Scrublands(85)

Martin can detect no evidence of any after-effects on the man’s face; his eyes appear as clear and perceptive as ever. Martin sits on the bed; Goffing closes the door and remains standing. There’s a smell of cigarettes.

‘You know what’s happened?’

‘What? No.’

‘You all right?’

‘No, I’m hungover. Thanks to you.’

‘They’ve arrested Mandalay Blonde. They’re charging her.’

‘With what?’

‘Attempting to pervert the course of justice.’

‘The diary?’

‘The diary.’

‘Shit.’ Martin pauses. ‘Fuck knows why she wanted to come forward with that.’

‘Any ideas?’

‘Me? No. You?’

‘No.’

‘So what’s wrong with the diary?’ asks Martin. ‘Is it falsified?’

‘Not sure. You understand this conversation is utterly and totally off the record?’

‘Like I said, that’s academic. I still don’t have anywhere to publish it.’

‘True. But I don’t want you handballing it to your mates. So no tip-offs to D’Arcy Defoe.’

‘You have my word.’

‘Good. Well, as I understand it, the problem with the diary isn’t so much what has been added to it, although the plods suspect at least one line has been written after the fact. The problem is that there are pages missing. She’s ripped them out.’

‘She’s probably just trying to protect her privacy.’

‘Maybe. But if that’s right, she doesn’t know coppers. They’ll be like a dog at a bone with this. You can’t imagine the sort of pressure that’s starting to come down on them to get a result, and then she comes forward and delivers herself on a platter.’

‘But it doesn’t make any sense. If she were involved in the murders, why would she volunteer the diary? She wasn’t a suspect before this, was she?’

‘Not that I’m aware of.’

‘So they’d have a pretty hard task making a charge against her stick.’

‘Don’t be so sure. They won’t be able to prove involvement with the murder, not without evidence. But the charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice is a good one. The diary details some of the movements of the prime suspect, Byron Swift, in the days surrounding the abduction and murders of the German backpackers and the shooting spree at St James, and she has destroyed possibly vital pieces of evidence. She’s in deep shit.’

‘Christ, what happens next?’

‘That’s why I came looking for you. She’s applying for bail, wants to look after her kid. The cops are resisting. They’re planning to drive her down to Bellington to appear before a magistrate.’

‘There’s a magistrates court in Bellington?’

‘No. Not exactly. They’re driving in the bloke from Deniliquin.’

‘Why not drive him here?’

‘My guess? Because the media has based itself in Bellington.’

‘Shit. You’re kidding, right?’

‘No.’

‘So you’re telling me this why?’

‘Thought you might want to head down. She may need some moral support.’

‘From me?’

‘From anyone.’



It’s a long and peculiar caravan that speeds across the baking plain from Riversend to Bellington, a convoy of anticipation and fear, ambition and despair, each vehicle propelled by a different purpose and transporting different emotions. Taking the lead are the police vehicles: Robbie Haus-Jones driving Herb Walker’s four-wheel drive; Morris Montifore and Goffing in a rental; a highway patrol car with a garish paint job transporting Mandalay Blonde and Ivan Lucic. Thereafter, the media: 3AW in a tarted-up truck with a colour scheme to rival the highway patrol; a bunch of white rental cars; a couple of personal vehicles; the television networks in their kitted-out station wagons and SUVs. The caravan moves at exactly one hundred and ten kilometres per hour, the police observing the speed limit to the letter, the media not daring to go any faster or any slower, following in perfect formation, seatbelts fastened, cross purposes disguised by uniform velocity, all careering towards Bellington, the river and the next episode in this nation-gripping drama. Halfway across the plain the convoy sweeps past the lumbering satellite truck, not slowing, barely swerving, unimpeded by oncoming traffic, every driver indicating diligently as they pull out, indicating diligently as they pull back in.

Martin’s is the last car in the caravan; no longer at the vanguard of the story but in the caboose, not the headline but the footnote. For a moment he considers flooring it, redlining the rental, sweeping past his former colleagues and the police in a final gesture of defiance, hazard lights flashing, challenging them to respond. But the thought withers; he lacks the psychic capital. And so he resigns himself to his lowly rank and wonders why, at a time when no one else wants to know him, Jack Goffing has sought him out twice in twenty-four hours. To extract information, no doubt, cultivating a source, eliciting facts. What had he said? This is not an information swap. And yet that’s exactly what it proved to be: Goffing revealed Byron Swift was really Julian Flynt, detailing the soldier’s history and his crimes. And the ASIO man volunteered other information: the diary has pages missing, perhaps a line or two added. And he offered an opinion on police motivation. Why? Not because Martin could publish it. Mandy Blonde? That made more sense. Goffing now knows she was intimately involved with Swift and he thinks Martin may be the way to win her trust. Martin smiles at that. Goffing and Snouch, both seeing him as a conduit to Mandy. Chances are, she’ll never speak to him again.