Crystal Coffin by Anita Bell

Author:Anita Bell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Australia
Published: 2001-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

‘Isn’t this where you’re supposed to preach me the sixth commandment?’ Locklin asked.

Connolly paced in a circle, stopping next to him. ‘Every flock needs a shepherd,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘and occasionally each shepherd must use force against the wolves.’

Locklin clenched his fists in frustration. ‘You don’t understand. I killed eleven men! Eleven! How could I do that?’ He stared at Connolly, wondering if the older man could see what he’d become. ‘Did the army put this monster inside me?’ he pleaded. ‘Or was it always there? I need to know!’

‘You’re not a monster, lad,’ Connolly said. ‘You only did what you had to do.’

Locklin raked his fingers through his hair and swore, then apologised for it in front of the priest. He got to his feet and paced to his horse. ‘If you’d come through that boathouse door earlier,’ he said, ‘and struggled before I recognised you, you could be dead now. Do you realise that?’ He shaped his hands, as if breaking a chicken’s neck. ‘Reflex — snap — just like that.’

‘I don’t think so, Jayson. You’re not a killer, you might think you are now. I can understand that. It was one man against twelve. But you must remember that one of those twelve is still alive. He’s alive because you made a conscious decision to keep him that way, even though it nearly cost you your own life. That’s what makes you a good person, son. That’s what makes you different from them.’

Locklin slid up onto Jack’s back and nodded. ‘If you say so,’ he said, hoping that was true. He knew as well as any surgeon how to snap a spine to terminate life — and that scared the hell out of him.

As he cantered out into the lake to swim around the end of the cattle fence, Connolly could see that he was still worried about it.

The older man waited until the horse and rider had dissolved into the scrub on the other side of the boundary and then climbed behind the wheel of his Kingswood, wondering what else he could do to support Jayson Locklin. There were more just like him in East Timor, he realised, but he couldn’t help any of them until he was back in the army. He tapped the envelope in his pocket, determined to keep posting away his applications until the recruitment board accepted him.

He slipped the old car into fourth gear and pulled out onto the main road headed back to Lowood, still thinking about it. He indicated to turn right out of habit, even though nothing was coming to give way to, but the indicator didn’t cancel until the wheel had straightened up — and by then it was too late.

The Landcruiser that sped around the corner behind him had already seen him.

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