Murder Song (26 page)

Then abruptly he realized where he was standing, how exposed he was. He shivered with fright,
moved
quickly to one side and pressed the button that swept the drapes across the glass. He stood in the sudden darkness, feeling the trembling in his hands.

It seemed that everyone was gunning for him and Blizzard was not the only hitman.

Then the phone rang. It was a moment before he could move, then he stepped back to his desk, switched on a desk-lamp and picked up the phone. It was Malone.

“Just checking. How'd you go today?”

“Bloody dreadful. You making progress?”

“A bit. Are you coming back to the hotel?”

“No. I've got some work to do here. Then I'll go straight out on my date. I'm due there at seven.”

“Call me when you get there. Then I'm going to the opera. Seb has already gone. He has to gargle or whatever it is singers do before they sing. Brian?”

“Yes?”

“Take care. Don't let Blizzard take a pot shot at you while you're with the lady.”

O'Brien hung up, all at once feeling better. There had been a note of concern for him in Malone's voice. He had never had a friend, only acquaintances, and now he was looking for one. But, like love, friendship had arrived too late.

II

Jack Aldwych lived in a huge, old two-storeyed house overlooking Harbord, one of the small northern beaches, where he surfed every morning, summer and winter, with his son Jack Junior. The house had been built before World War One by a circus-owning family and Aldwych, who had been born and grown up in the district, had delivered bread here as a bread carter's boy in the 1930s. The large grounds had always seemed full of midgets, grossly fat ladies, flagpole-tall men and acrobats who would come tumbling down the gravel driveway to take the dozen loaves of bread from him before the two big mastiffs, who roamed the grounds like loud-mouthed tigers, came tearing round from the back of the
house
to rend him limb from limb. He had coveted the house even then and twenty years ago he had bought it from the last of the circus family. Now it housed only him, his wife, his son, a housekeeper and two minders who roamed the grounds just like the mastiffs had done. Occasionally, in his more sentimental moments, which weren't many, he longed for another sight of those acrobats, slim girls and muscular men, to come cartwheeling down the driveway to the big gates as Jack Junior drove him in and up to the house.

Sitting now in his favourite chair on the big wide verandah he looked at his visitor, who couldn't have cartwheeled if he'd been given a flying start by being hit by a car. “Why didn't you get in touch with me first, Harry?”

Chief Superintendent Danforth wished he had worn a topcoat; he hadn't expected to sit out here in the cold. “I rang you first thing, Jack, soon's I got the word they'd traced that kid Gotti to Debbs and Lango. But they said you'd gone shopping with your missus.”

“My wife,” Aldwych corrected him. Shirl was the only woman in the world he respected. He also had some regard for the Prime Minister's wife, whom he had never met but who Shirl said was a model for all women, and he had great admiration for Margaret Thatcher, who had a proper regard for what a boss should be. But he wouldn't have lived with either of them, not even if they had asked him. “We go and do the weekly shopping every Thursday morning. She likes that, we've done it together ever since we first got married. We do the shopping, then we have morning coffee down in a coffee lounge on the Corso at Manly. Shirl likes that, she calls it married compatibility, whatever that is. She's a great one for doing crosswords.”

Danforth had a little trouble picking up that one; finally it filtered through that Mrs. Aldwych had an interest in words. He also had a little difficulty in picturing the crime boss enjoying morning coffee in a coffee lounge with his wife. He gratefully sipped the whisky Aldwych had offered against the cold evening air. “The missus—the wife is like that. Always does the crossword first thing in the morning . . . So I rang Arnold Debbs soon's I couldn't get you. I hadda get the word to someone.”

“I've just got back from seeing Arnie. Who's this other guy who's trying to bump off O'Brien?
An
ex-cop or something.”

“An ex-cadet,” said Danforth, as if he didn't want a real cop suspected of being a hitman. “His name's Frank Blizzard.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“We don't even know
who
he is.”

Aldwych looked at him quizzically. He had never had much respect for the police's ability, they had never been able to nail him on any charge. Sure, they had arrested him half a dozen times, but nothing had ever stuck once they had got him into court. “Can I help?” He sounded like Castro offering help to some banana republic. “Get some of my boys looking for him?”

“Where would they start to look, Jack? No—” Danforth shook his head. “The best man in the Department is looking for him and getting nowhere. And he's on Blizzard's hit list as well as O'Brien. Scobie Malone—you know him.”

Aldwych sipped his own whisky, pulled the woollen muffler closer round his thick neck. He liked sitting out here in the evenings, but lately his bones had begun to feel the chill. He was getting old and it hurt like arthritis even to think about it.

“I know him, a nice feller. But if he gets in the road we might have to get rid of him, Harry.”

“What d'you mean?” Danforth was startled, coughing as the whisky went down the wrong way.

Aldwych waited till the coughing had subsided. “Something's gotta be done soon. I hear O'Brien is ready to talk his head off, ask the NCSC for a deal if he tells „em about us.”

“Us?” Danforth looked on the verge of another coughing spasm.

Aldwych smiled. “Not you, Harry. Me and my associates.”

“How d'you know all this, Jack?”

Aldwych smiled again, an old crime boss's smile. “Harry, nothing is secret in this country. We're the greatest blabbermouths in the world. You hold a closed meeting that's got any politicians or bureaucrats at it and you're gunna get more leaks than you get in an army camp on a winter's morning. There's always someone dying to piss what they know.”

“
I never heard any leaks coming out of any meetings you've had.”

“We're different, Harry. You don't find any politicians or bureaucrats in our game, not at my level. They just work for us. Like you do.”

Danforth put down his glass: it was time to go. He did not like being held in contempt, though he knew it happened at certain levels in the Department; but he had never protested there and he would certainly never protest to Jack Aldwych. He stood up, his joints stiffened by the cold. “You got a nice house here, Jack. Why don't you sit inside some time?”

Aldwych laughed, a rough rumble like an echo of the mastiffs' growling of long ago. “I bought this place for the view. I'll sit inside when I finally go blind.”

Danforth looked at him sharply. “Are you going blind?”

“No.” The laugh subsided, the mastiffs lying down. “I'll die out here, but not for a long time yet. Not unless O'Brien says too much and they wanna send me to jail. What would you do if they sent you out here, Harry, to bring me in?”

“Commit suicide,” said Danforth, hoping Aldwych would recognize it as a joke.

“We'll do it together, Harry. You can go first.”

When Danforth had gone, escorted down to the big gates by one of the minders, Aldwych went into the house. He sat down in front of the fire in the big living-room; the house was centrally heated, but he preferred a fire. He felt the warmth, like a memory of the blood of his youth, creep back into his limbs. He could hear Shirl's television set upstairs in her bedroom, the volume turned up as if she were sitting down here listening to it; she was going deaf, but she refused to admit it, insisting that the world had just got quieter. She was an intelligent woman who had long ago put her intelligence into cold storage, had deliberately become simple-minded about the world in which she and Jack lived. She knew how he made his money and she knew his reputation, but she thought of him only as her husband, a good one, which he was. All she demanded was that Jack Junior, though he was his father's secretary and driver, was never to be involved in anything that might send him to prison. Jack Junior would inherit the vast fortune his father had accumulated, but he must never be anything but respectable and, when his time came, a good
honest
citizen. So far Jack Junior was on course.

Aldwych sat pondering the immediate future. He was at risk, considerable risk, because he had tried to make his money respectable; he appreciated the irony of it. He was evil, a true criminal; he never tried to evade that knowledge. Yet he was a confirmed conservative, as most true criminals are. He had tried to educate himself late in life by reading books on political and social history; he had developed heroes, Churchill, de Gaulle, Menzies here in Australia. He found local politics dull, but that was because whatever local politicians said didn't amount to a pinch of shit in world affairs. He had taken Shirl on several trips to Europe and he had noticed how many of the public buildings had balconies fronting large squares. European leaders had always had the advantage of being able to yell at vast crowds, of being seen in the flesh, of using the balcony as a stage; Australian leaders, on the other hand, always seemed to be at ground level, literally and figuratively. Of course there was TV; but that wasn't the same. You felt no thrill sitting in your living-room listening to a local pol telling you not to worry, just to trust him and his government. If Philip Norval asked for blood, sweat and tears, the voters would suggest he go to the Red Cross; and then go out to the kitchen fridge for another beer.

Arnold Debbs was one of those at ground level; several times this afternoon he had sounded as if he were on his knees. He was, potentially, as big a risk as O'Brien; if the heat were applied, he would run for a deal. Jack Aldwych had begun to think he had made a mistake by moving out of his own circle.

Jack Junior came to the door, switched on the lights. “Dad?”

Aldwych blinked in the sudden illumination. “What is it?”

“George Bousakis is here.”

III

O'Brien had had difficulty in persuading the security guard that he wanted to go out alone. “It's okay, Ralph. I've got a clearance from Inspector Malone—he knows where I'll be. It's personal.”

Ralph Shad looked dubious. “If something happens to you, Mr. O'Brien, it's not gunna look good for our firm—”

“
It's not going to look good for me, either.” O'Brien smiled. “Relax, Ralph. Go back to the hotel and order a good dinner. Ask your wife or girl-friend in, if you like, put it on the tab. I'll be home by midnight, I promise.”

“Do you have a car picking you up?”

“He's waiting downstairs now and I'll have him pick me up at 11.30. Don't wait up. Go to bed as soon as Inspector Malone and Mr. Waldorf come back from the opera.”

But when he got into the back of the hired car and gave the Double Bay address to the driver, the Asian who had driven him two nights ago to the Town Hall, he suddenly felt nervous. Perhaps the nervousness of the driver had transmitted itself to him.

“Would you rather not be driving me, Lee?”

The driver took the car out into the traffic. “No, it's okay, Mr. O'Brien.”

“Where do you come from?”

“Cambodia, sir, but my parents were Chinese.”

“Were you ever in danger there?”

“Oh, a lot, sir. That's why I came to Australia, it was a safe country.”
Or so I thought:
it was as if he had spoken the words aloud. “Another driver will be picking you up, sir. You're my last job for the day.”

“Do I know the other driver?”

“I don't think so, sir. He only started yesterday. His name is Fergus Calder, I think. He's from Scotland. I can't understand a word he says.” He sensed O'Brien's sudden concern. “The company would have checked him out, sir. They're very careful who they employ, much more than taxi companies.”

“Give me one of your company cards.”

His nervousness had increased. He would call the hire company, have them send a driver he knew. He did not want to be picked up close to midnight by a stranger, no matter how thoroughly the company had checked him out.

When he was dropped at the address in the side-street in Double Bay he almost ran across the
pavement
into the front gate of the townhouse. He stood for a moment, breathing deeply; he was coming apart at the seams, something he had never thought would happen to him. He stood just inside the gate for a couple of minutes before he felt steady enough to ring the doorbell and face Anita. She must see none of the frayed edges of himself.

The door was opened by Joanna, elegant in silver and black, looking at him as frankly as a buyer at the Newmarket stallion sales.

“We've never met, but Anita has told me all about you. Well, almost all,” she added with the smile of a woman who never expected to hear the full truth about any man. “Come in out of the cold.”

He followed her into the house, showing no eye at all for its furnishings; other people's possessions never interested him. Anita was waiting for him in the living-room and came forward at once to embrace him and kiss him as if they were alone. Joanna watched them without embarrassment, almost with dry amusement, though she never laughed at other people's love for each other.

When they drew apart she said, “I believe it. You do love each other.”

Anita smiled, explained to O'Brien, “She's the family expert on love.”

“Or what sometimes passes for it,” said Joanna, never one to claim unmerited credit. She loved Floyd, in her fashion, but he was not her ideal: she had given up hope of ever meeting
that
man. “The house is yours till midnight. I'll have to come home then—I'm not going to spend the night with the man I'm going out with, though he'll ask me. We're going to the opera, then he's taking me to supper.”