Hell to Pay by Garry Disher Page A

town was half knitted together with rose canes.
    As expected, footsteps came in hard on his heels, a bitten-off voice. “Constable.”
    Hirsch turned. “Sarge.”
    Kropp stood on the other side of the counter, a solid fifty-year-old with pronounced brows and short, receding hair. “Did you call Spurling?”
    Spurling? Hirsch went blank, then remembered: the area commander, a superintendent, based at Port Pirie. “Not me, Sarge.”
    Kropp grunted. “Well he heard about the hit-and-run from somebody.”
    “And?”
    “And he doesn’t want any fuck-ups.”
    Hirsch waited, enduring Kropp’s fury or whatever it was. The sergeant’s nose had been broken and badly set sometime in the past. Now it seemed to steer him in scoffing and skeptical directions, his mouth a barely visible slash across the bottom of his face.
    Hirsch said, “So you headed up here to see if I was fucking up?”
    “Don’t be a cunt, son. But, yeah—and to see you’re settling in okay, your lovely new quarters.”
    Hirsch motioned to the stiff chair that faced his desk, but Kropp shook his head. “No thanks. Somewhere more comfortable, think you can manage that?”
    Hirsch pictured his living quarters and doubted it. “Come through.”
    The connecting door led to a short corridor and a shut-in smell, no natural light, boxes hard against the wall. Edging past, Kropp said, “You’ve been here what, three weeks already? You’re not going anywhere else, Sunshine, so you might as well unpack.”
    “Had my hands full, sir.”
    The corridor opened on to the cramped sitting room. “Get your wife to do it,” Kropp said, stopping to give his meaty head a theatrical smack. “Oh, forgot, she left you, I seem to recall.”
    “Kind of you to remind me, Sarge,” Hirsch said, his voice full of light cadences. He opened the curtains without improving anything. He switched on the overhead light. Dust motes floated. This was a loveless place and Hirsch sometimes found himself talking to the furniture in the dark hours. Dumping Saturday’s
Advertiser
from one of the armchairs, he sat in the other, better, armchair. Kropp eyed the remaining chair and lowered himself as if freezing his sphincter muscle.
    “Tea?” said Hirsch. “Coffee?”
    The sergeant shook his head, thank Christ. “This hit-and-run. Anything leap out at you?”
    “She was hitching home and a vehicle hit her. Or she was killed elsewhere and dumped. Until I know what she was doing there I—”
    “What’s this ‘I’ shit? Team effort. Oh, I forgot, you don’t do team effort.” Kropp leaned his forearms on his knees and stared at Hirsch. “Let the accident boys deal with the evidence and
we
will work out a plan of action to answer your questions about her movements, okay?”
    “Sarge.”
    “Meanwhile I want you down in Redruth at noon tomorrow for a briefing.”
    “Sarge.”
    Hirsch waited, Kropp watching as if to chase him if he ran.
    Then the man grinned crookedly and stood. “I’m off. That crack in your windscreen? Get it fixed.” He paused. “Know why?”
    Hirsch’s mind raced. Roadworthiness? Then he guessed: “Anything we don’t tolerate in the citizenry, we don’t tolerate in ourselves, maybe?”
    “Aren’t you a sweetheart. Try Redruth Automotive.”
    Then Kropp was gone and Hirsch heated and ate his lasagna, so alone that he talked to the furniture.

CHAPTER 6
    WHAT WAS WRONG WITH him? Those kids this morning had seen a woman hovering around his car. He dumped his dirty plate in the sink and hurried out to the Nissan with a torch, a rag, latex gloves and, after a moment’s thought, a couple of evidence bags.
    Started at the boot and moved forward: toolbox, spare tire well, under the boot carpet, then parcel shelf, under the rear seat, inside the door cavities, under the front seats, glove box. He found what he was looking for in an ancient, forgotten, unused first aid box, but continued his search inside the engine bay, just in case. Nothing there, so he