The Bear Pit

by Jon Cleary

  Then someone else said, “Well, that takes the heat off the Labor Party,” and there was a second flutter, of relief.

  “Not necessarily,” said Random. “Not till we’ve eliminated the Premier as the intended victim. We say nothing to the media about this new development—it may lead us to nothing. We give them the usual release—investigations are proceeding and we are hopeful of an early arrest, blah, blah. In the meantime—” He looked at Malone.

  “In the meantime,” said Malone, “we look for a woman named Janis Eden. She was released from Mulawa four months ago.” He gave a brief summary of why she had been put away. “She’s dropped out of sight, maybe gone interstate, maybe gone overseas. Or maybe she’s still around, under another name. We want to question her. I want to question her—she’s my pigeon.”

  “Why you, sir?” said someone from the back of the room.

  “Because he said so,” said Random, the edge to his voice even sharper.

  “It’s personal,” said Clements.

  “Sorry,” said the someone and sank down out of sight.

  There was another question from the floor: “What about our suspect? August, June, whatever we call him?”

  “We call him August on our sheets,” said Malone. “Russ Clements and I are going out to talk to him now.”

  When the meeting broke up Random gestured to Malone and Clements to wait behind. When they were alone he said, “Do you think this Janis Eden could be involved?”

  “Greg, we don’t know. Christ, the last thing we wanted was a complication like this. Unless we find her, the only way we’re going to find out is by leaning on August.”

  “Does he respond to being leant on?”

  “I think you could run over him with a tank and he wouldn’t tell you a thing.”

  “Neither would I,” said Random and a thin gully appeared round the corner of his mouth. “Good luck.”

  Outside in their car Malone called the two surveillance officers tailing August. “Where is he now?”

  “At the Clontarf Gardens nursing home in Clontarf. We’re in the parking lot, we can see him working on the verandah.”

  “We’re on our way. Don’t tell him.”

  They drove through the city, over the bridge, out through Cremorne and Mosman, silvertail suburbs that the dead Premier had never bothered to visit; Labor voters there were as scarce as Christian voters in Iran. The unmarked police car went down the long curving slope to the Spit bridge, where they joined a long queue held up by the opening of the bridge to let three small yachts through into Middle Harbour. The bridge had been built by an American firm three or four decades ago; they had told the government of the day that a drawbridge was going to be a major hindrance to the increasing traffic of the future, but the government had known best. The long view is not a national habit, especially amongst politicians. The next election is the horizon.

  At last the bridge was down, traffic started to move and they climbed the opposite hill to the ridge where Clontarf looked back over the outer reaches of the main harbour. It is a pleasant suburb, with solid houses surrounding the wide block on which the nursing home stood.

  Two young officers in plainclothes got out of an unmarked car as Malone and Clements drove into the parking lot. They introduced themselves: “Sutcliffe and Crivic, sir. He’s over there, entertaining the old ducks.”

  “Has he shown any narkiness with you and the other fellers tailing him?”

  “None at all, sir. He brought us morning coffee and biscuits. He got the old ducks to wave to us.”

  “He’s told them you’re cops?” said Clements.

  Sutcliffe was a beefy young man with close-cropped blond hair, a broad snub-nosed face with a long upper lip and light blue eyes that squinted in the bright sun. He put back on the sunglasses he had taken off. “I don’t think so. He’s a smartarse, but I don’t think he’s a dumb smartarse.”

  “He’s not worried.” Crivic was lean and dark, Sutcliffe’s thin shadow. He was not squinting, his dark eyes wide open as if daring the sun to dazzle him. “If he did the hit, sir, he’s not gunna help us bring him in.”

  “We’ll see,” said Malone.

  He and Clements left the two young officers and crossed the hot lake of the parking lot and went through a small garden to where August was repairing the railing that ran across the verandah fronting the wide building. Half a dozen elderly women sat in wheelchairs watching him like a covey of charge-hands.

  “Mr. Malone and Mr. Clements!” August put down his tools and smiled at the two detectives; then he turned to the old ladies: Two gentlemen from Meals on Wheels. They help me deliver.”

  Two of the old women smiled at Malone and Clements; the others sat staring at nothing. They don’t even know we’re here, thought Malone. They had neither the long view nor the short view, they were trapped in the blindness of Alzheimer’s. All at once Malone wished he and Clements had not come. Murder and politics were another world from this last oasis.

  As they moved away from the verandah Malone said, “You travel the gamut, don’t you? From the kids at Happy Hours to this.”

  “It’s a living.” August was affable, didn’t seem to resent their coming. “I don’t mind the old ones. We’ll be like that ourselves one day. I just hope I go, though, before I finish up a vegetable in a wheelchair.”

  “John,” said Clements, “how can you be a hitman and be so considerate of those old ladies?”

  “Easy. I’m not a hitman.”

  There were three timber garden chairs under a large camphor laurel. August sat down and waved to the two detectives to join him. It was all very informal, an interrogation amongst the flowers and shrubs. The two old women with sight watched them from the verandah; the others just stared at nothing. A kookaburra dropped down out of nowhere and sat on the verandah railing, not laughing.

  “You’re wasting your time.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Malone. “Do you know a woman named Janis Eden?”

  August frowned. “Who’s she?”

  “We thought she might have approached you to do the hit.”

  “Oh, really?” As if she had approached him for a quote on mowing a lawn. “What does she do?” “She’s just done time. Nine years.”

  “And she had a grudge against Hans Vanderberg?”

  “No, not him. But she does have a grudge against two men named Aldwych, father and son. They were with Vanderberg that night, we think you might’ve meant to hit one of them and you got the Premier by mistake.”

  August laughed: naturally, not at all forced. “You buggers beat the band, you know? First, you accuse me of being a hitman, now you accuse me of hitting the wrong guy. What else are you gunna dream up?”

  “John,” said Clements, “you needed the money.”

  He shook his head. “You saw my bank account. That, incidentally, embarrassed me with my bank manager. I hadda tell him it was a case of mistaken identity and you’d apologized.” He smiled; he could not have been friendlier. “Okay, I’m not rolling in it, but there’s enough to pay the bills.”

  Clements took his time, turned his head as over on the verandah railing the kookaburra gave a short laugh, like a snort of contempt. Then he looked back at August: “Mrs. Masson doesn’t have enough to pay the bills. The Happy Hours is up to its neck in debt. You could of done the job to help out your partner.”

  The change in August was sudden. The round face hardened, darkened; another man stepped out of the skin of the good-natured deliverer of Meals on Wheels. “You bastards!”

  “We have to be, sometimes,” said Malone.

  “I told you to stay away from her! Jesus Christ, I should—” He choked.

  “What, John?” said Clements. Take a hit at us?”

  Then Malone, taking over the bowling, said quietly, “We haven’t been near Mrs. Masson, John. We got that information through the proper channels.” Even if illicitly.

  “What fucking proper channels?”

  He had rais
ed his voice. All six women on the verandah lifted their heads; one woman put a hand to her ear. The kookaburra abruptly took off, as if it had been offended by August’s language.

  “We have our sources.”

  August glared at both of them. He was still red-faced; a strand of hair had fallen down over his brow. Then with an obvious effort, like a cripple arranging his limbs, he relaxed, sat back against the hard wood of his chair.

  “Why me? Why the fuck are you picking on me?”

  “John—” Malone kept his voice casual. Neither he nor Clements had shifted their positions in their chairs; they were as relaxed, even more so, as August. They could have been discussing tomorrow’s delivery of Meals on Wheels. “You were the only one on the list of customers at the Sewing Bee who had a record. You went to the window, we were told, and looked across at the entrance to Olympic Tower. Not once, but twice. You told the woman who runs the place you were interested because you were once an architect. John, we looked up your CV. You never even got close to designing a garden shed or an outdoor loo.”

  “Well—” He waved a hand, looked unexpectedly embarrassed. “You know how it is. You bullshit—”

  “Of course. We all do it—occasionally. But not now, John. We’re not bullshitting you now. Do you know Janis Eden?”

  “No.” He was climbing back into the skin of the man at ease. “Describe her.”

  That, Malone suddenly knew, was where he and Clements had made their mistake. It was nine years since they had last seen Janis Eden; she was a faded image, viewed through the astigmatic eye of memory. Both men had sat opposite her in a Bondi cafe while Romy’s father had held the poisoned syringe against her wrist; it was the only time that Malone had taken out his gun and threatened to shoot a man in cold blood. It was Peter Keller’s image that was burned in their brain, not hers. They had attended her trial for only one day, to give evidence in the witness box. In the dock she had changed her appearance, done something with her hair, but Malone couldn’t remember how. She would be thirty-five or thirty-six now and he knew that women could be more chameleon-like than men.

  “Dark-haired. Attractive.”

  “No,” said Clements. “Auburn-haired. You know, sorta dark red.”

  “Dark-haired, auburn-haired, attractive—that could be a helluva lot of women.” August shook his head in amusement. “If she’s one-legged, it’ll help.”

  Malone had to admire him. “Do you ever lose your sense of humour?”

  “Occasionally.” No longer amused. “When you keep pestering my partner.”

  “It’s regrettable, John, but we may have to keep doing it.”

  “No,” he said. “You don’t have to. I’m no hitman and my partner’s problems are her own.”

  “And yours, too, John.”

  He stared at them a long moment, then he nodded. “You two married? Happily married?” It was their turn to nod. “So you understand?”

  “Yes.” Malone stood up. He knew now they were going to achieve nothing with August by beating him into the ground. He would never crack that way. “We’ll keep in touch.”

  “You’re not gunna leave me alone? Get off my back?” He had not risen, sat looking up at the two big men.

  “Afraid not. It’s what we call Chinese water torture. We’re good at it.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  They left him there under the camphor laurel; the sun had moved and he looked a little vaguer in its shade. They waved to the old ladies on the verandah and the two with sight waved back. Malone paused for a moment and looked at the long verandah. The six figures sat there like a frieze of statues, waiting for the last door to open and welcome them. Then the six figures shrank into four; four familiar faces stared at him. His father and mother, Lisa’s father and mother: he turned away and headed for the parking lot. We too often close books we don’t want to finish reading.

  II

  Gertrude Vanderberg, unlike her late husband, was a monarchist. That is, she saw herself as queenly; it was her only vanity and self-delusion. Never in front of The Dutchman, always behind him, she had, nevertheless, reviewed the troops with an eye as searching as his. She knew the domain of Boolagong better than he, she had spent more time in it. Attending fêtes, to which she always donated her home-baked pumpkin pavlovas; visiting sick voters, sometimes even if they were not Labor; housekeeping, such as checking the branch’s accounts. The rest of the State she left to Hans. Queens have better recognition in small domains; empresses are acknowledged only on coins. Everyone in Boolagong knew Gert Vanderberg.

  “You’re from where?” She made it sound like Antarctica.

  “Channel 15,” said Maureen.

  Mrs. Vanderberg was not in good temper. She was still feeling not only the death of Hans but the manner in which he had died. She had always recognized that politics was a dirty business; but murder was a horror she could not come to terms with. She knew the pain of losing someone; her and Hans’ only child had died of breast cancer ten years ago; she was not new to grief. She was here in the Boolagong branch office in the main street of Rockdale because she had found the house, hers and Hans’, too lonely. She had sat there in the rooms for the whole weekend, still hearing the sounds of him, feeling his presence like a visible ghost. The grief and loneliness had been too much for her and she regretted that she and Hans had never had more children. Friends and relatives came and sat with her, but they didn’t fill the space that had been left. Today, escaping the loneliness, she had come here to the office to comfort Barry Rix, who was still shaken by his own narrow escape. And now here was a damned TV reporter intruding.

  “What do you want?”

  Maureen was not yet case-hardened; she knew she was intruding. But her producer, a man isolated by the distance of his office from any door that had to be knocked on, who saw the world at one and sometimes two removes, had insisted she come out this morning and follow up the branch-stacking story. The maw of television is the black hole of entertainment and infotainment: reporting cancer cure as a divertissement. That was enough excuse, the producer had told Maureen, for any intrusion.

  “We are preparing a story on branch-stacking—”

  “Not here,” said Mrs. Vanderberg and looked at Rix. “Not here, Barry?”

  “No,” said Rix and made coffee for the three of them. If he won pre-selection he might need all the media help he could get. He brought biscuits. “Home-made. By Mrs. Vanderberg.”

  “Very nice,” said Maureen and bit into a sweet pumpkin cookie.

  This branch office was not a social hall; it was two medium-sized rooms. The Dutchman, coming here once a month, had seen the advantages of having voters waiting for him out on the pavement; there is no public value in having all your supporters packed together out of sight. Mrs. Vanderberg, Rix and Maureen were in the inner room, its walls plastered with old posters from the days before TV commercials. Maureen had looked around at them with the curiosity of the young looking at old campaign recruiting posters; indeed, she would not have been surprised to find The Dutchman glaring at her from a poster, finger pointed: YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU! In the outer room there were half a dozen people, two volunteer workers and four supplicants. One never calls voters beggars.

  “No,” said Rix, “we’ve never had any stacking here. The Boss would never have stood for anything like that.” Nor would he have needed it.

  “No,” said Maureen, “not here. Not yet, I’m told.”

  “Not ever,” said Mrs. Vanderberg. She was not wearing widow’s weeds, which might have been more flattering; she was in an orange blouse and a green skirt. “We don’t go in for that sort of thing here. Mr. Rix—”

  “We understand Mr. Rix is going to have opposition for pre-selection—”

  “You’re young, Miss—?”

  “Malone. Maureen Malone.”

  Mrs. Vanderberg gave her an acute look. Like her husband she had a memory for names: they are the blood cells of politics. “Mr. Rix told me an Inspector Malone is handling
the investigation into my husband’s murder—”

  “My father,” said Maureen and wished her name was Lewdinsky or McTavish. “He doesn’t know I’m here—I have my own job to do—”

  “Of course,” said Mrs. Vanderberg and made it sound as if there were far better jobs than being a TV reporter. “You’re young, Miss Malone, and you will find out that rumours are like the whipped cream on my pavlovas—they go off after a week.” The aphorism was one of her husband’s, but she didn’t mangle it as he had. Then she looked past Maureen: “Why, here comes a rumour himself!”

  Jerome Balmoral stood in the doorway. One knew that when he got into parliament he would be Jerome and not Jerry; Labor was the Old Mates party, but it would not be Jerry, mate, when he became Prime Minister. He looked at Maureen with a very unmate-like stare.

  “What’s she doing here?” He sounded as if he already owned the office, that there was no need for pre-selection, he was already selected and elected.

  “She’s here at my invitation,” said Gert Vanderberg, not looking at Maureen.

  “You’re letting her go ahead with their dirty muck-raking?”

  “No.” She looked sideways at Maureen; it might have been a motherly glance or a keep-your-mouth-shut look. “She’s just been taken on as my assistant. My private secretary, if you like. Or my minder, as my husband used to call them.”

  “You need a minder?” Balmoral was unimpressed. Or perhaps he was impressed, meant she would never need a minder.

  “Occasionally,” said Mrs. Vanderberg.

  Maureen was no actress; but she managed to remain blank-faced, which in television soap opera can be mistaken for acting. “Good morning, Mr. Balmoral.”

  He ignored her. “Can I see you alone, Mrs. Vanderberg?”

  “Of course not,” said she affably; she spread her hands to include Maureen and Rix. “We’re a team here. What do you want, Jerry?”

  For a moment it looked as if Balmoral would retreat; but in the Trades Congress such tactics were never taught. “Well, basically—”