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  He turned to Louise. ‘We need to get you somewhere comfortable, with a bathroom, proper beds, people to look after you.’

  ‘This is safe! Out there’s not!’

  Hirsch turned to Washburn for support but Craig shook his head. ‘The wrong people know that the girls are unaccounted for.’

  Hirsch shrugged.

  Washburn persisted. ‘And these same people know that Louise is old enough to be a reliable witness.’

  He’s not stupid, Hirsch thought. He gave the girls an uneasy look. ‘We don’t know that anyone’s after them in particular.’

  Washburn seemed disappointed in him. ‘Don’t we?’

  ‘Craig, let’s get the girls in the hands of the police as soon as possible.’

  ‘We can’t trust the police!’ Louise Rennie shouted. She was ragged, snotty, furious and frustrated.

  ‘But what about your mother’s friend? Vita? They worked together.’ Hirsch took out his phone, found the image of Roesch and Hansen in his sitting room. ‘This is her. She arrived here from Sydney a few days ago. She’s worried about you.’

  Louise Rennie glanced at his phone with her face half-averted as if fearing an attack. She shook her head, uttered a mad, choked laugh and shrank away. ‘You’re not listening to me.’

  ‘The man sitting next to Ms Roesch. Know him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘On Christmas Day my sergeant received a call from a policeman in Sydney asking us to check on you. Could it have been him? Was your mother in contact with anyone there?’

  She was rocking in distress. ‘Yes, but I don’t know who. She bought a satellite phone.’

  That explained the lack of Sydney calls from the Hamel Road house. No satellite phone had been found. Stolen, presumably, along with the toolbox and the bike.

  Louise Rennie was pointing heatedly at Hirsch’s phone. ‘Are they outside? Did you bring them here? Did they follow you?’

  ‘No,’ Hirsch said, harsh and definite. ‘They’re in Redruth. There’s no reason for them to be interested in anything I’m doing, and I didn’t even know about you and Craig or this place till half an hour ago.’

  She shoved her jaw at him. ‘I don’t trust any police.’

  ‘Louise,’ Hirsch said, shaking his head in frustration. He looked at her. ‘Did you think the man who came to your house on Christmas Eve was a policeman?’

  ‘Maybe. Probably.’

  ‘You can trust most of us, Louise.’

  Washburn interrupted. ‘Better hear her out, Paul.’

  Hirsch shrugged. ‘Go ahead. Start at the beginning.

  Why was your family placed in witness protection?’

  Louise Rennie took a breath, released it again, a way of ordering her thoughts. Then she started, rattling it off: ‘Our real name is Reid. We used to live in Sydney. Mum and Dad were in the police. Dad was just in the Dog Squad, but Mum was an analyst. She worked on big cases. One night we all had to pack a bag and some people took us to this town up near Moree. They said it was only for a while, till Mum gave evidence in court. We couldn’t text or call or Facebook. We had to be home-schooled, never went out, never went anywhere.’ She looked away. ‘Then one day someone shot Dad.’

  Washburn interrupted. ‘He was home when normally Denise would have been. She’d have been the target. Someone leaked their location. Someone in the police. So you can see why Louise doesn’t know who to trust.’

  ‘I can see that,’ Hirsch said, even as he was thinking: What if the husband was the intended target? What if it had been a local crime—he’d had an affair in Moree, for example? ‘But I hope you can trust me,’ he added.

  All three looked at him as if he were the last person they’d trust. He shrugged and said, ‘Why wasn’t your mother there that day?’

  ‘Usually she would’ve been, and Dad would’ve been at work—he did some gardening for the shire—but he was home sick.’

  ‘And your mother left the house…’

  ‘To do some shopping. Normally she didn’t go out.’

  ‘Where were you kids?’

  Louise was scraping shapes in the dirt with her big toe. ‘We went with her in the car.’

  ‘How did you know what happened to your dad?’

  More patterns in the dirt. ‘We came back from shopping and there was a police car there, so we just drove past and then a bit later heard it on the news. Didn’t dare go back.’

  Hirsch tried to see the world through Denise Rennie’s eyes. Even as a civilian analyst, she’d have known all about the lies, whispers, nods and handshakes that glued a police force together. So, she disappeared with her children into her own version of witness protection.

  ‘How did you end up here, in particular?’

  ‘Mum grew up in Broken Hill,’ Louise said, as if that explained it. Perhaps it did, Hirsch thought. Broken Hill was dry country not so many hours north of Tiverton, and many Broken Hill families holidayed in Adelaide, which meant driving through the mid-north.

  ‘Did your mother contact anyone after you came here? Your witness-protection handlers, for example?’

  ‘Not for ages.’

  ‘But she was speaking to someone more recently?’

  Louise nodded. ‘She started saying, “We need to come in, we can’t live out here forever.” But I don’t know who she was talking to or what they said. All she said to us was, until she could work something out, we were on our own. We couldn’t trust anyone.’ She glanced up at Washburn. ‘Except Craig.’

  Hirsch tried to imagine their lives. Cut off from everything and everyone they knew. Home-schooled. Quick in-and-out trips to town. The kids walking along the creek to visit a crazy old man.

  ‘You had enough money to live on?’

  ‘Mum says it’s starting to run out,’ Louise said. Tears spilled. ‘Said it was running out.’

  And before they could come in out of the cold, Denise Rennie was spotted, by the wrong people, on YouTube. ‘Louise, we need to think of something more secure than this. I should tell my boss. She’s a good person.’

  ‘No! If you do, we’ll just run away again.’

  ‘I’m sure I could find somewhere safe for the meantime, while we work out who to trust.’

  As he said it, Hirsch had doubts. It wouldn’t matter where he took the girls, they’d be spotted eventually; someone would say something. And he didn’t want to ask a favour of anyone close to him, risk the lives of Wendy and Katie, the Muirs’, his parents or Nan Washburn. Child Protection? Any government agency would leak like a sieve.

  ‘Let me put my thinking cap on. I’ll get back in touch later today.’

  ‘Don’t trust anyone,’ Louise Rennie said, the conviction hard in her.

  Hirsch made one last try. ‘I have a police friend named Rosie whose job is investigating corrupt police. I trust her. She’ll find somewhere safe for you and keep it under the radar until we find a more permanent solution.’

  ‘No.’ Louise went rigid. ‘No police.’

  ‘We’re not all villains, Louise.’

  ‘Even if that’s true,’ she retorted, ‘Mum said the police have to follow procedures. Things get written down and put in files. You can’t keep a lid on it.’

  Hirsch pictured Denise Rennie talking to her kids deep into the night. Her paranoia catching: Don’t trust anyone. Except the family had put some trust in Craig Washburn. And right now, Hirsch thought, I’ve also been granted a smidgin of trust.

  ‘Louise, are you going to grow old in this cave?’

  A cheap shot, and she was disgusted. ‘There’s only one way we’ll show ourselves.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘When you lock up everyone responsible. All of them.’

  Hirsch thought about it. Did he keep their location a secret for now? He visualised the killer more as a force than a person—malign but diffuse, floating out in the back country somewhere, poised at any second to take on a clear shape and pounce. And a checklist had been drilled into him at the academy. Before
acting, a good cop will ask: will it pass scrutiny? Is it lawful? Is it ethical? Is it fair?

  He didn’t get far with his thinking because just then the creek started to sing. The rounded stones below the dugout entrance were tocking, scraping, grinding. Louise scuttled to the lip of the dugout, came back at once, hyperventilating. ‘It’s him. The one who…the one on Christmas Eve.’

  Hirsch scrambled half-bent to the entrance and dropped to his belly. He peered out.

  Wayne Flann.

  29

  THE WINDSCREEN FLASH Hirsch had seen from the road: Flann’s ute. Reminding himself to study a topographical map should the creek ever feature in some future crime, search party or picnic, he watched Flann cast about, alert, as he receded in the direction of Craig Washburn’s camp. Flann was dressed as before, the rifle strapped to one shoulder. His T-shirt was dark with sweat and dotted with flies. Dust on his jeans. Without the rifle, you might overlook him, a bush drongo like any other. To Hirsch he was as sharp and poised as a dart.

  Flann disappeared around a bend. He’ll see the police Toyota before long, Hirsch thought, and wonder what it was doing there. Or he’ll spot the dugout entrance on his way back.

  Hirsch shuffled back to the others, murmured, ‘Stay here, don’t show yourselves to anyone, don’t make a sound. If anyone other than me calls out your names, ignore them.’

  Then he was dropping into the bed of the creek. But the stones were noisy under his boots, so he climbed onto the bank, passing through dead grass that whispered against his trousers. Even so, he was posed against the sky. And there were snakes. Hirsch shuddered. He was trained for street shadowing and surveillance and couldn’t relate any of it to tracking someone in the bush.

  He checked his phone: no signal. The terrain grew rougher, more difficult. Where the creek was shallow, Flann’s head and shoulders would appear above the bank and Hirsch would duck. He passed through the stabbing spines of star thistles, over a limestone reef, around a stretch of rabbit burrows and a handful of deeper, more treacherous holes that he guessed were collapsing mine shafts. A snake flicked into movement and reared. Hirsch bolted.

  Slid over the bank to the noisy safety of the creek bed. Began to pick his way carefully, keeping off the stones as much as possible, looking for stretches of sand. Two reedy waterholes put him temporarily on the bank again. Looking down, he saw a yabby disappear, disturbing his soulless reflection in the water. His pistol was in his hand, he realised, safety off. He’d trip and shoot himself if he wasn’t careful. He reholstered the gun and carried on.

  He couldn’t hear his quarry. He judged that Craig’s caravan was about a hundred metres ahead. He tried to get inside Flann’s skin, his thoughts jumping madly. Wayne was here to mop up. The killings had had nothing to do with Sydney or witness protection. It was a nasty, brainless local crime.

  It felt to Hirsch that he was picking his way over booby-trapped eggshells. He reached the final bend. Heard the music of the stones ahead and—too late—found himself only a few metres from Wayne Flann, who was turning towards him.

  Startled, Flann shrugged the rifle strap from his shoulder, swung the barrel tip towards Hirsch and stepped back onto a stone that turned under his heel.

  His ankle buckled. He grunted, winced with pain, and placed all his weight on the other foot as he tried to work a cartridge into the breech and, in the same movement, nestle the rifle butt into his shoulder. He tipped to one side, his footing unstable as he fired, and the shot went wide.

  Hirsch was moving, already on him, deflecting the barrel, powering his shoulder into Flann’s mid-section. They bounced apart again, slipping and slithering and windmilling for balance, almost comic. Toppling slowly onto his back, Hirsch propped himself on his elbows and hooked his right foot behind Flann’s injured ankle. Flann flipped onto his spine, the fall driving the breath from his lungs, and Hirsch was on him again.

  Grinding the barrel of his pistol under the man’s jaw, Hirsch said, ‘Wayne Flann, I am arresting you for assaulting a police officer and for the murders of Denise and Nick Rennie.’

  A twist of savagery on Flann’s face. Then it cleared, replaced by his usual sleepy-eyed charm. Almost as if he might seduce Hirsch into some harmless shared wickedness. ‘Jeez, Paul, didn’t mean to shoot at you. We’re mates, right? I’m out here looking for those kids. No one’s thought to search this part of the creek. Suddenly I hear someone coming and I think, shit, who’s that, the killer? Bit quick on the draw; sorry buddy.’

  Hirsch ignored him. Took the handcuffs from his belt and manacled Flann, right wrist to left ankle.

  ‘Jesus, how am I supposed to walk?’

  ‘You’re not. You’re staying put for a few minutes.’

  Hirsch patted him down briskly. Found keys, a wallet and an old Samsung phone in the front pockets of his jeans.

  Flann smirked. ‘That how you get your kicks?’

  Hirsch turned him over; nothing in the tight back pockets. Rolled Flann onto his back again, stepped clear of him and checked the Samsung. It was locked.

  He tilted the screen towards Flann. ‘Password?

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘Something you don’t want me to see?’

  ‘Fuck you. Get a warrant.’

  ‘Wayne, I found the girls. You were recognised.’ He wondered, too late, if he should have kept his mouth shut.

  As if unable to stop himself, Flann said, ‘The dugout, right? My old man said—’

  Then his face shut down. ‘Time for me to go no comment. No comment from here till fucking eternity.’

  ‘Who was in the ute with you the other night? Was it Adam? Is that why he’s disappeared? Couldn’t stomach what you’d done?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Wait here.’

  ‘No fucking comment.’

  Hirsch set out to fetch the HiLux. First secure his prisoner, then deal with the Rennie girls.

  Five minutes later, parked beside the creek, he shoved Flann up the bank and into the boxy prisoner-transport compartment in the back of the Toyota. Snug, white inside and out, no windows, no sharp surfaces. Stifling just now, but the car aircon was ducted through. Flann would survive.

  Before locking him away, Hirsch twisted the cap off a bottle of water and handed it over. ‘It’s not a bribe, it’s not poisoned, no added truth serum.’

  Flann showed a flash of bewilderment and curiosity. Then his empty, no-comment face reappeared and he merely stared at Hirsch, received the bottle with an abbreviated nod, and drank deeply—an unguarded action, and when he’d taken it from his lips, face regaining its composure, Hirsch snapped his photograph.

  ‘You cunt.’

  Hirsch smiled, handed him a second bottle. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’

  ‘I get claustrophobic.’

  Hirsch got behind the wheel, aircon on high, and checked the CCTV feed: Flann looked resigned but was muttering fuck and cunt and copper a lot.

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ Hirsch murmured, and bumped the Toyota across the dirt and grass until he reached the dugout. Leaving the aircon and engine running, handbrake on, he slapped his palm against the box and shouted, ‘Back in a few minutes.’

  Flann began to shout, kick the walls. ‘I’m dying in here. I’m claustrophobic, you fucking arsehole.’

  The Toyota protested meekly, rocking on its springs. ‘Few minutes,’ Hirsch shouted.

  He climbed down to the bed of the creek, stood beneath the dugout and called, ‘It’s Paul, you’re safe now, he’s locked up.’

  He scaled the bank. At the dugout entrance he said it again: ‘I arrested him. He can’t get at you. He’s locked away.’

  Craig Washburn gave one of his vacant grins, Anna sucked her thumb, eyes wide, and Louise was suspicious. ‘How do we know?’

  ‘Here.’ Hirsch swiped at his phone, showed her the screen.

  She peered briefly and nestled back in against Washburn. ‘Who is he? Police?’

  ‘He’s called Wayne Flann. He lives near
Tiverton. Did you ever have anything to do with him? Was he ever at your house? Did your mum, I don’t know, cut him off in a carpark? Anything like that?’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’

  Then her face creased; grief and bewilderment saturated her voice. ‘Why would he want to kill us?’

  Hirsch touched the back of her hand. ‘I honestly don’t know. I think he and possibly his brother liked to go around breaking into houses on quiet back roads and this time it was your bad luck. Maybe this time he was high on drugs, I don’t know. The thing is, there’s no need for you girls to stay here now. Hop in the car, I’ll take you somewhere safe.’

  She shook her head wildly. ‘No way.’

  ‘We won’t go anywhere near any police, okay? We’ll figure out somewhere safe you can go, then I’ll get your statement and we’ll start an investigation.’

  She shrieked it. ‘Start an investigation? While people can see us sitting in your car? And you said that man you arrested has a brother? Where is he? Is he coming after us, too? We’re staying here. Craig’ll look after us.’

  Hirsch was patient. ‘You’ll be safe travelling with me. There’s plenty of room and—’

  Her voice rose an impossible notch. ‘You honestly think we’re riding in the same car as him?’

  Anna took her thumb from her mouth, her face wretched, and began to wail. ‘Shhh,’ her sister said. ‘Sorry, bub.’

  Hirsch, looking to Washburn for help, saw only a benign, philosophical beam on the old creased face, and a tiny shrug that said: What can you do, eh?

  Hirsch sighed. ‘Will you at least let me contact my friend in the police in Adelaide? The one who polices the police. She’s straight, she’s honest, she has no contacts with anyone in New South Wales…’

  Louise gave it some reluctant thought, rolling her shoulders. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘How about this?’ Hirsch said. ‘I take Mr Flann to jail and come straight back and collect you and drive you to Adelaide. I won’t say anything to anybody about finding you. We’ll put you somewhere safe until everyone involved has been arrested.’