Chapter 26

‘DRIVE HIM STRAIGHT back to the centre right now. We can’t leave him sitting in the car in broad daylight – people might see him.’

Deacon was growling at his colleague in the station doorway, giving him clear, unequivocal instructions. They each held a detainee before them, two arms pinned behind two backs.

‘You hear me? No more cock-ups here, Baz. This is now very bloody serious. Drive him straight back, drop him off, and then get back here to wait for me to finish up.’

Ahmed was loaded into the four-wheel drive like cargo and told to lay low. It sped away, tyres squealing. The second pairing of guard and detainee came down the hall and took up position in the station’s tearoom. Manolis again had to explain his desire for privacy. Deacon was again reluctant to grant it, and in the end sat by the window to grudgingly stare outside.

‘Mr Lee Francis Cook?’

The detainee’s sun-crinkled features tightened. He glared at Manolis with an intense inspection.

‘Yes, sir. And you are?’

His voice was deep and husky, like that of an old crooner. It was a patently Australian accent, and yet his words were clear and precise with a certain refinement that hinted at pedigree and schooling.

As with the young Muslim, the middle-aged Caucasian suspect was almost exactly as the observant headmaster had described. Manolis watched him run his hands through his scarecrow hair, tensing a pair of thick biceps in the process. His blue shearer’s singlet exposed fine hair on his forearms, shoulders and chest. Cook retained a healthy pink vigour that was in stark contrast to the washed-out Iraqi.

Manolis stood, offered water. ‘Hello, Mr Cook. My name’s Detective Sergeant George Manolis.’

Cook took the mug, and then shook hands. Manolis noticed he had hands like laundry buckets. The grip was solid, meaningful.

‘Detective, you say? Then I must be here for one reason.’ Cook sniffed the contents of the mug, and only then took a swig.

Manolis reached for his notepad, his questions. Cook spoke freely and without prompting. He took uncertain sips from his mug as if expecting the worst from it.

‘We were lovers,’ he said. ‘Once. Until she ended it, a few months ago. She said she did so reluctantly, and I believed her. She loved me and I loved her. Still, I can’t blame her for ending things – it’s not like our relationship could go anywhere.’

Cook explained that it was his incarceration that came between them. With such an uncertain future, he could offer her nothing.

‘Given my circumstances, I found that I was invariably at Molly’s beck and call. We always went to her house. Never up there in that godforsaken hellhole.’

In Manolis’s experience, such a direct, candid disclosure of information was either a sign of innocence or a finely rehearsed charade orchestrated to the nth degree. It was the same for Ahmed’s recollection of stonings he had witnessed. Cook’s admission was welcomed, but did it identify the owner of the Y-fronts found in Molly’s cupboard? They may have been his… once. Or someone else’s, an as-yet-unidentified lover.

‘And where did you meet Molly?’ Manolis asked.

Cook ran a rough tongue across his dry lips. ‘At the detention centre, of course.’

‘Not in town?’

‘No.’

‘Were you in her class? Your English sounds perfect.’

‘No, I wasn’t. We met after one of her classes, in the northern courtyard. She approached me, and we just started talking.’

‘When was that?’

A long pause and a light sigh preceded his response. ‘Nearly a year ago, not long after I arrived. I stood out like a sore thumb. I still do.’ His eyes trembled in place, an unnerving tic.

Manolis struggled to keep up, his hand sore from writing. But he was intrigued. He sat forward. ‘Where exactly are you from?’

‘Originally? North London. A place called West Hampstead, to be more precise.’

Manolis felt bewildered, his face creasing with expression. With a heavy exhalation, Cook rolled his neck until there was a satisfying crack.

The youngest of four sons born at the Royal Free Hospital, Cook spent his years as a toddler chasing his older brothers across the lush green expanses of Hampstead Heath. Then, on his third birthday, the family immigrated to Australia as Ten Pound Poms.

‘My parents had hoped the warmer climes would help cure my brothers’ bronchial pneumonia,’ Cook said. He added, with a wry grin, ‘All that wonderfully clean London air. Particles inhaled and exhaled a billion times over.’

Ever since, fifty-five of his fifty-eight years, Cook had lived and worked in Australia. He’d never once returned to the British Isles, not even to visit.

‘I served as a volunteer in the Australian army reserve,’ he said, with a faux salute. ‘Can you believe that? I pledged my undying allegiance to this damned country…’

His entire family still lived in Australia. The eldest brother looked after their now elderly parents.

Having listened intently, Manolis extracted the moist biro from his lips. ‘So, you’re an Australian citizen?’

Cook’s face grew heavy with disappointment. ‘No. I had a child visa through my parents. And after being here so long, I can’t see myself as anything other than Australian. My whole life has been here, family and friends, work and memories. But officially no, I’m not Australian. On paper, I’m British. And that’s the problem.’

It had all started two years earlier. Cook admitted he’d had some ‘previous driving convictions, minor drug and alcohol offences, but nothing that attracted more than a fine’. Then he lit a fire. It was in bushland near his property, ostensibly to clear some old growth that itself was a fire hazard. The blaze was promptly extinguished by the Rural Fire Service, burning less than an acre of scrubland. It did not destroy any property or threaten life. It wasn’t even during summer. It was late April, autumn.

‘I was convicted of arson,’ Cook said. His words were muted, had an airless quality.

Manolis listened, wrote notes, but there was something in Cook’s voice that made him question his conviction. The detective nodded, but didn’t feel certain. He remembered the fire at the detention centre and his burnt car.

‘Did you have a permit?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Then fair enough,’ said the pragmatic lawman. ‘You do the crime, you do the time.’

‘Oh, I agree. No complaints there. I deserved to go to the nick. But it’s what came after…’

Cook claimed he’d been a model inmate, completing all the necessary rehabilitation programs and counselling. The prisoners’ review board noted that he’d demonstrated ‘a strong motivation to change his offending behaviour’, while a limited criminal history indicated ‘an ability to lead a pro-social life when returned to society’. After fifteen months, he was free.

‘Yes, I was free,’ Cook said. ‘Free as a bird.’ Then his face shadowed, his eyes sharpened. ‘I was free as a bird for all of two minutes.’

With his lungs still inhaling the air of freedom, Cook was apprehended at the prison gates. Only this time it wasn’t by police officers – it was by government immigration officials. He pointed out his visa but to no avail. He was immediately trucked to Cobb and handed over to the guards at the detention centre.

‘As it turns out, the immigration minister can now cancel the visas of people who’ve been convicted of a crime and sentenced to at least a year in prison,’ Cook said. ‘This is on the grounds of the so-called “national interest”. Apparently, I fail the character test. Who sits before you is a person of poor character.’

Manolis had heard stories about people being refused visas for not passing the character test. American rappers wanting to tour often made the news. Their colourful pasts inspired their lyrics, earned them street cred and sold millions of albums, but they also jeopardised visa claims. Being a member of a motorcycle club was similarly frowned upon. Cook’s circumstances were unusual and somewhat astonishing to Manolis. He wrestled with the idea that permanent residents were suddenly being removed for being of questionable character, even after they’d completed a prison sentence.

‘It’s a new power,’ Cook grumbled. ‘They amended an act of parliament. Never mind all the earlier acts that let me stay.’ A smile trembled at the side of his mouth. ‘Do you know, I’ve even heard about people who avoided prison time altogether after being deemed by a judge to have “good character” only to have a bureaucrat later disagree and have them locked up?’

Manolis raised an eyebrow. ‘Who told you that?’

Cook gestured over his shoulder at a dull-eyed Deacon.

‘One of those knuckle-dragging gorillas,’ he said, voice low. His smile broadened; he made a strange chuckle to himself. ‘The locals round here think I’m a complete joke. Here, Britain, have your convicts back! It’s so funny that they buy me beers at the pub in thanks for the laugh. I can’t blame them. If this situation wasn’t so real, and if this wasn’t me, it would be highly amusing.’

No one said anything for some time. Looking at Cook, Manolis thought his appeal to a girl from outback Australia was obvious. He was handsome and refined, and the antithesis of ordinary, familiar Joe Shrewsbury. Cook had an air of ‘other’ about him due to his British heritage. He was exotic. But then again, so was Omari.

Eventually, Manolis wiped the perspiration from his brow and said, ‘Did Molly ever think you were a joke?’

Cook’s hard blue eyes softened. ‘No,’ he said fondly. ‘She didn’t. Not once. She sympathised.’

‘I heard she was a kind woman,’ said Manolis.

‘She was. Even after she broke up with me, I can say that. She was genuinely concerned for me, how I would survive the centre; she knew I wasn’t a rotten apple. There’s no one at the detention centre who’s in for being a career criminal or murderer. Instead, you’ve got people with traffic offences or who had run-ins with the law a decade ago.’

Cook said he was trying to keep his head down, even more than he had in prison. He did not participate in strikes or riots and altogether steered clear of the gangs who ran the centre.

‘The gangs are ten times worse than prison,’ he said.

‘What kind of gangs?’ Manolis asked.

‘Just like prison, drawn along racial lines. But there’s religious lines in there too. People go slightly crazy when you throw different gods into the mix.’

Manolis pretended to cross himself. ‘My god is better than your god.’

Cook snorted a laugh. ‘Don’t believe a word they say. They’re all no-good cheats and liars.’

‘You’re not religious?’

‘My religion is no religion. I’m an atheist.’

Manolis thought a moment. ‘So how do you know all this if you keep your head down?’

Cook scratched his nose. ‘Molly,’ he breathed. ‘She would tell me. She came to me on my second day. She saw a clueless white man and knew I would get eaten alive. Do you know what the local residents in the town call that place?’

Coughing dryly, Manolis cleared his throat. ‘The brown house,’ he said reluctantly.

‘It’s humiliating,’ said Cook with a knowing smile. ‘I feel like I’m being made to do two sentences for the one crime, except the second sentence is much worse.’

Manolis tensed his bushy eyebrows together. ‘Really, immigration detention is worse than prison? With detention, you get to go out into the community every day. You were having a romantic relationship with a woman. It can’t possibly be worse than prison.’

Cook fixed him with a soulful gaze. ‘Spoken like a man who’s never been in prison,’ he said, voice muted.

Looking away, Manolis studied the floor.

‘They’re called immigration detention centres, but they’re basically prisons for immigrants and asylum seekers,’ Cook continued.

Manolis let his tired eyes drift back to the detainee.

‘In prison, you’ve also got a start date and an end date, you know how much time you have to serve,’ Cook said. ‘Mentally, that’s huge. But with detention, the sentence is open-ended. Being a model detainee means nothing, there’s no incentive. And there’s never any information about appeals.’

‘I find that surprising,’ said Manolis. ‘Even prisoners in supermax get news about appeals.’

Cook nodded. ‘Exactly.’ He proceeded to compare his incarceration to a natural disaster or terrorist attack. ‘Not that I’ve been in one, but at least there, you hear positive stories about survival and bravery and rebuilding. There’s optimism. But there’s none of that in detention, no sense of “moving on”.’

They stared at each other for some time, sticky heat licking at their faces. Manolis dragged a finger across his forehead, wiped away another oily veneer of sweat.

‘And then, when it’s all over – whenever that is – I may end up being sent to England,’ Cook added. ‘I’d have to leave my job, my friends, my family, and the life I have here to go to a country I don’t know. I’d have no family, no support, no accommodation and no employment.’

A hot flush of panic pooled in Manolis’s stomach, and tension spidered through his veins. He regarded the striking Englishman who now sat motionless, silently watching the tearoom floor. There seemed no reason to doubt his story, as impossible as it sounded. Regardless, Manolis made a note to check Cook’s background, place of birth and full criminal history. Did it start with driving, drug and alcohol offences and end with arson, or were those just the beginning? Was there assault, grievous bodily harm, violence against women? Was there more behind Molly’s reason to end their relationship? Or was there something more political, against the state?

Cook’s punishment was another matter. He was a product of Australian society, yet the solution was to ship him abroad…?

‘At least you’d be going to Britain,’ Manolis said. ‘There are detainees who dodged bombs and pirates and nearly drowned to get here. Every day, they fear being returned to war zones in Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan.’

Cook looked up, his eyes shiny and moist. ‘But they’re not Australian,’ he said firmly. ‘I am.’