Bear Pit. Jon Cleary
he’d been acquitted before. He’s got enough form.’
‘Anything on him recently?’
‘The Victorians say they haven’t heard of him for nine years. They say on his form he wasn’t a hitman, but you never know.’
‘Is his name on the Sewing Bee’s list of customers?’
Russ Clements had come into Malone’s office, taken his usual place on the couch beneath the window. Though the couch was only four years old, he had dented his imprint on it at one end. He gestured at the typewritten list in his hand. ‘There’s no August. The name here is John June.’
Malone shook his head at the folly of criminals. ‘Full of imagination. What’s the address?’
‘None. Just a phone number.’
He gave it and Malone punched it. He listened for a moment, said, ‘Sorry, wrong number,’ and hung up. ‘Happy Hours Child-Care Centre.’
‘What?’ said the other two.
Malone repeated it. ‘Possible hitman running a day-care centre? It’s a switch.’ He reached for the phone book, found what he wanted. ‘The Happy Hours Child-Care Centre, Longueville. I think I’ll take one of the girls with me. That’ll look better than two big boof-headed cops turning up to frighten the ankle-biters. What else have you got, Russ?’
‘Another list.’ Clements held it up. ‘All the political bods we should look at. You want boof-headed cops on that?’
‘We’d be the only ones they’d understand.’ He stood up, sighed. He was sighing a lot these days, as if it were a medical condition. ‘I’m not looking forward to the next coupla weeks.’
‘It’s all in a good cause.’
‘Did you ever think you’d say that about The Dutchman?’
‘No,’ said Clements. ‘But the old bugger stood by us when we needed him. I think we owe him.’
Malone collected Gail Lee and drove out to Longueville. Gail, half-Chinese, was slim and good-looking, a shade of coolness short of beautiful and as competent as any man on Malone’s staff of nineteen detectives. She drove a little too fast for Malone’s comfort, but he would have been a poor passenger with the driver of a hearse.
Longueville is a small suburb on the northern shore of the Lane Cove river, one of the two main rivers that flow into Sydney Harbour. It is now a pleasant area of solid houses in their own grounds, though some of the more modern ones are as conspicuous as circus tents in a cemetery. The suburb is a quiet retreat that has no major highway running through it. Once, long ago, it was thickly wooded with cedar and mahogany and populated, according to gossip of the times, by murderers and other assorted criminals. Today, if there are any criminals in the area, they are hidden behind accountants, the new forest for retreat.
The Happy Hours Child-Care Centre looked as if it might once have been a scouts’ or a church hall. It stood in a large yard shaded by two big jacarandas and a crepe myrtle. There were sandpits and playground equipment and a dozen or more small children in the yard. There were shouts of laughter coming from the hall, kids in a happy hour.
While Gail went looking for someone in charge Malone moved into the yard and stood looking at the children there. He was not naturally a child-lover, but the behaviour of the very small always fascinated him. Sometimes, but only occasionally, he saw in them what he would have to face when they grew up. He believed that the bad seed could show in sprouts.
Half a dozen sat in a tight circle under one of the jacarandas, bound by giggles as by a daisy chain. Malone smiled at them and they smiled back.
‘You like it here?’
They all nodded, heads under their blue sun-hats going up and down like a circle of semaphores.
Malone looked at the large name-tabs pinned to their yellow smocks. There were Justin and Jared and Jaidene and Alabama and Dakota and Wombat Rose – ‘Wombat Rose? That’s a nice name.’
She was four or five, a cherub with a wicked glint already in her big blue eyes. ‘Me mother wanted to call me Tiger Lily, but that was taken, she said.’
‘No, I like Wombat Rose better.’ Then he saw the small boy sitting by himself under the other jacaranda and he crossed to him. ‘Why are you sitting on your own over here?’
‘They won’t talk to me.’
‘Why?’
“Cos me name’s Fred.’
Before Malone could laugh Gail Lee came out of the hall with a woman. ‘This is Mrs Masson, the owner.’
She was in her forties and feeling the heat and the children, two pressures that rarely have a woman looking her best. She was good-figured and had thick brown hair and large brown eyes, but today, one guessed, was not one of her good days.
‘Police?’ She frowned, making another subtraction from her looks. ‘What do you want? Here?’ She gestured at the innocence around them. ‘Has someone been trying to get at the children?’
‘Nothing like that, Mrs Masson. We’re actually looking for a Mr June. We’d like a word or two with him.’
‘John? My partner?’
‘He’s a partner in the Centre?’
‘No, no, he’s my partner in that other –’ She gestured. ‘We live together. De facto, if you like, but I hate the term.’
‘Me, too. Where could we find him?’
‘What’s it about? Go and play, kids.’ The children had gathered round the three adults, eyes and ears wide. ‘Go and play ball with Fred.’
Fat chance. Fred got up and went into the hall, taking his isolation with him.
‘We’d just like to ask him some questions –’
‘Are you a policeman?’ asked Alabama or Dakota.
‘Kids –’ Mrs Masson was losing patience with the children or the police officers or born – ‘inside!’
‘Is she a lady cop?’ asked Wombat Rose.
‘Inside!’
Malone and Gail Lee hid their smiles as the children, taking their time, made their way into the hall. Suddenly the yard was bare, threatening; the playground equipment looked like torture machinery. Mrs Masson said, ‘You’re not local police, are you?’
‘No.’ Malone added almost reluctantly: ‘We’re from Homicide.’
‘Homicide?’ She frowned again. ‘You’re investigating a murder or something?’ Malone nodded. ‘And you want to talk to John about it? Why?’
‘We’re not accusing him of anything, Mrs Masson.’ This route was well-worn: telling the innocent party things they didn’t know. ‘We think he can throw some light on a case we’re working on. How long have you known John?’
‘I dunno – five, six years. We’ve been together ever since I opened this –’ she swept an arm around her; it looked as if she wanted to sweep it away – ‘four years ago. It’s a struggle since the government took money out of child care –’
‘John doesn’t work here?’
‘No, he has his own one-man business – he’s a carpenter and general handyman. I can get him on his mobile –’
‘No, we don’t want you to do that –’
She frowned yet again; then her eyes opened wide. ‘It’s serious, isn’t it? What’s he done, for God’s sake? Jesus –’ She turned; a young Asian girl stood in the doorway of the hall. ‘Not now, Ailsa – not now!’
‘Mr June is on the phone –’
‘I’ll take it,’