‘Byron Swift was a murderer. You know that. He was also a paedophile. You know that too. But what you won’t know is that he was also a man without a past. And he was protected by powerful and influential people.’ The hands are still, the eyes are locked on Martin’s.
Martin holds the gaze for a moment before transcribing the comments into his notebook. His hands are a little shaky, but it’s nothing to do with his hangover. Shit, he thinks, he’s going to tell me everything.
‘Okay,’ he says aloud, ‘let’s take those one at a time. Murderer. He shot five people dead at St James. Is there any evidence that he killed before?’
‘Evidence? That’s a precise word. Maybe not evidence, but a strong suggestion.’
‘Can you take me through it?’
‘Sure. After the shooting, the investigation started looking at his past. At first glance it was straightforward. He was sent up here about three years ago, not long after he was ordained. He’d come from Cambodia, where he’d been working for a Christian charity. Before that, he was training in Perth, including a theology degree at Murdoch University that he didn’t finish. Before that, another half-finished uni degree; before that, state school in Western Australia. An orphan, a ward of the state.’
‘And?’
‘And it’s bullshit. There really was a Byron Swift born near Perth. He was an orphan and a ward of the state; he did go to school in Perth, living with various foster families. He went to uni for a while, before dropping out and travelling overseas. He worked for the charity in Cambodia all right, where he died of a drug overdose aged twenty-four. Except there is no record of that. None. The record of the death has been expunged from official records. Expunged. Officially, Byron Swift died last year from bullet wounds in Riversend.’
‘How do you know then?’
‘Sorry, can’t say. Take my word for it.’
‘Okay. Go on.’
‘What else can I tell you?’
‘If the man Robbie Haus-Jones shot dead wasn’t Byron Swift, who was he?’
‘I can’t say for sure, but if I had to guess, I’d say a former soldier. He had a tattoo that indicated he’d been in Afghanistan. Special forces. SAS. A couple of us on the investigation were thinking of exhuming the body, getting DNA.’
‘Where’s he buried?’
‘Here. Just down the road, in the town cemetery.’
‘Do you think it’ll happen? The exhumation?’
‘I doubt that very much.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because we’ve been warned off. That part of the investigation has been ruled out of bounds.’
‘By whom?’
‘No idea. Way up the food chain. Understand, I’m just local liaison; the investigation is being run out of Sydney. And there’s not a lot of appetite for digging into this, if you’ll pardon the pun.’
‘A cover-up?’
Walker considers his response, but not for long. ‘I think so. Although there would also be pragmatists who simply don’t see the point of investigating any further. We know who the perpetrator was and what happened to him. Case closed. A coroner’s inquest to tie up loose ends, but no criminal case.’ ‘That’s strange. Someone else said almost exactly the same thing to me this morning.’
‘Wise person. Wouldn’t have been young Robbie, by any chance?’
‘No, it wasn’t. But let me ask you this: if all the police are interested in is solving crimes and catching crims, why are you still interested in what happened?’
Walker sighs. ‘Because it happened on my patch. I mightn’t be much of a copper, but I run a good town here. And I don’t like how he was protected. I don’t like people fucking with my patch.’
‘Protected? Swift?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘It happened like this: two days before the shooting in Riversend, I got an anonymous phone call. It was from the phone booth in Riversend. It was a boy. He told me that Reverend Swift had sexually abused him and another lad.’
‘Shit. What did you do?’
‘I arrested him.’
‘Swift?’
‘Yep. Put him in the cells.’
‘On what charge?’
‘No charge. Just wanted to deliver him a message. Then I drove up to Riversend to see if I could find anything out. Constable Haus-Jones tell you about that?’
‘No. No, he didn’t.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s not a surprise. He didn’t believe any of it. Anyway, I get back here, intending to release Swift, having given him the message, so to speak, but he was already out. The constable told me the order had come down the line from Sydney. I rang to check and I was told in no uncertain terms that investigating Reverend Byron Swift was most definitely a no-go.’
‘Who told you that? Can you remember?’
‘I can, but I’m pretty sure they were just relaying a message. I don’t know where it originated, but somewhere high up, I can tell you that much.’
‘Shit. So what happened next?’
‘Well, I kept at it. If they hadn’t sprung him and ordered me off, maybe I would have let it go, but that got my back up.’
Martin feels a chill as a piece of the puzzle falls into place. ‘What did you do?’
‘Robbie had told me the names of some of the lads in their youth group. I rang a couple of the fathers that night, ones I knew, to warn them not to trust the priest around their kids.’
‘Shit. Let me guess: you rang Craig Landers and Alf Newkirk. On Friday night. The next day, they went shooting with Thom Newkirk, Gerry Torlini and Horrie Grosvenor. And on Sunday morning, realising that Byron Swift would be in Riversend, they decided to confront him.’
Sergeant Herb Walker pats his belly with alternating hands before answering. ‘Lots of ifs and buts and maybes in that lot, son. But I don’t know anything that says you’re wrong.’
Martin sits and thinks it through for a while. ‘This allegation about child abuse—it first came out in an article about the shooting by my colleague D’Arcy Defoe.’
‘So I believe.’
‘You spoke to Defoe?’
‘Martin, you don’t reveal your sources, I don’t reveal my contacts. But let me say that I was disappointed in Defoe’s article. It was all sizzle and no sausage.’
‘How so?’
‘Well, it had all the stuff about Swift being a rock spider, but nothing of the cover-up, nothing of him getting sprung from jail by powerful people. In the end, it made it look like I’d fucked up; that there was evidence he’d been a kiddie fiddler, and me and Robbie Haus-Jones had ignored it. I was right pissed off.’
‘And still are.’
‘Too fucking right.’
‘Let me get this straight. You lock Swift up and he gets released. And this is, what, two days before the shooting at St James?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So afterwards, were you ever able to establish that he did abuse children? Or was it just that one anonymous phone call?’
‘No, it stood up, all right. Two young fellows, in separate interviews, told me to my face. Your mate D’Arcy was right on that score: Swift was a paedophile.’
‘Who were the boys?’
‘Martin, I can’t tell you that. It’s child abuse. I can’t release the names of victims without a court order.’
‘Were they from Riversend?’
‘Yes, I can confirm that much.’
‘Thanks. Tell me, did you inform D’Arcy about Cambodia? Or that Swift may have been someone else, ex-SAS?’
‘Martin, let’s get this straight, I never said I spoke to your colleague, okay? But to answer your question, I didn’t know any of that at the time D’Arcy Defoe wrote his stories. That only came to light months later.’
‘What about Robbie? Does he know that Swift might not have been who he claimed to be? He told me they were friends.’ Walker nods his head, as if in appreciation of the question, before answering. ‘No, not until recently. I asked him about it just a few weeks ago. He seemed genuinely shocked.’
‘You think he believes it?’
‘To be honest, I think it’s rattled him. You should ask him.’
‘I probably should.’
Martin is having trouble ordering his thoughts, speculation sparking unbidden in a dozen directions at once. ‘Sergeant Walker—Herb—why are you telling me this? And why did you encourage Robbie to talk to me?’