Les Vanderwall had been one of Vancouver Island's longest-serving detective inspectors; as his eldest daughter, Makedde had seen a lot of crime in her twenty-nine years. That was why she had chosen the field of forensic psychology in the first place, and it was also, perhaps, where her knack for investigation had come from. From the very first time aged twelve she had seen a murder victim in the local morgue during a father-daughter bonding field trip, Mak had wanted to understand crime-particularly violent crime. She longed to comprehend why people did the things they did to one another, and exactly what made a criminal recidivist tick. She didn't have the answers yet, but she was sure she would. Some day. Les, who had dealt with criminals his whole life, had once said-with some sarcasm-that Mak should give him a call when she figured out what made criminals commit crimes. She'd said he would be the first person she'd call.

'How is Ann? Is she good?' Mak asked.

Makedde had lost her mother, Jane, five years earlier. She could hardly believe it had been that long; it had been a tough stretch of time. Thankfully, Les was no longer alone. He had found Ann, a psychologist. Mak liked Ann a lot-though of course she would never replace her mum.

'She's good,' he said. 'I think you should consider the Justice Department job, Mak. Come back.'

'Dad, no. Not now. I am setting my life up here at the moment. Well, trying to...' But she still felt bad for abandoning him. 'I have to go now, Dad.' She had planned on making her house call after work hours, but just before dinner, so she would have to hurry up. 'And you should go to bed. I love you, Dad. I'll call you tomorrow, okay?' Mak hung up and frowned. She'd forgotten to ask about her pregnant sister, Theresa. Mak doubted she ever met with such disapproval.

Mak pulled up at a modest single-level house in Parramatta, in Sydney's west, and tossed the Sydways map into the back seat with a thunk.

This is it.

She parked Andy's red Honda on the street directly in front of the house, and made her way up a paved path towards the door, her heart beating fast with nerves. It was a small fifties-style home with an unkempt garden, and windows full of pot plants and white lace curtains. It looked bleak within the small windows-a still place where no light entered.

Mak felt awkward about visiting Meaghan Wallace's parents. She knew it was part of her job, part of the chores her client was paying for her to do, but she found herself feeling sad for the Wallaces, and sorry that she was going to bother them in their grief. She had not done this sort of thing before.

Taking a deep breath, Mak knocked on the door.

Shuffling footsteps moved towards the door. It opened to reveal a weathered woman who looked at Mak with fragile, red-rimmed eyes. 'Hello, young lady,' the woman said. 'May I help you?'

Mak was not sure how she would be received. Either very well, or very badly...

'My name is Makedde Vanderwall. May I speak with you for a moment, Mrs Wallace?' she asked, assuming this was Meaghan's bereaved mother, Noelene.

Meaghan's mother seemed surprised. 'Oh yes, please come in.' The woman stepped aside for Mak to enter. 'Would you like some tea?' Mrs Wallace asked.

Now it was Mak's turn to be surprised. 'Tea? Um, certainly. Yes. Thank you,' she replied clumsily.

Makedde was already inside the front door, which was a better result than she had expected in so short a time. She was inexperienced about what to expect of bereaved strangers. Andy had performed many death knocks as a constable, and said that nothing surprised him any more: tears, screams, laughter, fidgeting or numb silence. With all that in mind, tea seemed a very civilised option coming from the bereaved Mrs Wallace.

The woman shuffled away towards her kitchen, and Mak trailed her several feet behind, unsure if it was okay to follow or if she should wait in the hall. She stopped just on the edge of the kitchen linoleum.

'You're with the police?' the woman said.

Here was the moment of truth. Mak could tell any number of fibs, but one thing that was too legally risky was to lie about being a police officer. She wouldn't do that.

'Mrs Wallace,' she began from the safety of the orange hall carpet, 'I'm not with the police. I am a private investigator looking into your daughter's death. I am going to do my best to find the whole truth of what happened.' She opened her wallet and passed the older woman a business card. 'I am so very sorry to disturb you. I know this must be a difficult time, but if it is all right, I would like to talk to you about Meaghan.'

The woman kept her back to Makedde as she prepared the tea. Mak thought there was a fifty-fifty chance she would be immediately kicked out.

Mrs Wallace hesitated for a few seconds before saying, 'Do you take milk and sugar?'

'Yes, please.'

Noelene Wallace put the kettle on and laid out cups and saucers. She led Mak into a dark living room, where her husband, Ralph, was watching television. The curtains were already closed, although the sun was still up. Ralph Wallace didn't get out of his chair, and Mak couldn't help but imagine that he had sat down in that spot when he heard of his daughter's murder and not moved since.

Mrs Wallace laid out the tray of tea and biscuits, and gestured for Mak to take a seat on the lounge.

'Thank you,' Mak began. 'I appreciate your time. I am very sorry for your loss. Your daughter was very lovely.'

Ralph Wallace eyed Mak suspiciously, but nodded to acknowledge her words. He raised the remote control in his hand and turned the television to mute. He had been watching the soap opera Neighbours with the sound low.

'You're a cop?' he asked, without taking his eyes from the screen.

'No, sir, I'm not. I am a private investigator looking into the circumstances of what happened to your daughter.'

She leaned over to pass him a card, and when he did not offer his hand to take it, she placed the card on the TV table beside him.

'Who you workin' for?' he asked.

'I work for Marian Wendell Private Investigations. A friend of Meaghan's has hired me to look into Meaghan's, um, death...' She hesitated to use the word 'murder'.

'She was murdered. You can call it what it is,' Mr Wallace said bluntly. 'Stabbed. She deserved better than that.'

Mak nodded. 'You are right.' She had thought the very same thing herself when her friend Catherine Gerber had been murdered five years earlier. People had spoken of 'loss' and 'passing', but Catherine too had been taken violently. It was not just a death-it was murder.

'Who would do that? Who would pay for all that?' Mr Wallace asked Mak.

'Someone who cared very much for your daughter,' Mak said, hoping that was true. 'I understand this must be hard for both of you. Can you tell me if you saw any changes in your daughter leading up to her death? Anything unusual? New habits? Friends? Behaviour?'

'Meg was a good girl,' Mrs Wallace said. 'She was a mystery to me...' She shook her head. 'So independent. I don't know how much help we might be with your questions.'

Mak was relieved to no longer be justifying herself to them. 'Anything would be of help-'

Mrs Wallace paused and looked into Mak's face with a strange familiarity. 'You look like a model.'

Mak was thrown by the comment, considering the setting. 'Um, I used to model.'

'Oh, how wonderful. Meg was very pretty, like you. She did some modelling. She was always such a pretty little girl.'

'Did she do a lot of modelling?' Mak asked.

'She did some photo shoots but they kept telling her she was too short.'

'I see.'

Mrs Wallace got up and wandered away, leaving Mak with her husband. He was staring at the television screen as if Mak wasn't there. Thankfully, Mrs Wallace returned a few minutes later. She had a small album of photos in her hands.

'See how pretty she was?'

Mak took in the photographs slowly. They showed Meaghan posing in a glamour studio in a gold bikini, heavily made up. Mak understood now why Meaghan's mother had made the comment about Mak's appearance, and perhaps why Mak had been so easily received. Noelene had been proud of her daughter's appearance. Her daughter had once dreamed of being a rich and famous model. It was a common dream, and one that was rarely realised.

'She looks very pretty. Those are very nice photos,' Mak said, feeling strange to be making such comments. 'Did she do any modelling recently? In the past few weeks?'

Mrs Wallace shook her head.

'Did Meg visit you often, Mrs Wallace?'

'Occasionally she'd find time to visit us boring folks,' Mr Wallace blurted from his lounge chair, then clenched his jaw and continued staring in the direction of the mute television. He might as well have kept the sound on, Mak thought.

'She used to visit once a month or so,' Mrs Wallace said.

Once a month didn't seem like much, especially as Meaghan had only lived thirty minutes' drive away, but every family was different and there could have been all kinds of dynamics happening within the Wallace family. Mak was so often far from home that the idea of seeing her dad at least once a month seemed like heaven. Even with all his meddling, she missed him terribly.

'What sort of things did you talk about when she visited?' Mak asked Mrs Wallace.

'Oh, this and that. She told us how good things were going with that real estate company, and she'd show me her new clothes. She always dressed well, kept herself nice. I wished she'd find someone, but she never seemed excited about anyone special. We'd hoped she would have settled down...'

Her words trailed off, the unspoken hanging in the air: Now she never will find someone. Meaghan was an only child; there would be no grandchildren now. No new Wallaces for Ralph and Noelene.

'Do you recall the name Simon Aston? Did she ever mention him?'

'Simon Aston?' Noelene said. 'Well, no. Were they together?'

'I'm not sure that they were together,' Mak replied cautiously. 'But they knew each other, I believe.' She had cut out a photo of Simon from a printed image off the internet, and she showed it to Mrs Wallace. 'Do you recognise him?'

'No. What did he do? Was he involved?'

'No, no. I was just wondering if your daughter ever brought him up in conversation.' Damn. She'd been hoping for some recognition. 'Did Meaghan ever mention a girl named Jag? Or Amy?'

'Um, Amy...yes. Meg did have a friend named Amy, but she moved interstate, I think. I met her a few times. She was a pretty girl, too, but a bit...wild.'

'I see,' Mak said. 'Do you remember where Amy moved to?'

'Melbourne, I think.'

'And who were Meaghan's best friends-the friends she spent the most time with?' Mak asked, but Mrs Wallace was no longer really listening. She seemed to be lost in her own thoughts.

'She was a good girl, Meg,' Mrs Wallace rambled, looking as if she may be on the verge of tears. 'Meg, she...'

In that moment Mak felt horrible about being there, probing into the details of their life with their murdered daughter, taken too soon from them at the age of twenty-three. Is this what I am destined to do? Probe into the grief of other people like this, for a simple assignment? For no reason but to report some information back to a client?

'Would you like a tour of the house?' Noelene Wallace said suddenly.

Mak took a moment to respond. She had not been expecting the offer.

'Certainly.'

CHAPTER 13.

Simon Aston entered the reception area of Jack Cavanagh's office on the fourteenth floor of the famous Cavanagh building on George Street, his nerves ruffled by Damien's call. The sun was going down and the area of the CBD outside the building was like a ghost town. Apart from small groups of businesspeople milling around the after-work bars, it was terribly quiet.

The Cavanagh building felt empty. Fluorescent lighting buzzed.

'Someone tried to blackmail my dad, Simon! I thought you said it would be okay? I thought you said it would be taken care of? I gave you that money. You said it would be okay...

'My dad wants to see you in one hour. And he's said if you don't show up, he will forbid you from ever showing your face around the family again.'

Things were spiralling out of control. Fast.

Simon had been the best friend of Sydney's richest young heir for years, and in all that time he had never been invited to Cavanagh senior's office. Considering the situation, the building felt oppressive, the weight of all that power and influence pushing down on him.

All that money.

All that power.

Simon was so close to it, and yet so far away. He was not Damien Cavanagh. He was not protected by the wealth and influence of Jack Cavanagh.

Even before Damien's panicked phone call an hour earlier, Simon could see that things had gone bad. Warwick's phone call had put him on edge, but still, Simon had not really believed he would follow through. After all, how could any video actually exist? He'd crushed the phone of that meddling Meaghan woman. Wasn't that enough? Had that not destroyed it?

If a video exists, there's going to be serious trouble.

With that in mind, Simon straightened his tie and mentally prepared himself to be his most convivial. He would have to handle this situation very cautiously, and with charm. He had worn his only suit specially for the occasion, to try to impress on Mr Cavanagh that he was a concerned, upstanding and loyal friend of Damien's.

The offices were dead quiet-everyone had gone home. The vast windows were not curtained, and he could see straight into the modern office buildings next door, where the lights inside were already off, and his own eerie reflection moved across the glass. The hallway from the elevator was still lit, and he walked down it towards the desk of Mr Cavanagh's personal receptionist with a thinly veiled dread.

'Hello, I'm Simon Aston.'

The receptionist wore a tight, impenetrable smile. Amongst various cards, framed family photos and trays of neatly kept paperwork on her desk, he noticed a small name plate which simply said 'Joy', but even before he could open his mouth to address her by name, she said, 'Mr Cavanagh is expecting you. Please come this way.'

Joy stood gracefully and led him towards Mr Cavanagh's office. She opened the door for him. Simon was terrified at what he might find inside.

'Mr Aston is here to see you, Mr Cavanagh.'

'Thank you, Joy.'

With that Joy disappeared and Simon remained in the doorway, temporarily unable to move forwards. Jack Cavanagh sat in a chair behind a massive office desk. His office was the size of some people's entire homes. He was not alone, Simon noticed-there was a man in the office who Simon did not recognise. A man who looked serious.

'You wanted to see me, sir?' Simon said from his position across the room.

'Come in. Sit down, Simon,' Mr Cavanagh said in a way that was neither openly angry or welcoming.

Simon's mouth felt dry. His hands were wet.

He entered timorously, remembering to smile. Confidence. If he seemed relaxed about it, they would be more relaxed about it. Confidence was the key. Confidence and attitude, he reminded himself.

Mr Cavanagh's guest did not seem to be leaving. Damien had mentioned a man he called 'The American', and Simon guessed that this must be him. But the man was introduced as Mr White.

'Hello, Mr White,' Simon said and offered a hand that Mr White did not shake.