Murder Song (14 page)

He took her in his arms, could feel the fight in her slim body. “Look, darl, this is
dangerous—”

“I know that! That's why I'm not leaving you on your own!”

He kissed her brow, loving her so much he wanted to weep. Once he had never believed that men could weep for love: it was unAustralian, something no real ocker would ever do. But that had been before he had met Lisa and come to know that love could find depths in a man that he had never dreamed of. “You've got to go with the kids—for their sake, not just mine. I'll be safer on my own. If you're with me, I'll have my back turned making sure you're safe.”

He could feel the fight going out of her, but she persisted a moment longer: “Darling, can't you see what it'll be like for me? I shan't be able to sleep—I'll be awake all day and night worrying about you—”

He kissed her again. “I know. It's a bugger of a choice, but it's the only one we have. The Department's put its foot down. It'll only be for a week, maybe two. They've got a net out all over the State looking for him—as soon as he tries again, they'll nab him—” He stopped.

She leaned away from him. “You're the bait, aren't you? I remember Dad telling me what they used to do in Sumatra. They'd tie a goat to a stake in the middle of a clearing and wait for the tiger to come out of the jungle. Where are they going to tie you to a stake? Not
here
!” She shook her head fiercely, pushed herself out of his arms. “He's not going to kill you here in our own home!”

He didn't reach for her; there are moments when women are more approachable when not touched. “No. I'm moving in with O'Brien to his suite at the Congress.”

Her laugh was so harsh it was like a cough; then she shook her head and the laugh turned into a soft gurgle. He knew he had won. “You win. The kids and I are being shunted off to—where?”

“I've already talked to your father about it. They're going to take you up to Noosa.” That was a resort and retirement town on the Queensland coast, over a thousand kilometres from Sydney and the killer. Jan and Elisabeth Pretorius had a holiday home there; indeed, they had just returned after two months' escape from the Sydney winter. Both of them, raised in Dutch colonial Sumatra, claimed they still had thin blood and even the relatively mild Sydney winters made them miserable. Jan, when Malone
had
explained the situation to him, had been willing to go back north immediately. It was typical of him that he had asked almost no questions: if it was police business, that was good enough for him. Con Malone, on the other hand, would have wanted to know the ins and outs of everything.

“Noosa. Not bad. But I'd rather two weeks in a suite at the Congress. Just the two of us, no kids, no Mr. O'Brien.” She was regaining her composure, trying to find some humour to strengthen her. Then she sobered. “We tell the kids nothing, understand? Nothing.”

“Righto. Let „em think it's a surprise holiday.”

“What about Claire?”

“What about her?”

“I think she should go on her skiing holiday.”

His first reaction was to shout
No!
He wanted all the family together; he had confidence in Lisa's ability to protect them. He had thought of suggesting that the Queensland police should be asked to keep an eye on them, but he knew that Lisa would not countenance that at all. The children, even young Tom, were all bright: with police hovering around, they would know something was wrong. A policeman's lot was not a happy one: Gilbert and Sullivan should have added a verse about a policeman's family.

“He hasn't threatened any of the families yet,” Lisa said. “Claire goes off Friday. She can stay up at the school with the boarders till the skiing party leaves for the snow. She'll be safe. If we rob her of her holiday, she'll know something is wrong and will start asking questions. She's too old to be fobbed off.”

“You'll be worried stiff.”

“I know,” she admitted. “So will you. But we're all going to be safe—all of us but you, darling.” She put her arms round his neck. “The kids must never know you're in danger. The only way we can be sure of that is to act naturally, do whatever we'd planned. I'll call Claire every night and you can do the same.”

“A trunk call? Two trunk calls?” He grinned. “Think of the cost.”

But it hurt him to smile. The possibility of the other, more terrible cost was nothing to joke about.

6

I

LATE THAT
afternoon Lisa took herself, Maureen and Tom over to her parents' home at Rose Bay. Malone took Claire, with all her new skiing gear, bought, dammit, by her Dutch grandparents, up to Holy Spirit convent.

“You'll be the best dressed girl on the slopes. What have you got for après-ski or whatever they call it?”

“Daddy, don't you like Grandma Elisabeth buying me things?” She was far too perceptive for her age. In another generation or two, child psychologists would actually be children.

“I'm happy if you like what she buys you.”

She looked sideways at him in the car; he waited for her to tell him that was no real answer. Then she said, “Something's worrying you, isn't it? I don't mean the skiing gear. Why did we all of a sudden have to get out of our house? Is someone going to blow it up or something?”

He swung the car up the long curving drive to the top of the ridge where the white buildings of Holy Spirit faced down the valley to Coogee. It was a joke between him and Lisa that the Roman Catholics had a knack for always grabbing the best piece of real estate wherever they chose to build a school or a church. St. Paul, he was sure, had been a developer as well as a gospeller.

“No, it's nothing like that and don't start thinking that way. It's just that I'm on police business—
secret
police business. Like one of those religious retreats you go on here at school. Since I had to be away from home, Mum and I thought it would be a good idea if she and Maureen and Tom went away on a holiday. Grandpa Jan suggested Noosa, so that's where they're going. We moved you up here a coupla days early because we couldn't leave you alone in the house.”

“
What does Mother Brendan think? I mean, me coming in as a boarder for two days and Maureen and Tom going off on holiday in the middle of term?”

“What
are
you? A police prosecutor?” He had come up to see Mother Brendan, put her in the true picture and she had understood.
It's a terrible world, isn't it? I'll pray for you, Mr. Malone.
“It's okay. I gave her a police badge to wear on her sleeve and she's as happy as Larry. Now get out, grab your gear and go off and enjoy yourself—it's costing me a mint. Don't break a leg.”

She kissed him. “I love you, Daddy, but you can be a trial. Take care.”

“You, too.” He wanted to hug her, to weep. “And stay away from boys.”

“Are you kidding?” She gave him a smile that would have broken any boy's or man's heart, picked up all her gear and struggled into the school. He should have helped her, but he couldn't bear to be with her a moment longer. Love, sometimes, is the heaviest luggage of all.

He went home, picked up two suitcases and drove into town and checked into O'Brien's suite at the Hotel Congress. He did not sign in at the reception desk.

The suite was luxurious, but it had nothing of the look of a home; if O'Brien had tried to overlay some impression of himself on the designer's taste, it did not show. It was, Malone guessed, like living in an expensive bandbox. Worst of all, despite its look of costly elegance, it had no suggestion of permanence. It was for transients, even if the present transient had a long lease.

O'Brien hadn't missed Malone's scrutiny of the suite. “You don't like it?”

“I'm suburban, I guess. I can never understand why anyone wants to live in a hotel.”

“Service, Scobie. Everything's laid on. I lift the phone and there's a housemaid, room service, a valet, a secretary—even a call girl, if that's what I wanted. In London I had the lot—a butler, a cook, a maid, a chauffeur. Then all of a sudden one day I found out I wasn't interested in possessions and I wasn't really interested in being responsible for all those servants. I came out here and I had a couple of servants in a rented house out at Vaucluse. But Aussies aren't interested in being house servants, not even the migrants—they think it's beneath them. It just became a headache. I moved in here two years ago. The company pays for it and most of it comes off tax.”

“
Which company? The one that's going broke?”

O'Brien smiled. “Scobie, if you and I are going to live together, let's call off the insults, eh? We're not man and wife.”

“My wife and I don't insult each other.”

“Sorry.” O'Brien sounded genuinely contrite. “I guess I think all marriages are like my own were. World Wars One and Two.”

Malone tried to be more friendly. “Would you try it a third time?”

“If she'd have me. But I don't think it'll ever be on. Not unless her husband conks out and I don't think there's any chance of that. He's one of those dumb bastards who'll last for ever.”

Malone wondered who the dumb bastard could be; but, whoever he was, he was unimportant. “Well, our job is to see that you and I aren't conked out.”

O'Brien had been as adamant as Lisa that he would not go to a safe house. He had shown no fear of being assassinated; it was not bravado, he was too calm for that. His explanation had been quite simple:

“I've got this NCSC thing hanging over my head, Scobie. If I drop out of sight, there are going to be more and more rumours—it's bad enough as it is. I've got to keep fronting up every day. I'll co-operate with you up to a point, but I'm going to go about my regular routine. I'll just see that I have a couple of security men close to me all the time. That's as far as I'm prepared to go.”

“What about me?” It was a natural, selfish question. Then Malone had remembered he was still
working
on the murders, that he wasn't here in the Congress just to sample the room service.

Now he said, “Righto, during the day we go through our regular routine, each of us. But at night we stick close, okay? I want a security man sitting outside the front door all night, they can work four-hour shifts, and our SWOS and Tac Response fellers are on call to be down here within five or ten minutes if anything happens. Anyone who delivers anything up here is to be vetted by your security men, even the housemaids, and if we have any meals up here in the suite, the food's to be brought in from outside.”

“
The hotel's not going to like that.”

“Tough titty. But if it comes out of the hotel kitchens, he could get to it and poison it. So far he's killed everyone with a rifle, but there's no guarantee he's sworn to that MO. Cyanide in a croissant is just as effective.”

“If it weren't for what's already happened, I wouldn't believe any of this. Are you scared?” O'Brien held out a steady hand. “I am. It mightn't show, but I'm scared shitless.”

“Me, too. And I'm more used to this sorta thing than you are. Oh, one more thing. Stay away from the windows, keep the curtains drawn, or at least drawn enough to stop anyone from seeing who's in here.” He walked across and pulled the thick silk curtains close together, leaving just a narrow gap. “Don't have them any wider than that. Tell the housemaids.” Then he pulled the curtains together completely. “At night they're to be like that, nothing showing in here. The bugger could be up there in one of those neighbouring buildings.”

O'Brien said wryly, “You can look into here from my office. It'd be a joke if he somehow got in there and picked us off from behind my own desk.”

“Yeah,” said Malone. “You might die laughing, but I wouldn't. Where are you going?”

O'Brien had stood up after taking off his shoes. “I'm going out. You can come with me, if you like. It's a reception up at the Town Hall. The PM's going to be there.”

“Why do you need to go?”

O'Brien was in the doorway of the main bedroom, taking off his shirt. “Appearances. I got the invitation to this two months ago, before all my troubles blew up. Nobody's going to snub me tonight. In the old days, I gather, I'd have got a discreet message from someone telling me the invitation was a mistake. But not any more. New money runs this town, Scobie, and someone's only guilty if he admits it. It's the New Ethics. Wall Street started it and the rest of the world is picking it up. We're one of the smartest at it. You look shocked.”

“I guess I'm too old-fashioned. Whatever happened to honesty being the best policy?”

“The dividends weren't high enough.” He stripped off his trousers, headed for his bathroom;
then
looked back. “You coming?”

“I might as well. What do I wear?”

“Just don't wear your police tie. That'd clear the Town Hall in a flash.”

Malone put on his best Fletcher Jones off-the-rack suit, one chosen for him by Lisa, and lined up beside O'Brien, who was wearing a little number from Savile Row and a Battistoni shirt and tie. “You'll do,” said O'Brien. “You're not a ball of style like the bankers and stockbrokers who'll be there tonight, but you're—what's the word?”

“Honest?”

O'Brien grinned. “I think living with you is going to be worse than with my two ex-wives.”

The evening was clear and cold, winter hanging on like an unwanted relative. They went uptown to the Town Hall in a hired stretch limousine with a security man sitting beside the driver and another on the jump seat opposite O'Brien and Malone. Neither of them was as tall as Malone and both of them were overweight; the one on the jump seat was too big for his suit and his shoulder holster showed as a lump under his armpit. But they looked alert and Malone hoped they would stay that way. He had a cop's antipathy to the growing number of private security forces.