Autumn Maze

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Malone looked out at the narrow waters of Darling Harbour. It was still warm for early autumn, summer hanging on like a spurned lover; bright sunlight flickered on the water, turned the sail of a passing yacht into a triangular glare. A good day to be spending with one’s son. ‘Go on,’ he said resignedly.

‘There’s more.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

The glass walls of the huge exhibition centre suddenly blazed, as if the sun had slipped in the sky. From across the water, in the amusement park, there was a gasp of raucous music; it was abruptly cut off, as if someone had pulled the plug. Tom looked morosely up at him; he knew already that their day together was finished.

‘Someone,’ said Clements, ‘evidently whoever killed Frank Minto, has pinched a corpse from the morgue. I’ll wait for you out there. Give my apologies to Tom.’

Malone hung up, looked down at his son. Despite the difference in age, there was a distinct resemblance between father and son. There was the same dark hair, growing the same way, back from the widow’s peak; the dark blue eyes that did not try to hide amusement; the straight thick brows. Tom’s cheeks were still round and soft, but beneath them was the hint of the bonework in his father’s face. Missing was the frown that sometimes appeared between his father’s eyes, that marked Malone with the aches and pains, blood and death, of the world in which he worked. A detective inspector in charge of Homicide could never pass for one of the world’s innocents.

‘Russ sends his apologies. I’ve got to go to work.’

Tom sighed, but he was used to sharing his father’s time with the bloody Police Service. It was the price he paid for having a father who was a cop: Dad could have been an accountant or, for God’s sake, a women’s hairdresser. ‘It’s okay. Can I go with you? Other kids’ fathers take ’em to work, sometimes.’

‘I’ve got to go out to the morgue. You wouldn’t want to go there.’

‘Why not?’ He had a ferret’s curiosity.

‘Because it’s full of dead people and dead people don’t like kids staring at them.’

‘How would they know?’

Malone clipped his son under the ear, put his arm round his shoulders. ‘There’s plenty of time for you to meet the dead. Don’t rush it, mate.’

Half an hour later, having taken Tom home to Randwick and delivered him to Lisa’s disapproving stare, he drew up outside the morgue in Glebe, one of the city’s inner areas. The entrance was in a quiet side street; he wondered what the residents thought of having so many dead neighbours, transients though they all were. He went in the front door, was recognized at once by the man behind the counter.

‘G’day, Inspector. You heard about Frank Minto? Geez, it makes you wonder. You’d think you’d be safe in a place like this, wouldn’t you?’

Russ Clements was in Romy Keller’s office, neither of them acting like the lovers they were. Romy was German-born, dark-haired and, in both Clements’ and Malone’s eyes, beautiful. Clements was big and untidy, like a bag of clothing on its way to the dry cleaners, unhandsome but with a big pleasant face that appealed to a lot of women old enough to need a little tenderness. Which was what Romy saw in him, and more.

Romy kissed Malone on the cheek, then went round behind her desk and sat down. Two years ago her father had proved to be a murderer; with Clements’ help she had weathered the blow. She had been on the verge of leaving the morgue’s staff, but had been persuaded to stay on in the State Health Department and was now deputy director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine. Her eyes, when gay, were resplendent; but here at work she toned down the light in them. She was a woman used to men, alive and dead: they had few secrets for her.

‘Seems we have something of a mess here, Scobie. Poor Frank Minto – why would anyone want to kill him? If they wanted to steal a body, for God knows what reason, they could have just tied him up.’

‘Maybe he tried to stop them?’

She shook her head. ‘After those thugs came in some months ago and showed Frank a gun and demanded to see a body, we had a meeting and decided that if anything like that happened again, nobody was to stand in the way. Frank was a sensible man, he wouldn’t have put any value on a corpse, not to the extent of trying to hang on to it. No, whoever it was shot him in cold blood. They didn’t put any value on a living body.’

‘They must’ve put some value on the corpse they stole?’ Up till now Clements had sat silent; sometimes Malone had the feeling that the big man saw Romy as his superior. Which was wrong: in his own way Russ Clements was as competent, or more than that, as Romy.

‘We won’t know till we find out who they stole.’

Malone raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t know?’

‘It was a male, unknown,’ said Romy. ‘Middle-aged, Mediterranean look, no identification at all on him. He’d worn two rings, one on his left wedding finger, the other on his right little finger. They’d been pulled off, the skin was scraped on the little finger. His clothes are in a bag outside, but I gather they’ll tell you nothing.’

‘All good stuff,’ said Clements, ‘but off the rack. It could of been bought anywhere.’

‘Where was the body found?’

‘In a park by Cook’s River, out at Canterbury. Some kid and his girlfriend found him last night, about eight p.m. They called the locals, the Campsie D’s are in charge of it.’

‘So why are we in on it? Have they asked for us?’ Local police protected their turf jealously.

‘Not so far. But whoever took the body, took all the records of it.’

‘They even wiped out all our data on the computer,’ said Romy. ‘Whoever it was knew their way around a morgue. But they forgot one thing. The cops who picked up the body still have their notes. I called them earlier.’

‘Could it have been an inside job?’

Romy shrugged. ‘Maybe. But I don’t think anyone here would have killed Frank Minto.’

Malone looked at Clements. The big man was still uncharacteristically quiet, his attention more on Romy than on Malone. Had they had a row, were together now only because of their work? ‘Russ? Rust?’

Clements gathered himself together. ‘I’ll start questioning the staff, but like Romy says, I don’t think it’s an inside job. Too obvious. You asked me why we’re in on this. Tell him, hon.’

Romy smiled at him, as if she enjoyed being called hon, even on duty. But there was something wrong with the smile, a wryness that took the affection out of it. Then she looked back at Malone.

‘There was a note in Frank’s pocket, a scribble addressed to me. Frank took his job more seriously than it looked – he was thinking of studying pathology, though I don’t think he really had the education for it. Anyhow, he would often do a more thorough examination of a body than just checking it in.’

‘What did his note say?’

‘He found a puncture at the base of the skull of the body that’s missing. This morning I did an autopsy, a preliminary one, on a body that came in last night about two hours before the other was brought in. He was supposed to have jumped or been pushed off a balcony twenty storeys up – the body was a mess. But I think he was dead before they tossed him off the balcony. There was a puncture at the base of his skull, too. It’s a subtle way of killing, but it would have to be done by someone who had some medical knowledge. You flex the head forward as far as it will go, then you push a broad needle or a thin scalpel into what we call the atlas, the first cervical vertebra. That’s what they did to Mr Sweden and, from Frank’s note, I’d say the same was done to our unknown male from Canterbury.’

‘Who is Mr Sweden?’ Malone asked Clements, all at once wondering if the big man and Romy were playing some sick joke on him. ‘Not our —’

‘That’s why I called you in. No, he’s not our new Police Minister. He’s Derek’s son.’

Malone swore under his breath; he belonged to a dying school that didn’t swear in front of women. Even some of the hookers he knew respected him for it, since they met few gentlemen in bed or the back seat of a car, even a Mercedes.

‘I think I’ll go on sick leave.’