OLD IDA JONES was on her way to steal her morning paper from the bundle left outside the newsagent. She carried her own penknife that she wielded with precision to cut the plastic packing strip and claim her daily prize. A sharpened cricket stump doubled as a walking stick and protection from local wildlife, human or otherwise.

She used the stump to poke the body at first, in case someone was playing an elaborate prank. The cloud of blowflies around the head suggested differently, but Ida’s eyesight was failing, and experience had taught her to be suspicious of everything in Cobb, to always second guess. Inert bodies lying on park benches or under trees were not an uncommon sight at first light. But those bodies moaned or snored, their brains addled with booze and drugs, and they weren’t taped to a tree and caked in black blood.

Of course, Ida recognised the face, even with all those wounds, and knew the woman’s identity immediately. In such a tiny flyspeck of a town, it was impossible for her not to.

Ida walked home as fast as her arthritic legs and cricket stump could carry her. She dialled Sergeant Bill Fyfe’s direct number on her landline, blurted out her horror, hung up, consulted her address book and kept dialling.

‘CHRIST,’ WAS ALL Fyfe said as he rolled out of bed, sleep deprivation whittled under his eyes. His wife grunted and went back to sleep.

Fyfe worked fast. When old Ida knew something, the whole town knew it, word spreading like an infection.

He dressed and rang the station as he exited by the rear fly-screen door, rusted, half off its hinges. He wasn’t sure if anyone would answer. His team often wasn’t there.

The cop shop phone rang out. Fyfe swore and tried a second time. Turning left into Eyre Street, he was just about to hang up and try the two-way. Mobiles had variable reception in Cobb. But then, Sparrow answered.

‘The hell’s going on there?’

The constable coughed. ‘Sorry, boss. Ol’ Geoff was here again.’

‘Not more bloody stolen chickens…’

‘Yair. You know how he goes on.’

‘Well enough faffing about, son. Is anyone else there?’

‘Nah. The old coot’s gone now.’

‘I meant us. Police.’

‘Nah, just me.’

‘Lock up, then. Meet me in five at the Crapp. Bring the gear.’

‘What gear? Me boots? We kicking the footy around?’

There was a pause.

‘We got a body.’