Autumn Maze (41 page)

“Come back to bed,” Lisa murmured sleepily.

“Go back to sleep,” he said, resisting temptation.

Leaving the house he turned, like a trained dog, to the usual route, which took him down through several side streets to Randwick racecourse. The wind had blown the clouds away and the stars looked like frozen fireworks in the still-dark sky. He shivered as the cold bit at him. Of course
cold
was comparative; the Norwegians at February's Winter Olympics would consider this morning the brisk beginning of a summer's day. But he was not a Norwegian nor a Siberian nor an Inuit; he was an Aussie
who
knew when it was bloody cold and no argument. Comparing climate was like comparing one woman with another. An opinion he would not have quoted to Lisa.

Once out of bed and on his way Malone was always glad to be walking. His mind, like the cold engine of the nine-year-old Holden Commodore back in the garage, always took a little time to get started; the five-kilometre walk each morning eased him into the day. The racecourse provided a convenient circuit.

He walked briskly round the outer rail of the outside track, while the horses began appearing out of the lightening darkness, waiting for enough light for them to begin their training gallops. There was an occasional shout or obscenity from the jockeys and strappers as a horse played up, but the morning was too cold for any sustained burst of temper. On the far side of the course, away from the grandstands, Malone was alone. He began to run over in his mind the day that lay ahead of him at Homicide, the five murders that he hoped would be wiped from the computer by the end of the week. There had been a spate of murders in Sydney in the past month, some of them without obvious motive but all of them with suspects reasonably certain of committal. The eighteen detectives under Malone, as their inspector in charge, were usually not so fortunate in the cases that occupied them. With a bit of luck Malone might have a clean computer, nothing on the running sheets, when he went on leave in two weeks' time. At the thought of the holiday coming up, two weeks in the Queensland sunshine, he almost broke into a jog, but reason slowed his legs before they got out of hand. Jogging, he believed, was the invention of orthopaedic surgeons and urologists looking for future trade.

An hour after leaving the front door he was back at the Federation-style house that was home. As he opened the door again he heard the phone ringing on the small table in the hall. Claire, his seventeen-year-old, came out of her bedroom, picked up the phone and handed it to him as he came down the hallway.

“How do you know it's not for you?”

“Dad, civilized people don't ring at seven o'clock in the morning. It has to be someone from Homicide.”

She
went on into the bathroom she shared with Maureen, the fifteen-year-old, and Tom, going on twelve. He looked after her, marvelling again at how much she resembled her mother in looks and temperament. There was no Irish in her, only Dutch.

“Scobie?” Russ Clements, sergeant and second in command, was on the other end of the line.

“Where are you, this hour of the morning?”

“Still at home. Peta Smith called me, she's just come back from Darling Harbour. She's got one she thinks you and I should handle.”

In his mind's eye the computer screen all at once began to mock him: the running sheets were off and running again. “Why me? I have eighteen of you supposed to be working for me—”

“This guy was found in the monorail at three-thirty this morning, a single bullet wound in his heart.”

“In the
monorail?
At three-thirty?” Lisa, up and dressed, passed him in the hallway, raised her eyebrows and he nodded, equally puzzled.

“Peta said she'll explain it all when we see her. The point is, she thinks you and I should handle it. The dead man is—
was
the president of the American Bar Association. They're in town for an international law convention, you've read about it. I've put the morning conference off till ten-thirty. The monorail car, the scene of the crime, has been moved on to a siding.” He gave Malone instructions how to get there. “I'll see you at eight-thirty.”

******

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Scobie Malone Series

Dragons at the Party

Now and Then, Amen

Babylon South

Murder Song

Pride's Harvest

Dark Summer

Bleak Spring

Autumn Maze

Winter Chill

Five-Ring Circus

Dilemma

The Bear Pit

Yesterday's Shadow

The Easy Sin

Standalone Novels

The City of Fading Light

Spearfield's Daughter

The Faraway Drums