Dark Summer (15 page)

“That wouldn't be Jimmy's,” said Bremner. “He was dead scared of the water, he couldn't swim across this room if his life depended on it. We used to joke about it, if he fell in the harbour.” Then his face went stiff. “He did that, didn't he? Fell in the harbour.”

Clements, a travelling supply store, took another plastic bag from his pocket and dropped the mask in it.

“Could he have found it out on the wharf?” Malone said.

Bremner shrugged. “Maybe. I dunno why anyone would be diving around here, there's only muck on the bottom.”

“That ship, would Customs have cleared everything on it?”

“The
Southern Pacific?
Probably. I dunno for sure. They check the papers of the ship out in the stream, before it berths. Then when the containers are unloaded, they check the seals on the containers before they pass 'em. You wanna go and talk to 'em? They got an inspector's office here.”

As they came out of the locker room, Malone saw, in the distance, the Physical Evidence team just arriving. “You'd better get over there, Russ. Tell the locals and the Crime Scene blokes we're treating it as murder till the GMO tells us otherwise. Give me the diving mask.”

Clements handed over the plastic bag. “It's bloody hot out there. I heard one of the wharfies say it's just topped forty degrees.”

“
If it has,” said Bremner, “they'll be knocking off. Weather like this, it gets bloody unbearable down in the holds. And the ironwork gets too hot to handle. They'll knock off, it's in the award.”

“When's it get too hot for cops to work?” Clements asked Malone, but went trudging off across the wide concrete apron towards the three police cars and the van parked at the foot of the big mobile crane.

“When
does
it get too hot for you?” said Bremner.

“When the politicians start breathing down our necks. Where is the Customs office?”

The Customs officer. Bill Dibble, was middle-aged, stout and balding, a dynamo run down; in his youth, he told Malone, he had been a cross between a bloodhound and a greyhound. “But when you don't get support from Canberra, when the government, doesn't matter which one, doesn't give you the money to do the job . . . You know what I mean?”

“Stop bellyaching, Bill,” said Bremner. “Tell the inspector what he wants to know. You got anything suspicious on the
Southern Pacific
?”

Dibble leaned back in his chair, gestured at the sheets on his desk. “Those are copies of the manifest. Any of the stuff listed there could have prohibited stuff, drugs, gems, gold, hidden in it,” He pulled out a sheet, ran a sausage of a finger down it. “Whitegoods—refrigerators, stuff like that. They don't try hiding it in those any more—it's old hat, they know we'd be on to it. Canned foodstuffs—that could be a possibility. We've found paddles of cannabis hidden in tins of chick-peas, ten to a tin. But that was on a ship from Tripoli, in Lebanon. Sure, there could be something hidden in the cargo. But we go on risk assessment, it's all that we can afford to do unless we get a definite tip-off. We look at the general profile—what country it's come from, who sent it, who it's going to. In this case, all the containers are for reputable firms, the Customs agents have sworn for them. The agents work with us, they don't want to lose their licences. And the ship's from Auckland, not a usual source for drugs. The Kiwis work pretty closely with us.”

“It was in Suva before Auckland,” said Malone.

“It didn't take on any cargo there, just discharged.”

“
Has any of the cargo left the wharf?”

“No, the freight agents will have their trucks here first thing in the morning. It's all been released. I can get our fellers down here with the sniffer dogs if you think there's any drugs in the containers—”

“How long can you hold a cargo?”

Dibble spread his plump hands. “As long as we like, if we suspect something. But you hold up cargo, the receivers suspect something and just don't turn up.”

Malone put the plastic bag containing the diving mask on Dibble's desk. “Don't touch it—there may be prints on it. Jimmy Maddux had something important he wanted to tell Roley here. We found this mask in his locker. He did no diving, in fact Roley says he was dead scared of the water. Does that suggest anything to you? As I understand it, you Customs blokes are born suspicious. Be suspicious now.”

Dibble grinned at the insulting compliment, or complimentary insult, and stared at the diving mask. Then he nodded. “Yeah, it does. We've never had it happen here, not so far, but there was a memo sent out about six months ago, a reprint of something the Drug Enforcement guys in Washington had sent us and the Federal police. The drug gangs, the Sicilians and the Colombians, they're packing the drugs, heroin and cocaine, into metal boxes. Then they send a diver down at the home port and he clamps the boxes to the hull of a ship with magnetic clamps. They stay there till the ship docks at the destination port. Then at night the receivers send down a diver, he releases the boxes . . .” He spread his hands again. “There was a series on Channel Nine about three weeks ago—”

“I saw it,” said Bremner.

“That happened in Hamburg—the stuff was on a ship out of Karachi. It was fiction, but it was based on fact, dead true. We haven't come across the method here, not yet. But that's not to say it hasn't been tried and we just didn't catch 'em.”

“Could you get a diver to look at the hull of the
Southern Pacific?”

“I guess so. I can't authorize it, it'll have to be okayed by head office. And the Federal cops will have to come into it, I mean if we pick up anything.”

“
I'm not interested in the smuggling. All we're looking for is anything that'll lead us to whoever murdered Jimmy Maddux.” And Scungy Grime and, who knows, Sally Kissen. “How soon can you get a diver?”

“I could get one over here in an hour. But first I'll have to check with our CET—the Contraband Enforcement Team. If there's a chance of something being there underwater, they wouldn't want to check it in daylight. That could tip off whoever's supposed to pick it up. No offence, Inspector, but drug-busting is our territory, not yours.”

The territorial imperative, the old barbed-wire boundaries between bureaucracies: but Malone knew they had to be respected. Murder had no priority, not unless a bureaucrat was murdered.

“We'd rather do the job after dark,” said Dibble. “Just in case, you know what I mean?”

“Call me as soon as you know something one way or the other,” said Malone and left his card with Dibble.

Outside, in the yellow glare that seemed like a soft physical blow against the eyes when one stepped into it, Malone said, “Roley, could you find out for me if Normie Grime was working at the weekend? And Snow White and The Dwarf.”

Bremner seemed to go a shade paler, but he just nodded. A moment, then he said, eager to be gone, “I gotta go now. I don't want Jimmy's missus to find out on the radio what's happened, not before I get to her. That'd be too much for her.”

“Where does she live? We probably will have to come and have a talk with her.”

“Jesus, is that necessary?”

“I'm afraid it is, Roley.”

Bremner squinted at him in the sun; then he nodded reluctantly.
w
Yeah, I guess it is. Jimmy lives over in Balmain.” He gave Malone an address; the detective made a note of it. “Will I drop a hint you'll be coming? Sorta prepare her?”

“Not at this stage, Roley. Don't mention murder to her yet. One shock at a time is enough.”

Bremner went off to his car and Malone, careful not to exert himself in the heat, walked across
to
the group congregated around the body of Jimmy Maddux. As he passed his and Clements' car he dropped the diving mask on the front seat; he had glimpsed White and Schultz coming away from the side of the
Southern Pacific
towards the police team. Behind them other wharfies were clattering down the loading ramp.

Clements and Romy Keller detached themselves from the police group as Malone approached. The GMO was wearing a large straw hat and a sun-dress with narrow shoulder-straps; she looked the coolest person in sight, adding even a touch of glamour that, Malone thought, was incongruous in the surroundings. The sole woman member of the PE team, flushed and sweaty in her blue shirt and woollen skirt, cap pushed forward over her eyes, looked envious of Romy.

“His neck was broken by a blow from the side,” said Romy. “Possibly a karate chop.”

“No accident?” said Malone.

She shook her head; the wide brim of her hat rippled like a straw wave. “I wouldn't say so. If he'd broken his neck in a fall, there'd be contusions to his head—there are none. It's a clean blow. Do you want me to treat it as murder?”

“I think so. The Glebe detectives will do the paperwork, but you let me know if you come up with something else. Call Russ. You've got his number?”

“I'm not sure,” said Romy and gave Clements a smile that doubled the meaning of what she had said.

Clements walked across with her to her car and Malone moved quickly to White and Schultz as he saw them turning to go. He manoeuvred himself in front of White, preferring not to be stepped on by The Dwarf.

“You leaving, Mr. White?”

“Yeah, I decided it was too hot. It was over fifty, down there in the hold.”

“You
decided?”

“Yeah, I'm the temporary union delegate. They just elected me, the guys.”

“That was pretty quick, wasn't it?”

“
Us wharfies, we make up our minds real quick. We don't hem and haw like the rest of the country.”

Malone looked up at The Dwarf. “Who nominated him? You?”

The giant nodded, “I nominated him. I seconded him, too. Nobody argued.”

“What would you have done to them if they had? Never mind, forget I asked . . . Mr. Schultz, do you know anything about karate?” The Dwarf looked at White; and Malone said, “It's a form of martial arts, I understand you can kill people with one blow—”

“I fucking know what it is!” The Dwarf looked more annoyed that he should be thought ignorant of how to dispose of people than that Malone should be accusing him of something.

It was White who took up Malone's implied suggestion: “What are you getting at, Malone?”

“Jimmy Maddux—” He looked back over his shoulder; the shrouded corpse was being loaded into an ambulance. “The doc says he died from a blow on the neck. Your big mate once did time for breaking a man's neck.”

“It was only manslaughter.” The Dwarf looked pleased, as if he had done his victim a favour.

“Inspector—” White was all at once formal; even his voice seemed to change. “Are you saying Mr. Schultz had something to do with the death of Mr. Maddux?”

“I don't think I used those words. But a man dies of a broken neck and on hand is a feller who's done time for the same sort of offence. Wouldn't you be suspicious?”

“I'm not the suspicious type.”

Smart-arse crims are a bargain lot; but Malone guessed that White was more than just a smart-arse. “Well, I am, I'm afraid.” He looked up at The Dwarf, dark and threatening against the sun. “Keep that in mind, Mr. Schultz.”

He left them on that, walked across to the unmarked car as Clements came back. “Finished, Russ?”

Clements looked across the roof of the car at White and Schultz; they were within earshot, just. “For the time being—I've picked up a coupla things to follow up.”

Malone
looked back at White. “You'll be staying around for the union election?”

“Sure, why not?” White had all the arrogance of a small-time despot; Malone could imagine how he would have run a prison yard. “Things need cleaning up around here, wouldn't you say?”

As they got into the sweat-box of the car Malone said, “Get their addresses from Roley Bremner. If they're running for election, their proper addresses should be on the union roll. I remember that from my dad's day.”

“Did Con ever run for anything?”

“Once, as union president. He got three votes, all his own.”

II

“Something is happening,” said Leslie Chung. “It's in the air, Jack. You can smell it, like cheap joss-sticks.”

Jack Aldwych's gentle grin was more like a crumbling of his heavy face than a working of the muscles. “You're not gunna believe me, Les, but I never smelled a joss-stick. I don't have any time for anything outa Asia, except Chinese food.”

Once a month he met Chung for lunch here at this restaurant in Dixon Street, the main artery, if not the heart, of Chinatown. The small sub-district had a heart, but no outsiders, including Jack Aldwych, knew where it was located. Tourists were always welcome, and so were the businessmen who came down here from uptown for lunch and dinner; but the locals had their own Great Wall, invisible though it was, behind which were thoughts, schemes, loyalties that the rest of the city could only guess at. The Chinese population, the first, after the Aborigines, to suffer racism in Australia, were still the most cohesive of the country's immigrants. They might not have their ethnic soccer clubs, their mosques or their temples; they did have the glue of their ancestry holding them together. They dressed Western-style, their young people danced to Madonna's raunchy songs, but inscrutability was in their blood like an inoculation serum.

“You're too Australian, Jack. You're old enough now, you're retired, too—why don't you throw
away
your prejudices? Another fifty years, Jack, and Asia will rule the world.”

“I'll be dead and gone then. You mean you blokes from the Triads will run everything, beating even the Japs?”