by Jon Cleary
“I may not need to, Ruby. Not in public, that is. Will you talk to me about that day?”
“I’ll think about it.” The music had finished, the other dancers were coming off the dance floor. She shook hands with him. “Thank you, Mr. Malone. Wally says you’re on our side. I hope you are.”
Then she was gone before he could tell her that he really didn’t want to be on anyone’s side.
An hour later, when supper was served, he had grown tired of the ball, of the whole night and day. Standing in the hall against a wall, a plate of hot sliced beef and salad in his hand, a glass of red resting on a ledge near him, he looked over the guests lining up at the long serving tables. He saw the librarian Veronica Dircks, her new ball dress looking crumpled and stained, as if she had been caught in a beer shower. Beside her was a man he guessed to be her husband, the editor of the Chronicle, square as a butter-box, ginger-haired like his father, all foghorn voice and loud laughter. He caught sight of Malone watching him and his pink square face suddenly closed up; he turned and said something to the man behind him in the line, his father. Then both Dircks looked across at Malone, faces as belligerent as those of hobbled bulls.
Malone picked up his glass and, both hands full, moved along the wall to where Ray Chakiros stood behind a plate that was a meat-and-vegetable barricade. He froze, with his mouth full, as Malone stopped beside him.
The detective raised his glass, drank a toast to him, then put the glass down on a nearby table. “Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves.”
Chakiros nodded, then swallowed, almost choking himself because he had not chewed the food he had in his mouth. “Yeah,” he managed to say. “You enjoying yourself?”
Malone grinned and shrugged. “It’s a bit noisy and crowded for me.”
“I thought you cops’d be used to noise and crowds.”
“I gave up football duty years ago. That’s one of the good things about a homicide—all the noise and fuss is over before we’re called in. Mr. Chakiros, maybe you can help me . . .”
Chakiros lowered his plate, as if he had suddenly lost his appetite. “How?”
“Is there anyone amongst your members at the Legion who was a POW of the Japanese?”
A thick crease spread across Chakiros’s brow. “A POW? No. A coupla fellers were POWs of the Germans. But no, not the Japs. What’re you getting at?”
“Just a thought.” Don’t paint Sagawa blacker than this man already has. “Young Phil not here tonight? I thought this’d be his scene. He’s not in trouble, is he?”
Chakiros had been about to resume eating, but stopped again. “Why would he be?”
“I understand he was the trainer of the horse that was doped this afternoon, the one that dropped dead. The stewards can’t be too happy about that.”
“I’m the chief steward.”
“Oh?” Malone made a good job of pretending he hadn’t known. “That must be embarrassing. Does conflict of interest worry you or is that a phrase they don’t understand out here in Rural Party territory?”
“You sound just like The Dutchman.” Like Hans Vanderberg, the Opposition leader, who made regular trumpetings about the cronyism of the Rural Party, ignoring his own years of jobs for the faithful. “You vote bloody Labour, I’ll bet.”
“No, I’m a Greenie.” Which he wasn’t, but which would sound even worse to the likes of Chakiros.
The older man lowered his plate, looked for a moment as if he might throw it and its contents at Malone. “You’re a shit, Malone, you know that? You’re gunna regret you ever come out here, I promise you!”
Malone looked at him steadily, then he nodded. “I already regret it, Mr. Chakiros. But I promise you something. Before I leave here there will be people who’ll have bigger regrets than I’ll have. Watch your plate. The gravy is dribbling on your shirt.”
II
Malone looked around for Lisa; the night, and the day, had gone on long enough. Some people have an infinite capacity to enjoy themselves; or anyway an ability to convince themselves of their enjoyment. He was not one of them.
He had seen Lisa go out of the hall with Ida and he went outside into the cool, if strident night air. The band had stopped playing, were taking time out for a beer and whatever else they needed to keep them going for the rest of the night; over in the showground the carnival had closed down, but a lion roared once, scaring the fur off the kangaroos out in the scrub. A drunk answered the roar and other drunks and near-drunks took it up, splintering the night with their yahoo-ing. Over in the car park a chorus of girls suddenly screamed in delight, as if pack rape had taken on a reverse meaning. At the corner of the hall a youth, held up by his girl-friend, was being violently ill. Older people looked away, not wanting to be reminded of their own youthful over-indulgence.
Clements was standing alone, a plastic glass of white wine in his hand. “Did we ever behave like that?” He nodded, as if he had addressed the question to himself. “Yeah, we did. Or I did. I dunno about you.”
“Where’s Lisa and Ida?”
“Over in the bush, in the queue for the loo. There’s a line of about fifty women over there, all standing with their knees tight together. There’s something to being a man. All you have to do is take it out behind any bush and make sure you don’t splash your shoes.”
Malone became aware of someone standing behind them, listening to their conversation. He turned round.
“Hello, Inspector,” said Veronica Dircks. “I’ve been eavesdropping, wondering what policemen talk about when they’re together, especially Homicide detectives. The bladders of the sexes. Very interesting.”
She looked ball-worn; the night had proved too much for her. She was not drunk, but she had had enough drink to loosen her up; or down. There was no sign of the prim librarian, even if that impression of her had been Malone’s mistake. Her new dress could have been last year’s or even the year’s before, stained and creased like a library book that had been taken out too often. Twenty dollars’ worth of shampoo and back-comb was down over her ears and forehead. She was not wearing her glasses and occasionally she squinted, as if trying to get him into focus.
Malone introduced her to Clements. “Mrs. Dircks is writing a history of the district. We might smuggle her a copy of the running sheets when the Sagawa case is over.”
“What are running sheets?” she said.
“Sort of our own little history. The Literature Board is thinking of giving Sergeant Clements a grant, they reckon he’s got such promise.”
“You’re pulling my leg. Not that I mind.” She had had enough drink to be coy; it didn’t suit her. She looked off, squinting even more. “There’s history being made, over there. Amanda Nothling and Narelle Potter being nice to each other.”
Malone turned his head, saw the two women halfway between the hall and the row of toilets at the edge of the scrub; standing a little aside from each other, as if they had been about to pass, then decided to speak. It was difficult to tell at the distance whether there was any tension between them.
“They don’t get on?” he said casually.
She shook her head; more hair fell down. “Mrs. Potter doesn’t meet Mrs. Nothling’s high standards. But then few of us do.”
Clements had been listening to her with mild amusement. “Does Dr. Nothling meet his wife’s standards?”
She looked at him with exaggerated caution. “Who knows what a wife thinks of her husband? Or vice versa? Supposing they have vices.” She looked around, as if trying to find her husband up to some vice or other; then she shrugged, gave up and looked back at the two detectives. “If I knew the answer to that, my history would write itself. The personal bits, anyway.”
“You’re having trouble with the personal bits?” Malone guessed that any historian could have told him that. Battles left their own mark, treaties were their own documentation, but who knew what Elizabeth said to Essex when they were alone, what Churchill called Stalin, even through an interpreter?
&nbs
p; “Oh, am I! Am I!” She giggled. “The Hardstaffs, for instance. A closed book. Well, almost closed.”
Malone saw Amanda Nothling now coming towards them on her way into the hall, her chin held up. He wondered if continually looking down one’s nose gave one a squint.
He said quietly, “Almost closed?”
“Oh, I’ve found out a few things . . . Hello, Mrs. Nothling. A lovely ball. As the eunuch said to the bull.” She was drunk now; the drink, it seemed, had had a delayed reaction. Or maybe spite had spiked it: “No Doc Nothling here tonight? Missing again?”
“Lock her up,” said Amanda Nothling with a smile to Malone that said she knew what a pain drunks were. She passed on into the hall, all arrogant dignity, queen of the night.
Veronica Dircks looked after her, swaying slightly as she turned round; she put a hand out to steady herself, but there was nothing there. Clements put up a hand and she leaned against his arm.
“Smell that perfume? Two hundred dollars an ounce. It disinfects the air the rest of us contaminate.”
“Do you know where Doc Nothling is tonight?” said Malone.
She shrugged; her dress slipped down off one shoulder, but she didn’t attempt to pull it up again. “The Doc? The original Hippocratic Oaf? That’s an old joke, but it fits him. Or it does now. I’m told he was much different when he first came here to live under the thumb of Chess Hardstaff. I could tell you a thing or two about Old Chess.” She winked; it looked almost lewd. “Things I can’t put in the history, so my hubby tells me. He’s one of those journalists who’s scared of the law of libel.”
“What could you tell about Chess Hardstaff, if there was no law of libel?”
“About his war record, f’rinstance.”
“I thought he had a good war record?”
“Oh, he had, he had. Decorations down to his navel, like one of those American generals. But you should ask Frank Kilburn. But you can’t ask him, can you? He died just before Christmas.”
Suddenly, without warning, she crumpled. Her legs folded under her long dress and she went down like a collapsing circus tent. Malone and Clements, caught unawares, were slow to pick her up. Then, as they bent to do so, they were roughly pushed aside by her husband. He lifted her, holding her in his arms as if she were a child, and glared at them, looking like a more threatening version of his father.
“Leave her alone! What were you going to do—run her in?”
The two detectives looked at each other, shook their heads, laughed and walked away. They had had enough experience of domestic situations to recognize that Dircks was more angry at his wife for being drunk than he was at them; the best way to handle such a situation was to turn one’s back; when Adam had his first row with Eve, even the serpent glided away. Malone guessed that Veronica Dircks’s passing out would not be mentioned in the Chronicle’s report on the Cup ball.
“The trouble with drunks,” said Malone, when he and Clements were out of earshot, “is that they always pass out before they get to the punchline. I wonder what she was going to tell us about Hardstaff and Nothling?”
Then Lisa and Ida came towards them, both smiling broadly. Lisa said, “The last time I stood in a queue that long was when I took the kids to see Back to the Future. You ready to take me home?”
Malone looked at Ida. “It doesn’t look as if Trevor is going to turn up.”
“It won’t be the first time.” Then she glanced at Clements, but the look was so swift Malone barely saw it.
“I’d take you home,” Clements said awkwardly, “but Scobie has the car.”
“How will you get back to town?” Ida asked him.
“I’ll get a lift. Some of them are so drunk they won’t recognize me.”
“Not with Narelle, I hope.” She was smiling, but there was a sharp edge to her tone for just that moment.
Clements grinned. “She came with some guy. I presume she’ll be going home with him.”
“Not necessarily. Well, goodnight, Russ.” She gave him her hand, as if deciding that it would be indiscreet to give him even a peck on the cheek. “I enjoyed the night, thanks to you.”
“Me, too.”
They might have been old lovers who had met again for the first time in twenty years, uncertain as to whether the old intimacy was still there. Malone, watching them closely, decided that Clements had decided to call it quits before both of them got too far out of their depth, before the wrong current took hold of them.
“I’ll see you in the morning, Russ,” he said.
“You’re coming to Mass with me and the kids,” said Lisa. “Eight thirty.”
Malone sighed. “She’s getting to be worse than my mother. She washes my shirts in holy water.”
Waring had brought Lisa and Ida to the ball in his own car before going back to his meeting with Gus Dircks and the Japanese at Chess Hardstaff’s place. Malone took the two women home in the Commodore, Lisa riding up front with him and Ida reclining, as if exhausted, in the back seat. Lisa chatted about the ball, but Ida remained quiet, out of character from what Malone knew about her.
He said off-handedly, not glancing back at her, “I noticed that Gus Dircks turned up at the ball. I wonder what kept Trevor? Does he get on that well with Chess Hardstaff?”
“I don’t know.” Ida sounded listless; or perhaps disappointed. He wondered if she had hoped for a better response from Clements. “He never discusses business with me. I don’t have a head for it.”
Malone felt Lisa’s hand on his knee, pressing it warningly. He took heed of her and said nothing for the rest of the journey home. When they drew up in front of the Waring homestead Ida was asleep and they had to wake her. She stretched, sat up, leaned forward and kissed each of them on the cheek.
“Lucky people,” she said and got out of the car and went quickly into the house.
The Malones sat silent till they heard the front door close behind her. Then Lisa said, “You almost put your foot in it tonight.”
“How?”
“Asking where Trevor was.”
“Was he with some woman somewhere?”
“I don’t know where he was. He was in a bad mood all the way in to the ball this evening—it was damned uncomfortable being with them. He and Ida had a row before we left the house, a pretty fierce one. They kept it as quiet as they could, but I happened to pass their room . . .” She stopped, put her hand on his. “I’m glad we’re not like them. Their marriage is falling apart.”
“You want to get in the back seat?”
“No, it’s too uncomfortable. I’m not going to tear a hamstring—or whatever it is all those marvellously fit sportsmen are always tearing.”
“You think love-making is a sport?”
“It is in the back seat of a car, unless it’s a stretch limousine. A feel is as far as we go tonight.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“You want to give me a ticket?”
They kissed; then he said, “Do you think our marriage will ever fall apart?”
She stroked the back of his neck. “Darling . . . No, I don’t. But don’t ask me questions like that—not with your hand down there. I’m practical about most things, but not about love. If anything ever went wrong between us—and I’ll kill you if ever it does—”
“That would be something wrong for a start.”
“What?”
“Killing me.”
“Be serious . . . If something went wrong, I couldn’t sit down and analyse it. When you have to analyse what went wrong with love, there isn’t any love left.”
“You think that’s what’s wrong with the Warings?”
“I suspect so. There’s probably fault on both sides, but she’s more romantic than he is, so she feels it more. Women are supposed to be the stronger of the sexes, but I sometimes think we feel disappointment more than men do.”
“Is Trevor chasing another woman?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I think it’s mainly business they argue about. Trevor wants
to be rich, really rich. He’s just got the bug in the last couple of years, just when so many others are going broke. Don’t you ever get that way.”
His doubts about Trevor Waring came back. If Waring was so keen to be rich, would he kill for it? But now was not the moment to think about that possibility.
He pressed his head back against Lisa’s loving hand. It was moments like this when he wished he was retired, when he would be able to spend every hour of every day with her. Then, he told himself, he would be rich.
Ten minutes later he left her, promising not to be late for Mass the next morning. He drove down the long drive to the front gate, pulled up and got out as the other car, its headlights suddenly snapped off, stopped on the opposite side of the gate. Malone felt the tightening in his belly and he cursed himself for not having taken his Smith & Wesson out of the car boot where he had left it during the ball. Clements’s was in there, too.
He saw the man get out of the car; then he relaxed when he recognized Trevor Waring. “You brought Ida home?” said Waring, opening the gate. “Thanks. I went in to the ball, but they said she’d left with you and Lisa. Sorry I’m late.”
If Waring had been out at Noongulli all night with Chess Hardstaff, why hadn’t he called in at his own place to check if Ida was home before going all the way into the ball? The doubts scratched away in Malone’s skull again.
But he came at them from side-on: “The Japanese giving you trouble?”
Waring stopped, the gate half-open. “What makes you say that?”
“Nothing. It was just a shot in the dark.”
Malone had left the lights of the Commodore on. He was standing with his back to them; but Waring was brightly exposed. He was wearing a dinner suit, his black tie neatly tied, and he looked out of place, lost, even though he was standing in the gateway of his own property. He doesn’t belong here any more than I do, thought Malone; and wondered if Waring realized it. He was one with the silvertail stockbrokers and entrepreneurs, who were feeling the pinch now but for a decade had flown high, who were photographed every week at expensive charity balls, who drank only vintage champagne, French, none of your native piss, who drove Porsches and Ferraris and Rolls-Royces, who stood on the top branches of the plum tree that they had thought would fruit forever. He decided he must look into Waring’s background, find out if he, like Hardstaff, had secrets locked away behind his sternum. All at once he understood, if only vaguely, why the Waring marriage was falling apart.