Scrublands(122)

The weight of his words stops her for a moment. Then she moves to the door, locks it, turns the sign to CLOSED. She returns to her coffee machine, begins to make herself a cup, giving her hands something to do before finally responding. ‘So was your article true? He was in Afghanistan? A soldier?’

‘Yes. His name was Julian Flynt.’

‘Julian?’ she says. ‘Julian,’ she repeats, testing it aloud. ‘Julian. Julian Flynt.’

‘Mandy, it’s not good.’

‘Tell me.’

And so he does. First the good: the elite soldier, the leader of men; then the bad: the captive of the Taliban, the traumatised survivor; and finally the ugly: the rogue soldier, the killer, the war criminal. The fugitive. Mandy listens without comment, without movement. Only a quiver in her lip betrays her feelings.

‘He was a killer?’ she asks. ‘He was always a killer,’ she says, answering her own question.

Martin wants to go to her, to comfort her. But not yet. ‘There’s more, Mandy. Avery Foster, the publican—he knew Flynt in Afghanistan. He was a chaplain there. He probably helped get him out, hide him here.’

Mandy leaves the machine, coffee unfinished, and takes a seat, her perfect features troubled, like ripples in water. ‘It was an act? Being a priest was an act? I can’t believe it. He was too…I don’t know…too good at it.’

‘He was a priest. He was ordained—under a false name, but he was ordained. And I don’t think it was an act. He and Foster were sending money to Afghanistan, to an orphanage. I think they were trying to make amends, an act of atonement.’

Mandy is blinking, her distress seeping out. ‘You’re going to write all this, aren’t you?’

Martin nods. ‘I will. And if I don’t, someone else will. The authorities know. It will come out at the inquest, probably before.’

‘I trusted him, Martin. I loved him.’ She’s looking directly at him, directly into his eyes. ‘Is that why he killed those men? Because they discovered who he was? Was he that evil?’

‘No, Mandy. I don’t think they had any idea he was Julian Flynt.’

‘Then why?’

‘I’m close. I think I might get there. But I need your help.’

‘My help? How?’

‘The diary.’

‘Oh, Martin.’ She seems to collapse then, as if a weight has come down upon her. She no longer meets his gaze, but looks at the ground and then, after some time, at Liam, lying on his back, playing with a block and mouthing noises to himself. Martin stands, moves across to her, crouches down and takes her hands. Finally she looks at him and speaks. ‘The diary proves that Byron was with me, here, the night the backpackers were taken. The police needed to know. They thought he’d killed them. But I knew it wasn’t him, that the real killer was still out there, that he might kill again. I needed to show them.’

Martin squeezes her hand. ‘It was the right thing to do, Mandy. The right thing. The police were wrong; you were right. It was Jamie Landers.’ He pauses, but then presses on. ‘But why rip out the pages? What were you hoping to protect him from?’

She looks a little surprised. ‘Byron? I wasn’t protecting him. He was dead. It couldn’t hurt him.’

‘Who then?’

‘Robbie.’

‘Robbie Haus-Jones?’

‘Robbie.’

Martin thinks of the young constable, hands red, face blackened. ‘Why, Mandy? What did you write in the diary?’

She closes her eyes, bites her lips, bracing herself. ‘Robbie worshipped Byron. He was kind of infatuated with him, maybe in love with him. Byron and I used to joke about it. If the police had read that, their ridicule would have been merciless.’

‘True. But that’s not all, is it? Maybe it’s enough to rip out the pages, but it’s not enough to get arrested over, to risk prison, to risk separation from Liam. There must have been more.’

Mandy’s eyes are locked on his. ‘Byron told me. Not that he was Julian Flynt, he never told me that, not about being in Afghanistan, but other things. He said people were growing drugs out in the Scrublands, selling them to a bikie gang. He was helping them, acting as an intermediary, stopping the bikies from robbing them. And that last time I saw him, before he went to the church, when he said he was leaving and couldn’t take me with him, he told me that if there was any trouble after he left, I should go to Robbie. He told me Robbie knew what he was doing. Robbie was shielding Byron. That’s what I ripped out.’

‘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.