He’d spent the last weeks reading about the activists who Sophie, Lee and Terry had been involved with. To him, they didn’t seem dangerous. Their signature protests were silent gatherings held outside farms, holding up placards. He couldn’t find any reference to any violence. Empower Animals, another activist group, was a different story. They’d held loud, angry rallies outside ports where live export ships were being loaded, as well as in saleyards. There had been many arrests and a few people had been taken to hospital after being crushed in the crowd trying to break down the barriers and get to the animals.

Neither he nor Dave had been able to find out who had made the report about the two farms in Barker that supposedly had undernourished stock. In the end Dave had shrugged and said there were more important things to focus on. Like getting ready to go undercover.

Jack was looking forward to getting to the academy. It had been an age since he’d done anything but be a country copper. He’d often thought about doing a detectives’ course, like Dave, but in the end he always decided against it. Dave had probably taught him more than any course would, and there could only be one detective in Barker. Dave.

Sometimes he’d toyed with the idea of moving towns. Maybe there’d be more opportunities to meet a girl in another town. He knew there wasn’t anyone in Barker for him and, although he used to feel lonely, he was okay with it now. Plus, he really liked working with Dave. He guessed he was stuck at Barker.

Dave had insisted he make up some good bona fides for this undercover job, so he was now an ex-farmhand who’d become disenchanted with the industry. He was a vegan. That bit was going to hurt. No steak or milky coffee for a while. He’d worked on sheep farms in the mid-north of SA and on a cattle property in the south. He’d also had a short stint at a piggery in Victoria, but he’d really disliked that, so he’d left quickly.

Dave had told him that the cops had sent out ‘the dogs’—cops who tailed some of the activists—to sniff out where their meeting places were and to build a dossier on them. Jack had received an email about it this morning and he was itching to get to Adelaide so he could read it.