Bitter Wash Road Page 33

  ‘No I didn’t, I was asked to. There is a difference.’

  ‘You spied on Quine easy enough.’

  Hirsch said, ‘Quine was a criminal. He committed criminal acts. He corrupted junior officers and got them to commit criminal acts, and the Internals knew all about it, and now he’s in jail.’

  ‘Holier than thou Hirschhausen.’

  Yeah, well. Maybe a touch sometimes, when the wind’s in the right quarter, Hirsch thought. Didn’t make him wrong, though. ‘Quine set me up to take the blame. He threatened my life. He frightened my parents. This is news to you? Why are you defending a man like that?’

  ‘He’s a colleague,’ Kropp said, jaw out.

  ‘So anything’s allowed? Because you both wear the uniform and swore the oath, he’s allowed to commit crimes? You’re allowed to be a fuck-up?’

  ‘I didn’t fuck up.’

  ‘You took your eye off the bail, you said it yourself. You turned a blind eye to Nicholson and Andrewartha’s bullying, their sexual assaults. You turned a blind eye to them harassing a female constable you were supposed to train and protect. You ran interference for criminals just because they belonged to your footy club. And meanwhile you were running some catering business in police time using your mail-order bride.’

  Kropp came out of his seat, red and frothing. ‘You do not talk that way about her, you fucking prick. You don’t know anything about her. She’s been living here since she was a kid.’

  Hirsch knew he was wrong—but fuck it, he was on a roll. ‘Thought the town’d let you in if you ingratiated yourself enough with people like the Latimers? You’re a disgrace.’

  That was what Spurling had said.

  Kropp sat, dangerously still in the chair, tendons standing out in his neck. ‘You’re this close to a thrashing.’

  ‘Fine. Bring it on.’

  Eventually Kropp made a curt gesture and said, ‘If I laid a finger on you I’d probably get a bloody reprimand.’

  He’s making a joke? Hirsch watched and waited, wondering what was happening inside Kropp.

  The man exhaled. Dropped his head and said mildly, ‘I want you and me to take a little drive together.’

  ‘What, out east? Some convenient mine shaft?’

  ‘Mate, I’m not a killer.’ A crooked grin appeared briefly. ‘I’m just a fuck-up and a disgrace. All right?’

  ~ * ~

  North along the Barrier, Kropp driving, into a day of rusty winds and black, staring birds dotted along the swooping wires.

  Silence all the way until Kropp said, ‘I’ve seen the forensic report on David Coulter’s vehicle.’

  Hirsch, lulled by the motions of the car, sat up straight. ‘And?’ ‘The driver’s side headlight and quarter panel had been replaced at some point.’

  Hirsch heard a ‘but’ in Kropp’s voice. ‘Okay...’

  ‘I checked with the panelbeaters at Redruth Automotive: it was one of their repairs, and they did it before Melia Donovan was run over. The rest of the car’s never been damaged.’

  ‘Damn.’

  ‘Yeah. What’s more, they told me Judd had a laugh about it one evening after a few beers. Coulter had let the girl drive, and she’d run into a tree.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Hirsch said. ‘A couple of people told me Melia had been in an accident. So where does that leave us?’

  Kropp stared ahead, tethered grimly to the wheel. ‘Why don’t you have a bit of a think about it.’

  Hirsch looked out at the dust and the fence wires. No inspiration there. ‘One of the others did it? Or Coulter used someone else’s car?’

  ‘Nup,’ said Kropp emphatically. ‘They’re all clean. Come on, if you eliminate Coulter and the others, who are you left with?’

  The road north swam in mirages, stretching to the dry horizon, the pink and grey hills. Hirsch was half fond of the place now.

  ‘Sam Hempel,’ he said.

  Sam and his stalking. Sam tailing Melia Donovan because he wanted her, not because he thought she needed protection. She belonged to him, and if he couldn’t have her...

  ‘Give the lad a cigar,’ Kropp said sourly.

  ‘He blamed Coulter,’ said Hirsch, ‘because Coulter was sleeping with the love of his life.’

  ‘Not only that. Coulter put him in jail for six months a couple of years ago. If you’d done your homework, you would have known that.’

  He should have known that. He thought again. ‘But I’ve seen his car. I’ve driven it. It’s a shit heap, but there was no recent damage or signs of repair.’

  No reply. At the sign for Muncowie, Kropp turned off the highway and onto a single vehicle track, two stripes of gravelly dust stretching to the hills. One kilometre, two, and they were out where the battlers lived in corrugated iron shacks set amid dead grass and rusted car bodies, where cats slunk away and the dogs were nothing but ribs and a prick.

  Pulling into a weedy yard, Kropp switched off and the air was still and hot when they got out and slammed their doors. And there was Sam Hempel’s Commodore, uniformly sun-faded and pockmarked. An exhausted dog watched them and no curtains stirred. A plate, knife and fork sat on a stump, a smear of tomato sauce blackening in the sun. A hand mower sat at the end of a stripe of cropped grass and would have finished the job if there’d been a will to push it. A David Jones bag had been snagged by untamed rose canes; someone had coughed blood into the tissue Hirsch spotted beside a canvas chair grey with sun and water damage. And sure enough, there was the sound of a woman hacking her lungs up inside the house.

  ‘Sam’s mother?’

  Kropp nodded. ‘Father shot through years ago.’

  He didn’t approach the house but led Hirsch to the rotting sheds at the back, where a rust-fretted Land Rover sat on weak tyres among the nettles.

  Slamming his meaty palm on the dented nose of the vehicle, Kropp said, ‘If you’d done your job right, you’d have found this fine example of English automobile engineering registered to one Mary Kathleen Hempel.’

  He stared intently across at the house.

  Hirsch followed his gaze. Sam Hempel stood at the back door, shoulders slumped. No fight in him and nowhere to run. The boy who borrowed the Land Rover whenever his own car wouldn’t start.

  ‘Still got your copper’s instincts, Sarge.’

  Kropp bristled. Seeing no disrespect, he stared out over the touch-and-go paddocks, the blurred horizon, and finally at the miserable house and the man he’d come to arrest.

  ‘Me,’ he said, ‘I’m going out in a blaze of glory.’