8.30 AM, FRIDAY 14 FEBRUARY

Zoe stared at her diary. Trevor Hill’s trial was three days away. The wound on her head throbbed under the bandage and her calf felt as though she’d been hit with a baseball bat. Harry came out from under her desk and laid his head on her knee. She gazed at him and stroked his fur. Such a good boy.

‘Morning,’ Charlie said.

‘Morning. You look like death.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, managing a smile. ‘I could say the same about you. How’s the head?’

‘Feel like someone’s using a jack-hammer on it.’

A plain envelope was jammed under her in-tray. ‘Zoe’ was scrawled on it in an elegant script, with a small hand-drawn heart in the corner. In her peripheral vision she could see Iain and Garry furtively looking in her direction.

‘What’s that?’ asked Charlie.

‘Valentine’s Day admirers,’ said Zoe. She picked up the envelope and tossed it in the bin.

Charlie’s phone buzzed. ‘Hi Mum…yeah, what’s up? I’m at work…what? It’s those bloody movies you’re watching on the computer. You’ve got a virus or something. Don’t touch it and I’ll come around tonight and fix it.’

‘Everything okay?’ asked Zoe.

‘Yeah. Mum’s been watching pirated movies she borrows from her neighbour’s son. Sounds like she’s got herself a virus from one of them.’

Zoe stared at her desk.

‘What is it?’

Zoe said nothing, raising her hand to buy a few more seconds, running her thoughts through her head.

‘What?’ asked Charlie again.

‘When I was talking to Katie Harley on Saturday about Greg Enders, her daughter said that he’d given them movies on USB sticks.’ Zoe tapped her pen on the desk. ‘Is that how Ivan’s finding out secrets to use to set people up when he calls Crime Stoppers?’

‘Sorry, what do you mean?’

‘I reckon he is using some sort of spyware program. I saw something on TV about it. Once they plug the USB into the computer, the spyware installs itself in the background. Ivan might have used it to read emails, eavesdrop on video chats, look at their social media, that sort of thing.’

Zoe picked up the phone to call Anjali. At that moment, the squad room door swung open and Anjali ran through the office towards them, half out of breath. She held an iPad in one hand and a file of papers in the other.

‘I found a…cabin,’ she exclaimed, breathless.

‘What?’ asked Zoe.

Anjali leaned against the desk, composing herself. ‘I was doing a property title search and came across a cabin in Ivan’s dad’s name. He bought it a couple of years after they set up the fruit shop. It’s near a place called Three Bridges.’

‘Where’s that?’ asked Charlie.

‘South of Warburton. An hour and a half east of here. Just past Yarra Junction. Middle of nowhere. It’s down a track off Mount Bride Road.’ said Anjali. ‘Here, have a look.’

Anjali held the iPad so that they could all see the screen. She used two fingers to zoom in. For a moment, all Zoe and Charlie could see was an aerial image of forest. Then they saw it. A small clearing with a cabin. A water tank sat beside the building.

Zoe took the iPad. ‘Well, someone’s been using it in the last few years.’

‘How can you tell?’ asked Charlie.

Zoe pointed at the image. ‘Solar panels.’

‘Off grid, maybe?’

‘Definitely,’ said Anjali. ‘I checked. The building’s not connected to mains power or gas. Not connected to town water either. There’ll be little in the way of landmarks out there, so I printed this.’ She put a map on the desk with latitude and longitude coordinates. ‘It’s the only cabin for miles.’

Zoe felt the weight ease off her shoulders a little. ‘And the property never transferred ownership since then?’

‘No, still registered in the dad’s name.’

‘Can you find out from the local council who pays the rates every year?’

‘Will do. I’ll call you when I know,’ said Anjali, already heading towards the door.

‘Hold on, there’s something else.’

‘What is it?’

‘Ray Carlson’s computer. Can you pull it out of evidence and have another look at it. I want to know if there’s spyware installed in it.’

‘Will do. It’s with the Drug Squad at the moment, but I’ll head over there and get it checked out.’

‘Thanks,’ said Zoe, turning to Charlie. ‘Let’s have a look at this cabin.’

Zoe was regretting not getting Charlie to drive. Her left leg was aching. They were passing through Yarra Junction when the phone rang. Zoe hit the answer button on the steering wheel.

‘Mayer.’

‘Zoe, its Anjali. Couple of things. Firstly, I found a program called Operation BugDrop installed on Ray’s PC. It’s a type of malware program that allows you to access the information on an infected computer. You can also eavesdrop on people using their computer’s microphone or webcam if the computer is on in the background.’

‘And could you plant it by giving someone a USB stick full of movies?’ asked Zoe.

‘Yes, you’d need to disguise it a bit, but it can be set up to install itself. It can be easily hidden if there are a lot of folders with multiple files in each.’

‘Can we see who has been accessing the information?’

‘Not yet. These systems use cloud-based storage services to save the information. We may be able to trace that, but the account used is probably a free account in a fake name. Plus, with a VPN, a virtual private network, it would be hard to work out who was accessing the site.’

‘Okay, thanks. What was the other thing?’

‘Oh, yeah, I rang the Shire of Yarra Valley, which is Three Bridges’ council. Rates for the property are paid in cash every year. Woman there remembers the guy paying a few months ago because only a couple of people pay by cash nowadays. He’s in his late thirties or early forties and always wears a plain black cap, is always unshaven—a bit scruffy was what she said—and he doesn’t like chit chat. Just comes in staring at the floor, pays and leaves. She remembers him because she thinks he’s a rude prick. Her words. I asked about CCTV and they only keep recordings for a month before they re-record over the top.’

‘Okay, thanks, Anjali. Good work,’ said Zoe. She hung up.

‘Sounds like Ivan to me. Up-front payments in cash,’ said Charlie.

‘I’m feeling more positive that we could finally get some physical evidence linking Ivan to all this. If we find his computer we should be able to link him to that malware.’

They drove on in silence, before Zoe noticed Charlie shaking his head.

Zoe glanced across. ‘You okay?’

‘Yeah,’ he said sheepishly. ‘It’s just…I shouldn’t have doubted your instincts. I feel like shit about it.’

‘Don’t worry about it. What’s past is past.’

Twenty-five minutes later, they pulled off Mount Bride Road onto a dirt track. Zoe let the car coast to a stop. All around them were rainforest and scrub. A small mob of kangaroos bounded off the track, disappearing into the bush. Charlie looked at the map Anjali had printed for them. ‘It’s not far. Less than a hundred metres around that bend,’ he said.

Zoe opened the car door and listened. All she could hear were the song birds.

‘Let’s walk,’ she said.

Charlie gave a small involuntary moan.

‘We’ll have a quick look. No point calling in the cavalry if it’s empty. Be careful shutting the door, though. The sound will travel out here.’

Charlie got out, and quietly closed his door. Zoe opened the back and Harry jumped down beside her. They started walking towards the bend on the track. She pulled her pistol, and held it low. Charlie noticed and pulled his gun too. The air was silent, except for the cicadas.

Slowly the cabin materialised through the trees. Painted dark brown, it stood in a clearing about the size of four tennis courts. At the front were two small windows on either side of a door. The side of the cabin that they could see had no windows, and the roof was corrugated iron. The solar panels were out of sight on the far side of the roof.

Zoe winced as she dropped into a crouch. Charlie moved down next to her. She leaned in close, whispering into his ear. ‘The breeze is behind us, so we need to be really quiet.’

Charlie nodded.

‘I’m going around the back,’ said Zoe. ‘You stay here and cover me. Wait for my signal. If there’s no car there, we’ll look through the front and back windows, okay?’

‘Got it.’

Zoe limped around the edge of the clearing, her gun trained on the house. Harry kept pace just behind her. There were no vehicles parked at the back.

Zoe peered back at Charlie. She pointed two fingers towards her eyes and then in the direction of the cabin. Charlie nodded and walked into the clearing, gun at the ready.

Zoe could see no movement through the old sheer curtains that covered the two back windows. She looked in. The room was empty. She walked across to the other window. It was a kitchen. Also empty.

She opened the screen door and knocked. ‘Victoria Police, anyone home?’

There was no movement inside. She knocked again. Zoe turned the doorknob slowly and pushed. It opened. She took one step inside before stepping out again. She indicated for Harry to drop down and stay.

‘Charlie,’ she called out. ‘You’d better get around here.’