10

I

“A LOT of owners look on their horses as toys,” said O’Brien. “Though they’d never admit it. But they’re like kids with their dolls—they get them out and play with them.”

Malone, seated on the verandah beside O’Brien, looked out on the visitors, thirty or forty of them, who had come up to Cossack Lodge for Sunday brunch and the weekly opportunity to look at their profligacy on the hoof. A non-racing man, he had never understood the gambling urge or the desire to splurge money on anything so unreliable as a thoroughbred horse. Once, during the boring hours of a stake-out, Clements had tried to explain to him that the odds were not as bad as he supposed, but he had remained unconvinced. There were a hundred horses here on the stud, plus those on short-term agistment, and O’Brien had admitted that only one in ten might prove a worthwhile investment. Malone, a cautious man with a penny, liked better odds than that.

But he was not really concerned with the fortunes of the horses’ owners. “I wish you could have put off this brunch.”

“It’s a regular thing, Scobie. They expect it. They like to come up here and talk to the stud-master and show how knowledgeable they are and how shrewd they’ve been in their buying. Besides, after what was in this morning’s papers about the hit list, they’d have come anyway. Look at them—they’re giving you and me as much attention as their horses and mares.”

“Well, I guess that’s something, an Aussie cop getting as much attention as a racehorse. You think they’ll ask for my autograph?” He looked down again at the well-dressed crowd moving between the stables and the white railings of the paddocks. “Have you considered the possibility that one of them could be Frank Blizzard?”

O’Brien turned his head. “Yes, I considered that. They’ve all been checked at the gate, they’re all regulars plus a few of their own friends who they had to name. But yes, one of „em could be Blizzard. But I don’t think he’s going to try his luck in front of so many witnesses. I’ve known all these people ever since I got into the racing game three or four years ago. Before I started the stud. If one of them was Blizzard, he’d have killed me before this.” He was surprised at his own coolness as he said it.

Malone said nothing for a while, then: “If you go down the drain, will you lose the stud?”

For a moment or two it looked as if O’Brien would not answer that. He stared out at the landscape, where patches of spring green were beginning to appear on the brown hills in the distance. A black horse stood alone on the far side of a distant paddock, as still as if carved from rock; it drew the eye away from the chatter and movement down by the paddock railings. He would regret losing this property; not because it was another possession but because here he had begun to find a certain peace. Something he had come to realize only this weekend.

At last he nodded. “It’s going to be bought, everything at rock-bottom prices, just enough for the ordinary shareholders to get their money back. I’ll come out with bugger-all.”

“Bugger-all?”

O’Brien smiled wryly. “Well, maybe not all. I’ve got a little stashed away that they can’t touch.”

“In the Cook Islands or the Caymans?”

O’Brien raised an amused eyebrow. “You know the hideaways. No, not there, but somewhere.”

Malone felt an itch of sympathy for the man beside him and wondered why. O’Brien was representative of everything he despised in today’s society, the entrepreneur who used every promotion and tax dodge that presented themselves, for whom conscience was like an appendix, excisable. Malone did not envy him his wealth, whatever was left of it, nor his life style; nor did he himself suffer from the national harvester’s disease, the cutting down of tall poppies. His contempt went deeper than that, he was afflicted with an old-fashioned morality that allowed no qualifications. Yet, and he was troubled by the feeling, he did not want to see O’Brien completely destroyed. Somewhere within the man a spark of unselfishness had begun to glow.

“Do you have enough to take care of you and Anita for the rest of your lives?”

O’Brien smiled again at that, but it was a sad not a wry smile. He spread his big hands in a who-knows? gesture.

Anita had called him yesterday afternoon from Canberra and they had talked for an hour. Malone had been out in the living room watching a rugby league telecast. The sound had been turned up, as if Malone had wanted the roar of the crowd and the galloping clichés of the commentators (“a shock try adjacent to the uprights!”) to drown out any remarks by O’Brien on the bedroom phone. He had been glad that Malone could not hear him: he and Anita had come closer to outright argument than they ever had before.

She had said, “I’m going to leave Philip. He can divorce me if he wishes, but I don’t think he will, not till after the next election, anyway.” As if the voters were some sort of marriage counselling service. “We’ll just announce an amicable separation, I think that’s what they call it.”

“No.”

“Yes!”

“No, you’re not going to throw your life away on me—”

“What life? I haven’t had a life of my own since Philip came into politics. I’ve been married to a man I haven’t loved for, I don’t know, for four or five years. I’ve been the patroness of committees that think of me as no more than a figurehead, always on show—”

“You’re more than that and you know it. Countries need a First Lady—”

“I’m not the First Lady, the Governor-General’s wife is that. I’m just the first reserve.”

“Australia’s women think you’re the First Lady.” He was sounding like a patriot, a guise that fitted him like a clown’s baggy trousers; even in his own ears he sounded comically pompous. “Sweetheart, stop putting yourself down—”

“Darling—” She had made up her mind, though a woman’s resolution is never set in concrete: she is too intelligent for that and concrete, anyway, is a man’s medium. “I’m not going on with Philip the way things are at the moment—”

“Have you told him about us?”

“No. But he’s guessed there’s someone else—I’ve moved out of our bedroom—”

“What do The Lodge staff think of that?”

“It’s none of their business. In any case, I think they’re all Labour voters—”

“So it must be all around Parliament House by now.” All at once he was too weary to continue trying to protect her. He relaxed, smiling to himself, lay back on the bed with the phone still propped against his ear.

“Are you still there? What are you thinking?”

“I’m just smiling at the thought of the cook and the maids and the butler being Labour voters. I once had a butler—he was the biggest right-wing conservative you could ever meet, he thought Churchill was a pinko—”

“Then why did he work for you?”

“He lasted a week.”

“You fired him?”

“He fired me. I was „way below his class.’”

She was too shrewd for him. “You’re trying to change the subject. I’m leaving Philip, whatever you say. I want to come up to the stud to talk it over with you—”

“No!” He sat up, no longer smiling, desperate again to protect her.

“I’ll wear my wig and my tinted glasses—”

“Anita, the place is crawling with cops and security men—Inspector Malone is here for the weekend—”

“You didn’t tell me!” Now she was fearful for him. “What’s happening, for God’s sake? When you called me this morning about Sebastian Waldorf’s murder—” She was silent for a moment, as if all at once she realized the horror of what she was saying. Then she went on, her voice unsteady, “You didn’t say anything about all of you—and the police, too?—all of you going up to the stud. You just said you were going up there for the weekend. Darling, what’s happening?”

“We’re just playing safe,” he lied. She wouldn’t understand what they did to lure tigers out of the jungle in Sumatra or wherever the hell it was.

“Playing safe? God, why do men always have to talk in game terms? This—this murderer Blizzard isn’t playing! He’s trying to kill you!”

The argument had gone on; like all lovers’ arguments, when they are truly in love, it had gone round in circles. Finally, angrily, she had seen his point: she could not come to the stud where she would be surely recognized. She said, laughing sourly, “Think of the jokes. The Prime Minister’s mare visiting a stud—”

“Don’t,” he said, stricken for her.

She relented, began to weep, something he had never seen her do and, indeed, did not see now. “Are you crying?” he said.

“No,” she said after a moment; but women have never learned to stop weeping without sniffling, just as men have never learned to turn a deaf ear to it. He heard her blow her nose, then she said, “I’ll be up in Sydney on Wednesday. We’ll meet at Joanna’s again. You and I have to sit down and talk. Seriously.”

“Yes,” he promised, lying again. Whatever plans she would propose, he had no counter-plans. Under a death sentence or two, it was difficult to plan a future. Especially if one also had to go to jail first.

He came back to today, Sunday, saw Malone leaning forward and peering down towards the stables. “What’s the matter?”

“Those Chinese, are they clients of yours?”

O’Brien sat forward. “Yes. The little round man is Sir Keye Chai—he’s a big wheel in Hong Kong. He comes down once a month on business, then he comes up here—he has half a dozen horses here—” Then he stopped as he saw the familiar figure amongst the other three Chinese. He looked at Malone. “You know the guy in the suede jacket and the checked cap?”

“So do you,” said Malone matter-of-factly. “Leslie Chung. Does he have any horses here?”

O’Brien hesitated; but he no longer wanted to lie to Malone. “No.”

“So what’s he doing here? Give me the truth, Brian, no bullshit.”

What’s the point of hiding it any longer? I’ll be telling it all in front of the NCSC on Tuesday. “He’s one of the guys I was telling you about. Laundered money.”

“Anything else?”

“We-ell, yes. He feels I did him out of a profit on some shares.”

“You pick some beauts to fool around with. Is he one of those who tried to have you bumped off?”

O’Brien shrugged, looking down again at the four Chinese as they came out from the stables and moved towards the linen-clad tables and the chairs set out on the wide lawn in front of the house. “Probably. But you could never prove anything against him. Has he got a record?”

“None that I know of. Half a dozen squads—Fraud, Homicide, the Drug Squad, you name it—we’ve been trying to nail him for years. But no go. He’s lily-white. How much did he put through your bank?”

“I wouldn’t know—George Bousakis could tell you that. Several million at least. He never came to see us personally, it was always handled through a go-between.”

“Who else is in cahoots with him?” O’Brien hesitated and Malone said impatiently, “Come on, Brian—quit stalling! You owe me. You said you were going to open up everything on Tuesday—you owe it to me to tell me first!”

“What’ll you do if I give you their names?”

“I don’t know,” Malone confessed. “If we manage to get Blizzard first, maybe I’ll go after them then.”

“What for?”

“Conspiracy to murder.”

“You’d have Buckley’s chance of proving it.”

“Maybe. But we’ve already traced Gotti to one crim, a cove named Tony Lango. Was Lango one of your depositors?”

O’Brien hesitated again; then he nodded. “Yes. There were two others, Dennis Pelong and Jack Aldwych.”

Malone pursed his lips, but did not whistle. “Christ, why didn’t you dig up Al Capone and invite him in, too? Do you have a death wish?”

“I really didn’t know that much about them when I first started with them. Remember, I’d been away for years.”

“Did you diddle them on the shares, too?” O’Brien nodded; and Malone shook his head at another of the fools who made his job harder. “Anyone else?”

“Like who? Aren’t those four enough?”

“Like Arnold Debbs.”

“No. Scobie, Arnold is shifty and has his hand out for anything you’ll put into it, he’s the most up-market panhandler I’ve ever met. But he wouldn’t be in any conspiracy to murder. He’s gutless.”

“Gotti went to see him in Canberra. It’s the gutless ones who go in for conspiracy. They hire someone else to do the job.”

“Are you saying Chung and the other three crims are gutless?” But he knew it was a frivolous question. “No, I know you’re not. They gave up doing their own dirty work years ago. They’re like generals in a war.”

“Righto, we’ll strike Debbs off the list for the time being. But the other four . . . If you name them on Tuesday, there’s going to be more flying off the fan than the Sewerage Board has ever had to clean up.”

“I’ll be naming Debbs and his missus, too, about insider trading.”

“You’re really going to spread it, aren’t you? Are you doing it for the good of your soul, as my mum would say?”

“You don’t sound impressed.”

“Would you be if you heard me saying what you’ve just said? You’re pointing the finger in every direction, trying to cop a plea.”

“You fellers put it to villains every day in the week, if you want to catch the big fry.”

“That doesn’t mean we have to like the principle.” Then Malone looked at him carefully. “Brian, are you after my approval?”

“Yes,” said O’Brien quietly. “It would help.”

Malone sat back in his chair, stared down at the four Chinese now seated at one of the tables where a waiter from the hired catering staff was bringing them their brunch. All the other tables had a woman, sometimes two or three, at them, and the four Chinese looked like a small funeral group amidst the chatter and gaiety. Champagne glasses were being raised around them, but the men from Hong Kong were drinking only tea. They knew better, Malone guessed, than to be stirred by the sight of one of their horses galloping around a paddock where there was nothing to beat. The Chinese were one of the great gambling races of the world, but they still listened to a bookie called Confucius.

“Brian, you’ve been a bastard most of your life. You’ve tried to take the mickey out of everything I’ve believed in. Decency, a fair go for the other bloke—well, never mind . . .” He didn’t want to lecture O’Brien. One can wear a clerical collar and sound pious; turn the collar round and one sounds sanctimonious. “Now it’s like watching a leopard peeling off his coat.”

“Maybe that’s why I feel so bloody cold,” said O’Brien, trying for a smile. “We’re getting literary.”

“What else would you expect of two Irishmen? My old man’s never read a book in his life, but pour half a dozen beers down him and he thinks he’s James Joyce. What about your old man?” As soon as he said it, it sounded like a brutal question.

O’Brien’s face went flat. “I called him the other day. I don’t know why—I just thought . . . It was no use. He just said I was where I deserved to be. Then he hung up.”

“Your mum?”

“She’s dead.”

Malone turned his face away, stared off into the distance, seeing nothing. He was infected with charity; the panhandlers of the world would always make him think twice. O’Brien had his hand out and he couldn’t refuse him; he looked: “All right, I approve. But you let me down, Brian, and so help me Christ . . .” He tried to sound threatening, but how could you threaten a man who might be dead before the week was out? He stood up. “Let’s go down and say hullo to your guests.”

O’Brien rose. “Which ones?”

“Les Chung and company.”

They walked down across the lawn, between the two kurrajongs trimmed like English ornamental trees, and out to the tables. Owners and their wives and girl-friends, the women distinguishable from each other by their self-assured possessiveness, as if they were owners of their menfolk, greeted O’Brien with wide smiles and offers of a glass of his own champagne. He was persona grata here on his own property, he was as pure-bred as one of his own stallions, no one would admit to knowing what graft was. O’Brien returned the greetings, but did not stop. He led Malone to the table where Sir Keye Chai presided with all the confidence that comes with great wealth and a certain Oriental sense of superiority. These visits to the barbarians Down Under made the British in Hong Kong more bearable.

“Mr. Malone—” he said, putting out a hand as smooth as silk; O’Brien had not introduced the detective with his rank. “You are interested in horses?”

“Not really, Sir Keye. I’m just a friend of Mr. O’Brien’s. An old schoolmate.”

“Mr. Malone is a detective-inspector,” said Leslie Chung, who had risen, like all the others, and shaken Malone’s hand with a formal politeness. “He is one of our State’s finest.”

Malone gave him a sharp look, but Chung’s mile was bland. “Do you race horses, Mr. Chung?”

“Never. I have tried to tell Sir Keye there are too many imponderables in the racing game—corrupt jockeys, corrupt trainers, horses that break down without warning—”

“Mr. Chung has no faith,” said Sir Keye, whose only faith was in himself. “I was educated in Hong Kong, he went to school in Shanghai. He was taught all the wrong things. They gave him Hsun Tzu to read. Too bad. Hsun Tzu once wrote, „If a man is clever, he will surely be a robber; if he is brave, he will be a bandit . . .’ You read the wrong books, Leslie.”

He looked at Chung and the two men smiled at each other with all the innocence of born-again infants. He knows how Chung makes his money, Malone thought; and wondered how Sir Keye made his. But the British in Hong Kong had not only given him the right books to read, whatever they were, they had given him a knighthood and a place in their own society. Malone, who had inherited a little of his father’s rabid anti-British feeling, suspected that the British knew there were more ways to trap a tiger than by shooting it. But maybe Sir Keye Chai was a totally honest man; why was he so suspicious of him? That was Con in him again, the racism he tried so hard to smother.

“May I see you a moment, Mr. O’Brien?” said Chung and took O’Brien’s arm and led him away.

Malone looked after them, then, because he could think of no polite way of saying no, accepted Sir Keye’s invitation to join him for a cup of tea.

“Indian tea, I’m afraid. A little strong for our taste, but then we find everything in Australia is like that.” Again there was the polite bland smile. Malone envied the Chinese their finesse at insults. “Or perhaps your own tastes are subtle, Mr. Malone?”

“I’m afraid not, Sir Keye. I’m part-Irish.”

“Remarkable people, the Irish,” said Sir Keye, letting one of his companions pour the tea. They were both burly men and Malone, more security-conscious than normal, wondered if they were bodyguards. “Two thousand years in the bogs and still treading water.”

Oh, Dad would love you! Bodyguards or no bodyguards, you’d be on your back in less than a minute.

Out beyond the rows of stables, where Chung had led him, O’Brien was not being insulted, just threatened.

“A word of warning, Mr. O’Brien. A Chinese philosopher once said, If you keep your trap shut, you’ll never catch anything, least of all yourself.”

“Who said that? Hsun Tzu?”

“No, actually it was myself.”

O’Brien’s smile was so thin it was almost indiscernible. “Do you guys play at being clones of Confucius?”

“I could be blunter, Mr. O’Brien, but I don’t want any violent reaction from you. Not in front of your guests. Take what’s coming to you on Tuesday, Mr. O’Brien, and don’t try to drag others down with you. You have already done the dirty on us. Don’t try it again.”

“It was you people who put me in with the NCSC.”

“What did you expect? You’re not dealing with little old ladies and their pension cheques.”

“Who are you speaking for? Just yourself or Debbs and the others?”

“Certainly not Debbs—he can look after himself, I hope. Nor for Pelong and Lango.”

“So it’s just you and Jack Aldwych?” O’Brien suddenly felt cold, though the sun was warm on his back. “You’re an odd couple.”

Chung shrugged his slim shoulders. “Only temporarily. We’ll go our own ways again after Tuesday. Be sensible, O’Brien. Keep your trap shut. Otherwise . . . Let’s go back and join your friend Inspector Malone. Why is he here?”

“Someone else is trying to kill me.”

“You do have troubles, haven’t you? Well, good luck. I think you may need it, one way or another.”

Later, when all the horse owners had gone, Malone sat out on the verandah and waited for O’Brien, after saying goodbye to the last of the guests, to come up and join him. The catering staff were carting away the tables and chairs, and out in the paddocks the horses were settling down after all the attention they had received. The day was abruptly peaceful again, the landscape soothing; but Malone could feel rage and impatience beginning to swell in him. It was not the visitors who had caused it. It was the expected visitor who had not appeared.

“Why the bloody hell doesn’t he come?”

“Who?” O’Brien was still preoccupied with Chung and his threat. Then he looked out over the stud, following the direction of Malone’s gaze towards the distant road, as if that was the route they expected their killer to take. “Oh, Blizzard.”

“Who else did you think?” Malone waited till O’Brien sat down beside him; only then did he notice the latter’s abstraction. “What did Les Chung have to say?”

There was no need now to keep secrets from Malone; instead, there was a need to tell him. Not to tell the police, but to tell a friend. “He’s promised to do me in if I open my mouth on Tuesday.”

“Kill you?” O’Brien nodded. “He was blatant as that?”

“Well, not exactly. But he didn’t have to spell it out. He’s not that dumb and neither am I.”

“I could have him picked up.”

“What’d be the use, Scobie? He’d deny it. It’d be my word against his and who d’you think they’d believe right now? Forget it.”

“What are you going to do Tuesday? Tell everything?”

“I don’t know,” said O’Brien; then added after a pause, “I guess it depends on whether Blizzard catches up with us between now and then.”

Then a car came up the long driveway and both men, as if the mention of Blizzard’s name had made them nervously alert, stood up. Malone had seen it travelling fast down the distant road, but the gates were hidden from the house by a grove of trees and he had not seen it turn into the stud. Now it swung in before the house and Clements got out.

When he was still some distance from them he almost shouted, “I think we’ve got a trace on Blizzard at last!”

II

Clements turned out into the narrow country road and saluted the two security men on the gates. It was a brand new unmarked car and so Malone had not recognized it. “Harry Danforth saw me taking delivery of it yesterday morning and got a bit shirty. He’s still got his old one.”

“Why would they give him a new one? They’re still hoping he’ll resign. Does he know you’ve got the lead on Blizzard?”

“No, I didn’t have it when I saw him. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt us or him.”

Clements drove on up the road, through the long shadows thrown by the long line of trees bordering the stud. They turned left on to another road that led to the main highway three miles away; they drove between what looked to be a plantation of trees. The road was badly pot-holed from the long wet summer and autumn, the worst in living memory; twice Clements had to swerve at the last moment to avoid holes that looked like baby craters. This electorate was represented in the State parliament by a National Party member and no Labour government, least of all Hans Vanderberg’s, was going to waste money on smooth riding for voters who elected a conservative.

The road dipped down into a cutting between steep rock-ribbed banks, went into the dusk under a narrow wooden bridge and came up to run for another half-mile before it came out between open paddocks where cattle grazed and a boy and his father flew a model aeroplane that went into a dive as the police car went past and crashed with a sickening jolt into the ground and disintegrated. Malone, looking back, could imagine the boy’s cry of anguish. The boy, running desperately through the long grass, could have been Tom.

They drove on, leaving the boy and his father behind. In the far distance could be seen the outskirts of the town of Camden. The light was a sort of golden silver and Malone could see nothing moving in it now, not even a bird. The world had stopped and, beyond the hum of the car, was dead silence.

Malone slowly began to relax. He had said nothing since they had left the stud gates and Clements, sensing the tension in him, had kept quiet. Now he glanced sideways at Malone.

“I think he knows you’re up here at the stud. It’s a guess, but I’d bet on it.”

“I’m not just going to sit and wait for him. I’m too jumpy, Russ. Now I know who he is.”

He had felt no surprise when Clements had told him and O’Brien about the lead to Colin Malloy; and had been surprised that he had taken it so calmly. He had not suspected Malloy and yet now he knew the TV cameraman should have been on the list of suspects. But when you were chasing a ghost, it was difficult to add flesh to the picture. He realized now that he had had no real list of suspects, that he had been no more than seeking a faceless man in a huge faceless crowd.

Clements had told him and O’Brien, “I went up to Channel 15 and talked to the news editor there, a guy named Katzka. I asked how the news crews were rostered and he said a cameraman usually worked with the same reporter and sound-man—in Malloy’s case, it was a sound-girl. But on two of those clips we saw, Malloy was with a different reporter, Katzka said. Malloy wasn’t originally rostered for those jobs, but he volunteered. I asked Katzka if that was unusual and he said he didn’t mind if crews swapped shifts, just so long as someone was there to do the job—That got me thinking.”

Clements had been carrying a book when he got out of the car; he had held it out to Malone. “Farewell, My Lovely.”

“So?” Malone had taken the book.

“A leading character in that is named Malloy—Moose Malloy. But Blizzard—I know it’s him—wasn’t stupid enough to call himself Moose. He just picked a name from his favourite author.”

O’Brien had taken the book from Malone and was leafing through it. “Why not Marlowe? He was Chandler’s private eye.”

Malone took his time, dredging up the results of experience. “Too obvious. When people choose an alias, one they’re going to use permanently, nine times out of ten it’s not a random choice. It’s usually a name with some association, something that’s easier to respond to. You pick a name you’ve never heard before and the chances are you won’t react when someone calls you by that name. Blizzard would’ve been smart enough to work that out.”

“What are you going to do?”

“You stay here, don’t go outside the house. Get all your security men and our four blokes on duty till I get back. Russ and I are going to see Mr. Malloy. You know where he lives, Russ?”

“He lives in Wollstonecraft. He and his wife, there are no kids, have a flat in Temple Road.”

“We’ll radio in for some men from the local region—we don’t want them thinking we’re busting in unannounced on their turf. We’d better have some strong back-up too, just in case. Ask for a squad from SWOS. But tell them and the local fellers to hold off, stay out of Malloy’s street, till we arrive. I don’t want all hell breaking loose before we get there.”

Clements had gone out to make the radio call from his car while Malone went in to get his gun and raincoat. O’Brien followed him into the house.

“I’d like to go with you.”

Malone paused as he strapped on his shoulder holster. “No, this isn’t any of your business.”

“I’m one of the intended victims. For Christ’s sake, don’t tell me it’s none of my business!” O’Brien was suddenly agitated, tension breaking out of him in a mixture of rage and fear.

“No, it isn’t, Brian,” Malone said firmly. “If I let you come with me and you were killed or even wounded, it’d be the end of me in the Department. The police have copped enough crap this past year—some of it deserved, I know, but not all of it. I don’t want more flung at us. You saw what the papers did today to the hit list story. I don’t know where they got it from, we’ve done our best to keep it as quiet as possible, but they made a circus of it.”

“Maybe Blizzard fed them the story?”

Malone put on his jacket over the holster. “Could be. I hadn’t thought about him. But if he is this bloke Malloy at Channel 15, he’d know who to call at the newspapers, he’d know how to feed them enough without giving himself away.”

“Well, I still want to come now.” O’Brien was dogged. His life was coming to an end and he was going to be removed from its climaxes.

“No. I mean it, Brian—no.” He was sympathetic to O’Brien’s frame of mind; but you could kill people with sympathy, even if only indirectly. “You stay here and worry about Les Chung and his mates. If we get Blizzard, you’ll be the first to know. I promise.”

O’Brien stood silent and motionless for a moment like a sullen child; then he put out his hand. “Good luck. Try and take him alive. I’d just like to kick him in the balls while he’s still alive. Not for myself, but for Mardi Jack.”

Malone grinned. “I’ll give him one for you.”

Then as the detective went out the front door O’Brien said, “Look after yourself, Scobie.”

Malone nodded to a friend, recognizing the real concern in the long bony face. What a pity you were a bastard for so long, Horrie.

Now, as Clements, foot hard down on the accelerator, blue light flashing on the roof, put them on the road to Sydney, Malone took the radio microphone, switched to the Police Centre channel. “Put me on to Constable Graham in Homicide.” Then he looked at Clements. “He’s on duty?”

“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?”

“This afternoon,” he promised. “When I’ve got my strength back.”

She smiled lazily, satisfied to wait, and went back to her paper. Then she looked at him again over the top of it. “You see this? Those killings you covered, they say they’re a hit list.”

“It’s a beat-up.” He wondered what she would say if he told her the truth, gave her the other two names to complete the list. But he couldn’t do that to her. “You know what the print boys are like, they’ve got to fill their pages, especially on Sundays. We’ve heard nothing at the channel.”

She wriggled her shoulders in a mock shiver. “I hate it whenever I read about real murder. It’s all right in detective novels, it’s, I dunno, somehow removed from you—”

“Turn to the social pages. See if the usual free-loaders have got their photos in the news again.”

After lunch he rang Nick Katzka at Channel 15; the news editor worked every second weekend. “Am I on stand-by today?”

“No, you’re free, Col. There are the usual weekend press releases by the pollies, nothing of any interest to anybody—I dunno why they bother. There’s some good overseas items—a train wreck in Holland, a tornado in the States—some nice disaster stuff. See you tomorrow morning.”

“What’s on the list for tomorrow?”

“There’s the funeral of that singer, what’s-her-name, Mardi Jack—there should be some show business faces there. Then there is the funeral of that last cop who was shot, Knoble. They’re both being buried out at Botany cemetery. You can cover them both and we’ll run „em in the same item.”

He felt that touch of excitement again, the matador’s thrill as the bull’s horns graze past his belly. “Okay, I’ll do those. Anything else?”

“Not at the moment. Oh, wait a minute. There was a cop up here this morning asking about you, a Sergeant Clements from Homicide. What’ve you been up to? He wanted to know your history, whether you volunteered for certain shifts—”

He looked at his hand holding the phone; the knuckles were white. “Did he ask you not to tell me he was making enquiries?”

“Well, yeah, he did. But you work for us, not them. He wasn’t prepared to be specific about anything, so I brushed him off—he got me just as I was getting down to work—”

“Thanks, Nick. It’s personal. I lost my temper on a job a week or two ago and said something I shouldn’t have.” The lie came smoothly, as if he had rehearsed it. Perhaps he had, subconsciously. He had known that some day, inevitably, there would be questions: from the police or Julie or from that God who, Aunt Elsie had told him, would always be waiting with the final query. “He’s probably decided to do something official about it. You know cops, they can be pretty touchy about us in the media.”

He hung up, stood motionless while his mind settled. He had sounded cool enough on the phone; but now he felt shaken and unsteady. For some time he had known there was the possibility of his being discovered; he also knew the thin line that divided possibility from probability. Fate was supposed to laugh at probability, but Fate always had the last laugh anyway. He had just not expected the net to be thrown so soon. Clements might already be on his way here. Nick Katzka might have to feature his chief cameraman as the lead item on tonight’s six o’clock news.

He looked about the living-room where he stood. Julie had made a good home for him here. It was more than just a comfortable stop-over to somewhere better, though they dreamed of a house and a garden and a pool that they would not have to share with others. He earned $45,000 a year with shift work and overtime and Julie earned $23,000; their mortgage was manageable, they had no other major debt, they owned two cars and every year they could afford a holiday on the Barrier Reef or to Fiji or New Zealand. It was a lot to give up and, for the first time, he wondered if his urge for vengeance had been worth it. But then, of course, when he had first drawn up the hit list there had been no thought that he would ever be caught. That had only come later when the momentum of his excitement had taken hold of him.

He went into the bedroom where Julie was taking a shower. He looked at her vague shape through the frosted glass; he hoped she would never become as shadowy as that in his memory. Suddenly he was angry with himself: he had sacrificed too much for stupid revenge! But it was too late.

He slid back the door of the shower as she turned off the water. “I have to go on a job, up the bush. I’ll be away for a couple of days.”

“Oh damn!” She stood glistening and dripping, her body still faintly tanned from last summer; her dark hair, cut short, lay flat and wet on her well-shaped head like a boy’s. She had never looked more desirable, he thought with great sadness. “I thought we could’ve gone to a movie and then come home and . . .”

He put his arms round her and lifted her out of the shower and kissed her fiercely. Then he let her go. “No, don’t let’s get started again . . . I’ve got to be at the channel in half an hour.”

“Where are you going?”

It was harder to lie to her now, but he managed to grab a town out of the air: “Boggabilla. There’s been another Aboriginal riot.” Blame the Abos for anything: they were always good for a story, even to one’s wife. “I’ll be back tomorrow night, Tuesday at the latest.”

She wrapped a terry-towelling gown round her. “I’ll pack for you. What do you want?”

A flak jacket, a getaway jet, 50,000 dollars . . . “A couple of shirts, underwear, my blue sweater and my corduroys. I’ll wear my jeans and my anorak. Do you have any money?”

“About seventy or eighty dollars, I think.”

“Lend it to me. I’ll draw some more on my bank card.”

“Why do you need so much? You’ll be on expenses, won’t you?”

He had slipped up; he was finding it harder and harder to lie to her. He wanted to spill out the truth to her; but there was still the faint hope deep within him that she might never need to know. She was the one thing in the world he wanted to protect, “Sure, you’re right. Hurry up and pack, will you?”

When she had gone out of the bathroom he looked at himself in the mirror. The beard would have to go. He had worn it now for ten years; he would be another man without it. It had not been grown as a disguise; now, he realized, he would be disguised without it. He took out his razor, shaving brush, trimming scissors and put them in his toilet kit. Then he looked in the mirror again and said goodbye to Colin Malloy.

Ten minutes later he said goodbye to Julie at the front door. He tried to make it as casual as possible, as just a repeat of dozens of other farewells he had made when he had left for trips out of town. She was still wearing only the terry-towelling robe, but he did not attempt to feel beneath it. He was saying goodbye to more than her sex.

“Be careful,” she said and it seemed to him that she had never before said that to him. Or was his ear too imaginative?

He kissed her, tasting her, storing up another memory. “Don’t let any strange men in while I’m away.”

Carrying his camera equipment and the telescope, he went down to the garage. He put the camera gear and the telescope in the back of the Nissan Patrol, then he unlocked the steel box bolted to the garage floor. He took out the gun-case and three packets of ammunition; he looked at the three remaining boxes and decided to leave them where they were. He was not planning any siege, with himself either inside or outside the circle.

He backed the Nissan out of the garage, paused at the end of the short driveway and looked up at the flat on the sixth floor. Julie was on the verandah; she waved to him and blew him a kiss. He drove away up the quiet suburban street, feeling sick and sad, something he had never been prepared for. Except, of course, for that day twenty-three years ago when he had walked out of the police academy. But then he had been as angry as he had been sick and sad.

IV

Malone and Clements stood on either side of the flat’s front door. In answer to the ringing of the bell, the door was opened. Julie Malloy, in sweater and slacks, stood behind the security grille door.

Malone turned side on, held his Smith & Wesson .38 out of sight. “I’m Inspector Malone, this is Sergeant Clements.” He held up his badge. “Is your husband home, Mrs. Malloy?”

Julie shook her head. “No, he’s not home. What do you want?”

“Just to talk to your husband. Where is he?”

“He left this afternoon for Boggabilla. He’s gone up there on a job.”

“May we come in and use your phone, Mrs. Malloy?”

She hesitated, then she opened the security door. “I don’t like being on my own, but it happens a lot, my husband working the hours he does—”

“My wife feels the same way,” said Malone sympathetically.

In the living room Julie had crossed to switch off the television set in one corner. “I always look at the SBS world news. Channel 15 would fire Colin if they knew it’s one of his favourite programmes, too.” She looked more closely at Malone. “We met the other night, but I recognize you now. My husband has filmed you a couple of times. I always remember his clips in the news. Family pride, I suppose,” she said with a pleasant smile. “There’s the phone.”

Malone glanced at Clements. “Go out and tell the fellers to go back to their vehicles, Russ. Tell „em to wait.”

Clements paused at the door. “Mrs. Malloy, what sort of car would your husband be driving?”

“He’d have driven our Nissan Patrol up to the channel. But from there they’d have gone in one of the news trucks.” She frowned, all at once looked worried and irritated. “What’s going on? What other men outside? What are they doing there?”

Clements ignored the question. “Where does he keep the Nissan?”

“Down in our garage, Number 11. What is this, for God’s sake?”

Malone said, “We’ll explain in a minute, Mrs. Malloy. Would you give Sergeant Clements the key to your garage, please?”

For a moment it looked as if she would refuse; then she went to a side-table, opened a drawer and took out a key. She tossed it almost angrily at Clements. “There’d better be a good explanation for all this!”

Clements nodded at Malone. “The Inspector will explain.”

When Clements had left the flat, Malone picked up the phone. “What’s Channel 15’s number, Mrs. Malloy?”

She raised her eyebrows; rather prettily, he thought. Very soon he was going to surprise her even more and he was not looking forward to it. “You’re going to call the channel?”

“Yes. Who’s your husband’s boss?”

“Inspector, I’m not going to tell you any more until you—”

“Mrs. Malloy,” he said patiently, “I’m trying to save you any hurt. If your husband’s boss contradicts what I’ve heard, I’ll apologize and walk out of here—”

“Bloody police! You—” He stared at her impassively; he had heard it all before and she knew that he had. Sourly she said, “His name’s Nick Katzka. I don’t know if he’ll still be there—”

Katzka was; but he sounded impatient, as if he had been caught on his way out the door. “What? Send Col Malloy up to—where? Boggabilla, for Chrissake. Why the hell would I send him there? He’s not due in till tomorrow morning—”

“Mr. Katzka, Sergeant Clements came to ask you a few questions this morning. Did you tell Mr. Malloy we were enquiring after him?”

“Yeah, well . . . Yeah, I did—”

“Thanks, Mr. Katzka. Some day we may be able to do you a favour, too.”

He hung up and Julie Malloy came at him as if she were going to throw herself at him. “Why are you making enquiries about my husband?”

“Let’s sit down, Mrs. Malloy. You’re not going to like what I’m going to tell you and I’m not going to like telling you.”

“Tell me what?” Her voice suddenly faltered.

He told her, as gently as he could. There are aspects of innocence that leave some people totally vulnerable; they have a profound belief in the goodness of human nature that denies any disillusion that may coat their perceptions. They are fools, many of them know it, but they would not want to be any other way and they are to be admired for it. Malone never scorned them; if there were no fools, who would recognize a wise man? But one’s admiration, or anyway patience with them, cannot stop one from, however unwillingly, punishing them for their innocence.

“I’m sorry, but I’m certain that what I’m telling you is the truth. Your husband is Frank Blizzard and he’s killed five people and is now planning to kill me and another man.”

“You’ve already said that,” she said automatically; she was chiding him for repeating himself, as if one insult was enough. “I don’t believe any of it . . .” But she did, every word of it. The belief was plain on her no longer pretty face. “How could I have not known he was like—like that?”

“I can’t explain it,” he said, not wishing to; that way there might lie more hurt. “I’ve arrested God knows how many men—and women, too—whose families never suspected what they were really like. We all hide something. Some of us just do it better than others.”

“But why would he hate you so much, just because you had him expelled from the police academy?”

“Perhaps you should ask him that when we bring him in.”

She sat silent for a while and he made no attempt to disturb her further; he had already done that to a degree he had hoped to avoid. She was completely in love with Malloy (or Blizzard); it would have been easier had she had her own doubts about him. At last she said, “He has been acting strangely. But I put it down to his moods—he could have moods that I never understood.”

“Were you happy together? Most of the time?”

She nodded vigorously, almost as if trying to convince herself. “Oh yes. Yes.” Then she said in a despairing plea, “You’re sure about what he’s done?”

“I’m sure.” He looked up as Clements came back into the flat. “Everything okay?”

Clements put three packets of ammunition on the arm of Malone’s chair. “We found those in a steel box in the garage, bolted to the floor. Bill Killop had to bust it open. They’re .243s. The gun’s gone.”

“A gun?” said Julie. “He had a gun down there?”

“You didn’t know about the steel box?”

“Of course. But Colin said he kept his spare tapes and lenses in it. I—I never saw him open it.”

Clements was as uncomfortable as Malone with Julie’s anguish. He looked at Malone. “Bill Killop wants to know how long it’s likely to be.”

“Did your husband take any gear with him?” Malone said.

“Some extra shirts and a sweater. He asked for extra money, but then he said he’d use his bank card.” She stared at them with no hope at all in her pinched, pale face. “I thought he was only going for a couple of days.”

Malone tried to tone down the pity in his voice: “I don’t think he’ll be back at all, Mrs. Malloy.”