by Jon Cleary
“Did they tell you that?”
“Who?”
“The Church.”
“Not directly, no. But you know how much clout they have in this State. Half the MPs are Tykes. So’s the Premier. He’s never going to give the Church a kick in the bum.”
“I haven’t pointed a finger at the Church. I’ve got a murdered nun and her uncle’s an archbishop. That’s all.”
“It doesn’t stop there, and you know it. There’s the nun’s grandad.”
“Has he been talking to you, Harry?” Let’s keep it man-to-man.
“Not directly, no.”
“Tewsday, then? Sir Jonathan?”
Danforth sat back, ran his hand over his head again, as if putting all his thoughts together under his grey thatch; Malone had the image of a hand of not very good cards being put in order before being played. “We don’t need any names. Walls have ears.”
Malone strangled the laugh that started in his chest; he managed to nod soberly. “Righto, no names. But we know who we both mean.”
Danforth nodded in return, just as soberly. “There’s too much influence, Scobie. You could never beat it. You could find yourself in charge of the traffic branch out at Tibooburra.”
Tibooburra was in the far west of the State; it had a population you could gather in a single schoolroom. Malone played his own best card: “The Commissioner is in on this, Harry. I have to report to him.”
Danforth ran his hand over his head again, this time a little worriedly. “The Commissioner, eh? How did he get into it?”
Malone wasn’t going to tell him that. Danforth was obviously the Hourigan, or Tewsday, man in the Department. “I think you’d have to ask him that, Harry. He doesn’t take me into his confidence.”
Danforth nodded, still worried. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll do that.”
Then the phone rang and Malone picked it up.
“Inspector Malone? We talked the other night.”
Malone recognized the voice from its faint accent. “Go ahead.”
“Inspector, the young woman has been buried. Let her rest in peace.”
“Oh, she’ll do that, all right. She’s the only one who’s going to have any peace.” He could feel himself getting angry: first, the threat to Marquez, then Danforth trying to apply pressure and now this.
The voice hardened, though it remained quiet. “Be sensible, Inspector, We don’t want to do anything you’d regret.”
“Are you threatening me—” he took a wild chance. “—Mr. Domecq? Or is it Mr. Paredes?”
There was silence for just a moment; the man, whoever he was, was used to thinking on his feet. “You have the wrong names, Inspector. Don’t be too smart or—” But he didn’t finish the threat.
Malone held on to his temper, aware of Danforth sitting opposite him, both ears strained. “Whoever you are, let me tell you something. This isn’t Latin America. Nobody threatens the police in this country.” At least not since the bushrangers’ day; or in a shoot-out. But not over the phone: it was un-Australian. “Go back and tell your boss, whoever he is, that it won’t work. If anything happens to me, the whole of Homicide will be down on you and you’ll be up shit creek. That’s an old Aussie expression. I don’t know the Spanish for it, but your boss might translate it.”
He slammed the phone down and looked at Danforth. The Chief Superintendent pursed his lips in a silent whistle. That last message of mine was for you, too, Malone thought; and knew that Danforth had got it. Danforth at last said, “You’ll report that to the Commissioner, I take it?”
“Of course. You know how he feels about his men being threatened.”
“Yes. So he should. Definitely.” Danforth nodded, almost too eager to agree. “They made a mistake there.” He stood up, wheezing. “Well, think about what I said, Scobie. It was just between you and me, you understand?”
At least he had the grace not to wink, thought Malone. “Sure, Harry. I appreciate it. You had my best interests at heart. Definitely.”
“I always had my men’s interests at heart. That’s how I got to be Chief Superintendent.” He lumbered away, elephantinely smug.
Clements came back as soon as Danforth had disappeared. Malone told him about Danforth’s attempt at pressure and of the threat over the phone. “I’m beginning to wish my leave was due. I’d like to go bush somewhere with Lisa and the kids.”
“Are you going to back off?”
“Would you expect me to? But I’m not sure where the hell to go next. I think it’s just as Tewsday told me—Old Man Hourigan is hiding Paredes and Domecq. I’ve checked with Immigration and they haven’t left the country, not unless they went out on different passports to the ones they used when they came in.”
“Let’s get a warrant to search the Hourigan place.”
“We’d never get one. He’d pull enough strings to make a shark net.” He looked out the window, at Hyde Park green and peaceful in the autumn sun. “It’s a nice day. D’you feel like staking out the Hourigan mansion? Just sitting in your car and making out your bets for Saturday?”
Clements made a face. “I can think of things I’d rather be doing. I’d better take someone with me, in case I fall asleep. Are you staying here?”
“I’ll be here all day. I’ve got to finalize the report on the Lloyd case.” The Lloyd case had been a double murder in a family; the murderer, a son who had killed his mother and sister, was in custody and had confessed. It was an open-and-shut case, the sort that made police work easy. If investigating murder ever was easy: Malone hoped he would never become as callous as that. “When I get that out of the way, my desk is clear.”
“You want to bet?” said Clements.
Malone worked till five o’clock, when his desk was as clear as it would ever be; he would never achieve the barren neatness of the Commissioner. Clements, sounding bored, called in to say there had been no movement in or out of the Hourigan place, not even a delivery man. Malone told him to pack up and go home, then he did the same himself.
As he was leaving his desk a call came in from Andy Graham. “Inspector, I’m just taking Father Marquez up to Randwick. You want me to stay with him there, too?”
“I don’t think so, Andy. Just tell him not to go out tonight. You or someone else can pick him up again in the morning.”
He went down, got into his Commodore and drove out into the peak-hour traffic. He was almost home in Randwick, looking forward to the comfort of Lisa and the children, when he decided to drive on the extra half-mile to the church. Father Marquez might like some comfort, too, though Malone was not sure that he could give any.
He arrived at the church just as Andy Graham, in an ummarked police car, pulled up in the parking lot and deposited the young priest. Graham said good-night and drove off with his usual haste.
Marquez looked after him. “He drives like one of those Grand Prix drivers. It’s the first time I felt I should have been wearing my crash helmet in a car.”
“He’s our traffic cops’ favourite target.”
“He’s a ball of energy, isn’t he? He told me he did a year in Arts down at the University, but couldn’t stand the slow pace. I gather he used to breeze through a millennium of history while everyone else was plodding through a decade.”
The young priest sounded talkative, as if he were nervous, Malone said, “Where’s your motorbike?”
“I left it down on campus.” He looked at Malone in the dim light of a street-lamp outside the parking lot. “I appreciate what you’re doing, Inspector. But how long is it going to go on?”
The parking lot had once been the extensive grounds of an old house that had belonged to one of the district’s best families. Now the house was a community centre, the whole area surrounded by tall, thick ficus trees. The church was on the south side of the parking lot, its steeple piercing the night sky. The lights were on in the church and a few people were arriving for evening Mass, most of them elderly. The young were too busy, who needed to demonstrate his fai
th seven days a week, for God’s sake?
Malone looked around at the shadows. They suggested a menacing silence, despite the noise of the traffic out on the busy street. He abruptly felt uneasy: we’re targets side by side, just waiting to be hit.
“I’ll walk you down to the presbytery.”
At that moment the car swung into the parking lot. It came in slowly, its headlamps sweeping across the large two-storeyed house as it turned and came towards Malone and Marquez. It was moving slowly, as if the driver was looking for a vacant spot away from the half-a-dozen other parked cars. Malone, blinded by the headlamps, stepped to one side and Marquez followed him.
“It’s probably one of the old ladies,” Marquez said. “They shouldn’t be driving at night—”
Then the car was opposite them. Malone caught a glimpse of the driver, but he couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman; he or she seemed to be wearing a balaclava or a ski helmet. Malone did, however, see the shotgun come up; the driver drove with one hand for a moment. Then he took both hands off the steering wheel and pumped the gun. Malone fell down, rolling away, but Father Marquez caught the full force of the blast. He seemed to jump backwards, hit the parked car behind him and fell in a contorted heap. The assassin’s car accelerated, swung right with a squeal of tyres and drove out on to the street. It went straight across the north and south streams of traffic, causing a louder screech of tyres and several nerve-shuddering bangs of crashing metal, and down a narrow street opposite. Malone had scrambled to his feet, but he caught nothing that would identify the car except that it was dark and medium-sized.
He dropped to his knees beside Marquez; but as soon as he touched the young priest he knew he was dead. Then someone was running across from the front of the church: Malone stood up and recognized Father Joannes, the parish priest.
“I heard the shots—Oh, Holy Jesus!” He was a burly man in his sixties, one who had spent all his early years in bush parishes and had helped in the physical labour of building his churches. He was old-fashioned in his theology and moral approach, but he was practical and tough-nerved. “I’ll get an ambulance! Are you all right?”
“I’m okay, Father. You stay here with Father Marquez—say some prayers. I brought my own car, not a police one—I don’t have a radiophone in it.” Other people were now coming across from the church, some of them approaching apprehensively. “Where can I find a phone?”
“There’s one in the community centre. It’s open—the cleaners are in there.”
Malone ran across to the old house, feeling weak in the legs, found a phone and called Police Centre. “Get the local boys up here—I want the parking lot cordoned off. Get in touch with Sergeant Clements—he should be at home—and tell him I want him here on the double. And Constable Graham. Get an ambulance here, but tell „em the man is already dead.”
“What about the car, Inspector, the one that got away?”
“No description—I missed it.” He hung up and stared at the hand still on the phone. It was shaking like an old man’s with palsy. Then he felt his knees beginning to tremble and he leaned against the wall in front of him.
“You all right?” A cleaning woman stood beside him, her hand in the middle of his back, her broad blunt face wrinkled with concern. “Here, sit down.”
He straightened up, shook his head at the chair she pushed towards him. He clenched his fists, trying to force the nervousness out of them. He had felt shock before, but never like this. He looked at the phone, wondering if he should call Lisa, wanting to hear the reassuring sound of her voice; then he decided against it. He wanted to be fully in control of himself before he spoke to her. What was happening to him must not be allowed to touch her or the children.
The police from the local station arrived within two minutes; the ambulance was only three minutes behind them. The parking lot was filling up with spectators, most of them from the church: this was more interesting than Mass. Some of them bent their heads in prayer and crossed themselves as Father Marquez’s body was lifted into the ambulance. Father Joannes, ashen-faced in the glare of the cars’ headlamps, which had been switched on to shed more light, came across to Malone.
“Why? He rang this morning and said there was some trouble he wanted to avoid—”
“It had to do with the murder of Sister Magdalene, from the convent. Father Marquez was an innocent victim—they should never have touched him—”
“Who’s they?”
This was no place to tell him; if ever he was to be told. The early evening was busy: the glare of the headlamps, the flashing roof-lights of the police cars and the ambulance, the dark figures moving restlessly in silhouette, the shriek of tyres as the traffic out in the street pulled up to see what was going on. Three cars had crashed into each other when the killer’s car had cut across the traffic streams; they had been pulled into the kerb and two tow-wagons had already arrived like four-wheeled vultures. The Moreton Bay fig trees loomed against the night sky like dark clouds underlit with green and there was a touch of damp in the air, as if rain was building up to drown out the whole scene. It would be a good thing if it did, Malone thought.
“I’ll explain some other time, Father,” he said, wanting to get away before the media reporters arrived. “But you don’t have to worry. They won’t be back.”
“I hope not,” said Father Joannes and blessed himself. “I can’t keep up with what goes on today.”
“Neither can I,” said Malone, but he knew they were speaking in different contexts.
Russ Clements and Andy Graham arrived within ten seconds of each other. The media vans and cars were right on their tail. Malone gave Graham instructions: “The local sergeant seems to have got everything under control—let him handle the reporters.”
“What about Father Marquez’s family?”
“There’s only his mother, I gather. Let the local police handle that, too.”
“I’m glad you’re not asking me to do it,” said Graham, all enthusiasm suddenly unconscious. “That’s a bastard of a job. Do we try and trace the killer’s car?”
“Scout around locally, see if it’s been abandoned—it might have been a stolen job. He used a shotgun—he got off five or six shots, I didn’t count.
Graham went off, still showing no enthusiasm; he knew as well as Malone that he had virtually nothing to work on. Malone turned to Clements, who was studying him carefully.
“He meant to get you too, didn’t he?”
“I think so.”
“It knocked the shit out of you, didn’t it?”
Malone looked at his hands; they had stopped trembling. “How did you guess?”
“I know how I’d feel if it was that close—shotguns aren’t like hand-pieces. Half-a-dozen times I’ve seen the damage it can do. The older we get, the sight doesn’t get any better. You want to go home? I’ll take over here.”
Once again Malone felt the warm, if unstated affection that Clements felt for him; the big man was as upset as himself at how close he had come to being blasted. He had shut his mind at how Father Marquez had looked. He had seen him only dimly in the shadow of the car where he had fallen; when he had come out of the community centre and the cars’ headlamps had been switched on, he had not gone near the body. But in his mind’s eye he knew the terrible damage that had been done to the handsome young priest and, unless he could keep that eye shut, he knew the lasting unnerving effect it would have on him. And Clements, too, knew it.
“No,” he said, “I’m going out to Vaucluse to talk to Archbishop Hourigan.”
III
On the way they stopped at a public phone-box and Malone rang Lisa. “You’ll hear it on the radio—they may even have it on the seven o’clock TV news. Father Marquez has been shot. He’s dead.”
There was a gasp; then Lisa said, “Are you all right?”
“Why shouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know. I—Were you with him?”
It would be in the papers tomorrow morn
ing. “Yes. But I’m okay. I’ll be home in an hour or so. What’s for dinner?”
She knew him too well. “Don’t start acting casual. You’ve got no appetite. Take care, darling.”
She hung up and in his mind’s eye again, that weakness that always makes us vulnerable, he saw her close her eyes and lean against the table on which their phone stood. In the background would be the noise of the children, but she would be deaf to them. But then, he knew, she would recover and take up again whatever she had been doing when he had called. Married to him, she had become a woman for all emergencies.
It started to rain as he and Clements drew up outside the Hourigan mansion. Parking was always easy here; the Vaucluse elements had their own off-street parking. Malone got out and crossed to the intercom on the big gates. Mrs. Kelly, the warden, answered. “What would you be wanting this time? Mr. Hourigan isn’t receiving visitors.”
“The police are never visitors, Mrs. Kelly. We’re just gatecrashers.”
He waited patiently; she was gone almost five minutes. Two dogs came down the driveway and barked savagely at him on the other side of the tall gates. Then the intercom crackled again; her voice sounded like broken glass being rattled in a tin cup. “You’re lucky he’s such a gentleman. Come in when I’ve put the dogs away.”
There was a further delay, then the gates swung open. The first thing Malone saw as he and Clements walked up to the house was the red Jaguar parked in the driveway. Michele sat behind the wheel, his head laid back as if he were asleep.
Mrs. Kelly was waiting for them at the front door. “Don’t keep Mr. Hourigan too long. He’s going to a dinner, a business dinner.”
No mourning period here, not whilst there was more money to be made. Fingal Hourigan was in black tie and dinner suit, looking like a crafty penguin, an emperor who, given the chance, would have made money out of Antarctica. His daughter Brigid, still in the crimson turban she had worn to the funeral and a blue woollen dress, was seated at the grand piano, the keyboard open in front of her.
