Sparrow walked him through where they’d found the trolley, the narrow strip of flattened grass, and an area of widely spaced trees behind the scoreboard. A pair of rabbits, their eyes swollen with myxomatosis, scurried off. The eucalypts took Manolis by surprise: their trunks were bleeding, covered in thick rivulets of deep crimson sap.

‘Christ,’ he said. ‘You sure there was just one person killed here? Looks like mass murder.’

‘It is,’ said Sparrow. ‘Of trees.’

Run down with drought, the eucalypts had been attacked by boring insects, eating them alive from the inside out. The trees fought back as best they could, seeping their defence, trying to stay alive, but to no avail. They were now dying a slow death.

In front of the thickest eucalypt was a stained patch of dark dirt. The tree was also stained with what appeared to be spray marks. Manolis was careful to step around a bull-ant nest that was shaded by the broad-trunked tree. He examined the crime scene from multiple angles, high, low, and listened to the young constable’s descriptions, looking everywhere he pointed. All the while, Manolis tried to mesh the indecipherable diagrams in his hand and reconstruct the events in his mind. But something was niggling at him.

Eventually, he asked, ‘Why isn’t the area taped off?’

Sparrow’s shoulders rose up and down, in time with his breathing. He looked at Manolis as if he were mad. ‘You being serious?’

‘Deadly. The area should always be taped off to preserve the crime scene. That’s basic police work.’

Sparrow chuckled. ‘Mate, that was the last thing on our minds. We needed to clean up this crap before the mob arrived. And I don’t mean “my mob” – I mean “the mob”. They didn’t need any extra incentive.’

‘Not sure I know what you mean.’

‘I mean rocks. I mean a knife. I mean a white woman’s body lyin’ in a pool of white woman’s blood.’

‘But taping off the area preserves the evidence. What if the offender had dropped something, a clue?’

Sparrow shook his head. ‘We already got the clues. You saw ’em. That’s it.’

Manolis pictured the stones on the desk and again consulted his sketches.

‘Besides, it’s not like we got anyone who could’ve stayed and secured the scene,’ Sparrow continued. ‘They’d only have gotten lynched themselves.’

‘For what? For doing their job?’

‘For being seen as hiding something, or even as a sympathiser. Strung up yellow tape only attracts trouble round here, mate. Best way to secure a scene like this is to not make it a scene. This ain’t the city, our streets aren’t swarming with people. The chances of someone stumbling across it randomly and giving a toss are pretty low. So, for all intents and purposes, you can consider this scene before you as “secure”.’