Murder Song (7 page)

And now, somehow, she was involved in a murder. For the first time she was suddenly, terribly afraid; but for
him:
“Was it someone trying to kill you?”

He hesitated, took his hand away and put his arm along the back of the couch behind her. “I thought of that, only a few moments ago. I've got enemies, but I never thought anyone'd want to
kill
me. Christ, I
hate
violence!”

She was studying him, looking for the stranger she hadn't yet discovered: she knew there was one hidden there in Brian Boru O'Brien. He had none of Philip's classical good looks; the only feature that gave him distinction were the streaks of grey thick hair along his temples; there was no grey in her own equally thick dark hair, yet she was two years older than he. In public he had a certain arrogance to him, but never with her: not even at the moment they had first met, she remembered. He had been extraordinarily successful in a generation that, it seemed to her, had bred successful men like too-fecund rabbits. Yet, unlike the country's
nouveaux riches,
he did not flash his wealth. Sure, he lived in luxury at the Congress, but no one could drive or sail past and say, with sour envy, “There's that bastard O'Brien's ten-million-dollar waterfront palace.” He owned no yacht, no Learjet, not even a car; once, he told her, he had owned a Rolls-Royce in London, but in those days in the pop world you were expected to own a Rolls. It wasn't so much a status symbol, he had said, as a jerk of the thumb at the Establishment who had thought up till then they had owned the world. The financial columnists told her that his dealings with the business Establishment in this country were done with a jerk of the thumb; yet he was always a gentleman of the old school with her, though her father had belonged to the Establishment. He was not a gentleman in bed, but it was her guess that no man worth his balls was ever a gentleman in bed, even one of the old school: she couldn't imagine anything more boring than being made love to by a gentleman. Brian Boru was a sum of contradictions and she hadn't yet got them all in place. There was still a stranger hidden amongst them.

“
I think you should go to the police and tell them the truth.”

He shook his head emphatically. “I'll never tell them about you.”

“I don't want you to—I hope you don't have to. But if you have to explain where you were Saturday and Sunday . . .”

They had spent the weekend at a hotel on the Central Coast; in winter it had few guests and certainly none who would recognize O'Brien. She had worn a blonde wig and the rimless fashion glasses she wore when watching movies or television; they made her look older, but, she had told herself, she wasn't spending the weekend with some youth half her age. The wig had been a joke gift from Dolly Parton, whom Philip had invited to dinner at The Lodge during one of the singer's tours: she had got on like a fond sister with Dolly, a woman who understood men. She had trimmed the wig; she hadn't wanted some guest at the hotel asking her to sing “We Had All the Good Things Going.” Brian Boru had laughed at her disguise, but not in an offensive way; it had been a wonderful weekend. At forty-five she had been like a young girl in love for the first time, keeping him in bed till she had exhausted him and then, laughing, mothering him.

“Go and see the police. You may need their protection.”

“Darling, the police don't protect you—it's not their job. Not unless they want you as a witness.”

“They protect
me—
” But she knew that was different. “No, you're right. But I still think you should go to them, tell them you knew—what was her name?”

“Mardi Jack. She was a singer, you'd have never heard of her.”

“I wish I hadn't.” She couldn't help that: there are several sorts of love-bites.

He nodded, understanding. She wondered if he had been so understanding with his other women. “I first met her in London years ago, just after my second marriage broke up.”

God, you and your women!
All at once, for the first time, she was jealous. But all she said was, “Don't tell me any more about her.”

“You'll read all about her in the papers, I suppose.”

“I'll try not to.” But she knew she would: you didn't know what masochism was till you were
truly
in love.

“The papers will get on to me as soon as they find out who owns the flat. It's going to be pretty harsh from now on.”

He looked out at the grey garden. The rain had stopped, but the trees and bushes were still dripping. Some leaves floated on the pool like scabs on the dark green water; a magpie strutted importantly across the big lawn. More rain was coming up from the south-west, thick grey drapes of it. He understood weather; it was one of the reasons he had come home from England. He had been only thirty-five then, but already he had known that he could never grow old in the English climate. Now, suddenly, he was in a climate that frightened him.

“I think we'd better not see each other for a while. Just in case . . .” He put his hand on her shoulder. “I'd never forgive myself if you were hurt.”

“I'm going to be hurt if I can't see you.” But she knew he was right. “How did we two fall so much in love?”

III

It was the next afternoon, Tuesday, when Clements got the call from Ballistics. He listened to what they had to tell him; then he hung up and came into Malone's office. Malone was reading the running sheets of three other cases being handled by Homicide in Southern Region. When the Department had been regionalized almost two years ago, no one had quite been able to work out how the State had been cut up; it had been described as a cross between a jigsaw and a gerrymander, with no winners. Southern Region covered most of Sydney south of the harbour, then ran in a narrow strip about a hundred and eighty kilometres down the coast, then cut in an almost straight line across the State to the border with South Australia, taking in the whole of the area down to the Victorian border. On the map on Malone's office wall it looked like a huge axe stood on its head. An axe that many, including Malone, would like to have buried in the heads of the planners who had devised the regional plan.

Malone threw down the running sheets. “Well, what have you got?”

“
Ballistics. They match, all three bullets are from the same rifle. Jason James says they're .243s, probably fired from a Winchester, but maybe a Tikka or one of the other European guns. He knows his guns, that kid.”

“Interesting,” said Malone. “But where does that leave us? Three people bumped off in three different locations by the same hitman. Did they know each other?”

“I haven't a clue.” It was a cliché no policeman would ever repeat at a press conference.

“Who would want to shoot a construction worker, a desk cop and a second-rate singer?” Malone turned to look at the second map on his wall, one of metropolitan Sydney. “Those locations are all ten or twelve kilometres apart—Parramatta is more than that from Clarence Street. Where did the construction bloke live?”

“I'm not sure. Somewhere down on the Illawarra line. We didn't handle that one, the guys from Chatswood did it. We know where Terry Sugar and Mardi Jack lived. Can we tie O'Brien into that? I mean, say he was meant to be the target and not the girl?”

Malone shook his head. “That connection would be even further out than with the girl. If he was meant to be the target, how come the killer shot the girl by mistake? If he's a pro, that is.”

“I was at the flat before you, Scobie. The lights were still on. When the cleaning lady phoned in, they told her not to touch anything. She didn't. There were two table lamps on, that was all—both against the inside wall. Mardi Jack was in pants and her hair was cut short—against the light she could have been mistaken for a man.”

“Even through a „scope?”

“We don't know the circumstances, maybe the guy thought he was gunna be disturbed and had to hurry things. There's a security patrol checks all those buildings on that side of Kent Street every two hours.”

“The roof-tops, too?”

“No-o,” Clements admitted grudgingly. “Look, I know I'm trying to drag O'Brien into this. I'd like to think he was the intended target. That'll be a bloody sight easier than trying to nail him as the guy
who
hired the hitman to hurt Mardi Jack.”

“You're looking for an easy way out.”

Clements nodded. “It's the weather. I'm sick of getting a wet arse. I'd just like to sit here and have the case come in and drop itself in my lap.”

Then Malone's phone rang and he picked it up. It was Chief Superintendent Danforth. “Can you pop into my office, Scobie? I'd like to see you.”

“Right now, Harry?”

“Now, Scobie. I've got Sergeant Chew here with me from Northern Region and Sergeant Ludke from Parramatta.”

Malone hung up, cursing softly. Harry Danforth was one of the old-style cops who believed that the operative word in the phrase
police force
was the last word. He had been noted for his stand-over tactics; he never went in for strategy, because he didn't know what it meant. Twice there had been departmental charges of corruption against him, but Internal Affairs had never been able to prove anything. He had remained under suspicion and had been offered the opportunity to resign on full pension, but he had refused. He was within a year now of the retiring age of sixty-five and the Department had, in its own fit of resignation, solved the problem of Harry Danforth by promoting him to chief superintendent and moving him upwards out of harm's and the public's way. He had an office in Police Centre and the title of Crime Coordinator, a caption no one quite understood but which was thought, in view of his past history, an apt description.

“Danforth wants to see me. He's got Jack Chew and Hans Ludke with him.”

Clements raised his eyebrows. “Maybe we're gunna draw a prize. Maybe they've got some connection.”

“Now all we have to do is link it with Mardi Jack. While I'm gone, send someone down to one of the newspapers and have them dig out a photo of Brian Boru. Then have them go back to The Warehouse and go through all the tenants there, the permanent residents and the companies that own flats there, and show „em O'Brien's picture. If he's used that flat at all, he'd have to have met
someone
going
up and down in the lift.”

“You don't believe he didn't know Mardi Jack?”

“No. Do you?”

“No,” said Clements. “I'd never back a horse on intuition. But I'd lay money my intuition is right about him. He's a born liar. I'm never wrong, tipping them.”

“I'll take you any day over forensic evidence,” said Malone and went out of his office.

Chief Superintendent Harry Danforth was a big man, but most of his muscle now was fat. He had a pink, mottled face and cunning rather than shrewd eyes; he had a short-back-and-sides haircut and a voice foggy with years of free whiskies and cartons of purloined cigarettes. He was the last of his kind, out of place in the bright clean clinic that was Police Centre. He still had the suggestion about him of dark walls and fly-spattered lights and grime of old police stations.

“You know Jack Chew and Hans Ludke?”

Malone had met Ludke on only one or two occasions; he was German-born but looked Latin: tall and dark with a bony handsome face and thick finger-waved hair that Malone thought had gone out with the advent of unisex salons. He had the reputation of being a good honest cop and a hard worker.

Jack Chew was an Australian-born Chinese, compactly built and with a face that, Malone was sure, had an acquired Oriental inscrutability. Russ Clements had once worked on a case with him and had come back with a story of Chew's approach. The suspect, a part-Aboriginal, had taken one look at Chew, but the Chinese had got in first: “No Charlie Chan jokes or I'll run you in for obscene language.”

“What fucking obscene language?”

“That'll do for starters,” Chew had said and grinned at Clements. “They fall for it every time.”

Malone said hullo to the two detectives and sat down. “What's on, Chief?”

There were times when Danforth liked to be reminded, and have others reminded, of his rank. He was not unaware of his low standing with younger officers, but he was too lazy to attempt any strict discipline. Malone knew that so long as one touched the forelock occasionally, Danforth could be handled.

“
The Assistant Commissioner, Crime, has put me in charge of these three murders. Two of the victims were hit by the same rifle.”

“So was the third,” said Malone. “I just got the results from Ballistics.”

Chew and Ludke looked at each other, then all three officers looked at Danforth. He ran a ham of a hand over his head; it was a habit, as if he were trying to push his thoughts into some sort of working order. “Well, it looks like we've got something, doesn't it?”

What?
Malone wanted to ask.

“Now we might be able to get somewhere.” Danforth leaned forward on his desk. “You men will work independently on your own cases, okay? But you'll send me copies of your running sheets each day and I'll have „em co-ordinated.”

“What have you fellers got so far?” Malone asked.

“Not much,” said Ludke and handed Malone a copy of his running sheets. “Everything's in there, Terry Sugar had had no threats. Matter of fact, he was probably the most popular cop in the district. He had no connection, as far as we can trace, with any crims, drug pushers, scum like that. His family life was happy—his wife says she'd have known if he was carrying on with any other woman. There's no motive so far, none that we can see.”

Malone glanced at the brief history of the life and death of Terence Ronald Sugar. Born 16 January 1945, two years in a factory after leaving high school, enlisted as a police cadet February 1965, steady promotion but career indistinguished except for two commendations for bravery . . . “How did he get on with the Asians out your way? You have some Vietnamese gangs out there.”