In the end, Hirsch ate his lunch under the drowsy chop of the ceiling fan. Stale air, too warm. No messages, and only a couple of SA Police memos in his email, the words swimming before his eyes. What was an ‘information cascade’? More to the point, what was he expected to do about it? He got to ‘service performance indicators’ and logged out, having lost twenty minutes of his life.

An envelope addressed in his mother’s large, rounded hand sat in his in-tray, rebuking him. As expected, it contained one sheet of cramped, minimally formatted type, the form letter his parents mailed to everyone at Christmas. Hirsch shifted in his chair: love, embarrassment, compassion, cynicism. Sometimes he thought he wasn’t a very nice man; certainly not a very nice son.

He ran his gaze down the page. Trips his parents had made during the year. Who they’d seen. The garden. Bowls and golf. Who’d died, remarried, procreated, retired to the Gold Coast. The achievements of their only child, now one year into his posting at Tiverton and loving life in the bush!!! Always liberal with the exclamation marks, his mother.

And with the usual poignant tug, a blue biro message just for him: ‘To our darling Paul, always in our thoughts, let your Christmas be happy and safe and may we see each other soon, your loving Ma and Pa.’

This year’s card was a cartoon of two chimney-tops, a policeman nabbing a masked burglar emerging from one, Santa stepping from his sleigh into the other. Hirsch placed it with his other cards, all five of them: the general store, Martin and Joyce Gwynne, Katie Street and Wendy Street, the Muirs, Rosie—his only remaining friend at police HQ.

He returned to his rickety chair and contemplated infinity again. A cloudless, windless day with a high, hot sun. He had no wish to be out in it. But it was 2 p.m. now and Katie got out of school at three. He’d better get cracking on the Brenda Flann case.

Yet he continued to sit. Presently he heard a vehicle screech to a halt outside. A door slam, determined footsteps. Hirsch was attuned to the engine notes of his neighbours’ cars, the general sounds of the Barrier Highway. This was someone in a hurry for police attention.

Martin Gwynne barged in, quivering with emotion. Sixty and retired, a neat package, a man of bubbling energy, he was always about the place somewhere. The street, the shop, council meetings, the tennis club, the Saturday football match.

And, more often than not, bearding Hirsch in the police station about something or other.

Hirsch swivelled in his chair. ‘Afternoon, Martin. Heard about your bit of drama this morning.’

Gwynne sniffed. ‘Yes, well, you weren’t here so we had to act.’

I’m never here on a Thursday or a Monday morning, you know that, Martin. He didn’t get up.