AustLit

The narrator's partially autistic brother, Michael, has been accused of murdering his elderly neighbour, Yvette Michel. His solicitor comes to visit the narrator, encouraging her to visit Michael herself, trying to build a case for Michael being legally insane. The narrator tries to refuse, remembering her cool relationship with her brother in their childhood and the difficulties her family had in settling him in a suitable home.

Eventually, the narrator goes to visit him. Michael reveals that the police are framing him: the woman he murdered was actually serial killer Myra Hindley, and the police claimed that Michael called 'Yvette' the Devil when the narrator knew that Michael had never been religious. Later, a genealogical research firm the narrator had hired to find Yvette's family emails her, confirming that Yvette Mitchell had died in a V2 attack in 1944.