by Chris Hammer
More people are gathering outside the church now, and the cameramen and photographers are concentrating on their work, the clatter of camera shutters chattering away like a coded conversation. Herb Walker is there, having a quiet word with Robbie off to one side. Fran Landers arrives, accompanied by Jamie. The boy stares at the ground, looking as if this is the last place in the world he wants to be. Mandy arrives with Liam in a stroller, ignoring the media completely, and Robbie helps her up the stairs and into the church.
Martin looks about to see if he can spot Carrie; instead a movement catches his eye. Standing behind the media, up on the ridge of the levee bank, wearing a red shirt, is the boy Martin met on the church steps on his first full day in Riversend. What was his name? Luke? The boy is holding a long stick, like a walking stick, and as Martin watches, he lifts it to his shoulder like a gun and points it at Martin. He lowers it a little, mouths the word ‘pow’, and then he’s off, scrambling down the other side of the levee bank, leaving Martin rooted to the spot, breath frozen in the simmering heat of the day.
After the funeral, Martin tries the Oasis first, but there is no chance of a quiet word with Mandy; the place is crawling with journalists. She has wheeled her coffee machine out on a trolley and positioned it next to the shop counter, rigging it up with a jerry can of water. But the boom in business has not improved her mood; she scowls as she serves him a takeaway coffee. Martin guesses she’s read his stories—or learnt of them from the swarming reporters—his stories condemning Swift and condemning Snouch. Her manner is distant, almost formal; he decides now isn’t the time to broach the subject with her.
He pays for his coffee and makes his way down Hay Road, crossing Somerset, past the World War I digger on his plinth and the locked doors of the Commercial Hotel. If only the pub had held on for another six months; it wasn’t just coffee that journalists put away by the bucketload.
At the general store, Fran is back behind the counter, still wearing her church finery. Jamie is helping, scowling at the mix of locals and media browsing among the aisles as he does so.
‘Hello, Mr Scarsden,’ says Fran. ‘I was wondering when you’d be back. You’ve been selling a lot of papers.’ Today there are no smiles, no suggestion of flirtation.
‘So I see,’ says Martin, regarding the vacant space where the papers usually sat in small piles. ‘You’re not happy about that?’
‘Happy to sell papers, not so happy with you implicating Byron in the deaths of those girls.’
‘Fran. Is there somewhere we can talk? In private?’
The storekeeper considers the throng of customers. ‘I guess so.’ She turns to her son. ‘Jamie, can you mind things for a moment while I talk to Mr Scarsden out the back?’
Jamie grunts his assent and Fran leads Martin past the customers and through a door at the back of the store. She turns on the lights; fluorescent tubes hanging in banks from the ceiling flicker to life, casting a hard-edged light. The room is nothing like Mandy’s home at the back of the Oasis; this is one big space, windowless and full of shelving, much of it empty, with cardboard boxes containing various products here and there. There are spiderwebs on the higher shelves, but otherwise the storeroom is well kept. In one corner, to the left of the door, there’s a desk with a computer monitor that looks a decade out of date. Fran brushes at the seat behind the desk with her hand, protective of her church clothes, and sits. Martin takes the seat on the other side of the desk.
He doesn’t bother with niceties, but picks up the conversation where they’d paused it at the counter. ‘You don’t think Byron was involved in the death of the girls in the dam?’
‘No. Do you have any proof? Do the police?’
‘Not yet. But they’re investigating.’
Fran glowers at him. He decides there’s little to be gained in arguing the toss: neither of them can know for sure whether Swift was involved and he risks angering her unnecessarily. He spreads his hands, a conciliatory gesture.
‘Fran, I need your help. I’ve been thinking over the day of the shooting. There are things that bother me, now that I know about you and Byron.’
‘I see.’
‘He wasn’t a regular churchgoer, your husband, was he?’
The question seems to drain the indignation from her. Instead her voice is subdued, her eyes not meeting his as she answers. ‘No.’
‘Did he know about you and Byron?’
Fran remains still, eyes fixed on the blank computer monitor. Finally, a nod of affirmation.
‘Did you warn Byron that Craig was going to the church?’
Another nod.
‘What did you fear Craig was going to do?’
She turns to Martin, eyes pleading.
‘Tell me, Fran.’
A small sob escapes her, a fragile thing, fleeting. ‘I overheard them. Out by our garage. Craig and his friends. The ones Byron shot. They said they were going to kill him. In horrible ways. I knew they meant it.’
‘What did they say?’
‘Craig said he was going to ram his shotgun up his arse and give him both barrels.’
‘Why, Fran? Why kill him? Why then?’
‘I don’t know. I just heard them saying that’s what they were going to do.’
Martin leans back, considers what she’s telling him and finds himself not believing her. But why would she mislead him? He decides to be direct. ‘I’ve been told, by a reliable source, that on the Friday night before the shooting the police warned Craig that Swift was molesting children. Are you saying Craig didn’t mention that to you?’
‘I’ve already told you: it wasn’t true, I didn’t believe it.’
‘But Craig told you?’
‘Yes, I knew.’
‘So you warned him? Warned Byron?’
‘Yes. I ran to the church. I told him that Craig and the others were coming to kill him. I begged him to leave. He said that he was already going; the bishop had ordered it. He said he wasn’t worried about Craig and his friends, that he could handle them. He asked me to wait for him out by Blackfellas Lagoon. We’d gone there together sometimes.’
‘You believed him?’
‘Of course. I always believed him.’
‘So you weren’t there when the shooting happened?’
‘No, I wasn’t. He made sure of that.’
Martin considers that for a moment, before changing tack. ‘You say you always believed him. Did you believe he was who he said he was?’
She doesn’t answer immediately; Martin sees only confusion on her face. ‘What? What do you mean?’
‘That he was someone else. An imposter. Maybe a former soldier.’
‘No. Never. That’s rubbish. Who told you that?’ Indignation has replaced her puzzlement.
‘How did he seem to you, Fran, that last time you saw him?’
‘Fine. He seemed fine. Calm, I would say. Calm and rather happy. Happy to be leaving.’ She sobs once more, her eyes moist, indignation superseded by distress. ‘I wasn’t happy, but he was.’
Martin walks. The heat of the day has reached its hours-long crescendo, and he’s sweating profusely, but he feels a compulsion to walk; sitting still is not an option. The sky is almost white, so leached of colour it seems metallic, with no hint of cloud. There’s a faint smell of bushfire and the wind is getting up. Another hellish day in the ‘town of death’. How long has it been since there was any rain? How long since an overcast day?
Fran’s words replay over and over in his mind. He turns them, examines them, searches them for significance. Was it possible? That a jealous husband, already enraged at being cuckolded by a priest and now informed the priest had abused his only son, decided to take revenge? And that the priest, forewarned by his lover, acted in self-defence?
No. The men may have spoken of killing him, but they weren’t armed; they’d left their guns behind. Perhaps they went to beat him up, but he shot them down without mercy. Gerry Torlini was in his car, Craig Landers was a hundred metres away,
running for his life. No, self-defence was out of the question. Defending Fran Landers from potential retribution? That might explain shooting Craig Landers, but not the others. Not respectable Horrie Grosvenor, his widow Janice left uncomprehending in Bellington.
So not self-defence and not defending Fran, but that didn’t rule out Herb Walker’s call to Craig Landers as the catalyst for the shooting. He’d warned Landers and Alf Newkirk on the Friday night that the priest may have been interfering with their sons. The two men met, along with fellow members of the Bellington Anglers Club, when they went hunting on Saturday, and the men were outraged by the news. Then, on the Sunday morning, they realised Swift was in Riversend to conduct the fortnightly church service. One or more of them spoke of killing the priest, perhaps meaning it, perhaps not. Fran Landers overheard them and raced to meet her lover, believing that her husband was intent on killing him. She told Swift that Walker had talked to Craig, had made the allegation of child abuse. And so Swift shot them. It all made sense. Except it didn’t. He didn’t have to shoot anyone. He could have simply left town.
By the time Martin gets to the park, up near the bridge on the way to Deniliquin, the sweat is really pouring off him. His shirt is sopping wet and clinging. He tries the bubbler in the park, but either it’s not working or has been cut off as a water-saving measure. He climbs the stairs to the rotunda, attracted by the shade. He should be working on his story, the story of the priest with no past, but the clarity of the previous day has deserted him together with the self-confidence of the morning. Byron Swift’s connection to the Scrublands murders had seemed so certain, but today he isn’t so sure. It was Robbie’s theory, concocted in anger and despair, but there is no hard evidence. That wouldn’t necessarily prevent Martin writing the story. He had the hook:
One police theory is that renegade priest Byron Swift was also involved in the killings at Springfields. A Herald investigation can now reveal that Swift was not what he seemed. He was a man without a past.
Such mystery surrounds his past that elements within the police force want to exhume his body, while ASIO has sent an experienced investigator to Riversend.
It has all the characteristics of a ripping yarn, a perfect Sunday paper read: murder, religion, spooks, sex. Christ, what a combination. So why is he hesitating? Byron Swift is dead, and the dead can’t sue. He can write whatever he likes about the priest without fear of blowback. Except maybe from Max Fuller, his editor and long-time mentor. Back when he was just a cadet and Max was chief of staff, all the cadets and cub reporters had lived in fear of him and his insistence on absolute accuracy.
Martin examines his hands. Not working hands, not honest hands. Assassin’s hands? Character assassination, not the real thing—not like Byron Swift’s hands. Swift could cut a man down at a hundred metres, a bullet through the neck, his hands steady and heart inured; Martin Scarsden could sever a man’s reputation from much further afield, from beyond the grave if necessary, hands soft and heart absent. Martin tries to imagine the hands of the young priest. Were they soft and white like his, or had they retained the callused insensitivity of a special forces soldier? Martin looks at the back of his hands, searching for evidence of keyboard atrocities.
‘Hello.’
The voice snaps Martin out of his reverie. It’s the boy, in his red shirt, still with his stick.
‘Hello,’ says Martin.
‘Sorry,’ says the boy.
‘What for?’
‘The church. I didn’t mean to scare you.’
‘That’s okay,’ says Martin. ‘You want to sit down?’
‘Sure.’ The boy sits on the next bench along, up against the side of the rotunda.
‘It’s Luke, isn’t it?’ asks Martin.
‘That’s right,’ replies the boy.
‘I’m Martin, remember? Martin Scarsden.’
Martin waits. He figures if the boy has sought him out, he must have something he wants to say. But the boy just sits there, occasionally looking at Martin, but nothing more. Maybe he just wants some company. So it’s Martin who initiates the conversation. ‘Were you there when it happened, Luke?’
The boy looks unnerved. ‘Who told you that?’
‘No one. Just a guess. This morning—the thing with the stick.’
‘I’ve never told anyone,’ says Luke.
‘Not even the police?’
‘No. They didn’t ask. Didn’t have to. There were plenty of people there.’
‘Tell me what you saw.’
‘Why?’
‘I want to understand it.’
‘Well, I don’t understand it.’ The boy looks at his stick, balancing it on his hands. ‘I was in the main street when I saw his car outside the bookstore. It was Sunday, so I figured he’d come up to do the church service. I walked round there, to the church, and waited. I was there when he drove up. We sat on the steps. He told me that he had to leave, that he didn’t want to, but his bishop had ordered him. I said it wasn’t fair. He said that life wasn’t fair. He said other stuff like that.’
‘Can you remember what?’
‘Yes, I remember it all.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said I was a good boy and I shouldn’t worry about God, that God would come to me when I needed him. He said God didn’t give a shit about the little stuff, like swearing or lying or playing with yourself. He said God only cared about what was in our souls, whether we were good people or not. That God knew. And when we were faced with hard decisions, then God could help. And if we ever did bad things, then God would forgive us, even for things we couldn’t forgive ourselves.’
‘What did he mean by that, “bad things”?’
‘I don’t know. He didn’t say.’
‘That sounds like quite a grown-up conversation.’
‘Yeah. But he was good like that. He didn’t talk down to us kids.’
‘Did he often talk about God?’
‘No, hardly ever. I think it was because he was leaving. I’ve been thinking about what he said. Maybe I understand a little better now.’
‘Did he say anything else?’
‘Yeah. He said there were bad men in the world, even in our own town, and that I should play with kids my own age. I’m not sure why he said that. He said that once he was gone, if I had any problems, I should go tell Constable Haus-Jones and he could help me.’
‘Do you know what he was talking about?’
‘No. Not really.’
‘I see. How did he seem to you? Was he agitated?’
‘No. He seemed calm. Sort of happy and sort of sad. Does that make sense? I thought he was sad because he was being ordered to leave town.’
‘You know, Luke, some people think he must have been crazy to do what he did. Did he seem crazy to you?’
‘No.’
‘What happened next?’
‘We were sitting there talking when Mrs Landers came running up. She seemed really upset, like she was crying or something. They went inside to talk, so I went across the road to the shade of the trees. I was sad he was going. He was a good guy. Mrs Landers left and a little later people started turning up for church. He came out to talk to them. Then some men turned up. Mr Landers from the store and some other men. Allen Newkirk was with them, so I went up the hill above the river, where I was this morning.’
‘You didn’t like Allen?’
‘No. He was a bully.’
‘I see. And then?’
‘Mr Landers was talking to Byron.’
‘Could you hear what they said?’
‘No, I was too far away.’
‘Were they angry? Shouting?’
‘No. Byron looked like he was laughing.’
‘Laughing?’
‘Yeah, like they were having a joke or something. Then he went back into the church. Allen walked over and got into a car. The others were all talking to other people. Everything seemed normal. Then—then it happened. He came out with a gun and shot them.’
‘Yes. The fat man from Bellington first. Then the Newkirks. Then he looked around. He saw me up on the ridge, watching, and he shook his head, waved at me to go away. But I didn’t. Couldn’t. I couldn’t believe it. I could see it all. Byron was still looking around. Then a car started, and he saw it. He fired two more shots, at the car. Pow, pow, quick like that. Then people started screaming, but he still seemed very calm. I could see Mr Landers running up the street. I think Byron must have seen where I was looking. It was my fault. He walked to the corner of the church, saw Mr Landers running, and then he lifted the gun and pow. One shot. Then he went and sat on the steps and waited. A car drove past, and he stood and raised the gun, fired a shot into the air. He looked at me again and shook his head. I wanted him to run away, but he sat down again. I could see Constable Haus-Jones coming down the street, up behind the church, with his gun. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to look at him in case Byron saw me and knew he was coming and shot him too. But I didn’t want Constable Haus-Jones to shoot Byron. So I hid.’