There was a pause, both men eyeing Hirsch contemplatively, both propped on their shovels. Carl said, ‘Don’t let it get to you, what they’re saying.’

‘Arseholes with nothing better to do,’ his brother said.

Unlikely as it seemed to Hirsch, the twins must have seen the YouTube clip. ‘Thanks, I appreciate that.’

The men saluted him, climbed into their truck and left him alone beside his mottled driveway, wreathed in exhaust gases.

Half an hour later, Hirsch was across the road, stuffing potato chips, mince pies and soft drinks into a shopping basket: his contribution to Sergeant Brandl’s Christmas lunch. She’d be providing sandwiches, the children were bringing napkins, paper plates and a plum pudding. No alcohol: ‘We’re all on duty, for the duration.’

As an afterthought, Hirsch added a packet of Christmas crackers. Then he looked over Ed Tennant’s meagre range of Christmas cards. He didn’t know how to word his greetings to his sergeant or her constables—he barely knew them. In matters of card-giving, humour was his default position, but the three Redruth officers were strangers to him. Did any of them have a sense of humour? Were they churchgoers? In the end he found three generic snowscapes with the single word Peace inside. That’s all a cop wants at Christmas, he thought. Not heavenly peace, just a general absence of mayhem.

The shop was crowded by the usual standards—at least five locals doing last-minute shopping. They all said, ‘Merry Christmas, Paul,’ nodded and smiled, but none of them lingered. They were embarrassed for him. The YouTube clip.

What the fuck was Sergeant Brandl going to say? Or Internal Investigations, for that matter?

Gemma Pitcher was at the till. She blushed to see him—not, he thought, because she’d seen him on YouTube but because he’d sprung her in bed with Adam Flann.

He gave her a big, neutral smile. ‘Season’s greetings, Gemma. What’s on tomorrow?’

She wouldn’t look at him. ‘Me and Mum are going to Auntie Trish’s for lunch.’

‘Where’s that?’

Gemma gave him an astonished frown. ‘Terowie.’ Clearly everyone knew that.

‘Right, right.’ He’d encountered this quirk in many of the locals. It made him want to shout at them, ‘Give me twenty years and I’ll know all your fucking business.’

Gemma counted out his change, blushed again and said, ‘Merry Christmas.’

By noon Hirsch was bowling down the highway, Chicago’s ‘25 or 6 to 4’—one of the greatest songs ever written, and Hirsch didn’t make these claims lightly—pounding from the police 4WD sound system. Some other hard, fast tracks came in after it. The music suited his mood: even if he didn’t go viral on YouTube, he knew some other shit was coming his way.