WHEN HE LEFT them five minutes later, they were arranged along the edge of the veranda, backs to the house, feet in the dirt, the girls in a fresh set of clothes fetched by Nan from their bedroom.
They didn’t want him to leave them for even a minute. ‘Be careful. She could come back.’
‘She won’t,’ he said. ‘She’s blown her cover—nothing to gain by coming for you now.’
He was itching to check the damage to the Toyota. Clearly, with Hansen’s body stretched out along the back seat, he couldn’t take the whole gang with him. ‘A couple of minutes,’ he said.
Finally Nan Washburn made a shooing gesture and he ran up the incline and down the other side. The HiLux was listing. Roesch had put a bullet through each passenger-side tyre.
He ran back to the house, watching the relief flow through all of them. He’d been gone for less than five minutes.
‘Did you see her?’
‘No sign of anyone,’ Hirsch said.
‘She shot your tyres?’ Craig said.
‘She certainly did,’ Hirsch said.
They were still lined up along the veranda. He swung a garden chair around to face them. ‘I’ll need to borrow the phone again.’
He’d made several calls already: reporting Roesch, with a description of her car; arranging for the collection of Hansen’s body and the transportation of Wayne Flann from Tiverton to the Redruth lockup; reassuring Bob Muir; requesting search warrants; and asking the sergeant to update the Homicide Squad and track down Hansen’s boss in Sydney.
Now he made two more calls using the satellite phone: to Redruth Motors, requesting a truck to collect the Toyota, and to Brandl again, saying he’d need a replacement vehicle if he was to fight crime in the dark hours of New Year’s Eve.
‘Very droll,’ she said. ‘I’ll see what I can rustle up.’
They settled in to wait. Louise was jittery—and no wonder, thought Hirsch: Roesch was still at large and the deaths of her mother and brother lingered inside the house behind her.
He tried his warmest smile. ‘You’ll be in good hands. No need to hide now—too many people know about Sergeant Roesch. She has no motive to hurt you. She’s running for her life.’
A grubby leg jittered. Teeth nibbled at fingernails.
Jean Landy arrived first, driving a Redruth patrol car, followed by a mix of uniformed and plainclothes police to escort the sisters to Adelaide. ‘The boss is on the way,’ Landy said. ‘She stopped off in Tiverton to have a squiz at your prisoner.’ She paused. ‘You know for sure he’s the one?’
Hirsch nodded. ‘Any news on the ambulance?’
‘On way.’
Hirsch walked back to the road just as the ambulance appeared. He raised a hand to stop it, pointed to the rear of the HiLux and watched the ambulance pull up by the back door.
The driver, a morose man with day-old black stubble, wound down his window. ‘You sure he’s dead?’
‘Pretty sure,’ Hirsch said, opening the door. The other paramedic, a small woman with brisk, expert hands, got to the body first. ‘Dead all right. Several bites. What kind of snake?’
‘Nasty.’
Hirsch watched them load Hansen onto the stretcher and into the ambulance, then he walked back to the house. He was crossing the yard to the veranda when another vehicle arrived: Sergeant Brandl, driving a HiLux exactly like his wounded one. ‘Yours for the next couple of days.’
‘Thanks, sergeant.’
‘Walk with me,’ she said, striding off towards the shade of the first cypress tree as if she was controlled by wires. She stopped, turned, tucked a sweaty tendril of hair behind her ear. ‘How sure are you that Mr Flann shot Mrs Rennie and her son?’
Arse-covering, thought Hirsch. He nodded towards the house. ‘The older girl can ID him.’
‘So, nothing to do with witness protection?’
‘Correct.’
‘Why? What was his motive?’
‘He’s been robbing remote farms. Might have been on ice that night.’
‘We’ll need better than that. He’s swearing black and blue he didn’t shoot them. Is the girl credible? It was night, she was scared, a lot happening…’
‘She’s credible.’
They both glanced at Louise, who still sat on the veranda looking up at the detective questioning her, Craig Washburn’s arm around her shoulders. Brandl swung back to Hirsch. ‘It’ll be good when we get her statement,’ she said crisply. ‘Without that, what do we have? Mr Muir showed me the rifle you took off Mr Flann. It clearly isn’t the murder weapon. And Flann was adamant he’d never met Mrs Rennie or her family, never been to her house before, he was simply carrying out his own little search of the area, yada yada. And he’s accusing you of prejudice against his family.’
Hirsch heard the sharpness. He’d disappointed her; he should have confided in her about Flann. ‘Boss, his own brother can put him at the house.’
‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t he still missing? And how credible is he likely to be—assuming he’s found soon? Some actual evidence would be good.’
‘There is some,’ Hirsch said. He explained about the photographs on Flann’s phone.
‘Have you seen them?’
‘No, but—’
‘Perhaps they don’t exist. Perhaps he deleted them afterwards.’
‘Okay, what about the phone Mrs Washburn called you on? It was Denise Rennie’s. It was in Wayne’s ute.’
‘So? He can say he found it in the creek.’
Frustrated with her now, Hirsch said, an edge to his voice: ‘Boss, he took a shot at me.’
‘He says it was accidental,’ Brandl said.
Then her manner changed in its mercurial way. She grinned at him. ‘But taking a pot-shot at a policeman is enough to keep him locked up for the time being. Meanwhile, Jean’s got the search warrants. How confident are you that you’ll find something?’
Less confident than he sounded: ‘There’ll be something.’
The big metal cabinet on the back wall of the Flanns’ main shed. He was pretty keen to get a look inside that.
Half an hour later, only Hirsch and Jean Landy remained. Landy had a quiver on. ‘My first official search.’
‘Don’t get too excited. It’s generally dirty, dusty and thankless,’ Hirsch said. ‘You see things you can’t unsee. You—’
‘Like what?’
‘Things.’
Like violent porn, mouldy food, shit-smeared walls… Once he’d been searching a drug-couriering great-grandmother’s bedroom and tripped over a brimming chamber pot.
Mid-afternoon now. The New Year’s Eve drunks would be well on their way. Hirsch had been working all day; he’d be working through to the early hours. ‘You on duty tonight?’
Landy nodded. ‘Patrolling the mean streets of Redruth.’
Hirsch decided he liked her. He eyed her patrol car. ‘Convoy, or come with me?’
She was practical. ‘Convoy, in case I have to head back in a hurry.’
The replacement HiLux drove exactly like Hirsch’s shot-up one. He headed down Hamel Road to the Tiverton road, Landy behind him, and half an hour later they were at the Flanns’ miserable cluster of house and sheds. Watching Hirsch select the house key from the bunch he’d confiscated after the arrest, Landy said, ‘Looks like no one’s lived here for years.’
Hirsch grunted. Brenda Flann was a nightmare, but at least she’d had a smattering of pride in the place; perhaps even some vague maternal streak. With her in hospital, Adam on the run and Wayne out scouting the countryside, the house, yard and sheds had grown forlorn surprisingly quickly.
Once inside, they made a rapid search of the obvious areas—under beds, in drawers and wardrobes—then the usual hiding places for people’s miserable secrets—in freezer packets and flour tins, taped to the undersides of drawers, under floorboards.
Such meagre lives, Hirsch thought. No books, barely any magazines. Clothes worn too long between washes. Greasy water in the kitchen sink, tide marks in the bath and the toilet bowl. There was a small stash of pot in an old tobacco tin, but nothing else to suggest inner lives apart from a vast new TV, a couple of Xbox consoles and an eBay receipt for a military-tactical rifle sling from a Kentucky gun shop.
That left the sheds.
In one, remnants of hay, a set of rusty harrows and an old Massey Ferguson on perished tyres. In the other, nothing of note but that shiny steel cabinet behind the sheets of plywood. ‘Tucked away,’ observed Landy, ‘but not in an obvious way. At a second glance you’d think it was a locker for expensive tools.’
‘There probably are expensive tools in it,’ Hirsch said.
Landy completed the thought: ‘But not his.’
They drew on crime-scene gloves. Hirsch found the correct key, turned it in the lock and tugged gingerly on the handle.
‘Expecting a booby trap?’
‘It’s been known,’ he said.
They weren’t blown to kingdom come and the first thing they saw was a child’s tricycle missing its saddle. Scraps of Christmas wrapping clinging to the frame.
‘Got him,’ said Hirsch.
He told Landy the story and watched fear, pity and sadness flicker on her face as she pictured Christmas Eve at the Rennie house.
Stacked upright in an open space behind the bike were three fishing rods, a whipper-snipper, an archery bow and a couple of cricket bats. Next to it, a set of shelves: toolboxes, an electric sander, a bowsaw, chainsaws and a leaf blower.
Landy reached in, tilted one of the chainsaws. ‘There’s a name texta’d on this: T. Wesley.’
‘The Porters Lagoon guy,’ Hirsch said.
Landy grunted in satisfaction. ‘We’ve got Mr Flann up, down and sideways.’
For thieving, Hirsch thought. We need to put that murder weapon in his hands. We need Adam’s testimony. Just then Landy’s mobile chirped. She checked it, muttered, ‘Didn’t think I’d get reception out here.’
Hirsch guessed. ‘The boss wants you.’
‘Brawl in the main bar of the Wheatsheaf.’
‘You go, I’ll finish up here.’
When he was alone, Hirsch photographed the contents of the cabinet and locked it again. He took the long way back to Tiverton; called in at the little house on Bitter Wash Road.
‘Thought I’d wish you happy new year for tomorrow.’
‘On account of you’ll be busy,’ Wendy said. She took his arm and steered him down the corridor. ‘You need a shower.’
‘On the nose?’
‘Scrambled eggs and bacon when you’re done.’
Their relationship was oftentimes brisk, Hirsch barely getting a word in. ‘Breakfast food?’
‘It’ll get you through the night.’
When he stepped out of the ensuite bathroom, a towel around his waist, the spare uniform he kept hanging in her wardrobe had been draped over the bed. No sign of that day’s sweat-stained mess: no doubt soaking in the laundry sink.
The eggs and bacon washed down by strong black tea, the imprint of Wendy’s lips on his, Hirsch headed for town. Checking Kitchener Street automatically as he passed the shop, he saw a silver station wagon and a journalist in a short-sleeved white shirt interviewing Mr Cromer. Good luck with that, Hirsch thought. He’d been hoping the vultures were gone for good, but maybe pony mutilation had unexpected shelf-life.
As he parked outside the police station, the reporter came running up. ‘Constable Hirschhausen? If I might have a word?’
‘Sorry,’ Hirsch said, ‘I have things to do.’
‘Any nearer to catching whoever mutilated Mrs Washburn’s horses?’
I am, actually, Hirsch thought.
‘It’s been said that the same person was responsible for the killings out on Hamel Road.’
Hirsch turned around in the act of unlocking the front door. A car shot into town, saw the HiLux in the driveway of the police station, lurched to an anxious crawl and trundled through as if butter wouldn’t melt in its mouth.
‘Your views on that, Constable Hirschhausen?’
‘A busy night coming up, you understand,’ Hirsch said, staring at the reporter, who faltered, seeing something daunting in him. Hirsch nodded. ‘Have a good night, you’ll be busy yourself,’ he said, and disappeared inside the police station.
Airing his office and the rooms he lived in, Hirsch was catching up on emails and phone calls when a text came in from Gemma Pitcher: C u tomorrow afternoon.
He replied: C u then and went out to keep the peace.
By 8 p.m. he was patrolling, south to Mount Bryan, north to Terowie, calling in at the pub in each town, taking a swing in and out of their side streets. Then a fast trip back to Tiverton: apparently a guy was swinging a machete around in the pub.
Machete, pub, New Year’s Eve—a recipe for disaster. But when Hirsch had parked nose-up to the wonky veranda post and hurried into the main bar, he found only cheery noise and heightened amusement.
‘All over, mate,’ Carl Bagshaw said.
‘Dealt with it,’ his brother said.
Hirsch glanced at the patrons: a couple of station jillaroos, a handful of farmers and farmhands, a driver for the lucerne seed business, the primary school headmaster, the town’s beautician. The publican was pouring beer. Behind him, on the other side of the U-shaped bar, was the lounge, the tables taken by a faintly more genteel crowd: mums, dads, kids and grandparents. Like a Saturday night, except with the electric charge that lingers after a bit of drama.
Kevin Henry was the least amused. No one had been hurt; hiring the Bagshaw twins for crowd control had paid off. But there had been an incident, hard on the heels of Brenda Flann’s parking trick. ‘Could’ve been nasty.’
He gestured at the sodden towel running the length of the bar. ‘Machete’ was stretching it: Hirsch recognised the weapon as a World War II bayonet, rust-pitted and blunt-looking. His grandfather had brought one back from Borneo in 1945.
One Bagshaw twin glanced at the other. ‘This bloke came in.’
‘Pissed as a fart.’
‘Trolleyed.’
‘Waving that around.’
‘Said, “Where is she?” We said, “Who?”’
‘He didn’t say. Wife? Girlfriend?’
‘Never seen him before.’
Hirsch cut in, lifting his voice above the noise: ‘Anyone recognise him?’
A lull, then a murmur of denials and headshakes.
‘Okay, did anyone see where he went?’
More headshaking, but one scrap of information: the maniac had driven away in an old Subaru wagon.
‘When I took the blade off him,’ Ivan said, ‘he just burst into tears and scarpered.’
‘Anyone other than you touch the bayonet?’
‘No, only me.’
Hirsch lifted it off the bar with a handkerchief around his fingers, placed it in the Toyota and returned to make the rounds of the patrons. Did you see what happened? Did you know him? Had you ever seen him before? Film him, by any chance?
One blurry photograph: a short, barrelly guy, about forty, shorts and a wifebeater singlet. None of the women knew him.
No damage, no bloodshed, but a lethal weapon had been brandished. Hirsch would have it tested for fingerprints, see if the guy was in the system.
The rest of his night was uneventful. Hirsch patrolled his domain, and, as far as he could tell, no crimes were committed, or regulations infringed. May that be a harbinger for the new year, he thought.