Cook lifted his mug, drank deeply. Manolis watched his throat bob as he swallowed. ‘You know I broke curfew,’ he said openly. ‘That’s why I’m here. You know I didn’t return until the morning.’

Manolis half-closed his eyes and nodded in agreement.

‘It was the end of the working week, time to unwind,’ Cook breathed. ‘There was a staff changeover, which means absolute chaos. On those nights especially, I want to be a million miles away from that place. They’re the worst. Like a college party. Unfortunately, following our conversation that afternoon, I knew that spending the night with Molly was not an option.’

‘Your conversation…?’ Manolis kept his words brief, careful not to get in the way of key facts as they revealed themselves.

Cook’s eyes clouded. He fought to compose himself.

‘Well, it was more of a disagreement, really. I went around to ask if she was free on Friday night. I didn’t expect it would be the last time we’d speak. Have you ever had that, Detective? Regrets over the last things you said to a person?’

Manolis nodded and sighed. ‘Many times.’

‘It’s new to me. Molly was a ray of sunshine in my otherwise dark existence. She made me feel human again. It’s a constant struggle to keep your sanity in detention. To maintain who you are without falling into the depths of despair.’

Manolis ran the back of his hand across his lips. ‘What did you disagree about?’

‘Sex,’ said Cook frankly.

‘How so?’

‘I wanted to spend the night with her. I missed her. Is that wrong? But she said no, she’d moved on.’

‘To?’

‘You mean…?’

‘To another person?’

Cook scratched his neck, rich with round freckles. ‘I’m not sure, she never said. Probably didn’t want to hurt my feelings if she had. She was like that. All I know was that she said no to me, so I backed down. She saw no future with me in indefinite detention, and potentially with deportation.’

‘So you were harassing her for sex?’ Manolis asked, remembering the nuisance calls that Molly was receiving.

Cook shook his head lightly. ‘That makes it sound so sordid, so sleazy. I was merely enquiring as to whether she was free to spend a lovely evening together.’

‘She had something else on?’

‘Again, I don’t know, she didn’t say.’

‘So what did you do next?’

‘The same thing I’ve always done since arriving in Cobb. I dove to the bottom of a bottle.’

‘You went to the pub? The top pub?’

Giving him a quizzical look, Cook said, ‘If you mean the pub at the northern end of town, then yes.’

‘Can anyone confirm your presence there?’