11

I

“HE’S GOT to be disposed of, Arnie, no two ways about it. We’ll kill him.”

“Jack, isn’t there some other way? Jesus, can’t we just buy him off? He’ll listen to the sound of money. Everybody does.” Arnold Debbs judged everyone by his own standards: he liked a yardstick he could trust.

“Arnie, he’s not some local councilman—” Jack Aldwych almost said, He’s not some local politician; but you couldn’t insult a politician to his face, not in his own home. Shirl had tried to teach him some manners and, to a certain extend, she had succeeded. “No, O’Brien’s got more money than we could offer him to keep him quiet. I’ve been talking to someone in his organization—”

“Who?”

Aldwych smiled. “Arnie, do you tell me who gives you leaks out of Cabinet? This feller knows everything that’s going on. O’Brien has money salted away overseas—”

“Then why the fuck doesn’t he pay what should be coming to us?” Debbs could feel his temper rising, as much with Jack Aldwych as with O’Brien. Sometimes he wondered if Aldwych thought he was just the office boy, the messenger from Canberra. But he was a small man in a plump, large frame and such small men have their own invisible mirror. He knew his limitations and they gave him a headache.

“Arnie, he’s like the rest of us, greedy. I’ve never criticized anyone for being greedy, it’s a natural condition, like dandruff or piles.” Lately, in the evenings, Aldwych had taken to becoming philosophical. Which was why he rarely did business after dark nowadays.

He had come out here this Sunday evening to visit Arnold Debbs; Jack Junior had driven him and was still outside sitting in the dark blue Jaguar, which was Shirl’s car. The Debbs lived in Strathfield, in Sydney’s inner west, a middle-class area that had once had higher aspirations. It had originally attracted the professional classes who, for various reasons, had wished to avoid the more socially conscious eastern suburbs; it was not that they were against keeping up with the Joneses, they were careful about spending their money to do so. At one time, it was said, 50 per cent of the local population had consisted of solicitors and accountants, each keeping an eye on the other. The area was conservative in politics, even if voting Labour, and once had been conservative in religion; now, religion found the going a little harder, as if, like the Joneses, it was no longer a necessary beacon. There were several grand mansions in the district, but these were now mostly taken over by institutions, private schools and nursing homes. Postwar immigrants who had made good had built large houses on small blocks, many of them distinguished by more balustrade work than one would find in a day’s drive in the Florentine hills. The Debbs lived in a blue-brick one-storey house, built in the 1920s; it was bourgeoisly solid, but not grand enough to earn a curled lip from any Labour voter who might stray into their quiet, tree-lined bourgeois street. Democracy is elastic: it doesn’t insist that its representatives have to be humble. Except at election time.

Aldwych sipped the twelve-year-old Chivas Regal he had brought as a gift: Debbs, a good host, had opened it at once, realizing that that was what Aldwych wanted him to do. “Arnie, Les Chung saw O’Brien today. He went up to O’Brien’s stud—he’s holed up there with Scobie Malone. Les got the idea that they’re playing at stake-out goats to this other feller who’s trying to bump off the two of them.”

“The two of „em? I’m surprised the Police Department would go along with that.”

“I hear from my contact in the Department that they’re getting pretty desperate. Anyhow, we’re gunna have to do something. Les gave O’Brien a warning, but it wasn’t worth a pinch of shit, according to Les. So, I’ve got a feller going up there tonight. A couple of „em, in fact. One’s gunna create a diversion, to get the police and the security guards over his way, while the other guy goes in and does O’Brien.”

“Won’t that be risky, with all the police hanging around?”

“Arnie, the risk will be for the guy who’s gunna do the hit. And he doesn’t know who’s paying him.”

“And Malone?” Debbs could feel the whisky splashing in his glass.

“Yeah, he’ll do Malone too, if he has to. Don’t worry, Arnie,” said Aldwych, as if he could see Debbs’ trembling hand in the gloom of the living-room. “It’ll be done and nobody’ll ever connect us with it.”

Then Penelope Debbs came to the door of the room, peered in at them. “What are you doing sitting in the dark?”

She switched on the ceiling light; the room sprang up around the two men. It was a big comfortable room, panelled halfway up the walls; there were old-fashioned picture-rails round the walls a couple of feet below the moulded metal ceiling. The furniture was much better than one would find in the homes of the majority of the Debbs’ voters; both politicians were careful never to have any party branch committee meetings here. All the paintings were Australian landscapes, including a subdued Pro Hart and a Hans Heysen without a gum tree; there was a photo of Penelope with the Queen, she looking more regal than the Royal; and there was a glass-fronted cabinet in one corner in which was Penelope’s collection of Lalique crystal, her main indulgence outside of her own self-promotion.

“Do you usually sit in the dark at home, Mr. Aldwych?”

“A lot of the time, Mrs. Debbs. My wife is on at me all the time, asking me if I’m trying to save electricity.”

Penelope had never met Jack Aldwych before this evening; had never wanted to. She was not afraid of him; indeed, of any man, gangster or saint; she would have put both Jenghis Khan and Jesus Christ in their places if they had tried to boss her around. She was careful with whom she brushed her well-clad shoulders; she had made one or two bad choices, including O’Brien, but she had always avoided criminals. She had known that Arnold knew Aldwych, but she had been shocked when she had gone to the front door an hour ago and a young man had stood there, introducing himself as Jack Aldwych Junior and saying that his father was outside in their car and would like to come in to see Mr. Debbs. Arnold had come into the hall behind her and, though he had tried to disguise the surprise in his voice, had said, yes, ask your father to come in, by all means. When the old man had come up on to their front verandah she had been surprised at how amiable and polite he had seemed. She didn’t know why, but she had expected a gorilla in a trenchcoat. She had greeted him just as politely, then excused herself and gone out to the kitchen. Whatever he had come to discuss with Arnold, she did not want to hear it first hand. Later would do, when she and Arnold were in bed. They slept in twin beds and they never had sex on Sunday nights, so their talk could be cool and political.

Aldwych stood up, rising slowly. “Well, I better be getting back. I’m keeping my son away from his girl.”

Penelope wondered what sort of girl would go with a gangster’s son. “He seemed a nice boy. He’s got a charming smile.”

“His mother’s smile. He’s all right—it’s just a pity he’s got me for a dad.” He looked at her, giving her his old man’s smile, as if waiting for her to contradict him. But she had learned just how far you could take politeness; he would recognize hypocrisy far quicker than any voter. She let her opinion of him hang in the air like a looped rope. He recognized a woman as formidable as himself and thanked Christ that Shirl was nothing like her. “Well, good-night. I’ve just been telling Arnold that all our troubles will soon be over.”

“That’ll be a relief. Good-night, Mr. Aldwych.”

“Good-night, Mrs. Debbs.”

Arnold Debbs showed him out of the house, then came back into the living-room, where Penelope hadn’t moved, stood still and waiting. “So what did he mean by saying all our troubles will soon be over?”

“He’s going to attend to Mr. O’Brien.”

“How?” But she knew at once; and quickly she said, “Don’t tell me! I don’t want to know.”

He poured himself half a glass of the Chivas Regal, took a long gulp of it. “How did we ever get into this fucking mess?”

But that’s a question that has been echoing down history ever since Adam, without the adjective, first asked it.

II

Malone and Clements got back to Cossack Lodge at midnight. Julie Malloy had called a girlfriend, who had arrived to stay the night with her; her sister would be coming over from Adelaide first thing tomorrow morning. The media had been sent away with a few sparse facts but no pictures; the SWOS men had gone back to Police Centre and most of the local police had been retired. A roster of two men at a time was to stake out the Malloy flat in case Malloy came back to see his wife.

“But I think there’s one chance in a thousand of that,” Malone had told Sergeant Safire. “She’s seen the last of him, unless we manage to take him alive.”

“If he turns up,” said Safire, “I’ll be on to you right away. You’d like to be in at the kill, I reckon.”

“Yes,” said Malone, but wished Safire had used another word.

The two detectives had said very little to each other on the drive back from the city. As Clements turned the car in at the stud gates, a security guard approached them from the side, flashing a torch in their faces. “Oh, it’s you, Inspector. Everything’s okay, nothing’s happening. Looks like a quiet night.”

Clements drove on up to the house. The lights were still on in the front room and O’Brien opened the front door as they stepped up on to the verandah. “You didn’t get him?”

“Let’s talk inside,” said Malone. “We don’t want to be standing against the light—”

Then there was a shot somewhere across the paddocks. Malone pushed O’Brien ahead of him back into the hallway; Clements followed them, slamming the door shut behind him. “Turn out the lights—all of them!”

O’Brien reacted as quickly as the two policemen; in a few seconds all the lights in the house were out. Outside, Malone heard a car start up, heard shouting; then the car went roaring down the drive. A horse whinnied, almost a scream of terror, then there was the sound of running feet and more shouts as the stud staff rushed out of their quarters to try to quieten the restless horses in the stables. O’Brien said with real concern, “I hope the horses out in the paddocks aren’t going crazy.”

“Would it be any of the locals shooting? Do they come out here at night to knock off wallabies or anything?”

“I dunno. This is the first time I’ve heard any shooting.”

“I’ll go out and have a look,” said Malone.

“No, you won’t,” said Clements. “You stay here.”

He didn’t give Malone time to argue; he went out through the back of the house, stumbling in the dark in the unfamiliar surroundings, cursing as he bumped into furniture. He opened the back door and stepped out into a yard which, even in the moonless night, looked more uncluttered than the usual farmhouse yard. There was no rusting machinery, no discarded bales and oil-drums; the yard was part of the showcase stud. He turned left and went towards the corner of the house just as the dark figure came running up from one of the rear paddocks. He halted and waited, taking his gun from its holster.

The man vaulted the white-railed fence that separated the yard from the paddock, landed on rubber-soled shoes and came swiftly across the yard towards the back door. Clements stepped silently behind the large water-tank at the corner of the house, a still-useful relic from the days before town water had been connected to the stud. He raised the Smith & Wesson and said, “Don’t move! Police!”

The man was alert for any danger; he fell flat at once, facing Clements, and the latter saw the gun come up. There was no flash; he just heard the bullet strike the water-tank like a quick flick on a drum; it hit above the water-line inside. He fired at the prostrate figure, but the man rolled to one side an instant before. Another bullet hit the tank, ricocheting off with a thin whine; a third bullet speared the corrugated iron, lower down this time, and a jet of water spouted out past Clements’ face. The gunman had rolled close to the wall of the house; he was pressed up against the back step. Clements dropped flat to the ground, grunting as he did so; he had too much belly to lie perfectly flat. He took aim through the wooden legs of the tank stand; then saw the back door open right above the gunman. The man rolled over on his back, his gun coming up to point straight at Malone’s shadowy figure in the doorway. Clements’ first shot was a lucky one; it knocked the gun out of the man’s hand. The second shot hit him in the head.

Clements got to his feet, leaned against the tank while he steadied his shaking legs. He held out his hand and scooped some of the leaking water into his face; it was icy cold and better than a dose of smelling salts. Malone stepped over the dead man, first checking that he was dead, then came quickly across to Clements. “You all right, Russ?”

“I’m okay. Christ, I thought he’d got you then—”

“He would’ve, if you hadn’t got in first. Thanks. Where’d he come from?”

“Up from the paddocks. But what the hell’s going on over the other side?”

O’Brien came out of the back door, stepped down and fell over the dead gunman. He let out a curse of shock, picked himself up and looked around. “Scobie?”

Malone and Clements came across the yard to him. “We’re okay, Brian. Better get back inside.”

O’Brien looked down at the body. “Is it Blizzard?”

“No. I think it’s your mates having another go at you. Let’s go inside. You too, Russ.”

“No, I’ll go and see what’s going on—”

“Inside! Get him a drink, Brian. Get us all one.”

Clements looked down at the gunman. “What about him?”

“Leave him there till we find out what’s been going on . . . Sounds like they’re coming back now.” Cars were coming up the driveway. He looked down at the body again. “Where are your dogs, Brian? I don’t want them sniffing at him.”

“They’re all over at the stables, all four of „em.”

“Righto, take Russ in and give him that drink. I’ll be in for mine in a minute.”

He went round to the front of the house as three cars swung in and pulled up. He recognized two of the cars, one of them a police car, the other belonging to the security guards; but the third, a souped-up Charger rust-bucket, was one he had never seen before. A uniformed cop got out and was followed by a youth and a young girl, both of them in jeans and leather jackets. The girl looked as if frightened for her life, but the youth had a brazen jauntiness about him that suggested that being hauled in by the police was a nightly occurrence.

“Who’s this?” Malone said.

“We found „em trying to get in over the far paddock,” said the senior constable, coming forward. “We hailed „em, but they jumped back into their car and took off like a rocket. I let go with a warning shot over the top of „em and they pulled up.”

Malone looked at the youth. “Let’s see your driving licence, son.”

“It’s in me other pants back home.” He could not have been more than nineteen or twenty, sallow-faced and blond-haired in the yellow glow of the big carriage-lamp mounted on the white post beside the path that led to the front door of the house. He had more confidence than was good for him; or anyway the appearance of it. “Look, I don’t have to take none of this shit—”

Malone turned to the girl. “What’s your name, miss?”

“Lily Azoulet.” She would have been pretty, Malone thought, if she took off half a kilo of mascara and make-up; in the lamp’s glow she looked old enough to be the boy’s mother. Fear didn’t improve her appearance. “Look, we was doing nothing—we just come out here for a bit of, well, you know—”

“They were up to more than that, Inspector.” The senior constable was named Curtis; he was in his mid-thirties, lanky and awkward, with country boy written all over him like a fashion label. His voice was a slow drawl, but he was shrewd and tough. “This kid did everything but blow his horn to let us know he was there. Then the way he took off . . .”

“Bullshit,” said the youth.

“Bring „em around the back,” said Malone.

He led the way round the side of the house and into the yard. He stepped over the dead gunman, reached inside the back door and switched on the light over the steps. The body lay on its back, the top of the head an ugly dark mess, the blank white face staring up with sightless eyes like that of a mime who had said all he had to say. He was in his late thirties and now, with the light falling pitilessly on him, Malone recognized him.

“This man just tried to kill my sergeant. He’d also come here to kill Mr. O’Brien, who owns the stud. Do you know him?” he said to the girl.

She whimpered, shook her head and turned away, dry retching. Malone nodded to one of the security guards, who took her by the arm and led her back to the front of the house. Then Malone looked at the youth.

“You know him, don’t you, son?”

The boy hadn’t taken his eyes off the body; suddenly all the brazen confidence had drained out of him. The leather jacket with its metal studs was no longer his armour; he seemed to shrink inside it; it crumpled like black paper. He made a sound that was an echo of the girl’s whimper and turned his back on the dead man. Malone waited patiently; the boy was going to start talking. Then he did, the words bubbling out: “Look, I didn’t know nothing about this, I mean, what he was gunna do. Holy shit, I been in trouble before, but nothing like this! I met him a coupla times, he used to run a stolen car racket—” He stopped. “No, I’m not gunna tell you any more. Not till I seen a lawyer.”

“I think we can guess it, son. He came to you and offered you some money to come out here and create a disturbance, right? What did he pay you?”

“A coupla hundred—No, I’m not gunna say no more. Not till I seen a lawyer.”

Malone looked at Curtis. “Righto, take him into Camden and hold him. Better take the girl, too. Get the Crime Scene fellers out here. And Ballistics and Internal Affairs.”

“You want to be in charge?”

“No, this is Parramatta’s region, let them handle it.” In the old days he would have resented having to hand over a case; now he was glad of regionalization, you could pass the buck and the paperwork. He reached down and, with his pen through the trigger-guard, picked up the dead man’s gun and its silencer. “A silenced Ruger .22, a real pro’s weapon. His name’s Barry Fozel, he’s got a record as long as my arm.”

He handed the gun to Curtis, who said, “I’ll have Parramatta and the Crime Scene guys here as soon’s I can. Do you want to see them when they get here?”

“If I’m asleep, ask them to leave it till the morning. I haven’t had the easiest of days.”

All at once he was glad that Lisa was miles away in Queensland. He would not have to climb into bed with her and tell her about today.

III

Malone fell asleep at one o’clock, after he had told Clements and O’Brien his surmise of what had happened. The long day, the after-shock, the drink of whisky, all hit him at once and he fell asleep as if he had been drugged. He woke at seven o’clock, still fully dressed, lying on the bed in one of the guest-rooms, and for a few moments he did not know where he was or how he had got there. Then he was aware of Russ Clements standing in the doorway.

“Breakfast’s ready. And Kerry Swanson, from Parramatta, is out in the kitchen waiting to talk to you.”

“Give me ten minutes while I have a shower and wake up.”

When he walked into the big kitchen O’Brien, Clements and Detective-Sergeant Swanson were at the table and Mrs. McIver, the foreman’s wife, was busy at the stove. A small, busy-looking woman with a mop of red curls that made her look slightly clownish, she smiled at Malone. “They’re all having pork sausages and eggs. How about you, Mr. Malone?”

“Why not?” It was the sort of breakfast Lisa would have forced on him after a day like yesterday.

Mrs. McIver put a heaped plate of cereal, topped with fresh fruit, down in front of him. “Get stuck into that first.”

“She thinks she’s feeding the horses,” said O’Brien and Mrs. McIver waved the back of her hand at him.

The men ate a hearty breakfast while they discussed the dead Barry Fozel and the boy and the girl who were still being held in the Camden lock-up. Mrs. McIver listened with both ears pinned back, but kept busy at her stove and sink. Breakfast time in any normal Aussie home, Malone thought.

“We’ll have to let the girl go, I don’t think she had a clue what she was letting herself in for.” Swanson was a bony man of middle height, sandy-haired, with a thin bony face and the widest mouth Malone had ever seen. He had smiled occasionally during breakfast and it seemed each time that his ears were about to slide into the corners of his mouth. He was almost boringly phlegmatic, as unexcitable as a drugged sloth. Except that he was not slothful: he had been busy all night. “The young cove, his name’s Richie Cuppa, like in a cuppa tea, he’s started to talk. We’ll have to charge him, but we’ll never be able to prove he knew what was going on. He’s sticking to his story that he was paid to stage a diversion, while Fozel was supposed to come in from the other side and nobble one of the horses.”

“With a gun?” said Malone. “If we’re expected to believe that, we’ll believe anything.”

“Cuppa says he didn’t know anything about the gun. Anyway, juries believe anything,” said Swanson with the disillusion of a cop who had lost out too many times to the jury system.

Clements said, “What about Fozel—anything on him that linked him to anyone?”

“Nothing.”

“Righto, Kerry, you handle it,” said Malone and took the cup of coffee Mrs. McIver handed him. “Anything new on Blizzard, Russ?”

Clements shook his head. “I rang Andy Graham—he kipped down at Homicide last night. They’ve got a photo of Blizzard, or Malloy, whatever we want to call him, from Channel 15 and they’ve put it out for a run in the TV news and the papers. He’s had a police artist do a sketch of Malloy without the beard and he’s put that out, too.”

“The boy’s going to have yours and my job before we know it.”

“Ain’t it the way?” said Swanson, another middle-aged cop who could feel the ambitious breath of youth on the back of his neck.

“There’s no sign of his vehicle yet, the Nissan Patrol,” said Clements, “but he’s put out a description of that, too. My guess is that Blizzard has shaved off his beard, swapped the Patrol for something else and headed for Queensland till the heat dies down.”

Just don’t let him get as far as Noosa, Malone prayed. He looked at O’Brien. “What do you reckon, Brian?”

O’Brien took his time, slowly stirring a half-teaspoonful of sugar into his coffee. He had eaten less than any of the others, seemed almost unaware of the small bits of food that had gone into his mouth. “I’m thinking about what you said Saturday morning. He’s not suddenly going to get patient. He’s on a run and he’ll stay that way till he gets you and me.”

Mrs. McIver dropped a plate into the sink; there was a smash of crockery as it broke two other plates. “Oh, I’m sorry! I—”

“No, we’re sorry, Mrs. Mac.” O’Brien stood up, pressed her thin arm. “We’ve upset you enough. We’ll go into the living-room.”

“I haven’t cleaned it up yet—gimme a coupla minutes and I’ll run the Hoover through it—” She was struggling to sound normal.

“It’s okay, Mrs. Mac.”

The four men shook their heads and left the kitchen. In the living-room Swanson said, “I’ll be getting back. I’ve got enough on my plate without this cove Malloy. I’ve got Vietnamese killing each other, Syrians bashing each other up . . . Remember the good old days? Good luck, Scobie. Keep your head down.”

Clements showed him out of the house. Malone and O’Brien sat down on the checked tweed-covered chairs. Round the walls a carousel of stallions and mares posed behind glass; above the fireplace was a seventeenth-century painting of the Byerley Turk, the grandaddy of all thoroughbreds. It was a living-room designed for a man, not a hint of feminine taste in it. Neither man, however, was interested in what surrounded them.

“What do you think?” said O’Brien. “You think he’s going to have another go at us?”

Malone nodded. “He’s still somewhere around Sydney waiting to get at us. But I’m tired of sitting around waiting for him. I’m going to the funerals this morning, Jim Knoble’s and Mardi Jack’s.”

“You think he’ll try his luck there?”

“No, not unless he’s bent on suicide. Maybe he is, he knows his life is over, at least with his wife. But I’m going anyway.”

“So am I,” said O’Brien after a moment.

“No—” But then Malone gave up before taking the argument any further. “Righto. But when we get there, if anyone bails me up for letting you come, you step in and get me off the hook. You’re not my responsibility.” Then he added, more gently, “I don’t mean that the way it sounds.”

“I know.” There was a moment when all at once they were the closest of friends; but it was only a moment and both knew it could never last. Then O’Brien went on, “I can’t let Mardi be buried without me showing up. I guess I owe Jim Knoble something, too. I wasn’t the one who spilt to the Superintendent about Blizzard cheating, but I was the one who started the hazing. I remember I went and got the fire hose—”

He shook his head at the folly of youth that could get you killed in middle age. Malone wondered if O’Brien appreciated the irony that the youth who had fire hosed another for cheating was now a middle-aged man under investigation by the NCSC for cheating. But now was not the time to mention it.

IV

It was raining steadily by the time the two unmarked police cars reached Botany cemetery. As they drew in at the main entrance to the cemetery Malone saw the two SWOS vans and the four marked police cars lined up just outside the gates. Beyond them were four motor-cycle police and several TV vans and press cars. A uniformed inspector, slicker glistening in the rain, came forward as Malone, Clements and O’Brien got out of their car. Malone and O’Brien were wearing raincoats and hats, but Clements had only an umbrella borrowed from Mrs. McIver.

“We were told you were coming, Scobie.” The inspector was Neil Gittings, a twenty-four-year veteran like Malone and Clements, a graduate of the same year from the police academy but one who had escaped Blizzard’s hatred and urge for revenge. He was tall and had a beefily handsome face and a ginger moustache that was now sequinned with raindrops. “You’re not too popular.”

“You think I’m playing hero, Neil?”

Gittings shrugged and a small waterfall tumbled off his slicker. “No, I’m not saying that. But what if . . .” He waved a hand at the bleak surroundings. “What if Blizzard is somewhere out there in the sandhills, ready to have a go?”

“That’s what I’m hoping for, Neil. How does that grab you?” Then Malone grinned. “I’m sorry, mate. But Mr. O’Brien and I feel we’ve waited long enough . . . Has Jim Knoble’s funeral arrived yet?”

“No, it’s due in about twenty minutes. They’ve just arrived with that other body, that girl Mardi Jack. They’re over there on that hill.” He nodded towards a low hill in the middle of the cemetery. “A lot of pop stars and show business people. Celebrities, is that what they call „em? I wouldn’t know. We had to bar the TV people and the press photographers—they’d have done a steeplechase over the graves to get up there.”

“I think I’d like to go up there,” said O’Brien and, without waiting for approval, moved off.

Malone glanced at Clements. “I think we’d better go with him, Russ.”

“You’re going to be right out in the open up there,” said Gittings. “Like a shag on a rock.”

Malone looked after the quick-walking O’Brien. “We’ll be at least twenty yards apart. If he gets one of us, the other will have time to get behind a gravestone before Blizzard can take another bead on him.”

“You’re out of your bloody head,” said Gittings. “Don’t get too close to him, Russ.”

“I’m only a sergeant,” said Clements. “We’re always several paces behind you inspectors.”

The humour was black, which was appropriate in the location. The cemetery had been laid out over rolling sandhills; where there were no graves there were scrubby shrubs, barricades of prickly lantana and several platoons of banksia trees, arthritic and bent by the wind. The long rows of graves looked like flat marble or stone beds; but the sleepers lay beneath them. Three pale green water-towers stood on the highest hill; through the rain Malone could make out the hazy shape of a SWOS marksman crouched on the top of one of them. To the south, in a hollow between the cemetery and the bay, were market gardens, green and neat as some military cemeteries Malone had seen, the crops laid out with the same precision as the rows of graves. A Chinese gardener stood motionless amongst the bright green, like an oilskin-clad scarecrow. Beyond the boundaries of the cemetery were the wharves of Port Botany: huge gantry cranes like the yellow skeletons of ancient giant birds, containers piled upon containers like massive red cedar coffins, corpses mass-delivered. The rain fell steadily on the whole scene, doing its best to wash the colour out of everything but not quite succeeding.

They were walking up a hill path past a row of mausoleums, like miniature Palladian villas. Malone remarked the names, all Italian; then suddenly he missed his step, putting his foot into a puddle without noticing it. There amidst all the Italian names, the Salvatores, the Buccionis, the Giuffres, was an Irish name: Malone. He stood, still with his foot in the puddle, the water leaking into his shoe, and Clements, coming up behind him, head bent under the umbrella, bumped into him.

“What’s the matter?” Clements looked up wildly. “You see him?”

“No.” Malone nodded at the name set in a marble plate on the iron door of the mausoleum. “You think that’s an omen?”

Clements frowned; then angrily pushed Malone on up the path. “For Crissake, stop thinking like that! Jesus, you bloody Irish—always ready for a wake . . .”

Malone walked on, one shoe squelching, till he reached the top of the hill and stopped. Ahead of him, down the slope the other side of the hill, Mardi Jack was being lowered into her grave. A sombre crowd of mourners, twenty or thirty of them, stood in a semicircle; their heads were bent and Malone recognized none of them. O’Brien had moved to one side, to a narrower path, and Malone turned his head and watched him from under the dripping brim of his hat. O’Brien had taken off his own hat: it was difficult to tell whether he had done it as a last gesture of respect for Mardi Jack or whether he was asking Frank Blizzard, somewhere out there in the rain, to recognize him and try to shoot him. Malone turned slowly, in a circle, looked around and felt the tightening in his gut and then the sweat breaking on him. If Blizzard was going to attempt to kill him or O’Brien or both, now was the moment. They were completely exposed on the top of the hill, so close to death that it seemed that Mardi Jack must be waiting for them to join her.

But the bullets did not come out of the grey curtain of rain and after a moment Malone called softly, “Brian! Time we went back.”

As he spoke a girl looked up from amongst the mourners and stared at him, then at O’Brien. Then Gina Cazelli detached herself from the crowd around the grave, came up past O’Brien and stood in front of Malone. She was wearing a floppy-brimmed black hat made even floppier because it was soaked, a shiny black plastic raincoat that came almost to her ankles, and black patent leather boots. Her face was wet with tears and rain.

Don’t shoot now, Blizzard, and maybe kill another innocent.

“Hallo, Gina. It’s a sad day.”

“I heard you call that guy over there Brian. Is he the B. who was in Mardi’s journal?”

“No,” he said without hesitation, protecting her and O’Brien from any further stirring of her feelings. “He just owns the recording company, he thought he’d like to come up here and pay his respects. But he’s really here with me to attend the other funeral, the policeman’s. We were all old friends once.”

She looked at him doubtfully. Under the drooping brim of her hat, her eyes puffed, her face devoid of make-up, she was even plainer than he had remembered her. He wondered if she had come alone to the funeral and if she would leave alone. The show business people were starting to leave the graveside and none of them was looking back for her.

“Did Mardi’s father come down for the funeral?”

“No. There are some bastards in the world, fathers included.”

“Yes,” he said, who knew even better than she about the bastards of the world. Our Father, Who art in Heaven, never let my kids say that about me . . .

“Do you think you’ll ever find the guy who killed her?”

He looked around the rain-drenched cemetery, then back at her. “I hope so, Gina. For everybody’s sake.”

Then she told him to take care of himself and moved off, stumbling up the slippery path as she tried to catch up with the departing mourners. That would be her life, he thought, always trying to catch up with those she hoped would be her friends.

He, Clements and O’Brien walked back down the hill without any word between them. The Knoble funeral had arrived; this time senior officers had come to the cemetery. Malone saw the Commissioner and several Assistant Commissioners, including A/C Falkender, who looked across and shook his head as if in disapproval of Malone’s attendance. As soon as the coffin was lowered into the grave, Malone nodded to Clements and O’Brien.

“Let’s get out of here. Otherwise I’m going to get my arse kicked for being here.”

They walked quickly out of the cemetery to where they had parked their car. As they got into it, Harry Danforth, puffing with the unaccustomed exertion, came hurrying out of the gates after them.

“You’re in the shit, Scobie. The Commissioner’s livid that you’re here, especially after what happened last night. I’m supposed to tell you.”

“Righto, Harry, you just have. We’re going back to Cossack Lodge now.”

“I’ll follow you, we’ve gotta do some talking about what happens from here on. How’s the new car going, Russ?”

“Fine, Chief,” said Clements. “How’s your old one?”

Danforth grunted and left them. Clements put the car into Drive and they went up past the TV vans and the press cars; some cameras swung round to follow them, but Malone did not care. He wondered if Malloy-Blizzard would have been here, camera at the ready, if they had not discovered who he was.

V

When the three men, Malone, O’Brien and the big detective Clements, had come out of the main house of the stud, Frank Blizzard had seen them from the cover of a thick stand of trees a mile and a half away. Sitting there on the hill, the powerful telescope trained on the main house, he had seen them come out and get into the unmarked police car. The car had gone down the driveway to the road, followed by another unmarked car with three armed men in it whom he took to be police. The cars turned in the direction of Sydney and a couple of minutes later passed below him within a couple of hundred yards.

He had remarked that no luggage had been brought out to the cars and that the other armed men, police or security guards, had remained at the stud. That meant Malone and O’Brien would be returning some time during the day. He was prepared to wait.

He had arrived here at six o’clock this morning, having spent last night at a motel at Bowral, seventy kilometres south of here. Yesterday afternoon he had driven the Nissan Patrol up Parramatta Road, passing several dealers till he saw a small used-car lot that had the look he was searching for, slightly rundown, its string of pennants as tattered as the flags of a defeated ship. The salesman who came out to greet him had much the same look, a matelot trying to stay afloat.

“How much for this?” said Blizzard. “1986, 35,000 k’s genuine mileage.”

The salesman, thin and long-jawed, ran a crocodile eye over the vehicle. “I dunno we’re in the market for a Patrol, y’know, the downturn in the economy and all that. Leisure stuff, that’s pretty hard to move these days, the yuppies are staying at home. The most I could offer would be, I dunno, I’d have to have a think about it—” He had to think, one of the quickest thoughts Blizzard had ever witnessed pass through a human head. “I couldn’t offer you any more than, say, twelve thousand tops.”

Blizzard knew it was worth at least fifteen. “I’ll take it.”

The crocodile eyes blinked: Why wasn’t the world full of mugs like this every day?

“Just one thing. I want it in cash. I won’t argue about the price, you don’t argue about paying cash.”

“Ah gee, sport, waddia take me for? You could of pinched this from anyone—I don’t handle hot vehicles—” He would handle a burning one if it meant a quick profit. “You got your papers?”

“Everything. Registration, licence, my credit cards—”

“They could of been in the vehicle, sport—”

Blizzard produced his Channel 15 security card with his photo on it. It didn’t matter showing his identity now; it would be at least four hours before his picture would go out on the news with the information that the police wanted him for questioning. By then he would be a long way from this salesman who was doing his best to hide his eagerness to make a cheap buy.

“Okay, you got a deal. You’re lucky I got just that amount of cash in the safe—I just sold a Toyota, dirt cheap, beautiful bargain, to a guy who said he didn’t trust banks—”

Sunday afternoon on Parramatta Road: Blizzard wondered how much cash was floating up and down the car lots, passing from hand to hand of men who didn’t trust banks.

Ten minutes later he walked off the lot with $12,000 in his overnight bag, which was slung by its strap over his back. The telescope case hung by its strap from round his neck, in one hand he carried his camera box, in the other the gun-case. “Geez, you’re loaded, sport. You sure you don’t wanna buy a smaller car? I got a beautiful bargain out there, a 1987 Honda Civic, one owner-driver, my aunt, as a matter of fact . . .”

Blizzard walked a hundred yards up the street and bought a motor-cycle, a Honda GL1000, for $4000. He also bought a helmet and gloves, strapped all his gear on the pillion rack and rode out of the lot and headed south.

He stopped at a McDonald’s, bought two hamburgers and an apple slice, ate them and then rode on south again. Just before he got to Bowral he turned off the Hume Highway on to a side-road and pulled up beside a small creek. He scrambled down the bank, taking a mirror and shaving gear and scissors with him. There, over the next twenty minutes, he set about eliminating Colin Malloy from whatever remained of the rest of his life. When he had finished he looked at himself in the mirror and had no instant recognition of the man he saw there. The clean-shaven, balding man was a stranger; and for a moment he was terribly frightened. This was the madman who had killed five people and who had just wiped out Colin Malloy who, unlike Frank Blizzard, had experienced happiness. He had run his hand over his tender face like a blind man seeking to identify a stranger.

Now, standing in the timber, watching the two police cars go down the road towards Sydney, hearing the rain beginning to fall on the upper foliage of the trees, he was sane enough to know that he was suffering from some sort of madness. He had once read a poem, he couldn’t remember who it was by, and a line had stood out: There is a pleasure sure in being mad that none but madmen know. Ah, but you would have to be really round the twist to get pleasure out of it. And he was far from that: he was sane enough to know that, too. All he hoped was that no one would call him a psychopath. He could not take an insult like that to the grave with him.

He stayed in the timber for another two hours, huddled in his anorak and helmet against the rain dripping steadily down through the filter of the branches high above him. The motorcycle was hidden under bushes at the edge of the timber, though he was not expecting anyone to come searching for him, least of all a police helicopter on a day like this.

At last he went back to the motor-cycle, stripped the camouflage away from it and rode it down the slippery hillside to a narrow dirt track that ran through the paddocks and parallel to the road. The rain had stopped, but the clouds were still full and low, moving slowly over the crest of distant hills like great flocks of sheep. He came to a gate, opened it and went through on to a gravel road that ran at right angles to the tarred Sydney road. A hundred yards along he came to another clump of trees; beyond it a narrow wooden bridge spanned a culvert through which the tarred road dipped and climbed. As he got off the motor-cycle, a pick-up truck came across the bridge, the timbers rattling like gunfire under it, the driver saluted and the truck went on up the gravel road.

Blizzard parked the motor-cycle under the trees, got out the gun-case and assembled the Tikka and the telescopic sight. Then he went back to the bridge, climbed over its low wooden railing and found a natural seat on a ledge of rock above the cutting. He sat down to wait, for as long as was necessary. The last of the six green bottles would come down the road . . . He began to hum the old song, sitting there in the steadily falling rain, which had started again, like a busker waiting for someone to come by and reward him. Then abruptly he began to weep and a terrible pain spread across the back of his head, where the rottenness had lain all those years. But it was an old pain and he could bear it. Maybe today would ease it for ever.

It was just after midday, with the rain still falling, when he saw the three cars coming along the road from the direction of Sydney. They were still half a mile away, approaching at a steady rate. He put the Tasco telescope to his eye, focused on the leading car and saw Malone in the front seat beside the driver, who looked like the big man Clements. He could not see who was in the rear seat, but if O’Brien was not there he was sure he was in one of the following cars.

He put down the Tasco, picked up the rifle, adjusted the „scope sight and aimed at Malone as the leading car reached the top of the dip that led down under the bridge.

VI

Clements didn’t see the pot-hole till the last moment. He had had to swerve to miss several of them in the last mile or two; he had hit one of them and there had been a horrible thumping noise under the car. Now he swung the car to the left and that swerve saved Malone’s life. The bullet went through the middle of the windscreen, right between Malone and Clements, and hit the rear door beside O’Brien as he lolled in the back seat. The windscreen was starred round the bullet-hole, but Clements’ vision was not obscured. The car skidded back to the right of the narrow road, slipped on the greasy shoulder and hit the steep bank, scraping along its rock-ribs as it careered down the cutting. Had it not been for the steep wall of the bank, the car would have rolled over; as it was, it tilted over far enough for the side windows to be smashed as the car hit protruding rocks in the bank. The Commodore, still upright on all four wheels, was fifty yards down into the cutting before Clements managed to bring it to a halt.

Malone opened his door and fell out on to the roadway, drawing his gun and yelling at O’Brien to stay where he was in the back seat. He heard a second shot hit the car fender a foot from his head and he crawled round the back of the Commodore as the other two cars skidded to a stop behind him. On his feet now but crouched over, he chanced a look up between the wrecked car and the steep bank and saw the beardless man in the anorak aiming at him again. The bullet hit a projecting rock, sending a chip flying into Malone’s cheek, stinging him so that he gasped, and went ricocheting away. Malone fired back, but his shot was hasty and went astray. Then he was up and running down the cutting, slipping once on the greasy road, and in under the bridge.

He heard the gunfire from behind him; the police had scrambled out of their car and were firing at Blizzard. Danforth’s car was nose-to-tail against the police car, but Malone couldn’t see the Chief Superintendent. Malone pulled up for a moment to get his breath; he put his hand to his cheek and felt the blood there. Then he went on under the bridge and up the other side of the cutting, keeping close to the overhang of the bank, slipping and stumbling in the mud of the shoulder but somehow managing to keep his feet. The rain had seemed to increase; or maybe it was only his imagination; he had no clear grasp of anything. The showdown with Blizzard had come at last and somehow he was not as prepared for it as he had expected to be. Maybe the waiting had gone on too long.

Another bullet ricocheted off a rock behind him, but the angle was too acute for Blizzard to get a clean shot at him. He kept running till he came up out of the culvert, swung off the shoulder and flopped into a shallow ditch beside a fallen tree, sending up a splash of muddy water as he did so. The rain now was pelting down, it was not his imagination; his hat was back in the car and the water swished across his face like a wet veil. He wiped his eyes, lay flat in the liquid mud of the ditch and looked back at the bridge.

Blizzard, seemingly careless of his own death, stood in the middle of the bridge, the rifle aimed straight at Malone. The latter fired an instant before Blizzard could squeeze the trigger of the Tikka. The rifle did go off, but it was pointed at the sodden sky as Blizzard fell backwards with Malone’s bullet taking off the top of his skull. Malone would never fire a luckier shot; at the distance and in the rain, the bullet could have missed Blizzard by feet. Justice, often blind in one eye, occasionally has 20/20 vision in the other.

Malone lifted himself out of the ditch, wiped his face with a muddy hand. The whole front of him was black with mud; he looked primeval. But better primeval than dead. He walked back down the road, under the bridge and up to the wrecked Commodore. Clements, nursing an injured arm, and O’Brien were standing in the rain; Harry Danforth was standing with them, his gun in his hand. The three police officers had scrambled up the bank and were now on the bridge.

Danforth put his gun back in his holster. “You okay, Scobie? Your cheek’s bleeding.”

“Just a nick. I’m okay.”

Danforth then shouted to the officers up on the bridge. “How is he?”

“Dead, Chief.”

“Good. Thank Christ it’s all over.”

“How are you, Russ?” Malone looked with concern at Clements, who was tenderly holding his left arm.

“I think I’ve broken it. It’s hurting like buggery. But we’re alive, so why complain? It was Blizzard, wasn’t it?”

Malone nodded. “Pretty sure. I’ll go up and have a look. You okay, Brian?”

“I dunno,” said O’Brien and leaned against the car. “I thought I was. Now all of a sudden I’ve got no legs. I can’t believe it’s all over.”

Danforth looked at him carefully, then he said, “I’ll take you up to the stud, you can get a good stiff drink or a cuppa tea or something into you . . . You take charge here, Scobie—it’s been your case all along. Better get an ambulance out here for Russ.”

Malone walked the few yards back along the road to Danforth’s car with him and O’Brien. “I’ll be about half an hour, Brian. Have a whisky ready for me.”

“Sure. Well, we survived . . .” He wiped the rain from his face, the gesture of a weary man who had at last been able to stop running; or at least to drop to a slow trot. The downpour had eased and there was just a thin mist of moisture.

We’ve survived, Malone thought, up till now. But there was still tomorrow and he knew that O’Brien would be more aware of that than he was. O’Brien got into Danforth’s car and Malone slammed the door shut after him. “Have that whisky ready.”

“I’ll join you,” said Danforth, who never said no to a drink, whether he was invited or not. He was already in behind the wheel. He reached to turn on the ignition, then sat back, lifting his big belly. He took his Smith & Wesson out of his waistband holster, leaned across and put it in the glove-box. “I’m getting too fat to carry a gun. Well, see you in a while, Scobie. I’ll come back as soon’s I’ve delivered Mr. O’Brien.”

He took the car down under the bridge and up towards the road that led to the stud. Malone looked at Clements. “Get on the radio, Russ, call in all the necessary. Then sit there and don’t move your arm.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going up to have a look at Frank Blizzard. I still can’t remember what he looked like twenty-three years ago.”

He went up and along the top of the bank and on to the bridge. The three officers, looking like oiled birds in their wet slickers, stood aside as he approached them. “It’s him, all right, Inspector. The rifle’s a Tikka. There’s ammo in his pockets, .243s. You can bet the bullets in your car will match the others ones you told us about.”

Malone looked down at the stranger. All that was familiar was the anorak; Malone had seen Malloy wearing it on at least two occasions. One of the policemen had pulled up the blood-stained hood to hide the horrible wound. All that was exposed was the beardless face, almost white below the cheeks, eyes shut tight against the rain or the pain, it was impossible to tell. The face was a mask, but with nobody that Malone knew behind it.

Then one of the officers said, “Hallo, what’s up? The Chief’s coming back.”

Malone turned and looked up the road. Danforth’s car was coming back, moving slowly, as if in bottom gear. It went down under the bridge, then up to the other two cars. Malone told one of the officers to stay with Blizzard’s body, then he and the other two officers went running along the top of the bank and slid down to the roadway. Danforth still sat in his car, motionless and impassive. Beside him O’Brien lay against the car door, a red gaping hole in the side of his head, Danforth’s Smith & Wesson held loosely in his hand.

Danforth blinked as Malone wrenched open the car door and O’Brien fell into his arms. “For Crissake, what happened?”

“I dunno—it happened so quick . . . He took my gun outa the glove-box and blew his brains out before I could stop him . . .” His beefy hands were resting on the steering wheel, but they looked relaxed, not tight with tension. “Why would he wanna do that?”

Malone looked down at the dead man in his arms. He tried not to look at the face; there was too much agony there. He gently eased O’Brien back into the seat, took off his own jacket and laid it over the head and face of the dead man. Then he looked at Danforth, making no attempt to disguise the accusation in his voice. “Yeah,” he said. “Why would he want to do that?”

VII

Malone and Clements came out of Camden hospital, Clements with his arm in plaster and a sling, Malone with a dressing on his cheek. One of the police cars had gone on to the stud and then come back with Malone’s bags; he had had a shower at the hospital and changed into clean clothes while the doctor had worked on Clements’ broken arm. An understanding nurse had given each of them a heavy slug of medicinal brandy—“courtesy of Medicare”—and the after-shock of the day’s event was seeping out of them.

A local police car was waiting to drive them back to Sydney, but the two detectives didn’t walk across to it immediately. They paused and looked at each other, reading the question in each other’s mind. They had not mentioned Danforth in the past hour; the Chief Superintendent, pleading shock, had already gone back to the city. Now the question could not be avoided.

“Do you think he did it?” said Clements.

“Harry? Of course he bloody did it!” Malone said angrily; then controlled himself as a young nurse walked by and looked at him reproachfully. He waited till she had gone, then went on, “Brian was never going to kill himself. He’d get depressed, I saw that a couple of times, but he wasn’t suicidal, not as far as putting a gun to his own head. Harry did it, all right.”

“Someone paid him.”

“Of course. I can guess who. But we’ll never be able to prove it. We’ll never be able to prove anything. There’ll be an enquiry and it’ll be Harry’s word against that of a dead man. With everything piling it on Brian, who’s going to believe he didn’t suicide? Harry will be ticked off for being careless with his gun, but that’s all he’ll get, a ticking off. He’ll probably retire now, go out with his full pension and whatever he was paid for killing Brian Boru O’Brien.”

“Jesus wept . . .” Clements looked west to where the rain had cleared and streaks of sunlit cloud lay like a silver reef in the pale blue-green sky. “If I didn’t have a cast-iron gut, I think I could spew.”

Malone’s anger and disgust could not be relieved by vomiting. It was not just in his stomach but in every organ, bone, vein and muscle of his body. He was an honest man and honest men, too, are vulnerable to corruption. It doesn’t reward them, just does its best to destroy them.