Yesterday’s Shadow

She looked up at him. ‘For what?’

He left that unanswered.

4

He went home in gathering darkness that suited his mood. He always looked forward to coming home to the house in Randwick; he valued home, like a comforting mental condition. It wasn’t just the love he found there under the Federation gables but the normality; when he stepped in the front door and closed it behind him he was shutting out Crime, with a capital C. Not that Crime in today’s world was abnormal. It was just that, most days, he didn’t have to bring it home with him.

‘Another bad day?’ said Lisa as he kissed her cheek.

Women, he was convinced, were born with antennae hidden somewhere in their secret skulls. ‘What about you?’

She had worked for the past three years as a public relations officer at Town Hall. Her original assignment had been with the Olympics, but that long headache was now past; the Olympics had been a success, two weeks of excitement and euphoria, and now the city was slowly and reluctantly adjusting to the downturn in the boom. Like the post-coital blues, she had described it to him, though she had never put that in one of her press releases.

She was at the fridge, taking out the beef burgundy she had prepared last night. ‘Half an hour to dinner. I just have to heat everything. Open the wine.’

They were alone in the kitchen. This was family night. Claire and her husband Jason, Maureen and Tom would all be here for dinner. Claire had been married a year; Maureen had moved out to live with two girlfriends earlier this year; Tom, who loved a new girl every week but loved his mother’s cooking more, was still living at home. Malone knew how fortunate he was to have a family that was not dysfunctional.

‘Nobody’s here yet?’

‘No. You want to shower before they arrive? Tom rang to say he’s on his way.’ Tom was in his last year of Economics at university. ‘He had a date with his tutor.’

‘A date with his tutor?’

‘She’s twenty-eight and a dish, he says. I don’t think he’s doing market research with her. Or maybe he is. Move over.’

He shifted along the kitchen bench to make room as she put vegetables into a pot. He picked up one of the two bottles of red wine, then put it down, folded his arms and leaned back against the bench. At ease – like hell: ‘I met an old girlfriend today.’

‘Which one?’ Sounding as if he had told her he had met an old pet dog. Or bitch.

‘Delia Bates.’

Then she looked at him, her hands about to open a bag of rice. ‘Ah.’

‘That all you have to say?’

‘Till I hear what else you’re going to say.’

Women: they could weave barbed wire out of words. ‘We’re holding her for homicide. She stabbed her husband this morning.’

She cut the bag of rice, with a knife. ‘Will she get off?’

‘I dunno. They’re pleading self-defence.’

‘How did she feel? I mean, you arresting her?’

‘I didn’t take her in. Phil Truach did that. I interviewed her. She won’t talk to anyone but me.’

‘That must have been nice.’ She poured the rice into a dry saucepan, white B-B bullets that hit the metal with a clatter. She put down the knife, a long-bladed kitchen knife with blood on it. ‘Or was it uncomfortable? I would have been if I’d been there.’

‘You weren’t there! I’m more uncomfortable right now. Christ, darl, imagine how I felt –’

‘I am.’ She put the saucepan down on the bench, gave him her full attention. ‘She was in love with you, once.’

‘Christ, what a memory!’ Foolishly, he was getting angry. ‘Twenty-five years ago.’

Delia had been the only girl he had ever talked about. Not at length and reluctantly, as if (he thought now) there had been guilt at leaving Delia. It seemed, now, that Lisa remembered what he had forgotten. Women and elephants … but now was not the time to voice that comparison. He was already offside in the argument.

‘That’s what I’m thinking about,’ said Lisa. ‘You come home and tell me about a domestic, your girlfriend of twenty-five years ago killing her husband, and you don’t mention the other homicide that’s been on the news all day. The murder of the wife of the American Ambassador. Or aren’t you on that one?’

Then the cavalry’s bugle blew; or the doorbell rang. ‘I’ll get it,’ he said and almost galloped down the hallway to open the door to Maureen, Claire and Jason.

The girls kissed him; Jason shook hands. His son-in-law was three or four inches taller than he, had bulked out since his marriage; Claire was as good a cook as her mother. His mother was in jail, doing life for, with her lesbian lover, having murdered Jason’s father. Malone suddenly determined there would be no further talk this evening of domestics. He had warm affection for Jason and suddenly was protective of him.

Maureen, the TV researcher for Four Corners, was not interested in domestics or small talk. If and when she married, her husband had better not bring his secrets with him. ‘How about that homicide, the Ambassador’s wife? Are you on it, Dad?’

‘Unfortunately. Excuse me, I’ll have a quick wash under the armpits. I’ve just got in.’

He peeled off into the bathroom, pondered for a moment taking a three-hour soak in the bath. Instead, he stripped off his shirt, had a quick swab under the armpits, washed his face, dried himself, then looked in the mirror. Transfer tomorrow, he told himself. Fingerprints, Traffic. Anywhere to get out of Homicide.

He put on a clean shirt and a jumper. When he went out to join the family, Tom was just coming in. He wore jeans, a black leather jacket and carried his motorcyclist’s helmet under his arm like a big black skull. He, too, was taller than Malone. Little Me, thought Malone, and felt self-sympathy itching like a rash.

He helped Maureen get the drinks. She was an attractive girl, dark-haired and good-figured and, Malone guessed, she wore her boyfriends out with her restless energy. He sometimes wondered where she got it from. ‘Who dunnit? The Ambassador?’

‘Don’t joke, Mo. None of your ABC anti-US bias.’

‘We’re impartial. We’re anti-everyone but ourselves.’

‘Relax, Mo,’ Claire told her sister. She had her mother’s blonde looks and composure; their Zuyder Zee look, as Tom called it, never making more than small waves. ‘You’re not on camera now. Is it going to be tough, Dad?’

He nodded, sipped his beer. The three men were drinking beer; the two girls were on white wine. Out in the kitchen the cook was probably swigging sweet sherry. All at once Malone began to laugh.

‘What are you laughing at?’

‘Nothing, Just a thought.’ He took another sip of his beer, then said, ‘It’s going to be tough. You media are going to make a meal of it, Mo.’

‘I know. News are already running around hooting their heads off.’ Four Corners, the show she worked on, never ran around hooting; it took its time doing demolition jobs on corruption, maladministration and unsocial justice. He hoped it would never come within coo-ee of the Pavane murder. ‘You’re in for it, Dad. Sorry.’

‘Are the Americans co-operating?’ asked Tom. ‘You got the CIA, the FBI on your back?’

‘No, they know it’s our turf.’

‘Dad,’ said Maureen, ‘if we decide to look into Australian–American co-operation or lack thereof –’

‘Raise that question again and I’ll find something to pin on you, okay?’

‘Lay off, Mo,’ said Claire. ‘You’re so bloody morally correct since you joined the ABC –’

‘Let’s all lay off,’ said Malone. ‘How are you making out with your tutor, Tom?’