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I’ve seen all the boys’ willies already.’ She leaned in closer, all pretence that it was a game now over. ‘You’d better show me, or . . .’
    â€˜Or what?’
    She couldn’t remember ever having heard him speak before. His voice sounded odd, cold. But she still didn’t sense danger. ‘Or I’ll hurt you so you cry, that’s what. Now show me.’
    The boy shook his head slowly.
    Mavis lunged forward and grasped his baggy shorts by the pockets, pulling them down, taking his underpants down with them. She stood up and laughed. ‘You’ve got a little willie, you’ve got a little willie! I’m going to tell everyone.’
    The shove was hard and fast, unexpected, her feet went out from under her and she was falling. There were only a dozen steps on the metal companionway but her head hit three of them on the way down. She lay on the deck at the bottom of the stairs, head twisted, legs splayed and dress pulled back, thighs and belly on display. Her eyes were closed and blood, bright red against her white English skin, trickled from her ears and nose.
    He stood at the top of the companionway, shorts and underpants still round his ankles, staring down at the girl. His eyes, ignoring the exposed sex, fixed on the bright red blood marking her face.
    He looked down at his bare belly, feeling the familiar heat and something else, something new.
    â€˜Look at me now, Mavis, look at me. It’s not so little now, is it, Mavis?’

FOUR
    After the South Melbourne tram incident and the run-in with the tradesman and his panel van they made it to Brighton without any more drama, which was just fine by Berlin. Roberts still drove over the speed limit, slowing down only for pretty girls in miniskirts; thankfully there were plenty of those about. At the Derby Day race meeting two years earlier, visiting British model Jean Shrimpton had worn a skirt four inches above the knee, outraging the newspapers and the cream of Melbourne society. Their outrage was compounded since she also hadn’t bothered with a hat, stockings or gloves. Now, just two years on, Shrimpton’s outfit seemed almost demure. Berlin had watched as his daughter’s hemlines crept higher and higher, inspired by fashion magazine images from what everyone called Swinging London and aided by her mother at the family’s Singer sewing machine.
    Rebecca was dressing for the times now as well. With her slim figure and those long legs, she could have pulled off the miniskirt look but chose not to. Sometimes she wore blue denim jeans and he wondered if she did it to tease him, knowing his feelings about trousers on women. She also favoured a young designer named Prue Acton. Whenever Berlin needed to replace a suit Rebecca gently guided him towards something slightly more hip but he hated narrow lapels and thin ties. He stuck with his classic overcoat and an Akubra fedora in grey felt, and thought the narrow-brimmed trilby-style hats popular with the younger detectives made them look like cockney spivs.
    Roberts swung the sports car off Beach Road and down Honeysuckle Drive, heading towards the dark blue waters of Port Phillip Bay at the far end of the street. In the distance Berlin could see a police divisional van with its blue roof light and hood-mounted siren. The van was parked on the left side of the road, half up on the nature strip, with a uniformed officer leaning against the driver’s side front mudguard.
    â€˜Pull over here for a second, would you, Bob? Behind that Volvo is good.’
    Roberts swung the sports car into the kerb, pulled the handbrake on and cut the engine. He leaned down towards Berlin’s side of the car, reaching for the folders. Berlin took his arm at the wrist and shook his head.
    â€˜Let’s just leave them where they are for the moment, shall we?’
    Roberts sat back in his seat. ‘I thought maybe you wanted me to give you some background,