Hirsch turned west onto Menin Road, the boundary between the Tiverton and Redruth police patrol areas. Place names mattered up here, where they didn’t in the city, it seemed to him. Menin Road, Lone Pine Hill, Mischance Creek, Tar Barrel Corner, Mundjapi—all putting down layers of meaning and significance. Menin took him up into better wheat country. Better rainfall west of the Barrier Highway than east of it. ‘Barrier’: another signifier. Better crops and fencing, better roads, shorter distances between farms. But, all the same, Hirsch drove for a further twenty minutes and saw not a soul.

And then he saw Kip.

He was past the dog before he realised it and braked hard, sending road grit and choking dust over the poor mutt. He got out, crouched, offered his upturned palm. The kelpie halted, skin and bone, ribs and prick. Panting, deeply fatigued. A low growl in his throat—it seemed to break free before he bit it back as if ashamed.

‘Kip,’ Hirsch said. ‘Kippy. Here, boy.’

The world stopped. Not a breath of wind and the day soundless but for galahs screeching in the gums beside a cracked-mud dam and the tick of the cooling motor. Kip gave a slow tail-wag.

‘You’re thirsty, right?’ said Hirsch.

He always carried plenty of water. In the rear compartment of the Toyota, where he sometimes had to transport prisoners, was a locked metal compartment for spare handcuffs, flares, ropes, a torch, evidence-collecting bags and a couple of Tupperware containers. Hirsch tipped a shallow layer of water into one of those and set it down on the crown of the road, halfway between the driver’s door and the dog.

Kip dropped to his belly, stretched and twitched his nose. Got to his feet, limped forward, dropped again. Then, by degrees, he was at the water, testing it. Started lapping all at once, drops flying about, before looking to Hirsch for more.

‘Not yet, bud. Too much too soon, bad for you.’

Hirsch drew near, reached a hand to the bony skull, stroked the dog between the eyes. Kip turned, licked his hand, and let himself be coaxed by the collar into the passenger seat, where he circled twice before curling head to tail as if he’d come home to his favourite blanket. Snout on paws, alert to Hirsch’s every movement—but trustingly alert. Trusting Hirsch to know the way home.

‘Poor old boy,’ Hirsch said, giving the dog a last pat before turning the key. ‘You’ve been in the wars, haven’t you?’

Cuts, blood flecks, a torn ear, the sheen gone from his tawny pelt.

Hirsch glanced at his watch, did the maths again. He’d lose even more time returning Kip to his owners. He checked for mobile reception—zilch.