Hansen, staring dazedly at the snake, now looked up at Hirsch. ‘Do you know where the girls are? Have you always known?’

‘Found them this morning,’ Hirsch said. He explained about Craig and the dugout.

Hansen coughed. ‘They’ve been there the whole time?’

‘Yes.’ Hirsch paused. ‘Rob, I need to see they’re all right.’

Hansen was agitated. ‘I know she’s coming,’ he said, the words tangling on lips and tongue. ‘You need to watch out.’

Hirsch glanced back along the creek, undecided. Hansen—or Craig and the girls? ‘I’ve got pressure bandages in the car. I’ll run you to hospital. But I need to check the dugout.’

‘Go,’ Hansen said, rallying, then he leaned to one side and vomited neatly, unfussily, a thin gruel that darkened the dirt. The acrid smell rose. He lifted his head to Hirsch and croaked, ‘Go.’

Hirsch stood. ‘I’ll be right back.’

Hansen gasped, ‘Feel pretty bad, mate. My head. I’m going to chuck again.’

Hirsch had no knowledge of the mechanics of snakebite death. Given the amount of venom in Hansen, a cardiac arrest of some kind? Very soon? He squeezed Hansen’s shoulder. ‘I’ll call an ambulance, we’ll meet it halfway.’

Call triple-zero as soon as he had mobile reception, is what he meant. He couldn’t radio it in, with the HiLux’s radio still fucked. A repair job for Bob Muir…Christ, why was he thinking that at a time like this? ‘Sit tight,’ he said. He placed his hat gently over the flushed face.

Then he ran, checking the grass and the dirt the whole way: snake-watching ingrained in him now. And as he ran, he recast Roesch’s second visit to his little suite of rooms behind the police station. She’d been trying to get him on-side and Hansen offside. He was supposed to distrust Hansen, and warm to her because she’d confided in him. And she’d have wanted him close, because he was closest to everything that had happened. He’d met Denise and her youngest kid, he’d found the bodies. For all she knew, he was hiding something or unwittingly holding some key information. A person steeped in secrecy and manipulation would expect secrecy and manipulation in others, he thought.

Stumbling past the caravan—still no sign of Roesch’s car—he continued downstream to the dugout. Waiting a moment, hoping they’d heard him, he called softly, ‘Craig? Louise?’

Nothing. Gone already. Or lying there dead. Sick, jittery, Hirsch clambered up the hand- and footholds. Reached the lip of the dugout, chanced a quick look in. Empty. Climbed down again.

They must have left as soon as he’d driven off with Wayne Flann. Louise and her poker face. Despite his fine words, she knew why Vita Roesch had come. She knew it wasn’t finished.