by Chris Hammer
‘Those fuckwits,’ she starts. ‘I volunteered this information. I didn’t need to, I’m helping them to do their job, and they sit there and judge me. Like I’m the town bike or something.’
Martin says nothing, attempting to project a sympathetic air while dishing out Tommy’s eccentric approximation of Asian cuisine. The fried rice appears to contain corn kernels, spam and small cubes of beetroot, all sourced from cans.
Mandy drains her wine and continues. ‘I mean, you know a thing or two, right, Martin? I told them what they needed to know, that Byron was here with me the entire night. They asked me how I could be sure, so I showed them the diary. They confiscated it and just laughed when I asked for a warrant. Can they do that?’
‘I guess so. It’s material evidence in a murder inquiry. You could demand it back, but I’m pretty sure they could get a court order to keep it.’
‘Well, it seems like an abuse of power to me.’
‘Yes, you’re probably right,’ Martin dissembles.
‘But that’s not what really pissed me off. It was all the stuff about my history. You know, how many men have I slept with, how well I knew Craig Landers, how the business is going. How the business is going, for Christ’s sake? Who my friends are, who I see on a frequent basis, who looks after Liam when I can’t. What’s that all about?’
‘Covering their arses,’ Martin assures her. ‘They’ve ballsed up the investigation, pinned the backpackers’ murder on Swift, and then you turn up and demonstrate that they’re on the wrong track. So they’re trying to make sure they don’t miss anything this time around.’
‘And will all this come out in court?’
‘Can’t see why it would.’
‘And then all the questions about you. How is that relevant? You weren’t even here a year ago. What the fuck could you have to do with any of it?’
‘They asked about me?’
‘Yeah. The fat cop from Bellington and that skinny one with the five o’clock shadow, the creepy one.’
‘Goffing. His name is Goffing. What did he ask?’
‘Weird stuff. Like whether you’re reliable, whether I feel you’re leading me on to extract information from me.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘Yes. I said you had seduced me. That I’m putty in your hands.’
Martin laughs. ‘Really? You told him that?’
‘No. I suggested it was unlikely you were hanging around to extract information from me because, until this morning, you didn’t know that I had any. I told them you were just another cunt-struck middle-aged loser. They thought that had the ring of truth to it.’ She offers a weak smile.
‘Gee, thanks.’
‘Any time.’ The smile vanishes again. Pity; he likes her smiles.
Just then Liam lets go with an audible fart, huge for his size, with a disturbingly liquid quality to it. A few seconds later the smell wafts across the kitchen table like a chemical weapons attack and the remains of Tommy’s takeaway lose any residual appeal.
‘Nappy time,’ Mandy declares with faux levity, and goes to release her boy from his highchair. She cradles him so as not to squash his nappy. ‘Martin, I just want to be with Liam tonight. You okay at the motel?’
‘Sure.’
She walks over, still holding Liam, and gives Martin a generous kiss on the mouth. The stench is unbelievable.
‘And thanks for coming to cheer me up. And for dinner. And for listening.’
Banished, Martin walks out through the store and into the evening calm. The sun is down and the stars are emerging. A blood-red moon hangs in the western sky like the blade of a scythe. Hay Road is deserted, but there’s a car parked outside the general store and the lights are on. Martin walks down, hoping to buy water. Instead, he finds Jamie Landers, slouched on the bench outside the store, nursing what looks like a half-bottle of tequila. The boy is staring at the moon.
‘Mind if I join you?’ asks Martin.
Jamie looks up at him, face blank, the aggression of Bellington hospital nowhere to be seen. ‘Sure.’
Martin takes a seat on the bench. Jamie offers him the bottle; he takes a small swig. He was right: tequila.
‘Do you think it means anything? The moon?’
From where they are sitting the moon sits in the narrow gap of sky between the bottom of the awning and the silhouetted shopfronts across the road. It looks much larger than it would in the expanse of an open sky.
‘It’s the smoke haze from the Scrublands, turns it red.’
‘I know. But even so.’
They sit in silence for some minutes before Jamie speaks again. ‘About the other day, at the hospital. Sorry I was such a little shit. It was Allen, dying like that. I was upset.’
‘It’s totally understandable.’
‘Stupid, isn’t it? Pointless. He survived St James. He saw Swift shoot his dad and his uncle. He was sitting next to Gerry Torlini when Swift shot him. He got covered in blood, but he survived. And now he’s gone, just like that.’ The young man clicks his fingers to emphasise his point. ‘Just meaningless. Fucking meaningless.’
Martin says nothing.
‘I’ve been reading your stories,’ says Jamie. ‘You think you’re getting any closer to working it out? Why he went mental and shot everyone?’
‘Sometimes I do, I feel that I’m almost there, then the next thing I’m back at square one.’
‘Yeah, well, at least the coppers are talking to you. I guess they have to.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘’Cos they’re not smart enough to work it out by themselves.’
Martin chuckles. ‘I’ll let you tell them that.’
‘Yeah. Sure.’
There’s another pause as they consider the moon.
‘Hey, Jamie. The day your dad died, the day Byron Swift shot him, had you been out hunting with them the day before?’
‘Nah. Allen went; he liked guns and all that shit, not me. They were too boring for me, all those old men.’
‘Did you speak to your dad, though? That morning?’
‘Yeah. Too right. He was fucking rabid. Said the coppers had told him Swift was a ped. Said if he’d laid a hand on me he’d do for him.’
‘Do for him?’
‘Shoot him.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Same as I told you. He never touched me. Wouldn’t dare.’ There’s no anger in the youth’s voice, hardly any emotion at all; resignation, perhaps. There’s more silence. Martin thinks he can almost see the moon moving, sinking towards the line of shops across the way. He turns back to Jamie, is about to ask him something more, when he notices the teenager’s shirt: yellow and black checks.
‘Jamie, did you and Allen ever hang out in the old pub? Go upstairs there?’
For the first time since Martin sat down, Jamie Landers turns from the moon and looks him in the eye. ‘You found the cat?’
‘I found the cat.’
‘Fuck. I forgot about that. I should clean it up.’
‘What was it? What happened?’
‘Oh, it was Allen. Sick fuck. High as a fucking kite on speed.’
‘Allen?’
‘Yeah. Never the same after the church shooting. It fucked him up big time.’ Jamie returns his gaze to the moon, takes a long swig of his tequila. ‘Doesn’t matter now, though, does it? None of it does.’
‘I guess not.’
Martin leaves Jamie to his thoughts and starts walking up Hay Road. He’s left his car at the services club, but he decides to leave it there and walk back to the motel. Nothing in this town is very far apart. When he first arrived, Riversend’s compact streetscape appealed to him; now it feels almost claustrophobic, so small, overwhelmed by the vastness of the plain, like a Pacific atoll with rising sea levels gnawing at its shores. He’s been here for almost a week and is starting to feel as if he knows every building, every face in Riversend. He looks up at the hotel; there is no sign of life. What must it be to live in this t
own? To be young and live in this town? Every day, the same stifling heat, the same inescapable familiarity, the same will-sapping predictability. Even Bellington, with its water and its services, shimmers with allure, like some mirage out across the flatness. So why is it getting under his skin? Why does he care? It’s like those strange adopt-a-road programs. Adopt-a-corner-of-hell. Why not?
Lost in such thoughts, Martin continues along Hay Road, bathed in an eerie orange light, the heat still rising from the road even as the moon shadows extend across it. A farm ute passes him, its headlights yellow, its dodgy muffler loud, enhancing the silence once it gets to the T-junction and turns left, leaving him totally alone once more on the main street of Riversend. He’s back in front of the bookstore, but it’s closed and dark. Then, as he turns to head back to the motel, a flicker of light catches his eye. He searches the line of shops opposite, but there’s nothing, just darkness. He’s thinking it’s his imagination, the effects of fatigue and tequila, when he sees it again: a flicker. The wine saloon. He crosses the street, climbs the gutter, peers through the boarded-up window. A candle, a shadow, a glass catching the light. Snouch.
The alleyway is dark; Martin uses the torch app on his phone to navigate past broken bottles and lost newspapers, reaching the side door, turning the knob, hearing the hinges’ shrill complaint as he pushes it open. Harley Snouch is not at the bar. He’s sitting at a table with a book and a bottle, a kerosene lamp hanging low from an old wire coathanger stretching down from the rafters. He looks up, shielding his eyes from the lamplight, to see who is invading his sanctuary.
‘Ah. Hemingway. Welcome, pull up a chair.’
Martin walks into the pool of light, sits at the table. Snouch has shaved off his greying beard and washed his hair, taking years off his appearance. Perhaps it’s the flattering softness of the lamplight, but he doesn’t look so much older than Martin.
There are two glasses—small tumblers, one full, one empty—and the bottle in its brown paper bag. Snouch pours red wine into the second glass. It looks dark and viscous. ‘Have a drink,’ says Snouch. ‘Thought you might show up sooner or later.’
Martin takes a tentative sip and is surprised to find the wine passable, at least in contrast to Jamie Landers’ tequila.
Snouch gives an amused snort. ‘What did you expect? Cat’s piss?’
‘It was last time around. Why the change?’ Martin reaches over, extracts the bottle from the bag. Sure enough, Penfolds.
Snouch grins like a naughty schoolboy, stripping more years off. ‘Mate, even us derros have standards.’
‘Except that you’re not really a derro, are you, Harley? I saw your house, remember, before it burnt down.’
Snouch smiles with apparent pleasure. ‘I tell you, Martin, some of the greatest bums I’ve known were loaded. Rich scumbags. My school was full of them.’
‘What school was that?’
‘Geelong Grammar.’
‘That figures. Explains your classy accent and polished turn of phrase.’
Snouch smiles again, taking a healthy slug of his wine.
Martin gets to the point. ‘Why aren’t you a suspect in the murder of the two backpackers?’
‘Because I have a cast-iron alibi.’
‘Which is?’
‘I was in hospital in Melbourne. For two weeks. Pneumonia. Missed everything. The priest raining holy retribution down on his congregation and some bastard dumping bodies in my dam. Shit timing. Nothing happens for years on end and then when it does, I’m flat on me back in Melbourne. Surrounded by witnesses, covered in documentation.’
‘So you say.’
‘So the police have established beyond all doubt. If you’re trying to work out who killed those girls, I am the last person you should be thinking about.’
‘That’s nice to hear, but you’re not exactly what I’d call a reliable witness.’
‘I was a reliable witness last time you were in here. I told you I hadn’t done anything wrong. I told you I hadn’t gone to prison. And I told you at Springfields that I never raped anyone. And yet you went and published it anyway. Wrote it big and splashed it bigger. You should have listened, but you didn’t. Maybe you’ll listen now.’
Martin is still, frozen by Snouch’s calm words of confrontation. A hollowness has opened in his chest and the wine, pleasant a moment before, has lost its savour. ‘What are you going to do?’
Snouch looks him directly in the eye, no longer the derro, more like a predator. ‘Well, I’m thinking I might sue the shit out of you, your paper and anyone with the remotest connection to your slander. I’ll be drinking fine wine for the rest of my days.’
‘Good luck with that,’ Martin says, attempting bravado. ‘Civil cases don’t carry the same burden of proof as criminal trials. Your reputation is already shot. And we have very good lawyers.’
But Snouch scoffs, leaning back with a lupine grin. ‘Really? You know as well as I do that won’t fly. And even if it did, in some fantastical scenario, it might save the paper but it won’t save you. You wrote the story, you got the facts wrong. You’re fucked.’
Martin feels like he’s wandered into some high-stakes poker game, caught in a pool of lamplight in the old wine saloon. He’s dealt himself a shit hand and now he’s obliged to table a card.
‘Harley, I saved your life—me and Robbie Haus-Jones.’
‘Bullshit. I saved yours. That idiot wanted to drive into the dam. I would have survived with or without you.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want to reconcile with Mandalay.’
‘But you said yourself, out at Springfields, that she’s not your daughter.’
‘She’s not.’
Martin digests that. Snouch’s gaze doesn’t leave his face. He has the upper hand; he can afford to wait for Martin’s next move, knowing he can counter it.
‘What about those?’ Martin nods at Snouch’s hands and their blurred blue prison tattoos.
Snouch smiles indulgently. ‘What about them?’ He holds his left hand out for Martin to examine. ‘You seen anything like this before? Recognise any of the symbols?’
Martin looks. There are squiggles, letters, maybe an omega symbol, but nothing that makes sense. He returns his gaze to Snouch’s face.
‘You really want to base a court case on those?’ asks Snouch.
Martin examines him a moment longer, wondering if he’s bluffing, detecting nothing but resolve. ‘Okay. What is it you want me to do?’
‘Talk to Mandalay for me. Convince her I’m not the monster she thinks I am.’
‘Easier said than done. Her mother claimed you raped her and Mandy believes it. How can I overcome that?’
‘That’s your problem. Convince her otherwise or I’ll see you in court.’
Martin leans back, wondering how he might persuade Mandy. He momentarily considers doing the honourable thing: ringing Max, resigning, acknowledging his mistake. But as he looks at Snouch, sees the man’s determination, he realises it wouldn’t do any good. If Martin can’t help engineer a reconciliation, then Snouch will certainly sue; not just for the money, but to offer Mandy some legal proof he’s innocent of rape.
‘Okay, Harley. I’ll try. But tell me, what happened? If you didn’t rape her, why was Katherine Blonde so adamant that you did? And why weren’t you investigated or charged?’
Snouch tops up Martin’s glass, then his own. Martin takes it as a conciliatory gesture, a sign that the conversation has further to go.
‘That’s better. But I’m serious, Martin: you get results or I sue; I end your career. You understand me? Help me, and I’ll be the best friend you ever had.’
Somehow, Martin gets the impression Snouch is not new to this game. ‘That sounds like blackmail.’
‘Does it? Call it what you like.’
Martin’s mouth is dry. He drinks some more wine.
Snouch nods, apparently satisfied he has Martin where he wants him. ‘It was a long time ago. Katherine did claim
I raped her. The local cop investigated. And he cleared me. Any records, if there were any, were expunged. My father was very wealthy, very powerful. People round here remember him as some sort of patrician benefactor. They don’t remember him like that in Melbourne. Tough as mulga root: ruthless in business, callous in person. Treated his staff like shit, belittling the men and groping the women. He didn’t give a flying fuck about me, but he wouldn’t have the family name tainted. So he pulled the strings; there is no record of even a cursory investigation.’
‘And no mention in any of the newspapers? None?’
‘Not when he owned the Crier. And remember, there was no arrest, no charges, no trial. Because there was no rape. My father’s influence didn’t get me off the hook, the facts did that. He just kept it out of the media.’
Martin smiles, enjoying a small victory when it offers itself. ‘Well, that worked a treat. You’re still the town pariah.’
‘Katherine was very popular. A lot of people believed her.’
‘So what did happen?’
‘I’ll tell you. But it’s not for publication, Martin. You got that? You’re already in a hole, don’t dig it any deeper.’
‘Sure.’
For the first time since Martin’s arrival, Snouch breaks eye contact, looking off into the gloom of the saloon instead. ‘As I told you before, my family settled Springfields in the 1840s,’ he begins, his voice low and resonant. ‘We owned it all, thousands of acres of scrub. The worst land in the district, no good for cropping, difficult to clear, no soil to speak of. That’s what all the other settlers thought, putting in their crops out on the plain; that’s what they thought right up until the first big drought. In practice, Springfields was the best land, because my forebears were smart enough not to impose English agriculture upon it. They got it for nothing, did next to nothing to it. Put on some cattle, used it for grazing, not farming. Didn’t even bother with fences; left that to the farmers with bordering properties. They were the ones who needed fences, to keep our cattle off. But there was no wood out on the plain. So we milled it, made fence posts, sold it to them. Mulga wood lasts forever, more durable than steel. So they paid us for the fences to keep our cattle off their land. How good is that? We got rich. And the dam by the house, even in this drought, it’s full. You notice that? Spring-fed. Hence the name: Springfields. We always had water.