CHRIS HAMMER Silver: extract
This week our extract is from Chris Hammer’s second crime novel, Silver. It again features investigative journalist Martin Scarsden, who readers first met in Scrublands where – among other things – he fell for the beautiful Mandalay Blonde in the small Riverina town of Riversend.
In Silver, Martin returns to the place where he grew up, Port Silver on the north coast of New South Wales. The town holds bitter memories for him, but Mandy has inherited a house there, and she and Martin are hoping that Port Silver will be a fresh start for them both, and for Mandy’s baby, Liam.
But when Martin arrives in Port Silver and opens the front door of Mandy’s townhouse, he finds a still-warm body lying in a pool of blood, and Mandy sitting frozen on the sofa nearby.
The body belongs to Martin’s childhood friend Jasper Speight, and police suspect Mandy could be his killer. As Martin works to clear her name, he will encounter complex and conflicting plans for the town’s development, a cold case investigation, and the truth about what happened to his family.
Here Martin and Mandy take stock the day after Martin’s arrival and Jasper’s death – the first time they have had alone together.
Extract courtesy of Allen & Unwin
from Chapter 5
She’s waiting for him, sitting in the shade of a Norfolk Island pine at a picnic table above the beach, staring at the waves, thoughts elsewhere. He’s bought fish and chips for himself and sushi for her. For a moment, transfixed by the glittering waves, she’s unaware of his presence. The sun is out, the day is hot, the sea gleaming. He pauses, watches her. She’s like a vision made real, sun playing off her newly auburn hair. She turns, alerted somehow, smiling as he approaches; he feels the earth returning to its correct axis, the horror of the murder beginning to fade under the clarity of sunlight. She smiles as he lays out the food, gasping with joy at the sushi, telling him she’s still relishing fresh fish after the years in the bush. As they eat she points at schoolkids in a surfing class, her laughter like sea spray, as they try to stand, then tumble into the gentle sea. He points out an overweight man, shirt off, stomach and breasts like jelly, as he shuffles along the waterline with all the movements of jogging but the velocity of a slow walk. Martin says that’s him in a few years’ time; Mandy says it might be him now. Her eyes glint, taking pleasure in the small talk, the inconsequential exchanges of regular life. He compliments her on her hair colour; she says she didn’t want people to recognise her as the woman in the papers. He says it looks wonderful; she says she did it herself. He tells her she is a wealthy woman, she can afford a hairdresser. She invites him to fuck off.
They sit in silence for a moment after that, comfortable in each other’s company, while they eat. The fish and chips are hot, greasy and salty, tasting of heaven. Fish and chips; his mother’s Friday night treat. Despite everything, he’d never grown tired of them. As a young boy, he’d imagined a life of wealth, luxury and leisure, far from the struggles of the Settlement: he’d live on Nobb Hill, drive a flash car and eat fish and chips morning, noon and night. He smiles to himself: maybe he’ll get there yet.
A steady stream of beachgoers passes by—backpackers, tourists and retirees—their feet squeaking in the powder-fine sand, the raked neatness of the morning lost, the natural patterns restored, peaks and troughs, echoing the rippled surface of the sea. The people settle here and there, obeying an unspoken pattern, not too close to their neighbours. The young are bare-chested and loose-limbed, bikini-clad and sunscreen-sheened; the old wear broad hats and broader sunglasses, skin wrinkling like fruit drying in the sun. There are few kids, surfing lesson aside; it’s a school day. The breeze is light and the early afternoon sun hot, and Martin is grateful for the shade of the tree. He wonders about the strangers aligned before them like dot points in a presentation. They look so relaxed, caught in the perfection of the day. Are their lives really that simple: food, sleep, the beach, filled with the minor decisions of everyday life? Or is that merely the smooth surface and, like Mandy and himself, they’re troubled by deeper currents? Surely no one has a trouble-free life; everyone experiences their own dramas, of love and hope, of desperation and despair. Yet it’s difficult to believe any of these sunbathers have endured anything to rival the travails he and Mandy have already experienced in a year only just entering its third month.
Down by the water’s edge, two mothers play with their preschoolers, building a sandcastle, their chattering voices carried on the breeze between the crunch of the waves.
‘Where’s Liam’s child care?’ Martin asks.
‘Out next to the high school on the road to Longton.’
‘That’s handy.’
‘Yes. It’s only been open for a few weeks. Perfect timing. The manager is a single mum. Lexie. Lives out the back. She’s taken a real shine to Liam and is happy to babysit out of hours, on weekends, whatever. She’s a godsend.’
‘Isn’t he young for child care?’
Mandy smiles. ‘No, not really. He’s ten months. It’s good for him. Normality. Some start when they’re a few weeks old.’ Then she bites her lip, concern in her eyes. ‘He’ll be okay, won’t he, Martin?’
He wipes grease from his hand. ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t he be?’
Her concern remains, the light leaving her face. ‘I can’t shake it, Jasper lying on the floor like that. Choking on his own blood, spitting and bubbling and fighting for breath. For life. I shut my eyes and I’m right there, the sounds and the smells. I open my eyes and I look out at this, this paradise.’ She gestures at the beach. ‘I see this and I can imagine a future here, but when I close my eyes, that’s all I see, the past. It’s always there, waiting for us.’ She breathes, a long exhalation.
‘Mandy, it only happened yesterday. Give yourself time. The police will find the killer and it will fade into the past. The future will still be here, waiting for us. Waiting for us to make it. To make it with Liam.’
She nods, as if accepting his wisdom, but her brow remains creased and her eyes sad. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you grew up here?’
Martin sighs. ‘I don’t know. I should have. I guess I didn’t want to spoil it; you were so excited.’
‘Spoil it? How?’
He looks away, unable to match her gaze for a moment. He swallows. The truth; now is the time to start. He returns his gaze to her face, looks her in the eye. ‘It wasn’t a good childhood. My parents died. My sisters died. I was the only one left.’ He tries to say it matter-of-factly, as if such things are commonplace, but he knows he fails, knows his voice betrays him, knows she detects the suppressed emotion beneath his words.
‘Oh, Martin.’ She reaches out, squeezes his hand, but he can no longer hold her gaze. Instead he’s looking, unseeing, out at the sea, fighting to control a groundswell of emotion. Finally, he turns towards her. ‘Port Silver was okay,’ he reassures her. ‘It really was. Before it all turned to shit. Being a kid here, it was good. I’d forgotten that.’
She doesn’t respond immediately; when she does, her voice is low and sympathetic. ‘Is that why you didn’t come straight away? Why you stayed in Sydney to write your book?’
He shrugs, feigning nonchalance. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. I just thought it would be simpler to get it out of the way. Finish with Riversend, put it behind us, then start anew up here.’
She says nothing as she studies his face. He’s unsure what she’s thinking. He changes the subject, tilting the conversation back towards the future. ‘So it’s the house, Hartigan’s—that’s why you chose Port Silver?’
She smiles. ‘Yeah, the house. I needed to get away from Riversend, away from the drought, away from the past. Make a clean break. I always wanted to live by the sea. I thought about Sydney—Bondi or Manly or Balmoral—but not with Liam, not the city. I considered somewhere like Bermagui or Tassie. And then Winifred told me I’d inherited the house up here. It sounded perfect. It is perfect, will be perfect. I’ve already had a look at the outside. You should see it: an old weatherboard up on the cliff with a view that goes forever. And I’ve enrolled in uni, distance education at Southern Cross. There are campuses at Lismore and Coffs Harbour; I just need to show up for a few weeks a year, the rest I can do from here. Fix up the house, raise Liam, study literature. Eat fish.’ And she smiles again, a little of the previous lightness returning, dimples and mischief. ‘And you. If you’re up for it.’
‘Of course I am,’ he says, holding her hand. The demons of his youth are not her demons; his past is not their present.
But now her smile fades, swept away like a squall crossing a beach. ‘You think it can be? Perfect? Jasper Speight dying in my hallway, like some sort of omen. A warning.’ She fixes her eyes on Martin, her gaze intense. ‘Do you believe in fate?’
Martin grins. ‘We’ve had this conversation before.’
‘Really?’
‘When we first met. In the bookstore in Riversend.’
‘You have a good memory.’
‘It was unforgettable. You were unforgettable.’
She beams at that, dimples prominent. ‘Smooth,’ she says, before growing serious again. ‘You’ve changed, Martin Scarsden.’
‘I hope so.’
‘What was your answer?’
‘To what?’
‘Fate?’
‘No. We make our own.’
‘What about karma?’
Martin looks down at the sand, at the sunbakers, the separate trajectories of their lives coalescing together at this precise moment, on this day, on this beach. ‘Don’t know. Maybe.’ He knows that just a few months ago he would have ridiculed the idea. Now he doesn’t elaborate. Maybe he has changed.
‘If someone wanted to kill Jasper, why do it at my place?’ asks Mandy.
‘Mandy, it’s not an omen. The house, the uni. The coast, Liam. You’re right: Port Silver is perfect.’
‘The past is always with us, the ghost in the room.’
Now it’s his turn to frown, unsettled by her tone. ‘You think?’
Chris Hammer
‘I do.’ Thoughts ripple across her face. ‘We are barricades, bulkheads sheltering the next generation, keeping the past from hurting them. Protecting them, protecting Liam. It’s all back there, the crimes of his father and his grandfather. It’s the same with you, whatever happened to you here. We have to live with that, move with it, move past it. But Liam, he is born afresh, untainted. Innocent. That’s why I want to be here, that’s what I want from Port Silver. I want him to grow up here like any other child, free from what went before.’ She turns to him. ‘And I want you here as well. It’s our chance, Martin.’
‘And fate?’
‘Fuck fate.’ Again, there is a smile, but one built on defiance, not amusement.
‘Fuck fate,’ he echoes, holding her hand.
The sea looks so smooth, so benign. He’s seen it on other days, boiling and deadly, foam from one end of the beach to the other, boats locked down in the harbour for days on end in the aftermath of northern cyclones and east coast lows. And now, to the south, on the horizon past the lighthouse and the surfers, Martin can see a front of clouds. A southerly change is on its way, carrying memories with it, isobars of regret. He’s said enough; he’ll tell her more, but not yet. They need to recover from the shock of Jasper Speight’s murder first.
‘Tell me about the house then,’ she says, as if reading his thoughts. ‘You and Nick Poulos seemed to know all about it.’
Martin grimaces. He knows he needs to tell her of his past here. The house is a good enough place to start.
‘When we were kids, no one lived there. Siobhan Hartigan must have moved to Riversend before we were even born, so it was sitting up there on the headland, deserted. Slowly going to ruin. Maybe they used it as a holiday house, I don’t know, but we always thought it was empty. Among us kids, it had a legendary status. We thought it was haunted.’
‘Haunted? That’s something.’ She smiles. ‘Did you ever go there?’
‘Only the once.’
From Chris Hammer Silver Allen & Unwin 2019 PB 576pp $32.99
Like to keep reading? You can buy Silver from Abbey’s at a 10% discount by quoting the promotion code NEWTOWNREVIEW here or you can buy it from Booktopia here.
To see if it is available from Newtown Library, click here.
