Gwynne slammed a set of keys onto the counter. ‘Brenda’s. And I hope she doesn’t get them back in a hurry.’

Oh, right, thought Hirsch, hauling himself to his feet, crossing to the counter.

‘The woman’s a menace. She’s going to kill someone, the way she’s going.’

A house key, a key to a Ford, a short, silvery chain with a tiny pair of dice on the other end. ‘Take me through it,’ Hirsch said.

‘Where to begin,’ Gwynne said. He inflated slightly, stretching his faded pink Lacoste shirt. A little belly over a pair of ironed cargo pants. Deck shoes.

Hirsch put up an abrupt hand. ‘Actually, Martin, first I need to know if you made an arrest. I mean, did you actually say those words to Brenda?’

Gwynne looked astounded, doubly irked. ‘Arrest? That’s your job.’

‘Just sorting through the proprieties,’ Hirsch said, relieved. In the end, he rattled off a series of questions, the only way to cut through Martin Gwynne’s waffle. The sequence was simple: Martin had been chatting with Ed Tennant at the petrol bowser outside Tennant’s shop. They saw Brenda’s distinctive station wagon—rusty, dented blue body, sun-faded red bonnet—enter the town, stop briefly while Adam Flann, Brenda’s youngest, got out, and continue towards the pub.

‘She was swerving all over the road. Next minute she was up on the pub veranda.’

‘Go back a bit. Where did she drop Adam?’

Martin frowned in irritation. ‘I don’t know. The Cobbs’ place? He’s mates with Daryl. What matters is…’

What mattered was, Martin and Ed had run to the pub to see if Brenda was all right. ‘Or should I say, see if she’d hurt someone else. But when we got there, she tried to reverse off the veranda, so we pulled her out and I confiscated her keys.’

‘Wise move.’

Martin stood a little straighter. ‘In the end, Ed drove her home in her car, and I followed and brought him back. We left her sleeping it off on her sofa.’

Where she’s choking on her own vomit? wondered Hirsch—while also thinking it was a good thing Ed, not Martin, had driven Brenda. Martin would have lectured her the whole way, and she might now be going down for assault. ‘So her car was driveable?’

‘If you can call it that,’ Gwynne said.

Hirsch added to his mental to-do list: photograph Brenda Flann’s car, photograph the damage to the pub. His afternoon was stuffed. Maybe Katie could go home with a town friend when school broke up? Or watch TV at his place—he’d shown her where the back-door key was hidden. He’d text her as soon as Martin Gwynne was out of his hair.

Now Gwynne checked the time. ‘I assume you will arrest the bloody woman?’