The briefing over, they separated: Sergeant Brandl to her office, Landy and Medlin to their local duties, Hirsch to his Toyota. Armed with the Porters Lagoon address, he headed south along the Adelaide road for twenty minutes, until Google Maps directed him left along a side road leading into the hills. The lagoon was mostly a saltpan fringed with reeds now, but he’d seen 1920s photographs of it in full water, people rowing—yachting, even—and stilts, avocets and water fowl feeding along the edges. The road climbed in a shallow curve across a long, low hill, and then he was bumping up a driveway to an old farmhouse. Two storeys, which was rare, but the building was more an accumulation of rooms and extensions than a mansion. The arrangement was appealing, if a little random. It offered a big-sky view across the lagoon and valley farmland to hills and a broad horizon on the other side. Dusty pinks and tans over there, with khaki clusters that were distant farms and eucalypts.

Hirsch switched off, got out and was tackled by a slobbering kelpie. As he bent to pat it a piercing whistle sounded from a shadowy shed entrance and a voice growled, ‘Get behind, you bloody red mongrel.’

The dog gave Hirsch a panting, apologetic grin and trotted for the shed. A genial-looking man of about fifty emerged, wiping his hands with a filthy rag. He was solid-bellied, shirtless in a pair of overalls, with lace-trailing old boots on his feet.

‘Won’t shake,’ he said. ‘Trying to fix a carburettor.’

‘Mr Wesley?’

‘That’s me.’

Hirsch introduced himself and explained the reason for his visit.

‘Thought you lot had forgotten all about me,’ Wesley said.

‘As you know, there was a changeover of police staff,’ Hirsch said. ‘The new lot inherited a backlog.’

‘Well, you’re here now,’ said Wesley. He looked at Hirsch shrewdly. ‘But you’re the Tiverton copper.’

Hirsch nodded. ‘I can still make a formal report and give you the information you need for your insurance company, but the main reason I’m here is that I know of two other cases of cut phone lines.’

‘True? I don’t care about the insurance, I care about strangers lurking in the middle of the night. You want to know what happened, I take it?’

‘Yes, please.’