'Next stop, Mrs Flowers,' Miss Morgensen said when they'd delivered all but the last of the charity boxes. Emmanuel parked at the edge of a wide field pockmarked with the remnants of night fires and switched off the engine.

'We'll have to go cross-country to deliver this one.' She indicated a path that cut into the derelict land.

Emmanuel carried the box in the crook of his arm and followed the missionary down the narrow path. They headed for an abandoned two-storey structure set amid waist-high grass and guava trees most probably sown by bird droppings. Most of the windows in the decaying building were boarded up and the remainder appeared as black spaces punched into the bricks. The faint outline of the word 'Soup' ghosted across a sooty wall. Maydon Wharf, the industrial heart of the port, loomed in the background. A family of vervet monkeys trooped along the buckled roofline and clambered into the branches of an overhanging fig tree.

'Has she been here long?' Emmanuel asked. He felt for the handcuffs in his back pocket to make sure they were accessible. The field was open on all sides allowing escape routes in every direction. Too much ground for a single man to cover. If he flushed out Joe Flowers, he'd have to grab him and pin him down quickly.

'She's been here a few weeks.' Miss Morgensen led him along the pathway with the walking stick clutched like a weapon. 'A rent increase forced her out of her last boarding house and she's too ill to work so she landed here. I'm hoping this situation is temporary. This isn't the safest building. Too close to the port.'

'Has she got family?'

'A son, but he's in all-male lodgings,' came the tactful reply.

The vegetation on either side of the path was thick and the wind made a thin whistling when it blew across the wild field.

Emmanuel slowed before they entered the building and checked the area. All clear. Miss Morgensen tramped towards a buckled concrete-and-steel staircase that led to the upper level.

'The ground floor is for the more transient types,' she said while they climbed higher. 'The first floor has a few rooms with doors and locks. Mrs Flowers is in one of those, thank the Lord.'

There wasn't much to thank a higher power for in the gutted soup factory. Shoots of green vine curled through the gaps in the boarded-up windows; cracks in the ceiling admitted weak shafts of sunlight. Emmanuel's eyes adjusted to the darkness.

The upper floor contained a series of rooms squared around the staircase. They moved to a door at the far end of a corridor where the shadows were at their deepest. Force of habit dipped Emmanuel's hand down to his hip to unclip his revolver and he touched the empty loop of his belt instead.

He followed Miss Morgensen into a rectangular room with four mattresses laid out on blistered linoleum tiles and stood just inside the doorway. A charred hot-water urn was bolted to the side wall where the staff morning-tea table must once have been. Three of the beds were unoccupied; the fourth was home to a faded woman with thinning brown hair. He placed the box on one of the empty beds and moved back against the wall.

The woman struggled to a sitting position and wrapped a fringed shawl around her shoulders. Her cheeks were sunk so deeply into her face that she resembled a mine collapse.

'Mrs Flowers ...' The missionary hesitated at the foot of the mattress, her way barred by a wooden box packed with apples wrapped in purple crepe paper. A bulging sack stamped 'Export' leaked a pool of raw sugar onto the floor. The silver trim of a new Primus gas burner sparkled like a diamond in the dim room.

'I forgot you were coming,' the woman said and plucked nervously at the tassels of her shawl. 'I was just resting.'

The box of apples and the sugar sack had come straight off the docks on the Maydon Wharf. They were common enough items to be listed missing or stolen in shipping company ledgers and then forgotten. Mrs Flowers's new woollen shawl and the pyramid-shaped bottle of perfume on the crate next to her bedding were the kind of gifts a thoughtful son might shoplift for his ailing mother.

'You look well.' Miss Morgensen squeezed herself onto the end of the mattress and glanced at the new things surrounding Mrs Flowers. The Zion charity box was paltry compared with the gas burner and the boxes of candles and matches stacked along the wall.

'I feel well,' Mrs Flowers said. 'I've got some of my strength back.'

'That's good news. You need to rest, and when the hospital gets its shipment of medicines I'll bring your pills straight over.'

A whistled tune accompanied the slap of shoes on the central staircase. Mrs Flowers tried to lift her weight off the bed but her strength failed her. The whistling grew louder and Emmanuel kept out of sight.

'Don't fret, sister.' Miss Morgensen patted the woman's hand. 'We'll leave you in peace.'

The Norwegian missionary picked up her walking stick and straightened her skirt. Emmanuel stayed put and listened.

A tall female figure wrapped in an ankle-length mauve coat appeared in the doorway. A box of fresh tomatoes was cradled in the woman's arms, and the chiffon veil of her jaunty straw hat shielded her face from the world. She stepped forward and flashed a broad shin. Dark hair sprouted through the nylon stocking.

Mrs Flowers whispered, 'My boy ...'

The box of tomatoes smashed to the floor and red fruit bounced across the tiles. Emmanuel grabbed for Joe but he was quick and slid through the doorway like an eel. Emmanuel caught a handful of material and tugged. The coat came away in his hands and Joe ran the length of the corridor. Emmanuel sprinted and closed the gap to a body length at the top of the stairs. Joe cleared two at a time, his muscular arms flapping away from his body in an effort to gain speed. Emmanuel lunged and Joe went airborne, sailing over the last four stairs in a mighty leap that sent a cloud of ash exploding off the floor when he landed. He sprinted out of the front entrance and disappeared into the grass.

Emmanuel ran the perimeter of the crumbling building. Joe Flowers was fast despite the weight of his huge head. A woman's leather shoe in a ridiculously large size lay at the edge of the field.

A breath came from deep in the faded greenery.

Emmanuel approached carefully and broke through the vegetation. A small man stood in a trampled circle of grass with his trousers around his ankles. An obese girl with lank blonde hair was busy removing her bloomers. They swung around, panicked at being discovered. The girl was more experienced than her customer. She slipped into the brush with her underwear bunched in her hand. The man struggled with his trousers; breath coming hard with fear now, not anticipation. A wedding ring flashed dull gold when his hands fumbled with the buttons of his fly.

'Please, mister,' the man mumbled. 'I've never done nothing like this before. Promise.'

'Button up your pants,' Emmanuel said. 'And go home.'