Bitter Wash Road Read Online Free

not around the house.
     
    ‘So anyone could take the guns out and shoot them?’
     
    ‘He locks them in a cupboard.’
     
    Hirsch threw Jack a wink. ‘And I bet you know where the key is, right?’
     
    Jack shook his head violently. ‘No, honest.’
     
    ‘He’s not lying,’ Katie said. ‘We used the gun that’s kept in the ute. It’s just a little gun, for shooting rabbits.’
     
    Little and overlooked and forgotten, thought Hirsch. Not even a proper gun to some people.
     
    He was guessing the kids had done it a few times now, waited until the adults were out then grabbed the Ruger and headed down the creek for some target practice. Bullets? No problem. They’d be rolling around in a glove box or coat pocket or cupboard drawer, also overlooked and forgotten.
     
    To ease the atmosphere, Hirsch said, ‘So, school holidays for the next two weeks.’
     
    ‘Yes.’
     
    A silence threatened. Hirsch said, ‘May I see the gun case?’
     
    Jack took him indoors to a study furnished with a heavy wooden desk and chair, an armchair draped with a pair of overalls, a filing cabinet, computer and printer, bookshelves. It smelled of furniture polish and gun oil. The gun cabinet was glass-faced, bolted to the wall, locked. A gleaming Brno .22, a .303 fitted with a sight, a shotgun, a couple of cartridge packets and an envelope marked ‘licences’.
     
    Hirsch thanked the boy and they returned to the veranda in time to hear a crunch of gravel. A boxy white Volvo came creeping up to the house as if wary to see a police vehicle parked there. Katie’s mother at the wheel, reasoned Hirsch, and Jack’s mother in the passenger seat, and he didn’t know what the hell he should tell them. He removed the phone from his pocket. The shutter sound already muted, he got ready to photograph them. Habit, after everything that had happened to him.
     
    ~ * ~
     
    2
     
     
     
     
    VIEWED LATER, THE photographs on Hirsch’s phone revealed women of his age, mid-thirties, and as unlike each other as their children. Katie’s mother came into view first, slamming the driver’s door and advancing on the house. She wore jeans, a T-shirt, scuffed trainers and plenty of attitude, throwing a glare at Hirsch as she neared the veranda. She was small-boned like her daughter; dark, unimpressed.
     
    Jack’s mother trailed behind, leaving the Volvo in stages, closing the door gently, pressing against it until it clicked, edging around the front of the car as if she was reluctant to disturb the air. Hirsch wondered if she’d hurt her right hand. She held it beneath her breasts, fingers curled.
     
    Meanwhile Katie’s mother had stopped short of the veranda steps. She threw a glance at her daughter. ‘All right, hon?’
     
    ‘No probs.’
     
    ‘Excellent, excellent.’
     
    Hirsch absorbed the full impact of a high-wattage gaze, thought Fuck this for a joke, and stuck out his hand. ‘Hi. Paul Hirschhausen, stationed at Tiverton.’ With a grin he added, ‘Call me Hirsch.’
     
    The woman stared at him, at his hand, at his face again; then, quite suddenly, her fierceness ebbed. He wasn’t out of the woods, but he’d get a handshake. ‘Wendy Street,’ she said, ‘and this is Alison Latimer.’
     
    Hirsch nodded hello; Latimer responded with a smile that was trying to come in from the cold. She was tall, fair; pretty in a recessive way, as if she had no expectations and understood disappointment. But what do I know? thought Hirsch. He’d misread plenty of people and had the scars to prove it.
     
    ‘Is something wrong?’ Alison blurted.
     
    ‘Nothing too bad, but there is something we need to discuss.’
     
    Before he could elaborate, Wendy Street said, ‘You’re new at Tiverton?’
     
    ‘Yes.’
     
    ‘And you come under Kropp in Redruth.’
     
    ‘Yes.’
     
    ‘Faan...tastic,’ she drawled.
     
    ‘Is there a problem?’
     
    That might have been a shrug, then she grinned at his torn trousers, brown eyes briefly