Yesterday’s Shadow. Jon Cleary

      ‘That’s what I’m thinking about,’ said Lisa. ‘You come home and tell me about a domestic, your girlfriend of twenty-five years ago killing her husband, and you don’t mention the other homicide that’s been on the news all day. The murder of the wife of the American Ambassador. Or aren’t you on that one?’

      Then the cavalry’s bugle blew; or the doorbell rang. ‘I’ll get it,’ he said and almost galloped down the hallway to open the door to Maureen, Claire and Jason.

      The girls kissed him; Jason shook hands. His son-in-law was three or four inches taller than he, had bulked out since his marriage; Claire was as good a cook as her mother. His mother was in jail, doing life for, with her lesbian lover, having murdered Jason’s father. Malone suddenly determined there would be no further talk this evening of domestics. He had warm affection for Jason and suddenly was protective of him.

      Maureen, the TV researcher for Four Corners, was not interested in domestics or small talk. If and when she married, her husband had better not bring his secrets with him. ‘How about that homicide, the Ambassador’s wife? Are you on it, Dad?’

      ‘Unfortunately. Excuse me, I’ll have a quick wash under the armpits. I’ve just got in.’

      He peeled off into the bathroom, pondered for a moment taking a three-hour soak in the bath. Instead, he stripped off his shirt, had a quick swab under the armpits, washed his face, dried himself, then looked in the mirror. Transfer tomorrow, he told himself. Fingerprints, Traffic. Anywhere to get out of Homicide.

      He put on a clean shirt and a jumper. When he went out to join the family, Tom was just coming in. He wore jeans, a black leather jacket and carried his motorcyclist’s helmet under his arm like a big black skull. He, too, was taller than Malone. Little Me, thought Malone, and felt self-sympathy itching like a rash.

      He helped Maureen get the drinks. She was an attractive girl, dark-haired and good-figured and, Malone guessed, she wore her boyfriends out with her restless energy. He sometimes wondered where she got it from. ‘Who dunnit? The Ambassador?’

      ‘Don’t joke, Mo. None of your ABC anti-US bias.’

      ‘We’re impartial. We’re anti-everyone but ourselves.’

      ‘Relax, Mo,’ Claire told her sister. She had her mother’s blonde looks and composure; their Zuyder Zee look, as Tom called it, never making more than small waves. ‘You’re not on camera now. Is it going to be tough, Dad?’

      He nodded, sipped his beer. The three men were drinking beer; the two girls were on white wine. Out in the kitchen the cook was probably swigging sweet sherry. All at once Malone began to laugh.

      ‘What are you laughing at?’

      ‘Nothing, Just a thought.’ He took another sip of his beer, then said, ‘It’s going to be tough. You media are going to make a meal of it, Mo.’

      ‘I know. News are already running around hooting their heads off.’ Four Corners, the show she worked on, never ran around hooting; it took its time doing demolition jobs on corruption, maladministration and unsocial justice. He hoped it would never come within coo-ee of the Pavane murder. ‘You’re in for it, Dad. Sorry.’

      ‘Are the Americans co-operating?’ asked Tom. ‘You got the CIA, the FBI on your back?’

      ‘No, they know it’s our turf.’

      ‘Dad,’ said Maureen, ‘if we decide to look into Australian–American co-operation or lack thereof –’

      ‘Raise that question again and I’ll find something to pin on you, okay?’

      ‘Lay off, Mo,’ said Claire. ‘You’re so bloody morally correct since you joined the ABC –’

      ‘Let’s all lay off,’ said Malone. ‘How are you making out with your tutor, Tom?’

      ‘Who told you about her? Mum, I’ll bet –’

      ‘You’re dating your tutor?’ both his sisters asked. ‘You’re going for an older woman? What’s she teaching you?’

      ‘How to be economical in bed?’ suggested Jason.

      This is what I like to hear, thought Malone, family chi-acking. No violence, no bashing … Then Lisa came to the doorway. ‘Dinner is ready if you layabouts are?’

      The girls were instantly on their feet, rushing to help her. The three of them went out to the kitchen, Tom went in to have a quick shower (where’s he been? thought Malone. In the tutor’s bed?) and Jason picked up the glasses and put them on a tray.

      ‘How’s work?’ Malone asked.

      ‘Quiet, there’s not much around.’ Jason was an engineer with a large construction company. Since the Olympics there had been a general turn-down, a bubble deflated if not entirely pricked. ‘I take it yours is not going to be? Quiet, I mean.’

      ‘Quiet? Oh, we’ll keep it that way as long as we can, our end. But the bloody media …’ He stood up, suddenly feeling weary again, put his empty glass on the tray. ‘How’s your mum?’

      ‘I dunno. Philosophical, I guess you’d call it. She never mentions Dad, though. Nor Angela Bodalle, for that matter.’ Olive Rockne’s lesbian lover and fellow murderer was doing her time in another jail. ‘Mum hopes to be out in eighteen months. She’s been a model prisoner, they say.’ He paused in the doorway. ‘Do you ever think about her?’

      ‘Often – when I see you. I never got any pleasure from putting her away, Jay.’

      ‘I know that, Scobie. I’m just happy to have you as a father-in-law.’ Then he turned quickly and went out to the kitchen, the glasses rattling on the tray.

      Malone gathered his feelings, which were suddenly like warm coals. Affection from the young is not a cheap gift.

      Dinner was not as awkward as he had expected. The Pavane murder was discussed and everyone was sympathetic towards him for the headaches it promised. Lisa smiled at him from her end of the table, but (why was he so suspicious?) it could have been a public relations smile. The four young ones dominated the conversation, banter flying across the table like party crackers. It was only when relaxation had set in over coffee that Maureen said, ‘What about the other murder at the hotel, Dad?’

      ‘What about it?’

      ‘Are you on it?’

      He looked along the table at Lisa and she gave him the same smile: it was a public relations smile, as empty as a clown’s laugh. ‘Yes, I’m on it. For the time being.’

      ‘It’s just an ordinary domestic,’ said Lisa, reaching for an after-dinner mint, biting into it as if it were part of him.

      ‘Then why are you on it?’ Claire looked at her father. ‘With this other big one?’

      He looked along the table again at (Mona) Lisa: the smile was smaller this time. He didn’t know what made him say it: ‘I knew the wife, the one who did the killing. She was an old girlfriend.’

      At which they all looked at Lisa, not him. Maureen said Wowie!, Tom smiled broadly, Jason looked as if he would rather be out on a construction site and Claire pursed her lips. Lisa finished the mint, repeated the Mona Lisa smile and said, ‘Small world, ain’t it?’

      Claire looked at each of her parents in turn. ‘Which of you wants me to represent you? I think we’re heading for another domestic’

      He cranked up a smile, gave it to Lisa along the table. ‘She’s been married twice since I knew her.’

      ‘She do them both in?’ said Tom.

      Maureen hit him with her fist. ‘Pull your head in. This is serious. Why are you on the case, Dad? Just because she’s an old girlfriend?’

      ‘Golly,’