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number.
     
'The dead guys in Woolloomooloo and Lane Cove' – Jill was speaking before Scotty had even said hello – 'Manzi and Rocla. I told you they were squirrels. They've both got sex offender sheets. This is the same killer. The same person killed them and Carter. I know it. Someone is getting payback.'
     
Scotty sighed. Then there was silence for a few beats. 'Shit. Yeah, maybe. Who knows? But if you're right, Jill, we're talking about a mass murderer now, not a simple bashing at the beach. This is gonna be big. Bigger than us.' He sounded tired. 'Who's working the Rocky and Manzi cases? I guess we'd better go talk to them.'
     
'It's Rocla , Dennis Rocla, not Rocky,' said Jill. 'And Harris and Jardine are working both cases over at Central.' She tried to keep the last part casual.
     
'Aw, fuck! Why'd it have to be them?'
     
'Yeah, anyway. How's Madison's dad?' Best to change the subject. Scotty had a history with Harris and Jardine. Elvis's cronies.
     
'Let's just say he's not in mourning for Carter,' he answered. 'You wouldn't believe it, J. He shook my hand when I told him Carter was dead. He actually offered me champagne – at ten in the morning.' Scotty laughed. 'He's still pretty cut up about what happened, but the whole family's in the clear. They arrived back from a trip to China yesterday arvo. Couple of bags were still in the hall.'
     
'So when are you coming back?' asked Jill. Alibi or no, she and Scotty had thought it unlikely Jiang Lee would have carried through his threats to kill Carter. An accountant from Strathfield in Sydney's Inner West, Lee was a Buddhist with two young kids and a wife. He might have wanted Carter dead, but he just wasn't the type to kill him.
     
'I'm coming in now. You want to go for a swim and get some KFC?'
     
Jill smiled. 'Yeah, whatever. See you when you get here.'
     
Within thirty seconds of re-scanning the database, she'd dropped the smile. Manzi and Rocla had both been investigated for separate alleged sex offences dating back at least ten years. The three victims had not come forward until they were young adults. She noted the COPS event numbers that linked the complaints to the men, and typed one of the numbers into the computer. The database accessed a 2001 complaint by a then 18-year-old man who'd claimed that eight years earlier Manzi had raped him in a caravan. She copied down the complainant's name and address – a home in Castle Hill. She copied the contact number into her notebook and picked up the phone. Travis O'Hare.
     
Ten minutes later, Jill's blue eyes were wide. O'Hare no longer lived at the Castle Hill address, but she'd managed to speak to his older brother. He didn't have a lot of time for Travis, but his diatribe against him had thrown up an interesting detail. A coincidence? Maybe. Jill accessed the database again and located contacts for Rocla's two victims.
     
'Scotty, where are you now?' She had the phone tucked under her ear, leaving her hands free to shove her notes into her briefcase. 'We're driving out to Richmond this afternoon to interview the shrink. You're not gonna believe this.'
     

7
W AYNE C RABBE HAD TRIED singles clubs and got lucky a few times, but he found it was a lot of work to get to the action in the end. The women were more careful these days, and would usually expect to be taken out a few times before you got to meet their kids. Then they'd be watchful for a while, and before you knew it you were spending half your life with a fat, ugly hag waiting for moments that might never come. And the longer you were with these bitches, the more they could learn about you. He hated the waiting. He wanted to be in and out. Minimum of fuss. No harm done.
     
Wayne had come up with the job offer idea while with a western suburbs troll who had a beautiful nine-year-old boy. She'd desperately wanted a job and all she ever did was whine about how hard it was to find one. When he met another mum one morning in a doctor's surgery,