Another round of hugs and then the two of them were in the car, Wendy sketching a goodbye wave, Katie waggling her iPhone in one of its new cases. Hirsch felt their absence at once, like a chilled space in the warm night air, and then they were nothing but receding tail-lights.

He crossed the highway, feeling bereft, tethered to nothing, a man of no account. Nan’s street was quiet and empty beyond the barrier, and the town slumbered. He wandered back to his rooms behind the police station and his phone beeped for an incoming text. Martin Gwynne: Re tomorrow, quick reminder, working bee at 9, dinner 6.30.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Sunday, 6 a.m., and Hirsch walked the town. He’d not been called overnight, and the highway was empty. Slipping aside a trestle, he walked up Kitchener Street and into Nan Washburn’s driveway. The house and yard were silent, the horses standing at the rail, tossing their heads to see him—not in fear, he thought. He walked back to the highway and in and out of the side streets. The air was clean and mild, and nothing stirred but Hirsch and the morning birds.

The Clare police car arrived at 8.30, the Port Pirie car at 8.40, Sergeant Brandl’s children—scowling at Hirsch as if this was all his fault—at 8.55. Coffee and a briefing on Ed Tennant’s shop veranda. The only vehicles to pass through the town were a tour bus, a road train of hay and a handful of vehicles wearing inland dirt—headed for church services; making an early start on Christmas travel. Then Martin Gwynne’s Camry rolled by and Hirsch remembered the tennis-club working bee.

His mood dropped instantly. One—Martin Gwynne. Two—surely he had the best excuse you could think of for getting out of it? Three—would anyone other than Martin be there, this close to Christmas? Four—he was due at Martin’s for dinner at six-thirty; surely that would do? Five—Martin Gwynne.

Time passed. A couple of gawkers gathered at the barricade and a Channel 10 cameraman and reporter were turned away from Nan’s back fence—which didn’t stop them from filming the stable block, yard and surviving horses—but otherwise the town was quiet. Maybe the afternoon would be more hectic: it was a Sunday morning, after all.

Ten o’clock. No wind in the air now, just heat. The kind to set up a snap and a crackle in gum trees, timber beams and iron roofs. The briefing over, Hirsch left the newcomers to police the town and walked around to the tennis courts. Only six pairs of hands there—usually a working bee would attract twenty or more—Martin and Joyce, the former looking pointedly at his watch, Bob Muir, the primary school head—and the Bagshaw twins, who greeted Hirsch with sly humour.

‘Hirsch, mate,’ Ivan Bagshaw said. ‘Pop by in the morning…’