by Chris Hammer
PRAISE FOR
SCRUBLANDS
‘Hammer has travelled back roads and inland waterways. His depictions are unsentimental, without false cheer, but never dismissive. He is nonetheless assaying a part of Australia that is dying, slowly and fatalistically. Thus threnody blends with crime drama in one of the finest novels of the year.’ Peter Pierce, The Australian
‘Stunning … Scrublands is that rare combination, a page-turner that stays long in the memory.’ Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month
‘So does Scrublands earn its Thriller of the Year tag? Absolutely. Is it my favourite book of the year so far? Well, it’s only June but since you’re asking, at this very moment, yes it is … Deliberately paced and wound tight, this book will keep you awake until you’ve finished the final page. And maybe even after that. It’s relentless, it’s compulsive, it’s a book you simply can’t put down.’ Written by Sime
‘Brilliant and unsettling, Scrublands stands at the junction of Snowtown and Wake in Fright, that place where Australia’s mirage of bush tranquillity evaporated into our hidden fears.’ Paul Daley, journalist and author of Challenge
‘A superbly drawn, utterly compelling evocation of a small town riven by a shocking crime.’ Mark Brandi, author of Wimmera
‘A clever, intricate mystery … a complex, compelling story deeply rooted in its small-town setting. Highly recommended.’ Dervla McTiernan, author of The Rúin
‘Scrublands kidnapped me for 48 hours. I was hopelessly lost in the scorching Australian landscape, disoriented but completely immersed in the town and people of Riversend, as the heat crackled off the pages. I was devastated when it was time to go back to the real world. This book is a force of nature. A must-read for all crime fiction fans.’ Sarah Bailey, author of The Dark Lake and Into the Night
‘A brilliant read. A thriller that crackles and sweats and a powerful portrait of a small town on the edge.’ Michael Brissenden, journalist and author of The List
‘Stellar … Richly descriptive writing coupled with deeply developed characters, relentless pacing, and a bombshell-laden plot make this whodunit virtually impossible to put down.’ Publishers Weekly, starred review
‘Hammer’s portrait of a dying, drought-struck town numbed by a priest’s unimaginable act of violence will capture you from the first explosive page and refuse to let go until the last. His remarkable writing takes you inside lives twisted by secrets festering beneath the melting heat of the inland, the scrub beyond waiting to burst into flame. Scrublands is the read of the year. Unforgettable.’ Tony Wright, Associate Editor and Special Writer, The Age/Sydney Morning Herald
‘Immersive and convincing … This will be the novel that all crime fiction fans will want … a terrific read that has “bestseller” written all over it.’ Australian Crime Fiction
‘Debut thriller of the month (and maybe of 2019) … Beautifully written.’ Washington Post
‘Chris Hammer’s powerful debut Scrublands establishes his place among the handful of thriller writers who understand the importance of setting as character, deftly weaving the story of a landscape burned dry and a town whose residents are barely hanging on with a complicated mystery that could only happen in this place in exactly the way Hammer tells it. Fresh and hypnotic, complex and layered, Scrublands’ gorgeous prose swept me up and carried me toward a conclusion that was both surprising and inevitable. I loved every word. Highly recommended.’ Karen Dionne, international bestselling author of The Marsh King’s Daughter
‘… desolate, dangerous, and combustible. A complex novel powered by a cast of characters with motives and loyalties as ever-shifting as the dry riverbed beneath them, Hammer’s story catches fire from the first page.’ J. Todd Scott, author of High White Sun
‘Impressive prose and brilliant plotting … a remarkable study of human fallibility, guilt, remorse, hope and redemption. The descriptions of landscape are often evocative and Winton-like, with the parched country-town setting reminiscent of Jane Harper’s The Dry … It is hard to imagine Scrublands not being loved by all crime/mystery fans. FIVE STARS.’ Scott Whitmont, Bookseller and Publisher
‘There is a very good reason people are calling Scrublands the “thriller of the year”. This impressive debut is a powerful and compulsively readable Australian crime novel.’ Booktopia
‘As one bookseller commented, Scrublands is another sign we are in a Golden Age of Australian crime. Reading it is a pulsating, intense experience, not to be missed.’ Better Reading
‘Much like the bushfire that flares up in the mulga, Scrublands quickly builds in intensity, until it’s charging along with multiple storylines, unanswered questions and uncovered truths. It is a truly epic read.’ Good Reading
‘Shimmers with heat from the sun and from the passions that drive a tortured tale of blood and loss.’ Val McDermid, author of How the Dead Speak
‘A dark and brilliant thriller, one that lingers in the mind.’ Mail On Sunday
‘Extremely accomplished … Deliciously noirish … Set in the blistering heat of a remote Australian town ravaged by drought and threatened by bushfires, this is a complex, meaty, intelligent mystery … Well-rounded characters, masterful plotting and real breadth; this is an epic and immersive read. Hammer’s writing is so evocative the heat practically rises off the pages of Scrublands.’ Guardian UK
‘Incendiary … A rattling good read, ambitious in scale and scope and delivering right up to the last, powerfully moving page.’ Irish Times
Chris Hammer was a journalist for more than thirty years, dividing his career between covering Australian federal politics and international affairs. For many years he was a roving foreign correspondent for SBS TV’s flagship current affairs program Dateline. He has reported from more than thirty countries on six continents. In Canberra, roles included chief political correspondent for The Bulletin, current affairs correspondent for SBS TV and a senior political journalist for The Age. His first book, The River, published in 2010 to critical acclaim, was the recipient of the ACT Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Walkley Book Award. Scrublands, his second book, was published in 2018 and was shortlisted for Best Debut Fiction at the Indie Book Awards, shortlisted for Best General Fiction at the ABIA Awards, shortlisted for the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and longlisted for the UK Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey Debut Dagger Award. His third book, Silver, is published in 2019. Chris has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Charles Sturt University and a master’s degree in international relations from the Australian National University. He lives in Canberra with his wife, Dr Tomoko Akami. The couple have two children.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First published in 2019
Copyright © Chris Hammer 2019
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Email: [email protected]
Web:
www.allenandunwin.com
ISBN 978 1 76063 299 1
eISBN 978 1 76087 252 6
Map by Aleksander J. Potočnik
Set by Bookhouse, Sydney
Cover design: Luke Causby/Blue Cork
Cover image: katacarix/Adobe Stock
FOR GLENYS AND KEVIN
CONTENTS
MONDAY
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
TUESDAY
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
WEDNESDAY
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THURSDAY
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
FRIDAY
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SATURDAY
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
SUNDAY
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
MONDAY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
TUESDAY
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
chapter one
The sun slides and glances, flaring in his eyes. He can’t see the ball and swings blind, hoping: hoping to connect, hoping he doesn’t get out, hoping he doesn’t get struck. Hoping he escapes embarrassment, just this once. So he swings, eyes closed, useless to him, as if in prayer. And somehow, by some divine whim, the bat does strike the ball. Through the wooden handle, through its perished rubber grip and unravelling string, he feels the power of the stroke, the ball collected by the very heart of the bat. He feels the spongy tennis ball flattening, compressing, then expanding, sent on its accelerating arc, launched away, as if dictated by heaven. And he feels in that moment of impact, in that instant, perfection. He opens his eyes, releasing the handle and shielding his eyes in time to see the ball, wonder at it, as it goes soaring over the wooden palings, over into the neighbour’s yard. A six. Six and out. Dismissed, but in glory, not in shame. No dull thud of ball into garbage bin, no raucous leg before appeal, no taunting laughter greeting a skied catch. A six. Over the fence. A hero’s death.
‘Fuck me, Martin. What a shot,’ says Uncle Vern.
‘Language, Vern,’ says his mother.
‘You hit it, you get it,’ says the bowler, the boy from down the street.
But Martin says nothing, does nothing, doesn’t move, caught in the moment. The moment he connected. That perfect moment, caught in time.
And then.
The phone rings. ‘Mumma, mumma,’ calls Enid, or Amber, one or other of the twins, the inseparable, indistinguishable twins. And his mother goes, before she can compliment him on his shot, gift him the praise he deserves. To the phone, to the call that bisects the world, that draws the clearest of lines between before and after.
Thirty-three years later Martin Scarsden drives, driving into memory, driving down towards Port Silver. Part of him is concentrating, intent on the road, navigating the hairpins as he guides the car down the escarpment; part of him is lost in the past, lost in that perfect day, the day when fate flared so brightly and so briefly, the same day it dropped a curtain upon them, like the end of a play. This day the sun is filtered, flickering through the rainforest canopy, strobing. Squinting, he cannot see the ocean, but senses it, knows that should he pull over, if there were space on this narrowest of roads to stop the car, he would be able to see it: the Pacific. It’s there, beyond the trees, the great blue expanse. ‘Can you see the sea?’ his father asks him through the years, just as he asked it each and every time they descended through these hairpin corners. ‘See the sea, get home free,’ he’d say with a laugh. Martin never could see it, though; never. But a time had come when he hadn’t needed to, he had come to know it was there, beyond the bottom of the escarpment, beyond the dairy farms, the cane fields and the river flats, past the fishing harbour and the holiday shacks and the long white sands. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it.
And so it is on this early autumn day, as he winds the car down through the spotted gums and the cabbage tree ferns, the palm trees and the staghorns and the cedars trailing vines, bell-birds chiming. He can feel it in the air, moist and cool becoming moist and warm as he descends, ears popping, towards the ocean, the tugging dryness of a drought-ravaged inland left the far side of the coastal range. And in the distance, still unseen but already imposing itself: Port Silver. The land of his youth, revisited.
‘Vern! Vern!’ she cries, voice infused with some unknown emotion. ‘Martin! Girls!’ He’s climbing back over the fence, grey wood splintered and dry to the touch, ball in hand, his glorious dog-chewed trophy, when his mother bursts out through the screen door, laughing and crying at the same time, emotions sweeping her along like an incoming tide. ‘We done it. Jesus Christ. We won the bastard!’
Martin looks to his uncle, but sees Vern’s own incomprehension at his sister’s unprecedented swearing.
‘Hilary?’ prompts Vern.
‘The lottery, Vern. The fucking lottery! Division one!’
Martin leaps from the fence into a yard unfamiliar, ball forgotten, bat abandoned. The lottery. They’ve won the lottery. The fucking lottery. Vern hugs one or other of Martin’s sisters, she hugs him back, happy and uncomprehending, then they are dancing, all five of them: his mother, the twins, himself and Uncle Vern, dancing on the Victor-mowed wicket as the boy from down the road returns scampering back down the road, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, carrying the news before him like a southerly: the Scarsdens have won division one. The fucking lottery.
The escarpment joins the plain, the rainforest ends and the dairy farms begin; PORT SILVER 30 KILOMETRES states the sign. Martin Scarsden returns wholly to the present. Port Silver, its ghosts sheltering from the iridescent sun, but awaiting him nevertheless. Port Silver. For pity’s sake, why had Mandy chosen this town of all towns, his home town, to restart their lives? He crosses the old bridge over Battlefield Creek, the stream flowing along the base of the range, the boundary between the natural world of the escarpment and the imposed geometry of the dairy farms and cane fields. He’s about to shift into a higher gear in preparation for the faster roads of the flatlands when he sees her: the hitchhiker.
Her legs flash in the subtropical sun beneath denim cut-offs. There’s a tank top, a bare midriff, her thumb casually extended. A foreigner then, if she’s using her thumb. Her hair is out, and so is her smile, broadening as he pulls onto the shoulder: a gravel clearing at the juncture between the hills and the plain, near the turn-off to the sugar mill. Even before he stops, he sees her companion, his hair dark and long, sitting with their packs, back from the road, out of the sun, out of sight of approaching motorists. Martin smiles; he understands the deception, takes no offence.
‘Port Silver?’ asks the young woman.
‘Sure.’ It’s not as if the road goes anywhere else.
Martin uses his key to open the boot, the internal release of his old Toyota Corolla long broken. The man hefts the backpacks effortlessly, drops them into the cavity, closes the lid. Martin can see his arms, tattoos on sculpted flesh, the musculature of youth, wrapped in the smell of tobacco and insouciance. The young woman climbs in beside Martin; the man gets into the back seat, shoving Martin’s meagre possessions to one side. She smells nice, some sort of herbal perfume. Her companion removes his sunglasses and offers a grateful smile. ‘Thanks, man. Good of you.’ He reaches over the seat, gives Martin a powerful h
andshake. ‘Royce. Royce McAlister.’
‘Topaz,’ says the girl, replacing her companion’s hand with her own. ‘And you are?’ She leaves her hand in his for a flirtatious moment.
‘Martin,’ he replies, grinning.
He starts the car, guides it back onto the road, childhood memories banished.
‘You live in Port Silver?’ asks Topaz.
‘No. Not for a long time.’
‘We’re after work.’ Her accent is American. ‘Heard there’s plenty up here this time of year.’
‘Maybe,’ says Martin. ‘Holiday peak is over, kids back at school, but you might get lucky.’
‘What about fruit picking?’ It’s Royce, leaning forward, his accent unmistakably Australian, broad and unpretentious. ‘Greenhouses?’
‘For sure,’ says Martin. ‘But it’s harder work than waiting at a cafe or catering for tourists.’
‘I need it for my visa,’ says Topaz. ‘I work for three months outside the cities, I get another year in Oz. We took the overnight train up to Longton. Word in Sydney is there’s plenty of work up this way.’
‘Possibly. I wouldn’t know,’ says Martin. Back when he was a child the greenhouses up the river were full of migrants, itinerant labourers gaining their first foothold in their new country. Nowadays foreign backpackers are supposedly the workforce of choice.
Topaz talks on, her enthusiasm infectious, recounting some of their adventures: how she met Royce in Goa, how he followed her to Bali, then Lombok, how they fell for each other and came to Australia together. Royce is chiming in, interjecting with observant quips and laughter. It’s like a performance, a two-hander, with Martin the audience; he’s grateful for the distraction. Royce has put his sunglasses back on. They sit askew, one arm missing, but he shows no sign of being bothered by the deformity, as if all sunglasses should be made this way. ‘We just go with the flow, man,’ he says, summarising the moral of their story. It’s all Martin can do to keep his eyes on the road as he steals glances at the pair of them, Royce in the back seat with his square jaw, open smile and defiant sunnies, Topaz next to him in the front, seatbelt carving a valley between her breasts. She seems aware of his attention, appears to welcome it. And soon Martin is talking as well, the car propelled towards Port Silver on a road canefield straight, advising them on the best beaches and surf breaks, fishing spots and swimming holes. Then Port Silver is upon them: a new high school, a car lot, a budget motel, a clump of fast-food franchises. Squat palm trees line the road. Changed yet familiar after twenty-three years. The hitchhikers say he can drop them anywhere, but he insists on taking them to a place they’ve heard of near Town Beach, a backpacker hostel. Sure enough, there it is, a two-storey weatherboard, painted an eye-catching blue. SPERM COVE BACKPACKERS says the sign, adorned with a smiling whale, one eye winking, one flipper forming a thumbs-up. He parks next to it, overlooking the beach, and helps Royce retrieve their packs. He’s almost sorry to leave them.