Murder Song by Jon Cleary

O’Brien the three red pins on the map behind his chair. “Parramatta, Chatswood, City—three random murders. That’s what we thought at first. There’s going to be another one, I can feel it in my bones—” He had Celtic bones, in which superstition was ingrained in the marrow.
    â€œWe have a hundred and fifty-one names to choose from,” said Clements. “Less Terry Sugar and Harry Gardner. We also have the same number of suspects, less, of course, those two and you two.”
    â€œThanks,” said Malone. “You always know how to keep the spirits up.”
    â€œI was in the class,” said Clements soberly. “But not the same group. I think we can narrow it down to your group, if you can remember them all.”
    â€œThe names aren’t classified in groups?”
    â€œNo. We’re all lumped together.”
    â€œWhat about the photos?”
    â€œThere’s only one, a class photo. There’s a caption on the back with all the names. Except there are only a hundred and fifty guys in the photo. They must have taken the names from the class roll without identifying them with individuals in the photo.”
    O’Brien said sarcastically, “The police academy must’ve been pretty smart in those days. I can’t remember—did they teach us how to identify mug shots?”
    Malone could feel Clements’ resentment even across the desk: no policeman likes the force being criticized, no matter how valid the criticism. He cut in before Clements could make a comment: “Have you worked out who’s missing?”
    â€œNot yet,” said Clements. “I thought we’d start by you two trying to remember the names of all the guys in your group.”
    Malone’s was the mind trained by experience in the use of memory, but it was O’Brien, the half-trained accountant turned entrepreneur, the man who lived by his wits and the dropped name, who remembered most of their group-mates. Clements wrote the names down and then Malone and O’Brien tried to match a face in the photo with a name. The whole procedure took them half an hour. Without remarking on it, both Malone and O’Brien spent as much time looking at themselves when young as they did identifying the other members of their group. Malone felt a sense of loss looking at the distant youth who was himself: he was a stranger whom he wished he knew better. What had he felt in those days, what had he thought about, what mistakes had he made? But it was all so long ago, it was like trying to draw pictures on water.
    At last O’Brien said, “The guy who’s missing is Frank Blizzard.”
    Malone frowned. “I remember the name. But I can’t remember what he looked like.”
    â€œThat was him. As soon as he left you, you couldn’t remember what he looked like. There was something else—”
    Malone waited.
    â€œWe caught him cheating on an exam paper, remember? We hazed him, gave him a helluva hosing with a fire hose, then we kicked him out into—what was it, Bourke Street?—just in his underpants.”
    â€œI remember that,” said Clements. “It was all around the academy the next morning.”
    â€œIt was a stupid bloody thing to do,” said Malone. “I mean, what we did.”
    â€œWe were young,” said O’Brien. “We thought cheating was against the rules.”
    â€œWasn’t it? Isn’t it still?”
    â€œNot in the big wide world, chum. Frank Blizzard was just ahead of the rest of us.”
    Out of the corner of his eye Malone saw Clements’ lip lift just a fraction; he did his best to show no expression himself. “Would what we did to him be enough for him to start killing for revenge?”
    â€œAfter all these years?”
    â€œYou should’ve stayed in the force,” said Clements; his dislike of O’Brien was blatant. “You’d have learned some