They couldn’t have gotten far. He pictured a dour-faced Sparrow, palms raised in surrender, at the end of a muzzle or blade.

Not far, but where? Manolis ran outside, jogged down the centre of the tourist park’s main street, now that of a ghost town. Surely there was a nearby resident who had seen or heard something – a confrontation, an argument – or knew where they’d gone. The cattle dog reappeared, snapped playfully at his heels.

He passed half a dozen cabins, the general store, pub, barbershop, chemist, calling out whenever he caught his breath. He soon doubled back, returning to the first cabin, rapping on the sliding door. No answer. He tried the second, the pub, with more determined knocking, bashing, announcing himself as police. It was a risky move. In Manolis’s experience, revealing his identity when doorknocking kept hidden those with something to hide, or they were shortly thereafter seen leaping a back fence. In rare circumstances, cops were welcomed with flying bullets.

A half-face finally appeared from behind a curtain, its single eye big and bloodshot. Brilliant, thought Manolis, a junkie; probably high on meth, up all night, ready to fly through the door with a meat cleaver or disease-laden syringe.

‘Yeah?’ the eye asked.

Manolis pointed back towards the office demountable. ‘See anyone leave recently? A car drive away, you see where they went?’

The eye jagged sharply sideways, revealing a splatter of swollen vessels, then back to centre. The words came slow, laboured.

‘Yeah… three of ’em… two whiteys, one black… drove off real fast…’

‘Any idea which way they went?’

The eye blinked once, twice.

‘Umm… nup. They just left.’

Manolis checked his watch, precious minutes slipping by. Sensing his informant had run out of information, and potentially vocabulary, he bolted for Sparrow’s car.

Manipulating keys, ignition, gears, steering wheel, accelerator, Manolis drove, the wind blasting his eyes and face. Fumbling for his phone, he dialled Kerr’s number. She answered on the first ring.

‘They’ve gone,’ he said. ‘Took Sparrow with ’em.’

‘They took Sparrow…? What, you mean they kidnapped him?’

‘Seems that way. Big, stupid risk. I’m driving. But where do I go? Which way, what’s to the north, what’s south?’

Kerr sucked her teeth, scanning her local knowledge.

‘Not much, really,’ she said. ‘You’ve pretty much seen it all. Detention centre in the north, then nothing. Aboriginal community south, then more nothing.’

The car dodged a pothole, clumps of rubbish, roadkill. The rotting carrion was covered in scavenger birds busily trying to avoid becoming roadkill themselves. Manolis coughed exhaust fumes, spat flying insects and bugs. The town was fast approaching, taking up an increasing amount of the car’s non-windscreen. He would need to decide which way to spin the wheel: left to go north, right for south.

‘Can you get here?’ he asked, mind on a solution.

A pause. ‘Not really. Got my hands full.’

‘What’s the problem?’