralph is watching.’ Mak had noticed it was a large flat-screen model—pretty flash. ‘She was always bringing things for us, and she insisted we take them.’ Noelene took a deep breath. ‘I started wondering where she was getting it all. Where was she getting the money from? That television was way too expensive for our blood. How could she afford all that?’

Mak didn’t know what to say, but Noelene was right to think that her daughter’s salary would not support such lavish gifts.

‘She was into something,’ Noelene said, more calmly now. ‘Someone else did this to her. Someone…’

The American, Bob White, sat in the office of his client Jack Cavanagh, considering what he knew of the situation at hand. It was getting late on Friday evening, and they were the last souls remaining on the office floor. Jack had even sent home his secretary, Joy.

Simon Aston, the party-boy friend of Damien Cavanagh, had gone home with his tail between his legs after telling Bob every last detail of his foolish dealings. And his dealings had indeed been foolish. Simon had not impressed Bob: he’d seen recklessly self-serving and arrogant young men like Simon before. Simon was a leech on Damien and the Cavanagh fortune, and now he had jeopardised their security.

‘How bad is it?’ Jack Cavanagh asked The American. He had not been present for Damien’s and Simon’s full confessions—a precaution to keep him innocent of any incriminating details. The less he knew, the better it was for him. He would stay as clean as possible during the events that were about to unfold.

Bob delivered the news. ‘In my professional estimation, we do need Mr Hand’s expertise on this. I recommend we make the confirmation immediately.’

Jack nodded. ‘Okay. Make it happen.’ He had already known.

Mr Hand’s involvement meant that the situation was bad. You didn’t bring a man like him in without things being very,
very
serious.

‘And this Mr Hand…he is highly recommended?’ Jack asked.

‘Very,’ Bob assured him. ‘And he is an expatriate Australian, so he knows Sydney well. I recommend that you not know more than that. Forget you ever heard his name.’

The American’s contact, known only as Madame Q, had nominated her man Luther Hand for the job. He was said to be methodical, fast-working and virtually anonymous, and he had no restrictions on the profile or number of targets he would accept. Black or white; man, woman or child—given the orders, Madame Q’s man Mr Hand would eliminate them all. That was a characteristic not shared by everyone in his profession.

‘I think it is best to keep yourself and your son as distant from this clean-up as possible,’ The American continued.

Jack agreed.

Bob considered his response for a while before he spoke again. ‘The activities your son engaged
in could give him a sentence of perhaps five to ten years. More, if convicted of manslaughter.’

Jack sat upright in his chair, startled, but said nothing.

‘We do need to take that threat seriously. I will have to use some of your contacts within the police.’

Jack nodded. ‘I have some favours I can call on. There is one man—a Detective Hunt, I think. He would be close to it, and should prove helpful.’

Bob wrote the name down.

‘I will handle it with discretion. You need not become involved. If anyone tries to contact you directly, deny any knowledge. This Warwick O’Connor may be bluffing about having an actual video. He may have learned something about the recording from another source—even Simon himself—without actually being in possession of it. But it still seems likely that such a video does exist, and we must take every precaution in relation to containing it. There may already be copies.’

Jack nodded solemnly.

‘It may not seem so right now, but all this may in fact be a blessing in disguise,’ Bob told him. ‘We now know about your son’s activities and we may be able to contain the damage. Left much longer, it would have become more dangerous. If a recording of these activities exists, we need to find out exactly what was recorded and who might have seen it. That is my top priority.’

Jack knew The American well enough not to ask how he would get his information and how he would handle those who might have seen something dangerous. He had worked with him many years, through many crises…though perhaps none had been as close to home as this, and Jack trusted the man’s judgment implicitly.

‘With your permission, I will get my men to search your home for all mobile phones or phone fragments. I would like to find that phone.’

‘Okay. Do it, but do it quietly,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t want my wife catching wind of any of this.’

‘Understood. I will need a list of Beverley’s movements, and I will need you to excuse your house staff for the day.’

‘Okay.’

‘I need your permission to take whatever steps are necessary and reasonable to remove the threat of the video evidence of your son’s activities. It could come at considerable expense.’

‘Do it,’ Jack replied without hesitation.

The American had reliable and discreet contacts who could help him track down any transmission sent from that phone, including the video recording, if it existed. He had to get rid of evidence, and witnesses. There were ways to minimise or eliminate those threats, but Jack had to be clear about what that might mean.

‘Do what you need to, Bob,’ Jack said once more. ‘Any means you deem necessary. You know how important this is right now.’

The American understood. ‘I will set the wheels in motion immediately. Things will happen very quickly.’

Jack nodded his head sadly. ‘Just, um…’ he began, uncharacteristically caught on his words. His throat sounded tight. ‘I don’t want anyone suffering unnecessarily…’

‘Understood,’ The American reassured him. ‘Don’t give it any further thought.’

At this point, however, suffering was unavoidable.