Peace Page 24

  The hayshed. He parked between the gate posts and ran across to the listing walls. The hay was rotting but he found a hidden nest among the bales; an empty spring-water bottle, not a speck of dust on it.

  Where now? Prowl up and down the roads? Their instinct would be to head for Tiverton. Back in the Toyota, he placed Hansen’s phone in the bracket on his dashboard, and set it to play the man’s dying declaration.

  At first, only ambient sounds crackled from the little speaker: a breeze in the grass stalks; a tree heat-flexing; a crow cawing. Then Hansen’s voice emerged: slow, reedy, a man becoming weak.

  Denise Rennie, he said, was a New South Wales police civilian analyst working with Federal Police and Vita Roesch and other Major Crimes detectives on a large-scale arms and drugs smuggling ring comprising immigration agents, bikie gangs, Border Force officers and bent police. Along with the smuggling there were ancillary crimes including extortion, bribery and money laundering.

  At the midpoint of the investigation, an attempt was made on Rennie’s life—she was shot at by a motorbike pillion passenger—and the family was placed in witness protection near the town of Moree, in northern New South Wales, until the trials.

  Six weeks later her husband, Neil, was shot dead at home.

  Normally he’d not have been there—he worked part-time for the shire—but he and the older girl, Louise, were home sick. Louise witnessed the shooting and recognised the shooter as her mother’s work colleague, Vita Roesch. She escaped from the house with a mobile phone and called her mother, who was out shopping with the other children.

  The family fled. They made no contact with anyone for eighteen months. ‘Except,’ Hansen said, slurring his words, ‘Denise made a classic angry-idiotic move—she called Roesch and told her she was going down. You could say Vita was highly motivated after that.’

  Roesch, a major player in the very crime ring she was investigating, was in a position to manage the flow and storage of information. She’d have known when Denise Rennie was getting too close.

  ‘Then back in October,’ Hansen said, ‘Denise made contact with us.’

  She was cagey and she was patient: started with untraceable thirty-second calls from public phones to her dead husband’s Dog Squad friends. Quick, in-and-out questions, random times of the day and night, until she reached Hansen’s boss and decided she trusted him. Hirsch imagined those calls: she must have driven all over the state looking for phone boxes.

  ‘The money was running out and she was lonely I guess, and sick of living out in the sticks and worried about her kids’ futures,’ Hansen said, ‘but mainly she was pissed off about something she’d read online.’

  Her old case, adjourned when she disappeared, had been reopened in a watered-down form: minor charges only, against a handful of baggage handlers and couriers. What about the main players? What had happened to all that evidence she’d gathered?

  ‘Vita Roesch happened to it,’ Hansen said. He coughed, spat, groaned.

  Then Denise had dropped her bombshells. Not only had she saved some of that evidence to cloud storage but her daughter could ID Roesch as the shooter of her husband.

  ‘The boss set up a team to investigate Roesch. Small, hush-hush.’

  Hansen became Denise Rennie’s point of contact. He talked her through ways to bring the family in. How their ongoing safety would be secured. How Roesch and anyone involved with her would be kept in the dark.

  ‘This went on for about three weeks. She was paranoid about wiretaps, call monitoring, email hacking, so I talked her into getting a satellite phone.’ A pause while Hansen coughed wetly. ‘I don’t know where it is now. It wasn’t at the house, and Lavau didn’t have it.’

  Here Hirsch experienced an odd sense of time and place dislocation. Hansen hadn’t known about Wayne Flann.

  Finally, Denise Rennie revealed her address and Hansen obtained a number for Sergeant Brandl, just in case. Then, less than a week later, the Hamel Road murders. Hansen was sent to South Australia to monitor Roesch and safeguard the girls, if they could be found.

  Hirsch imagined Roesch’s eighteen months of gnawing anxiety—and then, the YouTube post, like a gift from god. She sends Lavau, but by the time he reaches the mid-north, Wayne Flann’s been and gone. Lavau would have reported back to Roesch, saying that whoever had shot Denise and Nick Rennie had either snatched the daughters or let them escape. What would Roesch have made of that? Someone in the organisation acting on their own initiative—one of her bikie mates going rogue? She would have told Lavau to stay put, keep his eyes and ears open, until her arrival. Her reason for being there? Ostensibly to safeguard the smuggling-ring investigation; actually to contain and mop up. And work out what the hell was going on.

  ‘She tried to seize Denise’s computers et cetera, but your people wouldn’t have it.’

  Hansen’s voice grew weaker. ‘There never was a man in a silver Passat. Classic Roesch misdirection. But Lavau was part of it and I think she shot him. He’d have been a liability if you’d caught him that day. I remember she made herself scarce for a few hours.’

  A long silence. Then: ‘Christ, I feel like shit. Head hurts. And I…ah…coupla things you need to know. I looked into Lavau yesterday. He was at the academy with Roesch. Twenty years ago, no contact since. But his file says he went to Barrenjoey High School. That’s a name you don’t forget…anyway, back when Neil Rennie was shot, when we were looking closely at everyone on the team, I remember one of the support staff…same school.’

  Hirsch was making mental notes as he drove. Tell Hansen’s boss.

  He waited for more from Hansen, but all he heard were the birds and the wind again, and, some time later, the sounds of his own feet scrabbling down the bank to find a dead man.

  Just as he reached to switch off Hansen’s phone, it rang. Hansen’s boss? Roesch? Hirsch slowed down and glanced at the screen. The caller ID simply said Denise.

  33

  HIRSCH PULLED OVER, spooked. He answered cautiously. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Is this…Is your name Hansen? Are you the police?’

  Craig Washburn, sounding typically befuddled. Hirsch said, ‘Craig, this is Paul Hirschhausen on Senior Constable Hansen’s phone.’

  Couldn’t get much clearer than that, but there was a silence, Hirsch reading bewilderment into it. He was bewildered. What phone was Washburn using? ‘Craig, where are you? Are the girls with you?’

  He heard the scrape of fabric in his ear like a clamorous seashell: Washburn holding the phone against his chest? Then muffled voices laced with agitation, broken when a woman said, ‘Give me that, you idiot. Paul? This is Nan.’

  Her voice cheery and bright, as if she’d just stepped in from watering the garden. Hirsch, wondering if he was in some kind of parallel universe, said, ‘What’s going on? Are you at home?’

  More precise than her husband could ever be, she still gave an account that unfolded in disconnected stages with prompts from Hirsch. He was on the move again, one hand on the wheel, the other holding the phone to his left ear. Moving again because Vita Roesch had appeared.

  As he’d supposed, Craig and the girls had walked south along the creek, eventually spotting Wayne Flann’s ute. They’d had no luck finding an ignition key, but Denise Rennie’s satellite phone, with only Hansen’s number in the contacts list, was in the glove box: another nail in Wayne’s coffin, Hirsch thought.

  Reluctant to stay with the ute or return to the creek, they crossed the road, concealed themselves in the hayshed and called Nan to come for them. When she got there, they made a run for the car—just as Roesch drove past. She swerved in front of them. Got out of her car with a big fake grin on her face. Nan had the others on board by now—she shot through the fence and across the paddocks to Hamel Road.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘The girls’ house. We couldn’t think where else to go. That woman was right behind us. She shot at us, Paul.’

  The house? Hirsch couldn’t see them defending a
place with so many entry points. ‘Can you lock yourselves in a room?’

  ‘We’re in the car-shed. We managed to lock the roller door and the inside door, but she’s right outside. First she tried bashing the doors, now she’s trying to sweet-talk us. Louise says not to trust her. Is that right?’

  ‘I’ll say,’ Hirsch said. ‘Stay where you are, I’m a few minutes away.’ He paused. ‘Look, can you get into the service pit under Mrs Rennie’s car?’

  ‘Yes. Why? Oh…’

  Right. In case Roesch starts firing shots through the shed walls.

  Hirsch said, ‘I want you to call Sergeant Brandl. She’ll know what to do.’

  He gave her the number, U-turned—hearing Hansen’s body shift in its restraints—and shot back towards the ruins, then onto Hamel Road. Gave himself a moment to think. Roesch would have gone via Tiverton. A longer route on better roads. If she’d cut through behind the Razorback, the GPS coordinates would have stopped her at Craig’s camp, well before the hayshed. Or she’d got lost. Or…Whatever. Her present location was what mattered.

  Hirsch pulled up at the driveway entrance for 6 Hamel Road, unsure of his next move. With the house over a small rise, he was invisible to Roesch. But he’d lose that advantage if he drove in. She’d hear him coming and have time to ambush him.

  He’d have to walk in.

  Blocking the driveway with the Toyota—it might slow her down if she bolted—he got out, locked up, unholstered his pistol and ran upslope towards the house. Halfway there his phone rang. Jesus. He switched it to silent as he fumbled it from his pocket and checked the screen. Sergeant Brandl.

  She’s spoken to Nan, he thought. He’d better answer. If he moved even a step he might lose his signal.

  ‘Sergeant,’ he said, his voice low.

  Her voice crackled. ‘Is what Mrs Washburn told me true? The sisters are alive? And Sergeant Roesch of all people is trying to shoot them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You sound short of breath. What’s going on?’

  ‘I’m on foot, just approaching the house now, and—’

  ‘Wait for backup,’ she said briskly. ‘That’s an—’

  And he’d lost the signal.

  He lay on his stomach at the top of the rise. Nan Washburn’s Volvo was parked at a crazy angle in front of the car-shed, all of its doors open, Roesch’s car behind it. Roesch stood in the open, apparently addressing the shed, looking, from the way she moved her arms as if she was laying down the law.

  No sound from the shed.

  Hirsch ran at a crouch down the slope, keeping to the edge of the track, ready to duck into the meagre shelter of the cypresses that lined it. He heard Roesch shouting, then cajoling, as he neared the bottom. Was she unravel-ling? When he was within twenty metres of her, she swung around and he froze in the lee of a tree trunk.

  She hadn’t seen him. She ran to the Volvo, ducked her head in for a quick look, then climbed behind the wheel. The keys must have been in the ignition: a puff of exhaust and the car shot towards the shed and slammed into the roller door. She reversed: the door was badly buckled, lifting at one corner. She rammed it a second time, reversed again with a tearing-metal sound, and now the gap was large enough to crawl through. The driver’s door swung open. One foot hit the ground.

  Hirsch sprinted. Coming in behind Roesch, he tucked the tip of his pistol behind her ear. ‘Stay right there. Throw your—’

  She yanked on the door. It cracked his forearm; his nerveless fingers opened; the pistol dropped to the dirt. Then she was tumbling out, shoving him in the chest, kicking the gun under the car, kicking him, and running for her rental car.

  She got in and looked at him, an odd, opaque expression, then sped away, up and over the rise. A few seconds later, he heard a shot. Then another. His tyres? He glanced at the Volvo. It was barely driveable.

  He approached the shed. ‘You can come out. She’s gone.’

  They were nearly silent. Some kind of muttered debate. His body was too drained—not a supportive bone in it—to crawl in and show them a reassuring face.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said.

  It was a long time before they straggled out. All four of them seemingly intact.

  34

  WHEN HE LEFT them five minutes later, they were arranged along the edge of the veranda, backs to the house, feet in the dirt, the girls in a fresh set of clothes fetched by Nan from their bedroom.

  They didn’t want him to leave them for even a minute. ‘Be careful. She could come back.’

  ‘She won’t,’ he said. ‘She’s blown her cover—nothing to gain by coming for you now.’

  He was itching to check the damage to the Toyota. Clearly, with Hansen’s body stretched out along the back seat, he couldn’t take the whole gang with him. ‘A couple of minutes,’ he said.

  Finally Nan Washburn made a shooing gesture and he ran up the incline and down the other side. The HiLux was listing. Roesch had put a bullet through each passenger-side tyre.

  He ran back to the house, watching the relief flow through all of them. He’d been gone for less than five minutes.

  ‘Did you see her?’

  ‘No sign of anyone,’ Hirsch said.

  ‘She shot your tyres?’ Craig said.

  ‘She certainly did,’ Hirsch said.

  They were still lined up along the veranda. He swung a garden chair around to face them. ‘I’ll need to borrow the phone again.’

  He’d made several calls already: reporting Roesch, with a description of her car; arranging for the collection of Hansen’s body and the transportation of Wayne Flann from Tiverton to the Redruth lockup; reassuring Bob Muir; requesting search warrants; and asking the sergeant to update the Homicide Squad and track down Hansen’s boss in Sydney.

  Now he made two more calls using the satellite phone: to Redruth Motors, requesting a truck to collect the Toyota, and to Brandl again, saying he’d need a replacement vehicle if he was to fight crime in the dark hours of New Year’s Eve.

  ‘Very droll,’ she said. ‘I’ll see what I can rustle up.’

  They settled in to wait. Louise was jittery—and no wonder, thought Hirsch: Roesch was still at large and the deaths of her mother and brother lingered inside the house behind her.

  He tried his warmest smile. ‘You’ll be in good hands. No need to hide now—too many people know about Sergeant Roesch. She has no motive to hurt you. She’s running for her life.’

  A grubby leg jittered. Teeth nibbled at fingernails.

  Jean Landy arrived first, driving a Redruth patrol car, followed by a mix of uniformed and plainclothes police to escort the sisters to Adelaide. ‘The boss is on the way,’ Landy said. ‘She stopped off in Tiverton to have a squiz at your prisoner.’ She paused. ‘You know for sure he’s the one?’

  Hirsch nodded. ‘Any news on the ambulance?’

  ‘On way.’

  Hirsch walked back to the road just as the ambulance appeared. He raised a hand to stop it, pointed to the rear of the HiLux and watched the ambulance pull up by the back door.

  The driver, a morose man with day-old black stubble, wound down his window. ‘You sure he’s dead?’

  ‘Pretty sure,’ Hirsch said, opening the door. The other paramedic, a small woman with brisk, expert hands, got to the body first. ‘Dead all right. Several bites. What kind of snake?’

  ‘A brown.’

  ‘Nasty.’

  Hirsch watched them load Hansen onto the stretcher and into the ambulance, then he walked back to the house. He was crossing the yard to the veranda when another vehicle arrived: Sergeant Brandl, driving a HiLux exactly like his wounded one. ‘Yours for the next couple of days.’

  ‘Thanks, sergeant.’

  ‘Walk with me,’ she said, striding off towards the shade of the first cypress tree as if she was controlled by wires. She stopped, turned, tucked a sweaty tendril of hair behind her ear. ‘How sure are you that Mr Flann shot Mrs Rennie and her son?’

  Arse-covering, though
t Hirsch. He nodded towards the house. ‘The older girl can ID him.’

  ‘So, nothing to do with witness protection?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Why? What was his motive?’

  ‘He’s been robbing remote farms. Might have been on ice that night.’

  ‘We’ll need better than that. He’s swearing black and blue he didn’t shoot them. Is the girl credible? It was night, she was scared, a lot happening…’

  ‘She’s credible.’

  They both glanced at Louise, who still sat on the veranda looking up at the detective questioning her, Craig Washburn’s arm around her shoulders. Brandl swung back to Hirsch. ‘It’ll be good when we get her statement,’ she said crisply. ‘Without that, what do we have? Mr Muir showed me the rifle you took off Mr Flann. It clearly isn’t the murder weapon. And Flann was adamant he’d never met Mrs Rennie or her family, never been to her house before, he was simply carrying out his own little search of the area, yada yada. And he’s accusing you of prejudice against his family.’

  Hirsch heard the sharpness. He’d disappointed her; he should have confided in her about Flann. ‘Boss, his own brother can put him at the house.’

  ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t he still missing? And how credible is he likely to be—assuming he’s found soon? Some actual evidence would be good.’

  ‘There is some,’ Hirsch said. He explained about the photographs on Flann’s phone.

  ‘Have you seen them?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘Perhaps they don’t exist. Perhaps he deleted them afterwards.’

  ‘Okay, what about the phone Mrs Washburn called you on? It was Denise Rennie’s. It was in Wayne’s ute.’

  ‘So? He can say he found it in the creek.’

  Frustrated with her now, Hirsch said, an edge to his voice: ‘Boss, he took a shot at me.’

  ‘He says it was accidental,’ Brandl said.

  Then her manner changed in its mercurial way. She grinned at him. ‘But taking a pot-shot at a policeman is enough to keep him locked up for the time being. Meanwhile, Jean’s got the search warrants. How confident are you that you’ll find something?’