Dark Summer Read online

  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.

  II

  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?”

  Malone thought a while. “About ten years ago. But I tell you what—if I find the bastard who tossed Scungy into our pool, I’ll beat the shit out of him before I book him.”

  “Good. I’ll hold your coat. If he’s too big and young for you, I’ll hold him.”

  Woolloomooloo is a pocket between two shoulders just east of the city centre. For over a hundred years before Malone was born ships, sealers, traders and passenger liners had docked in the small ’Loo Bay; pubs and brothels had for years put a ceiling on real-estate values. Sailors and prostitutes met in a common market and it was said that even a decent girl, if she slipped and fell on the broken pavements, would earn a quid before she was back on her feet. Gangs used to whet their razors on the local rocks before going up the eastern hill to Darlinghurst and Kings Cross to carve up the competition. For years poverty had hung over the ’Loo like a harbour mist. Across on the western ridge, on the edge of the Domain, one of the city’s parks, stands a statue of Henry Lawson, the proletarians’ poet. He had once written, “Sorrow and poverty taught me to sing;” but only drunken bawdy songs had come out of the ’Loo. Lawson, an alcoholic, might have understood and wept for those who sang them.

  In recent years there had been efforts to coat the ’Loo with respectability. Old terrace houses had been gentrified, crones taken to a beauty parlour; blocks of Housing Commission flats had been built under the lee of the eastern hill. The merchant sailors no longer came to this part of the port of Sydney and the girls, or their daughters or granddaughters, had moved up the road to William Street or the Cross. Still, there were reminders of poverty: a men’s hostel stood in the shadow of the railway viaduct and every night the derelict and homeless stood in line waiting for a bed. They would be the skulls, the memento mori, at today’s anniversary party.

  Scungy Grime had lived in one of the Commission flats. Up the road some winos sat in the gutter in the morning sun, sweating out last night’s plonk. When Malone and Clements got out of their car the bleary eyes sharpened for a moment and the red noses lifted like those of pointer dogs waiting to be put down. They hadn’t lost their sense of smell of a mug copper.

  The two detectives went into the block of flats, found the superintendent and had him let them into Grime’s flat. “He was murdered, you say?”

  “No, we didn’t say that,” said Malone. “What made you say it?”

  “I dunno. I guess I just jumped to conclusions.” He was a fat man whose stained panama hat looked as if it would be a permanent fixture on his head; it had a screwed-on look, Malone thought, like a jar-lid. He was not surprised by his tenant’s death; he was a ’Loo resident, born and bred, he was familiar with a dozen ways of dying. “Someone come looking for him last night, but he’d already gone out—”

  “You see who it was?”

  “Nah. He was out there on the landing, the light was out—bastards around here are always pinching the globes. I was down the stairs, I just saw him knocking on Normie’s door. I sang out there was nobody home, I’d seen Normie go out—”

  “Describe the man.”

  “I can’t.” The fat shoulders shook in a shrug. “I told you, the light was out, there was only the light from the landing below. He didn’t even look down at me, he just went along that hallway outside and disappeared—there’s another flight of stairs further along . . . Normie always looked a bit jumpy, you know what I mean? He come home Sat’day night and I spoke to him, he didn’t see me, and he jumped like I’d jabbed him with a needle or something. I got the idea, talking to him occasionally, he’d made some enemies when he was out at the Bay.”

  “You knew he’d been in jail?”

  “Oh, sure. You work here long as I have, you get to know everyone’s history.” He would make a point of it, it was one of the perks of the job. He went to sit down in Grime’s small living room, to take a load off his feet, as he put it, but Clements stood holding open the front door.

  “We’ll check with you on our way out, Mr. Shanagan.”

  Shanagan could take a hint; in the ’Loo, if you didn’t, you often took something else, like a fist in the face. “Sure, sure. You know where to find me. Take your time.”

  Clements closed the door on him and Malone said, “We’ll talk to him later. He’s busting to tell us anything we want to know.”

  “You thin
k he knows any more than he’s told us?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. I’d say no. He’s a bull artist, the sort who’ll break their neck to be called as a witness. We’ll send one of the young blokes back to talk to him.”

  The flat was small. A bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen: you could swing a cat in it, but the terrified beast would have been scratching the walls with each swing. It was neat, a place for everything and everything in its place. Including a diary and an address book, one placed neatly on the other; the morbid thought struck Malone that perhaps Grime had laid everything out for them. He had always thought Grime a cheerful little man, one who would have turned a blind eye to the possibility of his own death. But maybe he had been wrong about the little man.

  “Nothing’s been disturbed,” said Clements, coming back from the bedroom. “Doesn’t look as if he died here. The bed’s still made, with the cover on it. He’s even got his pyjamas laid out on it!”

  “Where do you lay yours out? On the floor?”

  Malone looked around. This was a lonely man’s home; one could feel the loneliness, like a sad current in the air. There was a solitary photo: a young Grime between a couple who could have been his parents. All three were smiling: a happy day long ago. Malone wondered if Grime had remembered when the photo was taken. He turned it over. On the back was a date: 1963, November 22. Not really a happy day, though he doubted that Scungy Grime, even then, would have been upset by the assassination of a President. He had always had a limited view of the world.

  “Did you know he worked on the wharves?” Clements held up a card. “This is a WLU ticket.”