Driving home from the station, I couldn’t fathom what Keir had done; if he’d truly loved Jean, and Rosalina for that matter, how could he kill them? Till death do us part, they say; Keir had taken that a little too literally.

How was I going to find her? It seemed impossible. Negativity had begun to creep in as the magnitude of what I was up against became clear. I was searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. I was almost home when I let out a deep sigh. In reality, we had Buckley’s chance of finding Jean.

Suddenly, those familiar sensations washed over me like water over the banks of a flooded river: I wasn’t alone. I looked at the passenger seat. No-one. I looked in the rear seats. No-one. I pulled into my driveway, and the sensations instantly evaporated. I made my way inside, and headed straight for Ashleigh’s room. Silently, I opened her door and peered in. She looked like a little angel, sound asleep. Tiptoeing over to her bed so as not to wake her, I bent down and kissed her on the forehead, then made my way out of my daughter’s room and headed for our bedroom. Sue stirred as I bent down and kissed her.

‘Is everything OK?’ she said, sensing something amiss in my demeanour.

‘Yeah, I’m just tired that’s all.’

I lay flat on my back and knotted my hands behind my head. Sue cuddled up to me and rested her head on my chest. Considering my advanced state of fatigue, I thought I would fall asleep straight away, but I didn’t. I lay there for ages, thoughts racing through my mind. Everything, every shred of evidence, played on the whiteness of the ceiling like a movie projector. Again and again, I replayed everything I’d seen and thought I knew. Eventually, I drifted off, but my sleep was fitful, the type when you know you’ve slept but you feel like you haven’t.

I was up and out the door pretty quickly the next morning, and as I drove to work, I felt a little apprehensive, but the trip passed without incident. I walked into the office at about eight and made straight for the meals room to make my umpteenth cup of coffee in the last few days. Just then, Mick Lyons walked into the room. ‘Mate, we might just get Christine Strachan in here to make a statement about Jean and Tom. Whaddya reckon?’ he said.

Mick had read my mind. ‘Sounds good to me,’ I said, happy in the knowledge that whilst the other officers were otherwise occupied on Rosalina’s murder, I could count on Mick to keep pushing with Jean’s. I’d seen a tear in his eye when Christine and Clifford had realised that the most likely possibility was that their daughter was dead, and I knew that, like me, he’d never rest until we put Keir behind bars. ‘I was going to go around and have a chat with her today anyway,’ I continued. ‘I’ll give her a call and ask her to come in. It’ll be interesting to see what she says about the marriage, considering what Fiona and Shona said. From what they told us, Keir was a real bastard to Jean. I wouldn’t have blamed her for taking off, but I’m bloody sure that’s not what happened.’

Later that morning, Christine Strachan arrived at the station, and Mick took her to the interview room so that they wouldn’t be disturbed. When Mick was done, we walked her to the foyer and thanked her for coming down. She smiled that smile of hers, and we watched her walk to her car. When she was gone, we went back inside and made our way back to our desks. Just before we sat down, Mick said, ‘I think you’d better have a read of this, mate.’

I took Christine’s statement from him and thumbed through it, eight pages all up. We couldn’t speak to Jean about what had happened so, thinking that she surely must have confided in her mother, I began to read with interest. The affair had come about after Jean had decided she needed a day away. She’d told Tom she was going for a job interview. Instead, she went to the foreshore near the Opera House and sat down on Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, staring out across the harbour, watching the ferries ply their way from the Heads towards Circular Quay as she contemplated how her life had gotten to this point. Just then, Carl Neiding had happened to walk past and, upon seeing her sitting by herself looking so sad and lonely, had asked her if she was okay. He sat down beside her and they began to talk. They walked into the Botanic Gardens, took some tea, and talked some more. Eventually, they drove to Carl’s flat in Bondi and had sex.

When she returned home, Jean went straight around to her mum’s house and told her everything. ‘Tom doesn’t need to know,’ Christine said. ‘You mustn’t do anything that will wreck your marriage.’

Jean went home, but as soon as Tom came home from work, she promptly spilled her heart out. ‘I went to Sydney today, and met a man named Carl. I feel really guilty, and I have to tell you; we had sex in his flat at Bondi.’

Tom flew into an uncontrollable rage and grabbed her arms and demanded to know where Carl’s flat was. Jean struggled to get free, screaming at Tom to let her go, but his grip tightened, and he told her that she’d better tell him or he would kill her there and then. She told him the general area in order to get him to stop, and he let her go.

The next day, he went to work and went straight up to Christine. She said he looked pale and expressionless. ‘Jeannie told me about that fella, and where he lives,’ he said. ‘Don’t try and stop me. I’m going to find him tonight and break his neck.’

‘How can you find him?’ Christine replied. ‘He lives in a block of flats in Bondi.’

Christine’s stomach churned with the thought that Jean had told Tom what had happened, and she feared what he’d do.

‘If necessary, I’ll burn down the blocks of flats. I’ll get the bastard.’

Christine left work and went straight to Jean’s to try to convince her to tell Tom that what she’d said about the affair was just a lie. She found Jean at home, and said, ‘Tom was furious today. He’s going to do something really bad, I can feel it. You have to tell him that the whole thing was just a lie.’

Christine’s pleading convinced Jean. ‘Okay, Mum,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll tell him I made it all up just because I wanted to make him jealous.’

‘Give me a call and let me know how it goes,’ Christine said before kissing her daughter and leaving the house.

That night, Christine’s phone rang. Eagerly anticipating news of how her daughter had fared, she was surprised to hear Tom’s voice on the other end. ‘What are you ringing me for?’ Christine asked. ‘Is everything alright?’

‘I’m in Bondi looking for Carl,’ he replied.

Scared out of her wits, Christine tried to convince him not to do anything silly. ‘How do you know where he lives? You’ll never find him.’

‘I’ll ask around, knock on doors.’

‘Tom, you must come home. Jean told me this afternoon that she made the whole thing up.’

‘Why would she do that?’

‘I don’t know; she’s confused about your marriage, and maybe she just wanted to make you jealous or something. She’s just said something dumb; come home and talk to her about it.’

The lie was complete, and Tom calmed down, but Jean repeatedly confided in her mum that she couldn’t stop thinking about Carl. Over the next two weeks, she called Carl four times, begging him to see her again. He was understandably hesitant, and told her he didn’t want to get involved with a married woman, but Jean was insistent and he eventually consented. They met again, but Carl became more and more uneasy about the situation and told Jean he was going to drive her home. She made him drop her at Granville Station, and then made her own way home from there. The lie, despites its initial success, hadn’t worked, and Tom was still furious. He drove her to Bondi, and forced her to tell him where Carl lived. She did, but said she didn’t know the number of the flat, so Tom began knocking on doors until he found someone who knew which flat was Carl’s. Tom then went back to the car, where Jean was waiting nervously, and drove home. The next night, he drove to Carl’s flat with the intention of ‘punching his head in’.

Later, when we spoke to Carl, we found out that he’d come home from work to find a man sitting on the front fence outside his block of flats. Tom came over to him and said, ‘Are you Carl?’

‘Yes,’ he replied.

Confronted by a far larger man than he, Keir completely backed down and tamely said, ‘Well, I’m Tom. Jean’s husband. Can we talk?’

Carl agreed, and he and Tom went inside. As they sat and talked, Tom relayed his marriage problems to Carl, and told him that he knew about the affair. ‘Jean said she wants to leave me. I can’t let that happen. Seeing as how she confided in you, I thought you might be able to talk to her and convince her not to leave me.’

Carl felt sorry for Tom, and agreed to talk to Jean. He handed the phone to Tom and told him to call her. When she answered, he said, ‘It’s Tom. I’m at Carl’s flat.’

Jean was horrified. ‘Is…everything…okay?’ she stuttered.

‘Yes, everything’s fine. Carl said he wants to talk to you. I’ll put him on.’ With that, he handed the phone to Carl.

‘You know, you really should try and sort things out with your husband. Tom really wants to make your marriage work.’

‘I’ll try,’ was all Jean said before hanging up the phone. She was alone in her house, terrified about what Tom might do to Carl and, even worse, what he would do to her when he got home. Tom stayed at Carl’s for another three hours, telling him that he wasn’t brave enough to do anything physical about it, but he was talking to Carl to try and make him stay away from Jean.

Christine found out about the visit when Tom talked to her at work the next day.

‘I went to Carl’s place last night,’ he told her. ‘I went there to punch his head in, but we ended up talking for three hours, in between cups of tea.’

‘What did you talk to him about?’ Christine asked nervously.

‘It was mostly about Jean and our marriage. Carl told me Jeannie was a very depressed and confused young lady.’

‘I’ll talk to her myself, and see if I can make her see sense and to not have anything to do with Carl,’ Christine said, hoping to placate the stony-faced Tom. She called her daughter later that day. ‘You mustn’t speak to this Carl again for the sake of your marriage.’

‘Mum!’ Jean replied sternly. ‘Stay out of this! I can’t stand being married to Tom, and Carl is special. I can talk to him, which is more than I can do with Tom.’

‘I don’t care, Jeannie. You’re married to Tom, and that’s what matters. Think of your son.’

Jean became upset now. ‘Why do you always take Tom’s side? Why can’t you ever see things from my point of view?’ she said, before hanging up on her mother.

Over the next few months, the situation between Tom and Jean deteriorated even further. Carl, thinking that it was better if he wasn’t around, and somewhat spooked by Tom’s visit, decided to take a trip to Malaysia, as he’d often done before. Back in Tregear, there were more and more arguments about Carl, wherein Jean would scream at Tom and tell him she was leaving. The arguments increased in intensity, and Tom became more and more violent towards his wife.

It was January 1988 when she phoned her mum one night. ‘Mum, Tom and I had another argument and he punched me in the face. He hit me so hard it knocked me down the hallway and I wet myself.’

‘What?’ Christine cried down the phone. ‘What were you arguing about? Are you alright?’

‘Yeah, I’m okay now. I got back up and punched him back. He’s gone to bed. Mum, I can’t take much more of this.’

‘Do you want me to come over?’

‘No, it’s okay. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’

‘Don’t worry, Jeannie. I’ll speak to Tom tomorrow and sort him out.’

The next day, Christine confronted Tom at work, giving him the tongue-lashing of an angry mother. ‘Jean told me you punched her last night. How dare you!’

‘I only pushed her and she got up and hit me,’ Tom argued.

‘I don’t care! You told me you would always take care of her! You told me you’d never do anything to hurt her, and you lied! You should never hit a woman; don’t ever do it again!’

Whilst Christine was berating Tom, Jean finally decided to talk to Clifford about things, and went around to her parents’ house. As she sat on the lounge, she looked up at her father with desperation in her eyes. ‘Dad, I need to get away and spend some time alone.’

Clifford looked at his nervous, emaciated wreck of a daughter and, he would later tell me, his heart shattered. ‘Go down to the caravan at Culburra and stay with your sister. Get your head together and decide what you want to do. You know I will always look after you, no matter what you decide.’ He put his arms around her and hugged her ever so gently, scared that he’d break her in two.

Christine said that Jean had agreed to the idea of going to the caravan, and made plans with Heather for both of them to spend a week down the coast. Jean confronted Tom and told him she needed some time alone to get her head together. Tom consented, but told Jean there was no way their son was going with her.

I put Christine’s statement down. It had got me thinking. ‘This is what blokes like Tom Keir don’t get. They become so possessive they don’t realise that all they’re doing, ultimately, is driving their woman into the arms of another man. They invest so much time and energy into making sure their wife doesn’t leave them that eventually the one thing they are trying to prevent becomes inevitable.’

I re-read Fiona Chalmers’ statement to see what matched with Christine’s. Both women had said the sparkle in Jean’s eyes had gone. Both had said she’d begun to listen to her favourite song, The Rose, by Bette Midler, more and more.

I wondered which of the lyrics she thought best summed up her life.

Some say love, it is a river that drowns the tender reed.

Was she the tender reed and Keir’s jealously the river?

Some say love, it is a razor that leaves your soul to bleed.

Was her soul bleeding from his psychopathic razor?

Both her mum and her best friend had said her stunning smile had evaporated and her body had become gaunt and withdrawn. Fiona had also stated that she’d visited Jean at home one day and noticed bruises on her arm. Jean spent so much time trying to protect everyone else by not telling them the truth but she eventually broke down and told Fiona everything, which Fiona then told me. Tom would become enraged when Jean had friends over. She would argue back that if he let her go out with her friends then they wouldn’t have to come over all the time. Tom would fly into fits of rage, slap her around, grab her by the arms and shake her.

Fiona’s statement revealed more and more horrors.

Revelation number one: Tom was trying to drive Jean crazy by tying her up and forcing her to have sex with him.

Revelation number two: He’d hide in the hallway and jump out to frighten Jean. She’d sit in the lounge room and he’d go outside and peer at her through the window. He’d come back inside and she’d confront him. Tom would deny everything and accuse her of making up stories.

Fiona said that she’d passed on her concerns to Shona and Maria, and the three girls had later noticed that the bruises on Jean’s arms had become more frequent and more pronounced. As time went by, Jean finally opened up and told her friends how truly depressed she was, and how Tom was gambling away all their money. Christine confirmed this, and told me Jean was embarrassed that her mum had to pay some of the household bills, something that became a major bone of contention between Jean and Tom.

Her friends told her she had to leave. She’d agree, but then say she couldn’t leave her son, because Tom would never let him go. She said that he’d told her, ‘If you leave me, I’ll cut you up and feed you to the dogs.’

Exacerbated, I put the statements down, leant back in my chair and let out a deep sigh. I just couldn’t believe what I was reading. I’d dealt with dozens of domestic violence cases before, but nothing as bizarre as this. I picked Fiona’s statement up again and was flicking through it when suddenly I found something I’d missed, something that sickened me to the core. Fiona was the only one who’d been brave enough to still go to the house knowing that she had to keep up her presence to show Tom there were people who cared for Jean’s welfare. On the final night she went there, Keir’s son was crying, and Tom slapped his face as hard as he could. Fiona was appalled. The child’s crying increased, and Tom merely laughed. Then he started to mimic his son by screaming with him. Fiona said this was the moment that confirmed this man was a monster. She promised herself she’d do everything she could to get Jean and her son away from him.

There were several things I wanted to clarify, so I rang Fiona and asked her to confirm that she’d actually heard Tom threaten Jean.

‘Sure he did,’ Fiona said. ‘He’d say things like, “If Jean ever left me, I’d cut her up and feed her to the dogs.”’

‘Did he say this more than once?’ I asked.

‘Oh, yes, he said it all the time! I even heard him say, “It’s easy to dispose of a body. You cut the flesh off, feed it to the dogs, grind the bones down and use them as fertiliser and then you burn the hair. You know, cops are idiots. They only solve crimes if people are stupid enough to open their mouths.”’

I thanked Fiona for her assistance, put the phone down and shook my head in astonishment. I knew I had to put this man behind bars.