Autumn Maze

‘Jesus!’ said Frank Minto, though he wasn’t a Christian; and died.

The other two men clambered up on to the dock and helped the man with the gun lift Frank Minto on to the trolley. Then they wheeled the trolley back into the receiving room.

The killer unscrewed the silencer and put it and the gun back into the pocket of his dustcoat, doing it unhurriedly and with a tradesman’s skill. Then he neatly arranged the trolley beneath the camera fitted to the ceiling in the centre of the room. ‘They video all the bodies here before they put them in the body storage room.’

‘You’re not gunna fucking video him, are you?’ Both of the other men, taller and heavier than the man with the gun, were visibly on edge, even though they still wore their hoods.

Of course not. But I think he’d like to be waiting in the proper place for his colleagues in the morning, don’t you?’ He lifted Frank Minto’s feet and picked up the clipboard holding the Completed Bodies list. He ran a slim brown finger down the columns. ‘Here he is.’

The entry showed: 7 – E.50710 – M – U/K – Canterbury – 29/3 – HOLD.

‘He’s on trolley number seven, he’s tagged E.50710. He’s down as “Unknown”, so that’s good. They’ve got him marked Hold, so that means they don’t know the cause of death yet, that would be done by the forensic people in the morning. Get him. The body storage room is through that door and the first door on the right.’

‘Aren’t you coming with us?’

‘I have to find the records and destroy them, I told you that.’ The leader sounded irritated. ‘Now go get him!’

The other two hoods looked at each other, then one of the men shrugged and the two of them went out of the receiving room. The leader, left alone, went to work with the ease of a man familiar with his surroundings. He turned to the small rack of shelves against one wall, flipped through the videotapes stacked there, found the one he wanted and put it in a pocket of his dustcoat. Then he went out to the adjoining office. Here, too, he worked with the ease of experience, as if certain that everything would be where he expected to find it. He found the register book where all details were entered by the police who brought in the bodies; he tore out the page with the details on the Unknown Male, E.50710, found at Canterbury. He crossed to another desk, searched through a hardboard folder marked CORONER and found what he was looking for: a Form P79A with the same details on E.50710. He put the form and the torn sheet from the register into the pocket with the videotape. Finally, he sat down before the computer which was on a bench against the wall, switched it on and then destroyed all data for the previous twenty-four hours. He sat back for a moment like a man well pleased with what he had done, though the hood showed no hint of what expression lay beneath its silk. For he wore silk, while the other two men wore black calico.

He stood up, looked around him as if making sure he had forgotten nothing, then he went back to the receiving room and through to the corridor that led to the body storage room. The other two men were just coming out, pushing a trolley on which was a body in an unzipped green plastic bag.

‘Holy shit, it’s freezing in there!’

‘You’d be complaining more if it was heated in there. You should smell the bodies where I come from, the ones they leave lying out in the open because there’s no room for them.’ The other two said nothing: killers both, they knew he had probably seen more death than they ever would. ‘Let’s have a look at him.’

He merely glanced at the grey waxen face of the middle-aged dead man; after all, he had never seen him before he had killed him. He lifted the thick black hair and looked at the back of the scalp. ‘Good. They haven’t even started an autopsy.’

‘How d’you know? They might of opened him up from the back.’ The man had no idea how an autopsy was done and didn’t want to know; he was squeamish about what was done to the dead.

‘They’d have taken the brain-pan out.’ The leader gestured at the stack of lidded white-plastic buckets along the corridor wall. ‘What do you think is in those buckets? Brains.’

The man lifted a lid, then slapped it back on a bucket, his hood fluttering over his face. ‘Christ Almighty! That’s fucking disgusting!’

‘They have to wait to examine a brain. They keep it in formalin for six weeks.’

‘Six weeks? Jesus, why so long?’

‘They have to wait till it stops thinking.’ Silk hood waited for the calico hoods to ripple with laughter, but nothing happened; he went on, ‘Usually they never let the relatives know what they’ve done. Some people, particularly the Christian fundamentalists, get very upset at the idea.’

‘So would I. Jesus, fancy having that done to you after you’re dead. Okay, what we gunna do with this guy?’ He nudged the bagged body.

‘Feed him to the sharks.’

3

Tom’s school had a holiday; teachers throughout the State had taken a day off to commiserate with each other on the toughness of their lot. Malone had therefore taken a day off to take Tom, aged ten, to the Vintage and Veteran Car Show at Darling Harbour. The fifty-hectare exhibition and convention centre had, on its opening five years ago, been hailed as a white elephant of the future; instead, it had gradually assumed a promising shade of pale, if metaphorical, grey. Malone was a reluctant admirer of it and an even more reluctant visitor to it. It seemed that each time he brought one or all of his children here it cost him a fortune. His hands were bleeding from reaching into his pockets, where the fish-hooks did their best to help him protect his money.

‘Oh, come on, mate! You’ve just had three Cokes and three bags of chips.’

‘The chips make me thirsty. Geez, you’re a drag, Dad. Why does it hurt you so much to spend money?’

‘When I’m old and broke and I come to you for a loan, I’ll be asking you the same question. Being thrifty runs in the Malone blood.’

‘Garn, Mum’s always saying how generous I am.’

‘Yeah, with my money.’

The banter between them was almost man-to-man; Malone did not believe in talking down to his children. They had stopped in front of a gleaming red machine, a 1904 Type 7 Peerless. Malone, a man for whom a car was something that had four wheels and a baffling source of power under the bonnet that made it go, looked at the car more with nostalgia than admiration or desire to own it; it symbolized the past, simpler and more innocent days. This car belonged to the times of his grandfathers and though he had never known those Irishmen, he knew in his heart he would have been happy sharing their days with them. Still deeper in his heart he knew he was fooling himself. No era had ever gleamed like this car, history had never been as uncomplicated as its workings.

Tom was unburdened with nostalgia. He said to the beautiful blonde model in the blue period dress that complemented the red car, ‘How much?’

The blonde looked at Tom’s father. ‘Does he mean me or the car?’

Malone recognized her. She worked as a casual for Tilly Mosman, who ran Sydney’s leading brothel, the Quality Couch. ‘Hello, Sheryl. I almost didn’t recognize you. You look – vintage?’

‘Thanks,’ she said drily, and looked down at Tom. ‘It’s not for sale, honey. It’s like me, priceless.’

‘How come my father knows you? Are you undercover?’

‘Occasionally.’ She smiled at Malone. ‘Is he going to be a cop, too?’

‘I’m trying to talk turn out of it. Tom, this is Miss Brown. She’s modelled for the police bulletin.’

Tom, young as he was, could be gallant: ‘If all policewomen looked like you, I don’t think Mum would let Dad come to work.’

‘If all policemen were as nice as you, Tom, I’d join the force.’

Then Malone’s pager beeped. He cursed silently; he had warned Russ Clements that he wanted a totally free day. ‘Sorry, Sheryl, we have to go. Come on, Tom, I’ve got to find a phone.’

‘Bye-bye, Tom. If the car comes up for sale, I’ll let you know.’

As they walked away, Tom said, ‘Geez, what a nice lady. Does Mum know about her?’

‘Not unless you tell her.’

Malone found a phone, then had to borrow small change from Tom to make the call. ‘You owe me, Dad, don’t forget.’

Clements was at Homicide. ‘This had better be important, Russ, or Tom’s going to have your head.’

At the other end of the line Sergeant Clements sounded truly contrite; he loved the Malone children as if they were his own. ‘Scobie, tell Tom I’ll buy him a Harley-Davidson for his birthday.’

‘Like hell you will. What’s the trouble?’

‘You heard about that dive off a balcony down at the Quay? John Kagal and Peta Smith’ve been handling it, but I think you and I’d better come in on it. Romy’s just been on to me. She’s done the autopsy and she thinks the guy was dead before he went for the dive. She’s found a puncture at the base of the skull, it’s a neat way of killing someone, looks like it was done with a long needle or a hatpin or something.’

‘Who wears hatpins these days? Can’t you handle it till I come in tomorrow?’

‘There’s something else. The mortuary assistant out at the morgue, you remember him, guy named Frank Minto, they found him this morning, laid out on a trolley, with two bullets in him.’