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man.”
    Sergeant Michael Leafe, who’d just arrested Roy, was inside the station but he told investigators he didn’t see or hear anything. He claimed he left Hurley alone with Doomadgee for ten seconds while opening the door to one of the station’s two cells. When he returned the prisoner was limp. Leafe and Hurley each took Cameron Doomadgee by a wrist and dragged him on his back into the concrete cell. When they were done, Roy Bramwell said he saw Hurley rubbing his chin. The officer had a button undone.
    “Did he give you a good one?” Roy asked.
    “A helluva good one,” Hurley replied.
    Then, Roy claimed, Hurley asked him if he had seen anything. Roy said no, and the senior sergeant told him to leave. Roy went back to the post office to get his welfare check, along the way warning some friends, “Chris Hurley getting into Cameron.” They told him, “Go tell someone, tell the Justice Group.” But Roy didn’t tell the Justice Group, a community programme run by elders to settle conflicts. None of them did anything. They went on drinking.
    Meanwhile Hurley and Leafe went to get Patrick Nugent out of the van. He was so drunk they had to carry him through the hot, cramped box of the police station and dump him beside Cameron in the cell. Then Hurley put a videotape in the cell surveillance monitor and tried to get on with his day.
    E LEVEN WEEKS LATER , Cameron’s family sat in the council boardroom, enveloped in the bile-coloured glow of this video, watching their brother die.
    From high in the cell corner where the camera was installed, the two men sprawled on the concrete floor look like they’ve fallen from a great height. Cameron writhes. He calls out, “Help me!” The sound is distorted. It’s a desperate, agonised, animal cry. “Help me! Help!” he calls again. Patrick, half paralysed with drink, feebly pats Cameron’s head and Cameron rolls closer to him, for warmth or for comfort. They lie there inert for a minute or so. A digital clock runs on the top left of the screen.
    Hurley enters—rangy in his blue uniform, with sideburns, a hint of a pompadour, and a glare. From this angle he looks enormous. He stands staring down as if at two dolls. When he leaves, Cameron lurches away from Patrick. Then he’s still. They’re both still. The seconds on the digital clock flick over. Life is escaping. Ten minutes, twenty; neither man moves.
    The Doomadgee family sat in silence, watching.
    After half an hour, Sergeant Leafe comes into the cell. He kicks Cameron. When there’s no response he kicks him again. At the inquest, this is called “an arousal technique”. Leafe leans over the prisoner. He touches his skin. Then he goes to get Hurley. The senior sergeant returns with a torch and flashes the light in Cameron’s eyes. He hunches over Cameron, puts his hand under Cameron’s nose, feeling for breath. He searches for a pulse, and for a moment seems to think he’s found one. But he hasn’t. It’s his own adrenaline surging. He rushes out; at 11:22 he calls an ambulance. When at last the ambulance officers arrive, they pull a defibrillator out of a medical bag and place it on Cameron’s chest. Chris Hurley stands against the cell wall, watching. It’s too late. The ambulance officer shakes his head. Hurley slumps down the wall with his head in his hands.
    E LIZABETH D OOMADGEE walked out of the council building and sat on a bench under a mango tree. Nearby stood the wooden clock tower, each of its four faces broken. From here she could just see her daughter playing on the jetty. Kids rode up on wild horses and ran and backflipped into the water. Elizabeth stayed still. “The light shining on Hurley now,” she said finally, “but when the sun go down he a bad person.”
    Everyone on Palm Island had a story about what happened on that day. And everyone had a story about Senior Sergeant Hurley. He denied that he had ever been violent towards Cameron Doomadgee. His supporters claimed he was