Kitabı oku: «Dark Summer»

Dedication

for

Shaun Roach

for his considerable help

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

1

‘Daddy, there’s a dead man floating in our pool.’

Malone came awake, dimly conscious of his relief that what he had heard had been only a part of a dream. He had stayed up late, looking, almost against his will, at the latest newsreels on the Gulf war; the images had gone to bed with him, the camera eye in the dream becoming his own eye. Now he felt the hand still on his shoulder, the grip tight, and he opened his eyes to see Maureen standing by the bed in her swimsuit.

‘What?’ He sat up, feeling Lisa stir beside him.

‘There’s a dead man in our pool.’

His first thought was for the effect on his middle child: he looked at her for the marks of shock or fear. She was ten years old, a tomboy usually bursting with energy and curiosity; the one of his three children who, he had thought, would never be vulnerable to what life threw at her. But he had been looking at the future: not at now, a hot January Monday morning when she was only ten years old and had got up for nothing more threatening than an early morning swim.

‘You all right?’ She nodded; and he turned to Lisa, now wide awake. ‘Keep her here, darl. Stay with Mum.’

Lisa said, voice still thick with sleep, ‘I hope this isn’t some stupid joke –’

He shook his head warningly, pushed Maureen into the bed as he got out of it. He could feel the trembling in the thin body and he felt a sudden spasm of anger. Any intrusion that cracked the peace of the life he had built for Lisa and the kids always angered him.

In his pyjama trousers and bare feet he went out to the back of the house, opened the screen door and stepped out into the back garden. It was not a large area, maybe eighty feet by fifty, and a good part of it was taken up by the swimming pool and its fence-enclosed surrounds. He went through the spring-loaded gate, feeling the bricks beneath his feet still warm from yesterday’s scorcher, and stood on the side of the pool and looked down at the small, fully clothed man floating face-up in the blue-tinted water. It was Scungy Grime.

Malone picked up the long pole with its skim-net, hooked the net over Grime’s head and pulled the body in to the side of the pool. There was no doubt that the little man was dead, but, routinely, he knelt down and felt for a pulse in Grime’s neck.

‘Hi, Scobie. Going to be another scorcher, looks like – What’s that?’

Keith Cayburn was the Malones’ next-door neighbour. His house was two-storeyed and from the rear balcony, where he now stood in his pyjamas, he could look down on the Malones’ garden.

‘A dead man. Keep Gloria inside the house till I get him out of sight.’

‘Sure. Holy shit! Can I do anything to help?’

‘Maybe later, Keith.’ Though how he could help, Malone had no idea. Dead small-time criminals in swimming pools were not common in Randwick, not objects for community action by Neighbourhood Watch.

He left the body in the water for the Physical Evidence team and hoped that Gloria Cayburn, an hysterical type, would not come out on the balcony, despite her husband’s pleas, and throw a fit. As he went back into the house to call the police (call the police? Dammit, I am the police! But that was the way the system worked), Scungy Grime, in death as in life an incorrigible, drifted away towards the middle of the pool again, the skim-net still over his head like a fly-net, the long pole now caught in the crook of his limp arm.

Malone picked up the phone in the kitchen and rang Randwick police station. He spoke to a young constable, who said ‘Holy shit!’ and that he would get the local detectives round there right away. Malone hung up, rang Police Centre and got the duty officer in Physical Evidence, who said ‘Holy shit!’ evidently the religious thought for the day, and told him the team was on its way. Then Malone rang Russ Clements, who, half-asleep but still awake enough to be concerned for the Malone family, said only, ‘Lisa and the kids all right? Okay, I’ll be there soon’s I can.’

Malone hung up the phone and turned round. Claire, in her shortie nightgown, stood in the kitchen doorway, frightened and puzzled. ‘Is it true, Dad? Is there a dead man in our pool?’

‘It’s true. Where’s Tom?’

‘In with Mum.’

‘How’s Maureen?’

‘Quiet. It’s not like her, she’s not saying a word.’

‘Get dressed, the police will be here soon.’ He hoped they would not arrive with sirens blaring, lights flaring; sometimes the theatricals of police work, though necessary, embarrassed him. This section of Randwick, mostly white-collared and comfortable, was a quiet neighbourhood and so far he and Lisa had fitted in. ‘And don’t go outside, understand?’

‘I’ve never seen a dead person.’

She was fourteen, on the verge of becoming a beautiful woman; sometimes, forgetting the contribution of Lisa, he was amazed he could have sired such a beauty. There was also a matter-of-fact serenity to her that she had inherited from Lisa; or there normally was. But not now. The death of strangers, he knew, though not as shattering as that of loved ones, never left any but the most callous untouched.

‘You’re not going to start now,’ he said, trying to keep his tone gentle. ‘Go and get dressed.’

He went into the main bedroom, where Lisa was sitting on the side of the queen-sized bed with her arms round Maureen and Tom. She looked up at him and said accusingly, or so it seemed, ‘What’s happening?’

‘They’re all on their way, the local fellers, the Crime Scene team. They’ll all be here in minutes. Russ is coming, too.’

‘Can I watch, Dad?’ Tom was almost eight: the world, and everything in it, even the horrible, was for watching.

‘Not this time, Tom. Get dressed.’

Lisa rose to take the two younger children out of the room. As they passed him, Malone pressed Maureen’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, love.’

Both children looked at him, puzzled; but he saw that Lisa understood. ‘What for, Daddy? Sorry for what, the dead man?’

‘Yes, I guess so.’ It would be useless trying to explain his regret at what, through his police work, he had brought into their lives.

There was no time for a shower. Normally, at this time of morning, he would be in the pool; that, too, was out for the time being. He had a quick wash, throwing the cold water into his face as if to convince himself that he should be fully awake; which he was. He put on a short-sleeved shirt, cotton trousers and a pair of canvas shoes and went out to get the newspapers. He had no intention of reading them; it was force of habit. Today was Australia Day, a national holiday, when the natives, a notoriously phlegmatic lot, searched in themselves for a sediment of patriotism. This weekend, with the Gulf war promising to be more than a nine-day horror, with the country’s economy up to its crotch in recession and sinking further, the flag-waving would be even more desultory than usual. He glanced at the headlines. Saddam, the medieval thug, was playing dirty: he was flooding the Gulf with oil. President Bush, always with an eye to the vote, was calling him an environment terrorist. Malone, taking a narrow view, wondered which was worse, oil in the Gulf or a dead man in your kids’ swimming pool.

He was about to go back into the house when the two police cars, silent and with no blue and red lights flashing, pulled up at the kerb. Detective Sergeant Wal Dukes got out of the first car.

‘I was just knocking off, Scobie, when they told me you had a problem.’ He was a big man, a one-time Olympic heavyweight boxer now run a little to fat; he was reliable, but sometimes a bit heavy-handed, as if he thought he still had a few rounds to go in his last bout. ‘Crime Scene on their way?’

‘Yeah.’ Physical Evidence was still called Crime Scene by the older men in the Department: change for change’s sake was something they didn’t favour. Malone closed the front door. ‘Let’s go round the side. I want to keep the kids out of this. The bloody place is going to be over-run in a while. Stick to the path, in case there are some shoe prints in that grass strip there.’

They went round to the back of the house, followed by Dukes’ junior, a young detective named Lazarus, and the two uniformed men who had come in the second car. Grime was still out in the middle of the pool, the skim-net still over his face, looking for all the world like a drunk who had decided to have a floating sleep.

‘He’s Normie Grime, Scungy they called him. I’ve been using him as an informant for the past three months, since he got out of the Bay.’

‘What was he in for?’

‘Passing dud notes. He was into everything, but he was always just a hanger-on, never big time.’

‘What were you using him for?’

‘I’ve been on a homicide, a young Vietnamese was murdered in a back lane in Surry Hills. He was into drugs, the Asian, and I hoped Scungy could give me a lead or two. Scungy himself, as far as I know, never sold the hard stuff, but he knew everyone who did.’

‘Was he coming here to see you?’

Malone looked at him as if he had been accused of corruption. ‘Here? Wal, I don’t even let cops come here! Except Russ Clements.’

‘Well, we’re here now.’ But Dukes said it as gently as he could, though gentleness was not one of his talents. He looked out at the drifting Grime, who had floated close to the far side of the pool and was now staring up through the skim-net at one of the uniformed men as he reached out for the long pole. ‘Watch out, Kenny, you’re gunna fall in!’

Kenny fell in, with a loud splash and a muffled curse. Dukes turned back to Malone. ‘How do we divide this one up? It’s in my territory, but he’s your property, as it were.’

‘I’ll hang on to him, Wal, if it’s okay with you. If I need any help –?’

‘Sure, all you need.’ The uniformed cop, Kenny, had pushed the body to the side of the pool. It was now floating at the feet of the two senior detectives. Dukes looked down at it. ‘Fuck ‘em!’

‘Who?’

‘Crims. Why don’t they go out into the middle of the Nullabor Plain when they wanna bump each other off?’

Ten minutes later Russ Clements and the Physical Evidence team arrived simultaneously. All at once the back garden was seething with activity, a police production; for the first and last time in this life Scungy Grime was a star. The Cayburn family stood on their balcony, the parents and their two teenage sons, Gloria Cayburn with her hand over her mouth as if stifling a scream; beyond the opposite side fence the Malones’ other neighbours, an elderly couple named Bass who normally minded their own business, stood on a ladder, one above the other, like a geriatric trapeze pair about to climb to the high wire. Malone, catching a glimpse of them, waved to them, then looked sourly at Clements.

‘You reckon we should charge admission?’

‘Take it easy, mate. They’re neighbours, for Crissake. You’d rather they turned their backs on you?’ But the big, rumpled man knew what was causing the tension in Malone; he had gone into the house as soon as he had arrived and spoken to Lisa and the children. He was the surrogate uncle and he was as anxious as Malone to see that this murder did not throw too long a shadow over this house. ‘Let’s go inside.’

Then he looked past Malone and suddenly smiled, an expression of abrupt pleasure out of keeping with his sombre mood of a moment ago. ‘G’day, Romy. You didn’t say you were on call today.’

‘They’ve given all the Old Australians the day off. We’ve been told we can wave the flag next year.’ She was smiling as she said it, there was no sourness. She was the GMO, one of the government medical officers from the Division of Forensic Medicine in the State Department of Health. She was Romy Keller, slim and attractive, dark-haired and dark-eyed, with just a trace of accent, ten years out of Germany and still trying to be an Australian. ‘I didn’t know this was your place, Inspector. When they called me, they just gave me an address . . . When did it happen?’

‘The murder? I don’t know. My daughter found him in the pool.’

‘Poor child.’ She glanced towards the body, which was now lying on the bricks beside the pool, a green plastic sheet thrown over it. ‘Anyone looked at the body?’

‘Sergeant Dukes gave him a once-over,’ said Clements. ‘There’s no sign of any wound. It could be a heart attack.’

‘Then it wouldn’t be murder, would it?’ She looked at Malone.

He nodded. ‘Righto, you’re right. I jumped to conclusions. Maybe it’s some sick joke. Some mate of his found him dead and decided to dump him in my pool. I just don’t think that’s the way it is.’

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 sticky-beaking 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 started 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.

2

The heat was already building up as Clements drove them into the city, to Woolloomooloo. The morning sun, reflected from the sheer glass walls of one building to the glass walls of another (Malone had begun to suspect that lately architects were turning Sydney into a City of Glass. Some day in the future they would find a singer who could hit an absolute top note, they would amplify it all over the city, all the buildings would shatter and the architects could start in all over again), till it seemed there were dozens of small suns, all striking at the eye. There was no breeze, the flags would hang limp on this Australia Day.

‘How did you get Scungy on side?’ Clements asked.

‘When he came out of Long Bay, Fraud were waiting to send him up on two more charges. I talked ’em out of it and told him he owed me.’

‘Did he come up with anything?’

‘Nothing I could use. He said he knew Joey Trang, the Vietnamese, but he didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. I saw him last week and he said he was on to something, but he’d let me know when he was sure. He didn’t seem to believe what he’d heard.’

‘You didn’t try to squeeze it out of him?’ Then Clements shook his head. ‘No, you’re too soft, mate. A belt under the ear works wonders, you should try it some time.’

Malone looked at him seriously. ‘You really think I’m too soft?’

‘I dunno, to tell you the truth.’ Clements took the car down the curve at the bottom of Macleay Street and along the waterfront where the navy ships were moored. A large crowd already lined the tall wire fence, most of them there to celebrate the national holiday, a few protesters holding up banners demanding Peace in the Gulf! Beyond the ships the waters of the small bay glinted like broken blue glass. ‘When did you last clock a villain, give him a real going-over?’