Murder Song

by Jon Cleary

  Malone nodded. “If he hadn’t hurried the shots, he’d have picked me off as easily as he did Waldorf.” He felt the shiver inside him as he said it and he hoped it didn’t show.

  “Well, keep your head down,” said Binyan and went off to the Italian-Aboriginal corroboree, to listen to “O Sole Mio” played on a didgeridoo, to sit and look as warily at the Italians as they would look at him. Binyan’s niece was a half-blood, a talented dancer with an all-white company, but Malone knew that the Italians, like most of the postwar immigrants, had their own colour bar.

  Clements had looked at the bullets, then dropped the envelope into his pocket; it would go into the murder box. “What now?”

  “I add another line or two to the running sheet, then I’m going back to the hotel and telling Brian Boru we’re moving out. Fred Falkender’s and the Commissioner’s orders.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Up to O’Brien’s stud farm.”

  “You might ask him if he’s got any tips for this afternoon. The programme at Rosehill looks as wide open as a picnic sack race.”

  “I thought you’d given up betting on the horses, you’re a big-time share punter now?”

  “I just like to keep my hand in. What are you gunna do up at the stud farm, other than look at the horses?”

  “We’re going to play goats to Blizzard’s tiger.” He smiled at Clements’ puzzlement. “It’s an old Sumatran game. Lisa told me about it.”

  “Don’t tell me she suggested it?”

  “Hardly.” And again he felt the sense of treachery. “But how else do we get Blizzard out into the open?”

  II

  O’Brien sat and looked at the man who would dance on his grave; rather heavily, too. “So you’ve got your financing, George?”

  “I have my backer. You give me first option and we can buy you out. All you and I have to do now is work out the details.”

  “How much do you think you can salvage from the NCSC? They can send the cleaners in. I don’t think you realize, George, how much they intend to skin me. They’re setting me up to put me before a judge—Christ knows what he’ll do to me. I’m going to be an example to all the others who are trying to get away with what I tried.”

  “Oh, I know all right, Brian.” They had never been as formally polite as this, not even in their first awkward days, eight years ago, when they had been trying to get to know each other. The atmosphere between them had all the chilly decorum of a funeral parlour, thought O’Brien; then wondered why he was thinking in terms of graves and funeral parlours. And knew. “But the NCSC will be looking to save something for the small shareholders—they won’t let everything go all the way down the drain. Not if there’s someone who can salvage it.”

  “Someone like you and your mysterious mate?”

  Bousakis nodded, wondering if Malone would remain alive long enough to learn who the mystery backer was. He sat comfortably in his chair, a mountain of smug triumph.

  “Is it someone I know? One of those who’ve been trying to have me bumped off?”

  Bousakis’ big moon face showed nothing. He had had an hour with Jack Aldwych yesterday evening and by the time he had left he had known, as if it had been spelled out in a legal contract, that Jack Aldwych was going to have O’Brien killed. The buying out of Cossack Holdings was a business deal; the killing of O’Brien was a personal matter. The knowledge had frightened Bousakis and he had wondered whether he had plunged into a black pool where his own life would always be in danger. He was cold-blooded in business, that was why he had been such an asset to O’Brien; but he was not cold-blooded about life and death. Even as the chilling doubt had swept through him he had known, however, that it was too late to draw back: he had already dived off the springboard. It was he who had come to Aldwych with the idea for the takeover, not the other way round. In the end greed had overcome fear and doubt. The deadly sins have a strength all their own, especially if one has nurtured most of them most of one’s life. George Bousakis had missed out only on sloth: it had taken too much effort to cultivate it.

  “I don’t think you need to know that, Brian. Just take the money and run—if you can.”

  O’Brien felt his temper rise; but held on to it. “What about the stud farm?”

  “That’s part of Cossack Holdings, so we’ll take that, too. All you’ll keep will be the gold mine.”

  “Only because I was shrewd enough to register it off-shore in another name. Nobody gets that, not even the NCSC.”

  “That’s all you’ve got, Brian, that’s really worth anything. Compared to what you used to have.”

  “So why are you buying?”

  “Assets and potential. I can turn Cossack around, make it what it should have been.” For just a moment there was a flicker of angry hatred in the big bland face; he forgot his own greed and almost snarled, “If you hadn’t started trying to get rich so fucking quickly—”

  “I am rich, George,” said O’Brien, his own temper subsiding as he saw the other’s rise. “The gold mine.”

  “There’s little point in being rich in jail.” Or dead: but Bousakis didn’t add that alternative.

  O’Brien sank a little into his chair; it was almost imperceptible, but Bousakis noticed it. There had been no mention of Waldorf’s murder. Not because of sensitivity on Bousakis’ part, but just deliberate callous indifference; it had required an effort, but he had managed it. O’Brien was still too much in shock to want to discuss what had happened; he had slept only fitfully last night, waking twice in a sweat to dodge the bullets coming at him out of the darkness. There was also a sense of loss, almost of grief; though he was honest enough to wonder if it was for himself. He had hardly come to know Waldorf, yet he had come to like him. The singer had had his own loss, that of his family, yet somehow he had held on to his laughter, to his joy in living.

  When Malone had come back to the hotel at midnight and told him the news, O’Brien had been in bed reading a book Anita had given him weeks before and which so far had lain on his bedside table unopened. It was Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities, and after two or three chapters he had begun to wonder if Tom Wolfe was some sort of messenger for Anita. Then Malone had come home with the dreadful news about Waldorf and the book had been dropped on the floor beside the bed.

  Malone had sat down on the bottom of the bed. “He almost got me, too, Brian. Another couple of inches closer and there would only have been you left.”

  O’Brien looked at the tall policeman who, he now recognized, was a friend. “How do you feel?”

  Malone held up his hands; they were steady. “I guess it must be my feet that are shaking. Something’s giving way. I feel like I want to get out in the middle of a bloody great paddock and yell for Blizzard to come out in the open. Anything to get it over and done with one way or the other.”

  “I feel the same way.” It was despair, not bravado, speaking.

  Malone stood up. “We’ll talk about it at breakfast. You going anywhere tomorrow?”

  “I wouldn’t mind going to the races at Rosehill, anything to get a breath of fresh air.”

  “Better not. I think we have to stay away from crowds, just in case Blizzard has a go at you or me and some poor innocent bugger gets in the way.” He picked up the book from the floor and handed it to O’Brien. “Stay home and read. I’ve seen the reviews of that. What’s it about?”

  “A guy who’s got himself into a bit of a bind.”

  “I’ll borrow it when you’ve finished. Maybe we’ll learn something.”

  Now, late on the Saturday morning, Malone came back from Police Centre, letting himself into the suite. He pulled up sharply when he saw Bousakis, but the latter rose from his chair, picking up his briefcase as he greeted Malone. O’Brien, growing more sensitive to atmosphere day by day, almost hour by hour, was aware that the huge man, his employee still, was the only one of the three of them with an air of authority; or anyway confidence. But then, of course, his life was not under thre
at.

  “I’m going, Inspector. Brian and I have finished our business, haven’t we, Brian?”

  “Not quite. I’ll think about it over the weekend.” He might be dead before he would have to suffer Bousakis’ triumph. The morbid thought somehow pleased him: he was like the swimmer who knows he will drown before the shark can reach him. “I’ll try and stay alive till then. Tell your friends.”

  Bousakis caught the implication: the option deal would mean nothing if O’Brien was killed before signing it. It was anyone’s guess what the NCSC would do with Cossack Holdings if they found against O’Brien and he was already dead, beyond their judgement.

  Bousakis said nothing, but managed to depart with heavy grace. “A rhino dancing,” said O’Brien.

  “What?” said Malone.

  “Nothing. I’m getting light-headed, I think. I’m having flights of fancy, all of them fucking morbid.”

  “What was that about telling his friends you’d try to stay alive?”

  “You don’t really want to know, do you? Isn’t Blizzard enough complication for you?”

  Malone thought a moment, nodded and sat down heavily. “Normally I’d say no. But if you’re not worried—”

  “Oh, I’m worried. But you’ve got enough on your plate . . . Let’s stick to Blizzard. What happens now?”

  “We go up to your stud today,” Malone said after a few moments’ silence. He had tried to protect Sebastian Waldorf and failed; he prayed there would not be another failure with O’Brien. “You supply four security men and the Department will give us four cops. We’ll work out a roster so there are two men on all the time.”

  “What do we do? Just sit and wait till Blizzard turns up?”

  “We give it a week. If he doesn’t come out into the open in that time, we’ll have to think of something else.”

  “He’ll wait. He’s waited twenty-odd years.”

  “I don’t think so. He’s on a run now, four of us in two and a half weeks. Five if you count Mardi Jack as you.”

  “Don’t,” said O’Brien, stiffening.

  “Sorry. Anyhow, I don’t think he’s going to suddenly get patient.”

  “Serial killers do.”

  “What do you know about serial killers?”

  “Not much,” O’Brien admitted.

  “Blizzard’s not a serial killer, not in the usual sense. They usually pick random victims. Blizzard’s had us marked for years, though Christ knows when he decided to kill us. But now he’s started, I’m betting he can’t stop. He’s not going to sit around and wait. We’re for it, one or both of us, some time within the next week. And I think I’d rather it that way. I just hope his aim is a bit off, as it was with me last night.”

  “Me, too. But I’d just like to get a look at him before he gets me.”

  They went into their respective bedrooms to pack. But first Malone put a call through to Lisa in Queensland. She had phoned him just after seven o’clock this morning, before he could call her; she had heard the news of Waldorf’s murder on the radio. “Why didn’t you call me last night to tell me you were all right?”

  She sounded shrewish, but he knew it was with the best of intentions. “If I’d called you at midnight last night, which was when I got back here to the hotel, woken you up, you wouldn’t have slept the rest of the night.”

  “I’m not going to sleep tonight, for God’s sake. Come up here—get on a plane right away!”

  “No!” he said quietly and firmly. “I’m not going to put you and the kids—and your parents—in danger.”

  “You’re in danger!” It was then she had said, “Resign, darling. Get out of the police force, get your superannuation and we’ll go somewhere and start a new life.”

  He had to bite his tongue to refrain from telling her that that was a ridiculous suggestion; instead he said, “There’s that old Dutch thrift, don’t forget the superannuation—”

  “Don’t joke! Bloody men!” She sounded Australian then. “I mean it, Scobie—resign!”

  And now, late in the morning, she was still on the same theme, but more restrained now: “Have you thought any more about resigning? I went into Noosa this morning to a travel agent—we could all go back to Holland, Mother and Dad still have a flat in Amsterdam—”

  “To live?”

  “Of course to live.” Her voice was calm, but her thinking was hysterical; he had never known her like this. “You could get a job in the Dutch police—No! Forget I said that.”

  “That’s easily done. You think the Dutch cops don’t run risks? There are terrorists in Europe. At least we don’t have those here, not yet anyway. Darl, when you’ve had time to think about what you’re suggesting, you won’t want to uproot the kids. They belong here. So do you and I,” he added and waited for her to disagree.

  There was over a thousand kilometres of silence between them; if he hadn’t known her as well as he did he would have thought she had left the phone and walked away. But he knew her silences: they could be icy calm or as tender as her lips against his cheek. He almost sighed with relief when he heard her say, “I know you’re right, darling. But . . .”

  “I’m going to be all right,” he lied hopefully. “The Department’s putting a guard on me and Brian O’Brien, and he’s got his own security men. If they haven’t caught Blizzard within the next week, I promise we’ll go somewhere right out of Sydney. I’ll take my long service leave and we’ll go to New Zealand or somewhere while they try to track him down.”

  “What about Mr. O’Brien?”

  “He has enough money to go anywhere in the world.” If he doesn’t go to jail. Where O’Brien would probably be no safer than where he was now.

  “On his own? Poor man.” It was typical of her that she should feel deep sympathy for a man she had never met, a man whose financial shenanigans she abhorred. She was puritanically honest, but admitted her naïveté in expecting absolute honesty in business. “What happens if they don’t catch Blizzard?”

  He sighed, making a concession. “Then maybe we’ll go to Holland.”

  She made no comment on that, but said, “You want to speak to Maureen and Tom?”

  I’d better, he almost said; but that would have sounded too much like a premonition. “Put them on.”

  Maureen came on the line, plunging in without any preliminary. “I’m in the doghouse, Daddy.”

  Her usual location. “Don’t tell me!”

  “I got bubblegum on the seat of Nanna’s car. Then when I tried to scrape it off, I tore the upholstery. Mummy told me to try and sew it up, but I lost the needle in the seat and Mummy sat on it.”

  He had to hold on to his laughter. “I don’t see what everyone is complaining about.”

  “Neither do I. Could you put in a good word for me, Daddy?”

  “Leave it to me. Is Tom there?”

  Tom was. “G’day, Daddy. You know what? I’m in the doghouse, too. I was just kicking my soccer ball around in Nanna’s kitchen, I was Maradona shooting for a goal, and I knocked over a bottle of wine, Grandpa said it was one of his best, he’d been saving it, and it all spilled out over Mummy—”

  When he hung up five minutes later he sat down on the bed and half-laughed, half-wept. O’Brien came to the bedroom door. “Something wrong?”

  Malone shook his head, wiped his eyes without embarrassment. “I’ve just been talking to the kids. You know what? Outside there, the world is still normal.”

  III

  “You’ve been acting abnormal.”

  “Oh, come on. What do you mean—abnormal?”

  “All this working back. Where did you go last night?”

  “I told you when I went out, I was going to see Nick Katzka.”

  “You’ve been telling me that for weeks. Working overtime, taking night shifts you aren’t rostered for—”

  Colin Malloy sighed. “Honey, I’ve explained what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to persuade Nick to let me do a documentary on crime in the streets. I don’t want to be j
ust a news cameraman all my life, chasing ambulances and fire engines and politicians on the steps of Parliament House.”

  Julie looked at him slyly across the narrow table in the breakfast nook. “No, Colin. I rang Nick Katzka last week. He said you hadn’t mentioned anything to him about a documentary.”

  Malloy felt a flash of anger that she had doubted his word and gone behind his back; she was not normally like that. He sipped the decaffeinated coffee, then spread the multigrain toast with yellowbox honey. Julie was a health food fanatic and he did his best to please her while he was at home; out on the job he ate all the junk food that came his way and enjoyed every mouthful. It was a constant irritation to her that he was overweight, but she never complained. She had never complained about anything, till now.

  “Are you having an affair?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “An affair? Who with?”

  “That scruffy sound-girl, Luanne. She’d be sexy and very pretty if she cleaned herself up.”

  “Honey, she never has a shower—I don’t think she even washes, she thinks that’s bourgeois. If I was going to have an affair with anyone, I’d at least pick someone who was clean.”

  She didn’t disagree with that. Their sex life was more than satisfactory, experimental without being too kinky; she had wondered why he would want to have an affair with another woman, though she admitted to herself that she was not an expert on men. “Where do you go then? What do you do?”

  I go out killing men I hate. But he loved her too much to tell her that. He had tried to rationalize his hatred of those men who had destroyed his life, but had failed. Reason told him that his life had not been totally destroyed. He had a wife whom he loved and who loved him, a job that paid him more than he would ever have earned as a policeman unless he had attained a top rank: it also gave him travel opportunities that no cop was ever offered. He and Julie had good friends, though he felt close to none of them; both he and Julie, in their own ways, were loners. The hatred was there, undeniable, unconquerable. He had read enough to believe that in everyone there was hate, as implicit in man as love, fear and the other lively emotions. Even Julie, the gentlest of women, hated: adults who abused children, people who ruined the environment, racial bigots. But her hatred of them would never lead her to murder; she had an equal hatred of killing of any kind. He was plagued, mortally, by the consuming urge for revenge, something that would never infect her and that she would never understand.