Manolis reached for his notepad, his questions. Cook spoke freely and without prompting. He took uncertain sips from his mug as if expecting the worst from it.

‘We were lovers,’ he said. ‘Once. Until she ended it, a few months ago. She said she did so reluctantly, and I believed her. She loved me and I loved her. Still, I can’t blame her for ending things – it’s not like our relationship could go anywhere.’

Cook explained that it was his incarceration that came between them. With such an uncertain future, he could offer her nothing.

‘Given my circumstances, I found that I was invariably at Molly’s beck and call. We always went to her house. Never up there in that godforsaken hellhole.’

In Manolis’s experience, such a direct, candid disclosure of information was either a sign of innocence or a finely rehearsed charade orchestrated to the nth degree. It was the same for Ahmed’s recollection of stonings he had witnessed. Cook’s admission was welcomed, but did it identify the owner of the Y-fronts found in Molly’s cupboard? They may have been his… once. Or someone else’s, an as-yet-unidentified lover.

‘And where did you meet Molly?’ Manolis asked.

Cook ran a rough tongue across his dry lips. ‘At the detention centre, of course.’

‘Not in town?’

‘No.’

‘Were you in her class? Your English sounds perfect.’

‘No, I wasn’t. We met after one of her classes, in the northern courtyard. She approached me, and we just started talking.’

‘When was that?’

A long pause and a light sigh preceded his response. ‘Nearly a year ago, not long after I arrived. I stood out like a sore thumb. I still do.’ His eyes trembled in place, an unnerving tic.

Manolis struggled to keep up, his hand sore from writing. But he was intrigued. He sat forward. ‘Where exactly are you from?’

‘Originally? North London. A place called West Hampstead, to be more precise.’

Manolis felt bewildered, his face creasing with expression. With a heavy exhalation, Cook rolled his neck until there was a satisfying crack.

The youngest of four sons born at the Royal Free Hospital, Cook spent his years as a toddler chasing his older brothers across the lush green expanses of Hampstead Heath. Then, on his third birthday, the family immigrated to Australia as Ten Pound Poms.

‘My parents had hoped the warmer climes would help cure my brothers’ bronchial pneumonia,’ Cook said. He added, with a wry grin, ‘All that wonderfully clean London air. Particles inhaled and exhaled a billion times over.’

Ever since, fifty-five of his fifty-eight years, Cook had lived and worked in Australia. He’d never once returned to the British Isles, not even to visit.

‘I served as a volunteer in the Australian army reserve,’ he said, with a faux salute. ‘Can you believe that? I pledged my undying allegiance to this damned country…’