I gave Erica a quick look.

"What tragedy?" she asked Mrs Wilson.

Mrs Wilson breathed deeply.

"If you don't mind telling us," I said.

"Talking about it doesn't hurt quite so much now." She looked up from her hands. "John's dead," she said. "Bruce's dad. He's dead."

The officers who took her statement must have told Dutton about this and he should have let us know. I wouldn't be surprised if he had deliberately withheld the information.

Mrs Wilson was talking again. "Car crash." She put her fingertips to her temples. "Got ploughed into head-on by a drunk driver." She lowered her hands, gripped her thighs. "He took a corner on the wrong side of the road. Killed John."

"I'm very sorry to hear that," I said. "How old was your son at the time?"

"It happened seven years ago in March. Bruce was just a baby. Eight months old."

I looked at Erica again but she was no help. I asked, "Do you have a photo of Bruce, Mrs Wilson?"

"Bruce is camera shy."

"It doesn't have to be a good photo. Anything will do. Just so we have a likeness."

She said it again, slower this time. "Bruce is camera shy."

"You don't have any photos?" I asked again. She must have given one to the uniformed officers. "Just one — "

"He doesn't like having his photo taken," she said. Then maybe she realised she'd been a little loud and said it again, softly, looking at her feet.

"What about a school photograph?"

"What is it you don't get?" Mrs Wilson stood up, banging her shins against the coffee table so hard I winced. But she didn't seem to notice. "I won't put Bruce through any kind of an ordeal. I won't do that. He's suffered enough, losing his father. Can you imagine what that's like? I know he's too young to understand, but the older he gets, the more it shows and he acts up and… and I let him, I suppose. Maybe I spoil him a bit. But he hurts. I know. I feel it." She was crying. Big messy tears, runny nose. She wiped her face with her hand.