Bitter Wash Road Read online

  Sam got out of the chair, no longer an unprepossessing ten-year-old in disguise. ‘I never done nothing to Melia.’

  Hirsch used a whiplash voice. ‘Sit down.’

  Sam collapsed.

  ‘Sam, were you the older boyfriend I’ve been hearing about?’

  ‘What? No way.’

  ‘All right, try this. You kept an eye out. You know who she spent time with. Boyfriends, girlfriends.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You saw her with an older man.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Well, who, Sam?’

  ‘That magistrate bloke, Coulter.’

  ‘Really? You know who he is?’

  An ironic laugh. ‘Sure.’

  ‘How did Melia get involved with him?’

  ‘She got done for shoplifting.’

  ‘He was the sitting magistrate?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She caught his eye?’

  ‘S’pose.’

  ‘They went out together?’

  ‘Could say that.’

  ‘What would you say?’

  ‘He took her to parties and that.’

  ‘Anywhere else? A film, a restaurant, the pub...’

  ‘She was fifteen. How’s he gunna do that?’

  Hirsch nodded. He said musingly, ‘I had this girlfriend once, told me I wasn’t good enough for her, wasn’t making enough money, and who’d want to go out with a cop anyway?’

  Hempel shifted, saying nothing.

  Hirsch leaned forward. ‘Did Melia say something like that to you, Sam? She tell you about her rich boyfriend, a guy with more wallet potential than you, rubbing your face in it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Gets under your skin, that kind of thing. No wonder you followed her around.’

  ‘I was lookin’ out for her,’ Hempel said, with a whine of entreaty and complaint. ‘Nothin’...filthy like you’re suggesting.’

  ‘You saw her with Coulter a few times, or only once?’

  ‘Few times.’

  ‘He must be what, thirty years older?’

  Sam shrugged.

  ‘But loaded, right? Big house, flash car.’

  ‘I’m gunna get an apprenticeship,’ Sam said, as if announcing a plan to float an internet start-up.

  ‘So you were hurt that she chose a rich man over you?’

  ‘No, I’m just sayin’, he’s no better than me. Least I never killed no one.’

  Hirsch would come back to that. ‘Did she ever reveal to you, or anyone else, that she was involved with David Coulter?’

  ‘Dunno. Prob’ly Gemma.’

  ‘Did she ever tease you about the affair?’

  Hempel twisted about in his chair. ‘Tease me? Nah. Why? I told her she was makin’ a big mistake, she told me to mind me own business. That’s all.’

  ‘What kind of big mistake?’

  ‘I go, the guy’s a creep, Mel, he’s using you, he’ll hurt you you’re not careful.’ A shake of the head.

  ‘Did Nathan ever go with you when you followed Melia?’

  ‘Like I said. The Redruth cops are on him like shit on a blanket.’

  Hirsch checked the recorder again. ‘Was Melia by herself when she saw Coulter, or did Gemma Pitcher accompany her sometimes?’

  ‘A coupla times. Why?’

  ‘How did it work? Gemma recruited Melia? Melia recruited Gemma? Or maybe Coulter recruited Gemma, who recruited Melia, or vice versa?’

  ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘The sex parties.’

  Hempel floundered, opened and closed his mouth. ‘Sex parties?’

  ‘I have reason to believe that Gemma and Melia took part in sex parties with several men.’

  ‘I don’t know nothin’ about that.’ Hempel chewed his thumbnail and looked up. ‘Explains some things though.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Melia come running out of this house with nothing on, all upset, and—’

  Hirsch held up a hand. ‘I need details for the tape. Date, location, times...’

  ‘Well,’ Hempel swallowed and started again. ‘It was the night she was killed.’

  ‘Where.’

  ‘This house outside Redruth.’

  ‘Coulter’s?’

  ‘Don’t think so. He lives over in Clare.’

  ‘You followed her and—’

  ‘Coulter took Mel and Gemma to this house. I was watching, and then Melia come runnin’ out, no clothes on. A real mess.’

  ‘In what way a mess?’

  ‘Cryin’ and that.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Behind this hedge.’

  ‘Not in your car?’

  Hempel shook his head. ‘Mel knew it so I parked in the next street.’

  ‘You didn’t peer through the windows?’

  ‘I’m not stupid.’

  ‘So you were watching from behind a hedge and Melia came running out in distress. What did you do?’

  ‘Happened so quick, I was gunna go and help her but Coulter come out. He was ropeable. He sees her runnin’ down the street and he gets in his car and runs her down.’

  The silence ticked. Hirsch said, ‘Was it deliberate, do you think?’

  Sam hoisted one shoulder fractionally. ‘He was pretty pissed off.’

  ‘What happened then? Did anyone come out to see? Did you show yourself?’

  ‘No way. Coulter puts Melia in the boot and drives off.’

  ‘It was definitely Coulter?’

  ‘I reckernised him. I reckernised his car.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Silver Land Cruiser, the flash one.’

  Hirsch looked at Hempel intently. ‘Were there other cars parked at or near the house?’

  ‘A few.’

  ‘Whose, do you know?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Perhaps you could tell me, Sam,’ Hirsch said, exquisitely patient.

  ‘There was like, Dr McAskill’s Mercedes. That real estate guy’s Lexus. Ian Logan’s Audi. Len Latimer’s Range Rover. Plus two BMWs I didn’t know who they were, and, um, this Chrysler.’

  ‘Go back a bit: Len Latimer?’

  ‘Him and Ray,’ Sam said. He smirked. ‘And was Ray in big trouble.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, his wife was there, wasn’t she?’

  ‘At the party?’

  Sam gave Hirsch a doofus look. ‘No, watchin’ the place, like me. She must of followed in her car.’

  ‘Was she behind a hedge?’

  Hempel shook his head. ‘Parked up the road a bit.’

  Motive, Hirsch thought. ‘Tell me about the Chrysler.’

  ‘Dunno who drove it. New South plates, but.’

  ‘It was a New South Wales car?’

  ‘Yeah. Big black thing.’

  ‘Let’s go back to Melia Donovan. Coulter drove off with her in the boot of his car.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I wasn’t gunna stick around.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘I dunno, late. Midnight, maybe.’

  ‘Sam, when we found Melia, she was fully dressed.’

  He shrugged. ‘Come runnin’ out starkers but had all her gear with her.’

  Hirsch pictured it, the empty road in the moonlight, clumsy hands dressing a limp body before throwing it into a ditch. ‘Can you think of a reason why David Coulter would drive all the way up to Muncowie to dump the body?’

  ‘Easy, ‘s where I live. Me mum does, I mean.’

  Hirsch closed his eyes. For want of a few key questions, he thought. And when he’d asked Leanne Donovan if she knew of anyone in her daughter’s life from Muncowie, why hadn’t she mentioned Sam Hempel?

  Because Sam wasn’t her daughter’s friend, he was Nathan’s.

  ‘But what’s the connection? What’s it got to do w
ith Coulter that you live there, or you did?’

  ‘Frame me, what else?’

  Not impossible, Hirsch thought. If you were sick and devious. Melia told Coulter about Sam. Probably shared a laugh with him over the sad boy who had a crush on her.

  ‘Saddle up: we’re going for a drive.’

  ~ * ~

  They took Sam’s car. The wrong people might recognise Hirsch’s Nissan, and they’d certainly know the HiLux. Hirsch drove. The Commodore was difficult to start and it stalled a few times, then took a long while to reach ninety, at which speed it shook so hard Hirsch had to back off to eighty-five. His seat sagged. Dope, cigarette and beer odours, deep in the fabrics, came alive with his body heat. A sun-bleached dog nodded its head on the dashboard, the steering wheel belonged on a racing car and the fuel gauge didn’t work. Take your hands off the wheel and the car drifted to the right. Correction: leapt to the right.

  ‘Nice wheels.’

  ‘Piece a shit,’ Sam said.

  Down the long, shallow valley between hills and crops to Redruth. The road shimmered. Hirsch had never seen so many mirages before this bush posting. A farmer stood in a corner of his wheat, rubbing a grain head between his palms, and then they were trundling past, waiting for the next little bit of rural business.

  ‘Soon be harvest time,’ Hirsch said, as if he had any idea.

  Sam’s bottom jaw peeled away from the top. It was entirely possible that he’d lived here all his life and had no sense of its patterns. A Pioneer bus passed, another farmer, this one kicking at a clod of dirt, crows along a wire, some dust out there in the blue-smudge hills.

  Then they were passing through Redruth. Hempel directed Hirsch out past the motel and up a side street that became a dirt road leading up into one of the town’s many hills. Over a rise, Hempel saying, ‘That one.’

  A little collection of newer houses far apart, semi-farmland, small garden sheds, clumps of ornamental and native trees and a couple of reedy ponds, mostly mud now. Outside the house Sam indicated was a leaning sign staked in unmown grass. For Sale Venn Realty.

  That made sense.

  The house itself was sizeable, a pale brick structure about twenty years old, a little outmoded but solid, roomy, semi-secluded.

  Hedges and shrubs.

  Hirsch stopped the car. ‘Where were you hiding?’

  Sam pointed. The hedge was a bulky stripe of dark green along the eastern flank of the house.

  ‘Mrs Latimer?’

  A gateway fifty metres west.

  ‘You recognised her car, or did you actually see her?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Did she see you?’

  ‘Dunno. Don’t think so.’

  ‘She didn’t go inside, remonstrate with her husband?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sam, did she get out of the car and go into the house?’

  ‘Not while I was there.’

  Spied on her husband, and a day or two later she’d gone to live with her parents. And a few days after that she had died. Been killed. Had she confronted Ray? I saw you. I know what you’re up to.

  ‘Where was the Chrysler?’

  Sam pointed to the driveway, a grand sweep of gravel. ‘They were all parked along there.’

  ‘A big black Chrysler with New South Wales plates.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Sam said. And he rattled off the number.

  ~ * ~

  31

  IT WAS AFTERNOON now. Hirsch delivered Sam to Croome and DeLisle in Adelaide and headed back to Tiverton. A five-hour round trip. Lengthening shadows striped the crops, the highway, the hillsides. More birds on more wires. An air of waiting, of things drying, turning to dust.

  It was late afternoon before he could begin tracking the black Chrysler. The New South Wales vehicle registry told him the car belonged to one Daryl Metcalfe, a Broken Hill address. One fine for speeding, but not in the Chrysler.

  Next Hirsch contacted the main Broken Hill police station, jumping through various hoops until finally a sergeant agreed to talk to him.

  ‘That car was reported stolen.’

  The logical question was, ‘By Pullar and Hanson?’

  ‘What? No. Same kind of car, I guess. No, Pullar and Hanson haven’t set foot in Broken Hill to the best of my knowledge. Plus their Chrysler was found burnt out near Townsville, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Okay, so…’

  ‘So the car you’re asking about was reported stolen here last week.’

  Last week? Hirsch tried to digest that. ‘Who reported it?’

  Hirsch heard the clicking of keys. ‘Woman called Sandra Chatterton.’

  ‘According to the DMV it’s owned by a Daryl Metcalfe.’

  ‘Goodness, you have done your homework,’ sneered the Broken Hill sergeant. He paused and Hirsch pictured him reading a screen. ‘According to this, Chatterton is Metcalfe’s daughter. She’s looking after his place while he’s overseas for six months.’

  That ruled Metcalfe out. But what other men did Chatterton have in her life?

  Or maybe no one borrowed the car—maybe Sandra Chatterton was another Gemma Pitcher or Melia Donovan.

  ‘If it’s the same car,’ Hirsch said, ‘someone was driving it in my neck of the woods back in September.’

  ‘And that’s significant how?’

  ‘A suspicious death.’ Hirsch thought about it and said, ‘Two suspicious deaths.’

  ‘Want us to look into it?’

  ‘Have to clear it with my boss, who will talk to your boss,’ Hirsch said.

  ~ * ~

  At six the next morning, Hirsch, wearing his police uniform, was driving his Nissan north along the Barrier Highway. He guessed he’d be breaching regulations in a few hours’ time, conducting South Australian police business across the border in New South Wales, but he was pretty close to not giving a shit about the niceties these days. It might be days, weeks, before requests moved through official channels, and wearing a uniform would help when he questioned Chatterton. And her father, if he’d returned from overseas.

  Still, he shifted a little uncomfortably, picturing Superintendent Spurling’s response if he found out.

  Three and a half hours, 350 kilometres, glued to the speed limit across an ochre landscape, under a vast sky. Eagles, stone chimneys silhouetted, an inclination to stone and grit, not dirt. Stone reefs, smudges of bluebush, saltbush, mallee scrub and lone demented ewes. A hawk diving, a crow watching. Road trains, trucks, cars, the emptiness ahead and behind and shimmering lakes that dematerialised as the highway slipped beneath him. Hirsch didn’t like any of it, not exactly, but it felt less alien than it had when he first set foot out here. Not home, but a place vaguely familiar to him.

  He’d never been to Broken Hill. It was both modern and old, bright and dull, smaller and richer and shabbier than he’d imagined. Plenty of dusty four-wheel-drives and older sedans and station wagons on streets named for the mineral wealth it was built on: Gypsum, Garnet, Argent, Silica, Calcite...Not a lot of green in the garden beds. Local colours: dusty reds and greys and olives. A baking noon sun.

  ~ * ~

  Daryl Metcalfe’s house was a low burnt-brick building with a blinding, unpainted corrugated iron roof, mostly dead garden and empty carport. And he’d not long returned from his travels, keen to tell Hirsch all about his long-service leave working for a United Nations outfit in sub-Saharan Africa. ‘My field’s water: conservation, drainage, irrigation, well-sinking...’

  They were in the man’s sitting room, Metcalfe about fifty, blockish but fit looking. A widower looking for some meaning in his life, Hirsch thought.

  He glanced at the young woman beside Metcalfe on a huge green leather sofa, sinking into it, you’d struggle to get out. ‘And Sandra’s been looking after the place while you were away?’