by Garry Disher
Halfway down the valley he turned right, onto the road to Clare, the only town of a decent size in the area. It had an agency of his building society and it had a phone shop. He visited the building society first, withdrawing $2,500 in hundred-dollar bills, leaving himself with $164.65 until payday. Then he went to the phone shop.
Hirsch had bought his present phone there three weeks earlier, on Kropp’s advice, Kropp telling him, “The first thing you need to know is we get shit mobile reception up here. As much as I welcome the idea of you stranded in the middle of nowhere with a flat tire and no signal bars, the Department would take a dim view, so get yourself a decent phone, all right?”
“Maybe the Department could spring for a satellite phone, Sarge.”
“Don’t push your luck with me, Sunshine.”
What Hirsch remembered about the phone shop was the box of parts behind the counter: outmoded GSM phones, cracked touchscreen Androids, flip phones with loose keypads, scarred plastic cases, dead batteries, iPhones with the guts stripped from them.
He drove back to Tiverton with the cash and an old iPhone 4 that was stuck at the boot logo. Cost him $150, which he thought outrageous. Now he had $14.65 to his name.
Half expecting officers from Internal Investigations to jump him, half fearing to learn they’d already carried out their search, he reached into the Nissan, found the first aid box exactly where he’d left it, and made the swap.
CHAPTER 7
THEN HE PINNED HIS mobile number to the front door and headed back down the valley, reaching Redruth forty minutes later. Wheat and canola crops all the way, spread between the distant blue ranges, and finally signs of habitation and he was drawing into a town of pretty stone buildings folded through a series of hillocks. Copper had been mined here in the 1840s but it was a pastoral center now, the Cornish Jacks long gone, leaving behind flooded mine shafts, some cottage rows and a legacy of names like Redruth and Truro. Hirsch had explored the old mine when he first arrived, seeing bottomless pools of water an enchanted shade of blue, and mine batteries, sheds and stone chimneys sitting licheny and eroded on the slopes above the town.
Soon he was making a shallow descent to the town center, where the shops, a pair of pubs and a garage were arranged around an oblong square consisting of a statue to the war dead and a tiny rotunda on a stone-edged lawn. The building frontages were nineteenth-century but the hoardings and signage were purely modern, a mishmash of shapes, colors, fonts and corporate livery. Then he was through the square and entering an abbreviated side street, directed to the police station by a sign and an arrow. At the curb on both sides of the street were police vehicles: two 4WDs, Kropp’s Ford and two patrol cars.
The time was 11:45. He parked and went in. This station was no converted house but a dedicated red brick building with a lockup, several rooms and a large rear yard, but inside its foyer-cum-waiting room Hirsch found a front counter like his own: scarred wood, wanted posters and community notices on the wall, a couple of desks and filing cabinets in the dim corners.
The counter was staffed by a middle-aged man in civilian clothing, an auxiliary support officer whose job it was to greet the walk-ins, hand out forms, take reports, do the filing. A dull, sleepy man, he gave off a quiver of interest when Hirsch gave his name. “Ah, Constable Hirschhausen. Through that door.”
He pointed, and Hirsch found himself in a region of cramped rooms at the rear of the station: Kropp’s office, a small tearoom, a briefing room, an interview room, storage area, files. At the end of the corridor was a steel door leading to the lockup. Drawn by voices, movement, a spill of light, Hirsch headed for the tearoom.
Which fell silent the moment he appeared in the doorway. Two men stared at him stonily: the Redruth constables, Nicholson and Andrewartha. Hirsch gave a face-splitting grin, just to rile them. “Hi, guys!”
Nicholson said, “Maggot,” showing a mouth crowded with tiny teeth. He was fleshy and pink, his face squeezed and veiny.
Hirsch grinned again and turned to Andrewartha. Another from the porcine family, this one had moist, red budded lips that seemed poised to blow kisses. He stuck a stub of a finger to his temple, cocked his thumb and said, “Pow.”
“Good to see you, guys,” said Hirsch, pushing through.
“Arsehole.”
Two rickety plastic tables in the room, one strewn with paper cups, sports papers and skin magazines, the other bearing an urn and a percolator. Hirsch poured coffee into a paper cup. Nicholson jostled him.
“Whoops, sorry mate, clumsy of me.”
Hirsch poured another cup. He grabbed a stale donut and ducked around Nicholson’s tree-trunk form to stand beside the refrigerator, stashing coffee and donut on the top of it and fishing out his mobile phone. He angled the screen, he ran his fingers, not looking at the others but ready to fight if that’s what they wanted.
Then, an alteration in the air, a tremor of awareness passing through Nicholson and Andrewartha, a subterranean nastiness and quickness. Glancing up, Hirsch saw a young female officer in the doorway, pink, tense, sprucely ironed.
“Morning.”
Her voice was low and raspy, but a squeak of nerves ran through it.
“Did someone say something?” Andrewartha asked, cocking an ear.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Nicholson said. He flared his nostrils: “Hang on, there’s a whiff in the air.”
The newcomer flushed, but was game. “Maybe you’ve got a dose of hay fever … or a dose of something.”
“Now, what is that smell?” said Nicholson. “Got it! Female hygiene product.”
“You would know,” Andrewartha said, jostling him.
Both men pushed past her into the corridor, their voices fading along it:
“They reckon she’ll root anything on two legs.”
“Four legs.”
Leaving Hirsch alone in the room with her. She glanced at him without hope or interest. “Okay, give it your best shot.”
Hirsch headed for the percolator. “Coffee?”
“Coffee and spit, right?”
“Or tea and spit, if you’d prefer.”
He noted her name, Jennifer Dee, and waited inquiringly. She looked obstinate yet nervy, a slender woman of almost his height, with fine bones and sharp features on a narrow face, an impression of tightness reinforced by her hair, raked back savagely and caught in a short ponytail.
Meanwhile Dee was watching him, unblinking and intense. Abruptly a shift occurred, a kind of nervy humor surfacing as she said, “Weak black, no sugar.”
“Coming up. Donut?”
She came nearer, moving awkwardly, a young woman of disproportionate parts and abilities, not yet comfortable with herself. Pretending she didn’t know him when everyone knew him. “I could do with a sugar hit.”
“Good thinking,” Hirsch said.
He served her. They stood there a while. Swallowing sugary dough, Hirsch said, “You weren’t stationed here when I checked in last month.”
She shook her head. “Just started.”
“They’re giving you a hard time?”
“I can handle it.”
As if responding to an invisible signal, they sat at the empty table. Hirsch swiped the top with his sleeve, the surface layer of crumbs, sports pages and boobs and tits giving way to carved initials and scorch marks, as if suspects and prisoners had sweated at it. Then he raised his cup, said, “Cheers,” and a moment later Kropp was snarling from the doorway: “Both of you get your arses in the briefing room, and I mean now.”
He was propped there glaring, one big hand on each upright of the door frame as if to stretch his chest muscles.
“Sarge,” said Hirsch, echoed by Dee, as they grabbed their paper cups and plates.
They followed Kropp to the briefing room, where Nicholson and Andrewartha lolled in steel chairs, staring. But Hirsch had been stared down by experts. He blew a couple of kisses, then selected the chair next to Nicholson, who muttered, “Dog.” Dee was obliged to sit
beside Andrewartha. He scooted his chair away from her.
Kropp stood at the end of the table, slapping a white pointer against his thigh. “If you people are quite ready.”
“Sarge.”
“Let’s get to it.”
The sergeant propped his hands on the back of his chair, full of scowling impatience. “I’ve got a guy coming in from the accident squad, but until then here’s what we know: sometime on the weekend a kid from Tiverton was killed by a hit-and-run driver up near Muncowie.”
He straightened, turned to the board and wall map behind him, and touched the tip of his pointer to a photograph clipped from that day’s Advertiser. “This is her, Melia Donovan. Some of you know her.”
Nicholson nudged Andrewartha. “Some better than others.”
“If you idiots could stop fooling around.”
“Sorry, Sarge.”
Kropp paged through a mess of paperwork on the table. “Got the preliminary autopsy here somewhere.”
That was quick, Hirsch thought. A blowfly droned through the room, smacking the window behind him. He could hear the town out there, voices and car doors slamming and the hiss of airbrakes and a radio tuned to a breakfast show in the house next door.
Kropp looked up, frustrated. “Mr. Hirschhausen.”
“Sarge?”
“Go to the file room, see if I left an A4 envelope in there. Marked ‘Donovan autopsy.’ ”
“Sarge.”
Hirsch saw but couldn’t read the look on Dee’s face. He winked at Andrewartha as he went out.
Went to the wrong door at first, almost opened it before he saw the sign pinned at chin height: YOU ENTER HERE WITH GOOD LOOKS AND THE TRUTH. YOU DON’T GET TO LEAVE WITH BOTH. Meaning it was an interview room. The next door was marked FILES: he entered, spotting the envelope immediately, public service manila, flap open, angled across the top of a filing cabinet. He spotted the $100 note on the floor a moment later, when he was halfway across the room.
“Seriously?” he said.
Pocketing the note, he collected the envelope and handed it to Kropp in the briefing room. “Here you go, Sarge.”
Seated again, arms folded benignly, he settled back to listen to Kropp.
Then smacked his forehead. “Almost forgot. Found this on the floor.”
He contorted in his seat, turning onto his left hip and, sticking his right leg out, gained access to his trouser pocket. He fished out the $100, waved it, passed it to Nicholson. Everyone watched its progress down the table.
“It was on the floor?”
“Sure was. Should I take it to the front desk and log it in?”
“I’ll deal with it,” Kropp muttered.
Hirsch beamed in his chair, arms folded again. He bumped shoulders with Nicholson, gave a little nod. “Integrity test,” he whispered.
“Get the fuck out of my face.”
“Is that what you’re calling it?”
Hirsch was having a high old time.
THE ACCIDENT INVESTIGATOR WAS a sergeant named Exley.
“If you find us the vehicle,” he said, “we’ll match it to the evidence.”
Hirsch hadn’t seen any evidence. “What evidence, Sarge?”
Spoiling Exley’s flow. “All in good time. I’ve spoken to the coroner. She intends to visit the scene during the week and on Friday open an inquest. In all likelihood she’ll immediately announce a recess, but it would help if we could report on the victim’s last movements and meanwhile investigate local crash repairers and motorists with a history of driving under the influence.”
Then he was gone.
Kropp was nettled; Hirsch could see it in his jaw, his whitened knuckles on the back of the chair. “The powers that be have spoken, so let’s get to it. Constable Hirschhausen, your job is to interview family and friends, see what the poor kid was up to.”
“Sarge.”
“And have a poke around in Muncowie.”
“Sarge.”
Kropp gazed bleakly at Nicholson and Andrewartha. “Redruth Automotive. Given that you two simpletons work there in your spare time, I’ll let you take care of that.”
“Sarge,” Nicholson said, swapping grins with Andrewartha.
Kropp looked at Dee sourly. “You can tag along if and as required.”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Nicholson said.
“Cut it out,” Kropp said.
Hirsch waved his hand lazily. “Sarge, what’s the story with the family?”
“Old story: single mum, two kids, separate fathers. What else is there to say?”
“Melia was done for shoplifting.”
“She was. Slap over the wrist.”
“I’d look at the brother,” Andrewartha said, “Abo prick.”
“Knock it off,” Kropp said, weary.
“Well, he is.”
Hirsch said, “Why would he run his sister over?”
“Why would he do anything? That’s the point, there is no why.”
“Thanks for clearing that up.”
Kropp intervened. “She liked to hitchhike,” he said, looking at Hirsch. “Bear that in mind.”
“Sarge.”
CHAPTER 8
EARLY AFTERNOON NOW.
Hirsch shot out of town before the others could interrupt him, heading south. He half expected Kropp to call him with some tiresome demand but his phone rang only once, a Barrier Highway motorist calling to report a spill of hay bales near Mount Bryan. “Try the Redruth police station,” Hirsch said.
Better still, drag them off the road yourself.
Thirty minutes later he was at Tarlee, where he turned southeast into undulating country, giant silent silvery gum trees watching, and finally he was driving past vines and old winery names. Another thirty minutes and he was on a potholed dirt road leading up to Rosie DeLisle’s tiny hilltop winery. Out of habit, Hirsch checked the cars parked there, slotted into bays delineated by old redgum sleepers. A mix of expensive German sedans and 4WDs. He didn’t know Rosie DeLisle’s car.
German refinement and his dusty, boxy police HiLux. No disguising that, but Hirsch disguised himself, tossing his tie, jacket and cap onto the backseat, stowing the gun belt in a briefcase, dragging on a denim jacket.
He found Rosie seated on a wooden bench at a wooden table—more old redgum slabs—under a shade cloth, the fabric whispering and slapping in a stiff breeze from the valley. Severe rows of vines stretched down into the valley and up the other side, but here in the alfresco dining area there were beds of vegetables and herbs, the air scented and bees buzzing and one magpie warbling from a trellis. There’s money here, Hirsch thought—obviously, given the cellar door prices he’d noted on his way in.
Rosie rose and stepped away from the table and pecked his cheek. Her movements were careful; her misgivings weren’t about to evaporate anytime soon. And she’d already eaten, leaving a fleck of oily lettuce in a salad bowl and a crust of pizza on a chunky white plate.
“Started without me?”
“Starving.”
Hirsch grumbled his way onto the bench opposite hers, stowed the briefcase at his feet and studied the menu. Salad, smoked salmon pizza, mineral water.
HE ATE, THEY TALKED.
When it all went wrong for Hirsch, he’d been stationed at Paradise Gardens, an outer Adelaide police station, an unwitting member of a corrupt CIB team headed by a senior sergeant named Marcus Quine. After the arrests, after the raid and the charges and the media frenzy, Rosie DeLisle had been the Internal Investigations officer assigned to question him. “One officer per corrupt detective,” she’d told him at the time, “and we all swap notes at the end of the day, adding to our picture of what you shits have been up to.”
“Nice.”
And she told him to shut up. It was clear she thought he was scum. And then, days, weeks later, her mood lightened. She trusts me, Hirsch thought—or, at the very least, is entertaining doubts.
Finally she’d expressed these doubts to
Hirsch. “Will you give evidence against Quine?”
“No.”
She’d gnawed her lower lip, then confessed that she’d recommended no further action be taken against him. “But my colleagues don’t agree with me, and it doesn’t necessarily let you off the hook.”
Not off the hook to the extent that a whiff clung to him, and he was demoted and posted to the bush. And for all he knew, no one but Rosie and his parents had faith in him. And when Quine and the others were charged and punished—variously sacked and jailed, with one senior constable committing suicide—it was asked why Paul Hirschhausen had got off so lightly. The answer was clear: he was a turncoat, a dog, a maggot, and, for all he knew, no one but Rosie and his parents had faith in him.
And maybe I’ve lost Rosie, he thought now, noting a withholding quality in her, misgivings shading her face as she drained her shiraz.
She slapped down her glass. “Sometime soon, maybe as early as next week, you’ll be invited to police headquarters to face another round of questions.”
“Invited.”
“Ordered, Paul, ordered.”
“Why?”
“To answer fresh allegations.”
“Against me?”
“Yes. At the same time, Quine’s not exactly been twiddling his thumbs.”
Hirsch had heard it on the grapevine, Quine the master manipulator beating Rosie and her colleagues into exhaustion with a battery of freedom-of-information requests and demands for daybook entries, diary entries, files, notes, statements, records, reports, memos, emails, video and audio recordings, computer discs and memory sticks, and any and all correspondence, however vaguely connected to his twenty years in the employ of South Australia Police. A futile exercise if undertaken by anyone else, but Quine had got away with a lot for a long time and he might get away with this.
“He’s saying the case against him is a soufflé,” Rosie said.
