The guy was a prick, but Hirsch didn’t want to bite again. ‘She’s young, vague, didn’t take much notice. Average build, forties, that’s about it. She only raised it with me because she wondered if he’d been to see me, which is what she’d suggested he do.’

‘And now she’s missing. Any idea why, or where she might go?’

Hirsch shook his head. ‘All I know is, she’s using her mother’s car, and two boys, friends of hers, are probably with her. It’s the holidays, maybe they’ve been partying and they’re sleeping it off somewhere. It’s just that they didn’t tell anyone where they were going. On the other hand, we’re not talking fully functional families. It wouldn’t occur to them to tell anyone.’

Hansen looked all set for another snide comment when Roesch interrupted. Giving her colleague a glance that had a little slap in it, she said, ‘Let’s move along, shall we, Robert? Keep in mind that Constable Hirschhausen isn’t this girl’s keeper. At least he got her to agree to make herself available, right, constable?’

Hirsch nodded, grateful. There was an answering flash of warmth in Vita Roesch, something that glimmered and was gone. He cleared his throat.

Roesch went on, ‘What matters is, two members of a family have been shot dead and two are missing.’

Hirsch waited.

Roesch said, ‘We met your sergeant. She said the search is being wound back.’

Hirsch shrugged. ‘I was out there yesterday morning. I’m not up with the latest strategic thinking. But…we haven’t found anything, and if the girls were picked up by someone driving a vehicle, well, it makes sense to concentrate the search elsewhere.’ He shrugged. ‘Family, friends…’

Then he paused, waited. Another interrogation technique, aimed at eliciting information. Not that he expected it to work on them. It was more likely he’d be sidelined further.

But Roesch surprised him. ‘Why don’t you give us your take on the case?’ she said. ‘Not just the facts—theory and opinion as well.’

His mind raced, looking for traps. On the face of it he was merely the local plod, who’d happened to have a run-in with Mrs Rennie—and later happened to find her shot dead in her house. What else could he offer the Sydney detectives? Then he thought: they’d done their homework. Someone’s said something and they’d dug around in his past and discovered he’d once been a detective and wasn’t, in fact, merely the local plod.

Who were they, anyway? Roesch—Organised Crime. Hansen—Homicide. Some New South Wales task force? How well did they know each other? How well did they work together?

‘It occurred to me that Mrs Rennie and her kids were in witness protection,’ he said. He watched the pair of them carefully.