Murder Song

by Jon Cleary

  Malone, still suffering from shock, looked at the reporter in puzzlement. First name basis, he thought irrelevantly; he probably never met Waldorf, but he’s a public figure so he calls him Sebastian. They’re all the same, these kids: they’d call God by his first name, if He had one. “What?”

  “No, he wasn’t here,” interrupted Clements. “Now piss off. Mr. Waldorf was a personal friend of the Inspector’s. He doesn’t want to talk about it.”

  “I was told Inspector Malone was the one who made the first call—”

  “You want me to run you in?” Clements was belligerent, unsettled. It had shocked him to his soft centre to know that Malone had come so close to being murdered.

  “What for?”

  “Using obscene language in a public place.”

  “What fucking obscene language?” The sound-girl joined the dialogue.

  Clements grinned at Malone, some of the tension seeping out of him. “Jack Chew was right—it never fails.” He turned back to the Channel 15 crew. “Get lost!”

  The crew went off, muttering obscenely, and Clements said, “They’re just the first. The media are going to beat this up like the beginning of World War Three. They’re gunna find out about the hit list pretty soon. What do we do then?”

  Malone shrugged; the media were no longer of any concern to him. He had reached a point of despair. He knew it would pass, he was still an optimist, even if battered and bruised; but for the moment he was locked in his own small world. His main concern was that Lisa would be listening to any late-night news-flash, though he doubted that the news of Waldorf’s murder would be on Queensland radio stations tonight.

  “There are two bullets that should be in the roof of my car—”

  “There’s only one—they’re getting it out now. The other one must’ve ricocheted off into the harbour. I’ve told „em we want that bullet and the one out of Waldorf’s head—Sorry.” He had seen Malone flinch. “I didn’t mean to be as blunt as that. I’ll have both bullets up at Ballistics first thing in the morning. But there’s no doubt where they came from. How’re you feeling?”

  “Shaky. I’ll give you a statement and you can go back and write the report for me, put it in the running sheet.”

  “Not here.” Clements had seen other reporters and cameramen converging on them. “Let’s go back to the hotel.”

  “What about Waldorf’s family? Who’s going to tell them?”

  “I’ve already fixed that. The assistant manager of the company has been across—he’s known the Waldorfs for some years, he’s a friend of the family. He said he’d phone Mrs. Waldorf with the news.”

  Clements had come up trumps again, always one step ahead of where one suspected he was. “Thanks. Better him than us. What about Miss Vigil? Can you break it to her?”

  Clements nodded reluctantly. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  “How did you get down here?”

  “By cab. I was at home—the office rang me. I’ll drive your car. You sure you’re okay? You don’t wanna see a doctor?”

  “You’ve never asked me that before. Am I looking sick or something?”

  “I’ve seen you look better.”

  And I’ve felt better, Malone was now thinking as he sat here in Falkender’s office on the nineteenth floor. All the Assistant Commissioners at Police Headquarters in College Street were on this floor, as if rewarded with elevation above the humdrum of running the Department; they were known to Malone and Clements and a few of the Department’s iconoclasts as the Archangels, though Gabriel was unlikely to blow a hymn to any of them. None of the rooms was big and Falkender’s was made smaller by a huge bookcase, filled with law books, along one wall. No one had ever seen him open the glass front of the bookcase, let alone a book, but he was accepted as the legal expert of the seven A/Cs. On the opposite wall was his framed degree as a Bachelor of Law.

  “That’s another thing,” said Falkender. “The media. They have put two and two together, Scobie. Both the Herald and the Telegraph were on to me this morning, asking about a hit list. They want to know why you were with O’Brien the other night and why you were with Waldorf last night.”

  “I’ve told them nothing. They tried that tack last night, but Sergeant Clements told them to get lost.”

  “I believe they also asked it at the press conference this morning. That right, Harry?”

  Danforth nodded. “I told „em we were examining the possibility of a hit list, I didn’t tell „em we knew there was one.”

  “What did you tell „em about me?” Malone could see Danforth at the press conference, doing nothing for the Department’s image with his ponderous cliché replies that had once been standard procedure, as if plain everyday language would be some sort of minefield.

  “I just said you were running the investigation under me. Then they started asking smart-arse questions and I told „em to get stuffed.”

  That was plain everyday language. “You actually told „em that?”

  “Well, no, not exactly. I just got up and walked out.”

  Falkender looked as if he might laugh; but then he always looked like that. He said, “Well, we still have to take care of you, Scobie. Have you spoken to your wife about last night?”

  “Yes.” Lisa had rung him first thing this morning, before he could call her; he had slept only fitfully and it had been almost dawn before he had finally dropped off into a deep sleep. The phone had woken him and, though they had talked for twenty minutes, his mind had been off-balance all the time, teetering on a rolling ball of shock and exhaustion. But when he had got off the phone her plea had still been ringing in his ears: “She wants me to resign.”

  “Resign from the case? You can’t do that—”

  “Resign from the Department.”

  That took the laugh out of Falkender’s face; it made even Danforth sit up sharply. At last the A/C said, “What are you going to do? Are you going to resign?”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Don’t rush it, Scobie. We need you in the Department. That right, Harry?”

  “Eh? Oh sure. My word, yes.” What would happen to Jack Aldwych if Malone did resign? Would he be replaced by someone more realistic, someone not so bloody piously honest? “But it’s your decision, Scobie.”

  “No,” said Malone, “it’s my wife’s.”

  “Well, yes, of course,” said Falkender, who had a formidable wife, a woman who had an iron laugh that had no merriment in it; their marriage was reasonably happy, but sometimes he suspected it was only because she insisted that it was. If she told him to resign, he would have to consider it. “Your wife and family come into it, of course. But do you think Blizzard is going to lay off of you because you’ve left the force? He’s after Scobie Malone, not Inspector Malone.”

  Malone looked at the pink-faced man across the desk; the merry eyes were showing the shrewdness that had got him there behind that particular desk. Fred Falkender hadn’t made Assistant Commissioner on seniority alone; John Leeds, the shrewdest man of all in the Department, didn’t subscribe to that system of promotion. “I tried to put that argument to my wife, sir—”

  “Would it help if I or the Commissioner spoke to her? We can look after you better if you stay in the force, Scobie—you know that. Maybe we can explain it to her.”

  If Lisa wouldn’t listen to him, she certainly wouldn’t listen to other men, no matter what their rank. Her marriage was a closed circle, a stockade. She was the old-fashioned sort of woman who believed that if a husband and wife couldn’t work out their problems between them, then something was missing from the basis of their marriage and always had been. And he knew that she, as well as himself, fiercely believed that the basis of their marriage was rock solid. It was built on love, trust and understanding. If those were not enough, then no amount of advice from outsiders would make a blind bit of difference.

  “No, I’ll talk to her again. We’ll work it out. But if O’Brien and I have to leave the Congress—”

&nbs
p; “You have to do that, as soon as possible. It places too many other people at risk. We don’t want a shoot-out with Blizzard there. Christ, think of it!” He shook his big head.

  “Fair enough. We’ll check out of the hotel today. But I want you to put us somewhere where Blizzard can find us.”

  Falkender opened his mouth as if he were about to laugh at the suggestion; then he closed it and looked at Danforth. “What do you say, Harry?”

  Danforth, as usual, was slow to see the point. “I thought that was what we were trying to avoid?”

  Malone let the A/C do the explaining: “Don’t you see what Scobie’s getting at? If we hide him and O’Brien too successfully, how are we ever going to flush out Blizzard? If Scobie is prepared to take the risk—we don’t know about O’Brien—then we can tempt Blizzard to come out into the open to get at them.” He looked back at Malone. “What’ll your wife think of that?”

  “I don’t think she needs to know,” said Malone and had never felt so treacherous.

  “It’s a good idea,” said Danforth, at last catching up.

  “Do you have any place in mind where we can send you and still look after you? Remember I’m limited in the number of men I can spare full time to look after you. This feller isn’t a jail-breaker, someone we have a description of. If we knew what he looked like, we could organize a State-wide manhunt and go after him with everything we’ve got. But he’s just a blank.”

  Malone had discussed with O’Brien at breakfast the possibility of their having to evacuate the Congress. It was O’Brien who, after some thought, had made the suggestion and now Malone pushed it forward: “O’Brien has a stud farm outside the other side of Camden. When this business first started I warned him against staying there, I thought it would be too hard to make secure. But now . . . O’Brien will put in four security guards and if you can give me four of our blokes, I think we can patrol the farm pretty effectively.”

  Falkender looked dubious. “We don’t like working with private security forces.”

  It was an old rivalry, the old territorial imperative on the part of the police: stay off my turf. Yet there was a growing awareness that, with the increase in crime over the past few years, the contempt for what had become a fragile façade of law and order, co-operation would eventually be inevitable. But Falkender, as an Assistant Commissioner, had at least to salute the Department’s policy.

  “With all respect, sir, if I’m shoving my neck out—and O’Brien’s—I don’t care where the protection comes from.”

  The A/C stared at him; then he laughed, though it had no mirth in it. “Okay, but I’ll have to put it to the Commissioner. Will O’Brien agree to being the next best thing to a sitting duck?”

  “He’s pretty fatalistic at the moment, I think. He’s in such a hole with the National Securities people over his shonky business deals, I don’t think he cares much what happens. Except that, like me, he doesn’t want Blizzard hanging over his head for God knows how many months or years.”

  “From what I’ve read about him, I don’t think he’d be the sort of bloke I’d want to be cooped up with for too long. What about you, Harry?”

  “I can’t stand a bar of these bloody white-collar crims,” said Danforth piously.

  “I could have to live with worse,” said Malone, not looking at Danforth. “When you get to know him, he’s not all bastard.”

  “Does he have any family?” said Falkender.

  “Two ex-wives in England who he never contacts. His father’s alive, he lives somewhere out in the western suburbs, but I gather they haven’t spoken for years.” Then there’s Anita Norval and we won’t speak of her.

  Falkender stood up, came round his desk, laughed and slapped Malone on the back. “Let’s try it, subject to the Commissioner’s okay. We’ll get this bastard Blizzard yet, right, Harry?”

  “Oh, my oath yes,” said Danforth and went ahead of Malone out the door, avoiding the parting slap on the back. Malone got a second whack: the A/C hated to waste his good fellowship.

  Malone and Danforth left Headquarters and walked up College Street towards Police Centre, four blocks away. Danforth was quiet, but Malone did not mind; conversation with the Chief Superintendent was never easy and never illuminating. The city had slowed down for Saturday morning; people crossed the roadway at their leisure and the traffic seemed to be taking its time towards wherever it was going. August was coming to an end and spring was coming out of the north; in Hyde Park across the street the deciduous trees were bright green with new leaf; the air, no longer cramped with cold, was opening up. Old men, in thick sweaters but no longer in overcoats, sat under the trees and played chess and checkers, another winter survived, another season to live. Hail Mary . . . Malone found himself praying for another season for himself, or three or forty. His mother would have been pleased if she had heard the silent words and would have given him a holy water shower.

  “I can’t give you any Tac Response fellers,” Danforth said at last. “We can have „em on call, and the SWOS coves, too, but they can’t do a full-time job for you and O’Brien. I’ll get you three youngsters and a senior constable.”

  “Just so long as they’re all wide awake and can shoot straight. And don’t panic.”

  “You think there’s gunna be a shoot-out with Blizzard?”

  “How do I know, Harry? But I don’t think he’s the sort who’s going to come out with his hands up. I’m guessing, but I think he’ll take us on.”

  “He didn’t stop and shoot at you last night when you went after him.”

  “No, that puzzled me.”

  They waited at traffic lights in Oxford Street. Two punk kids, a boy and a girl, stood beside them, sunbursts of purple hair shooting out of their heads, the girl staring defiantly at the world through a domino of green mascara. Danforth curled his lip, grunted, but said nothing further; Malone would not have been surprised if he had arrested them for being no more than what they were, rebels. The light turned green and the two detectives crossed the road.

  “But I’m beginning to cotton on to the way he thinks. He’s stretching this out, he’s dangling us, if you like. He tried to knock me off when I was down there with Waldorf, but that may have been no more than a reflex action—I was in his sights and he just let go. When I got up to the top of those steps, he could’ve knocked me off from the shadows without any effort. But he didn’t. He’s dangling us, letting us swing in the wind.”

  They passed a narrow-fronted porno movie house; a girl with breasts that must have given her curvature of the spine smiled at them from a torn poster. Danforth grunted again. He was silent then till he and Malone parted inside the front doors of Police Centre. As he turned towards his own office he stopped. “Does O’Brien have to go before the NCSC again on Monday?”

  “Not till Tuesday—that’ll be his last appearance. He’s got an adjournment for Monday. I gather he wants to get everything together before he spills some names the Commission is dying to hear.”

  “He mention any of the names to you?”

  “No, and I didn’t ask him. I don’t want to know, I’ve got enough on my plate.”

  “Are we expected to escort him there?”

  “I don’t think so. He’ll have his own security men.”

  “Good,” said Danforth and went lumbering off to tell Jack Aldwych where O’Brien could be found before he got to the NCSC on Tuesday and spilled his guts and, in a different sort of way, everyone else’s.

  Malone went into Homicide and found Clements waiting for him in his office, looking tired and even more rumpled than usual. “Didn’t you go to bed last night?”

  “I got in here at seven. I’ve been running those off-cuts I got from the TV stations. I can’t see anything in them to get excited about. Nobody suspicious-looking, nobody turning up more than once, except you and the cameramen.”

  “How’d you pick them?”

  “The same old thing. They photograph each other. Haven’t you ever noticed when you’
re watching the news?”

  “Are they all the same blokes every time?”

  “No. The Channel 10 and the Channel 15 guys crop up the most.”

  “I didn’t notice who was there last night. Except that the Channel 15 bloke, his name’s Malloy, wasn’t there. I met him at the opera and he was taking his wife home, she was ill. Remember there was a young bloke on the Channel 15 camera last night?”

  “Well, I’ll check „em all out. I’m going to read these, too, over the weekend.” He touched a small pile of books he had put down on Malone’s desk. “I got Andy Graham to get „em from the Woollahra library. Raymond Chandler. I’ve never read him. If Blizzard was so keen on him when he was young, I’ll have a go at these and see if there’s anything in them that makes him tick the way he does. Yes, Clarrie? Where’re you going—to a corroboree?”

  Clarrie Binyan, curls slicked down, dressed in a dark blue suit, a white carnation in his buttonhole, stood in the doorway. He grinned and tossed a plastic envelope on to Malone’s desk; it contained two bullets. “I’m going to a niece’s wedding. She’s marrying an Eyetalian. She wants to put a hyphen in their names—Mr. and Mrs. Bindiwarra-Caccioli. That’ll go down well with the Mafia. With the tribe, too.”

  Malone was never sure when Binyan was joking about his Aboriginal background; maybe he had decided that joking was the only way to survive as one of the smallest minorities in his native land. An enquiry was going on at the moment into police treatment of Aborigines in certain country towns and around Police Centre Clarrie Binyan was treated with cautious respect, as if the whites were not certain of his attitude towards them. Malone knew that Binyan was amused by the irony that he, a blackfellow, was the Department’s expert on the white man’s weapons.

  Malone always felt relaxed with him, but he was always noncommittal about Binyan’s jokes. He picked up the plastic envelope. “.243s out of the same rifle as the others?”

  “An exact match to all the others. They recovered the shells, too. They’re from a Tikka, all right. I gather you were pretty lucky?” Binyan was certainly not joking now.