Dark Summer. Jon Cleary
criminal. Old men rarely have interesting conversations with young girls, not unless they’re dirty old men, and the young girl looked too composed to be listening to that sort of approach.
‘Are you after his money? He’s gunna be a rich man some day.’
‘Yes, I suppose I am, in a way. I’m in danger of losing my job, the State’s cutting back on welfare, and the thought of being poor and out of work doesn’t appeal to me.’
‘Well, one thing, you’re honest.’
‘No, I used to be. I’ve reformed.’ She sipped her champagne, her eyes smiling at him above the flute. There was no coquetry to it; it puzzled him at first what it was. Then he recognized it: it was the look of another criminal, or anyway a potential one. He began to worry for Jack Junior, if only for Shirl’s sake.
‘You’ve never been poor?’ he said.
‘No. I come from a family that could afford to send me to a good school and then to university. But my father committed suicide after the stock market crash in eighty-seven and we found he’d left us no money at all. My mother now draws the pension and I have a brother who works as a barman in a pub, the only job he could get with a PhD in archaeology.’
Aldwych wondered why anyone in Australia would want to take a degree in archaeology; but he had never been one for digging up anything, unless it could be used for blackmail. ‘So you’ve set your sights on my son?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does he know it?’
‘He’d be dumb if he didn’t. And I don’t think he is. Why did you become what you are?’
‘You mean a crim or a success?’
Out on the field another Australian wicket had fallen; things were going from bad to worse, the bloody Poms were on top. He hated the English, despite his English name and lineage. His convict great-great-grandfather had spat on England the day they had transported him for assaulting and robbing a gentleman, and the family ever since had carried on the tradition. Three years ago, during the height of the Bicentennial celebrations, Aldwych had applied for membership of the First Fleet Pioneers, a society of the descendants of the first settlers; but he had been rejected. It was permitted to have had a convict as an ancestor, but the stain was supposed to have been washed out in succeeding generations. Criminality was not supposed to be part of the national heritage, though other nationalities were loud in their doubts of that belief.
Janis said, ‘I know why you became a success – you were ruthless. Why did you become a criminal? Was it because you had a deprived childhood? That’s what I hear a lot from the junkies I counsel.’
He laughed, a sound that still had some volume despite his age; some men in the box on their right turned their heads, wondering if the old crim was laughing at what was happening to Australia out there on the field. You never knew where a crim’s loyalties lay.
‘I was born what I grew up to be. My mother reckoned I was bad from the day I was weaned. I belted other kids and pinched whatever they had. I went to a State School and hated it and the teachers. I left soon’s I turned fourteen and I joined the old Railway Gang with Chow Hayes and Kicker Kelly and other blokes, all of ’em older than me. Then I become a stand-over man for Tilly Devine and her sly-grog racket . . . You want me to go on?’
She was smiling; it was difficult to tell whether she was impressed or disgusted. ‘You’re really proud of what you were, aren’t you?’
‘No. I’m not ashamed of it, either. It’s a fact and you never get anywhere in life denying facts. That’s why this country is in the mess it is right now, the politicians keep denying facts. One thing I never had was conceit. That was what killed more than half the crims I come up against. They thought they were better than me and they weren’t. That was a fact they denied.’
‘Did conceit kill them or did you?’
He looked at her steadily. ‘I thought you said you’d read up on me?’
‘I did. It said you were charged with two murders, but were acquitted.’
‘Don’t you believe in the jury system? Twelve of your peers who judge you innocent or guilty?’
‘No,’ she said, her own gaze as steady as his. ‘I’ve gone into court with junkies and seen the jury condemn them before they’ve heard the evidence. We’re all full of prejudices, Mr Aldwych.’
He continued to stare at her, then he said, ‘You and me are gunna get on all right, Janis. Now let’s watch the cricket.’
As he turned away to watch the play out on the field, he wondered if he had retired too soon. This girl had enough conceit, if that was the word, to smother Jack Junior.
1
Malone caught a cab back to Homicide in Surry Hills. Till three months ago Homicide had been headquartered in the big new complex, the Police Centre, across the road. Lavish in its space, antiseptic in its cleanliness, its attraction had proved too magnetic for the desk generals of Administration and another of the now-too-frequent reorganizations had taken place. Homicide had been moved across the road to the Hat Factory, a one-time commercial building which had indeed been a hat factory. Jokes were made about size 7¼ homicides, but the general feeling was that the working police, as usual, got the backwaters while the Minister and the brass got the harbour views. The sourest joke was that the old Hat Factory could never have made a hat that would have fitted the head of the Police Minister, Gus Dircks.
Clements was waiting for him, followed him into his room. It was no more than an office built into one corner of the main room, the upper half of it glass-walled. The squad room had been given a new coat of yellow-cream paint, the blue-grey carpet was not yet worn, the beige filing cabinets not yet chipped and dented; yet Malone had a feeling that everything was makeshift, that as soon as a further backwater could be found, they would be moved again. All that could be said for it was that it did not have the sleazy look that distinguished most squad rooms he saw in American films or on TV. No Hill Street blues were sung here, not yet.
‘How’d you get on?’ Clements asked.
‘See what you can find out about a social worker, she’s in drug rehabilitation, her name’s Janis Eden. She’s a girlfriend of Jack Aldwych’s son. Any word yet from your girlfriend?’
‘Lay off. Romy and I are – just friends. No, she hasn’t called with anything more. Wayne Murrow phoned in – they got a print or two off the pool gate. They’re checking records now. G’day, Peter.’
A man in white overalls, carrying a large plastic waste-bag, had come into the big outer room and moved down towards them, emptying waste-baskets as he passed each desk. Now he stood in the doorway of Malone’s office.
‘Sergeant.’ The man gave a nod, a slight formal bow of recognition. He was in late middle age, thick dark hair streaked with grey, fleshily handsome, sad-eyed yet at the same time arrogant-looking; Malone had seen the type countless times, the immigrant who hadn’t managed to achieve his old status, whatever it had been. He had not seen this particular cleaner before. ‘May I clean out the basket?’
‘Sure. This is Inspector Malone. Peter Keller. He’s Dr Keller’s father.’
Malone, sitting on the end of his desk, stood up and shook hands with the older man, who hesitated a moment before putting out his own hand. But the grip was strong: having made the decision, he was declaring himself an equal.
‘Peter was a cop in Germany,’ said Clements.
Malone had picked up his waste-basket, was ferreting through it; once or twice he had carelessly disposed of notes that he had later needed. ‘No, nothing in there.’ He handed the basket to Keller. ‘So you were a cop?’
‘Yes, Inspector. I was a sergeant.’ He spoke as if rank