Chapter 17

MANOLIS TOLD SPARROW to return to the top pub and promptly escort the headmaster to the station. This time, there’d be no booze present during questioning.

‘I dunno,’ said Sparrow. ‘The old bloke had had a few by the time I reached him.’

Manolis saw a theme in Cobb. Grog was king. It anaesthetised the residents into a constant state of inebriation and denial about their collective plight that ultimately turned destructive to themselves or others. They wanted death. They wanted oblivion.

‘As a little tacker, I remember watching planes struggling to land on the airstrip cos they were so heavy with beer,’ said Sparrow. ‘When they finally made it down, we helped unload them, ten flights a week. I carried a slab of beer on my shoulder before I even carried a schoolbag.’

During the 1950s, local Aboriginal communities had been loaded onto tractors, taken from their ancestral lands and left to rot on the outskirts of Cobb.

‘Most of me mob died during the move,’ Sparrow said. ‘We’re refugees in our own land, mate. Like them blackfellas in America who fled from the south to avoid gettin’ hung.’

Manolis nodded lightly. Finally, he said, ‘We’ll give Searle the breathalyser.’

Sparrow turned in his features, confused. ‘We have a breathalyser…?’

AT THE STATION, Kerr showed Manolis to a back room where a busted breath tester was buried under a pile of junk.

‘Can’t remember the last time we used it,’ she said, whacking it with an open hand. ‘But it’s not like we’ve needed it. If you’ve been drinking in Cobb, you’re over the limit.’

Ian Searle was a big, bluff man with deep, soulful eyes and sheepily thick sideburns. His manner belied his appearance – he spoke in a soft tone and admitted to feeling anxious about making a formal statement. He’d never spoken to the police about anything, not even a neighbourhood noise complaint. Manolis felt slightly nervous too; something about speaking with the headmaster in his home town. He remembered once being summoned to the principal’s office for hitting a classmate who had called him ‘a greasy wog’. He remembered the principal being ancient then, and likely dead now. The kid probably was too.

Sitting on the plastic garden furniture in the station tearoom, Manolis reassured the current principal that there was nothing to fear and kept feeding him mugs of strong, sobering black coffee. Manolis offered him a pre-rolled smoke to calm his nerves, which he declined. Kerr took notes. Fyfe retired to his office to make some calls. Sparrow went outside and chain-smoked on the verandah.

To gain his trust, Manolis let Searle have the air. The head-master spoke in short spurts, all the while playing with his fingers, intertwining them in apprehension.