Darwin International Airport looked even busier than the last time she’d driven past. A couple of jet fighters screamed down the main runway, moving so quickly it was difficult to make out the markings on their tails, but she thought she recognised the Singaporean flag. A massive construction zone glided by on the right, looking for all the world like an open-cut mine. A small patch of bare waste ground separated the cyclone fencing on the eastern edge of the building site from a multi-level car park belonging to the new hospital.

‘Used to be a detention facility, a jail for illegal migrants,’ said Granger, indicating the massive structure. ‘Course, they had to move that as well, once they started getting hundreds of boatloads of reffos turning up every week. Got a huge place out in the desert now. Fucking Sandline got the contract for that. They can have it, for all I care.’

Jules could see no evidence of the site’s former use. To her, the campus of the Coonawarra Base Hospital looked like a modern business park, with gleaming white and blue glass offices separated by verdant walking paths that must have been watered constantly to keep them such a lustrous green. Young saplings stood at short, regular intervals, and would eventually shade most of the grounds.

‘So the development authority built this too?’

‘With a bit of federal money, yes, but mostly it was the FPDA.’

She took that in without comment. The money and power politics reminded her of some of the Asian Tiger capitals back in the early ’90s, before their economies imploded. She didn’t imagine that would happen here. Darwin seemed to be thriving as the terminal point for insane volumes of money seeking shelter from the torments of the post-Wave world. Pete would’ve loved this, she thought.

Yes, poor Pete Holder, her former doofus in crime on board the old Diamantina, he would’ve seen a dollar to be made at every turn, especially somewhere like New Town. Jules could only begin to imagine the trouble he’d have landed in there.

‘Fuck, forgot to put the meter on,’ Granger said as they pulled up at the main entrance to the hospital. ‘Guess we’ll call it a freebie.’

‘I don’t know how long I’ll be here, Mr Granger, or even whether I’ll get to see Rhino,’ she told him, preparing to step out into the blistering heat. ‘Will you be around?’

‘We’re always around, love,’ he replied. ‘Just call for a taxi using that same phone. Me or one of the other boys will turn up.’

‘And the other boys, they would be . . .’

‘Around.’

*

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible.’