THEY ROLLED THROUGH the town. Hirsch’s trip into the back country had taken hours, and now it was late Saturday afternoon. A second outside-broadcast van was parked near the entrance to Kitchener Street, and it looked as if a handful of locals were guarding the crime-scene tape alongside Constables Landy and Medlin, Sergeant Brandl’s ‘children’.

Craig’s agitation increased. Close to panicking, Hirsch realised, seeing the heaving chest, the claw-like opening and closing of hands. ‘Craig?’

‘I can’t…I can’t…’

Hirsch did not stop but trundled to the northern end of the town and turned left onto the first farm road. All the while, he kept up a low, calming patter: ‘Breathe deeply and slowly…I’ll have you with Nan in just a minute…We’ll go in the back way…Deep, slow breaths…’

It began to work, Washburn eventually sitting easier in the passenger seat. Hirsch drove for two hundred metres, glancing to his left until he judged they were adjacent to the rear of Nan’s property, separated from her stable block by a stretch of just-harvested wheat.

‘Okay?’

Washburn nodded.

They got out, climbed over a wire fence and crossed the paddock, the soil baked red and hard between rows of stiff, bleached stubble. ‘Watch out for snakes,’ Washburn said.

A good sign, Hirsch thought, if he’s able to apprehend the world and the welfare of another man in it. So long as we can keep him sheltered.

Then they were in Nan’s yard and already Hirsch could see that someone had been busy. The carcasses were gone; fresh soil had been raked over the blood pools. Expecting Washburn to notice, he turned to the man reassuringly, but Washburn was running to the railing fence with a little cry and Radish, trailed by the ponies, was trotting to greet him.

Hirsch had always believed you could read a dog’s face. Now he was reading joy, or something like it, on Radish’s.

Nan and Yvonne emerged from the back veranda, trailed by Detective Comyn, who immediately grabbed Hirsch by the arm. ‘Over here.’

In the shade of a rainwater tank, his voice low, tense, he said, ‘You took your sweet time.’

Hirsch explained.

Comyn wasn’t interested. ‘Did he do it?’

‘No,’ Hirsch said, outlining Craig’s alibi.

Comyn gave another of his grunts, watching the tableau at the railing closely, as if hoping the surviving horses would finger Craig Washburn, rear up in terror at the sight of him and charge to the bottom corner of their paddock. But the scene was calm, Washburn stroking necks and snouts while the women patted his back.

Comyn sighed and shook his head. He spotted the roof of the HiLux in the distance. ‘Used your brains, I see. Fucking media.’

‘Did they film anything?’