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‘That’s the puzzle,’ said Peeples. ‘What’ve we got here? A group of gay vigilantes?’
‘Was last night’s killer a lesbian, maybe?’ said Malone. ‘Or a transvestite?’
‘Could’ve been. The kids we interviewed all had different versions. You know what it’s like.’
Malone indeed knew what it was like. No gaze was so fractured as that of a crowd. He had once interrogated ten witnesses to a murder in broad daylight and come up with ten descriptions of the murderer. Who, when he was finally arrested, proved to look like none of the descriptions.
‘Who was shot last night?’
‘Kid named Justin Langtry, seventeen. Lives – lived – in Erskineville with his mother and three other kids, she’s a single parent. I sent one of our girls out to see her last night. I thought I’d go out this morning. Unless you’d like to?’ he said hopefully.
Malone knew when the buck was being passed; he’d lost count of the number of times he had knocked on doors to talk to bereaved wives and mothers. ‘Okay, I’ll do it. But first John and I’ll go up and talk to last night’s victim, Bob Anders.’
‘You know him?’ said Kovax.
‘He’s a friend of John’s,’ said Malone, and Kovax and Peeples looked at Kagal with wary interest. ‘Then we’ll go out and see – what’s her name? Mrs Langtry? – in Erskineville. What’s the address?’
‘Billyard Street, it’s off—’
‘I know it,’ said Malone. ‘I was born in the next street.’
Driving the half a dozen blocks up to St Sebastian’s, Malone looked out at Oxford Street, the main artery that led from the city out to the beach suburbs. Twenty, thirty years ago this had been a working class shopping area: small shops that even then had been wondering what their future would be. Now it was gay territory, from Whitlam Square, named after an ex-Prime Minister of liberal persuasion, up across Taylor Square where drunks had once congregated like seals on the small island in its centre, to the slope past Victoria Barracks, where the vestiges of an army command still lingered like faint memories of wars that everyone else had forgotten. The first few blocks up from Whitlam Square had a mixture of shops, small restaurants and pubs that catered for the gay community; there were also baths and the offices of a gay newspaper. Beyond Taylor Square were more gay hotels and in a side street The Wall, the high stone wall of an old gaol where male hookers now paraded. It was all territory which Malone, carrying the baggage of another generation’s moral sense, had always avoided, glad that he had never been posted to Surry Hills or Kings Cross, the other turf on to which the gay community spilled over.
St Sebastian’s was one of the older hospitals that had survived, aided by additions and face-lifts. Anders was in one of the general wards, his battered face half-hidden by dressings. He smiled wanly at Malone and Kagal as they approached his bed and put out a hand to Kagal, who took it and pressed it.
‘Hi, Inspector,’ he said through bruised and swollen lips. ‘I’m a sight for sore eyes, the nurses tell me.’
Malone remembered him as a tall, goodlooking man who had worn an earring; his right ear was now a torn mess painted with yellow medication. The dark moustache above the swollen lips had none of the bristly defiance Malone remembered; it looked limp and drab, like the shadow of a glum mouth. He was still holding Kagal’s hand, clutching it with – love? Malone wondered.
‘Bob, we have to ask you a few questions. Do you know the woman who came to your rescue last night?’
Anders moved his head slowly on the pillow. ‘I hardly saw her. I was on the ground, the young shits were kicking me—’
‘Where was this?’
‘Up by the barracks. I was walking down from Paddington town hall, I was heading for the Albury—’
Malone knew of it: a pub mainly for drag queens. Something must have shown in his face because Anders said, ‘I’m not into drag, Inspector. I had to meet someone there, a guy who’s a nurse. I have a sick friend—’
All at once he closed his eyes, looked ready to weep and Kagal squeezed his hand. ‘It’s all right, Bob. But we have to ask questions, we have to find out who’s doing these murders.’
Anders opened his eyes; mere was a shine of tears at the corners. ‘Why?’
Kagal looked at Malone. There was a sudden silence in the ward; the other three patients lay in their beds looking at Malone as if waiting on his answer. ‘We are cops, not judges,’ he said and even in his own ears he sounded limp and priggish.
One of the patients got out of bed, pulled on a faded dressing-gown and went unsteadily out into the corridor. The other two men turned away, one to a book, the other to stare out the window.
‘So you can tell us nothing about the killer?’ said Malone.
‘I’m sorry, Inspector – no. I was too busy trying to protect myself – the shits were trying to kill me, that was all I was thinking …’ His voice trailed off; then he recovered: ‘What will you do about the kids who weren’t shot? Who did this to me?’
‘I presume they’ll be charged. But that’s not in mine and John’s area, we’re strictly homicides.’
‘They’ll be taken care of,’ said Kagal and pressed Anders’ hand. ‘I’ll see to it, Bob.’
They said goodbye to Anders and walked out into the corridor. There the man who had got out of bed was waiting for them. He was in his sixties, a small hard nugget of a man, crumbling at the edges but with a core of bitter prejudices. Malone recognized his own father in the man: the hatred of bosses, of police, of anything and anyone who tried to run his life. Us and Them would be his motto. And Them would include everyone outside the norm of his narrow outlook. Malone had seen it so many times in Con Malone.
‘That poofter in there, has he got AIDS?’ His voice was as rough as his looks. ‘The nurses won’t tell us.’
‘No,’ said Kagal and Malone marvelled at the younger man’s control. ‘He just has a bad case of assault and battery. Any more questions?’
Then he walked on and Malone was left with the bigot ‘No one deserves what that man has had done to him. Not even poofters.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ said the man and stomped back into the ward.
Outside, where the brightness of the November day mocked the misery and pain in the hospital, Kagal was standing by the police car parked in the section reserved for doctors. A hospital security guard was reading the letter of the law to him.
‘You’ll have to speak to the inspector,’ said Kagal. ‘He’s the senior officer.’
The security guard was a young man who took his duties seriously: ‘You know you can’t park here, sir—’
‘No, I didn’t know that,’ said Malone. ‘If you look up the Police Service Act, section seventy-seven – paragraph B, I think it is – you’ll find that police on duty can park anywhere they like.’
He said no more, got into the car, waited for Kagal to get in behind the wheel, men they drove out of the small parking lot, leaving the security guard staring angrily after them.
‘What does section seventy-seven say?’ asked Kagal.
‘I have no idea. But then neither does he. Let’s go up to the crime scene.’
They swung into Oxford Street again, passed the Albury Hotel where Anders had been heading last night, and drove the quarter-mile up to the entrance of Victoria Barracks and turned in. A uniformed sentry barred their way.
Malone introduced himself. ‘We’re investigating the murder last night, the one just down the road there. Can we park in here for ten or fifteen minutes?’
‘I guess so, sir. You don’t intend to arrest the GOC, do you?’
‘Not today. If he starts another war, we will. Were you on duty here last night around eight o’clock?’
‘No, sir.’ He was no more than twenty, fresh-faced under his digger’s hat: too young for war. But then, Malone remembered, though he had never been a soldier, it was the young who fought wars. ‘The guy who was, he’s on leave today. But he was interviewed last night by the police. I understand he saw nothing, heard nothing.’
So much for the defence of the nation; but Malone didn’t voice the thought. ‘Righto, we’ll be back in a few minutes.’
Fifty yards down, on the lawn that ran below the high stone wall of the barracks, the Crime Scene tapes still fluttered in the breeze. A police van was parked on the footpath and as the two detectives approached, a uniformed cop stepped out of the van and began to take down the tapes.
‘You’re from Surry Hills?’ said Malone, introducing himself and Kagal.
‘No, sir.’ He, too, was young, no more than twenty; but his face had none of the fresh-faced innocence of the soldier. He had already seen the dregs of the life the other was supposed to defend. ‘We’re from Paddington, up the road. We were called in to stake this out. The job’s finished now – for us, I mean.’
‘Lucky you. Has anyone come forward with any information?’
The young cop shook his head as he wound up the blue-and-white tape: the gift tape, as Malone thought of it, that wrapped up a death. ‘Hear no evil, see no evil … You don’t get much co-operation, not in this street.’
After a few more minutes with the young officer and his colleague, a senior-constable, Malone and Kagal walked back up and in through the gates of the barracks.
‘We’ll be a few minutes,’ Malone told the sentry. ‘We want to compare notes.’
He and Kagal got into the car and wound down the windows. Malone sat gazing out at the scene before him. He had played in a charity cricket match here on the parade lawn years ago; before the game, because he was history-minded, he had looked up the story of the barracks. It was built in the eighteen forties by convict gangs and some of the first senior officers who came to occupy it had fought at Waterloo. Though it was named after the new Queen, the style was Regency; it was built in time to escape the heavy fashion of later years. He sat in the car and looked across the wide parade ground at the main building, the length of two football fields. This morning, a Sunday rest day, the barracks looked deserted. It was peaceful, no suggestion of what it was designed for, the training and accommodation of soldiers. The high stone walls even closed out the sound of traffic in busy Oxford Street A boy had died and a man had been almost kicked to death not a hundred yards from where he and Kagal now sat; but this, built for the military, was an oasis of peace.
‘What notes have we to compare?’ said Kagal, breaking the silence. He had sat quiet, knowing Malone had something on his mind.
Malone turned to him. ‘John, I’ve got to ask you this. You are a – a close friend of Bob Anders, right?’
‘Yes.’ Malone could almost see the young man close up, tighten.
‘I have to ask you this, too. Are you homosexual?’
Kagal looked at him sideways. ‘Does it matter?’
‘On this case, yes, I think it does.’
Kagal didn’t answer at once. He looked across the parade ground at some movement on the far side. A small detachment of soldiers was falling in; it was time for changing of the guard. A shout floated towards them, as unintelligible as all military commands, like an animal bark. The detachment began to march along the far side of the ground.
At last he turned back to Malone. ‘I’m half-and-half. Bisexual – double-gaited, if you want to call it that. Fluid is the in-word.’ He was silent a moment, then went on, ‘Okay, so I guess you can call me gay. I don’t like to be called homosexual.’
‘Why not?’
‘I just don’t, that’s all.’
‘I don’t like to use the term “gay”. You – you people took away a word that used to be one of the – well, one of the most evocative in the language. Nobody talks about Gay Paree any more or having a gay time, things like that What bloke would sing a song like A Bachelor Gay Am I these days?’
Kagal gave a small smile, though he was not relaxed. ‘I know quite a few guys who would.’
Malone didn’t return the smile; he, too, was uptight. ‘That’s why straights don’t use the word any more for fear of being misunderstood.’
‘That’s your – their problem, isn’t it?’
‘Have you ever researched the origin of gay as a slang word? I have. We’re taught as detectives to do research, right? The original slang use of gay was coined in the sixteenth century in London – maybe earlier. It meant the cheapest sort of whore you could buy in the alleys off the Strand, the up-against-the-wall knee-tremblers. An English poet and playwright named Christopher Marlowe—’
‘I’ve read Marlowe.’
Which was more than Malone had ever done; it had been enough while at school to plough through Shakespeare. ‘He used to use the gays, the women hookers. Whores were called gays up till about the end of the last century.’
‘You’re sure Marlowe didn’t use the word the way we do? The first speech in one of his plays, Edward the Second, is about as close as you can get to a male love song.’
Malone didn’t answer; his education went only so far.
‘You seem pretty interested, doing all that research.’
‘It was just curiosity. I’m not a closet queer.’
‘Is that the sort of word you’d prefer? Queer, fag, pansy? Maybe I can give you a lesson in etymology. You call yourself a heterosexual?’
Malone nodded.
‘That word was coined in the eighteen nineties – about the same time, I guess, that the word “gay” stopped meaning a whore. Heterosexuality was used to denote sexual perversion – “hetero” means “other” or “different”. How does that strike you? It was meant to describe someone like me, a double-gaiter. It was not until the nineteen fifties or sixties that the meaning was changed. And it was gays who gave it the meaning that’s acceptable to you now.’
It was no longer a dialogue between a senior and a junior officer. The guard detachment was now closer, the sergeant in charge barking to the rhythm of the marching. Behind the police car the sentry had come to attention, then dropped stiffly into the at-ease stance.
‘Righto, I don’t like fag or queer, either. I just wish you had chosen another word but “gay”. It’s a cruel thought, but I’ve sometimes wondered if a man dying of AIDS still feels gay – in the original meaning.’
Kagal’s face had stiffened, but he said nothing. The guard detachment was close now; it went by with a thump-thump of boots, came to a stamping halt. The two detectives sat in silence while the guard was changed; then the detachment moved on, the sergeant’s bark dying away as it moved on down the long parade ground. The defence forces were currently debating whether personnel suffering from HIV-infection should be allowed to stay in the army.
‘In your language—’ Kagal was now distinctly, if coldly, hostile. ‘In your language, are you homophobic?’
‘No, I’m not. People’s sexuality is their own business. Except for paedophiles and fellers who bugger sheep.’
‘Like New Zealanders?’
‘So you’re racist, too? Or nationality-biassed, whatever they call it.’
‘It’s a joke, for Crissakes!’ Kagal was angry; then he struggled to relax. It suddenly occurred to Malone that this conversation was as awkward for the younger man as it was for himself. ‘Look, the Kiwis say the same thing about us, only we have more sheep, more opportunity, they say. It was an Aussie joke originally, that you only got virgin wool from the sheep that could run faster than the shepherd.’
Malone laughed, not at the old joke but as a release. ‘There’s the one about the bachelor farmer counting his sheep as they go into the pen – sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine – hullo, darling – seventy-one, seventy-two …’
The time-worn jokes seemed to oil the tension. They sat in silence for a while, men Malone said, ‘I’m anti some of the things you get up to—’
‘You don’t know what I get up to.’ The tension crept back in.
‘Right. Gays then, full gays.’
‘The Mardi Gras – I know you’re against that’
‘Yes. I think it’s a grown-up version of the game that five-year-olds play – you show me yours and I’ll show you mine. But my two daughters think it’s just a load of fun.’
‘And your boy – Tom?’
‘He’s like me.’
‘Is he going to grow up to be a poofter-basher?’
‘You think I might encourage him to?’
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’
There was another long awkward silence; then Malone said, ‘John, I’m dead against poofter-bashing, gay-bashing, whatever you want to call it.’ He was walking on eggshells; or anyway on words that kept tripping him up. ‘But cops my age, we carry a lot of baggage – prejudice, if you like. Though I hope I’d never be like that old bloke in the hospital corridor this morning.’
He paused and after a long moment Kagal said, ‘Go on.’
Jesus, he thought, this is like confession used to be when I was at school. But all he said was, ‘Righto, let’s get back to Bob Anders. Are you and he—?’
