Silver

by Chris Hammer

  His phone rings. Nick Poulos.

  ‘Nick.’

  ‘What’s happened? Why is Winifred so fired up?’

  Martin explains.

  ‘Holy shit, that’s brilliant,’ says the lawyer. ‘A false witness? Montifore will crucify them.’

  ‘Let’s hope so. But does he know who it is?’

  ‘Don’t know. The coppers said it was anonymous, so probably not. Although that could be a ruse to protect their source.’

  ‘Not now, not if they know it’s bullshit.’

  ‘They’re getting divers up from Sydney. They’re going to search the river.’

  ‘What? Why? Won’t they cancel that now?’

  ‘Think it through, Martin. The knife might still be there. If someone is trying to frame Mandy, they might have chucked the knife in there themselves, from the bank or from a boat, then given their false tip-off.’

  ‘Do you think it could lead them to the killer?’

  ‘Or an accomplice. If they find the knife. And if they know who tipped them off.’

  ‘What about Mandy? Have they let her go?’

  ‘Not yet. But it shouldn’t be long.’

  Martin checks his watch. Shit. Liam.

  ‘Nick, her boy—our boy—he’s at child care.’

  ‘You want me to collect him?’

  ‘Could you?’

  ‘I’ll let you know. They’ll need signed consent from Mandy.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Really. Hang on.’ Martin can hear Nick talking to someone. Then: ‘It’s okay, the police are letting her go. She’ll get him herself.’

  ‘Can I talk to her?’ Martin waits; he can hear muffled voices in the background.

  Then Nick is back with him. ‘Sorry, mate, she has to race. The place will be closed already.’

  Martin ends the call and starts driving back out of the permanent settlement, back past the reception. The owner is out on the deck, smoking her pipe. Martins stops, walks up.

  ‘G’day,’ he says.

  ‘It is. How’s your woman?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I saw the police take her away.’

  ‘All good. She’s been giving them a hand. She’s on her way back now.’

  ‘Glad to hear it.’

  ‘Police tell you they’re sending some divers over to check out the river?’

  The owner frowns. ‘How did you know that? They only told me five minutes ago.’

  ‘As I said, we’re helping with the investigation.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘It is,’ Martin lies. ‘Tell me, this drive, is it the only way into the park?’

  ‘I guess. You can come by boat to the wharf, or walk in along the river, but this is the only way in with a car.’

  Martin nods. ‘Have you seen anyone unusual hanging about these last few days? Someone other than residents or guests?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Nah. Nothing like that. A motorbike or two along the riverbank, but that happens from time to time.’

  ‘Motorbikes? Like bikies or something?’

  ‘Fuck no. Little shitheads on trail bikes. Two-strokes: sound like a cross between a sewing machine and a Mixmaster.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘All the time. Not today, but yesterday, the day before. Early in the morning. Too early. You get walkers and mountain bikers as well, but they don’t bother anyone.’

  ‘Thanks,’ says Martin, thinking he needs to pass this on to Montifore. What was it the police were always saying in their public appeals for information—any detail, no matter how insignificant?

  The owner leans over, retrieves her prosthetic leg, goes about reattaching it before standing. ‘Sounds like we’re going to be busy. All those cops.’ From inside the office, a phone starts to ring.

  ‘Tell me,’ Martin says, ‘if you don’t mind—what happened to your leg?’

  ‘Shark attack,’ she says. ‘Lucky it didn’t get more of me.’

  ‘When was that?’

  She shrugs. ‘About ten years ago.’ She moves into the office to answer the phone.

  Martin returns to his Corolla, sits thinking. Trail bikes by the river, shark attacks, bogus witnesses. Puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit, certainly not to each other. He leans forward to turn the key in the ignition, when another thought comes to him. Nick Poulos. What did he say? If the murder weapon had been planted in the river, it could have been thrown from the riverbank or from a boat.

  An image comes to Martin’s mind, unbidden and unwelcome. Vern and Levi dropping him at the wharf. Another image. Martin cutting a string of sausages beside his uncle’s barbecue, the knife glistening in the firelight. Jesus. He feels a surge of nausea. Another image. A knife slicing through Jasper Speight’s abdomen. And a motorbike, a two-stroke trail bike with yellow L-plates.

  chapter twenty-one

  ‘You can’t stay here,’ she says, looking him in the eye before bending to unbuckle Liam. The boy is asleep in his car seat.

  Martin deflates, the air escaping from him, taking his optimism with it. ‘Didn’t Winifred tell you what I found out? That I’m the one who cleared you?’

  She stands up, leaving Liam where he is for the moment. ‘She did. Thank you.’ But there is little gratitude in her voice and no warmth.

  ‘Mandy?’

  She shakes her head. ‘You slept with that backpacker. That tart. I can’t just forget that.’

  Martin spreads his hands in conciliation. ‘I was drugged. I don’t even know if I slept with her or not. I can’t remember.’

  Now there is real anger in her face, prosecution in her voice. ‘I’ve just been subjected to a four-hour interrogation by the police about where I was and what I did on Tuesday afternoon and evening. By the time I got to the childcare centre, Liam was hysterical. And why was I at the police station for so long? Because there was no one to verify what I was saying. Because on Tuesday night you were with your uncle, boozing it up and smoking dope. The day after Jasper Speight was murdered. Then, last night, you were off partying again, taking drugs, sticking your dick who knows where. All night. You are unreliable, Martin. I’ve had plenty of unreliable men, I don’t want another one. Liam deserves better than a part-time father.’

  At his name, the boy comes awake, lets out a cry. Mandy breaks eye contact with Martin, bends again to extract the boy from the car, lifts him, holds him.

  ‘Marn!’ says the boy, extending an arm towards Martin.

  Mandy shakes her head; there are tears in her eyes. ‘You stayed in Sydney, writing your book, when you should have been here. And now you are here, you’re still missing in action.’

  ‘Mandy …’

  ‘No. You can’t stay here. Go to Hartigan’s. Stay there. Work out how to fix the place up. Work out how to fix us up.’

  ‘What did Winifred say?’

  ‘Fuck Winifred. She’s happy. I’m not. Now go.’ And with that she takes Liam into the cabin.

  Martin is still standing there when she emerges some minutes later. She has Liam in his carrier. She throws him some keys. Hartigan’s. ‘I’m taking him for a walk. Don’t be here when I get back.’ She moves away, then stops, looks back. ‘I’ll call you,’ she says, her anger now tinged with regret. But she still turns and walks off towards the river.

  Martin looks at his hands, but they hold no answers. He has little choice. He enters the cabin, collecting his clothes and possessions. It doesn’t take long; he’s had plenty of practice. The itinerant correspondent, he of a thousand hotel rooms, packing up and moving on once again. Shit.

  He leaves the caravan park, crosses Dunes Road and drives up towards Hartigan’s, his mind at once weary and restless. Montifore is closing in on the killer. There is a false witness, someone claiming to have seen Mandy throw the knife into the river. Find the witness, find the knife, find the killer. How hard can it be? And Montifore has Topaz’s visa form, the necessary catalyst for a court order, search warrants and police investig
ations. If St Clair is involved, Montifore will root him out. So why does Martin feel so empty, so despondent? There is a hollowness, a sense of life gone awry. He fears he’s losing Mandy and Liam, that he’s lost her trust, all mixed up and compounded by last night’s excesses. Fatigue washes over him, the weight of the past pressing down.

  He reaches the gate to Hartigan’s, stops the car, sits for a moment, unable to summon the energy to move. He closes his eyes. An image comes to him: the Settlement laid out before him, the Settlement of his youth, as if seen from above, an impossible vantage point. He jerks his eyes open, pushes the image away, looks around. Memories lay hidden in this landscape like a minefield, everywhere he looks, threatening to explode beneath him at any time, no matter how carefully he steps. Something has happened; there’s no containing them. Pandora’s box is open for business.

  He knows he needs to sleep, to restore his psychic balance, but now he fears the images, the memories. He blinks, widens his eyes, as if to tap some vestige of vigour: the sun is flaring in his rear-view mirror, low in the sky, heading towards the western horizon and the darkening line of the escarpment. There will be no electricity at Hartigan’s, he has no torch, only his iPhone to guide him. He checks the battery level. It’s half empty, just like himself. He should get to the house, see if he can find some candles or some sort of lamp. It’s too warm to light a fire, but the idea of the fireplace stirs something in his stomach: hunger. It occurs to him to return to Port Silver, pick up some takeaway, some candles.

  There is nowhere to turn the car. The sensible thing would be to open the gate, drive to the house, turn around there and come back down. But the thought of getting out of the car is too much for him. He puts it in reverse, starts easing it down the hill, looking for somewhere to turn. The sun is in the mirror; he squints into the light, uses his side mirrors. He’s making progress when another thought comes to him: the motorbike bursting from the bush yesterday morning.

  He stops the car, swinging the wheels across the slope, pulling the handbrake hard and putting it in first gear before cutting the engine. He breathes deep, gets out. Looking back up the hill, he can see the gate. The motorbike had appeared close by, maybe a little further down the slope. Now that he’s searching for it, the track’s not hard to find, emerging over the top of a bank. He climbs over, edging down onto the remains of the original road. It’s overgrown, save for a single track formed by trail bikers, bushwalkers and mountain bikers. Above him, the canopy is thinner over the old road. He can see a tree has been felled, disguising the juncture of the road and the drive up to Hartigan’s. Bushes have started growing around it. No wonder he missed it when they drove up yesterday.

  He wants to follow the path, find out where it leads. He’s travelled Ridge Road from the Hummingbird Beach end, and now here he stands at the other end. It irritates him: he has the two ends in his mind, but the middle is missing. He wants to join them, fill in the gap, knows he won’t be satisfied until he does. But it won’t be long before the sun drops below the escarpment. There’s no time to explore Ridge Road, not now. It’s too late, and he’s too tired. But first thing tomorrow, he’ll take a look. Maybe Jasper Speight found something up along the road that got him killed.

  Martin sleeps. No candles, no fire, no food. The only things he’s eaten since Clyde Mackie’s devon sandwich are painkillers, antibiotics and antivirals. Flattened by the day’s efforts, asleep in the shell of Hartigan’s, adrift on the same couch where Jasper Speight once nursed his cut foot. His gear is still in the car, his clothes are still on his back, his body is still unwashed. His sleep is so profound the first helicopter barely wakes him. Its searchlight penetrates the windows, bathing him in light, the pressure from its blades rattling the shutters and stirring the roof. Even then, it’s already passed by the time he’s emerging into full consciousness, his molasses brain struggling to establish what just happened. He closes his eyes, recommencing the downward drift, until the chopper once again rattles the house and sucks him into wakefulness. He gets up, opens the French doors, walks onto the verandah. The helicopter has already moved north, running along the top of the cliffs. It’s not alone. There are two of them. More sound: he turns in time to see a third helicopter power past, pursuing the other two. Helicopters. Here. Why? Maybe some wealthy Hollywood A-listers, heading for Byron, are strafing the cliffs with their searchlights just for the hell of it. Entitled shits. In the middle of the night.

  Inside, his phone rings. The caller ID reads Bethanie Glass. Bethanie, his former colleague at the Sydney Morning Herald, the paper’s star police reporter.

  ‘Martin, is that you?’ There is urgency in her voice.

  ‘Bethanie, hi.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m up the coast. With Mandy.’

  ‘Port Silver? You told me you were moving to Port Silver.’

  ‘Yes. Port Silver.’

  ‘Fantastic. Have you heard what’s happened?’

  ‘What? No.’

  ‘Turn on the television. ABC News.’

  ‘I can’t. No TV, no power. Tell me.’

  ‘There are reports coming in, some sort of mass murder-suicide. A lot of victims. Like Jonestown. At a hippie commune called Hummingbird. Do you know it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Suddenly he’s fully awake, his mind alight. Murder-suicide. Hummingbird.

  ‘Can you get there? File copy? It’s a seven-hour drive from here. We’re hiring a light plane, but it will still take forever.’

  Jonestown? Who’s the murderer? The swami? Who are the victims? File some copy? ‘Bethanie, I don’t work for the Herald anymore.’

  ‘Hang on, I’ll put you on to Terri.’

  Martin can hear the hubbub of the newsroom at the other end of the phone line as he waits for the editor. He checks his watch. Ten-thirty at night. Not so late then, but late for the Herald, in these days of single editions and skeleton staff. It must be a big story.

  ‘Martin, Terri Preswell. You know this place, Hummingbird?’

  ‘I was there this morning.’

  ‘What? Really?’

  ‘Who’s dead, Terri? Who killed them?’

  ‘We don’t know. We’ve got fuck all. The cops aren’t saying. The teevs have got their choppers up there but there’s nowhere to land, so it’s just aerial shots. We’re on the phones. We’re hearing at least a half-a-dozen dead, but we can’t confirm anything. Can you get out there?’

  ‘I don’t work for the Herald,’ he reminds her.

  ‘Fuck, Martin. It’s a freelance job. We’ll pay top dollar, whatever you like. It’s the biggest story in Australia, but we need it now. By tomorrow every news outlet in Australia will have people crawling all over it.’

  ‘I still get a by-line?’

  ‘Jesus, Martin, of course you still get a by-line. If it was up to me, you’d still have your job.’

  ‘Good enough. I’m on my way. But there’s no mobile reception at Hummingbird. I’ll have to get in, get what I can, then drive back into range before I can file.’

  ‘Right. Well, call as soon as you can. Ring through the main points and we’ll get something up while you write the rest.’

  ‘Okay,’ says Martin. ‘Talk soon.’ He hangs up. For a second, he wonders what he’s just committed himself to. But only for a second: the adrenaline is coursing through him, the old feeling is back. He can feel his focus narrowing, everything else becoming extraneous, his attention closing in on one thing and one thing only: the story. The biggest story in Australia.

  Martin almost crashes the Corolla into the gate on his way out, locking up the brakes, the car skidding before coming to rest with centimetres to spare. He gets the gate unlocked, throws it open, guns down the hill. But at the junction with Dunes Road, he’s forced to stop as an ambulance, lights flashing, comes hurtling across the bridge from Port Silver, a quick burst from the siren warning him. It’s followed by a twin-cab ute, a flashing roof light proclaiming its authority. Martin squints against its headlights, pr
eparing to follow. But an arm emerges from the back window of the ute, waving madly, and the vehicle brakes hard and pulls off onto the verge. A figure is out of the vehicle, running towards him. It’s Nick Poulos, wearing a high-vis vest.

  ‘You heard?’ asks his lawyer.

  ‘Hummingbird? Multiple deaths?’

  ‘Yeah. Leave your car, come with us. The police have called in the SES.’

  Martin reverses his car back into the drive, then runs after Nick to the ute. He can’t believe his luck as he’s handed his own fluoro-orange vest. The SES is going to take him right into the middle of the action.

  There are rapid introductions: the driver, Phil, is Goori; next to him is a small Asian woman, Lee; in the back Nick is now in the middle, and on the far side is an old bloke smelling of grog and animals, with a lazy eye and a fleece covered in dog hairs: Paddles.

  They pelt along Dunes Road, taking no time to reach Ridge Road and, moments later, the turn into Hummingbird Beach. There are cars strewn all around, abandoned by the side of the road in the urgency of the moment. Martin can see a television crew pulling gear from a plumber’s van; he wonders where the choppers have landed. More media will be on their way, chartering planes, flying in from Brisbane and Sydney, landing up at Longton airport, commandeering cars to get down the escarpment. He has a jump of a good few hours on most of them.

  There is a roadblock, a police car angled across the track next to a commandeered barrier still bearing the signage ROADWORKS AHEAD. The headlights carve out the scene: Doug Thunkleton waving his hands, imploring the constable for access; Martin recognises the young officer who’d served him breakfast. The policeman leaves Thunkleton standing, talks briefly to Phil, waves them through. Martin keeps his head down.

  Phil pushes the ute hard, and by the time they get to the Hummingbird car park, they’ve almost caught the ambulance, its flashing lights flooding the dark trees with moving impressions of red and blue, shadows made mobile like some macabre disco.