Bleak Spring (40 page)

“Are you a man of honour, Chief Superintendent?”

“Up to a point,” said Random honestly.

Dostoyevsky smiled, glanced at George Rockne. “One can't ask for much more than that, can
one,
George? Not in a capitalist society.”

“Don't push your luck, Igor.”

The Russian nodded, then abruptly sat down heavily, as if he had lost all strength in his legs. “I'll take your word, sir.” He looked up at Angela, standing with her back to the kitchen stove. “Mrs. Bodalle killed your son, George. I saw it from no more than twenty metres away.”

The two detectives and George Rockne looked at Angela. Her expression had not changed, except that she glanced rather pityingly at Dostoyevsky. “He's insane,” she said coolly.

“No.” George was more than merely cool; there was a chill to him. “I've spent the last two hours listening to him. He may be crazy about what he expects to happen in Russia, but he's a long way from being insane. Did you kill my son?”

“Easy, George.” Malone moved towards the older man's end of the table, but he kept his eyes on both Dostoyevsky and Angela. He noticed that Random had moved to stand with his back to the draining board under the windows, where the supper cutlery, knives among it, lay like a small heap of shining steel guts. “Could you get us a writing pad?”

“No,” said Dostoyevsky. “Don't write anything down yet. I'll give it all to you on tape, when Mrs. Bodalle isn't present. All I'll say in front of her is that I saw her kill Will Rockne.”

Random said, “You know the drill, Mrs. Bodalle. Anything you may say, et cetera, et cetera . . .”

“You're wasting your time and the taxpayers' money,” she said.

Random shrugged. “You lawyers would know all about that.”

George Rockne had not taken his eyes off Angela from the moment Dostoyevsky had named her as the killer. At first he seemed more puzzled than angry, but now his face had settled into a mask, cracked by the lines in his leathery skin.

“Why?” he said quietly. “Why, for Chrissake?”

She stared at him as if he were a stranger who had no right to ask such a question. Then she turned her back on him and took a step towards the doorway. Random stepped quickly in front of her.

“Stay here, Mrs. Bodalle . . . Scobie, do you want to bring Olive in here now? But not her son—
keep
him inside.”

Malone went into the living room, brushing by Angela again; the smell of her perfume had thickened, was almost overpowering, like a woman in the heat of love-making. He stood at the living-room door and said, “Olive, would you come out to the kitchen? No, not you, Jay,” as the boy rose. “Just your mother.”

“I have to sign the release of the money—”

“Later, Jay. Come on, Olive.”

She stood up reluctantly, stiffly, like a much older woman, arthritic with dread. Malone ushered her out to the kitchen. She paused as she came into the room, looked at Angela but made no attempt to move towards her. Instead she looked back at Malone, as if he had suddenly become a friend. In that instant he saw that she was terrified, that she had come to the end of a road that she had not bothered to explore beforehand.

“We are arresting Mrs. Bodalle for the murder of your husband,” said Random. “We are also arresting you, Mrs. Rockne, with conspiracy to the same murder. If you have anything to say—”

“Keep your mouth shut!” Angela's threat was unmistakable; Malone felt Olive back into him. “I'll handle these fools!”

12

I

STATEMENT BY
Igor Sergeyvich Dostoyevsky, taken at Maroubra Police Station. Present: Det-Inspector S. Malone, Det-Sergeant R. Clements, Det-Sergeant C. Ellsworth.

“I followed Will Rockne and his wife in their car out to the car park at Maroubra Surf Club on the Saturday night in question . . .”

Inspector Malone: “Why were you following them?”

Dostoyevsky: “Late on the Friday I had found out by accident that Rockne had transferred the money I had given him, the five and a quarter million dollars, from a trust account into his own name. I wanted to know why. I tried to contact him all day on the Saturday, but he seemed to be avoiding me—he would never come to the phone, his wife or his daughter would say he was out. I saw him and his wife go out on the Saturday night, up to the school further up Coogee Bay Road. I was going to wait for him outside the school, but it is right opposite the Randwick Police Station and I didn't know how he was going to react when I met him. So I drove back and waited outside their house. They came back at, I think, around ten fifteen or so, but after pulling up, he drove on. I followed them out to Maroubra.

“They pulled into the car park outside the surf club. There were a lot of other cars parked there. I stopped my car in the street, got out and walked towards them—I went towards them from the rear, walking between the other cars. Then I saw Mrs. Rockne get out of the car, they sounded as if they were arguing, and she walked away from the car, their Volvo, and just stood. Rockne didn't follow her, he stayed in the car with the driver's door open.”

Malone: “Were the lights on? The car's headlights?”

Dostoyevsky:
“No, he had turned them off. I walked towards him, but stopped again. I was beside a van, I can't remember what sort except it had lots of graffiti on it, when I heard voices arguing in a car on the other side of the van. I couldn't hear what they were saying, they kept their voices low. Then I saw a woman come out from the other side of the van and go towards the Rockne car.”

Malone: “Do you know now who the woman was?”

Dostoyevsky: “Yes, it was Mrs. Bodalle, Angela Bodalle. She went up to the car and Rockne turned towards her, went to get out. I couldn't see whether he was surprised or not. Mrs. Bodalle had a gun, it had a long barrel. She fired the one shot and from the muffled sound I knew the long barrel was really a silencer.”

Malone: “What did she do then?”

Dostoyevsky: “She came back to the car on the other side of the van, the other side from where I stood. I saw her face and I know now who she was.”

Malone: “She didn't approach or call out to Mrs. Rockne?”

Dostoyevsky: “No. As far as I could tell, Mrs. Rockne had her back turned to the shooting—I don't know, perhaps she didn't want to see it. The car on the other side of the van then drove away—as it did so, I saw Mrs. Bodalle in the driver's seat and a man was sitting beside her. As soon as it had gone, Mrs. Rockne came back to their car, the Volvo. Then she screamed.”

Malone: “What then?”

Dostoyevsky: “I thought it best that I leave. I went back to my car, out in the street, and drove away.”

Malone: “The man who was with the woman—did you recognize him?”

Dostoyevsky: “No. I'd never seen him before nor since.”

Malone: “Would that be him?”
(Photo of Garry Dunne shown).

Dostoyevsky: “It could be. I wouldn't swear to it.”

Malone: “What sort of car were they in?”

Dostoyevsky: “I'm not sure. It looked like a small Japanese car, but I couldn't be sure. It was
grey,
I think.”

Malone: “But you have no doubt that the person you saw shoot Mr. Rockne was Angela Bodalle?”

Dostoyevsky: “None at all. It was Angela Bodalle.” S
tatement by Olive Mary Rockne:

“Is this going to be made public? Are my children going to read it? . . . Oh God!
(Breaks down. Tape disconnected for three minutes)
. . . I'm sorry . . . Well, I can't say when it was actually agreed we had to kill Will—my husband. Yes, I did agree, I admit to that. It was because—well, mainly, I suppose, because my husband wouldn't give me a divorce. I used to love him, our marriage was reasonably happy up till, I dunno, I suppose about three years ago. We managed to conceal it from the children that we weren't getting on—at least, I think we did. We still slept together, but sex isn't love, is it?

“Will was always putting me down. I don't mean he ever laid a hand on me, he never did that, but he could hurt me in other ways. Then I met Angela—do I have to say her full name? Angela Bodalle. I was fascinated by her at first—she was everything I wasn't. Or so I thought. Then I fell in love with her, really and truly in love. More in love, I think, than I'd ever been with Will. It's a shock, or it was to me, when you find out you are as much a lesbian as a heterosexual. Maybe it isn't to some women, but it was to me. But I didn't fight it, not when I fell in love with Angela. I hate her now, now I've found out so many things about her. But I did love her. You men probably won't understand that. I wish you had a woman in here, a woman police officer . . . No, it doesn't matter now. You all seem sympathetic enough. A bloody sight more sympathetic than Will was! . . . Maybe you'll all learn something from women about this . . . Where was I? Oh yes, Angela. No, I didn't know she was the one who actually shot my husband. Not till, well, after you'd arrested me . . .

“We had paid Mr. Dunne to do it and Angela drove him out to Maroubra that night. But he wouldn't do it, he said there were too many cars in the car park, there might be people in them. There were, weren't there? That man, the actuary you told me about who saw me that night, him and his girlfriend . . . Anyway, we had paid Mr. Dunne, I gave him five thousand dollars and Angela gave him five
thousand.
When he refused to do it, we asked for our money back. But you don't ask a hitman for your money back, did you know that? It's a non-refundable down payment, like schools ask you for now when you register your child. Why am I laughing?
(Breaks down. Tape disconnected for four minutes)
. . . Afterwards, he phoned me and tried to blackmail me—he wanted more money, even though he hadn't done the actual killing. That's a hard word to say when you're talking about your husband—
killing
. . . No, I'm okay, Scobie. I'll be all right, don't turn it off . . . Mr. Dunne said he had lost his job through us . . .

“Angela did tell me that she had kept the gun and one of the silencers—Mr. Dunne had made two silencers. She said she kept the gun in case he tried any funny business with us—like he did, with the blackmail. She also said she had taken the original silencer—I never saw any of this, the gun or the silencers—she took it back to Hamill's and dumped it in a box there. She did that on the Monday morning, when she took her car, the Ferrari, there for servicing—that was her excuse for turning up there on the Monday. She thinks of everything—but then you probably have seen that. When she told me she'd killed Mr. Dunne—and his wife, too, poor woman . . . I, I dunno, I began to see another side to her. I still loved her, but . . . Women can love men who do terrible things—it happens all the time. Women can love women who do the same terrible things. But then . . . Well, then, things started to get out of hand immediately after the—the killing of my husband. The Russian money, for instance. That was a shock—at first I thought it was God playing an ironic joke. I believe in God. I'm not a
good
Catholic, I suppose I'm what you'd call a convenient Catholic. A lot of people use religion as a convenience, don't you think? It helps them convince themselves they're truly sorry for whatever they've done wrong. I
think
I'm sorry I killed Will. I
know
I am, if only for the children's sake. But if everything had gone right, if we'd got away with it and I hadn't found out about that dark side to Angela and had been happy with her—I don't know, maybe I wouldn't be sorry . . .

“All I ask now is that they don't put me in the same prison as her—I don't think I could bear that . . . As for Jason and Shelley—I just hope I haven't lost them. Not forever . . .”
Statement by Angela Bodalle:

“Whatever they have said, I refuse to answer any questions on the fantasies of those two liars.”

II

Summer had come and almost gone, lingering on with high temperatures and high humidity into March. The football season had started again and players were collapsing from heat exhaustion while administrators sat in air-conditioned committee rooms and planned more ways of making more dollars. The USSR had gone the way of a dozen other empires and various peoples in its republics had discovered there were long-buried hatreds of each other that were far more virulent than any hatred they had felt for those in the West. The recession worldwide had got deeper and old men came out of the closets of history to tell how tough life had been in the Great Depression and that the spoiled generations of the postwar years “ain't seen nothin' yet.” From one end of Africa to the other, if people were not dying of starvation they were dying of AIDS or from the guns of rival tribes. Americans were finding that their President spent most of his time looking outwards instead of inwards, where their problems lay, and for the first time in years the White House went a paler shade of white at the possibility that the President might not be re-elected. Australia had a new Prime Minister, an abrasive man who rubbed voters up the wrong way but at least stirred them out of the smug apathy they had long thought was the true way to happiness. History stumbled on through its accidents, while in the news, which may or may not be history, men and women passed judgement on the criminals among them.

Igor Dostoyevsky, having given damning evidence, was given free passage out of Australia and disappeared into Oblivion, with which there are no treaties of extradition. Olive Rockne received a life sentence for conspiracy to murder her husband and Angela Bodalle received a double life sentence, her papers marked never to be released, for the murders of Will Rockne, Garry Dunne and Claudia Dunne.