Bitter Wash Road Read online

  ‘Thanks, Linda.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Well, I’ll be off. Nice seeing you, Sergeant.’

  ‘A hundred metres, Linda.’

  The ex-Mrs Logan waved vaguely at the café. ‘I was no closer than a hundred and twenty.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  When she was gone, Hirsch put his head on one side. ‘What was that all about?’

  ‘Old history. Logan got a restraining order put on her.’

  ‘Why?’

  Kropp in his brutal solid way turned slowly to face Hirsch, a fascinating contradiction playing across his face. Hirsch—the dog, the maggot—was also a fellow member who’d just been stitched up by Coulter and Logan.

  Hirsch waited. Kropp, gathering himself, there on the footpath, under the early afternoon sun, said, ‘Ian Logan liked to thump his wife. Just now and again, you know. Liked to forge her signature, too—banking matters, real estate contracts. Linda reported it, and when we heard he had this violent streak, we confiscated his guns. Shotgun, couple of hunting rifles. Anyway, she got screwed on the divorce and no action was taken on the issue of questionable documents and so he thought it was okay to ask for his guns back. Filled out the forms, asked to be deemed, quote, “a non-prohibited person in relation to a firearms application”. Coulter approved it. Linda went ballistic and started hassling everybody.’

  ‘They’re friends, Coulter and Logan?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what else about Coulter,’ Kropp said, as if Hirsch hadn’t spoken. ‘Last year we went into bat for a wife and kids who were being bashed pretty regularly by the husband. She turns up to court on time, we turn up on time, Coulter doesn’t. Apparently he turned up in Rothwell. Redruth, Rothwell, yeah, easy to confuse the two—if you were drunk or didn’t give a damn. So Coulter races back here all pissed off, blaming everyone but himself, and refuses to grant an intervention order or let the woman read her victim impact statement. A week later, her husband hospitalises her.’

  Kropp turned his bristly eyebrows to Hirsch. ‘And so on.’

  ‘The Bar Council?’ Hirsch said.

  ‘It’s like the police force,’ Kropp said, plenty of nastiness in it. ‘The first rule is, look after your mates.’

  Hirsch looked away. Far off down the street, Logan’s ex-wife was climbing into an ancient Toyota. The motor caught, toxins belched.

  ‘Nice looking woman,’ he said.

  ‘Married young,’ Kropp said. ‘Logan likes them young, quote unquote.’

  ‘Young as in...’

  ‘Young,’ Kropp said.

  Encouraged by Kropp’s manner, Hirsch said, ‘I still need a word with Ray Latimer, Sarge.’

  ‘How many times do I have to say it? Lay off.’

  ~ * ~

  Hirsch e-mailed snaps of Venn, Logan and Coulter to Rosie DeLisle, using his phone on top of one of the town’s seven hills, then bought a ham and salad roll from the café and drove slowly north. Tiverton came into view, the grain silo a stub on the horizon. The sky was huge and empty but faintly smudged out near the Razorback and then his phone came into range again.

  Rosie DeLisle, saying, ‘You think these characters are involved?’

  ‘Call it a hunch. Call it webs of influence. Also the fact that Ian Logan is said to enjoy young girls.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can find.’

  The next caller was Finola Armstrong, telling him that Craig Latimer was setting fires in the long grass next to her house.

  ~ * ~

  26

  HIRSCH FOUND A fallow paddock inside the Latimer property line, consisting mostly of dying grass, red dirt and star thistles, except for a vivid smudge of sooty earth the size of a schoolyard hard against the fence. Dirty red hieroglyphics scored the blackness, the spoor of fire-fighters and their trucks. Only one truck and four men remained now, Tiverton volunteers mopping up, together with one hopeful neighbour with a drum of water, a Honda pump, a hose and a teenage son on the back. The Mount Bryan truck had been and gone. Steam rose and hissed. Smoke wisped in the breeze.

  ‘Could have been worse,’ one of the volunteers said.

  Hirsch eyed the fence. Four charred posts, drooping wires, and a metre of blackness creeping onto Finola Armstrong’s property. Another hundred metres and it would have reached her sheds, her house. He could see her car in the yard. Couldn’t see the Latimers’ house: it lay on the other side of a rise.

  All those hectares and Craig Latimer comes to the boundary fence to light his fire? No sign of the boy or his father or grandfather. Carrying out some damage control somewhere? Presumably Jack was at school. What was Craig doing home from school?

  Hirsch got behind the wheel again and headed back along Bitter Wash Road to the Vimy Ridge gates. Parked, and followed voices to the back yard, one voice bellowing, ‘I’ll give you something to cry about, snivelling little wretch.’

  Latimer, panting, veins popping, swinging one huge paw in a back swing, the other clamped to his son’s neck and, before Hirsch could act, landing an almighty whack on the back of the boy’s legs.

  ‘Mr Latimer!’

  Latimer’s arm froze at the top of its arc. He let it flop, straightened his back. ‘Stay out of this.’

  ‘If you strike your son again, I’ll arrest you.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘No joke.’

  ‘Know what the little shit’s done?’

  ‘That’s what I’m here to find out.’

  ‘He was caught lighting matches and throwing them in the grass.’

  ‘Let him go.’

  Latimer shoved the boy from him, face wrenched in disgust. ‘You great sooky calf, get cleaned up and go to your room. I’m not finished with you.’

  ‘You are if you intend to hit him,’ Hirsch said.

  Craig was mucousy, helpless. ‘Please, Dad, I didn’t mean it. I was just—’

  Latimer aimed a kick at him. Hirsch grabbed his arm. ‘I mean it, Mr Latimer. Touch him again and I’ll do you for assault.’

  ‘It’s private.’

  ‘No it’s not. It involves me, now. It involves Mrs Armstrong. It involves the firemen. Is Jack at school?’

  Latimer blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘Is Jack at school?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why didn’t Craig go?’

  ‘I thought he had. I thought Finola had taken him to the bus.’

  ‘Where’s your father?’

  ‘He’s...what? He’s gone to the bank, if you must know.’

  Hirsch supposed it was possible the boy had heard talk of hard times and falling income, and decided a fire would bring in insurance money. The more likely explanation was a lot simpler: family circumstances, recent and historic, had messed with his head.

  Latimer was still panting. His hair flopped from heat and exertion, one wing of his shirt had escaped his belt and ash streaked his trousers and boots. He looked half mad, in fact, and Hirsch stiffened in readiness—but then saw acceptance and good sense along with a dose of self-pity come creeping back through the big frame and craggy head.

  ‘Are you arresting Craig?’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘He’s just a kid.’

  ‘Let’s go inside, make a pot of tea, have a talk,’ Hirsch said. He saw that he had ash on his toecaps. He polished them on his trousers and thought, why did I do that?

  ~ * ~

  Dust balls in the kitchen corners, a cornflakes packet on its side, a tide mark in the sink, newspapers piled on a couple of the chairs, unopened bills tucked between a pair of rotting apples in a cane basket. All of the love had gone from the room, the house, with the death of Alison Latimer.

  Watching Raymond slump at the table, Hirsch filled the kettle. He could see defeat in the heavy shoulders. Then, as if sensing the scrutiny, Latimer lifted his head. ‘You don’t know what it’s like.’

  Hirsch sighed. Did he want to hear this? He pulled out a chair and sat opposi
te Latimer. Behind him the tap dripped and the electric kettle woke softly. ‘Tell me.’

  Latimer ran his hands down his cheeks as if searching for a starting point. Or choosing from many starting points. ‘My son hasn’t been coping very well.’

  ‘With your wife’s death.’

  ‘Before that. He didn’t want to go to Redruth High but we had no choice, the St Peter’s fees were crippling us.’

  ‘He found it hard to settle in?’

  Latimer nodded glumly. ‘And then Allie moved out and he felt let down. Abandoned. And then she shot herself. Maybe he felt he was to blame, I don’t know.’

  Latimer moved uncomfortably in his chair. ‘It didn’t help matters when Fin started staying over a few nights a week. I probably should have waited a bit. But it wasn’t as if Allie and I had been getting on, not for years, really. I thought it would be good for the boys, a woman in the house.’

  Hirsch didn’t believe a word of it. ‘It was Mrs Armstrong who caught Craig throwing lit matches into the grass.’

  Latimer shook his head as if still amazed. ‘The little bugger said he wasn’t well, wanted to spend the day in bed, but when she went across to her house to do some chores, she spotted him in the paddock.’

  The kettle began tearing at the silence. It shut off. Hirsch got up and hunted for mugs and teabags. ‘Black? White? Sugar?’

  ‘White and two,’ Latimer mumbled.

  Hirsch smacked everything onto the table. The surface was streaked and smeared, as if swiped at rather than cleaned. Latimer made no move to drink his tea. Hirsch sipped and realised the mug was greasy.

  He said, ‘Ray, please don’t hit Craig again. What he needs is counselling.’

  Latimer winced. ‘How much is that going to cost me?’

  Hirsch stared. ‘You want him to go on lighting fires? What if someone dies?’ Then he thought of the killer: ‘What if someone sues you for a million dollars? One of your neighbours, for example, or the wind farm company?’

  The mention of money got Latimer’s attention. He brought his face back under control. ‘I’ll get him some help. No joke. I mean it.’

  ‘Try the school. They’ll have access to suitable counsellors. So will your family doctor.’

  ‘McAskill,’ muttered Latimer.

  ‘There you go.’

  A leaking tap got to Hirsch, drips falling with audible plinks. He pushed his chair back, stood, stepped across to the sink. The hot tap was dripping into a cereal bowl, which was piled atop three or four days’ worth of cereal bowls. He twisted the tap handle, realising at once it was fully off. The washer needed replacing, and he recalled Wendy Street’s words, that the Latimers spent their money on high-end farm equipment and breeding stock, not the upkeep of the house. He returned to the table.

  The farmer lifted his massive head and muttered, ‘Got to get that fixed.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is Fin going to press charges?’

  ‘I’ve yet to speak to her.’

  ‘Is she going to sue for damages?’

  ‘Like I said...’

  ‘Tell her I’ll pay.’

  ‘Tell her yourself.’

  ‘Yeah, well, she walked out on me.’

  There was a thump from the distant reaches of the house. Latimer ignored it, but when Hirsch shoved back his chair and ran, Latimer caught on quickly. Both men clattered down the hallway, an unlovely passage through the house, the wind of their passing agitating another crop of dust balls.

  The sign was a relic from primary school art class, ‘Craig’s Room’ in coloured wooden letters stuck to a board. Hirsch gave a token knock and went straight in.

  Craig Latimer was handballing a slack football against the curtain, the ball punching the fabric and falling to the floor. Over and over again. He didn’t register the alteration to the air, so Hirsch grabbed his arm. ‘Craig.’

  The tension went out of the boy. He slid to the floor, his back against the bed, his forehead on his knees. His shoulders heaved, strangled words leaked out of him.

  ‘Stop mumbling,’ Latimer snarled.

  Hirsch shot him a look and joined Craig on the floor. ‘She left us, she just cleared out,’ that’s what the boy was saying, and Hirsch guessed that the father had said it first and the boy had learned to recite it.

  I’m out of my depth here, he thought. And then the bed slid away on the slippery floor, responding to the pressure of their spines—as if everything was not quite right.

  Hirsch swung around onto his knees. ‘Your dad and I thought it might make you feel better to talk to someone. Not me, not him, not your grandparents. A nice person who will listen and not judge.’

  His eyes crazy, the boy shrieked, ‘I’m not crazy.’

  ‘You’d better leave,’ Raymond said.

  ~ * ~

  27

  HIRSCH LEFT THE Latimer place and went next door, where Finola Armstrong told him a little of her recent history.

  ‘When Eric died, men came crawling out of the woodwork. I suppose they thought I’d be an easy touch.’

  ‘Did that include Ray Latimer?’

  She shook her head. ‘His father, randy old goat.’

  They contemplated that. Armstrong said, ‘I think Ray was sniffing around a nurse at the time.’

  They were seated on a pair of frayed veranda chairs, behind an untamed vine. Hirsch caught glimpses of her yard and sheds and heat-stunned sheepdog and the dusty HiLux through the glossy leaves. Owing to the angle of the house, the burnt patch of grass and star thistles lay a few degrees out of sight.

  He said, ‘But you got talking and things developed because there’d been a grass fire.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And now we have another fire.’

  ‘Uh huh. But that first fire,’ Armstrong said, ‘we blamed on a cigarette tossed out a car window.’

  Hirsch, his gaze alighting on the farm dog, saw it take a bite of the air and subside. A fly buzzed at its eyes. It snapped its jaws again. ‘You think it was Craig?’

  She smiled, unclouded by doubt. ‘I’m sure of it.’

  ‘But this time you caught him at it.’

  She nodded. ‘I’d just come back from dropping Jack off at school.’ She paused, shook her head in disgust. ‘More fool me. Why should I do the school run? Not my kids.’

  ‘You took Jack, not Craig?’ checked Hirsch.

  ‘He didn’t show for breakfast and I didn’t think it was my job to get him ready for school. I mean, he’s fourteen and he’s not my kid. Anyway, when I get back, Ray’s sitting at the kitchen table, going, “Did you think to buy milk? Did you pick up the Advertiser.?” He wanted me to drive all the way back and get his precious milk and newspaper. Needless to say we had an almighty row and I walked out.’ She shook her head. ‘Call it a temporary insanity. Can’t believe I contemplated moving in.’

  Armstrong wore boots, jeans and a checked shirt. A practical woman, who for a time had had her head turned by a man whose sons were losing the plot and who might have arranged the murder of his wife.

  Hirsch said, ‘And meanwhile Craig’s not in bed but out in the paddock throwing lighted matches on the ground?’

  ‘I spotted him as I was driving in.’

  ‘Any theories?’

  ‘Yes. He’s fucked in the head, pardon my French. Last summer he learns he’s not so special: his old man’s broke and he has to attend the local high school. And this morning? Take your pick: his mother’s suicide, me being around, the way his father and grandfather treat him, life at school...All of the above.’

  ‘Have there been other fires?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’ She stared at him. ‘That boy needs help, before it escalates. You can see how dry it is, and a hot summer coming up.’

  ‘Mr Latimer said he’ll find a counsellor for Craig.’

  ‘They all need it,’ Armstrong said, with honeyed bitterness.

  ‘In what way?’
/>   ‘Craig’s a pyromaniac in the making, Jack’s just sad, the old man is a bully and a sadist, and so is Ray. And lazy. He would sit around watching TV and drinking beer and expect me to cook and clean for him. I’ve got a farm to run. So has he, except he’s stuffed that up.’