Chapter 3

SPARROW SHOWED MANOLIS the tearoom with its plastic garden furniture and curling linoleum floor. A faded green sofa was against the window. Using the ratty remains of a sponge, Sparrow mopped at the base of an incontinent urn. He offered weak black coffee in a chipped mug and an assortment of dried meats made from Australian native animals. Manolis declined both. Along with flavoursome olive oil, decent coffee was an eternal struggle for him whenever he left his house or office. There, he had his own equipment and blend, thick lumps of chocolaty Greek coffee brewed black and strong in a briki pot. It was heady stuff, left unfiltered with a delicate foam on top and an undrinkable sludge at the bottom. He knew that rural Australia would be a battle, one he would surely lose.

The cops regarded each other around a collapsible table. Manolis sensed a hint of alcohol in the air. Sparrow’s left eyelid drooped slightly.

‘Here,’ said Manolis, ‘take this first.’ He tore a page from his notepad.

Sparrow studied it. ‘I know these kids. They’re good kids.’

‘I don’t think good kids go around vandalising cars,’ Manolis said.

Sparrow regarded him with a certain amount of suspicion.

‘It was my car. It’s outside if you want to see what they did.’

‘That’s okay,’ Sparrow said, pocketing the note, ‘I believe you. Leave it with me, I’ll take care of it.’

‘Thanks. I’ve always found that independence is best in police cases.’

Sparrow shot him a salty smile. He leant forward to speak.

‘To be honest with you, mate, we really appreciate you comin’ out, but we got the other situation under complete control. I dunno why they sent you.’

Manolis had expected resistance. He came prepared.

‘They sent me because this town is out of control,’ he said firmly. ‘They sent me because you’ve got members of the public assaulting detainees in parks and trying to burn down a government facility and vandalising cars. That’s why they sent me.’

Sparrow glared at him with vacant eyes. It was some time before he spoke again. ‘Yair, well fair enough,’ was all he said.

Manolis let his face soften. ‘Our superiors want this case solved yesterday. It’s a critical time for the public perception of refugees, and they want to avoid negative press.’

‘Ah, so your appointment is political. It was the same when the brown house first opened. All politics.’

The lines returned to Manolis’s face. ‘Forget politics. That’s got nothing to do with me. I’m just here to do my job, to solve a crime.’ He eyed the station, looked around. ‘So where’s your boss, where’s Sergeant Fyfe?’

Sparrow checked his wristwatch. ‘Actually, Sarge would’ve probably left the brown house by now.’

Manolis smelt his fingers, metallic from coins. ‘Is anyone else here?’

‘Nah. Bastards left me on me own.’

‘Where’s the investigation up to? Take me to the crime scene. Did you know the victim? Has the coroner seen the body? Can I read their report?’

Sparrow stared straight through his city colleague, his eyes glassy and unfocused. A fly buzzed lazily against the window.

‘Where’s your evidence locker?’ Manolis continued. ‘What did you recover from the scene? Any witnesses? What about suspects? Leads? Have you spoken with the media…?’

The country cop kept staring. Finally, he leant forward in his stackable chair and helped himself to a strip of crocodile. Tore a piece. Chewed.

‘Well,’ he said, mouth full, ‘you’ve asked a fair bit there, mate. And we’ve only just met. Tell you what, let’s go to the pub.’

It wasn’t a request. It was an initiation. Manolis was loath to go; there was a murderer at large. Reluctantly, he agreed.

They walked past the empty drunk tank on the way out. Manolis gestured at it, surprised.

‘There’s never enough divvy vans and drunk tanks,’ Sparrow said. ‘Most days, it’d be easier to just lock up the sober people.’

He secured the station using three different locks and strode to his patrol car, a white Ford sedan with a red bonnet, no hubcaps and the biggest roo bar Manolis had ever seen.

‘We’ll take my car,’ Manolis said.

Sparrow’s sunglasses caught the glare like popping flashbulbs. ‘Suit yerself. North please, driver. We’re going to the top pub.’

Situated at the top end of town, the so-called top pub was appropriately named and easily distinguishable from the bottom pub, at the southern end of town, near the Aboriginal community.

‘Top pub whitefellas, bottom pub blackfellas,’ was how Sparrow explained it. ‘Put simply.’

He also admitted he was technically in the wrong place, but that most of his people considered him ‘a sellout anyway’.

They made small talk on the way. Sparrow explained the town’s two stale pubs were the epicentres of trouble most nights of the week, which kept the cops sufficiently occupied.

‘Good distraction for a murder,’ he added.

He asked if Manolis had seen the Aboriginal settlement on Cobb’s southern outskirts. He had. Sparrow said he grew up there. Manolis recalled a shantytown, all aluminium sheeting and milk crates, old tyres and mattresses for walls, clumps of clothes. Bodies were strewn across the land, the soles of dusty feet, people and dogs sleeping under whatever had shade. Seeing the Valiant, a group of Aboriginal kids had stopped kicking around a battered Australian Rules football between two packs, and stood eyeing it roll by.

‘Yair,’ Sparrow said. ‘That’s me mob.’

‘How’s your mob with the police in this town, they get along?’

‘Not really,’ Sparrow sighed. ‘Or should I say, far from it. Pigs will always be pigs, but hopefully a black cop in town changes that. That’s what I’m tryin’ to do.’

‘You always wanted to be a policeman?’

Sparrow shrugged. ‘Tried to be a tradie once, a chippie. Couldn’t get past the hazing. What about you, why’d you choose to become one of the bad guys?’

Manolis rubbed his jaw in thought. ‘Dunno,’ he finally said. ‘I just never imagined doing anything else. You remember when you were a kid and the adults asked what you wanted to be when you grew up and all the boys said policemen or firemen or astronauts? I guess I never grew out of that phase.’

Sparrow smiled warmly, perhaps remembering his own childhood.

‘I like that story,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘Much better than saying you were trying to avoid being shot with a nail gun.’