Hell to Pay (29 page)

“Should I?”

“He’s just a kid.”

“Let’s go inside, make a pot of tea, have a talk,” Hirsch said. He saw that he had ash on his shoe caps. He polished them on his trousers and promptly thought:
Why did I do that?

D
UST BALLS IN THE
kitchen corners, a Corn Flakes packet on its side, a tide mark in the sink, newspapers piled on a couple of the chairs, unopened bills tucked between a pair of rotting apples in a cane basket. All of the love had gone from the room, the house, with the death of Alison Latimer, and it was possible that Finola Armstrong hadn’t bothered to clean very often.

Watching Raymond slump at the table, Hirsch filled the kettle. He could see defeat in the heavy shoulders. Then as if sensing the scrutiny, Latimer lifted his head. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

Hirsch sighed. Did he want to hear this? He pulled out a chair and sat opposite Latimer. Behind him the tap dripped and the electric kettle woke unwillingly. “Tell me.”

Latimer swiped at his cheeks as if searching for a starting
point, as if there were many starting points. “My son hasn’t been coping very well.”

“With your wife’s death.”

“Before that. He didn’t want to go to Redruth High but we had no choice, the Saint Peter’s fees were crippling us.”

“He found it hard to settle in?”

Latimer nodded glumly. “And then Allie moved out and he felt let down. Abandoned. And then she shot herself. Maybe he felt he was to blame, I don’t know.”

Latimer moved uncomfortably in his chair, continued: “It didn’t help matters when Fin started staying over a few nights a week. I probably should have waited a bit. But it wasn’t as if Allie and I had been getting on, not for years, really. Plus I thought it would be good for the boys, a woman in the house.”

Hirsch didn’t believe a word of it. “It was Mrs. Armstrong who caught Craig throwing lit matches into the grass.”

Latimer shook his head as if still amazed. “The little bugger said he felt unwell, wanted to spend the day in bed, but when she went across to her house to do some chores, she spotted him in the paddock.”

The kettle began tearing at the silence. It shut off. Hirsch got up and hunted for mugs and teabags. “Black? White? Sugar?”

“White and two,” Latimer mumbled.

Hirsch smacked everything onto the table. The surface was streaked greasily, as if swiped at rather than cleaned. Latimer made no move to drink his tea. Hirsch sipped and realized the mug was greasy.

He said, “Ray, please don’t hit Craig again. What he needs is counseling.”

Latimer winced. “How much is that going to cost me?”

Hirsch stared. “You want him to go on lighting fires? What if someone dies?” Then he thought of the killer: “What if someone sues you for a million dollars? One of your neighbors, for example, or the wind farm company?”

Appalled, dismayed, Latimer brought his face back under control. “I’ll get him some help. No joke. I mean it.”

“Try the school. They’ll have access to suitable counselors. So will the family doctor.”

“McAskill,” muttered Latimer.

“There you go.”

A leaking tap got to Hirsch, drips falling with audible plinks. He pushed his chair back, stood, stepped across to the sink. The hot tap was dripping into a cereal bowl, which was piled atop three or four days’ worth of cereal bowls. He twisted the tap handle, realising at once it was fully off. The washer needed replacing, and he recalled Wendy Street’s words, that the Latimers spent their money on high end farm equipment and breeding stock, not the upkeep of the house. He returned to the table.

The farmer lifted his massive head and muttered, “Got to get that fixed.”

“Yes.”

“Is Fin going to press charges?”

“I’ve yet to speak to her.”

“Is she going to sue for damages?”

“Like I said, I’ve yet to speak to her.”

“Tell her I’ll pay.”

“Tell her yourself.”

“Yeah, well, she walked out on me.”

There was a thump from the distant reaches of the house. Latimer ignored it, but Hirsch was thinking
suicide
. He shoved back his chair and ran. Latimer caught on quickly. Both men clattered down the hallway, an unlovely passage through the house, the wind of their passing agitating another crop of dust balls.

The sign was a relic from primary school art class,
CRAIG’S ROOM
in colored wooden letters stuck to a board. Hirsch knocked and went in. Craig Latimer had washed inexpertly and dragged on clean clothes. He was handballing a slack football
against the curtain, the ball punching the fabric and falling to the floor. Over and over again. He didn’t register the alteration to the air, so Hirsch grabbed his arm. “Craig.”

The tension went out of the boy. He slid to the floor, his back against the bed, his forehead on his knees. His shoulders heaved, strangled words leaked out of him.

“Stop mumbling,” Latimer snarled.

Hirsch shot him a look and joined Craig on the floor. “She abandoned us,” that’s what the boy was saying, and Hirsch guessed that the father had said it first and the boy had learnt to recite it.

I’m out of my depth here
, he thought. And then the bed slid away on the slippery floor, responding to the pressure of their spines. Nothing was satisfactory.

Hirsch swung around onto his knees. “Your dad and I thought it might make you feel better to talk to someone. Not me, not him, not your grandparents but a nice person who will listen and not judge.”

His eyes crazy, the boy shrieked, “I’m not crazy.”

“You’d better leave,” Raymond said.

So Hirsch went next door.

WHERE FINOLA ARMSTRONG TOLD him a little of her recent history.

“When Eric died, men came crawling out of the woodwork. I suppose they thought I’d be an easy touch.”

“Did that include Ray Latimer?”

She shook her head. “His
father
, randy old goat.”

They contemplated that. Armstrong said, “I think Ray was sniffing around a nurse at the time.”

They were seated on a pair of frayed veranda chairs, behind an untamed vine. Hirsch caught glimpses of her yard and sheds and heat-stunned sheepdog and the dusty HiLux through the glossy leaves. Owing to the angle of the house, the burnt patch of grass and star thistles lay a few degrees out of sight.

He said, “But you got talking and things developed because there’d been a grass fire.”

“Yes.”

“And now we have another fire.”

“Uh-huh. But that
first
fire,” Armstrong said, “we blamed on a cigarette tossed out a car window.”

Hirsch, his gaze alighting on the farm dog, saw it take a bite
of the air and subside. A fly buzzed at its eyes. It snapped its jaws again. “Now you know better. You think it was Craig.”

“I’m sure of it.”

“But this time you caught him at it.”

She nodded. “I’d just come back from dropping Jack off at school.” She paused, shook her head in disgust. “More fool me. Why should I do the school run? Not my kids.”

“You took Jack, not Craig?” checked Hirsch.

“He didn’t show for breakfast and I didn’t think it was my job to get him ready for school. I mean, he’s fourteen and he’s not my kid. Anyway, when I got back, Ray was sitting at the kitchen table, going, ‘Did you think to buy milk? Did you pick up the
Advertiser
?’ He wanted me to drive all the way back and get his precious milk and newspaper. Needless to say we had an almighty row and I stormed out.” She shook her head. “Call it a temporary insanity. Can’t believe I contemplated moving in.”

Armstrong wore boots, jeans and a checked shirt. A practical woman, who for a time had had her head turned by a man whose sons were losing the plot and who might have arranged the murder of his wife. Hirsch said, “And meanwhile Craig’s not in bed but out in the paddock throwing lighted matches on the ground?”

“I spotted him as I was driving in.”

“Any theories?”

“Yes. He’s fucked in the head, pardon my French. Last summer he learns he’s not so special: his old man’s broke and he has to attend the local high school. And this morning? Take your pick: His mother’s suicide, my presence in his life, the way his father and grandfather treat him, life at school … All of the above.”

“Have there been other fires?”

“Not that I know of.” She stared at him. “That boy needs help, before it escalates. You can see how dry it is, and a hot summer coming up.”

“Mr. Latimer said he’ll find a counselor for Craig.”

She snorted. “They all need it.”

“In what way?”

“Craig’s a pyromaniac in the making, Jack’s just sad, the old man is a bully and a sadist and so is Ray. And lazy. He would sit around watching TV and drinking beer and expect me to cook and clean for him. I’ve got a farm to run. So has he, except he’s stuffed that up.”

Hirsch said, “His treatment of the boys.”

“What about it?”

“Do I need to inform Children’s Services?”

“A bit harsh,” Armstrong said, but she bit her lip. “Ray’s hard on them,” she said, “but he’s not negligent. Not really.”

“Mrs. Armstrong, where’s the ring he gave you?”

“You don’t miss much.”

Hirsch waited, and after a while Finola Armstrong said, “Like I said, the youngest boy is sad, and it turns out one of the things he’s sad about is the fact that I was wearing his mother’s ring.”

She gave Hirsch a look, a crumpling of defenses. “I had no idea it was hers. I thought he’d bought it specially for me.” She coughed and swallowed. “I challenged Ray. He said the ring was special, special to
him
, it had been his mother’s ring. I gave it back. Couldn’t wear it.”

They each stared at nothing. Finola Armstrong broke the silence. “That was probably the beginning of the end. The other big thing was money.”

“Money?”

“Something about his wife being due an inheritance but it hadn’t been released yet and could I tide him over with a loan? Or better still, we could get married and amalgamate our properties into one big one.”

“While you cooked and cleaned.”

“Exactly.”

Armstrong rubbed her palms on her thighs, embarrassed. “I know I went a bit crazy this year, you know, love is blind and all that, but at the same time I do have a head on my shoulders.”

She indicated the house, sheds and farmland with a little sweep of her hand, and Hirsch knew she had survived, even prospered, using her own wits. She was a good farmer, a good manager. She was canny. A partnership with the Latimers would not have been canny.

“I’ve just been next door,” Hirsch said, “and Mr. Latimer said he’d be happy to pay for the damaged fence.”

“I should hope so. But I imagine he wants to know if I’ll take further action. Tell him no. I’m well rid of that mob.”

Hirsch got up to go. She said, her head at an angle, “One other thing: I was at my sister’s when Alison Latimer died.”

Hirsch agreed that she was.

“And Ray was in the lockup and his father was away with Craig and Jack.”

“Yes …”

“It’s just that Ray and Leonard kept reminding me of that, drilling it into me, as if it might be important.” She shrugged. “That’s all. Thought I’d mention it.”

After a beat, Hirsch nodded. “Glad you did.”

HE RETURNED TO VIMY Ridge.

Kropp was there, waiting on the veranda, his police Explorer gleaming in the driveway. Hirsch said, “I suppose your mate called you?”

“Don’t get on your high horse, son. The man’s a mess. His wife, and now this.”

Sounds from within, the wailing boy and the murmuring father. “Sarge, I’m dealing with it.”

Kropp ignored him, stared out across the landscape to the Razorback. “You went to see the Armstrong woman?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“Not interested in pressing charges. Expects Mr. Latimer to pay for fence repairs.”

Kropp nodded. “Okay, this is how it pans out. A passing motorist flicked a cigarette out the window, setting off a grass fire. Local units attended, and with the help of neighbors the blaze was quickly extinguished. That’s the public face. Privately, the kid gets counseling, the blokes manning the trucks get a six-pack of beer each, and everyone’s happy. All right?”

“How do you know I haven’t already managed to negotiate most of that? You think because I’m a dog and a maggot I’m not also a good policeman? Fuck you, Sarge.”

Kropp blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard.”

Kropp looked amused. “Fair enough. Now, let me sit with my friend for a while. You head on back to town.”

“I’ve still not spoken to Mr. Latimer about his wife. He won’t return calls, he won’t open the door to me, and I’ve had enough. No more bullshit from him, and no more from you, Sarge. It’s been too long. And for Christ’s sake, five minutes after his wife dies, he moves his girlfriend in? How broken up can the guy be?”

The men stared at each other. “The super asked me to prepare a brief for the coroner and that’s what I’m trying to do,” Hirsch said. “If interested parties refuse to speak to me, how does that look? It looks like guilt, it looks like having something to hide. I don’t care that Ray Latimer is your mate, stalwart of the football club and all-round good bloke or that he suffered a tragic loss: I am not leaving until I’ve sat down with him and asked my questions.”

After a gap in time, Kropp said, “I worked with Marcus Quine, you know. In the early days, Port Adelaide.”

Hirsch said nothing.

“He got the job done.”

Hirsch said nothing.

“But he did cut corners.”

Was that an admission that Hirsch had got it right about Quine? He continued to watch the sergeant.

Who said, “But I don’t care if a fellow police member swindles the Children’s Hospital and violates a busload of nuns, you do not do the dirty on him.”

Kropp didn’t wait for a reply but banged his way into the house, calling, “Ray? You there?”

Surprised, Hirsch followed his sergeant, catching up just as
Kropp rapped his knuckles on the bedroom door, calling,
“Ray? It’s Bill. We need a quiet word about Allie.”

Hirsch grabbed his arm. “Sarge?”