Dilemma. Jon Cleary
world; the sky was, as Malone remembered it, vast and uncaring. There had been much talk this past year of El Nino, but it was only an occasional visitor. The locals had known for 150 years which way to look for trouble and, after prayer, for help. The nursery, here on the edge of the plains, was a faint green shout of defiance.
Ollie McBride, or someone, had planted trees round it: silky oak, cypress pine, kurrajong and a red river gum that looked lost without its companions along a river-bank. Its three acres, within a high wire fence, bloomed greenly, like a last oasis.
On the way out Malone had asked Wally Mungle about the town and the people he had met, no matter how fleetingly, on the murder case eight years ago.
‘Chess Hardstaff and Sean Carmody and Fred Strayhorn, they’re all dead. They were all old men, even then. Chess Hardstaff died in prison. While he was there he still thought he was king of the castle and they let him get away with it.’
Malone remembered the old man, stiff with pride and ego and the dignity of another age. But who had murdered his wife for sleeping with another man, had got away with it but taken the blame for the later murder that his daughter had committed.
‘They brought him home and he was buried with full honours by some of the locals, almost like a State funeral. Being a murderer was just incidental alongside the number of Germans he shot down during the war.’
‘You’re cynical about us whites, Wally. What about Narelle Potter – she still run the Mail Coach Hotel?’
Mungle nodded. ‘Still. She’s married now and doesn’t play around like she used to. Roger Gibson, when he first came to town, went out with her a coupla times – that was before she married. She still raises the colour bar, though. One of us has one too many, out he goes or she calls the cops. Whitey can get blind paralytic and she just leaves him to his mates.’
Malone asked no more questions: they had drawn up at the gates of the nursery. He got out, suddenly apprehensive for Wally Mungle. Why couldn’t it have been one of the white officers who had recognized Ron Glaze on the TV programme? ‘You can stay in the car, Wally.’
‘No, I brought you all the way out here from Sydney—’ He got out of the car. In the reflected glare from the whiteness of the car his colour seemed to pale. ‘If I’m wrong, then I’ll wear it.’
The March heat pressed down on them, pushing them into their sharp-edged shadows as they went in through the gates. From among the rows of shrubs and plants a man approached them, his left hand grasping the handle of a box of green shoots.
‘G’day, Wally. You brought a friend for some horticultural advice?’
‘Not exactly, Roger.’ The bush friendliness of first names; except that this time there was a knife in the napkin of informality: ‘This is Inspector Malone, from Sydney. He wants to ask you some questions. Not horticultural ones.’
Ease off, Wally. Malone looked around, then said, ‘Could we go somewhere private, Mr Gibson?’
Gibson all at once was stockstill, his shadow a heavy base. He was wearing a khaki shirt and shorts, workman’s boots and short socks, a battered stockman’s hat. In the shade of the hat his eyes suddenly narrowed, as if he had only just become aware of the glare. ‘What’s it about?’
‘It’s about you,’ said Malone. ‘I have reason to believe you are Ronald Glaze.’
It was a moment before Gibson frowned; but Malone noted the hesitation. ‘Who?’
‘Let’s go somewhere more private.’ Two couples were looking at shrubs in the rows behind Gibson; over by a greenhouse a youth was stacking pots in the back of a Ford utility truck. All three had paused, had recognized Wally Mungle and were wondering who was the stranger with him. ‘We don’t want to make a production of this.’
Gibson didn’t move for a long moment; he stared at Mungle, but the latter was seemingly interested in the youth by the truck. A magpie fluttered down, began to pick amongst the plants. The woman would-be buyer shooed it away and it went off with a protest.
Then Gibson said abruptly, ‘This way,’ and led Malone and Mungle towards a weatherboard office to one side of the entrance gates.
Malone stopped at the doorway. ‘That your man over there at the ute? Better tell him to look after your customers. This may take a little while.’
‘What the hell is this—?’ Gibson’s voice was unexpectedly loud; unexpected to him, it seemed. The couple amongst the nursery rows turned and looked at him. He gave them a wide smile, a salesman’s smile, and jerked a finger at the youth. ‘Look after things, Darren. We’ve got some business—’
He led the way into the office. Malone nodded to Wally Mungle, who closed the door. Gibson switched on a window air-conditioner, then sat down at a big roll-top desk and gestured for the two detectives to take chairs. He seemed to be gathering something into himself: front, confidence, whatever.
‘Who sent you out here?’ The salesman’s smile was gone: Gibson was selling nothing in here. Except, maybe, himself.
Malone wondered who was responsible for the neatness of the office. There appeared to be a place for everything and everything in its place. Horticultural charts hung on the walls; there was a long shelf of gardening books. Two computers stood on a side table, each with a half-completed message on its face. Oddly enough there was not a pot plant or a flower-box anywhere in the small room. After the greenery of the nursery outside, the office looked as dry as a brown lawn.
Malone opened the office wallet he had brought with, him, took out the photo of Ron Glaze that had been used on the TV programme. He looked at it, then at Gibson. Then he passed the photo to the other man. ‘Recognize him?’
Gibson studied the photo, then shook his head. ‘No.’
‘I think it’s you. We found it in your wife’s wardrobe—’
‘My wife? Which wife is that?’
Nice try. ‘Mrs Norma Glaze. This, we’ d say, was taken four or five years ago, maybe six. The photographer in Mount Druitt wasn’t sure. More hair and less weight, but I think it’s you.’
Gibson had taken off his hat as he came into the office. He was bald, except for a thin brush of grey-speckled blond hair along the temples. He looked at the photo again, then at Wally Mungle. ‘What d’you think, Wally? You think it looks like me?’
Mungle took his time, but didn’t look away. ‘I think it’s you, Roger.’
Gibson turned back to Malone. ‘So what did this guy do?’
‘Murdered your wife,’ said Malone.
It took him a moment to laugh; but like all salesmen, he was a good actor. The laugh sounded genuine. ‘Jesus! What wife? I’ve never been married. Except – well, my partner and I live together. My de facto, if you like, but I hate the bloody term.’
Malone sat back in his chair, looked at the photo again, looked at Gibson, then shook his head. ‘It’s you, Ron.’
‘Bullshit!’ The front was starting to break, he was getting angry now.
Malone was calm, unhurried. ‘You came to Collamundra three years ago. Where were you before that?’
‘Around.’ Then the front was repaired. He suddenly looked more assured, settled back in his swivel chair as if ready for a chat about gardening. ‘I was in the Northern Territory. At Katherine, then in Darwin.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Selling.’
‘Cars? They said you were a good car salesman.’
He ignored that. ‘No, computers.’ He gestured at the two computers on the nearby table. He gestured with his left hand; Malone noticed that he had very big hands. They were labourer’s hands and for the first time Malone had a moment of doubt. ‘The hardware and the software. It was easy territory.