Bitter Wash Road (28 page)

‘Why didn’t she just leave? Ask for a divorce?’

‘The boys, I suppose. And she was afraid. No skills to speak of, no money, and there are no jobs for an unskilled woman her age around here.’

‘But she did walk out a couple of times, went to stay with her parents?’

Wendy struggled with her throat, trying to swallow. ‘Once late last year, and again last week.’

‘What did her husband do or say? Her father-in-law, for that matter?’

‘I don’t know. But Ray did say to her, all the time, “The only way you’ll leave here is in a box.”‘

‘She told you that?’

‘Yes.’

The statement sat there between them. ‘Did he hit her? Did you see evidence of it or did she ever mention it?’

‘No, but I wondered. She’d hold herself stiffly sometimes. Did the autopsy find any unexplained bruises on her?’

Hirsch knew he didn’t have to answer that. ‘No.’

‘I’m surprised. But let’s say he
had
hit her in the past. What was she going to do about it? She can’t report him to the police: he’s
mates
with them. Footy club mates, what’s more.’

Hirsch said carefully, ‘And you don’t have a high opinion of the Redruth police. Even if Mr Latimer didn’t have ties to them.’

She shrugged. ‘They’re bullies.’ Then her face altered, sharpened. ‘It can’t hurt to tell you: I intend to call a public meeting about them—a protest meeting.’

Hirsch said slowly, ‘Okay.’

‘I’ve been in touch with your superintendent.’

Hirsch said, ‘Good.’

She squinted at him, not satisfied, as if she suspected he already knew. To deflect her he said, ‘How was Alison this past week? She left home again, like before, but did she seem downhearted about it?’

‘The opposite, I can’t describe it. Upbeat, even elated, as if her eyes had been opened. She was going to ask for a divorce.’

She hadn’t been upbeat the day Hirsch met her. More like a doll: stiff, cold, powerless. He’d been in uniform, however, so she probably distrusted him, saw him as siding with her husband and Kropp.

‘Did she tell you she’d come into an inheritance?’

‘Of course. She knew it wasn’t enough to buy a house in the city, but was enough to buy
time
somewhere, get settled, look for a job. Breathing-space money. Running-away money.’

‘Did her husband know about it?’

‘Motive, right?’

‘You tell me.’

‘He knew.’

A child’s troubled cough floated down the hallway. Wendy stiffened, head cocked, ready to take to her feet. There was no follow-up cough. She relaxed again, gave Hirsch a crooked smile, and said, ‘The Latimers are rich, right?’

Hirsch nodded cautiously. ‘They appear to be.’

‘Exactly,’ Wendy said.
‘Appear
to be. But it’s all tied up in land and equipment. The Latimers are big spenders. The biggest and best tractor, the biggest and best shearing shed, the biggest and best stud ram.’

‘Alison told you this?’

‘It’s common knowledge.’

‘What did Alison say about it?’

‘She told me there was never enough household spending money. Always plenty for a new truck or another parcel of land, but she was never allowed to spend anything on the house. The fridge was on its last legs, the carpet needed replacing, the curtains had been there since the year dot. It did her no good to complain or beg. She said her father-in-law was a real control freak. He’d go through her supermarket receipts and ask why hadn’t she bought no-brand tissues, why such expensive shampoo.

‘Ray put up with it?’

‘Everyone did. Of course, Ray’s been learning at his father’s knee. He’s like his dad, bad tempered, a heavy drinker, a tyrant at home. Rarely has...
had,
a kind word for Allie. He used to snap his fingers to get her attention.’

‘I know the type.’

Wendy shuffled forward on the sofa. ‘Look, everyone sees Ray as the life and soul of the party, community spirited, an all-round good bloke. But in private it’s a different story. Allie said he was cold—indifferent—to her side of the family, and he’d barely talk to her or the kids except to lay down the law.’

Hirsch pictured Raymond Latimer standing over his sons and his small-boned wife, weaving threats, his voice low and insinuating when it wasn’t raised, his big fingers twisting and flicking. The image came strongly and felt real. ‘The other day Jack seemed terrified that I’d tell his father he’d been shooting the rifle.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

‘Do you think Ray hits his sons?’

‘According to Allie, no, it’s all verbal. Yelling, belittling...Especially Craig. You should hear him at football matches. The parent from hell.’

‘Everything comes back to football.’

Hirsch said it lightly, but Wendy wasn’t amused. ‘Football, cricket, tennis in a pinch, in that order. And because Tiverton’s too small to field its own teams, the locals play for Redruth.’ She shot Hirsch a mirthless grin. ‘And that’s how Ray Latimer became best mates with your sergeant.’

Hirsch returned the grin.

‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘Ray was a district champion when he was young. He was going to play for a league team. Then he hurt his knee and the big dream came to nothing. Now he’s trying to relive it through Craig. He keeps pushing the poor kid, but Craig’s hopeless at sport, quite uncoordinated, and his heart’s not in it. I bet he wishes he was still at boarding school where Ray can’t bully him.’

Hirsch noted that. ‘Why isn’t he?’

Another grin devoid of humour. ‘The official line is, homesickness. Actually they pulled him out to save on school fees.’

‘We keep returning to money.’

‘Don’t we. I think there
was
money, a generation or two ago, but Leonard and Ray have spent it all, there have been droughts, costs have risen, incomes have fallen...’

Pretty much what Ray Latimer had told Hirsch. ‘Apparently they owe money here and there,’ he said, thinking of Tennant, the Tiverton shopkeeper.

‘I’m not surprised.’

Hirsch tried to see all the angles, feel the atmosphere in the Latimer household. ‘So Craig was taken out of boarding school and now he’s at Redruth High.’

‘Yes.’

‘How does he feel about that?’

‘I see him in the yard and the corridors, looking lost and miserable. I’ve tried to talk to him, but he avoids me. Ray told him to stay clear, probably. I’m a bad influence, I think—some leftie feminist rabblerouser who might put ideas in his head like I did Alison.’

Yeah, she’d be full of that. Hirsch gave her a crooked smile. ‘How does Craig get to school?’

‘Hah! Exactly. Here I am, just across the road, willing and able, but he takes the bus.’

‘And life for Jack?’

‘You noticed his bad foot? That saves him from the worst of it. He was never going to be a football champion. But I imagine he’s just as browbeaten as Craig.’

They fell silent. Hirsch said, ‘Tell me more about Ray.’

‘Well, he’s a Latimer.’

‘Meaning?’

‘The Latimer men have a certain reputation. The moment I moved in here Leonard dropped by to introduce himself, welcome me to the district. That’s nice, I thought, until he backed me up against the fridge and felt me up, wondering if I got lonely with no man in my life.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Shoved him away, told him I’d report him to the police, to which he replied, “Good luck with that.” I haven’t had much to do with him since.’

Hirsch bit his lip. ‘If you don’t mind my asking, is Katie’s father...?’

‘Died. Car crash.’

‘I’m sorry.’

She shrugged but she also blinked. ‘Anyway, the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. Before long, Ray made his move. Ray favours a more subtle approach. The double entendre, the insinuation, the accidental brushing against you. I’m expecting Craig to have a go next.’ She waved one arm agitatedly. ‘Sorry, scrub that.’

Hirsch said, ‘Did, or does, Ray put the moves on other women?’

‘Is that a trick question? Everyone knows about Saturday night.’

Hirsch held his palm up. ‘Country grapevine. Put it this way: has he been at it for a while? Did Alison know about Finola Armstrong or his other women, if any?’

‘Ray would
taunt
her. He’d stay out all night, come home without showering, make phone calls and not bother to hide what it was about.’

‘What a prince,’ Hirsch said. He tried to find his way into his next question. ‘What’s your take on Finola Armstrong?’

‘Well, it’s easy to condemn someone, isn’t it? I don’t like her much, but that has nothing to do with her sleeping with Ray Latimer. I just don’t warm to her. Too hard edged and pragmatic. If it doesn’t involve the seasons or the harvest or stock prices, she’s got nothing to say for herself. But she is a widow, after all. She was left with a farm to run and has made a success of it.’

‘A practical woman.’

Wendy laughed harshly. ‘If you mean she’d stage a suicide to solve a problem, I just can’t see it. I mean, what problem?’

‘Removing her rival in love.’

‘So she could land Raymond Latimer? It’s the other way round: Allies death will solve
his
problem.’

‘Okay.’

‘Please, Hirsch, look closer to home. Ray and his father are these good old boys, pillars of the community, local gentry. Underneath it, they’re awful men.’

She’d called him ‘Hirsch’. He liked it. ‘But so far everyone with a motive also has an alibi.’

‘They paid someone.’

Hirsch looked at her. Anyone else, he would have scoffed. The meal sat pleasantly in him and the light was warm and dim. Music played softly, an iPod on a shuffle—The Waifs right now, and Hirsch, lulled by the song, didn’t want to go home. He stared at Wendy with her legs folded beneath her, one shapely foot resting along her thigh, and she stared at him. And there was a moment, but Hirsch let it run out like sand, with the result that Wendy, harking a little crossly to the song, said, ‘
Are
the wicked going to wail and weep?’

~ * ~

24

OCTOBER GATHERED ITS skirts and raced past.

Alison Latimer’s funeral attracted half the district and seemed to Hirsch an expression of confusion and heartache, an occasion that sundered, not cemented, the community. A gritty wind blew and the ants raced in the red dirt and he didn’t see any hired killers lurking. The days were longer now and the sun had heat in it, and old farmers in the churchyard informed Hirsch that it was ‘going to be a long, hot summer,’ sniffing the air cannily. He dared not laugh. What did he know about disturbances of the bones, the air?

~ * ~

H
e settled into his
small-town role of stern father, kindly father, father-confessor, bloke next door and go-to guy. All of the locals had his mobile number and some found a reason to call it. Or they knocked on his door if the HiLux was parked in the driveway. They wanted him to find their missing stock, sheepdogs, fence posts, fuel drums, motorbikes and mothers suffering from dementia. And he drove all the time, sometimes three hundred kilometres a day, investigating thefts, introducing himself at remote farms, checking on the alcoholic shearer who had a history of violence, the intellectually disabled forty-year-old whose mother and sole caregiver had just died, the alternative-healing woman who’d threatened wind farm workers, the schizophrenic who’d stopped taking his pills. He made a dash to Redruth with a gasping teenager whose asthma inhaler had run out while her parents were away in the city. He administered breath tests, doorknocked people who’d failed to renew their car registrations, had a quiet word with kids seen doing burnouts—once in front of the police station. He intercepted a ute with a stolen stud ram on board. Even helped an elderly couple get their shopping home.

It wasn’t all police work. One day he confessed to a mild fondness for tennis and found himself on the tennis club committee, where he was quizzed on any letter-writing or bookkeeping skills or experience he might have. He could have been everyone’s mate, but the secret to being a cop in a small rural community—the secret and the pity—was to get close to the locals but not too close. And it was never close enough.

~ * ~

Thus his settled life.
What wasn’t settled were the deaths of Melia Donovan and Alison Latimer, and they ate at him. While the accident investigators widened their search for a suspect vehicle, contacting crash repairers and hospitals, viewing CCTV tapes along Barrier Highway from Broken Hill to Adelaide, Hirsch kept the pressure on Gemma Pitcher’s mother, extended family, friends and enemies. Had Gemma made contact? Phone calls? Letters? E-mails? Anything on Facebook? Was there a favourite town or holiday spot she’d liked in the past? Old boyfriend? He phoned the far-flung contacts and visited those closer to.

He also called in on Leanne Donovan. He had nothing to tell her. She asked him not to come again.

~ * ~

The rest of his
time was spent keeping others off his back.