He was referring to the town, but Manolis wasn’t focusing on the passing scenery, or even listening closely. He was still picturing the bloody stones strewn across the desk, even though Sparrow had safely returned them to the unsecure evidence room. Manolis thought about his cremated Valiant and why he’d really been housed in the sheriff’s office. There was still no sign of Fyfe. A cloudless day meant another scorcher, the air dry and dusty, the asphalt road turning tacky.

‘Detective…?’

‘Sorry, what?’ said Manolis.

‘The town. How old were you when you left?’

Manolis returned to staring out the passenger window, saw the boarded-up shops and derelict facades. These were the wrecks of long-closed businesses that had once flourished. He slumped his shoulders in a kind of sigh and half-closed his eyelids.

‘Town looks the same,’ he lied.

‘What about the brown house?’ Sparrow asked.

‘What about it?’

‘That wasn’t there. At least, not like it is now.’

‘No. What did it used to be?’

Sparrow took a moment to respond. ‘You don’t remember?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘I think I do,’ Manolis said, playing dumb. ‘But it was such a long time ago. Freshen my memory?’

Sparrow’s lip curled. ‘Before the nice white men in nice grey suits came making promises about nice new jobs and money and bullshit, it was a technical college. You know, welders, plumbers, sparkies, chippies – that kinda actually useful stuff.’

Manolis smiled knowingly, thinking about his son’s new father figure. ‘Yeah,’ he breathed. ‘Trades. Not suits. Real jobs.’

‘Yair.’ Sparrow swerved to avoid a pothole large enough to swallow a truck. ‘To think, though, the brown house almost didn’t happen.’

‘Oh?’

‘It was the deciding issue at the last council election. People wanted to believe the lie, that it would do the town good. So they voted yes.’

‘How’d you vote?’

‘Didn’t,’ Sparrow said, almost proudly.

Manolis shifted in his seat. ‘I remember when the detention centre was a migrant camp. It’s where they put all the Europeans after the war.’

‘Must’ve been before they made it a tech college. Well before my time.’

‘My dad apparently stayed there when he first arrived in Australia.’

‘No shit, eh. Your dad?’

‘Apparently. So what it’s being used for now is nothing new. It’s just the next wave of immigration, the second one, after the Europeans.’

Sparrow let Manolis’s remark settle a moment before he said, ‘You mean the third wave.’

‘Huh?’

Sparrow counted with his fingers, grinning as he extended each long digit. ‘Third wave, towelheads. Second wave, wogs. First wave, whitefellas.’

A knowing smile appeared on Manolis’s face. ‘Actually, I forgot the Asians. They came after the Vietnam War, during the 1970s and 80s, from what they called Indochina.’

‘No gooks ended up in Cobb.’

‘Most migrant camps had closed by then. Like today’s asylum seekers, they also came in fishing boats and against great opposition.’