Dilemma. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ wife was okay as a housekeeper, so the neighbours say, but since her and her husband broke up three months ago, she sorta slipped. She’s got her own hairdressing business and she was negotiating to lease another one over in Penrith. Seems she got sorta sloppy about the house. The husband was a dead-keen gardener, when he wasn’t selling cars, but once he’d gone she let the weeds take over.’

      ‘Who found her body?’

      ‘That’s it. A guy phoned our duty desk six o’clock this morning, said there was a dead woman at this address. Then he hung up.’

      ‘Glaze?’

      ‘Who else?’

      ‘Whose is that Volvo out the front?’

      ‘Hers.’

      ‘Any prints?’

      ‘They’ve got some out in the kitchen, on the fridge door and on a Coke bottle and a glass. But the guy from Fingerprints said he was puzzled – there’s not a dab anywhere in the car, the front seat, the wheel, the dash. All wiped clean. Same in here—’ He led Malone into the main bedroom. ‘The bedhead, the side table, the door – all wiped clean.’

      ‘Mrs Glaze might’ve been sloppy, but hubby wasn’t. That what you’re saying?’

      ‘I’m not saying anything. I’m just telling you what we’ve come up with.’ Backer was in his forties, overweight, bald; he had a thick black moustache and tired dark eyes. Malone recognized the type: the good cop worn, like an old tyre, by too much roadwork. Who could still be shocked by the occasional brutal crime or the murder of a child, but not by this straightforward domestic. ‘Unless it was someone else killed her.’

      ‘Any suspect? She have any boyfriends?’

      ‘Not as far as we know. For the moment my money’s on Ron Glaze.

      They had come back to the living room. It was comfortably furnished, looked lived-in; but it was the sort of furniture bought by a couple who had other things to think of. The prints on the walls were of castles, cathedrals, mosques: someone’s escape? There was a photo of Norma Glaze on the television set in one corner, the only photo in the room. None of Ron Glaze. There were two rows of Condensed Books volumes on a small bookshelf and beneath them two heaps of magazines: beauty magazines and gardening ones. Somehow, perhaps because of the break-up of the marriage, it was all as sterile as a hospital waiting-room.

      ‘What’s your guy doing?’ said Backer.

      ‘Andy?’ Malone looked over his shoulder at Graham, who had gone into the bedroom. ‘Just looking. If there’s anything that the PE people missed, he’ll find it. Did you see the body?’

      ‘Yeah, I was here when the pathologist arrived. He told me nothing, they never do. Strangled, that was all he’d say – I could see that for m’self.’

      ‘I’ll call in at the morgue on the way back. Anything, Andy?’

      Graham had come back into the living room. He was a big young man and his restlessness seemed to make him bigger, his bulk changing shape as you looked at him. ‘Nothing, boss. The usual stuff in the bedroom drawers – the PE guys left ’em, not worth taking. Women’s stuff, a box of condoms that was open—’

      ‘She wasn’t using the Pill?’

      Backer said, ‘I’ve talked to a coupla the neighbours. Ron evidently played around – that was why she kicked him out. A guy plays around these days, HIV and all that, maybe his wife doesn’t trust his dick any more.’

      ‘When I was young, condoms were for stopping pregnancies. Then they tell me, sales fell right away when the Pill came in. Now the condom is back as armour-plating. What goes around comes around. When do you reckon they’ll bring back the chastity belt?’ Malone shook his head at the constancy of sex and the others nodded. Then he said, ‘You said the Glazes were at the Golden West Club last night – together. You talked to anyone there?’

      ‘Just the manager. Only him and the cleaners were there this morning. He said he saw her last night, but not him.’

      ‘We’ll call in there. You want to come?’

      Backer shook his head. ‘Later. I’ve got stuff back at the station I gotta attend to. I told you, four homicides. Things are getting worse.’

      ‘You think they’ll get better?’ It was Malone’s turn to shake the head. Cops rarely, if ever, felt optimistic about the future. ‘Pigs will fly.’

      ‘You talk to whoever’s there, call in and tell me on your way back to town. And thanks for coming.’ It was laconic, but sincere. ‘This is another country for you.’

      ‘It’s educational,’ said Malone, but he would be glad to get back to town. He was neither a snob nor a silver tail, but out here he would have to learn a whole new approach. It was not Bosnia nor Belfast, but over the past thirty years a new culture, a new mindset, had developed out here.

      Summer was fading, but there was still heat in the morning. In the bright sunshine a tall tibouchina tree was a frozen purple explosion at the end of the street. A few other trees had been planted, but none of them had colour: the tibouchina stood out like a landmark. Malone wondered what Ron Glaze, the gardener, had thought of it.

      In the unmarked Homicide car, with Andy Graham at the wheel, Malone said, ‘You think Sergeant Backer has made up his mind about this one?’

      ‘I think so.’ Graham nodded emphatically; all his movements were emphatic, as if he were afraid that he would not make his indelible mark on the world. ‘It’s natural, isn’t it?’

      ‘How?’

      ‘The easy suspect. I did a bit of door-knocking while you were talking to him. A woman over the road said she’d seen the husband drive up around two o’clock – she recognized his car, said she hadn’t seen it around, not since they’d broken up. She saw him get outa the car, stand for a while in the garden, then he went into the house. She’d got up to go to the bathroom—’

      ‘What would we do without neighbours getting up and going to the bathroom?’

      Graham grinned; even his grin was emphatic. ‘Yeah. Well, she didn’t exactly see him go into the house – she said she had to hurry to the bathroom—’

      ‘She told you that? She had to hurry? You’ve got a way with women, Andy.’

      They drew into the car park of the social club, almost deserted at this hour. Out of the glare and the heat, the inside of the club was cool and almost dark, except for the banks of poker machines, which were either never turned off or had just been switched on. The cavernous room seemed twice as large with no one in it. They asked for the manager, but he had gone to the bank.

      ‘He’ll be gone about half an hour,’ said the woman behind the bar. ‘You’re police from Sydney, are you? It’s another country, I tell my husband. Twenty-five miles and it’s another country. I can’t remember when I last went to town – that was what we used to call it. Town. Now we’ve got everything we want out here. Almost.’

      ‘Were you working here last night?’ asked Malone. ‘I’ll have a light beer. We both will.’

      ‘Nothing СКАЧАТЬ