Trust, page 1
PRAISE FOR
SILVER
‘Chris Hammer is a great writer—a leader in Australian noir.’ Michael Connelly
‘A terrific story … an excellent sequel; the best Australian crime novel since Peter Temple’s The Broken Shore.’ The Times
‘Elegantly executed on all fronts, Silver has a beautifully realised sense of place … There’s a lot going on in Port Silver, but it’s well worth a visit.’ Sydney Morning Herald/The Age
‘The immediacy of the writing makes for heightened tension, and the book is as heavy on the detail as it is on conveying Scarsden’s emotional state. Silver is a dramatic blood-pumper of a book for lovers of Sarah Bailey and Dave Warner.’ Books + Publishing
‘Hammer has shown in Silver that Scrublands was no fluke. He has taken what he learnt in that novel and built on it to create a deeper, richer experience. He has delivered a real sense of place and uses the crime genre to explore some very real current social issues and character types.’ PS News
‘A taut and relentless thriller—just jump into the rapids and hold on.’ Readings
‘The action unfolds at the same breathless pace as it did in Scrublands … Hammer’s prose brings the coastal setting vividly to life. An engrossing read, perfect for the summer holidays.’ The Advertiser
‘An enthralling, atmospheric thriller that fans of Aussie crime won’t be able to put down.’ New Idea
‘Fast paced, enthralling, enjoyable, utterly engaging and very easy to relate to, Silver has confirmed Hammer’s place in the list of people who really can write a seriously good story.’ Blue Wolf Reviews
PRAISE FOR
SCRUBLANDS
‘Hammer has travelled back roads and inland waterways. His depictions are unsentimental, without false cheer, but never dismissive. He is nonetheless assaying a part of Australia that is dying, slowly and fatalistically. Thus threnody blends with crime drama in one of the finest novels of the year.’ Peter Pierce, The Australian
‘Vivid and mesmerising … Stunning … Scrublands is that rare combination, a page-turner that stays long in the memory.’ Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month
‘So does Scrublands earn its Thriller of the Year tag? Absolutely. Is it my favourite book of the year so far? Well, it’s only June but since you’re asking, at this very moment, yes it is … Deliberately paced and wound tight, this book will keep you awake until you’ve finished the final page. And maybe even after that. It’s relentless, it’s compulsive, it’s a book you simply can’t put down.’ Written by Sime
‘Brilliant and unsettling, Scrublands stands at the junction of Snowtown and Wake in Fright, that place where Australia’s mirage of bush tranquillity evaporated into our hidden fears.’ Paul Daley, journalist and author of Challenge
‘A superbly drawn, utterly compelling evocation of a small town riven by a shocking crime.’ Mark Brandi, author of Wimmera
‘A clever, intricate mystery … a complex, compelling story deeply rooted in its small-town setting. Highly recommended.’ Dervla McTiernan, author of The Rúin
‘Scrublands kidnapped me for 48 hours. I was hopelessly lost in the scorching Australian landscape, disoriented but completely immersed in the town and people of Riversend, as the heat crackled off the pages. I was devastated when it was time to go back to the real world. This book is a force of nature. A must-read for all crime fiction fans.’ Sarah Bailey, author of The Dark Lake and Into the Night
‘A brilliant read. A thriller that crackles and sweats and a powerful portrait of a small town on the edge.’ Michael Brissenden, journalist and author of The List
‘Stellar … Richly descriptive writing coupled with deeply developed characters, relentless pacing, and a bombshell-laden plot make this whodunit virtually impossible to put down.’ Publishers Weekly, starred review
‘Hammer’s portrait of a dying, drought-struck town numbed by a priest’s unimaginable act of violence will capture you from the first explosive page and refuse to let go until the last. His remarkable writing takes you inside lives twisted by secrets festering beneath the melting heat of the inland, the scrub beyond waiting to burst into flame. Scrublands is the read of the year. Unforgettable.’ Tony Wright, The Age / Sydney Morning Herald
‘Immersive and convincing … This will be the novel that all crime fiction fans will want … a terrific read that has “bestseller” written all over it.’ Australian Crime Fiction
‘Debut thriller of the month (and maybe of 2019) … Beautifully written.’ Washington Post
‘Chris Hammer’s powerful debut Scrublands establishes his place among the handful of thriller writers who understand the importance of setting as character, deftly weaving the story of a landscape burned dry and a town whose residents are barely hanging on with a complicated mystery that could only happen in this place in exactly the way Hammer tells it. Fresh and hypnotic, complex and layered, Scrublands’ gorgeous prose swept me up and carried me toward a conclusion that was both surprising and inevitable. I loved every word. Highly recommended.’ Karen Dionne, international bestselling author of The Marsh King’s Daughter
‘… desolate, dangerous, and combustible. A complex novel powered by a cast of characters with motives and loyalties as ever-shifting as the dry riverbed beneath them, Hammer’s story catches fire from the first page.’ J. Todd Scott, author of High White Sun
‘Impressive prose and brilliant plotting … a remarkable study of human fallibility, guilt, remorse, hope and redemption. The descriptions of landscape are often evocative and Winton-like, with the parched country-town setting reminiscent of Jane Harper’s The Dry … It is hard to imagine Scrublands not being loved by all crime/mystery fans. FIVE STARS.’ Scott Whitmont, Books + Publishing
‘There is a very good reason people are calling Scrublands the “thriller of the year”. This impressive debut is a powerful and compulsively readable Australian crime novel.’ Booktopia
‘As one bookseller commented, Scrublands is another sign we are in a Golden Age of Australian crime. Reading it is a pulsating, intense experience, not to be missed.’ Better Reading
‘Much like the bushfire that flares up in the mulga, Scrublands quickly builds in intensity, until it’s charging along with multiple storylines, unanswered questions and uncovered truths. It is a truly epic read.’ Good Reading
‘Shimmers with heat from the sun and from the passions that drive a tortured tale of blood and loss.’ Val McDermid, author of How the Dead Speak
‘A dark and brilliant thriller, one that lingers in the mind.’ Mail On Sunday
‘Extremely accomplished … Deliciously noirish … Set in the blistering heat of a remote Australian town ravaged by drought and threatened by bushfires, this is a complex, meaty, intelligent mystery … Well-rounded characters, masterful plotting and real breadth; this is an epic and immersive read. Hammer’s writing is so evocative the heat practically rises off the pages of Scrublands.’ Guardian UK
‘Incendiary … A rattling good read, ambitious in scale and scope and delivering right up to the last, powerfully moving page.’ Irish Times
Chris Hammer was a journalist for more than thirty years, dividing his career between covering Australian federal politics and international affairs. For many years he was a roving foreign correspondent for SBS TV’s flagship current affairs program Dateline. He has reported from more than thirty countries on six continents. In Canberra, roles included chief political correspondent for The Bulletin, current affairs correspondent for SBS TV and a senior political journalist for The Age.
His first book, The River, published in 2010 to critical acclaim, was the recipient of the ACT Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Walkley Book Award and the Manning Clark House National Cultural Award. Scrublands, his first novel, was published in 2018 and was shortlisted for Best Debut Fiction at the Indie Book Awards, shortlisted for Best General Fiction at the Australian Book Industry Awards, shortlisted for the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and won the UK Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey Debut Dagger Award. His second novel, Silver, was published in 2019 and was shortlisted for Best General Fiction at the Australian Book Industry Awards, shortlisted for the 2020 ABA Booksellers’ Choice Book of the Year, and longlisted for the UK Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award.
Chris has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Charles Sturt University and a master’s degree in international relations from the Australian National University. He lives in Canberra with his wife, Dr Tomoko Akami. The couple have two children.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First published in 2020
Copyright © Chris Hammer 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
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Crows Nest NSW 2065
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ISBN 978 1 76087 741 5
eISBN 978 1 76106 046 5
Map by Aleksander J. Potočnik
Set by Bookhouse, Sydney
Cover design: Luke Causby/Blue Cork
Cover image: © Jill Hyland/Arcangel; Adobe Stock Images
FOR ELENA AND CAMERON
Contents
prologue
SUNDAY
chapter one
chapter two
MONDAY
chapter three
chapter four
chapter five
chapter six
TUESDAY
chapter seven
chapter eight
chapter nine
chapter ten
chapter eleven
WEDNESDAY
chapter twelve
chapter thirteen
chapter fourteen
chapter fifteen
chapter sixteen
chapter seventeen
THURSDAY
chapter eighteen
chapter nineteen
chapter twenty
chapter twenty-one
chapter twenty-two
chapter twenty-three
chapter twenty-four
chapter twenty-five
chapter twenty-six
chapter twenty-seven
chapter twenty-eight
chapter twenty-nine
FRIDAY
chapter thirty
chapter thirty-one
chapter thirty-two
chapter thirty-three
chapter thirty-four
chapter thirty-five
chapter thirty-six
SATURDAY
chapter thirty-seven
chapter thirty-eight
chapter thirty-nine
chapter forty
chapter forty-one
chapter forty-two
chapter forty-three
chapter forty-four
chapter forty-five
chapter forty-six
SUNDAY
chapter forty-seven
WEDNESDAY
chapter forty-eight
epilogue
acknowledgements
prologue
The realisation swells within him, like a birthing. It’s happening right now, today, in this moment of time, in this sliver of history. After months of gestation—after all the connections and the cultivations, all the plotting and the intrigues, all the threats and the blackmail—it’s this simple. He’s going to get away with it. The files are downloading, faster than he could ever have imagined, transcribing the guilt, the corruption, the criminality, all neatly packaged, all digitised, all pre-digested, pouring from the computer through a supposedly disabled USB port onto the bright blue thumb drive, encryption broken, the truth laid bare, the drive itself hidden by nothing more than his bravado and a takeaway coffee cup. He stands and looks around, his mind electric but his exterior calm, the consummate actor. The consummate spy. He smiles—but, then, he is always smiling.
The trading floor is a hive of activity, brokers swarming, abuzz with corporate fervour and personal ambition, banks of monitors alive with bonds and equities and derivatives and exchange rates, all fluid, all flickering, all demanding their attention. Simply by standing still, he’s rendered himself invisible. No one is looking at him, no one cares about his monitor, they’re all focused on their own ephemera: numbers and charts and transactions; losses, margins and gains. He feels he is the only point of stillness, the cyclone swirling about him, that he alone possesses the perspective to know what is truly happening across these epochal seconds. It completes his victory; carried out in plain sight, the audacity of it, his own subterfuge disguised by the bank’s own much larger deception. It will make the retelling all the better; this will be the making of him, the stuff of legends. He catches a reflection of himself, only slightly distorted, in the surface of a golden wall panel. He’s pleased with what he sees: hair bouffant, face tanned, eyes bright and teeth even. He likes his face; everyone likes his face. It’s a likeable face. More importantly, it’s a trustworthy face.
The transfer is almost done. He lifts the coffee. It tastes excellent. Through the windows of the office tower, he can see the perfect Sydney day, blue and white, the sun pouring benevolence across the skyline, harbour alight, as if the city itself approves the righteousness of his actions.
He looks back to the computer, startled to see it’s finished. Already. He blinks, savouring the moment, this tipping point, this culmination. If nothing else, he’ll miss the bank’s state-of-the-art tech, so much faster and efficient than the antiquated systems at his real workplace. He sits. Quickly, he imposes his own encryption on the thumb drive, then runs a purpose-built program to cover his tracks. It takes mere minutes. Then he ejects the drive, pockets it and logs off. Done.
‘Early lunch?’ he asks, pausing at the cubicle of Raff, the shift supervisor—the one person he knows won’t accept his invitation.
‘Sorry. Bit under the pump,’ says Raff, not lifting his eyes from his screens. ‘Maybe later in the week.’
‘No worries,’ says Tarquin, grinning at his colleague’s predictability. ‘I’ll be an hour or so. You want anything?’
‘No. Brought my lunch in.’
‘Okay, see you, then.’
And Tarquin Molloy walks away, his gait confident, as always; his eyes shining, as always; his smile every bit as generous and unflappable as on his first day here. But inside, his stomach is churning and his mind is bubbling with what he has achieved.
He enters the lift, hits the button for the lobby, for glory, taking one last look across the trading floor as the doors begin to close, the curtains falling on the final scene. He commits it to memory, for the recounting. Then, at the last, an arm reaches in, forcing the doors open. Tarquin Molloy beams at the newcomer, a tall man, thin and dressed in a vintage suit of coarse brown wool. The doors ease shut.
‘Morning,’ says the gentleman, inviting engagement.
‘It certainly is,’ he replies. And to Tarquin, he does look like a gentleman. The suit is three-piece, of heavy cloth, as if it’s been transported from somewhere in the mid-twentieth century, immaculately maintained despite its age. There is a patterned kerchief in the suit’s breast pocket and a Legacy badge on its lapel. The man’s face is long, as is his hair, oiled so it stays in place behind his ears. The hair oil, or something, has a pleasant aroma in the confined space. The smell, like the suit and the man’s demeanour, is old-fashioned. His complexion is touched with sepia. A smoker, thinks Tarquin. Old for a trading floor.
‘California Poppy,’ says the man.
‘Sorry?’
‘The hair oil. California Poppy.’
‘It smells very nice.’
‘Thank you,’ says the man genially. One of his teeth has a gold cap. ‘Hard to come by nowadays.’
The lift shudders to a halt, but the doors don’t open. They’re stuck between floors.
‘That’s strange,’ says Tarquin.
‘You don’t know the half of it,’ says the man in the brown suit. He unbuttons his coat and withdraws a revolver. A six-gun, a prop from a Western, a massive thing, matt black and menacing, its handle inlaid with pearl shell. Tarquin’s stomach plummets and his mind begins to reel. The muzzle is pointed at his chest.
SUNDAY
chapter one
The boy is laughing with the joy of it, the sensation of it, slapping at the sea water with his hands, sending it spraying about him. Martin laughs too; Liam’s pleasure is contagious. They’re side by side, the man and the infant, sitting in a briny puddle formed when Martin scooped out sand to build a castle, now demolished. The excavation won’t last much longer either, its sides slowly collapsing as another wave rolls up the beach, the tide on its way back in. Splat, splat, splat, go Liam’s pudgy hands. Splat, splat, splat, go Martin’s as he emulates his stepson, inciting more delight. Oh, how he loves the boy’s laugh, that distinctive chortle that has always been his and his alone, pre-dating words.
Martin can hear his phone ringing in the beach bag further up the sand, below the steps to the house, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t consider answering it. Nothing is urgent here, not anymore. The days of subjugation, to the dictates of phone calls and editors, to deadlines and scoops, to egos and rivalries, are past. For sixteen months they’ve lived here at Port Silver—Martin, Mandalay and Liam—repairing their house on the cliffs above the beach, repairing their lives. Constructing a new and more robust reality, quarantined from the past.
