Scrublands

by Chris Hammer

  ‘That’s right. Very good. Would you like a bunch?’

  ‘Not right now. Can’t carry them. Do they grow around here?’

  ‘Most years. Great swathes of them around Blackfellas Lagoon on the other side of the river. Beautiful. Not in the drought, though; no water. I pick them down near Bellington. Even on the Murray, they’re almost impossible to find. But I know a billabong where they still grow. It’s very pretty down there first thing in the morning as the sun is rising.’

  ‘Long way to go for flowers.’

  ‘Not really—I go every day to get the papers, bread and milk.’

  ‘And to put swamp peas on Byron Swift’s grave.’

  Fran stops moving, expression draining from her face. Martin thinks of her praying in St James. Praying for whom?

  ‘It’s okay, Fran. I’m not going to put your name in the paper. Not like that.’

  ‘Like what, then?’

  ‘Explain it to me. Why are you mourning Byron Swift?’

  ‘He was a good man.’

  ‘He killed your husband.’

  ‘I know he did. It was awful. Unforgiveable. But you didn’t know him from before all that. He was a kind man. So gentle.’

  Martin nods, grits his teeth, concluding it’s better to be blunt. ‘Were you having an affair with him?’

  The shopkeeper doesn’t answer immediately, but he can see the confirmation in her wide eyes, in her open mouth, in the way she involuntarily takes a small step backwards.

  ‘Are you going to put that in the paper?’

  ‘No. And I won’t mention your name if I do. Besides, I’ve got my editor on my back. They want everything they can get on Springfields and the bodies in the dam. The anniversary of the shooting at St James has very much taken a back seat.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Fran, what can you tell me about Harley Snouch?’

  ‘Is this for your paper?’

  Martin nods. ‘But I won’t use your name.’

  The woman sighs, relieved at the change in topic. ‘Okay. I guess I owe you, after all, for saving Jamie. But please don’t write about Byron and me. Jamie has been through so much. He doesn’t need that.’

  Martin nods. ‘I promise I won’t mention you. Not by name.’

  Fran looks unsure, eyes unhappy. ‘What do you want to know about Snouch?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Everything, I guess.’

  ‘Well, there’s not that much to tell, really. He turned up a while back, maybe two years ago, moved into his family’s place, Springfields, but only after his father died. He was a lovely old fellow, Eric. A true gentleman. People said he had banished Harley, wouldn’t allow him to step foot in the house while he drew breath. First time he came into the store, I didn’t know who he was. Seemed nice enough, but there was something strange about him, something out of kilter. Then I found out who he was. After that, I didn’t talk to him, no more than I had to. I wouldn’t refuse him service, but I didn’t encourage it. He was pretty much ostracised. I see him wandering around, wearing that awful old coat, always drunk.’

  ‘What did he do that was so terrible?’

  ‘Didn’t Mandy tell you?’

  ‘Not really,’ he dissembles. ‘It upsets her too much.’

  ‘Yes, well, that’s true.’

  ‘You’re friends, aren’t you? You and Mandy?’

  ‘Yes. She was really nice after Craig died. Helped me a lot. And I look after Liam for her sometimes.’

  ‘You’re right, she is nice. But you were telling me about Harley Snouch. Why was he ostracised?’

  ‘Well, it was before my time, before Craig and I came back here. The story is that Harley was the most eligible bachelor in town, only child of the Snouches of Springfields. He’d been away to boarding school, then university somewhere. He came home over the summer break and met Katie Blonde, who was the daughter of a local truck driver. Smart, though, and very good-looking; Mandy is her spitting image apparently. Katie had been to university too, at Bathurst or Wagga or somewhere, which was fairly unusual in those days, a girl from a working-class family. Harley and Katie were an item, engaged to be married. Then they were gone, back to university. No one knew anything had gone wrong until a year later. She came back again, with a degree and a baby. But there was no Harley Snouch.

  ‘It was only later that people learnt she’d accused him of rape, that he’d gone to prison. Everyone was horrified, of course. His mother, poor woman, died of shame. The old man became a recluse, sold off parts of the property. Gave a lot to the government for a national park that never happened, gave land to war veterans and ne’er-do-wells and to poor old Codger Harris. Thank God he’s dead—Eric, I mean. Imagine the shame of these latest murders. Anyway, by the time Craig and Jamie and I got here, it was all a bit like a town legend. And then Harley Snouch turns up out of the blue, released from prison. And then Mandy came back to look after Katie and he’s wanting to know her. Ugly man.’

  Martin’s mind is alive with possibilities. ‘So when did the old man die?’

  ‘Not sure. Maybe five years ago.’

  ‘So Harley Snouch only turned up well after his father had died?’

  ‘Oh yes. Like I said, the old man had banished him. Never wanted to see him again.’

  ‘But left him the farm, nevertheless?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that. I guess so. He lives there.’

  ‘Yes—up until Wednesday, anyway.’

  Martin considers what Fran has told him. Such a strange story. Two young people: bright, good-looking, engaged to be married. Then they disappear, ostensibly back to their respective universities. A year later the woman returns with their baby, while he’s been sentenced to prison for raping her.

  ‘Is there anything else?’ Fran asks. ‘I need to be closing up, preparing for tomorrow.’

  ‘What’s tomorrow?’

  ‘The funeral. For Allen Newkirk.’

  ‘The boy in the ute?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Martin pays for his mineral water and hefts it from the counter, then pauses to ask one more question. ‘Fran, when you were praying in St James the other day, giving thanks for Jamie being spared, did you say a prayer for Craig as well?’

  She takes offence at that. ‘Yes, of course I did. He was my husband.’

  ‘Thanks, Fran. Thanks for helping.’ And carrying his water, he leaves.

  Parking at the Black Dog, he discovers he’s no longer the only guest. There are three cars parked outside rooms in the motel’s solitary wing. Two are police cars; the other looks like a rental. Lounging against the front of the rental in the shade of the carport is a thin man smoking a cigarette. He’s wearing the remains of a suit: the coat has gone, the white shirt is smeared with charcoal, the tie is at half-mast. His city shoes are caked with mud.

  ‘Tough day,’ says Martin, getting out of his car.

  The man looks unflinchingly into Martin’s eyes. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Martin Scarsden. Sydney Morning Herald.’ Martin offers his hand, but the man merely looks at it, declining to shake it.

  ‘Didn’t take you long to get here,’ he says, a disparaging tone to his voice.

  ‘I’ve been here for a few days.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Writing a piece on the anniversary of the shooting by the priest. Do you think there’s a connection between the two?’

  ‘The two what?’

  ‘The two shootings. The priest at the church and the bodies in the dam.’

  ‘What makes you think they were shot?’

  ‘Weren’t they?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  Martin realises his run of luck with the police has come to an end; this is a fully-fledged homicide officer, not an academy graduate like Robbie or a small-town powerbroker like Herb Walker. The detective is not about to volunteer anything. The best Martin can hope for is confirmation or denial. ‘We’re running a story in tomorrow’s paper saying there were two bodies found in the d
am by an insurance inspector. We’re saying you think they were German backpackers, abducted a year ago from Swan Hill. That you’ve arrested Harley Snouch.’

  The cop considers him, as if deciding whether or not to engage. He takes a final drag on his cigarette, drops the butt to the ground, grinds it under his shoe. ‘I look forward to reading it. Nice to meet you, Mr Scarsden.’ And he walks past Martin into room number nine.

  THE OASIS IS OPEN, BUT MANDY IS CLOSED. SHE SELLS MARTIN A COFFEE, but makes it clear she doesn’t want to talk, muttering something about feeding Liam. Martin barely notices; he’s on a high. He takes his coffee and proceeds to the general store. Fran isn’t there, but the Saturday papers are. He buys them and takes them outside to relish—not the Sydney papers, but their Melbourne cousins. No matter, the front pages are just as good. BUSHLAND MURDERS screams the rival tabloid, the Herald Sun, but its copy is a mishmash of information cribbed from the Sydney Morning Herald’s website and the television news. He smirks as he reads a verbatim quote, lifted from the interview he gave Channel Ten, attributed to ‘an informed source’. The SMH’s Melbourne cousin, The Age, does it better: EVIL STALKS TOWN OF DEATH and the subheading Massacre Priest Linked to Backpackers’ Murder. The splash has a red EXCLUSIVE banner above their by-lines: By Martin Scarsden in Riversend and Bethanie Glass, Senior Police Reporter. There’s an aerial shot of the property, police cars and figures in white overalls by the farm dam, courtesy of Nine News. And his second piece, under the headline MASSACRE PRIEST’S NEW HORROR, has his dinkus photo, the red EXCLUSIVE stamp and is branded as A Herald Investigation. Martin smiles with satisfaction: the holy trinity.

  He scans through the stories quickly, picking out where Bethanie or the subeditors have inserted facts or cleaned up his copy. He discards the front section, moving through to News Review. The graphic artists and layout subs have done his copy proud, dressing his tale of a dying town with suitably bleak images; if they’d taken a week they couldn’t have done a better job. And there’s more to come: he’s already written half of the follow-up, THE PRIEST WITH NO PAST, having woken early in his motel room, unable to sleep. It will make the perfect follow-up for the Sunday papers, the Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age. Max Fuller was right; coming to Riversend was exactly what he needed.

  He’s just about finished admiring his work when the bell starts pealing. His watch says nine-thirty; he thought the funeral wasn’t starting until ten. Dumping the papers in a footpath rubbish bin, he heads towards St James. He walks down the centre of Hay Road, feeling the sting of the sun on his face. He likes the sound of the bell: armed with his front-page exclusives it makes him feel like Clint Eastwood, striding, spurs jangling, through some frontier shithole, heading fearlessly into a showdown, the lone gunman imposing order through a blend of gunpowder, resolve and integrity. Even now, fearful townsfolk could be peering out from behind shutters under the awnings of Hay Road as he paces towards his destiny. The daydream lingers for a moment before being brought crashing down by the blare of a car horn immediately behind him. He jumps involuntarily. ‘Get off the road, you tosser!’ yells the driver.

  The bell is no longer ringing as he approaches St James. He’s surprised by the size of the media throng that has coalesced across the road from the church: camera operators with tripods arrayed four abreast; stills photographers lounging, nursing huge lenses attached to cameras and monopods; a couple of radio reporters looking lost. They’re standing where the cars were parked when Byron Swift opened fire, where Gerry Torlini died. Doug Thunkleton is back, holding court among a small gaggle of television reporters, including a man in his fifties and three pretty young women, blonde hair bouffant, their faces familiar. Doug has an earpiece clipped to the back of his jacket; Channel Ten must have some sort of live feed capacity set up.

  Martin realises it’s a very big story for a very small town. He of all people should have realised it would be like this: the dearth of news in Australia in January, a big story breaking in the so-called media silly season. And here he is in the middle of it.

  One of the stills photographers, a compact young woman wearing cargo pants and a khaki vest full of pockets, peels off and greets him as he approaches. ‘Martin? Hi, I’m Carrie O’Brien. Drove up from Melbourne last night. Anything in particular you want?’

  ‘Not really, just get as much as you can from this. It’s not really part of the story. Just a kid who died in a car accident, but I might file something on it. I witnessed the accident.’

  ‘Shit. Really?’

  ‘Yeah. I might even have a shot on my phone. I’ll give it to you later.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘In the meantime, try to get lots of faces. We may be able to pick up some people shots that will be useful later for the other stories. And do you have a phone that works?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve got a sat phone in the car to file with. You can use it if you’re desperate.’

  ‘Have you been out to the property?’

  ‘Not yet. The Herald hired a plane and got some aerials yesterday. I don’t know why The Age didn’t use them. Some stuff-up. They’re on the website.’

  ‘Sounds about right. Where you staying?’

  ‘Hopefully the same place as you. The Black Dog. I stopped by on my way through. I’m on the waiting list.’

  ‘Good luck with that.’ Martin can see where this is heading. Carrie seems nice enough, but he’s not so keen on sharing with a photographer, particularly not a room with one bed. And he’s not about to assume he can simply shack up with Mandy in order to give his room to a photographer. She was distant and moody this morning. Perhaps he should have talked to her more, explained what he was writing, but what the fuck, this story was growing more legs than a centipede. Maybe he would have to share with Carrie after all. At least the paper hadn’t sent a bloke.

  The first of the locals are arriving at the church. Robbie Haus-Jones is standing on the steps in his police uniform. Martin saunters across the road, enjoying the jealous regard of his colleagues: the investigative reporter with police contacts.

  ‘G’day, Robbie.’

  ‘Hi, Martin.’

  ‘It’s awful, isn’t it?’

  ‘What, this? Sure is. Enough dead people in this town without young fellas crashing cars.’

  Martin is about to say something when he gets a burst of flashback: laying the Disney character windshield reflector over the body of the dead boy. He looks down at his hands. They don’t appear to be trembling.

  ‘You okay?’ asks Robbie.

  ‘Fine. Fine. How’s the investigation going?’

  ‘No idea. They’re not telling me anything. But I know one thing: they haven’t arrested Harley Snouch. They’ve let him go.’ There’s an edge of anger in Robbie’s voice.

  ‘What? How’s that possible? Bodies in his dam and they let him go?’

  ‘Lack of evidence. Apparently he found the skeletons, walked all the way to the highway to get word to Bellington.’

  ‘Not to you?’

  ‘No. Not to me.’

  A small pit has opened in Martin’s stomach. He thinks of his articles in the paper, all but accusing Snouch of murder. Accusing? More like convicting. ‘Shit. Did you see the papers this morning?’

  ‘Yeah—we’re all over them.’

  ‘Except I wrote that the bodies had been discovered by an insurance inspector. Didn’t you mention something like that when we saw you out near Springfields yesterday?’

  ‘Not me. All I knew was that someone had found skeletons. I thought it might have been a chopper pilot, but it was definitely Snouch.’

  ‘Shit.’ Martin is suddenly feeling very exposed, out in the burning sun, standing on the church steps away from the shade. He glances back at the media pack; a couple of cameramen are filming him. Shit indeed. Where did he get the insurance inspector from? Mandy? How could he write something like that without double-checking its veracity? Max Fuller will be furious; Martin can hear him repeating C.P. Snow’s famous dictum eve
n now: ‘facts are sacred’. Then he recalls the slim cop leaning on the car smoking outside the Black Dog. ‘Fuck it. You know, Robbie, I mentioned it to this detective at the motel last night, said the bodies had been uncovered by an insurance inspector, that Snouch was in custody. He didn’t correct me. Slim guy, receding hair, five o’clock shadow. A smoker. Didn’t tell me a thing, but it wouldn’t have hurt him to say I was off the mark. What’s his name?’

  Robbie doesn’t reply. Instead, he’s looking at Martin with something approximating trepidation.

  ‘What? What did I say?’

  ‘You didn’t hear it from me, okay?’

  ‘Sure. What? You can’t tell me his name?’

  ‘No, I can’t. It’s against the law.’

  ‘What? What fucking law?’

  ‘He’s not a cop.’

  ‘Not a cop? What the fuck is he then?’ Martin recalls the way the man acted, the way he dressed, the way he spoke. All cop. And then he realises what Robbie is saying. Technically, identifying ASIO agents is against the law. ‘Holy fuck. A spook?’

  ‘You didn’t hear that from me.’

  ‘I sure didn’t.’ Christ. A spook? It made no sense. Bodies in a dam, abducted hitchhikers. Why would ASIO be interested in that? And why so quickly? The guy arrived with the Sydney cops.

  Robbie interrupts his train of thought. ‘Martin?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sorry, mate, but I’m going to have to ask you to join your friends across the road. The family has requested no media in the church.’

  ‘Including me? I was there, remember?’

  ‘Yes. So was I. But I’ll be staying out here too. Standing on these fucking steps, of all places. But if I let you in, the others will all want in as well. Sorry, Martin; it’s the family’s call, not mine.’

  Martin feels peeved, but realises that Robbie is merely the messenger. ‘Fair enough. And thanks for letting me know about the spooks. I’ll keep that under my hat for now.’

  He walks back towards his admiring colleagues, head down, as if pondering serious new information, when all he’s really doing is avoiding eye contact. They won’t be admiring him for much longer, not once they cotton on to the fact that he might have falsely accused an innocent man. That studio-bound pedant on Media Watch, with his team of acolytes, will be all over him like a rash. And his colleagues certainly won’t be admiring him if Snouch starts spraying around defamation writs; most of them have been repeating his allegations as fact. But as he stands in the shade of the trees and starts to think it through, it doesn’t make sense to him. It’s been a long time since he did his stint on police rounds, but he remembers enough about police methodology to recall that coppers invariably target the most obvious suspects, and for good reason: they’re usually proven right. If a woman turns up beaten to death, then the husband or boyfriend is immediately a suspect. The cops will typically lock them up for as long as legally permissible, apply maximum pressure, extract as much information as possible, maybe even a confession, before alibis can be confected. So what was going on? Here, they have a man who, judging by his prison tattoos, has done time in jail, an alleged rapist no less, reporting bodies in his dam—bodies that he knows are likely to be found now that the fires have denuded the place and he’s waiting for insurance assessors. Surely he must be the primary suspect. So why were they letting him go? The hole in Martin’s stomach grows a little bigger. There’s stuff happening here and he has no idea what it is. Or perhaps Robbie has simply got it wrong; maybe they haven’t arrested Snouch yet, but it won’t be long. ‘Helping police with their inquiries’ was the usual phrase. Why arrest him and set the habeas corpus clock ticking if he’s helping anyway? Martin calms down a little.