“What are you talking about, Bobby?” Emily asked, reaching for his hand.
He shook his head sadly, found her eyes. “Well, I guess that’s the start of the story. My name isn’t really Bobby. It’s Tommy—TommyMcBride.”
They were silent while he told them. Tears stained Emily’s cheeks. She rubbed his hand continually with her thumb and the rubbing never faltered, not once. But when he reached the part about the crater, he sensed the shift in Rosie, heard the gasp, saw the pinch in her eyes as she turned them away, and he knew she’d never be able to look at him with the same open affection again. Beside her, Arthur sullenly rubbed the table with his finger, as if he was also implicated, for of course he already knew.
Tommy left immediately after. Couldn’t bear to stick around. He excused himself from the table and went into the bedroom,threw a few clothes and some money in a bag, and slipped out the front door without another word. He had Billy’s travel tickets,and the lawyer’s address: he would go to Brisbane and see him, he’d decided, finish what Billy had begun, take his place onthe witness stand, there seemed no other way. He’ll kill you all, the shooter had threatened, and he would, Tommy knew, one day Noone would come, unless he brought the cycle to an end. Letthe truth out, tell the world, let that bastard drown in his own sins. Likewise Tommy. He’d take the consequences howeverthey fell. After so long hiding, denying, burying his past way down, there was some comfort in the idea, some relief. Fornow he had a reason beyond his own guilt. Protecting them, all of them, then hoping, once it was over, if he survived, thatthey would be willing to take him back.
In town he asked the coachman to wait while he ducked into the startled notary’s office, demanding he draw up a will: hishouse and his money he left to Emily; Arthur got the cattle and grazing land. He scribbled his signature and paid the man,then climbed into the coach outside. By that evening he had taken the district line to Melbourne, then, using Billy’s ticket,traveling under his name, boarded the night train bound for Sydney, with connections through to Brisbane and the dark heartof central Queensland beyond.
After twenty-one years running, Tommy was going home.
Chapter 39
Magistrate MacIntyre
The houses sat on a quiet sandy lane, a handful of well-spaced properties built high on the bluff, overlooking grass-tufteddunes and a long golden beach and the shimmering two-tone waters of the South Coral Sea. Gentle surf rolled off the breakers,foam tide lines sank into the smooth wet sand. Gulls circled and strutted in the shallows; a lone fishing boat farther out,bobbing on the bay.
From one of these houses two elderly ladies emerged, sisters, shopping baskets in their hands. They navigated the front stepsand made their way arm in arm along the lane, chatting, laughing, anticipating their trip into town. It was a twenty-minutewalk along the coastal path and the highlight of both their days. A couple of hours spent shopping, a refreshment break intheir favorite tearoom. They might meet some friends there, exchange gossip, no doubt share the latest gripes about theirrespective husbands, for just like the aches and pains that afflicted them at this age, they all had their fair share.
Across the field from the house and the lane they now walked along was a little pine wood, where, leaning against one of the tree trunks, his folded jacket at his side, his shirtsleeves neatly rolled, Noone watched the sisters through his spyglass. He followed them as far as the end of the lane, where the hedgerows shielded them from view, then retracted the spyglass and took one last bite of the apple he’d been eating before tossing it behind him into the trees. He collected his jacket and draped it over his arm, and like a gentleman out for an easy sunshine stroll, ambled across the field, humming, trampling the wildflowers underfoot.
He climbed the fence easily, swung his leg over, hopped down. The track was quiet, the houses empty—most were used as holidayhomes, he knew. He crossed to the house the two sisters had come from, mounted the stairs, and rang the handbell.
The front door had been left open. Only the fly screen was closed. Through the mesh was a hallway, sunlight dazzling the polishedwood, and a man huffing his way along it, using a cane and rocking with each step. He looked up when he reached the fly screen,saw the tall frame silhouetted there, and even through the mesh Noone could sense his panic and fear. He struggled to composehimself. Chin wobbling with the strain. “My God—Edmund?” he managed to say.
“Hello, Spencer.”
Noone pulled open the fly screen and the two men were face-to-face. Magistrate MacIntyre was now in his mid-sixties and hisfeatures bore every one of those long hard years. He had a beat-up look about him: wrinkled skin, sagging cheeks; dark andhaunted eyes. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.
Noone smiled easily. “I was planning on asking you the same thing.”
“How’s that now?”
“I wouldn’t have put you at the seaside after all those years inland.”
“Doctor’s orders. My lungs, apparently. Along with everything else.”
“I have to say it suits you. You’re looking remarkably well.”
MacIntyre waved away the lie for what it was, and for a moment neither man moved, Noone smiling pleasantly, his jacket overhis arm, until MacIntyre could no longer stand it, stepped back and said, “Come in, why don’t you. The wife’s gone out withher sister so I can’t offer you anything to eat . . .”
“I’ve already eaten. Wouldn’t want to put you out.”
MacIntyre led him along the hallway, toward the back of the house, Noone glancing into the rooms as he passed. When they reached the kitchen
