Scrublands(11)

‘Constable Haus-Jones, have you recounted these events to anyone else?’

‘Of course. Three police inquiries and the coroner’s office.’

‘I mean, any other journalists or public forums?’

‘No. But it will all come out in the inquest anyway. It’s on in a month or two. Sergeant Walker suggested I tell you what I know, provided that it’s not contentious and that it’s based on fact.’

‘So you didn’t speak to my colleague, D’Arcy Defoe?’

‘No.’

‘Okay. The day of the shooting, what happened next?’

‘Next? Well, I was alone for quite a while. I guess people were still hiding. I went into the vestry and called through to Bellington on the church phone. Called my sergeant, called the hospital. Then I went outside and checked the bodies. Gradually people came out from behind cars and trees. But there was nothing we could do. The men were dead, all shot through the head, except for Gerry Torlini, who was in his car; he’d been shot through the chest and through the head.’

‘Which shot killed him?’

‘Whichever hit him first. Either would have killed him instantly.’

‘For the record, were the victims all locals?’

‘Local enough. Craig Landers ran the general store here in Riversend. Alf and Thom Newkirk owned adjacent farms just out of town. Gerry Torlini ran a fruit shop in Bellington and an irrigation orchard down by the Murray. Horace Grosvenor was a sales rep who lived in Bellington. So all from here or Bellington.’

‘All regular churchgoers?’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Scarsden, I think you might be drifting from your brief. Are you investigating the shooting, or writing about Riversend?’

‘Sorry. It’s just that what you’re saying is intriguing. But you’re quite correct. Tell me, though: you said you considered the priest, Reverend Swift, a friend. How so?’

‘Is that relevant?’

‘I think so. In writing about the impact of the shooting on the town, one of the things I’ll be looking at is attitudes towards the perpetrator.’

‘If you say so. I don’t quite see it myself, but you’re the journalist. Yes, I’d thought we were friends. I thought Byron was a good man. I thought he was something special. How stupid is that? He’d come up once a fortnight to conduct a service, but when I told him I was having trouble with some of the young blokes around town he helped set up a youth centre. We used to run it together. He’d come up every Thursday afternoon, then later on Tuesdays as well. We held it in one of the demountables at the school, one that had been vandalised in the past. One of the things we did was fix it up. We did sport: footy and cricket on the oval. He’d take them swimming in the river, down at the weir, when we still had a river. The boys and girls never thought much of me, I was always the town copper, but they thought the world of him. He was very charismatic, had them eating out of his hand. Used to swear and smoke and tell dirty jokes. They loved it. Every now and then he’d slip a bit of God into it, but he was never heavy-handed. They thought he was cool.’

‘Did you?’

The policeman offers a sardonic smile. ‘Yeah, I guess I did. A town like this, isolated out on the plain, there’s not a lot for the kids. Parents under pressure, no money, hot as Hades. They get bored, and when they get bored they can get nasty. Picking fights, picking on each other. Big kids bullying little kids. And then Byron turned up and changed the dynamic. He was, I don’t know, kind of a Pied Piper figure. They’d follow him about.’

‘That’s impressive,’ says Martin. ‘But you know what was written about him after he died—that he abused some of those kids. What do you reckon?’

‘Sorry. That’s the subject of ongoing police inquiries. I couldn’t possibly comment.’

‘Understood. But could I ask if you ever witnessed anything to cause you to become concerned?’

Robbie considers his position before answering. ‘No. I never saw or heard anything like that. But then again, I’m a police officer. He would hardly be telling me, would he? More likely he saw me as a perfect cover.’

‘You resent that?’

‘If it’s true, of course I resent it.’

‘You say he was your friend. You say you admired him. What do you think of him now?’

‘I detest him. Forget the child abuse, that doesn’t come into it. He killed five innocent people and forced me to kill him. He destroyed families and ripped a hole in a respectable town. He offered hope and then wrenched it away again; set himself up as a role model for the youngsters, and then left them a terrifying example. Our town is now synonymous with mass murder, Mr Scarsden. We’re the Snowtown of the Riverina. It’s with us for good. I can’t begin to tell you how much I detest him.’

When Martin emerges from the police station half an hour later, he knows he has a red-hot story: a terrible story, a compelling story, a front-page story. He can already see the red EXCLUSIVE stamp: the police hero talking for the first time, his harrowing account of looking death in the eye, of shooting his friend dead, of holding his hand while he died. ‘Like being dropped into a bucket of madness.’ It would reignite the whole saga, fire the imagination of the public.

Martin looks back at the police station, enjoying the surge of adrenaline the interview has given him. He has no idea why Robbie Haus-Jones agreed to talk now and talk to him, and he has no idea why the senior man down in Bellington had encouraged him. But he is so glad that he did. This will show the doubters; Max will be proud.