Manolis pretended to cross himself. ‘My god is better than your god.’

Cook snorted a laugh. ‘Don’t believe a word they say. They’re all no-good cheats and liars.’

‘You’re not religious?’

‘My religion is no religion. I’m an atheist.’

Manolis thought a moment. ‘So how do you know all this if you keep your head down?’

Cook scratched his nose. ‘Molly,’ he breathed. ‘She would tell me. She came to me on my second day. She saw a clueless white man and knew I would get eaten alive. Do you know what the local residents in the town call that place?’

Coughing dryly, Manolis cleared his throat. ‘The brown house,’ he said reluctantly.

‘It’s humiliating,’ said Cook with a knowing smile. ‘I feel like I’m being made to do two sentences for the one crime, except the second sentence is much worse.’

Manolis tensed his bushy eyebrows together. ‘Really, immigration detention is worse than prison? With detention, you get to go out into the community every day. You were having a romantic relationship with a woman. It can’t possibly be worse than prison.’

Cook fixed him with a soulful gaze. ‘Spoken like a man who’s never been in prison,’ he said, voice muted.

Looking away, Manolis studied the floor.

‘They’re called immigration detention centres, but they’re basically prisons for immigrants and asylum seekers,’ Cook continued.

Manolis let his tired eyes drift back to the detainee.

‘In prison, you’ve also got a start date and an end date, you know how much time you have to serve,’ Cook said. ‘Mentally, that’s huge. But with detention, the sentence is open-ended. Being a model detainee means nothing, there’s no incentive. And there’s never any information about appeals.’

‘I find that surprising,’ said Manolis. ‘Even prisoners in supermax get news about appeals.’

Cook nodded. ‘Exactly.’ He proceeded to compare his incarceration to a natural disaster or terrorist attack. ‘Not that I’ve been in one, but at least there, you hear positive stories about survival and bravery and rebuilding. There’s optimism. But there’s none of that in detention, no sense of “moving on”.’

They stared at each other for some time, sticky heat licking at their faces. Manolis dragged a finger across his forehead, wiped away another oily veneer of sweat.

‘And then, when it’s all over – whenever that is – I may end up being sent to England,’ Cook added. ‘I’d have to leave my job, my friends, my family, and the life I have here to go to a country I don’t know. I’d have no family, no support, no accommodation and no employment.’