Hell to Pay

by Garry Disher

Fear, too. Hirsch didn’t have time to read it as another kid came in on his heels, a bulky ginger with pimples and weak stubble. He was alarmed to see Hirsch there, and Hirsch was about to hold up a reassuring hand when the kid raised a hand and said, “Catch ya later, Nate.”

  Nathan returned the wave. “Later.”

  The redhead shuffled away, out to a lowered Commodore that Hirsch recognized from earlier in the week. It complained away from the curb in a cloud of toxins.

  Hirsch turned back to Nathan Donovan, who’d reached the door of the sitting room. Perhaps reassured that his mother didn’t need him, or unwilling to intrude, he disappeared into one of the bedrooms.

  Hirsch shook his head. He didn’t want to distress the kid further, but did need to speak to him, and surely Nathan knew he wouldn’t go away, or would soon be back if he did?

  He followed the boy, knocking, entering. Nathan was already sprawled messily in the little room, on his back on the bed, arms flung wide, his huge dusty trainers trailing laces across the worn lino floor. This was his cave and he didn’t move when Hirsch took another step into the room, and another.

  “Nathan? My name’s Paul Hirschhausen.”

  After a while the boy shrugged and examined the ceiling.

  Hirsch regarded him, taking in the fine-boned, olive-skinned lankiness—attractive, but you had to look for it, under the scowls. “I know this is an awful time for you but I’m anxious to find the driver who knocked Melia over and I was hoping you might be able to help.”

  Too late, Hirsch wondered if saying “I” was a misstep. What did he have to offer? And would his saying “I” necessarily cancel his apparent ties to the despised Redruth police, in Nathan’s estimation? There was silence and it grew and he was conscious of a kind of misery and defeat in the air.

  “Just a couple of questions,” he said gently. “For example, do you know what Melia’s plans were last weekend?”

  “Nup. Going out. She’s always going out.”

  Hirsch said, “I’ve spoken to Gemma. She drove Melia to the pub down in Redruth but after a while she went to the drive-in with another friend and isn’t sure what Melia’s movements were. Do you know? Did you see her on Saturday night or Sunday morning?”

  Nathan shook his head.

  “Where did you go?”

  “Pub.”

  “Where?”

  “Spalding.”

  “With the guy who dropped you off just now?”

  “Yeah.”

  Still Nathan was looking at the ceiling. “What’s his name?”

  “Who?”

  “Your friend.”

  “Sam. Hempel.”

  “Would he know anything of Melia’s movements?”

  “Nah.”

  “Did you spend the night out, or did you come home?”

  “Home.”

  “You didn’t notice if Melia was at home or had been home and gone out again?”

  “She does what she does.”

  “What about this boyfriend?”

  “What boyfriend?”

  “Older guy, apparently.”

  Nathan shrugged, said, “Dunno,” and showed no other interest.

  HIRSCH RETURNED TO THE sitting room.

  “Did you see Nathan?” Leanne asked.

  Hirsch nodded. “Unfortunately he doesn’t know anything.”

  Leanne exchanged glances with Yvonne Muir. “Von thinks it would be okay if you looked at the computer.”

  Hirsch shot the neighbor a smile. “You can look over my shoulder if you like.”

  Both women demurred, as if fearing what they’d see. Hirsch sat himself at the old monitor, switched on the box and, waiting for it to boot up, smoothed out the paper slip from Melia Donovan’s wallet. The machine was slow, and no wireless.

  There were two passwords: the first gave him access to a file named MelD and it proved to contain a handful of school essays, saved emails, journal entries and photographs. He’d examined all of it within a few minutes. Nothing stood out, apart from several references to “Cool.” A name? A concept? The second password gave him access to the Facebook page. He poked around in it. It revealed nothing of her secret life.

  “Before I go, Mrs. Donovan, could you give me a list of Melia’s school and town friends?”

  That took a while, Leanne embarrassed because the list was brief and opened gaps in her knowledge. Hirsch returned to the station and started dialing. School holidays, so half the kids on the list were away. The others professed to know nothing of Melia’s movements and were astonished that anyone would think they did.

  THAT AFTERNOON HE BIT the bullet and called Kropp.

  “What do you mean, missing?”

  “She left a note, didn’t say where she was going.”

  “Have you tried family? Friends?”

  “No luck, Sarge.”

  “What’s she scared of? What’s she hiding?”

  “Maybe she just feels guilty for not looking after her best friend, Sarge.”

  “Find the slag, all right? Drag her along to the inquest.”

  “Sarge.”

  “And what’s this about a Quine hearing?”

  “I have to attend, Sarge. All next week.”

  Kropp said nothing but what Kropp was saying was dog, maggot.

  NEXT ON HIRSCH’S LIST was Dr. McAskill. “Sergeant Kropp gave me the short version, but I was wondering if there’s anything to add.”

  There was a sense of the doctor drawing himself up on the other end of the line. “I don’t feel comfortable having a side conversation about it.”

  Hirsch sighed. “The thing is, Sergeant Kropp has all of us working on it and it’s my job to piece together the kid’s last movements. So, anything?”

  “I suppose you mean stomach contents?”

  “It’s a start.”

  “She’d not eaten much prior to death—a hamburger and chips some hours earlier—but she had been drinking wine.”

  “We’ll need a toxicology report. She might have been drug affected.”

  “Are you telling me my job, Constable Hirschhausen?”

  Moving right along … “I thought I saw petechial hemorrhaging in her remaining eye.”

  Another silence, then the stiff voice saying, “If a vehicle struck her and tossed her aside, flipping her into the bushes, one might expect a range of crushing-type injuries, wouldn’t you say? And so, in and of itself, petechial hemorrhaging is not cause for suspicion.”

  “Fair point.”

  “It’s a motorist you’re looking for,” McAskill said. “As I suspected when I examined her by the side of the highway, she sustained severe internal injuries consistent with being struck and tossed aside by a largish vehicle.”

  “Going at speed? I didn’t see any skid marks.”

  McAskill recited, “All one can say for certain is that the victim sustained severe external and internal injuries consistent with being struck by a largish vehicle.”

  “Truck?”

  “I’d expect more damage. Possibly a van or a four-wheel drive.”

  “She wasn’t punched? Struck with a blunt object?”

  “If she were, and I doubt it, such injury or injuries were masked by the other injuries.”

  Treading carefully, Hirsch said, “Doctor, you say you treated Melia from time to time. I wonder if—”

  “Hardly time to time. No more than a couple of times.”

  “For?”

  “Earache when she was little, and painful periods, if you must know.”

  “I was wondering if she was sexually active,” Hirsch said. “Perhaps you prescribed birth control.”

  “She wasn’t a virgin, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “Were there signs of intercourse in the hours before she was killed?”

  “I don’t rule it out, but she sustained massive injuries in the center mass of her body, from groin to neck, consistent with the large, flat nose of a van or a four-wheel drive. Am I getting through to you?”
<
br />   “So, no semen.”

  “Have you heard of condoms, Constable?”

  “No one seems to know who her boyfriend was.”

  “No good asking me,” the doctor said.

  ON THURSDAY HIRSCH POKED around out east for a couple of hours, buffeted by warm northerly winds, returning via Bitter Wash Road. Seeing the gates to Vimy Ridge reminded him of Katie Street and Jackson Latimer, their fear of Pullar, Hanson and the black Chrysler. Be the good copper, he thought, check to see they’re okay.

  A teenage boy answered at the Latimers’. He was about fourteen, solid, hair artlessly messy. Pimply, with one pimple raging at the cleft between nostril and cheek, and he could scarcely bring himself to look at Hirsch or get his words out. Craig, he said his name was.

  “I was hoping to say hello to Jack. Is he in?”

  “Nup.”

  “Your mum?”

  “Nup, and good riddance.”

  Oh. So Hirsch said, “How is Jack?”

  “Good riddance to him, too,” Craig muttered.

  Some school holiday thing, Hirsch thought. She’s taken the younger one to Adelaide or somewhere and the older one’s been left at home; grounded, maybe.

  HE DROVE TO THE house across the road, parked behind the Volvo.

  Approached the house and Katie Street called to him from a hammock on the veranda. She was full of a bright force today, not suspicion. “Poor you, finding Melia.”

  Hirsch sat on the warped boards, his back to a post. “Yes. Enjoying the holidays?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you reading?”

  She showed him the cover wordlessly. To Kill a Mockingbird.

  “Seen the film?”

  “Yes.”

  She collapsed onto her back again and all he could see was a skinny leg hanging over the edge, a grimy, calloused foot. He heard her say, “Who’s your favorite character?”

  She wants me to say Scout, he thought, so he said, “Boo Radley.”

  “Huh.”

  But his answer satisfied something in her. She popped up again and looked at him. He said, “Is Jack okay? I thought you two would be playing.”

  Katie closed the book and swung both feet out of the hammock. She shook her head violently. “He’s gone away.”

  “Oh.”

  Now she hopped to the veranda and sat with him. Sulking a bit at the dirt and grass blades between her toes, she said, “Have you come to see me or Mum?”

  “Either. Both. Just passing,” Hirsch said. “You haven’t seen that car again?”

  “No.”

  “There’s no need to be afraid, those men are far from here and will be caught pretty soon.”

  There was silence and, “Me and Jack have been good.”

  Hirsch grinned. “Not too good, I hope.”

  “Really bad.”

  “That’s what school holidays are for. Your mum at home?”

  “Somewhere. Mum!”

  Nothing. “Where is that dratted woman? Mum!”

  Hirsch laughed.

  Pleased, Katie edged closer to Hirsh. “Have you ever arrested anybody?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you shot anybody?”

  “Katie, the police don’t generally go around shooting people.”

  “Me and Jack were careful that time you caught us.”

  Her face was tilted up, her fine hair framing her face, cropped at the level of her eyebrows and shoulders—a cap of hair. No freckles, olive skin, beautifully shaped lips. He could see Wendy in her.

  “I know you were,” he said, “but bullets can fly in unpredictable directions if they strike something, a rock. It’s called a ricochet.”

  “I know what a ricochet is.”

  “Okay.”

  “Mum!” shouted the girl again.

  Nothing, so she said, “Come with me,” and led Hirsch along the side of the house to the wind in the backyard.

  He halted. It was heart-stopping, seeing Wendy Street at a Hills Hoist set in the lawn, battling a great flowerhead of white sheets onto the line. They flung themselves about, enveloping, licking and taunting, flattening against her body and filling with air again. He watched her writhe and dance, fighting, feeling blindly for the pegs and the line.

  “See the tea towels fly!” sang Hirsch.

  She eyed him balefully. “Very funny.”

  She wore jeans and a T-shirt and patches of dampness, and crossed the grass toward him, drying her palms on her thighs. “Giving my daughter the third degree?”

  “Trying. She won’t break.”

  Wendy Street stopped a couple of meters from him and waited, giving him nothing.

  “I’ve been out in the back blocks and thought I’d pop in,” Hirsch said.

  She nodded. It wasn’t hostility she radiated, just wariness. She turned to glance at her daughter who, with a kind of tact, turned on her heel and disappeared toward the front of the house.

  When she was gone, Hirsch took a breath. “Actually, I was wondering if you could tell me a little about Melia Donovan.”

  “Melia Donovan?”

  Hirsch nodded. “An accident team’s investigating the hit-and-run, and meanwhile I’m trying to get a picture of what she was like, as a way of tracking down her movements. Did you teach her?”

  “Year 11 Maths.”

  “You teach Maths?”

  “Don’t look so surprised.”

  Hirsch grinned. “What was she like?”

  “Sweet—when she bothered to attend school, that is. I had nothing to do with her outside of school.”

  “Any rumors?”

  Wendy Street tucked a wing of hair behind her ear. “This and that, mainly to do with boys and partying and her mother.”

  “Anything specific?”

  “No, you’ll have to speak to others about that.”

  “Did you ever see older guys hanging around the school, waiting for her?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know how she got to and from school?”

  “There’s a bus. It runs between Redruth and Muncowie.”

  “Muncowie. Was she friends with any of the Muncowie kids?”

  “She wasn’t friends with anyone. I don’t mean she was friendless, I mean she seemed to have outgrown the kids at school, she didn’t need them.”

  “So her friends were older? Older boys? Men? Can you give me any names?”

  Wendy shook her head. “You don’t understand, I don’t know anything. Try a girl called Gemma Pitcher. She lives in Tiverton.”

  “She wasn’t very forthcoming,” Hirsch said. Feeling that he was on thin ground, he said, “Did Melia seem sexually active or experienced to you?”

  “I’d hate to have your job. Look, I barely knew her, but I did wonder if she’d had too much experience, too soon. She wasn’t knowing, didn’t flaunt it, just seemed a bit lost and alone, if you know what I mean.”

  “Are the local kids into drugs? Binge drinking?”

  “No more than city kids, and probably less, I wouldn’t know.”

  Silence settled between them. “I popped in across the road,” Hirsch said.

  “Is that why you’re here? Checking the kids aren’t out target shooting? Checking their mothers haven’t let them run wild?”

  Hirsch said levelly, “I don’t want them to feel afraid needlessly, and I do need to know about Melia Donovan, and I do need to patrol out east from time to time.”

  The tension slipped a little. “Fair enough. So you would have learnt that Allie has left her husband?”

  That explained the teenage boy’s manner. “Oh.”

  “She’s in town at her parents’. Jack, too. Craig sided with his father.”

  “Permanent?”

  “Seems that way.”

  BACK IN TIVERTON, HIRSCH saw his elderly neighbor wheeling her shopping cart into Tennant’s. He ran to the backyard, vaulted the side fence and retrieved the iPhone and cash. Then he drove to Clare, hoping no one would call him to report a stol
en stud ram or a cat up a tree. Entered the post office there and addressed the phone and cash to himself, poste restante, Balhannah, a town in the hills.

  CHAPTER 11

  FRIDAY, AND THE TOWN’S first inquest.

  Hirsch’s first inquest, and his first time inside the Mechanics Institute, a fine stone building two hundred meters from the police station. Wooden floors, wooden half paneling around the walls, pastelly blue paintwork, vases of flowers on solid wooden stands, pressed tin ceilings and photographs of prize rams and former councillors here and there. A staircase to one side, a corridor of meeting rooms—the Country Women’s Association, he was guessing; the RSL; council chambers. A cardboard sign sat on a plain wooden chair outside the doors to the main hall: INQUEST HERE TODAY.

  He stepped through, pausing to take in the vastness of the hall: high windows, more wood paneling, good ballroom dancing floorboards, and a stage at the far end complete with wings and a bushland scene painted on a canvas backdrop. Hirsch doubted that plays were still performed here, but the town did need an arena for the primary school concert, the New Year’s Eve ball, the debutante ball, the strawberry fete, Liberal Party fundraising events. Below the stage was a table with a microphone and two chairs, a smaller table, chair and microphone stood to one side of it. The coroner and her assistant at one table, guessed Hirsch, witnesses at the other. And there was an easel, supporting a shrouded rectangular shape. Blowup photographs? Bird’s eye diagrams showing the road and the position of the body?

  The grandeur was spoiled by a dozen rows of metal folding chairs. Someone had been optimistic: the only onlookers—great gaps of empty chairs separating them—were Kropp, Dr. McAskill, one of the accident investigators, a reporter from the Redruth rag, the shopkeeper, the Broken Hill mine worker who had discovered Melia Donovan’s body, and the Muirs, who were sitting with Nathan Donovan and his mother.

  Kropp turned his massive head and jerked it at Hirsch: Get your arse over here. Hirsch complied. His shoulder brushed Kropp’s, it couldn’t be helped.

  “Morning, Sarge.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you live a two minutes’ walk away.”

  “Phone calls, emails.”

  “Speaking of emails, yours didn’t say how long you’ll be away next week.”

  “Could be a few days.”

  Kropp grunted. “At least we’re not going through a crime wave.” He paused. “So long as you’re back by Saturday.”