Old Geoff the chicken farmer made an appearance – apparently a frequent occurrence – to report more missing poultry from his coop. He was ancient, bent, dressed in soiled overalls, no shirt, trucker’s hat to protect him from the cancer-causing sun. Manolis took down his details and said that an officer would visit soon. Geoff stood silently a moment, then trudged away grumbling.

Fyfe soon arrived, escorting a reluctant Joe Shrewsbury into the tearoom for questioning. Sparrow had described Joe as ‘always kinda drunk’ and with a liver the size of a small car. He never went to sleep, ‘he always just passed out’. Joe arrived shirtless, in shorts and thongs, sporting a proud beer gut and complaining about the early hour. It was ten-thirty.

Manolis was wary. This interrogation would need to be textbook in order to avoid a false confession. The local cops had breached multiple codes of practice; there was no way any defendant could possibly have a fair trial. So a confession was crucial, but it needed to be watertight.

Fyfe stopped Manolis at the entrance to the tearoom.

‘The prick’s guilty,’ he muttered, rubbing palms together. ‘His alibi’s bullshit. He’s got a history of pestering the victim. Let’s lay a murder charge and go to the pub to fucken celebrate.’

Manolis quickly discerned that Fyfe and Joe had a history of bad blood between them. He thought a moment, but in the end decided to retain the local sergeant in the interview.

‘We’re gathering information, not eliciting a confession,’ Manolis reminded him firmly. ‘If we happen to get one, that’s different.’

‘We’re wasting our bloody time, city mouse. The bastard lied. Only a guilty prick with something to hide would lie.’

‘Even innocent people lie when they’re scared.’

‘Scared? Joe? Ha. Scared of sobriety, maybe.’

It was as if Fyfe had done an about-turn and completely exonerated the detention centre. Perhaps all he wanted to do was drink, so he was happy just to convict anyone, which cleared his schedule. Manolis repeated that he planned to visit the detention centre in the afternoon to investigate Searle’s report of a man resembling an asylum seeker in heated discussion with Molly the day before she died.

Manolis and Fyfe entered the tearoom and took their seats with Joe around the rickety table. Joe’s first utterances were more grunts than words, a looseness to his body. He wolfed down the last of the supermarket doughnuts that Fyfe had brought in, ceremoniously licking the remains of sticky pink icing from his stubby fingers. He took one gulp of sour coffee, swore and hurled the polystyrene cup towards the bin, missing it by a long way. Dark brown liquid dribbled across the lino.