Scrublands(79)

‘How is that possible?’

‘How indeed.’

‘Is that what you’re doing here? Investigating Byron Swift?’

‘I’m not authorised to talk about that, Martin. I’ll let you join the dots. But the Julian Flynt story, you think you can get that into the public domain?’

‘I guess so. It’s not a bad story.’

‘Not bad? Do you understand what I’ve told you? He was an Australian soldier, wanted for war crimes. You reported on the Middle East, you know that story as well as anyone. Have you ever heard of him?’

‘No.’

‘And why do you think that is?’

‘I don’t know. You tell me.’

‘For starters, the army doesn’t want his case publicised, not least because they sent him back into combat when he should have been in care. They were happy to have him forgotten. Next, there’s customs and border control. How the hell did he get back into the country? And then the police. He shoots five people dead and they don’t bother to find out who he really was? Really? Nobody wants the public to know. Now do you understand the scope of what I’m telling you?’

‘So what are you alleging, Jack? Some grand conspiracy?’

‘I wish. More likely cock-ups and arse-covering, everyone trying to pass the buck and deny their own culpability.’

‘So publish?’

‘Yeah. Publish. Let’s see if we can flush a few of them out.’ A smile passes between the men. And it seems to Martin something else passes between them as well, a kind of understanding. ‘You want some whisky?’ asks Goffing.

Martin has finished his second beer. ‘Shit. Why not?’ He locates a couple of grimy tumblers in the bathroom and gives them a good rinse, which does little more than impart the smell of chlorine and decay. When he returns, Goffing has relieved the bottle of its cap and Martin hands him the glasses. Goffing dispenses two healthy shots and the men clink glasses. Martin wonders what significance the gesture holds. He drops back onto the bed and savours the peat and smokiness of the drink. It’s been a long time since he’s drunk whisky.

‘Martin, I really can’t tell you anything more about my assignment, you understand, but I can tell you about the police investigation.’

‘Why?’

‘’Cos I think you’re owed.’

‘Good. I’m all ears.’

‘Walker’s death looks like a copybook suicide. His body was found in the Murray this morning. He probably died about midnight. He drowned. Filled his pockets with rocks and jumped from a bridge, some way out of Bellington, where he was unlikely to be discovered in the act. He left a note in his car. For the police, the note is always the clincher.’

‘What did it say?’ Martin takes a gulp of whisky, a little too much, feels it burn at the back of his throat.

‘It was short and simple. I always did my duty. I did nothing wrong. The media are liars. My reputation is everything to me.’

‘That’s it?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Shit.’ More silence. On the television, some hippies are dancing in a circle, part of a religious cult. ‘So why aren’t you convinced it was suicide?’

‘As I say, suspicious mind.’

The two men drink in silence then, exchanging small talk. Later, they flick the TV over to watch the ABC news at 7 pm. It’s politics at the top, the cult and the TV presenter second, with Martin coming in third. The bronze medal. The report is considerably milder, more balanced than Thunkleton’s. And more accurate. The confrontation between Martin and Doug Thunkleton is shown from a different, wider angle. ‘…you are the worst type of journalist, a moral vacuum who’d sell his soul for a headline,’ says Thunkleton. ‘Well, in that case, why do you keep interviewing me? You know what you are? A hypocritical parasitic turd,’ responds Martin. Thunkleton looks like a bully, Martin looks like a petulant and uncaring schoolboy, the ABC looks impartial and morally superior to them both. But at least it’s clear his turd accusation is directed at the Channel Ten reporter and not the dead cop. Be thankful for small mercies—another of Max’s dictums.

After that, Martin kills the box and he and Goffing talk of sport and politics and all those other things that fill the conversational void when other matters are too confronting to be vocalised.

Later, when the sun is setting and the heat has begun to drain off the landscape for another night, they sit outside and Goffing smokes cigarettes. Martin isn’t sure, but he might even smoke one himself. At some point Goffing melts away and Martin is left by himself, with only the bottle, the blood moon and the blazing wash of the Milky Way for company.



The whisky does what strong alcohol always does: renders him unconscious the moment his head touches the pillow. And then later, in the early hours of the morning, it brings him back into semiconsciousness, unable to sleep, mind churning repetitively, incapable of properly marshalling his thoughts, so that they eat away at him, anxieties real and imagined. Not that he needs much imagination. Bits of the day come back to trouble him. The confrontation with Thunkleton, seen from three angles: Channel Ten’s, the ABC’s and his own, none of them pretty. Over and over the scene plays, like a television broadcast of an out-of-form batsman raising his bat to leave a ball pass through to the wicketkeeper, only to see it cannon into the stumps. Different angles, slow motion, fast motion, graphics, and always the same conclusion: the batsman trudging slowly towards the pavilion, eyes downcast, while the bowler pumps his fist and high-fives his teammates. The conversation with Goffing is on repeat too, Herb Walker’s demise re-created in his mind, the words of the suicide note echoing, an image of Julian Flynt, soldier, shooting women and children in the dust of Afghanistan.