I threw Tye out as soon as I knew he was up to no good, Stevie answered in her defence, reaching for the water bottle at her feet. She took a swig and tried to wash down the lump that rose like bile in her throat. She looked over at Monty as he drove and wondered how she could ever have thought that she loved anyone else. The problems she faced now with Monty were a walk in the park compared to what she’d endured with Tye. The demands of the job affected plenty of other police couples too.

Or so she tried to tell herself.

But tonight there was such a crackling tension in the car between them. Monty was answering her questions in grunted monosyllables, turning what could have been a comfortable silence into a bed of nails.

His flat delivery suited the subject matter when at last he began to speak at length. ‘You remember that case of the abducted girl in Mundaring a couple of years ago?’ He kept his eyes on the road, his face glowing in the dashboard light. ‘She was found tied to a tree in the state forest after an anonymous tip off.’

Stevie hadn’t worked the Mundaring case, but she remembered the frustration of all concerned. ‘Yes, the victim had traumatic amnesia, couldn’t remember much about her ordeal. She was sexually interfered with, but otherwise physically unharmed.’

‘The state forest where she was found borders the east side of Mundaring Weir,’ Monty said. ‘The anonymous caller who raised the alarm was male and had a slightly foreign accent. We always presumed he was the perpetrator, though the only leads we had at the time were some dog hairs found on the girl.’

Stevie smacked her palms upon her knees. ‘It’s Kusak, it has to be,’ she said. ‘He didn’t mean to kill her; he was planning on leaving her tied up like he did the first girl. He must’ve panicked when he realised she was dead, had no kind of plan for the body disposal and did the first thing that came to his mind—dump her at the building site.’

‘SOCO found a rape kit in the back of the Toyota: duct tape, mask, more or less what he used on the first girl. Kusak’s undoubtedly our guy and, yes, Bianca’s death was probably an accident.’

‘Any signs of a double act?’

Monty shook his head. ‘Evidence suggests that Kusak abused her alone, although that doesn’t rule out Mrs K as an accessory of some kind. The pathologist said Bianca had a bad head cold; she wouldn’t have been able to breathe through her nose and probably suffocated when she was gagged. They also found dog hairs on her body.’

Monty’s despondency spread to Stevie like a virus. At least he’d acted alone. I should be elated, she thought, but I’m not. We should be going out for a celebratory drink, but the thought sickens me. We’ve solved the crime; this man will harm no more children, and there will be no protracted court case. Someone has done us all a huge favour by knocking the creep off, yet I feel cheated, unsatisfied. She wondered if this was Monty’s problem too.

He started to speak, hesitated, moistened his lips and glanced at her. ‘Is Mrs K going to pursue her complaint about Natasha?’

No, she realised, his problem ran a bit deeper than one murdered paedophile. His tone of voice, the way his eyes left the road to glance at her face, made her wonder if he was already aware of her doubts about Tash. She felt a sudden rush of anxiety. Shit, am I that transparent? What has he found out?

She shifted in her seat; the air conditioner didn’t seem to be working properly, it felt like a hair drier aimed at her face. She fiddled with the angle of the vent and turned down the fan. ‘No, she’s dropped the complaint.’

No more questions about Tash please, Monty, she silently begged. I have to get a few things straight in my own mind first.

‘Emma’s minding Izzy,’ she said. ‘Her mother said it was okay for her to sleep over when I said I might be back late. I think Emma will be disappointed when Dot comes back,’ Stevie rattled on, hoping to draw Monty into conversation.

No such luck.

‘The bullet that killed Miro was fired at the lookout from an automatic pistol,’ Monty said. ‘I found it embedded in a tree with the casing on the ground near the bin. There was also broken glass and a small amount of what looks to be blood splatter. I think someone either sat in the passenger seat or leaned through the open passenger window and shot him while he was sitting in his car.’

‘When I arrived, the passenger window was closed.’

Monty shrugged. ‘It could’ve been wound up again. SOCO have found fingerprints, but none yet that are identifiable with anyone other than Kusak.’

She took a breath, wondering where he was going with this. ‘Go on.’ Let’s get this over with.

‘The dog was probably out of the car when the shot was fired,’ Monty went on. ‘We found its tracks at the lookout and also plenty of tyre tracks. After Kusak was shot, the gear stick was placed in neutral and the Toyota pushed down the hill. There are some fresh dents in the side where it clipped vegetation on the way down.’

Stevie thought for a moment. ‘Maybe someone went down the track on foot after to check all was as it should be. That could explain the piece of torn shirt I found on the bush.’

‘Possibly. The Toyota’s been towed away for forensic examination. One of the first things we need to do is eliminate Mrs K as a suspect in her husband’s murder or as an accomplice in Bianca’s murder and abduction.’

‘She’s never had a driver’s licence,’ Stevie said. ‘I can’t see her getting herself the ten kilometres home from the lookout without a car.’

‘Unless she had some help. She might have paid someone else to knock him off. I’m going to get people onto her bank accounts. I’ve also asked the media to put out a plea for public assistance, see if anyone saw anything from the road that night.’

Close family members of a victim were always the first suspects, but Stevie couldn’t discount the feeling, despite the unpalatable taste it gave her, that Mrs K had actually loved her husband.

‘I was looking through Wayne’s witness statements while I was waiting for you to pick me up,’ Monty went on. ‘Some local kids were having a gathering that started at lunchtime and went on into the night. Mrs K rang them several times to complain, first in the afternoon about a car parked across her driveway, then about beer cans tossed over her fence. By the time it was dark and the party really cranked up, she was threatening them with he police. They finally conceded to her wishes at about midnight and turned the music down. Wayne’s got records of the times.’

‘Still a bit dodgy. Kusak was apparently killed sometime between early evening and midnight.’

‘The time of death is just a preliminary estimate. We won’t know until the autopsy. Whatever the TOD, she’s still not clear, she could have paid someone else. Then again...’ Monty tapped his fingers on the steering wheel for a moment and frowned. The dense bush on either side of them was dark as they headed down the hill to the city. Stevie felt disorientated, had no idea how far they were from the well-lit highway below.

‘Early evening.’ She cleared her throat, reluctant to tell him what she knew, but his silence compelled her to speak. ‘That was about when Tash visited her,’ she said, deliberately vague about the time.

Monty took his eyes off the road for a moment and searched her face. ‘Find out the exact time,’ he snapped. ‘And find out where she was when she was supposed to be at the team meeting in Central.’

Jeez, can a couple know each other too well? ‘She was home with a migraine,’ Stevie said.

‘But she wasn’t there when you called around. Do you know exactly when she did get home?’

‘For God’s sake, you’re acting like you think Tash had something to do with...’ A bounding shape leapt out into the road from the bush. He braked hard, only just missing the roo.