by Garry Disher
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.’
13
CHRISTMAS EVE, 6 A.M.
It is notorious that not a week passes without the Natives hereabouts displaying, in their greedy desires and untutored propensities, a characteristic cunning and base ingratitude.
Hirsch drained his coffee, closed Mrs Keir’s journal and set out to walk the town.
The highway was empty; so was Kitchener Street. The barricade could come down today. The town was probably forgotten already. Too far from anywhere; nothing to see; the locals refusing to cooperate; some other atrocity awaiting.
He slipped past the barricade and walked up Nan’s street, past her slumbering neighbours. Stood at her gateway awhile, deciding not to go in.
A voice said, ‘The early bird…’
Craig Washburn was sitting on a veranda deckchair, difficult to see in the long, striping shadows of the rising sun. Hirsch took the greeting as an invitation and threaded through shrubs and over garden borders to join him. ‘All right?’
‘Me—or Nan?’
‘Both.’
‘She’s knocked for a six, mate.’
‘You?’
Washburn shrugged. ‘I’ll know I’m all right when I know it’s time I went home to the creek.’
They chatted for a while, but Hirsch had things to do before driving to his pre-Christmas lunch and briefing at the Redruth police station. By seven-thirty he was showered, shaved, freshly ironed into his uniform and chomping on his second breakfast—a chalky muesli, the only kind stocked in the shop across the road.
‘You do know there are other brands, Ed,’ he’d told the shopkeeper one day.
‘Uh huh. And this is the brand I stock,’ Tennant said.
At seven-thirty-five, hearing air brakes and the beep-beep-beep of a vehicle reversing just outside the police station, Hirsch remembered the Bagshaw twins. He flung down his spoon and raced through the building to the front yard. He was grateful to have his potholes filled, but he was betting the brothers were asphalt dumpers, not artists.
The moment he appeared, Carl Bagshaw said, ‘Some blokes sit around all morning.’
‘While the rest of us slog our guts out,’ his brother said.
They’d dropped a small, steaming pile of asphalt just inside the footpath gate and were walking shovelfuls to each pothole, filling, shaping, tamping down, melding the edges with the old, undamaged layer, their movements rhythmic, an effortless dance around each other on the narrow driveway. In five minutes, the potholes were patched over. No spillage, waste, lumps or rough edges. ‘You guys are a
rtists,’ Hirsch said.
‘Just don’t drive that shitheap over it for a day or two,’ Ivan said, indicating Hirsch’s tired Nissan.
‘What do I owe you?’
‘It’s council tar, mate, and you’re a council employee—kind of. We’re always dumping leftovers at the end of the day, so don’t sweat it. A beer next time you’re in the pub.’
‘Your council rates at work,’ Carl said.
There was a pause, both men eyeing Hirsch contemplatively, both propped on their shovels. Carl said, ‘Don’t let it get to you, what they’re saying.’
‘Arseholes with nothing better to do,’ his brother said.
Unlikely as it seemed to Hirsch, the twins must have seen the YouTube clip. ‘Thanks, I appreciate that.’
The men saluted him, climbed into their truck and left him alone beside his mottled driveway, wreathed in exhaust gases.
Half an hour later, Hirsch was across the road, stuffing potato chips, mince pies and soft drinks into a shopping basket: his contribution to Sergeant Brandl’s Christmas lunch. She’d be providing sandwiches, the children were bringing napkins, paper plates and a plum pudding. No alcohol: ‘We’re all on duty, for the duration.’
As an afterthought, Hirsch added a packet of Christmas crackers. Then he looked over Ed Tennant’s meagre range of Christmas cards. He didn’t know how to word his greetings to his sergeant or her constables—he barely knew them. In matters of card-giving, humour was his default position, but the three Redruth officers were strangers to him. Did any of them have a sense of humour? Were they churchgoers? In the end he found three generic snowscapes with the single word Peace inside. That’s all a cop wants at Christmas, he thought. Not heavenly peace, just a general absence of mayhem.
The shop was crowded by the usual standards—at least five locals doing last-minute shopping. They all said, ‘Merry Christmas, Paul,’ nodded and smiled, but none of them lingered. They were embarrassed for him. The YouTube clip.
What the fuck was Sergeant Brandl going to say? Or Internal Investigations, for that matter?
Gemma Pitcher was at the till. She blushed to see him—not, he thought, because she’d seen him on YouTube but because he’d sprung her in bed with Adam Flann.
He gave her a big, neutral smile. ‘Season’s greetings, Gemma. What’s on tomorrow?’
She wouldn’t look at him. ‘Me and Mum are going to Auntie Trish’s for lunch.’
‘Where’s that?’
Gemma gave him an astonished frown. ‘Terowie.’ Clearly everyone knew that.
‘Right, right.’ He’d encountered this quirk in many of the locals. It made him want to shout at them, ‘Give me twenty years and I’ll know all your fucking business.’
Gemma counted out his change, blushed again and said, ‘Merry Christmas.’
By noon Hirsch was bowling down the highway, Chicago’s ‘25 or 6 to 4’—one of the greatest songs ever written, and Hirsch didn’t make these claims lightly—pounding from the police 4WD sound system. Some other hard, fast tracks came in after it. The music suited his mood: even if he didn’t go viral on YouTube, he knew some other shit was coming his way.
Half an hour later, he was trundling through the outskirts of Redruth. Glancing up at the old mine buildings ranged across one of the town’s little hills, he wondered if the museum—once an old pump shed—would be interested in Mrs Keir’s journals. Who owned them, though?
At the town square he downshifted and crept around it, giving half-reproving headshakes to half-apologetic jaywalkers, and out along the Adelaide road for a short distance. He turned into a side street and pulled up behind a dusty SA Police patrol car. A further two police vehicles in the car park at the side of the police station. It was nothing like his little house in Tiverton: purpose-built, with red brick walls, tiled roof and aluminium window frames. Offices, interview rooms, a tearoom and a lockup.
Laden with his shopping, Hirsch went in, familiar with the place from weekly briefings. Nodding hello to the auxiliary support officer—a retired clerk of the council—he stepped through an inner door to the main part of the station. Voices and laughter drew Hirsch to the tearoom. A small Christmas tree in one corner, streamers looped around the windows, a huge felt stocking pinned to a noticeboard. A couple of rickety tables had been pushed together, laden with cups, plates, napkins and a bowl of rum balls.
And the children. ‘You brought crackers—fantastic,’ Jean Landy said.
She was short, pale, round-faced, pixie-like; black hair in a stubby ponytail. She’d worked for the ambulance service for five years, got tired of being attacked by strung-out ice addicts, and retrained as a police officer. Late twenties, but only recently out of the academy. Hirsch hadn’t known her for long. She’d always eyed him coolly, as if she’d heard the rumours: Hirschhausen the dog.
But right now she was warm enough, her fingers resting on his forearm briefly before she helped him unpack the chips, drinks and crackers. Hirsch didn’t quite trust it, until she said, ‘Just so we’re on the same page: me and Tim know about the YouTube thing and we think it’s shit. So unfair.’
Hirsch assessed her briefly. ‘Thanks.’
‘Could’ve happened to any of us,’ Tim Medlin said.
Younger than Landy, he was angular, awkward, balding prematurely. He shot Hirsch a shy smile, looked away again and said, ‘Can you get it taken down?’
Could he? Hirsch doubted YouTube would listen if he complained, but maybe they’d listen to Police Command? ‘It’ll blow over,’ he said, placing the last bottle in the tearoom fridge.
‘Paul? A word,’ said a voice behind him.
‘I’ve been tasked to ask you certain questions.’
‘Sergeant,’ said Hirsch, seated on a stiff chair. Her office was generic, apart from the athletics ribbons hanging on one wall, and three desk photographs: Brandl with her parents, Brandl graduating, Brandl and a man with their arms around each other. Hirsch had never met the husband but knew he lived and worked in Adelaide, two and a half hours south. A modern arrangement, a kind of fly-in, fly-out marriage—a cop’s timetable would wreak havoc on it, but it was none of Hirsch’s business. He was waiting for a bollocking.
‘Based on my recommendations, there may or may not be a formal follow-up—i.e., a trip down to the city, where you’ll sit at one end of a long table to be grilled by a couple of faceless men.’
‘No need to sugar-coat it, sarge.’
‘Did you or did you not post the video on YouTube? Stupid question, but it’s one they want answered.’
‘Did not.’
‘Do you know who did?’
‘Could’ve been anybody. Quite a few people were there.’
‘Was your sidearm properly secured in its holster?’
‘Yes.’
‘Loaded?’
‘Yes.’
‘Safety on?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you give permission to the woman in the YouTube clip to remove your pistol from its holster?’ Another stupid question, Brandl’s expression made clear.
‘I did not give her permission to do that.’
‘In your own words, describe the incident for me, please.’
Hirsch complied. When he was done, Brandl said, ‘So it’s your belief she thought you were taking her daughter away and she overreacted?’
‘Yes.’
‘Had she been drinking? Was she on drugs?’
‘No. She calmed down quickly when the doctor intervened.’
‘You were in uniform. Clearly a policeman. Did she think you were going to sic Child Protection onto her or something?’
‘I’ve been wondering about that. She was so over the top, maybe something else was going on. She said she lived with her husband, but what if she doesn’t? Could he be violent? Trying to get custody? I ran her name, ran his; didn’t find anything.’
‘Have a quiet word with her.’
‘Tried that. The address she gave me doesn’t exist.’
‘All the more reason to find out what’s going on. Have another word with Doctor Pillai.’
‘Will do.’
‘Meanwhile, the powers that be have asked why you didn’t advise Child Protection, or, at the very least, file some paperwork. I’m curious myself. She locked her kid in the car on a hot day. Could’ve died.’
Hirsch shifted in his seat. He’d been expecting the question—it had already cropped up a few times in the YouTube comments. ‘One, her evident distress. Two, she apologised, she was mortified. Three, she struck me as a devoted mother in all other respects. Four, I don’t think she’s very well off. Five, it’s close to Christmas. Six, I didn’t think she deserved to be punished any further. Seven, I was surrounded by people I’m trying to forge good relations with. I didn’t want to come across as bullying the poor woman.’
Brandl looked at him and said nothing. He said, ‘Look, she ducked across the road to pick up a prescription, that’s all.’
Better shut up now, he told himself. Brandl was stony-faced.
Then, a transfiguring smile. ‘Ah, stuff HQ. We’re at the front line, they’re not.’
Police cultures, thought Hirsch, grateful. Police against the great unwashed. Front-line police against the pencil pushers.
A knock on the door, Landy calling out: ‘Sangers just arrived, sergeant.’
Brandl looked at Hirsch. ‘Hungry?’
They joined the others in the tearoom, pulled their crackers, put on their paper hats. Ate, drank their soft drinks, swapped police stories and Christmas stories. Like all good things, it didn’t last.
‘It’s Christmas Eve,’ the sergeant said as they went their separate ways. ‘People are already getting into the grog.’
14
DAWN, CHRISTMAS DAY.
The Natives continue to effect depredations upon our flocks, determined to do as they please, and Douglas is very much of a mind to put a stop to it.
