Bitter Wash Road Page 27

  A moment later they were parked at the kerb and stepping onto his lawn. Hirsch released the spray-gun trigger, dropped the hose, wiped his palms on his jeans and thought backpackers. The clue was in the backpacks propped up like a pair of passengers on the back seat. Northern European? Tall, blonde, lithe, sun-browned, clear-eyed, quizzical, fearless—on just about every count they were not locals.

  ‘We are not having benzene,’ the boy said, his teeth white and straight. Board shorts, faded T-shirt, craft-market sandals.

  ‘Petrol,’ Hirsch said.

  The girl said, ‘This is so. Pet-rol.’

  She was as tall as her boyfriend, vital, athletic, with cropped hair, tight shorts and a singlet top. Hirsch fell in love on the spot. Looks plus vitality plus accent.

  ‘The shop’s closed, I’m afraid.’

  ‘We must be in Port Augusta for the famous Ghan and Pichi Richi trains,’ the girl said, mangling the words charmingly.

  Hirsch had a mental stab at their movements. A few weeks or months travelling around and across the continent, hitchhiking, taking buses and trains, maybe some fruit picking, bartending and waitressing along the way. Hiring a car occasionally, like this Hertz Camry. The Ghan ran from Adelaide, with a stop at Port Augusta, three thousand kilometres to the Timor Sea. But first, it seemed, they wanted to ride the old Pichi Richi train, a rickety little rattler that travelled a short distance near Port Augusta. He supposed there was a Hertz agency there where they could return the car.

  ‘Please can you help us? The next town is too far for us and the last town is too far also. We are not having the petrol for these journeys.’

  Hirsch thought this was something they didn’t prepare you for when they posted you to a one-man police station in the bush. He made a mental note to stock some emergency fuel. A jerrycan of unleaded, one of diesel. Man of the people. Who...? he thought.

  Bob Muir.

  ‘I can take you to someone who might have some petrol.’

  ‘Dank.’

  Dutch? He squeezed in with the backpacks and directed them to the street where the Muirs and the Donovans lived.

  Yvonne Muir answered. Eyeing the Camry and its occupants, quivering to know, she said, ‘Bob’s next door, setting up Leanne’s new TV.’

  Hirsch paused at the Camry to explain, and walked across the grass to the Donovans’. Leanne opened the door, looking red-eyed, uncombed, a little askew in battered Crocs, tracksuit pants and T-shirt. She blinked at Hirsch, said, ‘Sorry, haven’t had a shower yet,’ and led Hirsch through to her sitting room, where she collapsed into an armchair. A mug of tea steamed on stool beside it, a cigarette burned in a saucer.

  ‘Bob,’ Hirsch said, nodding at Muir, who was kneeling on the floor beside a wall opposite Leanne’s armchair, a screwdriver sticking out of the rear pocket of his overalls.

  Muir nodded, said ‘G’day,’ and returned to his task. He’d run coaxial cable along the skirting board to a large flat-screen television, which had replaced the boxy set Hirsch recalled from his first visit. The old TV sat with its face to the wall with a coil of old ribbon cable, disgraced and ready for recycling. Ready for the rubbish tip, anyway.

  The air was dense: both Muir and Leanne had cigarettes going. Hirsch wanted to cough, wave the smoke away, open a window. ‘Need to ask a favour.’

  Muir, still on his knees, produced a Swiss Army knife, took up the cable end. He peeled back a couple of centimetres of black outer casing, revealing the inner sheath, core and copper wire. ‘Shoot,’ he said.

  Hirsch told him about the backpackers.

  Muir grunted. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time. The last bloke always had a couple of drums on hand, one unleaded, one diesel.’

  ‘I’ll remember that,’ Hirsch said.

  ‘Go down the side of my place to the shed and you’ll find a ten-litre jerrycan. There’s a drum of unleaded against the back wall. How about I let them have twenty litres? Fifty bucks oughta cover it.’

  ‘Thanks, Bob.’

  Hirsch stepped over to the TV. ‘You won’t know yourself with this, Leanne.’

  She smiled, tired, sad, thankful for small mercies. ‘Present from Sam.’

  ‘Nathan’s mate?’ said Hirsch, running his hand over the smooth plastic. ‘Generous of him.’

  ‘He won it at the pub. Doesn’t need it.’

  ‘Wish someone would give me a new TV,’ Hirsch said, peering into the gap between the rear panel and the wall. ‘All I’ve got is a little portable, lucky to get one channel, depending on the weather.’

  There was nothing to say to that. Muir was fastening a connector to the cable end, ready for the antenna socket. Leanne continued to watch him. Hirsch left them to it.

  ~ * ~

  When the backpackers were gone and Bob had his fifty dollars—’Do I get a commission?’ ‘How about a second channel on your TV?’ ‘Done.’—Hirsch opened up the office and hunted through the burglary reports, going back one year. Then he walked across to the Tiverton Hotel: like the Muncowie pub on the outside but more appealing within. Dining room, main bar, side lounge, dartboard, snooker table, widescreen TV and no old-timers nursing beer.

  And no raffle, not recently. Last Christmas, maybe? Always a ham at Christmas.

  So Hirsch phoned a few other pubs in the area. Muncowie, Redruth. No raffles offering a TV set.

  It occurred to Hirsch that he didn’t know where Nathan’s mate Sam lived, and asking around would only alert the guy. But he did know where they both worked.

  ~ * ~

  AT EIGHT ON MONDAY MORNING he walked across town to Tiverton Grains, a collection of storage and processing sheds around a huge untidy yard, run out of a cottage on a side street. Racked with sneezes, he entered the main shed, a vast echo chamber, almost empty but for a few pallets, jute bags and nameless items of equipment. Thick air, thick with grain dust. Seeing no one, hearing a truck motor and voices in the back yard, he continued through to a metal door in the back wall, stepping from dimness and scratchy air to drenching sunlight. The yard was a depressed expanse of fuel drums, rusted machinery and dead weeds next to a broad patch of oily dirt that served as employee parking. Four cars this morning, including Sam Hempel’s lowered Commodore.

  Hirsch headed across to an open tin structure against the back fence, a service bay. Inside it, nose out, was a grain truck, two overalls peering into the engine compartment. One of them saying, ‘Give her another go.’

  The motor ground over, didn’t fire. With the bonnet up, Hirsch couldn’t see who was behind the steering wheel but he said, ‘Morning, gents,’ as he approached.

  Sam Hempel and an older man straightened, turned. ‘Help you?’ the older man said.

  Hirsch drew incautiously nearer. When he said, ‘I’d like a quick word with Sam,’ Hempel spun round, punched him in the stomach and legged it, waving his hand in the air and yelping, ‘Ow, fuck,’ as he ran.

  ‘Jesus, mate, sorry, don’t know what got into him,’ the older man said, touching Hirsch as if he might bite, not sure what to do.

  Hirsch, sucker-punched twice in as many months, was bent double and gasping. He straightened and took off at a tormented shuffle, stomach muscles pulling. He followed the kid past the abandoned machinery and drums to the four employee cars. Hempel had vanished. Hirsch prowled between the vehicles, looking behind, under and into them, itching to look into the boot of the lowered Holden.

  A whisper of cardboard or plywood against fabric, a soft booming sound, a sense of items shifting, compressing.

  The rubbish skip.

  Hirsch banged his fist against the metal flank. ‘Sam? Come on out of there.’

  After a while, ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘Not going to happen and you know it.’

  Hirsch waited. The morning was warm and still, the sun edging above the gums that marked the boundary between the town and the first wheat paddock. A vapour trail disintegrated as he watched it. Adelaide to Perth? Adelaide
to Alice Springs or Darwin? He thought of the Dutch backpackers aboard the Ghan. Meanwhile Tiverton was silent, only a murmur in the background and Hempel trying not to disturb the rubbish.

  ‘Sam? I won’t give you up to Sergeant Kropp and his boys, okay? But if I have to call them in, it’ll be taken out of my hands and I can’t protect you. Understand?’

  He could hear the boy thinking.

  ‘I know you’re frightened. If you had your time over again, you wouldn’t punch me. Hell to pay for assaulting a police officer. But, you know, maybe we can work something out.’

  ‘You promise you’ll keep them Redruth jacks off me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nicholson?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Still Sam weighed his options. Hirsch said, ‘Nice gesture of yours, giving Leanne Donovan a TV set. She hasn’t had a good trot, and it counts for a lot in my book that you did something kind for her.’

  Silence.

  ‘Even if the set was stolen, it was still a kindness to a woman who needed it.’

  ‘She’s good to me. And I felt bad for her because of Melia and that.’

  So bad that you went on a housebreaking spree on the day she put her daughter in the ground, Hirsch thought.

  ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘But we do have to talk.’

  The load shifted, the metal skin boomed faintly and Hempel’s red head appeared. He hoisted himself onto the rim of the dumpster, wild-eyed, oil on his jeans, hands and forearms. He was sweating as he gave the yard a jittery once-over.

  ‘It’s okay. Only me here,’ Hirsch said.

  Hempel jumped to the ground. His jeans slithered to his thighs. He tugged them up. ‘Where we going?’

  ‘To the station for the time being.’

  ‘Not down Redruth?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to hit ya.’

  ‘I understand.’

  They were moving towards Hempel’s car now. Hirsch shepherding, ready to grab, bolster, protect or brain the kid. ‘Keys?’

  He lifted the boot lid. Two Blu-Ray players, a Game Boy, a laptop, a media dock, a Samsung Galaxy phone still in its box. All on the list. Hirsch slammed the lid, said, ‘Get in,’ and drove out of the yard.

  Down they went to the main road, passing the general store, into Hirsch’s place of business, Sam looked around the station foyer and said, ‘If I tell yous who run Melia over, can I go?’

  ~ * ~

  30

  HIRSCH SHOOK HIS head. ‘First things first, Sam. Tell me about the burglaries.’

  They were in the sitting room, the front door locked to deter callers. He switched on the digital recorder, stating names, date and location.

  Hempel, a forlorn shape in one of the armchairs, looked on in dismay. ‘Don’t I need a lawyer?’

  Hirsch got comfortable. ‘You’ve every right to one, Sam. Of course once a lawyer’s involved I’ll formally charge you. And at that point I will throw the book at you: assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, several counts of burglary. I’m sure I can think of a few more. Then I’d get Sergeant Kropp to put you in the Redruth lockup while I inform the homicide squad that you’re a witness and maybe a suspect in the death of Melia Donovan. They don’t mess around, those guys. They’ll whisk you away and grill you for days. You won’t see daylight for twenty years.’

  He paused. ‘That’s if we go the formal route. You will still face charges, but I’d like to protect you from the worst of it, at this stage.’

  Hempel gnawed at his lower lip.

  ‘So,’ Hirsch said, ‘the break-ins.’

  ‘It was me. I done them.’

  ‘But you were at the service in the church, with Nathan and his mother. I saw you.’

  Sam shifted in agreement and embarrassment. ‘I was like,, you know...’

  ‘Checking out who else was there.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You knew these people would be absent from their homes for a couple of hours.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Didn’t Nathan or his mother wonder where you’d gone?’

  ‘Said I had stuff to do.’

  ‘Where do you live at present?’

  ‘At Nate’s.’

  ‘And before that?’

  ‘With me mum sometimes, with me mates, mattress on the floor and that.’

  Hirsch checked the recorder. Satisfied, he said, ‘I’ve been looking at burglary and theft reports for the past twelve months. There have been several similar break-ins: farm properties over Easter, school holidays, Saturdays when people are playing sport. Was that you?’

  Sam looked hunted. ‘Thought you wanted to know about Melia?’

  ‘Was that you acting alone, or did you have help?’

  ‘I didn’t kill her!’

  ‘The burglaries, Sam: was that you acting alone or did you have help?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Was Nathan ever involved?’

  ‘Nate? No way. The cops are always hassling him.’

  ‘Yes. That would make it difficult for you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. You stole quite a lot of gear in the past few months. The stuff in your car, that’s the tip of the iceberg. Where’s the rest?’ ‘Sold it.’

  ‘Bloke in a pub.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’ll need a name.’

  ‘Dunno if I could find him again.’

  Hirsch couldn’t count how many times he’d had this conversation. ‘What did he look like, this bloke in a pub? Which pub?’

  ‘Can’t remember. Somewhere down Adelaide.’

  ‘You drive all the way to Adelaide to do your drinking? Don’t answer that. Tell me why you gave Mrs Donovan one of the stolen TVs.’

  ‘Like I told you, I felt sorry for her and that.’

  ‘Sorry how?’

  ‘Sorry Melia got killed. A tragedy.’

  Hirsch gave him a look. ‘A tragedy. You’re close to the family?’

  ‘Well, yeah. Me own family’s fucked.’

  ‘How do you know the Donovans?’

  ‘Went to primary school with Nate. His mum useta let me doss down at their place when my mum was drinking or had a bloke over.’

  ‘That’s been a pattern for a while?’

  ‘Years.’

  ‘So you’d known Melia since she was a baby?’

  ‘She was kinda like my sister.’

  Sam had curled into the armchair. Fear, nerves and shame had shrunk him, it seemed to Hirsch. The kid’s clumsy height and bulk counted for nothing. Here out of the light he was pale, very gingery, the hairs downy, no spring or verve at all.

  ‘She was special to you?’

  Sam shrugged.

  ‘I’ve seen photos of her. A lovely girl. Beautiful, in fact.’

  Bewilderment, loss and pain in Sam’s face. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but said nothing.

  ‘But a bit wild, right?’ Hirsch said.

  Sam wriggled his shoulders. ‘I tried to look out for her.’

  ‘Like a brother.’

  ‘She’s just a kid. She was just a kid.’

  ‘Old enough, Sam. So you looked out for her. What about Nathan and his mother? Shouldn’t they have been looking out for her?’

  ‘What can they do, stuck here? I got more...I got more contacts and that. Driving around the place, I hear things.’

  ‘Was it hard keeping your relationship with Melia a secret from her brother and her mother?’

  Hempel’s jaw dropped. ‘What? What relationship?’

  ‘She infuriated you sometimes? Wouldn’t do what you wanted? There was a bruise on her face dating from before she was killed.’

  ‘Fuck you. I never hit her, never touched her. I can tell ya who did.’

  ‘Maybe she hit her head when she was in your car? Was that it?’