by Chris Hammer
‘You were protecting Robbie?’
‘It wasn’t his fault, Martin. He loved Byron; he believed in him. He was defending him. Robbie wasn’t taking any money. It wasn’t corruption; it was love.’
Martin can see the sorrow written on her face, yet he persists. ‘Who else knew?’
‘I don’t think anyone knew the details of how it worked, not even Robbie. But we all knew there was money. For the footy team, for the youth group, for families that were doing it tough. To help with the fire brigade, with the services club. We were in it together—the drought was getting worse, closing in—we didn’t ask questions.’
Then she stands and he holds her fully, holds her close. He needs to tell her that Byron was more than an intermediary. And he needs to tell her about Harley Snouch, offer her the DNA kit, but for now that can wait.
The day is hot and the day is dry and the day is barren. The morning’s breeze has died and the sun hangs over Riversend like a sentencing judge. The shops, having opened ever so briefly, have closed again, shut for the week or shut forever: the bank, the art gallery, the op shop, the real estate agent, the hair salon. The wine saloon sits in shuttered anonymity, its ghosts back in sole possession. Smoke still drifts skywards from the ruins of the pub, and journalists roam the streets like jackals. At the crossroads, the soldier stands unmoving on his plinth, keeping his head down, observing the same moment’s silence he’s been observing for the best part of a century. Next to the pub, unscathed by fire, the general store remains locked, its bottled water inaccessible. After ten days, the town has grown familiar; Martin feels he knows every building, every fixture, that he knows every person, by name or face. And now he knows their tawdry secret. He knows the town, the town knows him, and he knows it’s time to leave. There is nothing left for him here. Wellington Smith is waiting with his money and his promises and his enthusiasm.
In the end, they’d argued. There’d been a moment there, with her in his arms, when he’d hoped for more, believed he might be embracing the future. But then he ruined it. He hadn’t fully appreciated what she’d endured: left grieving by her mother, deceived by Swift, betrayed by Snouch. Martin hadn’t anticipated how much his revelations would wound her. She now knew the priest hadn’t trusted her, hadn’t disclosed who he really was, even as he’d professed his love for her. Even as he’d impregnated her. He’d perpetrated his fraud upon her just as he’d perpetrated it upon everyone else. So when Martin suggested that Swift’s final act—the murder of the five men—might have been a misguided attempt to protect her, this did not placate her. Her anger flared, directed at Swift and directed at Martin. How dare the priest, this violent man with his violent past, kill in her defence, as if she were incapable of defending herself against the predations of Craig Landers and his ilk? Landers hadn’t left her pregnant, Swift had.
And then Martin, compounding her anger and despair, revealed the true nature of her father, Harley Snouch, dashing her scarcely acknowledged hopes for all time. Thirty years after he had violated her mother, there was no remorse. None. He’d schemed to win her affection, pretending to be her half-brother, plotting to deceive her while manoeuvring to steal her inheritance, the inheritance of Liam, his own grandson. She cried then, really cried: cried for everything she’d lost, everything she’d never had. She cried for herself and she cried for her son and she cried for his future, when he would learn the truth of his father and his grandfather. And in comforting her, Martin offered himself to her, with the implicit promise that he was different, that he was genuine, that he was not deceiving her. And for a moment she believed it and so did he, believed that he was a better man. She believed it long enough to stop crying, long enough to take him to bed and weep a different quality of tear.
But the pretence didn’t last; the story got in the way, his need to tell the world. For as they lay there, planning their escape, planning their future, he told her of Wellington Smith’s promise of salvation, of his reputation restored, of how he intended to write a book, to set the record straight, to reveal to the great Australian public the truth, to expose the secrets and reveal the lies of Riversend. He presented it as a wonderful opportunity: they could go anywhere, live anywhere. She had her wealth; he could write the book as they built a new life together. She fell silent then, saying nothing. Her silence should have warned him, but he’d prattled on, oblivious.
In that moment she saw him as he was, as he’d always been: the journalist, putting his vocation before all else, a secular priest worshipping at the shrine of truth, careless of who might get hurt in its telling. And eventually she spoke, in a voice soft and cautious. She wanted to know, quietly demanded to know, if he intended to write it all, without exception, to set down everything he knew. Not just condemning Byron Swift and Harley Snouch, but exposing all those people who had helped Martin: Robbie Haus-Jones and Fran Landers and Errol Ryding. And herself. The entire town. Were they all expendable, all to be sacrificed on the altar of journalism? ‘It’s what I do,’ he said. And when her temper flared again, he responded in kind, demanding to know how she could possibly judge him, she who’d manipulated him into uncovering Swift’s ugly past, all the time hiding her knowledge of the drug operation and Robbie’s involvement. He accused her of lies and deceit; she accused him of selfishness and thoughtless disregard for others. They fought; he yelled, Liam cried, she threw him out.
Martin gets to Thames Street, the end of the shops, the end of the shade. He steps out into the cauldron, the heat bleeding into him, as he continues up Hay Road, up onto the old wooden bridge, oblivious to the temperature. As if it could hurt him now. Finally he pauses, places his hands on the rail, feels the burning heat of the wood, leaves them there. The riverbed is still dry and broken; the fridge still sits there, offering the mirage of beer.
When he first crossed this bridge ten days ago, he’d come to recover, to put his demons behind him, to come to terms with spending his fortieth birthday locked in the boot of a Mercedes-Benz in the Gaza Strip. Max Fuller had sent him, hoping that being back on the road, covering a story away from head office, might help restore him to the journalist he’d once been. But standing on the bridge, Martin realises he’ll never again be that journalist, never again be that person. Heraclitus’s dictum comes to him: that a man cannot step into the same river twice. He regards the empty riverbed. Does it hold for waterless rivers? It had always puzzled him, even through the hours of counselling, why being abandoned in the Mercedes had had such a profound impact on him. It was accumulated stress, they told him, that he had seen and heard too much, and the experience in Gaza had tipped him over the edge. After all, he had witnessed far worse things: prisoners executed by machine gun, their families forced to watch; the deaths of babies in refugee camps, their mothers ululating with grief; the hollow eyes of survivors, their loved ones erased by ethnic cleansing. What was being shut in the boot of a car for a few days compared to that?
He knows now. He saw it last night, when he watched D’Arcy Defoe standing unmoved and unmoving as the flames of the Commercial Hotel roared before him, taking notes, recording the spectacle, observing the reactions of others, impervious to reality, unblinking as Robbie Haus-Jones was dragged from the inferno barely alive. Martin saw himself then, as he had been before Gaza, removed from events. Max Fuller’s go-to man, travelling light: taking nothing of himself into the story, leaving nothing of himself behind. For the story was something that happened to other people; he was just there to report, an observer. And that all changed in Gaza. He became the story; it was happening to him. He was involved; he had no God-given leave pass, no right to stand apart from the story, apart from life. He was a participant, like it or not. Things no longer happened only to other people; some small part of their grief, or their joy, or their hollowness wore off on him, became part of him. How had he ever thought otherwise?
Standing on the bridge, he realises the old Martin Scarsden is gone now, gone forever. A week or so shy of his forty-first birthday he’s
being reborn, like it or not. But it’s coming too late. Mandy is back in the bookstore and she never wants to see him again. After a lifetime alone, he’s still alone and probably always will be, the go-to journo gone for all money. And now it hurts; he’s no longer impervious. For the first time, he’s brought himself to the story and now he’s condemned to leave large parts of himself behind. A tear comes to his eye, surprising him. He can’t remember ever crying, not as an adult, not as a teenager, not on any of his assignments, no matter how harrowing, not since he was eight years old. There were times when all around him had wept and he alone had remained dry-eyed. He wonders why. And the tear runs down his cheek, falls towards the parched riverbed. He smiles at its futility.
He returns to town, following the road down from the levee bank. Indecision has him, but the heat is insistent; he can no more ignore it than he can ignore life itself. Looking along Thames Street, in the distance he recognises a red station wagon parked outside St James. He walks to the church, unsure of what he’s about to do. The building appears as anonymous and as uncaring as ever, inured to the assault of the sun, sitting aloof above its short flight of steps. Today, its double doors are ajar. Perhaps the tourists have prised them open. Inside, it’s cooler, darker, but there are no gawkers, only one person, up by the altar, kneeling in prayer. The owner of the red car—Fran Landers. He waits quietly up the back until she’s finished.
‘Oh. It’s you, Martin. I wondered if you’d be back.’
‘Hello, Fran. You okay?’
‘Not so good. Awful, really. How can I help?’
‘I spoke to Jamie yesterday, in his cell, before they took him away. He was concerned about you. He said to tell you he was sorry, that he didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sure he meant it.’
It’s too much for Fran. She sits, almost collapsing onto a nearby pew, head bowed, and starts, almost imperceptibly, to weep.
Martin sits down next to her, giving her time before speaking. ‘I’m thinking of writing something, Fran. To explain what has really happened.’
‘And you want to speak with me?’ It’s more a statement than a question.
‘I do.’
And she nods in resignation.
There’s a stillness about the building, a sanctuary from the heat and glare pounding down outside. Martin opens the voice recorder app on his phone. He waits for her to compose herself before beginning.
‘Fran, the day of the shooting, you told me you came here to the church. That you warned Byron Swift that your husband and his friends were threatening violence.’
‘I did. I told him they had guns, that he should leave. He told me he was already going, straight after the service. He told me to wait at Blackfellas Lagoon for him.’
Martin pauses, lets her words settle before challenging them. ‘No, he didn’t, Fran. He told you the same thing he told Mandy Blonde: that he had to go alone. We know that, from Mandy and from phone calls he made from the church. He planned to leave by himself. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘He loved us. He cared for us.’
‘I believe he did. He must have wanted to take you with him. But that’s not what he said, is it? He said it wasn’t possible.’
Fran doesn’t move for a long moment, then nods her affirmation, her voice a whisper. ‘Yes. It was me. I said I’d wait for him at the lagoon. I was hoping he’d come. He never said he would, but I hoped he might.’
‘So did you go to Blackfellas? Jamie said he saw you at home.’
‘Both. I went home. Then I went out to Blackfellas. In case he came. And just to be there.’
‘And when you went home, you saw Craig, didn’t you?’
Fran looks up with eyes of pain. But she must see the resolve in Martin’s eyes, and drops her head again. ‘It doesn’t matter now, does it? Craig is dead. Byron is dead. Jamie is as good as dead. None of it matters.’
‘So tell me what happened, Fran. What did you tell Craig?’
‘I told him that Byron was leaving. There was no need to confront him, no need for guns, no need for violence. He was leaving. But Craig went anyway.’
‘But not with his gun. The men were unarmed.’
‘Jamie was at home. He’d calmed Craig down somehow.’
‘I know. Jamie has told me about it. He told Craig that Byron had never abused him, that Herb Walker was wrong, that he and Allen would never have allowed it.’
‘Is that how it happened? I see.’
‘Jamie said that before Craig left for the church, he said something to you. It made you cry.’
Fran again appears to be on the brink of tears. ‘Craig wanted revenge.’
‘Revenge?’
‘He hated Byron. He knew Byron had slept with me, made me happy. You have no idea how much that angered Craig, how much it ate away at him, me being happy. He wanted revenge.’
‘And Byron had beaten him up, humiliated him.’
‘You know about that?’
‘I do. And I know why. Byron was warning him off, telling Craig to stop hitting you. You and Jamie.’
Fran lets out a sob; Martin is surprised by its unexpected power. It comes from somewhere deep inside, racking her chest before escaping, the release of something long suppressed. She keeps her eyes down but her body is betraying her.
‘Fran? What did Craig say he was going to do?’
She looks up. ‘He said he was going to fuck with his mind.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘He went there to gloat, to inflict pain. He knew Byron was a decent man, a caring man. He told me what he was going to say, because he wanted to hurt me just as he intended to hurt Byron.’ Another sob escapes, shaking her body.
‘What was he going to say?’
‘That once Byron was gone, I was his again, his property, his plaything. He would do whatever he liked with me, treat me however he liked. Like a dog. And not just me. Mandy too. We would both be his. And any other woman Byron had been with. That’s why I went out to Blackfellas. After Craig told me that, if Byron didn’t come for me, I was going to kill myself.’
‘Jesus, Fran.’
‘But I didn’t. I couldn’t leave Jamie to face him alone. He was a monster.’ Another sob, a deep wave, wells up and escapes, her body trembling as it passes. ‘I’m glad he’s dead, Martin. I’m so glad Byron shot him. I celebrate it every day. I come here and give thanks. I’m sorry about the others, Alf and Thom and the others, I truly am, but not about him.’
Martin hesitates, uncertain whether to push on, to further distress this fragile woman. But he feels he has no option; the need to find the truth remains, insistent and unwavering, however uncomfortable he now feels about it.
‘Fran, the police have a recording of Byron talking on the phone from St James to Avery Foster. After you’d visited Byron, shortly before he started shooting. You understand?’
Martin can see in her eyes that she does. He sees confirmation and he sees torment and he sees trepidation. ‘Byron told Foster that Craig was an animal—but not just him, his hunting buddies as well. Is that what you told Byron, when you were pleading with him to meet you at Blackfellas, to save yourself from Craig? You were so desperate to get away from your husband, for Byron to save you, that you also accused his friends of violent abuse with no evidence to support it?’
Fran Landers says nothing; she doesn’t have to. Her eyes make her confession for her. And then the sobbing takes her over; she loses the last vestiges of self-control, no longer able to meet Martin’s gaze, the church no longer a sanctuary.
Martin doesn’t know whether to condemn her or comfort her. So he does both: condemning her with his mind as he comforts her with his words. This woman who had suffered so much for so long, trapped in a loveless marriage with a vicious husband. And yet had that desperate lie, accusing not just Craig but also his friends, been the sliver on the scales of Byron Swift’s unbalanced mind that had tipped him into murder? How can Martin forgive her? How can he not?
Later, out
on the fateful steps, Martin stands in the blazing sun, stands where the priest was standing when he had opened fire. He looks out to where Swift’s congregation had milled beneath him, looks over to where Fran Landers’ red station wagon is parked in the shade of the trees, where Gerry Torlini and Allen Newkirk had sat in the fruit-grower’s truck, where Torlini had died and the boy had cowered. He looks across to the levee bank where Luke McIntyre had witnessed the massacre. And, at last, Martin believes he knows why Swift did it. Standing on the church steps, he tries to put himself in the priest’s shoes, to see the world as he did in those last moments of his life.
Swift arrived at church planning to conduct one last service before leaving the district, taking his guns with him. Walker, misled by Jamie Landers and Allen Newkirk, had unjustly accused him of child abuse and locked him in a cell. The allegations were false, but that didn’t mean they would go away; the Bellington sergeant would most likely investigate his past, possibly discover his true identity. The policeman might also discover the drugs growing in the Scrublands, Avery Foster’s involvement, Robbie’s concealment. And there were signs an awful crime had been perpetrated in the Scrublands. He needed to be gone.
So before arriving at the church, Swift had visited Mandy to say goodbye. She’d told him she was pregnant with their child, asked to go with him. But he’d refused. Because he wasn’t really Byron Swift, he was Julian Flynt, a war criminal and a fugitive. He would be doing her no favours taking her with him. He’d told her about the drugs, about Robbie Haus-Jones, but he’d never revealed the truth about himself. Martin can understand why: growing marijuana is one thing, killing women and children in cold blood is another.
Swift had left Mandy and gone to the church. Fran Landers arrived in a panic, warning him that her husband and his friends were coming to kill him. He laughed at the thought of Landers, a demonstrable coward, posing any threat to him. Swift had beaten him up before, he could beat him up again; if Landers brought a gun, he would fetch one of his own from the vestry. He told her not to worry, that he was leaving town anyway, leaving that very day.