The Bear Pit

by Jon Cleary

  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.

  2

  I

  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 w
ith 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 coupé 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 corner 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. H
e 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.