Bleak Spring

by Jon Cleary

  “Let’s have lunch first,” said Clements, always hungry.

  “I dunno that I can eat anything.” He was not looking forward to the visit to the Rockne home, not if it should be full of mourners after the funeral.

  “Well, try.” Clements, big and rough-edged, had a surprising gentleness about him at times, as some big men do. “Better now than later. It may be a long day if we’re gunna bring her in.”

  “She’ll just be back from the funeral.”

  “So we’re gunna look heartless bastards. But that’s the picture of us anyway, isn’t it? Ask the Abos and the greenies and the gays. Who’s ever had a good word for us?”

  7

  I

  THEY HAD trouble finding a place to park the unmarked police car; finally, Clements left it in a No Parking zone, standard police practice. Mourners, some of the older women in black, were making their way up the front path of the Rockne home; Malone and Clements went up the side driveway. When they turned the rear corner of the house they came upon a crowd of at least fifty or sixty people standing in tight little groups in the garden. It surprised Malone that the Rocknes should have so many relatives and friends, though he didn’t know why he thought that. He had been surprised at funerals before, he should have been prepared for the unexpected here at the Rocknes’.

  Jason, dressed in a dark blue suit with a blue shirt and a cerise and blue tie, his school uniform, the same now as Malone had worn twenty-five and thirty years ago, saw the two detectives and came towards them. “Hello, Jay. Maybe I should’ve worn my old school tie.”

  “You went to Marcellin, Mr. Malone?”

  “I thought you knew.” The school had produced a deputy prime minister, two or three distinguished judges, several eminent doctors, an international rugby player, a couple of jockeys, an obscure writer and several cops besides himself. Schools, though, rarely boasted that cops were mentionable alumni. “The funeral go okay?”

  The boy nodded. He was sober-faced but relaxed; if grief was tearing at him, it did not show. “I guess so. How are they supposed to go?”

  Malone accepted the rebuke, if it was meant to be one. He was wishing that he and Clements had delayed their visit, but they were here now, they had been recognized as outsiders and identified as police; he swallowed his discomfort and said, “Where’s your mother?”

  “She’s inside. I’ll go and get her. I told her you’d rung about some guy you’d picked up—”

  “Is the house like this—full of friends and relatives?”

  “Yeah, this is the spill-over. I’ll get Mum—”

  Malone suddenly changed his mind. “No, it doesn’t matter—we’ll come back later—”

  Then Olive came out of the back door, pulling up sharply when she saw the two detectives. She was dressed all in black, even to a small black pillbox hat and a black veil, though the veil was drawn up over the hat. She looked funereally formal, too much so, as if she had dressed for a part in a play and everyone else had turned up in rehearsal clothes. She stared at the two men, then she came, stiff-legged, towards them.

  “Surely you’re not—what d’you call it, pursuing enquiries?—on an occasion like this?” Even her voice and phrasing were formal.

  “I’m afraid so, Olive.”

  She flicked a glance at Jason. “Go inside and take care of Shelley. She’s very upset.”

  “Mum, I’d rather stay. Mr. Malone says they’ve picked up this guy—”

  “Do as you’re told!”

  The boy reddened, looked rebellious, then spun round and went quickly into the house. As he did so Angela Bodalle, in a navy-blue suit, came out, looked back at Jason as he pushed past her, then saw Olive with Malone and Clements and came towards them.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Can you believe it?” Olive was white with anger; or some emotion. “They’ve come here—today! God, haven’t they any sense of decency?”

  Angela Bodalle’s gaze was direct. “Have you, Inspector?”

  “I think so, Mrs. Bodalle. Maybe we could have chosen another time, but our main concern is finding the murderer, not burying the victim.” It was an awkward, crude retort and he knew it. But the two women irritated him beyond measure and the fact that he responded to the irritation also annoyed him.

  “And have you found the murderer?”

  Malone and the two women had kept their voices low; but the small crowd in the garden beyond them were as still as statues, necks stiff as they strained their ears to catch what was being said. Malone lowered his voice even further: “We have some information that’s helping us.”

  “Who from?”

  Malone smiled. “In due course, as you lawyers say. I think it might be easier all round if Mrs. Rockne came with us over to Maroubra station.”

  “What if I should refuse?” said Olive.

  “Why should you, Olive? You’re just as keen as we are, aren’t you, to find out who killed Will?”

  “Go with them, Olive,” said Angela Bodalle. “I’ll come, too.”

  “I’ll have to thank people for coming.” Olive moved off, threading her way through the crowd which leaned towards her as if waiting for her to whisper in their eager ears what had transpired with the two strangers—police, aren’t they? Her back was straight and she walked almost with bounce, as if she had come from some mourners’ aerobics class.

  “She’s coping well,” said Clements flatly.

  “Women do,” said Angela Bodalle. “You, of all people, should have noticed that.”

  Olive went into the house for a minute or two. When she came out again Jason was standing behind her in the doorway, his young face as gaunt as that of an old man. As Malone and Clements led the two women down the side driveway, Angela paused beside her Ferrari, parked in front of the Honda Civic. “We’ll follow you, Inspector.”

  Malone looked at his watch. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to court?”

  “Don’t you read the papers? The Filbert case finished yesterday—the defence suddenly folded up. We go back on Monday for sentencing. You should be congratulating me, my first prosecution. I got a guilty verdict.”

  “Congratulations,” said Malone and tried to keep the sour note out of his voice but didn’t succeed.

  Driving over to Maroubra Clements said, “Are we gunna hold Olive?”

  “I don’t know. Depends how much she gives away.”

  “She’s not gunna give much away, not with Angela riding herd on her. She’s a quick-change artist, that one—prosecution one day, defence the next.”

  “They’re all actors, even the judges.”

  “Meaning we’re the only fair dinkum ones on the side of the law?”

  “What else?”

  Maroubra police station was a modern building, a change from many of the Victorian buildings that still housed suburban police. It stood on a busy road just down from a major shopping centre. Clements pulled the Commodore into the large yard at the rear of the station and the Ferrari followed it. As the two women got out of the red car, half a dozen young policemen suddenly appeared from behind the cars and wagons parked in the yard.

  “They think this is a traffic pinch,” said Clements.

  Sergeant Ellsworth was in one of the detectives’ rooms off a long hallway on the first floor. He looked up in surprise when the two Homicide men and the two women were ushered in by one of the policewomen from the downstairs front desk. But almost at once he covered his surprise and rose from his desk as if he had been expecting them. He was jacketless and his issue Smith & Wesson .38 was plainly evident on his hip. He tightened his loosened tie, but didn’t reach for his jacket.

  Malone introduced Angela Bodalle, who said, “I saw you at the funeral, hovering in the background.”

  “We’re always in the background at funerals, Mrs. Bodalle,” said Ellsworth, and Malone gave him top marks.

  “Not always. Inspector Malone and Sergeant Clements were very much in the foreground.”

  “That was at the wa
ke or whatever you want to call it,” said Malone. “You should attend an Irish wake some time, Mrs. Bodalle. Everyone’s in the foreground there. Where’s your interview room, Carl?”

  “Down the hall, sir. It’s going to be a bit crowded—”

  “You don’t mind, do you?” Olive was ignoring Malone, so he addressed Angela. “Unless this is going to take all afternoon?”

  “No,” she said. “I shan’t let it go on that long. Understood?” She looked hard at him.

  He grinned. “I wouldn’t have expected any less of you, Mrs. Bodalle.”

  They went along the hall to the interview room, which was indeed a bit crowded when they moved into it. Chairs were brought in and everyone sat down in an intimacy that Malone could have done without. But he could not ask Ellsworth to leave: this was his turf, this was, in effect, his case.

  “Constable Kagal was in touch,” said Ellsworth. “He said to tell you that everything’s in place on that suspect.”

  “Which suspect?” said Angela.

  “Not yet, Mrs. Bodalle,” said Malone. “As I said, in due course . . .” He waited for a reaction (a quick glance between the two women?), but neither Olive nor Angela showed any expression. “We’re going to ask some questions, Olive, and there’ll be a taped record of this interview. Any objection?” He looked at Angela.

  “Are you saying Mrs. Rockne is a suspect in the murder of her husband?”

  “Yes.”

  Olive’s hands, on her lap, tightened; against the black of her dress they looked suddenly very white. Angela put a hand on her friend’s arm. “We can refuse to be interviewed, darling.”

  Olive shook her head. “No, let them go ahead.”

  Malone waited till Ellsworth had fitted a cassette into the recorder, then he went in boots and all, as in the opening minutes of a grand final: “Olive, why did you make two phone calls to Kelpie Dunne, one two days before Will was murdered and the other yesterday morning?”

  “Kelpie Dunne? Who’s he?” She sat in her usual convent girl’s pose, knees together, hands in her lap. She had taken off her hat with its veil and left it in the Ferrari. Her hair was drawn back in a chignon and there was a severity to her looks this morning that made her only a distant relation to the frilly woman Malone had known just a week or two ago. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You know who I’m talking about, don’t you, Mrs. Bodalle?”

  “Of course. Olive darling, he’s the mechanic who looks after my car and looked after Will’s.”

  “Oh,” said Olive, as if the information were new to her. “I’ve never met him.”

  “But you called him,” said Clements, taking up the attack. “Twice. His number’s here in the Telecom record of your calls from your car phone.” He held up the sheet of paper. “Records are kept of all calls on cellular phones. Didn’t you know that?”

  “Did you know it, Mrs. Bodalle?” said Malone.

  “Of course.” There was a certain tension to her now.

  “I didn’t know,” said Olive. “Will always paid all our bills—he said I had no idea of bookkeeping—”

  “The fact that the records show there were two calls to Mr. Dunne does not prove Olive made them. You say the first was made two days before the murder—it could have been Will himself who made that call.” Angela had taken on a professional lacquer; she was in court. Not flamboyant now, no swirling of the gown, no arranging of the wig: she was businesslike, building a defence. “That shows only that Mr. Dunne got a call from my client’s car phone, not that she made the call.”

  “There’s the second call, yesterday morning—” Clements checked the records sheet, then took out his notebook and flipped it open. “This is from your men’s report,” he told Ellsworth; then he turned back to Olive and Angela: “At eleven twenty-three yesterday morning Mrs. Rockne was observed to come out of her house, get into her car and use the phone. At the same time, according to this record, the phone was answered at Mr. Dunne’s number and the call lasted five minutes and twenty seconds.”

  “Have you had my client under surveillance?” Angela sounded shocked, though Malone doubted that she had been truly shocked since she was in her teens.

  “Just for her protection,” he said. “She’s received threats from a Mr. Jones. Or didn’t she tell you that?”

  Angela for a moment looked uncertain; but Olive didn’t even glance at her, just gazed straight at Clements as if she had decided he was the only one she was going to pay attention to. “What else have you got to say to me, Sergeant?”

  “You said you drew five thousand dollars from your joint account to pay for your holiday up on the Reef. You also said you bought clothes for the holiday and you had left them with the shops to be altered. Mrs. Rockne, we’ve checked. You haven’t been near the travel agency where you claim you made the bookings, not in three weeks or more. The shops, you gave us their names, they say you’ve bought nothing from them in the past three months.”

  Malone was watching Angela, who was watching Olive; nothing showed in the barrister’s face. Then he looked at Olive. “Why all the lies?”

  “You don’t have to answer that,” said Angela, putting her hand on Olive’s arm.

  “Why would she want to avoid answering it?” said Malone.

  “My client won’t be answering any more questions at all at this stage, Inspector.”

  Malone’s gaze was steady and direct; hers was the same, but more challenging. The battle of the eyes, he called it; it was a constant in his dealings with criminals and their lawyers. Then he did something that men, in the challenge of battle, too often do, when reason becomes blind. He turned to Clements and Ellsworth.

  “We’ll charge Mrs. Rockne on suspicion of conspiracy to murder her husband.”

  Olive drew in her breath sharply and her body swayed; Angela put her arm about her, held her more tightly than Malone had ever seen a lawyer hold a client. But then, come to think of it, he had never been in this situation before, with a woman lawyer defending a woman client on such a serious charge. Olive turned her head towards Angela and for a moment he thought she was going to kiss her; there was a barely perceptible shake of Angela’s head, then Olive shut her eyes and sank her chin on her breast. Angela challenged Malone again: “You don’t have a hope in hell of making the charge stick.”

  “We’ll see, Mrs. Bodalle.”

  He and Clements left the two women with Ellsworth, went downstairs and out to their car. Clements said nothing till they were in the car and had fastened their seat-belts. Then he looked sideways at Malone: “Why did you charge her?”

  “Because I think she had something to do with the murder.”

  “So do I. I’d bet on it. But I wouldn’t bet on any magistrate sending her to trial on what we’ll give him.”

  Malone looked at the red Ferrari parked next to them, then across its low profile to the rear door of the station. “It’s not too late if you think we should withdraw the charge.”

  Clements sat very still, his hands on the steering wheel, his teeth chewing his bottom lip. Then: “No, bugger it! I’ve backed longer shots than this and won.”

  II

  Olive was held overnight at Maroubra police station and Saturday morning was taken to Central Court in the heart of the city, where special sittings were held those mornings in front of a magistrate or a justice of the peace.

  The courthouse had been built in the last century when courthouses were looked upon as temples of the law. The goddess this morning was a large, untidy woman who looked more like a housewife who had stopped in to check some law item on her weekend shopping list. She sat behind her bench under the big timber canopy with its crest; she had the sort of voice that reverberated in the high-ceilinged room. Malone, from the well of the court, could not tell whether she was sympathetic or hostile to the accused, though she did reply with some asperity to one of Angela Bodalle’s pleas. Jason, Shelley and Mrs. Carss had come to the court, but Malone, out of cowardice, did
not go near the boy or his sister. Mrs. Carss had come towards him, battle in her eyes, but he had managed to avoid her and had gone into the sheriff’s room until the court was convened.

  The magistrate, out of order in her own court, looked at Angela. “A Queen’s Counsel appearing so soon, Mrs. Bodalle?”

  “I am instructed, your worship—” Angela, on her feet, looked down at the young solicitor, a blonde girl who looked as if she might have come out of law school only yesterday. Union rules, thought Malone with a cop’s contempt for the legal profession: a barrister, even a QC, couldn’t appear without being instructed by a solicitor. By the time Olive came to trial there would be a solicitor, a junior barrister and Angela, all carrying their invoice book with their law books. The young blonde, however, looked as if she might not bill Olive; she was looking up at Angela with an expression that suggested it was payment enough just to be in the same court as her.

  “I am instructed that my client desires bail.”

  The magistrate looked at the police prosecutor, a grey-haired sergeant who looked bored with the proceedings and in a hurry to get away. “Well, Sergeant?”

  “It’s out of my hands, ma’am, this is a serious murder charge.”

  “I know that!” snapped the magistrate, giving him the edge of her tongue as if he were her dumb husband. “I take it there’s someone here from the DPP then? There’d better be.”

  “Here, ma’am.” Another woman appeared: crumbs, thought Malone, the bloody law is becoming cluttered with them. She was young, pretty and off-balance: “Sorry. I fell coming up the steps outside and broke the heel off my shoe. You know what it’s like, ma’am.”

  “I wear flatties myself,” said the magistrate. “Get on with it!”

  “We oppose bail for the time being, in view of the seriousness of the charge. We’d like it adjourned, with the accused in custody, till Monday morning at Waverley Court.”

  The magistrate looked round, then focused on Malone. “Oh, there you are!” she said, as if he had tried to disappear. “That all right by you, Inspector?”