The five o’clock newsreaders were running with the story. He flicked from station to station: ‘What evil links these sleepy communities?’…‘The sisters are feared abducted’…‘Abducted, feared murdered’…‘Believed to be originally from Sydney.’ And sure enough, one newsreader had the YouTube connection.

Then a pundit: ‘We can’t rule out the possibility that one offender is responsible for both massacres—and yes, they are massacres.’

‘Someone escalating? Horses, then people?’

‘Can’t be ruled out. The methods are dissimilar, but the…the rage, an excess of emotion of some kind—sexual frustration? That’s evident at both sites.’

Hirsch switched off. All he wanted was his lover’s arms around him, her familiar scent: banish the melancholy, bring back some peace, briefly, to his life. At least until he told her he had to work tomorrow.

19

19

THURSDAY.

Hirsch passed from death-like slumber to full alertness in an eyeblink, but could not work out why. He didn’t know where he was. And, in the next instant, did know: he was in Wendy Street’s bed, and deep habit had jerked him awake. His limbs and brain wanted to charge into the dawn light that slipped through her slatted window blind. He turned his head. She was sound asleep and her face, the scent of her, his memories of their lovemaking, let him downshift into slumber again.

Or was that a different memory, of an earlier time? His eyes popped open again. They had made love; they’d been loving with each other, but…Had Wendy been holding back? She knew how difficult it had been, finding the bodies. She understood that he had to stay behind today—and she’d known what she was getting into, dating a policeman. But it was clear she didn’t always like it.

Hirsch closed his eyes and then it was 9 a.m. and he was swiping at his face.

Swiped again. What was happening to him? Opened his eyes and Katie Street was kneeling beside the bed, tickling him with a feather. She was expressionless, as if watching an experiment.

‘Wakey, wakey.’

‘Not amused, here,’ Hirsch said.

‘Mum says we’re hitting the road in a few minutes.’

Hirsch turned his head. Wendy’s pillow lay abandoned on the other side of the bed. ‘Already?’

‘Uh huh.’ The feather tormented him again. ‘So wakey, wakey.’

Hirsch glanced past Katie to what had become his chair when he stayed over, where he tossed or draped his clothing. Right now, he was naked under the sheet, his girlfriend’s young daughter was between him and his pants, and he wondered, not for the first time, how that might look to anyone watching. He didn’t know who might be, but they were always around somewhere.

‘Er,’ he said now.

She climbed to her feet. ‘Mum says you can stay in bed as long as you like but I think you should come and say goodbye.’

‘Is that so?’