Читать книгу Dilemma - Jon Cleary, Jon Cleary - Страница 8

Chapter Two

1

Downsizing had hit Newcastle; the Big Australian was now not-so-big. There was a new government in Canberra, advised by economic rationalists; Thatcherism had taken root in Australia like rabbits and cod and other imports. The Asian economic house of cards had collapsed and the Australian voters were only now beginning to realize the shine might wear off the immediate future. Violence had increased, especially in the streets. The shine, it seemed, had worn off everything.

‘Inspector Malone? This is Detective-Constable Mungle. Wally Mungle. Collamundra. Remember? Eight years ago, the Hardstaff case.’

‘Wally – what can I do for you?’ Had Amanda Hardstaff, the woman who had walked away from a bungled murder, finally decided to confess?

‘Last night, on that Channel 15 programme, Wanted for Questioning, they ran a piece about a guy named Ron Glaze, with his photo. Killed his wife four years ago. You still on that?’

‘Only remotely, Wally.’

‘I think he’s living here in Collamundra.’

Twenty-five years in the Service and a cop can still feel the adrenaline suddenly surge. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Pretty sure. I can’t be certain, but I think I’d take a bet on it. He’s bald now and put on weight, but I think he’s the same bloke. He came into town about two, maybe three years ago. He runs a nursery, lives with the woman whose husband owned it. She’s a widow.’

‘Glaze was supposed to be a keen gardener, but I dunno that he could run a nursery. Still … You keeping an eye on him?’

‘Without letting him know, yes. It’s not easy – our establishment out here isn’t what it used to be. There’s been cutbacks, you know what it’s like. I’m the only detective now. Sometimes I’m running around like a blue-arsed fly, other times …’

‘It’s a long way for me to send someone, Wally, just on the off-chance. Can you pick him up, put him through the grinder?’

‘This is a bush town, Inspector. Another thing, I’m still the Abo cop for some of ’em around here. I pick him up and I’m wrong, he’s not this Glaze bloke, I’m in the shithouse.’

‘Who’s in charge there now?’ He frowned, trying to remember names: ‘Inspector Narvo?’

‘No, he’s the area super now. Inspector Gombrich is boss now.’ There was a pause, like a high jumper measuring a jump; then: ‘He and me don’t always see eye to eye.’

Malone took his own pause; he knew, as well as anyone, the minefield in the Service. At last, measuring his own jump, he said, ‘Put me through to Inspector Gombrich.’

‘Yes, sir. Putting you through now.’ There was no mistaking the reluctance in Mungle’s voice.

I’m putting him in the shithouse, thought Malone; but it could not be helped. He remembered his arrival in Collamundra eight years ago, when he and Clements had been as welcome as nightsoil carters on a hot morning.

‘Inspector Gombrich.’ The voice was flat and harsh.

‘This is Inspector Malone, Scobie Malone. Homicide and Serial Offenders Unit, Sydney—’ Gombrich had the sort of voice that asked for identification, with papers.

‘I know who you are. Constable Mungle filled me in before he phoned you. I don’t agree with his suspicions—’

‘Inspector—’ Malone couldn’t remember when he had been so formal with someone of equal rank – ‘half our homicides begin with nothing more than suspicion. All I ask is that you question this man—’

‘Roger Gibson is a personal friend.’

‘Gibson – that’s his name?’ R. G. It was remarkable the number of times fugitives chose their original initials. As if afraid that a monogram, on a handkerchief or wallet, might give them away.

‘Yes. I’ve been here twelve months, we play golf together, his wife and my wife are friends—’

‘He’s married?’

‘All right—’ the exasperation was like static on the line – ‘his partner. They’re a happily married couple, even if they’re not married. I think Constable Mungle has made a mistake and we’ll just forget it—’

‘Inspector Gombrich—’ Malone could see the roadblocks building up; at the same time he could feel his temper rising – ‘this is our case – I can’t just forget it, not till I’m sure that Mr Gibson is not Ron Glaze. I’ll come out there—’ he heard himself say; normally he would have sent a couple of junior officers. ‘I’ll come out and talk to Mr Gibson – Have you spoken to him?’

‘Of course not!’ The voice was even harsher.

‘Then don’t,’ said Malone, a certain harshness in his own voice. ‘I want him there when I arrive. I’ll be coming with the authority of Chief Superintendent Random—’

‘Are you threatening me?’

‘No. I’m just sticking to police procedure. When can I catch a plane to Collamundra?’

There was a long silence, then Gombrich said, ‘There’s a plane leaves Kingsford Smith at twelve, Hazelton Airlines. It’s usually booked solid,’ he added and the harshness curdled with relish.

‘Someone’s going to be unlucky,’ said Malone. ‘But not me.’

He hung up and beckoned Russ Clements through the glass wall of his office. The big man came in, slumped down in his favourite position, the couch beneath the window. For a while he had been going to a gym and had lost some weight, but lately he had begun to spread again. He was not fat, there was still muscle and bone there, but he was generously overlaid. Malone sometimes wondered, though he would never have mentioned it, if Romy, a gourmet cook, had lapsed back into Teutonic recipes. Clements had the sort of stomach that welcomed dumplings.

‘You’ve got that shit-on-the-liver look again. Who is it this time?’

Malone filled him in. ‘I’m going out to Colla-mundra. How’s our slate today?’

‘Two cases, that’s all. I’ll give you time off for twenty-four hours.’ Clements was the Field Supervisor, the man who dealt out the assignments. ‘Collamundra, eh? Narelle Potter, remember? I wonder if she still runs the Mail Coach Hotel?’

‘You’re a married man now. I’m not going to look up one of your one-night stands. Get me on the plane, there’s one at noon.’

‘You think this could be that guy Glaze?’

‘I don’t know. But Wally Mungle has shoved his neck out and I’ve got to back him. I’ll be back tonight, with or without.’

There was a spare seat on the Hazelton Airlines plane and no one had to be offloaded for the Police Service. Malone sat next to a cotton farmer who had obviously fortified himself for the flight before boarding. He was short and big-bellied, with a mop of yellow hair and a yellow moustache. He was also drunkenly direct: ‘You on business?’

Malone nodded. ‘Just looking.’

‘What sort?’

Malone flitted down a list of businesses. Oil drilling, coal mining, brothel keeping … ‘Fast food.’

‘We’ve got a McDonald’s and a Pizza Hut, we don’t want any more. You’re not Kentucky Fried Chicken or Hungry Jack’s?’ He was built like a man who frequented all four.

Malone shook his head. ‘Shirley’s Sausage Rolls. A new concept.’

‘A new one, eh? That’s the way the world’s going, right? Fast food. Pretty soon we won’t sit down to eat. Sausage rolls, eh? Well, at least that’s Australian. Bloody pizzas. I ask you.’

The plane came in over the cotton fields, white lakes stretching away to the horizon, harvesters sitting in the middle of them like glass-cabined houseboats. Memory came flooding back. The Japanese cotton farm manager under the spikes of a module feeder; the resentment of the locals towards the two cops from Sydney, the outsiders; the climax with the arrest of the district’s most prominent landowner, the bush aristocrat, Chester Hardstaff. That had been a complex, threatening case with the real murderer, Hardstaff’s daughter, walking away unchallenged. Compared to that case, the Glaze-Gibson matter would be wrapped up, one way or the other, in the next hour.

When he stepped out of the plane on to the tarmac Malone felt the heat hit him like a soft physical blow. El Niño, reaching out all the way from the Peruvian and Chilean coasts, had had its effect here on the western plains. Further west, beyond the cotton belt, wheat and sheep farmers watched the cracks widen daily in the soil of their paddocks. Things were tough enough out here without a cop arriving from Sydney to kick up more dirt.

Wally Mungle was waiting for him in an unmarked car. ‘You haven’t changed, Inspector.’

Mungle had. He was still slight, still seemingly too small for his suit, but the years had doubled in his dark-coffee face. Somewhere back in his lineage was a white man; there was a hint of blue in the young detective’s eyes. The eyes were sad, sadder than Malone remembered, and the cheeks were already showing lines.

‘How’re things? You had kids – how are they?’

‘Fine. Neither of them wants to be a cop …’ Then he looked sideways at Malone as he took the car out on to the main road to town. ‘This bloke Roger Gibson. I’m sure he’s the one you’re looking for.’

‘It’s going to upset Inspector Gombrich, if he is. You still in the shithouse?’

‘With the door shut and no paper,’ said Wally Mungle.

‘I’d better see him first. How are things around here?’

‘You mean the locals? There’s no money in wool any more – most of the sheep cockies have gone into cotton. There’s still wheat, but even they are beginning to think there’s more money in cotton. Water’s the trouble. The blokes downstream, still in wheat or wool, they’re complaining they’re not getting enough water. Irrigation takes most of it.’

‘I’ve read about it. You country people fight each other, you forget how much you hate us city folk.’

Mungle looked sideways at him, grinned thinly. ‘You wait till you pick up Roger Gibson and charge him.’

They went in past the avenue of silky oaks that was the entrance to the town, past the two used-car lots, then came to the roundabout at the eastern end of the main street. Malone suddenly remembered the war memorial, the bronze figure of the World War I Anzac, bayonet at the ready to repel the invaders from the coast, from the city.

‘He’s still there. Looks as if he could do with a polish.’

‘He doesn’t mean much any more,’ said Mungle.

‘Did he ever mean much to you?’

‘No.’ Mungle swung the car into the yard behind the police station. ‘He didn’t go away to fight for any of our mob, us Abos. But don’t quote me.’

He went to get out of the car, but Malone put a hand on his arm. ‘Wally, when I go out to pick up this feller Gibson, I think you’d better not come with me.’

Mungle’s gaze was direct. ‘I’m not gunna get anywhere in the Service by dodging issues.’

‘How far are you going to get by going looking for them?’

‘I dunno. But if Gibson is the man you’ve been looking for, then I want the credit for picking him up. All the other blokes here at the station look in at that TV programme – none of them picked him.’

‘Including Inspector Gombrich?’

‘Including him.’

Malone offered no further argument. Don’t start playing the do-gooder, chum. Wally Mungle had chosen his own path.

As they went into the station Malone saw two uniformed men stop by a marked car and look back at himself and Mungle. Their stare was almost readable: Why don’t you mind your own business?

The station was a one-storeyed Victorian stone building built to last, to withstand everything, including prejudice; the white ants were inside it. It was backed by a 1950s’ addition, a two-storeyed brick building as characterless as a butter-box. Gombrich’s office was in the front section: high-ceilinged, cold-looking. Malone felt the chill as soon as he walked into the room; the heat beyond the big window was an illusion. But at least the man behind the big table-desk was polite. He rose, though he did not put out his hand.

‘Inspector Malone—’ No welcome, nice to see you. ‘Leave us for a few minutes, Constable.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Mungle turned at once and went out, not looking at Malone.

The two inspectors gazed at each other for a few moments, then Gombrich sat down and gestured for Malone to do the same. ‘I think you’ve come a long way for no purpose.’

‘It happens. If I’m wrong—’ Malone shrugged, waiting for the other man to develop the argument.

Gombrich was tall, overweight, with a shock of greying curly hair and a mismatch of features: a blue and a grey eye, a fine handsome nose and loose cheeks and a double-chin. From the voice on the phone Malone had expected an austere man: cold, bony, a human rule-book. Instead, he looked as if, away from this room, he might enjoy life and company. In the locker room of the golf club, on the walk between the seventeenth and nineteenth holes he would be telling jokes, even perhaps ones about dumb cops.

There were no jokes now: ‘Roger Gibson came to this town three years ago. He got a job as a casual salesman at one of the car lots – Ron Harvey says he’s the best salesman he’s ever had, but to keep him on full-time would have meant putting off someone else. He couldn’t do that, not in this town – you keep your old hands. Except if you work for a bank.’ Malone then guessed Gombrich was a long-time bush cop. The closing down of bank branches in country towns was a treason that would never be forgiven. ‘Then Roger went to work for Ollie McBride, he owned the nursery on the edge of town. Ollie was killed in a car accident about six months later. Roger ran the business – he just took over and made it even better than it had been under Ollie. Then about a year ago he and Ollie’s widow, Roma, became – partners. He’s only been here three years, but he’s one of the most respected men in town. He told me he had at last found his niche in life. He’s in Rotary, he’s on the committee of the golf club—’

Malone held up a hand. ‘I don’t doubt any of that. Look, Sam – mind if I call you by your first name?’ The name had been on the door. Not the usual first initials, but spelled right out: Inspector Samuel Gombrich.

‘Go ahead.’ Coldly, as if he had been asked if he minded being called Boofhead.

‘Sam, I’ll go out to the nursery and if this feller can convince me he’s not Ron Glaze, then okay, I’ll catch the seven o’clock plane back to Sydney and nobody’ll be the wiser.’

‘Everyone here in the station knows why you’re here.’

‘Then put a lid on them if I’m wrong. If they talk, they’ll be the ones putting the mark on Mr Gibson. Do you want to come out to the nursery with me?’

Gombrich for the first time looked uncertain. He had a habit, Malone remarked, of looking past one: as if each of the oddly matched eyes, the blue and the grey, had its own direction. Then they appeared to focus, glared at Malone. ‘No.’

‘Then can I take Constable Mungle? Or would you rather I took someone else? I have to have someone local – this is your turf.’

‘Take Mungle – it’s his pigeon.’

Malone stood up. ‘Will it still be his pigeon if he’s right? If Mr Gibson is Ron Glaze?’

Gombrich hadn’t risen; he just looked up at Malone. ‘Let’s hope he’s dead wrong.’

2

McBride’s Nursery was on the western edge of town, across the wide road from the railway siding and the wheat silos. Here was where the country spread out, flat and limitless, to the edge of the world; the sky was, as Malone remembered it, vast and uncaring. There had been much talk this past year of El Nino, but it was only an occasional visitor. The locals had known for 150 years which way to look for trouble and, after prayer, for help. The nursery, here on the edge of the plains, was a faint green shout of defiance.

Ollie McBride, or someone, had planted trees round it: silky oak, cypress pine, kurrajong and a red river gum that looked lost without its companions along a river-bank. Its three acres, within a high wire fence, bloomed greenly, like a last oasis.

On the way out Malone had asked Wally Mungle about the town and the people he had met, no matter how fleetingly, on the murder case eight years ago.

‘Chess Hardstaff and Sean Carmody and Fred Strayhorn, they’re all dead. They were all old men, even then. Chess Hardstaff died in prison. While he was there he still thought he was king of the castle and they let him get away with it.’

Malone remembered the old man, stiff with pride and ego and the dignity of another age. But who had murdered his wife for sleeping with another man, had got away with it but taken the blame for the later murder that his daughter had committed.

‘They brought him home and he was buried with full honours by some of the locals, almost like a State funeral. Being a murderer was just incidental alongside the number of Germans he shot down during the war.’

‘You’re cynical about us whites, Wally. What about Narelle Potter – she still run the Mail Coach Hotel?’

Mungle nodded. ‘Still. She’s married now and doesn’t play around like she used to. Roger Gibson, when he first came to town, went out with her a coupla times – that was before she married. She still raises the colour bar, though. One of us has one too many, out he goes or she calls the cops. Whitey can get blind paralytic and she just leaves him to his mates.’

Malone asked no more questions: they had drawn up at the gates of the nursery. He got out, suddenly apprehensive for Wally Mungle. Why couldn’t it have been one of the white officers who had recognized Ron Glaze on the TV programme? ‘You can stay in the car, Wally.’

‘No, I brought you all the way out here from Sydney—’ He got out of the car. In the reflected glare from the whiteness of the car his colour seemed to pale. ‘If I’m wrong, then I’ll wear it.’

The March heat pressed down on them, pushing them into their sharp-edged shadows as they went in through the gates. From among the rows of shrubs and plants a man approached them, his left hand grasping the handle of a box of green shoots.

‘G’day, Wally. You brought a friend for some horticultural advice?’

‘Not exactly, Roger.’ The bush friendliness of first names; except that this time there was a knife in the napkin of informality: ‘This is Inspector Malone, from Sydney. He wants to ask you some questions. Not horticultural ones.’

Ease off, Wally. Malone looked around, then said, ‘Could we go somewhere private, Mr Gibson?’

Gibson all at once was stockstill, his shadow a heavy base. He was wearing a khaki shirt and shorts, workman’s boots and short socks, a battered stockman’s hat. In the shade of the hat his eyes suddenly narrowed, as if he had only just become aware of the glare. ‘What’s it about?’

‘It’s about you,’ said Malone. ‘I have reason to believe you are Ronald Glaze.’

It was a moment before Gibson frowned; but Malone noted the hesitation. ‘Who?’

‘Let’s go somewhere more private.’ Two couples were looking at shrubs in the rows behind Gibson; over by a greenhouse a youth was stacking pots in the back of a Ford utility truck. All three had paused, had recognized Wally Mungle and were wondering who was the stranger with him. ‘We don’t want to make a production of this.’

Gibson didn’t move for a long moment; he stared at Mungle, but the latter was seemingly interested in the youth by the truck. A magpie fluttered down, began to pick amongst the plants. The woman would-be buyer shooed it away and it went off with a protest.

Then Gibson said abruptly, ‘This way,’ and led Malone and Mungle towards a weatherboard office to one side of the entrance gates.

Malone stopped at the doorway. ‘That your man over there at the ute? Better tell him to look after your customers. This may take a little while.’

‘What the hell is this—?’ Gibson’s voice was unexpectedly loud; unexpected to him, it seemed. The couple amongst the nursery rows turned and looked at him. He gave them a wide smile, a salesman’s smile, and jerked a finger at the youth. ‘Look after things, Darren. We’ve got some business—’

He led the way into the office. Malone nodded to Wally Mungle, who closed the door. Gibson switched on a window air-conditioner, then sat down at a big roll-top desk and gestured for the two detectives to take chairs. He seemed to be gathering something into himself: front, confidence, whatever.

‘Who sent you out here?’ The salesman’s smile was gone: Gibson was selling nothing in here. Except, maybe, himself.

Malone wondered who was responsible for the neatness of the office. There appeared to be a place for everything and everything in its place. Horticultural charts hung on the walls; there was a long shelf of gardening books. Two computers stood on a side table, each with a half-completed message on its face. Oddly enough there was not a pot plant or a flower-box anywhere in the small room. After the greenery of the nursery outside, the office looked as dry as a brown lawn.

Malone opened the office wallet he had brought with, him, took out the photo of Ron Glaze that had been used on the TV programme. He looked at it, then at Gibson. Then he passed the photo to the other man. ‘Recognize him?’

Gibson studied the photo, then shook his head. ‘No.’

‘I think it’s you. We found it in your wife’s wardrobe—’

‘My wife? Which wife is that?’

Nice try. ‘Mrs Norma Glaze. This, we’ d say, was taken four or five years ago, maybe six. The photographer in Mount Druitt wasn’t sure. More hair and less weight, but I think it’s you.’

Gibson had taken off his hat as he came into the office. He was bald, except for a thin brush of grey-speckled blond hair along the temples. He looked at the photo again, then at Wally Mungle. ‘What d’you think, Wally? You think it looks like me?’

Mungle took his time, but didn’t look away. ‘I think it’s you, Roger.’

Gibson turned back to Malone. ‘So what did this guy do?’

‘Murdered your wife,’ said Malone.

It took him a moment to laugh; but like all salesmen, he was a good actor. The laugh sounded genuine. ‘Jesus! What wife? I’ve never been married. Except – well, my partner and I live together. My de facto, if you like, but I hate the bloody term.’

Malone sat back in his chair, looked at the photo again, looked at Gibson, then shook his head. ‘It’s you, Ron.’

‘Bullshit!’ The front was starting to break, he was getting angry now.

Malone was calm, unhurried. ‘You came to Collamundra three years ago. Where were you before that?’

‘Around.’ Then the front was repaired. He suddenly looked more assured, settled back in his swivel chair as if ready for a chat about gardening. ‘I was in the Northern Territory. At Katherine, then in Darwin.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Selling.’

‘Cars? They said you were a good car salesman.’

He ignored that. ‘No, computers.’ He gestured at the two computers on the nearby table. He gestured with his left hand; Malone noticed that he had very big hands. They were labourer’s hands and for the first time Malone had a moment of doubt. ‘The hardware and the software. It was easy territory. The Territorians like to think they’re up with the rest of the country. Ahead of it, in some respects. Beer drinking, for instance.’ He smiled, the assurance growing.

‘That’s true,’ said Wally Mungle. ‘I checked with Roads and Traffic over at Cawndilla. We’re in Cawndilla shire,’ he told Malone. ‘When he applied for his New South Wales licence, the computer showed he’d produced a Territory licence. They’re very handy, computers.’

You haven’t wasted any time this morning, thought Malone.

Gibson’s face was stiff, the smile gone, as he looked at Mungle. ‘You started all this, Wally?’

Mungle nodded.

‘Why?’

‘I recognized you last night on the TV programme, Wanted For Questioning.’

‘You’re out of your mind, Wally.’

‘I don’t think so, Roger.’

This was a local match; Malone was on the outside. He said nothing, waiting for Gibson to blow up. His anger would be greater at a local than at a stranger from out of town.

There was a knock at the door and it was opened. A woman stood there, indistinct for a moment against the yellow glare. Then she came in, closing the door behind her. ‘Business? Am I intruding?’

Malone had kept his eye on Gibson. The anger at Mungle went out of the round face; it clouded for a moment, a shadow took all the life out of it. Then he recovered, stood up. ‘No, come in, sweetheart. You know Wally Mungle. This is Inspector Malone, from Sydney.’

She was tall and lusty-figured and had a mane, one had to call it that, of golden hair. She was not beautiful, her face was too broad for that, but it was a face any man, or anyway most men, would look at twice. She wore a tan sleeveless shirt, a beige skirt and her arms, legs and face were deeply tanned. A woman, thought Malone chauvinistically, who wouldn’t remain a widow too long.

Only her voice spoiled her: it was high, girlish, the voice from the back of the schoolroom: ‘Have we done something wrong? Police from Sydney?’

Gibson opened his mouth, but Malone got in first: ‘That’s what we are trying to establish, Mrs – do I call you Mrs Gibson?’

‘Yes,’ said Gibson, getting in his word.

She had an eye or an ear or a nose for atmosphere. She recognized that some formality was called for; this inspector from Sydney was not here to buy a box of petunias. ‘Mrs Gibson will do,’ she said and her partner looked relieved.

‘We have reason to believe—’ the pedantry always coated Malone’s tongue, but that was the way the Service wanted it – ‘Mr Gibson is not who he claims to be. His real name is Ronald Glaze.’

She put out her hand to Gibson and he took it. She looked at him and he shook his head; that seemed to satisfy her, for she pressed his hand. Then she looked back at Malone. ‘You’re not here just because he’s supposed to have changed his name. What’s he supposed to have done?’

Malone waited, hoping that Gibson, maybe with a laugh, would tell her. He had at least a dozen times had to tell a wife or a partner that her man had been murdered; only once before had he had to tell her that he was a murderer. Gibson just stood beside his partner, saying nothing.

It was Wally Mungle who said, ‘We’re sorry, Roma, but he is accused of murdering his wife in Sydney four years ago.’

She turned on him, ignoring Malone, and said, ‘You can’t be serious!’

‘I’m afraid we are,’ said Malone, getting Mungle off the hook he had nailed for himself. Wally Mungle was getting out of hand; he was relishing this, getting his own back on his fellow cops who had sneered at his taking duty too seriously. He would talk to Mungle later.

‘I’m taking him into town, to the station. The questioning may go on for some time. You may come to the station if you wish. You can have a lawyer present, Mr Glaze.’

‘Gibson,’ said Gibson. Now his partner was here he looked confident again. He’d get his strength from women, thought Malone, even though they were his weakness. ‘Yes, I think I will get our lawyer. Go and get Trevor Waring, sweetheart – don’t ring him, we’ll keep it quiet till Inspector Malone has gone back to Sydney, then we can laugh about it … Something wrong, Inspector?’

‘No. I happen to know Mr Waring, that’s all.’

Gibson appeared slightly fazed, as if the ground ahead had become uneven. ‘He’s a friend?’

‘Not exactly.’ Trevor Waring had been the husband of a friend of Lisa Malone, but the marriage had split up five or six years ago. ‘It’s just a coincidence. He also acted for another man I arrested for murder. Man named Hardstaff.’

‘Of course!’ Roma Gibson looked at Malone with new interest: very acute interest. ‘I was at a garden party at the Hardstaffs’—’

Malone nodded. ‘The day we arrested Chester Hardstaff … Get Trevor, he’s a good lawyer. Or he was.’

‘He still is,’ said Roma Gibson, kissed her partner and left, leaving the door open to the glare outside. It’ll be nothing, thought Malone, to the glare when this case breaks. The Hardstaff case suddenly seemed like only yesterday. The glare then had been fiery, directed against himself and Russ Clements, who had been with him.

As he, Mungle and Gibson stepped out of the office a reminder was thrown at him like a brick. A woman in a yellow dress came down between the rows of shrubs. She pulled up sharply: recognition was instant. ‘Inspector Malone?’

Perhaps it was the glare: Malone looked for other ghosts. Narelle Potter; the secretary of the local services club whose name he couldn’t remember; Sean Carmody – ah, but he was dead. He blinked, became accustomed to the glare.

‘Hello, Mrs Nothling.’

‘Hardstaff.’ It was a day for corrections. ‘My husband and I—’ She had a queenly air about her, always had had. ‘We were divorced some years ago. Just after you left here.’

Amanda Nothling-Hardstaff had not changed. She was still attractive, still elegant despite the heat, still the arrogant aristocrat. They were a dying breed, the squattocracy, but she would be flying the banner till the last. She was a murderer, but if there was any shame in her it would never show. Her husband, Malone decided, would have been well rid of her.

‘Some trouble, Roger? Inspector Malone is implacable.’

Implacable. Malone had been called many things, but never that. He grinned at her and she gave him a knife of a smile in return.

Then she seemed to note the significance of Malone’s attachment. ‘You are still with Homicide?’

The first crack in the dam that was going to engulf Gibson. ‘Yes. You have quite a memory.’

‘Oh, I do, I do.’ She looked at Gibson again. She was wearing dark glasses, but one knew that behind them the eyes had narrowed. ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’

Gibson smiled, shook his head. ‘They think I might’ve been a witness to something years ago, but I can’t remember it. You want something, Amanda? Young Darren will look after you. Those liquidambars you ordered are due in a coupla weeks. Too hot to bring ’em out here right now. I’ll see you Sunday. Tennis still on?’

‘I remember your father’s garden, Mrs Hardstaff,’ said Malone as he and Mungle led Gibson towards the police car. ‘That where you live now? Lucky you.’

It was a cheap shot, but he couldn’t help it. He saw Wally Mungle glance at him; even Gibson turned his head. He ignored them both, opened the rear door of the car.

‘Don’t put your hand on top of my head and push me in,’ said Gibson. ‘I’ve seen it on TV – that’s what you do to crims.’

‘After you, Ron,’ said Malone and stood back.

He got in beside Gibson. As the car drove away he looked back at Amanda Hardstaff some fifty yards away; in her yellow dress she seemed to shimmer in the glare, a fading memory from the past. He would take Gibson, or Glaze, out of Collamundra this evening and hoped he would never come back.

3

‘This was not my idea, Roger,’ said Inspector Gombrich.

‘I know that, Sam. It’ll all be over in half an hour. Don’t worry about it. I’m not.’

Malone had faced confidence before, but he was impressed, though not believing, by Gibson’s show of it. ‘Inspector, would you have someone book me two seats on the seven o’clock plane?’

Gombrich chewed a lip, then nodded. ‘I’ll do that. I’ll bill your unit.’

‘Of course. Now may we use your interview room? There’s a recorder there?’

‘Yes, but no video. We don’t run to that on our budget.’

‘What happens to the tape when this turns out to be a farce?’ asked Gibson.

‘We sell it to Comedy Commercials.’ Malone was growing tired of Gibson; he wanted to nail him to the wall as Glaze in the shortest possible time. ‘You want to sit in with me, Inspector?’

‘No,’ said Gombrich, already in retreat but doing his best to hide it. ‘Constable Mungle will assist.’

Malone looked at Mungle, who nodded. ‘Glad to.’ Then he looked at Gibson and said, ‘Nothing personal, Roger.’

‘Of course not,’ said Gibson and gave him a wide smile, as if he were selling him a liquidambar. Or a low-mileage Holden Caprice driven only by an old lady.

The interview room was small; the crime waves in Collamundra were small. Gibson settled into a chair, looked around him. ‘It’s just like in The Bill, isn’t it? Not crummy, like the room in NYPD Blue.’

‘We’re not on TV, Ron—’

‘Roger.’

‘Except you were on TV last night,’ said Wally Mungle, setting up the tape recorder.

‘What have you got against me, Wally?’ Gibson was not aggressive; he genuinely wanted to know. ‘I’m not anti-Abo, you know that Darren, works for me, he’s part-Abo – or should I say half-indigenous?’

‘Lay off, Roger. I’ve got nothing against you personally – I’m just doing my job.’

Gibson considered that; then, salesman-like, said, ‘Make me a better offer.’

Then Roma Gibson arrived with Trevor Waring. The latter had changed since Malone had seen him last. He was in his early fifties and middle-age spread had wrapped itself round him; he was at least 15 kilos heavier, most of it round his middle. He had lost hair and volume of voice: Malone remembered a voice that had been middling loud. Now it was thin, as if middle-age spread was choking it in his throat.

‘Hullo, Scobie.’ He put out a plump hand. ‘A nice surprise.’

‘A surprise, Trevor, but it may not be nice. Would you mind waiting outside, Mrs Gibson? It’s pretty crowded—’

‘Yes, I would mind. I want to be here to hear whatever ridiculous things you are going to say to Roger.’

Malone hated being crowded; the room was far too small. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Gibson—’

‘Get Inspector Gombrich, Wally,’ she said.

Mungle stood his ground. ‘I can’t do that. This is Inspector Malone’s case.’

She then looked at Waring, who shrugged. ‘That’s the way it is, Roma. I’ll take care of it. Roger will be out of here in no time.’

For a moment it seemed she would not budge; then she leaned towards Gibson and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I’ll be waiting, love.’

When the door closed behind her, Waring sat down, as if standing tired him, and looked up at Malone. ‘How serious is it, Scobie?’

‘Very.’ Gibson had got to his feet when his partner had come in; he was still standing. ‘Sit down, Mr Glaze—’

‘Gibson.’ He wasn’t yielding an inch or a name.

‘Have it your way. Trevor, this is what happened four years ago—’

He gave a quick summary, moving his gaze from one man to the other, watching their reactions. There was none from Gibson, but Waring a couple of times frowned, though he said nothing. Malone opened the office wallet and took out three large photos.

‘That’s your client, taken five or six years ago. Less weight, more hair—’

‘The reverse of me,’ said Waring, but it didn’t sound like a joke.

‘Now you mention it—’ Then Malone laid out the second photo. ‘This is Norma Glaze, taken about the same time – when they were happily married.’ He glanced at Gibson, but there was no reaction. ‘A good-looking woman. Don’t you think so?’ He swung the photo round, so that it was directly in front of Gibson. ‘You remember her, Ron?’

Gibson glanced at the photo, then lifted his gaze directly back at Malone. ‘How can I? I’ve never seen her before.’

Lying is part of salesmanship: Malone had been sold too many lies not to be cynical. Gibson, or Glaze, would sell the lie right down till the customer walked out of the yard.

‘Then maybe you remember this?’

It was a close-up of Norma Glaze in death. The bruise on her jaw, the fingermarks on her throat, dark smudges that made her only a distant twin of the woman in the other photo. Gibson continued to stare at the detectives, first at Mungle, then at Malone. It was a long beat before he turned his gaze downwards. His big hands were on the table and there was no mistaking the sudden tightening of the fingers. It was the only giveaway. When he lifted his head and looked back at Malone his face was composed, his voice steady. ‘Poor woman.’

‘Yes,’ said Malone.

‘Scobie—’ Waring shifted his bulk in his chair; he seemed to have trouble with his weight, as if it were new to him. ‘Those photos prove nothing.’

‘They will, Trev … Righto, let’s go back to the beginning. What was your history before you came to Collamundra, Roger? I’ll call you Roger for the time being, but don’t read too much into it.’

‘I won’t.’ Gibson leaned back in his chair; all at once he looked the most comfortable of all four men. ‘I was born in New Zealand, in Dunedin in the south. I went to England when I was twenty, came to Australia six years ago—’

‘How long were you in England?’

‘Nine, ten years.’

‘You don’t have a New Zealand accent or an English one. All that time before you came here and you have a dinky-di Aussie accent. What d’you reckon, Constable?’

‘Indigenous,’ said Mungle and for the first time all day gave a full-mouthed smile.

‘Are you an expert on accents, Scobie?’ said Waring.

‘Yes,’ lied Malone. ‘It’s a hobby I picked up from my wife Lisa. You remember her?’

‘Of course,’ said Waring and shifted again in his chair.

‘We’ll check with Dunedin, birth records, that sort of thing. You have a passport?’

Gibson was very still in his chair. ‘No. Someone stole it – I never bothered to apply for a new one.’

‘Never mind, the New Zealand passport office will have a record of it. We’ve used them before.’ Lying again. ‘What year did you first apply for it?’

‘I dunno. Around 1982, 83.’

He’s bluffing because he thinks I’m bluffing. He turned to Mungle. ‘Could you get me some fingerprint sheets, Wally?’

Mungle stood up, but Waring held up a restraining hand. ‘What do we need those for?’

‘We have prints of his from their house. In the kitchen, Roger, on the handle of the fridge door. On a Coke bottle and a glass. Was that before or after you’d killed her?’ He didn’t give Gibson time to reply, but nodded to Wally Mungle. ‘Get the sheets, bring in the dab pad.’

Mungle went out of the room. Gibson and Waring looked at each other, but said nothing. Then Malone, casually, said, ‘When we get back to Sydney, Roger, we’ll have your mother and sister identify you. They’ll know you. They’re both still alive, I think.’

There was a sudden silence, the sort of silence that one sometimes finds in music: not the end but the beginning of something. Malone waited: he had become an expert in silences, if not in accents.

Then Gibson sighed, a shudder of sound that came up through his body. He leaned forward, said softly, ‘I didn’t kill her.’

Malone felt relief course slowly through him; he had won. There was satisfaction, but it was not malicious. He didn’t believe Glaze’s claim, but the salesmanship was over. Glaze might go on lying, but he would be lying as his true self, not Roger Gibson. Gibson was dead, a shell discarded.

‘Roger—’ Waring was genuinely shocked; then he recovered. ‘Don’t say anything more—’

‘I have to, Trev. Okay, I’m Ron Glaze. That’s my wife—’ He gestured at the photos, but didn’t look at them. ‘But I did not kill her. I went back to our house that night – she was dead when I got there. Lying on the bed – naked … I sat there, I dunno how long, twenty minutes, half an hour, then I left—’

‘Why?’ said Malone. ‘Why didn’t you call the police?’

‘I did. I called ’em about daybreak, told ’em where she was … Then I took off. I panicked. We’d had an argument up at the club – people saw us, they knew we’d been living apart … I just wanted to get away. I sat in my car for, I dunno, two or three hours before I called the police. I just wanted to get away – what was there to stay for? She was dead—’

‘When you went back to the house, what were you going to do?’

Glaze looked down at his clasped hands that appeared to be trying to strangle each other. ‘If she kicked me out again, I was going to kill her and then kill myself. That was why I got outa there. Someone else had done what I was gunna do if she’d said no. Only thing different was I’d have topped myself as well.’

There was a downbeat silence this time; then Trevor Waring said, ‘I think that’s a reasonable explanation, don’t you, Scobie?’

Nice try, Trev, but you ’re not as naïve as that.

‘No, Trev, I don’t … Ronald Glaze, I am arresting you for the murder of your wife Norma. Anything you may say …’

4

‘I’d like to see Roma. Alone.’

‘Five minutes, Ron. Don’t try anything stupid.’

‘Such as?’

Malone had seen average, placid men turn desperate; but he didn’t think Glaze would be like that. He was a born salesman: hope was his diet. ‘Five minutes. Leave the door open.’

Now that he had admitted his true identity, Glaze appeared almost relaxed. But not quite; the big hands were still restless. He looked at Waring. ‘You disappointed, Trev?’

‘Only for you, Roger,’ said Waring and sounded sincere. ‘Let’s hope Roma can take it.’

Malone went out, followed by Waring. He gestured towards the interrogation room and Roma Gibson looked at him enquiringly. ‘You’re letting him go? I told you—’

‘Roger has something to tell you, Roma,’ said Waring.

She frowned, looked hard at the two of them, then went by them with a rush and into the interview room. Wally Mungle came back with sheets and a pad, pulled up sharply. ‘He’s confessed?’

‘That he’s Ron Glaze, yes. But not that he killed her.’

They were in the area behind the front counter. Two uniformed men, a middle-aged sergeant and a younger man, looked up from their desks. They stared at Malone, Mungle and Waring, as alert as pointer dogs; then they turned their heads. Gombrich had come out of his office.

‘Well?’

‘He’s admitted he’s the man we’re after,’ said Malone. ‘He’s denying he killed his wife. I’m charging him, nonetheless. Can we get the preliminary paperwork done?’ He looked at his watch. ‘I want to catch that plane. Have we got two seats?’

‘You’re going to take him in as he is?’

‘No. If it’s okay with you Constable Mungle can go out with his wife and bring in some gear for him. We’ll hold him here till it’s time to go out to the airport.’

‘What if she wants to go down to Sydney with him?’

‘That’s okay, if there’s a spare seat on the plane.’

‘No, I got you the last two.’

‘Leave it like that. She can come down tomorrow.’

The sergeant at his desk looked up at Mungle. ‘You were right, Wally. Pleased?’

He was a bush cop, lean and hard and dry; his opinions would be the same. Mungle was not going to have an easy time of it; but he was not backing down. ‘No, Jack. Just doing my job, that was all. Like you do yours.’

Before the sergeant could reply, Gombrich stepped in: ‘It’s done, that’s the end of it.’

‘Not the end,’ said the sergeant, not giving up. ‘Just the beginning.’

‘That’s how all homicide arrests start,’ said Malone. He was watching that his tongue did not get away from him, but he was angry for Wally Mungle’s sake. ‘Ron Glaze will have plenty of time to argue.’

‘Ron Glaze – who’s he?’ said the sergeant, but he knew he had lost the argument.

‘Will you want Wally to come down to Sydney?’ asked Gombrich. He was less formal now: he, too, knew he had lost the argument.

‘Not for the charging. But for the committal and trial, probably.’ He looked at the three locals: the inspector, the sergeant, the constable at his desk. Wally Mungle stood apart, identified by more than just being in plainclothes. ‘I’ve been in Homicide more years than I care to count. Most murders, I get a certain satisfaction when we clean them up, bring in and convict the buggers responsible. I never get any satisfaction out of a domestic. I’m not going to get any satisfaction out of this one if we nail Ron Glaze. But someone – and it’s us – has to do something for his wife. She’s dead.’

For a moment nobody spoke; then Gombrich said, ‘Fair enough,’ and Malone knew he had won a point. For Wally Mungle, he hoped.

Then Roma Gibson and Glaze came in from the interview room. Not knowing the circumstances of her first marriage, but giving her the benefit of the doubt, Malone recognized that Roma Gibson had just had her life shattered for the second time. But there were no tears; or if there were she had left them in the interrogation room. She was no longer aggressive, but she had already built defences.

‘I’m coming with you.’

Malone said nothing, but glanced at Gombrich; the latter picked up the ball, reluctantly. ‘The plane’s full, Roma. There’s a wait-list.’

She turned to Malone. ‘When will Roger be charged? Where?’

He was still Roger: she wasn’t giving him up to a dead woman. ‘He’ll be held at Surry Hills police station, in Police Centre, tonight. Then he’ll go before a magistrate tomorrow morning, probably down at Liverpool Street. You know Sydney?’

‘Yes.’ She kissed her partner on the cheek, pressed his hand. It was for his benefit, not Malone’s. She loves him, thought the latter. ‘I’ll drive down tonight. We’ll be on our way home tomorrow night.’

He smiled at her, hugged her, then looked at Malone, who said, ‘I wouldn’t bank on it, Ron.’

5

While waiting to go out to the Collamundra airport Malone rang Mount Druitt and asked for Sergeant Backer. But Backer was no longer in the Service; he had joined a private security firm working for the Olympics. ‘It’s Senior Sergeant Hulbert here.’

Malone explained what he had in mind. ‘You fellers can take over, be there tomorrow morning and take all the credit.’

‘Thanks all the same, but we just don’t have the staff. You found him, you take the gold medal. It’s all in the Olympic spirit.’ He was another cop who, like Malone, was not looking forward to the events of 2000. ‘Many thanks.’

‘Up you,’ said Malone and hung up.

Next morning, back in Sydney, Glaze was taken before a magistrate in the Liverpool Street court. Malone went down to the court with Andy Graham, just to tie his own ribbon bow on the case. By the time Glaze came to committal and trial, Andy Graham and someone from under-staffed Mount Druitt could present the evidence. This morning everything was over in a matter of minutes. Glaze’s lawyer, briefed by Trevor Waring by phone, had not had time to prepare much argument.

After the hearing Malone made a mistake in taking a short cut through to the yard where the unmarked Homicide car was parked. Glaze was waiting in the hallway, accompanied by a court official, before being taken out to the van that would take him out to Long Bay gaol. Roma Gibson was there, her presence apparently tolerated by the court official, a young woman.

‘Why did you oppose giving me bail?’ Glaze was as nervous as an NYPD Blue cameraman; his eyes were everywhere, looking for something to focus on. All of a sudden he was falling apart. ‘Jesus, why?’

‘Ron, you pissed off once. Give you bail and you’d do it again.’

‘Where will he be sent?’ asked Roma Gibson. She was not as distraught as her partner, but one could see the effort she was making to hold herself together. ‘For how long?’

‘Long Bay, or maybe Silverwater. I dunno how long. We’ll have the case prepared for the DPP—’

‘The who?’

‘Director of Public Prosecutions. They’ll fit it into the court schedules. It could take three, four months, probably longer, before the committal, then there’ll be the trial. It’s out of our hands now.’

‘Jesus!’ Glaze threw up his manacled hands, looked around for escape.

‘You don’t care any more, do you?’ said Roma Gibson.

‘Mrs Gibson—’ He drew a long sigh of patience; he had been down this road so many times. ‘Have Trevor Waring get Ron—’

‘Roger.’

‘Whoever. Have Trevor get him a good barrister. That’s more important than worrying about whether I care or not.’

‘What do you do in the meantime?’

Doesn’t this woman ever let go? But he had seen all this before, too: the thrown net, the drawing in of a cop as a hated relative. ‘I go on to other cases. There are four or five homicides a day in this city – not much compared to other cities overseas. But we’re kept busy.’

He walked past them out into the yard. The heat hit him at once, the glare blinded him; he took out his dark glasses, which he rarely wore, and put them on. He stood for a moment, getting himself together. He must be getting old; the net was growing tighter. Yet this was an uncomplicated case, at least for the police. He would put it out of his mind till he had to present the papers for the case to the DPP.

Andy Graham was waiting for him. ‘Get in quick, boss. There’s a girl from Channel 15 wanting to interview you. She says their show put us on to Glaze.’

‘Let her talk to him, then. Maybe he’ll sell them his story – they’ll buy anyone with an open mouth.’ He got into the car, slammed the door as he saw the girl, a cameraman and a sound man approaching. ‘Get us outa here! Run over ‘em, if you have to!’

Graham grinned. ‘Nothing would gimme greater pleasure. But I don’t think we have justifiable homicide, do we?’

Malone smiled wryly. ‘You’re developing a sour sense of humour, Andy.’

‘It helps, doesn’t it?’ He would be a cop all his working life; another twenty-five years stretched ahead of him down the track. ‘I’ve watched you and Russ. No offence.’