‘I want to know what your theory is.’

Kerr arched her overgrown eyebrows, no time or inclination to pluck. ‘Why are you interested in what I think? It’s just a theory.’

‘Well you’re a local cop who obviously knows the town, the people. I don’t. At least, not like you.’

It was a concession she seemed to welcome hearing.

‘Did you know Molly Abbott?’ Manolis continued. ‘I understand she was a schoolteacher. Have you any suspects in mind?’

Kerr shrugged her exposed shoulders. ‘Maybe once. But the town’s changed, even I don’t recognise it anymore.’

Manolis paused. ‘You mean, because of the brown house?’

‘If you mean the immigration detention centre, then yes. I don’t use that other name.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I was told that’s what people call it around here.’

‘They do. But I don’t.’ She exhaled her frustration. ‘There’s just so many new faces around town now. It’s possible to have secrets.’

‘You mean compared to before?’

She sighed, as if pining for a simpler time. ‘We were just a quiet little town. Not much happened. Unfortunately, that was also why people left – they went looking for adventure and opportunity and excitement. People like you. People once knew everything about everyone around here. Do you remember that?’

Manolis didn’t, he’d been too young. ‘I do,’ he lied.

Kerr tugged at her ponytail. ‘We had issues, of course. There’s always been tensions between the blacks and whites. But we were still two communities with a common home. We were like siblings fighting. The detention centre changed all that. Like some strange cousin moving into our bedroom.’

Manolis wiped his sweaty cheeks. ‘Changed it how?’

‘Well for a start there’s all the transients – the guards, cleaners, cooks, interpreters.’

‘You have much to do with them?’

‘We’re banned from entering the centre unless we’re called, which happens rarely. They handle incidents in-house. They run that joint like their own little country.’

‘Like an embassy.’

She nodded. ‘It’s all very secretive, very hush-hush. Reports are written up on absolutely everything that happens. Incident reports, they call them. Any disturbance, no matter how big or small, is classified and categorised, and fed into the massive bureaucracy that maintains the detention machine.’

Manolis was familiar with the excruciating minutia of report writing. But the overall intention of the detention policy was clear to him. Stifle the flow of people with red tape and wire fences so that gradually their wills would erode, and they would just… give up. It was the inexorable crushing of the refugee spirit through the regime of detention and trap of bureaucracy. The world would reabsorb these problems. It was both the compassionate and cost-effective thing to do.

‘Whistleblowers can be sent to jail,’ Kerr added. ‘They’re too scared to speak out.’

More fear, thought Manolis.