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  ‘Graham says he owes you a beer.’ She frowned. ‘Is that allowed?’

  ‘I’ve been known to go off-duty.’

  She grinned again. ‘So I’ve heard. Mrs Street, Wendy, teaches my youngest.’

  I’m the talk of the high school? wondered Hirsch. ‘I’ll take down the wanted posters when I get back to town.’

  She laughed. ‘Wanted posters.’

  Graham Fuller had come into the police station on his way to work Monday morning with a dozen A4 printouts in his hand: a photo of Kip on his haunches, sizing up the photographer. Have You Seen Kip? Reward Offered in big black letters. Hirsch had pinned one to the wall next to the wire rack of police, district council and public health notices, and all week he’d seen Kip’s face elsewhere in town: on power poles, fence posts, the shop window. Privately, he’d thought it was a lost cause. Kip had been bitten by a snake or shot by a neighbour or stolen. Or, worst case, he’d run away because he’d been beaten once too often.

  Now Hirsch was wondering if perhaps the Fullers’ dog had been stolen. He sipped his tea. ‘I understand Kip has won some ribbons in his time.’

  Monica shrugged, modest. ‘Best sheepdog at the Redruth Show, four years running—back when we had sheep.’

  It was a common story. The family farm no longer sustained a family. It was either sell out to a richer neighbour or a Chinese-owned agri-company, or shift career gears and stay in the district. Graham Fuller now serviced windfarm turbines; Monica worked two days a week at the Clare hospital. A lot of driving involved.

  Hirsch said, ‘All those prizes…How did the other dog owners take it? Anyone get their nose out of joint?’

  Monica moistened her fingertip, dabbed at the crumbs on her plate, looked at him wryly. ‘It was ages ago. And I mean…the Redruth Show? It’s small-time.’

  ‘People store grievances.’

  Monica shook her head. ‘Actually I’m wondering if it’s related to the time our phone line was cut—though I don’t see how.’

  An evening last January. Monica and Graham had just gone to bed when they heard noises in the yard and a knock on the door. Kip barked and strained at his chain until it broke—Graham was just in time to see him charge into the darkness—as Monica tried to call the police and realised the phone was dead. Kip returned eventually. Meanwhile Graham found the phone line severed, a neat, clean snip through insulation and wiring, and some garden tools missing.

  Copper, again. Not much copper, though, and it had simply been cut, not stolen. ‘A long shot,’ Hirsch said.

  Monica waved a hand as if to deny the direction her mind had taken her. ‘I know, I know; hard to imagine they saw the kennel and thought, ah, a dog, we’ll come back and steal him at the end of the year.’

  ‘Anyway, he’s back, that’s the main thing.’

  Still, two incidents involving police within twelve months. That was well over par for this area. Hirsch stood, stretched his back, said he’d better be going. He could see, through the little archway that dated the house, a sitting room with a small, overdecorated pine Christmas tree, cards on a string looped beneath the mantel above a fake log gas fire, loops of red, green and silver tinsel. ‘Season’s greetings,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the cake.’

  ‘You too. And thanks heaps for bringing Kip home,’ Monica said.

  She took him out onto the veranda, watched him bend to knuckle the kelpie’s head. ‘Those cuts—someone’s taken a stick to him.’

  Hirsch allowed that that was one possibility. ‘Or he got into it with another dog.’

  ‘No, that was a stick,’ Monica Fuller said flatly.

  She walked with Hirsch to his 4WD. ‘I hate to add to your workload, Paul, but there was a bit of excitement in town just now, while I was doing the shopping.’

  No one had notified Hirsch. Maybe he’d been out of range. ‘Do I want to know?’

  ‘Brenda Flann.’

  ‘Yeah. I didn’t want to know,’ Hirsch said.

  2

  EVERY CITY SUBURB and bush town had its Flanns. They lived in run-down houses with car bodies and washing machines rusting in weedy, untamed yards. Rangy dogs and snot-nosed toddlers sitting in the dirt. No obvious means of support but no apparent shortage of cash either. Always a couple of family members rotating through jail or ‘known to police’. Flashpoint tempers in the pub, the shop, the schoolyard, at the football. You didn’t look sideways at a Flann.

  Brenda Flann and her brood lived east of Tiverton, out in rain-shadow country, where the early settlers had been conned by one year of bumper rains then damned by decades of drought. Her husband, Stu, was serving five years for robbery and her sons were headed that way. Brenda herself wasn’t light-fingered—or she hadn’t been caught yet—but she was heavy-footed. She racked up fines and demerits the way some other women collected handbags.

  And that morning—no more than an hour ago, according to Monica Fuller—Brenda had tried to enter the main bar of the Tiverton pub without exiting her car first.

  ‘There was this almighty bang and I ran out of the shop and there she was, wedged under the veranda.’

  ‘Was she hurt?’

  ‘Nine lives, that one,’ Monica said. ‘But she’d knocked over one of the support posts and part of the roof had come down on the car.’

  ‘Already drunk,’ Hirsch muttered.

  ‘Well, is she ever really sober? Anyway, next minute her wheels are spinning and she’s trying to reverse off the veranda. She didn’t get very far, Ed and Martin managed to pull her out and confiscate her keys.’

  Ed Tennant owned the shop; Martin Gwynne was the town stickybeak. Hirsch closed his eyes briefly, thinking of the paperwork. Citizen’s arrest, if that’s what it was. Police arrest. Damage report, witness statements…And he’d rather take a DNA swab from a hungry pit bull than try to breathalyse Brenda Flann.

  ‘Where is she now?’ he asked, thinking that if Ed and Martin had her locked in a room, he’d be facing another stretch of legal quicksand.

  ‘They drove her home in her car.’ As if reading his mind she added, ‘But they have her keys and with any luck she’s passed out on her bed.’

  Hirsch shook his head, thinking of the other vehicles owned by the Flanns.

  Monica was giving him a sly smile. ‘Want a squiz?’

  Enjoying herself, she took an iPhone from her jeans pocket, tapped and swiped. Shading the screen from the sunlight, she showed Hirsch a series of photos: the tail end of a dusty 1980s Falcon wagon, a sagging section of curved corrugated-iron veranda roof, a snapped post, Ed and Martin holding Brenda by either arm.

  ‘Like me to email these to you?’

  Hirsch nodded, gave her his address. ‘And perhaps keep them to yourself? No need for them to go viral,’ he said lightly.

  Monica gave a good-humoured shudder. ‘Get on the wrong side of the Flanns?’

  Hirsch felt depleted suddenly. ‘She’s a complete pain in the arse.’

  Monica patted his arm. ‘Good luck.’

  By 1.30 p.m. the spine-jarring back roads were behind him and he was on the Barrier Highway again, slowing for the southern outskirts of Tiverton. A couple of crouching farmhouses, the disused railway station, the grain silos. When Hirsch was posted to Tiverton a year ago, the silos were glum, grey, weather-stained. Since then an artist had painted a huge flowering bottlebrush and a Sturt desert pea on one, merino ram heads on the other. There was something uplifting about them, he thought. The artistry, the incongruity, the sense of liberation from the buttoned-down lives all around. Others felt it too, a kind of pride and delight.

  He drove on, passing little stone houses behind hedges, the Catholic church, a disused garage, the Uniting church, the institute with its stone Anzac standing guard, the pub—a couple of early drinkers contemplating the mangled veranda iron—and finally, on the northern edge of town, the shop and the primary school opposite the police station.

  Police station. The front room of a tiny redbrick house, in fact, with a chest-high co
unter to separate Hirsch’s desk, swivel chair, filing cabinets and computer from the great unwashed. Behind his office, a door that led to his cramped living quarters. Out front, a patchy bit of grass and a wire fence, a little blue-and-white Police sign beside the gate. A short, badly potholed driveway, his old Nissan in the carport at the side of the house. Owing to the yawing, pitching back roads and the weight of his equipment belt, Hirsch’s back was a nagging mess, so he U-turned to park in the street rather than thud over his driveway potholes. A couple of the council’s road-maintenance guys had promised him a shovelful of leftover asphalt one day, but nothing had eventuated so far.

  He locked the police Toyota and stood for a moment, mentally sorting the rest of his afternoon. He was still to eat the sandwiches he’d packed this morning. Check the landline answering machine, read departmental emails, deal with Brenda Flann and the fallout from her little adventure. And take Katie Street home. Last day of the school year tomorrow, Christmas next week: Wendy’s daughter would be bursting out of her skin.

  In the end, Hirsch ate his lunch under the drowsy chop of the ceiling fan. Stale air, too warm. No messages, and only a couple of SA Police memos in his email, the words swimming before his eyes. What was an ‘information cascade’? More to the point, what was he expected to do about it? He got to ‘service performance indicators’ and logged out, having lost twenty minutes of his life.

  An envelope addressed in his mother’s large, rounded hand sat in his in-tray, rebuking him. As expected, it contained one sheet of cramped, minimally formatted type, the form letter his parents mailed to everyone at Christmas. Hirsch shifted in his chair: love, embarrassment, compassion, cynicism. Sometimes he thought he wasn’t a very nice man; certainly not a very nice son.

  He ran his gaze down the page. Trips his parents had made during the year. Who they’d seen. The garden. Bowls and golf. Who’d died, remarried, procreated, retired to the Gold Coast. The achievements of their only child, now one year into his posting at Tiverton and loving life in the bush!!! Always liberal with the exclamation marks, his mother.

  And with the usual poignant tug, a blue biro message just for him: ‘To our darling Paul, always in our thoughts, let your Christmas be happy and safe and may we see each other soon, your loving Ma and Pa.’

  This year’s card was a cartoon of two chimney-tops, a policeman nabbing a masked burglar emerging from one, Santa stepping from his sleigh into the other. Hirsch placed it with his other cards, all five of them: the general store, Martin and Joyce Gwynne, Katie Street and Wendy Street, the Muirs, Rosie—his only remaining friend at police HQ.

  He returned to his rickety chair and contemplated infinity again. A cloudless, windless day with a high, hot sun. He had no wish to be out in it. But it was 2 p.m. now and Katie got out of school at three. He’d better get cracking on the Brenda Flann case.

  Yet he continued to sit. Presently he heard a vehicle screech to a halt outside. A door slam, determined footsteps. Hirsch was attuned to the engine notes of his neighbours’ cars, the general sounds of the Barrier Highway. This was someone in a hurry for police attention.

  Martin Gwynne barged in, quivering with emotion. Sixty and retired, a neat package, a man of bubbling energy, he was always about the place somewhere. The street, the shop, council meetings, the tennis club, the Saturday football match.

  And, more often than not, bearding Hirsch in the police station about something or other.

  Hirsch swivelled in his chair. ‘Afternoon, Martin. Heard about your bit of drama this morning.’

  Gwynne sniffed. ‘Yes, well, you weren’t here so we had to act.’

  I’m never here on a Thursday or a Monday morning, you know that, Martin. He didn’t get up.

  Gwynne slammed a set of keys onto the counter. ‘Brenda’s. And I hope she doesn’t get them back in a hurry.’

  Oh, right, thought Hirsch, hauling himself to his feet, crossing to the counter.

  ‘The woman’s a menace. She’s going to kill someone, the way she’s going.’

  A house key, a key to a Ford, a short, silvery chain with a tiny pair of dice on the other end. ‘Take me through it,’ Hirsch said.

  ‘Where to begin,’ Gwynne said. He inflated slightly, stretching his faded pink Lacoste shirt. A little belly over a pair of ironed cargo pants. Deck shoes.

  Hirsch put up an abrupt hand. ‘Actually, Martin, first I need to know if you made an arrest. I mean, did you actually say those words to Brenda?’

  Gwynne looked astounded, doubly irked. ‘Arrest? That’s your job.’

  ‘Just sorting through the proprieties,’ Hirsch said, relieved. In the end, he rattled off a series of questions, the only way to cut through Martin Gwynne’s waffle. The sequence was simple: Martin had been chatting with Ed Tennant at the petrol bowser outside Tennant’s shop. They saw Brenda’s distinctive station wagon—rusty, dented blue body, sun-faded red bonnet—enter the town, stop briefly while Adam Flann, Brenda’s youngest, got out, and continue towards the pub.

  ‘She was swerving all over the road. Next minute she was up on the pub veranda.’

  ‘Go back a bit. Where did she drop Adam?’

  Martin frowned in irritation. ‘I don’t know. The Cobbs’ place? He’s mates with Daryl. What matters is…’

  What mattered was, Martin and Ed had run to the pub to see if Brenda was all right. ‘Or should I say, see if she’d hurt someone else. But when we got there, she tried to reverse off the veranda, so we pulled her out and I confiscated her keys.’

  ‘Wise move.’

  Martin stood a little straighter. ‘In the end, Ed drove her home in her car, and I followed and brought him back. We left her sleeping it off on her sofa.’

  Where she’s choking on her own vomit? wondered Hirsch—while also thinking it was a good thing Ed, not Martin, had driven Brenda. Martin would have lectured her the whole way, and she might now be going down for assault. ‘So her car was driveable?’

  ‘If you can call it that,’ Gwynne said.

  Hirsch added to his mental to-do list: photograph Brenda Flann’s car, photograph the damage to the pub. His afternoon was stuffed. Maybe Katie could go home with a town friend when school broke up? Or watch TV at his place—he’d shown her where the back-door key was hidden. He’d text her as soon as Martin Gwynne was out of his hair.

  Now Gwynne checked the time. ‘I assume you will arrest the bloody woman?’

  Hirsch grabbed Brenda Flann’s keys. ‘Thanks, Martin, I’ll take a formal statement from you later. Great job, by the way.’

  It was the right thing to say. In the hot, still air of the little waiting area, as the sluggish fan stirred the public notices and tipped over one of Hirsch’s Christmas cards, Martin Gwynne beamed.

  Milking the moment, he gave a tut-tut shake of his head. ‘I hate to think what damage or injury might have occurred if I hadn’t got to her in—’

  ‘Actually, Martin, did you check Brenda for injuries?’

  Gwynne blinked. ‘What? No. She’s fine. Snoring her head off when I left.’

  Hirsch thought of Brenda Flann with more urgency now. Alone—husband in jail, Adam in town, Wayne on the fire truck…

  ‘I’d better get going,’ he said, grabbing his uniform hat, strapping on the service pistol and equipment belt that helped keep his chiropractor’s kids in private schools.

  Gwynne seemed reluctant to see him go. ‘You still haven’t collected the Santa suit, Paul.’

  Martin, keeper of the town’s Father Christmas costume, had been asking for days when Hirsch might be expected to come by and collect it. And stay for dinner. Another dinner in the Gwynnes’ oppressive dining room, Martin’s avid questions, his fierce gossip, the meek wife he called Mother.

  ‘Thanks for reminding me, Martin. I’ll come by tomorrow morning some time.’

  ‘Or tonight, stay for dinner. You can tell me how it went with Brenda.’

  ‘I’ll be judging the Christmas lights tonight, sorry,’ Hirsch said, gabbling a l
ittle. ‘But maybe I could come for a meal once the seasonal madness is over?’

  ‘Holding you to that, Paul.’

  Hirsch locked up, pinned his mobile number to the front door and followed Martin Gwynne into the drenching sunlight. A gritty wind had been added to the mix, pushing paper scraps along the footpath, rattling the Fullers’ missing-dog poster on a nearby power pole. Hirsch tore it down, screwed it into a ball and said, ‘Thanks again, Martin.’

  ‘You’ll be checking the pub first, I expect, so you’re in a better position to know what charges you’ll lay on Brenda?’

  Martin had no doubt been telling people their jobs all his life. His wife, his employees, repairmen, next-door neighbours, the district council. Public servants. Hirsch was beginning to understand why he, not Martin, was this year’s Santa. It was the town avenging itself.

  ‘Actually, Martin, the first thing I need to do is check if Brenda’s okay,’ he said. In case she’s got whiplash, concussion, internal bleeding, vomit in her dead lungs, okay?

  Gwynne wasn’t quite sure it was okay, the disapproval clear in his eyes as they stood there next to the driver’s door of Hirsch’s police vehicle. But he didn’t get to express it. Instead, within seconds, he was saving Hirsch’s life.

  3

  HIRSCH PUT IT together later.

  Brenda Flann woke to find herself at home, on her sofa, with a thirst on. In some lizard corner of her brain the notion stirred that she should have been at the pub—had been there, in fact, so why was she back home? Looked out the window: there was her car. Meanwhile, a stronger notion was taking hold, that she still had plenty of drinking to do, so she searched for her keys. Couldn’t find them, but instinct took her to the kitchen drawer, repository of the world’s lost and spare crap, and she tottered out to the car with her spare key aimed vaguely at the ignition. Blinked to see the front banged up, the bumper caved in and the off-red bonnet corrugated with dents. She couldn’t recall any accident. One of the boys? What the hell, it was a shit car anyway.