‘Yeah. The fat cop from Bellington and that skinny one with the five o’clock shadow, the creepy one.’
‘Goffing. His name is Goffing. What did he ask?’
‘Weird stuff. Like whether you’re reliable, whether I feel you’re leading me on to extract information from me.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘Yes. I said you had seduced me. That I’m putty in your hands.’
Martin laughs. ‘Really? You told him that?’
‘No. I suggested it was unlikely you were hanging around to extract information from me because, until this morning, you didn’t know that I had any. I told them you were just another cunt-struck middle-aged loser. They thought that had the ring of truth to it.’ She offers a weak smile.
‘Gee, thanks.’
‘Any time.’ The smile vanishes again. Pity; he likes her smiles.
Just then Liam lets go with an audible fart, huge for his size, with a disturbingly liquid quality to it. A few seconds later the smell wafts across the kitchen table like a chemical weapons attack and the remains of Tommy’s takeaway lose any residual appeal.
‘Nappy time,’ Mandy declares with faux levity, and goes to release her boy from his highchair. She cradles him so as not to squash his nappy. ‘Martin, I just want to be with Liam tonight. You okay at the motel?’
‘Sure.’
She walks over, still holding Liam, and gives Martin a generous kiss on the mouth. The stench is unbelievable.
‘And thanks for coming to cheer me up. And for dinner. And for listening.’
Banished, Martin walks out through the store and into the evening calm. The sun is down and the stars are emerging. A blood-red moon hangs in the western sky like the blade of a scythe. Hay Road is deserted, but there’s a car parked outside the general store and the lights are on. Martin walks down, hoping to buy water. Instead, he finds Jamie Landers, slouched on the bench outside the store, nursing what looks like a half-bottle of tequila. The boy is staring at the moon.
‘Mind if I join you?’ asks Martin.
Jamie looks up at him, face blank, the aggression of Bellington hospital nowhere to be seen. ‘Sure.’
Martin takes a seat on the bench. Jamie offers him the bottle; he takes a small swig. He was right: tequila.
‘Do you think it means anything? The moon?’
From where they are sitting the moon sits in the narrow gap of sky between the bottom of the awning and the silhouetted shopfronts across the road. It looks much larger than it would in the expanse of an open sky.
‘It’s the smoke haze from the Scrublands, turns it red.’
‘I know. But even so.’
They sit in silence for some minutes before Jamie speaks again. ‘About the other day, at the hospital. Sorry I was such a little shit. It was Allen, dying like that. I was upset.’
‘It’s totally understandable.’
‘Stupid, isn’t it? Pointless. He survived St James. He saw Swift shoot his dad and his uncle. He was sitting next to Gerry Torlini when Swift shot him. He got covered in blood, but he survived. And now he’s gone, just like that.’ The young man clicks his fingers to emphasise his point. ‘Just meaningless. Fucking meaningless.’
Martin says nothing.
‘I’ve been reading your stories,’ says Jamie. ‘You think you’re getting any closer to working it out? Why he went mental and shot everyone?’
‘Sometimes I do, I feel that I’m almost there, then the next thing I’m back at square one.’
‘Yeah, well, at least the coppers are talking to you. I guess they have to.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘’Cos they’re not smart enough to work it out by themselves.’
Martin chuckles. ‘I’ll let you tell them that.’
‘Yeah. Sure.’
There’s another pause as they consider the moon.
‘Hey, Jamie. The day your dad died, the day Byron Swift shot him, had you been out hunting with them the day before?’
‘Nah. Allen went; he liked guns and all that shit, not me. They were too boring for me, all those old men.’
‘Did you speak to your dad, though? That morning?’
‘Yeah. Too right. He was fucking rabid. Said the coppers had told him Swift was a ped. Said if he’d laid a hand on me he’d do for him.’
‘Do for him?’
‘Shoot him.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Same as I told you. He never touched me. Wouldn’t dare.’ There’s no anger in the youth’s voice, hardly any emotion at all; resignation, perhaps. There’s more silence. Martin thinks he can almost see the moon moving, sinking towards the line of shops across the way. He turns back to Jamie, is about to ask him something more, when he notices the teenager’s shirt: yellow and black checks.
‘Jamie, did you and Allen ever hang out in the old pub? Go upstairs there?’
For the first time since Martin sat down, Jamie Landers turns from the moon and looks him in the eye. ‘You found the cat?’
‘I found the cat.’
‘Fuck. I forgot about that. I should clean it up.’
‘What was it? What happened?’
‘Oh, it was Allen. Sick fuck. High as a fucking kite on speed.’
‘Allen?’
‘Yeah. Never the same after the church shooting. It fucked him up big time.’ Jamie returns his gaze to the moon, takes a long swig of his tequila. ‘Doesn’t matter now, though, does it? None of it does.’
‘I guess not.’
Martin leaves Jamie to his thoughts and starts walking up Hay Road. He’s left his car at the services club, but he decides to leave it there and walk back to the motel. Nothing in this town is very far apart. When he first arrived, Riversend’s compact streetscape appealed to him; now it feels almost claustrophobic, so small, overwhelmed by the vastness of the plain, like a Pacific atoll with rising sea levels gnawing at its shores. He’s been here for almost a week and is starting to feel as if he knows every building, every face in Riversend. He looks up at the hotel; there is no sign of life. What must it be to live in this town? To be young and live in this town? Every day, the same stifling heat, the same inescapable familiarity, the same will-sapping predictability. Even Bellington, with its water and its services, shimmers with allure, like some mirage out across the flatness. So why is it getting under his skin? Why does he care? It’s like those strange adopt-a-road programs. Adopt-a-corner-of-hell. Why not?
Lost in such thoughts, Martin continues along Hay Road, bathed in an eerie orange light, the heat still rising from the road even as the moon shadows extend across it. A farm ute passes him, its headlights yellow, its dodgy muffler loud, enhancing the silence once it gets to the T-junction and turns left, leaving him totally alone once more on the main street of Riversend. He’s back in front of the bookstore, but it’s closed and dark. Then, as he turns to head back to the motel, a flicker of light catches his eye. He searches the line of shops opposite, but there’s nothing, just darkness. He’s thinking it’s his imagination, the effects of fatigue and tequila, when he sees it again: a flicker. The wine saloon. He crosses the street, climbs the gutter, peers through the boarded-up window. A candle, a shadow, a glass catching the light. Snouch.
The alleyway is dark; Martin uses the torch app on his phone to navigate past broken bottles and lost newspapers, reaching the side door, turning the knob, hearing the hinges’ shrill complaint as he pushes it open. Harley Snouch is not at the bar. He’s sitting at a table with a book and a bottle, a kerosene lamp hanging low from an old wire coathanger stretching down from the rafters. He looks up, shielding his eyes from the lamplight, to see who is invading his sanctuary.
‘Ah. Hemingway. Welcome, pull up a chair.’
Martin walks into the pool of light, sits at the table. Snouch has shaved off his greying beard and washed his hair, taking years off his appearance. Perhaps it’s the flattering softness of the lamplight, but he doesn’t look so much older than Martin.