Another shrug. Hirsch checked Adam, expecting him to shut his friend up.

Interesting. The boy was all tight wilfulness behind his veneer of boredom.

Gemma intervened. She clasped Daryl’s gingery hand. ‘It’s okay, Daz. We talked about this. You have to tell him.’

Daryl was silent. Gemma sighed and said, ‘They told me they done the Fullers, but Kip freaked them out.’

‘Is this true, Daryl?’

Daryl lifted his head. ‘He went mental. His chain broke.’

‘You almost had an arse full of teeth,’ Hirsch said, expecting a grin, but the kid remained blank. ‘Did you guys steal anything?’

‘Wayne took a shovel.’

‘Did you always go out with Wayne and Adam on these expeditions?’

A head shake.

Hirsch turned to the other boy. ‘Adam? Did you go with Wayne each time?’

Adam lifted his chin. He stared at Hirsch with a thin, hard smile: ‘Not worth the hassle not going with him.’

Hirsch imagined the boy’s home life. Bullied by the older brother, father in jail, some scant stability and home comforts from Brenda—when she wasn’t on the grog. ‘Okay, what about Mrs Washburn’s horses?’

‘We never done that! Never would.’

‘Okay,’ Hirsch said. ‘But what about Wayne?’

‘Nah,’ Adam said, as if a spot of horse mutilation would have been more trouble to Wayne than it was worth.

‘How about Mr Wesley, over near Porters Lagoon?’

Adam had to think about it. ‘Chainsaw?’

Hirsch nodded. ‘Did Wayne have a particular grudge against the Fullers or Mr Wesley or—’ he slipped in the name ‘—Mrs Rennie?’

Adam shrugged. ‘Not that I know of. They were just, you know, like, in the middle of nowhere.’

‘Isolated properties.’

‘Yeah. Before Dad went to jail, we used to go spotlighting.’

Driving around at night, picking out a fox in a beam of light and shooting it. ‘Is that how you found places to rob?’

Adam nodded. ‘Wayne would go, “What about this place? What about that place?” and Dad would say yeah or nah.’

Hirsch grunted. ‘Okay, let’s now talk about what happened on Christmas Eve.’

Adam shrank. Daryl looked half-asleep. Gemma straightened, a square-shouldered heft that said Hirsch should watch himself, she’d be looking out for her boyfriend.

Easy does it, Hirsch thought. ‘Daryl, did you go out with Wayne on Christmas Eve?’

Daryl had to think about it. ‘No.’

‘He didn’t,’ affirmed Gemma. There was the merest hint of emphasis.

‘But you did, Adam?’

Adam seemed to look for a way to shade his answer. In the end, he nodded.

‘Did you get out of the ute at any stage? Go inside the house?’

‘Nup.’

‘Wayne did?’

‘Yep.’

‘What happened?’

‘The lady come out the shed when Wayne was cutting the phone line and he got a shock and got the gun out,’ Adam said flatly. ‘He told me to stay where I was and chased her inside and just, you know, started shooting.’

‘Why did he do that?’

‘Ask him.’