“Am I nursemaid to all these men now?”
“It’s not a difficult question. You have already explained how, shortly after the expedition, John Sullivan was killed byhis headman, Raymond Locke. And then I believe you killed Locke yourself, or do I have that wrong?”
“No, that is correct.”
“Care to explain?”
“The man resisted arrest. I had no choice.”
“Seems a little convenient.”
“Not for him.”
“A lot of people die when you try to arrest them, don’t they, Chief Inspector?”
“A lot of people choose to resist.”
“And Tommy McBride, the younger brother, where is he?”
“The last I heard, he was a fugitive from the law, heading for New South Wales. That was about seven years ago. His brother is more likely to know.”
“My point is, the only people still around with knowledge of these events are yourself and Mr. Billy McBride.”
Wearily Noone said, “Hence the reason we are both here. Unlike some.”
“The full details of what happened weren’t released to the public, were they?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so.”
“Particularly the fact you took civilians with you, being contrary to police regulations—I notice you didn’t mention it inyour report.”
“No, Mr. Wells, I did not.”
“I wonder then, how it’s possible that Reverend Bean in his written testimony knew all of these things exactly as you havedescribed them. I have it here in front of me: There were nine of them, he says. Noone plus four troopers, the McBride boys and two other white men—I didn’t ever learn their names. How could he possibly have known that, Chief Inspector, if he never met you out there?”
Absolute silence in the courtroom. Noone’s eyes roved across the gallery then back again, boring into Henry, his chest heaving,struggling to hold himself in check.
“I have no idea,” Noone said finally. “And neither do you.”
“But I do know, because he told me.”
Noone threw up his hands. “The man isn’t even here.”
“The account is inadmissible,” MacIntyre added. “I’ve already ruled on that.”
Henry ignored him, plowed ahead, reading: “They had a young native girl with them, taken captive; she rode on the younger brother’s horse.”
He looked up at Noone expectantly. “Is that a question?” Noone asked.
“You don’t have anything to say about it?”
“No.”
“Is it true?”
“All lies. The same as everything else.”
“On the contrary, Chief Inspector, I put it to you that you did in fact meet with Reverend Bean west of the ranges, and thatyou warned him most severely against ever speaking out. The poor man is still petrified to this day, which I daresay is whyhe’s not here. Did you not threaten to remove his eyes and ears and cut out his tongue and send him wandering naked throughthe desert?”
“I am not even going to dignify that question with a response.”
“So you don’t deny it?”
MacIntyre said, “Mr. Wells, that’s enough.”
“Of course I bloody deny it!”
“After meeting him you rode to the Kurrong camp, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Where you waited until the next morning, at dawn.”
“No.”
“Then you descended into that crater and slaughtered them: men, women and children, hundreds put to the sword.”
“This is outrageous!”
“Before piling up the bodies and burning them, reducing an entire tribe of people to a mound of ash, and concealing your crimefor all these years?”
Noone turned to MacIntyre. “You’ll allow this horseshit in your courtroom?”
“You’d best answer the question, Edmund. There are reporters here.”
Squirming, Noone said, “No, we did not. It is an affront to even suggest it.”
“Then where are the Kurrong now?” Henry asked him, looking about. “What happened to your warmongering horde? Hundreds of them,you just told us, so where are they? Where did they all go?”
“They are an . . . an itinerant people.”
“Who just happened to disappear?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“But you do know, don’t you, Chief Inspector?”
“No, I . . .”
“You know, because you killed them.”
“I did not. I . . .”
“You killed them and burned their bodies and left them there to rot.”
“I did no such thing.”
“You and your Native Police, your so-called dispersal campaigns—how many massacres have you overseen, Chief Inspector? Howmany people have been butchered at your command?”
“Enough!” Noone yelled, slamming his hand against the wooden witness box as loud as a gunshot. “I do not need to sit hereand listen to this!”
He rose from his seat as Magistrate MacIntyre bellowed, “Mr. Wells, I will not have the Chief Inspector spoken to in thatmanner in my courtroom.”
“I only seek the truth, sir. A truth everyone here already knows. The whole colony is aware of what has happened on the frontierand has been happening for a hundred years. But nobody will speak of it. We close our eyes and pretend it never happened;well, the time has come to stop.”
Noone fastened the button on his suit jacket but remained standing, recovered now, and huge in the little wooden box. He leanedforward and gripped the edges with his hands, knuckles like thick white burrs. He resembled a preacher in the pulpit, glaringwith naked fury at Henry Wells. The crowd, cowed into silence, hung on Noone’s next word. He swept a hand across his audienceand summoned a voice that filled the room.
“Everybody knows it, do they? The whole colony knows the truth? Then where is your evidence, Henry? Where are your witnesses,where are the bodies, the piles and piles of the dead? Did you ride beyond the ranges to find them? Did you comb the ashes of this bonfire I’m supposed to have lit? No, I didn’t think so, because the evidence does not exist. And neither are you the kind of man to get his hands dirty, are you, Henry Wells? Or at least, not in that sense of the word. No, you’d rather come in here with your theories and false testimony and besmirch me in front of this crowd. Well, I will not stand for it, and neither will they. The people of this town won’t be fooled by some grubby little sodomite who is only looking to advance his own career. Have you already imagined the headlines? Was
