Walking towards the car park, the detective saw a figure crossing the asphalt and heading to a parked four-wheel drive. The man looked familiar. It took a moment for Manolis to recognise him. And then, skipping over the spiky grass tussocks, Manolis could not move fast enough.

‘Hey. Hey, Sergeant…? Oi, Fyfe. Wait, stop!’

Manolis was almost sprinting by the time he reached the hot asphalt, his breath appearing before him in slabs. But the car door slammed, the engine fired, the tyres spun, and Manolis was left choking in a dirty cloud of diesel exhaust.

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

MANOLIS COULDN’T KEEP up with the four-wheel drive in Rex’s pickup truck, which took multiple attempts to get going. He watched until Fyfe disappeared into the distance. Slowly, Manolis began the long drive back to Olde Cobbe Towne, to rest and gather his thoughts. His mind was humming, connections being made, possible lines of enquiry opening up.

As he drove through the heat and flies, he considered all he’d seen, and all he’d not seen. The physical evidence was completely underwhelming. There was no murder weapon to trace, nothing the killer had left behind, and a grossly contaminated crime scene. But Manolis found it strange that there was only a relatively small bloodstain to be found there, and that Molly would’ve left home without personal items, her wallet and phone and keys.

‘That can’t be right,’ he told himself. ‘No matter what anyone from around here says.’

There was always a chance the items had been retained by the killer as some sort of sick souvenir, which Manolis knew was common. In fact, this was an outcome he preferred – it meant the items were out there, somewhere, linking an individual to the murder. A search of Molly’s house would confirm if they were missing. It was downright negligent that one hadn’t already been conducted, but it wasn’t altogether surprising for Cobb. The unorthodox was customary, the book barely followed. And that was a whole separate issue that niggled Manolis like a rock in his shoe. Securing a conviction based on evidence alone would be nearly impossible. Hardly a single procedure had been adhered to. Defence barristers would queue up to take the case, the media would have a field day, headline after headline. Cobb would be the great detention experiment gone wrong. And Manolis would be forever linked. His career would dive-bomb faster than his marriage.