The Green Silk Scarf

“Thanks for coming in,” says Captain De Villiers, standing up and rubbing his stubble. He’s looking rougher than usual, more unkempt. His face is as crumpled as his shirt. What he really means is: Thank you for not making me come and get you from that damned sheep farm of yours, all the way in the vokken Free State.

“You promised me we’d catch a wife-killer,” Robin Susman says. “How could I resist?”

“Usually you’re bloody good at resisting,” says De Villiers. “You must be getting soft in your old age.”

“Speak for yourself,” Susman says, eyeing the box of Calmettes on his desk. Since when did Devil need tranquillisers? De Villiers follows her gaze and scoops the pills off his desk, dropping them in the open drawer and slamming it shut.

“They’re natural,” he says, under his breath. Susman doesn’t reply. She assumes the captain’s wife has insisted on them. The Devil she knows is not one for herbal remedies.

“If the case is so open-and-shut, why do you need me?” Susman asks.

Khaya suddenly appears at the door. “You’re back!” He grins at her, but knows not to hug. Hugging comes with the risk of being stabbed by a ballpoint pen. Robin Susman has boundaries.

She nods. “Sergeant.”

“I’ve just made the captain some coffee,” Khaya says, passing it to Devil. “Would you like some?”

Susman laughs. “From this place? No. Thank you.”

De Villers takes a sip and pulls a face. “Good call.”

“You guys need to get with it,” says Susman. “You need a decent coffee machine. I live on a farm in the middle of nowhere. I churn my own butter for God’s sake … and yet even I have a proper espresso maker.”

“Certainly,” says Devil, batting his short brown eyelashes and gesturing at the grubby surroundings. “Shall we order the gold-plated one, to match the rest of the office?”

Robin doesn’t have to look around to capitulate. She knows by touch the thin walls, the cheap furniture, the broken ceiling fan that has been hanging skew for years. No matter how hot it becomes in the stuffy space, the officers know to never switch it on, or face the imminent threat of decapitation. Susman sighs. She knows there is no budget for anything; as it is the police station is critically understaffed and has been for years.

But what do you do when there’s a woman missing? There’s no time to complain about slow software or cracked windows. You just get on with the job. And in a city like Johannesburg, there is no shortage of missing persons cases.

Robin sits down and Captain De Villiers passes her the file. MEGAN ELIZABETH SHAW.

“Shaw disappeared two weeks ago. Both her husband and parents reported her missing when she didn’t come home on the night of the 22nd of May. The husband—David—had seen her that morning and said she was her usual self. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Susman pages through the file, reading snippets as she listens to Devil’s brief. There is a photo of Megan Shaw: brunette, average height, hazel-eyed and friendly-looking. She was wearing heavy makeup and a spotted silk scarf knotted at the neck.

“She looks like a film star from the 50s,” says Susman, picturing those actresses who would don cat’s-eye sunglasses and wrap their hair in a designer scarf before riding in an open-top sports car somewhere in California or St. Moritz.

“It’s in her profile,” says Khaya. “The scarves. Her friends say she had—and I quote—a ‘scarf addiction’. Her mother said she’d never have left them behind. That’s how she knows Shaw didn’t leave on her own accord; when we checked her house the scarves were all there.”

“How would she know? That they were all there?”

“Marie Kondō,” says the sergeant.

Susman frowns. “What now?”

“Ha,” says De Villiers. “I had the same reaction. Shaw’s mother said that the weekend before her daughter went missing, she had helped her sort her closets.”

“Decluttering,” says Khaya. “It’s trending hard right now.”

“They had given away all but her favourite scarves, and kept fifty.”

“Fifty,” said Khaya, giving her a pointed look, as if owning fifty scarves was scandalous. “And when we checked her place out, there were forty-nine. She was wearing her favourite one—green silk—the day she disappeared.”

Susman began tapping the desk’s leg with her boot. “Remind me why this is significant?”

“Because she never packed a bag. Her toiletries are all still there. And she never packed any of her scarves.”

“Sounds to me as if you guys are reaching.”

Khaya stares at her. “So you think she did do a runner?”

“I don’t think anything yet. All I’m saying is basing a case on a silk scarf seems sketchy at best.”

“But you always say—”

“I know what I always say.”

Susman always says The Husband Did It. Most of the time, she’s right.

Blom sticks his head through the doorway, and his face lights up when he sees Robin.

“Susman!” he says. “Can I make you some coffee?”

“I’m getting the feeling you guys actually don’t want me to stay.”

Khaya laughs, showing off his perfect teeth.

“I have news,” says the tall Dutch detective who they call The Flying Dutchman.

“Body?” asks De Villiers.

“Negatief,” says Blom. He’s chewing gum and Robin watches as his jaws work away at it. “I finally got through the red tape and they released her bank statements to us. Megan Shaw withdrew all her money the day before she disappeared.”

Robin sits up a little straighter. “That’s interesting.”

“All her money?” Devil has a sip of his coffee and then has a regretful expression.

“Every cent. Savings, current, access bond, you name it. She maxed her cash withdrawal and sent the rest to PayDay. It’s an international payment service based in the US. We can’t access those records.”

“Yet,” says Devil. “Get on it.”

“Yes, Captain.” Blom retreats, giving Susman a wave. Khaya leaves, too.

“I don’t understand why they’re always so bloody happy to see you,” moans De Villiers.

“Oh, please,” says Susman. “They get to look at my face instead of yours for a few days. I’m surprised they’re not throwing a party.”

Devil purses his lips.

“Where is the husband?” asks Susman. “David Shaw. I’d like to speak to him.”

When Robin Susman had been a detective in Devil’s squad, she had cracked suspects in half with her interrogation technique.

It’s not a technique, she used to say. I just ask questions.

That’s what life’s about, though, isn’t it? Devil had said in one of his more reflective moments. Asking the right questions.

“I’ve tried already,” he says. “Shaw doesn’t answer a thing. Just says he’s innocent and hides behind his attorney.”

“Smart,” says Robin.

“He was willing to do a lie-detector test.”

Susman looks up at him.

“He passed. We’re holding him, but don’t have anything. Not really. We’re going to have to charge or release him in a few hours and we’re running out of time.” He reaches for his jacket. “Want to go for a walk?”

They stride over the broken paving of the sidewalk, stepping over tree roots and pot holes. Susman trips over the nub of a tree stump and De Villiers catches her hand without thinking. She regains her balance and snatches it back.

“Sorry,” he says. She thanks him in an annoyed way and plunges her hands back into her pockets and they keep walking.

Pigeons, pecking at the stale breadcrumbs near an overflowing bin, look up at them and scatter. Cars dodge and overtake, and aggressive drivers lean on their horns. Robin can taste the carbon monoxide in the air. Farm air is not without its stink, but she’d take compost and sheep dung over exhaust fumes any day.

“Nice to get some fresh air,” jokes Devil.

Susman smiles at him, the sun’s glare reflecting off the traffic and making her eyes water. “Tell me about the blood spatter.”

“No blood spatter,” says De Villiers.

They dodge weeds, rocks, and loose gravel. There is graffiti on the dirty brick walls, and an old empty chip packet glints as it’s pushed along by the lazy breeze.

“I want a new forensic team checking her house.”

“I can’t authorise that. We don’t have the budget.” De Villiers runs his fingers through his hair. “Strictly speaking, we can’t afford you on this case, either.”

Susman stops walking to look him in the eye. “And yet, here I am.”

***

The duo stand inside Megan and David Shaw’s lounge. The captain’s compromise was to get a junior forensic to comb the house again, and Susman could do her own search. After ninety minutes of careful inspection, they agree the lounge is clean. In Susman’s mind, it’s suspiciously clean. Susman snaps her latex gloves off to give her perspiring hands some air.

“Satisfied?” asks Devil.

“No.”

Susman makes her way to the bedroom the couple shared and carefully looks through their things. She uses her borrowed UV light to check for blood residue, spraying Luminol as she slowly works through the room. The carpet smells of shampoo, the walls were recently scrubbed. Robin stops when she sees the scarf collection. Taking out her phone, she records a voice note saying how she thinks the room is too clean.

“Susman!” De Villiers calls. “We may have found something.”

Susman turns to leave, but something is still bothering her. She spins around and looks again, her eyes scanning the room.

“Susman!” yells Devil.

Robin remembers the hairline crack in the clay stand of the bedside lamp. A sign of a struggle? She walks towards it, picks it up, and looks at the bottom. She doesn’t need the Luminol to see the blood spatter. It’s there: a fine spray of brown on the grey felt.

She wends her way back to the captain and the junior forensic.

“It might be nothing,” says the intern, holding up a sealed evidence bag. It looks empty. “But we found what looks like female hair on the husband’s outbound dry-cleaning. It was in the closet near the front door, ready to go.”

“Long and blonde,” adds Devil. “So, in other words, not his wife’s.”

“Good work, Junior,” says Susman. “Now come upstairs, and bring your UV light.”

They uncover three more patches of blood spatter: in the main light fitting, behind the wall-heater, and underneath the closet door.

“Someone cleaned this up really well,” says the junior.

“Not well enough,” says De Villiers, looking grumpy. Maybe he was disheartened that his original team had not found anything. Maybe he needs to be harder on them. Robin can tell he’s been distracted lately.

While the forensic packs up the samples and the rest of his kit, Susman looks out the window at the peaceful suburban scene outside. Indigenous trees, green lawns, kids riding bikes, and thinks what an illusion it all is.

“It’s probably enough to charge him,” says Devil. “But not to prosecute. No body, no motive, no weapon.”

“An outsider wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble to clean up.”

De Villiers nods in agreement.

“The blonde hair could point to the motive,” says Susman. “Let’s find out who the owner is.”

While the evidence is being processed in the lab, Blom arranges for David Shaw’s car—a silver Audi—to be searched. The report comes back clean. Devil orders a second search. Again, the report is clean.

“Anything on the DNA of that hair yet?” De Villiers yells into his phone, then shakes his head. After he ends the call he slams his phone on his desk. “Blood is hers,” he shouts, and the office goes quiet; an unintended minute of silence for the victim. Robin doesn’t feel the usual cold wash that accompanies these murder cases. Perhaps the pile of bodies has simply grown too high.

“The mother just called,” says Khaya. “The vic’s mother. Said that Megan and David had an argument the night before she disappeared.”

Blom chips in. “That’s what the neighbour said, too. Said she heard them shouting at each other. Said it happens often and they don’t even call the cops anymore.”

“Had she ever laid any charges against him?” asks Robin. “Domestic violence?”

“No,” says Khaya, “but the vic’s mother said she’d often have bruises. Always had an excuse for them, though. Mother says that vic’s father never approved of the marriage so maybe she felt like she couldn’t tell them about the abuse.”

“But no evidence, right?” says De Villiers. “No broken bones or hospital records.”

“Right,” said Khaya. “Just a mother’s opinion.”

“We could put her and the neighbour on the stand,” says Susman. “But it’s a bit patchy.”

“Is the blood spatter enough to charge him with?” asks Blom, glancing at his watch. “We’ve got an hour left before those clerks start packing up.”

“Oh,” says Khaya, scratching his head with the back of a cheap yellow pen. “She also said to check his bakkie. A Ford Ranger.”

“His bakkie?” asks Blom, unfamiliar with the South African slang.

“His pickup truck,” says Khaya.

“You should know that by now,” says Devil. “You bloody dutchman.”

“Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” says Robin.

“Who are you calling black?” jokes Khaya.

They laugh, but not for long.

“Okay,” De Villiers says. “Khaya’s checking on the bakkie. Blom is going to nag the lab.” He drums his fingers on his desk so hard they all stare at him. “Go on,” he says to Khaya and Blom. “Get lost. I need to think.”

Once the officers leave, Robin gets a faraway look in her eyes. “It would explain the heavy makeup. And the scarves.”

Devil rubs his temples. “What?”

“You can hide bruises with scarves.”

Devil watches as Robin’s fingers unknowingly travel to her collarbone. They’d had to pin it back in place, if he remembers correctly, and it hadn’t been the only surgery she had required. He tries to not wince. His phone rings, making them both jump. He barks his name and then listens intently as he scribbles notes on the back of a sheet. Robin stands up and moves to look over his shoulder, trying to decipher his awful handwriting.

Cross, Hailey.

Nurse.

Knew vic.

Deal.

Immunity.

The last word was underlined, but Robin couldn’t tell if it said witness or mistress.

“Uh-huh,” he says. “Uh-huh. Show her to the interview room. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

Hailey Cross is waiting in the grey room. She wipes her hands on her jeans before shaking Devil’s hand. She’s petite, moderately attractive, and has cascading blonde hair. She swigs frequently from a bottle of water she’s brought along. Dry mouth, clammy hands. She’s not even trying to hide the fact that she’s as nervous as a cat in a cage. Her attorney sits, stone-faced and silent, beside her.

“Thank you for coming in to talk to us,” says De Villiers. “I realise you don’t get much time off—as a nurse—so we really do appreciate it.”

Robin stares at him. She’s never heard him be so polite in his life. Maybe the tranquillisers are working. Or maybe he was working on his manipulation technique.

“I heard that David’s getting out this afternoon.” Hailey’s eyes dart nervously between them.

“Yes,” says Susman.

She chews on her lower lip; her eyes have dark crescents beneath them. She hasn’t been sleeping. “You can’t let him go.”

“We don’t have enough evidence to charge him,” says Devil.

“He did it,” she says. “He murdered Megan. In their bedroom. He wrapped a jersey around her head and then smashed it with a baseball bat.”

Robin shuddered. She gripped her knees in an attempt to silence her body’s reaction to such brutality. Devil took the pen out of his mouth and blinked at the nurse. “How do you know this?”

Hailey Cross blew her fringe out of her eyes. “Because I was there.”

“Why did you wait so long to come in?”

“I didn’t want to be implicated,” she says, looking at her attorney. “Accessory to murder? Obstruction of justice? But then I heard he was getting out—”

“—and you knew he’d come for you, next,” says Susman.

“Yes.” Hailey lifts a hand to her eyes and begins to cry. “I can’t get it out of my head,” she says, rubbing her forehead. “I just keep seeing it happen over and over again. And I know he’ll do the same thing to me.” She begins to unbutton her blouse, and the captain instinctively looks away. When his gaze returns to Cross, he sees a large bruise across her chest. She also shows them what looks like a cigarette burn on the inside of her forearm. “He is a vicious man.”

By the time she has buttoned up, she has stopped crying.

“You were having an affair?” asks Robin, thinking of the long blonde hair they had found at the house.

Cross nodded. “We met a year ago. He wasn’t wearing his wedding ring. When I found out about his wife I tried to end the relationship. That’s when he started beating me. I tried to leave, but he’d always find me. He enjoyed it.” Her lips pulled to the side with emotion. “He enjoyed hurting me. Said if I ever went to the police he’d kill Peggy, and I knew it was true.”

“Peggy?”

“My Jack Russel. She’s missing a leg,” the nurse says, as way of explanation. Devil looked confused but Susman knew the common nickname for pets missing a leg. Peg-leg. Three-leggy Peggy.

“I knew he would do it,” Hailey says.

“You were trapped,” says Susman.

“I knew he would do it,” she says again. “He’s done it before.”

“Killed an animal?”

“At the cabin,” she says. “We’d go there, in the beginning, so that his wife wouldn’t find out about us. It used to be romantic, but then it got scary. He knew he could do whatever he wanted to me in that cabin, because it’s in the middle nowhere, so—”

She doesn’t have to say the rest. So that no one could hear her scream.

“God.” Susman didn’t mean to say it out loud. Her skin turns to braille.

“Why didn’t we know he had a cabin?” asks Devil. “It would have been the first place we searched.”

“It doesn’t technically belong to him,” said Cross. “I don’t know the details—he was evasive—but as far as I know, it belongs to a friend of his. There’d be no paper trail.”

“Tell us about Megan Shaw,” Devil says. Susman looks at the clock on the wall. They have twenty minutes left to submit the charge sheet, and that’s if the clerks don’t take off early.

Hailey Cross takes a sip of water. “David wanted me to kill her.”

There is silence in the grim, grey room as they process the information.

Devil frowns at her. “Why?”

“He said she was getting suspicious of us. He found out she was preparing to file a restraining order before starting divorce proceedings. David was furious that she was doing this behind his back, said she had betrayed him. He said she was going to take all their money and disappear. But if we killed her, we’d get all the money. And we could move somewhere and start again, and be happy.”

“He wanted you to kill her?” Devil says.

“The neighbours knew they had a rocky relationship,” she says. “If she was going to disappear, he needed a rock-solid alibi in order to not be a suspect. He said that they—that you, the cops I mean—always suspect the husband. And he wanted me to prove myself to him. Prove my loyalty.”

“What my client is failing to mention,” says the attorney, finally breaking his silence, “is that she was under severe emotional strain and manipulation by a cunning and violent man. He told her he’d kill her dog if she stepped out of line.”

“We understand that,” says Devil.

“So before we continue, I’d like to make a deal for her immunity from prosecution in this case.”

De Villiers rubs his stubble. “We’re not charging her.”

“Yet,” says the attorney, not breaking eye contact. “But if you find her DNA in the Shaw house—”

“Whether or not we charge her will depend on her culpability,” says Devil.

“Screw capability,” the attorney says. “She practically had a gun to her head.”

Devil grinds his teeth and looks at the clock, then transfers his gaze to Hailey. “He’ll be released today unless you start talking.” Susman doesn’t know why he’s playing hardball. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t trust her. She’d witnessed a brutal murder and it had taken her two weeks to come in. Susman, on the other hand, could see the desperation in the woman’s eyes. Cross wasn’t lying about the abuse, and that was enough for her.

“Make the deal,” Susman says. She thinks Devil will glare at her for overstepping the mark, but he doesn’t. Without hesitating, he affirms the deal with Cross’s attorney. He phones it in, as well as a call to Khaya to file the charges against David Shaw. “Eye-witness account,” murmurs Devil into his phone. Soon a flurry of papers arrive and he and the nurse hurriedly sign them. They get submitted just in time to keep Shaw behind bars, and Hailey Cross crumples in relief.

The sun sinks, and boxes of cold takeaway pizza lie in the middle of the table. De Villiers had ordered dinner for them at his own expense, but no one is hungry.

“I was supposed to spike her coffee,” Hailey says. “Make it look like she took an overdose. Then tape a plastic bag around her head in case she woke up. I got the pills from the pain clinic where I work.”

De Villiers scrawls in his scuffed notebook.

“David said I should buy her a takeaway coffee and stop by, to introduce myself as a new neighbour.”

“Did you do that?” asks Susman.

“I took her the coffee. We spoke. But I didn’t put the sedative in it.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not like that.” Cross clasps her hands together. “I like to help people, not hurt them.”

“That bruise on your chest,” says Susman. “That was because you didn’t kill her that day?”

“David said I was disloyal. That he couldn’t trust me anymore. He hit me with the baseball bat and then gave it to me, said now I’d have to do it the hard way, or he’d kill Peggy, and then he’d kill me.”

“What did you do?” asks Robin.

Their eyes meet, and time seems to stutter between them. Then Hailey blinks, breaking the tension. “I took the baseball bat.”

“I went to her house on the 22nd of May,” says Hailey. “I was scared of David, and I wanted his approval, but I just couldn’t go through with it. I left the bat there, at the front door.”

Robin can’t put her finger on it, but it seems to her that something changes in the way Hailey is talking. Perhaps being a victim of abuse had caused her to disassociate to a certain degree on the day of the murder. Either that, or she was lying.

“I gave Peggy to someone I trusted and then called David to tell him it was over. He went ballistic. A few hours later he told me to meet him at his house.”

“Why?” asked Susman.

“He said because I hadn’t done my job, he’d had to do it. And the least I could do was clean up the mess.”

That’s why the room was so clean, thought Robin. A nurse would know how to clean up blood.

“It was horrific. It took hours,” said Hailey. “It was everywhere. He asked me … to find a tooth.”

“What?” Susman clutched her knees again to stop from shuddering.

“Her tooth. He had knocked out on of her teeth but couldn’t find it.”

“And did you?” asks Susman. “Find the tooth?”

“Yes,” says Cross, swallowing hard. “An incisor, with roots.”

Silence again, as they process the grisly detail.

Devil clears his throat. “So you cleaned up the evidence. Where was David?”

“He took the body. Wrapped it up it the bloody bedsheet and got rid of it.”

“How?”

“I haven’t spoken to him since then,” says Hailey. “But I can tell you the original plan—with the drugged coffee—was to take the body out to the cabin. I’ll give you the address. His plan was to burn it there and dump the ashes in the river. I don’t know if he did that, but I’m guessing he would have. Not that there’ll be any evidence.”

“There’s always evidence,” says Devil.

***

The recently admonished forensic team arrives at the cabin before dawn and knuckles down, searching every square inch of the cabin and its surrounds. The autumn air is cold and makes their breath look like cigarette smoke. The backdrop is tall, black-barked trees and yellow leaves, and the ground is soft. The cabin has been searched twice already and found clean.

“If you don’t find anything,” the Devil yells. “You’re all vokken fired!”

Susman laughs into her polystyrene cup, forcing a cloud of steam into the air.

Devil’s phone rings. The Caller ID says Sgt Sithole.

“You’re on speakerphone,” says Devil.

“Hiya, boss,” says Khaya. The man was always in a good mood. Susan doesn’t know how he does it. “We found the bakkie.”

“And?”

“Do you want the good news, or the bad news?”

Robin feels the wash of water inside her then, but not the cold flush that usually means the missing woman is dead. It’s more like a slow dripping. Tap, tap, tap.

De Villiers rolls his eyes. Silhouettes of birds dart across the dawn sky. “Jesus, Sithole, just get on with it.”

“I was only kidding,” he says. “There’s no bad news. We found something.”

“We’re listening,” says Robin.

“A tooth. An incisor, with the root and everything, like you said. It was wedged in the crevice of the seat.”

“Good,” says Devil. “Good. Very good.”

Just in case one “good” is not enough, thinks Robin. She pictures the crevices of couches and sofas and carseats the world over and wonders what treasures lie buried therein. Coins and toys and murdered women’s teeth. Tickets to convict killers.

Devil ends the call. “So Hailey Cross is telling the truth.”

“It looks like it,” says Susman. She drains her cup and throws it in the nearby black plastic bag, a makeshift bin. His walkie talkie, which has been whispering to him all morning in static and garbled comments, blinks green.

“Captain,” says the man on the other side of the two-way radio. “Captain. Come in. Over.”

De Villiers snatches the radio from his belt. “I’m here.”

“We’re around five or six hundred metres down the river. The vegetation is quite thick. Difficult to navigate. But there’s a metal trough here. Burnt. The river has done a good job of rinsing it out—it’s been two weeks—but it might be something. We’ll bring it up. Any sign of ash is long gone. Over.”

“All right,” says Devil. “But keep looking. All we need is one bone fragment.”

How dreadful, thinks Susman. To be reduced to a single sought-after bone fragment in a rushing river. How sickening. She feels her heavy cloak pull down at her shoulders, but before Robin can give in to her despair she spots the junior forensic striding towards them. When their eyes meet, he waves at her, a small evidence bag in his hand.

“Hey!” she says, happy to see him. If she were still on the force she would have snatched him up as part of her A team. She knows talent when she sees it.

He’s out of breath, and there is perspiration on his forehead despite the cool air around them.

“The scarf Shaw was wearing that day,” he says. “The day she went missing. It was green, right?”

Susman nods. He passes the sealed bag to her. Inside is a small swatch of fabric, green, silk, and burnt at the edges.

***

THREE MONTHS LATER

Devil offers to pick Susman up from the airport, but she decides to drive up from the farm instead. It was only for one day, to watch the court proceedings of the state versus David Shaw for premeditated murder and obstruction of justice. De Villiers had kept her up-to-date via WhatsApp throughout the trial, and he was confident that Shaw would be convicted. Hailey Cross had held up her side of the deal and had been a star witness, remembering small details and never straying from her original gruesome testimony.

Relatives, officers and journalists filed in, and a buzz of anticipation crowded the courtroom. Susman and De Villiers sat down on the wooden bench together, just behind the prosecutor. Susman notices Hailey Cross standing right at the back of the room, as if still afraid of David and ready to flee. When they lead the accused in, he looks like a broken man, and Susman doesn’t feel an ounce of empathy for him. For the last three months she had been haunted by the CRACK! of a baseball bat connecting with a feminine skull. Hitting it so hard that a whole tooth fell out. That, and the imagined smell of the fire in the blackened trough. How very coldblooded you have to be to burn your own wife’s body in a sawn-off steel barrel.

Susman didn’t have to be here. De Villiers would have let her know the verdict—he may have even splashed out and used a happy emoji in the message—Looks like we caught our wife-killer ( : —but something had told Susman she should come through, and so here she sits, looking around at the eager faces around her.

The judge marches in and sits down with little fanfare. She doesn’t need to ask the crowd for quiet; they all hang on her every word. She gives a short speech about how there’s no doubt in her mind that the verdict they have reached is correct, and then, with a firm grasp of the paper in her hand, she reads the verdict. In the end there had been six charges, including premeditated murder, and she announces that the court had found David Shaw guilty of every one. When Robin turns to look at Hailey, she’s gone. Susman stands up, and Devil follows. He’s right behind her as they exit the courtroom buildings. They follow Cross, who is striding, and quickly jump behind an electricity box when she looks over her shoulder. Maybe she feels their eyes on her back.

They follow her three blocks north, where there is a large, run-down park. The low gum-pole fence is falling over, the grass needs mowing. People mill around. There are some dogs on leashes, and winos and beggars sleep in the shade. There is a public toilet with a skew door which Devil and Susman hide behind. They watch Hailey Cross meet a woman sitting on a bench in the dense shade of a huge mulberry tree. The woman stands and hugs Cross, passing her the red leash of a three-legged Jack Russel who is jumping and barking in excitement.

The woman is not wearing a scarf, but when she smiles widely at Cross, she reveals a missing tooth.

The truth rushes at Robin. The scenes play out in her head as if she’s watching a jump-cut film. She may not have all the details right but she can imagine the story played out something like this: Under David Shaw’s direction, his mistress, Hailey Cross, takes his wife coffee that day. She fails to use the sedatives in her handbag. The nurse sees that David’s wife has bruises just like hers, and she confesses the affair. They bond over their shared trauma. They have to stop David Shaw before he kills one or both of them; they both know it’s just a matter of time. Together, they hatch a plan. Megan will draw all her money and then precipitate one last row with David—accusing him of cheating—loudly enough for the neighbours to hear, thereby establishing a motive. Megan will raid her workplace—the clinic—for the things she’ll need: hairnets, booties, local anaesthetic, syringes, needles. A bag and IV line to collect Megan’s blood. Perhaps she stops at a hardware store to buy a plastic spray bottle and a pair of pliers, or maybe she gets them from her own garage. On the night of the 21st of May, Megan uses Hailey’s stolen sedatives to drug David. While he’s unconscious, she lets Hailey into the house and they kit up and get to work, spraying the bedroom with the blood they had drained from Megan’s arm, and then scrubbing around the evidence, being careful to leave just the right amount of blood. Hailey would have numbed Megan’s gums with the anaesthetic and then pulled out the incisor, tucking it into David’s carseat. Hailey would have given Megan the Jack Russel to look after. Megan would have disappeared, but not before going up to the cabin and burning her green silk scarf in the trough, making sure the wind blew some of the fragments into the surrounding trees. David would wake up with a headache, search for his wife, and then report her missing.

“My vok,” says Devil, rubbing his upper lip and then reaching for his handcuffs. “We need to take them in.”

Susman can’t tear her eyes away from the women under the Mulberry tree, who are now parting ways. “Do we?”

Devil’s hand freezes on the cuffs that are clipped to his belt. “Of course we do. David Shaw is innocent.”

“No,” Susman shakes her head as she watches the women hurriedly leave the park. “He’s not.”