Hell to Pay Read Free

much currency out here. “It’s the best spot,” Katie reasoned.
    Right
, thought Hirsch. He continued to pick his way. “Look, the thing is, one of your shots went wild. It nearly hit me.”
    He gestured in the direction of the road. “I’d just got out of my car to move a fallen tree when I heard it go right past my head.” Putting some hardness into it he added, “It’s dangerous to shoot a gun so close to a road. You could hurt someone.”
    He didn’t say kill someone. He didn’t know if the severity would work. He didn’t know if he should be gentle, stern, pissed off, touchy-feely or a full-on tyrant. He took the easy way:
    “Do your parents know you’re up here shooting a gun?”
    No response. Hirsch said, “I’m afraid I’ll need to talk to—”
    The girl cut in. “Don’t tell Mr. Latimer.”
    Hirsch cocked his head.
    “Please,” she insisted.
    “Why?”
    “My dad will kill me,” the boy muttered. “Anyway he’s not home.”
    “Okay, I’ll speak to your mothers.”
    “They’re out, too.”
    “My mum took Jack’s mum shopping,” Katie said.
    They had all the answers. Hirsch glanced at his watch: almost noon. “Where?”
    “Redruth,” she said reluctantly.
    Meaning they hadn’t gone down to Adelaide for the day and would probably be home to make lunch. “Okay, let’s go.”
    “Are you taking us to jail?”
    Hirsch laughed, saw that the girl was serious, and grew serious himself. “Nothing like that. I’ll drive you home and we’ll wait until someone returns.”
    Keeping it low-key, no sudden movements, he eased the rifle—a Ruger—from Jack’s hands. He’d disarmed people before, but not like this, and wondered if police work ever got chancy, out here in the middle of nowhere. He walked the children back over the ridge and down to the HiLux. The girl moved at a fast clip but the boy trudged with his spine and spindly arms and legs in a curious counterpoint, a kind of pulling back on the reins, and Hirsch saw that his left shoe was chunkier than the right, the sole and heel built up.
    Catching Hirsch, the girl said, “You’ve got a hole in your pants.”
    T HE 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 carsat any given moment, yet Hirsch knew exactly which one she meant: the Pullar and Hanson Chrysler. Rather than say the killers had last been seen heading for Longreach, in the middle of Queensland, over two thousand kilometers 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, tiny gold hoops 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. 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 backseat.
    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 and the entrance, car park and classrooms reached via a side street. The speed limit was 50 km/h through the town, giving an observant