A Different Turf

‘The Chiano job out at Maroubra. I’ll get Russ.’ He galloped away, hitting a swivel chair and sending it swivelling; his small world was chipped and scarred by his progress through it. But he was a good detective, his enthusiasm was not bumbling; he would never let go of a case, his mind was a file of clues in unsolved cases. Malone, looking after him as he bumped into a desk, wondered how he would go if transferred to the Oxford Street murder.

Clements, looking happier than he had for the past few months, relaxed almost to the point of carelessness, came in and flopped down on the small couch beneath the window in Malone’s office.

‘Romy and the baby are great. I was in there before I came to work—’

Malone humoured him with a few remarks about mother and child. Then he said, ‘I just had a call from some feller about Saturday night’s murder.’

‘We had three murders Saturday night—’

‘So we did.’ He had looked at the synopsis on his desk, checked it against the computer. ‘Sorry. The one up in Oxford Street, the kid from the gang that bashed up – Did you know it was Bob Anders they bashed? John’s mate.’

‘I’ve read the running sheet.’ Relaxed though he was, the big man’s voice had an edge to it, as if to say, You think I’m not keeping up with the job?

‘Sure.’ What was the matter with him? It was as if he, the boss, had come on the job only half an hour ago. ‘Okay, well, tins feller rang, said he belonged to a consortium – yes, that was the word he used.’ Clements had a big expressive face and when his eyebrows went up they showed large surprise. ‘A consortium. He claimed they were the Twelfth Man – he knew I’d played cricket—’

‘He must of looked you up. Who else remembers? No offence, mate. Nobody remembers yesterday’s sportsmen … This – consortium – they offered to help?’

‘He said they were contributing a public service.’

‘Vigilantes? Christ, that’s just what we need! Why don’t these public-spirited bastards piss off? We get enough criticism without vigilantes claiming we can’t do the job without them—’

‘He hasn’t claimed that yet … Have they done the autopsy on the kid?’

‘Not yet, I checked. Forensic said Ballistics would have the bullet by lunchtime. You want to know if it’s from the same gun as the three other poofter murders?’

He tried not to sound pious: ‘Russ, no poofters were murdered. And since we’re now on the cases, maybe we’d better start calling the homosexuals something else.’

‘Okay, gays. But what’s on your mind?’ They had worked together so long they read each other like husband-and-wife.

‘I think I should stay at my desk.’ As Co-ordinator, in theory that was what he was supposed to do. The nineteen detectives on staff, including Clements, were the field workers. But theory was always one of the first casualties of government service; it had the same fragility as charity and other high-minded ideas. ‘Who have you got to spare?’

‘Nobody, except Kate. I can spare John Kagal, but he’s on call for three court appearances this week. Tomorrow, Wednesday and Friday. You mean you don’t want to handle the Oxford Street murder and the other three? Why?’

Malone sat back, sighed; he could confide in Clements. ‘I’m not comfortable with them—’

‘Gays? You’d be a bloody sight more comfortable with them than I would. I try to be objective, but—’ Malone shook his head. ‘You can handle it How d’you think you’d be if you were on a paedophile murder? You’d feel like committing murder yourself, wouldn’t you?’

‘I guess so—’

‘You know so!’ Clements was no longer lolling on the couch; he was sitting up. ‘Take Kate with you, she’s used to them.’

‘How do you know?’ Sharply.

‘I mean, women are more comfortable with them, aren’t they? Romy is always lecturing me on my prejudices—’ He got to his feet, looking unhappier than when he had come into the room. He was not fat, though there was fat on him, but his bulk always made any room seem smaller. Malone had a sudden image of him with his daughter, the baby lost in the massive arms. ‘You always say you’re not gunna be chained to that desk. You’re on the Oxford Street job, mate, this is your Unit Supervisor speaking. Wear an earring, you’ll be comfortable.’

‘Up yours.’

‘I wouldn’t use that expression in the company you’re gunna be keeping.’ He grinned, then spread a huge hand. ‘There I go again with my prejudices.’

He went out to the big main room, but was back in five minutes. ‘I’ve just run through the computers. There have been twenty-six gay murders in the last five years.’

‘Murdered by bashing?’

‘No, some by their partners. It looks now as if they’re striking back. This consortium, I’ll leave you to work on it.’

‘Thanks. Send Kate in.’

She came into his office, smart and neat; but it was early in the day. ‘You’re on the Oxford Street murder with me, Kate. We’re going out to Erskineville to talk to me boy’s mother, then we’ll see if we can talk to the kids who were with him when it happened.’

Kate drove, in an unmarked police car this time, not the Goggomobile, and, because she drove fast, Malone, always a bad passenger, sat with his toes clenched inside his shoes and his belly tense against his seat-belt. He gave her directions and it was just as well, for Erskineville was a maze of narrow streets and lanes that seemed to be looking for each other. But he had known this area in his boyhood and youth, it was as plain in his memory as a birthmark.

‘You know your way,’ said Kate as she pulled up the car.

‘I was born in the next street. My parents still live there.’

Billyard was almost a dead ringer for the street where he had grown up. Narrow terrace houses stood shoulder to shoulder, as if for security. Narrow front verandahs, protected by spiked railings, were only one step up from the footpath. Some houses had been painted, their doors varnished or painted a bright colour, fancy brass knockers added; two or three had barred windows and security doors. On an opposite corner and running down a side street some new townhouses, the terraces of the future, were going up; somehow they looked like a new sore. Gentrification had crept in, like a hesitant make-up artist; but not all the way, not yet. Number twelve was rundown, the paint on the front door was peeling, exposing the timber; half the front window was boarded up like a half-shut eye. There was no knocker, though a patch of lighter paint showed where one had once been. Kate rapped firmly on the panels of the door.

It was opened by a teenage girl. ‘Yeah?’

Malone introduced himself and Kate. ‘We’d like to talk to your parents about – was it your brother?’

‘Yeah, I’m his sister Jillian. Come on in. Mum!’

They followed her down a narrow hallway that, carpeted with a length of runner as threadbare as a beggar’s shirt, led past closed doors to a small kitchen at the back of the house. Through an open door Malone could see a backyard, as familiar to him as his office at Homicide and not much larger. An equally familiar smell hung about the house, the odour of over a hundred years of cooking, of bodies, of living.

Though times had been tough in the Malone household, he had never seen his mother as worn and desperate as Mrs Langtry. She was small and thin and prematurely grey; her sorrows were etched in her face. She had a soft voice with a whine in it, for which he couldn’t blame her; her life, if not this house, had collapsed in on her.

‘I dunno what I can tell you. Justin just went out Sat’day night and—’ She stopped.

And never came back. He had heard it before: some lives just ended like that. ‘Have they taken you to identify his body?’

She nodded dumbly.

‘Do you have a husband, Mrs Langtry?’

Again the dumb shake of the head. The kitchen was small, everything in it looked chipped and worn, but it was clean, it was not like some garbage dumps Malone had been in. A brightly coloured calendar hung on one wall, the only decoration; a flamenco dancer stamped her foot on the pages below; Malone wondered if Saturday’s date was marked, but he wasn’t close enough to check. A small boy, about five or six, stood in the back doorway, still as a statue. In one corner of the kitchen was a small wheelchair, with a large doll in it; then Malone realized with a shock that the doll was another child, a girl with a tiny head and a wizened face. He felt something tremble in his chest and he drew a deep breath.

‘We’d like to talk to some of Justin’s mates, maybe they can tell us something about what happened?’

‘What happened was someone shot and killed my brother!’ The girl Jillian was suddenly angry, as if she couldn’t understand the stupidity of the police. ‘Jesus Christ, what else d’you wanna know?’

Kate Arletti said gently, ‘We want to know who killed him, that’s all.’

‘Does it fucking matter now? It ain’t gunna bring him back!’

‘Jilly—’ Her mother went to her and put her arm round her; she was shorter by two or three inches and twenty pounds lighter, but for the moment she looked the stronger. She faced the two detectives. ‘Do I have to go and – collect his body from the morgue? I don’t have any money for that—’

‘I think we can arrange that, Mrs Langtry. Do you have any friends or relatives who can help you?’