Dilemma

Dilemma Jon Cleary From the award-winning Jon Cleary, a novel featuring Sydney detective Scobie Malone. The routine arrest of a fugitive leads to disturbing allegations against a Crown Prosecutor, and the abduction of a child model reveals an ugly side to the world of fashion.When Scobie Malone returns to the bush town of Collamundra to apprehend a husband who disappeared after the murder of his wife four years earlier, it seems a cut-and-dried case. But as the trial begins, a key witness recognizes a face in the courtroom, and Scobie finds himself investigating the Crown Prosecutor – an individual revered by colleagues as the perfect family man and a pillar of the community.Meanwhile, Sydney is agog at the abduction of a child model whose freckled face has launched a thousand products. Malone, like everyone else, finds it hard to take the threat seriously – until a body is found. As a devoted father, Scobie is shaken by the murder of a child, but his inquiries reveal that the family life little Lucybelle experienced was a million miles from the settled existence of the Malones.Suddenly Malone is embroiled in two cases where, the deeper he probes, the more he wishes he hadn’t. And, having uncovered the truth, he must decide whether to proceed – knowing that if he does, a family will be destroyed. JON CLEARY Dilemma Dedication (#ulink_eea1a36b-c26e-5bab-8a63-5d4991148c0a) For Natascia and Vanessa Contents Cover (#u3613e882-4d53-55f3-ba51-90a11975c2a2) Title Page (#u6a39f601-664d-5c0d-b0b3-00684cb74ae3) Dedication (#ulink_6776c4a0-684b-5a38-a9b2-2ebc5634c46d) Part One (#ulink_d9e1fc5c-29f8-5b7e-9a78-84e13f61e49d) Chapter One (#ulink_67674534-de0c-5625-a18c-a3e10662f358) Part Two (#ulink_36b7d695-fd72-5e64-a5d2-30da47ac8b1f) Chapter Two (#ulink_b228184a-0152-5e4b-ad12-7e68beda3d62) Chapter Three (#ulink_d9cac4d3-3b46-5b68-bf5f-33bf28b16ba4) Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo) Part Three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo) Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo) Copyright (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) Part One (#ulink_397ba043-a847-5fe3-a088-94215acace70) March 1994 Chapter One (#ulink_8e5aea62-df2b-56d3-bdda-b906873eab5f) 1 Malone pulled up his car in the Erskineville street where he had been born, got out and waited for the memories to flood back. He had been doing this for the past six months, but now the memories were only a trickle; drought, the bane of farmers and sentimentalists, had set in. One side of the street had lost its row of workmen’s cottages; they had been replaced by a row of town houses or, as the estate agents now called them, villas. On the side where Malone stood, his side, the terrace houses had been gentrified. All had been painted: pale cream but with different-coloured doors: red, yellow, blue, green; all with ornate knockers, like suddenly proclaimed coats of arms. Some of the narrow verandahs that opened right on to the pavement had planter boxes behind their painted iron railings. All of them had security grilles on the windows; some had security doors. Only on the very end of the terrace was the rebel, the memory anchor. Painted cream like the others, yes; but the door was brown, the plain knocker was black, there was no security grille. A youth had broken into the house a couple of years ago and Con Malone had met him with one of Malone’s old cricket bats and beaten him senseless. The kid had wanted to charge Con with assault and the two young cops who had been called by Brigid Malone had had to hold Con back from assaulting him further. Con Malone was sitting on a kitchen chair on the verandah, soaking up the hour’s sun that the front of the house managed. He was reading the morning’s newspaper, a ritual that took him from the front pages, through the obituaries to the sports pages, read in sequence like a book. Malone paused a few steps from the front gate and looked at his father. The old man, like the memories, was fading. The tree-trunk body was thinner and smaller, there was now a hunch to the once-straight back. He suddenly felt an immense affection for his father. Con looked up as Malone stepped in the front gate. ‘G’day.’ ‘G’day. You’re still reading the Herald.’ ‘Nothing but bloody opinionated columnists.’ ‘The Daily Worker was all opinion.’ ‘It was an honest paper, knew what was going on.’ He folded the paper carefully. If he had believed in butlers and could have afforded one, he would have had the butler iron the paper before bringing it to him. He had read that British aristocrats did that, the only thing he admired them for. ‘Bloody country’s going to the dogs.’ The bloody world, which didn’t really interest Con, was going to the dogs. The IRA had just attacked Heathrow airport in London; Bosnia was trying to go back to pre-1914; in the US the Whitewater scandal was overflowing its banks. At home things were slightly better: the economy was breaking into a gallop, condoms were being urged in schools to protect sexually rabid teenagers against HIV. The Chippendales were on tour, always promising but never actually doing the full monty, whatever that was. And down in Canberra, the Prime Minister, as all PMs before him and to come after him, was attacking those who criticized him and his politics. The world spun in monotonous circles. ‘Look at ’em!’ said Con in disgust. Two women had passed by on the other side of the road: Arab women in chadors, though their faces were uncovered. ‘Wogs, slant-eyes … When you were a kid growing up, this street was ours.’ ‘Grow up, Dad. That was the nineteenth century. Mum inside?’ ‘She’s down at the church. Putting the holy water in the fridge, case it goes off. You know what she’s like. Bloody churches, they’ve gone to the dogs, too. You been away?’ ‘Up to Noosa, just Lisa and me.’ He had told his mother and father about the planned trip; but their memories, like themselves, were fading. ‘A second honeymoon, I think they call it.’ ‘You’ve been lucky. Both of us, you and me. Mum’n I’ve been happy. Just like you and Lisa. That ain’t common, not these days. I read in this—’ holding up the paper ‘– two blokes married. Blokes! You think they’ll be happy like we been?’ Malone shrugged. ‘They could be.’ ‘Bloody poofters. Wogs, slant-eyes – I’m in a foreign country. You back at work?’ Con Malone, then working on the wharves, hadn’t been able to hold his head up when his only child had become a cop. The union had doubled his dues for three months. ‘That last job must of wore you out. Two women poofters killing one of them’s husband.’ ‘They’re called lesbians, Dad. Or dykes.’ It was Con’s turn to shrug. ‘Who cares? The cases get you down sometimes?’ ‘Sometimes.’ ‘What d’you do then? Hand ’em on to someone else?’ ‘It doesn’t work like that. Not like on the wharves.’ He grinned when he said it; he’d better or his father would be on his feet, two fists up. The wharves had been Con’s parish, the union his religion. ‘So you’ve never walked away from a case?’ ‘Not so far. But …’ ‘Here comes Mum. Pious as hell. She’s just been talking to God or the Pope.’ Brigid Malone smiled as she approached, but she didn’t put out her hand or turn her cheek to be kissed. She kept that sort of affection for her grandchildren; she too belonged to the nineteenth century. A long while ago she had been a handsome woman, maybe even close to a beauty; but that, too, somehow seemed as distant as the nineteenth century. Like Con, she had shrunk over the past six months. Lately she had begun to talk of Ireland, of her girlhood: but only to her grandchildren. To talk like that to Scobie, her son, would be too difficult. With him she was still trapped in the tight corset of her earlier feelings. She loved him, he knew that, but if she shed tears for him he had never seen them. ‘How are Lisa and the children?’ ‘Fine. How’s the Pope?’ ‘I’ll ask him next time he writes. You coming in for a cuppa tea? I’ve made some scones.’ ‘Date scones?’ ‘What else?’ He followed them into the house. The safe house, where they had protected him as securely as he tried to do with his own children. Where crime, when it entered, could be handled with the simple logic of a cricket bat. 2 Ron Glaze had gone to the house, their house, but she had not been there. It was a Housing Commission home, built in the 1960s, improved by the garden he had built around it. Brick veneer, tiled roof, three bedrooms, one bathroom, living and dining rooms combined; three years ago, when things had been going well for them and between them, they had taken out a mortgage and bought it. They had grown up in this area, they were both Westies, and they had felt comfortable with it as a starting point. They occasionally dreamed of a house in one of the seaside suburbs, on a northern beach, say Collaroy or Narrabeen; but that was for the future, when they would have more money, even have kids. The future that had never come within coo-ee of them. The light had been on in the hallway and he had pressed the doorbell. There had been no answer and after the second ringing of the bell he had taken out his key and let himself in. He had kept the key in his pocket, prepared to let her ask him in, not just barge in as if he owned the place. Which he still did – or anyway, half of it. She had not been there. He had gone slowly through the house, as if looking for reminders of her and himself. He had been gone three months, but now it seemed like only yesterday. He was not a reader, but somewhere he had read a proverb or something: What was hard to bear was sweet to remember. Wrong: like so many proverbs. The last fight with her, when she had thrown him out of the house, had been hard to bear; there was no sweetness in remembering it. That fight had been right here, in the kitchen. He had been standing there, in his hand a Coke that he had taken from the fridge. He had looked around, then put down the Coke and walked out of the kitchen quickly, as if she were chasing him again, throwing things at him. He had walked into the bedroom, their passion pit, and lain down on the bed, his side, put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling, wondering if the effort to reconcile with her was going to be worthwhile. He was of medium height, with thinning blond hair (a major worry) and a round cheerful face that hovered, like an image in water, between good-looking and plain, depending on the light. What appealed to women was his smile, wide and white. But he was not smiling now. He tried to remember the passion here in this bed, but it was just cold ashes. The gap between them had been growing over the past year; he had seen it widening and been unable to stop it. Maybe it had been his fault (the women) or maybe it had been hers (the ambition). He was not a chauvinist (so he thought), but women undoubtedly didn’t understand men. But he would not tell her that, not tonight. He had lain there for almost an hour, waiting for her to come home. But she hadn’t, and then he had got up and gone looking for her, knowing for certain where he would find her. They had been members for ten years of the Golden West Club; it was there they had met. It had been one of the first of the clubs that had sprouted in the western suburbs and it had grown and grown. It now had 60,000 members, all of whom, fortunately, did not attend on the same night; it had 1000 poker machines, all of which were genuflected to by the congregation each night. It had four restaurants and put on floor shows almost every night. It could afford overseas performers: Tom Jones had done his best to dislocate his hips here and John Denver had sung songs of places far away from the flat plain of the western suburbs. The Chippendales had performed here on Ladies Night Only; orgasms had erupted like an epidemic of wind. The women went home and sexually attacked their husbands. Those lucky men, more K-Mart than Chippendale, hadn’t been able to believe their luck. Now they were sitting at a table in the club, as stiff with each other as on a first date. ‘Ron, it’s no use. It’s all over. Finished. What was it you used to say about the politicians and the union officials, you used to laugh about? At this point in time. That’s it, Ron. At this point in time it’s all over.’ Norma Glaze was thirty-one, a year younger than her husband. She had been a hairdresser ever since she had left school; even doctors did not need the ear and tongue that successful hairdressers had to have. Buzz words and phrases came and went like hairstyles; mode was the latest, but she had heard them all. Her clients picked them up from their husbands and boyfriends, though she could see none of them on a level playing field. Ron, a car salesman, had the tongue but not the ear; the latter was not necessary in the motor trade, he had often told her. At any point in time, on a level playing field or wherever. Talk was action … ‘Don’t you miss the fucking we had?’ ‘Don’t start talking dirty, Ron. It’s not gunna get you anywhere.’ ‘Okay, okay.’ He had three feet tonight, kept putting the wrong one forward. Selling himself to her had never been easy; maybe that was why he had sold himself so easily to other women. A Holden Caprice with low mileage: that was how he had sold himself and the women had laughed and bought him, if only for a demonstration run. ‘Miss you, hon. Really. Not just the sex bit …’ She looked around, glad they were at an isolated table; she had chosen it and led him to it as soon as he had walked in the door. They were a fair distance from the long bar, but close to the nearest bank of poker machines. Players were at the machines, but their backs were to the Glazes; their eyes, minds, every sense concentrated on the bright faces of the machines. This was Monday night, always a slow night. Two hundred people maximum, she thought, every one of the bastards looking at us out of the corners of their eyes or through the back of their heads. A hairdresser, she knew that gossip hung in the air like legionnaire’s disease. She was attractive, too heavy in the jaw to be beautiful; she had large dark blue eyes and a mouth enlarged by careful makeup. Her black hair was cut in a bob with a fringe; a ninety-year-old customer had told her she looked like Louise Brooks, whoever the hell she was. She was as tall as Ron, with a good figure that needed careful dieting and two sessions a week at aerobics. All that was exterior: the interior, not even Ron had come close to knowing. Though, to tell the truth, she was not even sure she knew herself. ‘Ron, try and get it through your head—’ She shook her own head; the black hair moved, throwing off lights like a black mirror. The way he had always loved it … ‘We’re incompatible—’ ‘Oh, for Crissakes! Jesus, hon, how can you say that?’ He sat back, looked round the huge room as if about to appeal to the gamblers at the poker machines, to the two barmen and the barmaid, to the drinkers at the other tables. But they were all ignoring him; or so it seemed. He looked back at her: ‘Norma, don’t start sounding like a fucking psychiatrist – You’re not going to one, are you?’ ‘Don’t be silly.’ She toyed with her drink, a vodka and tonic, her staple. She had been drinking more and eating less lately: she would have to watch herself. ‘I hear you lost your job. What happened?’ He had been hoping she would not bring that up. He looked at his own drink, a beer. ‘Business was down. They say the economy is growing, but that’s bullshit. Are you getting more customers?’ ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m thinking of opening up another salon.’ ‘I’ve been looking at going into the nursery business,’ he said tentatively. She didn’t laugh, as he had been afraid she might. But she did say, ‘What are you gunna use for money?’ ‘I’ve got a bit saved. And I think the bank’ll listen to me.’ ‘You owe me three months on the mortgage, your share.’ Jesus, why did she always have to harp on about money? ‘I’ll cover that.’ ‘How?’ ‘Don’t worry – I told you I’d cover it!’ He was trying to hold on to his temper. Over at the bar Charlene was looking at him, talking all the while to the three or four men at the bar. She waved to him and he nodded back. ‘Let’s talk about us, hon – not money—’ Norma had looked back over her shoulder. ‘You still got a thing for her?’ ‘Who?’ ‘Charlene, the freewheeling bike.’ ‘For Crissake, Norma – cut it out! I never had a thing for her – Jesus, it was just one night! You were away, I dunno where—’ ‘I was up at Gosford, taking care of my mother who was sick with pneumonia—’ She stopped abruptly, as if suddenly exhausted by the argument. She stared at her glass, twirled it round again with those fingers that had been so clever at finding their way round his body. Then she said, her voice so low that he had to lean forward to hear her, ‘Go, Ron. It’s over. I don’t want to see you again. Ever.’ ‘Hon—’ ‘Please go. Don’t make a scene – just go.’ All at once in the huge room there was one of those silences that are magnified by the number of those present. Two hundred people had abruptly stopped talking; even Charlene, at the bar, who never stopped. The poker machines were motionless: no symbols fell, no bell rang. The garish lights, an electrician’s nightmare, seemed brighter, more eye-burning. Heads turned to see what had caused the silence; but there was nothing to be seen. It had just happened, like the closing of a book. Ron stood up. There was an aridness in Norma’s voice that all of a sudden opened up a desert before him. ‘Goodbye,’ he said and walked the long walk to the wide front doors. Norma didn’t turn her head to watch him, which was a pity. He had never known the meaning of dignity, but tonight he accomplished it, even if he was unaware of it. His back was straight, his pace steady. Come to think of it, Charlene would say later, he looked cold-blooded. Which would be damning, but was wrong. 3 He was a tall lean man with a bony face that stopped just short of being handsome. He had thick dark hair with already a touch of grey at the temples; he would be grey-haired by the time he was forty-five, thirteen years away. He moved with an unhurried easy grace, as if he knew he was destined for a long life and minutes and seconds saved did not matter. He wore a blue button-down shirt, a purple-and-green striped tie, a brown tweed jacket and grey slacks. He had a habit of standing with his right hand in his jacket pocket, rather like 1930s British actors in late-night movies. He was noticeable, though not by intent. He was on his way back from Katoomba, where, due to the bungling of the locals, he had had to work longer than he had planned. He had come down from the Blue Mountains and was on the freeway heading for the city when his bladder began to assert itself. He was coming into the outskirts of the suburbs and began to look for a place to pull off the freeway. A curving exit opened up ahead and he took the Mitsubishi Magna up it and brought the car to a halt. He got out, relieved himself, felt the relief of a long piss, one of the unlisted small joys of life. He was about to get back into the car when he saw the big neon-lit building about a couple of hundred metres along the crossroad. All at once he felt thirsty and hungry. Later he would remember, with sour humour, that the whole tragic night had begun with an urge to piss. He drove into the car park of the club; it looked large enough to take at least a thousand cars, but tonight there were less than two hundred. He knew of it, it was famous, the first of the clubs that had started back in the fifties. It had drawn the local residents together, given them a haven and distraction from the sterile suburbs in which they lived; it had provided what the urban planners had not thought of, a focus. It was wealthy, had voting power with the other clubs, and it spread money where it was needed in the district. A sign by the wide front doors told him: All Visitors Welcome. He walked in, was overwhelmed by the size of the huge room. He was accustomed to smaller places, had grown up in a three-bedroom semi-detached in Collaroy and size, especially interiors, still impressed him. There were a fair number of people in the room, most of them lined up before the banks of poker machines that sat, with smug faces, like creatures from outer space waiting for the suckers to pay homage. One woman wore a long black glove on the hand that pumped her machine; he wondered if she drew it on like a surgeon about to operate. He was not a gambler, never had been, and he wondered what other strangers like himself, coming in, thought of the machines and their brazen look. He walked up to the bar. ‘Can I get something to eat without going to the restaurant?’ He could see a restaurant up on a mezzanine floor. ‘A sandwich or something?’ The barmaid had the sort of smile that she gave to everyone, whether she was favouring them or disappointing them. ‘I can get you some sandwiches from the kitchen.’ ‘Thanks. And a beer. You have a Heineken, by any chance?’ He had a pleasant voice, every word distinct. ‘We have everything. You name it, we’ve got it, definitely. You moved in around here or just visiting?’ ‘Just visiting.’ ‘I’m Charlene, the oldest inhabitant. I was a teenager when I started here.’ He hoped she wasn’t going to tell him her life’s history. She was in her mid-forties, he guessed, bright, bouncy and unembarrassed by her openness: you got what you saw. Her hair was a blonde dome, some hairdresser’s self-monument. One would not have been surprised to find an autograph on the wearer’s forehead. But she was efficient and he could see why she had lasted so long. Members, he was sure, would say she was a pillar of the club. She brought him his beer and sandwiches. ‘It’s ham-and-avocado salad. Nice – I had one m’self for supper. You’ll have to take it to a table. We don’t allow ’em lining up here at the bar to eat. You know what men are like. Let ’em near a bar and they think it’s their mother’s tit, if you’ll forgive the expression.’ ‘Of course.’ He couldn’t remember his mother’s tit, but was sure he hadn’t hung round it after he’d left babyhood. He had been one of five children and his mother, deserted by their father, had never had the time to coddle any of them. He took his right hand out of his pocket to pick up the beer and the sandwiches and only then was it apparent why he kept the hand hidden. It was crippled, a twist of claws. He grasped the sandwich plate, took the beer in his left hand and went across to a table some distance from the bar. He sat down and only then noticed the woman three tables away from him. She looked at him without interest, then got up, went to the bar and brought back a drink. She was an attractive woman, everywhere but in her face: pain was there and anger and those emotions were never attractive. He had seen them before, in his work. He watched her while he ate and drank, taking his time. It had been a long, hard, full day and now he was enjoying the relaxation, no matter how short it might be. The woman interested him: what had brought the pain and anger to her face? In profile they were less obvious; he shifted his chair so that she remained in profile to him. The more he looked at her, the more he became interested in her. There was a sensuality to her that he had missed at first: something in the line of her body, the way she moved when she raised her glass to her lips. But she paid him no attention and at last he decided it was time to go. He had at least another three-quarter of an hour’s drive to home. He stood up, went across and paid the barmaid. ‘Thanks. I’m refreshed.’ ‘Half your luck. I’m done in. I’m not as young as I used to be. But don’t tell anyone.’ She gave him the smile. He liked her friendliness, but wondered why she played the part she had created for herself. When she got home, did she take off the front and throw it aside like a dirty brassiere? ‘I never tell on a lady,’ he said, smiled at her and left. Out in the car park he was about to get into the Magna when he saw the woman moving unsteadily towards a grey Volvo. He paused, watching her. She stopped by the car, opened her handbag, took out her keys and dropped them. He heard her swear, then she leaned on the side of the car and slowly slid down, her free hand groping for the keys on the ground. He shut the door of the Magna and moved across to her. ‘Can I help?’ She looked up at him. ‘I’ve dropped my keys.’ She stood up, slowly, still leaning on the car. They were close and he could smell the liquor on her breath. ‘I think the night air’s got to me.’ He found the keys, but didn’t hand them to her. ‘Do you live far from here?’ She waved vaguely. ‘About five minutes. I dunno – I’m not much good at distances. I’m not much good at closeness, either.’ She giggled. ‘I think I’d better drive you home. Or get you a cab.’ ‘No cab. You go back in there, ring for cab and someone’s gunna ask you if it’s for me again. No thanks.’ She was still leaning against her car, but with her back to it now. She looked carefully at him, as if making a decision on him; then she nodded back at the club. ‘I saw you looking at me in there. Why?’ ‘I often look at attractive women.’ If she had giggled he would have walked away. But she just nodded, as if she knew that was the most natural thing in the world for men to do. He wondered how much experience of men she had had, but guessed she would be able to handle them. ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Fred.’ ‘Fred what?’ ‘Just Fred. What’s yours?’ ‘Norma. Just Norma.’ Then she straightened up, stepped away from the car. ‘Drive me home, Fred.’ She gave him directions and it was indeed only five minutes’ drive. She said nothing during the five minutes, just sat side on looking at him. He could smell her perfume; and something else? Did desire have a perfume? When he slowed, looking for her street, she spoke at last. ‘The next street on the right. They all look alike around here. It’s the egali – something or other look.’ ‘Egalitarian.’ ‘That’s it. One of my clients said it – she’s a teacher, a real bolshie. I’m a hairdresser. What do you do, Fred?’ He could see something was building here. He would go along with it, she attracted him, but he was still cautious. If this was going to be a one-night stand, that was all it was going to be. ‘I’m an adviser.’ ‘I could do with some advice.’ She continued to look at him, then she smiled to herself, shrugged and said, ‘How are you gunna get back to your own car?’ ‘I’ll walk.’ ‘It’s a long walk. You want me to ring for a cab?’ She opened the car door, got out. ‘Come in.’ He was not a floater, someone who picked up women like fish; he had always been steady, almost careful in his courting. This, though, wasn’t courting; nothing in this, if anything happened, would remain in the memory of either of them as anything of consequence. He was not inexperienced in women; he recognized he was being invited inside for more than a phone call for a cab. He got out of the car, already big in his trousers, and followed her in through the front gate and up the narrow path. ‘Don’t step on the garden. It used to be my husband’s pride and joy. It’s gone to pot now.’ He paused in his step. ‘Where is he?’ She stopped and looked back at him. ‘Don’t worry. He’s looking after someone else’s garden somewhere. We’re finished,’ she said, fumbling with the front door key. He wasn’t sure whether there was pain or anger in her voice, as there had been in her face at the club. ‘Finished. Bugger!’ She had dropped her keys again. He found them, put a key in the door and opened it. They were close together; he could smell the perfume and the heat of her. But he was not going to kiss her on the doorstep. ‘After you, Norma.’ He followed her into the house, closed the door behind him. She turned back, gave him the direct look again. ‘Do you wanna call a cab?’ ‘Not yet.’ She came into his arms as easily as if they were old lovers. There was no frantic tearing at each other; she led him towards the main bedroom, again as if they were old lovers. Only when they were undressing, on opposite sides of the bed, did she notice his claw. ‘Is that your loving hand?’ She said it with a smile and he wasn’t offended; but all at once he was embarrassed by it. As he had been with other women. ‘No.’ ‘How’d it happen?’ But he just shook his head, fell on the bed and pulled her down on him. Later, he would not remember the next half-hour. Drunkenness seemed to overtake her: the drunkenness of sex, the delayed effect of the drinks she had had at the club: he would never know. She tore at him as if she hated him; but wouldn’t let go. At last he struggled free, fell back from her. She grabbed at him again. ‘Yes!’ ‘No – I can’t—’ ‘What’s the matter? Your dick crippled like your hand?’ That shocked him, he hadn’t expected that sort of cruelty; he was equally shocked when he hit her. Anger is the most primitive emotion, the least civilized attribute of man. It comes from the oldest and deepest part of the brain, is always there; the last emotion left in a paralysed brain is anger. Later, he would remember that psychiatrists had put that opinion in court. She rose up in the bed, hit him in the face with her fist; the fist turned into a claw, tore at him. He put up his left hand, tried to push her chin up and away. The hand slipped to her throat as she clawed at him again. She was babbling incoherently; she hit him in the eye and he swore with pain. Then his grip tightened on her throat. He was shocked when she fell on him, pushing his left arm back into him. His fist opened and he slid his hand away from her throat. He pushed her off him, slipped to one side and lifted himself to look at her. Then tentatively, like a lover’s hand, he put his left hand on her throat again. There was no pulse. 4 Ron Glaze couldn’t take no for an answer: it was the salesman in him. After he had left the club he had gone to McDonald’s and stuffed himself with two Big Macs; unhappiness made him hungry. You’ll never grow up, his mother had told him; but hadn’t spoiled him by turning him into a mummy’s boy. When McDonald’s told him they wanted to close down for the night he had gone out and sat on a bench in the mall. People passed him, some that he knew; they said Hi, and he nodded back at them. Some of them looked back at him curiously, but none of them came back to speak to him. He sat there for almost an hour, then he got up and wandered up the main street, stood on the pavement and looked across at Wisden’s Car Sales, at the cars standing there in long rows, the floodlights reflected in the wind-screens like malevolent smiles. Oh shit, he said aloud and began to cry. That was when he decided to go back home and try again. When he saw the Volvo parked out front by the kerb, he wondered if she had had too much to drink. Whenever she did, she would never pull the car into the side driveway and up under the carport. Once she had done that and had driven off the path and ruined a whole row of azaleas in bloom. He had nearly killed her, he was so bloody angry. He paused halfway up the front path and looked around him. Even in the moonlight the garden looked a mess; it was as if she had let it go, to spite him. He would start repairing it tomorrow. Rebuild the garden and their marriage. He had parked his car behind the Volvo. The two of them together, one behind the other, were a reminder of happier times. She was a careless driver, even when sober, but tonight she had parked the Volvo neatly. Right in the gutter, not like a woman’s usual parking, a short walk from the kerb. He grinned at the thought, a car salesman’s joke. His mood was lighter as he let himself quietly into the house. The light was off in the hallway; she had gone to bed. But why wouldn’t she have? It was two o’bloodyclock in the morning. He headed in the darkness, with the sureness of long practice, for the bedroom. If she had had too much to drink, she would be dead to the world; he knew what the vodka and tonics could do to her. They could make her sexually wild, but afterwards she would be as dead as a log. He would get into bed beside her, go to sleep and in the morning she would turn to him and sleepily feel for him, as she always did. Or always had. He was approaching the bed when he tripped on her clothes on the floor. He fell on the bed, across her. She didn’t stir nor gasp: nothing. He felt the nakedness of her, ran his hand up over her thigh and hip: no movement, nothing. He sat up, kneeling on the bed. ‘Norma – hon—’ Then, suddenly afraid, he stood up, crossed to the doorway and switched on the ceiling light. Norma lay on the bed naked, legs wide apart, her head twisted to one side as if she were trying to avoid looking at him. The bed was a mess, the sheet and single blanket halfway to the floor. ‘Hon – for Chrissakes—’ Then, back beside the bed, he saw the marks on her throat and the big eyes, luminous no more, staring at the end of her world. That was when he started to run, though it was almost five minutes before he actually moved other than to sit beside her, stroking her head and weeping. 5 ‘Why’d you call us?’ asked Malone. ‘We’re stretched. We’re short three detectives, two sick and one suspended – he’s under investigation.’ The local detective-sergeant, Jeff Backer, didn’t elaborate on why one of his men was under investigation; you protected your own, particularly against other cops. ‘We’re handling four homicides. This one came up, the obvious suspect’s shot through. We could be weeks finding him.’ ‘So you expect us to go looking for him?’ ‘You’re the experts, aren’t you?’ There was no real friction; this was trade talk. Malone had not previously met Backer, but he had immediately liked him. ‘It looks to me like open-and-shut. All we have to do is wait till Ron Glaze gives himself up. Unless he’s gone somewhere and done himself in.’ ‘Has he any form? Belting her, stuff like that?’ ‘Nothing we’ve heard of. Out here it’s not uncommon, but the women don’t report it.’ ‘Even less so in the eastern suburbs.’ ‘They have more money there to hide the bruises.’ Backer was a local through and through. Malone, easing himself back into work after the Noosa holiday, had come out here to get away from the paperwork that had accumulated on his desk in his absence. Normally a case as straightforward as this one would not have attracted the Homicide chief; two junior detectives would have been sent. Malone had brought one of them with him, Andy Graham; Andy, in whom enthusiasm ran like a fever, would do all the legwork without complaint. Malone felt relaxed, glad he had picked an open-and-shut case to begin with. The house was still roped off by Crime Scene tapes when Malone and Graham arrived, but the Physical Evidence team had gone and now there were only Backer and two uniformed men on the scene. Malone had noted that the house was neat and well kept: no peeling paint, no dump of cartons and newspapers on the front verandah. The garden was a gardener’s plot, crammed with shrubs, but it had been allowed to grow wild. The lawn was a thick carpet that needed a mowing. Inside the house the nearness fell apart. ‘The wife was okay as a housekeeper, so the neighbours say, but since her and her husband broke up three months ago, she sorta slipped. She’s got her own hairdressing business and she was negotiating to lease another one over in Penrith. Seems she got sorta sloppy about the house. The husband was a dead-keen gardener, when he wasn’t selling cars, but once he’d gone she let the weeds take over.’ ‘Who found her body?’ ‘That’s it. A guy phoned our duty desk six o’clock this morning, said there was a dead woman at this address. Then he hung up.’ ‘Glaze?’ ‘Who else?’ ‘Whose is that Volvo out the front?’ ‘Hers.’ ‘Any prints?’ ‘They’ve got some out in the kitchen, on the fridge door and on a Coke bottle and a glass. But the guy from Fingerprints said he was puzzled – there’s not a dab anywhere in the car, the front seat, the wheel, the dash. All wiped clean. Same in here—’ He led Malone into the main bedroom. ‘The bedhead, the side table, the door – all wiped clean.’ ‘Mrs Glaze might’ve been sloppy, but hubby wasn’t. That what you’re saying?’ ‘I’m not saying anything. I’m just telling you what we’ve come up with.’ Backer was in his forties, overweight, bald; he had a thick black moustache and tired dark eyes. Malone recognized the type: the good cop worn, like an old tyre, by too much roadwork. Who could still be shocked by the occasional brutal crime or the murder of a child, but not by this straightforward domestic. ‘Unless it was someone else killed her.’ ‘Any suspect? She have any boyfriends?’ ‘Not as far as we know. For the moment my money’s on Ron Glaze. They had come back to the living room. It was comfortably furnished, looked lived-in; but it was the sort of furniture bought by a couple who had other things to think of. The prints on the walls were of castles, cathedrals, mosques: someone’s escape? There was a photo of Norma Glaze on the television set in one corner, the only photo in the room. None of Ron Glaze. There were two rows of Condensed Books volumes on a small bookshelf and beneath them two heaps of magazines: beauty magazines and gardening ones. Somehow, perhaps because of the break-up of the marriage, it was all as sterile as a hospital waiting-room. ‘What’s your guy doing?’ said Backer. ‘Andy?’ Malone looked over his shoulder at Graham, who had gone into the bedroom. ‘Just looking. If there’s anything that the PE people missed, he’ll find it. Did you see the body?’ ‘Yeah, I was here when the pathologist arrived. He told me nothing, they never do. Strangled, that was all he’d say – I could see that for m’self.’ ‘I’ll call in at the morgue on the way back. Anything, Andy?’ Graham had come back into the living room. He was a big young man and his restlessness seemed to make him bigger, his bulk changing shape as you looked at him. ‘Nothing, boss. The usual stuff in the bedroom drawers – the PE guys left ’em, not worth taking. Women’s stuff, a box of condoms that was open—’ ‘She wasn’t using the Pill?’ Backer said, ‘I’ve talked to a coupla the neighbours. Ron evidently played around – that was why she kicked him out. A guy plays around these days, HIV and all that, maybe his wife doesn’t trust his dick any more.’ ‘When I was young, condoms were for stopping pregnancies. Then they tell me, sales fell right away when the Pill came in. Now the condom is back as armour-plating. What goes around comes around. When do you reckon they’ll bring back the chastity belt?’ Malone shook his head at the constancy of sex and the others nodded. Then he said, ‘You said the Glazes were at the Golden West Club last night – together. You talked to anyone there?’ ‘Just the manager. Only him and the cleaners were there this morning. He said he saw her last night, but not him.’ ‘We’ll call in there. You want to come?’ Backer shook his head. ‘Later. I’ve got stuff back at the station I gotta attend to. I told you, four homicides. Things are getting worse.’ ‘You think they’ll get better?’ It was Malone’s turn to shake the head. Cops rarely, if ever, felt optimistic about the future. ‘Pigs will fly.’ ‘You talk to whoever’s there, call in and tell me on your way back to town. And thanks for coming.’ It was laconic, but sincere. ‘This is another country for you.’ ‘It’s educational,’ said Malone, but he would be glad to get back to town. He was neither a snob nor a silver tail, but out here he would have to learn a whole new approach. It was not Bosnia nor Belfast, but over the past thirty years a new culture, a new mindset, had developed out here. Summer was fading, but there was still heat in the morning. In the bright sunshine a tall tibouchina tree was a frozen purple explosion at the end of the street. A few other trees had been planted, but none of them had colour: the tibouchina stood out like a landmark. Malone wondered what Ron Glaze, the gardener, had thought of it. In the unmarked Homicide car, with Andy Graham at the wheel, Malone said, ‘You think Sergeant Backer has made up his mind about this one?’ ‘I think so.’ Graham nodded emphatically; all his movements were emphatic, as if he were afraid that he would not make his indelible mark on the world. ‘It’s natural, isn’t it?’ ‘How?’ ‘The easy suspect. I did a bit of door-knocking while you were talking to him. A woman over the road said she’d seen the husband drive up around two o’clock – she recognized his car, said she hadn’t seen it around, not since they’d broken up. She saw him get outa the car, stand for a while in the garden, then he went into the house. She’d got up to go to the bathroom—’ ‘What would we do without neighbours getting up and going to the bathroom?’ Graham grinned; even his grin was emphatic. ‘Yeah. Well, she didn’t exactly see him go into the house – she said she had to hurry to the bathroom—’ ‘She told you that? She had to hurry? You’ve got a way with women, Andy.’ They drew into the car park of the social club, almost deserted at this hour. Out of the glare and the heat, the inside of the club was cool and almost dark, except for the banks of poker machines, which were either never turned off or had just been switched on. The cavernous room seemed twice as large with no one in it. They asked for the manager, but he had gone to the bank. ‘He’ll be gone about half an hour,’ said the woman behind the bar. ‘You’re police from Sydney, are you? It’s another country, I tell my husband. Twenty-five miles and it’s another country. I can’t remember when I last went to town – that was what we used to call it. Town. Now we’ve got everything we want out here. Almost.’ ‘Were you working here last night?’ asked Malone. ‘I’ll have a light beer. We both will.’ ‘Nothing strong while on duty, eh? Some of the local guys … Well, no tales outa school. I’m Charlene, incidentally. My husband says there’s a St Charlene, though the Catholics don’t recognize her. As a saint, I mean. He says she’s the patron saint of deaf mutes, but I think he’s having a go at me.’ She laughed. It was probably the way she made her way through life, Malone thought: laughing at herself before others did. She was garrulous; she probably talked to her husband while giving him oral sex, which wouldn’t add to his joy. But she was also observant, a detective’s joy: ‘Yeah, they were in here last night. Things weren’t too good between ’em.’ ‘You could hear them arguing?’ She put the beers down in front of Malone and Graham. ‘No, no. But I could see ’em. I been working here – well, never mind. A long time. I don’t have to hear things. Not when a husband and wife are arguing. I’ve seen more barneys than you’ve seen murders – no, that’s a horrible thing to say. But I see ’em – you can’t hear much, not on busy nights, but you read ’em. You just look at them and you see it, you know? You married?’ Malone nodded. ‘But I never argue with my wife in public.’ She laughed again. ‘If you did, I’d be able to tell. You could be on the other side of this room—’ she waved, to Ultima Thule. Or Town – ‘I’d be able to tell. Things were very cool, definitely, between the Glazes.’ ‘No bust-up? Ron didn’t get up and storm out, nothing like that?’ She shook her head; the dome of hair didn’t move. ‘Nothing like it. He looked, I dunno, sorta cold-blooded. Ron could be like that at times.’ ‘Was he popular here at the club?’ asked Graham. ‘Oh yes. He was a car salesman – they’re born popular, aren’t they? Everybody’s friend. Especially the women’s. Ron was a Wandering Dick, if you’ll forgive the expression.’ ‘Of course,’ said Malone politely. ‘Did he have any special lady friends here at the club?’ ‘None of ’em special.’ She was busy polishing the beer taps. ‘What about Mrs Glaze?’ ‘Nah, never.’ She looked at the beer taps, as if they might spout some memory. She shook her head. ‘No, not Norma. Not here at the club, anyway. She put all her energy into her salon – she was a hairdresser, you know that?’ Malone, trying to avoid looking at the dome of hair, couldn’t stop himself from asking, ‘Did you go to her?’ ‘Me? Nah. But she used to do a lotta the women here. She was very popular, very good, always up with the latest styles. She said she was the Lillian Frank of the West.’ Malone looked at Graham. ‘You know who Lillian Frank is?’ Graham sipped his beer. ‘Never heard of her. What band is she with?’ Charlene laughed; she had been laughing at men’s jokes for – well, never mind. Too long. ‘Big Melbourne hairdresser. Always in the news, all dolled up to the nines on Melbourne Cup Day – you must of seen her? Norma wasn’t like that – I mean, all dolled up. She just wanted to be the biggest hairdresser out this way.’ ‘Would she have been?’ ‘I dunno. I don’t think so. Money seemed to be their trouble, never enough of it.’ ‘She told you that?’ She was polishing the beer taps again. ‘No, Ron. He was a great one for confiding, you know? A salesman all the time.’ ‘But he could be cold-blooded, you said.’ Malone finished his beer, stood up. ‘Ron sounds as if he could be quite a mixture.’ ‘Yes.’ She stopped polishing the beer taps, looked steadily at the two detectives. ‘I’m just surprised he turned out to be a murderer.’ ‘People often are,’ said Malone. ‘Are you?’ ‘Never … Did Mrs Glaze stay on after her husband walked out? When she left, did she go with someone, someone from the club?’ ‘No. She went out on her own, a bit unsteady on the legs.’ Barmaids and barmen had eagle eyes; armies, Malone thought, should recruit them. ‘I called after her if she wanted a taxi, but she didn’t hear me.’ ‘Anyone follow her?’ She shook her head. ‘I dunno. I went downstairs to the cellar. You think someone might of been eyeing her? Nah, I don’t think so. The men around here left Norma alone, most of ’em were Ron’s mates. He was everybody’s mate.’ ‘No strangers in that night? I see you have a sign: Visitors Welcome.’ ‘Oh, there were half a dozen or so. But none of ’em went near Norma.’ Malone paid for the beers. ‘Thanks, Charlene. What’s your surname?’ And Graham had taken out his notebook. ‘Colnby? C-O-L-N-B-Y?’ ‘You gunna be coming back?’ ‘Probably, when we catch up with Ron. If you think of anything else, call me.’ He gave her his card. ‘Scobie Malone – you Irish?’ ‘Just enough to make me interesting.’ She laughed. ‘Come again. All visitors welcome.’ Out in the car park Malone looked up. The day had changed abruptly. A nor’-easter had struggled in from the coast, from Town, and the sky was racing towards the Blue Mountains, no longer blue up close but grey and green and scarred with development. Malone lived in Randwick, a seaside suburb, and he hated the thought of having to live out here. The Westies in the western suburbs always got the rough end of the pineapple: weatherwise, economically, socially. They always got the wrong winds, the worst cold, the worst heat. There were areas here as arid as the drawing boards from which they had been lifted; the original planners had never understood the meaning of community. The suburbs were not slums or ghettos. Houses stood on their own small plots and they all had gardens of a sort, some luxuriant, some just weeds. There were shopping malls, cinemas, clubs, a rugby league team whose players would have been gods if the voters had believed in gods. Those that believed in gods or God, the post-World War II immigrants, had long ago learned that gods and God had no influence with politicians or bureaucrats. The population was mixed, an ethnic stew, and their voices, multilingual, were as loud in protest as those from elsewhere. But when the crunch came, when the pineapple was up-ended, who got the rough end? Malone looked back at the club. For all its indoor garishness, its temptation to gamble, it drew the locals together. ‘Would you like to live out here, Andy?’ ‘I grew up here. I went to Mount Druitt High.’ ‘How’d you find it?’ ‘I felt like murder sometimes.’ Graham was very still, very sober. ‘I’d go down to the beaches, Bondi, Coogee, and I’d look at all of them who lived there and I’d want to murder the bastards.’ ‘You changed your mind since you joined the Service and got to know one of the bastards from the beaches? Me.’ Graham relaxed, his silhouette shivering again. ‘It takes all sorts to make a world, doesn’t it?’ ‘I wonder what sort of world Ron Glaze wanted?’ 6 On their way back to Homicide, having paid their call on Jeff Backer and given him what little they had learned from Mrs Colnby, Malone and Graham diverted to the morgue in Glebe. Here in this inner suburb the breeze was cooler, as if it might have blown through the morgue before getting to the street. The two detectives entered the nondescript building from the rear; it had the look of a warehouse, which in a way it was. They were told that Dr Clements was in the Murder Room. They went down through the long main room where blue-gowned attendants, like bored priests, were administering pathology last rites to half a dozen corpses. Malone, though a man with a strong stomach, kept his eyes on the far end of the room. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something red-and-yellow and slimy, like something from a fisherman’s net, dropped on one of the scales between the stainless steel tables at which the technicians worked. Behind him he heard Graham strangle something between a cough and a burp, but he didn’t look back. Blue honeycombs of insect killers hung from the ceiling and a dozen air-conditioners did their best to strain the clogged air. Romy Clements, in gown, apron and gloves, was working on the body of Norma Glaze. ‘Not feeling well today, Andy?’ ‘I’d rather of stayed outside.’ Romy smiled at Malone. ‘You notice how all the really big men are weak-stomached? Russ is the same … Well, here she is. Mrs Norma Dorothy Glaze – maiden name Compton. Born 22 May 1963. Death by strangulation.’ She pointed to the purple fingermarks on the dead woman’s throat. ‘He was a strong man, whoever he was. He throttled her with one hand, his left.’ Malone looked at the corpse; there was an obsceneness to the naked dead. No matter how beautiful a woman might have been, or how handsome a man, in death the beauty, in Malone’s eyes, was gone. Nothing showed but flesh, waiting to rot, and hair waiting to fall off the skull. He dreaded the day he would have to look on the corpse of someone he loved. ‘She bruised at all?’ ‘Quite a lot. Breasts, ribs, on her jaw. Scratches, too. There’s bruises, too, on the inside of the thighs, around the vagina.’ ‘There’d been intercourse?’ ‘I’d say so. I don’t think it was rape, though.’ ‘Probably not. At the moment the main suspect is the husband. They were separated.’ ‘There’s no semen, so you can’t do a DNA.’ ‘We found a box of condoms,’ said Graham, eye-level about three feet above the corpse. ‘A box of a dozen – a couple had been used. We didn’t find them, they’d probably been washed down the toilet.’ ‘If he used a condom, twice, then it doesn’t suggest rape.’ ‘Looks like they had a fight,’ said Malone, ‘and it got out of hand.’ Romy pulled a sheet up over Norma Glaze, wrenched off her rubber gloves. ‘She’s booked for a more detailed autopsy this afternoon. If the husband is left-handed, I’d say he is your man. But I’m not a detective.’ ‘I’ll bet Russ is glad,’ said Malone. She took off her gown. She was a good-looking woman, dark-haired and broad-cheeked. There was a composure to her that Malone always admired. Her father had been a serial killer; her career and her relationship with Russ Clements had been almost ruined by the scandal. But she, and Russ, had weathered it and Malone had a protective affection for them both. ‘You should get him,’ she said. ‘Husbands who kill their wives never seem to escape the wedding ring. Old German saying.’ 7 That was Tuesday, 29 March 1994. Enquiries confirmed that Ron Glaze was indeed left-handed in everything but his handshake. ‘He had a strong handshake,’ said the manager of the car salesyard where he had worked. ‘The sort that made a customer believe in him. I was sorry to let him go, but that’s the way things have been. I can’t believe he killed Norma, no way.’ An ASM was put out for Ronald Glaze. His car was found two days later in a car park in Newcastle, 160 kilometres north of Sydney. Across the Hunter River from the car park the pipes of the BHP steelworks belched smoke, visual music to the Novocastrians. The Big Australian was still making money; downsizing was something that happened only to Americans, a word from another language. On 1 April a man’s body was fished out of the river. At first it was thought to be Ron Glaze, which would have left everything simple and uncomplicated. Unfortunately it was another man, another murder, this time by the wife and her lover. Ron Glaze disappeared and the Glaze murder case was moved to the back-burner of the computer files. Part Two (#ulink_cdd24a7e-b365-5720-91b1-1e9482d870c8) March–May 1998 Chapter Two (#ulink_799939c7-b47c-5f74-8093-66c430dd48d1) 1 Downsizing had hit Newcastle; the Big Australian was now not-so-big. There was a new government in Canberra, advised by economic rationalists; Thatcherism had taken root in Australia like rabbits and cod and other imports. The Asian economic house of cards had collapsed and the Australian voters were only now beginning to realize the shine might wear off the immediate future. Violence had increased, especially in the streets. The shine, it seemed, had worn off everything. ‘Inspector Malone? This is Detective-Constable Mungle. Wally Mungle. Collamundra. Remember? Eight years ago, the Hardstaff case.’ ‘Wally – what can I do for you?’ Had Amanda Hardstaff, the woman who had walked away from a bungled murder, finally decided to confess? ‘Last night, on that Channel 15 programme, Wanted for Questioning, they ran a piece about a guy named Ron Glaze, with his photo. Killed his wife four years ago. You still on that?’ ‘Only remotely, Wally.’ ‘I think he’s living here in Collamundra.’ Twenty-five years in the Service and a cop can still feel the adrenaline suddenly surge. ‘You’re sure?’ ‘Pretty sure. I can’t be certain, but I think I’d take a bet on it. He’s bald now and put on weight, but I think he’s the same bloke. He came into town about two, maybe three years ago. He runs a nursery, lives with the woman whose husband owned it. She’s a widow.’ ‘Glaze was supposed to be a keen gardener, but I dunno that he could run a nursery. Still … You keeping an eye on him?’ ‘Without letting him know, yes. It’s not easy – our establishment out here isn’t what it used to be. There’s been cutbacks, you know what it’s like. I’m the only detective now. Sometimes I’m running around like a blue-arsed fly, other times …’ ‘It’s a long way for me to send someone, Wally, just on the off-chance. Can you pick him up, put him through the grinder?’ ‘This is a bush town, Inspector. Another thing, I’m still the Abo cop for some of ’em around here. I pick him up and I’m wrong, he’s not this Glaze bloke, I’m in the shithouse.’ ‘Who’s in charge there now?’ He frowned, trying to remember names: ‘Inspector Narvo?’ ‘No, he’s the area super now. Inspector Gombrich is boss now.’ There was a pause, like a high jumper measuring a jump; then: ‘He and me don’t always see eye to eye.’ Malone took his own pause; he knew, as well as anyone, the minefield in the Service. At last, measuring his own jump, he said, ‘Put me through to Inspector Gombrich.’ ‘Yes, sir. Putting you through now.’ There was no mistaking the reluctance in Mungle’s voice. I’m putting him in the shithouse, thought Malone; but it could not be helped. He remembered his arrival in Collamundra eight years ago, when he and Clements had been as welcome as nightsoil carters on a hot morning. ‘Inspector Gombrich.’ The voice was flat and harsh. ‘This is Inspector Malone, Scobie Malone. Homicide and Serial Offenders Unit, Sydney—’ Gombrich had the sort of voice that asked for identification, with papers. ‘I know who you are. Constable Mungle filled me in before he phoned you. I don’t agree with his suspicions—’ ‘Inspector—’ Malone couldn’t remember when he had been so formal with someone of equal rank – ‘half our homicides begin with nothing more than suspicion. All I ask is that you question this man—’ ‘Roger Gibson is a personal friend.’ ‘Gibson – that’s his name?’ R. G. It was remarkable the number of times fugitives chose their original initials. As if afraid that a monogram, on a handkerchief or wallet, might give them away. ‘Yes. I’ve been here twelve months, we play golf together, his wife and my wife are friends—’ ‘He’s married?’ ‘All right—’ the exasperation was like static on the line – ‘his partner. They’re a happily married couple, even if they’re not married. I think Constable Mungle has made a mistake and we’ll just forget it—’ ‘Inspector Gombrich—’ Malone could see the roadblocks building up; at the same time he could feel his temper rising – ‘this is our case – I can’t just forget it, not till I’m sure that Mr Gibson is not Ron Glaze. I’ll come out there—’ he heard himself say; normally he would have sent a couple of junior officers. ‘I’ll come out and talk to Mr Gibson – Have you spoken to him?’ ‘Of course not!’ The voice was even harsher. ‘Then don’t,’ said Malone, a certain harshness in his own voice. ‘I want him there when I arrive. I’ll be coming with the authority of Chief Superintendent Random—’ ‘Are you threatening me?’ ‘No. I’m just sticking to police procedure. When can I catch a plane to Collamundra?’ There was a long silence, then Gombrich said, ‘There’s a plane leaves Kingsford Smith at twelve, Hazelton Airlines. It’s usually booked solid,’ he added and the harshness curdled with relish. ‘Someone’s going to be unlucky,’ said Malone. ‘But not me.’ He hung up and beckoned Russ Clements through the glass wall of his office. The big man came in, slumped down in his favourite position, the couch beneath the window. For a while he had been going to a gym and had lost some weight, but lately he had begun to spread again. He was not fat, there was still muscle and bone there, but he was generously overlaid. Malone sometimes wondered, though he would never have mentioned it, if Romy, a gourmet cook, had lapsed back into Teutonic recipes. Clements had the sort of stomach that welcomed dumplings. ‘You’ve got that shit-on-the-liver look again. Who is it this time?’ Malone filled him in. ‘I’m going out to Colla-mundra. How’s our slate today?’ ‘Two cases, that’s all. I’ll give you time off for twenty-four hours.’ Clements was the Field Supervisor, the man who dealt out the assignments. ‘Collamundra, eh? Narelle Potter, remember? I wonder if she still runs the Mail Coach Hotel?’ ‘You’re a married man now. I’m not going to look up one of your one-night stands. Get me on the plane, there’s one at noon.’ ‘You think this could be that guy Glaze?’ ‘I don’t know. But Wally Mungle has shoved his neck out and I’ve got to back him. I’ll be back tonight, with or without.’ There was a spare seat on the Hazelton Airlines plane and no one had to be offloaded for the Police Service. Malone sat next to a cotton farmer who had obviously fortified himself for the flight before boarding. He was short and big-bellied, with a mop of yellow hair and a yellow moustache. He was also drunkenly direct: ‘You on business?’ Malone nodded. ‘Just looking.’ ‘What sort?’ Malone flitted down a list of businesses. Oil drilling, coal mining, brothel keeping … ‘Fast food.’ ‘We’ve got a McDonald’s and a Pizza Hut, we don’t want any more. You’re not Kentucky Fried Chicken or Hungry Jack’s?’ He was built like a man who frequented all four. Malone shook his head. ‘Shirley’s Sausage Rolls. A new concept.’ ‘A new one, eh? That’s the way the world’s going, right? Fast food. Pretty soon we won’t sit down to eat. Sausage rolls, eh? Well, at least that’s Australian. Bloody pizzas. I ask you.’ The plane came in over the cotton fields, white lakes stretching away to the horizon, harvesters sitting in the middle of them like glass-cabined houseboats. Memory came flooding back. The Japanese cotton farm manager under the spikes of a module feeder; the resentment of the locals towards the two cops from Sydney, the outsiders; the climax with the arrest of the district’s most prominent landowner, the bush aristocrat, Chester Hardstaff. That had been a complex, threatening case with the real murderer, Hardstaff’s daughter, walking away unchallenged. Compared to that case, the Glaze-Gibson matter would be wrapped up, one way or the other, in the next hour. When he stepped out of the plane on to the tarmac Malone felt the heat hit him like a soft physical blow. El Ni?o, reaching out all the way from the Peruvian and Chilean coasts, had had its effect here on the western plains. Further west, beyond the cotton belt, wheat and sheep farmers watched the cracks widen daily in the soil of their paddocks. Things were tough enough out here without a cop arriving from Sydney to kick up more dirt. Wally Mungle was waiting for him in an unmarked car. ‘You haven’t changed, Inspector.’ Mungle had. He was still slight, still seemingly too small for his suit, but the years had doubled in his dark-coffee face. Somewhere back in his lineage was a white man; there was a hint of blue in the young detective’s eyes. The eyes were sad, sadder than Malone remembered, and the cheeks were already showing lines. ‘How’re things? You had kids – how are they?’ ‘Fine. Neither of them wants to be a cop …’ Then he looked sideways at Malone as he took the car out on to the main road to town. ‘This bloke Roger Gibson. I’m sure he’s the one you’re looking for.’ ‘It’s going to upset Inspector Gombrich, if he is. You still in the shithouse?’ ‘With the door shut and no paper,’ said Wally Mungle. ‘I’d better see him first. How are things around here?’ ‘You mean the locals? There’s no money in wool any more – most of the sheep cockies have gone into cotton. There’s still wheat, but even they are beginning to think there’s more money in cotton. Water’s the trouble. The blokes downstream, still in wheat or wool, they’re complaining they’re not getting enough water. Irrigation takes most of it.’ ‘I’ve read about it. You country people fight each other, you forget how much you hate us city folk.’ Mungle looked sideways at him, grinned thinly. ‘You wait till you pick up Roger Gibson and charge him.’ They went in past the avenue of silky oaks that was the entrance to the town, past the two used-car lots, then came to the roundabout at the eastern end of the main street. Malone suddenly remembered the war memorial, the bronze figure of the World War I Anzac, bayonet at the ready to repel the invaders from the coast, from the city. ‘He’s still there. Looks as if he could do with a polish.’ ‘He doesn’t mean much any more,’ said Mungle. ‘Did he ever mean much to you?’ ‘No.’ Mungle swung the car into the yard behind the police station. ‘He didn’t go away to fight for any of our mob, us Abos. But don’t quote me.’ He went to get out of the car, but Malone put a hand on his arm. ‘Wally, when I go out to pick up this feller Gibson, I think you’d better not come with me.’ Mungle’s gaze was direct. ‘I’m not gunna get anywhere in the Service by dodging issues.’ ‘How far are you going to get by going looking for them?’ ‘I dunno. But if Gibson is the man you’ve been looking for, then I want the credit for picking him up. All the other blokes here at the station look in at that TV programme – none of them picked him.’ ‘Including Inspector Gombrich?’ ‘Including him.’ Malone offered no further argument. Don’t start playing the do-gooder, chum. Wally Mungle had chosen his own path. As they went into the station Malone saw two uniformed men stop by a marked car and look back at himself and Mungle. Their stare was almost readable: Why don’t you mind your own business? The station was a one-storeyed Victorian stone building built to last, to withstand everything, including prejudice; the white ants were inside it. It was backed by a 1950s’ addition, a two-storeyed brick building as characterless as a butter-box. Gombrich’s office was in the front section: high-ceilinged, cold-looking. Malone felt the chill as soon as he walked into the room; the heat beyond the big window was an illusion. But at least the man behind the big table-desk was polite. He rose, though he did not put out his hand. ‘Inspector Malone—’ No welcome, nice to see you. ‘Leave us for a few minutes, Constable.’ ‘Yes, sir.’ Mungle turned at once and went out, not looking at Malone. The two inspectors gazed at each other for a few moments, then Gombrich sat down and gestured for Malone to do the same. ‘I think you’ve come a long way for no purpose.’ ‘It happens. If I’m wrong—’ Malone shrugged, waiting for the other man to develop the argument. Gombrich was tall, overweight, with a shock of greying curly hair and a mismatch of features: a blue and a grey eye, a fine handsome nose and loose cheeks and a double-chin. From the voice on the phone Malone had expected an austere man: cold, bony, a human rule-book. Instead, he looked as if, away from this room, he might enjoy life and company. In the locker room of the golf club, on the walk between the seventeenth and nineteenth holes he would be telling jokes, even perhaps ones about dumb cops. There were no jokes now: ‘Roger Gibson came to this town three years ago. He got a job as a casual salesman at one of the car lots – Ron Harvey says he’s the best salesman he’s ever had, but to keep him on full-time would have meant putting off someone else. He couldn’t do that, not in this town – you keep your old hands. Except if you work for a bank.’ Malone then guessed Gombrich was a long-time bush cop. The closing down of bank branches in country towns was a treason that would never be forgiven. ‘Then Roger went to work for Ollie McBride, he owned the nursery on the edge of town. Ollie was killed in a car accident about six months later. Roger ran the business – he just took over and made it even better than it had been under Ollie. Then about a year ago he and Ollie’s widow, Roma, became – partners. He’s only been here three years, but he’s one of the most respected men in town. He told me he had at last found his niche in life. He’s in Rotary, he’s on the committee of the golf club—’ Malone held up a hand. ‘I don’t doubt any of that. Look, Sam – mind if I call you by your first name?’ The name had been on the door. Not the usual first initials, but spelled right out: Inspector Samuel Gombrich. ‘Go ahead.’ Coldly, as if he had been asked if he minded being called Boofhead. ‘Sam, I’ll go out to the nursery and if this feller can convince me he’s not Ron Glaze, then okay, I’ll catch the seven o’clock plane back to Sydney and nobody’ll be the wiser.’ ‘Everyone here in the station knows why you’re here.’ ‘Then put a lid on them if I’m wrong. If they talk, they’ll be the ones putting the mark on Mr Gibson. Do you want to come out to the nursery with me?’ Gombrich for the first time looked uncertain. He had a habit, Malone remarked, of looking past one: as if each of the oddly matched eyes, the blue and the grey, had its own direction. Then they appeared to focus, glared at Malone. ‘No.’ ‘Then can I take Constable Mungle? Or would you rather I took someone else? I have to have someone local – this is your turf.’ ‘Take Mungle – it’s his pigeon.’ Malone stood up. ‘Will it still be his pigeon if he’s right? If Mr Gibson is Ron Glaze?’ Gombrich hadn’t risen; he just looked up at Malone. ‘Let’s hope he’s dead wrong.’ 2 McBride’s Nursery was on the western edge of town, across the wide road from the railway siding and the wheat silos. Here was where the country spread out, flat and limitless, to the edge of the world; the sky was, as Malone remembered it, vast and uncaring. There had been much talk this past year of El Nino, but it was only an occasional visitor. The locals had known for 150 years which way to look for trouble and, after prayer, for help. The nursery, here on the edge of the plains, was a faint green shout of defiance. Ollie McBride, or someone, had planted trees round it: silky oak, cypress pine, kurrajong and a red river gum that looked lost without its companions along a river-bank. Its three acres, within a high wire fence, bloomed greenly, like a last oasis. On the way out Malone had asked Wally Mungle about the town and the people he had met, no matter how fleetingly, on the murder case eight years ago. ‘Chess Hardstaff and Sean Carmody and Fred Strayhorn, they’re all dead. They were all old men, even then. Chess Hardstaff died in prison. While he was there he still thought he was king of the castle and they let him get away with it.’ Malone remembered the old man, stiff with pride and ego and the dignity of another age. But who had murdered his wife for sleeping with another man, had got away with it but taken the blame for the later murder that his daughter had committed. ‘They brought him home and he was buried with full honours by some of the locals, almost like a State funeral. Being a murderer was just incidental alongside the number of Germans he shot down during the war.’ ‘You’re cynical about us whites, Wally. What about Narelle Potter – she still run the Mail Coach Hotel?’ Mungle nodded. ‘Still. She’s married now and doesn’t play around like she used to. Roger Gibson, when he first came to town, went out with her a coupla times – that was before she married. She still raises the colour bar, though. One of us has one too many, out he goes or she calls the cops. Whitey can get blind paralytic and she just leaves him to his mates.’ Malone asked no more questions: they had drawn up at the gates of the nursery. He got out, suddenly apprehensive for Wally Mungle. Why couldn’t it have been one of the white officers who had recognized Ron Glaze on the TV programme? ‘You can stay in the car, Wally.’ ‘No, I brought you all the way out here from Sydney—’ He got out of the car. In the reflected glare from the whiteness of the car his colour seemed to pale. ‘If I’m wrong, then I’ll wear it.’ The March heat pressed down on them, pushing them into their sharp-edged shadows as they went in through the gates. From among the rows of shrubs and plants a man approached them, his left hand grasping the handle of a box of green shoots. ‘G’day, Wally. You brought a friend for some horticultural advice?’ ‘Not exactly, Roger.’ The bush friendliness of first names; except that this time there was a knife in the napkin of informality: ‘This is Inspector Malone, from Sydney. He wants to ask you some questions. Not horticultural ones.’ Ease off, Wally. Malone looked around, then said, ‘Could we go somewhere private, Mr Gibson?’ Gibson all at once was stockstill, his shadow a heavy base. He was wearing a khaki shirt and shorts, workman’s boots and short socks, a battered stockman’s hat. In the shade of the hat his eyes suddenly narrowed, as if he had only just become aware of the glare. ‘What’s it about?’ ‘It’s about you,’ said Malone. ‘I have reason to believe you are Ronald Glaze.’ It was a moment before Gibson frowned; but Malone noted the hesitation. ‘Who?’ ‘Let’s go somewhere more private.’ Two couples were looking at shrubs in the rows behind Gibson; over by a greenhouse a youth was stacking pots in the back of a Ford utility truck. All three had paused, had recognized Wally Mungle and were wondering who was the stranger with him. ‘We don’t want to make a production of this.’ Gibson didn’t move for a long moment; he stared at Mungle, but the latter was seemingly interested in the youth by the truck. A magpie fluttered down, began to pick amongst the plants. The woman would-be buyer shooed it away and it went off with a protest. Then Gibson said abruptly, ‘This way,’ and led Malone and Mungle towards a weatherboard office to one side of the entrance gates. Malone stopped at the doorway. ‘That your man over there at the ute? Better tell him to look after your customers. This may take a little while.’ ‘What the hell is this—?’ Gibson’s voice was unexpectedly loud; unexpected to him, it seemed. The couple amongst the nursery rows turned and looked at him. He gave them a wide smile, a salesman’s smile, and jerked a finger at the youth. ‘Look after things, Darren. We’ve got some business—’ He led the way into the office. Malone nodded to Wally Mungle, who closed the door. Gibson switched on a window air-conditioner, then sat down at a big roll-top desk and gestured for the two detectives to take chairs. He seemed to be gathering something into himself: front, confidence, whatever. ‘Who sent you out here?’ The salesman’s smile was gone: Gibson was selling nothing in here. Except, maybe, himself. Malone wondered who was responsible for the neatness of the office. There appeared to be a place for everything and everything in its place. Horticultural charts hung on the walls; there was a long shelf of gardening books. Two computers stood on a side table, each with a half-completed message on its face. Oddly enough there was not a pot plant or a flower-box anywhere in the small room. After the greenery of the nursery outside, the office looked as dry as a brown lawn. Malone opened the office wallet he had brought with, him, took out the photo of Ron Glaze that had been used on the TV programme. He looked at it, then at Gibson. Then he passed the photo to the other man. ‘Recognize him?’ Gibson studied the photo, then shook his head. ‘No.’ ‘I think it’s you. We found it in your wife’s wardrobe—’ ‘My wife? Which wife is that?’ Nice try. ‘Mrs Norma Glaze. This, we’ d say, was taken four or five years ago, maybe six. The photographer in Mount Druitt wasn’t sure. More hair and less weight, but I think it’s you.’ Gibson had taken off his hat as he came into the office. He was bald, except for a thin brush of grey-speckled blond hair along the temples. He looked at the photo again, then at Wally Mungle. ‘What d’you think, Wally? You think it looks like me?’ Mungle took his time, but didn’t look away. ‘I think it’s you, Roger.’ Gibson turned back to Malone. ‘So what did this guy do?’ ‘Murdered your wife,’ said Malone. It took him a moment to laugh; but like all salesmen, he was a good actor. The laugh sounded genuine. ‘Jesus! What wife? I’ve never been married. Except – well, my partner and I live together. My de facto, if you like, but I hate the bloody term.’ Malone sat back in his chair, looked at the photo again, looked at Gibson, then shook his head. ‘It’s you, Ron.’ ‘Bullshit!’ The front was starting to break, he was getting angry now. Malone was calm, unhurried. ‘You came to Collamundra three years ago. Where were you before that?’ ‘Around.’ Then the front was repaired. He suddenly looked more assured, settled back in his swivel chair as if ready for a chat about gardening. ‘I was in the Northern Territory. At Katherine, then in Darwin.’ ‘Doing what?’ ‘Selling.’ ‘Cars? They said you were a good car salesman.’ He ignored that. ‘No, computers.’ He gestured at the two computers on the nearby table. He gestured with his left hand; Malone noticed that he had very big hands. They were labourer’s hands and for the first time Malone had a moment of doubt. ‘The hardware and the software. It was easy territory. The Territorians like to think they’re up with the rest of the country. Ahead of it, in some respects. Beer drinking, for instance.’ He smiled, the assurance growing. ‘That’s true,’ said Wally Mungle. ‘I checked with Roads and Traffic over at Cawndilla. We’re in Cawndilla shire,’ he told Malone. ‘When he applied for his New South Wales licence, the computer showed he’d produced a Territory licence. They’re very handy, computers.’ You haven’t wasted any time this morning, thought Malone. Gibson’s face was stiff, the smile gone, as he looked at Mungle. ‘You started all this, Wally?’ Mungle nodded. ‘Why?’ ‘I recognized you last night on the TV programme, Wanted For Questioning.’ ‘You’re out of your mind, Wally.’ ‘I don’t think so, Roger.’ This was a local match; Malone was on the outside. He said nothing, waiting for Gibson to blow up. His anger would be greater at a local than at a stranger from out of town. There was a knock at the door and it was opened. A woman stood there, indistinct for a moment against the yellow glare. Then she came in, closing the door behind her. ‘Business? Am I intruding?’ Malone had kept his eye on Gibson. The anger at Mungle went out of the round face; it clouded for a moment, a shadow took all the life out of it. Then he recovered, stood up. ‘No, come in, sweetheart. You know Wally Mungle. This is Inspector Malone, from Sydney.’ She was tall and lusty-figured and had a mane, one had to call it that, of golden hair. She was not beautiful, her face was too broad for that, but it was a face any man, or anyway most men, would look at twice. She wore a tan sleeveless shirt, a beige skirt and her arms, legs and face were deeply tanned. A woman, thought Malone chauvinistically, who wouldn’t remain a widow too long. Only her voice spoiled her: it was high, girlish, the voice from the back of the schoolroom: ‘Have we done something wrong? Police from Sydney?’ Gibson opened his mouth, but Malone got in first: ‘That’s what we are trying to establish, Mrs – do I call you Mrs Gibson?’ ‘Yes,’ said Gibson, getting in his word. She had an eye or an ear or a nose for atmosphere. She recognized that some formality was called for; this inspector from Sydney was not here to buy a box of petunias. ‘Mrs Gibson will do,’ she said and her partner looked relieved. ‘We have reason to believe—’ the pedantry always coated Malone’s tongue, but that was the way the Service wanted it – ‘Mr Gibson is not who he claims to be. His real name is Ronald Glaze.’ She put out her hand to Gibson and he took it. She looked at him and he shook his head; that seemed to satisfy her, for she pressed his hand. Then she looked back at Malone. ‘You’re not here just because he’s supposed to have changed his name. What’s he supposed to have done?’ Malone waited, hoping that Gibson, maybe with a laugh, would tell her. He had at least a dozen times had to tell a wife or a partner that her man had been murdered; only once before had he had to tell her that he was a murderer. Gibson just stood beside his partner, saying nothing. It was Wally Mungle who said, ‘We’re sorry, Roma, but he is accused of murdering his wife in Sydney four years ago.’ She turned on him, ignoring Malone, and said, ‘You can’t be serious!’ ‘I’m afraid we are,’ said Malone, getting Mungle off the hook he had nailed for himself. Wally Mungle was getting out of hand; he was relishing this, getting his own back on his fellow cops who had sneered at his taking duty too seriously. He would talk to Mungle later. ‘I’m taking him into town, to the station. The questioning may go on for some time. You may come to the station if you wish. You can have a lawyer present, Mr Glaze.’ ‘Gibson,’ said Gibson. Now his partner was here he looked confident again. He’d get his strength from women, thought Malone, even though they were his weakness. ‘Yes, I think I will get our lawyer. Go and get Trevor Waring, sweetheart – don’t ring him, we’ll keep it quiet till Inspector Malone has gone back to Sydney, then we can laugh about it … Something wrong, Inspector?’ ‘No. I happen to know Mr Waring, that’s all.’ Gibson appeared slightly fazed, as if the ground ahead had become uneven. ‘He’s a friend?’ ‘Not exactly.’ Trevor Waring had been the husband of a friend of Lisa Malone, but the marriage had split up five or six years ago. ‘It’s just a coincidence. He also acted for another man I arrested for murder. Man named Hardstaff.’ ‘Of course!’ Roma Gibson looked at Malone with new interest: very acute interest. ‘I was at a garden party at the Hardstaffs’—’ Malone nodded. ‘The day we arrested Chester Hardstaff … Get Trevor, he’s a good lawyer. Or he was.’ ‘He still is,’ said Roma Gibson, kissed her partner and left, leaving the door open to the glare outside. It’ll be nothing, thought Malone, to the glare when this case breaks. The Hardstaff case suddenly seemed like only yesterday. The glare then had been fiery, directed against himself and Russ Clements, who had been with him. As he, Mungle and Gibson stepped out of the office a reminder was thrown at him like a brick. A woman in a yellow dress came down between the rows of shrubs. She pulled up sharply: recognition was instant. ‘Inspector Malone?’ Perhaps it was the glare: Malone looked for other ghosts. Narelle Potter; the secretary of the local services club whose name he couldn’t remember; Sean Carmody – ah, but he was dead. He blinked, became accustomed to the glare. ‘Hello, Mrs Nothling.’ ‘Hardstaff.’ It was a day for corrections. ‘My husband and I—’ She had a queenly air about her, always had had. ‘We were divorced some years ago. Just after you left here.’ Amanda Nothling-Hardstaff had not changed. She was still attractive, still elegant despite the heat, still the arrogant aristocrat. They were a dying breed, the squattocracy, but she would be flying the banner till the last. She was a murderer, but if there was any shame in her it would never show. Her husband, Malone decided, would have been well rid of her. ‘Some trouble, Roger? Inspector Malone is implacable.’ Implacable. Malone had been called many things, but never that. He grinned at her and she gave him a knife of a smile in return. Then she seemed to note the significance of Malone’s attachment. ‘You are still with Homicide?’ The first crack in the dam that was going to engulf Gibson. ‘Yes. You have quite a memory.’ ‘Oh, I do, I do.’ She looked at Gibson again. She was wearing dark glasses, but one knew that behind them the eyes had narrowed. ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’ Gibson smiled, shook his head. ‘They think I might’ve been a witness to something years ago, but I can’t remember it. You want something, Amanda? Young Darren will look after you. Those liquidambars you ordered are due in a coupla weeks. Too hot to bring ’em out here right now. I’ll see you Sunday. Tennis still on?’ ‘I remember your father’s garden, Mrs Hardstaff,’ said Malone as he and Mungle led Gibson towards the police car. ‘That where you live now? Lucky you.’ It was a cheap shot, but he couldn’t help it. He saw Wally Mungle glance at him; even Gibson turned his head. He ignored them both, opened the rear door of the car. ‘Don’t put your hand on top of my head and push me in,’ said Gibson. ‘I’ve seen it on TV – that’s what you do to crims.’ ‘After you, Ron,’ said Malone and stood back. He got in beside Gibson. As the car drove away he looked back at Amanda Hardstaff some fifty yards away; in her yellow dress she seemed to shimmer in the glare, a fading memory from the past. He would take Gibson, or Glaze, out of Collamundra this evening and hoped he would never come back. 3 ‘This was not my idea, Roger,’ said Inspector Gombrich. ‘I know that, Sam. It’ll all be over in half an hour. Don’t worry about it. I’m not.’ Malone had faced confidence before, but he was impressed, though not believing, by Gibson’s show of it. ‘Inspector, would you have someone book me two seats on the seven o’clock plane?’ Gombrich chewed a lip, then nodded. ‘I’ll do that. I’ll bill your unit.’ ‘Of course. Now may we use your interview room? There’s a recorder there?’ ‘Yes, but no video. We don’t run to that on our budget.’ ‘What happens to the tape when this turns out to be a farce?’ asked Gibson. ‘We sell it to Comedy Commercials.’ Malone was growing tired of Gibson; he wanted to nail him to the wall as Glaze in the shortest possible time. ‘You want to sit in with me, Inspector?’ ‘No,’ said Gombrich, already in retreat but doing his best to hide it. ‘Constable Mungle will assist.’ Malone looked at Mungle, who nodded. ‘Glad to.’ Then he looked at Gibson and said, ‘Nothing personal, Roger.’ ‘Of course not,’ said Gibson and gave him a wide smile, as if he were selling him a liquidambar. Or a low-mileage Holden Caprice driven only by an old lady. The interview room was small; the crime waves in Collamundra were small. Gibson settled into a chair, looked around him. ‘It’s just like in The Bill, isn’t it? Not crummy, like the room in NYPD Blue.’ ‘We’re not on TV, Ron—’ ‘Roger.’ ‘Except you were on TV last night,’ said Wally Mungle, setting up the tape recorder. ‘What have you got against me, Wally?’ Gibson was not aggressive; he genuinely wanted to know. ‘I’m not anti-Abo, you know that Darren, works for me, he’s part-Abo – or should I say half-indigenous?’ ‘Lay off, Roger. I’ve got nothing against you personally – I’m just doing my job.’ Gibson considered that; then, salesman-like, said, ‘Make me a better offer.’ Then Roma Gibson arrived with Trevor Waring. The latter had changed since Malone had seen him last. He was in his early fifties and middle-age spread had wrapped itself round him; he was at least 15 kilos heavier, most of it round his middle. He had lost hair and volume of voice: Malone remembered a voice that had been middling loud. Now it was thin, as if middle-age spread was choking it in his throat. ‘Hullo, Scobie.’ He put out a plump hand. ‘A nice surprise.’ ‘A surprise, Trevor, but it may not be nice. Would you mind waiting outside, Mrs Gibson? It’s pretty crowded—’ ‘Yes, I would mind. I want to be here to hear whatever ridiculous things you are going to say to Roger.’ Malone hated being crowded; the room was far too small. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Gibson—’ ‘Get Inspector Gombrich, Wally,’ she said. Mungle stood his ground. ‘I can’t do that. This is Inspector Malone’s case.’ She then looked at Waring, who shrugged. ‘That’s the way it is, Roma. I’ll take care of it. Roger will be out of here in no time.’ For a moment it seemed she would not budge; then she leaned towards Gibson and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I’ll be waiting, love.’ When the door closed behind her, Waring sat down, as if standing tired him, and looked up at Malone. ‘How serious is it, Scobie?’ ‘Very.’ Gibson had got to his feet when his partner had come in; he was still standing. ‘Sit down, Mr Glaze—’ ‘Gibson.’ He wasn’t yielding an inch or a name. ‘Have it your way. Trevor, this is what happened four years ago—’ He gave a quick summary, moving his gaze from one man to the other, watching their reactions. There was none from Gibson, but Waring a couple of times frowned, though he said nothing. Malone opened the office wallet and took out three large photos. ‘That’s your client, taken five or six years ago. Less weight, more hair—’ ‘The reverse of me,’ said Waring, but it didn’t sound like a joke. ‘Now you mention it—’ Then Malone laid out the second photo. ‘This is Norma Glaze, taken about the same time – when they were happily married.’ He glanced at Gibson, but there was no reaction. ‘A good-looking woman. Don’t you think so?’ He swung the photo round, so that it was directly in front of Gibson. ‘You remember her, Ron?’ Gibson glanced at the photo, then lifted his gaze directly back at Malone. ‘How can I? I’ve never seen her before.’ Lying is part of salesmanship: Malone had been sold too many lies not to be cynical. Gibson, or Glaze, would sell the lie right down till the customer walked out of the yard. ‘Then maybe you remember this?’ It was a close-up of Norma Glaze in death. The bruise on her jaw, the fingermarks on her throat, dark smudges that made her only a distant twin of the woman in the other photo. Gibson continued to stare at the detectives, first at Mungle, then at Malone. It was a long beat before he turned his gaze downwards. His big hands were on the table and there was no mistaking the sudden tightening of the fingers. It was the only giveaway. When he lifted his head and looked back at Malone his face was composed, his voice steady. ‘Poor woman.’ ‘Yes,’ said Malone. ‘Scobie—’ Waring shifted his bulk in his chair; he seemed to have trouble with his weight, as if it were new to him. ‘Those photos prove nothing.’ ‘They will, Trev … Righto, let’s go back to the beginning. What was your history before you came to Collamundra, Roger? I’ll call you Roger for the time being, but don’t read too much into it.’ ‘I won’t.’ Gibson leaned back in his chair; all at once he looked the most comfortable of all four men. ‘I was born in New Zealand, in Dunedin in the south. I went to England when I was twenty, came to Australia six years ago—’ ‘How long were you in England?’ ‘Nine, ten years.’ ‘You don’t have a New Zealand accent or an English one. All that time before you came here and you have a dinky-di Aussie accent. What d’you reckon, Constable?’ ‘Indigenous,’ said Mungle and for the first time all day gave a full-mouthed smile. ‘Are you an expert on accents, Scobie?’ said Waring. ‘Yes,’ lied Malone. ‘It’s a hobby I picked up from my wife Lisa. You remember her?’ ‘Of course,’ said Waring and shifted again in his chair. ‘We’ll check with Dunedin, birth records, that sort of thing. You have a passport?’ Gibson was very still in his chair. ‘No. Someone stole it – I never bothered to apply for a new one.’ ‘Never mind, the New Zealand passport office will have a record of it. We’ve used them before.’ Lying again. ‘What year did you first apply for it?’ ‘I dunno. Around 1982, 83.’ He’s bluffing because he thinks I’m bluffing. He turned to Mungle. ‘Could you get me some fingerprint sheets, Wally?’ Mungle stood up, but Waring held up a restraining hand. ‘What do we need those for?’ ‘We have prints of his from their house. In the kitchen, Roger, on the handle of the fridge door. On a Coke bottle and a glass. Was that before or after you’d killed her?’ He didn’t give Gibson time to reply, but nodded to Wally Mungle. ‘Get the sheets, bring in the dab pad.’ Mungle went out of the room. Gibson and Waring looked at each other, but said nothing. Then Malone, casually, said, ‘When we get back to Sydney, Roger, we’ll have your mother and sister identify you. They’ll know you. They’re both still alive, I think.’ There was a sudden silence, the sort of silence that one sometimes finds in music: not the end but the beginning of something. Malone waited: he had become an expert in silences, if not in accents. Then Gibson sighed, a shudder of sound that came up through his body. He leaned forward, said softly, ‘I didn’t kill her.’ Malone felt relief course slowly through him; he had won. There was satisfaction, but it was not malicious. He didn’t believe Glaze’s claim, but the salesmanship was over. Glaze might go on lying, but he would be lying as his true self, not Roger Gibson. Gibson was dead, a shell discarded. ‘Roger—’ Waring was genuinely shocked; then he recovered. ‘Don’t say anything more—’ ‘I have to, Trev. Okay, I’m Ron Glaze. That’s my wife—’ He gestured at the photos, but didn’t look at them. ‘But I did not kill her. I went back to our house that night – she was dead when I got there. Lying on the bed – naked … I sat there, I dunno how long, twenty minutes, half an hour, then I left—’ ‘Why?’ said Malone. ‘Why didn’t you call the police?’ ‘I did. I called ’em about daybreak, told ’em where she was … Then I took off. I panicked. We’d had an argument up at the club – people saw us, they knew we’d been living apart … I just wanted to get away. I sat in my car for, I dunno, two or three hours before I called the police. I just wanted to get away – what was there to stay for? She was dead—’ ‘When you went back to the house, what were you going to do?’ Glaze looked down at his clasped hands that appeared to be trying to strangle each other. ‘If she kicked me out again, I was going to kill her and then kill myself. That was why I got outa there. Someone else had done what I was gunna do if she’d said no. Only thing different was I’d have topped myself as well.’ There was a downbeat silence this time; then Trevor Waring said, ‘I think that’s a reasonable explanation, don’t you, Scobie?’ Nice try, Trev, but you ’re not as na?ve as that. ‘No, Trev, I don’t … Ronald Glaze, I am arresting you for the murder of your wife Norma. Anything you may say …’ 4 ‘I’d like to see Roma. Alone.’ ‘Five minutes, Ron. Don’t try anything stupid.’ ‘Such as?’ Malone had seen average, placid men turn desperate; but he didn’t think Glaze would be like that. He was a born salesman: hope was his diet. ‘Five minutes. Leave the door open.’ Now that he had admitted his true identity, Glaze appeared almost relaxed. But not quite; the big hands were still restless. He looked at Waring. ‘You disappointed, Trev?’ ‘Only for you, Roger,’ said Waring and sounded sincere. ‘Let’s hope Roma can take it.’ Malone went out, followed by Waring. He gestured towards the interrogation room and Roma Gibson looked at him enquiringly. ‘You’re letting him go? I told you—’ ‘Roger has something to tell you, Roma,’ said Waring. She frowned, looked hard at the two of them, then went by them with a rush and into the interview room. Wally Mungle came back with sheets and a pad, pulled up sharply. ‘He’s confessed?’ ‘That he’s Ron Glaze, yes. But not that he killed her.’ They were in the area behind the front counter. Two uniformed men, a middle-aged sergeant and a younger man, looked up from their desks. They stared at Malone, Mungle and Waring, as alert as pointer dogs; then they turned their heads. Gombrich had come out of his office. ‘Well?’ ‘He’s admitted he’s the man we’re after,’ said Malone. ‘He’s denying he killed his wife. I’m charging him, nonetheless. Can we get the preliminary paperwork done?’ He looked at his watch. ‘I want to catch that plane. Have we got two seats?’ ‘You’re going to take him in as he is?’ ‘No. If it’s okay with you Constable Mungle can go out with his wife and bring in some gear for him. We’ll hold him here till it’s time to go out to the airport.’ ‘What if she wants to go down to Sydney with him?’ ‘That’s okay, if there’s a spare seat on the plane.’ ‘No, I got you the last two.’ ‘Leave it like that. She can come down tomorrow.’ The sergeant at his desk looked up at Mungle. ‘You were right, Wally. Pleased?’ He was a bush cop, lean and hard and dry; his opinions would be the same. Mungle was not going to have an easy time of it; but he was not backing down. ‘No, Jack. Just doing my job, that was all. Like you do yours.’ Before the sergeant could reply, Gombrich stepped in: ‘It’s done, that’s the end of it.’ ‘Not the end,’ said the sergeant, not giving up. ‘Just the beginning.’ ‘That’s how all homicide arrests start,’ said Malone. He was watching that his tongue did not get away from him, but he was angry for Wally Mungle’s sake. ‘Ron Glaze will have plenty of time to argue.’ ‘Ron Glaze – who’s he?’ said the sergeant, but he knew he had lost the argument. ‘Will you want Wally to come down to Sydney?’ asked Gombrich. He was less formal now: he, too, knew he had lost the argument. ‘Not for the charging. But for the committal and trial, probably.’ He looked at the three locals: the inspector, the sergeant, the constable at his desk. Wally Mungle stood apart, identified by more than just being in plainclothes. ‘I’ve been in Homicide more years than I care to count. Most murders, I get a certain satisfaction when we clean them up, bring in and convict the buggers responsible. I never get any satisfaction out of a domestic. I’m not going to get any satisfaction out of this one if we nail Ron Glaze. But someone – and it’s us – has to do something for his wife. She’s dead.’ For a moment nobody spoke; then Gombrich said, ‘Fair enough,’ and Malone knew he had won a point. For Wally Mungle, he hoped. Then Roma Gibson and Glaze came in from the interview room. Not knowing the circumstances of her first marriage, but giving her the benefit of the doubt, Malone recognized that Roma Gibson had just had her life shattered for the second time. But there were no tears; or if there were she had left them in the interrogation room. She was no longer aggressive, but she had already built defences. ‘I’m coming with you.’ Malone said nothing, but glanced at Gombrich; the latter picked up the ball, reluctantly. ‘The plane’s full, Roma. There’s a wait-list.’ She turned to Malone. ‘When will Roger be charged? Where?’ He was still Roger: she wasn’t giving him up to a dead woman. ‘He’ll be held at Surry Hills police station, in Police Centre, tonight. Then he’ll go before a magistrate tomorrow morning, probably down at Liverpool Street. You know Sydney?’ ‘Yes.’ She kissed her partner on the cheek, pressed his hand. It was for his benefit, not Malone’s. She loves him, thought the latter. ‘I’ll drive down tonight. We’ll be on our way home tomorrow night.’ He smiled at her, hugged her, then looked at Malone, who said, ‘I wouldn’t bank on it, Ron.’ 5 While waiting to go out to the Collamundra airport Malone rang Mount Druitt and asked for Sergeant Backer. But Backer was no longer in the Service; he had joined a private security firm working for the Olympics. ‘It’s Senior Sergeant Hulbert here.’ Malone explained what he had in mind. ‘You fellers can take over, be there tomorrow morning and take all the credit.’ ‘Thanks all the same, but we just don’t have the staff. You found him, you take the gold medal. It’s all in the Olympic spirit.’ He was another cop who, like Malone, was not looking forward to the events of 2000. ‘Many thanks.’ ‘Up you,’ said Malone and hung up. Next morning, back in Sydney, Glaze was taken before a magistrate in the Liverpool Street court. Malone went down to the court with Andy Graham, just to tie his own ribbon bow on the case. By the time Glaze came to committal and trial, Andy Graham and someone from under-staffed Mount Druitt could present the evidence. This morning everything was over in a matter of minutes. Glaze’s lawyer, briefed by Trevor Waring by phone, had not had time to prepare much argument. After the hearing Malone made a mistake in taking a short cut through to the yard where the unmarked Homicide car was parked. Glaze was waiting in the hallway, accompanied by a court official, before being taken out to the van that would take him out to Long Bay gaol. Roma Gibson was there, her presence apparently tolerated by the court official, a young woman. ‘Why did you oppose giving me bail?’ Glaze was as nervous as an NYPD Blue cameraman; his eyes were everywhere, looking for something to focus on. All of a sudden he was falling apart. ‘Jesus, why?’ ‘Ron, you pissed off once. Give you bail and you’d do it again.’ ‘Where will he be sent?’ asked Roma Gibson. She was not as distraught as her partner, but one could see the effort she was making to hold herself together. ‘For how long?’ ‘Long Bay, or maybe Silverwater. I dunno how long. We’ll have the case prepared for the DPP—’ ‘The who?’ ‘Director of Public Prosecutions. They’ll fit it into the court schedules. It could take three, four months, probably longer, before the committal, then there’ll be the trial. It’s out of our hands now.’ ‘Jesus!’ Glaze threw up his manacled hands, looked around for escape. ‘You don’t care any more, do you?’ said Roma Gibson. ‘Mrs Gibson—’ He drew a long sigh of patience; he had been down this road so many times. ‘Have Trevor Waring get Ron—’ ‘Roger.’ ‘Whoever. Have Trevor get him a good barrister. That’s more important than worrying about whether I care or not.’ ‘What do you do in the meantime?’ Doesn’t this woman ever let go? But he had seen all this before, too: the thrown net, the drawing in of a cop as a hated relative. ‘I go on to other cases. There are four or five homicides a day in this city – not much compared to other cities overseas. But we’re kept busy.’ He walked past them out into the yard. The heat hit him at once, the glare blinded him; he took out his dark glasses, which he rarely wore, and put them on. He stood for a moment, getting himself together. He must be getting old; the net was growing tighter. Yet this was an uncomplicated case, at least for the police. He would put it out of his mind till he had to present the papers for the case to the DPP. Andy Graham was waiting for him. ‘Get in quick, boss. There’s a girl from Channel 15 wanting to interview you. She says their show put us on to Glaze.’ ‘Let her talk to him, then. Maybe he’ll sell them his story – they’ll buy anyone with an open mouth.’ He got into the car, slammed the door as he saw the girl, a cameraman and a sound man approaching. ‘Get us outa here! Run over ‘em, if you have to!’ Graham grinned. ‘Nothing would gimme greater pleasure. But I don’t think we have justifiable homicide, do we?’ Malone smiled wryly. ‘You’re developing a sour sense of humour, Andy.’ ‘It helps, doesn’t it?’ He would be a cop all his working life; another twenty-five years stretched ahead of him down the track. ‘I’ve watched you and Russ. No offence.’ Chapter Three (#ulink_1a1c0844-d6be-5fba-aab4-7a245e9872d2) 1 Ronald Glaze’s arraignment got only five lines, narrow single column, in the News Briefs in the next day’s papers. Even Channel 15 did not run an item on him in its evening news on the day. Apart from political and economic stories and more scandal out of Washington, the big news was the kidnapping and demand for ransom of Lucybelle Vanheusen. ‘Who is Lucybelle Vanheusen?’ asked Malone at breakfast. ‘She’s that brat in the McDonald’s commercials,’ said Tom. ‘And in the Toyota ads,’ said Maureen. ‘And in the Coca-Cola ads,’ said Claire. Malone groaned, remembering the moppet with enough red hair to have played a grown-up role in Days of Our Lives. ‘I know her now.’ ‘Don’t say it,’ said Lisa. ‘What?’ ‘That you hope the kidnappers don’t give her back.’ Malone nodded; but he had been on the verge of being callously unfunny. ‘I remember Dad used to say when he was growing up he couldn’t stand Shirley Temple. She used to do dances up and down a staircase with some black dancer and Dad always wished she’d fall and break a leg. But I’m sorry about this kid. How much are they asking as the ransom?’ ‘A dollar ninety-five,’ said Tom and jerked his head back as his mother swung the back of her hand at him. He grinned, but said, ‘Sorry.’ Breakfast was the one meal that Malone insisted they all had together. All three were at university. Claire was doing Law and, already a lawyer, was advising her father on points that didn’t interest him; her only good point, he would say, was that so far she wasn’t charging him. Maureen was doing Communications and forever telling him he didn’t know how to use the media. Tom had just started Commerce and after a month’s study already knew more than Dr Greenspan, George Soros and the economic rationalists down in Canberra. They left the house each morning and were free souls; Tom, who liked home cooking, was home for dinner more frequently than his sisters. Lisa, still the boss in the house, insisted that there was a family dinner at least one night a week. The glue that held them together was stretched more than it used to be, but it was still holding. ‘What’s the percentage of kidnap victims who are returned unharmed?’ asked Maureen. Malone shrugged. ‘I don’t think anyone’s ever done a survey on it. Kidnapping isn’t a primary industry in this country.’ But it would develop as more and more wealth was accumulated and the gap between rich and poor grew and violence became a way of life. ‘Who are her parents?’ ‘How much don’t you know?’ Maureen was appalled at her father’s ignorance. ‘Her mum and dad are in the social pages every Sunday – they’re on all the freeloader lists. He’s the designer—’ ‘Of what?’ Maureen rolled her eyes, at which she was very good. ‘Clothes. He’s Sydney’s Versace, only he’s straight. Mum Vanheusen does nothing but promote little Lucybelle.’ ‘If he’s so successful as a designer, why do they need to exploit the kid?’ He was remembering Lucybelle more clearly now. She was in TV commercials as frequently as a certain popular blue cattle dog and Elle MacPherson. ‘The mum was a model who never got as far as she hoped,’ said Claire. ‘Maybe she’s hoping little Lucybelle will be the next – who’d you say Grandpa didn’t like?’ It was Malone’s turn to roll his eyes, at which he was not at all good. ‘You lot know nothing about history, do you? You think everything started with the Beatles.’ ‘The who?’ said Tom. Later, Lisa walked out with Malone to the garage. She paused and looked around the garden; this was her green anchor, burned now by the long summer. She loved their house, though it was no more than a turn-of-the-century Federation model; the houses had become fashionable again over the last five or six years, a reaching back to a history that property-owners never bothered to read. But it was the garden that held her; it was a calendar marked with azalea, camellia, lobelia, gardenia. The camellia had been a bush when they had first moved into the house; now it was a tree. Each evening, as she held the hose, she liked to think that she was spraying the garden with love. A thought she kept to herself: Malone and the children were not garden lovers. ‘What are you looking at?’ ‘Nothing. It’ll soon be time for pruning – you can buy me a new set of secateurs for my birthday.’ ‘I’ll buy you a lawn-mower, too. How’re you fixed for shovels and rakes?’ She hit him, loving him more than the garden. She got into the Ford Fairlane beside him. She worked as the Olympics public relations officer for the City Council and each morning he drove her into work before heading back to Strawberry Hills and his own office. He didn’t enjoy the drive, but it was an opportunity for the two of them to discuss their own, and not the children’s, affairs. ‘That man you brought down from Collamundra—’ Usually she waited for him to broach discussion on a case, but he had said nothing since his return home late the night before last. ‘Did he kill his wife?’ ‘He did it, all right.’ He took the car out of their quiet North Randwick street into the morning traffic. ‘He’ll lie his head off, but he’ll go down.’ ‘What about this little girl?’ ‘What about her?’ ‘If she’s been murdered—’ ‘Don’t think about it—’ ‘Of course I think about it! Right now most of the mothers in Sydney will be thinking about it. Look at the number of girls, youngsters and teenagers, who have disappeared – there’s a list in the Herald this morning—’ ‘I never anticipate – it’s not Homicide’s job to prevent murder—’ ‘That’s pretty cold-blooded, isn’t it?’ He looked sideways at her; in this hour’s traffic it was the only safe way to look. Road rage was becoming endemic; every car had a potential terrorist in it. ‘No, it’s – pragmatic. It’s the only way I sleep at night.’ ‘I’ll remember that next time your loving hand gets out of hand.’ She squeezed his thigh. ‘Keep your eye on the road, sailor.’ He shuddered with love for her. Terrorists closed in on either side of him, shouting abuse: ‘Learn to fucking drive, you arsehole!’ Lisa smiled at the terrorist on her side, a woman, then looked at her husband. ‘Be pragmatic. Don’t answer back.’ He dropped her at Town Hall, drove back to Homicide and was greeted by Russ Clements: ‘We’ve got another one. That kidnapped kiddy, they dropped her off a cliff at Clovelly.’ Malone was abruptly ashamed of his approach to the kidnapping this morning; the jokes came back like bile. ‘Who’s handling it?’ ‘Waverley. They want us in on it. You wanna take it with one of the girls?’ Malone went out of his small office into the big room. Most of his staff of eighteen detectives were at their desks, waiting for the morning conference to begin. They were a mixed lot, like the population in general; the older ones with that faded look of hope that investigators wear, the younger ones with their enthusiasm still to be tarnished. Police investigation was like gold-fossicking: one searched for the gleam of a clue amongst the gravel. ‘Russ will take the meeting this morning.’ He explained where he was heading. ‘You come with me, Sheryl.’ He made no comment on the grimace that flashed across her face; she would do her job, no matter how much she might dislike the circumstances of this one. Sheryl Dallen had been with Homicide and Serial Offenders a year now and her competency and commonsense had increased with each case. She was of medium height, solidly slim or slimly solid, depending on male prejudice; she was a fitness fanatic, the gym was her church. Her attractiveness lay in her healthy look and her laconic approach to life and death. She would not be fazed by what might come up in the Lucybelle Vanheusen murder. Driving out to Waverley in the eastern suburbs, under the blue glass of a sky that was forecast to turn black with thunder by evening, Malone said, ‘I know nothing about this little girl, Sheryl, or her parents. You know anything?’ ‘I know the mother, slightly. She goes to my gym.’ He made no remark about the coincidence; experience had taught him that life got kick-starts from coincidence. ‘What’s she like?’ ‘You mean how’ll she stand up to this? She’s strong, I think. She’s full of herself, but these days women have to be.’ ‘Don’t start sounding like my daughters. Does she talk to you at gym?’ Sheryl shook her head. Her shoulder-length brown hair was worn in a ponytail today because of the heat; the ponytail swung like a bird trying to burrow into her head. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever said more than two words to her – I’ve just observed her, knowing who she was. She’s usually surrounded by guys.’ ‘Does her husband – what’s his name?’ ‘Damien.’ ‘Damien Vanheusen – why wasn’t I born with a name like that? Does he come to the gym?’ ‘Occasionally, but he’s not a regular.’ ‘What about the little girl – did Mum bring her to the gym?’ ‘I don’t think so. Evangelina—’ ‘Who?’ ‘She’s half-Spanish, I think. She’s usually called Lina. She would usually come to the gym at night, after the little girl would be in bed.’ She was silent for a while, then she said, ‘I don’t think there are any other children. They’re gunna be devastated, both of them.’ ‘Well, we’ve missed the initial shock. Someone else will have told them.’ ‘That’s a relief.’ The Waverley police station was next door to the courthouse, neither of them obtrusive in the surroundings. This was a small suburb that hadn’t changed in over a half-century or even more; the houses and flats were the dull statements of architects of the twenties, thirties and forties. Under an overhang of trees by the courthouse offenders and witnesses sheltered from the too-bright sun. The offenders had the hang-dog look of people wondering why they had committed the offences in the first place. The patrol commander of the station was Superintendent Joe Vettori, a handsome, enthusiastic man who this morning showed no enthusiasm at all. ‘G’day, Scobie. A bugger of a case, this one. I heard you’ve just wrapped up an old one?’ ‘You lose some, you win some, Joe. What about this one?’ ‘So far, no clues. Chris Gallup is at the Vanheusen house right now, he’s in charge. We’ll set up the incident room here, I’ll give you as many guys as you want.’ He smiled at Sheryl; he had an Italian eye. ‘Nice to have you with us, Constable Dallen.’ ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Sheryl. Outside in their car again she said, ‘What’s Sergeant Gallup like? I saw you make a face.’ Malone grinned. ‘He’s not an admirer of women, if that’s what you’re looking for. I’ve worked only once with him and he resented us being there. But you may charm him, like you did Superintendent Vettori.’ ‘One thing I like about working in Homicide. You’re a cop first and last.’ ‘Don’t you believe it. I’ve seen the fellers looking at you.’ He glanced at her. ‘I’m not flirting with you, Sheryl. But don’t ever think gender is going to disappear from the Service. They’ll whistle at your walk and put minus marks against you for promotion.’ ‘Do you think there’ll ever be a woman Commissioner?’ ‘About the same time as there’ll be a woman Prime Minister. You’re in a man’s country, Sheryl. But as Superintendent Vettori said, nice to have you with us.’ ‘I’m overwhelmed,’ she said, but smiled to show it wasn’t insubordination. The Vanheusen house was in a cul-de-sac in Bellevue Hill, a long stone’s throw from the estate of the country’s richest man, a missie’s throw from the western suburbs and the 40-foot plot of Ron Glaze. This was a small district in the eastern suburbs, where wealth hovered like a miasma and the mortgages, if any, were of a size that had banks genuflecting. Most of the houses stood on modest acreage, but Mercedes, Jaguars and the occasional Bentley let you know this was not welfare territory. Two high-fee private schools occupied most of the east side of the main road that climbed the hill; there were no shops, no corner grocery nor a newsagent. It was territory, Malone thought, that would have watered the mouths of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or the Kelly Gang. Burglars tried their luck around here, but it was hard work. Kidnapping was a new venture. The Vanheusens had built recently; their house was a rarity in the area, a new one. It was built in a style that had become popular in the past few years: Tuscan villas were more numerous than around Firenze or Siena. Columns were everywhere, like fossilized tree-trunks or pillars stolen from a temple; romantics looked for a stray vestal virgin, but there were few in Bellevue Hill. All the Tuscan villas had porticos, like museum entrances. At the moment, with police and media cars crowding the turning circle of the cul-de-sac, one might have suspected there was an exhibition of some sort going on. Sheryl parked their car at the entrance to the short street and she and Malone walked down. Malone was instantly recognized by the regular police reporters; it wasn’t stardom or even celebrity, it was just familiarity. Cameras turned on him like weapons, tape recorders were thrust at him. One of the closest reporters to him, almost in his face, was the Channel 15 girl. ‘You’re taking charge, Inspector?’ She was tall, with long blonde hair, big blue eyes and the cheekbones that always looked good on camera, no matter what the light. She had a light voice and the local habit amongst TV reporters of moving her head all the time she was talking: a bob here, a nod there, a shake elsewhere, as if every word had to be underlined. ‘Anything to report yet? How soon can we expect the police to come up with something?’ Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». 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