Butch howled inside the shed and something else smashed. Murphy dug his toes into his shoes, fighting the urge to run back to his brother. Drugs haven’t killed him yet . . . ‘If I was able to convince you, you could show me the list right now?’

‘Yeah, I’ve got it all on my phone. Encrypted obviously, so don’t try anything funny, but . . . mate, I’d need more than weed and condoms in a teenage girl’s room. There are rules, man.’

‘I’ve got proof,’ said Murphy. ‘In the dry room.’

Skinner’s eyes went wide. ‘You’re gonna show me your dry room? I’m honoured.’

‘I just need to get something first.’ Murphy stepped inside the shed, seeing Butch curled up on his side. He crouched down behind the couch and pulled the Glock out of its hiding place. He tucked it into the back of his belt, then grabbed a key off the hook beside the door.

‘Really, I’m honoured, mate,’ said Skinner when he came back outside. ‘Truly honoured —’

‘Just have the list ready,’ said Murphy. He wondered if Butch was going to lose his shit if he found out Murphy was showing someone else where their dry room was: it was almost as bad as showing him their crop, it gave Skinner too much power over them, but he couldn’t see any other way.

At the end of a concrete path down from the house, lit by the porch light, was a Hills Hoist, empty save a line of rusting pegs. Murphy cranked the handle until the arms of the clothes line were vertical.

‘What are you . . .?’ said Skinner.

Murphy lifted up the edge of some fake turf, revealing a latch and a large padlock. He used the key from the shed to unlock it.

‘No bloody way,’ breathed Skinner.

Murphy grabbed the clothes line with two hands and levered it to the ground, the metal groaning as the whole concrete base hinged open, revealing a rectangular hatch.

‘It’s right here in your backyard? That’s ballsy . . .’

Murphy climbed down the metal ladder, into darkness. The air was heady – sweet and warm and full of life. He felt for a light switch on the end of a cable and flicked it on. Fluorescent lights lit a long metal room with corrugated walls.

‘It’s a shipping container,’ said Skinner, stepping off the ladder behind him. He knocked away the dangling basket that hung beside the ladder. ‘You buried a bloody shipping container in your backyard.’

Drying marijuana plants were draped from long lines of wire, like clothes on a rack. A digital thermometer and humidity indicator hung on the side wall, and a thick air-conditioning pipe unit ran along the ceiling, curling around on itself, both ends burrowing through the ceiling into the earth.

‘I thought the cops brought dogs here?’ said Skinner. ‘How’d they not smell the ventilation?’