Winter Chill. Jon Cleary
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with you?’
‘Three years.’
‘Any family? A wife?’
Favell looked at one of his colleagues, a lean man with a battered face; Malone recognized him as an ex-boxer who had once been in the Police Service. ‘Was he married, Ted?’
‘He had a de facto, I think.’ Ted Gilligan nodded at Malone and Clements. ‘G’day, Scobie. Russ. Looks like you’re busy, this and Sunday night’s job.’
‘We’re hoping there’s no connection,’ said Clements. ‘Where did Rockman live?’
‘We’d have to look it up. Somewhere out in Arncliffe. You wanna go out there?’
Clements looked at Malone, who said, ‘Send Peta. Do you run the security details, Ted?’ Gilligan nodded. ‘Rockman would’ve been armed. Did the killer or killers take his gun?’
‘No, it was still in his holster. Your guys have taken it, but said they’d give it back to us.’
‘It was still in his holster? If he was investigating a break-in, he didn’t strike me as the sort who’d be as careless as that.’
‘That’s the way we’re thinking. The flap of the holster was still buttoned. Looks like he never had a chance to draw it. They just come up behind him and shot him in the back of the head.’
‘An execution job?’
‘Call it what you like. But if you catch the bastards—’
‘Leave ’em to us, Ted,’ Malone said quietly. ‘Don’t have your fellers go looking for them, okay?’
Gilligan nodded and Favell said, ‘We shan’t step on your turf, Inspector. But you’ll understand our men are going to be a bit toey for a week or two.’
‘Sure, we understand that. In the meantime … We’ll send a detective round to your office, Detective Smith. Give her everything you have on Mr Rockman.’
‘Her?’ Gilligan raised his eyebrows.
‘Things have changed since your day, Ted. We have tea and cakes now, instead of a beer.’
Driving back to Homicide Malone gave Clements the news about Lisa. The big man seemed to crumple. ‘Oh Jesus! You better take leave.’
‘That’s what I want to do, but Lisa won’t have a bar of it. You know what she’s like, you can’t argue with her.’
‘I’ll have Romy have a word with her.’
‘No, you won’t. Let Romy talk to her, by all means, but tell her not to mention me and work. Lisa’s point is that if I take leave and stay at home with her, it’ll only upset the kids more, make them worry more than they are now. She wants things to stay as normal as possible, at least till she goes into hospital.’
‘When’s she going in?’
‘At the weekend. When she does, then I’ll take leave.’
Clements shook his head, stared through the rain-spattered windscreen. The world outside was fragmented; here in the car it was little better. ‘Christ, who’d believe in God? A woman like Lisa … And the shit He lets survive!’
‘She’ll survive.’ He would never forgive God if she didn’t.
Having unburdened himself to Clements didn’t help, but somehow he got through the rest of the day. One of the five murders on the calendar was suddenly cleared up with a confession, releasing Andy Graham and John Kagal; he sent Graham to follow up with Phil Truach on the Brame case. Peta Smith was sent out to ABS Security and John Kagal went with her. Just before four o’clock all four detectives reported back to him. There was no room for all of them, plus Clements, in Malone’s office, so they repaired to the big main room.
‘We could do with some coffee,’ he said. Nobody moved, then he remarked that the four men were looking at Peta Smith.
She remarked it, too. ‘The tea-lady’s gone home. You want me to run after her?’
For a moment Malone was irritated; after all, he hadn’t nominated her. Then he nodded to Kagal. ‘You’re nearest the kettle, John, okay?’
Kagal had the grace to smile as he stood up. ‘Are you ever going to make a cuppa, Peta?’
‘Not while it’s taken for granted that I will,’ she said, unsmiling. ‘No milk in mine, thanks.’
‘Sugar?’
‘Call me sweetheart, not sugar. One lump.’ Then she looked around the other men, Malone included. ‘You’ll learn. It may take a year or two, but you’ll learn. Sir,’ she said, addressing Malone.
He grinned, the only way out other than being bloody-minded. ‘If I start a roster for coffee-making, you mind if I put your name on it? … Righto, what’ve you got for me?’
She gave him a grin in return; she was not a shrew. ‘John and I went out to ABS, got Murray Rockman’s file.’ She handed it to Malone. ‘Then we went out to the block of units where he lived in Arncliffe. One of the neighbours, a stickybeak – I’d hate to live next door to her – she said Rockman had had a girl living with him, but she’d left him about three months ago. He’s lived alone since then, except for the odd weekend girl. The old biddy next door didn’t miss a trick. His keys were in his locker at ABS, we’d taken those, so we let ourselves in. We found nothing, nothing but his clothes.’
She stopped and Malone said, ‘You’re going to tell us something, right?’
Kagal came back with the office tin of biscuits. Peta Smith looked at him. ‘You want to tell them?’
‘I’m making the coffee,’ he said, but grinned at her.
‘Bastard … Like I said, there was nothing in the flat but his clothes. No papers, no address book, no passport, nothing that might identify him – zilch. Either he’d cleaned everything out himself or someone had got there before we did.’
‘The stickybeak neighbour saw nothing?’
‘She said she’d been out shopping this morning, wanted to give us a rundown on where she’d been.’
‘Any sign of forced entry?’
‘None,’ said Kagal, coming back with the tray of coffee cups. ‘All we have of Mr Rockman is what’s in his file.’
Malone opened the file. Two pages: but then he wondered how many of the world’s voters and non-voters merited any more than two pages. Some lives, he knew, could be written on the back of an envelope and a small one at that. He had no conceit that his own life would warrant any more than a few pages and half of those would concern the deaths of other people. ‘Born Caswell, Ohio, August 22, 1960. High school education … Blah, blah, blah … US Marine Corps, 1980–1983 … He told me yesterday he’d been out here twelve years. He must’ve come here straight after leaving the Marines. The file doesn’t tell us much. The second page is just a resumé of his references. They all look okay.’ He closed the file. ‘But what sort of life did he live when he wasn’t working for ABS? You checked if he has any record?’
‘I’ll do that now,’ said Peta Smith and rose and moved across to one of the computers.
Malone sipped his coffee. ‘Nice coffee, John. Your first attempt?’
Kagal raised his cup. ‘Okay, make out a roster. Equality above all.’
‘Don’t let Peta hear you say that.’
Kagal smiled, drank his coffee. He was a good-looking young man, the best dressed of all the detectives, some of whom, in Malone’s old-fashioned opinion, were real dudes. Kagal would never have any difficulty getting women’s attention and perhaps even their devotion. His only fault, again in Malone’s opinion, was that he thought he deserved everything that was offered him.
Peta