Bitter Wash Road (12 page)

‘Yes, all right, Mrs Donovan. Insensitive of me.’

Hirsch climbed to his feet, feeling the weight. ‘Again, I’m very sorry about what happened to Melia. It’s tragic,’ he added, meaning it.

‘You’ll never catch who did it. How can you? Long gone by now.’

‘We won’t stop trying.’

Leanne Donovan drew sharply on the last centimetre of her cigarette, scathing and focussed. ‘They might not even know they done it. Half asleep in the middle of the night, what was that bump? Must of been a rabbit, no big deal, no need to stop.’

Hirsch knew she had a point. ‘Is Nathan at work?’

‘His boss gave him the week off.’

‘He works at the grain shed?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that his car in the yard?’

‘Mine.’

‘How does he get around?’

‘What is this? You think he run her over? Who the fuck do you think you are?’

Fortunately Yvonne Muir came darting in, she might even have been listening, and saved Hirsch from giving further offence.

~ * ~

He said he’d make
a pot of tea and hurried into the kitchen, ignored by the women, who were lost in hugs and weeping.

They’re neighbours who habitually come and go through each other’s back doors, he thought, filling the kettle. The window above the sink was laced with cobwebs in one corner, the insect screen clogged with dust, but he could see the back yard easily enough: a tumbledown chook shed, rotary clothesline with two stiff tea towels hanging from a wire, a rusted car body ringed by weeds. A back gate to a laneway, some evidence of regular use in the path tracked through the patchy grass, the scraped dirt at the base, and Hirsch wondered if the girl had liked to slip out the back way at night.

Waiting for the kettle to boil, he peered at the refrigerator door. A dozen cards and photos held by cute magnets. A recent shot of Melia Donovan, looking vaguely scruffy in her school uniform, and a family grouping: Melia, her mother, her brother. The brother had dark hair and skin. Hirsch removed both photographs, placed them face up on the table, and took close-ups with his phone.

He heard a car pull up, doors slam, footsteps, and by the time he’d reached the hallway the boy in the family snapshot stood there, a slender form inside a black T-shirt and baggy jeans midway down his arse. He looked red-eyed and stunned, but the instant he noticed Hirsch’s uniform, the distress faded to wariness, shame and anger.

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 say something reassuring 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 recognised from earlier in the week. It complained away from the kerb in a cloud of toxins.

Hirsch turned back to Nathan Donovan, who’d reached the door of the sitting room. He checked that his mother didn’t need him and disappeared into one of the bedrooms.

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

He followed the boy, knocked and entered. 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 a bad time for you but I’m anxious to find the driver who knocked Melia over. 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. ‘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 neighbour 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 e-mails, 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 dialling. School holidays. Half the kids on the list were away, the others said they knew 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.’

‘Unbelievable. 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...’Was it petechial haemorrhaging? The spots around 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 haemorrhaging 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 centre 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?’

‘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 and approached the house. 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, callused foot. He heard her say, ‘Who’s your favourite 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, you know. Those men are nowhere near here. Anyway, they’ll be caught pretty soon.’