AT THE FRONT gate, Manolis asked Deacon about the sickly sounding occupant in the first shipping container. His concerns were summarily dismissed with the curt response:

‘He’ll be fine.’

Manolis folded his arms. ‘Will he? Why don’t I believe you?’

Deacon placed his hands on his hips, leant forward, cocked his head. ‘We get bugger-all help from you cops when we got trouble here,’ he spat. ‘Gimme one good reason why we should now give a toss what you bastards think?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, turned his broad back and retreated into the centre.

There were a handful of vehicles in the car park, all left at haphazard angles. Sparrow fumbled for his keys.

‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Omari, eh. What a headcase.’ ‘Steady on,’ said Manolis. ‘The bloke’s traumatised, scared to death. I would be too.’

‘So you believe him?’

Manolis paused. ‘I prefer to believe in evidence. That’s where I’m stuck. What do you think?’

Sparrow shrugged. ‘Headcase…’

They got into the car, rolled down the windows, let it breathe.

‘What about the other fella, the Pommy crim, you gonna interview him again?’

‘No.’ Manolis pocketed his notepad. ‘No point. I’m in no way convinced by this evidence, but right now it’s all we’ve got to go on. And anyway, the Iraqi’s done nothing to help his cause.’

‘I’ve been on that side of the fence, yair. The last thing you wanna do, even if you’re innocent, is help the bloody pigs do their job.’

Manolis was ‘allowed’ – as Onions had reminded him – to take the bag of evidence items. He wanted to compare the roll of gaffer tape with the one stored safely at the station, but he could already tell they would match. The purse might’ve provided some new information. But the key piece of evidence was the mobile phone.

These three items sat uncomfortably with Manolis. It wasn’t unexpected for a killer to keep a souvenir or trophy of their victim, but these were unusual circumstances under which such a morbid memento couldn’t be kept. Only a fool would try.

After a reminder to first check his brakes, Sparrow eased the car into gear and drove south. The ramshackle ugliness of Cobb appeared, expanding into the surrounding bushland like a malignant disease. My glorious home town, thought Manolis.

He still hadn’t seen a detainee outside the centre. It felt like the mother of all ironies – the hostile local environment meant the detainees now retreated to the centre ‘for asylum’. The townspeople had calmed too, perhaps sated by the progress of the investigation, or tranquillised by the intake of continual grog and relentless heat. Manolis was relieved. He’d grown tired of the fear-stoking, race-baiting, red-meat brainwashing that had been deliberately designed to appeal to residents’ basest instincts. It had been annoying at first, but now it was just plain exhausting.