The Bear Pit (30 page)

“We're not gunna walk in with this election, Gert. The voters are getting shirty towards us. All that Olympics mess, the hospitals breakdown, law and order—the other mob won't do any better than us—”

“But?”

“But the voters are sounding as if they might get rid of us.”

“Not in our electorate, Billy.” She almost said
my
electorate. “No, you have to look after yourself and the party. Boolagong gets Barry Rix as its candidate. It's what Hans would've wanted. Would you like some tea?”

Eustace knew now that tea was all he was going to get. “No, I better be getting back.” He stood up. “Do you still make your pumpkin pavlovas?”

“Occasionally. I'm getting on, Billy, I don't have the energy I used to have. Not since Hans has gone.” Not two weeks yet, but it seemed like two decades.

“Well, look after yourself. I'm sorry you don't see my point about Jerry Balmoral.”

“Don't worry, Billy. You'll survive without him. He's a back-stabber if ever I've seen one, you're better off without him. The one you have to watch out for is Peter Kelzo.”

He hesitated, then said, “Do you think
he
might have paid the hitman?”

She looked up at him, face expressionless. “He's on my list, Billy.”

He let himself out of the house and she sat on in the book-lined room. She picked up the book she had been reading when he arrived, one by Mary Wesley. She and the author were much the same age, old enough to have come to know men and their failings.

Billy Eustace, she was sure, knew more than he had told her.

10

I

“THEY GOT
a phone trace on our man,” said Greg Random over the phone. “He called his partner, Mrs. Masson, from a public phone box in Rockdale.”

“Crumbs.” Some of the slang of his childhood still clung to Malone's tongue. It sounded soft beside four-letter words, but it was only an expression anyway. “I thought he'd be miles away—” Then
Rockdale
abruptly hit him: “Shit, he's not after Mrs. Vanderberg too!”

There had been reported sightings of August in Albury, Warialda and Coonabarabran, all hundreds of kilometres from each other. Criminals on the run multiply their images in the ever-helpful public eye. Law'n'order was a heated subject in the coming election and, by God, the public was going to help.

“We're doubling the surveillance out there. She's not going to like it, but she'll have to put up with it.”

“What did he have to say to Mrs. Masson?”

There had been the regular morning conference of the task force, then Malone had come back to Homicide. Other murders, like traffic accidents, were still occurring; he was not investigating them, but he had to confer with Clements on how they were handled. The phone intercept on August had happened ten minutes ago.

“It was a love call, I guess you'd call it. Said he loved her and was sorry for what had happened, that he had hoped the money would wipe out their debts. We've got the Rockdale police down to where he made the call, but so far they haven't reported in. I doubt that he's hung around. He'd guessed the line was tapped. After he'd said goodbye to Mrs. Masson, he said cheerio to the blokes on the line. He's a
cheeky
bastard.”

“I don't think his cheekiness is going to last. He really loves that woman of his, Greg. His life's over and he knows it. But what was he doing in
Rockdale
?”

“I don't know, Scobie. I don't think he would've been out there to do Mrs. Vanderberg, but he might have another contract to do—what's his name?”

Malone had to think: politics these days was full of vague shapes, vague names. The back benches were stocked with anonymity: “Rix. Barry or Harry Rix. He used to be The Dutchman's branch secretary. He was the one Joe St. Louis was supposed to do over, but Joe got the wrong feller.”

“Well, Mr. Rix might be August's next target.”

“He won't be if our main suspect, Janis Eden, was the one who paid August.”

“Anyhow, we've sent extra men out there, they're going to comb the neighbourhood. We might have some luck.”

“You don't sound hopeful.”

“It's the Welsh in me. You want me to quote you a Welsh poet?
I stuffed my life with odds and ends
—”

“Take your ear away, Greg. I'm hanging up—”

“Hold it! I want you to go out and talk to Mrs. Masson, see if you can get anything further out of her. Use your Irish bullshit.”

“We call it blarney.”

“Same thing. Good luck.”

Malone took Gail Lee with him out to Longueville. He had become comfortable working with her; there was an ease between them that slipped round rank, though she never abused the relationship. It had taken the Police Service almost a century to acknowledge that women had their place in law enforcement. One day there would be a woman Police Commissioner and in graves all around the country there would be bones trying to break out of coffins as they had once broken in doors.

“We treat her gently, Gail. This woman has had the bottom fall out of her world. I don't want
to
be around when we have to pick up the pieces of her when she totally falls apart.”

“That's when she may tell us where we can find Mr. August.”

“Is that feminine pragmatism?”

“No, it's feminine logic. A woman will often sacrifice a man to save him for herself.”

He looked sideways at her as she drove, fast but competently as usual. “Now I understand why I've never understand a woman's logic.”

She glanced at him, smiled. “Leave Mrs. Masson to me, okay? You're not an unsympathetic man, but I think we need a woman's touch here.”

“I'm glad you think I'm not unsympathetic. I must tell my wife and daughters.”

The opportunity presented itself much sooner than he expected; at least to tell it to one daughter. But what he would tell her would not be sympathetic at all.

When they drew up outside the Happy Hours Day-Care Centre there were four other vehicles parked at the kerb. A marked police car, two cars with press stickers on their windscreens, a Channel 15 van with a transmitter dish on its roof: enough excitement to have drawn a small crowd of onlookers. Even in well-bred Longueville curiosity was sometimes let out of the house.

Malone cursed as he got out of the car, pushed his way through the crowd into the yard. The first thing he noticed was that there were no children: Wombat Rose, Dakota, Alabama, Fred were all gone. And with them, he guessed, were gone the Happy Hours.

The second thing he noticed was Maureen interviewing Mrs. Masson. He turned to the young uniformed officer who approached him. “What the hell's going on?”

“Who are you, sir?” He was one of the local cops, not from the strike force.

“Inspector Malone, Homicide. Where are the surveillance fellers, supposed to be keeping an eye on Mrs. Masson?”

“They're further up the street, sir.” He introduced himself as Constable Raine. He was tall and big, with bushy black eyebrows a broken nose and a very thick neck which suggested he was either a rugby forward or was heading for a goitrous old age. “They called us to come down when the media guys turned
up.
They didn't want to be identified.”

The two of them had moved away from the crowd and now were joined by Gail Lee. The television crew and Maureen didn't appear to have noticed the new arrivals. One of the newspaper reporters recognized Malone and moved towards him, but Malone shook his head, mouthing
Later
.

Gail said, “She's giving Mrs. Masson a hard time.”

“I'll give her a hard time when I get her home.” He saw the bushy eyebrows go up and he said to the young officer, “She's my daughter.”

“I was gunna break it up, sir—”

Gail, one eye on her boss, said, “Where are all the kids?”

“The parents took them out of the centre,” said Raine. “It's gunna be closed down.”

Malone, holding in his irritation, was watching Maureen talking to Mrs. Masson. He couldn't hear what was being said, but it was evident that Mrs. Masson was not enjoying the interview. Then it came to an abrupt stop: she snapped something at Maureen, turned away and in a stumbling run went up into the hall. The cameraman and the soundman went to follow her, but Maureen stepped in front of them and shook her head. Then she saw her father and froze.

Malone said nothing, just strode past her and up into the hall. Gail Lee followed him, but she turned in the doorway and looked straight at Maureen and the television crew. “I would advise you to leave now.”

“That's up to us,” said the cameraman. “Not you.”

Gail looked at Maureen. “I think you'd better talk some sense into your colleague. You're in enough trouble as it is.” She nodded back into the hall.

“Who with?” The cameraman was young, overweight, belligerent; three beers and he would take on the world.

Gail ignored him, continued to look at Maureen. The latter hesitated, then turned away. “Let's go. I'm finished.”

“Why, for Crissake? Fucking police stand-over—”

Then
Constable Raine stepped forward. “Maybe you'd like to come up to the station and lay a complaint? You can give the camera to your mate here—” He nodded at the soundman, a youth who looked as if he wished he were deaf. “He can take our picture as we go out the gate. The press guys can follow us and write a story about you and me and your abuse of a woman detective. Okay?”

“You're a fucking smartarse—”

“It takes one to know one. Come on, Jack, just piss off before I have to run you in—”

The soundman was tugging at his cable, like a dog-owner trying to get his charge away from a pole. “Come on, Barney, let's get outa here—”

The cameraman backed away, still muttering and glowering, and Constable Raine grinned up at Gail Lee on the doorstep. “They think they own the world. Good luck with Mrs. Masson. She's a real nice lady. It's a pity—” He gestured vaguely, said nothing more and turned away.

Gail went into the hall where Malone was sitting opposite Lynne Masson amidst an empty carnival of tiny desks, toys and bright paintings on the walls where the children's images of themselves and their world hung like innocence itself. But an empty mask leered evilly at the two detectives, like a death-mask of an ancient Wombat Rose.

“What upset you?” Malone was asking.

“That bloody girl—” Lynne Masson was a shattered woman; she seemed hardly aware of the two detectives. “Jesus, you wonder where they come from! Have they no—no sympathy for people?”

“I'll ask her,” said Malone quietly. “She's my daughter.”

Mrs. Masson blinked and looked at him as if he had sworn at her. “What? Your daughter?” He nodded. “Good God, is that how you brought her up? Jesus, I try to teach these kids here—” She swept an arm around her at the absent children, gone probably forever from her. Then she blinked again, as if realizing for the first time that the children were no longer there. “I try to teach them to respect people—”

“My wife and I thought we'd done that,” said Malone. “I guess we never anticipated foot-in-the-door journalism. What did she say that upset you so much?”

“She wanted to know was the money you found under here—” She tapped the floor with a
nervous
foot, as if it were mined. “Whether it was to pay off my debts, the day-care's debts. They'd found that out—” Then she seemed to freeze herself together, stared at him: “Did you tell her about my debts?”

“No, believe me I didn't.”

“Then how—?”

“Lynne, you've been drawn into a mess . . .” He looked at Gail, though he didn't know why; unless it was for support he suddenly needed. Then he turned back to Mrs. Masson: “Channel 15 were working on a story about internal fighting in the Labor Party—that was before Premier Vanderberg's assassination.” She frowned when he used the word, but said nothing. “When John killed the Premier—”

She shook her head, but it was difficult to tell whether it was in denial or stupefaction.

“It's a whole new ballgame, Lynne. You're in it—Detective Lee and I are in it—Channel 15, the whole media . . . They're not going to leave you alone till we find John.”

“Lynne,” said Gail, leaning forward on her chair, as solicitous as an aid worker, “where can we find him?”

“I don't know! God, I want to find him as much as you do—I still can't believe he—he shot—” The words choked her like smoke from a fire she could not believe was now just ashes.

“He did it, Lynne,” said Gail gently. “If he calls you again, tell him to turn himself in. He can't run forever. Does he have any other relatives or friends besides you? You mentioned his mother down in Victoria?”

“They're not—they don't speak, haven't for years, he said. They never got on—she's a religious crank, he said—” She looked around the hall again, as if only just realizing she still had another problem: “I worked so hard for all this. I really enjoyed the kids—so did John—I told them it was going to be great to grow up—”

“They'll survive,” said Malone. “Especially Wombat Rose.”

She nodded, but looked unconvinced.

“Do you have a recent photo of John?” Gail asked.

Again she blinked; her thoughts were like marbles in a barrel. “Photo? John hated having his
photo
taken—he used to say it was bad luck—he'd say it as a joke, but he would always turn away when someone produced a camera—” She concentrated, looked at them both: “I suppose—?”

Malone nodded. “He didn't want his past to catch up with him, Lynne.”

“I saw that awful one of him on TV last night—the prison one—I couldn't believe it was the same man—”