Manolis swung around. The voice was deep, so he expected to be greeted by a big man. The bloke turned out to have the dimensions of a fridge and appeared just as solid, and perhaps even as smart. His bald skull was the size of a beer keg and had a violent architecture of indentations and scarring.

‘I did,’ Manolis said. ‘You know something?’

The man looked uncertain, his coffee-stain eyes growing wider. He paused, scratched the back of his non-neck, then asked quickly, ‘You a cop?’

His words were slippery and small. Manolis again showed his badge. The man’s face lit up, his eyes widening even further and now burning with a maniacal light. Manolis recognised that look and took an instinctive backward step, as if to prepare for an oncoming fist or knife or broken bottle or blood-filled syringe. All had been thrust upon him at one time or another during his career in circumstances not dissimilar to these.

‘Good,’ the man-fridge said. ‘Cos I wanna report the bastard…’

‘Report him?’ Manolis asked, unable to hide his interest. ‘Report him for what?’

The words fell out, heavy and solemn. ‘For what he did last Friday night.’

Manolis swallowed hard.

He bought the man a beer, and together with his soft, flavourless whisky, they sat on a misshapen table in the least depressing corner of the pub and talked. The man identified himself as Joe’s neighbour. He owned a farm on the western side of a small dry creek that acted as the boundary line between the two properties. He explained that he and Joe had bonded over alcohol for years. They were mates and looked after each other.

‘But not anymore,’ he said. ‘Not after Friday.’

Manolis made notes and listened attentively. The neighbour’s slurring made his words increasingly incomprehensible. He talked in circles, repeated himself, got distracted, spilt beer, cursed, spat. He described the evening that unfolded, a night spent drinking with his long-time friend, and how he left the room to get more drinks and came back to a scene that stopped him dead. His eyes welled up as he spoke.

‘I swear, I nearly killed the bastard there and then…’

Every few minutes, a drunk staggered up to the table to hurl an insult at Manolis’s white face or accuse the neighbour of being a lying prick or plead to be bought a beer or bum a smoke. Others offered car stereos for sale, or counterfeit watches, or drugs.

Manolis sipped his whisky thoughtfully, listening to his informant. When it was all over, the detective sat back in his chair, digesting all that he’d been forced to hear.

He was boiling with rage, his hand close to snapping his pen in two. But then he remembered he had a job to do, a crime to solve. Two deep breaths quelled his emotions. A good cop remained cool, calm, he told himself. So did a good husband.