Bear Pit

Bear Pit Jon Cleary Jon Cleary’s latest novel sees Scobie Malone crossing swords with a number of old adversaries following the assassination of a leading politician on the steps of the Olympic Tower.As the Sydney 2000 Games draw ever closer, the city’s great and good assemble to celebrate the opening of the Olympic Tower. But the gala turns grisly when the State Premier is shot by a sniper.In his twenty years at the head of the Labor Party The Dutchman had made any number of enemies. Rivals claimed he’d reached his sell-by date and should retire. But who wanted him out of the way badly enough to hire a hitman? And with ruthless casino boss Jack Aldwych and his son flanking the Premier at the time of the shooting, who can be sure that the hitman found his true target?As if politcal skulduggery and high-stakes gambling weren’t enough to contend with, Scobie finds that his daughter Maureen, now a tabloid-TV journalist, is working the same case – with terrifying consequences. Dedication (#ulink_bd50cdcc-3eb0-5893-9303-8eec1f3a1f5e) For Benjamin and Isabel Contents Cover (#u9fbc4985-34fa-53a6-822a-351a390f83a8) Title Page (#u17cbe1dd-b1b7-502e-8ba9-31c89c5fb571) Dedication (#ulink_1d043e4b-f5b4-5163-b06d-2369e0a2125b) Chapter One (#ulink_acd4287d-fecd-5f82-ae72-0d502f412a2d) Chapter Two (#ulink_19937fbe-d18e-5f96-933c-f59104802f71) Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo) 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) 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) Chapter One (#ulink_267d387b-9dc4-5cab-ab59-b684fdfcd715) 1 Malone switched out the light in his daughter’s bedroom. ‘Da-ad!’ He switched it on again. ‘I thought you were asleep.’ ‘And I can’t sleep with the light on? God, you’re so stingy! Can I have the light on while I’m thinking?’ ‘Depends what you’re thinking.’ He went into her room, sat down in the chair at her desk against the wall. ‘Problems?’ ‘Not really.’ Maureen sat up on her bed, nodded at the computer on the desk. ‘I thought I’d try my hand at a Mills and Boon romance. There’s money in it if you click.’ He turned and read from the computer screen: Justin unbuttoned Clothilde’s tight blouse and her breasts fell out. He picked them up and put them back in again. ‘Thank you,’ said Clothilde, polite even in passion. ‘I’m always losing them.’ ‘Not much romance there,’ said Malone with a grin. ‘What follows?’ ‘Nothing. That’s the E-N-D. All I have to do is find sixty thousand words to go in front of it. I don’t think I’m cut out for romance –I can’t take it seriously.’ ‘Is mat what your boyfriends think?’ She ignored that. ‘Maybe I should try grunge fiction. That had a run a while ago.’ ‘Don’t expect me to read it – I get enough grunge out on the job. How’s it going at work?’ Maureen was three months out of university and working at Channel 15 as a researcher. It was a television station that put ratings before responsibility, that insisted the bottom line was the best line in any of its productions. It operated with a staff that was skeletal compared to those of other channels, it had no stars amongst its presenters and no overseas bureaux, buying its international material from CNN and other suppliers. Maureen had hoped to go to work for the ABC, the government channel, where, despite harping from Canberra, no one knew what a bottom line was. She had dreamed of working for Foreign Correspondent or Four Corners, quality shows that compared with the best overseas. Instead she had taken the only job offered her and was a researcher on Wanted for Questioning, a half-hour true crime show with top ratings, especially amongst criminals. They wrote fan notes, under assumed names, to the presenter, a girl with a high voice and low cleavage. ‘We’re doing a special, an hour show on faction fighting in the Labor Party.’ ‘On Wanted for Questioning? The ratings will go through the roof.’ She grinned, an expression that made her her father’s daughter. She had his dark hair and dark blue eyes, but her features were closer to her mother’s; she was attractive rather than beautiful, but men would always look at her. She had none of his calmness, there was always energy that had to be expended; she would invent hurdles and barricades if none presented themselves. What saved her from intensity was her humour. ‘No, this is a one-off special – we haven’t been meeting our local quota.’ Channel 15 ran mostly American shows; its programme director thought the BBC was a museum. ‘The word has come down from the top that we’re to pull no punches.’ ‘Watch out when you get amongst the Labor factions – they’re throwing punches all the time. Ask Claire.’ ‘I have. She’s told me where to go and whom to talk to.’ Like Malone she knew the difference between who and whom. Lisa, her mother, foreign-born and educated, respected English grammar more than the local natives. ‘I think she’s traumatized at what she’s learnt.’ Claire, the elder daughter, had moved out of the Malone house six months ago and was now sharing a flat with her boyfriend Jason. She had graduated last year in Law and now was working for a small firm of lawyers who handled Labor Party business. She was apolitical and Malone and Lisa had been surprised when she had taken the job. With her calm commonsense and her taking the long view, she had told them it was only a first step. She wanted to be a criminal lawyer, a Senior Counsel at the Bar, but first she had to learn about in-fighting. Malone had told her she should have gone into union business, but she had only smiled and told him she knew where she was going. And he was sure she was right. ‘There’s a State election coming up. Is this the time to start ferreting? You could be accused of bias.’ She grinned again. ‘Only the ABC is accused of that. When did you ever hear of a commercial station accused of being biased? The politicians, both sides, know where the majority of viewers are. They’re not going to tread on the voters’ toes.’ He shook his head; without realizing it, he had trained his girls too well. ‘You should’ve been a cop.’ ‘I always left that to Claire – remember she wanted to join the Service?’ ‘I talked her out of it,’ he said and was glad. Five years after it had happened he still had the occasional vivid memory of Peta Smith, one of his Homicide detectives, lying dead with two bullets in her back. The Crime Scene outline of her body had once or twice been an image in a dream in which the wraith of Claire had risen out of the outline. ‘What have you dug up so far?’ ‘Some of the inner branches are stacked – they want to topple the Premier before the Olympics. There are three or four starters who want to be up there on the official dais at the opening ceremony. A billion viewers around the world – they’ll never have another spotlight like that.’ ‘Hans Vanderberg isn’t going to let anyone take his place. He’s got his own gold medal already minted.’ He stood up, reached across and ruffled her hair. Lately he had been touching his children more, as if getting closer to them as he got closer to losing them. Maureen would be gone from the house before too long; and even Tom, the lover of his mother’s cooking, would eventually move out. Malone had hugged them when they were small, then there had been the long period when intimacy had become an embarrassment. He was his own mother’s son: Brigid Malone hadn’t kissed him since he was eight years old. Con Malone had shaken his son’s hand on a couple of occasions; when he saw footballers and cricketers hugging each other he said he wanted to throw up. He actually said spew; he never used euphemisms if they were weak substitutions. He never used a euphemism for love, for love was never mentioned. In the Malone family while Scobie was growing up it was just understood that it was there. There was no need to mention it. ‘Take care.’ She looked up at him; there was love in her smiling eyes and he was touched. ‘Don’t worry about me, Dad. I’m not going to get in the way of any punches. What are you wearing that old leather jacket for?’ ‘I’ve been out for a walk. It’s a bit chilly.’ ‘Throw it out. You look like the back seat of a clapped-out Holden.’ ‘I had a lot of fun in the back seat of a Holden when I was young.’ ‘Not with Mum, I’ll bet.’ No, not with Lisa. The first time he had had fun with her had been in the back seat of a Rolls-Royce in London when she had been the High Commissioner’s private secretary. The glass partition along the back of the front seats had been up and the chauffeur had not heard the heavy breathing. He had been a pretty rough-and-ready lover in those days, his Ned Kelly approach as Lisa had called it, but she had been an experienced teacher. She had taken him a long way from the back-seat-of-a-Holden directness. ‘You’d be surprised.’ He went out to the kitchen, where Lisa was making tea, their ritual drink before they went to bed. She was measuring spoons of tea into the china pot; no tea-bags or metal pot for her. The kitchen had been newly renovated, costing what he thought had been the national debt; but anything that made Lisa happy made him happy. He took off his leather jacket and looked at it, a faded relic. ‘What d’you think that would bring at St Vincent de Paul?’ ‘A dollar ninety-five,’ said Tom, coming in the back door. ‘You’re not going to give it away? What about your 24-year-old shoes? Vince de Paul might find a taker for them, too.’ ‘Pull your head in,’ said his father. ‘Where’ve you been tonight?’ ‘Mind your business,’ said Lisa, pouring hot water into the teapot. ‘He’s been out with a girl. There’s lipstick on his ear.’ ‘There’s lipstick on both his ears.’ Tom wiped his ears. ‘I told ’em to lay off.’ ‘Them?’ ‘There was a girl on each ear. It was supposed to be a double-date tonight, but the other guy didn’t turn up.’ The banter was just froth, like that on a cappuccino; but, like the coffee’s froth, Malone had a taste for it. They were not the sort of family that boasted it had a crazy sense of humour; which, in his eyes, proved it was a family that had no real sense of humour. Instead, the humour was never remarked upon, it was a common way of looking at a world that they all knew, from Malone’s experience as a cop, was far from and never would be perfect. The comforting thing, for him, was that they all knew when not to joke. ‘I was celebrating,’ said Tom. ‘I made money today. Those gold stocks I bought a coupla months ago at twenty-five cents, there was a rumour today they’ve made a strike. They went up twenty cents. I’m rolling in it.’ ‘He’ll be able to keep us,’ said Malone. ‘I can retire.’ Tom was in his third year of Economics, heading headlong for a career as a market analyst. Last Christmas Lisa’s father, who could well afford it, had given each of the children a thousand dollars. Claire had put hers towards a skiing holiday in New Zealand; Maureen had spent hers on a new wardrobe; and Tom had bought shares. He was not greedy for money, but they all knew that some day he would be, as his other grandfather had said, living the life of Riley. Whoever he was. ‘You’ll never retire.’ Tom looked at his mother. ‘Would you want him to? While you still go on working?’ ‘All I want is an excuse.’ Lisa was finishing her second year as public relations officer at Town Hall, handling the city council’s part in the Olympic Games. For twenty-two years she had been a housewife and mother; she had changed her pinafore for a power suit, one fitting as well as the other. For the first six months she had found the going slippery on the political rocks of the city council, but now she had learned where not to tread, where to turn a blind eye, when to write a press release that said nothing in the lines nor between them. Whether she would continue beyond the Olympics was something she had not yet decided, but she was not dedicated to the job. When one has no ego of one’s own there is suffocation in a chamber full of it. ‘If he retires, I retire. We’ll go on a world trip and you lot can fend for yourselves.’ Tom looked at them with possessive affection. He was a big lad, taller now than his father, six feet three; heavy in the shoulders and with the solid hips and bum that a fast bowler and rugby fullback needed. He was better-looking than his father and he used his looks with girls. If Riley, whoever he was, had a line of girlfriends, Tom was on his way to equalling him. He had the myopic vision of youth which doesn’t look for disappointment. ‘How come you two have stayed so compatible?’ ‘Tolerance on my part,’ said both his parents. ‘They’re so smug,’ said Maureen from the doorway. Then the phone rang out in the hallway. Malone looked at his watch: 11.05. As a cop he had lived almost thirty years on call, but even now there was the sudden tension in him, the dread that one of the children was in trouble or had been hurt: he had too much Celtic blood. Was it Claire calling, had something happened to her? The ringing had stopped; Maureen had gone back to pick up the phone. A moment or two, then she came to the kitchen doorway: ‘It’s Homicide, Dad. Sergeant Truach.’ 2 ‘I never take any notice of him,’ said the Premier, speaking of the Opposition leader seated half a dozen places along the long top table. ‘He’s too pious, he’s like one of those Americans who were in the Clinton investigation, carrying a Bible with a condom as a bookmark. Of course it’s all piss-piety, but some of the voters fall for it. We’re all liars, Jack, you gotta be in politics, how else would the voters believe us?’ Jack Aldwych knew how The Dutchman could twist logic into a pretzel. It was what had kept him at the head of the State Labor Party for twenty years. That and a ruthless eye towards the enemy, inside or outside the party. The Dutchman went on, ‘The Aussie voter only wants to know the truth that won’t hurt him. He doesn’t want us to tell him he spends more on booze and smokes and gambling than he does on his health. So we tell lies about what’s wrong with the health system. But you don’t have to be a hypocrite, like our mate along the table.’ Aldwych usually never attended functions such as this large dinner. He had been a businessman, indeed a big businessman: robbing banks, running brothels, smuggling gold. But he had always had a cautionary attitude towards large gatherings; it was impossible to know everyone, to know who might stab you in the back. He was always amused at the Martin Scorsese films of Mafia gatherings, backs exposed like a battalion of targets; but that was the Italians for you and he had never worked with them, not that, for some reason, there had ever been a Mafia in Sydney. Maybe the city had been lucky and all the honest Sicilians had migrated here. Tonight’s dinner, to celebrate the opening of Olympic Tower, was a gathering of the city’s elite, though the cr?me d? la cr?m? was a little watery around the edges. The complex of five-star hotel, offices and boutique stores had had a chequered history and there was a certain air of wonder amongst the guests that Olympic Tower was finally up and running. There were back-stabbers amongst them, but their knives would not be for Jack Aldwych. This evening he felt almost saintly, an image that would have surprised his dead wife and all the living here present. He certainly had no fear of this old political reprobate beside him; they were birds of a blackened feather. ‘Hans,’ he said, ‘I have to tell you. I always voted for the other side. Blokes in my old profession were always conservatives. Where would I of been if I’d voted for the common good?’ ‘Jack,’ said Hans Vanderberg, The Dutchman, ‘the common good is something we spout about, like we’re political priests or something. But a year into politics and you soon realize the common good costs more money than you have in Treasury kitty. The voters dunno that, so you never tell ’em. You pat ’em on the head and bring up something else for ’em to worry about. I think the know-all columnists call it political expediency.’ ‘Are you always as frank as this?’ ‘You kidding?’ The old man grinned, a frightening sight. He was in black tie and dinner jacket tonight, the furthest he ever escaped from being a sartorial wreck, but he still looked like a bald old eagle in fancy dress. ‘You think I’d talk like this to an honest man? I know you’re reformed –’ ‘Retired, Hans. Not reformed. There’s a difference. Will you change when you retire?’ ‘I’m never gunna retire, Jack. That’s what upsets everyone, including a lot in our own party. They’re gunning for me, some of ’em. They reckon I’ve reached my use-by date.’ He laughed, a cackle at the back of his throat. ‘There’s an old saying, The emperor has no clothes on. It don’t matter, if he’s still on the throne.’ Aldwych looked him up and down, made the frank comment of one old man to another: ‘You’d be a horrible sight, naked.’ ‘I hold that picture over their heads.’ Again the cackle. He was enjoying the evening. ‘Are you an emperor, Hans?’ ‘Some of ’em think so.’ He sat back, looked out at his empire. ‘You ever read anything about Julius Caesar?’ ‘No, Hans. When I retired, I started reading, the first time in my life. Not fiction –I never read anything anybody wrote like the life I led. No, I read history. I never went back as far as ancient history – from what young Jack tells me, you’d think there were never any crims in those days, just shonky statesmen. The best crooks started in the Ren-aiss-ance’ – he almost spelled it out – ‘times. I could of sat down with the Borgias. I wouldn’t of trusted ’em, but we’d of understood each other.’ ‘You were an emperor once. You had your own little empire.’ The Dutchman had done his own reading: police files on his desk in his double role as Police Minister. ‘Never an emperor, Hans. King, maybe. There’s a difference. Emperors dunno what’s happening out there in the backblocks.’ ‘This one does,’ said Hans Vanderberg the First. Then Jack Aldwych Junior leaned in from the other side of him. ‘Mr Premier –’ He had gone to an exclusive private school where informality towards one’s elders had not been encouraged. The school’s board had known who his father was, but it had not discouraged his enrollment. It had accepted his fees and a scholarship endowment from his mother and taken its chances that his father’s name would not appear on any more criminal charges. Jack Senior, cynically amused, had done his best to oblige, though on occasions police officers had had to be bribed, all, of course, in the interests of Jack Junior’s education. ‘Mr Premier, I’ve got this whole project up and running while you were still in office –’ ‘Don’t talk as if I’m dead, son.’ Jack Junior smiled. He was a big man, handsome and affable; women admired him but he was not a ladies’ man. Like his father he was a conservative, though he was not criminal like his father. He had strayed once and learned his lesson; his father had lashed him with his tongue more than any headmaster ever had. He voted conservative because multi-millionaire socialists were a contradiction in terms; they were also, if there were any, wrong in the head. But this Labor premier, on the Olympic Tower project and all its problems, had been as encouraging and sympathetic as any free enterprise, economic rationalist politician could have been. Jack Junior, a better businessman than his father, though not as ruthless, had learned not to bite the hand that fed you. Welfare was not just for the poor, otherwise it would be unfair. ‘I’m not. But there are rumours –’ ‘Take no notice of ’em, son. I have to call an election in the next two months, but I’ll choose my own time. My four years are up –’ ‘Eight years,’ said Jack Senior from the other side. Vanderberg nodded, pleased that someone was counting. ‘Eight years. I’m gunna have another four. Then I’ll hand over to someone else. Someone I’ll pick.’ ‘Good,’ said Jack Junior. ‘So we’ll have you as our guest for the dinner the night before the Olympics open. All the IOC committee have accepted.’ ‘Why wouldn’t they? Have they ever turned down an invitation?’ He had recognized the International Olympics Committee for what they were, politicians like himself. They were more fortunate than he: they did not have to worry about voters. He looked around the huge room. It had been designed to double as a ballroom and a major dining room; as often happens when architects are given their head, it had gone to their heads. Opulence was the keynote. Above, drawing eyeballs upwards like jellyfish caught in a net, was a secular version of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Muscular athletes, male and female, raced through clouds towards a celestial tape; a swimmer, looking suspiciously like a beatified Samantha Riley, breast-stroked her way towards the Deity, who resembled the IOC president, his head wreathed in a halo of Olympic rings. Four chandeliers hung from the ceiling like frozen fireworks; there were marble pillars along the walls; the walls themselves were papered with silk. No one came here for a double burger; nor would the room ever be hired out on Election Night. This was the Olympus Room and though gods were in short supply in Sydney, those with aspiration and sufficient credit would soon be queueing up to enter. Bad taste had never overwhelmed the natives. Jack Junior privately thought the room was an embarrassment; but he was the junior on the board of directors. Still, it was he who had overseen the guest list for tonight, though it had been chosen by his wife. Class in Sydney is porous; money seeps through it, keeping it afloat. Jack Junior and his wife Juliet had not been hamstrung in making out the list. A certain number of no-talent celebrities had been invited; without them there would be no spread in the Sunday social pages, where their inane smiles would shine like Band-Aids on their vacuous faces. The trade union officials and the State MPs from the battlers’ electorates, seated on the outskirts like immigrants waiting to be naturalized, were somewhat overcome by the opulence, but they were battling bravely on. After all, they were here only to represent the workers and the battlers, not enjoy themselves, for Crissakes; their wives smiled indulgently at their husbands’ attempts at self-delusion and looked again at the seven-course menu and wondered if the kids at home were enjoying their pizzas. The businessmen from the Big End of town were taking it all for granted, as was their wont and want; economic rationalists had to be admired and paid court to, no matter how irrationally extravagant it might be. Business was just coming out of recession from the Asian meltdown and what better way to celebrate than at someone else’s expense? Some of them had dug deep when SOCOG had called for help when the Games funds had sprung a leak. The wives, girlfriends and rented escorts took it all in with a sceptical eye. Tonight, if no other occasion, was Boys’ Night Out. The top table was all men. A female gossip columnist, seated out in the shallows, remarked that it looked like the Last Supper painted by Francis Bacon. But four-fifths of the men up there at the long table were ambitious in a way that the Apostles had never been. The wives of those at the top table, with their own borrowed escorts, were at a round table just below the main dais. The Premier’s wife, who was in her seventies, still made her own dresses, a fact she advertised, but, as the fashion writers said, didn’t really need to. Tonight she was in purple and black flounces, looking like a funeral mare looking for a hearse. Sitting beside her was Roger Ladbroke, the Premier’s press minder, hiding his boredom with the whole evening behind the smile he had shown to the media for so many years. Beside him was Juliet, Jack Junior’s wife, all elegance and knowing it. Her dress was by Prada, her diamond necklace by Cartier and her looks by her mother, who had been one of Bucharest’s most beautiful women and had never let her three daughters forget it. Juliet’s escort was her hairdresser, lent for the evening by his boyfriend. ‘Mrs Vanderberg,’ said Juliet, leaning across Ladbroke and giving him a whiff of Joy, ‘it must be very taxing, being a Premier’s wife. All these functions –’ ‘Not at all.’ Gertrude Vanderberg had never had any political or social ambitions. She was famous in political circles for her pumpkin pavlovas, her pot plants and her potted wisdom. She had once described an opponent of her husband’s as a revolutionary who would send you the bill for the damage he had caused; it gained the man more notoriety than his attempts at disruption. ‘Hans only calls on me when there’s an election in the wind. The rest of the time I do some fence-mending in the electorate and I let him go his own way. Politicians’ wives in this country are expected to be invisible. Roger here thinks women only fog up the scene.’ ‘Only sometimes.’ Ladbroke might have been handsome if he had not been so plump; he had spent too many days and nights at table. He had been with Hans Vanderberg over twenty years and wore the hard shell of those who know they are indispensable. ‘I think you should spend a season in Europe,’ said Juliet. ‘In Bucharest?’ Gert Vanderberg knew everyone’s history. ‘Why not? Roumanian men invented the revolving door, but we women have always made sure we never got caught in it.’ You knew she never would. She looked across the table at the Opposition leader’s wife: ‘Mrs Bigelow, do you enjoy politics?’ Enid Bigelow was a small, dark-haired doll of a woman who wore a fixed smile, as if afraid if she took it off she would lose it. She looked around for help; her escort was her brother, a bachelor academic useless at answering a question like this. She looked at everyone, the smile still fixed. ‘Enjoy? What’s to enjoy?’ Juliet, a woman not given to too much sympathy, suddenly felt sorry she had asked the question. She turned instead to the fourth woman at the table. ‘Madame Tzu, do women have influence in politics in China?’ Madame Tzu, who had the same name as an empress, smiled, but not helplessly. ‘We used to.’ ‘You mean Chairman Mao’s wife, whatever her name was?’ ‘An actress.’ Madame Tzu shook her head dismissively. ‘She knew the lines, but tried too hard to act the part – and she was a poor actress. Is that not right, General?’ Ex-General Wang-Te merely smiled. He and Madame Tzu were the mainland Chinese partners in Olympic Tower, but there had been no room for them at the top table. Foreign relations had never been one of The Dutchman’s interests and it certainly had never been one of Jack Aldwych’s. Aware that everyone was looking at him he at last said, ‘I haven’t brought my hearing-aid,’ and sank back into his dinner suit like a crab into its shell. He knew better than to discuss politics in another country, especially with women. ‘Ronald Reagan was an actor,’ said Juliet. ‘He knew the words,’ said Ladbroke. ‘He just didn’t know the rest of the world.’ ‘You’re Labor. You would say that.’ And you’re Roumanian, cynical romantics. But he knew better than to say that. Instead, he gestured up towards the top table. ‘Your husband and your father-in-law seem to be doing all right with Labor.’ The Aldwyches, father and son, were leaning back with laughter at something the Premier had said. He was grinning, evilly, some might have thought, but it was supposed to be with self-satisfaction. Which some might have thought the same thing. Then he looked down at the man approaching them through the shoal of tables. ‘Here comes the Greek, bare-arsed with gifts.’ ‘Do we beware?’ Jack Aldwych had had experience of The Dutchman’s mangling of the language, but he had learned to look for the grains of truth in the wreckage. This Greek coming up on to the dais was not one bearing gifts. He came up behind Vanderberg, raised a hand and Aldwych looked for the knife in it. But it came down only as a slap on the shoulder. ‘Hans, I gotta hand it to you.’ ‘Hand me what?’ Then he waved a hand at the two Aldwyches. ‘You know my friends, salt of the earth, both of ’em.’ The salt of the earth looked suitably modest. ‘This is Peter Kelzo. He gives me more trouble than the Opposition ever does.’ ‘Always joking,’ Kelzo told the Aldwyches: he was the sort who could take insults as compliments. He was a swarthy man, almost as wide as he was tall, but muscular, not fat. Born Kelzopolous, he had come to Australia from Greece in his teens thirty years ago, found the country teeming with Opolouses and shortened his name to something that the tongue-twisted natives could pronounce. Built as he was, he had had no trouble getting a job as a builder’s labourer, shrewd as he was he was soon a union organizer, though his English needed improving. Within ten years his English was excellent and his standing almost as good, though at times it looked like stand-over. He belatedly educated himself in history and politics. He read Athenian history, aspired to be like Demosthenes but knew that the natives suspected orators as bullshit artists and opted to work with the quiet word or the quiet threat. He did not drift into politics, but sailed into it; but only into the backwaters. By now he had his own building firm and other interests, was married, had children, wanted money in the bank, lots of it, before he wanted Member of Parliament on his notepaper. He ran the Labor Party branch in his own electorate and now he was ready to wield his power. He looked around him, then at Aldwych. He had been one of the subcontractors on the project, though Aldwych did not know that. ‘It’s a credit to you. I gotta tell you the truth, I was expecting casino glitz. But no, this is classical –’ He looked around him again. ‘Class, real class.’ ‘A lifelong principle of my father,’ said Jack Junior. ‘That right, Dad?’ ‘All the way,’ said Aldwych, who couldn’t remember ever having principles of any sort. Kelzo gave them both an expensive width of expensive caps: he knew Jack Senior’s history. ‘Just like Hans here.’ He patted the Premier’s shoulder again. ‘You’ve never lost your class, have you, Hans?’ ‘Class was something invented by those who didn’t have it,’ said Vanderberg. ‘Oscar the Wild said that.’ ‘I’m sure he did,’ said Kelzo and tried desperately to think of something that Demosthenes or Socrates might have said, but couldn’t. Instead, he leaned down, his hand still on the Premier’s shoulder, and whispered, ‘Enjoy it, Hans. It won’t last.’ Then he was gone, smile taking in the whole room, and Jack Junior said, ‘I’ve read Oscar Wilde. I can’t remember him saying anything like that.’ ‘I’ve never read him,’ said Vanderberg. ‘But neither has Kelzo. The Greeks haven’t read anything out of England since Lord Byron.’ Then he turned full on to Jack Junior, the grin almost as wide as Kelzo’s smile had been. ‘I haven’t read anything of him, either. Poets and philosophers don’t help us with the voters – Roger Ladbroke keeps me supplied with all the potted wisdom I need. If I started quoting Oscar Wilde, the only voters who’d clap for me would be the homosexuals up in Oxford Street and the arty-crafties in Balmain and they vote for me anyway, ‘cause they think I’m a character. The rest of the voters in this city have had it so good for so long, they ain’t interested in philosophy or smart sayings, not unless they hear it in some TV comedy. The people out in the bush, they’re philosophers, they gotta be to survive, and they’re the ones gimme the difference that keeps me in power. I’m the first Labor premier they’ve ever liked. They think I’m a character, too.’ ‘And are you?’ asked Aldwych Senior from his other side. The Dutchman turned to him. ‘You’ll have to ask my minder down there. Roger –’ he raised his voice, leaning forward to speak to Ladbroke – ‘am I a character? Mr Aldwych wants to know.’ ‘Every inch,’ said Ladbroke, who at times had had to keep the character in recognizable shape. Further down the top table from the Premier were Bevan Bigelow, the Leader of the Opposition, and Leslie Chung, a senior partner in Olympic Tower. ‘Have you ever voted for him?’ asked Bigelow, nodding up towards the middle of the table. ‘No.’ Leslie Chung, like Jack Aldwych, was now respectable, but his past was tainted. He was a good-looking man, still black-haired in his sixties, with the knack of looking down his nose at people taller than himself. Tonight, acting benevolent, he was looking eye to eye with Bigelow. ‘But I’ve never voted for you, either. I give money to both parties, but I vote for the guy with the least chance of stuffing everything up. Some Independent. It amuses me.’ ‘Does that come from being Chinese?’ Bigelow was a short, squat man with a blond cowlick and a habit of shifting nervously in his seat as if it were about to be snatched away from him; which also applied to his electoral seat, where his hold was marginal. Les Chung, on the other hand, sat with the calmness of a lean Buddha, as sure of himself as amorality could make him. He had made his fortune by turning his back on scruples and now, on the cusp between middle and old age, he was not going to take the road to Damascus. Or wherever one saw the light here amongst the barbarians. ‘No, it comes from having become an Australian.’ He had been here forty-three years; he didn’t say the locals still amused him. ‘Even though we call Hans The Dutchman, you couldn’t get anyone more Australian than him, could you?’ ‘I don’t know.’ Bigelow looked puzzled, a not uncommon expression with him. ‘He’s not friendly, like most Australians. He’s got no friends in his own party, you know that?’ Chung knew that Bigelow had few friends in his party; he was a stop-gap leader because his opponents couldn’t agree amongst themselves whom they wanted to replace him. ‘I don’t think it worries him, Bev. They’ll never put a dent in that shell.’ Bigelow nodded at the Aldwyches. ‘How do you get on with your partners? When old Jack dies, he’s getting on, who takes charge?’ ‘We’ve never discussed it. It would be between me and Jack Junior, I suppose. I think I’d get it.’ He smiled, ‘I’m sure I’d get it. There are other partners, the Chinese ones.’ He nodded down towards Madame Tzu and General Wang-Te. ‘They’d vote for me.’ ‘A Chinese Triad?’ ‘No, just a trio.’ ‘There’s another partner, isn’t there?’ He could never find a policy to pursue, but his mind was a vault of facts. ‘Miss Feng?’ Les Chung looked down at the beautiful girl seated at one of the lower tables with a handsome young Caucasian escort. If he were younger he might have asked her to be his concubine. And smiled to himself at what her Australian answer would have been. ‘We Chinese stick together. How do you think you’ll go when Hans announces the election?’ ‘That will depend on his own party hacks. He has more enemies than I have.’ Though he spoke without conviction. ‘Yes,’ said Les Chung, but seemed to be talking to himself. The evening was breaking up. The Premier and the Aldwyches rose at the top table. Throughout the rest of the room there was a stirring, like the crumbling of two hundred claypans. The waiters and waitresses restrained themselves from making get-the-hell-out-here gestures. ‘We’ll see you to the door,’ said Jack Junior. ‘Your car has been ordered. My wife will look after Mrs Vanderberg.’ The offical party moved amongst the tables almost like deity; no one genuflected, but almost everyone rose to his feet. His feet: the women, no vestal virgins, remained seated. The Dutchman smiled on everyone like a blessing; if the grimace that was his smile resembled a blessing. He stopped once or twice to shake hands: not with party hacks but with backers of the Other Party: he knew he was being watched by Bevan Bigelow. He introduced Jack Aldwych to the Police Commissioner and the two men shook hands across a great divide while The Dutchman watched the small comedy. There was no one to equal him in throwing opposites together. He did not believe that opposites attract but that they unsettled the compass. It was others who needed the compass: he had known his direction from the day he had entered politics. Then they were out in the foyer, heading for the doors and the wide expanse of marble steps fronting the curved entrance. Juliet paused to help Mrs Vanderberg with her wrap, another home-made garment, like a purple pup-tent. The two Aldwych men went out through the doors with the Premier, one on either side of him. They paused for a moment while the white government Ford drew in below them. Beyond was the wide expanse of George Street, the city’s main street, thick with cinema and theatre traffic. The hum of the traffic silenced the sound of the shot. 3 ‘They’ve taken him to St Sebastian’s,’ said Phil Truach. ‘It looks bad, the bullet got him in the neck.’ ‘Where’s his wife?’ ‘She’s gone to the hospital. We sent two uniformed guys to keep an eye on things there.’ Malone, Russ Clements and Truach were standing on the steps outside the hotel’s main entrance. Crime Scene tapes had replaced the thick red ropes that had held back the hoi polloi as the dinner guests had arrived. The hoi polloi were still there, cracking jokes and making rude remarks about the two women officers running out the tapes. Most of the crowd were young, had come from the cinema complexes further up the street or the games parlours; they had come from paying to see violence on the screens and here it was for free. But soon they would be bored, the body gone. Even the blood didn’t show up on the maroon marble. ‘Who got shot?’ ‘That old guy, the Premier, Whatshisname.’ ‘A politician! Holy shit! Clap, everyone!’ Everyone did and Malone said, ‘Let’s go inside. Are the Aldwyches still here?’ ‘In the manager’s office.’ ‘What about the dinner guests? I read there were going to be a thousand of them.’ ‘We got rid of them through the two side entrances. You never saw such a skedaddle, you’d of thought World War Three had started.’ Inside the hotel lobby Malone looked around; it was the first time he had been in the building since halfway through its construction. On one of its upper floors a Chinese girl student had tried to shoot him and had been shot dead by Russ Clements. ‘This place is jinxed.’ ‘Keep it to yourself.’ Clements was the supervisor, second-in-command to Malone of Homicide and Serial Violent Crime Agency. He was a big man, bigger than Malone, who lumbered through life at his own pace. He had once been impatient, but experience had taught him that patience, if not a virtue, was not a vice. ‘Otherwise the IOC will cancel all its bookings.’ ‘Phil,’ said Malone to Truach, ‘let me know what the Forensic fellers come up with. Where did the shot come from?’ ‘They’re still working on that.’ Truach was a bony man, tanned tobacco-brown. He looked Indian, but his flat drawl had no subcontinent lilt. ‘The guess is that it didn’t come from a car. There’s no parking allowed out there and the traffic was moving too fast for someone to take a pot-shot at the Premier. How would they know to be right opposite the hotel just as he came out? Ladbroke, his minder, told me there was no set time for the Premier to leave. His car was on stand-by.’ ‘It could’ve been a drive-by shooting, some hoons aiming to wipe out a few silvertails. There was a horde of them here tonight, the silvertails.’ ‘Maybe,’ said Truach doubtfully. ‘But if that’s the case, I think I’ll take early retirement. It’s not my world.’ ‘Where’s Ladbroke now?’ asked Clements. ‘Here,’ said Ladbroke, coming in the front doors behind them. In the past hour he appeared to have lost weight; he was haggard, his shirt rumpled, his jacket hanging slackly. ‘I’ve just come from the hospital, I’ve left my assistant to hold off the vultures. I want to know what’s happening here.’ ‘How is he?’ ‘They’re preparing him for surgery. It doesn’t look good.’ The big lobby was deserted but for police and several hotel staff standing around like the marble statues in the niches in the lobby walls. Malone didn’t ask where the guests were; the less people around, the better. Keep them in their rooms, especially any Olympic committee visitors. ‘Roger, did the Old Man have many enemies?’ Ladbroke was visibly upset at what had happened to his master, but he was case-hardened in politics: ‘Come on, Scobie. He’s got more enemies than Saddam Hussein.’ ‘I had to ask the question, Roger. Cops aren’t supposed to believe what they read in the newspapers. Let’s go and talk to the Aldwyches.’ The manager’s office was large enough to hold a small board meeting. Its walls held a selection of paintings by Australian artists; nothing abstract or avant-garde to frighten the guests who might come in here to complain about the service or the size of their bill. There were more scrolls and certificates than there were paintings, and Malone wondered how a hotel that had opened its doors only last week had managed recognition so quickly. The manager must have seen Malone’s quizzical look because he said, ‘Those are diplomas for our staff, our chefs, etcetera. And myself. And you are –?’ Malone introduced himself and Clements. ‘And you are?’ ‘Joseph Bardia.’ He was tall and distinguished-looking, a head waiter who had climbed higher up the tree. ‘From Rome,’ said Jack Aldwych. ‘Paris, London and New York,’ added Bardia. ‘May we borrow your office, Mr Bardia? We won’t be long.’ Bardia looked as if he had been asked could the police borrow his dinner jacket; he looked at Aldwych, who just smiled and raised a gentle thumb. ‘Don’t argue with him, Joe. Outside. I’ll see he doesn’t pinch the diplomas.’ Bardia somehow managed a return smile; he hadn’t forgotten his years as a waiter. ‘Be my guests.’ He went out, closing the door behind him and Jack Junior said, ‘Dad, you don’t treat hotel managers like that. Two-hundred-thousand-a-year guys aren’t bellhops.’ ‘I’ll try and remember that,’ said Jack Senior; then looked at Malone and Clements. ‘Looks like the jinx is still working.’ ‘Just what I said, Jack,’ said Malone and sat down on a chair designed for the bums of 500-dollars-a-night guests. ‘You and Jack Junior were lucky.’ ‘Do you think the bullet was meant for either of you?’ asked Clements. The big man had sat down on a couch beside Jack Junior; the elder Aldwych sat opposite Malone. ‘The bullet might of been off-target.’ Aldwych shook his head. ‘We’re spotless, Russ. Since we finally got Olympic Tower up and running, nobody’s troubled us.’ ‘And we’ve troubled nobody,’ said Jack Junior. ‘What about the past?’ said Malone. ‘Jack, you’ve got enemies going back to Federation. Now you’re top of the tree, respectable, retired from the old game, what if someone decided he had to pay off old scores?’ Aldwych shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, Scobie. The old blokes who had it in for me, they’re all gone. I’m history, Scobie, and so are they. The new lot –’ he shook his head again – ‘the Lebanese, the Viets, they wouldn’t bother with me. They’re too busy doing each other.’ Malone looked at Ladbroke, who had gone round the big desk and sat in the manager’s chair. He was still shaken by what had happened to The Dutchman, but half a lifetime of working in politics had built its own armour. ‘Okay, like I said, the Old Man has enemies. They want to get rid of him before he calls the election, but they wouldn’t want to shoot him. That would only queer their own pitch.’ ‘Why?’ ‘They’d become the first suspects. Who’d vote for them if you proved anything against them?’ ‘If we prove anything against them, they won’t be running for office. We want a list of all those who’ve been working to toss the Premier.’ Ladbroke frowned. ‘I can give you a list, but you won’t let ’em know where you got it? I’ve already been approached to work for them if they get rid of Hans.’ Malone looked at the other three men, raised his eyebrows. ‘Aren’t you glad we aren’t in politics? Would you work for them, Roger?’ ‘No,’ said Ladbroke, managing to look hurt that he should be thought venal. ‘But I wouldn’t tell them that till I’d found another job. And though the Old Man’s been a pain in the arse at times, I don’t think I could work for anyone else, not after him.’ ‘You’d be lost out of politics,’ said Malone, and Ladbroke nodded. ‘What happens if he doesn’t recover? He probably won’t, not with a bullet in his neck at his age. Not enough to go back to work.’ ‘Then the Deputy Premier will call the election – it’s got to be called, two months at the latest, in March. Our time’s up.’ ‘That’s what Hans said tonight,’ said Aldwych. ‘That his –enemies, we call ’em that? – they reckon his time was up, he’d reached his use-by date.’ ‘Is the Deputy Premier one of the enemies?’ Malone had had no experience of Billy Eustace. He had slid in and out of ministerial portfolios with hardly anyone noticing. He had never held any of the law-and-order portfolios. Ladbroke pursed his lips. Those in political circles, whether politicians or minders, are wary of discussion with outsiders. Discussion and argument are food and drink to them, but they don’t like to share it. ‘Billy Eustace? He could be, but I don’t know that he has the troops. And he’d never hire a hitman, not unless he got a discount and fly-buy coupons. Billy has the tightest fist I’ve ever come across.’ ‘Oh, I dunno,’ said Clements, but didn’t look at Malone. ‘Jack, can we eliminate you and Jack Junior for the time being?’ ‘For as long as you like,’ said Aldwych. Ladbroke stood up. ‘I’d better get back to the hospital. If the Old Man dies –’ He bit his lip; it was a moment before he went on: ‘I’ll let you know right away. Then get the bastard – whether the Old Man lives or dies!’ It was the first time Malone had seen Ladbroke raised out of his laid-back, almost arrogant calm. ‘We’ll do that. If he regains consciousness, then tomorrow we’ll have to talk to him.’ ‘You’ll have to talk to Mrs Vanderberg. She’s running things now.’ ‘How’s she taking it?’ ‘Badly, I think. But she’s hiding it. She’s as tough as the Old Man. The bastards who wanted to get rid of him should remember that.’ He went out and Malone and Clements stood up to follow him. ‘Take care, Jack.’ ‘You can be sure of it,’ said Aldwych. Out in the lobby one of the Physical Evidence team was waiting. ‘We think we’ve found where the shot came from.’ ‘Where?’ Sam Penfold was the same age as Malone but looked older. His hair was grey and his thin eyes already faded, as if the search for clues had worn them out. He collected spoor like a hunter, which was what he was. ‘Across the road. There’s a row of shops, half a dozen or so, rising three storeys. There’s a common entrance that leads up to the first and second floors, with a corridor running along the back, connecting them. The rooms above the shops are mostly single tenants. A quick-job printer, a watch and jewelry repair shop, things like that. And –’ Why, wondered Malone, were so many cops these days using theatrical pauses? Were they all training for TV auditions? ‘And an alterations and repairs business, the Sewing Bee. It had been broken into. From its street windows you look right across George Street to the steps outside there.’ He nodded towards the hotel’s front. ‘A good marksman with a good ‘scope couldn’t miss.’ ‘He did miss,’ said Clements. ‘Or close enough. The Premier isn’t dead.’ ‘You got anyone over there?’ asked Malone. ‘Norma Nickles is there and I’m going back. We’ll have the place dusted and printed in time to give you prints in the morning. I’m not hopeful, though. We had time to try the door that had been busted. The door-knob was clean, so the guy was probably wearing gloves. All we’ll find, I’m afraid, are prints from the staff and customers.’ ‘Why are you buggers always so cheerful?’ ‘We’re bloodhounds. You ever see a cheerful bloodhound?’ He left and Malone turned as he saw Bardia, the manager, approaching. He had the look of a man who wished he were back in Rome or Paris or London. ‘Finished, Inspector?’ ‘No, Mr Bardia. Just beginning.’ Guests who had been out on the town or visiting friends were coming back, entering the lobby with some apprehension and puzzlement at the sight of the uniformed police and the blue-and-white tapes still surrounding the outside steps. Bardia saw them and smiled reassuringly, as if it was all just part of the hotel’s service. Then he turned back to the two detectives. ‘The police will be here for – days?’ He made it sound like months. ‘No. Tomorrow, yes. But after that things should be back to normal for you.’ Then he looked beyond the manager into a side room off the lobby. ‘Excuse me.’ He crossed the lobby into the side room and Clements, left stranded, took a moment to recover before he followed him. Les Chung, Madame Tzu and General Wang-Te looked up as the two Homicide men approached. They all had the bland look that Malone, a prejudiced cynic, thought only Orientals could achieve. ‘We meet again.’ Two years before he had met Madame Tzu and General Wang-Te on a case that had threatened to ruin any chance of Olympic Tower’s being a successful venture. The same case on which the Chinese girl, screaming at him, un-bland as a cornered animal, had tried to kill him. ‘Murder seems to bring us together.’ ‘Is he dead?’ The bland look dropped from Les Chung’s face. ‘No, but he may soon be – they’re not hopeful. It was attempted murder.’ ‘It wasn’t – what do you call it? – a drive-by shooting? A random attack?’ Madame Tzu might have been asking if the Premier had been attacked by a wasp. It was impossible to tell her age within ten years either side of the true figure; but whatever it was, she wore it well. She had a serenity that was a sort of beauty in itself; men would always look at her, though not always with confidence. Men, particularly the natives, tend to be cautious with serene women: it is another clue in the feminine puzzle. She wore a simply cut gold dinner dress, a single strand of black pearls and an air that didn’t invite intimacy. ‘No, Madame Tzu, it wasn’t a random shooting. They knew whom they were after. You and General Wang are staying here at the hotel?’ General Wang-Te had sat silent, not moving in his chair. He was a bony man on whom the skin was stretched tight. Last time Malone had met him he had worn cheap, round-rimmed spectacles that appeared to be standard government issue in China then; tonight he wore designer glasses, rimless with gold sidebars, Gucci on the Great Wall. As he looked up at Malone the light caught the lens, so that he appeared sightless. ‘The general is,’ said Madame Tzu. ‘We’re directors, remember.’ ‘Owners,’ said Wang-Te, speaking for the first time. ‘Where are you staying?’ Malone asked Madame Tzu. ‘I still have my apartment in the Vanderbilt. I’m not a hotel person.’ She made it sound as if five-star hotels were hostels for the homeless. Clements spoke to Chung. ‘Have you had any threats against the hotel, Les?’ Chung was one of the richest men in the city, but the two detectives knew his past history. Years ago, before Clements had joined Homicide, he had arrested Leslie Chung on fraud charges. Chung had got off, but ever since he had been Les and not Mr Chung. Arrest doesn’t breed friendship but it makes for a kind of informality. It is a weapon police officers always carry. Chung shrugged as if he had been facing threats all his life; they were dust on the wind. ‘One or two. The usual nutters –anti-development, anti-foreign investment, that sort of stuff. But they don’t go around shooting people.’ ‘Then you’d say this had nothing to do with the hotel? Or the whole Olympic Tower project?’ ‘Nothing,’ said Chung, and Madame Tzu and Wang-Te together added a silent nod. ‘Do you have any enemies in China?’ Malone asked them. They didn’t look at each other; it was Madame Tzu who said, ‘Of course. Who can claim that in one point two billion people all of them are friends?’ She’s smothering her answer with figures. ‘So, eliminating all the nutters and the one point two billion of your countrymen, would you say the shooting was political?’ The three Chinese gave him a blank stare: the Great Wall of China, he thought. He wanted to scrawl the graffiti of a rough remark on the Wall, but that would be racist. Not, he was sure, that any of them would care. At last Les Chung said. ‘I think it would be politic to say nothing.’ Madame Tzu and General Wang-Te, like intelligent puppets, nodded. Malone grinned at Clements. ‘Wouldn’t our job be easy if cops could be politic?’ ‘Let’s go home,’ said the big man. ‘I’m tired.’ When the two detectives had gone, Madame Tzu said, ‘If Mr Vanderberg dies, what happens?’ ‘Nothing that will affect us,’ said Les Chung. ‘Our bookings are solid till after the Olympics. By then the whole complex will have established itself.’ General Wang-Te was wishing he knew more of history beyond the Middle Kingdom. The history of this country where he sat now had begun only yesterday. ‘Do Australians do much political assassination?’ ‘All the time,’ said Les Chung, who knew nothing of the Middle Kingdom, but knew even the footnotes in the history of his adopted country. He was not a man to put his foot into unknown territory. ‘But only with words, not with bullets or knives. To that extent they are civilized.’ ‘What a wonderful country,’ said Wang-Te and sounded almost wistful. 4 Out in the lobby Malone said, ‘Let’s go across the road and look at that place – the Sewing Bee?’ They crossed the road with the traffic lights. Traffic was six deep across the roadway stretching back several hundred metres; a drive-by, random shooting in this congestion was not even a theory. They walked up to the row of shops opposite the huge block of Olympic Tower. The footpath still had its late-night crowd, mostly young; groups moving slowly with arrogance and loud voices, challenging with their shoulders, high on group courage. One of them shouldered Clements, an oldie, and the big man grabbed him and swung him round. He shoved his badge in the youth’s face. ‘You wanna try that again, son? Just you and me, not your army?’ The youth was as tall as Clements, but half his weight. He wore a baseball cap, peak backwards: it seemed to accentuate the blankness of his face. He had stubbled cheeks and chin and a mouth hanging open with shock. His big eyes flicked right and left, but he was getting no support from his six companions. They had no respect for the police badge, but Clements, despite his age (Jesus, he must be middle-aged!), looked big and dangerous. At last the youth said, ‘Sorry, mate. I slipped.’ ‘We all do that occasionally,’ said Malone. ‘Let him go, Assistant Commissioner. He’s only young and not very bright.’ Clements let go the youth and walked on beside Malone. ‘Assistant Commissioner?’ ‘You think kids are impressed by a senior sergeant? He’ll live for a week on how he tried to push an assistant commissioner out of the way.’ ‘I hope none of the seven Assistant Commissioners get to hear of it.’ The entrance to the rooms above the shops was between a pinball parlour and a shabby coffee lounge. They climbed the narrow stairs and came to a long lighted corridor that ran along the back of the half a dozen offices. They passed the Quick Printery; R. Heiden, Watch & Jewelry Repairs; and Internet Sexual Therapy. They came to the open door of the Sewing Bee. The alterations centre had two rooms side by side, both with windows opening on to George Street. Sam Penfold and Norma Nickles were in the main room with a woman with close-cropped hair and a belligerent expression, as if she blamed the police for breaking into her establishment. ‘This is Mrs Rohani, the owner,’ said Penfold. ‘We called her and she’s come in from Kensington.’ ‘Anything stolen?’ Malone asked. ‘Yes!’ Mrs Rohani had a softer voice than Malone had expected; breathy, as if every word had to be forced out. ‘He took my strongbox, twelve hundred dollars. Out of my desk. He forced the drawer open.’ Malone scanned the room. Clothes hung on long racks, queues from which the flesh-and-blood had been squeezed; dresses, jackets and trousers waiting to see The Invisible Man. There were four sewing machines, all with that abandoned look that equipment gets when its operators have gone home. On a wall was a big blow-up of a Vogue cover, circa 1925, like a faded icon. Malone looked back at Penfold. ‘Any prints on the desk?’ Penfold in turn looked at Norma Nickles, who said, ‘There are prints everywhere, but I dunno whether they are his. Mrs Rohani has four girls working here and clients come in all day, men as well as women.’ She was a slim, blond girl who looked even slimmer in the dark blue police blouson and slacks. She had been a ballet dancer and occasionally she had a slightly fey look to her, as if adrift on Swan Lake. But she could gather evidence like a suction pump and Malone knew that Sam Penfold prized her as one of his team. ‘I’ve come up with something on that window-sill, though. A distinctive print and Mrs Rohani remembers the man it belongs to.’ She led Malone to the window, pointed to the sill that had been powdered. ‘Four fingers, the tip of the third finger missing – he must of leaned on the sill as he looked out. Mrs Rohani remembers him being interested in looking across at Olympic Tower, though she says he wasn’t the first and he probably won’t be the last.’ Malone turned back to the owner. ‘What was he like? When did he come in?’ “Three – no, four days ago. Man about forty, my height, on the stout side but not much. That was why he was here, wanted his pants taken out. Brought ’em in last week—’ She took a puffer out of her handbag, sucked on it. She was an asthmatic: the situation had taken the breath out of her. She put the puffer away, went on, ‘He came in four days ago to pick ’em up. Both times he walked across to the window, said how much he admired Olympic Tower. Said he used to be an architect. If he was, he couldn’t of been too successful. His pants were fifty-five dollars off the rack at Gowings. People come in here, I know more about ’em than the census-taker.’ Malone wondered what she thought of him in the Fletcher Jones blazer and polyester-and-wool trousers bought at a sale, his usual shopping time, three hundred dollars the lot, free belt and socks. Did she guess he turned lights out when people were not using them, just lying there, thinking? ‘We’ll need a list of all your clients for the past month,’ said Clements. Mrs Rohani looked dubious. ‘Ooh, I dunno. I’ve got some prominent people, they come in here, they don’t want it known they’re having alterations. You know, their hips have spread, the men’s bellies have got bigger –’ ‘I’ll know where to come,’ said Clements. ‘But in the meantime we need that list. We don’t put confidential information on the Internet –’ ‘Women as well as men clients?’ ‘Everyone. Their names and addresses. Particularly that man with the fingerprints on the window-sill.’ ‘How long will it take you to trace him if he has form?’ Malone asked Penfold. ‘Once back at the computer, six minutes, anywhere in Australia.’ Malone, a technological idiot, marvelled at the way the world was going. ‘Remember the old days?’ Then his pager buzzed. ‘May I use your phone, Mrs Rohani?’ He crossed to the phone on a nearby desk, dialled Homicide. He listened to Andy Graham, the duty officer, then hung up and looked at Clements and the other two officers. ‘The Premier’s dead. He died twenty minutes ago on the operating table.’ Mrs Rohani took out her puffer again, sucked hard on it. Malone had a sudden feeling that air had been sucked out of the city. Chapter Two (#ulink_167f9566-dfa0-502a-a7f9-dce1d6bbf138) 1 Claire rang next morning at 7.15. ‘I’ve just heard the news on the radio. The Premier – it’s unbelievable!’ ‘It’s a shock,’ said Malone, but didn’t sound as if it was too much of a shock. He was not callous, but he had grown accustomed to murder and the circumstances of it. ‘It’s going to shake things up a bit.’ ‘Is it what!’ Then she said, and he caught the cautious note in her voice: ‘Are you on the case?’ ‘Yes. Why?’ She said nothing and he got impatient with her: ‘Come on, Claire! Why are you asking?’ ‘Haven’t I always asked?’ Women! Daughters and wives in particular: ‘Don’t start sounding like your mother –’ Lisa came down the hallway, paused and gave him the look that only wives and long-time lovers can conjure up. He put his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘It’s your daughter –’ ‘I gathered that. Why is she sounding like me?’ He waved her on; not dismissively, for Lisa would never take dismissal. She raised her middle finger, said, ‘Is that the right gesture?’ and went on out to the kitchen. ‘Who was that?’ asked Claire. ‘Your mother. Come on – why are you so concerned that I’m on the case?’ ‘Dad –’ He could see her, usually so articulate, fumbling with words at the other end of the line. Perhaps if she were still living at home she would be more direct; moving out had widened the distance between them in more ways than one. He could no longer read her face, not at the end of a phone line. ‘Dad – yesterday –I don’t think I should be telling you this –’ ‘Righto, I’ll hang up. But if I find you’re withholding evidence of any sort –’ ‘You would, wouldn’t you?’ ‘Bring you in?’ He sighed. ‘Yes, I think I would.’ ‘Well –’ He had never known her to be so reluctant to voice an opinion. She had been a lawyer since she was twelve years old: bush lawyer, Bombay lawyer, Philadelphia lawyer: she would have argued with both Jesus Christ and Pontius Pilate. ‘Dad, yesterday Norman Clizbe and Jerry Balmoral came into the office – you know them?’ ‘Only by name. I’ve never met them.’ They were the secretary and assistant-secretary of the Trades Congress. The Congress had been going for almost a hundred years, a minor opponent of the major union organization, the Labor Council; then suddenly, about twenty years ago, it had found a new lease of life, had grown in strength and influence and now was on a par with the Labor Council in the affairs of the State Labor Party. It had developed a taste for power, like the re-discovery of a long-neglected recipe. ‘Mr Clizbe went into the partners’ office and Jerry Balmoral came into mine. I think he thought he could do a line with me.’ ‘Should I say Yuk?’ ‘Go ahead. He’s got enough conceit for a talk-back host. Anyway, he chit-chatted, then he said – and I quote –’ A lawyer through and through. ‘Go ahead. Quote.’ ‘ “Would your father handle a political murder or would that be a job for the Federal police?”’ ‘Let me get this straight before you go on. Is this lawyer-client confidentiality?’ ‘I wouldn’t be telling you this if it were. It was chit-chat.’ ‘Did you ask him why he was asking such a question?’ ‘Yes. He said it was just a question that had come up in a discussion on police policy.’ ‘What’s a trade union organization doing discussing police policy? Why did he ask you?’ ‘He said he knew I was your daughter.’ ‘What did you say?’ ‘About being your daughter? Nothing. But I told him it would be a State police case and I asked him again where the subject had come up.’ ‘What’d he say to that?’ ‘He just laughed and I got the charm bit – yuk! He said the question had been asked the other night at a branch meeting.’ ‘He say which branch?’ ‘No. He then asked me if I was free for dinner last night. I said no, I got more of the charm bit and he then went into the partners’ office. He’s such a smartarse.’ ‘How’s Jason?’ ‘What sort of question is that?’ ‘I didn’t mean he’s a smartarse – forget it. Keep what you’ve told me to yourself, don’t mention it in your office, especially to your bosses. To nobody, understand?’ ‘Yes, Inspector.’ ‘In your eye. Take care.’ He hung up and went out to the kitchen to breakfast. ‘What did Claire want?’ asked Lisa. ‘She just wanted to know if I’m on the Premier’s murder.’ ‘If you are,’ said Maureen, ‘don’t ask me anything we’ve dug up in our investigation.’ ‘I’ll let Russ drag you in and hang you by your thumbs if we find you know something we don’t. Don’t expect any favours.’ ‘Are we going to sit around this table and you’re not going to tell us anything?’ said Lisa. ‘We know nothing at this stage,’ said Malone, pouring fat-free milk on his Weet-Bix, then slicing a banana on it. In his younger days he had been a steak-and-eggs man for breakfast, but he had reached an age now when he had to watch that the waistline didn’t hide the view of the family jewels. ‘Except that he was shot, we think by a hitman.’ ‘Where from?’ asked Tom. ‘From a window right across the street,’ said Maureen, and Malone gestured at the fount of knowledge, the TV researcher. ‘I’ve been on to our night crew. They were inside, in the ballroom, and missed what went on outside. They didn’t even get a shot of the Premier lying on the front steps.’ ‘Tough titty,’ said Malone. ‘Your friend, Mr Aldwych, the old guy, threatened to smash our cameraman’s face in.’ ‘Jack was always public-spirited.’ ‘I don’t think you’ll have to look outside the Labor Party,’ said Tom, reaching for his third piece of toast. ‘From what I’ve read they’re cutting each other’s throats. They’re stacking certain branches with new members, building up cash funds –’ ‘What are you reading?’ asked his father. ‘Economics or Politics?’ ‘These days, our lecturer says, you can’t separate them. He’s a chardonnay Marxist. I need a new cricket bat.’ ‘What does a fast bowler need a new bat for? I used any old bat lying around. I’ll give you mine – Pa’s still got it, I think.’ ‘You’re really tight-arsed about money, aren’t you? You give a new meaning to anal-retentive.’ ‘Hear, hear,’ said Maureen. ‘Does your Marxist lecturer teach you to talk to your dear old dad like that? How much do you want?’ ‘A hundred and forty bucks. There’s a sale on.’ ‘You’re going to be a good economist. You’re learning how to spend other people’s money.’ Then the phone rang again; it was Gail Lee, the duty officer. ‘It’s on, boss. You’re wanted for a conference with senior officers at the Commissioner’s office at nine o’clock.’ ‘Righto, Gail. Tell Russ I want everything collated by the time I get back from Headquarters.’ ‘Everything? What have we got so far?’ ‘Bugger-all.’ He grinned without mirth to himself; there would not be much smiling over the next week or two. ‘But get it all together.’ Tom went off on his bicycle to his holiday work, stacking shelves at Woolworths. Maureen took the family’s second car, a Laser, and Malone drove Lisa into town in the Falcon. ‘I’m going to be busy.’ Her work as public relations officer on the council’s Olympic committee was becoming burdensome now as the Games got closer. ‘Eight months to the Olympics opening and we have a political assassination. How do I put a nothing-to-worry-about spin on that?’ There were several bad jokes that could answer that, but he refrained. ‘We don’t know if this has anything to do with the Olympics –’ ‘I’m not suggesting it has, not directly. But every politician in the State wants to be sitting up there with the IOC bosses when the torch comes into the stadium. Half of them would offer to carry the torch just to have the cameras on them. Hans Vanderberg is up there in Heaven or down in Hell, wherever he’s gone –’ ‘Hell. He’s down there now asking the Devil to move over, the real boss has arrived.’ ‘Wherever. But he’s spitting chips to see that someone else is going to take his place. Even Canberra is trying to muscle in. That official dais is going to be so crowded –’ ‘I can’t look that far ahead.’ He kept his place in the middle lane of traffic; road rage was replacing wife-beating as an expression. A young driver in a BMW coup? shouted at him; a girl in a Mazda on his other side yelled something at Lisa. She turned her head and gave the girl a wide smile and what her children called her royal wave, a turning of the hand just from the wrist. The girl replied with a non-royal middle finger. ‘Ignore them,’ said Malone. ‘Who? The drivers?’ ‘No, the politicians. Whatever you put in your release, don’t mention anyone in Macquarie Street. Put your Dutch finger in the dyke and hold it there.’ He dropped her at Town Hall, then drove up to College Street and Police Headquarters. As he entered the lobby he was met by Greg Random, his immediate boss. ‘We sit and just listen, Scobie. No comment unless asked.’ Chief Superintendent Greg Random had never been guilty of a loose word, unlike Malone. He was tall and lean and as weather-beaten as if he had just come in from the western plains. He was part-Welsh and though he couldn’t sing and had never played rugby nor been down a coal mine, he was fond of reciting the melancholy of Welsh poets. As they rode up in the lift Malone asked, ‘Why here and not Police Centre?’ There was no one else in the lift, so it was safe to be frank and subversive. “This is His Nibs’ castle. Does the Pope go to the Coliseum to declare his encyclicals?’ ‘We’re going to get an encyclical today?’ ‘You can bet on it.’ The big conference room was full of uniforms and silver braid. Both Random and Malone were in plainclothes, the only ones, and seated in the comer of the room they looked like suspects about to be questioned. The Deputy Commissioner and all seven Assistant Commissioners were in the room, plus half a dozen Chief Superintendents and five Superintendents. Malone had never seen so much brass since his graduation from the Police Academy. Then Commissioner Zanuch made his entrance. He never came into a room; he entered. He was a handsome man, something he admitted without embarrassment; there was no point in denying the truth of the mirror. He was vain and an ambitious climber amongst the social alps; he was beginning to see himself as a public monument. He was also highly intelligent, remarkably efficient and no one questioned that he was the best man for the position. Commissioner of Police in the State of New South Wales was not for the unconfident. He would always have enemies on both sides of the law. He sat down at the top of the long table. ‘You’ve read the papers, heard the news, gentlemen. The talk-back hosts have told us how we should conduct the case and they’ll get louder as the week goes by. We have never been faced with a case as serious and wide-reaching as this one.’ ‘We’ve decided it’s political?’ Assistant Commissioner Hassett was Commander, Crime Agencies. He came from the old school, the sledgehammer on the door, the boot up the bum, but he was shrewd and he ran his command with a loose rein and a ready whip. ‘No, we haven’t, Charlie, not yet.’ He looked across the room at Random and Malone. ‘What have you got so far, Chief Superintendent?’ ‘Very little, sir. Perhaps Inspector Malone can fill you in.’ Thanks, mate. ‘We have a couple of slim leads, sir. A handprint that may turn up something. A man who was in the shop from where the shot was fired, he was there twice this past week admiring the view from the window. We’re trying to trace him. I expect to hear from Fingerprints this morning if he’s got any record.’ ‘Have you started questioning anyone yet?’ A few loose words slipped out: ‘Macquarie Street, sir? Sussex Street?’ ‘Oh Gawd,’ said Charlie Hassett and six other Assistant Commissioners gave him silent echo. Commissioner Zanuch was not entirely humourless. ‘Inspector Malone, let us fear not to tread, but nonetheless, let us tread. Carefully, if you can.’ ‘Yes, sir.’ Malone felt every eye in the room was on him. ‘I think I’d rather be in Tibooburra.’ The back of beyond in the Service. ‘Wouldn’t we all.’ The Commissioner was enjoying the situation; over the next few days his Police Service would be the power in the land. The Government would be fighting its war of succession; the Opposition, seeking backs to stab, suddenly looked up and saw opportunity on the other side of the Assembly. Murder creates a vacuum, no matter how small and for how short a time. The vacuum now was large and Commissioner Zanuch stepped into it, secure that he was the tenant by right. ‘Strike force will be set up, unlimited personnel. Call in all the men you want,’ he told Hassett. ‘What about us?’ asked the Assistant Commissioner, Commander Administration, and all his colleagues nodded. ‘We’re united on this,’ said Zanuch. ‘A team. This is political – or it’s going to be. I presume you’ve all got your political contacts?’ All the Assistant Commissioners looked at each other before they all nodded. None of them had achieved his rank by virgin birth. The net of political contacts in the room could have strangled a purer democracy than that of the State in which they served. They were honest men but they knew from long experience that honesty was a workable policy, not necessarily the best. ‘Work those contacts. If you come up with anything, pass it on to Charlie. What shall we call the task force? We have to give it a name for the media – they love labels. They don’t know how to handle anything that’s anonymous.’ ‘How about Gold Medal?’ The Assistant Commissioner, VIP Security Services, was a humourist, sour as a lemon. With VIPs, a breed that never diminished, it was difficult to be good-humoured. ‘That will only rile the Opposition,’ said the Assistant Commissioner, Internal Affairs. ‘They could be our bosses in two months.’ ‘Let’s be brutal,’ said the Commissioner. ‘We’ll call it Nemesis.’ ‘The TV reporters will ask us what that means.’ ‘Tell ’em it means their channel bosses,’ said Charlie Hassett and everyone laughed. The meeting rolled on and at last Random and Malone were released. They said nothing to each other as they went down in the lift, but as they walked out into the glare of the January day Random said sombrely and unexpectedly, ‘We’ll miss The Dutchman.’ Malone looked across the street to Hyde Park, where old men played chess and draughts on tables beneath trees. Kibitzers stood behind them, offering advice, like retired minders. Hans Vanderberg had gone before retirement had consigned him to a bench somewhere, playing old games in his mind, surrounded by ghosts he had defeated with every move. ‘Where will you set up the Incident Room?’ ‘At Police Centre. I’ll move in there, you report to me direct. Where are you going to start?’ ‘I don’t know, depends what they have for me when I get back to the office.’ He sighed. ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to be on holiday right now? Walking the streets of Helsinki.’ ‘Why Helsinki?’ ‘Can you think of anywhere that’s further away and still has decent hotels?’ Malone went back to Strawberry Hills, to Homicide’s offices. The area had been named after the English estate of Horace Walpole, near-silent member of parliament but compulsive correspondent; he wrote mailbags of letters and Malone sometimes wondered how he would have reacted to the cornucopia of the internet. The offices were spacious and always neat and clean, a tribute to Clements, an untidy man with a contradictory passion for housekeeping, except on his own desk. Phil Truach, looking in need of another one of his forty cigarettes a day, was waiting with good news: ‘Fingerprints have traced that hand-print on the window-sill. A guy named August, John August. He did three years for armed robbery down in Pentridge and he’d been acquitted before. He’s got enough form.’ ‘Anything on him recently?’ ‘The Victorians say they haven’t heard of him for nine years. They say on his form he wasn’t a hitman, but you never know.’ ‘Is his name on the Sewing Bee’s list of customers?’ Russ Clements had come into Malone’s office, taken his usual place on the couch beneath the window. Though the couch was only four years old, he had dented his imprint on it at one end. He gestured at the typewritten list in his hand. ‘There’s no August. The name here is John June.’ Malone shook his head at the folly of criminals. ‘Full of imagination. What’s the address?’ ‘None. Just a phone number.’ He gave it and Malone punched it. He listened for a moment, said, ‘Sorry, wrong number,’ and hung up. ‘Happy Hours Child-Care Centre.’ ‘What?’ said the other two. Malone repeated it. ‘Possible hitman running a day-care centre? It’s a switch.’ He reached for the phone book, found what he wanted. ‘The Happy Hours Child-Care Centre, Longueville. I think I’ll take one of the girls with me. That’ll look better than two big boof-headed cops turning up to frighten the ankle-biters. What else have you got, Russ?’ ‘Another list.’ Clements held it up. ‘All the political bods we should look at. You want boof-headed cops on that?’ ‘We’d be the only ones they’d understand.’ He stood up, sighed. He was sighing a lot these days, as if it were a medical condition. ‘I’m not looking forward to the next coupla weeks.’ ‘It’s all in a good cause.’ ‘Did you ever think you’d say that about The Dutchman?’ ‘No,’ said Clements. ‘But the old bugger stood by us when we needed him. I think we owe him.’ Malone collected Gail Lee and drove out to Longueville. Gail, half-Chinese, was slim and good-looking, a shade of coolness short of beautiful and as competent as any man on Malone’s staff of nineteen detectives. She drove a little too fast for Malone’s comfort, but he would have been a poor passenger with the driver of a hearse. Longueville is a small suburb on the northern shore of the Lane Cove river, one of the two main rivers that flow into Sydney Harbour. It is now a pleasant area of solid houses in their own grounds, though some of the more modern ones are as conspicuous as circus tents in a cemetery. The suburb is a quiet retreat that has no major highway running through it. Once, long ago, it was thickly wooded with cedar and mahogany and populated, according to gossip of the times, by murderers and other assorted criminals. Today, if there are any criminals in the area, they are hidden behind accountants, the new forest for retreat. The Happy Hours Child-Care Centre looked as if it might once have been a scouts’ or a church hall. It stood in a large yard shaded by two big jacarandas and a crepe myrtle. There were sandpits and playground equipment and a dozen or more small children in the yard. There were shouts of laughter coming from the hall, kids in a happy hour. While Gail went looking for someone in charge Malone moved into the yard and stood looking at the children there. He was not naturally a child-lover, but the behaviour of the very small always fascinated him. Sometimes, but only occasionally, he saw in them what he would have to face when they grew up. He believed that the bad seed could show in sprouts. Half a dozen sat in a tight circle under one of the jacarandas, bound by giggles as by a daisy chain. Malone smiled at them and they smiled back. ‘You like it here?’ They all nodded, heads under their blue sun-hats going up and down like a circle of semaphores. Malone looked at the large name-tabs pinned to their yellow smocks. There were Justin and Jared and Jaidene and Alabama and Dakota and Wombat Rose – ‘Wombat Rose? That’s a nice name.’ She was four or five, a cherub with a wicked glint already in her big blue eyes. ‘Me mother wanted to call me Tiger Lily, but that was taken, she said.’ ‘No, I like Wombat Rose better.’ Then he saw the small boy sitting by himself under the other jacaranda and he crossed to him. ‘Why are you sitting on your own over here?’ ‘They won’t talk to me.’ ‘Why?’ “Cos me name’s Fred.’ Before Malone could laugh Gail Lee came out of the hall with a woman. ‘This is Mrs Masson, the owner.’ She was in her forties and feeling the heat and the children, two pressures that rarely have a woman looking her best. She was good-figured and had thick brown hair and large brown eyes, but today, one guessed, was not one of her good days. ‘Police?’ She frowned, making another subtraction from her looks. ‘What do you want? Here?’ She gestured at the innocence around them. ‘Has someone been trying to get at the children?’ ‘Nothing like that, Mrs Masson. We’re actually looking for a Mr June. We’d like a word or two with him.’ ‘John? My partner?’ ‘He’s a partner in the Centre?’ ‘No, no, he’s my partner in that other –’ She gestured. ‘We live together. De facto, if you like, but I hate the term.’ ‘Me, too. Where could we find him?’ ‘What’s it about? Go and play, kids.’ The children had gathered round the three adults, eyes and ears wide. ‘Go and play ball with Fred.’ Fat chance. Fred got up and went into the hall, taking his isolation with him. ‘We’d just like to ask him some questions –’ ‘Are you a policeman?’ asked Alabama or Dakota. ‘Kids –’ Mrs Masson was losing patience with the children or the police officers or born – ‘inside!’ ‘Is she a lady cop?’ asked Wombat Rose. ‘Inside!’ Malone and Gail Lee hid their smiles as the children, taking their time, made their way into the hall. Suddenly the yard was bare, threatening; the playground equipment looked like torture machinery. Mrs Masson said, ‘You’re not local police, are you?’ ‘No.’ Malone added almost reluctantly: ‘We’re from Homicide.’ ‘Homicide?’ She frowned again. ‘You’re investigating a murder or something?’ Malone nodded. ‘And you want to talk to John about it? Why?’ ‘We’re not accusing him of anything, Mrs Masson.’ This route was well-worn: telling the innocent party things they didn’t know. ‘We think he can throw some light on a case we’re working on. How long have you known John?’ ‘I dunno – five, six years. We’ve been together ever since I opened this –’ she swept an arm around her; it looked as if she wanted to sweep it away – ‘four years ago. It’s a struggle since the government took money out of child care –’ ‘John doesn’t work here?’ ‘No, he has his own one-man business – he’s a carpenter and general handyman. I can get him on his mobile –’ ‘No, we don’t want you to do that –’ She frowned yet again; then her eyes opened wide. ‘It’s serious, isn’t it? What’s he done, for God’s sake? Jesus –’ She turned; a young Asian girl stood in the doorway of the hall. ‘Not now, Ailsa – not now!’ ‘Mr June is on the phone –’ ‘I’ll take it,’ said Gail Lee and moved quickly to the doorway, pushed the girl into the hall and disappeared. Mrs Masson was silent for a long moment. A cicada started up, the first Malone had heard this summer; it was like a drill against the ear. Then Mrs Masson seemed to gulp, as if she were drowning in disappointment. ‘What’s he done? Are you going to tell me?’ ‘How much do you know about him? How much has he told you about himself before he met you?’ She walked slowly, almost blindly, across to a backless bench under one of the trees, the seat where Fred had sat in his exclusion. She sat down and Malone sat beside her, straddling the bench. Inside the hall a game had been started, the children laughing like a mocking chorus while the cicada had been joined by what sounded like a hundred others. ‘He came from Melbourne, he said he’d been married before but it broke up after a couple of years. He has a mother down there, but I’ve never met her.’ ‘Has he been a good – partner? A good husband?’ ‘I’ve been married before. John is twice as good as the legal husband I had. I love him – does that answer your question? Now tell me what he’s done.’ She looked at him pleadingly, but he turned away as Gail came out of the hall. ‘Mr June is on his way. He’ll be five minutes –he’s coming from Lane Cove.’ ‘What did you tell him?’ ‘I said there was some trouble with one of the children.’ She looked at Mrs Masson’s angry frown. ‘I’m sorry –’ The frown now seemed to be permanent, like a scar. ‘For Christ’s sake, tell me what he’s done. You come here, upsetting everyone and everything –’ ‘We haven’t done that, Mrs Masson,’ said Malone quietly. ‘We’ve upset you and I’m sorry about that. But no one else. Just let’s wait till Mr June gets here.’ They sat, while the laughter and screams came out of the hall and a magpie carolled in the jacaranda above them and a couple of mynahs chattered at it to get lost. The cicadas suddenly shut up and the other sounds seemed to increase. Then abruptly Mrs Masson stood up, looked at her watch, said, ‘It’s time for their morning snack,’ and walked, almost ran, into the hall. ‘It’s never easy, is it?’ said Gail. ‘What?’ ‘Telling them what they don’t know. Don’t want to know.’ ‘Never.’ Then two minutes later the van drew up in the street outside. A man got out and came hurrying into the yard. Malone and Gail crossed from the bench to stand in his way as he headed for the hall doorway. ‘Mr June?’ He pulled up sharply. ‘Yes. Are you the child’s parents? What’s happened?’ ‘No, Mr June, we’re not.’ Malone produced his badge. ‘Can we have a word? Over here under the trees.’ June hesitated, then followed them. There was nothing threatening about him, though Malone had not been sure what to expect. He was medium height, running a little to fat, with a round pleasant face and thinning black hair that needed a cut. He was dressed in overalls that, with inserts showing, had been let out at the seams; a pair of gold-rimmed glasses hung on a string round his neck. His left hand had the top joint of the middle finger missing. ‘What’s the charge?’ ‘None so far. We just thought you could help us with our enquiries.’ ‘Shit, that old one!’ ‘You’ve heard it before, Mr August?’ For a moment there was no expression at all, as if he were alone without thought. Then abruptly his face clouded, he rolled his lips over his teeth. ‘I gave that name away nine years ago –’ ‘Why?’ ‘I wanted to make a new start. I’ve done that –’ Then Mrs Masson came out again into the yard; hurrying, as if running away from the children. She rushed straight at August, grabbed his left hand, stood holding it as if he were another of her charges. ‘What’s it about, John? What do they want?’ ‘They just want to ask me some questions. I –I saw something the other day – I didn’t tell you about it –’ ‘What?’ He was a practised liar; he had been living a lie for nine years. ‘A couple fighting – they just want me to tell them what I saw –’ ‘Someone’s dead? They said they were from Homicide—’ One could almost see her mind racing, she was defending – what? She looked at Malone. ‘Is someone dead?’ ‘Yes. We’ll just take Mr – Mr June back to our office. He’ll be back here within an hour.’ ‘Why can’t you ask him the questions here?’ She was still clinging to his hand. She’s a mother, Malone thought, but where are her own kids? Then the children came spraying out of the hall, a yellow-smocked torrent. Justin, Jared; Jaidene, Alabama, Dakota, Wombat Rose: even Fred joined the circle round the adults. Twenty or thirty other children milled around. They all stared at the adults, innocent as cherubs but ears as wide as devils’. Wombat Rose looked up at Malone and winked at him with both eyes. ‘Come on, Mr June. We’ll have you back here in an hour.’ ‘I’ll come with you, John –’ He took his hand from hers, put it against her cheek. ‘It’ll be all right, sweetheart. Don’t worry, I’ll be back, it’s okay.’ It was difficult to tell if he was trying to tell her something. Was there some secret between them? But she just looked at him blankly, shook her head as if to deny mat everything was okay. Malone, Gail Lee and August/June went out of the yard, trailed by a dozen kids as far as the gate. Mrs Masson still stood under the jacaranda tree; the tiny splurge of yellow smocks leaked away from her, leaving her high and dry and alone. August looked back and waved with the hand that was his mark. ‘I’ll follow you,’ he said, moving towards his van. ‘No, lock it, John. We’ll get you back here.’ ‘That’s a promise?’ For a moment something like a smile hovered around his small mouth. ‘No, John. Depends what you have to tell us.’ Gail drove the unmarked police car and Malone sat in the back with August. They had been travelling for ten minutes before August broke his silence. ‘Now we’re away from Lynne, tell me why you’ve picked me up.’ ‘We’re questioning a list of clients from the Sewing Bee. Your name was on the list.’ He laughed. ‘The fat and the thin, a list of all those needing alterations? Come on–’ Then he sobered, looked quizzically at Malone. ‘This hasn’t got something to do with what happened to the Premier last night?’ ‘What makes you think it has?’ He shook his head. ‘You don’t catch me like that. Yeah, I was at that place, the alterations centre, what’s it called? The Sewing Bee. I remember standing at the window, having a look at the place across George Street, Olympic Tower. What I’ve read, what was on radio this morning, Hans Vanderberg was standing at the front of the hotel when he was shot, right? He was shot from the Sewing Bee, that what you’re saying? So what am I supposed to know?’ He wasn’t belligerent, just curious. Malone had met other hitmen and they had all had a characteristic coldness, sometimes blatant, other times subdued. It was a job, with most of them part-time: you killed the target, collected your pay, went home.. One or two of them had been show-offs, mug lairs, but they did not last long; sooner or later someone hit them. August, if he was the hitman in the Vanderberg case, was out of character. There was silence in the car again till they reached the Harbour Bridge, where they were held up by a long bank-up of traffic. August looked out at the mass of cars and trucks, immobile as rocks. ‘Can you imagine what it’s gunna be like during the Olympics?’ ‘I’m leaving town,’ said Malone. ‘I’m going to Tibooburra.’ ‘What about you, miss?’ August could not be friendlier, more unworried. ‘I have seats for all the main events at the stadium.’ Gail glanced at Malone in the rear-vision mirror. ‘My father bought them. He said we’re to be one hundred per cent, dinky-di Aussies for two weeks.’ ‘I’m one of the fifty thousand volunteer helpers,’ said August. ‘Doing what?’ Shooting whoever is on the official dais on opening day? Malone, against reason, was becoming irritated by August’s apparent lack of concern. ‘Helping the disabled. Getting them seated, things like that. I like volunteer work. I do Meals on Wheels in my van once a week.’ Are we bringing in the wrong bloke? But you had to start somewhere and this man was the only one with a record. Malone made no comment and they drove the rest of the way to Strawberry Hills in silence. As they rode up in the lift to Homicide’s offices August said, ‘You’re making a mistake, you know.’ ‘We sometimes do, John. But once we’ve eliminated them, we usually come up with the right answer.’ ‘Are there any reporters here?’ ‘We don’t encourage them.’ ‘Do me a favour? After I’ve convinced you I know nothing about all this, don’t let them know you’ve had me in here. I want to protect Lynne and her day-care centre.’ Gail took August into one of the interview rooms and Malone went into his office to see what was on his desk. Clements followed him.’ Why’d you bring him back here instead of taking him to Police Centre and the incident room?’ ‘Because that’s where the media are hanging out. I don’t want them asking questions or guessing till we’ve got something definite.’ ‘He admitted anything?’ ‘Nothing. Anything further come in?’ ‘We double-checked the Sewing Bee list, everyone on it has been interviewed. He’s the only one with form, if you exclude Charlie Hassett.’ ‘He’s on the list?’ “Three uniforms being let out at the seams. He’s already been on to me. If I let it slip to the media, he’s demoting me to probationary constable … There’s more come in from Victoria on August. One of those acquittals he got was for attempted murder – his first wife’s boyfriend. What’s he like?’ ‘He’s a carpenter and handyman, that’s his trade. In his spare time he does Meals on Wheels.’ ‘Holding a gun at their heads to make ’em eat it?’ Then he smiled sourly. ‘Why am I so cynical about reformed crims?’ ‘Has anyone been down to Trades Congress headquarters?’ ‘With the crowd we’ve got working on this, you can bet someone’s been down there. But nothing’s come through on the computer yet.’ ‘Ring Greg Random, tell him to tell everyone to lay off. That is for you and me soon’s I finish with our friend inside.’ He went out to the interview room. August sat comfortably on one side of the table and Gail sat opposite him. The room was sparsely furnished: table, four chairs and the video recorder. August gestured at it, casually: ‘You gunna turn that on?’ ‘Not unless you want us to.’ Malone sat down. ‘We’ll do that if we decide to charge you.’ ‘What with?’ ‘Murder of the Premier.’ August looked around him, as if looking for an audience for this comedy. Then he sat forward, suddenly serious. A strand of the thinning hair had fallen forward and he pushed it back. ‘Inspector Malone, I’m not a murderer –’ ‘You tried to murder your first wife’s boyfriend.’ August waved a curt hand. ‘The jury didn’t think so. We had a stoush, a fight over a gun, his gun, not mine, and it went off.’ Malone couldn’t contradict this; he hadn’t read the transcript of the trial. Perhaps he should have done a little more homework. ‘What did you feel when he got the bullet and you didn’t?’ ‘Glad. What would you feel? The guy was sleeping with my wife … Let’s get down to why you think I murdered Mr Vanderberg. Because I’ve got form? I’ve had none for the last nine years, I’m clean –’ He folded his hands together, looked down at them. ‘I came up here, changed my name, made a new start. I met Lynne, we hit it off and I moved in with her … You’ve got nothing on me, Inspector, except my past.’ ‘Where were you last night around eleven o’clock?’ asked Gail. ‘Home.’ Then he smiled wryly. ‘Alone. Lynne was at some parents’ meeting and didn’t get home till midnight. Earlier, I’d been up at Lane Cove town hall, a meeting on aged care. More volunteering …’He smiled again; he could not have been more relaxed. ‘I got home around ten, waited up for Lynne and we went to bed, I dunno, twelve-thirty, around then.’ ‘What did you do between getting home at ten and Lynne’s arrival? Watch television?’ He smiled again; he was not cocky, but there was a growing confidence. ‘You don’t catch me like that, Constable. No, I rarely watch TV after ten o’clock. I read, old crime thrillers – d’you read crime novels?’ ‘No,’ said Gail. ‘I do – occasionally,’ said Malone. ‘What did you read last night?’ ‘Elmore Leonard, one of his early ones.’ ‘Which one?’ asked Malone, who always read Leonard. ‘I can never remember titles.’ ‘Try, John.’ The smile now was fixed. ‘Switch, that was it. The one about the guy on the toilet that’s got a bomb attached to the seat – if he stands up, he’s a goner. Very funny. Embarrassing, too.’ ‘That was Freaky Deaky. I’d have thought you’d remember a title like that.’ ‘I told you, I’m no good at titles. For years I thought I’d read The Maltese Pigeon.’ ‘Nice joke, John, but let’s be serious. We’d like a look at your bank account and Mrs Masson’s.’ ‘Why?’ ‘The price for knocking off the Premier wouldn’t have been small change. The hitman might’ve been paid in cash, people don’t write cheques for those sort of jobs. The hitman would have to deposit it somewhere. He wouldn’t cart fifty thousand around in a brown paper-bag –’ ‘Fifty thousand?’ He seemed genuinely interested in the amount. ‘You think that’s what he got?’ ‘Maybe more. I don’t know the price for political assassination – it may be more, much more. Do you need money, John?’ ‘Who doesn’t? But I wouldn’t kill anyone for it.’ He was still calm, still unoffended. Malone so far had no doubts; but he had no conviction, either. An open mind did not mean it was non-adhesive: fragments occasionally stuck that gave a hint of a recognizable picture. At the moment it was like trying to paint a picture on water. ‘Why would I kill Hans Vanderberg? I voted for him in the last election. I’d do the same at the next. He was sly and conniving and half the time you didn’t believe what he said, but he got things done.’ ‘Who’d you vote as? John June?’ asked Gail. ‘Yes. The Electoral Commission can’t always check on whether you are who say you are. They were satisfied I was an honest citizen – which I am.’ ‘But John August, the real you, might not care one way or the other?’ August just looked at her, the mere shadow of a smile on his lips, and Malone said, ‘Detective Lee has a point. Which bank do you and Mrs Masson use? We can get a court order –’ ‘There’ll be no need for that.’ This time his voice was snappy. ‘I’ll give you permission to look at mine. But you’ll have to ask Lynne about hers –’ ‘We’ll do that. We also want a release from you in the name of John August. Just in case you have two bank accounts.’ August shook his head; the lock of hair fell down again and he pushed it back. He seemed now to be losing patience; or confidence. ‘You’re wasting your time. But okay, I’ll sign a release in my real name. Or what was my real name.’ He looked down at his hands, stared at them, then at last looked up. Both detectives were surprised at the sadness in his eyes: ‘How much are you gunna tell Lynne? About my past, my record?’ ‘If we find you’re in the clear,’ said Malone quietly, ‘we’ll tell her nothing. That’s up to you … Why did you shoot him, John?’ But that didn’t catch August off-balance: ‘Try someone else, Inspector. It wasn’t me who shot him. I’ve read what’s been going on lately. He has enough enemies to kill him from a dozen sides.’ Malone stared at him, then looked at Gail Lee: ‘Any more questions?’ ‘Just a couple … How much do you know about guns, Mr August?’ ‘Not much.’ ‘But you knew where to buy a gun? You used a gun in that job you did time for, the armed robbery one.’ ‘That was Melbourne. I’ve forgotten where I got it.’ ‘So a gun’s an everyday item with you? You buy one and forget where?’ ‘It was twelve years ago, for Crissakes!’ For a moment the calm demeanour was gone; then he put it on again like a mask: ‘Sorry. I’ll remember and let you know. Can you remember what you were doing twelve years ago?’ ‘I was about to start Year 10 at high school. I wasn’t buying a gun.’ His look was almost admiring. Then he said, ‘It’s different these days, in high school, I mean.’ ‘Knives, Mr August, not guns. Not yet.’ Then she said, ‘Where do you live?’ He gave an address in Lane Cove. ‘It’s a flat, in Lynne’s name. Why?’ ‘We’ll get a warrant to search it. Just routine.’ The mask dropped. ‘Christ, how do I explain that to Lynne?’ ‘Maybe you’d better tell her the truth about yourself.’ Malone stood up. ‘Righto, John, you can go. Detective Lee and one of my men will drive you back to Longueville. But if you want to keep your secret from Lynne, maybe you’d like to wait while Detective Lee gets the search warrant. Then we can search your flat and maybe Lynne won’t need to know.’ ‘I’ll wait. I’m not gunna hurt Lynne, if it can be avoided.’ 2 ‘Do you think the hit was meant for one of us?’ asked Aldwych. ‘No,’ said Jack Junior. ‘All the union trouble is over. They’ve moved on to fight other developers.’ ‘I still don’t trust our Chinese partners. I don’t mean Les –he’s one of us. Nor the Feng family – even that girl Camilla isn’t gunna make waves.’ The original consortium of partners had been a mixture that at times had had Aldwych thinking he was a foreigner in his own country. Besides Leslie Chung there had been two local Chinese families; there were also Madame Tzu, representing herself, and General Wang-Te, the director from a Shanghai corporation whose connections were as murky as the Whangpoo River. Sometimes Aldwych wondered what had happened to the White Australia policy of his youth. There were more bloody foreigners in the country now than kangaroos. ‘I still wouldn’t trust Madame Tzu as far as the other side of the street. As for the General –’ ‘You’re too suspicious,’ said Juliet, a foreigner. ‘I thought you Roumanians loved suspicion? You and the Hungarians invented the revolving door, didn’t you, so’s you could watch each other’s back?’ ‘I love you, Papa.’ She knew he liked being called Papa. Once distant from each other, they were now friends. ‘You’d have made a wonderful dictator.’ ‘Better than some you’ve had. That bloke Ceausescu ... he got what he deserved. The Dutchman was a dictator, but he didn’t deserve to be shot.’ They were having breakfast on the terrace of the junior Aldwychs’ apartment on the tip of Point Piper. The point was almost sunk by the wealth on it; land here was valued by the cupful. Aldwych, instead of going home to his own big house at Harbord, on the northern side of the harbour, had driven out here with his son and daughter-in-law and stayed the night. He enjoyed Juliet’s company and her looks, but, as with Madame Tzu, he would not have trusted her as far as the other side of the street. He had never trusted any woman but his dead wife Shirl. Beautiful women were even more suspect than others: they knew the value of their looks. Jack Junior, on the other hand, had never fallen for any but good-looking women. The apartment was sumptuous, an estate agent could have found no other word for it; but it was not like a House & Garden illustration, it was lived in. Juliet could spend money like an IMF grantee, but Jack Junior begrudged her nothing. Aldwych Senior, sometimes to his own surprise, no longer mentally reproached Juliet for her extravagance. This apartment was a contrast to his own house, where he lived amongst Laura Ashley prints and Dresden figurines, none of which he would ever replace because they had been Shirl’s choice. Shirl had died before Juliet came along and sometimes he wondered how the two women would have got along. He had had reservations about Juliet, but she had proved him wrong. The marriage was now six years old and there appeared to be no cracks in it. Juliet was extravagant, but she didn’t have to be Roumanian to be that; half the country lived on credit beyond its ability to pay and half the country didn’t have multi-millionaire husbands. She had proved a better wife than some of Jack Junior’s other women would have been. There were no children and no talk of any, but that didn’t worry Aldwych. He had little faith that the next forty or fifty years of the new millennium was going to be a cakewalk for the young. He was long past optimism. Now, looking at a Manly ferry taking commuters to the city, he was pensive, a symptom of his ageing. ‘If the hit wasn’t meant for either of us –’ ‘Dad, keep me out of it. If it was meant for either of us, it would’ve been you. Some of your old mates may have wanted a last crack at you.’ ‘All my old mates are dead, including the ones who were not my mates. Lenny McPherson is gone, all the old mugs who had it in for me.’ In his memory was a gallery of enemies. He had consorted, as the cops called it, with other crims, but he had always been his own man. Or, to a certain extent and which he would not have admitted to anyone, he had been part Shirt’s man. ‘Is this upsetting you, Juliet?’ ‘Not at all. As you said, I’m Roumanian.’ Sometimes one’s national bad characteristics can be indulged in. He smiled at her approvingly. ‘You’ll do me, love …’ He hadn’t called anyone love since Shirl had died. ‘Well, like I was saying – if it wasn’t meant for either of us, then maybe we’ve got problems.’ ‘Don’t ask,’ said Jack Junior as Juliet looked puzzled. ‘Of course I’m going to ask. Why will you have problems, Papa?’ ‘We want to build a small casino up at Coffs Harbour.’ A resort and retirement town halfway between Sydney and Brisbane. ‘Hans Vanderberg was in favour of it. He wasn’t a gambler, but anything that brought in more taxes was right up his street. The Pope would bless gambling if it brought in more revenue –’ Juliet blessed herself. She never went near a church except at Christmas, but the nuns from her old school still whispered in her ear. Aldwych smiled at the gesture, but went on: ‘We dunno about Billy Eustace, if he takes over – he says he’s anti-gambling, but they all say that till Treasury talks to ’em. If the Coalition wins the election, we dunno about them, either. They’ve got some wowsers amongst them, especially if they’re from the bush.’ ‘Wowsers?’ Juliet had been only a child when she had come to Australia, but she still had difficulty with some of the language, especially slang that was older even than her father-in-law. ‘Killjoys,’ said Jack Junior. ‘Gambling is a social evil.’ She had been a gambler all her life, but rarely a loser. ‘How quaint.’ She had a touch of larceny to her that Aldwych liked. Shirl had never had it. She had known of his trade, but as long as he never brought it into her home, her retreat, she had said nothing. He was not given to fantasy, but once or twice he had thought of her as an angel married to a demon. He had taken to reading late in life, but he really would have to give up reading some of the books on the shelves in the Harbord house. ‘We’ll have to start smoodging, leaving some money lying around.’ ‘We’ll have to be careful,’ said Jack Junior. He was a plotter, like his father, but in business, not bank robbery, and therefore more skilled. ‘Too many of them are more moral these days.’ ‘How quaint,’ said Juliet. Out on the harbour two youths on jet skis cut across the bow of a small yacht. The yacht had to tack abruptly, its sails quivering with indignation. Aldwych watched it, came as close to a snarl as he got these days: ‘He should of run ’em down.’ ‘Who?’ Aldwych turned his head from watching the harbour. ‘The Dutchman should of got them before they got him.’ He knew all about survival. 3 ‘Do you think he’s the one?’ asked Clements. ‘I dunno. Who else have we got? He’s the only one on that Sewing Bee list who’s got a record. We just keep tabs on him. We’ll get the task force to put him under 24-hour surveillance –we don’t want him shooting through, changing his name again. The one good thing I could say for him – he’s going to protect Mrs Masson, the woman he’s living with.’ ‘Unless –’ ‘Unless she knows what he did – if he did do it.’ Malone shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so … Now you and I are going down to Sussex Street, but first we’re going to look in on Roger Ladbroke. He knows more about who works what and how in the Labor Party than anyone except his late boss.’ ‘You vote Labor, don’t you?’ Despite their long association they had never admitted how each of them had voted. There is a majority amongst the natives whose vote is as secret as whether they believe or not in God. ‘You vote the Coalition, don’t you?’ ‘Okay –’ Clements grinned – ‘we’re apolitical on this one.’ ‘We’d better be or the media will heap shit on us.’ Malone had checked that Ladbroke was in his office at Parliament House. They drove into the city and round the back of the government complex. As they swung into the garage they saw the group under a tree in the Domain, the city common; someone, too distant to be recognized, was holding a press conference, cameras aimed at him like bazookas. Then they were in the garage and the security guard was holding them up. Clements, who was driving, produced his badge. ‘You’ll be seeing a lot of us in the next few days.’ ‘Terrible business,’ said the guard, a burly man young enough to have been Hans Vanderberg’s grandson. ‘He could be a cranky old bastard, but we all liked him and respected him. Good luck. Get the shits who killed him.’ ‘You notice?’ said Malone as they got out of the car. ‘He used the plural – the shits who killed him. Nobody’s going to believe this was a one-man job.’ The two women secretaries in the Premier’s outer office still looked stunned, as if their boss’ murder had occurred only an hour ago. One was drying her eyes as the two detectives came in and asked for Ladbroke. Without rising she pointed to the inner door, as if she and her colleague no longer had anything to protect. Ladbroke was packing files into cartons. He was jacketless and tieless; he seemed even to have shed his urbanity. He looked up irritably as Malone and Clements came, then took a deep breath and made an effort to gather himself together. ‘Billy Eustace wants to move in this afternoon as Acting Premier. The king is dead, long live the king.’ He still wore his old cynicism; it was like a second skin. ‘You come up with anything yet?’ ‘We’ve got a few things to work on,’ said Malone. ‘We’re on our way down to Sussex Street. We’d like some background on what’s been going on the past few weeks.’ Ladbroke looked at a file in his hand, then tapped one of the cartons. ‘A good deal of it is in here, but I can’t let you see it. It’s stuff that was leaked to the Old Man from down there.’ ‘We could get a warrant. Those aren’t Cabinet papers, Roger.’ Ladbroke drew another deep breath, then put the file in a carton and pushed the box along the Premier’s big desk. ‘Okay, but read it here. There are three files – the red-tabbed ones.’ Malone pushed the carton towards Clements. ‘You’re the speed-reader.’ Clements took the three red-tabbed files and retired to a chair by the window. Malone sat down and looked across the desk at Ladbroke, who had slumped down in what had been his boss’ chair. ‘What are you going to do now?’ ‘I’m organizing a State funeral for him. After that—’ He shrugged. ‘A State funeral? When?’ ‘Friday. Gert insisted on it. Eleven o’clock Friday morning at St Mary’s Cathedral.’ ‘He was a Catholic?’ ‘No, she is. He was everything the voters were on a particular day. If the Mormons or the Holy Rollers could swing the vote in an electorate, he was out there nodding his head to polygamy or clapping his hands and singing “Down by the Riverside”.’ ‘Do the Mormons still practise polygamy?’ Ladbroke shrugged again; Malone had never seen him so listless. ‘I don’t know. Anyhow, he’s a Catholic for Friday. St Mary’s jumped at the idea when Gert said she wanted a State funeral. St Andrew’s has had the last three, they’ve all been Anglicans. Friday at St Mary’s they’ll be tossing the incense around like smoke bombs. They might even canonize him.’ For the first time since they had entered the office he smiled. ‘He’d enjoy that.’ Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/jon-cleary/bear-pit/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.