Scrublands Quotes
"Someone has carted an old fridge out to where the water once ran and left it there, having first painted a sign on its door: FREE BEER—HONOUR SYSTEM."
"There is nothing to hear; the heat has sucked the life from the world: no cicadas, no cockatoos, not even crows, just the bridge creaking and complaining as it expands and contracts in thrall to the sun."
"If the bookshelves were pews, and the counter an altar, then this might be a chapel."
"White-collar hands, not working-class hands, somehow inauthentic."
"I wouldn’t say criminal. But I saw him with those kids and I listened to his unsavoury jokes."
"This, my friend, is the Riversend wine saloon."
"Fuck that. He destroyed my mother. He’s not going to destroy her bookshop. And he’s not going to destroy me."
"Good, then don’t. You people have done enough damage."
"He was, I don’t know, kind of a Pied Piper figure. They’d follow him about."
"Eventually, the driver came back. Jumped in the car, drove off."
"The guards gave me my passport, nodded me through."
"God, if you unbutton your holster, you need to write a report."
"The very country Martin is driving through looks sick."
"The land is elevated ever so slightly above the flatness of the plain."
"You realise I know bugger-all about fighting bushfires, don't you?"
"The fire front will generate temperatures of hundreds of degrees."
"You hear stories of people sheltering in swimming pools."
"We attack from the flanks, not from the front."
"A fire can have a one-kilometre front and fifteen-kilometre flanks."
"Drink lots of water, more than you think you need."
"Don't wait to get thirsty: dehydration is dangerous."
"And there you were, the three of you, just sitting there, waiting."
"You don't reveal your sources, I don't reveal my contacts."
"He was also protected by powerful and influential people."
"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."
"He was also a paedophile. You know that too."
"I mightn’t be much of a copper, but I run a good town here."
"The past bears down on you more and more until sometimes you spend more time living there than in the present."
"He was a highly professional officer, dedicated to upholding the rule of law and serving his community."
"It was home, a kind of base, but it wasn’t my world."
"She was older, of course, but not so old. And there is something about old friends, old loves, those who you were young with: when you see them after many years, they don’t appear as they are now, but as they were."
"But once she went to the police, that was no longer an option."
"In the end, I did get to talk to her, to Katie. She was in the hospital down in Bellington. Mandalay was there, wouldn’t let me in the room, thought I’d upset her mother, but the priest was there, he knew."
"You have no idea how much she hurt me, how much she undermined my faith in people."
"It happens as you get older: the past bears down on you more and more until sometimes you spend more time living there than in the present."
"In practice, Springfields was the best land, because my forebears were smart enough not to impose English agriculture upon it."
"There’s a sigh of relief at the other end of the phone and a short, if rather forced, laugh. ‘Well, you got that one right.’"
"I’m sorry, Martin—more sorry than you can ever know."
"What a bunch of gutless cunts, Max. Getting you to do this. It’s unforgiveable. I won’t forget it. I won’t forgive them."
"Thanks, Martin, but don’t worry about me, think about yourself. Give me a call when you get back to Sydney. We’ll have a drink, discuss options. I’ve got a few ideas."
"Don’t do anything silly, okay? Nothing precipitous."
"For three days, the Fairfax press has provided sensationalist and at times inaccurate coverage of Riversend’s backpacker murders."
"A good man is dead. All for a grubby headline. All to sell a few extra newspapers."
"I accept that we may have been wrong about Byron Swift and Harley Snouch, but they were honest mistakes. You know that. We’ve been doing our best."
"He seemed fine. Angry, but in no way depressed or despairing, if that’s what you mean."
"He always said she was trouble—that no good would come of her."
"It’s suggested that Mandalay Blonde has also been manipulating this man."
"The drug plague sweeping rural Australia shortly."
"Thanks, Doug. And how does that fit with allegations against the woman you’ve branded the suicide blonde?"
"I think it’s safe to say that as the details of this case, this extraordinary case, come to light."
"I wouldn’t worry too much about him. He’s been pulled over for drink-driving."
"Your bank cheque. For God’s sake, don’t lose it."
"It’s believed the police may have been denied vital information, delaying this evening’s arrest."
"He’s about to offer to walk her home when Jack Goffing comes back through the door, urgency plain on his face."
"It’s disconnected, but I got an address here in Riversend."
"Night is almost complete as the two men leave the police station."
"We’ll be able to see how these and other factors are all interlinked."
"I’m ASIO, remember. We do it in basic training."
"It’s for a headstone. The week after Swift died."
"About five thousand dollars. It was taped under the desk."
"Known unto God, the one used for soldiers who can’t be identified."
"Good. Let’s go. I’ve got some calls to make."
"You saved his life. You know that, don’t you?"