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from petty theft to…” Vince gave a snort and narrowed his eyes as if he were reading this for the first time “…indecent exposure.” He guffawed with ugly laughter and turned to Leanne with a loose, wet smile. “You know what that means, don’t you, Leanne?”
    Leanne gritted her teeth but said nothing. Vince had obviously been savouring the revelation of this titbit until Cam’s return. He seemed to take special delight in embarrassing Leanne in front of her new sergeant.
    “It means he liked flopping his doodle out at…”
    Cam slammed his fist on the desk as the blood rushed to his face. “Vince! Shut the hell up. Leanne knows exactly what that means!”
    “OK, OK, I was only joshing her. I’ve known Leanne since she was a nipper. We’re always joshing, aren’t we, Leanne?”
    “Doesn’t mean I like it,” Leanne said.
    Cam snatched the fax from Vince’s desk and took it to his own glass-walled cubicle. As he sank into his grey metal chair he caught sight of the telephone and made a move towards it. He stopped himself and reached for his palm exerciser instead, kneading the spongy ball in his scarred hand until he felt the tension ease.
    He was halfway through the fax when he gave a start. The palm exerciser fell from his hand and rolled on to the floor.
    “Last known place of employment: Glenroyd Ladies’ College.” His voice bounced loudly off the steel furniture of the stark office.
    With mounting excitement Cam flicked the pages of the fax until he came to the coronial section: Autopsy yet to be completed. Then the SOCO report: Yet to be completed. Shit, the frustration of small town policing.
    Then he reminded himself why he was here and his eyes were drawn again to the phone.
    He forced his attention back to the fax in front of him. There was a PS from SOCO. It seemed he was correct in identifying the smell on the rag as petrol (premium unleaded, said the lab) and what’s more, they’d identified the rag as part of the waistband of a pair of King Gee work shorts. He wondered if the waistband could be matched up to any clothing the victim was wearing. There’d been no visible trace of clothing on the burned body but there was always the chance of fibre or chemical residue.
    He tapped his pen against his teeth for a moment, then phoned the pathologist in Toorrup. He’d met Doctor McManus at the crime scene the other day and had been struck by his pleasant, approachable manner.
    “Can’t you tell me anything yet, Doc? Fibres? Chemicals?”
    “Sorry, no, Sergeant. He’s on tomorrow’s list though.”
    “You checked out his teeth, so you must have had a look at him.”
    “Just a cursory glance when I made the dental impression I’m afraid.”
    “How about a time of death then?”
    “Oh, going by the crusting of the skin and the hydration levels, I can pretty well make an estimate that this person was dead approximately twelve hours before he was burned. I can’t give you anything more accurate until I’ve opened him up.”
    Twelve hours before he’d been burned.
    Cam thanked the pathologist and hung up, then started to scribble a time line on the pad in front of him. Ruth Tilly reported the fire at eleven on Sunday morning. The fire brigade arrived at 11.20 and extinguished the fire. They hadn’t noticed the body, situated as it was away from the perimeter of the fire and camouflaged among the burned debris.
    Cecelia Bowman found the charred body at approximately ten o’clock the following morning, Monday.
    Herbert Bell must have died sometime late Saturday night or early Sunday morning.
    He doodled some curly question marks on the pad, then wrote the name Cliff Donovan. Cliff was captain of the Bush Fire Brigade and town mechanic. Underneath Cliff’s name he wrote Angelo Arnoldi, fire assistant, apprentice mechanic.
    Ruby’s boyfriend?
    His chin dropped on to his hand and he drew some large circles around Angelo’s name.
    There was a tap at the door.
    “Hey, Sarge. You looked