by Jon Cleary
She sensed the tension in him, gave him no immediate answer, looked once more at the sheet-covered body, then said, “Okay, we’ll take him away and look at him in the morgue. I’d rather do it there than give a show for them.”
She made a sweeping gesture, at the Cayburns, the Basses and at the back fence, where a family whose name Malone didn’t know were lined up, all seven of them, on chairs, their faces hung above the palings like pumpkin halves.
“Take him away then,” said Clements. “You doing anything tonight?”
She glanced at Malone before she answered Clements. “No. Call me at the morgue.”
“I’ve never had a girl say that to me before.”
“You haven’t lived, Russ.” She smiled at him and Malone and left them.
Malone opened the screen door and ushered Clements into the kitchen ahead of him. “Is there something on between you and her?”
“Just the last coupla weeks.”
“You kept that pretty quiet.”
“You know what it’s like. It gets out you’re dating someone connected with the Department and they put out an ASM. There’s nothing in it. She’s just a good sort.”
“Who’s a good sort?” said Lisa, coming into the kitchen. She was dressed in slacks and shirt and her hair was pulled back from her face by a bright blue band. She looked composed enough, but Malone, a sixteen-year veteran of marriage and a policeman to boot, could recognize the signs of tension.
“You are,” said Clements and pressed her arm. Over the years he had gradually fallen in love with Lisa Malone, but neither she nor Malone thought it was anything more than just affection.
“Where are the kids?” said Malone.
“I told them to stay in our bedroom, not to come stickybeaking out here. At least till they’ve taken the—the body away.”
“I think it’d be an idea if you took „em over to your parents’ for the day. The Crime Scene lot could be here for a while.”
“I’ve already rung Mother. We’ll go over to Vaucluse after I’ve made breakfast. Have you eaten, Russ?”
Malone left the two of them in the kitchen and went into the main bedroom at the front of the house. The two girls, dressed in shorts and shirts, were lolling on the bed; Lisa, with her Dutch neatness, had already made it up. Tom, in shorts and T-shirt, was flopped like a rag doll in the armchair in the corner by the window. Occasionally he would raise his head and peer out at the police cars in the street and the small knots of people outside the neighbouring houses. Disappointment clouded his small face: all that excitement going on outside and here he was stuck in the house as if he was sick or something!
“What’s happening, Daddy?” Maureen had regained her natural curiosity; she would never allow the world to keep its secrets from her. Of course she would never know even half its secrets; but Malone knew her questioning would never cease. She still had not regained her normal bouncing energy, but at least she no longer seemed frightened. “Have they taken the corpse away?”
“Not yet. When they take it out, don’t hang out the window like a lot of ghouls, okay?”
“What’s a ghoul?” said Tom, who had his own curiosity, not about the world but about words.
“Explain it to him,” Malone said to Claire. “Don’t lay it on too thick.”
She gave him her fourteen-year-old-woman-of-the-world look. “I’m not stupid, Inspector. But what was that man doing in our pool anyway?”
“I wish I knew,” said Malone and went out into the hallway and rang Superintendent Greg Random, commander of the Regional Crime Squad.
“Sorry to ring you at home, Greg, but I’ve got a problem.”
Random listened to what Malone told him, then said in his slow voice, “You want to stay on the case? Not to be too obvious, it’s a bit close to home.”
“Grime was my pigeon, Greg. I’m not sure it’s murder yet, I’m only guessing. But if it is, whoever did him in has got something against me. I’d like to find out who it is.”
Random took his time; silences were part of his personality and character. Then: “Okay, stay with him. But if this gets any closer to home, I mean if there are any threats against your family, you’re off the case, understand? Who’s assisting you?”
“Russ Clements is already here.”
“I might’ve guessed it. Are you two holding hands?”
“Only when my wife isn’t looking.”
He hung up and went back out to the kitchen. Lisa had drawn down the blinds on the window that looked out on the swimming pool; Clements and the children were now seated at the kitchen table waiting for her to serve breakfast. The scene looked cosy enough, but there was an alertness to everyone, that stillness of the head and stiffening of the neck of someone listening for a warning cry. Outside the house the Physical Evidence team were keeping their voices to a low murmur, as if this crime was on a new level, committed in an environment that had to be protected.
Dr. Keller came to the screen door. “Inspector Malone? I’m finished here, we’re taking him away.”
Malone pushed open the door and went out, aware of Lisa’s and the children’s eyes following him. “You find anything on the body?” He kept his voice low. “Any needle-marks or anything?”
“Not so far.” She moved away back to the pool fence and he followed her, thankful for her discretion. She had a low pleasant voice; she stood close to him, as if sharing an intimacy. Which they were, in a way: the death of Scungy Grime. She was wearing some sort of light perfume, a sweet-smelling GMO; he wondered if she wore it against the pervasion of formaldehyde and other laboratory odours. “Was he a drug-user?”
“Not as far as I know. You don’t use junkies as informers, unless you have to. They’re too much of a risk.”
“He could have died of just a heart attack—I shan’t know till I get to work on him.” She looked after the green-shrouded body as it was carried past them. Crumbs, thought Malone, we all finish up looking like garbage; the body-bags of war were made by manufacturers of garbage-bags. Suddenly he felt a pang of pity for the dead man.
Wal Dukes and the senior constable in charge of the Physical Evidence team joined them. Constable Murrow was a chunky man in his early thirties with a pale blond moustache and almost white eyebrows; yet his eyes were dark brown. The first impression of his face was that his features were totally unrelated, that he could be the mix of half a dozen fathers. He had the air of a man not quite sure of source or destination, but Malone knew that he was, at least, on top of his job.
“What have you got, Wayne?”
“We found some heel impressions around the side of the house. It looks like he was carried in here by one guy.”
“He was small enough,” said Wal Dukes, who was big enough to have carried a couple of men of Grime’s size.
Malone looked past him, saw the TV cameraman come round the back corner of the house, camera already whirring. “No!”
“I’ll fix him.” Clements had come out of the screen door, was moving on heavy, deliberate feet towards the cameraman, who was still glued to his eye-piece when he was grabbed by the shoulders from behind and spun round out of sight beyond the corner.
“Jesus!” Malone could feel himself quivering.
Romy Keller and the two policemen looked at him sympathetically; he was surprised that it was the GMO, the outsider, who put her hand on his arm. “They’re always scavenging, you know that. It’s part of the business.”
“I’ll see there’s a guy posted out the front to keep the vultures out,” said Dukes. Relations between the Department and the media were always touchy. The media were fortunate, they were responsible only to toothless tribunals. The police were responsible to public opinion, which has fangs, “I think it’d be an idea if you moved out for a day or two, Scobie.”
“No!”
Then Malone abruptly simmered down. It was unusual for him to allow his anger to erupt as it had; he was not without anger, but normally he could put a lid on it as soon as it st
arted to bubble. But these were not normal circumstances; not that murder in itself was a normal circumstance. His home had been invaded, his family threatened: he did not immediately think in such melodramatic phrases, he was too laconic for that, but his feelings were dramatic enough. Now he had himself under control again, he was mapping out the immediate future.
“No.” His voice was quieter. That’d be a point scored for whoever did this.” He gestured at the pool, empty now of Scungy Grime but still surrounded by members of the PE team. “I’m moving my wife and kids over to the in-laws, but I’ll stay here.”
“Have it your way then,” said Dukes. “I think I’d probably do the same. We can’t let the shit get away with it. Sorry, Doc.” He was the old-fashioned sort who didn’t swear in front of women, at least women he didn’t know.
Romy smiled. “I think I’d better be going. I’ll call you, Inspector, at Homicide as soon as I have something.”
She left them, stopping at the corner of the house to speak to Clements as he came round from evicting the cameraman. Then she was gone, but not before she had put her hand on the big man’s arm and left it there a moment, a gesture of intimacy beyond her sympathetic touch towards Malone.
Clements looked at Murrow as he joined the three men. “Any prints or anything, Wayne?”
“They’re trying to get some prints off the pool gate. Did you touch the gate, Inspector?”
Malone nodded. “I wasn’t thinking . . . Whoever dumped him in the pool made sure of the security lock when he was leaving.”
“Nice of him,” said Clements. “Didn’t want some toddler from up the street wandering in and falling in with Scungy.”
“Anything on Scungy?” Malone asked. “Wallet or anything?”
“Nothing,” said Murrow. “He’s skint. Anyone know where he lived?”
“I do,” said Malone and looked at Clements. “I’ll get changed. You and I can go and have a look at his flat.”
“You haven’t had breakfast.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“Tell that to Lisa.” Clements was not only an adopted uncle, he was sometimes an adoptive brother. “Get something into you. You know she won’t let you leave the house till you’ve eaten.”
“Women!” Dukes and Murrow, both married men, looked at Malone with sour understanding. Then Dukes said, “I’ve got men interviewing everyone in your street, in case they saw something, a car or something.”
Malone was grateful that he had not had to go out and confront the neighbours. He valued his privacy and respected theirs. Last week, in the northern suburbs, a small tornado had struck; neighbours had rallied together, help had been generous and welcome. But murder was another storm altogether.
“I’ll get things tidied up here, Scobie, then I’ll hand the running sheets over to you and Russ. Call on me if there’s anything further. Or do you want me to set up a Crime Scene room down at the station?”
“Let’s keep it small for the moment. Handle it without too much fuss, Wal. I don’t want our street turned into the Mardi Gras.”
Lisa had Malone’s breakfast on the table when he went back into the kitchen: apple juice, muesli with sliced mango, toast, honey and coffee, “I heard those remarks out there. You’re right, I wouldn’t let you leave the house with an empty belly.”
“Any clues, Daddy?” Maureen had recovered. Given her head, she would have been out in the street giving interviews to the media. Her father had the most interesting job in the world: solving murders was heaps better than making a fortune buying and selling crummy old buildings or being a general fighting a crummy war. “I heard you say his name. Scungy something. Scungy—what a name!”
“What’s it mean?” said Tom, adding another word to his catholic vocabulary.
“Creepy,” said Claire, his teacher. “Sleazy. God, tomorrow it’s going to be absolutely stoking at school! First day of term and all everyone will want to talk about is our murder!”
“What’s wrong with that?” said Maureen, story already rehearsed.
“Our murder?” said Lisa, looking at Malone from the other end of the table, “If I hear anyone say that again, there’ll be another murder. Okay?”
The children suddenly sensed their mother’s displeasure; what disturbed them was that it seemed to be directed against their father and not them. Malone himself felt the impact. He chewed on a mouthful of muesli, chewing on the right words too: “There’ll be no more cops here, I promise. They’ll get everything cleared up today and that’ll be it.”
“I wanted to take pictures.” Tom had been given a camera at Christmas, a present from Lisa’s parents who, in Malone’s view, always lavished too much on the children. The pool outside had been a present from Jan and Elisabeth Pretorius and when Malone had first dived into it the water had stung him like a bathful of vinegar.
“If he’s going to take pictures, I’d like copies of the running sheets,” said Maureen. “I’ll write an essay for Social Studies—”
Malone abruptly got up from the table and as he went out of the kitchen he heard Claire say, “Shut up, motor-mouth. This is a domestic.”
God, he thought, they’ve even learned the jargon. What have I done to them? Then he was aware of Lisa behind him in the hallway. He stopped at their bedroom door.
“It’s not my fault, y’know.”
“I know that. But whom do I bitch to?” Whom: Dutch-born, she had a respect for English grammar that the natives had recently tossed into the waste-basket.
“Did you hear what Claire said? This is a domestic. Are you going to beat the hell out of me?”
“I always thought it was the other way round, husbands beating up their wives.” She put her arms round his neck. “This doesn’t mean they’ll be looking for you next, does it?”
He went stiff in her embrace. “Start thinking like that, I will beat the hell out of you! Jesus, darl—” Then he relaxed, feeling the stiffness in her; he was only increasing her fear, his denial sounded too forced. “Putting Scungy in the pool is just some sort of sick joke, that’s all. Even his name is a sick joke.”
She was not convinced. She knew that he loved her as deeply as any man could love; but she knew too that a man’s passion is rarely as deep, never as consuming as a woman’s can be. Scobie would die for her, she knew; she would do the same for him, but gladly. She wasn’t sure that men ever died gladly, least of all for love.
She kissed him. “I want everyone out of the place by tomorrow morning, the Crime Scene tapes taken down, everything gone. I’m coming back to my home first thing tomorrow morning and I want Scungy whatever-his-name-is scrubbed right out, not a trace of him. I love you.”
“I was beginning to wonder.” He grinned, though it was an effort, and returned her kiss.
******
Enjoy these Jon Cleary’s novels, as both Ebooks and Audiobooks!
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Scobie Malone Series
Dragons at the Party
Now and Then, Amen
Babylon South
Murder Song
Pride’s Harvest
Dark Summer
Bleak Spring
Autumn Maze
Winter Chill
Five-Ring Circus
Dilemma
The Bear Pit
Yesterday’s Shadow
The Easy Sin
Standalone Novels
The City of Fading Light
Spearfield’s Daughter
The Faraway Drums
