The Bear Pit Page 7

  “You vote the Coalition, don’t you?”

  “Okay—” Clements grinned—“we’re apolitical on this one.”

  “We’d better be or the media will heap shit on us.”

  Malone had checked that Ladbroke was in his office at Parliament House. They drove into the city and round the back of the government complex. As they swung into the garage they saw the group under a tree in the Domain, the city common; someone, too distant to be recognized, was holding a press conference, cameras aimed at him like bazookas. Then they were in the garage and the security guard was holding them up.

  Clements, who was driving, produced his badge. “You’ll be seeing a lot of us in the next few days.”

  “Terrible business,” said the guard, a burly man young enough to have been Hans Vanderberg’s grandson. “He could be a cranky old bastard, but we all liked him and respected him. Good luck. Get the shits who killed him.”

  “You notice?” said Malone as they got out of the car. “He used the plural—the shits who killed him. Nobody’s going to believe this was a one-man job.”

  The two women secretaries in the Premier’s outer office still looked stunned, as if their boss’ murder had occurred only an hour ago. One was drying her eyes as the two detectives came in and asked for Ladbroke. Without rising she pointed to the inner door, as if she and her colleague no longer had anything to protect.

  Ladbroke was packing files into cartons. He was jacketless and tieless; he seemed even to have shed his urbanity. He looked up irritably as Malone and Clements came, then took a deep breath and made an effort to gather himself together.

  “Billy Eustace wants to move in this afternoon as Acting Premier. The king is dead, long live the king.” He still wore his old cynicism; it was like a second skin. “You come up with anything yet?”

  “We’ve got a few things to work on,” said Malone. “We’re on our way down to Sussex Street. We’d like some background on what’s been going on the past few weeks.”

  Ladbroke looked at a file in his hand, then tapped one of the cartons. “A good deal of it is in here, but I can’t let you see it. It’s stuff that was leaked to the Old Man from down there.”

  “We could get a warrant. Those aren’t Cabinet papers, Roger.”

  Ladbroke drew another deep breath, then put the file in a carton and pushed the box along the Premier’s big desk.

  “Okay, but read it here. There are three files—the red-tabbed ones.”

  Malone pushed the carton towards Clements. “You’re the speed-reader.”

  Clements took the three red-tabbed files and retired to a chair by the window. Malone sat down and looked across the desk at Ladbroke, who had slumped down in what had been his boss’ chair. “What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m organizing a State funeral for him. After that—” He shrugged.

  “A State funeral? When?”

  “Friday. Gert insisted on it. Eleven o’clock Friday morning at St Mary’s Cathedral.”

  “He was a Catholic?”

  “No, she is. He was everything the voters were on a particular day. If the Mormons or the Holy Rollers could swing the vote in an electorate, he was out there nodding his head to polygamy or clapping his hands and singing ‘Down by the Riverside’.”

  “Do the Mormons still practise polygamy?”

  Ladbroke shrugged again; Malone had never seen him so listless. “I don’t know. Anyhow, he’s a Catholic for Friday. St Mary’s jumped at the idea when Gert said she wanted a State funeral. St Andrew’s has had the last three, they’ve all been Anglicans. Friday at St Mary’s they’ll be tossing the incense around like smoke bombs. They might even canonize him.” For the first time since they had entered the office he smiled. “He’d enjoy that.”

  Clements came across from his seat by the window, handed the files back to Ladbroke. “Like you said the other night—he had more enemies than Saddam Hussein. But none of that is from Party headquarters or the Labour Council—it’s all from Trades Congress.”

  “Party headquarters and the Labor Council are sitting on the fence. But Congress—” He pursed his lips as if he were about to spit. “A real nest of vipers—”

  “Why is Labor always so vicious towards each other?”

  “Come on, Russ. You think the Coalition doesn’t have its backstabbers? Politics in this country has never been a happy brotherhood. They’ll tell you themselves, politics is the Devil’s playground. Why do you think I’ve spent twenty-two years in it and never been bored?”

  “Are you staying on?”

  “Till the election, anyway. Billy Eustace wants me to hold his hand.” He stood up, went back to his packing. “Good luck down in Sussex Street. They’re a feral lot down there.”

  Malone and Clements drove down to Sussex Street through a morning where the air was almost heavy enough to be seen. Sweat-shiny groups stood at traffic-lights, listless as detainees; a courier cyclist pedalled in slow motion through the traffic, urgent delivery ignored. The whole city seemed to have slowed, though it was impossible to tell whether it was because of the weather or the shock of the Premier’s assassination. The voters had come to have little regard for politicians; but assassination? That was what foreigners did.

  Sussex Street runs north and south along the bottom of the slight slope down from the narrow plateau on which the central business district is built. For most of its length it is one-way, a tribute to the policies of the two political buildings at its southern end. The Labor Council’s headquarters is a ten-level building that looks like a stack of concrete pancakes. The council, an organization of trade unions, was the birthplace of the Labor Party; party headquarters, though now independent, is housed in the building. Behind the mundane exterior there has been more intrigue, more skulbuggery, as the late Premier used to call it, than in the combined halls of Versailles, Tammany, the Kremlin, the Diet and latterday Rome.

  The Trades Congress building, directly across the street, was a tribute to modern design, as if its owners had been determined to show what real craftsmen could do. The Congress was a breakaway body of unions whose members were no better than their journeymen rivals; they had just had more money to spend, though no one was sure where it came from. It was too new, yet, to be a monument.

  Malone and Clements rode up to the fifth floor. As they entered an outer office there was shouting from an inner office, voices raised in fierce argument. Then a door was wrenched open and Maureen, face flushed, came running out. She almost cannoned into Malone, side-stepped him, looked up at him in surprise, then was gone, shouting back at him, “He’s all yours, the bastard!”

  A man stood in the open doorway, equally flushed: “Get outa here—you fucking vultures—Hullo, who are you?”

  Malone gestured at the secretary sitting at a desk to one side of the doorway. “We were going to ask the young lady here to introduce us.”

  The man looked hard at both detectives; then jerked his head up and down as if to say, Bloody (or perhaps fucking) cops! “I should’ve recognized you. Come in. I’m not thinking too straight this morning . . . And that bloody girl from Channel 15 coming in here—where do they breed ‘em?”

  “Out at Randwick,” said Malone. “She’s my daughter.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Don’t let it worry you, Mr. Clizbe. I have the same opinion of the media as you do.”

  Norman Clizbe was a small man in his early forties, a bantam who fought above his weight: had to, to survive in the Labor Party and its affiliates. He had quick eyes, quick mouth, quick movements; those who worked with him turned their eyes away, just for rest. He was scarred, he had seen more battles than a battalion of Ghurkas, but somehow he had kept his sense of humour. Dry, yes, but that survives longer than exuberance.

  “Is Mr. Balmoral around?” Malone asked. “We’d like to talk to the two of you.”

  “Sure, sure.” He went back to the doorway, spoke to the secretary, then came back and sat down behind a desk that appeared
to grow paper like a wild garden. “He’ll be in in a moment. I’m not surprised to see you,” he said, looking at each of them in turn. “But I’ll get in early. We’re in the dark as much as you are.”

  “What makes you think we’re in the dark?” said Clements.

  Then Balmoral came in, closing the door behind him. He was in his late twenties or early thirties, tall, handsome, a dresser. He was in his shirtsleeves, the sleeves rolled up, the roll-ups as neat as starched cuffs. He wore a brightly patterned blue tie, an expensive item that would not have been out of place on a banker’s chest. He was the New Labor, the ones who had come out of university straight into the organization, bringing theories instead of experience, bringing ambition as much as dedication. The sort that Con Malone, Scobie’s father, the old battler from the barricades, would never vote for.

  He shook hands with Malone and Clements, then sat down to the left of Clizbe. They were on the other side of the desk from the two detectives. The line in the sand had been drawn.

  “You’re not in the dark?” said Clizbe. “You’ve already got a lead?”

  “Just a glimmer.” Malone had been briefed by Clements on the way down as to what was in the red-tabbed files. “Why have you been actively encouraging the stacking of certain branches, branches that you knew were antagonistic to the Premier?”

  “What branches might they be?” Balmoral had a pleasant voice, one that sounded as if the spin doctors had already worked on it for the future. He would never be accused of saying guv’mint or claim that he was Austrayan, like so many of those who were in guv’mint and true-blue Austrayans.

  “Harding, for one. It’s being stacked by Mr. Kelzo, who wants to win pre-selection against the sitting member. Who has always been a strong supporter of the Premier.”

  Clizbe’s quick eyes were remarkably still. “Are you suggesting someone in the party shot The Dutchman?”

  Malone looked at Clements in surprise; then back at the two men on the other side of the desk. “That’s a thought, though we hadn’t thought of it.”

  Clizbe suddenly laughed; he had a quick laugh, too, one that didn’t last very long. “Let’s cut out the bullshit, Inspector. Okay, there’s been some branch stacking, but that happens. It’s not the first time, it won’t be the last time. The Coalition do it—”

  “We don’t think the Coalition are involved in this case,” said Clements. “They’ll profit, maybe win the election, if you don’t get your act together in time. But we don’t think they had any hand in killing Mr. Vanderberg.”

  “And you think we did?” Balmoral had hardly moved since sitting down; one could see him years ahead, a rock on the front bench, impervious to accusations of any sort. He was Prime Minister material and he knew it, was training for it.

  “I didn’t say that. We always begin our enquiries at home base and this is the Labor Party’s home base, isn’t it?” He knew that it wasn’t, but a little ignorance is often a trap for the other side.

  “No, it isn’t. The Labor Party is across the street, that’s the base. Maybe you should be talking to them. They control pre-selection.”

  “No, I think we’d rather be talking to you.” Yours are the names in the red-tabbed files. “We’d just like you to tell us what you know that will help us.”

  The expressions on their faces said they weren’t going to tell much.

  “Of course,” said Clizbe and his mouth shut like a trap.

  “Does Mr. Eustace have any rivals for his position?” asked Malone.

  The quick eyes were still again. “Every politician has rivals.”

  “True. It’s part of the game.”

  “We don’t see it as a game,” said Balmoral and you knew he never would.

  No one was more experienced at parrying questions than Clizbe; you knew that soon Balmoral would be just as good. It was against the grain to be open and frank; Frank, so the joke went, was the bloke who would never learn. Malone guessed that it was like this world-wide, ever had been. Julius Caesar would have been at home in Sussex Street.

  Malone took up the attack. He sometimes saw himself (though he would never admit it) as the police equivalent of the old fast bowling combination of Lillee and Thomson. He was Lillee, moving the ball both ways through the air and off the seam, bowling the occasional slower ball. “So there may be some contenders for Mr. Eustace’s position? How will that go down with the voters? Factional warfare two months before the election? Vanderberg would never have allowed that.”

  “Neither will we,” said Clizbe, forgetting for the moment that this was not home base.

  Malone moved the ball a little wider. “What can you tell us about Mr. Kelzo?”

  “He’s a loyal, hard-working party member.”

  “We understand Vanderberg didn’t think so. Loyal, that is.”

  “The Premier didn’t always have his finger on the pulse,” said Balmoral.

  “I think that would surprise a lot of people. He was Police Minister as well as Premier—there wasn’t anything he didn’t know about the Service. And you’re telling me he was out of touch with his party?” Then he bowled a beamer, right at the head: “Do you have a loyal member on your books named John June?”

  “The name doesn’t ring a bell. But we have thousands of members. Look—” Clizbe sat back, his elbows on the arms of his chair, his fingers interlocked; he could have been explaining the birds and the bees to the kids at the Happy Hours Child-Care Centre: “In this business there are always rumours and counter-rumours, lies and counter-lies, misunderstandings, back-stabbing—metaphorical, that is—”

  “I’m surprised anyone survives. Aren’t you, Russ?” Malone stood up. “We’ll be back, Mr. Clizbe. We’re only just starting—”

  “We’ll help all we can,” said Clizbe, who hadn’t helped at all. Both he and Balmoral were now on their feet, ready to sweep the police out of the office, get on with cleaning up the business. “This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to the party. Ever and in Olympic year. But if there’s any light at the end of the tunnel, we’ll let you know.”

  “Do that. But too often the light at the end of the tunnel is the track gang clearing up the wreckage. I think the party’s come off the rails. You’ll be flat out getting it back on them before the election.”

  “You’re a Coalition voter?” said Balmoral.

  Malone grinned. “My dad would shoot me if I were. He was fighting for the Left before you two were born. They used cricket bats and sling-hooks and pieces of four-by-two. They didn’t use snipers with a night-’scope. It was brutal, but it had a certain honesty about it. Whoever ordered the hit on The Dutchman didn’t show any of that. Good-day.”

  Then Clements, the other bowler, took up the ball: “We understand there was some discussion at one of the branches as to whether a political assassination was a Federal or State police matter. You hear anything about that?”

  Clizbe looked at Balmoral, who said, “Yes, we’d heard about it. Your other daughter told you, did she?”

  Clizbe’s eyes galloped. “His other daughter?”

  “Yes, she works for Iverson and Gower, who are supposed to be working for us.”

  Clizbe looked at Malone. “Your daughter brings home clients’ confidential information?”

  “No, she doesn’t.” Malone could be haughty; he had learned it from Lisa. “Mr. Balmoral had a casual conversation with her. Right?” Balmoral hesitated, then nodded. “Working for the Labor Party’s law advisers she’s naturally interested in finding out who killed the Premier. Where was the meeting where the discussion came up?”

  Clizbe couldn’t have been quicker; he was answering before Malone had finished the question: “That’d be branch business. We can’t help you there.”

  Malone just looked at the two of them, then smiled, nodded and led Clements out of the office. Behind them another argument had started, in whispers, but the argument this time was not with an outsider.

  Down in the street Clements said, “You a
lmost blew your top in there.”

  “They got up my nose.” He got into the car, got out again, took the parking fine slip from under the wiper, tore it up, dropped it in the gutter and got back into the car again. “Those buggers couldn’t care less that The Dutchman was murdered. All they’re thinking about is the succession.”

  “When was it ever different?” said Clements. “Except for the killing. Where to now?”

  “We’re going out to talk to Mr. Kelzo.”

  “What makes you think we’ll find him at his branch?”

  “This morning, mate, every branch in the State—Labor, Coalition, the Greenies, the lot—they’re all going to be at their branch offices. The election is only two months away and it’s wide open. The Olympics are less than nine months away and everybody wants to be up there in the eighteen-hundred-dollar seats as the Melbourne Cup winner comes galloping into the stadium with the torch between its teeth.”

  “They’re gunna have a horse do the last lap?”

  “It’ll save a fight between the swimmers and the track and field.”

  “Boy, you do have shit on the liver this morning.” Then as they drew away from the kerb Clements said, “What was Maureen doing there?”

  “Channel 15 have been doing an investigative piece on Labor’s faction fighting.”

  “It could get dangerous. You’re gunna let her keep shoving her nose in? If my daughter ever gets into investigative journalism—”

  “Your daughter is three years old. By the time she’s Maureen’s age they won’t be leaving home to do any investigation. They’ll do it on the Internet or whatever it’s called by then. Maybe the Prynet.”

  “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could work that way?”

  They drove west, over the beautiful Anzac Bridge with its suspension cables a fragile contrast to the heavy steel arch of the Harbour Bridge further downstream. The Harding electorate covered three suburbs on the Parramatta River, the harbour’s main tributary. It was a mixture of Federation houses, smaller houses from the twenties and thirties and one or two new developments that appeared to make the Federation houses rear back as if affronted by upstarts. From certain streets one could see the Olympic complex, genuflected to by some as a cathedral.