‘My last year of high school. Before I went to uni.’
‘Your parents cut you off when you were eighteen?’
‘I was seventeen when I went to uni.’
‘Right.’
There was a pause as Jansen turned a page over on the file. ‘Do your parents have associations with any bikie gangs?’
Jack nearly laughed. Not that it was funny. None of it was funny, but the question was so absurd.
‘No. Not that I’m aware of.’
‘What about your friends? Are any of your friends connected?’
‘No. I mean, no. Of course not.’
‘It’s important that you’re honest with us here, Jack. If you lie, we’ll find out later, and it won’t look great for you.’
‘None of my friends are in gangs, okay? I’ve never known anyone who was in a gang. I’m not lying.’
Jansen looked sceptical. Lucy Phillips didn’t look at him at all. She was taking careful notes.
‘The gun that we found in your flat was stolen from a man named Gifford. Steve Gifford. He lives in Lilydale. Do you know him?’
Jack shook his head.
‘Please answer the questions verbally,’ Lucy said. ‘For the recording.’
Jack cleared his throat. ‘I don’t know anyone named Steve Gifford, okay?’
‘You’re sure about that?’ Jansen asked.
‘Yes. I’m very sure.’
‘Okay.’ Jansen turned the page on his file. ‘We’re testing the blood we found on the sleeve of your T-shirt. It’ll take a few days before we can get the results. But for right now, there’s something important that we need to clear up. Jack, you told me when I spoke to you at your home that you didn’t know Robert Walker. That isn’t true, is it?’
Jack shook his head. ‘I don’t know him. When you first mentioned his name, I had literally never heard of the guy before.’
‘Not true,’ Jansen said, his voice very calm and very steady.
‘It is true,’ Jack said, as firmly as he could manage. ‘I don’t know anyone by the name Robert Walker. I’ve honestly never met him.’ Doubt suddenly struck him. ‘Or at least... I suppose I could have met him and not known it? If we met at a party or something? But we weren’t introduced?’
‘Do you go to a lot of parties?’ asked Lucy Phillips.
‘No, not really. But I—’
‘It’s possible you didn’t meet him in person,’ Jansen said, cutting across Jack. ‘At least not before you shot him. But you knew who he was. Because your girlfriend told you about him.’
‘My girlfriend? I don’t have a—’
‘Your ex-girlfriend. The mother of your son. Miriam Hall.’
‘Miriam? You’ve got things mixed up somehow. I don’t understand how you... look, I told you. Miriam’s dead. She died ten years ago.’
Jansen closed the file. ‘We know that, Jack. I asked you how she died, and you didn’t want to answer me, remember? But Miriam killed herself, didn’t she? You must have known we’d find that out.’ His voice was gentler now. Almost sympathetic. ‘I’ve read the report. You came home and found her dead in the bath, with her wrists slit. Your baby crying in his cot.’
Jack felt like he’d somehow slipped out of the world he knew and understood, that he was in some upside down universe where nothing made sense. In this alternate reality everything felt heightened and slightly unreal. For a moment he was back in that room, the shitty one-bed he and Miriam had rented five kilometres from the university. He could feel the cold in the flat, smell the cooking oil from the fast food place downstairs. He could smell the blood. He could hear Cam crying in his crib.
