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doorway. ‘I’m glad he wasn’t left in that fire.’
    So was Mark. There’d be plenty of nightmares, but at least Jenn would be spared additional gruesome images on top of the ones that might still haunt her.
    Firm footsteps approachedalong the corridor, and Steve Fraser tapped on the door before entering. Uncharacteristically solemn, he expressed his condolences to Paul and Jenn briefly but with sincerity. No longer the cavalier, cocksure detective who’d first worked in the district two years ago, Steve’s voluntary return after personal failure and his subsequent work had earned Mark’s respect, despite his sometimes flippant manner.
    Jenn accepted the condolence with a nod of acknowledgement, but as she laid the pen aside on the table and watched Steve, her lips pressed tightly together. Wary, or fighting for composure? Mark couldn’t tell.
    ‘I’m sure we all want to get to the bottom of what happened,’ Steve said. ‘I know this is a bad time, but I’d like to go over a few things with you all, if that’s okay.’
    Yes, Mark wanted to piece together the events, find the person responsible for Jim’s death. None of the rest of it mattered, compared to that.
    Paul and Jenn nodded mutely, and Steve dragged out a chair and sat down. ‘The first thing I want to know is, why was Jim there? He doesn’t normally work at Marrayin, does he?’
    Not a line of enquiry Mark wanted Steve to waste time pursuing, and it could be easily dealt with. ‘He works for Strelitz Pastoral. He manages the Gearys Flat property—’ Damn. He should have said
managed
, past tense. With a twist of pain he continued, ‘But the Marrayin manager left last month, so Jim’s been keeping an eye on things there whenever I had to go away. He could have been there for any number of reasons – checking water or stock, dropping off mail or supplies. I’ve notified WorkCover,’ he added. ‘They’resending an investigator in the morning.’
    At the end of the table, Paul broke his silence. ‘He was resigning.’
    ‘Resigning?’ It shouldn’t have surprised him; shouldn’t have felt like another knife twisting in his chest. They’d parted cordially enough on Wednesday after Mark had told Jim the news, but even then he’d noticed the new strain tensing the previously comfortable friendship. If he’d been thinking more clearly, had less on his mind, he might have expected it.
    ‘It’s because of Sean,’ Paul continued. ‘He was already on suicide watch before Dad saw him yesterday. Guilt at what he did to Gillespie is eating him hard. Harder now he knows that Gillespie was innocent. Dad promised to stay in Wellington for a while, to be close to Sean. Help him get through his sentence.’ His face haggard, Paul ran a hand through his hair. ‘I guess I’ll have to do that now.’
    Mark rose and went to the window again, leaning on the sill and staring out into the darkness. He’d only thought to do the right thing. Clear Gil’s name, have the investigation reopened, find out if he was responsible, and take whatever punishment was demanded of him. If he’d kept quiet, or handled it differently, Jim wouldn’t have been at Marrayin today. And now the Barretts – all of them, Jim, Paul, Sean and Jenn – were paying the price of that decision.

    Sean at risk of suicide? Jenn could hardly imagine the cheeky, irreverent cousin she remembered falling so deeply into depression. But then, she couldn’t imagine him getting mixed up with organised crime and beating Gil Gillespie almost to death with a metal pipe, either, and yet he’d done that and more back inSeptember. Jim’s emails hadn’t been full of detail, but from a cafe in Tashkent she’d looked up the court reports of the evidence and Sean’s guilty plea at his committal hearing, the words distant and unreal, unconnected to her. Only Jim’s diligent cards and notes every birthday and Christmas – not her own efforts – had kept the family connection alive after