Bitter Wash Road Read Free Page A

spindly arms and legs moving in a curious counterpoint, a kind of pulling back on the reins. Hirsch saw that his left shoe was chunkier than the right, the sole and heel built up.
     
    The girl caught Hirsch looking. Her eyes glittered. ‘You’ve got a hole in your pants.’
     
    ~ * ~
     
    The kids strapped in, Katie in the passenger seat, Jack in the rear, Hirsch said, ‘So, we wait at Jackson’s house?’
     
    ‘Whatever,’ Katie said. She added: ‘You could be looking for that black car instead of hassling us.’
     
    The police were looking for hundreds, thousands, of cars at any given moment. But Hirsch knew exactly which one she meant: the Pullar and Hanson Chrysler, last seen heading for Longreach, over two thousand kilometres away. He said, ‘I doubt it’s in our neck of the woods.’
     
    Katie shot him down with a look, swung her gaze away from him. ‘That’s what you think.’
     
    Hirsch was fascinated by her. Dusty olive skin, a tiny gold hoop in each ear, a strand of hair pasted damply to her neck, and entirely self-contained. One of those kids who is determined, tireless, mostly right and often a pain in the arse. He tried to remember what he’d been like at that age. When it was clear that she didn’t intend to elaborate, he slotted the key in the ignition.
     
    ‘We saw it go past our school,’ said Jack in the back seat.
     
    Slowly, Hirsch removed his hand from the key. Had some guy waved his cock at the kids? Tried to snatch one of them? ‘The primary school in town?’
     
    ‘Yes.’
     
    ‘When was this?’
     
    ‘Yesterday.’
     
    ‘A black Chrysler?’
     
    ‘Yes.’
     
    ‘But what were you doing at school on a Sunday?’
     
    ‘A working bee. Cleaning up and planting trees.’
     
    ‘Did this car stop?’
     
    Katie shook her head. ‘It drove past.’
     
    ‘What time was this?’
     
    ‘Nearly lunchtime.’
     
    Hirsch pictured it. The little primary school was opposite the police station, with a large playing field fronting Barrier Highway. The entrance, car park and classrooms were off a side street. The speed limit was fifty kilometres per hour through the town, giving an observant child time to mark details. But what details had marked this vehicle out from the others that passed the school every day, the farm utes, family cars, grain trucks, interstate buses?
     
    It was a black Chrysler, that’s what. A car in the news, driven by a pair of killers.
     
    Not a common car—but not rare either, and Hirsch said so. ‘I think those men are still in Queensland.’
     
    ‘Whatever. Can we just go?’
     
    Hirsch glanced at the rearview mirror, seeking Jack’s face. The boy shrank away.
     
    ‘Suit yourselves,’ Hirsch said, checking the wing mirror and pulling onto the road.
     
    Speaking of observant children...
     
    ‘Did you kids happen to see anyone hanging around outside the police station late last week? Maybe putting something in the letterbox?’
     
    They stared at him blankly, and he was thinking he’d mystified them, when the girl said, ‘There was a lady.’
     
    ‘A lady.’
     
    ‘But I didn’t see her putting anything in the letterbox.’
     
    ‘Was she waiting to see me, do you think?’
     
    ‘She looked in your car.’
     
    Hirsch went very still and braked the HiLux. He said lightly, ‘When was this?’
     
    ‘Morning recess.’
     
    Hirsch went out on patrol every morning, and someone would have known that. ‘What day?’
     
    Katie conferred with Jack and said, ‘Our last day.’
     
    ‘Last day of term? Friday?’
     
    ‘Yes.’
     
    Hirsch nodded slowly and removed his foot from the brake pedal, steering slowly past the fallen branch. Seeing Katie Street peer at it, he had a sense of her mind working, putting the story together—him stopping the HiLux, getting out, and hearing a stray bullet fly past his head. As if to check that he wasn’t sporting a bullet hole, she glanced across. He smiled. She scowled, looked