THEY ROLLED THROUGH the town. Hirsch’s trip into the back country had taken hours, and now it was late Saturday afternoon. A second outside-broadcast van was parked near the entrance to Kitchener Street, and it looked as if a handful of locals were guarding the crime-scene tape alongside Constables Landy and Medlin, Sergeant Brandl’s ‘children’.
Craig’s agitation increased. Close to panicking, Hirsch realised, seeing the heaving chest, the claw-like opening and closing of hands. ‘Craig?’
Hirsch did not stop but trundled to the northern end of the town and turned left onto the first farm road. All the while, he kept up a low, calming patter: ‘Breathe deeply and slowly…I’ll have you with Nan in just a minute…We’ll go in the back way…Deep, slow breaths…’
It began to work, Washburn eventually sitting easier in the passenger seat. Hirsch drove for two hundred metres, glancing to his left until he judged they were adjacent to the rear of Nan’s property, separated from her stable block by a stretch of just-harvested wheat.
‘Okay?’
Washburn nodded.
They got out, climbed over a wire fence and crossed the paddock, the soil baked red and hard between rows of stiff, bleached stubble. ‘Watch out for snakes,’ Washburn said.
A good sign, Hirsch thought, if he’s able to apprehend the world and the welfare of another man in it. So long as we can keep him sheltered.
Then they were in Nan’s yard and already Hirsch could see that someone had been busy. The carcasses were gone; fresh soil had been raked over the blood pools. Expecting Washburn to notice, he turned to the man reassuringly, but Washburn was running to the railing fence with a little cry and Radish, trailed by the ponies, was trotting to greet him.
Hirsch had always believed you could read a dog’s face. Now he was reading joy, or something like it, on Radish’s.
Nan and Yvonne emerged from the back veranda, trailed by Detective Comyn, who immediately grabbed Hirsch by the arm. ‘Over here.’
In the shade of a rainwater tank, his voice low, tense, he said, ‘You took your sweet time.’
Hirsch explained.
Comyn wasn’t interested. ‘Did he do it?’
‘No,’ Hirsch said, outlining Craig’s alibi.
Comyn gave another of his grunts, watching the tableau at the railing closely, as if hoping the surviving horses would finger Craig Washburn, rear up in terror at the sight of him and charge to the bottom corner of their paddock. But the scene was calm, Washburn stroking necks and snouts while the women patted his back.
Comyn sighed and shook his head. He spotted the roof of the HiLux in the distance. ‘Used your brains, I see. Fucking media.’
‘Did they film anything?’
‘Nothing for them to film. Knowing they might send in a drone or a chopper or come in over the back fence like you did, I had a word with Mrs Washburn and the vet, and the upshot was a few of the locals carted the bodies off in a truck and delivered a load of topsoil.’
‘Good thinking.’
‘And Mrs Washburn—brave lady—walked down and fronted up to the cameras a couple of hours ago. No histrionics, no blame, just a few facts. Didn’t take questions.’
But Hirsch knew that even with a victim statement, and without visuals, the evening news broadcasts would milk the story for all it was worth. ‘Tomorrow could get messy.’
‘A pleasant Sunday outing for some people,’ Comyn said. ‘Too bad there’s nothing to look at.’
They were almost chatting like equals, Hirsch’s lower rank and pariah status forgotten.
‘About tomorrow…’
‘Reinforcements,’ Comyn said. ‘Grudging reinforcements, a handful of reinforcements, and not till about nine in the morning.’
Port Pirie and Clare would each send a car and two officers, he said. Meanwhile he was due back at Port Pirie and Sergeant Brandl and her constables were about to go off-duty. A hard little grin: ‘That leaves you, pal, on the front line, all night long.’
‘Terrific,’ Hirsch said.
What he didn’t say, but wondered, had the area commander underestimated the incident? Thinking, who cares about a couple of mutilated horses?
Hirsch could answer that—about ninety-nine per cent of the population. Turn a blind eye to people hurting each other but weep buckets over an abandoned puppy.
‘With any luck, tomorrow will be a fizzer,’ Comyn was saying, ‘but a bit of crime-scene tape’s not going to stop anyone and nor is a wire fence, so: strategy.’
He laid it out for Hirsch. Beg, borrow and steal roadworks trestles and planks from the district council depot to block off the entrance to the street. Arrest anyone who came onto Mrs Washburn’s land. A politely antagonistic approach to gawkers.
‘Politely antagonistic?’ said Hirsch, half-warming to the Port Pirie detective.
‘Let them see you photographing faces and numberplates. If they want to know why, smile and say we fully expect the culprit to come back and gloat over his handiwork.’ He shrugged. ‘Could even be true.’
‘The good old us-and-them approach to police work,’ Hirsch said.
As darkness crept in, Hirsch—now the sole representative of law enforcement in the town—stood morosely at the entrance to Kitchener Street, contemplating his phone. He was supposed to celebrate Christmas with Wendy and Katie tonight: their place, a sleepover.
He dialled, Wendy answered, he explained. ‘Another thwarted roll in the hay.’
A tiny but significant hesitation. ‘They warned me not to get involved with a cop. You warned me.’ Trying to make light, not quite succeeding.
She’s disappointed, Hirsch thought. She almost never was, when his work intervened. But she might be forgiven for feeling something at Christmas time—for wanting to spend some time with him. And he might be forgiven for wanting that, too.
He found himself stumbling: ‘I’ll make it up to you after Christmas. I’ll—’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said, her voice warm again. ‘If you can’t come to us, we’ll come to you.’
He liked that about her. She didn’t dwell, she found positive alternatives. ‘That’d be great.’
‘But we won’t man the barricades.’
‘Fair enough.’
Mother and daughter reached the police station at seven-fifteen with the makings of a stir-fry. Katie asked where her Christmas present was as soon as she got out of the car.
‘I can see I’ve trained you well,’ Hirsch said, putting his arm around her while Wendy looked on, familiar with their routines by now. Giving Hirsch a complicated look. As if to say, don’t take me for granted. As if to say, sorry about earlier.
Hirsch shot her a look of his own then turned to Katie. ‘More to the point,’ he said, ‘where’s my present?’
‘It’s so big we needed a truck.’
‘And the truck broke down.’
‘Got lost. No one knows where it is.’
The banter died away and was replaced by a strange shared anxiety, as if a malign force had rolled across the highway from Nan Washburn’s street.
‘Let’s eat,’ Hirsch said, ushering them into the police station.
They dined in his backyard, wearing paper hats and reading aloud their lame Christmas-cracker jokes. Then present-giving: from Wendy a history of the mid-north written by a retired headmaster of the high school where she taught maths, from Katie a CD she’d burnt for him titled Old Fart Songs. They exclaimed pretty convincingly over his gifts to them, and finally Wendy was saying, ‘We’d better go, early start in the morning.’
Out on the footpath again, the highway silent, insects flickering in the street lights, Hirsch kissed them goodbye. ‘Safe trip, speak to you Christmas Day.’
‘If not before,’ Wendy said, her warm shape briefly pressed to his.
Then she stepped back a little and gazed at him straightforwardly. ‘On Thursday Katie and I are going to my brother’s for a post-Christmas lunch. We’d like you to come with us.’
Her brother and his family lived in Morgan, she said, on the River Murray, and wouldn’t be attending the main Christmas gathering that year. ‘They usually don’t,’ she said balefully, ‘so we go to them. Otherwise I’d never see them.’
They never come to see you, Hirsch thought. ‘I’d love to.’
She laughed. ‘…Because I’ve made it sound so inviting.’
Another round of hugs and then the two of them were in the car, Wendy sketching a goodbye wave, Katie waggling her iPhone in one of its new cases. Hirsch felt their absence at once, like a chilled space in the warm night air, and then they were nothing but receding tail-lights.
He crossed the highway, feeling bereft, tethered to nothing, a man of no account. Nan’s street was quiet and empty beyond the barrier, and the town slumbered. He wandered back to his rooms behind the police station and his phone beeped for an incoming text. Martin Gwynne: Re tomorrow, quick reminder, working bee at 9, dinner 6.30.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Sunday, 6 a.m., and Hirsch walked the town. He’d not been called overnight, and the highway was empty. Slipping aside a trestle, he walked up Kitchener Street and into Nan Washburn’s driveway. The house and yard were silent, the horses standing at the rail, tossing their heads to see him—not in fear, he thought. He walked back to the highway and in and out of the side streets. The air was clean and mild, and nothing stirred but Hirsch and the morning birds.
The Clare police car arrived at 8.30, the Port Pirie car at 8.40, Sergeant Brandl’s children—scowling at Hirsch as if this was all his fault—at 8.55. Coffee and a briefing on Ed Tennant’s shop veranda. The only vehicles to pass through the town were a tour bus, a road train of hay and a handful of vehicles wearing inland dirt—headed for church services; making an early start on Christmas travel. Then Martin Gwynne’s Camry rolled by and Hirsch remembered the tennis-club working bee.
His mood dropped instantly. One—Martin Gwynne. Two—surely he had the best excuse you could think of for getting out of it? Three—would anyone other than Martin be there, this close to Christmas? Four—he was due at Martin’s for dinner at six-thirty; surely that would do? Five—Martin Gwynne.
Time passed. A couple of gawkers gathered at the barricade and a Channel 10 cameraman and reporter were turned away from Nan’s back fence—which didn’t stop them from filming the stable block, yard and surviving horses—but otherwise the town was quiet. Maybe the afternoon would be more hectic: it was a Sunday morning, after all.
Ten o’clock. No wind in the air now, just heat. The kind to set up a snap and a crackle in gum trees, timber beams and iron roofs. The briefing over, Hirsch left the newcomers to police the town and walked around to the tennis courts. Only six pairs of hands there—usually a working bee would attract twenty or more—Martin and Joyce, the former looking pointedly at his watch, Bob Muir, the primary school head—and the Bagshaw twins, who greeted Hirsch with sly humour.
‘Hirsch, mate,’ Ivan Bagshaw said. ‘Pop by in the morning…’
Carl Bagshaw completed the thought. ‘…with the patching truck.’
‘Fill your driveway potholes,’ Ivan said. He was lubricating the net-tightening winder, Ivan stirring a tin of white marker paint.
Hirsch glanced uneasily at Martin, who was hovering nearby with the air of a foreman. ‘That’d be great.’
‘I’ll be ready.’
The brothers were employed by the council to maintain roads, replace bullet-holed speed signs, repair broken swings and prune the war memorial roses. Unhurried, sleepy-eyed men who, with racquets in hand, were quick, precise doubles sharks. Off court, they viewed the world as mildly amusing: not much mattered, no point in trying to change things. They drove Martin Gwynne to distraction.
And now Martin was telling Hirsch he’d be helping repair the nets. ‘Quickly now.’
The nets were beached at one end of the main court, ready to be unfurled for mending. ‘There’s needle and thread in the box.’
‘Right.’
‘You didn’t think to bring leather gloves?’
No, Hirsch hadn’t thought to bring leather gloves—or any kind of gloves. His life was full of things he hadn’t thought to do, and things he knew he ought to have done.
‘I’ve got a spare pair in the ute,’ Carl Bagshaw said, ambling away with a lazy wink.
Hirsch gave them an hour of his time, then returned to Kitchener Street.
‘Anything?’
‘Nothing.’
Nothing all day, nothing they couldn’t manage, and Hirsch, conferring by phone with Comyn and Brandl, sent everyone home at 4 p.m. He’d leave the barricade in place for a couple of days, but the weekend was over, and it was Christmas in a couple of days’ time, so he wasn’t expecting a last-minute influx of bored rubberneckers.
He spent the rest of the afternoon sluicing back-country dust from the wheels and panels of the HiLux, phoning his parents and contemplating the dingy walls of his office. Start painting the walls, or chill out with a beer?
That was easy. A short time later he was reading his present from Wendy under the ceiling fan, a beer at his elbow. The book proved to be more absorbing than he’d expected. The Keir family was there, Keir homestead, the Redruth copper mine, the Cornish miners, in text and photographs. The Razorback draped in snow; a field of wildflowers out east; the shepherd’s son’s grave; a Ngadjuri grinding stone; a bushfire in the Tiverton hills. He flicked through to the index: Muirs and Bagshaws had been in the district since records began.
Armed with Christmas chocolates and a bottle of Clare Valley riesling, Hirsch knocked on the Gwynnes’ door at six-forty. He heard Martin on the other side: ‘Can you get that, Mother?’ Then Joyce Gwynne was opening the door with a curious bob—half shy curtsy, half sheer terror—and not meeting his gaze. Proffering the chocolates and wine, Hirsch said, ‘Hope I’m not too late?’
Arriving ten minutes after the appointed time was his way of showing passive resistance to Martin. Small-minded, but Hirsch didn’t care; it was still satisfying.
‘Come in,’ Joyce said. She stood aside, eyes cast down, watching his shins cross the threshold before she lifted her head and shot him a brief, searching look. He couldn’t read it. A warning?
The house was cool, hushed, dimly lit, everything in retreat from life. Down a long hallway to an open-plan arrangement of sitting and dining areas, with a kitchen on the other side of a long dividing bench. The table was set, with plain boiled potatoes in one bowl and pale iceberg lettuce and tomato wedges arranged depressingly in another. There was a pot on the stove. Some kind of stew? In this weather?
‘Smells great,’ Hirsch said.
‘It’s a work day for you tomorrow,’ Martin said, ‘so we thought we’d eat straight away. In any case…’ He checked the time ostentatiously.
‘Excellent,’ Hirsch said.
‘Sit here,’ murmured Joyce.
‘Thought we’d have a red with this,’ Martin said, when they were seated. ‘An interesting Barossa shiraz you might like.’ He poured for Hirsch, for himself—significantly more for himself—and sparkling water for his wife.
Hirsch reached to take a swig, thought better of it because Martin was speaking. ‘We like to say grace,’ he intoned, and Hirsch felt the man’s hot dry grip close around his right hand, Joyce’s tiny damp fingers creep into his left.
‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful, for ever and ever, amen.’
‘Amen,’ echoed his wife, barely audible.
Hirsch managed a strangled cough, and they ate.
‘Delicious,’ Hirsh said and, surprisingly, it was the truth.
The conversation didn’t stray from the events of the town. What a good job Bob Muir had done, installing night lights around the tennis courts. Ed Tennant might want to think about getting Gemma some on-the-job training, the girl was a useless lump.
And poor Nan and her ponies…
Then, his face shining with expectation, Martin said, ‘I know you can’t comment on an ongoing investigation, Paul, but am I on the right track in assuming young masters Cobb and Flann had something to do with it?’ He raised one hand and touched off the fingers one by one. ‘They’re friends. No other boys their age to spend time with. Crazy—for want of a better word—mothers. No father-figure to guide them. And they probably hated having to apologise to Nan.’
Hirsch mopped at his gravy with a potato. ‘Actually, Martin, I’m pleased to report that neither boy was responsible. So it’s still an open case.’
Martin raised his eyebrows. ‘Really. I’m surprised to hear that.’
Wanting more, but Hirsch didn’t oblige. The clack of cutlery in the silence, the soft whine of an overhead fan, a truck trundling through the town. Then Joyce said, ‘How is Mrs Street? I was hoping she might have accompanied you this evening. She’d have been very welcome.’
It was the most she had ever said to Hirsch. And he appreciated the sentiment, even as he shuddered to picture Wendy’s take on a meal in this house. Gazing at Joyce Gwynne curiously, he saw that she was meeting his gaze. She seemed to be saying the evening might have been different if she’d had any say in it.
‘Wendy’s good, thanks,’ he said warmly. ‘She and Katie are away for a few days, extended family Christmas.’
‘Too bad you have to work,’ she went on.
‘Well, it’s the nature of the beast.’
Martin followed their exchange as if he couldn’t believe its triteness. ‘Let’s repair to the sitting room, Paul. I have something to show you.’
It was a signal for Joyce to clear the table. She remained in the kitchen, from where Hirsch sensed a tentative scraping of plates and running of taps, while Martin ushered him to one end of a pneumatic tan leather sofa and seated himself at the other end. An iPad materialised in his lap.
‘Are you on Facebook?’
Hirsch shook his head.
‘I’d have thought it a useful crime-fighting tool. Never mind, Mother and I are on it, and there’s also a Tiverton page you might be interested in.’
He scooted closer to Hirsch, angling the screen. Hirsch peered unwillingly.
‘This is what Nan posted,’ Martin said, scrolling, pausing at a photo. A dead pony in the dirt, outstretched neck, blood. ‘She says: Whoever did this has hit at my livelihood. I’ll have to work on the surviving ponies for months now, they’re so skittish. It’s mindless, shameful brutality. No respect for harmless creatures who share the world with us. But what goes around, comes around, and the thugs who did this will get caught.’
‘She’s right,’ Hirsch said, feeling inadequate.
Martin ignored him. ‘Look at the responses. Whoever did this was most probably bored, selfish and stupid…I can’t believe it could happen around here…Someone’s going to start bragging and it will all come out.’
‘Certainly hope so,’ Hirsch said.
‘But that’s not the main thing, Paul. I found this on YouTube.’
And there, after the ad-skip, was Hirsch. A wobbly video clip of him struggling with Denise Rennie outside Ed Tennant’s shop. Denise looking down in astonishment at Hirsch’s service pistol in her hand. Denise dropping the pistol.
‘I won’t make you look at the comments, Paul, I’m not a cruel man. But forewarned, as they say, is forearmed.’