The Bear Pit (7 page)

While
Gail went looking for someone in charge Malone moved into the yard and stood looking at the children there. He was not naturally a child-lover, but the behaviour of the very small always fascinated him. Sometimes, but only occasionally, he saw in them what he would have to face when they grew up. He believed that the bad seed could show in sprouts.

Half a dozen sat in a tight circle under one of the jacarandas, bound by giggles as by a daisy chain. Malone smiled at them and they smiled back.

“You like it here?”

They all nodded, heads under their blue sun-hats going up and down like a circle of semaphores.

Malone looked at the large name-tabs pinned to their yellow smocks. There were Justin and Jared and Jaidene and Alabama and Dakota and Wombat Rose—“Wombat Rose? That's a nice name.”

She was four or five, a cherub with a wicked glint already in her big blue eyes. “Me mother wanted to call me Tiger Lily, but that was taken, she said.”

“No, I like Wombat Rose better.” Then he saw the small boy sitting by himself under the other jacaranda and he crossed to him. “Why are you sitting on your own over here?”

“They won't talk to me.”

“Why?”

“'Cos me name's Fred.”

Before Malone could laugh Gail Lee came out of the hall with a woman. “This is Mrs. Masson, the owner.”

She was in her forties and feeling the heat and the children, two pressures that rarely have a woman looking her best. She was good-figured and had thick brown hair and large brown eyes, but today, one guessed, was not one of her good days.

“Police?” She frowned, making another subtraction from her looks. “What do you want? Here?” She gestured at the innocence around them. “Has someone been trying to get at the children?”

“Nothing like that, Mrs. Masson. We're actually looking for a Mr. June. We'd like a word or
two
with him.”

“John? My partner?”

“He's a partner in the Centre?”

“No, no, he's my partner in that other—” She gestured. “We live together. De facto, if you like, but I hate the term.”

“Me, too. Where could we find him?”

“What's it about? Go and play, kids.” The children had gathered round the three adults, eyes and ears wide. “Go and play ball with Fred.”

Fat chance. Fred got up and went into the hall, taking his isolation with him.

“We'd just like to ask him some questions—”

“Are you a policeman?” asked Alabama or Dakota.

“Kids—” Mrs. Masson was losing patience with the children or the police officers or both—“inside!”

“Is she a lady cop?” asked Wombat Rose.

“Inside!”

Malone and Gail Lee hid their smiles as the children, taking their time, made their way into the hall. Suddenly the yard was bare, threatening; the playground equipment looked like torture machinery. Mrs. Masson said, “You're not local police, are you?”

“No.” Malone added almost reluctantly: “We're from Homicide.”

“Homicide?” She frowned again. “You're investigating a murder or something?” Malone nodded. “And you want to talk to John about it? Why?”

“We're not accusing him of anything, Mrs. Masson.” This route was well-worn: telling the innocent party things they didn't know. “We think he can throw some light on a case we're working on. How long have you known John?”

“I dunno—five, six years. We've been together ever since I opened this—” she swept an arm around her; it looked as if she wanted to sweep it away—“four years ago. It's a struggle since the
government
took money out of child care—”

“John doesn't work here?”

“No, he has his own one-man business—he's a carpenter and general handyman. I can get him on his mobile—”

“No, we don't want you to do that—”

She frowned yet again; then her eyes opened wide. “It's serious, isn't it? What's he done, for God's sake? Jesus—” She turned; a young Asian girl stood in the doorway of the hall. “Not now, Ailsa—not now!”

“Mr. June is on the phone—”

“I'll take it,” said Gail Lee and moved quickly to the doorway, pushed the girl into the hall and disappeared.

Mrs. Masson was silent for a long moment. A cicada started up, the first Malone had heard this summer; it was like a drill against the ear. Then Mrs. Masson seemed to gulp, as if she were drowning in disappointment. “What's he done? Are you going to tell me?”

“How much do you know about him? How much has he told you about himself before he met you?”

She walked slowly, almost blindly, across to a backless bench under one of the trees, the seat where Fred had sat in his exclusion. She sat down and Malone sat beside her, straddling the bench. Inside the hall a game had been started, the children laughing like a mocking chorus while the cicada had been joined by what sounded like a hundred others.

“He came from Melbourne, he said he'd been married before but it broke up after a couple of years. He has a mother down there, but I've never met her.”

“Has he been a good—partner? A good husband?”

“I've been married before. John is twice as good as the legal husband I had. I love him—does that answer your question? Now tell me what he's done.”

She looked at him pleadingly, but he turned away as Gail came out of the hall. “Mr. June is on
his
way. He'll be five minutes—he's coming from Lane Cove.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said there was some trouble with one of the children.” She looked at Mrs. Masson's angry frown. “I'm sorry—”

The frown now seemed to be permanent, like a scar. “For Christ's sake, tell me what he's done. You come here, upsetting everyone and everything—”

“We haven't done that, Mrs. Masson,” said Malone quietly. “We've upset you and I'm sorry about that. But no one else. Just let's wait till Mr. June gets here.”

They sat, while the laughter and screams came out of the hall and a magpie carolled in the jacaranda above them and a couple of mynahs chattered at it to get lost. The cicadas suddenly shut up and the other sounds seemed to increase. Then abruptly Mrs. Masson stood up, looked at her watch, said, “It's time for their morning snack,” and walked, almost ran, into the hall.

“It's never easy, is it?” said Gail.

“What?”

“Telling them what they don't know. Don't want to know.”

“Never.”

Then two minutes later the van drew up in the street outside. A man got out and came hurrying into the yard. Malone and Gail crossed from the bench to stand in his way as he headed for the hall doorway. “Mr. June?”

He pulled up sharply. “Yes. Are you the child's parents? What's happened?”

“No, Mr. June, we're not.” Malone produced his badge. “Can we have a word? Over here under the trees.”

June hesitated, then followed them. There was nothing threatening about him, though Malone had not been sure what to expect. He was medium height, running a little to fat, with a round pleasant face and thinning black hair that needed a cut. He was dressed in overalls that, with inserts showing, had been let out at the seams; a pair of gold-rimmed glasses hung on a string round his neck. His left hand had
the
top joint of the middle finger missing.

“What's the charge?”

“None so far. We just thought you could help us with our enquiries.”

“Shit, that old one!”

“You've heard it before, Mr. August?”

For a moment there was no expression at all, as if he were alone without thought. Then abruptly his face clouded, he rolled his lips over his teeth. “I gave that name away nine years ago—”

“Why?”

“I wanted to make a new start. I've done that—”

Then Mrs. Masson came out again into the yard; hurrying, as if running away from the children. She rushed straight at August, grabbed his left hand, stood holding it as if he were another of her charges. “What's it about, John? What do they want?”

“They just want to ask me some questions. I—I saw something the other day—I didn't tell you about it—”

“What?”

He was a practised liar; he had been living a lie for nine years. “A couple fighting—they just want me to tell them what I saw—”

“Someone's dead? They said they were from Homicide—” One could almost see her mind racing, she was defending—what? She looked at Malone. “Is someone dead?”

“Yes. We'll just take Mr.—Mr. June back to our office. He'll be back here within an hour.”

“Why can't you ask him the questions here?” She was still clinging to his hand. She's a mother, Malone thought, but where are her own kids?

Then the children came spraying out of the hall, a yellow-smocked torrent. Justin, Jared, Jaidene, Alabama, Dakota, Wombat Rose: even Fred joined the circle round the adults. Twenty or thirty other children milled around. They all stared at the adults, innocent as cherubs but ears as wide as devils'. Wombat Rose looked up at Malone and winked at him with both eyes.

“
Come on, Mr. June. We'll have you back here in an hour.”

“I'll come with you, John—”

He took his hand from hers, put it against her cheek. “It'll be all right, sweetheart. Don't
worry
, I'll be back, it's
okay
.”

It was difficult to tell if he was trying to tell her something. Was there some secret between them? But she just looked at him blankly, shook her head as if to deny that everything was okay.

Malone, Gail Lee and August/June went out of the yard, trailed by a dozen kids as far as the gate. Mrs. Masson still stood under the jacaranda tree; the tiny splurge of yellow smocks leaked away from her, leaving her high and dry and alone.

August looked back and waved with the hand that was his mark.

“I'll follow you,” he said, moving towards his van.

“No, lock it, John. We'll get you back here.”

“That's a promise?” For a moment something like a smile hovered around his small mouth.

“No, John. Depends what you have to tell us.”

Gail drove the unmarked police car and Malone sat in the back with August. They had been travelling for ten minutes before August broke his silence. “Now we're away from Lynne, tell me why you've picked me up.”

“We're questioning a list of clients from the Sewing Bee. Your name was on the list.”

He laughed. “The fat and the thin, a list of all those needing alterations? Come on—” Then he sobered, looked quizzically at Malone. “This hasn't got something to do with what happened to the Premier last night?”

“What makes you think it has?”

He shook his head. “You don't catch me like that. Yeah, I was at that place, the alterations centre, what's it called? The Sewing Bee. I remember standing at the window, having a look at the place across George Street, Olympic Tower. What I've read, what was on radio this morning, Hans Vanderberg was standing at the front of the hotel when he was shot, right? He was shot from the Sewing Bee, that
what
you're saying? So what am I supposed to know?”

He wasn't belligerent, just curious. Malone had met other hitmen and they had all had a characteristic coldness, sometimes blatant, other times subdued. It was a job, with most of them part-time: you killed the target, collected your pay, went home. One or two of them had been show-offs, mug lairs, but they did not last long; sooner or later someone hit them. August, if he was the hitman in the Vanderberg case, was out of character.

There was silence in the car again till they reached the Harbour Bridge, where they were held up by a long bank-up of traffic.

August looked out at the mass of cars and trucks, immobile as rocks.

“Can you imagine what it's gunna be like during the Olympics?”

“I'm leaving town,” said Malone. “I'm going to Tibooburra.”

“What about you, miss?” August could not be friendlier, more unworried.

“I have seats for all the main events at the stadium.” Gail glanced at Malone in the rear-vision mirror. “My father bought them. He said we're to be one hundred per cent, dinky-di Aussies for two weeks.”

“I'm one of the fifty thousand volunteer helpers,” said August.

“Doing what?” Shooting whoever is on the official dais on opening day? Malone, against reason, was becoming irritated by August's apparent lack of concern.

“Helping the disabled. Getting them seated, things like that. I like volunteer work. I do Meals on Wheels in my van once a week.”

Are we bringing in the wrong bloke
? But you had to start somewhere and this man was the only one with a record. Malone made no comment and they drove the rest of the way to Strawberry Hills in silence. As they rode up in the lift to Homicide's offices August said, “You're making a mistake, you know.”

“We sometimes do, John. But once we've eliminated them, we usually come up with the right answer.”

“Are there any reporters here?”

“
We don't encourage them.”

“Do me a favour? After I've convinced you I know nothing about all this, don't let them know you've had me in here. I want to protect Lynne and her day-care centre.”

Gail took August into one of the interview rooms and Malone went into his office to see what was on his desk. Clements followed him. “Why'd you bring him back here instead of taking him to Police Centre and the incident room?”

“Because that's where the media are hanging out. I don't want them asking questions or guessing till we've got something definite.”

“He admitted anything?”

“Nothing. Anything further come in?”

“We double-checked the Sewing Bee list, everyone on it has been interviewed. He's the only one with form, if you exclude Charlie Hassett.”