Pride's Harvest (44 page)

“I'll get things tidied up here, Scobie, then I'll hand the running sheets over to you and Russ. Call on me if there's anything further. Or do you want me to set up a Crime Scene room down at the station?”

“Let's keep it small for the moment. Handle it without too much fuss, Wal. I don't want our street turned into the Mardi Gras.”

Lisa had Malone's breakfast on the table when he went back into the kitchen: apple juice, muesli with sliced mango, toast, honey and coffee, “I heard those remarks out there. You're right, I wouldn't let you leave the house with an empty belly.”

“Any clues, Daddy?” Maureen had recovered. Given her head, she would have been out in the street giving interviews to the media. Her father had the most interesting job in the world: solving murders
was
heaps better than making a fortune buying and selling crummy old buildings or being a general fighting a crummy war. “I heard you say his name. Scungy something.
Scungy—
what a name!”

“What's it mean?” said Tom, adding another word to his catholic vocabulary.

“Creepy,” said Claire, his teacher. “Sleazy. God, tomorrow it's going to be absolutely stoking at school! First day of term and all everyone will want to talk about is our murder!”

“What's wrong with that?” said Maureen, story already rehearsed.

“Our
murder?” said Lisa, looking at Malone from the other end of the table, “If I hear anyone say that again, there'll be another murder. Okay?”

The children suddenly sensed their mother's displeasure; what disturbed them was that it seemed to be directed against their father and not them. Malone himself felt the impact. He chewed on a mouthful of muesli, chewing on the right words too: “There'll be no more cops here, I promise. They'll get everything cleared up today and that'll be it.”

“I wanted to take pictures.” Tom had been given a camera at Christmas, a present from Lisa's parents who, in Malone's view, always lavished too much on the children. The pool outside had been a present from Jan and Elisabeth Pretorius and when Malone had first dived into it the water had stung him like a bathful of vinegar.

“If he's going to take pictures, I'd like copies of the running sheets,” said Maureen. “I'll write an essay for Social Studies—”

Malone abruptly got up from the table and as he went out of the kitchen he heard Claire say, “Shut up, motor-mouth. This is a domestic.”

God, he thought, they've even learned the jargon. What have I done to them? Then he was aware of Lisa behind him in the hallway. He stopped at their bedroom door.

“It's not my fault, y'know.”

“I know that. But whom do I bitch to?”
Whom:
Dutch-born, she had a respect for English grammar that the natives had recently tossed into the waste-basket.

“Did you hear what Claire said?
This is a domestic.
Are you going to beat the hell out of me?”

“
I always thought it was the other way round, husbands beating up their wives.” She put her arms round his neck. “This doesn't mean they'll be looking for you next, does it?”

He went stiff in her embrace. “Start thinking like that, I
will
beat the hell out of you! Jesus, darl—” Then he relaxed, feeling the stiffness in her; he was only increasing her fear, his denial sounded too forced. “Putting Scungy in the pool is just some sort of sick joke, that's all. Even his name is a sick joke.”

She was not convinced. She knew that he loved her as deeply as any man could love; but she knew too that a man's passion is rarely as deep, never as consuming as a woman's can be. Scobie would die for her, she knew; she would do the same for him, but gladly. She wasn't sure that men ever died gladly, least of all for love.

She kissed him. “I want everyone out of the place by tomorrow morning, the Crime Scene tapes taken down, everything gone. I'm coming back to my home first thing tomorrow morning and I want Scungy whatever-his-name-is scrubbed right out, not a trace of him. I love you.”

“I was beginning to wonder.” He grinned, though it was an effort, and returned her kiss.

******

Enjoy
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Scobie Malone Series

Dragons at the Party

Now and Then, Amen

Babylon South

Murder Song

Pride's Harvest

Dark Summer

Bleak Spring

Autumn Maze

Winter Chill

Five-Ring Circus

Dilemma

The Bear Pit

Yesterday's Shadow

The Easy Sin

Standalone Novels

The City of Fading Light

Spearfield's Daughter

The Faraway Drums