Jon Cleary - A Different Turf

The patrol commander, a tall thin chief inspector named Neil Kovax, greeted Malone as an old friend and just nodded at Kagal.

‘I’ll get Garry Peeples in here.’ He made the call on his phone, then sat back. He was bald on top but had full grey hair along the sides; he had a thick military-style moustache which, over the years Malone had known Kovax, he had seen turn from black to grey to now almost-white. He was an old-style cop who, Malone guessed, had taken some time to come to terms with his current turf, a major part of which was the homosexual community’s territory. ‘This is a puzzling one, Scobie. I think we might be dealing with vigilantes.’

‘An ambulance feller said that to me last night.’

Then Senior-Sergeant Peeples came in. He was tall, taller by a couple of inches than Malone, with broad shoulders and muscular arms that seemed to bulge out of his shirt. Malone, abruptly aware of the territory they were now in, could see Peeples being asked to strip for a photo in the gay press. He wondered how Peeples would react to such a request.

‘Inspector—’ He nodded at Malone and Kagal. ‘Has the boss filled you in? No? Well, we’re not sure where we’re heading on these murders. Last night’s was committed by a woman, the three previous ones by three different men. The connection on the three earlier ones was that the bullets came from the same gun – we think a Browning Thirty-two. There hasn’t been an autopsy on last night’s victim, so we’re still waiting on the bullet. But we picked up a shell that’s the casing for a Thirty-two.’

‘The killings, they were all connected to a gay-bashing?’ said Malone.

‘The four we’re concerned with. There’ve been other bashings, some gays, some straights, but they were usually just people being rolled for whatever they had on ’em.’

‘And all four homicides were done by different persons?’ said Kagal. ‘Using the same gun? Assuming last night’s gun was the same one.’

‘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.