Free Dark Summer by Jon Cleary

doorstep.”
    â€œI’m not jumping up and down over it, Keith.”
    Cayburn was not tone-deaf: he noted the asperity in Malone’s voice. “Scobie, nobody’s blaming you. It’s just—well, it’s not something you expect, is it?”
    â€œNo,” said Malone. “No, I didn’t expect it.”
    â€œWell, we’ll keep an eye out. That’s what Neighbourhood Watch is for, isn’t it?”
    â€œThat’s true.” But he wondered if the neighbours would watch or would turn away when the enemy, whoever they were, made their next move. Keeping an eye out for car thieves or housebreakers was one thing; watching for murderers was something else again. “Things will be back to normal in a day or two, Keith. How’s the new year at school facing up?”
    â€œI’ll be under-staffed and over-enrolled. The system’s going to the dogs. You think you’ve got problems in the Police Department?” He went off grumbling.
    Malone drove into Homicide, left the Commodore and joined Clements in an unmarked car; they headed for Glebe and the City Morgue. “You hear anything from Doc Keller?”
    â€œI had dinner with her last night, then she went straight back to the morgue. Doc Gaynor gave her permission to work on his stiff, besides working on Grime.”
    â€œNeither of them have AIDS or hepatitis?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhat’s it like, taking out a girl who works amongst stiffs all day?”
    Clements grimaced. “She says one or two of the married ones, if they’ve been working on a decomposed body, say, their husbands make them take two showers and wash their hair twice before they let ’em get into bed with them. The first night I took Romy out, I took her flowers. She said she’d rather have perfume. That answer your question, Inspector?”
    â€œI wish all witnesses were like you.”
    â€œUp yours.”
    The City Morgue was on Parramatta Road, running right through to a rear street. Across the main road from it was the entrance to the playing fields of Sydney University; in his youth Malone had played cricket there against the university team, the closest he had ever come to tertiary education. There were no regrets that he had never made it there, but he was determined that none of his three kids would be denied the opportunity. These days education, not love, made the world go round, even if sometimes in the wrong direction.
    They were told Dr. Keller was working down in the Murder Room. Both detectives knew its location and they went through the long main room where several assistants, in their long white rubber aprons, were at work on corpses. There were sixteen stainless-steel tables, plus sinks, on either side of the main aisle; between each pair of tables was a hanging scale, such as Malone had seen in the local greengrocer’s. Blue-barred insect-killers hung from the ceiling like neon honeycomb and half a dozen air-conditioners whirred softly. A mixture of smells clogged the air: chemicals, blood, decomposing flesh. The staff looked up as Malone and Clements walked down the aisle, one or two of them tossing jokes as they leaned on the cadavers on their tables. Malone, a man with a reasonably strong stomach, kept his gaze above table level.
    The Murder Room was at the far end of the main room and set off to one side. It was about twenty foot square, its doors lead-lined, a blue-barred insect-zapper on one wall, an X-ray machine above one of the two tables. On the other table, under a large green-domed lamp, lay Scungy Grime, naked, face down.
    Romy Keller, in white gown and rubber apron, looked up as they came in. “I have nothing definite for you yet. Kissen, the other corpse, is outside in the filing cabinet.” She didn’t smile, so Malone guessed that what had once been a joke was no longer so. “She has a puncture under her right buttock, just as our friend here has.”