Deacon took a calculated step forward, grabbed him by the arm. The guard eyed Manolis sternly through thin, letterbox eyes the colour of slate. He appeared to be barely in his twenties but had the weathered face of an old man.

With head tilted slightly, Manolis watched as Deacon manhandled Cook along the corridor. The guard prodded him in the back whenever he dragged his feet and surreptitiously jabbed him in the kidneys. They fell out the station door and into the waiting four-wheel drive, which drove away at top speed.

The street was empty, quiet. Manolis stood in the doorway. A hot, scouring breeze whipped up, unfurling a discarded tabloid and scattering the sheets like paper tumbleweeds. Galahs flung themselves into the air from tall eucalypts, shrieking like banshees. Crows dive-bombed something unseen and likely dead.

Clutching at his neck, Manolis exhaled away his tension. He’d seen enough, time to go home. And yet, the distant, impenetrable detention centre drew him. He’d been denied proper access and desperately wanted a good look inside.

‘You’ve got to get in there,’ he told himself. ‘Ta matia sou dekatessera.’ It was an old Greek phrase his mother used to say, meaning to pay close attention with fourteen eyes. It made no sense, but Manolis still liked it.

He locked the station, fought his way into his vehicle through the jammed door, and wrenched the key clockwise in the ignition. Angling the steering wheel in the direction of the road heading north, he pushed his foot down and accelerated away. The town disappeared behind him, the asphalt unfolded before him, dotted here and there with potholes and clumps of rubbish. Manolis rubbed at his midriff, a low, grieving pain having taken up residence in his abdomen. He needed to rest. But he also needed answers.

He thought with distaste of the new fragments he’d seen of the world. One suspect had a strong reason to stay in Australia and intimate knowledge of stonings, while the other was a jilted ex-lover with no alibi. Manolis needed to meditate on all this new information. He felt drunk and sober at the same time, and painfully human. He wondered how Sparrow’s bruised face was feeling. No sign of Kerr or Fyfe. No surprises there.

‘Something’s not quite right here,’ Manolis said to the empty cabin.

He pushed his foot harder. It was an automatic action, done without thought, merely to hasten his journey to the detention centre. The speedometer stayed flat; the needle was broken, but he knew he was smashing speed limits. The engine groaned. The car shook. Better back off, he told himself. He was being unnecessarily reckless, and a dip and bend in the road was approaching.

Lifting his foot, he went to tap the brake pedal.

And felt no resistance.

He pressed harder, felt the impotent gulp of the pedal, then felt his foot collapse to the floor.