BOXING DAY. HIRSCH, bleary in the dawn light, was walking along the creek bed, sandwiched between Martin Gwynne and a Redruth pharmacist named Delia Paley. Straggling lines of volunteers kept pace with them on each bank. The search helicopter chattered above the mallee scrub to the north-east. Separate line searches, fanning outwards from the house on Hamel Road, were covering the dry wheat flats.
And Gwynne was going on and on. ‘It’s just that I have had some experience.’
Miffed because he hadn’t been put in charge of a search team.
‘Out of my hands, Martin,’ Hirsch said.
Thank God. He’d spent hours making calls and setting up a phone-tree last night, then, on four hours’ sleep, had been one of the first to arrive at the kill house. He’d helped oversee the parking of the volunteers’ vehicles, but after that he’d been told where to go and what to do, same as everyone else.
‘For example, those tourists last Easter,’ Gwynne insisted.
A Japanese couple who’d wandered into the bush after puncturing a tyre on a stone reef, to be found a couple of hours later by a scratch search party of Tiverton townspeople. Probably the quickest and least onerous search in mankind’s history.
‘We’re all equal here, Mr Gwynne,’ Delia Paley said—warm, polite, but with an edge.
A spasm of disparagement on Martin’s face, what Hirsch could see of it under the sensible broad-brimmed hat. A blob of zinc cream on his nose, turning greasy.
Hirsch swung his attention back to the creek bed. It had been pointless trying to spot shoe prints in last night’s half dark; he was hoping the sunlight would yield the clues they needed. The helicopter banked, swooped over them and disappeared towards the Mischance Creek ruins. It’s going to be a morning of false sightings, Hirsch thought. A different note cut the air and he looked up: a crop-duster based at the Clare aerodrome.
Martin halted importantly, his palm pushing at the wall of hot, still air, and peered down at the pebbles and sand. Crouched. Straightened, took out his phone and photographed whatever was at his feet, then glanced left and right for markers. Photographed a bent tree on one side, a dimpled hollow in the red dirt bank on the other.
Delia Paley had stooped to look at Martin’s find. ‘Star Wars figure,’ she said, reaching out a hand. ‘Chewbacca.’
‘What on earth do you think you’re doing. That’s evidence.’
Standing again, Paley flushed. ‘It’s old.’
‘It could be significant.’
Hirsch said, ‘I think Delia’s right, Martin. It’s been here for a very long time.’
Sun-bleached, cracked, missing an arm. He glanced up onto the bank, where Bob Muir waited patiently, looking in on them.
‘Bob, do the locals use this as a picnic spot?’
Muir nodded.
Hirsch turned back to Gwynne and clapped him on the back. ‘But thanks for spotting it, Martin. I would have missed it completely.’
Gwynne gave that some thought, then nodded. ‘Can’t be too careful.’
‘Absolutely,’ Delia Paley said, sharing a look with Hirsch.
He gave her a strangled grin. His life often consisted of standing between antagonistic parties. He took a swig of water from the bottle clipped to his belt. ‘Better keep going.’
They walked for five kilometres, Hirsch relaying their progress to the other teams and to Sergeant Brandl, who was coordinating from the house. Hot, getting hotter, nothing to deflect the sun. Hirsch’s bare arms were burning. Delia Paley turned an ankle when one round stone rolled against another, and switched places with Bob Muir.
After a while Bob said, ‘Search and rescue dogs?’
‘Two dogs and handlers expected late morning.’
‘Police or SES?’
‘Police.’
Trained in tracking and air scenting, probably. Hirsch visualised it, the handlers offering a T-shirt to one German shepherd, a little singlet to the other, before setting them on their way.
‘Have to do a damn sight better job than us,’ Muir said, ‘trampling over everything.’
‘Yes, Bob, but as Paul said, they won’t get here for some time,’ Gwynne said. ‘Meanwhile it’s imperative that we conduct line searches.’
He’s going to say time is of the essence, Hirsch thought.
‘Time is the critical factor here,’ Gwynne said. ‘It could mean the difference between two dead girls and two live ones.’
‘Mmm hmm,’ Muir said.
Hirsch shot him a look. Neutral. Steadfastly sweeping the ground with his gaze. Irritation in the set of his head.
They came to a ford, the creek bisecting a dirt road. Hirsch glanced at his map: Hope Hill Road. Before they could cross, Martin Gwynne snapped, ‘What are these idiots doing?’
The Flann brothers, approaching along the bed of the creek from the other direction. They stopped, Wayne offering a sleepy smile. ‘Constable Hirschhausen, sir.’
Hirsch wanted to say, don’t be a smartarse, but it would be wasted on Flann, who was lastingly derisive to everyone. He was slim, loose-limbed; on the surface a charmer, but no one was fooled. Women saw, beyond the good looks, a certain deadness and turned away. Men were wary.
Now, a little .22 rabbit rifle slung over one shoulder, he was wearing a tight khaki T-shirt with rolled sleeves, oil-stained jeans and elastic-sided boots. With the firearm, and his dark hair, lean face, olive-toned skin and lithe grace, he might have been playing a role. Not the hero, though.
Ignoring the rifle for now, Hirsch looked past Wayne to Adam. He seemed to be hiding behind his brother’s shoulder. ‘All right, Adam?’
‘He’s fine,’ Wayne said.
Martin Gwynne cut in. ‘Are you part of the official search? If not, how can we know that every area has been thoroughly checked?’
Flann smirked. ‘I’m here, aren’t I? I know what I’m doing.’
Hirsch touched Martin’s forearm warningly. ‘How far up did you boys start?’
‘Three or four k’s.’
‘See anything?’
‘Nope.’
‘I suggest you register with Sergeant Brandl at once,’ Gwynne said.
‘That’s what you suggest, is it?’ Flann said. ‘Good to know.’
Hirsch said, ‘Why the rifle?’
Wayne Flann gave a smile and a slow roll of his shoulders. ‘Don’t know if you’d noticed, but we’ve got a murderer running loose. Plus, snakes.’
He glanced at his feet, and Hirsch’s feet, then scanned the nearby dead grass. Hirsch scanned too, despite himself.
Which made Flann grin. ‘Be prepared, mate, that’s my motto.’
‘A shotgun would be better against a snake,’ Hirsch said, eyeing the rifle, a corner of his cop brain registering that it wasn’t the murder weapon.
‘Haven’t got one, you know that.’
Hirsch nodded. One of his duties was checking firearm licences and storage. He needed to get Flann to stow the gun away without publicly embarrassing him. He was grateful when Bob Muir murmured, ‘Wayne, it’s not a good look, walking around with a gun. Not after what’s happened.’
Not harsh. Not denigratory. Advising caution and good sense; sounding like a wise father. Hirsch saw a shift in Wayne, a nod of acceptance. ‘Yeah, okay.’
‘Anyway, good to see you both,’ said Muir. ‘How about you register with Sergeant Brandl and join one of the search parties so there’s no doubling up?’
The Flann boys climbed out of the creek, Adam giving Hirsch and Muir a swift grimace of apology before following his brother across the paddock to the house on Hamel Road. ‘What’s the betting they don’t register?’ Martin said.
Hirsch shrugged. He didn’t say that Wayne wasn’t a team-player kind of guy.
‘I don’t trust those Flann boys.’
‘Oh? Why’s that, Martin?’ Muir said.
‘The older one especially. The way he looks at you.’
Hirsch understood. The lazy grace and flat-eyed insolence. He kept walking. And then Martin was grabbing at his sleeve. ‘Have you looked at him for the horse mutilations, Paul?’
‘Martin, can we keep our minds on the search?’
‘It’s just that they’re very clannish, that family. I can well see the older boy getting back at Nan because she humiliated his little brother.’
Hirsch ignored him. Mid-morning now, the sun relentless. He’d almost drained his water bottle, and saw that the others had, too. He pointed. The Mischance Creek ruins were ahead, half-a-dozen lonely chimneys tethered to collapsed walls; a couple of corrugated-iron roofs held down by rusty nails and pointless doggedness.
‘Let’s find some shade and take a break. I’ll call Sergeant Brandl and ask her to send us more water.’
They walked on. A short time later, Hirsch grew aware that Delia Paley had stopped pacing him along the bank of the creek. Thinking her ankle strain had worsened, he looked up. Her face shone with discovery and expectation. ‘Shoe prints,’ she said. There was a tremor in her voice.
‘Secure the scene and wait,’ Comyn told Hirsch when he called it in. ‘The dogs are up and running. If they lead the handlers to you, then we’ll know for sure.’
‘We need water.’
‘Just wait, all right?’
Hirsch joined the others in the stingy shade of a crumbling wall. They all stared at the creek bank, where a patch of powdery dirt held prints: shoes with patterned soles, and tiny bare feet. The girls had paused there, Hirsch thought. Maybe the older one had carried the younger one. She’d have been wearing sandals or runners if she was still awake, helping her mother wrap the tricycle. When the shooting stopped she ran inside, snatched the little one from her bed and made a run for it. Got to the road, set her down to rest and…
And apparently vanished. No other prints that Hirsch could see. If someone had stopped to pick them up was it the killer? No scuff marks in the dirt. Too exhausted to struggle?
Fifteen minutes later he saw the handlers and their dogs, shapes shimmering and coalescing on the flatland between Mischance Creek and the kill house. Their progress was inexorable, destination inevitable. Standing to greet them, he saw the dogs halt, run their noses along the ground, try to catch fugitive scents in the air. The end of the line. They panted, gulped, sat. One of the handlers called: ‘This is as far as they went.’
Hirsch nodded glumly. He knew the road itself wouldn’t reveal anything useful. He’d driven along it yesterday. This morning, Wayne Flann had driven along it; half the volunteers had driven along it. He looked up in the crazy hope that one of the airborne searchers might magically spot the vehicle that had saved—or snatched—the girls twelve hours earlier.
The volunteers straggled in. They were given tea, oranges, sandwiches that curled in the heat. And Hirsch was told he needed to get his arse down to Redruth.
‘Sarge?’
‘The incident room’s up and running in the town hall, and a Homicide inspector wants a word.’
‘Now?’
‘Soon as you can get down there.’
Hirsch climbed back into the Toyota and drove away. Heading, he supposed, into the teeth of another bollocking.