Bear Pit. Jon Cleary

especially slang that was older even than her father-in-law.

      ‘Killjoys,’ said Jack Junior. ‘Gambling is a social evil.’

      She had been a gambler all her life, but rarely a loser. ‘How quaint.’

      She had a touch of larceny to her that Aldwych liked. Shirl had never had it. She had known of his trade, but as long as he never brought it into her home, her retreat, she had said nothing. He was not given to fantasy, but once or twice he had thought of her as an angel married to a demon. He had taken to reading late in life, but he really would have to give up reading some of the books on the shelves in the Harbord house.

      ‘We’ll have to start smoodging, leaving some money lying around.’

      ‘We’ll have to be careful,’ said Jack Junior. He was a plotter, like his father, but in business, not bank robbery, and therefore more skilled. ‘Too many of them are more moral these days.’

      ‘How quaint,’ said Juliet.

      Out on the harbour two youths on jet skis cut across the bow of a small yacht. The yacht had to tack abruptly, its sails quivering with indignation. Aldwych watched it, came as close to a snarl as he got these days: ‘He should of run ’em down.’

      ‘Who?’

      Aldwych turned his head from watching the harbour. ‘The Dutchman should of got them before they got him.’

      He knew all about survival.

      3

      ‘Do you think he’s the one?’ asked Clements.

      ‘I dunno. Who else have we got? He’s the only one on that Sewing Bee list who’s got a record. We just keep tabs on him. We’ll get the task force to put him under 24-hour surveillance –we don’t want him shooting through, changing his name again. The one good thing I could say for him – he’s going to protect Mrs Masson, the woman he’s living with.’

      ‘Unless –’

      ‘Unless she knows what he did – if he did do it.’ Malone shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so … Now you and I are going down to Sussex Street, but first we’re going to look in on Roger Ladbroke. He knows more about who works what and how in the Labor Party than anyone except his late boss.’

      ‘You vote Labor, don’t you?’ Despite their long association they had never admitted how each of them had voted. There is a majority amongst the natives whose vote is as secret as whether they believe or not in God.

      ‘You vote the Coalition, don’t you?’

      ‘Okay –’ Clements grinned – ‘we’re apolitical on this one.’

      ‘We’d better be or the media will heap shit on us.’

      Malone had checked that Ladbroke was in his office at Parliament House. They drove into the city and round the back of the government complex. As they swung into the garage they saw the group under a tree in the Domain, the city common; someone, too distant to be recognized, was holding a press conference, cameras aimed at him like bazookas. Then they were in the garage and the security guard was holding them up.

      Clements, who was driving, produced his badge. ‘You’ll be seeing a lot of us in the next few days.’

      ‘Terrible business,’ said the guard, a burly man young enough to have been Hans Vanderberg’s grandson. ‘He could be a cranky old bastard, but we all liked him and respected him. Good luck. Get the shits who killed him.’

      ‘You notice?’ said Malone as they got out of the car. ‘He used the plural – the shits who killed him. Nobody’s going to believe this was a one-man job.’

      The two women secretaries in the Premier’s outer office still looked stunned, as if their boss’ murder had occurred only an hour ago. One was drying her eyes as the two detectives came in and asked for Ladbroke. Without rising she pointed to the inner door, as if she and her colleague no longer had anything to protect.

      Ladbroke was packing files into cartons. He was jacketless and tieless; he seemed even to have shed his urbanity. He looked up irritably as Malone and Clements came, then took a deep breath and made an effort to gather himself together.

      ‘Billy Eustace wants to move in this afternoon as Acting Premier. The king is dead, long live the king.’ He still wore his old cynicism; it was like a second skin. ‘You come up with anything yet?’

      ‘We’ve got a few things to work on,’ said Malone. ‘We’re on our way down to Sussex Street. We’d like some background on what’s been going on the past few weeks.’

      Ladbroke looked at a file in his hand, then tapped one of the cartons. ‘A good deal of it is in here, but I can’t let you see it. It’s stuff that was leaked to the Old Man from down there.’

      ‘We could get a warrant. Those aren’t Cabinet papers, Roger.’

      Ladbroke drew another deep breath, then put the file in a carton and pushed the box along the Premier’s big desk. ‘Okay, but read it here. There are three files – the red-tabbed ones.’

      Malone pushed the carton towards Clements. ‘You’re the speed-reader.’

      Clements took the three red-tabbed files and retired to a chair by the window. Malone sat down and looked across the desk at Ladbroke, who had slumped down in what had been his boss’ chair. ‘What are you going to do now?’

      ‘I’m organizing a State funeral for him. After that—’ He shrugged.

      ‘A State funeral? When?’

      ‘Friday. Gert insisted on it. Eleven o’clock Friday morning at St Mary’s Cathedral.’

      ‘He was a Catholic?’

      ‘No, she is. He was everything the voters were on a particular day. If the Mormons or the Holy Rollers could swing the vote in an electorate, he was out there nodding his head to polygamy or clapping his hands and singing “Down by the Riverside”.’

      ‘Do the Mormons still practise polygamy?’

      Ladbroke shrugged again; Malone had never seen him so listless. ‘I don’t know. Anyhow, he’s a Catholic for Friday. St Mary’s jumped at the idea when Gert said she wanted a State funeral. St Andrew’s has had the last three, they’ve all been Anglicans. Friday at St Mary’s they’ll be tossing the incense around like smoke bombs. They might even canonize him.’ For the first time since they had entered the office he smiled. ‘He’d enjoy that.’