A young drifter comes before Rafferty's court for being in possession of a cat skin.

There is an uneasy atmosphere around Rafferty's court when Flicker returns.

Rafferty, embroiled in what local papers call "the punk drug squatters assault case", faces a housing crisis of his own and deals with the by-products of a cashless society: credit card junkies.

Michael wrestles with the concept of possession after the discovery of Aboriginal remains creates a conflict of ownership between the state and the Indigenous community.

The personal and the professional converge for Flicker when the anti-nuclear group his son is involved in begins protesting the arrival of nuclear warships.

Michael considers his attitudes towards both politics and rural life after his cousin comes to the city, having now been elected to Parliament and holding very different opinions to Michael.

Michael sees the law from another perspective after he becomes the key witness in Flicker's prosecution against an arsonist.

An act of vandalism by the member of an animal rights group leaves Michael becoming emotionally involved with the accused's mother.

Michael and Flicker befriend the beachcomber and poet, Snowy White; however, their admiration is crushed when it begins to appear that Snowy may be guilty of murder.

Michael is reunited with an old classmate in the lead-up to a school reunion; however, he is left wondering if they've come very far at all since the schoolyard.