Bleak Spring. Jon Cleary
to Angela.
He climbed out of the chair, trying to be adult. ‘Okay. But if any big decisions are gunna be made, Mum, I wanna be in on them, okay?’
‘Yes, Jason.’
He wasn’t sure, but his mother seemed to look at him with a new eye, as if she had just realized he was the new man of the house. But then she turned away to look at Angela and he felt his grasp on her slipping. Maturity was being thrust on him, though he did not recognize it; it felt uncomfortable, whatever it was, like a school guernsey that belonged to an older, more talented guy. He had been impatient to grow up, which is natural, since the real world is made up of bloody adults. But now he was not so sure.
‘Don’t let the money go,’ he said, which is what Charlie Sheen would have said.
3
Sunday evening Sergeant Ellsworth rang from Maroubra. ‘Scobie? We’ve come up with someone who was in the car park last night. He says there was no shot, none that could be heard.’
‘Where was he last night when we were looking for him?’
‘He did a bunk as soon as he heard Mrs Rockne scream. He was out there in the car park with some piece who wasn’t his wife.’
‘And he didn’t bother to find out why Mrs Rockne screamed?’
‘No.’
‘Nice feller. So what’s he told you?’
‘He says he was about thirty or forty yards from the Rockne Volvo. He saw it come into the car park, but didn’t take any notice of who was in it. He saw Mrs Rockne walk towards the surf pavilion, stand waiting for, he doesn’t know, maybe a minute, maybe less, then she walked back to the Volvo and the next thing he heard her scream.’
‘He didn’t see Will Rockne get out of the car?’
‘He swears not.’
‘Did he hear the shot?’
‘He swears blind there was no shot. He says he’d wound down his car window to throw out his cigarette.’
‘If there was no shot, then it looks as if there was a silencer on the gun. That makes it a professional job. Were the Volvo’s lights on? She says her husband had left them on and went back to turn them off.’
‘This guy says no, that Rockne didn’t get out of the car.’
‘He sounds pretty sharp-eyed.’
‘He’s a tax agent,’ said Ellsworth, adding another scout to the lynx-eyed of the world.
‘Righto, put his statement on the running sheet, I’ll read it tomorrow when it comes through on the computer. Have Physical Evidence come up with anything?’
‘Nothing exciting so far. There’s a lot of fine sand on the car park, but there are dozens, more, shoe-prints. There are some fingerprints on the car, but those could be anybody’s. They’re checking. I think we should question Mrs Rockne again, Scobie.’
‘I’m going to do that, Carl.’ Any inspector loves being told by a sergeant what he should do. ‘She’s not going to run away, not with two kids to anchor her.’
‘I dunno, you never know with women. Have you got something to follow up?’
Malone told him about the money Rockne had mysteriously accumulated. ‘I’ll have someone check that first thing tomorrow morning. Then there’s Bernie Bezrow, Russ Clements and I are keeping an eye on him. He was closer to Rockne than he’s prepared to admit.’
‘I know Bezrow, he doesn’t have a record, though in the racing game he knows some characters you wouldn’t take home to meet your mother. I don’t think he’s the sort of guy who sends out stand-over men to break punters’ kneecaps. Or shoot ’em in the face.’
Malone hung up and went back into the living room where Lisa and Claire were watching the latest in a series on SBS devoted to women in the world: it was a programme that would have had Ellsworth hit the Off button at once. Maureen was in her room, earphones on, listening to a rock programme, and Tom was in bed reading, halfway between sleep and the world of Roald Dahl. Malone sat down in his favourite chair across from his wife and daughter; they were leaning against each other, feet up, on the couch. Two women on the screen, no external bruises showing but with bruises behind their eyes and in their very being, were telling in quiet voices what life was like for a battered wife.
‘Do you get much of that, Dad?’ Claire said, taking her eyes away from the screen for a moment. She had a lot to learn about married life and, the protective father, he wondered if she was learning too much too early.
‘By the time we get there, the wife is dead. Or the husband,’ he added.
Lisa switched off the set. ‘Anything on Will Rockne’s death?’
‘I don’t think we want to spend Sunday night talking about murder, do we?’
‘You mean, not in front of the child, right?’ said Claire. ‘Come on, Dad. If you want to be a cop, what d’you want us to do? Think of you as a bus driver or a schoolteacher like Mr Cayburn next door? For God’s sake, I knew Mr Rockne! Why can’t I be interested?’
Malone sighed, nodded. ‘Have you spoken to Jason?’
‘I called him this afternoon, he sounded really low. God, just imagine when he goes back to school tomorrow!’
‘He probably won’t be going to school tomorrow,’ said Lisa. ‘When’s the funeral?’
‘I dunno. That’ll depend on when the coroner releases the body. Romy’s handling it.’ He looked at Claire, who had suddenly stiffened. ‘That’s what murder is all about, love, at least after the event. Mr Rockne is now just a body, a name and a number on a computer print-out – you still want to discuss it?’
‘That’s enough!’ said Lisa.
Tiredness had brought cruelty. ‘I’m sorry, Claire. Maybe I’ll talk to you about it when it’s all over, when we’ve caught whoever killed him – if we ever do. But right now . . .’
Claire stood up, crossed to him and kissed the top of his head. ‘Why couldn’t you have been a lawyer or a doctor?’
‘Tom once asked me why I couldn’t have been the Pope. I think he saw us there on that balcony at St Peter’s every Sunday morning, waving to the mob. The Holy Family, Part Two.’
She kissed him again, this time on the forehead. ‘Mother Brendan thinks you’re a heretic.’
‘I’ve had the Commissioner call me that, too. I must look it up. Goodnight, love. Tell your sister to get her ears out of that rock concert and go to sleep. And put Tom’s light out.’
Claire went in to prepare for bed and Malone went out to the kitchen to make himself some tea and toast; he had not eaten much during the day and now suddenly he felt hungry. Lisa followed him. ‘So how is it going?’
‘The Rockne case? We’re stumbling. Olive told me a few things last night that don’t jell with some of the evidence we’ve dug up today.’
‘Are you saying she might have killed Will?’ She showed no surprise, but that was because over the years she had learned not to.
‘I don’t know.’ He dropped two slices of multigrain into the toaster. ‘Do you know Angela Bodalle?’
It took her a moment to identify the name. ‘The QC? Is she representing Olive? Already?’
‘No, not officially, not yet. She’s a friend of the family. Didn’t Olive ever mention her to you?’
‘Darling, I’ve never been close to Olive. You warned me against getting too involved with them, remember?’
‘Just as well I did. Where’s the leatherwood honey?’
Lisa