Bitter Wash Road Read online

  One of the hard men with their fiefdoms. All around the state, men who’d turn evasive and arrogant if you tried to pin them down. Clever men, though, a witness-box headache to every judge, magistrate and barrister in the land. How long had Kropp been here? Twelve years?

  Kropp slapped the pointer down and folded his arms. ‘I do not want a repeat of last year. Superintendent Spurling doesn’t want a repeat of last year. Understood?’

  A ragged, ‘Yes, Sarge,’ went around the room, Hirsch thinking, the area commander’s breathing down his neck.

  ‘Questions? No? Well, get to it then.’

  Hirsch glanced at his watch: almost noon, the game started at two. He glanced at Dee and mimed eating. She nodded.

  ‘Aww,’ said Nicholson, ‘the first blush of young love.’

  Dee ignored him but coloured, looked down as she gathered her things.

  Andrewartha worked a concerned frown onto his face. ‘I hope you’re sexually responsible, Constable Hirschhausen. For your convenience, a protective sheath dispenser has been installed in the men’s room.’

  ‘Nah,’ Nicholson said, ‘I reckon he likes to feel it.’

  ‘Then he’s in for a disappointment,’ Andrewartha said. ‘Word is, he’ll find a lack of tactile integrity, if you get my meaning.’

  ‘Totally do,’ Nicholson said. ‘She overused it at the academy.’

  ‘Look at Hirschhausen, cracking the shits.’

  ‘You’re so funny,’ Dee said.

  ‘We think so.’

  These clowns, Hirsch thought, deserve to be fucking informed on.

  ~ * ~

  AN HOUR LATER HE was patrolling the Redruth oval listlessly, watching for hotheads, just as he’d done years ago as a raw cadet.

  He hadn’t come full circle, exactly. For a start, here in the world of small towns and farms, the spectators were few and did their drinking and fuming in private, cocooned in cars parked snout-up to a white perimeter fence. Once in a while a door would open and the occupant raised the tailgate to rummage for another can, but other than that they might have been at a church picnic. He recognised some of the Tiverton locals, including the Muirs, Ed Tennant, Ray Latimer, who was there with his sons and a solid-looking older man. The boys’ grandfather? Horns tooted desultorily, a woman knitted a baby’s jacket, a man sipped thermos tea, a dog pissed on a car tyre.

  At quarter time knots of men appeared, standing outside their cars, yarning peacefully. Rather than face each other or make eye contact, as women did, they stood at oblique angles, as if to face off dangers. Or maybe, thought Hirsch, it was a kind of genital anxiety. God, he was bored.

  When the wind came up, whipping a scarf from a car aerial, Hirsch retrieved it and handed it to the kid seated at the wheel.

  ‘Thanks.’

  He peered in at the boys in the back. ‘Nathan?’

  Melia Donovan’s brother looked hunted, his dark eyes liquid in his dark face. The boy beside him was on Kropp’s watch list, Tyson somebody. And in the front passenger seat was the boy who had dropped Nathan off that time. Sam Hempel.

  Hirsch straightened his back, saluted. ‘Enjoy the game.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Hirsch turned to go and saw Andrewartha watching him.

  ‘Mates with the boongs, eh?’

  Hirsch winked. ‘I’ll put your name down for sensitivity training, shall I?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  Time dragged. Hirsch’s feet hurt. The game didn’t interest him even though the score was close, each side kicking too few goals, too many points. With half-time due, he headed for a van parked inside the main gate and bought four spring rolls. The woman who served him was Vietnamese or maybe Thai; he watched her fry the rolls in a spitting pan. Then the siren sounded and people poured from their cars, forming a line at the van window, a pulsing pressure point. Hirsch watched tensely, but nothing happened, the queue was orderly. The Latimers appeared. Jack gave Hirsch a tiny wave, Raymond glared. The older boy was plump and hangdog, trying to appear unattached.

  Then Kropp arrived in a police car, pulling up behind the food van. He got out, bent his solid back into the rear compartment, emerged with a plastic sack of spring rolls and packaged paper cups and plates. Hirsch watched him hand the bags to the woman in the van, plant a kiss on her cheek and wave goodbye. He took his time leaving, striding like a general down the queue of spectators, winking, geddaying, giving the evil eye. He shook hands with Ray Latimer, ruffled Jack’s hair.

  Dee materialised at Hirsch’s elbow, small and perky in her uniform. ‘What would you call that? Crowd management? Improving customer relations?’

  ‘Constable, please, a little respect. Who’s the woman?’

  ‘That’s his wife. She’s from Thailand.’

  ‘Nice little sideline,’ Hirsch said.

  ‘The spring rolls or the mail-order bride?’

  ~ * ~

  At the final siren, Redruth was four points ahead and Hirsch broke up a shoving match. Dee’s shins were strafed by spurting gravel as she dodged an irate station wagon. Andrewartha got into the face of a screeching woman. Nicholson and the other constables whisked a man off to the lockup.

  And then it was all over. The knitter and the old tea drinker and the tired farming families were gone, leaving only wrappers tumbled like scrapping birds as the wind rose. ‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ Kropp said, reappearing in his police car. ‘Consider this the calm before the storm. By nine or ten o’clock the troublemakers will be spoiling for a fight. Meanwhile, grab yourselves a quick bite and then start making your presence felt.’

  At six o’clock they split into two units and began to prowl the streets, pubs and through-roads of the town, Hirsch, Nicholson and Revell in one car, Andrewartha, Dee and Molnar in the other.

  Hirsch was happy to sprawl in the back seat and let Nicholson drive. Up and down the streets, in and out of the town’s three pubs and car parks. The streetlights were barely adequate; few cars were about. At this stage the pubs were quiet. He felt he was encroaching whenever he entered a main bar or a lounge bar. Heads would turn away, registering not him but his uniform.

  At 8 p.m. he wandered through the Woolman Hotel while Nicholson and Revell had words with some kids hanging around the bottle shop. Ray Latimer was seated in a booth with a woman who was not his wife. She was tiredly pretty, dressed in black. Guessing that Latimer had sent his sons home with the old man, Hirsch nodded and returned to the car.

  At eight-thirty his mobile chirped.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mr Hirsch...’—the voice stumbled—‘…Hirsch...hawsen.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘This is The Dugout, concerning your eight o’clock booking.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Table for twelve, eight o’clock.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Hirsch, who did.

  ‘One of our busiest nights of the year. I’m afraid when you didn’t show we allocated that table to another party.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve been duped.’

  ‘We cannot issue a refund, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ Hirsch said, ‘but I did not make a table booking. Someone is duping you.’

  ‘You gave this mobile number. Party of twelve, eight o’clock, a twenty-dollar deposit.’

  Hirsch shook off the caller and pocketed the phone. ‘Trouble?’ Nicholson wanted to know.

  ‘Twenty bucks?’ said Hirsch. ‘You guys wasted twenty bucks on me?’ He shook his head. Dumber than dogshit.

  ~ * ~

  The hours lengthened. The radio crackled from car to car, car to base, base to car. Hirsch glimpsed the other patrol car sometimes, outside a pub, nosing down a street. Otherwise he dozed. He’d been awake since dawn and his stomach was heavy with fried food grabbed in passing. He wriggled to get comfortable. He’d had enough of this, the blanketing night air, the dew and the tricky half-light. Something was making him antsy—not here in
the patrol car, exactly, but just out of range, in among the shadows. He supposed he was waiting for violence. Nicholson and Revell talked while he dozed.

  ‘How long’s the sheila been with you?’

  ‘Dee?’ said Nicholson. ‘Couple of weeks.’

  ‘Nice tits.’

  ‘Get her pissed she might flash them for you.’

  ‘Is it true, she did the whole academy?’

  ‘Top to bottom.’

  ‘Top and bottom.’

  The tyres grumbled beneath them in the night.

  Revell fished out his wallet. ‘Ten bucks says I do her before you.’

  ‘Dork.’

  ‘I mean it,’ Revell said. ‘I saw the way she was looking at me.’

  Nicholson shook his head. ‘Let’s make it interesting: ten bucks each for first anal, first facial, first golden shower.’

  ‘You’re on.’

  ‘Except are we sure she’s worth ten?’

  ‘Point,’ Revell said. He turned to Hirsch. ‘You in?’

  ‘I don’t gamble.’

  Revell stared at him a moment, turned away. ‘Scumbag.’

  They fell silent. The radio crackled, suspicious noises reported at 5 Truro Street. The car climbed out of the main street and up onto one of the town’s little hills, where stone houses slumbered behind oleanders and ghost gums cracked the footpaths. The old copper mine was a dark excavation on the adjacent hill, moonlight flaring on the depthless black water and pushing gantry and chimney shadows down the hill. The wind was higher here, a helpless whine in the pine trees. Revell got out, knocked, no answer.

  He returned to the car. ‘No one in.’

  ‘Okay, shove a card under the door.’

  Hirsch stirred at last. ‘Shouldn’t we check around the back?’

  ‘Oh, it speaks,’ Nicholson said. ‘The place is dead, all right? Got better things to do.’

  ‘Let me check,’ said Hirsch, climbing out.

  ‘Fucking boy scout.’

  Breathing in scented air from the garden beds, Hirsch strode through the gate to the side path and down it to the back yard. He was reminded of Grandma Hirschhausen’s garden in Burnside, neatly cropped lawns, pansy beds, ivy trellis, a geranium in a cracked teapot, rotary clothesline.

  The screen door was ajar, a weak spill of light over the concrete steps. There was something just inside it, Hirsch saw, lumpy on the lino floor. He pushed through the door and there was a woman, lying unconscious, her top half-caught in the smashed glass that was the inner door. She looked about seventy-five, her dress was rucked up across her thighs, and blood was pooling. Tripped, he thought. Neighbour heard the glass break and called the police.

  He phoned for an ambulance and a moment later a voice came through the darkness: ‘Yoo-hoo.’

  Hirsch headed for the side fence, where there was some light. ‘Yes?’

  An old man’s creaky voice. ‘Is Crystal all right?’

  ‘She had a fall. I’ve called the ambulance.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Pause. ‘You’re new.’

  ‘Temporary assignment. I’m stationed at Tiverton.’

  ‘I try to look out for Crystal,’ the neighbour said, ‘but it was dark and I suppose things are a bit rowdy tonight and I didn’t want one of those policemen shouting at me for wasting his time.’

  A wobbly challenge in the voice, daring Hirsch to blame him.

  ‘My colleagues shout at people?’

  ‘Great shouters. Pretty quick with a breath-test, too.’

  Hirsch returned to the old woman. Her breath was fluttery, her pulse slow. He didn’t think she was dying, but she would have been if it was down to Nicholson, the lazy shit. He heard a siren, went out to greet the ambos, just as a call came in: all officers, a brawl outside the Woolman. Well, he’d have to walk. Nicholson and Revell had left him there.

  He was halfway down the street when he turned back. ‘If it’s on the way, can you guys drop me off at the Woolman Hotel?’

  ‘Yeah, sure, too easy,’ the ambulance driver said.

  ‘You might even pick up some business,’ Hirsch said.

  ~ * ~

  Owing to the brawl, the ambulance officers set him down on the opposite side of the town square. As Hirsch passed the rotunda, where a couple of kids were sharing a bottle, he could hear shouts, see a jostling crowd, figures straggling away among parked cars.

  Reaching the footpath, Hirsch broke through. Nicholson and Revell were back to back between two indistinguishable gangs of young men and women. Half-crouched, batons extended, they were lunging and retreating, screaming, ‘Break it up, break it up!’’

  ‘Evening, gents.’

  ‘Took your sweet fucking time.’

  Hirsch waved his baton at one ragged clump and then the other. Derision greeted it, the women screeching, the men full of spit and jutting chests.

  Just then Nicholson charged, shouting, ‘Got you.’ Bodies retreated and a kid, back-pedalling with Nicholson in his face, sprawled onto his coccyx. He cried out, and Hirsch recognised him: Nathan Donovan. Nicholson laughed. He began to strike the boy, landing meaty thumps with his baton. Revell joined him, booting Nathan’s spine.

  Nicholson paused and said to Revell, ‘I’ve got this. You go after his mates.’

  ‘Gotcha,’ Revell said. He lumbered away down the side of the pub, not quite at a run.

  As Nicholson readied himself for another swing of the baton, Hirsch grabbed his arm. ‘That’s enough.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve made your point.’

  Nicholson shook him off. The mob didn’t like it either. Raw voices called to Nicholson, ‘Get the cunt.’

  ‘Fucking Abo, smash his head in’

  ‘Fuck him up... black cunt.’

  Hirsch selected the brawniest Redruth local, a kid of twenty, and charged him, windmilling his baton, up into the groin.

  The kid doubled over. His mates were shocked. ‘What did you do that for?’

  ‘Piss off home,’ Hirsch said. ‘It’s over for the night.’

  ‘Nicko,’ they said, ‘tell your mate to leave us alone.’

  Hirsch lunged; they retreated. One by one, they straggled away into the night.

  He returned to Nicholson, who had a knee in Nathan’s back, screaming into the boy’s face, ‘You gunna behave?’

  Hirsch grabbed again. ‘I said leave him alone.’

  Nicholson jerked away. ‘Get your hands off me.’

  ‘Let him go.’

  Nicholson stood. They were panting, Nathan prone on the ground. ‘You better have a fucking good reason...’

  ‘There was no need to lay into him like that.’

  ‘Big fucking deal. You saw it, disturbing the peace, assaulting a police officer, inciting a riot.’

  ‘I didn’t see that. They were retreating,’ Hirsch said. ‘There was no actual fighting, nothing damaged.’ He bent and hauled on Nathan’s arm. ‘Up you get.’

  The boy complied, wincing.

  ‘You okay?’ Hirsch asked, seeing scrapes, a bleeding nose.

  ‘Had worse from that bastard.’

  ‘Can you get home okay?’

  Nathan shrugged.

  ‘A lift with your mates, perhaps? Have they been drinking?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Off you go.’

  Nicholson was disgusted. ‘What a legend. A king among men.’

  Hirsch ignored him. He could hear strained shouts in the night, disembodied and far away. He saw movements like tricks of the light, far back in the shadows. All of the tension had leaked away, and then Revell came stumbling in from the dark, holding an injured right hand, blood dripping from his elbow. Sounding astonished he said, ‘I went and fucking cut myself.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I need stitches, I think.’

  Hirsch fished for a handkerchief and pressed it against a gash in the man’s palm. ‘What happened?’
<
br />   ‘Get off me,’ Revell said, flinching. ‘Cut myself on a piece of roofing iron.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s me best jerking-off hand.’