9

I

“MS. FENG is at her aerobics class.” The young Chinese girl had greeted Gail Lee and Sheryl Dallen at the head of the stairs, as she had on their previous visit. It was as if she had an antenna that picked up the arrival of strangers as soon as they entered the downstairs doorway. “She will not be back for at least an hour. I’ll tell her you called.”

“Better still,” said Gail, “tell us where she goes for her aerobics.”

The young girl looked no more than sixteen, but she was already halfway to being the perfect secretary, the human picket fence. “I don’t think I can do that—”

“I think you can,” said Gail, and said something in Cantonese.

The girl flushed, then said, “It is the Flower Girl gymnasium in Campbell Street.”

Out in the street again Sheryl said, “What was that you said to her?”

“Cantonese. I used an expression I don’t like to use in English.”

“You’re an odd one, Gail.”

Gail smiled. She had come to have affection for and reliance upon the other girl; they were going to be a good team. “Half-and-halves often are.”

Sheryl nodded, though she would never know the problems that mixed-bloods had. She looked across the street to the Golden Gate. “The scene of the crime is in business again.”

“I wonder if anyone sits in the back booth?”

“Of course. The world is full of morbid numbskulls. Splash some blood somewhere and in no time you’ll have a crowd wanting to look at it.”

Gail nodded, then moved on. “Let’s try the Flower Girl gym. Do you know it?”

“Never heard of it. If their aerobics are anything like Chinese gymnastics, I don’t want to know it.”

Campbell Street is a severed minor artery from Chinatown proper. Back in the 1920s and 30s it was a brothel area, sometimes with whole families in the trade; a nice girl was one who said Thank you after servicing a client. There have always been Chinese stores in the lower end of the street and they have now multiplied. The Capitol theatre, a derelict near-ruin for years, has been rebuilt and the 1920s and 30s are back with revivals of old Broadway shows. The occasional hooker is still to be seen, but too often she looks as if she has strayed out of the stage door of the past.

The Flower Girl gymnasium was above two grocery stores and approached by a narrow flight of stairs. As Gail and Sheryl went to go in, a man got out of a car at the kerb and approached them. Then he pulled up, recognizing them.

“Hello, Gail. You after Miss Feng?”

“Hello, Jeff.” He was a plainclothes man from Day Street. “You still keeping an eye on her?”

He was young, eager for action, easily bored. “It’s a waste of time. Nobody’s interested in her.”

“We are.”

He grinned. “You’re not dangerous. Go ahead, be my guests. She’s up on the first floor.”

Gail and Sheryl climbed the stairs, pushed open a door and entered the gymnasium’s main hall. At least a hundred people, men and women, old and young, were arrayed in rows, arms and bodies moving in slow motion as if they were all underwater.

“T’ai Chi?” said Sheryl.

“It doesn’t raise much of a sweat,” said Gail, “but it makes you just as aware of your body.”

“Do you do it?”

“Every Sunday morning. I go with my father and sisters. Dad goes to the rugby league matches on Saturday afternoon, watches all that biff-and-bash, then gets over it with T’ai Chi on Sunday morning.”

Sheryl looked at the group, most of whom were clad in tracksuits or tights and T-shirts. “I think I prefer the sweaty approach. I like the shine of sweat on a thigh muscle.”

“Yours or some guy’s?”

Sheryl just smiled, then nodded at the front row. “Let’s interrupt Camilla.”

Gail raised a beckoning finger and Camilla detached herself from the group and came towards them. She was not shining with sweat; she looked pale and tired. “Yes? Did you have to come here for me?”

“Let’s go somewhere quiet, Camilla. We have a few more questions.”

“Down there.” She nodded towards a far corner of the big room. “T’ai Chi goes on for another half-hour.”

Down this end of the hall there was gymnasium equipment: weights, exercise bikes, three treadmills. Camilla sat down on the cushion of a press-bench and the two detectives sat on a wall-bench facing her. She was lower than they and Gail wondered if it were some sort of ploy. Look, you’re trying to beat me into the ground.

“So why are you here again? I’ve got nothing to add to what I told you last time.”

“I think you might have, Camilla,” said Gail. “One of our detectives has been looking into an insurance policy you took out some months ago on your father—”

Camilla looked around, saw a towel on a nearby bike and reached for it. She wiped her face, though there was no reason to; except that, for a moment, it was a blind to retreat behind. She looked away, like a Method actor in a movie, then back at Gail and Sheryl. “So?”

“Ten million,” said Sheryl. “Enough to get your father out of the trouble he was in. Then, conveniently, he is murdered.”

Camilla’s eyes narrowed, but it was the only sign that she had winced. “You’re pretty brutal, aren’t you?”

“We’ll try not to be,” said Gail, “if you tell us who suggested taking out the policy. Was it you or your father or someone else?”

“My father.”

“Did he discuss it with you?”

Camilla hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”

The T’ai Chi class behind her was still going through its slow motions. Hands and arms drew abstract patterns in the air; heads turned and profiles were sketched against the light from the windows at the end of the room. Silence prevailed; somewhere an ambulance siren wailed, a cry from another world. Sheryl, an energetic girl, felt out of place.

“There was also a policy taken out on Mr. Sun’s life. Who suggested that? Your father?”

“I don’t know.” She retreated behind the towel again for a moment.

“Were there policies on the lives of Mr. Chung and Mr. Aldwych? Your father’s partners?”

“I don’t know.” She began to fold the towel, like a hotel maid.

“What about Madame Tzu?”

“Why don’t you ask her? Ask Mr. Chung and Mr. Aldwych, too.” Her hands squeezed tightly on the towel. “Look, the insurance policy was my father’s idea—he didn’t discuss it with me till after he’d taken it out.”

“Would he have had any ideas about suicide?” asked Sheryl.

Camilla looked genuinely shocked. “Good God, no! You really have weirdo minds, haven’t you?”

The two women gazed at her, said nothing.

Camilla squeezed the towel again. “No, Dad wouldn’t have thought of suicide—or planned it, like you’re suggesting. He was an optimist, that was how he got into the mess he was in. Everything was always going to come up roses. He was a gambler.”

“Gamblers usually don’t take out insurance policies, do they?” said Gail. “Had your father had any threats? Was he afraid something might happen to him?”

Camilla thought for a moment. “I don’t know. If he had, he would never have told us. But yes, he might have had. He was acting—well, different over the past few months. It’s difficult to explain, unless you knew my father. But he was different. He said something once—never trust a stranger. I asked him what he meant, but he just smiled and walked away.”

“Who were the strangers?”

Camilla shrugged. “Mr. Aldwych. Madame Tzu. Mr. Shan—General Huang.”

“But not Chung and Sun?”

“No. Dad didn’t know Mr. Chung well, but they weren’t strangers to each other. They’d worked together on a couple of charities.”

The class had stopped for a short break. All at once the figures on a frieze became human, lost their grace. Half the heads turned to look at the three women in this far corner; lips moved but the gossip was silent. Camilla looked back over her shoulder at the class, then back at the two detectives.

“They suspect you’re police.”

“How have they been treating you?”

“Sympathetically. Everyone in Chinatown knew Dad. He was very popular.”

“Camilla,” said Gail, “who else knew about the policy on your dad’s life? And the one on Mr. Sun?”

“Darren and Troy knew—I don’t know if they knew about my father’s, but they certainly knew about their father’s. They’re the beneficiaries.”

“And that’s all who knew? No one else?”

Camilla put down the towel, still neatly folded. “My aunt.”

“Madame Tzu?”

In the background the class had begun to reform. Arms were raised, heads held still, the frieze frozen.

“Yes,” said Camilla, standing up. “There’s nothing she doesn’t know.”

II

“There’s been another homicide,” said Clements.

Malone sat back in his chair. It was late afternoon and he was ready to go home. There had been three more murders today: a security guard shot dead outside a suburban bank; a domestic in an outer suburb; a woman’s head found in a hatbox on a riverbank at the foot of the Blue Mountains. He had taken Phil Truach off the Olympic Tower case and sent him to take charge of the hatbox murder; it would have him out in the open air for a few hours and he could smoke to his lungs’ content. Out in the big room half a dozen of his men were finishing the paperwork on four solved murders, getting their notes together for future use in the courts, preparing their ammunition for use against the defence lawyers. Gail Lee and Sheryl Dallen had reported to him on their meeting with Camilla Feng and he had decided to leave her alone for a while on a loose rope; Day Street and Drummoyne were keeping an eye on her and she was their responsibility for the time being. Tomorrow morning, first thing, he would visit Madame Tzu again.

“Where?”

“Kirribilli.”

“That’s not our territory. Let North Sydney take care of it.”

“It’s Jason, the muscleman on the Olympic site. He didn’t report to work this morning and a mate called in at the flat this afternoon and found him dead. A bullet in the head.”

“Bugger!” He sat up, feeling weary: no adrenaline this time. “The body still there?”

“No, it’s gone to the morgue. Crime Scene are still there, though. You wanna go over?”

Malone reached for his phone, rang home: “Tom? Tell Mum I may be a bit late this evening. What are you doing?”

“I’m on the Internet. The market went up again today.” Tom had done two weeks’ work experience in a stockbroker’s office during his last holidays and ever since then had been running the country’s economy. He was going to do Economics at university and already could see himself as a $300,000-a-year market analyst. “You should’ve bought NAB when I told you.”

“I hope you’re married and out of the house before I retire or my superannuation will just evaporate. Why don’t you study to be a postman or a street cleaner? See you tonight.” He hung up, looked at Clements. “He’ll be a millionaire by the time he’s thirty, shouting me first-class trips round the world.”

“You complaining? I hope Amanda grows up to be rich.”

Malone reached for his hat and jacket. “You coming with me?”

“No, I’m going home to my wife and child. I’ve told John to go with you. That’s all you’ve got on the Olympic case now—I’m stretched. John, Gail and Sheryl.”

“I used to be in charge of this place once. What happened?”

Malone and John Kagal drove over the Bridge to Kirribilli. The westering sun flickered on the harbour; a small yacht, red and yellow spinnaker curved like a large apple slice, ran away from the breeze. The peak-hour traffic streamed homewards, drivers locked in their cars with their own secrets.

The streets of the tiny Kirribilli peninsula were lined with a mix of plane trees, jacarandas and Chinese raintrees; Malone remarked the last with a wry grin. The buildings were also a mix, with flats predominating. Those built in the last fifty years were either tall and ugly or, at best, plain and bulky; those surviving from pre-World War Two strove for some appearance of dignity and solidity. There were some private houses, but not many. Down on the point were Admiralty House, the Sydney residence of the Governor-General, and Kirribilli House, that of the Prime Minister. Both lent some tone to the area, though past residents of both houses did not always do the same.

Jason Nidop lived (or had lived) in a block of six flats on the northern slope of the Kirribilli ridge. It was not a luxury block, but it had a view over the narrow waters of Careening Cove, where a fleet of small yachts floated like sleeping gulls. Two police cars were parked in the street outside and a uniformed cop was just removing the Crime Scene tapes that blocked the entrance to the flats.

“Anyone still upstairs?” Malone asked.

The cop nodded. “They’re just about finished, I think.”

Going up the granite stairs to the second floor Kagal said, “I never met this guy. Was he trouble?”

“I don’t know. I thought he was only involved in a union battle.”

“Do unionists go around shooting each other in the head?”

“My old man would shoot you for suggesting such a thing. No, they were more rough-and-ready, guns weren’t their thing.”

“You’re talking about your old man. That’s the past. Maybe things are different today.”

The flat was a two-bedroom unit, comfortably furnished but without any style. On the wall of the small living room were two large framed posters of two heavily muscled, scantily clad supermen: Mr. World and Mr. Universe. The latter looked slightly superior as if he knew his competition was bigger. A low bookcase held paperbacks, magazines and a row of videos. The latest decoration was the outline on the blue carpet where Jason Nidop’s body had lain.

Two members of the Physical Evidence team were putting away their equipment. The young woman officer smiled at Malone and Kagal as they entered the room and Malone said, “G’day, Norma. What’ve you got?”

“Not much. Some prints on the door. Maybe the guy in the bedroom will be able to tell you something.”

Malone and Kagal went into the main bedroom. This room was decorated with another poster, this one of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his more bulbous days. A slim good-looking man, not at all muscular, sat on the bed, head held in his hands. He looked up as the two detectives came in. “Christ, not more cops—”

“I’m afraid so,” said Malone. “You are . . .?”

“Joe Zinner.” He gave his name as if it were a throwaway card.

“You worked with Jason?”

Zinner stood up, walked to the window and looked out; but it was obvious he saw nothing nor was he interested in what lay out there. Then he turned. “We were partners.”

“Partners? In some business?”

Zinner’s smile barely stretched his lips. “No, we-we were friends. Lovers, if you like.”

“How long have you known Jason?” asked Kagal.

“A year. After he left the TV show he was on and came back to Sydney.”

“When did you last see him?”

“Last night.”

“You were both home all night?” said Malone.

“No.” He had turned his back on the window, was against the last light in the northern sky. The bedroom was not dark, but it had deep blue walls that threw off no light.

Malone looked for the light switch, turned it on. In the sudden illumination Zinner looked gaunt and pale, middle-aged, though he could not have been more than in his early thirties.

“So where were you last night?”

“Is it any of your business? Christ, I’ve just lost my—my friend, the guy I loved!”

“We understand that, Mr. Zinner, but we’re trying to find out why anyone would want to kill your friend.”

“You think I did it? Jesus!” He threw his head back, an almost effeminate movement. Yet, Malone thought, there was nothing—sissy about the man. And rebuked himself for the thought.

“Where were you last night?”

“We had a row—a terrific one. One like we’ve never had before.”

“What about?”

“It was personal. Christ, you really do pry, don’t you?” Malone and Kagal said nothing and after some hesitation Zinner said despairingly, “Okay, it was over another guy he’s been seeing. We had the row and I stomped out of here and went home.”

“Home? Where’s that? Your parents’ home? Your own place?”

“Neutral Bay. No, I went home to my wife.” He gestured, a meaningless movement of his hands. “Okay, I’m double-gaited—”

“Fluid,” said Kagal.

Zinner looked at him. “You know the terms?”

“We learn them,” said Kagal, telling him nothing more. Don’t complicate things, Malone told him silently. “You stayed the night with your wife? She’ll verify that?”

“Maybe, maybe not.” He gestured again, but there was meaning to it this time: he was full of despair, his life had fallen apart. “She hadn’t any time for Jason.”

“Any time for you?” said Malone, and hoped he didn’t sound cruel.

“What do you think? We have a little girl—” Suddenly he turned back to the window, buried his face in his hands and began to weep silently.

Malone said, “Take care of him, John,” and went out into the living room. The second PE officer was just coming out of the second bedroom.

“G’day, Sam. Got anything?”

The PE man was in his forties, prematurely grey with a squeezed look to his eyes, as if a lifetime of peering at his trade had marked him. He collected the spin-off from a crime: the bullet in a wall, the dropped knife, the fingerprint, the shoeprint, the hair, the thread. He was the clue-maker and every detective paid his respects.

“G’day, Scobie. The bullet was still in the guy’s head, it didn’t exit. There didn’t appear to have been any struggle, a fight or anything. Evidently he knew who killed him. There was no forced entry, he’d unlocked the door and let in whoever it was. The GMO said he’d been dead about eighteen hours, maybe a bit more. His friend Mr. Zinner came by this afternoon about four and found him. So he was killed around ten o’clock last night, give or take an hour or two.”

“Any bullet casing?”

“No. It’s possible the gun he used didn’t eject any shells or he tidied up after himself. Some killers are born housekeepers.” He grinned.

“What’s that you’ve got?”

Sam Penfold held up the large plastic envelope he was carrying. “This was in a drawer in the bedroom. It’s one I’ve never seen before.”

Malone took the envelope, looked at the gun inside it. “It’s a Chinese army Type 67.”

III

Malone had slept soundly, as he almost always did; but he was still tired. He had got up at six and gone for his usual five-kilometre walk down to and round Randwick racecourse. The horses, doing trackwork, went by him, all muscle and energy, the morning sun etching them in golden line. The trainers and strappers and the bookies’ spies lined the rails in small groups, no excitement showing, just men at work. Malone had no interest in racing but he knew of the contrast between the silence, but for the drumming of hoofs, of morning trackwork and the roar of the crowd on Saturday afternoon. It was the comparative silence that appealed to him, that and the great grandstands as empty of sound as forgotten temples in the jungle. Here he got his mind into gear for the day.

He did his own trackwork, then went back up the hill, climbing into the sun towards home.

When he was leaving for the office Lisa had come out to him as he got into the car. “I’ll ride in with you and catch a cab from Strawberry Hills.”

He sometimes drove her into Town Hall, but this morning he sensed something different in her. He was in the mainstream of city-bound traffic before he said, “What’s on your mind?”

“When you were under the shower there was a phone call. I didn’t tell you at breakfast, I didn’t want to mention it in front of Claire and the others. It was a man. He said to tell you that we should all beware of accidents.”

“We?”

“That’s what he said. We should all beware of accidents. Then he hung up.”

He said nothing for almost half a mile, trapped in the middle lane of traffic. He could not stop and turn round, though that was what he wanted to do. Cars hemmed him in on both sides; at one point there was a car on either side of him, both with four men inside, all laughing like a primed TV audience. One man turned to look at him, still laughing, and Malone was almost tempted to wind down the window and hurl abuse at him.

Another half-mile and his patience ran out. He put the blue light on the roof of the Fairlane, turned on the siren, flicked his indicator and squeezed his way through a gap on the inside lane and up on to the footpath. He drove along the pavement and swung round a corner into a side street and bumped back onto the roadway. It was the sort of caper he sneered at in TV cop shows. He pulled up, turned off the siren and pulled the blue light in off the roof.

“Spectacular,” said Lisa drily.

He was in no mood for dry wit; he was dry with fear for her and the family. “What did he sound like?”

“What do you mean, what did he sound like? It was a man, that was all.”

“Australian? Chinese?”

“I don’t know whether he was Chinese, but I don’t think he was Australian. He was—precise. Careful with his words. He could have been Chinese, but I wouldn’t swear to it.”

He said, careful with his own words, “I may have to move you and the kids to a safe house, get you protection.”

“No.” She was adamant; he could see her stiffening. “If we have to be protected, we stay in our own house. No,” she repeated, “no, I’m not even going to allow that. I’ll be careful, I’ll keep an eye out, but I’m coming to work each day.”

“What about the kids? They don’t break up till next week. We’re going to let them run around loose? To let God knows what happen to them?”

She stared ahead of her. Suddenly the colour seemed to drain out of her face; her mouth thinned as she bit her lips, she looked older. This side street was lined with small factories and warehouses; cars and trucks went by, but there was little pedestrian traffic. She saw none of it; he had demolished her argument when he mentioned the children. At last she said, still not turning her head, “All right, you win. Where do we go?”

“I’ll have Russ round up the kids.” Claire was at Sydney University, Maureen at New South Wales and Tom at Marcellin College in Randwick. “He can take you with him while he picks them up. I’ll ring Greg Random and get permission to move you into a safe house they keep under the Witness Protection scheme.”

“Where is it?”

“Camden, I think.”

“Camden!” It was a semi-rural town that had been almost absorbed by the spreading outer suburbs of Sydney. “Why not Tibooburra?”

Tibooburra was a family and Service joke: the most remote posting in the State, up in the far north-west where the only crims were old men kangaroos that went in for wife-bashing. “I can arrange that for you, if you like.”

“Stop joking.”

He reached for her hand. “Darl, I can’t help it—I wish to Christ I could. I hate these bastards who try to bring my family into it . . .” A truck went by, back-fired; her hand jumped under his. “I like my job. But I love you and the kids. If anything happened—anything . . .”

His hand tightened on hers; she almost cried out. She freed her hand, touched his cheek. “We’ll go to Camden. But the house had better be clean . . .”

He drove on in to Strawberry Hills, took Lisa upstairs and explained the situation to Clements. “Collect the kids, Russ, then take Lisa and them home so’s they can pack. Then bring them back here. I’ll take them out to Camden.”

Clements was a mixture of anger and concern. “This is getting outa hand. I think we oughta bring in everyone on our list—”

“Russ—” Malone was surprised by his own patience—“we don’t know that whoever is making these threats is on our list.” He kissed Lisa. “I’ll see you back here in about an hour. Tell Claire she doesn’t need to take her entire wardrobe.”

“Stop joking,” she said for the second time, but kissed him in return. She wasn’t angry at him: she knew the jokes were no more than camouflage for the anger and fear for them that he felt.

The detectives in the big room all stood awkwardly as Clements took Lisa out through the security door. They nodded or said just a word or two. All of them, with the exception of the two women detectives, had been the target of threats. But never their families.

Malone went back into his office, rang Greg Random and explained what had happened.

There was silence at the other end of the line; then: “I could take you off the case.”

The offer was tempting; but habit was too ingrained: “No, Greg. I’m going to get this bastard, whoever he is.”

“There might be more than one.”

“No, I’m staying on the job. Just get the permission for Lisa and the kids to move into the safe house.”

Random made no attempt to hide the reluctance in his voice; he valued his men, Malone above all of them. “Okay. But you take care. Don’t go playing bloody heroes.”

Malone hung up, looked up as John Kagal came into his office. “Yes?”

“I went over to the morgue early this morning, got them to put Jason Nidop first on their autopsy list. They took the bullet out of his head and I had Ballistics come and collect it.”

Malone was impressed, but did his best not to sound too enthusiastic; Kagal would one day be Commissioner, but he should not be encouraged too much at this stage. “Where do you get all this influence?”

“It’s charm, not influence,” said Kagal, but his smile took the conceit out of it. “Clarrie Binyan rang five minutes ago. The bullet in Mr. Nidop’s head came from the same gun that killed Mr. Zhang out at Bondi, not the one in the drawer in Nidop’s flat.”

Malone pondered this for a moment, then said, “Go on, you haven’t finished yet.”

“No, I haven’t. That Chinese army gun, the Type 67, had been wiped clean, there wasn’t a single dab on it that PE could find. Why would a hitman wipe his fingerprints off his gun before he put it away in a drawer? Unless he always wore gloves when using it. Was he wearing gloves when you saw him in the Golden Gate last Friday night?”

Malone shut his eyes, tried rescreening the memory of the murders. Last Friday night: an age ago. Then he opened his eyes and shook his head. “I’m not sure. What I am sure is that Jason was not the feller in the stocking mask. He’d be—what?—six three, six four?”

“A hundred and ninety-two centimetres, the autopsy report said. Close enough to six-four or a bit more. A hundred and five kilos, according to the report. A big bugger.”

“No,” said Malone, closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them. He was definite this time: “The killer was slim, might’ve been six feet but I don’t think so. Jason wasn’t the hitman.”

“So the hitman plants the gun on him? Or was Jason minding it for him?”

“I don’t know. If he planted the gun, hoping we’d tag Jason as the hitman, he wasn’t very bright. But it wouldn’t be the first less-than-bright thing done in this case. Planting that fifty-one million in those bank accounts wasn’t very bright, either.”

Kagal nodded. “Something fishy is going on here. Neither the bank nor Canberra have put out a statement. If the media are on to it, they’ve been told to keep quiet.”

“How do you keep the media quiet?” Like all cops he used the media whenever it was necessary, but, like all cops, he was suspicious of them. They were a necessary evil.

“By denial, I guess. Someone will run a story on it and the government will say it’s just a furphy. All Kate can find out—and Fraud aren’t in on it any more—is that once the story got to Canberra, it was buried.”

“Maybe I’d better see Mr. Deng, their consul-general, again.”

“I tried to get him, but he’s down in Canberra again at their embassy.”

Why didn’t I guess you’d have already covered that point? Why don’t I just retire and let you take over this chair right now? “Keep me posted when he’s back in town . . . What did you find out about this bloke Jason was supposed to be seeing? The one he and Mr. Zinner had the blue about?”

Kagal looked at his notes; he had the case covered from every angle. “His name’s Harvey Smythe—S-M-Y-T-H-E. He’s an actor, a young guy—he’s a heart-throb in one of the soap operas. Friday he was up on the Gold Coast, he’s got a part in a feature film. He was there Friday night. I rang the production company and he was in a night-shoot they were doing. He’s in the clear.”

“Follow him up, he may know something. Is there a station at Surfers Paradise? What a posting! I suppose they wear bikinis and Ray-Bans. Ask them to question Mr. Smythe, see if he can tell them anything about Jason.” He looked at his watch. “I’m going down to the Olympic Tower site. Come with me. Gail can get on to Surfers.”

He wasn’t sure why he had suddenly decided to take Kagal with him. Perhaps he needed reassurance. The younger man seemed to have the touch of someone who believed that there was nothing that could not be resolved.

Out in the main room he told Gail Lee to get on to Surfers Paradise, then he said, “If Russ gets back here with my family before I do, tell ‘em I won’t be long. What’s the latest on Miss Feng?”

“Day Street and Drummoyne are still keeping an eye on her. Madame Tzu had dinner with the Feng family last night.”

“She doesn’t hide herself, that lady.”

“The Empress Tzu was never shy.”

Malone looked at Kagal. “I’m just waiting for the local feminists to find out about these Chinese empresses. We’re done for, mate . . . Gail, has anything come through on the Hong Kong bank that sent out those dollars?”

“We tried getting the Hong Kong police to help, but nothing’s happening. It’s not like the old days, when the British were there—they’re suspicious of us. Then we asked our consulate there what they could do. Nothing’s happened.”

“Did China ever build a Great Wall of Silence?”

Gail smiled. “I’ll ask my dad.”

Kagal drove the unmarked car down to the Olympic Tower site, driving with all the skill and arrogant confidence of a professional. Is there anything this bloke doesn’t do well? Malone asked himself. Sooner or later he would have to recommend three stripes for Kagal, but at the moment there was no place for another sergeant in the establishment.

The first person they saw when they pulled on to the site was Guo Yi. He came down the side of the structure in a work-lift, opened the gate, stepped out and pulled up dead as he saw them. The two detectives got out of the car and crossed to him.

“You shouldn’t be on the site without helmets,” he said.

“Get us a couple, John,” said Malone, and Kagal went across to the shed by the gate. “You decided to come back to work, Mr. Guo? Who recommended it?”

“You did.” He was in slacks, white shirt and tie: a black tie.

Malone nodded at it. “You’re wearing that out of respect for the dead?”

“They were all older men. We respect age.”

“You don’t respect me.” Guo just shrugged: take it or leave it. Malone went on, “Mr. Zhang wasn’t old, but he’s dead. So’s Jason Nidop.”

Guo frowned as if the name meant nothing to him.

“The Allied Trades delegate here. A bullet in the head, night before last. You hadn’t heard about it?”

“Oh, of course.” The recovery was quick. “I just didn’t know his name. I never had any dealings with him.”

“But you have dealings with Roley Bremner? Thanks, John.” Kagal came back with two helmets. “You know his name?”

“Yes. A very aggressive little man.”

“A good many of our union men are.” Remembering Con Malone, who would have knocked down this uppity young Chinese without speaking to him. Oh Dad, you retired just in time. “It’s one reason why our workers are better off than they are in China. You find it difficult working with our unions?”

“Yes.”

“Enough to threaten one of the union men?”

“I told you, I had no dealings with Mr. Nidop.”

“You remembered his name?” Malone waited, but Guo Yi did not bite. “Just for the record, Mr. Guo, where were you the night before last?”

Guo took his time. “I was with Li Ping, at her flat in Cronulla.”

“Oh, you’re back there? Glad to hear it. And Mr. Tong?”

“He’s back at his Bondi flat.”

“So the three of you are feeling safe again?”

Guo adjusted his helmet, as if it had slipped. “We think so.”

“Even after we’ve told you about Mr. Nidop’s murder? He was killed by the same gun that killed Miss Li’s brother, Zhang.”

Guo took off his helmet, fiddled with the lining and put it back on. “That’s upsetting. You’re sure?”

“Oh, very sure. We have one of the best Ballistics units of any police service in the world. The Hong Kong police used to call on them for advice.”

“Not any more.”

“No, I guess not. I suppose they’re no longer interested in the finer points of forensics. Well, thanks, Mr. Guo. Take care.”

As he and Kagal turned away the work-lift came sliding down, the gate was slammed open and Roley Bremner stepped out. Guo Yi looked at him, then turned his back and walked away. Roley gave his back the middle finger salute.

“Uppity bugger . . . Well, what can I do for you? As if I didn’t know.”

“It’s just routine, Roley. Would anyone you know have gone looking for Jason Nidop?”

“Like putting a bullet in him? Nah, no way.” Bremner held his helmet while he shook his head. “We were losing members to him and his mob, but it wasn’t that serious we hadda get rid of him that way.”

“Had you or anyone from your union threatened him?” Kagal asked.

“You kidding? We didn’t go around throwing him kisses. Yeah, I suppose some of us did tell him to lay off or else.”

“Or else what?”

Bremner grinned. “Your guess is as good as mine. But not else a bullet. Nah, look, you’re wasting your time trying to lay it on us. I gotta be honest, I’m glad to see him go, but I wouldn’t of done it that way. Neither would anyone from the union.”

“What about the two fellers down there, the foundation members?” Malone pointed at the ground.

“Before my time, mate. Look somewhere else, Scobie.”

“Where, for instance?”

Bremmer shook his head again; this time he took off his helmet. “What’s that about the monkeys? Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil. Or whatever it is.”

Malone looked at Kagal. “Another philosopher.”

“Confuckingfucious,” said Bremner, and walked off. “Give my regards to your old man.”

Malone looked after him, then switched his gaze to Guo Yi, who had just come out of the administration hut. He paused by three men sitting on saw-horses having a smoke. He said something, then raised his hand and pointed a finger at them. Malone shut his eyes, then opened them again. Guo left the men and walked across to the work-lift. He got in, closed the gate and pressed the start button. The lift rose, crawling up past the floors that had already been clad by the outer walls, up until it was rising past the skeleton of the upper floors. Guo Yi looked down on the two detectives till the lift reached a height, still travelling, where the floor of it obscured him.

“He’s the one,” said Malone.

“The one what?” said Kagal.

“The hitman. He did the Golden Gate job.”

“And Jason and Mr. Zhang?”

“Probably.”

“So do we go up there and tell him what you think?”

Malone began to walk back towards their car. “What hard evidence have we got? We take him in and hold him and he just sits there, says bugger-all, and at the end of it what’ve we got to pass on to the DPP? They’d tell us we haven’t got a leg to stand on when it comes to prosecution.” He got into the car, slammed the door with more force than was necessary. “But we’ll get him. If he’s the bugger who threatened Lisa this morning, I’ll get him!”

Kagal paused before getting into the car, stood back and looked up. High on an upper floor, there on a girder, someone in helmet and white shirt stood looking down at them.

“Jump, you bastard,” said Kagal.

IV

Malone drove Lisa and the children out to Camden in the family Fairlane. The small town lies in the middle of what was the beginning of the nation’s wealth, the wool trade. Now the city is reaching out to engulf it; soon it will be just another suburb and wool will only be something that politicians and used-car salesmen pull over people’s eyes. It is a pleasant town, clustered around a central hill, and the safe house was halfway up the hill, on the street leading to the town graveyard.

“Very appropriate,” said Lisa.

“We’ll never forgive you for this,” said Maureen. “How long are we going to be stuck out here?”

“Don’t let the locals hear you talking like that,” said Malone.

“Well, how long?” asked Tom. “Geez, we’re just about to start our holidays. It’d better be all over by Christmas. I start my work experience again the Monday after New Year’s Day—”

“We’ll have it all wrapped up by then. Come on, let’s see what the house is like.”

“Who’s here with us?”

“A policewoman disguised as a cook-housekeeper.”

“Can she cook?” asked Lisa.

“I don’t know. If she can’t, you can teach her.”

“Does she carry a gun?” said Tom.

“In the pocket of her pinny. For God’s sake, I’ve never met the woman—” Then he calmed himself as they reached the front door of the old stone house. He noticed its windows were barred and there was a security door; just your normal abode in a sleepy country town. “Look, I’ll get you out of here as soon as it’s safe. I don’t like this any more than you do—”

“It’s okay, Dad,” said Claire, and kissed his cheek. “Relax. We’ll do the same. Are we allowed visitors?”

“No.”

“Shit!” said Maureen, then looked at her mother. “Sorry. I hope we’re not going to spend Christmas here, that’ll be jolly. The Commissioner playing Daddy Christmas.”

The front door opened. Constable Barbara Sherrard, in a pale blue sundress, no pinafore and no gun, stood there. She was tall and pleasant-looking; Malone immediately felt confidence in her. “Constable Sherrard? My family.”

“Let’s get off on the right foot,” said Lisa, putting out her hand. “Lisa, Claire, Maureen and Tom. And I’m sure none of us is going to call you Constable.”

“Come in.” She appeared genuinely pleased to see them; keeping a safe house was evidently not a chore for her. She had a smile that seemed to take up the whole of her wide face. “I’m just preparing dinner.”

“You like to cook?” said Lisa.

“Love it! I did a Cordon Bleu course once when I was running a safe house up in the Blue Mountains. I was minding a French canary—” She looked at Malone.

“I remember him. Sang like an aviary of canaries. He put away half a dozen heroin smugglers.”

“What are you cooking?” asking Lisa, keeping her priorities.

“I thought coquillettes en pâté sauce Janik might be a good introduction?”

“Go home, Dad,” said Claire. “You won’t be needed.”

V

Malone, however, stayed for dinner. Barbara Sherrard was unashamedly showing off; she confessed it. The coquillettes whatever was, to his taste, perfect; the crème brûlée that followed was as good as Lisa’s. The safe house even ran to bottles of Hunter reds and whites.

“Is it always like this?” Lisa asked.

“I try to make it so,” said Barbara; then looked at Malone. “Don’t worry, sir. I’ve been ten years with the Service. I’ve been in three siege situations.”

“Inside looking out or outside looking in?” said Claire.

“Outside. But there’s not going to be any siege situation here. I promise you.”

Malone kissed his girls good night, squeezed Tom’s shoulder and took Lisa out to the car with him. “I’ll call every morning and night.”

“Every morning and night? How long is it going to be? Never mind.” She held him to her, kissed him passionately. “Be careful.”

“Don’t you or the kids answer the phone. Let Barbara do it every time.”

She looked at him carefully. “You’re afraid they may have followed us here.”

“No, I’m not. I went almost cross-eyed looking in the rear-vision mirror coming up here. It’s just standard procedure—the protected personnel never touch a phone.”

“The protected personnel. Do we wear labels?”

He kissed her again. “Stop joking.”

He drove back to the city through a night filled with stars and a scimitar of moon. Once a car, going the other way, passed him at high speed; a moment later a police car, lights flashing, siren wailing, went by with a whoosh that he felt through his open window. In Homicide, he comforted himself, you never had to risk your life in a high-speed chase after some hoons in a stolen car.

It was almost eleven o’clock before he pulled the Fairlane in before his house. He got out, opened the gates and pressed the remote control to open the garage door. He drove the car in, closed the door, then moved down the short driveway to close the gates.

At that moment the car, dark-coloured and without lights, pulled up opposite him. He saw the hand come out of the front window holding a gun; he dropped flat as the two shots hit the ironwork of the gates and zinged away. Then the car accelerated, went at speed up the street, disappeared round the corner with a screech of tyres.

He stood up, shivering with reaction. The shots had made little sound; the gun had been fitted with a silencer. Nobody came to any of the front doors; no lights went on in bedroom windows. Malone stood leaning on the half-closed gates, waiting for the bones to come back into his legs. Then he closed the gates and went into the house: the unsafe house.