As I looked through the papers I couldn’t help it-my sympathies were with Ms Carroll. For one thing I knew the injury was a nasty one, having broken a fibula a couple of years back- or rather, having had it broken for me by a baseball bat. For another, I carried similar insurance myself, resented the premiums and expected the company to come good if required. So far, on the couple of occasions I had needed to make a claim, everything had been sweet, if slow.

Against that, I knew that phoney insurance claims made the premiums higher for all concerned and that this kind of scamming was dead selfish. The amount of money involved was sufficient for Sentinel to insist on verification. Fair enough, I thought, although it wasn’t the sort of work I liked. But I disliked it less than I disliked the bills that were mounting up. Beggars can’t be choosers. Did Grandma Lee ever say that? I doubted it; when in need she could always slip into the gear and read a palm or two. I filled out the contract form, faxed it off and had it back, signed, within the hour. Licensed to snoop.

I rented a video camera, drove out to Epping and located Ms Carroll’s place of business. Natural Landscaping consisted of an old weatherboard house located on a double block of land adjoining what looked like a ten-hectare plant nursery. There were a couple of newish sheds on the land and a three-slot carport sheltering a late model Holden ute and a bobcat. One of the sheds was open and I got an impression of cement bags and tools. There were a couple of piles of sand and gravel with plastic sheets drawn over them. The operation looked, at an ignorant glance, neat and efficient.

I gathered this information from a slow cruise-by. I parked a hundred metres away and used my mobile to call the business number Sentinel had supplied along with some details on ‘the subject’. I scanned the details while the phone rang: age thirty-two, single, 177 centimetres, 75 kilos…