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IT WAS THEhardest thing he’d ever had to do. And that was a hell of a statement, because what was “hard” in the job had changed incredibly over Chief Morris’s career. When he had been a young patrol cop back in the seventies he’d thought the hours were hard, sneaking into the house late at night so he didn’t wake the kids. When he’d first made detective, he’d thought finding the bodies of stupid young gang members with their throats cut was hard. It got to be so that the old man had seen such wicked stuff in his time…

But sitting his best detective down and telling her this news, now that was a whole new level.

Detective Harriet Blue sat across from him in the interrogation room, the lights making her look even more tired than she was, her angular head of scruffy hair balanced in one palm. She looked this way in the boxing ring. On the verge. Wired. Ready for the next strike, whether it was his or hers.

The Chief had a tough time trying not to think like her father sometimes. If he’d been her father he’d have kicked her out of the force a long time ago. Got her into something that suited that brilliant mind but wouldn’t leave her a bitter, damaged old woman at the end of her career. He’d have dragged her out of the academy by her hair if he’d had to. But he wasn’t her father.

The words came out slowly. He danced around the issue for a bit. Then he laid it on her straight, the way she deserved.

“We found the Georges River Killer,” he said.

He looked at her eyes.

“It’s your brother, Blue. It’s Sam.”

Harriet twitched, just once, the way she would do when he’d smack her good and hard in the boxing ring. She was trying to work out what had just happened.

Her sharp, cold eyes examined his.

Then she got up and left.