Still standing, the detainee watched his private security escort closely, a grave look in his enormous white-rimmed eyes. He peered out the window as if checking that the street was empty, that he would be unseen by passers-by. Eventually, his gaze returned to Manolis, who again gestured to the chair.

The man did not move. His trust was not going to be won easily. Manolis reasoned that he had likely come from war, seen many dead. This was a streetwise tomcat he was trying to coax into being petted. Haunted eyes stared out at Manolis from a face lined beyond its years, gaunt, the body beneath it incredibly thin.

The detective fetched two mugs sitting upturned in the nearby sink. He rinsed them, filled them from the tap, offered one. The man stared, a statue.

‘Hello, Ahmed,’ said Manolis. ‘Would you like to sit down?’

The sound of his name elicited a sharp blink. Ahmed Omari took the mug cautiously and began to speak. He spoke hastily, the words falling out in imperfect English, broken and anaemic. The very first thing he said was:

‘You will help me?’

He pulled out a battered wallet and showed faded photos of the wife and young daughter he’d left behind in Iraq.

Manolis briefly forgot the investigation and went along with it, asking the relevant questions at the appropriate moments like a new acquaintance.

‘I was home eating dinner and then start to hear grenades. They come and beat my father and brother. They rape my wife and sisters, threaten to kill my daughter. So I go north to Turkey to find us new life. I am three years in refugee camp. They give me food, but local people come at night with guns, take the food. I am in prison for six months, tortured everywhere, my body. They pull out my two front teeth with pliers.’

He opened his mouth wide to reveal an empty black gap, the rugged pink endings of exposed gum. Manolis could not help but recoil. The surrounding teeth were dull and brown like old ivory; the overgrown moustache was strategic.

‘From Turkey, I pay money to go to Greece. Then plane to Malaysia and boat here.’

‘Why didn’t you stay in Malaysia?’ Manolis asked.

Ahmed shook his head wildly, his hair swishing from side to side.

‘Turkey is for escape. But Greece is for Europe, how to get to Germany and Denmark and Sweden. But is now very hard, it all changes. In Malaysia, we live in commune in Kuala Lumpur, put all refugees. Very tough life, fifty people use one toilet. Very dirty, unclean. We dig all day the fields for little money, then sleep on floor at night.’

‘Why did you come to Australia without documents?’ Manolis asked.

Ahmed shot out a long slender arm, pointing in a random direction, at an unseen force.