She had no trouble picking out the new developments that climbed skywards over the quaint-looking older quarters of the city. The three blocks ahead of them, on the driver’s side of the car, had been buried under the footing of a gargantuan resort hotel. The Mirvac Mirage, forty-one storeys topping out in a private helipad facility, with its own control tower, which could land four big commercial choppers at the same time. Jules leaned forward and craned her head upwards, peering up into the night. She thought she could see the pulse of landing lights on the roof, but it was hard to tell in the dazzling artificial daylight down here at street level.

In spite of the late hour, hundreds of people streamed in and out of the foyer of the Mirage. Unlike the mob scene just a few blocks away in front of the Grecian-themed casino, the crowds here were all dressed in business attire, resort wear or, in a couple of cases, black tie and formal gowns. Limousines and town cars idled bumper to bumper, the drivers undoubtedly running the air-conditioning against the sweltering evening. It appeared that taxis weren’t allowed in the forecourt of the hotel, but there was a rank full of them on the opposite side of the road.

The police presence was much heavier now, although it didn’t seem to be needed. She had seen none of the Northern Territory’s brown-shirted cops anywhere near where the construction workers had been kicking the life out of that little Chinese man. Here though, she counted four horse-mounted patrols clip-clopping through the large well-behaved crowds.

‘Have a look at these dickheads, would you,’ said Granger. He pointed down a street on the less developed side of the road.

At first Jules wasn’t quite sure what he was pointing at, but then she picked them out of the gloom, maybe a hundred metres or so back. Two armoured cars painted in black and grey urban camouflage, surrounded by a dozen troopers in similarly patterned uniforms.

‘Sandline,’ he explained before she could ask. ‘What they call their “Public Safety Response Team”. Fuckin’ beat-down artists mostly. Truncheons, tasers, capsicum spray, rubber bullets, and real ones too, in case somebody who really knows what they’re doing decides to have a go.’

He was driving quickly enough that she’d only caught a glimpse of them. ‘They didn’t seem to be doing much,’ she ventured.

Granger took a right-hand turn two blocks beyond the Mirvac Mirage Hotel. Jules found herself disoriented by how quickly the streetscape changed. They were now back on a quiet suburban lane, tree-lined, with family homes buttoned up, and only porch lights and occasionally little solar-powered garden lights burning in the night. There was no foot traffic, and the street was lined with cars, each one obviously parked outside its owner’s home at the end of the working day.