Murder Song (35 page)

“I called him in as soon as I knew I was coming out here. He was on his way to see Norths play Penrith.”

“Then he's out of luck.” But once again he admired the efficiency of the big untidy man beside him.

Andy Graham came on the line. “What's happening, Inspector?”

Malone explained the situation. “Nothing may come of it, Andy, so keep it quiet. Get in touch with Superintendent Danforth, but wait at least half an hour. Give Russ and me time to get to Wollstonecraft.”

Graham sometimes had to have things spelled out for him; but, like all police officers after twelve months in the force, he knew the urge to protect one's own turf. Chief superintendents are like generals, better behind a desk than on horseback. “I'll have trouble finding him,” he chuckled. “Being Sunday . . .”

“Sorry you've had to miss your footy. What's the score?” He could hear a radio in the background.

“Penrith scored in the first five minutes. Six-nil. That's all so far, there's only five minutes to go . . . No, it's all over.”

Despite the Sunday afternoon traffic, Clements made good time to Wollstonecraft. It was still light when he pulled the car in, blue light no longer flashing, under the trees that lined the street where Malloy and his wife lived. He and Malone got out of the car and looked around. Except for a dozen or so cars parked along both sides of the long street, the neighbourhood could have been deserted.

“Good,” said Malone. “Now where are the North Sydney fellers and SWOS?”

They walked round the corner into a cross-street and there were four police cars, a SWOS van,
three
TV vans and two press cars, plus a small crowd of residents held back by another police car parked across the middle of the roadway with a uniformed policeman standing on either side of it.

“Christ Almighty! What do they think this is—the Charge of the Light Brigade?” Malone looked around for a senior officer and at once a detective in plainclothes and a SWOS sergeant came down to him and Clements. “What the bloody hell's going on? I thought you got the message to keep this quiet!”

“Sorry, Inspector.” The detective, from North Sydney, was named Leo Safire; he was tall and thin and naturally lugubrious-looking. Right now he could not have looked unhappier; though he had known Malone for several years, he knew enough not to call him Scobie at the moment. “I don't know who gave the media the word, but they arrived right on our tail. I've had to threaten to shoot „em to keep „em outa sight.”

“Shoot „em anyway,” said Clements.

“After we've got Blizzard,” said Malone. He looked at the SWOS man. Sergeant Killop was a chunky man in his late twenties, dressed in the SWOS uniform of dark trousers, sweater and peaked cap; Malone could imagine him hurling himself at doors, not waiting for an axe or a battering-ram. “What have you got, Bill?”

“I've got five men, Inspector. That enough?”

Christ, I hope so.
“We'll take it carefully at first, okay? Maybe around in Malloy's street, the neighbours don't know yet what's happening. Are the TV vans sending out anything live?”

“No,” said Safire. “I've got a guy standing by each van. If he sees anything going out, he'd been told to arrest them on the spot. We'll drum up some charge.”

“Try obscene language,” said Clements with a sour grin, “That always works.”

“What about the other people in Malloy's flats?” said Killop. “You think we oughta warn them?”

“How do we do that without Malloy hearing the hubbub?” said Malone. He went back to the corner and looked through the trees at the tall block, one of three, about fifty yards down on the other side of the street. “What would there be—sixteen flats? What floor is Malloy on?”

“
I checked that,” said Safire. “Their flat's on the sixth floor. There are two flats to a floor, each of them with a balcony looking south.”

Malone looked up at the sixth floor; both flats showed lighted windows against the gathering dusk. “Which one is his?”

“Number 11, on the right.”

“Righto, Russ and I'll go up first. You and two of your men, Bill, come up behind us to cover us. Send your other two men around the back, in case there's some back stairs. Leo, go down there by our car and stand by the radio, in case we need more support. For the moment, let's keep everyone else back here. Especially the bloody media. What's inside the building?”

“A lift in the front lobby, just the one—it holds six people at a squeeze. There's a flight of stairs that goes all the way to the top, circling the lift as it goes up.”

“Righto, give me one of your men, have him stay down in the lobby by the stairs. If anything goes wrong up on the sixth floor, he'll hear the commotion down the stair-well. He can give you the word and then you'd better come running.”

The men were deployed and Malone and Clements, accompanied by Killop and two of his SWOS men, went into the block of flats and took the lift up to the sixth floor. Malone and Clements both drew their Smith & Wessons; the three SWOS men had 12-gauge shotguns. They were all bulky men and the SWOS officers were made even bulkier by their flak jackets; it was a tight squeeze in the lift and all the guns were held high like iron bouquets. Malone could feel nervousness taking hold of him, as if he were a novice at this. He had been in this situation on more occasions than he cared to number; but this was the first occasion where he would be coming face to face with a man who had sworn to kill him, where he, and not someone outside the police force, was the stated target. He took a deep breath and saw Clements look at him.

“The waiting's over,” said Clements and made it sound reassuring.

III

On
the Saturday Malloy and Julie had picnicked behind a screen of trees on a hill a mile from Cossack Lodge stud. He had brought his camera equipment with him, carrying it as he always did. It was typical of him that, like the policeman he had wanted to be, he never saw himself as fully off-duty; news, like crime or an emergency, did not fit into a roster. He had brought a telescope, a Tasco terrestrial 93T with 30 x 90 magnification; at a mile, it was claimed, a viewer could tell the difference between natural and false teeth in a smile. He had bought it when he had first decided to kill his betrayers of long ago. He had told Julie, who supervised their budget and queried any major expenditure, that he was taking up bird-watching. He had no interest in birds and she had expressed surprise. He had lied elaborately, throwing native birds' names around like a mad ornithologist; he had known all the birds in the Minnamook district when he was a boy and he had remembered their names, though he couldn't remember exactly what many of them looked like. Still, Julie had been convinced and several times he had taken her out on supposed bird-watching expeditions. He was fortunate in that she saw birds only as carriers of lice, psittacosis and other diseases and left him to go hunting them on his own. Which he pretended to do: he would retire behind some distant trees and sit there reading a paperback detective novel till a reasonable time had passed. It troubled him that he had to lie to Julie, but better to tell her he was bird-watching than man-watching.

Malone, O'Brien and the others had been observed on expeditions on his own; scrutinized from a distance as under a microscope. Like bugs that were to be squashed.

On the Saturday afternoon he had picked up the telescope in its leather case; they had eaten their picnic lunch and he had repacked the cooler. Up in the timber above them a magpie carolled and a sparrowhawk hung in the sky like a floating cross. “I'm going to see if there are any birds around here.”

“Just so long as they're feathered ones,” she said automatically; it was a joke that was wearing thin, as jokes do, even between people in love. She lay back on the rug they had spread out on the thick grass. “That sun's so lovely. I'll doze off for a while. I wish we could make love.”

“What?”

“I want to take my clothes off and make love here on a hilltop with the sun on your bum.”

He
smiled down at her lying flat on her back, lovely and inviting. “What if there are other bird-watchers out here somewhere? With their glasses or telescopes on us hard at it?”

“It'd fog up their telescopes.” She smiled like a cat. “Go on, go and watch your birds. I'll lie here and dream of what you're doing to me.”

He was tempted; sometimes she showed an abandon that was contrary to her public behaviour. Instead, he bent down and kissed her, dodged her lassoing arms, said, “I'll see you tonight,” and went off up through the trees to the top of the hill. Above him the magpie carolled a musical warning, but he knew how to take care of himself. After all this time and all this success, he was not going to give himself away.

He lay down on the brittle leaves that carpeted the stand of trees, adjusted the telescope and at once saw the familiar figure come out on to the verandah of the main house of the stud. It was Malone; he was joined a minute or two later by the other familiar figure, O'Brien. It was the first time Malloy had come up here to observe the stud; he had not expected his last two targets to be here. He had wanted to study the landscape because he had an unformulated idea that this was where he would like to dispose of O'Brien, who would be the last to die. Here amongst the tangible evidence of his wealth and success.

Malloy put down the telescope because his hands were shaking. Christ, why didn't he have the rifle with him! He would never have another opportunity like this. The distance was extreme, but he would have been able to get closer. He trembled with frustration; then sanity steadied him. If he had been alone, had had the rifle with him, he would have gone down there and taken a suicidal risk that, up till now, he had avoided. Julie, being with him, preventing him from bringing the Tikka, had unwittingly saved him from himself.

He took up the telescope again, watched the two men for a while. Then he slowly scanned the rest of the stud. He soon picked up the security man, Shad, whom he recognized; then he saw the other men, two of them carrying automatic weapons tucked under their arms, all of them wearing pistols at their belt. He realized with a jolt of excitement that they were expecting him!

He stood up, leaned against a tree till the excitement drained out of him. He had a feeling of power, an executioner who could name his own time. Then the cold reason that had protected him so far,
that
had kept him so many jumps ahead of those trying to trap him, settled firmly on him. He lay down again, trained the telescope on the main house and saw Malone and O'Brien now sitting at a small table eating a late lunch. They were too obvious: they were staking themselves out as lures. They were out in the open and they expected him to come out in the open, too; like some dumb wild animal, he was to fall for the bait of them. He would kill them in his own time and in a place of his own choosing, though he might have to change the murder roster. If Malone and O'Brien wanted to stay together as a single target, they would have to die together.

He went back down through the timber to Julie. He heard the magpie carol again and looked up. Nesting early, it resented his intrusion into its territory. It came down out of a tall tree, dive-bombing him; its dagger beak scraped the top of his head. When it flew up in a steep curve, weaving amongst the trees like a black-and-white shuttle, and came back at him in a second dive he stood and waited for it; he had stood like this as a boy in the fields near Minnamook, testing the quickness of his eye against that of the bird. The magpie came down swiftly, straight at his head; he raised the telescope in its case, ducked at the last moment and hit the bird full across its throat. It wings fluttered wildly, but the magpie was already dead. It thudded to the ground, beating its wings feebly, then was still. He looked down at it without pity or any feeling at all. He was a country boy but, unlike most country boys, he had never had any love for birds or animals; they were part of the scenery, no more.

The telescope was undamaged except for a dent in the leather cylinder. He slung the case over his shoulder and went on down to Julie. She was still lying on her back, eyes closed, seemingly asleep. He knelt down, put a hand up under her sweater and stroked her bra-less breasts.

Her eyes remained closed. “Fred? Do it some more.”

He squeezed a breast, hard. “Who's Fred?”

She didn't open her eyes, just let the cat's smile play round her full lips. “He's someone I've made a date with tonight . . .”

That night he made love to her so fiercely she cried out half a dozen times in painful ecstasy. Afterwards, when she had fallen asleep, he lay and stared at the darkness, wondering if it was the last time
he
would ever make love to her. Normally he did not suffer from post-coital blues. Those, he had always thought cynically, were the symptoms, not of nascent melancholia but of lack of stamina.

Sunday morning he opened the newspapers to different treatments of the same story. The
Sun-Herald
and the
Sunday Telegraph
each ran a lead story on the hit list. When he had finished reading both of them he knew they were like most Sunday stories, no more than beat-ups, a few facts and a lot of guesswork. The police had fed the press just so much and no more; there was no mention that the murder suspect was an ex-policeman. The Police Department had had some bad publicity from a couple of incidents this year and it was obvious to him that the Department was trying to cover up that an ex-cop was going around killing off other cops. Pride and public relations occasionally conjoin, though the first is a stirring of the spirit and the latter is a stirring of the public's gullibility.

Julie, still in her dressing-gown, mouth bruised from last night's love-making, looking as dissolute as a harlot and liking it, smiled at him above the
Telegraph,
which he had already read. “Wanna go back to bed, Fred?”