Dilemma. Jon Cleary

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      ‘Who’s in charge there now?’ He frowned, trying to remember names: ‘Inspector Narvo?’

      ‘No, he’s the area super now. Inspector Gombrich is boss now.’ There was a pause, like a high jumper measuring a jump; then: ‘He and me don’t always see eye to eye.’

      Malone took his own pause; he knew, as well as anyone, the minefield in the Service. At last, measuring his own jump, he said, ‘Put me through to Inspector Gombrich.’

      ‘Yes, sir. Putting you through now.’ There was no mistaking the reluctance in Mungle’s voice.

      I’m putting him in the shithouse, thought Malone; but it could not be helped. He remembered his arrival in Collamundra eight years ago, when he and Clements had been as welcome as nightsoil carters on a hot morning.

      ‘Inspector Gombrich.’ The voice was flat and harsh.

      ‘This is Inspector Malone, Scobie Malone. Homicide and Serial Offenders Unit, Sydney—’ Gombrich had the sort of voice that asked for identification, with papers.

      ‘I know who you are. Constable Mungle filled me in before he phoned you. I don’t agree with his suspicions—’

      ‘Inspector—’ Malone couldn’t remember when he had been so formal with someone of equal rank – ‘half our homicides begin with nothing more than suspicion. All I ask is that you question this man—’

      ‘Roger Gibson is a personal friend.’

      ‘Gibson – that’s his name?’ R. G. It was remarkable the number of times fugitives chose their original initials. As if afraid that a monogram, on a handkerchief or wallet, might give them away.

      ‘Yes. I’ve been here twelve months, we play golf together, his wife and my wife are friends—’

      ‘He’s married?’

      ‘All right—’ the exasperation was like static on the line – ‘his partner. They’re a happily married couple, even if they’re not married. I think Constable Mungle has made a mistake and we’ll just forget it—’

      ‘Inspector Gombrich—’ Malone could see the roadblocks building up; at the same time he could feel his temper rising – ‘this is our case – I can’t just forget it, not till I’m sure that Mr Gibson is not Ron Glaze. I’ll come out there—’ he heard himself say; normally he would have sent a couple of junior officers. ‘I’ll come out and talk to Mr Gibson – Have you spoken to him?’

      ‘Of course not!’ The voice was even harsher.

      ‘Then don’t,’ said Malone, a certain harshness in his own voice. ‘I want him there when I arrive. I’ll be coming with the authority of Chief Superintendent Random—’

      ‘Are you threatening me?’

      ‘No. I’m just sticking to police procedure. When can I catch a plane to Collamundra?’

      There was a long silence, then Gombrich said, ‘There’s a plane leaves Kingsford Smith at twelve, Hazelton Airlines. It’s usually booked solid,’ he added and the harshness curdled with relish.

      ‘Someone’s going to be unlucky,’ said Malone. ‘But not me.’

      He hung up and beckoned Russ Clements through the glass wall of his office. The big man came in, slumped down in his favourite position, the couch beneath the window. For a while he had been going to a gym and had lost some weight, but lately he had begun to spread again. He was not fat, there was still muscle and bone there, but he was generously overlaid. Malone sometimes wondered, though he would never have mentioned it, if Romy, a gourmet cook, had lapsed back into Teutonic recipes. Clements had the sort of stomach that welcomed dumplings.

      ‘You’ve got that shit-on-the-liver look again. Who is it this time?’

      Malone filled him in. ‘I’m going out to Colla-mundra. How’s our slate today?’

      ‘Two cases, that’s all. I’ll give you time off for twenty-four hours.’ Clements was the Field Supervisor, the man who dealt out the assignments. ‘Collamundra, eh? Narelle Potter, remember? I wonder if she still runs the Mail Coach Hotel?’

      ‘You’re a married man now. I’m not going to look up one of your one-night stands. Get me on the plane, there’s one at noon.’

      ‘You think this could be that guy Glaze?’

      ‘I don’t know. But Wally Mungle has shoved his neck out and I’ve got to back him. I’ll be back tonight, with or without.’

      There was a spare seat on the Hazelton Airlines plane and no one had to be offloaded for the Police Service. Malone sat next to a cotton farmer who had obviously fortified himself for the flight before boarding. He was short and big-bellied, with a mop of yellow hair and a yellow moustache. He was also drunkenly direct: ‘You on business?’

      Malone nodded. ‘Just looking.’

      ‘What sort?’

      Malone flitted down a list of businesses. Oil drilling, coal mining, brothel keeping … ‘Fast food.’

      ‘We’ve got a McDonald’s and a Pizza Hut, we don’t want any more. You’re not Kentucky Fried Chicken or Hungry Jack’s?’ He was built like a man who frequented all four.

      Malone shook his head. ‘Shirley’s Sausage Rolls. A new concept.’

      ‘A new one, eh? That’s the way the world’s going, right? Fast food. Pretty soon we won’t sit down to eat. Sausage rolls, eh? Well, at least that’s Australian. Bloody pizzas. I ask you.’

      The plane came in over the cotton fields, white lakes stretching away to the horizon, harvesters sitting in the middle of them like glass-cabined houseboats. Memory came flooding back. The Japanese cotton farm manager under the spikes of a module feeder; the resentment of the locals towards the two cops from Sydney, the outsiders; the climax with the arrest of the district’s most prominent landowner, the bush aristocrat, Chester Hardstaff. That had been a complex, threatening case with the real murderer, Hardstaff’s daughter, walking away unchallenged. Compared to that case, the Glaze-Gibson matter would be wrapped up, one way or the other, in the next hour.

      When he stepped out of the plane on to the tarmac Malone felt the heat hit him like a soft physical blow. El Niño, reaching out all the way from the Peruvian and Chilean coasts, had had its effect here on the western plains. Further west, beyond the cotton belt, wheat and sheep farmers watched the cracks widen daily in the soil of their paddocks. Things were tough enough out here without a cop arriving from Sydney to kick up more dirt.

      Wally Mungle was waiting for him in an unmarked car. ‘You haven’t changed, Inspector.’

      Mungle had. He was still slight, still seemingly too small for his suit, but the years had doubled in his dark-coffee face. Somewhere back in his lineage was a white man; there was a hint of blue in the young detective’s eyes. The eyes were sad, sadder than Malone remembered, and the cheeks were already showing lines.

      ‘How’re things? You had kids – how are they?’

      ‘Fine. СКАЧАТЬ