Stay calm, she muttered to herself, pacing the room. You’ve got your mobile with you and you must use it. You don’t get claustrophobia. Someone will get you out, and when that happens you’ll just have to come clean and face the consequences.

But maybe, just maybe, she could find a way around this.

She reached into her overalls for her mobile, relieved to see she had plenty of battery power left. Her first call was to Monty.

‘I’m going to be late home,’ she told him. ‘Skye called with a problem. I need to stick around a bit longer and sort something out for her.’

‘Fine, no worries—where are you?’

‘I’ll explain later. There’s something I need to know, though.’

‘Shoot.’

‘Do you remember a guy called William Trotman? A general duties officer when you were with Joondalup Detectives.’

‘Blinky Bill? What’s he got to do with Skye?’

‘For now I just need his mobile number.’

‘Hang on I’ll check my phone.’

He seemed to be gone an age. When he finally returned he told her he no longer had Trotman’s number in his phone. She started to swear.

‘But I did find it on the old Cardex in the study.’ She tried to ignore the infuriating smile in his voice, remaining calm as he read out the number, returned his ‘love you’ and hung up.

A police car pulled away from the curb. Stevie prayed Trotman was in the remaining one, that he still had the same mobile number.

He answered on the second ring. ‘William Trotman.’

‘It’s Stevie Hooper, Bill. Don’t say a word. Just get out of the car and get away from the others. I need a private chat.’

The car door opened and she saw Trotman’s gangly form unfold into the street. ‘It’s fucking raining, Stevie.’

‘I’m trapped in the upstairs room. Come and get me out without telling anyone.’

Trotman let out a whooping laugh.

‘Just do it, you bastard!’

The door opened easily from the outside. To stop Trotman from asking what she was doing in the upstairs bedroom, she quickly pointed out the missing doorhandle, asking if it had been noted.

‘No idea,’ he said as they thumped down the stairs. ‘That’s the first I heard about it.’ They paused on the front porch, waiting for a break in the rain. A van pulled up alongside the police car. Stevie recognised the high-heeled form of the woman from the deli, hauling herself out with a box of snacks for the troops. Stevie’s stomach gave a hungry moan. It seemed hours since she’d eaten that salad sandwich.

‘But the room was like a prison,’ Stevie said. ‘I still think you should point it out to Fowler, just in case. Get yourself some brownie points.’ God knows he must need them. Fifty-five if he was a day and still a constable first class.

‘It’s probably just something to do with the redecorating that’s been going on,’ Trotman said, as if she should know what he was talking about.

‘Redecorating? What do you mean?’

Trotman took off his glasses and wiped them thoughtfully on his uniform jacket, making them streakier than they already were. ‘The neighbours told one of the lads about a fire here last year. Apparently an electrical fault damaged quite a bit of the inside of the house and they’ve been slowly getting the place reorganised. I guess they were just waiting on some more doorhandles.’

That would account for the fresh paint and lack of personal effects around the house; possibly, too, the boxed items in the storeroom. But what of the dirt, Stevie thought, the neglect of a beautiful house by a family who could easily afford to pay someone to clean it? And more importantly, how could the state of the baby be explained? A figure ran through the rain towards the porch before she could continue with the thought.

Her heart sank. Luke Fowler.

It seemed that during her absence her kitchen had been transformed into a Chinese laundry. Stevie blinked as she looked around the place, at the sheets of pasta draped over every available surface, from the oven doorhandle to the chair backs, the kitchen shelving to the wooden clotheshorse. Limp doughy strips even hung from Monty’s tropical fish tank. ‘See, curtains for the fish!’ Izzy proclaimed.

Stevie finally found the words. ‘I don’t believe this...’

Monty, with flour on the end of his nose and a generous dusting through his rust-coloured hair, put out two placating hands. ‘Don’t say anything, not one more thing. When you said you’d be home late we decided to cook dinner ourselves. It’ll be the best lasagne you’ve ever tasted—low fat everything, so don’t freak out—and you’ll enjoy it more if you don’t see any of the cooking process. Grab a drink, have a shower or check your email or whatever you want to do and leave dinner to us.’

‘But how can you say that? Just look at all the mess!’

‘Get out of the kitchen, Mum,’ Izzy commanded with a swish of strawberry-blonde curls. She was becoming more like her father in hair colour as well as temperament as the years passed, quick to anger but just as quick to defuse. A lot healthier than Stevie’s own anger, which tended to curl inside her like a spring. ‘We don’t need you!’ Izzy stated the obvious, giving the pasta machine a couple of decisive cranks and sending several more sheets flopping to the floor.

Jesus Christ.

Monty pressed a tin of Emu into Stevie’s hand. ‘Go and relax.’ Relax? That was easier said than done. After what she’d just been through with Fowler she felt about as relaxed as a car chase. But she was too tired for further argument. The beer was good, icy and cold. She took it with her into their living room, the stripped floorboards rough and splintery under her bare feet. With an uncommon flash of despair, she took in the room, a microcosm of the rest of their recently purchased, run-down house near the beach.

Unlike the Pavels’, theirs was single storey and authentic Federation, with many more years of neglect under its belt. That was the challenge, Stevie liked to think, of putting it to rights, making up for the sins of the past. The beauty of art was in its imperfection. With this in mind she’d opted to keep the original character of the house as much as practically possible. Crooked doors, sloped floors, the outside dunny, would remain. Obvious dangers like the sagging veranda roof and floor would have to be fixed up; the electrical wiring replaced, the plumbing modernised. It would be a long, painstaking job. In some ways the process was much like the circuitous road she and Monty had taken to arrive at this point in their lives. The house they would do together; it was their future.

The renovation plans were with the council now, waiting for the official stamp of approval before the structural changes could commence. Stevie had been doing what she could to make the place more comfortable, though none of it was necessary in this time of limbo. But pulling up mouldy carpets, stripping wallpaper and painting selected parts of the outside at least gave her restless energy some direction. Monty had said it was a useless exercise, a waste of time, seeing the builders would probably destroy most of her hard work. But she’d bulled ahead regardless and had so far enjoyed every minute of the process.

Her workstation was tucked into a corner of the lounge room. The study was only big enough for one desk and Monty dominated that. His need was greater as he worked mostly from home at the moment, writing reports for the Corruption and Crime Commission, a desk job to lead him gently up to his heart bypass surgery—if he went through with the operation, that is. He’d pulled out a couple of months ago using the state of their new house as an excuse. And he’d given Stevie no guarantees that he’d go through with the rescheduled operation either, leaving her in another form of limbo.

This one she filled with police work.

Her squad had recently arrested three Perth men involved in an international paedophile ring. The highly publicised court case demonstrated that it was not as easy as it used to be for predatory scum like these to hide on the Internet. She had spent the previous week in court, using the weekend for catching up on paperwork and team meetings at Central. The end was in sight, the prosecution going well, with most thinking they’d have a verdict by the end of next week. When her part was finished, further legalities would be handed over to the Australian Federal Police and the appropriate international authorities, and then she would commence three weeks of well-deserved leave.