He should have gone home. Home. Even the simplest of words disorientates him.

At the settlement there’s more of the steam that comes in the misshapen bottles that made Jericho sick the night before. He knows he’s made the wrong decision, but he’s there now, and when the bottle is passed to him he drinks. The mood is surly, there’s no taro in the fire tonight, there’s no string band, no ukulele, no dancing. Groups of men are smoking in the shadows; there is something aggressive about them, and they don’t call over. Jericho feels sick, walks to the gutter, tries to vomit – the steam, he supposes – and when he returns, two girls have appeared, he has no idea where from, with swollen faces and blood on their legs. A woman comes out of one of the shacks. She yells at the men smoking, there are shouted accusations and boys he doesn’t recognise come running into view. A fight starts. When the police arrive, Jericho thinks it’s because of the girls. A boy is being thrashed; another man swings a belt at the girls. The police do nothing to intervene. The girls are yelling, the police are yelling. It’s nasty this time. Sirens, guns, spotlights. There’s been a hold-up on the road and a man was shot when he tried to reach behind his carseat for a gun. Jericho doesn’t know what’s happened. He throws up right there, and this time his head really is spinning, and his ears are roaring. He throws up again. Everything is in slow motion. His gut gives a dangerous gripe as he is hauled to his feet by the police. He feels the motion of the police truck. He lies on the jolting, moving floor and feels the release of shit on his legs. Blankness settles around him.

He remembers nothing, nothing at all, when he wakes on a concrete floor. He can smell the stink of himself. There are stinking bodies asleep around him. He has no idea who they are or why he is there, and this time, when it might be a scene from Käthe Kollwitz, he doesn’t think of art. He looks at the bars and sees he’s in a cell full of people. More like a large wire cage than a cell. Beyond the concrete yard outside he can see faint light. Dawn maybe. His head is throbbing, he wants to pee. He can hear someone across the cage piss into a drain. Is it a drain? A bucket? He raises his head. There are more people in the next cage. He sees Presley’s head, he thinks he sees Presley’s head. He hears voices, and doors clanking as nausea drifts back over him. He turns, the floor hard on his hips. A pair of familiar shoes is standing next to his head. He looks up and Bili is yelling at him.

‘Have a good look round,’ she says. ‘Is this where you want to end up?’

Napo is standing beside her. His face is long and sorry.