Gwynne took the costume automatically, his mind sharply on other matters. ‘I hope you’re looking at those two boys.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Mark my words, there are times when a rap over the knuckles is worse than useless. An apology? Really, Paul. That was always going to rub them up the wrong way.’

‘Early days, Martin…Look, I’ve got to dash. Thanks again for the suit.’

Martin looked down at it for the first time, bundled over both forearms. ‘There was a shopping bag, I believe?’

‘Oh? I’ll look for it. Better go,’ Hirsch said, gabbling again.

‘It’s a blight, you know that, don’t you?’

Afraid that Gwynne was getting biblical on him, Hirsch waved and nodded madly as he made his way down the path and out to his police 4WD.

Sergeant Brandl called to tell him she’d arrived at the scene with the ‘children’. ‘Where are you?’

‘Still in town, about to drive out to—’

‘That can wait. I need you to show the forensics fellow where you found the stolen copper. He’s got another job on but he can give us five minutes.’

Hirsch said, ‘Okay,’ but she’d already shut him down.

He found the forensic van waiting for him at the corner of the Barrier Highway and Kitchener Street, one lazy arm waving him on when he appeared, and the two vehicles headed out of town. A few minutes later they’d parked at the farmhouse and Hirsch was standing at the edge of the hard pan of dirt in front of the barn.

He strove for an apologetic tone. ‘I put up crime-scene tape and called it in, but when I checked the next day, the skip was gone.’ If you’d got off your lazy arses…

The forensic technician picked up the implication. ‘Mate, we’ve had a spate of thefts—Christmas presents, mostly.’ He stared at the ground inside the barn. ‘Not much to go on.’

Hirsch shrugged. The tech switched his attention to the tattered strands of tape. ‘Might get prints off that, I suppose.’

My prints at least, thought Hirsch.

11

11

BEFORE HE COULD head out east, Hirsch was called back to help doorknock the town. Feeling pushed and pulled, the day no longer his, he returned to Tiverton, where he found his sergeant trying to soothe the CIB detective. Comyn was chafing.

‘You’re telling me there’s a husband?’

‘A bit of a hermit, apparently,’ Hilary Brandl said calmly. She was a lean woman with a loping stride and dry, brown hair cut in a convenient bob.

‘Wonderful,’ Comyn said. He shot Hirsch a sour look. ‘And yesterday a couple of town kids are forced to apologise for stealing her ute. Suspects crawling out of the woodwork, and I’m shorthanded.’

‘So let Constable Hirschhausen do the follow-up,’ Brandl said. ‘My constables and I can help you here.’