The Bear Pit (14 page)

“What about
Wanted for Questioning
!” said Jason, grinning.

“That's my territory,” said Malone and left them.

He passed the student director telling a small group, “Antonioni was the greatest director the screen's ever seen. He made the audience
think
.”

“He directed the Marx Brothers, didn't he?” said Clements and gasped as Maureen hit him in the ribs. Mrs. Truach started a laugh that turned into a hacking cough and the student director looked pained at the dumb taste of the middle-aged.

Lisa and Romy were sitting in deck-chairs on the far side of the pool from the barbecue; Romy, even though German, had better taste than sauerkraut and dumplings. Amanda was seated on her mother's lap. She was a chubby little girl, the hint of her mother in her broad-cheeked face, of her father in her build. She gave Malone a hug and transferred herself to his lap as he sat down and took the glass of Hunter semillon Lisa poured for him.

“How's my girl?”

“I just one of your girls,” said the three-year-old.

He looked at her mother. “Are you teaching her to count or be suspicious of men?”

“Both,” said Romy, and Lisa nodded appreciatively.

“That's you Europeans.”

“Women have gone further in Europe than we ever have out here. Catherine the Great, Isabella of Spain—”

“Nymphos—”

Both
women laughed, then Romy said, “Changing the subject—did you know Janis Eden has been released from prison?”

“No. When?”

Janis Eden had been holding a large briefcase full of hundred-dollar notes, drug money, when Romy's father Peter Keller, a serial killer, had plunged a poisoned syringe into his own arm and committed suicide rather than be arrested by Malone and Clements. It had happened just over nine years ago, had brought Romy and Clements together, but it was a shadow that would never go away. Malone stole a glance at Amanda and hoped she would never be told the truth about her grandfather. She saw his glance, smirked at him and gave him the two-eyed wink that Wombat Rose had given him. He hugged her, as much for protection as for affection.

“Four months ago. She got out of Mulawa, time off for good behaviour. While she was in there she counselled a lot of the women who had drug problems.”

“That was what she was before she went in, a professional drug counsellor. She was also a drug seller. She had a nice set-up. Her patients didn't know it, but they were her customers as well as her patients. She might still be going if she hadn't got greedy.”

“Well, she's out now.” Romy sounded cautious, as if a door had suddenly opened again.

“Where is she?”

“I don't know. I don't want to know,” she said and looked at Amanda as if protection was already necessary.

Malone held the little girl for a moment, looking over her head at her mother. Lisa sat quiet, but there was a warning in her eyes:
Don't say anything
. Then he kissed Amanda, gave her back to Romy, got up and went along to where Clements had just joined Phil Truach. The latter put out his third cigarette since arriving; Malone didn't like the smell of cigarette smoke. Truach smoked two packs a day and boasted that his doctor said he had lungs that could work a steel forge.

“Janis Eden is out,” said Malone. “Did you know?”

“Romy told me this morning.” Clements was sipping a beer, his pre- as well as his after-lunch
drink.
He drank wine and had a good cellar, but the habits of youth still clung. “I think she's known for a week or more, but didn't want to talk about it. Janis is history.”

“Janis Eden?” said Truach. “Wasn't she involved with Jack Aldwych's son? I did some work on that one with you two. You had me and Andy Graham tailing Jack Junior at one stage.”

“We were never able to hang anything on him. Jack Senior got to him and pulled him out of it before we could land him. He's been squeaky clean ever since. And happily married.”

“While Janis did nine years?” Truach automatically took out another cigarette, remembered whose company he was in and put it back in its pack. “I wonder if she hired a hitman and he got The Dutchman by mistake?”

4

I

MONDAY MORNING
there was a strike force conference at Police Centre, presided over by Chief Superintendent Random. Laconic as ever, he still managed to have an edge to his voice, a drawl that was a slow cut across the throat:

“Every editorial writer, every talk-back host, every columnist is on our back about this case. Five days have gone by and they can't understand why we haven't got the hitman, tried him and hung him by now. We have a suspect, as you know, but so far we haven't enough evidence to convict him of even a traffic offence. We know of the throat-cutting going on in the Labor Party—is that door shut?” He looked towards the back of the big room and was assured that, yes, the door was shut. But everyone in the room knew that shut doors do not stop leaks. “We're walking on eggshells here, both parties will knock us arse- over-head, for different reasons, if we put a foot wrong. So we tread carefully. At the same time we'd better get a move on. Now, has anything new come up?”

Malone hesitated, then spoke up: “I've something we still have to look into—” he was aware of every eye in the room on him, like a battery of laser beams—“there is a possibility that the bullet that got the Premier wasn't meant for him—”

He paused. Everyone in the room was abruptly still. Even Greg Random, as relaxed as a bolster, seemed to stiffen.

“It could have been meant for one of the Aldwyches, father or son, who were on either side of him when he was shot.”

“Shit!” said someone and a wave, like a bad smell, stirred the audience. Complications were never welcomed; they bred like rabbits. To have lost a Premier and Police Minister was bad enough; to
have
lost him by accident, even if someone else's accident, was disaster compounded.

Then someone else said, “Well, that takes the heat off the Labor Party,” and there was a second flutter, of relief.

“Not necessarily,” said Random. “Not till we've eliminated the Premier as the intended victim. We say nothing to the media about this new development—it may lead us to nothing. We give them the usual release—investigations are proceeding and we are hopeful of an early arrest, blah, blah. In the meantime—” He looked at Malone.

“In the meantime,” said Malone, “we look for a woman named Janis Eden. She was released from Mulawa four months ago.” He gave a brief summary of why she had been put away. “She's dropped out of sight, maybe gone interstate, maybe gone overseas. Or maybe she's still around, under another name. We want to question her.
I
want to question her—she's my pigeon.”

“Why you, sir?” said someone from the back of the room.

“Because he said so,” said Random, the edge to his voice even sharper.

“It's personal,” said Clements.

“Sorry,” said the someone and sank down out of sight.

There was another question from the floor: “What about our suspect? August, June, whatever we call him?”

“We call him August on our sheets,” said Malone. “Russ Clements and I are going out to talk to him now.”

When the meeting broke up Random gestured to Malone and Clements to wait behind. When they were alone he said, “Do you think this Janis Eden could be involved?”

“Greg, we don't know. Christ, the last thing we wanted was a complication like this. Unless we find her, the only way we're going to find out is by leaning on August.”

“Does he respond to being leant on?”

“I think you could run over him with a tank and he wouldn't tell you a thing.”

“Neither would I,” said Random and a thin gully appeared round the corner of his mouth.
“
Good luck.”

Outside in their car Malone called the two surveillance officers tailing August. “Where is he now?”

“At the Clontarf Gardens nursing home in Clontarf. We're in the parking lot, we can see him working on the verandah.”

“We're on our way. Don't tell him.”

They drove through the city, over the bridge, out through Cremorne and Mosman, silvertail suburbs that the dead Premier had never bothered to visit; Labor voters there were as scarce as Christian voters in Iran. The unmarked police car went down the long curving slope to the Spit bridge, where they joined a long queue held up by the opening of the bridge to let three small yachts through into Middle Harbour. The bridge had been built by an American firm three or four decades ago; they had told the government of the day that a drawbridge was going to be a major hindrance to the increasing traffic of the future, but the government had known best. The long view is not a national habit, especially amongst politicians. The next election is the horizon.

At last the bridge was down, traffic started to move and they climbed the opposite hill to the ridge where Clontarf looked back over the outer reaches of the main harbour. It is a pleasant suburb, with solid houses surrounding the wide block on which the nursing home stood.

Two young officers in plainclothes got out of an unmarked car as Malone and Clements drove into the parking lot. They introduced themselves: “Sutcliffe and Crivic, sir. He's over there, entertaining the old ducks.”

“Has he shown any narkiness with you and the other fellers tailing him?”

“None at all, sir. He brought us morning coffee and biscuits. He got the old ducks to wave to us.”

“He's told them you're cops?” said Clements.

Sutcliffe was a beefy young man with close-cropped blond hair, a broad snub-nosed face with a long upper lip and light blue eyes that squinted in the bright sun. He put back on the sunglasses he had
taken
off. “I don't think so. He's a smartarse, but I don't think he's a dumb smartarse.”

“He's not worried.” Crivic was lean and dark, Sutcliffe's thin shadow. He was not squinting, his dark eyes wide open as if daring the sun to dazzle him. “If he did the hit, sir, he's not gunna help us bring him in.”

“We'll see,” said Malone.

He and Clements left the two young officers and crossed the hot lake of the parking lot and went through a small garden to where August was repairing the railing that ran across the verandah fronting the wide building. Half a dozen elderly women sat in wheelchairs watching him like a covey of charge-hands.

“Mr. Malone and Mr. Clements!” August put down his tools and smiled at the two detectives; then he turned to the old ladies: Two gentlemen from Meals on Wheels. They help me deliver.”

Two of the old women smiled at Malone and Clements; the others sat staring at nothing. They don't even know we're here, thought Malone. They had neither the long view nor the short view, they were trapped in the blindness of Alzheimer's. All at once Malone wished he and Clements had not come. Murder and politics were another world from this last oasis.

As they moved away from the verandah Malone said, “You travel the gamut, don't you? From the kids at Happy Hours to
this
.”

“It's a living.” August was affable, didn't seem to resent their coming. “I don't mind the old ones. We'll be like that ourselves one day. I just hope I go, though, before I finish up a vegetable in a wheelchair.”

“John,” said Clements, “how can you be a hitman and be so considerate of those old ladies?”

“Easy. I'm not a hitman.”

There were three timber garden chairs under a large camphor laurel. August sat down and waved to the two detectives to join him. It was all very informal, an interrogation amongst the flowers and shrubs. The two old women with sight watched them from the verandah; the others just stared at nothing. A kookaburra dropped down out of nowhere and sat on the verandah railing, not laughing.

“
You're wasting your time.”

“I don't think so,” said Malone. “Do you know a woman named Janis Eden?”

August frowned. “Who's she?”

“We thought she might have approached you to do the hit.”

“Oh, really?” As if she had approached him for a quote on mowing a lawn. “What does she do?” “She's just done time. Nine years.”

“And she had a grudge against Hans Vanderberg?”

“No, not him. But she does have a grudge against two men named Aldwych, father and son. They were with Vanderberg that night, we think you might've meant to hit one of them and you got the Premier by mistake.”

August laughed: naturally, not at all forced. “You buggers beat the band, you know? First, you accuse me of being a hitman, now you accuse me of hitting the wrong guy. What else are you gunna dream up?”

“John,” said Clements, “you needed the money.”

He shook his head. “You saw my bank account. That, incidentally, embarrassed me with my bank manager. I hadda tell him it was a case of mistaken identity and you'd apologized.” He smiled; he could not have been friendlier. “Okay, I'm not rolling in it, but there's enough to pay the bills.”

Clements took his time, turned his head as over on the verandah railing the kookaburra gave a short laugh, like a snort of contempt. Then he looked back at August: “Mrs. Masson doesn't have enough to pay the bills. The Happy Hours is up to its neck in debt. You could of done the job to help out your partner.”

The change in August was sudden. The round face hardened, darkened; another man stepped out of the skin of the good-natured deliverer of Meals on Wheels. “You bastards!”

“We have to be, sometimes,” said Malone.

“I told you to stay away from her! Jesus Christ, I should—” He choked.

“What, John?” said Clements. Take a hit at us?”

Then
Malone, taking over the bowling, said quietly, “We haven't been near Mrs. Masson, John. We got that information through the proper channels.” Even if illicitly.