Scrublands(15)

‘Yeah, I heard you spoke with Robbie. He say anything interesting?’

‘Yes. He was most forthcoming.’

‘But he doesn’t know why Byron did it either, does he?’

‘No, not really.’

Mandy becomes more serious. ‘What did he say about the allegations of child abuse?’

‘Not a lot. Said he never saw any evidence of it.’

She smiles. ‘Told you so. No one believes it.’

‘Some people do.’

‘Like who?’

‘Harley Snouch.’

Her face changes. The smile is no more; she is scowling, almost sneering. ‘So you found him, did you? Lurking over there in his lair.’

‘The wine saloon? Yeah. You know about that, then?’

‘Of course. He sits over there, perving at me through those boarded-up windows. He thinks I don’t know, but I do. Awful old bastard.’

Martin regards the Japanese screens arranged in front of the shop windows, recognising his misconception: he’d thought they were there simply to block out the heat and light. ‘Why’s he spying on you?’

‘He’s my father.’

Martin’s amusement vanishes. ‘What?’

‘He raped my mother.’

Martin opens his mouth to say something, but there are no words. Mandy is looking at him. He feels the weight of her eyes, as if she is judging him. ‘Jesus,’ he says; finally, lamely. ‘How can you bear it? Why don’t you leave?’

‘Fuck that. He destroyed my mother. He’s not going to destroy her bookshop. And he’s not going to destroy me.’



Outside, Martin stands in the shade, flips up the little tin cap and takes a sip of what remains of his coffee. It’s lukewarm now, no bad thing given the heat of the day. He stares across at the wine saloon, squinting against the glare, the once-anonymous building grown sinister. Is Snouch looking at him, peering out through the gaps in the boarded-up windows, or have the phantom soldiers corralled him? There is no way of knowing. Martin considers returning to the wine saloon, confronting Snouch, but to what purpose? To articulate his disgust? How would that help Mandy? And how would it help his story?

He abandons the idea and instead walks back towards the scene of the shooting, giving the Anzac statue a once-over as he turns left into Somerset Street, walks past the bank, the police station and the primary school. He stands on the bend in Somerset, where it turns ninety degrees to run up alongside the church. This is where Craig Landers died, shot through the neck as he fled from the church. Martin can see St James clearly enough, a good hundred metres or so away. Hell of a shot for a preacher man. Martin looks for evidence of where exactly Landers fell, but there is none. He continues on, imagining what it might have been like for Robbie Haus-Jones on that day. No cover at all; a police-issue armoured vest and a pistol, up against someone with a rifle, across seventy-five metres of open ground. Haus-Jones might look like a teenager, but there can be no doubting his guts. Martin pulls out his phone and snaps a photo. He can almost hear the descriptive passage writing itself in his mind, imagining the young policeman’s trepidation.

Martin carefully places his coffee stein on the ground, gets out his phone and opens up the voice recorder app, locating that morning’s interview. He flicks backwards and forwards through the recording erratically, missing the simplicity of his old tape recorder, and eventually finds the relevant section. He replays the policeman’s matter-of-fact recollection, counting shots as he listens: ‘It was a warm morning, not as hot as today, the window was open. Perfectly normal day. It was about ten to eleven. I was just finishing up. Didn’t want to be late for church. Then I heard what must have been a shot—’ one ‘—then another—’ two ‘—but I thought nothing of it. Cars back firing, kids with crackers, that sort of thing. Then I heard a scream, and a man shouting, and then two more shots—’ three, four ‘—and I knew. I wasn’t in uniform, but I got my gun from the locker and went outside. There were two more shots, in rapid succession.’ Five, six. ‘There was a car horn, more screaming, all coming from the direction of the church. I saw someone sprinting up to the corner of the primary school grounds, heading this way. There was another shot—’ seven ‘—and the man fell. To be honest, I didn’t know what to do. It was real but not real, like I’d been dropped into a bucket of madness.

I went back inside, rang Sergeant Walker at home in Bellington and alerted him, put on my body armour and went back outside. I ran along Somerset Street to where the body was lying in the road. It was Craig Landers. Dead. A single shot through his neck. There was a lot of blood. A lot of blood. I couldn’t see anybody else; I couldn’t hear anybody. The screaming had stopped. Everything was completely silent. There was one car parked outside the church on Somerset, more around the front, parked under the trees in Thames Street. I had no idea how many people might be there. There was no cover between me and the church. I was completely exposed. I thought about running back to the station, getting the vehicle, but then I heard another shot.’ Eight. ‘So I started walking up the road towards the church.’

Martin closes the audio app and puts the phone away. It’s too hot here. The school should plant some trees. He picks up his stein and moves towards the church; perhaps some shade might be found there. Eight shots. Craig Landers through the neck at a hundred metres. Three more victims shot through the head. Gerry Torlini shot through the head and the chest. Eight shots, six direct hits. And yet, when Constable Haus-Jones confronted the priest from just a few paces away, close enough to kill him with two shots to the chest from a police-issue pistol, the minister had fired first and missed. It made no sense. Was it possible the priest had deliberately aimed and missed, had forced the policeman to kill him? A moment of clarity after his rampage?