Dilemma. Jon Cleary
Traffic over at Cawndilla. We’re in Cawndilla shire,’ he told Malone. ‘When he applied for his New South Wales licence, the computer showed he’d produced a Territory licence. They’re very handy, computers.’
You haven’t wasted any time this morning, thought Malone.
Gibson’s face was stiff, the smile gone, as he looked at Mungle. ‘You started all this, Wally?’
Mungle nodded.
‘Why?’
‘I recognized you last night on the TV programme, Wanted For Questioning.’
‘You’re out of your mind, Wally.’
‘I don’t think so, Roger.’
This was a local match; Malone was on the outside. He said nothing, waiting for Gibson to blow up. His anger would be greater at a local than at a stranger from out of town.
There was a knock at the door and it was opened. A woman stood there, indistinct for a moment against the yellow glare. Then she came in, closing the door behind her. ‘Business? Am I intruding?’
Malone had kept his eye on Gibson. The anger at Mungle went out of the round face; it clouded for a moment, a shadow took all the life out of it. Then he recovered, stood up. ‘No, come in, sweetheart. You know Wally Mungle. This is Inspector Malone, from Sydney.’
She was tall and lusty-figured and had a mane, one had to call it that, of golden hair. She was not beautiful, her face was too broad for that, but it was a face any man, or anyway most men, would look at twice. She wore a tan sleeveless shirt, a beige skirt and her arms, legs and face were deeply tanned. A woman, thought Malone chauvinistically, who wouldn’t remain a widow too long.
Only her voice spoiled her: it was high, girlish, the voice from the back of the schoolroom: ‘Have we done something wrong? Police from Sydney?’
Gibson opened his mouth, but Malone got in first: ‘That’s what we are trying to establish, Mrs – do I call you Mrs Gibson?’
‘Yes,’ said Gibson, getting in his word.
She had an eye or an ear or a nose for atmosphere. She recognized that some formality was called for; this inspector from Sydney was not here to buy a box of petunias. ‘Mrs Gibson will do,’ she said and her partner looked relieved.
‘We have reason to believe—’ the pedantry always coated Malone’s tongue, but that was the way the Service wanted it – ‘Mr Gibson is not who he claims to be. His real name is Ronald Glaze.’
She put out her hand to Gibson and he took it. She looked at him and he shook his head; that seemed to satisfy her, for she pressed his hand. Then she looked back at Malone. ‘You’re not here just because he’s supposed to have changed his name. What’s he supposed to have done?’
Malone waited, hoping that Gibson, maybe with a laugh, would tell her. He had at least a dozen times had to tell a wife or a partner that her man had been murdered; only once before had he had to tell her that he was a murderer. Gibson just stood beside his partner, saying nothing.
It was Wally Mungle who said, ‘We’re sorry, Roma, but he is accused of murdering his wife in Sydney four years ago.’
She turned on him, ignoring Malone, and said, ‘You can’t be serious!’
‘I’m afraid we are,’ said Malone, getting Mungle off the hook he had nailed for himself. Wally Mungle was getting out of hand; he was relishing this, getting his own back on his fellow cops who had sneered at his taking duty too seriously. He would talk to Mungle later.
‘I’m taking him into town, to the station. The questioning may go on for some time. You may come to the station if you wish. You can have a lawyer present, Mr Glaze.’
‘Gibson,’ said Gibson. Now his partner was here he looked confident again. He’d get his strength from women, thought Malone, even though they were his weakness. ‘Yes, I think I will get our lawyer. Go and get Trevor Waring, sweetheart – don’t ring him, we’ll keep it quiet till Inspector Malone has gone back to Sydney, then we can laugh about it … Something wrong, Inspector?’
‘No. I happen to know Mr Waring, that’s all.’
Gibson appeared slightly fazed, as if the ground ahead had become uneven. ‘He’s a friend?’
‘Not exactly.’ Trevor Waring had been the husband of a friend of Lisa Malone, but the marriage had split up five or six years ago. ‘It’s just a coincidence. He also acted for another man I arrested for murder. Man named Hardstaff.’
‘Of course!’ Roma Gibson looked at Malone with new interest: very acute interest. ‘I was at a garden party at the Hardstaffs’—’
Malone nodded. ‘The day we arrested Chester Hardstaff … Get Trevor, he’s a good lawyer. Or he was.’
‘He still is,’ said Roma Gibson, kissed her partner and left, leaving the door open to the glare outside. It’ll be nothing, thought Malone, to the glare when this case breaks. The Hardstaff case suddenly seemed like only yesterday. The glare then had been fiery, directed against himself and Russ Clements, who had been with him.
As he, Mungle and Gibson stepped out of the office a reminder was thrown at him like a brick. A woman in a yellow dress came down between the rows of shrubs. She pulled up sharply: recognition was instant. ‘Inspector Malone?’
Perhaps it was the glare: Malone looked for other ghosts. Narelle Potter; the secretary of the local services club whose name he couldn’t remember; Sean Carmody – ah, but he was dead. He blinked, became accustomed to the glare.
‘Hello, Mrs Nothling.’
‘Hardstaff.’ It was a day for corrections. ‘My husband and I—’ She had a queenly air about her, always had had. ‘We were divorced some years ago. Just after you left here.’
Amanda Nothling-Hardstaff had not changed. She was still attractive, still elegant despite the heat, still the arrogant aristocrat. They were a dying breed, the squattocracy, but she would be flying the banner till the last. She was a murderer, but if there was any shame in her it would never show. Her husband, Malone decided, would have been well rid of her.
‘Some trouble, Roger? Inspector Malone is implacable.’
Implacable. Malone had been called many things, but never that. He grinned at her and she gave him a knife of a smile in return.
Then she seemed to note the significance of Malone’s attachment. ‘You are still with Homicide?’
The first crack in the dam that was going to engulf Gibson. ‘Yes. You have quite a memory.’
‘Oh, I do, I do.’ She looked at Gibson again. She was wearing dark glasses, but one knew that behind them the eyes had narrowed. ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’
Gibson smiled, shook his head. ‘They think I might’ve been a witness to something years ago, but I can’t remember it. You want something, Amanda? Young Darren will look after you. Those liquidambars you ordered are due in a coupla weeks. Too hot to bring ’em out here right now. I’ll see you Sunday. Tennis still on?’
‘I remember your father’s garden, Mrs Hardstaff,’ said Malone as he and Mungle led Gibson towards the police car. ‘That where you live now? Lucky you.’
It was a cheap shot, but he couldn’t help it. He saw Wally Mungle glance at him; even Gibson turned his head. He ignored them both, opened the rear door of the car.
‘Don’t put your hand on top of my head and push me in,’ said Gibson. ‘I’ve seen it on TV – that’s what you do to crims.’
‘After you, Ron,’ said Malone and stood back.
He got in beside Gibson. As the car drove away he looked back at Amanda Hardstaff some fifty yards away; in her yellow dress she seemed to shimmer in the glare, a fading memory from the