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CHAPTER 1: A cheating husband and his wife

GERARD Baden-Clay was a man looking for women on the world’s largest sex, dating and swingers site.

“Looking for discrete (sic) sex,” Baden-Clay typed.

“Married but don’t want to be – looking for some sex on the side!”

Don’t miss Thursday’s The Courier-Mail newspaper for David Murray’s analysis and an exclusive interview with Allison Baden-Clay’s friends and family.

It was New Year’s Eve, 2010, and Gerard was starting early with a resolution to escape his suburban life, dumping the wife he no longer loved for the mistress who wanted him to herself.

He was a long-time-married, long-time-cheating husband with long-forgotten marriage vows.

Gerard was also a doting father, prominent businessman and pillar of the community. He was head of his local chamber of commerce and a friend to many. He counted politicians and entrepreneurs among his inner circle.

But on adultfriendfinder.com he was Bruce Overland, a married 40-year-old Brisbane man: non-smoker and light drinker with four years’ university education.

It was the name he’d picked when he’d first started in the real estate industry. Bruce Overland had often emailed other real estate agents asking questions about listed properties.

He would have done well to use his background as a salesman to sell himself to the women he was seeking.

Setting up his online profile he clicked “average’’ on the box asking him to describe his “male endowment”.

Gerard used the Bruce Overland persona to hide his double life. With Gerard, nothing was as it seemed.

He and his wife Allison seemed the perfect couple. The handsome, successful real estate agent and the beautiful ballet dancer. He a descendant of the war hero who famously started the Scouting movement. She a private school girl fluent in several languages. Three beautiful daughters. A house in leafy Brookfield. The Prado in the driveway.

But the car was leased. So was the house.

Their finances were a mess. The marriage was a mess.

While Gerard was trawling the internet to escape their broken marriage, Allison was desperately trying to fix it.

Her marriage had a beautiful facade and a rotten core. On the outside he was charming. He called her Princess or Angel. Made all the decisions. But few knew what he was really like. Like the time he laughed at her underwear. Or the time he told her she smelled. Or all the times he told her he didn’t want her spending time with her friends.

He didn’t like the way she was with the children. He thought she was flaky. Inconsistent. He preferred a regimental approach.

The children needed control. Discipline. It was how he’d been raised.

He was always home by 5pm to spend time with Allison and the girls. He called it “happy hour’’. He liked the girls to see their mum and dad sitting close to each other. Appearances mattered.

But for years he barely touched her.

They were two people living separate lives under the same roof.

They’d been to a psychiatrist to talk about their relationship troubles. A marriage counsellor.

Now Allison turned to Dr Phil.

Phillip Calvin McGraw. American television personality. Celebrity psychologist. Author. His bestseller, Relationship Rescue: A Seven-Step Strategy for Reconnecting With Your Partner, included a 42-question, workbook-style survey.

In December 2010, Allison opened a spiral-bound journal and began writing.

“If my relationship ends, it will be because... I didn’t work hard enough.”

Dr Phil had given his readers a list of 42 sentences to complete. I would give anything if my partner would … If only I had … I feel the most lonely when …

Allison’s cursive script filled the pages. A sad, self-deprecating insight into a woman who knew her husband was gone and didn’t know how to get him back.

“I wish … my husband loved me like he did before we were married,” she filled in.

“I hate it when … my husband treats me like shit.

“When I get angry I … go into my cave and hide.

“I would give anything if my partner would … love me and make love to me.”

She knew her marriage was a sham, that she was hiding what was really going on from others who thought their relationship perfect.

“I feel like a phony when … I am out with Gerard and his office staff,’’ she wrote.

“Friends … think we are ‘all together’. Other people think … we are the perfect married couple.’’

She blamed herself for the problems in her marriage. It was a lonely place. But for Allison, being alone would be worse than a lonely marriage.

There was more. Sometimes at night she felt lonely and cried. It hurt her when her husband wouldn’t give her a proper hug. She felt the most lonely when Gerard refused to sleep in the same bed. She was afraid of losing her marriage. Of being a single mum. Of her husband leaving. Her marriage failing. She was afraid.

“Maybe I am still harbouring regrets about getting married and did I make the right decision?’’ Allison wrote.

“Was I ready to give of myself and share or (was I) still self-centred? I didn’t want to go overseas. I wanted to change my career — to be FAMOUS! And Gerard stood in my way. And I have treated him like shit because I held this belief.”

CHAPTER 2: The Brisbane girl and the war hero’s great-grandson

Allison had always been anxious, even as a little girl. But she had been happier. She had talent and she worked hard. She had made her mum and dad proud.

Before she became a Baden-Clay, Allison Dickie had grown up in a working-class dark brick home in the working class suburb of Redbank.

At 10, she earned a much-coveted place on the Australian Youth Ballet. She was elected deputy head girl in her final year at Ipswich Girls Grammar.

She laughed a lot. Kept her hurts to herself. She never seemed cross. Never angry.

She never talked about herself. Allison was a listener. She asked lots of questions. She cared about people.

After high school she took a Rotary exchange trip to Denmark. Good with languages, she came back speaking Danish and Swedish. She learnt French, German and Japanese while studying psychology at the University of Queensland.

At 25 she entered the 1993 Miss Australia Awards. She was crowned Miss Brisbane. She had landed a job with Flight Centre by then. She impressed her bosses as she had always impressed. They promoted her to store manager. Eventually they would promote her to global human resources manager, responsible for 3000 employees in six countries.

Successful, smart and beautiful, Allison Dickie was a catch for any man.

She needed a hand with her computer one day at work. She could run an international HR operation but was terrible with technology. Her colleague Gerard Baden-Clay wasn’t. He offered to help.

Gerard Baden-Clay was born to lead. To do great things. It was in his DNA. The reminders were all around him. And he was quick to remind others of his distinguished bloodline.

Lord Robert Baden-Powell fought four wars for the British Army in the late 19th century. He spent part of his military career posing as a travelling butterfly collector. He created intricate sketches of the insects, hiding plans of military installations in their wings.

He impressed his superiors. Won promotion after promotion. In the second Boer War he held a town under siege from enemy fire for 217 days, using a series of cunning tricks to convince advancing troops they were surrounded by landmines and barbed wire.

When the food ran out, he ordered his men to eat their horses.

Baden-Powell returned home a national hero. He wrote books on military scouting. Training manuals for boys. He used skills learned fighting battles on foreign shores to educate young boys. It was how the Scouting movement was founded.

It started with a camp of 20 boys, mostly the offspring of his friends. When Baden-Powell retired in the 1930s, there were more than three million Scouts globally.

Some historians would later speculate Baden-Powell, who admired the male form and developed close relationships with military colleagues, was a repressed homosexual. He married in 1912 and went on to raise three children. His youngest, Betty, married a man named Gervas Clay.

Nigel Clay was their third child. He was raised in Zimbabwe, which was then Rhodesia, where his grandfather had spent years spreading the word of the Scouts.

Lord Baden-Powell, invested by King Edward VII as a companion of the Order of the Bath, was 30 years dead when Nigel and Elaine Clay brought their son Gerard into the world.

Gerard spent his first years in Zimbabwe where he, his sister Olivia and brother Adam, lived in the shadow of their great grandfather’s insurmountable legacy.

He was 10 when Nigel moved the family to Australia.

There is a hotel in Melbourne named after Gerard’s great grandfather. There are five Australian streets with his name. Three in Brisbane. One in Melbourne. Another in Maroochydore. Baden-Powell Scouting Park sits on 23ha in Samford Valley, complete with accommodation, heated pool and an abseiling tower.

But with a name like Clay, nobody would link Nigel’s family to the war hero who founded the Scouts.

So they came to Australia as the Baden-Clays, legally adding a link to Nigel’s famed grandfather with the signing of some official paperwork.

They settled in Toowoomba and Gerard graduated with a respectable tertiary entrance score of 900. He played hockey. Waited tables. Picked strawberries and potatoes for extra pocket money.

He spent five years earning a Bachelor of Business, majoring in accounting and computing. It was during these years he’d make friends he would keep for life, successful businessmen he’d lean on to keep his own business afloat. He finished his degree and worked as an accountant for a few years before taking a job at Flight Centre.

He never failed to mention his heritage. He was a proud man. He liked to take charge. Later it would be heading his local chamber of commerce and the school parents and citizens’ association.

As a parent he would demand routine and discipline in his house. He would use “field signals” to give his daughters instructions, touching a certain part of his body to issue a command. A touch on the leg from dad meant it was adult talking time. The children were not to interrupt.

He’d use his famous Baden-Powell bloodline to spruik his skills in real estate...

“Gerard’s personal philosophies of ethical excellence and team loyalty, derived from his lineage as the great-grandson of international Scouts founder Baden-Powell, have found their perfect landing spot in the field of real estate”

...he boasted on a blog linked to his property business.

CHAPTER 3: Living a lie

It was a whirlwind romance. He’d had girlfriends before but none like her. He knew she was the one. They’d been planning a trip to Europe that would take in Paris.

He couldn’t have her pausing on every street corner, wondering if this would be the moment when he’d ask his question.

So he asked it before they went.

He took her to Park Rd, Milton, where La Dolce Vita Ristorante sits under its own faux Eiffel Tower. It was there, among the diners and coffee drinkers, that he got down on his knee and asked Allison to marry him.

She wasn’t so sure her ambitious baby-faced boyfriend was the one.

She wasn’t sure if she was ready for marriage, ready for children, ready for such a drastic change.

She asked for a week to think about it.

If Allison had a fault, it was that she always said yes, even when she meant no. So she accepted his ring and they began planning a life together.

They were married at St Mary’s Anglican Church at Kangaroo Point on August 23, 1997, the bride glowing in a long, white, off-shoulder gown with an embroidered bodice and sweetheart neckline.

Long, white gloves. Long white veil secured with a tiara. She smiled with Gerard as they were photographed signing the wedding register.

The union of two committed Christians was a non-alcoholic affair. Their Flight Centre co-workers struggled to contain their thirst.

Some of the guests had already pegged Gerard for a pompous self-promoter.

Others discovered it while sitting through his long-winded speech thanking his “mummy and daddy”.

It seemed to take hours for Gerard to express his gratitude to the relevant people. Some would sneak off to find booze and return to find him still talking.

After the wedding they left behind their old lives and headed overseas.

She hadn’t wanted to pack up but Gerard had talked her into it. She’d wanted to change her career. Open up her own dance school and rekindle her passion for ballet.

Again she said yes when she meant no, nodding her head as Gerard made plans for their time overseas.

They travelled the world, ending up in London. They flew home for a wedding and picked up some anti-malarial medication from a travel doctor before heading off overseas again.

Severe reactions to the medication are rare, but Allison was one of those rare cases. She developed depression, hallucinations and psychotic episodes. She spent a lot of time in London on the couch, near catatonic.

Gerard didn’t believe in depression. He wanted her to snap out of it.

They spent some time in Switzerland where Gerard, with his famed Scouting heritage, offered his services as a volunteer at the Kandersteg International Scouts Centre.

They came home for a “break” in 1999. Flight Centre lost one of its favourites when Allison left and they threw work at her the moment she returned.

Gerard applied for a job there too. He missed out the first time. Got his foot back in the door on his second try.

They offered him a contract developing their internet strategy. He lasted six months before the team was made redundant. The “strategy” hadn’t worked. He took them to court, tried suing for breach of contract, but got nowhere.

With Allison now pregnant, Gerard needed to find a new career. He took on a job with his parents at Raine & Horne’s Kenmore office to try his hand at real estate.

Their first daughter was born in 2001. Allison was pregnant again two years later.

The depression she’d struggled with in London had her in its grip by then.

Her sister-in-law would later claim they were driving to playgroup when a panic attack engulfed her.

Olivia watched in alarm as Allison lunged from the car and vomited in the gutter.

She booked an appointment with a psychiatrist. He prescribed her antidepressants and within weeks she was doing well.

But the medication had a downside.

Gerard complained it affected her libido and made her put on weight. She was not a big woman but Allison had grown up in the ballet world, where fine-boned girls were encouraged to keep a slim physique.

She always seemed to be on one diet or another. She was a reluctant exerciser, but walked and went to the gym. In their fridge was a row of tiny vials. They were Allison’s. She was injecting a substance to help her lose weight.

Allison had a third daughter in 2006. She loved her girls. She was a devoted mother who dreamed of her beautiful daughters making it big in the ballet world.

By then they’d taken on a lease at 593 Brookfield Rd, Brookfield, a three-bedroom elevated Queenslander with a large garden right on the main road.

Brookfield. Where Brisbane’s elite bought up when they wanted space for a pony and a few acres of garden close to the city. A picturesque hamlet of rolling hills. A pony club on one side of the main road in. The local showgrounds on the other. The hairdressing salon nestled in alongside a general store cum cafe where locals gathered to sip lattes on the wooden deck.

The perfect place for the perfect family.

Gerard and Allison threw themselves into the local community. Gerard would take up a position on the Brookfield State School Parents and Citizens’ committee, he’d chair the Real Estate Institute of Queensland’s western suburbs zone and get himself elected president of the Kenmore and District Chamber of Commerce.

Allison was the doting school mum who taught ballet and a resilience course for kids.

On the surface, they had everything.

CHAPTER 4: The nice guy and charmer, the women and the lies

HE made a point of making friends in high places, this great-grandson of an English Lord and war hero. Even the local police sergeant, Murray Watson, who got to know Gerard through the Rotary club, rated him “one of the nicest guys in the world”.

Moggill MP and one-time Liberal Party leader Dr Bruce Flegg was another of Gerard’s mates. The pair lived a kilometre apart and Gerard would tip his friend off if there was a speed camera on their road.

With his parents on board as partners, Gerard opened a real estate business, Century 21 Westside.

In 2005 they won a Quest business achiever award. That same year, Gerard won a platinum award at Century 21’s quarterly accolades.

They won another business achiever award in 2007. He was photographed, gold jacket clad, bounding into the air celebrating his achievement.

Gerard made BRW’s “fast starters” list in 2008. He’d brag about it for years after – even on the stand at his own murder trial.

He became a pillar of the western suburbs community. Some considered him a worthy candidate for an LNP seat.

He was successful and charming.

In 2005, while Allison was at home with two children, Gerard worked his charm on a woman and her partner while he sold their block of land.

Her name was Toni McHugh. She was in the business too. She’d been an art teacher who turned to property management.

In 2007, Toni, a striking mother-of-three, applied for a job with Gerard’s business. They worked together for a few months before anything happened.

She saw him as a mentor. She admired him, found him attractive. There was chemistry for her, right from the start.

She didn’t realise he felt the same way until, in August 2008, he asked her to kiss him. Four days after his 11th wedding anniversary.

It wasn’t his first affair. He’d spent a month in a liaison with a woman named Michelle Hammond he had met through real estate circles. He was an experienced deceiver.

He and Toni began meeting in secret. They snatched moments and covered them with lies. He needed to work back late. She needed to work back late.

Their illicit romance played out in the pitch black of a dead-end dirt track in Moggill State Forest. Nobody would find them there. The trees hid any light from the road, from nearby houses.

They met at the office, after hours, when everyone else had gone home.

Twice they went to Gerard’s home when Allison and the girls were away down the coast.

In November, three months after the affair began, she left the father of her children. Toni couldn’t continue her betrayal. Gerard wouldn’t stop his. He couldn’t leave his wife. Not yet.

Their relationship became a rollercoaster punctuated by Gerard’s empty promises. He told Toni he loved her. He told her he’d leave his wife. Talked about the car they’d buy to accommodate his children and hers.

He began meeting Toni at her new unit, telling Allison he’d been caught up at work.

Allison’s closest friends looked at Gerard through narrowed, suspicious eyes. They told her he was up to something. But Allison always thought the best of people. She reassured them all was fine. Her friends talked about hiring a private detective to follow him.

His parents sold out of the agency and retired and two new partners, Phil Broom and Jocelyn Frost, came on board. The partners left the financial side of things to Gerard. He was, after all, a qualified accountant.

Some of the staff began to suspect something was going on between Toni and the boss. They saw the glances. The closeness.

In 2009 Gerard, Phil and Jocelyn went along to a real estate retreat on the Gold Coast. Phil and Jocelyn brought their partners along for the weekend but Gerard came alone.

Phil was downstairs on the last morning checking them out of the three rooms. He was told Gerard had already left. At midnight, the night before in fact. It seemed strange to Phil.

“If there was a free breakfast, Gerard was normally there,’’ he said.

Toni’s work became inconsistent. Sometimes the sales flowed in through her capable hands. Then she’d sell nothing at all. It would turn out the highs and lows of her work matched the fortunes of her tumultuous relationship with Gerard.

Gerard was constantly hugging the staff. Phil decided the hugs were Gerard’s way of trying to deflect the attention he was giving to Toni. He told Gerard to stop.

Things got more serious.

Gerard was staying over at Toni’s a lot. He’d tell Allison he was being kept back at work.

They’d go to movies together. Go for breakfast.

They all went to a workmate’s engagement party. Gerard ignored his wife to lavish attention on his mistress. Toni, uncomfortable with Gerard’s attention and Allison’s presence, left early.

Gerard disappeared at the same time. Eventually, Allison started asking after him. She asked Phil to go and check the toilets.

She was more concerned than suspicious. She knew her marriage was a mess. But she had no idea what her husband had been up to.

She’d organised a weekend at a resort for their wedding anniversary that year and told him it was up to him to join her. If he so chose.

She had surprised him when she asked what was wrong with their marriage.

He told her he wanted to leave. She was shocked. She’d put it down to a midlife crisis.

She’d taken him to see her psychiatrist after that.

She was hoping the man who’d successfully treated her depression for the past six years would be able to offer a solution to their relationship problems.

Gerard had sat down next to her and announced he wanted out. He’d complained about the way she left everything up to him. Complained about the money she’d spent on a treadmill. Didn’t mention the affairs, the woman from the office he’d promised to leave her for.

The business partners went to another conference in Sydney in May, 2010. Jackie Crane was there. She was a real estate agent Gerard had met at a training course. Things might have been serious with Toni, Gerard might have been married to Allison, but on Friday night he stayed with Jackie.

On Saturday morning he called Toni. Could she get on a flight to Sydney and spend the night with him?

Phil and Jocelyn were surprised when she arrived that day. They all met for dinner at a Chinese restaurant near the harbour. Gerard and his mistress sat together like a couple, openly affectionate.

Jackie Crane was also surprised. To Phil, it seemed like Jackie was expecting to be Gerard’s “special guest” at dinner that night.

They talked about it when they got back to Brisbane, Phil and Gerard. Two blokes talking women.

Gerard told Phil he loved Toni. It was over with his wife. They didn’t even sleep in the same bed anymore.

He told Phil too about his plans for a bigger car. It would need to fit his three girls and Toni’s two boys.

Eventually Phil pulled him up. They were mates, he said, but Gerard had to stop living a double life.

How had he managed to get himself into this situation, Phil asked him. He would never forget Gerard’s response.

“It’s a lot like being a baby shaker,’’ he said.

“You don’t think you’re a baby shaker until you’re caught shaking a baby.”

Gerard didn’t confess the full truth. Trysts with women he met in real estate were no longer enough.

He had set up his adultfriendfinder.com profile so he could find secret new flings on the internet.

Gerard’S love life wasn’t the only thing in a mess.

Nobody in the real estate business but Gerard had any idea how much money was coming in and going out.

Business had boomed in 2010. Phil and Jocelyn were bringing in the cash, selling properties and running a rental list. Money was flowing through the door.

Some weeks the partners were being paid $5000 a week. Other times they weren’t paid at all. They were all owed money.

That was the year they decided to expand, move to a bigger office.

The partners asked Gerard to show them the business financial figures. They felt he was dodging them. Pushing lease papers at them instead.

The new office in Taringa was bigger, and would accommodate a new team of sales staff. They would be doubling their office space but more than doubling their rent.

By the end of 2010, as they made the move, the partners were barely getting paid. Phil couldn’t work it out. Their sales commissions for that quarter had been enormous.

Twice they’d gone above Gerard, to Century 21’s head office, to express concerns that he had too much power. That he was accountable to no-one.

They’d only been in the new office a few days when, in January, 2011, Gerard called a meeting.

He dropped a bombshell. They were in big trouble — they were $350,000 in debt. They were in debt. There was more money going out than coming in. Their financial position was dire.

Phil and Jocelyn were stunned. They’d made so much in 2010. Where had it all gone?

The partners went back to the financial records, trying to follow the money, but it was all too late. They talked about whether Gerard had been misusing funds.

And then the floods hit. That great wall of water that wiped out thousands of homes also wiped out any chance they had of rebuilding the business. With three quarters of Queensland declared a disaster zone, no-one was buying and selling any property.

Gerard’s partners didn’t trust him anymore. A meeting was called so Phil and Jocelyn could have it out with him.

They had a list of demands they thought could save them. Gerard needed to sort out his personal life. He had to choose his wife or his mistress. They wanted him to step down as managing director, introduce controls on the movement of cash and get back to selling properties.

They were hoping for a contrite Gerard. One who hung his head and relied on them to pick up the pieces of their broken business.

But Gerard was never contrite.

There was swearing and crying. It went on for hours. Gerard even claimed the affair with Toni was to help bring much-needed cash through the door, keeping an agent who could sell well from going elsewhere.

“I only continue to f — k her for the sake of the business,’’ he said.

Within days the once successful partnership was over.

Gerard bought out Phil and Jocelyn for a dollar apiece and took on all his debt.

By then, Phil had worked out who the real Gerard Baden-Clay was.

“Gerard has a public face which is ethical, moral and upstanding. A lot of this is legacy fuelled due to his great-grandfather,” he would tell police.

“He is involved in all the right groups, but it’s always about what’s in it for him.

“He would lecture staff about lying, but would continue this long-term affair.’’

Gerard had found himself in command of a failing business. He had taken on a massive debt and his personal life was in turmoil.

And then Allison found out about his affair with Toni.

CHAPTER 5: The affair that brought Allison’s world crashing down

WORD spread through the mums in the school tuckshop. It was September, 2011, and word of Gerard’s infidelity had spread from the real estate community to the school community. A friend of Allison’s approached. It was time she knew.

Allison was shocked. Devastated. She felt dirty, sick to her stomach. She went straight out to confront her husband. He didn’t deny it.

She blamed herself. He blamed her too. He was sick of living with her depression.

Even when he was caught out as a liar, a cheat, he could be brutally cruel.

He told her she was nothing like his lover. He laughed.

Allison finding out forced him to finally choose: her or his mistress. He chose his family.

But the decision came with some strict rules.

Allison gave him a curfew. He wasn’t to leave the house after 5.30pm unless she was at his side. He was to show her any text messages, show her who was calling his mobile.

And she wanted Toni sacked. Allison was standing up for herself.

Gerard went to his lover’s apartment that day and told her. It was over.

He left no room for negotiation. All the promises he’d made to her over the past three years, the plans, the declarations of love — they were gone the moment Allison found out.

It was clinical. He left Toni a hysterical mess.

He went straight back to the Century 21 office to tell his staff what had happened.

One-by-one he visited with his employees to tell them he’d been having an affair. Toni had resigned.

They needed to clear her desk for when his wife arrived. Allison would be their new general manager.

But his seemingly new-found respect for his wife was thinly veiled. He made sure to tell his colleagues he was still in love with Toni.

He later complained to a colleague about the sacrifice he was making. Staying with his wife for the sake of the children when he was still in love with his mistress.

Toni tried calling and emailing. He ignored her. By December, Toni felt she was ready to accept his decision. Get on with her life.

Then, just before Christmas, Gerard called.

He loved her. He didn’t love his wife. He didn’t plan to be married forever. He wanted Toni to know that. But he couldn’t come to her yet. He would come to her “unconditionally”, free of money troubles, of his wife, and not before.

After years of broken promises, and three months after coldly ending their affair, Gerard was back.

They met at a coffee shop in Kelvin Grove and discussed the life they’d have together. Toni had heard it before. But she dared to get her hopes up.

He used an email account set up in the name of Bruce Overland. He called her GG for Gorgeous Girl and she called him GM for Gorgeous Man. They finished their messages with the acronym IKYK — I Know You Know.

Allison would leave work at 2.30pm each day to collect the girls from school. This was their “safe time’’ when Toni could contact him, or they could meet.

They emailed most days, Toni trying to get Gerard to make some kind of commitment. Give her a date. She asked him what he’d do for a place when he finally left Allison. She suggested he keep the house for when his children visited but live with her on alternate weeks.

He talked a lot about leaving his wife. He just needed to get his finances in order.

He’d been borrowing money from friends to keep the business afloat. But it wasn’t enough. Around Christmas 2011, he asked his friend Bruce Flegg for a loan. He wanted $400,000. Dr Flegg didn’t have that kind of spare cash. It was an uncomfortable conversation. Flegg refused.

He tried again in March. Flegg missed the call. Busy with an impending election, he asked his friend Sue Heath to phone Gerard back.

Sue was alarmed to hear the normal stoic and professional Gerard in a bad way. He now needed $300,000. He was desperate. He said he’d go bankrupt.

Sue felt terrible. She promised to get the politician to call him back. But nothing had changed since his last phone call. Flegg didn’t have the money to lend him.

They spoke to their financial planner about ways to cut back on expenses. Allison had two life insurance policies and her superannuation paid out on the event of her death. It would save them money if they dropped one of the policies, he said. Allison told the financial adviser to go ahead.

He wouldn’t get around to it.

There was pressure from all sides in early 2012. Gerard had been brought up to make something of himself, to make something of the Baden-Clay name.

But the business he’d built was going under. He was in debt and those debts were about to be called in. He had no money to pay those he owed.

His wife was watching his every move, asking him to come along to sessions with a marriage counsellor. She watched him like a hawk.

His lover was insistent he keep his word this time. She wanted to know when they’d be together, wanted to know when he was leaving his wife.

Something had to give.

On March 27, Allison went to see Relationships Australia counsellor Carmel Ritchie and told her her marriage was falling apart. She no longer trusted her husband. She felt inadequate. Gerard’s way was always the right way.

He criticised her parenting. She was scared he was going to leave her.

She told Carmel she’d been having trouble since the honeymoon. Carmel told Allison she needed to speak to Gerard. She asked if they would come in together.

Allison was doubtful. He agreed though. Much to her surprise. Allison had booked the appointment for April 16.

As the date for the counselling session approached, Gerard continued to contact his mistress.

Toni continued to press him for a date. She wanted to know when he was going to leave his wife.

On April 3, after four years of empty promises, she got one.

“I have given you a commitment and I intend to stick to it — I will be separated by 1 July,’’ he wrote in an email.

He’d given her Allison’s birthday as the day he would come to her a free man.

He wrote to her again five days (April 11) before their appointment with the counsellor.

“This is agony for me too,’’ his email said.

“I love you. I’m sorry you hung up on me. It sounded like you were getting very angry. I love you GG. Leave things to me now. I love you. GM.’’

On April 16, he went with his wife to a clinic in Kenmore. For him, it was an appearances-only appearance at the counsellor’s.

Carmel took Gerard into her office alone so they could talk before Allison joined in.

She took a snapshot, some basic questions to gauge his personality.

He didn’t say anything personal. He boasted about his work and achievements. Although, by then, the business was on its knees, staff were walking out and he was drowning in debt.

He told Carmel his wife was disappointed with her life. He was disappointed too. He supposed Allison was to blame.

His affair was in the past, he said He lied.. He didn’t want to discuss it anymore. They needed to move on.

Carmel advised him to give Allison 10 to 15 minutes every second night to talk to him about the affair. He should not get defensive. He reluctantly agreed.

They began their timed chats right away.

On April 18, Allison opened her journal to prepare for their second attempt. She made a list of points about her husband’s affair, questions she wanted to ask.

“Really hurt — had so many opportunities to tell me — let me believe it was all my fault and therefore I was at your mercy,’’ she wrote.

“Afterwards — why so mean? Laughed at undies. Told me I smelled.

“Said I was so different – laughter – why”

She wrote a page and a half of notes. The devastated thoughts of a mistreated woman.

On the afternoon of April 19, Gerard, on his way to the shops to buy sausages for dinner, answered a call on his mobile. It was Toni. There was a real estate conference on at the Brisbane Convention Centre the following day. Toni was booked to go for some time.

“Two of my staff are going,’’ Gerard told her. One of those staff members was his wife. Toni couldn’t believe it. She flew into a rage. How could he do this to her? How could he do this to both of them? The wife and the mistress. Together for an entire day. She railed at him. Allison had to know, she insisted. This was impossible.

April 19. Gerard’s life was spiralling towards a major catastrophe. Toni and Allison. All Toni had to do was approach Allison, tell her the truth, and his marriage was over. Allison would not forgive him again. She’d divorce him. He’d lose the business. He’d be broke. He’d be nothing. He’d shame the Baden-Clay name.

That evening Allison went to see her hairdresser to have her hair coloured. She was excited about the conference. She’d wanted to look good. Then she went home. Tucked her daughters into bed. Sang one a song as the little girl nodded off. Then she went to talk to her husband once again about his betrayal.

CHAPTER 6: The lady vanishes but leaves a clue

GERARD dialled Triple-0. “I don’t want to be alarmist,” he told the operator. Calm. Polite. “My, my wife isn’t home. Um, I don’t know where she is.”

It was 7.15am on April 20, and Gerard, prominent real estate agent, president of his local chamber of commerce and self-appointed man-of-importance, was calling authorities.

His wife should be on her way to a real estate conference, he explained. But she hadn’t returned from her morning walk.

Or so he assumed. He’d left her watching The Footy Show when he’d gone to bed the night before. His alarm had shrilled its morning wakeup call at 6am and he’d risen to find her gone.

This was the story he’d tell again and again. But police would never find any evidence Allison had gone for a walk at all.

In Australia, about 35,000 people — or one every 15 minutes — go missing every year. Most are found within a week. Many missing persons cases take hours, days, or even weeks before an urgent investigation is launched.

In the extraordinary case of Allison Baden-Clay, it took minutes.

Constables Kieron Ash and Leah Hammond arrived at the Baden-Clay home at 8am, took one look at Gerard and feared foul play.

He was dressed for work when he emerged from the house and greeted the officers. Const. Ash noticed the tie and cufflinks. But mostly he noticed the gouges down Gerard’s face. Jagged red lines. They dragged their angry way down Gerard’s right cheek, all the way to the bottom of his jaw.

They called for backup.

Perhaps it was a case of a depressed suburban mum needing time away. Or maybe they’d find her injured on a walking track, clutching a twisted ankle.

But they didn’t think so.

Neither did three teary girls when their aunt arrived to drive them to school because their mummy was missing.

“Is everything OK between you and Allison?’’ Constable Ash asked the man with scratches down his face.

He’d been having an affair, Gerard confessed. Allison had found out and things had been pretty rocky.

Const. Ash took a look around the house. He checked the bathrooms for bloodied tissues or towels, some evidence to back up Gerard’s shaving cut story. He found nothing.

Outside, he took out his phone and dialled the boss, Senior Sergeant Narelle Curtis. He told her he wasn’t happy with Gerard’s story. She told him she was on her way.

She arrived soon after with a colleague, Sergeant Andrew Jackson.

“My name’s Sgt Jackson and this is Sen Sgt Narelle Curtis. I’m the Indooroopilly ...’’ the sergeant began.

“Cut myself shaving,’’ Gerard interrupted.

They hadn’t even had a chance to ask.

He’d been frantic with worry, he told the officers when they first arrived.

He’d sent her the first text at 6.20am.

“Good morning! Hope you slept well? Where are you? None of the girls are up yet! Love G.’’

It was a cutesy message from a man who rarely shared a bed with his wife.

He waited 20 minutes before trying the “Find my Friends” application they’d installed on their phones. Allison wanted to be able to find her wandering husband.

“Al, getting concerned. Where are you? The app doesn’t say either. (Two of the girls) now up. I’m dressed and about to make lunches. Please just text me back or call! Love G.”

This was the message he’d sent at 6.41am. He’d called his father, who’d told his sister Olivia. They arrived soon after. Olivia scoured the neighbourhood. She’d stopped and spoken with mums at the school. A council worker. A groundsman. Neither of them had seen Allison. She’d gotten out of her car and walked down to a creek.

With his father looking after the children, Gerard took Allison’s car and drove her usual walking routes. He drove around Brookfield searching for his missing wife. Then he went home to meet the police.

He’d answered their questions. Told them his finances were in trouble. His relationship with Allison was “very good’’. The affair was in the past. He accused them of making him repeat himself. He’d “answer all the questions in the world” – but he just wanted to get out, look for his wife.

Then, as suddenly as he’d offered, he decided he wasn’t going to answer their questions after all.

It was mid-morning. Allison had been missing a matter of hours when police asked Gerard to accompany them to the station to provide a formal statement. He’d hesitated, but eventually agreed.

The drive from Brookfield to Indooroopilly police station takes about 10 minutes. Gerard spent that time changing his mind. When they arrived at the station, he asked to speak to his lawyer.

Police were furious. They called his lawyer and told him it was not a good look.

Gerard spoke to Toni too. She’d been at the real estate conference, expecting a confrontation with her lover’s wife. But she hadn’t seen Allison all day.

A shaken Gerard told her Allison was missing. Toni was stunned. She asked him what had triggered it. Had there been a fight? No, there’d been nothing, he’d told her.

“I won’t be made to feel guilty for this,” Toni told him.

He suggested they shouldn’t talk for a while. They should lay low. This upset Toni. “See you later,” she said. “For all it’s worth, I love you.”

Police swarmed through Brookfield. They knocked on doors, walked the streets. They found out Allison’s walking routes and traipsed them, looking for any sign of her, any sign of something out of place.

They called every hospital in Brisbane. Had anyone matching Allison’s description been admitted? They called her family and friends. Had anybody heard from her? Nobody knew where she was.

Gerard waited hours before calling Allison’s parents and friends. When Geoff and Priscilla Dickie finally arrived at their daughter’s home they went inside with Gerard so they could talk in the bedroom. Her best friend, Kerry-Anne Walker, was there too. Gerard told them police were suspicious of him. He’d hired a lawyer. They were stunned. Their fears were growing by the minute.

Priscilla thought Gerard was “calm as a cucumber”. Totally relaxed. She couldn’t believe he was dressed for work. The house seemed unusually ordered. The bed was made. Gerard was ready to serve them tea in a cup and saucer. They always drank from mugs at her daughter’s house. Allison didn’t even like The Footy Show.

Detectives milled about the house. They were questioning him again when one of the officers took a call.

They’d triangulated Allison’s phone. It was somewhere out the back.

The officer’s voice was high, excited. Did Allison know the neighbours? Could she be visiting the people who lived behind them? Gerard didn’t react. He didn’t dash outside to see whether his wife was nearby.

“OK,” he said. They didn’t find her that day. And they never found her phone.

Gerard didn’t join Allison’s family at the police command post when the search resumed on that second morning.

He’d dropped by in the morning with his sister. Spoke to an officer, answered the same questions again.

But he had other things to do that day. He needed an appointment with a doctor. Urgently.

Kenmore Clinics Medical Practice gave him the first appointment of the day.

At 8.30am he was ushered into the office of Dr Candice Beaven. He asked her to take a look at the marks on his face. He’d cut himself shaving the previous morning, he explained. An old razor. He’d been in a hurry.

He seemed anxious. He kept repeating himself. Three times he told her the marks were from shaving.

She took a look. Told him the scratches were superficial. There was no specific treatment she would recommend.

There were three gouges on his face. He told her he’d done them in one motion.

She was sceptical. She explained their size and the distance between them made it seem unlikely they’d been caused by the one action.

“I was in a rush,’’ he said.

“It could have been a few.’”

But the real reason he was there, he told her, was to document his injuries for a police investigation. He told her police had told him to. It was a lie.

“I don’t know if you know but my wife is missing at the moment,’’ he said.

He seemed insistent that the doctor make notes to the effect the scratches were shaving cuts. She wouldn’t.

Gerard’s manner stayed friendly and jovial as the doctor made her notes. He asked where she lived and how long she’d worked at the Kenmore clinic.

She told him she lived too far from work. She wanted to move closer.

“I might be able to help you with that,’’ Gerard, the salesman, said.

The man whose wife was missing, who was at an appointment with big, jagged marks on his face that looked suspiciously like fingernail scratches, took a business card from his wallet and put it on Dr Beaven’s desk with a smile.

Gerard was back at Indooroopilly police station later that day. His lawyer stood by his side while they swabbed him for DNA.

A scenes of crime officer stood nearby, camera in hand, as Gerard removed his shirt. They knew about the scratches on his face. They didn’t know there would be more.

There were scratches on his neck. A caterpillar had landed on him. He’d scratched it away.

There were scratches by his right armpit. A large red graze was on the left hand side of his chest and a cut was on the palm of his right hand.

He told them they were self-inflicted. He asked the officers whether they could tell he’d scratched himself.

The cut on his hand, Gerard explained, was from changing a light fitting. No, nobody had seen him do it.

At 4pm he went to see another doctor — this time at a different local clinic.

Dr Renu Kumar leaned forward in her office at Taringa Medical Centre and looked at the scratches on Gerard’s face. Then he lifted up his shirt and showed her the marks on his chest.

“I scratched myself,’’ he told her, moving his hand in a repetitive motion to show her what he’d done. He’d been itchy.

The next day, police wanted him back. Detective Senior Constable Cameron McLeod had organised a forensic procedure order and told him to come in for a complete examination.

Police had both of Gerard’s cars, so he borrowed a blue 4WD off an old friend and headed back to the station.

He got as far as Indooroopilly shopping centre, where he drove the car into a pylon at the bus terminal.

An ambulance was called. Police wondered whether he had been trying to cover up the old injuries with new ones.

His parents got a visit from detectives too. Elaine invited them in and pulled out a photo of her husband, Nigel, as a child, bouncing on his grandfather Lord Baden-Powell’s knee. She wouldn’t always be so welcoming. She’d shout at them more than once. Her golden boy was an adulterer.

The search spread to three suburbs. They searched the hills and roads on motorbikes. On horseback. From the air.

Firefighters were winched into abandoned mine shafts, some 40m deep. Orange-clad State Emergency Services volunteers dotted Brookfield’s rolling greenery.

Allison’s family and friends kept a daily vigil at the local showgrounds. They never saw Gerard.

“He never value-added to what we were doing,” Det Supt Mark Ainsworth said. Considering it was his wife and considering he had good local knowledge, his contribution was non-existent.”

As the search for Allison continued, members of the Baden-Clay family made calls to police asking for the return of seized property.

Police told them they’d have to wait. They barely asked after Allison.

They also demanded the return of her jewellery from inside the house, cordoned off with crime scene tape, because they did not trust police with it.

It wasn’t Gerard who fronted media crews at a prearranged press conference on April 23. Allison’s parents were the ones who stood in front of the cameras to plead for her return.

“Our lives will never be the same. We must find her,” a tearful Priscilla Dickie told journalists.

One of Allison’s family members had to go to the Gold Coast to find photos of Allison for police to release to the media after the Baden-Clays failed to hand them over.

Gerard spoke publicly about his wife only once. A television crew nabbed him outside his house early one morning.

“We just hope that she will come home soon,” he said

“I’ve tried to help the police as much as I can.’’

Even as reality began to dawn that their daughter was not coming home, the Dickies did everything they could to help the investigators.

“Allison’s parents were there day in, day out for the whole duration,” Supt Ainsworth said.

“Not once did we see him (Gerard) down there with Allison’s parents, being a bit of support towards them or anything, as if he just had no interest in the search at all.”

With Allison’s disappearance dominating the news, a colleague rang Toni to see how she was faring. Badly.

She broke down, sobbing into the phone, stumbling over words.

“This is a mess,’’ she said. “I’m responsible for her running off.”

They’d called her in, she told him. The police. They’d questioned her for six hours. She might have said something that incriminated Gerard.

“But I don’t give a shit,” she said. “I’m not hiding a thing.”

Detectives had also been back to the Baden-Clay home at Brookfield.

They left with two computers, financial documents and eight shirts.

They went to his parents’ Kenmore home. More seized items. More evidence bags.

A third warrant was executed at Gerard’s Century 21 office.

CHAPTER 7: Cold-blooded killer moves to cash in on crime

ON the morning of April 30, as the search entered its 11th day, canoeist Daryl Joyce spotted a body in the mud as he made his way along Kholo Creek.

She was 13km from home, lying in the shade of the Mt Crosby Rd overpass.

Allison Baden-Clay, mother to three girls, was partly face-down, partly on her right side. Her hands were tangled in her jumper, her jumper was tangled around her neck.

She wore her exercise clothes – a singlet, three-quarter length pants and sneakers.

Her left leg was forward, her right leg angled behind. She lay exposed on a mucky slope.

He paddled away in a frenzy, drove home and called police. She wasn’t alone after that. The police came. So did firefighters and forensic teams.

Two police officers were winched down. They took photographs before rolling her gently onto a tarp. She was then slid onto a stretcher, which was winched onto the bridge. They did it carefully. Slow, small movements in an attempt to keep her body in a similar position.

She arrived at Queensland’s John Tonge Centre in a sealed body bag. A blue-tarp-wrapped female. Age 43 years.

Dr Nathan Milne broke the seal and unwrapped Allison from the tarp. Leaves were collected from her hair and body.

The pathologist made a note of the clothing she was wearing. Her fingernails were painted with a pink polish, chipped and worn.

They removed her wedding ring. G & A, 23/8/97.

She was in a terrible state. Badly decomposed. Any injuries she might have had were no longer discernible.

Some areas were more decomposed than others. Part of her face. Her forearms and left shin. Dr Milne considered whether this meant she had had injuries, soft tissue damage, when she died. But there was no way of knowing.

She had no broken bones. This made it unlikely she had fallen or been dropped the 14m from the bridge onto the banks of the creek.

Her hyoid bone was intact. Her larynx was uninjured. Damage to either would have pointed strongly to strangulation.

Dr Milne could give several possibilities. Blunt force trauma from an assault. Smothering or strangulation. Death from drug toxicity. But they were theories only. None could be proved.

He finished his autopsy report with four words. Cause of death undetermined.

Gerard wasted no time. The woman found in the mud had not been formally identified when he put in a claim on his wife’s life insurance - worth nearly $1 million.

But there could be no payout without a death certificate. A second call was made. To the State Coroner’s office. He needed a death certificate. And put a rush on it.

But the coroner couldn’t issue a death certificate when Allison had not officially been found. The widower would have to wait.

It was a tapered coffin of rosewood.

Allison lay on satin under an arrangement of coloured flowers.

Next to her was a police listening device.

They were using her to help try to catch her own killer. Detectives were hoping her husband would take some time before Allison’s funeral to farewell his wife in private and incriminate himself.

Perhaps he would tell her he was sorry. Perhaps he would give them something they could use.

But Gerard arrived late with his daughters and was never alone with her casket.

The detectives investigating Allison’s death found a motive and plenty of compelling circumstantial evidence pointing to Gerard. But to secure a conviction, they’d need to be meticulous and innovative.

They’d need to leave no stone unturned, no piece of the jigsaw missing.

Police had towed away the couple’s Holden Captiva, a new car they’d had for just eight weeks.

They found Allison’s blood in the boot, dripping down a side plastic trim where a third row of seats could be folded down. A blonde hair was found in the dried blood. They called in expert after expert to look at the scratches on Gerard’s face and torso.

Photos of the injuries were sent to the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency for advice.

The large gouge marks on Gerard’s face did not look like shaving cuts. They looked like they’d been made by someone’s fingernails.

They could see smaller scratch marks, made later, over the top of the gouges, that looked as though they had been made with a razor. As though Gerard had jabbed at the fingernail scratches with his razor to try to back up his story.

A caterpillar expert was called for opinion on whether a caterpillar bite could really have caused Gerard’s chest and neck injuries.

They analysed Gerard’s phone and computers.

He’d told them he’d gone to bed at 10pm and slept soundly til 6am the following morning.

The analyst scouring his iPhone was able to determine someone had plugged it in to charge at 1.48am.

When they dug deeper, they found lurid messages to the women he’d been having sex with.

The investigation was not without missteps. Investigators were given initial information from their tech experts that Gerard had attempted to make a Face Time call from his iPhone to his father at 12.30am.

This was significant. Why would he be calling his father in the middle of the night — the night he was supposed to be sound asleep, the night his wife disappeared?

Armed with that information, detectives arrived at Nigel and Elaine’s Kenmore home with warrant in hand. They were to hand over all “Apple products”.

Elaine would later brag she gave them her fruit bowl and a smirk. Nigel didn’t own an iPhone. Gerard’s was an older model not capable of making FaceTime calls.

Their tech expert ran the software again. There had been a mistake.

They searched his phone to see what he’d been looking up on the internet. On April 18, he’d searched “Taking the Fifth”. The search led him to a Wikipedia page on “self-incrimination”. It seemed like a breakthrough. Had the whole thing been planned?

On April 20, five minutes before calling Triple-0 to report his wife missing, Gerard had again looked up “self-incrimination”.

It seemed like a great piece of circumstantial evidence. But it wasn’t.

Gerard’s lawyers would later explain he’d been watching US legal drama The Good Wife. The phrase had come up and he hadn’t known what it meant. He’d googled it on his phone.

Detectives checked the episode. He was right.

On April 20, when he opened his internet browser to search a non-emergency number for police, the page from two days earlier had loaded again. They dropped it.

Then, an expert botanist provided a key breakthrough.

Dr Gordon Guymer, director of the Queensland Herbarium, analysed plant material collected from Allison’s hair and arms.

There were leaves and twigs from six different species of plants clinging to Allison’s body. Two of those plants were found to be growing near Kholo Creek, where her body was found.

All six were growing in the garden of the Baden-Clay house, many along the rear patio and carport area where the Captiva had been parked.

To investigators, that told a story. At some point, Allison had been on the ground gathering leaves in her hair.

Probably by the carport, next to the Holden Captiva. The Holden Captiva where they’d found her blood.

But they didn’t stop there. Police even sent cuttings from the Baden-Clay residence to South Australia to try to retrieve DNA to match it with leaves found in Allison’s hair.

Experts in Western Australia were consulted to eliminate death by drowning, and insects from the body were sent to Wollongong to determine their age.

Officers who reviewed CCTV at a Kenmore roundabout, between the Baden-Clay home and where her body was found, discovered a car similar to Allison’s driving through that night.

But they couldn’t make out the number plates or be absolutely certain it was precisely the exact model.

They went there in the middle of the night and drove a range of vehicles similar to Allison’s Captiva through the roundabout to see if any matched the car in the footage.

They stopped motorists driving through on a Thursday night, hoping one was a regular who might remember seeing a silver Holden Captiva or a white Toyota Prado at the same time Gerard had claimed to be asleep.

Gerard was strangely curious about the roundabout. A couple of weeks after Allison disappeared, he called his politician mate, former government minister Bruce Flegg.

Gerard had seen news reports about police pulling cars over at the roundabout. Could Dr Flegg find out for him if there was a CCTV camera there? Flegg said he didn’t know and could ask, but did not follow it through.

By now, surveillance teams were monitoring Gerard’s every move. Phone taps recorded his conversations with his mistress.

But they soon discovered Gerard was using a new phone. It belonged to Bruce Flegg. Dr Flegg’s close friend Sue Heath had passed it on.

Some detectives were furious. But Flegg was just helping his friend, whose phone had been seized by police.

A couple of days after handing over the phone, Sue received a text message from Nigel Baden-Clay.

What help could the government give Gerard, Nigel wanted to know. Gerard’s house was a crime scene and stood vacant.

A forensic accountant went to work on Gerard’s financial position. They worked out he owed around $1 million.

He had borrowed $275,000 from three friends in “gentlemen’s agreements’’, $75,000 from Century 21 Australia CEO Charles Tarbey and owed $45,000 on credit cards.

He owed his business partners a total of $290,000 — debts set to be called in in June. He and Allison were guarantors on a $335,000 mortgage on a property at Paradise Point.

Police spoke to everyone who was owed and took statements from each confirming the amounts. Or almost everyone.

The financial analysis showed Gerard’s parents had loaned him $58,000. They wouldn’t admit to any loan when police came calling and refused to provide a statement.

The considerable financial troubles would be wiped out by his wife’s insurance and superannuation policies. Together they would bring him a $975,240 windfall.

Detectives also investigated whether Gerard had an accomplice. Several reported sightings around Kholo Creek suggested more than one person was involved. But investigators were never able substantiate the leads. There were too many inconsistencies.

There were other odd things about Gerard’s behaviour.

Allison’s father Geoff was discussing funeral arrangements with his son-in-law one day.

Gerard pulled out his phone and said he wanted to record their conversation.

Police also spoke to a woman who had looked after Gerard and Allison’s daughters on April 26 — a week after their mum disappeared.

The woman had mentioned the girls’ missing mum.

“I’m sorry,” one of the girls said. “I know I am not allowed to say anything until the debrief at night.”

Detectives discovered some of the lies Gerard had told. He told police his wife often walked in the mornings. Some of Allison’s friends and family disputed that.

He told one of Allison’s closest friends she’d gone walking at 10pm. That that was her regular walking time.

He sent police off to search two different routes he claimed were her normal walking tracks. He told her parents he had no idea where she normally walked.

He’d told police about the affair but insisted he’d ended it.

Toni — and Gerard’s “Bruce Overland” email account — told them a different story.

They’d taken three statements from Toni in the week after Allison disappeared. On April 28 she confessed to having deleted communication between her and Gerard from her iPhone and email accounts. For privacy reasons, she told them.

Her statements had been short and succinct. Later she decided she had more to tell.

By then, police had discovered Toni wasn’t Gerard’s only extramarital interest. He had two others that they’d found.

They went to her with that information. She’d had no idea. She thought they’d been planning their life together.

He rang her not long after that. It was a Sunday night in May when she answered a call from a private number.

“I know what you’ve been doing,” she told him.

“How could you do that to me?”

He didn’t deny it. He told her he wanted to speak to her about it in person. But it was going to be difficult to get away.

“Why should I give you any time to explain?” she demanded.

By then Gerard knew he was in trouble.

Things were not looking good for him, he said.

She’d best find someone else to fall in love with.

CHAPTER 8: Police finally swoop on Baden-Clay

THEY came for him on June 13. Nearly two months after he made that Triple-0 call, telling the operator his wife was missing. Telling them he didn’t want to be “alarmist”, but she hadn’t come home from her morning walk.

They’d had one last roll of the dice with the Baden-Clay family before detectives swooped.

Investigators flew to Townsville to try to talk to Gerard’s sister Olivia. At the same time, his parents Nigel and Elaine were visited by investigators.

The Baden-Clays sent them on their way.

Gerard was on his way to pick up his daughters from school when they cut him off. They took him to Indooroopilly police station. Gerard had nothing to say to police, other than to request his lawyer.

The murder charge did nothing to sway those who believed in Gerard. He was still the old Gerard they knew. The charmer, the salesman destined for great things. For a failed bid for bail, he could still convince family and friends to offer up $535,000 surety.

Every few weeks for the past two years, three little girls have been led into Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre by their grandparents, Nigel and Elaine Baden-Clay.

They walk in front of tall, razor wire fences. An intricate spider web of sharpened metal, to keep those inside.

Their dad is inside that austere, unfriendly, concrete block building.

They sign in and are taken through a scanning process. Prison authorities need to make sure they aren’t carrying any form of contraband they might slip to their father.

A guard escorts them to a visiting area where, for a limited time, they can see their father.

The three young girls are three innocent victims of their father’s crime.

Gerard lost his position on the local chamber of commerce when he entered prison. He lost his spot on the Brookfield State School P&C, on the local kindergarten board.

But he’s been doing what he can behind bars to take control. He uses his skills in business to advise other inmates, to draft letters on their behalf.

It will be a different jail - and a new set of inmates to impress - that Gerard will head to after yesterday’s verdict.

And he’ll stay there for years.

Gerard, the man certain he was destined for great things, locked up and despised, the name he’d cared about so much in ruins.

Allison Baden-Clay wanted to be famous. She dreamed as a little girl of travelling the world in a tutu and pointe shoes, of the day people would know her name.

She never lost that dream. Even as her life became a typical suburban existence.The joys; the daughters she loved.

The battles; trying to stay happy. Hoping the man she loved would fall in love with her again.

It was a tragic day when, on April 20, 2012, Allison Baden-Clay became famous.

It was the ultimate act of betrayal at the hands of the man who’d promised to love her his entire life. The father of her children. A man who, despite the ego and lies, seemed like the most unlikely of killers.

In her last dying moments, at the hands of her husband, Allison Baden-Clay fought to live.

She fought to stay alive, to stay with her girls who were sleeping soundly only metres away. The girls who, just hours earlier, she’d sung to sleep.

And in her final fight, Allison caught her killer.

With her scratches on his face, Gerard Baden-Clay had been marked a killer.