Dark Summer. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ his own beer. ‘Yeah. Why, was he talking to you about them recently?’

      Malone hesitated; then decided to give a little information in the hope of some in return. ‘I’ve been using him, Jack, since he got out of the Bay.’

      ‘T’ch, t’ch,’ chided Aldwych, watching the game out in the middle. ‘Blokes who give information to coppers aint my favourites. Oh, nice shot! You see that?’

      ‘I saw it,’ said Malone sourly. Alan Border had clipped the English fast bowler in the air between slips and gully for four. ‘He’d never think of risking a shot like that in a real game. If it’s any consolation, Scungy never mentioned your name to me.’

      ‘Then why are you here?’ Aldwych looked back at Malone.

      ‘I came across your initials and your phone number in a diary he kept.’

      ‘Did he say anything about me in the diary?’

      ‘Jack, I’m not laying all my cards on the table, not yet.’

      ‘There would have been nothing Scungy had on me.’ He tipped his panama back. ‘I’m retired, Scobie – you mind if I call you Scobie? I’m seventy-five years old, my wife died eight months ago, and I’m tired. I’ve been a crim for over sixty years, I started when I was fifteen – they could call me the Godfather, if we went in for that sorta stuff out here. But for the last year, when I knew my wife was dying of cancer, I been as clean as a young nun. What could Scungy tell you about me that would interest you? Do you think I killed him?’

      Beyond Aldwych, Malone saw a woman in the next box lean forward, ears popping out of her blow-wave like rabbits out of long yellow grass. ‘The thought occurred to me when I saw your initials in his diary.’

      ‘Scobie, I don’t kill people.’ He was a liar, but a good one; honesty shone out of his rheumy blue eyes like a smuggler’s beacon. When he was younger he had killed four men, but he had been acquitted of two of the murders and never been charged with the others. In later years he had hired other men to do the killing, as a good general should. ‘I’m sorry Scungy is dead, but if he was dealing in shit he deserved what he got. I’ve done everything else in my time –’ He suddenly looked over his shoulder at the eavesdropping woman. ‘Am I talking loud enough, madam?’

      Malone almost burst out laughing at the look on the woman’s face. She reared back, the blow-wave bobbing on her head as if a strong wind had blown through it. She said something to her husband, a man recognized as one of the town’s top stockbrokers, but he, a man who knew when to buy and when to sell, was not buying into this. He said something to her, obviously a caution, and went back to watching the cricket, a much safer occupation than trying to pick a fight with a top crim. The woman abruptly got up and went back into the lounge.

      Aldwych turned back, winked at Malone and went on as if there had been no interruption. ‘I’ve done the lot, Scobie. Sly grog, SP betting, robbed banks, run whores, you name it, I’ve done it. You blokes know all that, but you aint been able to put me away in years. One thing I never touched was shit. Shirl, that was my wife, she made me promise never to do that and I never did. Oh shit, Border’s gone! We’re in trouble now. What’s that? Four for fifty after, what, fifteen overs?’

      ‘The bowlers look like they’re on top,’ said Malone, licking his lips. The Indians were beating the bejesus out of the 7th Cavalry; or, in this morning’s headlines, it was as if the Iraqis had suddenly started to win the Gulf war. ‘Good.’

      ‘You didn’t say how Scungy was killed.’

      All along the balcony people were standing up to stretch their legs while they waited for the incoming batsman. In the boxes immediately on either side of the Aldwych box, men and women had their heads in peculiar positions, as if they had become paralysed, as they tried to catch the conversation in Box 3A; ears were being dislocated and peripheral vision was strained to the point where one could imagine eyeball muscles twanging. One or two of them would cheat or swindle in business, but they could not bear to be caught eavesdropping.

      Malone had a quiet voice; he made it even quieter. ‘He was poisoned, we think.’

      ‘Poisoned? And you think I might of done it? Or had it done? Inspector, I belong to the old school – you know what I mean.’ He put out his forefinger, made a rough imitation of a gun; then he raised the finger to his throat, turned it into a razor. He was smiling all the time, sharing the joke with a cop. Then he looked up behind Malone. ‘Oh, hello. You dunno my son, do you, Scobie? Jack Junior, this is Inspector Malone.’

      Jack Aldwych Junior was as tall as his father but trimmer. He was about thirty, good-looking in a manufactured way, as if he had been put together by a hairdresser, a cosmetician and a tailor rather than just sired and borne. But his smile was genuine, if everything else about him looked artificial.

      ‘Inspector.’ His handshake was firm. He was casually dressed in sports shirt, blazer, slacks and loafers, but he was labelled all over: Dunhill, Ralph Lauren, Gucci. Malone, whom Gucci would have looked at and sent away barefoot, wondered if the Aldwych underwear was labelled. ‘Has Dad been up to something he shouldn’t have?’

      ‘He’s just been telling me he could run for Pope.’

      ‘Jack Junior runs the family companies. The legitimate ones.’ Aldwych smiled, a robber baron safe in his keep. He was one of the richest men in the country, but he never figured in any of the business magazines’ Rich Lists. Some of the other robber barons who had figured in those lists were now bankrupt and disgraced, but Jack Aldwych still had standing with some of the leading banks, though none of them would have wanted to be quoted as saying so. ‘This year he’s up for president of the Young Presidents.’

      ‘Then he wouldn’t have known Scungy Grime?’ Malone addressed the question to Jack Senior, but he had one eye on Jack Junior.

      ‘Who’s he?’ said Jack Junior.

      ‘A small-timer,’ said his father. ‘He worked for me once upon a time. Who’ve you got with you today?’

      Jack Junior glanced back through the wide window into the inner lounge. ‘Her name’s Janis Eden, she’s a social worker.’

      ‘That’s a change. They’re usually models or society layabouts,’ Aldwych told Malone. He had his class distinctions, it came of being a self-made man.

      Then the girl, a glass of champagne in her hand, came out on to the balcony. She was no startling beauty, but she had made the most of what looks she had; and somehow she looked less artificially handsome than Jack Junior. She was well dressed, in a casual way, and Malone wondered if she looked as elegant as this, Monday to Friday, when handing out comfort and advice to the battlers. But perhaps her welfare clients were bankrupt robber barons.

      She pushed her thick auburn hair back with her free hand and gave Malone a cool nod when they were introduced. Malone knew that a lot of social workers were antagonistic to the police, but he had hoped for a little more sociability on a national holiday and here at the cricket.

      ‘Inspector Malone had a murdered man dumped in his swimming pool this morning,’ Aldwych offered. ‘It’s no way to start the day.’

      ‘It was this Scungy what’s-his-name?’ Jack Junior shook his head; not a hair in the thick dark mane moved. The girl’s hand moved towards the head, then she seemed to think that might not be appreciated and it landed on his shoulder. ‘I’m glad Dad’s put all that behind him.’

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