by Jon Cleary
“No. I think it’s your mates having another go at you. Let’s go inside. You too, Russ.”
“No, I’ll go and see what’s going on—”
“Inside! Get him a drink, Brian. Get us all one.”
Clements looked down at the gunman. “What about him?”
“Leave him there till we find out what’s been going on . . . Sounds like they’re coming back now.” Cars were coming up the driveway. He looked down at the body again. “Where are your dogs, Brian? I don’t want them sniffing at him.”
“They’re all over at the stables, all four of „em.”
“Righto, take Russ in and give him that drink. I’ll be in for mine in a minute.”
He went round to the front of the house as three cars swung in and pulled up. He recognized two of the cars, one of them a police car, the other belonging to the security guards; but the third, a souped-up Charger rust-bucket, was one he had never seen before. A uniformed cop got out and was followed by a youth and a young girl, both of them in jeans and leather jackets. The girl looked as if frightened for her life, but the youth had a brazen jauntiness about him that suggested that being hauled in by the police was a nightly occurrence.
“Who’s this?” Malone said.
“We found „em trying to get in over the far paddock,” said the senior constable, coming forward. “We hailed „em, but they jumped back into their car and took off like a rocket. I let go with a warning shot over the top of „em and they pulled up.”
Malone looked at the youth. “Let’s see your driving licence, son.”
“It’s in me other pants back home.” He could not have been more than nineteen or twenty, sallow-faced and blond-haired in the yellow glow of the big carriage-lamp mounted on the white post beside the path that led to the front door of the house. He had more confidence than was good for him; or anyway the appearance of it. “Look, I don’t have to take none of this shit—”
Malone turned to the girl. “What’s your name, miss?”
“Lily Azoulet.” She would have been pretty, Malone thought, if she took off half a kilo of mascara and make-up; in the lamp’s glow she looked old enough to be the boy’s mother. Fear didn’t improve her appearance. “Look, we was doing nothing—we just come out here for a bit of, well, you know—”
“They were up to more than that, Inspector.” The senior constable was named Curtis; he was in his mid-thirties, lanky and awkward, with country boy written all over him like a fashion label. His voice was a slow drawl, but he was shrewd and tough. “This kid did everything but blow his horn to let us know he was there. Then the way he took off . . .”
“Bullshit,” said the youth.
“Bring „em around the back,” said Malone.
He led the way round the side of the house and into the yard. He stepped over the dead gunman, reached inside the back door and switched on the light over the steps. The body lay on its back, the top of the head an ugly dark mess, the blank white face staring up with sightless eyes like that of a mime who had said all he had to say. He was in his late thirties and now, with the light falling pitilessly on him, Malone recognized him.
“This man just tried to kill my sergeant. He’d also come here to kill Mr. O’Brien, who owns the stud. Do you know him?” he said to the girl.
She whimpered, shook her head and turned away, dry retching. Malone nodded to one of the security guards, who took her by the arm and led her back to the front of the house. Then Malone looked at the youth.
“You know him, don’t you, son?”
The boy hadn’t taken his eyes off the body; suddenly all the brazen confidence had drained out of him. The leather jacket with its metal studs was no longer his armour; he seemed to shrink inside it; it crumpled like black paper. He made a sound that was an echo of the girl’s whimper and turned his back on the dead man. Malone waited patiently; the boy was going to start talking. Then he did, the words bubbling out: “Look, I didn’t know nothing about this, I mean, what he was gunna do. Holy shit, I been in trouble before, but nothing like this! I met him a coupla times, he used to run a stolen car racket—” He stopped. “No, I’m not gunna tell you any more. Not till I seen a lawyer.”
“I think we can guess it, son. He came to you and offered you some money to come out here and create a disturbance, right? What did he pay you?”
“A coupla hundred—No, I’m not gunna say no more. Not till I seen a lawyer.”
Malone looked at Curtis. “Righto, take him into Camden and hold him. Better take the girl, too. Get the Crime Scene fellers out here. And Ballistics and Internal Affairs.”
“You want to be in charge?”
“No, this is Parramatta’s region, let them handle it.” In the old days he would have resented having to hand over a case; now he was glad of regionalization, you could pass the buck and the paperwork. He reached down and, with his pen through the trigger-guard, picked up the dead man’s gun and its silencer. “A silenced Ruger .22, a real pro’s weapon. His name’s Barry Fozel, he’s got a record as long as my arm.”
He handed the gun to Curtis, who said, “I’ll have Parramatta and the Crime Scene guys here as soon’s I can. Do you want to see them when they get here?”
“If I’m asleep, ask them to leave it till the morning. I haven’t had the easiest of days.”
All at once he was glad that Lisa was miles away in Queensland. He would not have to climb into bed with her and tell her about today.
III
Malone fell asleep at one o’clock, after he had told Clements and O’Brien his surmise of what had happened. The long day, the after-shock, the drink of whisky, all hit him at once and he fell asleep as if he had been drugged. He woke at seven o’clock, still fully dressed, lying on the bed in one of the guest-rooms, and for a few moments he did not know where he was or how he had got there. Then he was aware of Russ Clements standing in the doorway.
“Breakfast’s ready. And Kerry Swanson, from Parramatta, is out in the kitchen waiting to talk to you.”
“Give me ten minutes while I have a shower and wake up.”
When he walked into the big kitchen O’Brien, Clements and Detective-Sergeant Swanson were at the table and Mrs. McIver, the foreman’s wife, was busy at the stove. A small, busy-looking woman with a mop of red curls that made her look slightly clownish, she smiled at Malone. “They’re all having pork sausages and eggs. How about you, Mr. Malone?”
“Why not?” It was the sort of breakfast Lisa would have forced on him after a day like yesterday.
Mrs. McIver put a heaped plate of cereal, topped with fresh fruit, down in front of him. “Get stuck into that first.”
“She thinks she’s feeding the horses,” said O’Brien and Mrs. McIver waved the back of her hand at him.
The men ate a hearty breakfast while they discussed the dead Barry Fozel and the boy and the girl who were still being held in the Camden lock-up. Mrs. McIver listened with both ears pinned back, but kept busy at her stove and sink. Breakfast time in any normal Aussie home, Malone thought.
“We’ll have to let the girl go, I don’t think she had a clue what she was letting herself in for.” Swanson was a bony man of middle height, sandy-haired, with a thin bony face and the widest mouth Malone had ever seen. He had smiled occasionally during breakfast and it seemed each time that his ears were about to slide into the corners of his mouth. He was almost boringly phlegmatic, as unexcitable as a drugged sloth. Except that he was not slothful: he had been busy all night. “The young cove, his name’s Richie Cuppa, like in a cuppa tea, he’s started to talk. We’ll have to charge him, but we’ll never be able to prove he knew what was going on. He’s sticking to his story that he was paid to stage a diversion, while Fozel was supposed to come in from the other side and nobble one of the horses.”
“With a gun?” said Malone. “If we’re expected to believe that, we’ll believe anything.”
“Cuppa says he didn’t know anything about the gun. Anyway, juries believe anything,�
�� said Swanson with the disillusion of a cop who had lost out too many times to the jury system.
Clements said, “What about Fozel—anything on him that linked him to anyone?”
“Nothing.”
“Righto, Kerry, you handle it,” said Malone and took the cup of coffee Mrs. McIver handed him. “Anything new on Blizzard, Russ?”
Clements shook his head. “I rang Andy Graham—he kipped down at Homicide last night. They’ve got a photo of Blizzard, or Malloy, whatever we want to call him, from Channel 15 and they’ve put it out for a run in the TV news and the papers. He’s had a police artist do a sketch of Malloy without the beard and he’s put that out, too.”
“The boy’s going to have yours and my job before we know it.”
“Ain’t it the way?” said Swanson, another middle-aged cop who could feel the ambitious breath of youth on the back of his neck.
“There’s no sign of his vehicle yet, the Nissan Patrol,” said Clements, “but he’s put out a description of that, too. My guess is that Blizzard has shaved off his beard, swapped the Patrol for something else and headed for Queensland till the heat dies down.”
Just don’t let him get as far as Noosa, Malone prayed. He looked at O’Brien. “What do you reckon, Brian?”
O’Brien took his time, slowly stirring a half-teaspoonful of sugar into his coffee. He had eaten less than any of the others, seemed almost unaware of the small bits of food that had gone into his mouth. “I’m thinking about what you said Saturday morning. He’s not suddenly going to get patient. He’s on a run and he’ll stay that way till he gets you and me.”
Mrs. McIver dropped a plate into the sink; there was a smash of crockery as it broke two other plates. “Oh, I’m sorry! I—”
“No, we’re sorry, Mrs. Mac.” O’Brien stood up, pressed her thin arm. “We’ve upset you enough. We’ll go into the living-room.”
“I haven’t cleaned it up yet—gimme a coupla minutes and I’ll run the Hoover through it—” She was struggling to sound normal.
“It’s okay, Mrs. Mac.”
The four men shook their heads and left the kitchen. In the living-room Swanson said, “I’ll be getting back. I’ve got enough on my plate without this cove Malloy. I’ve got Vietnamese killing each other, Syrians bashing each other up . . . Remember the good old days? Good luck, Scobie. Keep your head down.”
Clements showed him out of the house. Malone and O’Brien sat down on the checked tweed-covered chairs. Round the walls a carousel of stallions and mares posed behind glass; above the fireplace was a seventeenth-century painting of the Byerley Turk, the grandaddy of all thoroughbreds. It was a living-room designed for a man, not a hint of feminine taste in it. Neither man, however, was interested in what surrounded them.
“What do you think?” said O’Brien. “You think he’s going to have another go at us?”
Malone nodded. “He’s still somewhere around Sydney waiting to get at us. But I’m tired of sitting around waiting for him. I’m going to the funerals this morning, Jim Knoble’s and Mardi Jack’s.”
“You think he’ll try his luck there?”
“No, not unless he’s bent on suicide. Maybe he is, he knows his life is over, at least with his wife. But I’m going anyway.”
“So am I,” said O’Brien after a moment.
“No—” But then Malone gave up before taking the argument any further. “Righto. But when we get there, if anyone bails me up for letting you come, you step in and get me off the hook. You’re not my responsibility.” Then he added, more gently, “I don’t mean that the way it sounds.”
“I know.” There was a moment when all at once they were the closest of friends; but it was only a moment and both knew it could never last. Then O’Brien went on, “I can’t let Mardi be buried without me showing up. I guess I owe Jim Knoble something, too. I wasn’t the one who spilt to the Superintendent about Blizzard cheating, but I was the one who started the hazing. I remember I went and got the fire hose—”
He shook his head at the folly of youth that could get you killed in middle age. Malone wondered if O’Brien appreciated the irony that the youth who had fire hosed another for cheating was now a middle-aged man under investigation by the NCSC for cheating. But now was not the time to mention it.
IV
It was raining steadily by the time the two unmarked police cars reached Botany cemetery. As they drew in at the main entrance to the cemetery Malone saw the two SWOS vans and the four marked police cars lined up just outside the gates. Beyond them were four motor-cycle police and several TV vans and press cars. A uniformed inspector, slicker glistening in the rain, came forward as Malone, Clements and O’Brien got out of their car. Malone and O’Brien were wearing raincoats and hats, but Clements had only an umbrella borrowed from Mrs. McIver.
“We were told you were coming, Scobie.” The inspector was Neil Gittings, a twenty-four-year veteran like Malone and Clements, a graduate of the same year from the police academy but one who had escaped Blizzard’s hatred and urge for revenge. He was tall and had a beefily handsome face and a ginger moustache that was now sequinned with raindrops. “You’re not too popular.”
“You think I’m playing hero, Neil?”
Gittings shrugged and a small waterfall tumbled off his slicker. “No, I’m not saying that. But what if . . .” He waved a hand at the bleak surroundings. “What if Blizzard is somewhere out there in the sandhills, ready to have a go?”
“That’s what I’m hoping for, Neil. How does that grab you?” Then Malone grinned. “I’m sorry, mate. But Mr. O’Brien and I feel we’ve waited long enough . . . Has Jim Knoble’s funeral arrived yet?”
“No, it’s due in about twenty minutes. They’ve just arrived with that other body, that girl Mardi Jack. They’re over there on that hill.” He nodded towards a low hill in the middle of the cemetery. “A lot of pop stars and show business people. Celebrities, is that what they call „em? I wouldn’t know. We had to bar the TV people and the press photographers—they’d have done a steeplechase over the graves to get up there.”
“I think I’d like to go up there,” said O’Brien and, without waiting for approval, moved off.
Malone glanced at Clements. “I think we’d better go with him, Russ.”
“You’re going to be right out in the open up there,” said Gittings. “Like a shag on a rock.”
Malone looked after the quick-walking O’Brien. “We’ll be at least twenty yards apart. If he gets one of us, the other will have time to get behind a gravestone before Blizzard can take another bead on him.”
“You’re out of your bloody head,” said Gittings. “Don’t get too close to him, Russ.”
“I’m only a sergeant,” said Clements. “We’re always several paces behind you inspectors.”
The humour was black, which was appropriate in the location. The cemetery had been laid out over rolling sandhills; where there were no graves there were scrubby shrubs, barricades of prickly lantana and several platoons of banksia trees, arthritic and bent by the wind. The long rows of graves looked like flat marble or stone beds; but the sleepers lay beneath them. Three pale green water-towers stood on the highest hill; through the rain Malone could make out the hazy shape of a SWOS marksman crouched on the top of one of them. To the south, in a hollow between the cemetery and the bay, were market gardens, green and neat as some military cemeteries Malone had seen, the crops laid out with the same precision as the rows of graves. A Chinese gardener stood motionless amongst the bright green, like an oilskin-clad scarecrow. Beyond the boundaries of the cemetery were the wharves of Port Botany: huge gantry cranes like the yellow skeletons of ancient giant birds, containers piled upon containers like massive red cedar coffins, corpses mass-delivered. The rain fell steadily on the whole scene, doing its best to wash the colour out of everything but not quite succeeding.
They were walking up a hill path past a row of mausoleums, like miniature Palladian villas. Malone remarked the names, all Italian;
then suddenly he missed his step, putting his foot into a puddle without noticing it. There amidst all the Italian names, the Salvatores, the Buccionis, the Giuffres, was an Irish name: Malone. He stood, still with his foot in the puddle, the water leaking into his shoe, and Clements, coming up behind him, head bent under the umbrella, bumped into him.
“What’s the matter?” Clements looked up wildly. “You see him?”
“No.” Malone nodded at the name set in a marble plate on the iron door of the mausoleum. “You think that’s an omen?”
Clements frowned; then angrily pushed Malone on up the path. “For Crissake, stop thinking like that! Jesus, you bloody Irish—always ready for a wake . . .”
Malone walked on, one shoe squelching, till he reached the top of the hill and stopped. Ahead of him, down the slope the other side of the hill, Mardi Jack was being lowered into her grave. A sombre crowd of mourners, twenty or thirty of them, stood in a semicircle; their heads were bent and Malone recognized none of them. O’Brien had moved to one side, to a narrower path, and Malone turned his head and watched him from under the dripping brim of his hat. O’Brien had taken off his own hat: it was difficult to tell whether he had done it as a last gesture of respect for Mardi Jack or whether he was asking Frank Blizzard, somewhere out there in the rain, to recognize him and try to shoot him. Malone turned slowly, in a circle, looked around and felt the tightening in his gut and then the sweat breaking on him. If Blizzard was going to attempt to kill him or O’Brien or both, now was the moment. They were completely exposed on the top of the hill, so close to death that it seemed that Mardi Jack must be waiting for them to join her.
But the bullets did not come out of the grey curtain of rain and after a moment Malone called softly, “Brian! Time we went back.”
As he spoke a girl looked up from amongst the mourners and stared at him, then at O’Brien. Then Gina Cazelli detached herself from the crowd around the grave, came up past O’Brien and stood in front of Malone. She was wearing a floppy-brimmed black hat made even floppier because it was soaked, a shiny black plastic raincoat that came almost to her ankles, and black patent leather boots. Her face was wet with tears and rain.