Hirsch had been seeing them since October, drought-relief hay trucked in from Victoria and New South Wales. ‘The driver picked you up?’

‘Yes.’

‘Had you seen him before?’

‘He wasn’t the man who came to our house,’ Louise Rennie said, eyes narrowed, anticipating his thinking.

‘Where did he take you?’

‘Craig’s.’

Hirsch thought about it. An interstate truck driver on a tight schedule, wanting to get home by Christmas morning, bemused to find a pair of kids at the side of the road asking to be taken to a caravan in the middle of nowhere. But Craig’s campsite was tidy, and the solar panels and the old car would have shown the place to be inhabited. The man hadn’t shown much duty of care—but nor had he harmed the girls. And, what with Christmas, maybe he’d missed the news or didn’t connect picking up the girls with the shootings.

‘You asked to be taken there?’

‘Yes.’ Louise Rennie stared at Hirsch, unflinching, straightforward, wary. She went on, ‘We’ve known Craig for ages.’

‘How?’ said Hirsch, expecting Craig to interrupt.

‘We were exploring the creek and ran into him.’

‘And you’ve all been friends since then?’

She nodded.

‘I showed you the dugout, didn’t I girls?’ Washburn said.

Louise touched his wrist.

Hirsch said, ‘Okay. Let’s go back to what happened at the house, Louise, is that okay? I don’t want you to go into detail, I don’t want…’ He cleared his throat. ‘But we need to catch whoever…hurt your mum and brother.’

Her voice hoarse and hollow, she said, ‘Okay.’ The wariness was still there but the hostility had gone.

‘You were wrapping presents and you heard a vehicle arrive?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you see what kind? A car or a ute or a four-wheel drive? A motorbike?’

‘It was a ute.’

‘So, a cabin for the driver and passenger at the front, and a tray for carrying stuff at the back?’

She frowned. ‘I know what a ute is.’

Hirsch scooted a couple of centimetres sideways, seeking a smoother patch of wall for his spine. ‘Your mum stepped out of the car-shed to see who it was?’

‘We’re always super-careful about visitors. Mum said, “Stay here,” and when she pushed up the main door to go outside a man by the house ran back to the ute and brought out a gun.’

Cutting the phone line, Hirsch thought. ‘The door was shut when I got there.’

‘I shut it.’

‘Why?’

She looked baffled. She shut it out of habit, he thought—but not until the killer had gone. ‘Doesn’t matter. Did you see what happened?’

‘Mum ran around to the back door and the man chased her.’

The words tumbled out; her face collapsed, and, like her little sister, she burrowed hard against Craig Washburn.

Hirsch waited, feeling like a bully.

‘You did the right thing, staying in the shed, love,’ Washburn said.