“What do you think he meant by that?” Bear asked Mannas as he walked across to sit at his desk.   “Does he mean that Moffett was a monstrous politician who would have ruined the state with his policies?   Or has he gone completely off his head and fantasised that Moffett was some kind of non-human monster?”

Mannas considered the question for a moment before answering.   “Most likely neither.   My guess is that he’s trying to build up an insanity plea so that he can be found unfit to stand trial.”

“Bullshit!” hissed Mel Forbes, who was sitting at one side of Bear’s desk.   “If you think that then you don’t know Tony Frankland!”

“You’re right, I don’t know him!” agreed Mannas, almost at a shout, having decided that he had had about as much as he could take of these local-yokel cops.   “All I know is that that freaked-out maniac blew the head off a man that it was my job to protect!”

“And that’s all you’re really worried about, isn’t it?” demanded Mel.   “You don’t give a bugger that Leonard Moffett was killed…Only that it happened while you were responsible for his safety!”

Glowing red-faced from anger Mike Mannas turned and stormed toward the front of the police station.    Stopping with one hand on the doorknob, he looked back toward Bear and said, “First thing tomorrow morning I’m taking the prisoner to Melbourne to be charge with the murder of Leonard Moffett!”

“Like Hell you are!” protested Bear.   “He’s my prisoner!”

After Mannas stormed out, slamming the door behind him, Bear turned toward Mel and said, “We’d better see if we can get some help from Jim Kane in Harpertown and Con Rodriguez in LePage, so that we can organise a twenty-four-hour watch on Tony.”

“Right,” agreed Mel.   “If we hand Tony over to that bastard, he’ll never reach Melbourne alive — he’ll end up shot while trying to escape for sure!”

The two policemen spent most of the night ringing round the neighbouring towns to organise a dozen or so men from the local constabulary to protect Tony Frankland around the clock.   By morning Bear was confident that they had a large enough “posse” assembled to prevent Tony from being snatched away by Mike Mannas.