Dark Summer (6 page)

“Did conceit kill them or did you?”

He looked at her steadily. “I thought you said you'd read up on me?”

“I did. It said you were charged with two murders, but were acquitted.”

“Don't you believe in the jury system? Twelve of your peers who judge you innocent or guilty?”

“No,” she said, her own gaze as steady as his. “I've gone into court with junkies and seen the jury condemn them before they've heard the evidence. We're all full of prejudices, Mr. Aldwych.”

He continued to stare at her, then he said, “You and me are gunna get on all right, Janis. Now let's watch the cricket.”

As he turned away to watch the play out on the field, he wondered if he had retired too soon. This girl had enough conceit, if that was the word, to smother Jack Junior.

2

I

MALONE CAUGHT
a cab back to Homicide in Surry Hills. Till three months ago Homicide had been headquartered in the big new complex, the Police Centre, across the road. Lavish in its space, antiseptic in its cleanliness, its attraction had proved too magnetic for the desk generals of Administration and another of the now-too-frequent reorganizations had taken place. Homicide had been moved across the road to the Hat Factory, a one-time commercial building which had indeed been a hat factory. Jokes were made about size 7¼ homicides, but the general feeling was that the working police, as usual, got the backwaters while the Minister and the brass got the harbour views. The sourest joke was that the old Hat Factory could never have made a hat that would have fitted the head of the Police Minister, Gus Dircks.

Clements was waiting for him, followed him into his room. It was no more than an office built into one corner of the main room, the upper half of it glass-walled. The squad room had been given a new coat of yellow-cream paint, the blue-grey carpet was not yet worn, the beige filing cabinets not yet chipped and dented; yet Malone had a feeling that everything was makeshift, that as soon as a further backwater could be found, they would be moved again. All that could be said for it was that it did not have the sleazy look that distinguished most squad rooms he saw in American films or on TV. No Hill Street blues were sung here, not yet.

“How'd you get on?” Clements asked.

“See what you can find out about a social worker, she's in drug rehabilitation, her name's Janis Eden. She's a girlfriend of Jack Aldwych's son. Any word yet from
your
girlfriend?”

“Lay off. Romy and I are—just friends. No, she hasn't called with anything more. Wayne Murrow phoned in—they got a print or two off the pool gate. They're checking records now. G'day, Peter.”

A
man in white overalls, carrying a large plastic waste-bag, had come into the big outer room and moved down towards them, emptying waste-baskets as he passed each desk. Now he stood in the doorway of Malone's office.

“Sergeant.” The man gave a nod, a slight formal bow of recognition. He was in late middle age, thick dark hair streaked with grey, fleshily handsome, sad-eyed yet at the same time arrogant-looking; Malone had seen the type countless times, the immigrant who hadn't managed to achieve his old status, whatever it had been. He had not seen this particular cleaner before. “May I clean out the basket?”

“Sure. This is Inspector Malone. Peter Keller. He's Dr. Keller's father.”

Malone, sitting on the end of his desk, stood up and shook hands with the older man, who hesitated a moment before putting out his own hand. But the grip was strong: having made the decision, he was declaring himself an equal.

“Peter was a cop in Germany,” said Clements.

Malone had picked up his waste-basket, was ferreting through it; once or twice he had carelessly disposed of notes that he had later needed. “No, nothing in there.” He handed the basket to Keller. “So you were a cop?”

“Yes, Inspector. I was a sergeant.” He spoke as if rank were everything.

“Did you ever try to join our force?”

“I was too old by the time I came here. There was also the language—my English was not very good then. A pity. I had the experience with criminals.” He emptied Malone's basket into the big bag he carried. “This is the closest I get now to what I used to be. Excuse me.”

He moved on out of the office, straight-backed and a little flamboyant, making a ritual out of a menial task. Clements waited till he was out of earshot, “I met Romy through him—she came to pick him up here just after he'd started, about a month ago.”

“He got any politics?”

“You mean is he an ex-Nazi or something? I wouldn't have a clue. Who cares now, anyway? What about this Janis Eden? Do I put her name on the Grime sheet?”

“
Not yet. I didn't get anywhere with Jack Aldwych—he tells me he's retired and maybe he is, I've heard the rumour before. But this girl . . . I'd just like to know how a social worker gets to go out with the son of one of the richest men in the country, especially if Dad's a crim like old Jack.”

“Maybe they met in a disco or somewhere? You ever been to one? Some of the top ones, where you can't get in unless you're rich or good-looking, you meet all sorts. She good-looking?”

“Yes. You telling me you've been allowed into these joints? You're not rich and you're not good- looking.”

“I flash my badge at the guy on the door. Also, last time I went I was with Romy, she's good- looking enough to get in anywhere. Mate, this is a democratic town, at least for the young 'uns. You pick the right place and your luck's in, you can meet practically anyone. Is Jack Junior—I've never met him, but I hear that's what he's called—is he the disco type?”

“How would I know? I didn't know you were the type.”

Then his phone rang: it was Romy Keller: “We haven't opened Mr. Grime up yet, Inspector. We're waiting on the AIDS or hepatitis tests—we have to send a blood sample out to Westmead. Things aren't as quick as they used to be, not now we're all so AIDS-conscious . . . I've gone right over the body and all we've found is a needle-mark in the fold under the right buttock. I don't know if it means anything. I suspect he may have died of some sort of poison, but whether it was given orally or by injection, I don't want to commit myself just yet. I don't think we'll have anything definite for you before this evening.”

“Thanks, Doc. There are no signs that Scungy was a drug-user?”

“None. No needle-marks, no sign of any wear on the nasal membranes from cocaine use. We've only made a cursory examination till we get the all-clear on the AIDS and hepatitis tests, but I'd say Mr. Grime was clean as far as drug-taking. Is Russ there?”

Malone handed the phone to Clements, got up and moved out of his office. As he went out into the main room Andy Graham and Phil Truach came in. Graham was tall and heavily built and restlessly energetic; one sometimes had to wear dark glasses against the glare of his enthusiasm. Truach, on
the
other hand, was slim and bony and his enthusiasm, if he had ever had any, had soured into cynicism. They made a good, well-balanced partnership.

“Where've you two been?” Murder doesn't take a holiday, but on public holidays Homicide usually operated with a skeleton staff, with certain members on call.

“We've been down Palmer Street.” Graham took off his jacket, bounced around his desk as if debating whether to do handstands on it. “You know Sally Kissen, she runs—
ran
a brothel down there. Half the girls in William Street used her place.”

“We got a call from one of the girls an hour ago,” said Truach, who was already seated rock-like in a chair, as if he knew he and Graham were an act and he had to play up the contrast to his partner's restlessness. “They found Sally dead in bed. Some of the Crime Scene boys are down there still. I gather they'd just come from your place.”

Malone told them about Scungy Grime; then he said, “For Pete's sake, Andy, sit down!” Graham dropped into a chair, but then couldn't make up his mind whether to cross his legs or shove them straight out in front of him. Malone sat on the edge of the desk, turning his back on Graham. “How did the Kissen woman die? Shot, stabbed, what?”

“We don't know. The GMO, old Joe Gaynor, couldn't find any wounds or bruises. She took drugs, there were needle-marks on her arms, but it didn't look as if she'd OD'd. It could of been a heart attack, but I don't think so. Doc Gaynor didn't think so, either. He thought she might've been poisoned.”

“Where's the body?”

“It's gone out to Glebe, to the morgue.”

“Righto, give me copies of your sheets. And Andy—” Graham was a speed typist, bashing at his typewriter with his usual energy. “Keep your typos to a minimum. The last sheet I saw of yours looked like a wallpaper pattern, The same on the computer.”

He went back to his office. Clements was about to hang up, but Malone held up his hand. “You still talking to the doc? I want to speak to her.”

Clements handed him the phone, but first said goodbye to Romy Keller in a voice full of kisses,
a
tone that raised Malone's eyebrows. With his hand over the mouthpiece Clements said, “You don't know my romantic side.”

“Spare me . . . Doc? There's another body on its way out to Glebe. Ask Doc Gaynor if you can have a look at it. The name is Kissen, Sally Kissen, she was a hooker. I think she may have gone the same way as Grime. Oh, take care. She was a drug-user.”

“Then we'll have to do the AIDS and hepatitis tests before I can touch her. I don't think I can give you anything conclusive on either corpse till tomorrow. Can you wait?”

“They're dead, Doc, and I haven't a clue what happened to them. How long have you been a GMO?”

“Three months.”

“You'll learn that here in Homicide we're patient. Even Russ.”

“You don't know him,” she said, but he thought she laughed before she hung up.

Malone sat down again at his desk, picked up Grime's diary. The entries were cryptic; Grime had not been making notes for posterity. Yet, when a man was murdered, posterity had to take over. Most of the entries were the trivia of a person's life: bills to be paid, a doctor's appointment, a change in work shift. Initials sprinkled the small pages: Drink with B.H.; Call J.A. (those same initials again); Ran into K.L. Then, on a date three weeks past, there was a query, the only query amongst all the entries, and it was in capital letters: WHAT IS S.W. DOING UP HERE?

Malone handed the small book to Clements. “What do you make of that?”

Clements looked at the entry. “Do we know any S.W.? And what does
up here
mean?”

Malone shrugged. “If Scungy worked at Darling Harbour or Walsh Bay, maybe they think of Port Botany as
down there.”
Port Botany was about twelve kilometres south of Port Jackson, the official name for Sydney Harbour; in Malone's youth it had been known, as it had been for almost two hundred years, as Botany Bay. Now it had been renamed and was a major container port. “What upset him so much, the entry's in caps?”

“Let's check with the WLU, see where Scungy worked.”

But
the WLU office did not work on national holidays. Clements hung up the phone, “I'm getting naïve in my old age, expecting seven days a week from a union office.”

Malone grinned; Clements spread his prejudices wide. He stood up, picked up his jacket. “I'm going home. Detectives shouldn't have to work on holidays, either.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Try and trace Scungy's wife, give her the bad news. Ask Wayne Morrow to send one of his fellers down to Scungy's flat, go through it with a vacuum cleaner. The point is, we can't do much till Crime Scene comes up with something and your friend Doc Keller tells us what killed Scungy.”

“You're spoiling my Australia Day. I was gunna go out and sell flags.”

“Mine was spoiled at seven o'clock this morning when Maureen found Scungy in our pool.”

“Sorry.” For all his rough exterior, his obviousness, Clements was not insensitive. “You want me to drive you home?”

“I'll get a cab, charge it to petty cash.” He was a tight man with his own money. One of the heroes in his pantheon was J. Paul Getty, the oil billionaire who charged his house-guests for their phone calls. “If Doc Keller has anything interesting to tell you this evening, ring me at home.”

As soon as he stepped out into the street, his jacket over his arm, the heat hit him, threatening to fry him on the pavement. He squinted in the glare, thinking perhaps he
should
start wearing sunglasses, as Lisa was always insisting he do; then out of the bright yellow furnace appeared a cab, a miracle at this time of day on a holiday. A true-blue Aussie egalitarian, he got into the front seat beside the driver, a young Chinese student.

“You're a cop?” the driver asked warily, eyes slanting sideways at his passenger.

“Do I look like one?”

He was only six months in from Singapore, but already he had the Australian nose, “It's not so much what you look like . . .”

“You mean we have a smell to us? Relax—” as the cab wavered “—I'm not going to pinch you for insulting an officer. Where do you come from? Singapore? What are the cops like there? Can you smell
them,
those in plainclothes?”

The driver was frank, a most un-Chinese habit. “I was a student, you had to learn to recognize them. Otherwise you finished up as a guest of Mr. Lee. At least you police here aren't political.”

“Thank you,” said Malone, but wondered how many of the native students would agree.

Before he got out of the cab he paid the exact fare, sorting out the change in his pocket; tipping was un-Australian, despite the propaganda of immigrant waiters, and in Malone's case it was unheard-of. The Chinese driver, studying for an economics degree, was philosophical. “You want a discount for cash?”