Sparrow eyed the heavens, black skies exploding with white star showers. ‘Multiculturalism is a failure,’ he mimicked. ‘What horseshit. It’s our gross neglect of Aboriginal people which is a fucken failure. Whitefellas treated us like flora and fauna when they first arrived, and for a long time since. And do you reckon Captain Cook adopted blackfella values when he rocked up with the First Fleet?’

Manolis smiled nervously, a wave of heat washing up his neck. It was the shame that much of White Australia carried around Aboriginal people: that of invasion, rape, genocide.

Sparrow looked at Manolis head to toe, his eyes turning dark. ‘Course, the tension round here may also have to do with the murder of Jimmy Dingo.’

Manolis stopped smiling. ‘Sorry?’

‘You don’t remember? Ha, course you don’t… you’re white.’

Manolis frowned. ‘No, I don’t remember. What murder, what happened?’

‘It was yonks ago, decades. People say it changed the town, ’specially the elders.’

‘And he was murdered?’

Sparrow sighed. ‘So it goes. Jimmy was this blackfella, young, fit, best bloody footballer this town had seen in fifty years, prime of his life. He was killed by a whitefella who got off scot-free. The whitefella was a clever bastard and made it look like a tribal punishment by stabbing Jimmy in the thigh. Doin’ that meant he could pin it on us blackfellas. We knew we didn’t do it, but the cops wouldn’t listen.’

‘Another reason, perhaps, why you signed up for the bad guys?’

Sparrow smiled white teeth. ‘If you hang around long enough, you’ll notice whitefellas round ’ere never wanna hear ol’ Jimmy’s name. It’s a dirty word. But we blackfellas, mate, we never forget it.’

Manolis imagined that outback towns had all manner of cold cases, but Cobb especially. As a kid, he remembered adults often disappearing without a trace; he hadn’t thought much of it at the time. People had just walked out of town, often swaggies, travelling by foot from farm to farm, town to town, whichever way the wind blew. Viewing the situation as an adult, he saw it was conceivable some might’ve been murdered, and the perpetrators never brought to justice.

He decided to change the subject, return to the case. ‘Did you ever hear of any trouble in Molly and Patrick’s marriage? Violence, infidelity, anything?’

Sparrow appeared to cast his mind back. ‘Nope. At least, nuthin’ reported.’

‘What about rumours?’

Sparrow swished his shaggy hair. No rumours.

‘Okay,’ Manolis said with a sigh.

‘What are you thinkin’?’

‘Not much. Just looking for an angle.’

Sparrow half-closed his eyelids. ‘It’s not too late if you want out.’

‘It was never early enough.’

The two men went silent a while, listening to the night, to the singsong of unseen cicadas. Manolis pointed out the lack of mosquitoes, which was a welcome surprise.