Master bedroom. Two teens, a boy and a girl, huddled on the floor of the walk-in closet. Backpacks, a corner of Christmas wrapping showing at the top of one pack, the thin, silvery edge of a laptop in the other. They were frightened, scowling, the hems of jackets and dresses brushing their heads. As far as Hirsch knew, they weren’t local kids.

‘Stay where you are,’ he said. ‘You came by car?’

Silence.

‘Heard the family come home and panicked? Dumped the TV outside when you heard their car and ran back inside with the rest of the stuff…’

Still nothing.

Hirsch wanted to say, ‘Not very bright of you,’ but they were kids; you didn’t expect them to think.

‘There’s a car nearby, over on the other road. Is it yours?’

Nothing. And Liam Kennedy came lumbering in. ‘Thought you were in strife. Thought—’

The girl shrieked. Burrowed deeper into her corner. ‘Stay away from me.’

The boy wrapped an arm around her, his face half-averted from the wrath of the adults, half ready to leap to the girl’s defence. Kennedy stared in at them, stupefied, as if aliens had slipped into his house.

Hirsch said, ‘You know them?’

‘Never seen them before.’

Then why’s the girl so scared of you?

Hirsch had his answer later, the kids in the car with him on the way back to town. Brother and sister, they were from Peterborough, an hour north of Tiverton. Their stepfather had lost his grain-handling job on Christmas Eve and gone on a bender. Wrecked the house and put their mother in hospital. When he flaked in the early hours of Christmas Day, they’d stolen his car and headed south. Low on fuel, hungry, no money, they’d turned off the highway and happened to see the Kennedys’ Subaru head down onto the valley road. Took a chance that the house would be empty. Ate, fell asleep, woke up in time to start thieving just as the family returned from church.

Sorting that out, liaising with Peterborough police—who’d arrested the stepfather for assault and property damage in the meantime—and finding temporary accommodation for the kids, took Hirsch through to mid-afternoon. The Kennedys gave the kids fifty dollars each, said they wouldn’t press charges—an expression they’d heard on TV. Hirsch knew it wasn’t that simple. He could downplay the crimes, though.

Just another sad, Christmas Day fuckup. Could’ve been worse.

Then a third call came in.

15

15

IT WAS SERGEANT Brandl. ‘I need you to do a welfare check.’

‘Okay…’

‘People named Redding. Family members are worried because they’re not answering the phone.’

‘Okay,’ said Hirsch, writing down the address: 6 Hamel Road. Turn any corner and you’d find yourself on a road named for a Great War battlefield, he thought. He tried to place it mentally. Over near Mischance Creek.