Murder Song by Jon Cleary Page B

surrender my passport. That’s between you and me. They were going to get a court order, but I gave it up without going that far. That’s how we’ve kept it out of the papers. All but the rumours,” he added bitterly.
    â€œCrumbs,” said Malone, “you do have trouble, don’t you?”
    â€œYou must be in shit up to your navel,” said Clements, pleasure beaming out of him.
    One of the big hands gripped the seat of the chair again, but O’Brien said nothing. Then Malone said, “Righto, Brian, then you’re going to have to take care of yourself—we can’t give you police protection. In the meantime I’m going to warn Jim Knoble to look out for himself.”
    â€œWill he get police protection? And you?”
    â€œI’ll be disappointed if we don’t,” said Malone and wondered why he felt no pleasure, no small sense of triumph, at O’Brien’s stricken look. Then he knew it was because each was as vulnerable as the other, that neither knew who would get the next bullet.
    III
    Sergeant Jim Knoble was killed that night by a .243 bullet fired from a high-powered rifle at close range. The bullet went right through Knoble’s chest, killing him instantly, and lodged in the back seat of his car, being deflected as it went through out of the side windows. Knoble had parked his car in the side driveway of the block of flats in Coogee where he lived with his wife and teenage daughter. Malone had rung Randwick police station twice, leaving a message for Knoble to ring him back, but Knoble had been out since midday following a drug suspect and had not reported back to the station till 10.10 at night. He had been given Malone’s message, but had said he would contact Malone first thing in the morning. He had signed off, remarked that he was dead tired and gone home.
    Malone and Clements arrived in the side-street above the cliffs at Coogee at fifteen minutes before midnight. The street had been closed, blocked by a motor-cycle cop. Down the street, almost at the cliffs edge, were four police cars, their blue lights revolving, and an ambulance, its red light offering a contrasting colour note. There were also four television vans, looking underprivileged with no lights to flash. Malone noticed they were from the four commercial channels. Clements, a man of natural prejudice, had a theory that the ABC only attended the murders of politicians, Aborigines and conservationists. It was also his belief that SBS, the multicultural network with the shoestring budget, rang up first to see if the victim was an ethnic, otherwise they couldn’t spare the petrol getting there. He hated all the media.
    Detective-Sergeant Wal Dukes, from Randwick, was the local man in charge of the investigation. He was as tall as Malone but heavier, looking massive in the long, glistening black raincoat he was wearing. He was ten years younger than Malone, but had a broad battered face that made him look older. He had once been an Olympic heavyweight, but had never got past his first bout and it had rankled ever since.
    â€œIt looks like someone from the drug ring got him,” he said in a voice that was surprisingly light for his size. “Jim’s been on their tail for a coupla months. It’s one of the Triads, they’ve got pushers all up and down the beaches, from Bondi down to Cronulla.”
    â€œNo,” said Malone. “I don’t think so.”
    He felt sick, as if he were more than halfway responsible for Jim Knoble’s death. He and Clements had called in at the Randwick station on their way down here and had been told that Knoble had been given Malone’s message. His head told him he was not to blame, but his heart, that muscle that can bend reason into a pretzel, insisted he should have gone looking for Jim Knoble. He told Dukes about the suspected hit list.
    â€œJesus! Did Jim know?”
    â€œI was trying to get in touch with him to