Driving back into town on the road from Hay, crossing the long and rattling bridge above the flood plain, wind gusts bucking the car, Martin descends into Riversend and, on impulse, turns right towards the church, thinking he might chance upon Luke, the lad he’d upset the day before. But there’s no sign of him.
Reversing in under the trees, he faces the church across the road. This must be where Gerry Torlini, the fruiterer from Bellington, collected his two bullets—one in the head, one in the chest—while Allen Newkirk cowered beside him. Martin looks at the church steps, maybe thirty metres away. An easy shot for a marksman like Byron Swift.
He climbs out. The church stands aloof and unadorned, tenuously connected to the outside world by an overhead power cable and a phone line. The entrance has double doors, shaded by a portico. Today, one door is ajar. Martin climbs the fatal steps and pushes through the door, wondering if Luke might be sheltering inside.
It’s darker and cooler, much quieter, out of the wind. The boy is not here. Instead, up near the front, in the second line of pews, a woman is kneeling, perfectly still, praying. Martin looks around, but he can see no memorial to the shooting inside the church, just as there is none outside. He sits in the back pew, waiting. He recognises the woman’s piety, her supplication, but can’t remember how. How long is it since he felt anything remotely similar, experienced anything approaching grace? Codger thinks there was something holy about the priest, as does Mandy. How could that be, a man who shot things, who killed small animals and murdered his parishioners? How could that be when Martin, who just the day before had saved the life of a teenage boy, feels so much like a husk? He looks at his hands, places the palms together as if to pray, and stares at them. They don’t seem to belong to him, and the gesture does not belong to them, and he does not belong in this place.
‘Mr Scarsden?’ It’s the praying woman. He hadn’t noticed her rise and walk towards him. It’s Fran Landers. ‘Sorry,’ she says, ‘were you praying?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Well, sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to thank you for what you did yesterday. If you hadn’t been there, I would have let him…’ And she shudders.
Martin is on his feet, reaching out, touching her shoulder. ‘Don’t trouble yourself with that. He survived, that’s the main thing. The only thing. It’s all you need to know.’
She nods, accepting his words.
‘How is he, anyway?’
She looks up at him, gratitude shining in her eyes. ‘Oh, he’s good. I spent the night with him down in the hospital in Bellington. He’s all shaken up. Concussion and cracked ribs and a twisted back. But nothing serious. He just needs to take it easy. They’ll keep him there for a couple of days just to make sure. I came back to town this morning to open the store. A friend is minding it for me. I just wanted to come in here and offer thanks. I’m glad you’re here too. So I can thank you and apologise for being so rude when you came into the store.’
‘Were you?’
‘It felt like it.’
‘Fran, excuse me for saying so, but it strikes me as a little odd that you would come here, to this church, to pray, to offer thanks, given what happened here.’
‘How do you mean?’ Fran looks unsettled.
‘This is where your husband was shot.’
‘No,’ she says. ‘Not here, not inside. But I see what you mean. It is a little strange, I guess. I tried the other church, the Catholic church, but it didn’t seem right. I’ve been coming to St James ever since we moved here. It’s okay once I’m inside.’
‘I’m sorry to ask this, but you know the allegations about Reverend Swift—the ones that were in my paper…’
‘I don’t believe them,’ she interjects before he can finish.
‘Why not? How could you know for sure?’
‘Because I knew Byron Swift. That’s how.’
‘You knew him well?’
‘Well enough.’
‘I thought he wasn’t up here in Riversend that often.’
‘Often enough.’
‘So what was he like?’
‘He was kind. And generous. And decent. Not the monster your paper made him out to be.’
For a moment, Martin is lost for words. He can hear the fondness for Swift in her voice, see the indignation in her eyes. Defending the man who killed her husband.
Fran fills the silence, her passion dissipating. ‘But it doesn’t matter one way or the other now, does it? He’s dead. Robbie Haus-Jones shot him through the heart out there on the step.’
‘So your son never said anything? About him abusing children?’
‘No. Not to me. Now, I’m sorry, but I have to get back to the store.’
‘Of course. But, Fran, I would like to talk to you. Conduct an interview for the piece I’m writing. It’s all about Riversend, how the town is coping a year on. Would you be able to help with that?’
Her eyes betray her reluctance, but her indignation ebbs and she nods. ‘Of course. I owe you everything. You saved my son.’
‘Thank you. And I’m sorry for being so intrusive.’
‘That’s okay. I understand. It’s your job. All the killing, all the death. It’s what you do. But if it wasn’t for you, I’d have nothing left. Better you than D’Arcy Defoe.’
MARTIN DRIVES THE SHORT DISTANCE BETWEEN ST JAMES AND THE OASIS. HE reverses back carefully so his rear bumper is close to the precipitous gutter but not touching it. This time he gets it just right, and feels the better for it. He’s got the beer stein and the travel book he bought the day before. He’s scrubbed out the stein. He’s only halfway through the book. It provided some distraction in the witching hours when he couldn’t sleep, but searching for a replacement will allow him to spend some time in the bookstore and escape the heat of the day.
The shop’s door is unlocked, but it’s empty of customers. The smell is good, though: coffee and home cooking. As if on cue, Mandalay Blonde appears from the door in the back of the store and glides down the central aisle towards him, her baby astride her jutting hip, held in place with a casual arm. To Martin, it makes her look simultaneously maternal and sexy.
‘Afternoon, Martin. I hear you’re quite the hero.’
‘Yeah. Something like that.’
‘Well, good for you. There’s enough people leaving town as it is; we don’t need them dying as well. Can I get you something?’
‘Yes.’ He holds out the stein. ‘Another coffee, if I may. And what is that smell?’
‘Muffins. Apple and cinnamon or blueberry. Homemade.’
‘One apple and cinnamon, please.’
‘And you’ve brought back one of your books? Very good. Pop it on the counter and you can have fifty per cent off your next one. Give me a hand first, though, will you?’
Martin follows her down the aisle and through the door, passing from an office-cum-storeroom into her home. Doors lead off either side of a corridor, a nursery on one side, her bedroom on the other, offering a fleeting glimpse of an antique brass bed, strewn with books, clothes everywhere. At the end of the corridor the kitchen is large and light, with a big wooden table and two stoves, an electric range placed close by the original wood stove.
‘Grab those, will you?’ she asks, pointing to the boy’s playpen sitting on a quilt in the middle of the floor. ‘Take them down to the shop.’
Returning to the bookstore he lays out the quilt on the Persian rug, in the same place it was the day before, and unfolds the playpen. Mandy’s with him shortly, baby held close. She puts her son down in the pen. ‘Keep an eye on him, Martin. Coffee and muffin on their way.’
Martin sits in one of the old armchairs and considers the child. He is lying on his stomach, straining to lift his head, doing a kind of baby push-up. There’s a small furrow on his brow, as if he is concentrating hard. Martin smiles.
Mandy returns with a tray. The coffee stein is there, a muffin on a plate with a pat of butter and a cup of coffee of her own—just as he’d been hoping. She places the tray on an occasional table beside him, her proximity exhilarating, taking her coffee and sitting opposite. Martin wonders anew at her beauty.
‘So, how goes the work, are you getting what you need?’ she asks.