Scrublands(127)

Martin sits down where the priest sat and died almost a year ago. The concrete is griddle-hot, burning him through his trousers. It will make a remarkable book; Wellington Smith will be ecstatic. Four different crimes, all taking place in and around the same drought-ravaged town, all separate but all interlinked, driven by greed and hate, guilt and hope: the drug operation, an instrument of atonement co-opted by bikies; the murder of the Germans, abuse spawning abuse; the shooting at St James, innocents murdered with the best intentions; and Harley Snouch, attempting to expunge rape with fraud. Four crimes, all seeded by violence from the recent or distant past. He considers all that he has uncovered. Yet Martin feels no joy at all at the prospect of writing it.





MARTIN IS REPEATING HIMSELF. THE SAME FLIGHT FROM SYDNEY TO WAGGA Wagga, the same car rental place, perhaps even the same car. But two weeks on, he is, he decides, a different Martin Scarsden. The hands gripping the steering wheel are his hands, familiar once again, in no way special but in no way alien. On the seat next to him sit advance copies of This Month, their red covers dominated by the face of Julian Flynt, caught in the moment he became Byron Swift. It’s a freeze-frame from the video cameras monitoring immigration control at Sydney Airport, courtesy of Jack Goffing, capturing the moment Flynt offered Byron Swift’s doctored passport as his own. He’d glanced up at the camera, just for an instant, aware of its surveillance, and it had recorded the faraway quality of his gaze.

Wellington Smith has ordered twice the normal print run and is sending embargoed copies to the mainstream media ahead of publication. It will be the definitive account of the story of the summer, perhaps of the year. Martin glances down at it once again, Flynt’s face turned two-tone by the graphic artists, black on red, superimposed on a picture of St James. The headline is simple: THE TRUTH. And underneath it: The war criminal, the drug syndicate and the cover-up—the truth behind Australia’s most notorious mass murder. By Martin Scarsden. Disgraced former journalist no longer.

The article revolves around Byron Swift. At six thousand words, it’s long for Australia, even for This Month, but there is still much to reveal in his planned book. Avery Foster’s role is detailed, for his part was central and there’s little point in protecting the dead. The Reapers are well referenced too, but Jason Moore is nowhere to be found or even hinted at. Herb Walker is exonerated, of both suicide and negligence. ASIO emerges looking good, as the agency that finally picked up on the failures of Customs and Immigration; Jack Goffing isn’t mentioned by name. Harley Snouch doesn’t rate a mention either, but Martin hasn’t so much spared him as saved him for later: next month’s cover story and an entire chapter in the book.

At first, it was a difficult article to write. Old habits die hard. He’d wanted to tell it all; the impulse was ingrained and not easy to shake. It was certainly compelling enough. But the image of Mandy, screaming and in tears, branding him a sociopath, had returned again and again. He sought counsel from Max, but that had only deepened his disquiet. His old editor had been hardline: ‘Protect your sources; everything else goes in. If it’s newsworthy, the public has a right to know,’ he preached. ‘We’re not here to play God.’ In the end, Martin didn’t listen, turning apostate, spurning his mentor’s advice. He spared Mandy and he spared Fran; he spared Jack and he spared Claus; and, most of all, he spared the townsfolk of Riversend: the footy team and the youth group and the fire brigade, Errol Ryding and the rest of them, the recipients of money they’d never questioned. He didn’t lie, except by omission. He told the truth about Byron Swift and Craig Landers and Jamie Landers. With some regret, he told the truth about Robbie Haus-Jones: how he’d fallen under Byron Swift’s spell and had turned a blind eye—not from self-interest but from compassion—to the drug trade; how he had reported Avery Foster’s death was a suicide when he must have at least suspected it wasn’t; how he had failed to report the drug operation even after Swift and Foster were dead. And with some joy, Martin told the truth about Horrie Grosvenor, the Newkirk brothers and Gerry Torlini: how they were indeed all innocent victims, beyond reproach. And when it was done, when it was filed, he felt good about the article and better about himself.

But that’s not why he feels so good today, driving across the vast plain from Hay, heading towards the Scrublands, the flood plain and Riversend. He’d rung Mandy, trying to do the right thing, leaving a message for her, warning her the article was coming, emailing her a PDF. It was, he decided, all he could do in the circumstances. He didn’t expect any response, let alone her phone call. He’d sent the DNA results through a week earlier, confirming Snouch’s paternity; he’d heard nothing from her then and he expected nothing now. Yet she called him back, almost as soon as she’d finished reading the article. She told him she was leaving Riversend: packing up her mother’s bookstore, taking her life and her boy elsewhere. She thought Martin might like to give her a hand. He couldn’t believe his luck, the change in his fortune. Her voice was light and her laughter like a blessing. And so he is on his way, heart in his mouth.

The plain runs on forever, the sun omnipotent, the air dry, but today is different. For marching across the horizon, as if painted onto the blue backdrop of the sky, is a front of clouds, dark and purposeful, a rare low-pressure system penetrating Australia’s interior for once, instead of scuttling across south of the mainland. The horizon is sharply defined, a clear blond line against the grey clouds. From his right, the Scrublands emerge, at first nothing more than a khaki stain on his consciousness, then coming closer, and closer still, the smudge turning into clumps of vegetation, then individual trees, spindly and malnourished. The muted grey-green turns monochrome, then back again, as he passes through the wake of the bushfire. The flood plain arrives, the noisome bridge and then Riversend itself, silos sentinel in the distance, glowing gold against the blackening sky. He drives down into a main street looking much the same as he’d left it. The pub has stopped smouldering and the detritus has been swept from the street, but the soldier still stands, unbent and unaffected. The dead are still dead; the survivors still grieve.