But none of that explained what he was doing on this side road, shot in the head. Puncturing Hirsch’s tyre had bought him time to run—but it had also bought time for someone to set up an ambush. A partner, thought Hirsch. He thought about the vehicles that had slowed or stopped to look at the woolshed. A partner who’d spotted the police car and told McAuliffe to run. A partner who’d decided he was a liability and eliminated him on an obscure back road. His side window was down, Hirsch recalled—as if he’d opened it to talk to someone, maybe an oncoming driver. He’s shot in the head, his foot slips off the brake, the Audi rolls into the ditch. The killer lingers long enough to grab his phone—presumably the call log would have been incriminating—then clears out.

Detectives and crime-scene officers arrived, Comyn among them, and Hirsch was told to get his arse down to Redruth and report to Kellaher.

‘In a moment,’ Hirsch said, heading for his Toyota. The killer had taken a great risk, knowing Hirsch would call for back up, change his tyre and come looking. Would he be stupid enough to hang onto the murder weapon and risk a search?

‘Now, constable,’ Comyn said.

‘In a moment,’ Hirsch said.

He climbed behind the wheel and drove at a walking pace further along the Booborowie road, eyes sweeping left and right, taking in stones, dirt and stunted bushes. The sun at a shallow angle across the land. May it flash on metal…

A kilometre later, a dull glint.

He stopped, got out, stepped through the grass, crouched. A 9mm automatic pistol.

He photographed it in situ. Debated fishing it off the ground with a twig through the trigger guard but marked the spot with his cap and drove back and reported his find.

Comyn grunted, the most thanks Hirsch might expect, and followed him in a police car to the marker. Hirsch watched him retrieve the pistol with a gloved hand and slip it into a paper bag.

‘You still here?’

‘On my way,’ Hirsch said, gathering his cap. Then he was bouncing and jarring his way back to the Barrier Highway as the day dimmed all around him.

The Redruth town hall sat like an ocean liner on a dark sea, lights blazing where the rest of the town had retreated for the evening.

Now that extensive searches had failed to find the Rennie girls, the main police presence was winding down, but figures still flickered past windows, gathered on the front steps or huddled, smoking, in the shadows at the side of the building.