‘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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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
