Chapter 19

WHEN HE RETURNED to the tourist park, Manolis heard Rex and Vera arguing inside their cabin. He couldn’t make out what they were saying but their tone was unquestionable. She seemed to be contributing most to the discussion, her voice shrill and hectoring like fingernails on a blackboard. It bounced off the walls of their cabin, which had its doors and windows closed tight. Manolis considered knocking on the sliding door and asking if everything was okay, but in the end decided that a mental note would suffice. They were private citizens on their own property, and no one had complained about the noise. And besides, he was too dog-tired to deal with a bloody domestic.

He made a toasted cheese sandwich, ripped through it, ravenous. As the stale bread dissolved in his stomach, he savoured his nightly smoke on the verandah and regarded the night sky. Constellations emerged like a photograph sinking into a bath of developer, gradually becoming known to the eye. Every drooping gumleaf, every dry blade of grass, every rooftop was soon etched in radiant silver starlight. It was almost as if the moon was out.

Hearing Rex and Vera quarrel made Manolis’s mind wander, and he was grateful to put Molly out of his thoughts for a while. He considered the institution of marriage, of a life solely shared with one other, as his parents had shared theirs for some fifty years. In that time, he’d seen peaks and troughs, happiness and sadness, joy and frustration. He pondered his own marriage – or, at least, the union that had once been. No doubt his neighbours had heard them arguing too, often late at night.

Emily was a quiet, introspective solicitor whom Manolis had met working on a case. Her forebears hailed from the British Isles as so-called Ten Pound Poms. The cracks of their relationship, their marriage, which they’d once successfully plastered over with work and ignorance, had become gaping chasms with the arrival of children. It was the sleepless nights, the perpetual lack of time, and the extra duties and responsibilities. Manolis had expected it all but was never fully prepared. Having been one herself, Maria had warned her son to marry ‘a good Greek girl’ and have ‘good Greek babies’. He had ignored her. Now, for the rest of their lives, she would always be right.

Manolis stubbed out his cigarette with minor disgust and went inside. He showered, flopped onto his mattress and was asleep in seconds.

His possum returned later that night, rousing him from a deep sleep with a clatter of cutlery. He was pleased to see that it had escaped the wrath of the car fire and returned with the same curiosity and hunger. Its damp eyes were clear and trusting.

‘Hey there, buddy. Good to see you’re okay. Want a snack? I’ve got a real treat for you tonight.’

He again fed it saltines, this time smeared with crunchy peanut butter, which it approached cautiously at first, then ate with gusto, licking its sticky lips.

Manolis also heard the fireworks again and fell back into bed with a long sigh, extending a bare arm across the scratchy sheets. He missed Emily. He missed her in bed, her deep breathing, her steadying presence and reassuring warmth.

Closing his eyes, he waited for his nightmare to restart: a bloodied, disfigured Molly Abbott being pelted with stones and screaming for her life. At times, he clutched his own head and face, or ground his back teeth further into pulp. The image would not dislodge; it interrupted his sleep. He feared it would be with him for some time. He wanted to forget it.

IN THE MORNING, the sky was yellow and rotting. Manolis could feel the heat coming out of the ground as he walked to his car. Vera was in her front yard, trying to tame some weeds. Her plastic goggles, vinyl gloves, rubber pants and gumboots made Manolis wonder if she was using Agent Orange. She waved when she saw him and went to remove her respirator mask. He waved back but kept walking.

She stood, goggles on forehead, mask hanging loose around her neck. A dark mark of sweat trailed between her breasts.

‘Lamb curry tonight, love?’ she asked. Her Jekyll voice was light, airy, and in stark contrast to the harsh screeching the night before. ‘Or I can grill some lamb chops or a juicy T-bone? The steaks from our abattoir are thicker than your arm.’

Manolis wrestled with the starter motor, swore at it in Greek. Bloody car wouldn’t kick over on purpose, he thought. God was punishing him for being such a heathen. Vera was waiting, face bright, hopeful. He’d better answer.

‘That’s a very generous offer, Mrs Boyd, but unfortunately I suspect I may be working late tonight.’

‘Sounds like you’ve got some leads then, eh. We sincerely appreciate it, Detective, thank you.’

‘No thanks necessary. I’m just doing my job.’

‘Are they Muslims?’

Manolis did not respond.

‘I knew it…’ She spoke with a sudden hateful smile, turning her head west, to the direction of the devil.

Manolis looked at her blankly. Vera was short and dumpy, the size of a garden gnome. Her cheeks were ruby red, glowing like hot coals in the roasting sun.

‘I can’t talk about the case,’ he said simply.

Her smile evaporated, her face turning down. Twice in two minutes he’d disappointed her. He continued to grind the key into the ignition, cursing both Jesus and God in the process. Vera looked at him with wrathful eyes. She wanted to scold him for his rampant blasphemy but held her tongue. In the end, she turned the other way, facing east, to confirm her faith.

‘Tell you what, whatever I cook, I’ll leave a plate in your fridge, yep,’ she said. ‘You can enjoy it whenever you get home.’

The car started. Hallelujah, praise the Lord.

‘That’s very considerate, but no thank you,’ Manolis said. The gear engaged with a crunch. ‘Sorry, but I have to go.’

He floored the accelerator with determination, hands clenching the wheel as the cold engine roared in agony, and he sighed with relief.

THE FLYBLOWN COP shop finally resembled a working police station for Wednesday morning’s nine o’clock briefing. Manolis was momentarily stunned. He stood before the constables and spoke briefly but assuredly. He told them about what he’d seen on Molly’s body during the morgue examination. He said the pattern of trauma suggested injury to the back of her head as well as the front.

Sparrow and Kerr looked at each other blankly, then at Manolis with the same expression.

‘So?’ Sparrow finally said. ‘She was stoned to death. With rocks. What a newsflash. I reckon that’d involve a fair amount of head trauma, don’t you?’

‘Well yes, obviously,’ said Manolis. ‘But she was tied to a tree. Don’t you find injuries to the back of her head surprising given she was tied to a tree?’

Sparrow let out a laugh. ‘Did you see the final position of her head? All drooped. Her bloody neck was broken.’

‘I guess it’s not that hard to imagine her head slumped forward after she died,’ Kerr added, ‘and then copped a few more rocks to the back, is it?’

Manolis agreed that was plausible. ‘I just didn’t expect it. I didn’t imagine someone would keep raining blows after she died.’

‘They would if they got pleasure out of it,’ Sparrow said.

‘She might’ve also turned her head away,’ Kerr said. ‘I know I would.’

Manolis looked at his feet, was reflective. ‘Yes, also possible. But just hear me out when I say I found it odd – my sixth sense was tingling. I’ve seen more brutal assaults in my time in the city. There might be something in it, there might not. But keep an open mind to all possibilities. I will too.’

Sparrow was soon hunched over his desk, simultaneously working a handset and filling an ashtray, searching for the phone records of a Mary Abbott or Margaret Abbott, or Molly or Mary or Margaret Boyd, her married name. Kerr went out doorknocking and chasing up alibis; Principal Searle was her first stop. Manolis expressed some concern over her house-to-house enquiries, which she was going to do solo – this wouldn’t have been allowed in the city. She told him, ‘Piss off, I’ll be fine,’ in a fierce tone. He backed down.

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.

Joe was in his forties but didn’t look it. He was like many men who grew up in small communities: always looking like boys, then suddenly old. There was never the gradual corrosion of features as they aged. He scratched his smooth chin and ran his blue eyes, still lustrous, over Manolis.

‘Hi, Joe,’ Manolis said kindly. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant George Manolis. You already know Sergeant Fyfe. Thanks for coming down. First of all, sorry about the seating arrangements.’

Having removed the excess garden furniture from the tearoom, Manolis had offered Joe a plastic milk crate as a seat. It was a tactic sought to heighten the suspect’s discomfort and set up a feeling of dependence.

‘Don’t mind,’ Joe said casually. ‘The base of me bed is crates.’

Fyfe let out a derisive laugh.

Joe ignored him. ‘Look, this gonna be quick? I gotta get back to me dogs, they’re hungry.’

After assuring him it would not take long, Manolis opened with a series of non-threatening questions. Joe looked at him from a long way away, pausing before he spoke but ultimately answering all that was asked. Fyfe shoved a blob of tobacco under his upper lip and sat quietly chewing, brooding, sneering.

Eventually, Joe interrupted Manolis’s questioning. ‘Look, Dick Tracy, save it. I know why I’m here. I didn’t kill her, orright?’

Manolis held up his left hand in a stopping gesture. ‘No one’s saying that, Joe. One thing at a time.’

Joe scratched at his flabby pectoral. ‘Honestly, ever since she slapped me in the pub that night, my dick went limp,’ he said bluntly. ‘I lost interest, never called her again. Frigid bitch. Check my phone records if ya want.’

Manolis remembered the supposed nuisance calls Molly had been getting and decided to call his bluff.

‘Go right ahead,’ Joe reiterated. ‘I got nuthin’ to hide.’

There was a long pause as the three men looked at each other. Manolis consulted his notepad, flipping through the spiral pages. ‘Joe, do you have any idea who might’ve wished harm on Molly? Even if it’s just a feeling. A sense of unease about someone, something you heard her say, something that didn’t quite sit right?’

Every single question was met with a headshake. ‘Like I said, ain’t seen her in ages. I haven’t a clue about any of that stuff. What she did, who she saw.’

Manolis sketched in his pad, pretending to write notes. He was drawing lines, connecting them, doodling. Fyfe cracked his knuckles so loud that it sounded like he’d snapped a finger. A pentagram soon materialised on Manolis’s page. He stared at it a moment, becoming aware of what he’d accidentally drawn. Looking up, he asked Joe about his whereabouts the night Molly died.

Joe folded his freckled arms across his hairless chest. ‘I already told that young copper you sent over. I was at the pub.’

Manolis tore out the pentagram page, screwed it up into a tight ball. ‘What time? How long were you there?’

‘Got in about eight, stayed all night. They turfed us out at dawn.’

‘No,’ Manolis said coolly, flicking back through his notepad. ‘We’ve been told you weren’t at the pub on Friday.’

Fyfe made a deep grunt, cold and loathsome. ‘Only a guilty prick would lie,’ he growled.

The lines on Joe’s face darkened. ‘Get your hand off it, Bill. Half the town’s on the run for somethin’ or other.’

Manolis again checked his notepad, as if to jog his memory. But he already knew what he was going to say.

‘You told Constable Sparrow you were at the pub last Friday, but the publican says he hasn’t seen you in a long time, let alone on Friday. In fact, he said you’re barred from the pub for hitting another woman who spilled your beer. So, care to try again…? Where were you on Friday night?’

Joe’s eyes darted. He arched his back and slapped his chest like an ape, letting out a long exhalation of hot, tight air. ‘So, what, now I’m a suspect?’

Manolis clicked closed his biro. ‘Everyone’s a suspect unless they can provide an alibi. You tell me where you were on Friday and who you were with. Once I confirm, I rule you out as a person of interest. I’m sure this is all very straightforward.’

His calm words were a soothing balm. Joe’s breath steadied, his eyes stared dead ahead. Fyfe continued to glare at the topless man with a combination of hostility and disgust. In the harsh morning light, Joe’s fleshy love handles appeared sickening.

Eventually, his face cracked. This expression was accompanied by an incredulous laugh that escaped his tight, blistered lips.

‘Look, I dunno what to tell ya. I was at the pub. Ya sure the publican’s not lying? You sure he’s not the killer? Bloody useless blackfella…’

Manolis recalled the publican at the top pub. Turps was his name. Hair was albino white, skin the colour of ice. Didn’t look like no Aboriginal fella to him.

‘Hang on a minute,’ Manolis said. ‘At which pub were you drinking?’

Joe looked insulted. ‘What, can’t a whitefella drink at the bottom pub? There a law against that now as well?’

Fyfe whacked the plastic table with an open hand, making it shudder. ‘Smart arse,’ he spat.

Joe turned his head coolly in the local sergeant’s direction. ‘Hey, Bill,’ he said calmly, ‘screw you too.’

Manolis leant forward, placed his palms on his knees and cocked his head. ‘So you’re telling me that you were actually at the bottom pub last Friday night?’

Joe eased back onto his crate. ‘Exactly like I said.’

‘And the publican there can attest to this?’

‘Reckon so. Aboriginal fella with a shaggy beard served me all night. I paid off the mortgage on his mud hut.’ Joe scratched his licey hair, liberating a cloud of dead skin and dandruff.

Manolis glanced over at Fyfe. ‘Blokes have been known to move between pubs,’ the sergeant conceded. ‘Depending on which one they’re banned from at the time. There’s no law against it.’

A pause. ‘Right,’ said Manolis. ‘I’m off.’

Time was running out.

Manolis looked at Fyfe, motioned to Joe. ‘But he stays here. You boys play nice.’

The two men eyed each other with distrust and suspicion, and with pure, burning hatred.

As Manolis walked away, he swung back to Joe, addressing him with a pointed index finger. ‘And if I find out you’re lying, I’m arresting you for obstructing a murder enquiry.’

Manolis turned and walked on.

Joe raised his voice to ensure he was heard. ‘This is exactly what they want, Detective. Those camel jockeys who stoned Molly to death, those sand niggers. It’s their plan. Isn’t it a sad bloody day when Australians are fighting among Australians to save Australia…?’