Bitter Wash Road (40 page)

Love thumbed a pair of glasses onto his nose and read:

I
move that the residents of Redruth and its surrounds have lost confidence in the policing abilities of Sergeant Kropp and Constables Nicholson and Andrewartha, and that they be replaced with officers respected, knowledgeable and experienced in community policing.
‘

Cremen jumped to his feet. ‘May I suggest an amendment?’

‘Go ahead,’ McEwan said.

‘That a police investigation be allowed to run its course before the issue of no confidence is considered, and that this meeting elect a committee to hear community complaints and liaise directly with the investigators.’

The assistant commissioner joined him. ‘That way no one need feel intimidated. Have faith in us to do the right thing. The formal complaints investigation process really does work.’

Before Love could object, McEwan said, ‘Shall we vote?’

Hirsch watched and waited. He didn’t vote. 175 voted for the amended motion, 136 against.

~ * ~

Jesus. That went off like
a damp squib, Hirsch thought despondently, watching people shift in their seats, grab their handbags, stand ready to leave. He still couldn’t see Wendy. He pushed away from the wall, anticipating her disappointment.

A ripple passed through the room.

Wendy walked onto the stage and stood in a commanding position, looking down on the men at the table, the shuffling audience and clanging chairs. Beside her stood a girl, barely mid-teens, holding a baby. They waited. A gradual calm settled.

McEwan, following the direction of the stares, turned around. ‘Mrs Street?’

Wendy ignored him. She gestured to the wings. Bob Muir emerged, crossing the stage in his unhurried way, nodding to the men and women he recognised. He was accompanied by Nathan Donovan, who looked terrified.

‘What’s this?’ shouted Nicholson.

‘Mrs Street?’ said McEwan. ‘We’ve passed a motion.’

‘We’ve passed a motion to investigate a bit of over-enthusiastic policing,’ Wendy said. ‘I’d like to move a new motion.’

‘You can’t,’ Nicholson yelled.

Wendy glared at McEwan. ‘Mr Chairman, have you formally declared the meeting over?’

‘Well, no, we still have to form a committee, but—’

‘But not everyone’s had their say. I’d like to introduce Cristobel and Nathan. They have experiences they’d like to share.’

The girl was tremblingly brave. She gestured with the baby. ‘This is Travis. I’m not sure who his dad is. Him,’ she said, pointing, ‘or him. They done me one after the other.’

Nicholson, Andrewartha, both men sinking in their seats. Nicholson’s wife stood, bulldozed her way out of the hall. Andrewartha’s wife seemed unsure what to do.

‘She was fourteen at the time,’ Wendy said.

‘If you don’t believe me,’ the girl spoke clearly in the hush, ‘DNA’ll prove it.’ She turned to Nathan. ‘Your turn.’

Nathan hunched his shoulders, frozen in place. Muir touched his elbow. The boy swallowed visibly and walked to the edge of the stage. He pointed, his voice strained: ‘Them two pricks have taken me out east and bashed me up. Left me to walk home. Done it like, every coupla months.’

He stepped back out of the limelight.

Wendy gave him a smile of great warmth, then gazed out over the room again. ‘And so you can see, Mr Chairman, why we need to consider a new motion.’

~ * ~

37

HIRSCH RETURNED FROM patrol on the Monday to find Kropp waiting for him. He appeared to be dozing behind the wheel of a Redruth patrol car. Head tilted back, eyes closed, hands in his lap.

But he was quick to sense Hirsch. In a couple of economical motions he was out and onto the footpath as Hirsch’s key slid into the lock. ‘Sarge,’ said Hirsch, one arm out to hold the front door ajar, giving the sergeant plenty of room.

‘Constable.’

Hirsch opened the connecting door to his private quarters, again making space for Kropp, as if the pair of them might explode into violence if sleeve brushed sleeve. Kropp shook his head. ‘Your office will do.’

He took the plain wooden chair. Hirsch, a little tense now, swung into the swivel chair behind his desk. He didn’t feel intimidated or deferential. He felt...what, exactly?

More victims had come forward at the protest meeting. No one raised any real accusation against Kropp himself, but they made it apparent that he had lost control, letting his men run his patch as if it was their personal playground and he the ineffectual principal. A dinosaur who’d forgotten who he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to do. Had he been complicit? Blind, certainly; and people had stories about verbal abuse. But he wasn’t bad in the way Spurling was bad. He’d sensed something about Logan and Coulter. And plenty of people had stood up for him.

Hirsch would reserve judgment.

Kropp folded his arms. ‘You could have called me the day those pricks tried to kill you,’ he said. ‘I’d have done the right thing.’

‘Sarge,’ Hirsch said. There was no way he would have called the man. Kropp would have been compromised, or he’d have believed Spurling and the Latimers. And if Nicholson and Andrewartha had come along for the ride, it might have proved fatal.

Kropp saw the story in Hirsch’s eyes. He slumped and shook his head, all elasticity vanished. He drew one huge dry palm down over his face, trying to rub something out. ‘What a fucking mess.’

Dying to know the score, Hirsch asked, ‘What’s the new super going to do?’

‘The boys are going down, I know that much.’

Boys.
As if Nicholson and Andrewartha were unruly kids, not serial rapists. ‘Going down how, Sarge?’

Kropp looked fully at Hirsch. ‘If the bashings and sexual assaults can be verified, they’re looking at jail time.’

‘And you, Sarge?’

‘Remains to be seen. Asked to resign? Disciplinary hearing and busted to Traffic?’

‘When?’

Kropp shrugged bitterly. ‘No idea. All I know is I’m on leave, starting tomorrow.’

‘With pay?’

‘Fuck you.’ Kropp shook his head. ‘Took my eye off the ball.’ As if it was a game, being a cop. ‘My officers let me down.’

Hirsch had had enough. ‘You allowed them to.’

A flash of the old quick surging power, Kropp snarling, ‘
You
going to lecture me about
my
conduct?’

Hirsch tensed and said nothing.

‘Your girlfriend got what she wanted. Put-the-boot-into-your-local-copper.’

‘Oh for fuck’s sake. There were plenty of formal and informal complaints long before I arrived in the district. All my “girlfriend” did was get people off their arses.’

Kropp snorted. ‘Yeah, right. Didn’t get any pointers from the kind of cop who dobs in his colleagues.’

‘Go to hell,’ Hirsch said. ‘They stitched me up. They threatened my parents. They
frightened my mother and father,
worthless fucking cowards that they are.’

‘You do
not
drop another police member in the shit,’ Kropp said, sticking his bulky jaw out.

‘If not me, who, then?’ Hirsch demanded. ‘We let murdering, raping, racist cops get away with it?’ He stared at Kropp, daring him.

Kropp stared back. ‘What did I ever do to you?’

‘You did it to yourself. You know I was asked to spy on you? I didn’t.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘You did it to yourself.
They have files full of complaints, going back years. Internal Investigations, even Spurling kept a few.’

‘You spied on me.’

‘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.