Bitter Wash Road Read online

  ‘Are you taking us to jail?’

  Hirsch laughed, saw that the girl was serious, and grew serious himself. ‘Nothing like that. I’ll drive you home and we’ll wait until someone comes.’

  Keeping it low-key, no sudden movements, he eased the rifle—a Ruger—from jack’s hands. He’d disarmed people before, but not like this. He wondered if police work ever got chancy, out here in the middle of nowhere. He walked the children back over the ridge and down to the HiLux. The girl moved with a quick, nervy energy; the boy trudged, his spine and spindly arms and legs moving in a curious counterpoint, a kind of pulling back on the reins. Hirsch saw that his left shoe was chunkier than the right, the sole and heel built up.

  The girl caught Hirsch looking. Her eyes glittered. ‘You’ve got a hole in your pants.’

  ~ * ~

  The kids strapped in, Katie in the passenger seat, Jack in the rear, Hirsch said, ‘So, we wait at Jackson’s house?’

  ‘Whatever,’ Katie said. She added: ‘You could be looking for that black car instead of hassling us.’

  The police were looking for hundreds, thousands, of cars at any given moment. But Hirsch knew exactly which one she meant: the Pullar and Hanson Chrysler, last seen heading for Longreach, over two thousand kilometres away. He said, ‘I doubt it’s in our neck of the woods.’

  Katie shot him down with a look, swung her gaze away from him. ‘That’s what you think.’

  Hirsch was fascinated by her. Dusty olive skin, a tiny gold hoop in each ear, a strand of hair pasted damply to her neck, and entirely self-contained. One of those kids who is determined, tireless, mostly right and often a pain in the arse. He tried to remember what he’d been like at that age. When it was clear that she didn’t intend to elaborate, he slotted the key in the ignition.

  ‘We saw it go past our school,’ said Jack in the back seat.

  Slowly, Hirsch removed his hand from the key. Had some guy waved his cock at the kids? Tried to snatch one of them? ‘The primary school in town?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘A black Chrysler?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But what were you doing at school on a Sunday?’

  ‘A working bee. Cleaning up and planting trees.’

  ‘Did this car stop?’

  Katie shook her head. ‘It drove past.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Nearly lunchtime.’

  Hirsch pictured it. The little primary school was opposite the police station, with a large playing field fronting Barrier Highway. The entrance, car park and classrooms were off a side street. The speed limit was fifty kilometres per hour through the town, giving an observant child time to mark details. But what details had marked this vehicle out from the others that passed the school every day, the farm utes, family cars, grain trucks, interstate buses?

  It was a black Chrysler, that’s what. A car in the news, driven by a pair of killers.

  Not a common car—but not rare either, and Hirsch said so. ‘I think those men are still in Queensland.’

  ‘Whatever. Can we just go?’

  Hirsch glanced at the rearview mirror, seeking Jack’s face. The boy shrank away.

  ‘Suit yourselves,’ Hirsch said, checking the wing mirror and pulling onto the road.

  Speaking of observant children...

  ‘Did you kids happen to see anyone hanging around outside the police station late last week? Maybe putting something in the letterbox?’

  They stared at him blankly, and he was thinking he’d mystified them, when the girl said, ‘There was a lady.’

  ‘A lady.’

  ‘But I didn’t see her putting anything in the letterbox.’

  ‘Was she waiting to see me, do you think?’

  ‘She looked in your car.’

  Hirsch went very still and braked the HiLux. He said lightly, ‘When was this?’

  ‘Morning recess.’

  Hirsch went out on patrol every morning, and someone would have known that. ‘What day?’

  Katie conferred with Jack and said, ‘Our last day.’

  ‘Last day of term? Friday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hirsch nodded slowly and removed his foot from the brake pedal, steering slowly past the fallen branch. Seeing Katie Street peer at it, he had a sense of her mind working, putting the story together—him stopping the HiLux, getting out, and hearing a stray bullet fly past his head. As if to check that he wasn’t sporting a bullet hole, she glanced across. He smiled. She scowled, looked away.

  Then she said tensely, ‘We’re not lying.’

  ‘You saw a woman near my car.’

  Now she was flustered. ‘No. I mean yes. I mean we saw the black car.’

  ‘I believe you.’

  She’d heard that before. ‘It’s true!’

  ‘What direction?’

  She got her bearings, pointed her finger. ‘That way.’

  North. Which made little sense if Pullar and Hanson had been in the car she saw—not that Hirsch could see that pair of psychopaths breaking cover to drive all the way down here to Sheepshit West, South Australia.

  Still sensing Hirsch’s doubt, Katie grew viperish: ‘It was black, it was a station wagon and it had yellow and black New South Wales numberplates, just like in the news.’

  Hirsch had to look away. ‘Okay.’

  ‘And it was a Chrysler,’ said Jack.

  Feeling lame, Hirsch said, ‘Well, it’s long gone now.’

  Or perhaps not, if it had been the Pullar and Hanson car. The men liked to target farms on dirt roads off the beaten track. Suddenly Hirsch understood what the children were doing with the Ruger: they were shooting Pullar and Hanson.

  He steered gamely down through the washaway and up around the next bend, to where Bitter Wash Road ran straight and flat for a short distance, the children mute and tense. But as he neared the red roof and the green, Katie came alive, snapping, ‘That’s Jack’s place.’

  A pair of stone pillars, the name Vimy Ridge on one, 1919 on the other, the oiled wooden gates ajar. Imposing. Hirsch supposed that a lot had occurred since 1919, though, for everything was weatherworn now, as if the money had dried up. A curving gravel driveway took him past rose-bordered lawns and a palm tree, all of the road dust dampened by last night’s rain, ending at a lovely stone farmhouse. Local stonework in shades of honey, a steep green roof sloping down to deep verandas, in that mid-north regional style not quite duplicated elsewhere in the country, and sitting there as though it belonged. Hirsch eyed it appreciatively. He’d spent his early years in a poky terrace on the baked streets of Brompton—not that the miserable little suburb was miserable any longer, now the young urbanites had gentrified it.

  He pocketed his phone, got out, stretched his bones and gazed at the house. It was less lovely closer up. Careworn, the paintwork faded and peeling, a fringe of salt damp showing on the walls, a fringe of rust along the edges of the corrugated iron roof. Weeds grew in the veranda cracks. He didn’t think it was neglect, exactly. It was as if the inhabitants were distracted; no longer saw the faults, or blinked and muttered, ‘I must take care of that next week.’

  The children joined him, Jack a little agitated, as though unsure of the proprieties. Hirsch contemplated phoning one or other of the mothers but mobile reception was dicey. Anyway, nobody reacted well to a call from a policeman, and the women would return soon. So, how to fill in the time...He didn’t think he should enter the house uninvited, and he didn’t want to wander around the yard and sheds uninvited either. Meanwhile, he needed to keep an eye on the kids.

  He stepped onto the veranda and indicated a huddle of directors’ chairs. ‘Let’s wait over here.’

  When they were seated he asked, ‘Who owns the .22?’

  ‘My dad,’ whispered the boy.

  ‘What does he use it for?’

  ‘Rabbits
and things.’

  ‘Does he own any other guns?’

  ‘Another .22, a .303 and a twelve-gauge.’

  ‘Where are they kept?’

  ‘In his study.’

  Hirsch asked the questions casually, keeping his voice low and pleasant, but he was scanning the dusty yard, taking note of the sheds, a scatter of fuel drums, an unoccupied kennel, stockyards, a field bin in a side paddock. A ute and a truck, but no car. A plough and harrows tangled in grass next to a tractor shed. A working farm but no one working it today, or not around the house.

  ‘So anyone could take the guns out and shoot them?’

  ‘He locks them in a cupboard.’

  Hirsch threw Jack a wink. ‘And I bet you know where the key is, right?’

  Jack shook his head violently. ‘No, honest.’

  ‘He’s not lying,’ Katie said. ‘We used the gun that’s kept in the ute. It’s just a little gun, for shooting rabbits.’

  Little and overlooked and forgotten, thought Hirsch. Not even a proper gun to some people.

  He was guessing the kids had done it a few times now, waited until the adults were out then grabbed the Ruger and headed down the creek for some target practice. Bullets? No problem. They’d be rolling around in a glove box or coat pocket or cupboard drawer, also overlooked and forgotten.

  To ease the atmosphere, Hirsch said, ‘So, school holidays for the next two weeks.’

  ‘Yes.’

  A silence threatened. Hirsch said, ‘May I see the gun case?’

  Jack took him indoors to a study furnished with a heavy wooden desk and chair, an armchair draped with a pair of overalls, a filing cabinet, computer and printer, bookshelves. It smelled of furniture polish and gun oil. The gun cabinet was glass-faced, bolted to the wall, locked. A gleaming Brno .22, a .303 fitted with a sight, a shotgun, a couple of cartridge packets and an envelope marked ‘licences’.

  Hirsch thanked the boy and they returned to the veranda in time to hear a crunch of gravel. A boxy white Volvo came creeping up to the house as if wary to see a police vehicle parked there. Katie’s mother at the wheel, reasoned Hirsch, and Jack’s mother in the passenger seat, and he didn’t know what the hell he should tell them. He removed the phone from his pocket. The shutter sound already muted, he got ready to photograph them. Habit, after everything that had happened to him.

  ~ * ~

  2

  VIEWED LATER, THE photographs on Hirsch’s phone revealed women of his age, mid-thirties, and as unlike each other as their children. Katie’s mother came into view first, slamming the driver’s door and advancing on the house. She wore jeans, a T-shirt, scuffed trainers and plenty of attitude, throwing a glare at Hirsch as she neared the veranda. She was small-boned like her daughter; dark, unimpressed.

  Jack’s mother trailed behind, leaving the Volvo in stages, closing the door gently, pressing against it until it clicked, edging around the front of the car as if she was reluctant to disturb the air. Hirsch wondered if she’d hurt her right hand. She held it beneath her breasts, fingers curled.

  Meanwhile Katie’s mother had stopped short of the veranda steps. She threw a glance at her daughter. ‘All right, hon?’

  ‘No probs.’

  ‘Excellent, excellent.’

  Hirsch absorbed the full impact of a high-wattage gaze, thought Fuck this for a joke, and stuck out his hand. ‘Hi. Paul Hirschhausen, stationed at Tiverton.’ With a grin he added, ‘Call me Hirsch.’

  The woman stared at him, at his hand, at his face again; then, quite suddenly, her fierceness ebbed. He wasn’t out of the woods, but he’d get a handshake. ‘Wendy Street,’ she said, ‘and this is Alison Latimer.’

  Hirsch nodded hello; Latimer responded with a smile that was trying to come in from the cold. She was tall, fair; pretty in a recessive way, as if she had no expectations and understood disappointment. But what do I know? thought Hirsch. He’d misread plenty of people and had the scars to prove it.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Alison blurted.

  ‘Nothing too bad, but there is something we need to discuss.’

  Before he could elaborate, Wendy Street said, ‘You’re new at Tiverton?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you come under Kropp in Redruth.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Faan...tastic,’ she drawled.

  ‘Is there a problem?’

  That might have been a shrug, then she grinned at his torn trousers, brown eyes briefly warm and lustrous. ‘The kids beat you up?’

  ‘Entirely my doing,’ Hirsch said.

  ‘Uh huh. So, you want to discuss something?’

  Downplaying it, electing, for some reason, not to mention Kropp’s call, Hirsch explained that he’d heard shots in passing and found the children playing with a rifle.

  Alison Latimer’s face dropped. ‘Oh, Jack.’

  Jack stared at the ground. Katie stood with folded arms and stared out across the garden. But Wendy Street said, ‘You just happened to be passing, in your four-wheel-drive, and heard shots.’

  So Hirsch put a little harshness into it: ‘A tree was across the road. When I got out to shift it, a bullet flew past my head.’

  Okay?

  It worked. The women were dismayed. They turned to the children, then back to Hirsch, issuing a tide of apologies and recriminations.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘no harm done. But I think the rifle should be locked away from now on.’ He retrieved it from the HiLux and handed it to Jack’s mother. ‘It is licensed?’

  Alison nodded. She held the rifle a little awkwardly, as though her right hand lacked strength, and used her left to flip open the bolt. As she moved, a beautiful old-style diamond ring flashed a red spark. Then she gestured with the rifle, showing him the empty chamber. She was a lovely woman full of strain and privation; she held herself stiffly, as though her joints had locked up. In a low mutter she said, ‘I can show you the paperwork if you like.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Hirsch said, knowing he should check. He wasn’t among criminals here, though. ‘Look, you run a farm, it doesn’t hurt to have a couple of rifles on hand, but keep them locked up so the kids can’t get at them. No unsupervised shooting.’

  All through this, Wendy Street was casting tense looks at her neighbour. Alison, feeling the force of it, broke into tears. ‘I’m so sorry, Wen, I didn’t...’

  ‘Allie, you know how much I hate guns.’

  Then Street relented and touched the back of the other woman’s hand. ‘Please, please, please keep them locked up.’

  ‘I will.’

  And to the children: ‘As for you two, no more shooting. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ Jack said.

  Katie didn’t agree, she didn’t disagree.

  Wendy wasn’t finished. She clamped her fingers around Hirsch’s forearm. ‘Quiet word?’

  Surprised, he said, ‘Sure.’

  She led him to her car and he waited, watching the house, the other mother, the children. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I don’t know you, I don’t know if l can trust you.’

  There was nothing to say to that.

  ‘I teach at the high school in Redruth.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’ve seen how Sergeant Kropp and his men treat people.’

  Hirsch stroked his jaw. ‘I don’t know anything about that, I’m new here. What’s it got to do with Jack and Katie?’

  ‘All right,’ Wendy took a breath, ‘giving you the benefit of the doubt...I want you to know that Allies husband is a bully. He won’t handle this well when he hears about it. And he’s going to hear about it because he’s mates with Sergeant Kropp.’

  Meaning, Hirsch thought, she’d appreciate it if I kept my trap shut.

  ‘I assume you have procedures to follow,’ Wendy said bitterly.

  ‘Well, there are procedures and procedures,’ Hirsch said.

  She assessed him briefly, head cocked, then gave a w
hisper of a nod. And bit her bottom lip, as if thinking she’d gone too far.

  Hirsch said, ‘If Mr Latimer is violent to his family I can refer them to a support agency. Sergeant Kropp needn’t know.’

  The tension in Wendy Street shifted, but did not ease. ‘What matters right now is the shooting business. If you have to report it, you have to report it—but I’d rather you didn’t.’