Days end, p.20
Day’s End, page 20
Fanning shook his head. ‘There is one, but it’s not special, just a little GoPro for video and general backup.’ He looked gloomily at the wreckage. ‘Destroyed, probably. But the Nikon’—he pointed—‘was his pride and joy. It’s a DSLR with good zoom and vibration reduction and he usually had it set on continuous shooting mode. Saved everything to a memory card.’
Hirsch’s eyes glazed over a little. ‘Okay.’
With Fanning now inside the Hilux, he opened the Toyota’s storage cabinet and took out a large poly tarpaulin. Sliced it up into four ragged rectangles, placing the first over the Land Rover’s tyre tracks, the edges weighed down by stones, the second over a set of boot prints, the third over a smaller set, possibly trainers, and the fourth over the Nikon camera.
He rejoined Fanning, who said, ‘Looks like he tossed the camera into the bushes? Must’ve known he was a goner.’
Hirsch had already guessed that. ‘Possibly.’
‘I’ll go out on a limb and say probably,’ Fanning said. ‘It’s just as well the shooters didn’t spot it.’
Hirsch nodded absently. Unclipping the radio handset, he made the first of several calls. As he’d predicted, he was told to secure the scene and wait for investigators to arrive. But wait for several hours? No thanks.
He didn’t say that, however. Hoping his silence would indicate assent, he signed off and turned the ignition key. ‘I’d better get you home. And I should warn you, you’ll have a flood of visitors over the next few days, some of whom might treat you as if you’re a suspect.’
‘Fuck ’em,’ Fanning said. ‘And where are you going? To have a word with Mia Dryden?’
Hirsch said nothing. Merely put the Toyota into reverse.
‘Paul…’ Fanning said, more agitated now.
‘Russ, I’m not going to speculate about anything, or explain my next moves. I still have to check if anyone saw the plane yesterday.’
‘She could put a bullet in you.’
Hirsch made a sharp half-circle, his eyes on the side mirror, then centred the wheel. ‘Like I said, police business. But let’s say for argument’s sake Noah saw Sam and Mia Dryden earlier. Wouldn’t he recognise them?’
‘No. I’ve only met them a couple of times myself.’
Hirsch accelerated gently along the wing of the eagle, found the gap between the stones, and bumped down onto the track of stone reefs, sand drifts and washaways. He was trying to put himself in the shoes of the pilot and the shooters when Fanning asked a question he’d already been asking himself: ‘Be good to know what direction he came from.’
‘It would. Let’s hope I find someone who saw him yesterday.’
‘And it would be good to know what time he was shot at.’
‘Maybe late afternoon?’ Hirsch said. ‘So they stopped looking for him when they ran out of daylight, and resumed searching today.’
‘Or it was raining heavily where they were,’ Fanning said. He paused. ‘What if they come back with earthmoving equipment and bury the lot?’
Hirsch hadn’t thought of that. His next stage would need to be quick.
The day had been hectic and chaotic. It wasn’t until Hirsch was alone, rolling along the Manna Soak Highway, that the images came back into his head again. The baby ripped apart, the dog dropping like a sack of grain, Brenda’s injuries, Damien Pierce folded, leaking, into a suitcase. His breath shortened, he felt the twitches of panic. Slowed; stopped. Got out to walk around and try to slow and deepen his breathing. He wasn’t right inside. The urge to weep was strong.
He drove on eventually and finally found himself on the Dryden Downs entry road. The surface was blessedly smooth, a counterpoint to his inner agitation. He tried his breathing technique again and forced himself to reassess what he intended to do once he reached the station homestead.
He knew he was being impetuous. Investigators more senior, more experienced, would be coming along behind him, and wouldn’t thank him for muddying the waters—let alone alerting Mia Dryden. In any case, all she needed to do was deny everything. There was no proof she was the shooter, or indeed that she was the armed woman Noah had seen.
The best Hirsch could hope for was to rattle her or find an inconsistency in her story. Otherwise, hunt around the sheds for the Land Rover with Western Australian plates. If he was challenged, he’d say the driver would need to register the vehicle in South Australia if he—or she—intended to stay. Meanwhile photograph its tyres. Collect soil samples from the treads. And do what with that evidence? Expect the forensics lab to drop everything and test them? He didn’t even have a case number.
Meanwhile, as he knew full well from her Facebook and Instagram posts, Mia Dryden liked to blast living things with a rifle.
Hirsch found himself clenching again. Ducking, as Russ Fanning had done at the crash site. He pulled over and got out again until his breathing eased and realised, from the state of the road, how localised the rains had been. Just here, nearer the homestead, the surface was spongy, and there were shallow pools in the paddocks, with matted clumps of twigs, bark and dirt blocking the ditches on either side. He drove the last half kilometre very slowly, not wanting to bog the Toyota, not wanting to spoil the driveway. Not wanting to get worked up again, in fact. He would be bland, pleasant Senior Constable Hirschhausen from Tiverton, calling in at Dryden Downs on the off chance they’d seen an ultralight aeroplane. A cup of tea would be great, thanks. You must be delighted about the rain.
He paused at the top of the rise. Nothing moved—not a horse, dog, ute or station hand. Instead, the homestead seemed to slumber in the sunlight that was breaking through the fraying clouds of mid-afternoon. Pressing gently on the accelerator again, he followed the road down and around to the stand of trees beside the main house. Got out. Looked over at the dressage ring: Mia’s horse looked back at him.
Hooking his mask on, he stepped up onto the veranda and knocked. The door rattled and the sound of his knuckles was hollow, seeming to lose itself along the hallway dimly visible through the flyscreen. When there was no answer, he opened the screen door and this time sent a hard crack of the main door’s brass knocker down the hallway. A sound that meant business, but again there was no reply. Yet the house felt occupied.
Undecided, he turned, stepped off the veranda and began scouting around each of the sheds on the property. There was a big black Porsche Cayenne and a silver Mercedes sedan in the garage next to the house, and four other vehicles scattered around the property: a ute, two Jeeps and a small Isuzu truck. No Land Rover.
He was halfway back to the house, trying to scrape reddish mud from the soles of his shoes, when the cook, Barry McGain, emerged from a fenced-off area of garden beds—flowers, herbs, vegetables—swinging an enamel kitchen pail by the handle, a mask around his chin. He stopped when he spotted Hirsch. Covered his nose and mouth again and carried on, wearing an apron over a T-shirt and jeans, running his other hand over his militarystyle flattop as if to reassure himself he still had hair on his head.
He stopped when he reached Hirsch. His voice muffled by the mask, he said, ‘Help you?’
Wondering about the mask—the absence of masks had seemed to be a point of honour on Dryden Downs—Hirsch said, ‘Where is everyone?’
‘Out mustering. We start shearing on Monday.’
‘Everyone?’
There was a pause. McGain shook his head. ‘Mrs Dryden’s having a sleep. She was up all night with Mr Dryden. The flying doctor came for him this morning.’
Hirsch had sensed that the house wasn’t empty. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘Seizures, vomiting, diarrhoea.’
Hirsch twigged: the Ivermectin. ‘Barry, if he’s got Covid, and if Mia’s been treating him with horse medicine, he could be in big trouble.’
McGain shrugged. ‘I’m no doctor.’
‘Nor is Mrs Dryden. Is she also sick?’
McGain didn’t want to answer. ‘Is this any of your business?’
‘I’m thinking of my own safety, for a start,’ Hirsch lied. ‘I find myself in close contact with you. I touched the front door. And I know some of the station hands like to drink at the Tiverton pub.’
McGain screwed up his face. ‘All I know is, she seems fine, just a bit wrung out looking after Mr Dryden.’
‘Including this morning?’
‘Including this morning.’
If that was true, she hadn’t been out searching for Pete Aronson’s ultralight, Hirsch thought. ‘Did you see Doctor Van Sant the other day?’
It was a cheap trick, swerving to put people off balance, but it often produced results. McGain frowned unconvincingly. ‘Who?’
‘You remember, Willi’s mother?’
‘Oh. Yeah. Haven’t seen her.’
Hirsch switched topics again. Glancing at McGain’s hand, he asked, ‘What was in the bucket?’
McGain stared at him evenly. ‘Compost.’
‘I guess there’d be plenty of food scraps on a place this size.’
‘Plenty of food scraps,’ McGain agreed.
‘What are Mrs Dryden’s symptoms?’
Another look. It seemed to say, ‘I know your game.’ Then McGain shrugged and began to edge around Hirsch, saying, ‘Exhaustion, all right?’
Hirsch fell into step with him. ‘Let’s hope you don’t catch Covid.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Is there good hunting around here? Wild goats, kangaroos? Mrs Dryden likes to hunt, so I’m told.’
McGain pulled his mask down and his voice was clear: ‘What do you want?’
‘I was just wondering if sometimes Mrs Dryden brings you a wild goat to butcher and cook. Maybe a sheep. Is that where the fresh meat on the place comes from? Shot? Trapped? It’s not something I’m very familiar with. City boy,’ Hirsch said.
If Hirsch was inviting contempt, he got it. McGain curled his lip. ‘If it makes you happy, sometimes Mrs Dryden shoots a feral pig, sometimes Mr Dryden shoots one, sometimes one of the shedhands. Or we kill a ewe. I do the butchering.’
‘Do you like to hunt?’
‘I hunt recipes on the internet,’ McGain said.
They were near the house now. McGain veered right, taking a path along the side wall to the big cookhouse at the rear, his footsteps crushing the gravel. The sounds must have alerted Mia Dryden: her voice came, clear but shaky, from an open window: ‘Who is it?’
‘Me, Mrs Dryden,’ McGain said.
‘Could you do me another cup of tea, please?’
‘Sure thing,’ McGain said, going on his way again.
Hirsch followed him into the cookhouse, which smelt of heated oils, and here McGain plonked the enamel pail on a bench beside the sink and said, ‘Look, I’m busy, all right? And no, I’m not going to let you question her.’
‘Fair enough. Quick question before I go,’ Hirsch said. ‘I was wondering if you noticed an ultralight plane flying over here yesterday.’
This stopped McGain. He stared at Hirsch and said flatly, ‘No. What about it?’
‘It’s overdue.’
‘Can’t help you.’
‘But you know the one I mean? It’s flown overhead before?’
‘Nup, not that I know of.’
‘Would the Drydens or one of the station hands have seen it?’
McGain was fed up. ‘No one has. The station hands have been out bush all week, and Mr and Mrs Dryden have been here with me.’
‘Where are the hands mustering? Maybe I can talk to them.’
‘Forget about it. They’re half a day away from here,’ McGain said, indicating, with a wave of his arm, the back country. ‘They camp out there. Tents and swags. Now if you don’t mind, I need to get on with it.’
‘It is Covid, Mr Dryden’s illness? He and his wife aren’t calling it a bad cold?’
With a flicker of emotion, McGain turned away. His voice was muffled when it came: ‘Like I said, I’m busy.’
Hirsch returned to the Hilux. His radio was crackling: a voice snarling, where did he think he was? Police and air safety officials were waiting for him.
Already? Shit, bugger, damn.
30
LATE AFTERNOON NOW, long shadows striping the land. Hirsch’s doppelgänger Hilux running bulkily beside him as he entered Russ Fanning’s driveway. The sun was not quite smearing the horizon yet but the air was cooler and this was the end of a long day and he didn’t really want some prick on his case, barely before he’d turned the engine off.
‘Senior Constable Hirschhausen?’
‘That’s me,’ Hirsch said, shutting his door, turning to face the newcomer—and he realised, looking beyond the man’s facemask, that he’d seen him before, with another man, outside Scott Greig’s flat, about to serve a warrant.
‘My name is Cottrell, I’m an inspector with the Australian Federal Police. Is there a reason why you failed to safeguard the crash site as requested?’
Federal? Hirsch took a moment. A police helicopter was parked between Russ’s house and his array of solar panels. It was empty, but he doubted that Cottrell had arrived alone. He glanced at the house, half-expecting Russ to come out. Steph’s muddy Mazda was gone.
The helicopter explains the quick arrival, he told himself glumly. It also says this is not just another murder.
He swung his gaze back to Cottrell. Mid-forties, solid build, with a neat part in thick, greying hair. A suit jacket and pants, white shirt, no tie. Glasses with heavy dark rims, and already a patina of back-country dust on his toecaps. But he didn’t look incongruous. He had that scowling look of competence and authority sometimes found in people who take command of places and situations.
‘I apologise, sir. I assumed—’
‘Yeah, well, don’t—ever.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Hirsch said.
‘So? Where were you?’
‘I was following up a lead, thinking it could be hours before anyone got here.’
‘What lead?’
‘Have you spoken to Mr Fanning and his son, sir?’
‘I have. What lead?’
‘Then you know that Noah Fanning saw two armed strangers at the crash site, a man and a woman, driving a Land Rover with WA plates.’
‘You are not writing the preface to a detailed report, Senior Constable Hirschhausen. Cut to the chase.’
‘Sir.’ Hirsch pointed in the general direction of Dryden Downs. ‘A local woman named Mia Dryden owns several high-powered hunting rifles. She likes to post on Instagram, posing with her guns and the animals she’s just bagged.’
A faint tension in Cottrell as Hirsch named her. But it was there and gone again and all he said was, ‘That’s it? A bit on the slim side.’
‘Yes, sir. But I don’t know of anyone else out this way who’s so keen on shooting things. Also, someone shot one of Mr Fanning’s stud rams earlier in the year, and I saw a Land Rover with WA plates a few days ago, coming from the direction of Mrs Dryden’s property. It seemed like a worthwhile avenue to follow.’
‘And?’
‘I’m afraid it didn’t pan out. Mr Dryden’s been in bed with Covid all week, and Mrs Dryden’s been nursing him. No sign of the Land Rover.’
‘So, a waste of time and meanwhile you left the crash site unattended. I’m thinking wind, rain, wild animals…’
‘Sir.’
‘The others are already at the scene. I waited for you. Come on.’
Cottrell tugged on the Toyota’s passenger door handle and climbed in. Hirsch, shrugging philosophically, slid behind the steering wheel. A long day, getting longer. Harder.
When he turned the ignition key, Johnny Cash came on, ‘The Man Comes Around.’ He turned off the sound hastily. The words were apt, though: a man going round taking names.
Cottrell rode silently, looking out at the late afternoon shadows and the patches of dirt, scrub and low hillsides that blazed when touched by a ray of the sinking sun. Not a restful silence. Cottrell was chewing on heavy thoughts, it seemed to Hirsch. And why had a federal policeman been sent here? Why an inspector? Why a helicopter? Why the urgency, in other words.
He tried for conversation. ‘Where are you based, sir? Adelaide?’
Cottrell said, ‘Tell me more about Mia Dryden.’
‘Only met her once, sir, and like I said, she’s been nursing her sick husband.’
‘Don’t be obtuse—who is she? What does she do? What do you know about her?’
Hirsch had the odd feeling that Cottrell already knew the answers. He’s interested in what I think and know, he thought. Humble beat cop that I am. ‘Well, sir, it’s ironical that her husband has Covid—she’s an anti-vaxxer and possibly a Covid denier.’
‘Go on.’
‘Hunting animals is a kind of noble imperative for her. Somehow tied up with notions of individual freedom and sovereign rights. She uses the words “sovereign rights” quite a bit in her Instagram posts.’
If Hirsch was expecting Cottrell to be frustrated or impatient with this abridged account, he was mistaken. The federal policeman merely grunted and the Hilux continued to complain and pitch about on the heaving track.
Cottrell said, ‘What about the husband?’
Again, he seemed only half-interested. Hirsch said, ‘Polite. Undemonstrative.’
‘He shares her beliefs?’
‘I only met him once, and he doesn’t have much of an online presence, so I couldn’t say.’
Cottrell grunted again. ‘Polite, undemonstrative.’
‘And ex-army,’ added Hirsch, ‘with political ambitions.’
‘Interesting that you did research into both of them, Senior Constable Hirschhausen. Would you care to speak to that?’
Hirsch was distracted briefly by a kink in the road: ‘Kink in the Road’, his theme song. He wrestled with the steering wheel until they reached a relatively smooth stretch and said, ‘I like to know who my constituents are, so to speak.’
‘Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.’
So Hirsch rolled his shoulders and said, ‘I met them for the first time a couple of weeks ago in the company of a woman from Belgium named Janne Van Sant, who’s out here looking for her son, Willi.’ He filled Cottrell in briefly, concluding: ‘…the Drydens told us Willi had left the property several weeks earlier to drive to Queensland with his girlfriend.’
Hirsch’s eyes glazed over a little. ‘Okay.’
With Fanning now inside the Hilux, he opened the Toyota’s storage cabinet and took out a large poly tarpaulin. Sliced it up into four ragged rectangles, placing the first over the Land Rover’s tyre tracks, the edges weighed down by stones, the second over a set of boot prints, the third over a smaller set, possibly trainers, and the fourth over the Nikon camera.
He rejoined Fanning, who said, ‘Looks like he tossed the camera into the bushes? Must’ve known he was a goner.’
Hirsch had already guessed that. ‘Possibly.’
‘I’ll go out on a limb and say probably,’ Fanning said. ‘It’s just as well the shooters didn’t spot it.’
Hirsch nodded absently. Unclipping the radio handset, he made the first of several calls. As he’d predicted, he was told to secure the scene and wait for investigators to arrive. But wait for several hours? No thanks.
He didn’t say that, however. Hoping his silence would indicate assent, he signed off and turned the ignition key. ‘I’d better get you home. And I should warn you, you’ll have a flood of visitors over the next few days, some of whom might treat you as if you’re a suspect.’
‘Fuck ’em,’ Fanning said. ‘And where are you going? To have a word with Mia Dryden?’
Hirsch said nothing. Merely put the Toyota into reverse.
‘Paul…’ Fanning said, more agitated now.
‘Russ, I’m not going to speculate about anything, or explain my next moves. I still have to check if anyone saw the plane yesterday.’
‘She could put a bullet in you.’
Hirsch made a sharp half-circle, his eyes on the side mirror, then centred the wheel. ‘Like I said, police business. But let’s say for argument’s sake Noah saw Sam and Mia Dryden earlier. Wouldn’t he recognise them?’
‘No. I’ve only met them a couple of times myself.’
Hirsch accelerated gently along the wing of the eagle, found the gap between the stones, and bumped down onto the track of stone reefs, sand drifts and washaways. He was trying to put himself in the shoes of the pilot and the shooters when Fanning asked a question he’d already been asking himself: ‘Be good to know what direction he came from.’
‘It would. Let’s hope I find someone who saw him yesterday.’
‘And it would be good to know what time he was shot at.’
‘Maybe late afternoon?’ Hirsch said. ‘So they stopped looking for him when they ran out of daylight, and resumed searching today.’
‘Or it was raining heavily where they were,’ Fanning said. He paused. ‘What if they come back with earthmoving equipment and bury the lot?’
Hirsch hadn’t thought of that. His next stage would need to be quick.
The day had been hectic and chaotic. It wasn’t until Hirsch was alone, rolling along the Manna Soak Highway, that the images came back into his head again. The baby ripped apart, the dog dropping like a sack of grain, Brenda’s injuries, Damien Pierce folded, leaking, into a suitcase. His breath shortened, he felt the twitches of panic. Slowed; stopped. Got out to walk around and try to slow and deepen his breathing. He wasn’t right inside. The urge to weep was strong.
He drove on eventually and finally found himself on the Dryden Downs entry road. The surface was blessedly smooth, a counterpoint to his inner agitation. He tried his breathing technique again and forced himself to reassess what he intended to do once he reached the station homestead.
He knew he was being impetuous. Investigators more senior, more experienced, would be coming along behind him, and wouldn’t thank him for muddying the waters—let alone alerting Mia Dryden. In any case, all she needed to do was deny everything. There was no proof she was the shooter, or indeed that she was the armed woman Noah had seen.
The best Hirsch could hope for was to rattle her or find an inconsistency in her story. Otherwise, hunt around the sheds for the Land Rover with Western Australian plates. If he was challenged, he’d say the driver would need to register the vehicle in South Australia if he—or she—intended to stay. Meanwhile photograph its tyres. Collect soil samples from the treads. And do what with that evidence? Expect the forensics lab to drop everything and test them? He didn’t even have a case number.
Meanwhile, as he knew full well from her Facebook and Instagram posts, Mia Dryden liked to blast living things with a rifle.
Hirsch found himself clenching again. Ducking, as Russ Fanning had done at the crash site. He pulled over and got out again until his breathing eased and realised, from the state of the road, how localised the rains had been. Just here, nearer the homestead, the surface was spongy, and there were shallow pools in the paddocks, with matted clumps of twigs, bark and dirt blocking the ditches on either side. He drove the last half kilometre very slowly, not wanting to bog the Toyota, not wanting to spoil the driveway. Not wanting to get worked up again, in fact. He would be bland, pleasant Senior Constable Hirschhausen from Tiverton, calling in at Dryden Downs on the off chance they’d seen an ultralight aeroplane. A cup of tea would be great, thanks. You must be delighted about the rain.
He paused at the top of the rise. Nothing moved—not a horse, dog, ute or station hand. Instead, the homestead seemed to slumber in the sunlight that was breaking through the fraying clouds of mid-afternoon. Pressing gently on the accelerator again, he followed the road down and around to the stand of trees beside the main house. Got out. Looked over at the dressage ring: Mia’s horse looked back at him.
Hooking his mask on, he stepped up onto the veranda and knocked. The door rattled and the sound of his knuckles was hollow, seeming to lose itself along the hallway dimly visible through the flyscreen. When there was no answer, he opened the screen door and this time sent a hard crack of the main door’s brass knocker down the hallway. A sound that meant business, but again there was no reply. Yet the house felt occupied.
Undecided, he turned, stepped off the veranda and began scouting around each of the sheds on the property. There was a big black Porsche Cayenne and a silver Mercedes sedan in the garage next to the house, and four other vehicles scattered around the property: a ute, two Jeeps and a small Isuzu truck. No Land Rover.
He was halfway back to the house, trying to scrape reddish mud from the soles of his shoes, when the cook, Barry McGain, emerged from a fenced-off area of garden beds—flowers, herbs, vegetables—swinging an enamel kitchen pail by the handle, a mask around his chin. He stopped when he spotted Hirsch. Covered his nose and mouth again and carried on, wearing an apron over a T-shirt and jeans, running his other hand over his militarystyle flattop as if to reassure himself he still had hair on his head.
He stopped when he reached Hirsch. His voice muffled by the mask, he said, ‘Help you?’
Wondering about the mask—the absence of masks had seemed to be a point of honour on Dryden Downs—Hirsch said, ‘Where is everyone?’
‘Out mustering. We start shearing on Monday.’
‘Everyone?’
There was a pause. McGain shook his head. ‘Mrs Dryden’s having a sleep. She was up all night with Mr Dryden. The flying doctor came for him this morning.’
Hirsch had sensed that the house wasn’t empty. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘Seizures, vomiting, diarrhoea.’
Hirsch twigged: the Ivermectin. ‘Barry, if he’s got Covid, and if Mia’s been treating him with horse medicine, he could be in big trouble.’
McGain shrugged. ‘I’m no doctor.’
‘Nor is Mrs Dryden. Is she also sick?’
McGain didn’t want to answer. ‘Is this any of your business?’
‘I’m thinking of my own safety, for a start,’ Hirsch lied. ‘I find myself in close contact with you. I touched the front door. And I know some of the station hands like to drink at the Tiverton pub.’
McGain screwed up his face. ‘All I know is, she seems fine, just a bit wrung out looking after Mr Dryden.’
‘Including this morning?’
‘Including this morning.’
If that was true, she hadn’t been out searching for Pete Aronson’s ultralight, Hirsch thought. ‘Did you see Doctor Van Sant the other day?’
It was a cheap trick, swerving to put people off balance, but it often produced results. McGain frowned unconvincingly. ‘Who?’
‘You remember, Willi’s mother?’
‘Oh. Yeah. Haven’t seen her.’
Hirsch switched topics again. Glancing at McGain’s hand, he asked, ‘What was in the bucket?’
McGain stared at him evenly. ‘Compost.’
‘I guess there’d be plenty of food scraps on a place this size.’
‘Plenty of food scraps,’ McGain agreed.
‘What are Mrs Dryden’s symptoms?’
Another look. It seemed to say, ‘I know your game.’ Then McGain shrugged and began to edge around Hirsch, saying, ‘Exhaustion, all right?’
Hirsch fell into step with him. ‘Let’s hope you don’t catch Covid.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Is there good hunting around here? Wild goats, kangaroos? Mrs Dryden likes to hunt, so I’m told.’
McGain pulled his mask down and his voice was clear: ‘What do you want?’
‘I was just wondering if sometimes Mrs Dryden brings you a wild goat to butcher and cook. Maybe a sheep. Is that where the fresh meat on the place comes from? Shot? Trapped? It’s not something I’m very familiar with. City boy,’ Hirsch said.
If Hirsch was inviting contempt, he got it. McGain curled his lip. ‘If it makes you happy, sometimes Mrs Dryden shoots a feral pig, sometimes Mr Dryden shoots one, sometimes one of the shedhands. Or we kill a ewe. I do the butchering.’
‘Do you like to hunt?’
‘I hunt recipes on the internet,’ McGain said.
They were near the house now. McGain veered right, taking a path along the side wall to the big cookhouse at the rear, his footsteps crushing the gravel. The sounds must have alerted Mia Dryden: her voice came, clear but shaky, from an open window: ‘Who is it?’
‘Me, Mrs Dryden,’ McGain said.
‘Could you do me another cup of tea, please?’
‘Sure thing,’ McGain said, going on his way again.
Hirsch followed him into the cookhouse, which smelt of heated oils, and here McGain plonked the enamel pail on a bench beside the sink and said, ‘Look, I’m busy, all right? And no, I’m not going to let you question her.’
‘Fair enough. Quick question before I go,’ Hirsch said. ‘I was wondering if you noticed an ultralight plane flying over here yesterday.’
This stopped McGain. He stared at Hirsch and said flatly, ‘No. What about it?’
‘It’s overdue.’
‘Can’t help you.’
‘But you know the one I mean? It’s flown overhead before?’
‘Nup, not that I know of.’
‘Would the Drydens or one of the station hands have seen it?’
McGain was fed up. ‘No one has. The station hands have been out bush all week, and Mr and Mrs Dryden have been here with me.’
‘Where are the hands mustering? Maybe I can talk to them.’
‘Forget about it. They’re half a day away from here,’ McGain said, indicating, with a wave of his arm, the back country. ‘They camp out there. Tents and swags. Now if you don’t mind, I need to get on with it.’
‘It is Covid, Mr Dryden’s illness? He and his wife aren’t calling it a bad cold?’
With a flicker of emotion, McGain turned away. His voice was muffled when it came: ‘Like I said, I’m busy.’
Hirsch returned to the Hilux. His radio was crackling: a voice snarling, where did he think he was? Police and air safety officials were waiting for him.
Already? Shit, bugger, damn.
30
LATE AFTERNOON NOW, long shadows striping the land. Hirsch’s doppelgänger Hilux running bulkily beside him as he entered Russ Fanning’s driveway. The sun was not quite smearing the horizon yet but the air was cooler and this was the end of a long day and he didn’t really want some prick on his case, barely before he’d turned the engine off.
‘Senior Constable Hirschhausen?’
‘That’s me,’ Hirsch said, shutting his door, turning to face the newcomer—and he realised, looking beyond the man’s facemask, that he’d seen him before, with another man, outside Scott Greig’s flat, about to serve a warrant.
‘My name is Cottrell, I’m an inspector with the Australian Federal Police. Is there a reason why you failed to safeguard the crash site as requested?’
Federal? Hirsch took a moment. A police helicopter was parked between Russ’s house and his array of solar panels. It was empty, but he doubted that Cottrell had arrived alone. He glanced at the house, half-expecting Russ to come out. Steph’s muddy Mazda was gone.
The helicopter explains the quick arrival, he told himself glumly. It also says this is not just another murder.
He swung his gaze back to Cottrell. Mid-forties, solid build, with a neat part in thick, greying hair. A suit jacket and pants, white shirt, no tie. Glasses with heavy dark rims, and already a patina of back-country dust on his toecaps. But he didn’t look incongruous. He had that scowling look of competence and authority sometimes found in people who take command of places and situations.
‘I apologise, sir. I assumed—’
‘Yeah, well, don’t—ever.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Hirsch said.
‘So? Where were you?’
‘I was following up a lead, thinking it could be hours before anyone got here.’
‘What lead?’
‘Have you spoken to Mr Fanning and his son, sir?’
‘I have. What lead?’
‘Then you know that Noah Fanning saw two armed strangers at the crash site, a man and a woman, driving a Land Rover with WA plates.’
‘You are not writing the preface to a detailed report, Senior Constable Hirschhausen. Cut to the chase.’
‘Sir.’ Hirsch pointed in the general direction of Dryden Downs. ‘A local woman named Mia Dryden owns several high-powered hunting rifles. She likes to post on Instagram, posing with her guns and the animals she’s just bagged.’
A faint tension in Cottrell as Hirsch named her. But it was there and gone again and all he said was, ‘That’s it? A bit on the slim side.’
‘Yes, sir. But I don’t know of anyone else out this way who’s so keen on shooting things. Also, someone shot one of Mr Fanning’s stud rams earlier in the year, and I saw a Land Rover with WA plates a few days ago, coming from the direction of Mrs Dryden’s property. It seemed like a worthwhile avenue to follow.’
‘And?’
‘I’m afraid it didn’t pan out. Mr Dryden’s been in bed with Covid all week, and Mrs Dryden’s been nursing him. No sign of the Land Rover.’
‘So, a waste of time and meanwhile you left the crash site unattended. I’m thinking wind, rain, wild animals…’
‘Sir.’
‘The others are already at the scene. I waited for you. Come on.’
Cottrell tugged on the Toyota’s passenger door handle and climbed in. Hirsch, shrugging philosophically, slid behind the steering wheel. A long day, getting longer. Harder.
When he turned the ignition key, Johnny Cash came on, ‘The Man Comes Around.’ He turned off the sound hastily. The words were apt, though: a man going round taking names.
Cottrell rode silently, looking out at the late afternoon shadows and the patches of dirt, scrub and low hillsides that blazed when touched by a ray of the sinking sun. Not a restful silence. Cottrell was chewing on heavy thoughts, it seemed to Hirsch. And why had a federal policeman been sent here? Why an inspector? Why a helicopter? Why the urgency, in other words.
He tried for conversation. ‘Where are you based, sir? Adelaide?’
Cottrell said, ‘Tell me more about Mia Dryden.’
‘Only met her once, sir, and like I said, she’s been nursing her sick husband.’
‘Don’t be obtuse—who is she? What does she do? What do you know about her?’
Hirsch had the odd feeling that Cottrell already knew the answers. He’s interested in what I think and know, he thought. Humble beat cop that I am. ‘Well, sir, it’s ironical that her husband has Covid—she’s an anti-vaxxer and possibly a Covid denier.’
‘Go on.’
‘Hunting animals is a kind of noble imperative for her. Somehow tied up with notions of individual freedom and sovereign rights. She uses the words “sovereign rights” quite a bit in her Instagram posts.’
If Hirsch was expecting Cottrell to be frustrated or impatient with this abridged account, he was mistaken. The federal policeman merely grunted and the Hilux continued to complain and pitch about on the heaving track.
Cottrell said, ‘What about the husband?’
Again, he seemed only half-interested. Hirsch said, ‘Polite. Undemonstrative.’
‘He shares her beliefs?’
‘I only met him once, and he doesn’t have much of an online presence, so I couldn’t say.’
Cottrell grunted again. ‘Polite, undemonstrative.’
‘And ex-army,’ added Hirsch, ‘with political ambitions.’
‘Interesting that you did research into both of them, Senior Constable Hirschhausen. Would you care to speak to that?’
Hirsch was distracted briefly by a kink in the road: ‘Kink in the Road’, his theme song. He wrestled with the steering wheel until they reached a relatively smooth stretch and said, ‘I like to know who my constituents are, so to speak.’
‘Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.’
So Hirsch rolled his shoulders and said, ‘I met them for the first time a couple of weeks ago in the company of a woman from Belgium named Janne Van Sant, who’s out here looking for her son, Willi.’ He filled Cottrell in briefly, concluding: ‘…the Drydens told us Willi had left the property several weeks earlier to drive to Queensland with his girlfriend.’
