Dark Clouds on the Mountain. John Tully

weed, and he was more than usually savage tempered as a result.

      A junior constable, so nervous that his voice shook, told Jack that 'B-Booker Sahib' wanted to see him 's-s-straight away'.

      'It's Chief Superintendent Ray Booker to you, son!' Jack barked, sending the young man scurrying before him along the corridor, stammering apologies.

      It was about the graffiti, Jack knew. He would plead with Booker, stating, truthfully, that he already had more work than he could poke a stick at, what with the Adams murder inquiry and a rash of break-and-enters among the silvertails in Lower Sandy Bay. But he didn't rate his chances very highly, for the Boss was a determined man.

      Booker Sahib was a big, heavy-set man with a sad round face and a frizz of iron-grey hair. Lately he'd taken to wearing spectacles which gave him the appearance of an overweight vicar crossed with a roundhouse pug. He'd acquired the nickname years back when word went round that he was travelling to India for his holidays. And he did have a dark complexion too; there had been whispers of Aboriginal blood years back at a time when it wasn't meant as a compliment in waspish Tasmania.

      Ray Booker had been in the Force for over forty years; Jack had known him long ago in the West Coast mining town of Queenstown, when he was just a kid and Booker was a country sergeant. He'd been hard but fair. Although they said 'Booker by name and booker by nature,' he was more likely to give you a boot up the bum and send you on your way if he caught you up to no good or looking like you might be. He hadn't changed much, except that he was heavier and sadder, redder about the nose from the drink and fatter after a lifetime of old fashioned high cholesterol, high GI, distinctly non-PC Tasmanian breakfasts.

      He was slurping on a cup of tea and scratching his ear when Jack came in. Chances were he'd be hung over and dirty on the world. Yes, it was the synagogue, he snapped, shoving a packet of Panadol out of sight into his desk drawer. Whisky was his preferred tipple, Jack knew. He'd once had a session with him and the hangover had lasted for almost a week. The higher-ups had requested CIB take over the case, given the lack of progress. That fella Gordon Paisley had been on the case, but he was useless as tits on a bull, Booker snorted.

      Jack tried hard to weasel his way out, but Booker held up his great paw when he judged Jack had run out of steam, conciliatory now, his voice almost a purr. 'Yes Giacomo, er, Jack, I know you're flat out like a lizard drinking,' he wheedled, falling back on an Aussie cliche as ever when he wanted something, 'but I need you on this case.' Booker sometimes forgot all the years that had passed since Jack had been a mining town brat, and called him by the name on his birth certificate. 'Half the buggers round here wouldn't know their arse from their elbow. I need a proper copper, Jack.'

      'Jeez, sir. There's always Fuller or Langdale. Or Liz Flakemore, she's a good officer. They could...

      Booker cut him off. 'Yeah, look, er, Jack, the fact is that Upstairs' - here he paused and pointed at the ceiling with an index finger the size of a sugar banana - 'Upstairs are very concerned about this graffiti. Just between you and me, Boss O'Flaherty himself told me that the Local Member has been on the phone, demanding results. It's all the worse because the synagogue is right next door to the bloody cop shop, practically in the grounds. O'Flaherty wants you, Jack. Fuller and Langdale are good at what they do, so is Liz, but you're the better detective.' He slurped at his cold tea, grimaced, and continued his monologue.

      'It's bad news, Giacomo,' Booker continued, tensing his forehead against the headache that Jack knew was jack-hammering away inside his skull, regardless of the paracetamol. 'Times have changed. We just can't let this kind of thing go unchecked. Not these days. There's even dog shit through the letterbox. I'm sure you in particular would agree with me there.' He stared at Jack through bloodshot eyes.

      'With all due respect, sir,' Jack replied, 'we're hardly dealing with Fantomas.'

      'The world's gone PC, Giacomo,' said Booker, shaking his head as much as he could without causing pain. 'Maybe it's not such a bad idea. Nazi graffiti like that will give this city a bad name. So, I'm taking you off everything else until we find out who's behind it. You can have young Bob Bishop for company; he's got the makings of a good copper, they tell me.'

      Booker checked his watch and stood up to indicate that the interview was over. It was a measure of his respect for Jack that he'd argued with him about it. Anyone else, he would have just ordered to do it. There was an enormous stack of paperwork on his desk. 'I'll do my best, sir,' Jack said, shrugging his shoulders and moving to the door, not wanting to annoy the man any more. 'Oh, and sir - I do wish you'd call me Jack.' Booker didn't respond. He'd had already forgotten Jack was there and was absorbed in a file, his massive head nodding as he let his hangover wash over him. He'd even forgotten about Fantomas, although he would dearly have loved to know who or what that was.2 Jack made a note to tell him one day about the famous French police books. Booker would have lots of spare time when he retired.

      Booker hadn't laboured the racism point, but it had struck home. Jack had copped a lifetime of racist abuse, learning early on that he was a 'wog', a 'dago', and even a 'greaser' when the kids at school had felt particularly nasty. His Mum was as Aussie as they come, from an old Queenstown family, the Johnstones, but his father was Italian. Had been Italian. Jack had grown up in the raw streets of Queenie with a name so Italian that you could advertise spaghetti with it - although most people thought all spaghetti came out of cans in those days in Tasmania. But for all that, Jack looked more Anglo than the Anglos. He scarcely remembered his father, Aldo, but knew from photographs that he'd been a slim Triestino, with light-brown hair and his own sky-blue eyes, a pale northerner rather than someone from the swarthy South. His father had been murdered when Jack was a baby, the killer never caught. The Italian connection was almost severed, Jack thought, wincing at the choice of words in his internal monologue. His Mum had always called him Jack and when he was old enough, he'd dropped the 'uzzi' ending of his name to be just plain Martin. Changed it by deed poll after he became a cop. As far as he knew, though, his mother was buried as a Martinuzzi when she died in lonely squalor on the West Coast after a life of alcoholic excess.

      After he left Booker Sahib's lair, Jack stuck his head into the open plan office that the lowlier ranks of CIB shared. It smelled of floor polish, cheap coffee and some old bloke's Brylcreem. That and sweat and fear perhaps from the interview rooms where they grilled a sad concatenation of the city's criminals. Hobart's crims, heads on them like mice, he thought, catching sight of a senior constable leading a 'valued customer' named 'Burgers' O'Shea by the arm. Burgers banged along on crutches, grinning, his mouth almost toothless, his eyes mad brown orbs in a brown monkey face. Thirty years old but looking like fifty. He smiled and wished Jack good day, but Jack pretended not to have seen or heard the serial mugger. O'Shea was so dedicated to his calling that he had recently climbed a tree in St David's Park and leapt out onto an unlucky passer-by, flailing his crutches to pound his victim into submission. God only knew how he'd broken his ankle, but Jack guessed it was the result of something unsavoury. Christened Leslie by his doting parents, the miscreant had gained his nickname when he was found drunk and incapable in the McDonald's joint he was burgling, with half-eaten Big Macs in a pile at his side.

      Nor did Jack see the dope dealers, the kerb crawlers shifting from foot to foot, the chicken thieves and break-and-enter men still tooled up, the serial flashers, shoplifters, mainliners with collapsed veins, chisellers and sneak thieves, wife-beaters, gropers, dips, illegal users of cars, broken-down old boozers, pimps, brothel creepers, snowdroppers and tavern brawlers, enforcers and phizgigs who were staples at this nick; a desperate parade of no-hopers, misfits, dead-shits, bunglers, sociopaths and nutcases - the rejects of the industrial age and sometimes the direct descendants of the old convicts of the British Empire. While he realised that there was a kind of commonality between the crims and some cops, Jack had never identified with any of them, had always wondered what could be done to prevent people from becoming criminals. Still, lie down with a dog and you get fleas, he thought with a shudder and he was all too familiar with the adage that you set a thief to catch a thief.

      A great wave of dark hopelessness washed over him like the tide off Betsey Island. Jesus, he wanted a cigarette; he'd murder for one. The little junior constable who'd committed lese-majesty cowered by the coffee machine, but Jack ignored him too, and all the other faces that had spun round at their desks when he arrived.