An espresso machine gurgled in the corner.

‘Let me tell you about the people here. These people are asylum seekers. They have fled persecution in their home countries and come here for a better, safer life. For asylum. Now, the practice of granting asylum to people fleeing persecution is thousands of years old. It was first implemented during the rise of empires in the Middle East, the Egyptians and Babylonians.’

‘No need for a history lesson, Mr Onions.’

Onions looked at him with minor irritation. ‘Very well,’ he said, smile tight. ‘Today, Australia is obliged to protect the human rights of all asylum seekers and refugees who arrive in our country, regardless of how or where they arrive, and whether they arrive with or without a visa. Our obligations to vulnerable people fleeing persecution arise from our commitment to international treaties and a shared sense of justice and fairness as a safe, prosperous and humanitarian nation.’

Manolis nodded his understanding.

Onions continued. ‘My job and the job of everyone here – the guards and cooks and doctors and psychologists and teachers – is to ensure the physical and mental needs of these current-day asylum seekers are met while their claims are being processed. We conduct full background medical checks for parasites, bacterial infections, typhoid, malaria, measles and hepatitis. We X-ray for tuberculosis, do blood tests for HIV/AIDS, check dental hygiene. Those asylum seekers who are approved become refugees and are offered protection under international law. So we’re a halfway house – nothing more, nothing less. And yet, I see myself as following in a noble tradition and continuing an ancient practice.’

Onions swung his head around, his neck joints creaking like weathered floorboards. Manolis’s eyes were down as he wrote his spidery notes, but he looked up briefly.

Staring him dead in the eye, Onions urged him to reveal his thinking, his agenda.

‘The accusation that we’re harbouring a murderer is utterly preposterous,’ the manager went on. ‘It’s the detainees who are the vulnerable ones – I’m genuinely more worried about them. They’re abused and attacked when they walk through town, and even in here, where they’re meant to feel safe, they’re firebombed from the outside. They’re the ones who need protection from the townsfolk, not the other way around.’

Manolis stopped chewing his pen. ‘But you do have riots here in the centre. People are angry, they’re violent, they’re protesting their incarceration. How do you explain that?’

Onions ran a finger across his forehead, collecting a thin veneer of sweat.