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.
He parks his rental with practised ease, its bumper mere centimetres from the gutter. He enters the bookstore; here there is change, if not what he’s anticipated. The books are still on their shelves, the armchairs and occasional tables await customers at the front of the store, the roof fan rotates slowly and water tinkles from slate to slate in the miniature fountain on the counter. But the Japanese screen has been removed and the curtains opened; the shop is filled with light.
Mandy emerges through the swing doors, Liam in a new backpack, fingers in her hair and mischief in his eyes.
‘Hello, mister.’ Not bothering to remove the backpack, she stretches up, clasps her hands behind Martin’s neck and kisses him with power and intent and longing. The kiss lasts forever, the kiss of Martin Scarsden’s life. ‘Welcome back.’
Martin is momentarily speechless.
‘Coffee?’ she asks.
‘Absolutely.’
She smiles again, eyes playful, dimples teasing. She floats past him, busies herself at the machine.
‘Still working then, the machine?’ he says, regaining his voice. ‘And what’s with the books? I thought you were shutting it down, packing up.’
‘Change of plan. I got a manager.’
‘Really?’
‘Sure. I own the place now. Remember? I own half of Riversend for that matter. No one’s going to buy it, no one’s going to rent it, so why not?’
‘Who’s the manager?’
‘Me.’ A head bobs up from behind a shelf: Codger Harris. He’s been lurking there the whole time.
Later the four of them sit together in the armchairs at the front of the store, Martin holding Liam on his lap, feeling the boy’s weight, sensing impending responsibility. Codger is reading his article in This Month. Mandy is smiling, alternately amused and indulgent, as if she likes what she sees. She tells Martin of her plans. She’ll keep the bookstore; Codger need pay no rent and can keep any profits. She’ll also keep Springfields, clearing out the dam and installing a cistern to feed water, clear and pure, into the town. Errol Ryding is helping to push approval through council; it will pay for the water and the profits will go to a certain orphanage in Kabul. While she talks, Codger continues reading, harrumphing as he goes. He looks transformed: clean and clean-shaven, clothed and bespectacled, his hair cut and remaining teeth polished. He finishes, nods slowly.
‘All right?’ asks Martin.
‘Very good, young fellow, as far as it goes.’
Martin smiles. ‘I know. There are things better left out.’
‘And there are things you don’t know.’
And that’s when he tells them, the story he hasn’t told anyone, not for thirty years, looking at Mandy as he recounts it, his voice reverential.
‘The day my family died, the day the truck went off the road in Bellington, was the day my life stopped. The truck killed my wife Jessica and it killed my boy Jonty. And it killed me inside. It still hurts; thirty years on it still hurts.’
‘Codger?’ says Mandy, her voice laden with concern.
‘I should have been with them, of course. But I wasn’t. I was with your mother, Mandy. I was with Katherine.’
‘With Mum?’ Mandy asks, confused.
He smiles then, fondly. ‘No, it wasn’t like that. I was in love with my wife, and your mother was in no condition to be romanced. I was the bank manager in Bellington. She’d come to me for money. She wanted to leave, to get away, but she had no money. He’d turned violent, started hitting her, treating her as his possession. She’d confided in Jess. My wife was her old schoolteacher. Katherine was already pregnant by then, pregnant with you, and she feared for her safety and for yours. She had nothing, of course. No savings, no collateral. Her father was totally unsympathetic, wanted his daughter married into the Snouch dynasty at any cost. Awful to say, but there it is. The rules at the bank were strict, but we were trying to work out how to help. And then my family was killed, and I was no use to anyone, not even to myself. I felt so guilty, being with her, trying to help someone I barely knew, when I should have been with them.’
‘But Codger, what could you have done?’ asks Mandy. ‘No one could have prevented what happened.’
‘I could have died with them.’