Bleak Spring

by Jon Cleary

  BLEAK SPRING

  The Scobie Malone Series

  Jon Cleary

  FOR VIVIENNE SCHUSTER AND JANE GELFMAN

  Copyright © 1993 by Sundowner Productions Pty Ltd.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher.

  First ebook edition 2013 by AudioGO. All Rights Reserved.

  Trade ISBN 978-1-62064-801-8

  Library ISBN 978-1-62460-121-7

  Cover photo © TK/iStock.com.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  MORE JON CLEARY EBOOKS

  BLEAK SPRING

  1

  I

  “AN AUCTION is a dangerous place to be,” said Malone. “There’s a terrible risk you’ll end up buying something.”

  “It’s for charity, for heaven’s sake,” said Lisa. “Otherwise, why are we here?”

  “Alan Bond started going broke at an auction. He paid millions he couldn’t afford for that Van Gogh painting, Dahlias.”

  “Irises,” said Lisa and turned to the Rocknes. “The last time Scobie put his hand up, he was at school. He wanted to leave the room. Is Will mean with money, Olive?”

  Olive Rockne looked at her husband. “Are you, darling?”

  Will Rockne spread his hands, as if he thought that was a philanthropic gesture in itself. “You’d know that better than I would, love.”

  Malone listened with only half an ear to the Rocknes. They were not friends of the Malones’ nor did he want them to be. He and Lisa had had dinner once at the Rockne home, the result of an unguarded moment of sociability at a meeting of the parents’ association of Holy Spirit Convent; he had been bored stiff with Will Rockne and he had asked Lisa not to reciprocate with a return invitation. Tonight, at this arts and crafts festival to raise money for the school, the Rocknes had attached themselves to the Malones like long-time friends.

  Malone hated these school affairs; at the same time he wondered if he were growing into a social misfit. He had never been one for parties or a night out with the boys, but at least he had been sociable. Now he found himself more and more reluctant to sound agreeable when Lisa told him there were certain functions they were expected to attend. He knew he was being selfish and did his best to hide the fact, but the other fact was that he had lost almost all his patience with bores. And Will Rockne was a bore.

  Holy Spirit was a Catholic school, with the usual school’s catholic collection of parents. There was the author who lived on literary grants and was known in the trade as Cary the Grant; there was his wife, who wore fringed shawls summer and winter and made macramé maps of some country she called Terra Australis. There were the tiny jockey and his towering blonde wife who, it was said, had taken out a trainer’s licence the day they were married and had been exercising the licence ever since. There were the stockbroker who was being charged with insider trading and his wife who was terrified of becoming a social outsider. And there were the low-income parents, blue-collar and white-collar, whose children were at the school on scholarships and who, to the nuns’ and lay staff’s credit, were treated as no different. The Malone children’s fees were paid by Lisa’s parents, a generosity that Malone both resented and was glad of. He was becoming a bad-tempered old bastard in his early middle age.

  “Will counts the pennies,” Olive Rockne told Lisa. “But he does throw the dollars around. Especially with the kids.”

  “But not with her, she means.” Rockne gave Malone a man-to-man smile.

  Malone had been idly aware all through the evening of something in the air between the Rocknes. He was no expert on marital atmosphere; as a Homicide detective he usually arrived at the scene of a domestic dispute after either the husband or the wife, or both, were dead; whatever had gone before between the couple was only hearsay. There was no visible argument between the Rocknes, but there was a tension that twanged against Malone’s ear.

  The Rocknes lived half a mile down the road from Holy Spirit and half a mile up from the beach at Coogee. Will Rockne practised as a solicitor, with an office down on the beachfront. Malone had had no dealings with him and had no idea how successful he was: all he knew about the Rocknes was that they had a solid, comfortable home, owned a Volvo and a Honda Civic and were able to send their two children, a boy and a girl, to private schools. He knew that most suburban solicitors did not make the money that partners in the big city law firms did; he also knew that they made more than detective-inspectors did, though that didn’t disturb him in the least. He was rare in that he was almost incapable of envy.

  Will Rockne was capable of it; he was expressing it now: “Look at that Joe Gulley, will you! The horses he rides have got more brains than he has, yet he makes two or three hundred thousand a year—and that’s counting only what he declares! He’d make as much again betting on the nags he rides.”

  “Aren’t jockeys forbidden to bet?” Malone sounded pious, even in his own ears.

  “Are you kidding?”

  Rockne had a wet sort of voice, as if the roof of his mouth leaked; whatever he said sounded as if it came out through a mouthful of bubbles. He was as tall as Malone, but much bonier, with a long face that somehow stopped short of being good-looking, even though none of his features was misplaced or unshapely. His casual clothes were always the sort with the designer logo prominently displayed; Malone was sometimes tempted to ask him if he was sponsored, but Rockne had little sense of humour. He was the sort of man who physically made no lasting impression, the face in the crowd that was always just a blur. As if to compensate he waved opinions like flags, was as dogmatic as St. Paul, though, being a lawyer, he always left room for hedging. Right now he was being dogmatic:

  “If you knew what I know about the racing game . . .”

  “Tell them, darling.” His wife was sweetly, too sweetly, encouraging.

  Olive Rockne was small and blonde, a girlish woman who, as Lisa had said, looked as if she were trying to catch up with her birthdays. She was in her late thirties, but in a poor light might have passed for eighteen. She always wore frilly clothes, giving the impression that she was on her way to or from a party. On the one occasion the Malones had gone to her home for dinner she had played old LPs of the Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd; which, though it dated her, made her more contemporary than Malone, who still listened to Benny Goodman. She was intelligent and even shrewd, Malone guessed, but she hid her light under the bushel of her husband’s opinions. Though not this evening: tonight she was showing some signs of independence, though Rockne himself seemed unaware of it.

  “It just bugs me,” Rockne said, “that people with no education can make so much money. Some of us sweat our guts out studying . . . I’ve got a rock band as clients, they can’t say ’G’day’ without saying ’y’know’ before and after it, and they make five times the money I do—each of them. When you arrest crims, Scobie, don’t you resent those of them who make more money than you do?”

  “I don’t know why,” said Malone, “but in Homicide we rarely get to bring in rich murderers, really rich. If money is involved, it’s usually the victims who have it.”

  The four of them were sitting at a table, apart from the makeshift stalls in the school assembly hall. They were sipping cask wine from plastic cups and munching on potato crisps; Malone mused that if the Last Supper had been staged at Holy Spirit it would have been a pretty frugal affair. He was thirsty, but the cask wine was doing nothing
for him. He had played tennis this afternoon, four hard sets of doubles, and he was tired and stiff, as he usually was on a Saturday night, and all he wanted to do was go home to bed. He looked up as Claire, his eldest, approached with the Rockne boy.

  “Dad,” said Claire, “are you going to bid in the auction?”

  Malone shut his eyes in pain and Lisa said, “Don’t spoil his night. Do you want us to bid for something?”

  “There’s a macramé portrait of Madonna—”

  Malone opened his eyes. “Are you into holy pictures now?”

  “Don’t be dumb. Dad. Madonna.”

  “Oh, the underwear salesgirl.” He looked at Olive Rockne. “That’s the sort of taste they teach here at Holy Spirit. I’ll tell you what, Claire, if they put your English teacher, what’s-her-name, the one with red hair and the legs, if they put her up for auction, I’ll bid for her.”

  Lisa hit him without looking at him, a wifely trick. “I’ll bid for the portrait, Claire.”

  “Are you going to bid for anything?” Jason Rockne looked at his parents. He was taller than his father, at least six foot four, even though he was still only seventeen, bonily handsome and with flesh and muscle still to grow on his broad-shouldered frame. He had a sober air, as if he had already seen the years ahead and he was not impressed.

  “We’re looking at a painting,” said his father. “Your mother doesn’t like it, but I think we’ll bid for it.”

  “That makes up my mind for me,” said Olive and gave everyone a smile to show she was sweet-tempered about being put down by her husband.

  Claire and Jason went back across the room; Malone leaned close to Lisa and said, “Why’s she holding his hand?”

  “She’s escorting him across the traffic. What’s the matter with you? She’s fifteen years old and she’s discovered boys. I was having my hand held when I was eight. She’s backward.”

  Malone had no hard feelings towards any boy who wanted to hold hands with his daughter, though he was having difficulty in accepting that Claire was now old enough to want to do more than just hold hands. He did not, however, want relations with the Rocknes cemented because their son was going out with his daughter.

  The macramé portrait of Madonna was bought by the jockey’s wife. “What is she going to do with it?” said Olive. “Use it as a horse rug?”

  “Maybe she’s going to wrap her husband in it,” said Malone and was annoyed when Rockne let out a hee-haw of a laugh.

  The evening wound down quickly after the auction and Malone, eager to escape, grabbed Lisa’s hand and told the Rocknes they had to be going—”I’m on call, in case something turns up.”

  “You get many murders Saturday night?” said Rockne.

  “More than other nights. Party night, grogging-on night—murders happen. Most of them unpremeditated.”

  “Let’s hope you have a quiet night,” said Olive. “We’ll be in touch when we get back.”

  “Where are you going?” said Lisa.

  “Oh, we’re having seven days up on the Reef. A second honeymoon, right, darling?”

  “Twenty years married next week,” said Rockne. “That’s record-breaking, these days. She’s paying—I paid the first time.” He winked at Malone, who did his best to look amused.

  “Have a good time,” said Lisa, and Malone dragged her away before she committed them to a future meeting.

  Mother Brendan, the principal, stood at the front door of the assembly hall, small but formidable, her place already booked in Heaven, where she expected to be treated with proper respect by those who ran admissions. “Enjoy yourself, Mr. and Mrs. Malone?”

  Straight-faced, Lisa said, “My husband in particular, Mother.”

  “I didn’t see you raising your hand for anything in the auction, Mr. Malone.”

  “I have a sore shoulder.”

  “Both of them,” said Lisa. “Have you seen Claire?”

  “She’s out there on the front steps with the Rockne boy. I’ve been keeping an eye on them.”

  “Thanks, Mother,” said Malone. “If ever you’d like to work undercover for the Police Department, let me know.”

  Mother Brendan looked at Lisa. “Is he a joker?”

  “All the time. Goodnight, Mother. I hope the school made lots of money this evening.”

  “No thanks to men with sore shoulders. I’ll pray for your recovery, Mr. Malone.”

  The Malones went out, collecting Claire from the front steps, where she stood holding hands (both hands, Malone noted) with Jason Rockne. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jay. Call me about ten, okay?”

  Jason, sober-faced, said goodnight to the Malones and turned back into the assembly hall.

  “He’s a bucket of fun, isn’t he?” said Malone.

  “He’s nice,” said Claire.

  Malone took the car down the slope of the school’s driveway, came out opposite Randwick police station, where he had begun his first tour of duty twenty-four years ago, apprehensive and unsure of himself, still to learn that the scales of justice rarely tilted according to the laws of physics. He turned left and headed for home.

  “What’s happening tomorrow?” Lisa said over her shoulder to Claire.

  “Jason wants me to meet him down on the beach.”

  “The water’s going to be too cold,” said Malone. “I once went swimming the first week in September—”

  He stopped and Lisa said, “Yes?”

  “Nothing.” You didn’t tell your fifteen-year-old daughter about having your balls frozen to the size of peas.

  “I’m not even thinking of going in the water. You don’t go to the beach just to swim.”

  “Do you like Jason?” said Lisa.

  “Come on, Mum, don’t get that tone of voice. I’m not serious about him. He’s nice . . .”

  “You said that. But?”

  “I dunno. He’s nice, but . . . He’s always holding something back, you don’t know what. Like Dad.”

  “I’m an open book.”

  “You are to me.” Lisa patted his shoulder. “But you’re not to everyone. I know what Claire means. Jason’s not weird, is he?”

  “Oh Mum, no! Nothing like that. He’s just—well, I think it would take ages to know him.”

  “Does he like his parents?” Malone kept his eyes on the road, threw the question casually over his shoulder.

  “Funny—” Claire had been leaning forward against her seat-belt, but now she sat back. She was twisting her blonde hair into a curl, a habit of hers when she was studying or thinking hard. “He won’t talk about them, either of them.”

  “Well, take your time with him,” said Lisa.

  “Would you rather I didn’t see him? You don’t like his parents, do you?”

  “Not particularly,” said Malone, getting in first. “But how did you guess?”

  “You had your policeman’s look.” He glanced in the driving mirror and in the lights of a passing car saw her turn her young, beautiful face into a stiff mask. Crumbs, he thought, is that how my kids sometimes see me? A policeman’s face, whatever that was? But he wasn’t game to ask her.

  They reached home, the Federation house in north Randwick with its gables and turn-of-the-century solidness. By the time he had put the Commodore away, Claire was in the bathroom on her way to bed and Lisa was in the kitchen preparing tea and toast. Tom and Maureen, the other children, were staying the night with Lisa’s parents at Vaucluse.

  Malone sipped his tea. “Where did they get that wine we had tonight? Was it left over from the marriage at Cana?”

  “You didn’t have to drink it.” Lisa spread some of her homemade marmalade on toast.

  There was nothing else except watered-down orange juice. “No wonder the Vatican is so rich. Who picks up Tom and Maureen tomorrow? You or me?”

  “You. I’m baking cakes all day, for the freezer. It’s Tom’s birthday next Saturday or had you forgotten?”

  “No.” But he had. He stood up, stretched his arms high. “Look, I can
raise my hand!”

  “A miracle. What a pity an auctioneer isn’t here to see it.” She raised her face and he leaned down and kissed her. “Why can’t all wives love their husbands like I love mine?”

  “Meaning who?”

  “Meaning Olive. But who could love Will anyway?”

  An hour later they were sound asleep in the queen-sized bed, their limbs entwined like those of loving octopi, when the phone rang. Malone switched on the bedside lamp. His first thought was that it was Jan or Elisabeth Pretorious calling to say that something had happened to Maureen or Tom. He could forget birthdays but he could never forget how protective he was of his children.

  “Inspector Malone? Scobie, it’s Phil Truach—I’m the duty bunny tonight. There’s a homicide out at Maroubra, in the parking lot of the surf club. We’ve just had a phone call from the locals at Maroubra.”

  “Who else is on call?”

  “You and Russ. There’ve been three other homicides today and tonight, everyone else is out on those. I can round up Andy Graham, but he’s not on call this weekend—”

  “Never mind, I’ll take it. Leave Russ alone.”

  He rolled reluctantly out of bed, looked over his shoulder at Lisa, now wide awake. She said, “Why can’t people keep their murders between Monday and Friday?”

  He leaned across and kissed her. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep this space vacant.”

  II

  As soon as he saw the silver Volvo Malone knew it was the Rocknes’, even though he could not remember seeing it more than two or three times before. The Celt in him never let him deny intuition; it was never admissible in court, but he knew from experience that it had started many a trail to justice. He got out of his Commodore and walked across the well-lit car park. A wind was blowing from the southwest, but it had been a long dry winter and the wind held no promise of rain. Even the salt air smelt dry.

  “It’s a couple named Rockne.” The detective in charge from Maroubra was Carl Ellsworth, a good-looking redhead who smiled without showing his teeth, as if he found no humour in what people did to each other.