6

I

STRIKE FORCE RLS had been formed.

“Why RLS, sir?” asked a young detective.

“Robert Louis Stevenson,” said Chief Superintendent Random. “He wrote Kidnapped.”

“Ah yes,” said the young officer, a postmodernist graduate who hadn't a clue who Robert (Louie?) Stevenson was. Probably some FBI guy who'd written a thesis on abduction. They were always writing something on something or other.

Random, dry and unruffled as usual, who sailed always on an even keel through rough seas of crime, took Malone aside in the big room at Police Central. On a wall near them the map of the latest crime had been laid out: pictures of the murder victim, of the two kidnappees, plans of the Magee apartment, a potted history of I-Saw. Malone stood with his back to the wall, wanting no reminders.

“You're in this, Scobie, but the maid's murder isn't the major event.”

“That's interesting. Murder is now just a misdemeanour?”

“None of your Irish wit. You know what I'm getting at. Magee and his girlfriend may already be dead—in which case you take over. But while there's a possibility they're both still alive, finding them is the prime objective. We've got two experienced negotiators on hand to deal with the kidnappers, if and when they get in touch with us again. One'll be at I-Saw and the other at the Kunishima Bank.”

“Kunishima won't like that.”

“Tough titty.”

Kylie Doolan's kidnapping had been the major item on this morning's radio and TV news; tomorrow morning's press editorials were right now being written with whip-handles. Talk-back hosts were asking what the police were doing to protect the citizens of this great city; the great city's citizens, Gert and Sid and Larry and Aunty Kate, were responding with advice on how much better they could run things than the mug coppers. Random had advised the strike force to read no newspapers, listen to no radio, look at no television. The public could always run things better: politics, crime prevention, the economy, everything. All it was waiting for was a leader to organize the anarchy.

“The Commissioner would like all this cleared up by yesterday.”

“No problem. Nothing is impossible.”

“Ever tried to snap one finger?” Random illustrated.

“Tell me about one hand clapping. You can get the sound of applause by slapping one hand on your bare bum. How come you Welsh are so bloody philosophical?”

“We're melancholy. Like you Irish.”

“Not any more. The Irish are laughing all the way to the bank. We're now the rich cousins of Europe. My old man, who's been a socialist, almost a communist, all his life, is now talking like Kerry Packer.”

“Seduced. You tossed off the Catholic Church and you're in the grip of Mammon.”

“And enjoying every dollar or punt or whatever they're spending. Like the bastards in this case, till the bottom fell out of the bucket. How's my promotion coming?”

“It's on hold till we wrap this up. Find out who murdered the maid, bring back Magee and his girlfriend alive and you can go straight to Assistant Commissioner.” Then he said seriously, “Do you think the yakuza have taken the girl?”

“Yes.”

“Do the media know who are behind Kunishima?”

“I don't know. Maybe some of the financial columnists do. But libel is another game for the greedy guts and they're not going to mention it in their columns. There are blokes out on the street who'll tell you all the banks are run by yakuza of some sort.”

“Does Four Corners know? About Kunishima?”

“You mean does my daughter Mo know? If she does, she hasn't told me. And I haven't told her.”

“Don't get shirty. I had to ask.” Random changed the subject: “Keep a couple of your people standing by—Wollongong command may call them. They were on to me at Crime Agency this morning.”

“That murdered officer? They got any leads?”

“They're working on a couple, pretty slim ones, they said.”

“Who found the body?”

“Some woman phoned in, said she'd been bird-watching in some bush near Heathcote and she came across his body.”

“They interviewing her?”

“They don't know who she is, she hung up on them. Said she didn't want to be involved in the killing of a cop. Whoever did it might come looking for her. You can see her viewpoint, but that's no help.”

“Are we going to be involved, as the lady describes it?”

“Us? They probably won't need us, it's none of our business. But tell Russ to have someone on hand if they call.”

“I might take it myself, just to get away from this.”

“No, you won't. Where are you heading now?”

“Over to I-Saw offices. I have a date with a sexpot my son brought home last night. She's meeting me there.”

“You'll have none of those thrills when you get to Superintendent. You meet only old boilers.”

“Lisa will be glad to hear that.”

Malone debated whether to take someone with him, decided to go alone. Now that he was leaving the job, heading for a desk, he wanted more time with his thoughts, not with a colleague. He was wrapping up a large part of his life and he preferred to do it alone.

He drove over to Milson's Point. Last night's rain had cleared the air; the day was polished for new uses. The buildings, too, looked as if they had been scrubbed for new uses. Bankruptcy maybe, he cynically wondered. He rode up in an empty lift that seemed surrounded by emptiness, as if the building were only a shell. Yet on other floors but those of I-Saw other companies, still solvent, were at work.

The executive floor looked deserted when he stepped out of the lift. Then at the far end of the room he saw the four people around Jared Cragg's desk. He was halfway towards them before he recognized the three women with Cragg: Caroline Magee, Daniela Bonicelli and Louise Cobcroft.

“We were going to call you, Inspector,” said Caroline Magee while he was still approaching them. “The news about Miss Doolan being kidnapped.”

The three women all looked too friendly, like witches with a common stew in the cauldron. Poor Errol Magee, he thought, but said, “We don't know she's been kidnapped. She's missing, that's all.”

“That's all?” said Cragg.

Is he the witch-master here? But then Magee thought, I'm not on top of this. He had been thrown off-balance to find the three Magee women, wife and ex-girlfriends, together. “That's what we're telling the media. You think we should tell ‘em more?”

“The whole bloody thing's getting out of hand!”

“I'm scared,” said Daniela Bonicelli, but didn't look it.

“So am I,” said Louise Cobcroft, who did look very scared. Or was a very good actress. “Can we ask for police protection?”

“Miss Doolan had it,” said Caroline. “It apparently didn't help.”

Malone smiled at her; or grimaced. “Miss Doolan was a smartarse, Mrs. Magee. Most people, when we're protecting them, try to cooperate with us. She slipped away while our backs were turned. If we give you protection, I hope you’ll cooperate.”

“Me, too?” said Cragg.

“You feel you're in danger, Mr. Cragg?”

Today he was more formally dressed than yesterday: a collar-and-tie job, suit trousers instead of jeans. Maybe, Malone thought, one dressed formally for the final rites of receivership. He wondered where Joe Smith, of Ballantine, Ballantine and Kowinsky was. Downstairs laying out the corpse?

“No,” said Cragg, tightening the yellow tie that lay like spilled egg against his blue shirt. “No, I'll be okay. I'm walking out of here today and Errol can take care of himself.”

“And Miss Doolan, too?”

“She was never part of I-Saw. She's his responsibility.”

“And what about these three ladies?”

“I've just told them, they look after themselves.”

He didn't look at the three women and they ignored him. Malone had read about the mass sackings in the IT game over the past year and he wondered if they had all been as heartless as Cragg made it sound. There was one thing about the public service: when it came to sacking, downsizing, whatever one called it, you never met the real axeman. He was somewhere out there in the fog of bureaucracy.

“We'll look after ourselves,” said Daniela. “You'd better believe it, Jared.”

“What does Errol owe you three ladies?” asked Malone.

“Worthless stock options,” said Daniela, as if reading from a list. This morning there was no sign of last night's amateur coquette; she was all business. “Superannuation, sick leave, last month's pay.”

“The same,” said Louise, when Malone looked at her.

Then he turned to Caroline, who stood apart from the other two women. That's how she would be, he thought, always standing apart. Daniela and Louise were in casual clothes this morning, slacks and shirts; but Caroline was in a suit, ear-rings and necklace in place, handbag at the ready. It suddenly occurred to him that she was the only one of the four here around the desk who showed no sign of wreckage. It was there in the faces of the other three but not in hers.

“Errol owes me nothing,” she said, “except my wasted time.”

“Lucky you,” said Daniela, but Caroline ignored her.

Malone changed tack, said to Cragg, “The woman didn't ring back yesterday at five as she promised. The woman asking for the ransom.”

“No-o. How did you know that?”

“We got a warrant to have I-Saw's phones tapped. I must've forgotten to tell you,” he said with no hint of apology. He was becoming tired of these people. “She called the Kunishima Bank, asked them for the five million.”

“What did the bank say?” It was Daniela who asked the question. She was the one who was doing most of the talking. Louise stood silent, as if she were no more than an office junior. Caroline still stood apart. Like a partner in Ballantine, Ballantine and Kowinsky? Malone wondered. But she had already declared she was no longer interested in I-Saw or Errol Magee.

“They told her, whoever she was, to get lost,” said Malone. “But politely—they're Japanese. Errol's name stinks with them, Daniela. He's stolen forty million dollars from them and salted it away somewhere overseas.”

“Holy shit!” said Cragg; and Daniela and Louise looked as if they were silently echoing him. “Jesus, that could've saved us!”

“You hadn't told them?” Malone looked at Caroline Magee.

“No.” Her tone was flat.

“What a bastard!” Daniela at last found her voice again. “Why can't he pay his own ransom? And pay us?”

“I could cut his throat,” said Louise and for a moment looked a different, dangerous woman.

Malone's worst feelings were getting the better of him. Malice is there in everyone; even St. Francis, when people weren't looking, had thrown stones at the birds of Assisi that shat on him. “Maybe we should turn him over to you when we find him.”

Cragg, Daniela and Louise nodded; but Caroline Magee shook her head. “You can have him. I'm going back to London.”

“When?” said Malone.

“I'm booked out on Friday.”

“What if we find him and he's dead?”

It was brutal, but Caroline didn't flinch. “Then I'll say a prayer for him. In London.”

Malone felt he was getting nowhere. He had come over here to talk to Daniela, to get more background on Errol Magee and who else might be involved with him. But the three women, together, even if unwillingly, were behind a barricade. He would have to take them away separately, subject them to hard interrogation. And he couldn't do that without having lawyers brought in and he was in no mood for that sort of obstruction.

He changed tack again: “Mr. Cragg, may I see you alone? Excuse us, ladies.”

The three ladies were impassive; it was as if two territories of gender had been staked out. Malone took Cragg back through the desert of work-stations to the front desk. “Jared—” Be matey: first rule of police interrogation. “That woman who rang the other day—did you recognize her voice?”

“You had a bloody hide tapping our phones without telling me!”

“I wasn't the one who authorized it. Take it up with our strike force commander . . . Did you recognize the voice? You didn't seem surprised when you got the call.”

“You don't miss much, do you?”

“I try not to. How d'you reckon I'd go in IT?”

Cragg shook his head. “The game's full of fucking blind men you'd eat ‘em.”

“But not you? Weren't you blind to Errol and what he was up to?”

Cragg nodded, glum at his own blindness. “Yeah . . . About that girl. Yeah, I thought the voice was familiar, but I couldn't place it. Still can't—I'm not an expert on women's voices.” He would never listen to them, Malone thought; Cragg would make some of the chauvinists in Homicide look like handmaidens to feminism. “It might've been one of Errors girlfriends. Yes?” He was looking over Malone's shoulder.

Malone turned. Vassily Todorov stood there, dressed for battle in the city streets. He wore black training shoes, black socks, tight black shorts, a green polo shirt with FOLEY'S FLYERS across the front of it in white, and a green-and-white cyclist's helmet shaped like a plume. He wore black gloves and there was a green haversack on his back. He looks bloody ridiculous, thought Malone.

“Mr. Todorov! You delivering something for Mr. Cragg?”

“Who's he?” asked Cragg. “A police courier?”

“Mr. Todorov's girlfriend worked for Mr. Magee. She was the maid who was murdered.”

“Terrible,” said Todorov and the plumed helmet shook from side to side. “In the prime of her life.”

“Do you have something for me?” said Cragg.

“Only a question, sir.” Todorov was not aggressive, but with every muscle exposed in his tight gear, the plumed helmet on the rock of his head, there was a suggestion he was ready for aggression. “Miss Marcos, God rest her soul—she was a Catholic,” he explained; communism still clung to him, like another polo shirt. “She was employed by I-Saw. Her pay cheques were drawn on I-Saw. Signed by Mr. Magee. I think I-Saw owes her superannuation, sick pay and holiday pay. I have added it up. Three thousand, seven hundred and twenty dollars. I am her next-of-kin.”

“Mr. Todorov, you are just her boyfriend,” said Malone.

“Inspector, I am her de facto. I have studied the law. I-Saw owes me three thousand, seven hundred and twenty dollars. I will take a cheque.”

“Mr.—Todorov?” said Cragg. “Go down to the floor below and ask for Mr. Smith. He's in charge of I-Saw now. Tell him what you want and he will put you on his list of creditors. I wouldn't build my hopes, if I were you.”

Todorov looked at Malone, who said, “They're bankrupt, Vassily. I think you'll be lucky if you get five cents. I wouldn't leave Foley's Flyers if I were you.”

“I am no fool, Inspector.” Todorov seemed to grow another inch or two; Malone looked to see if he was standing on his toes. He wasn't. “Bulgarians are born looking four ways at once—history is our godfather. I did not come to Australia to be a bicycle courier for the rest of my life. I am pedalling for higher things.”

This bloke’s having me on. But perhaps he wasn't. Multi-culturism had been in this country for fifty years, but the weave was still as loose as a shark net. Understanding slipped through every day. He knew he would have trouble placing Bulgaria on the map. Somewhere at the arse-end of Europe, bum-wiped by history.

“He's all yours,” said Cragg bluntly and walked away towards a door that led to stairs, going down to the laying out of the corpse of I-Saw.

“They don't care, do they?” said Todorov, looking after him.

“He has things on his mind.” Why am I defending Cragg? Of course he doesn’t care. But then Todorov himself had given the impression that he didn't care, not about Juanita; only about what was owed to her, down to the last dollar.

“I saw the news—Mr. Magee's girlfriend has been kidnapped. It is like Moscow.”

Malone had to smile. “Not quite, Vassily.”

“I hate the Russians. They ruined communism.”

Malone wasn't going to defend Russians or communism. “How did Miss Doolan and Juanita get on?”

“Not very well.” Todorov was not hesitant about his opinion. “Miss Doolan was rude. Australian women are not good with servants. They are either rude or too friendly.”

Ask a Bulgarian communist, a Foley's Flyer, for a considered opinion on Australian women as domestic bosses and don't complain if you get a considered answer. He would have to ask Lisa's opinion tonight. “How did Mr. Magee get on with Juanita?”

“He hardly spoke to her. Except once.”

Maybe Australian men were just as bad with domestic help. Had Errol put the hard word on the maid, as happened in Britain and Europe, according to the movies he saw on SBS? “When did he speak to her? About what?”

“Two weeks ago. Juanita told me about it, she was so surprised.”

“Why?”

“Mr. Magee asked her to keep a secret.”

“What secret?”

Todorov took off his plumed helmet; he looked more human. “A woman came to see him. They seemed to know each other—Juanita thought it might be someone who worked here.” He gestured about him: a little scornfully, as if they stood in the middle of a rubbish dump. Which I-Saw might soon prove to be. “They talked to each other, Juanita thought for about an hour. She was out in the kitchen most of the time. When the woman left, Mr. Magee kissed her.”

“That doesn't prove anything. Mr. Magee seems to have kissed a lot of women. What did he say to Juanita?”

“He came out to the kitchen, she said, and asked her not to tell Miss Doolan the woman had been there. He said he was planning a business surprise for Miss Doolan.”

Mr. Magee had done that, all right. “Did Juanita say what the woman looked like? Describe her? Blonde, brunette, redhead?”

“Women never describe other women's hair.” He was an expert on women, too. Foley's Flyers should be paying him a bonus. “Juanita just said she was smart, in the way she was dressed. But so many of them are these days, aren't they? Power women. Even in Bulgaria.”

“Did Juanita mention the woman to Miss Doolan?”

Todorov shrugged. “Who knows what women mention to each other? I don't think so. Juanita and Miss Doolan were never friendly.”

The question came without thought, the tongue finding its own way: “Do you ever deliver anything to the Kunishima Bank?”

Todorov raised an eyebrow. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

“What do you hear about them?”

“What does one ever hear about banks, except complaints? But not the Kunishima. One never hears anything about them—even the Aussies who work there never gossip. So I'm told.”

“So you're told?”

“Bicycle couriers gossip. You see them sitting around together, what do you think they talk about? Places they have to deliver to, little managers who are rude. Where the good women are on the reception desks.”

“Good women?” Virginal receptionists?

Berlitz had let him down. “Good—sorts? Yes, good sorts.”

Then Caroline Magee came down the long room, moving gracefully, calm as a nun on a sea of charity. “Goodbye, Inspector,” she said as she went by. “Good luck.”

“You'll still be at the Ritz-Carlton?”

“Till Friday,” she said over her shoulder and was gone.

“Who was that?” asked Todorov.

“Mrs. Magee. His wife. Or used to be.”

“His wife?” Todorov's mind slipped back into gear on the bicycle of his greed: “Perhaps she would pay Juanita's superannuation?”

“Mrs. Magee wouldn't pay the Virgin Mary's superannuation.”

Todorov strapped on the plumed helmet again. “I shall not give up.”

“Nor I, Vassily,” said Malone, but felt he was on a treadmill.

II

Briskin brother and sister had walked away from the police car. “God, Corey, what else can go wrong?”

“I dunno.” He leaned against a tree for support; he felt sick, but hollow sick, nothing to come up. “How we gunna tell Mum? How's she taking what happened to Pheeny?”

“Okay. She's making a deal with an ambulance-chaser. We're going to sue the woman who knocked Pheeny over.”

Corey was unimpressed. “Big deal . . . I wanna call it a day, Sis, turn our mate loose and call off the whole fucking thing. I'll go up to Queensland—”

“Where is he?”

Corey nodded across at the police car. “In the boot. I put one of the hoods on him, so he wouldn't know where he is.”

“He could be smothered—Jesus, that's all we want! Three bloody corpses! Get him outa there. Put a hood on—I'll get outa sight till you've got him in the boot of the Toyota. Go on, move!”

“What we gunna do with him?”

“I dunno. Get him outa there and into our boot.”

Errol Magee was only semi-conscious; another half-hour and he would have expired. Corey, wearing a blue hood, carried him over to the Toyota and put him in its boot, taking off Magee's hood at the last moment. Then he slammed the lid down and leaned on the car, his legs hollow again.

Darlene observed the scene with sick wonderment. A man in a blue hood carrying another man in a hood from the boot of a police car to that of another private car. She wished that it was a nightmare and not reality.

She walked across to Corey, drew him away from the car, out of earshot of Magee in the boot. “I've wiped everything in the cop's car that you might of touched, including the boot. Take that shirt off and we'll throw it away somewhere. And this—” She held up the wrench, looked at the bloodstain on its head and grimaced. Then, with a visible effort she gathered herself and him together. “Okay, let's go and see Mum.”

“What use will she be?” All he wanted was to get away from this whole business. “She talked us into all this. Her and Chantelle.”

“You got any other suggestions?”

He looked across at the police car. From where he stood it looked empty; but he knew it was full of total bloody disaster. He sighed, from the bottom of his belly, and said, “No, let's see what they have to say. They're the brains.”

Darlene looked at him at that, but said nothing.

They drove out of the bush and five kilometres up the main road Darlene pulled the car off the tarmac. Corey went into some scrub and buried Constable Haywood's shirt and the wrench. He came back to the car and, not talking to each other, they drove on to St. George's Hospital.

Darlene went in and brought out Shirlee. Phoenix was still in a coma, the only one unworried. He lay under his nest of tubes, more innocent than he had ever been or ever would be, if he lived.

Shirlee was already planning, even as Darlene told her what had happened: “Corey will have to go back to the cottage, pretend he never left there. He'll—”

“Bugger that.” Corey got out of the car. The car park was almost full and he had had trouble finding a space. “That's the first place they'll come looking—”

“Exactly,” said his mum. “We'll drop His Nibs off at our house and Darlene can stay with him. You and me'll go down to the cottage and when the coppers come we'll say you never saw Constable What'shisname—”

“Mum,” said Darlene, another planner but still learning, “who stays with Pheeny? It'll look suspicious, nobody with him while he's still in intensive care. They'll think we're bloody heartless—”

“Yeah, you're right—Didn't your mother tell you not to stare?”

She was looking across the roof of the car at three children, two boys and a girl, all aged about eight or ten, sitting in a Toyota Nimbus with the windows down, staring intently at the Briskins as if watching a TV soap. “We're not staring,” said the girl, more cheek than a bare backside, “we're just looking.”

Then there was a faint yell from the boot of the Briskins' car. Shirlee looked sharply at Darlene. “What's that?”

“It's Errol,” said Darlene, keeping her voice low, seeing the ears on the three heads in the Nimbus standing out like antennae. “We better get outa here.”

So the three of them got back into the Toyota, drove out of the car park; the three kids in the Nimbus waved them goodbye, then thumbed their noses. Corey took the car on a leisurely tour of the nearby streets while they discussed their plans.

“We can't take him back home, not in daylight. Old Mrs. Charlton, she's always at her window watching what's going on. She'd be out, hanging over the fence, before we'd got His Nibs into the house. No, we gotta take him back down to the cottage. We'll keep him there till midnight, then we'll bring him back up here to home, smuggle him in while Mrs. C's asleep. Darlene, you stay with Pheeny, keep in touch with us.”

“On the mobile?”

“Yeah, sure. Just don't mention Mr. Magee, that's all.” Then she looked at Corey, silent behind the wheel. “What got into you? You turning out to have something of your father in you?”

“Dad never done in anybody—”

“Only by accident, he didn't. He always carried a gun . . .” She arranged her thoughts, and theirs, neatly: “All right, it's all arranged. We get on to Chantelle, tell her there's been a hiccup—”

“A hiccup?” said Darlene in the back seat.

“Don't quibble. There's been a hiccup, but His Nibs is still alive and we want the ransom for him. By five o'clock tomorrow at the latest.”

“I was supposed to call the Kunishima Bank today—”

“It don't matter. They're not gunna run away.”

“What happens if I-Saw or the Kunishima Bank don't come good? I was supposed to call I-Saw—”

“Don't be pessmistic,” said the general.

“Holy Jesus!” said Corey, blind with pessimism and despair, and had to brake sharply to avoid running down a small girl on a pedestrian crossing. The little darling stopped, stared at him, then gave him the middle finger salute and walked on.

In the back seat Darlene lay back, laughing a little hysterically.

Corey and Shirlee dropped Darlene back at the hospital and drove south again, back to the cottage. When they took Magee out of the boot of the Toyota, he was once again only semi-conscious. Corey slung him over his shoulder, carried him up into the cottage and into the third bedroom and strapped him in the chair again. Magee opened his eyes, dull as smoked glass, and gazed at Corey as if he didn't recognize him.

Corey slapped him gently on the cheek, shook him. “Come on, sport, snap outa it!”

Magee twitched in his bonds, as if trying to stir up the blood in himself.

Corey was wearing his blue hood. “Sorry we been carting you around like this, but blame your mates. We thought we had a deal on the ransom, but they reneged on it.”

“I don't fucking care any more.” Magee found his voice, a growl that sounded as if it had been buried for a long time.

“Come on!” Corey tried to sound jovial; but didn't feel that way. “Where's your fucking capitalist spirit?”

Magee was slowly coming back to normal; or near normal. “What do you think you are? You're out to make money. Five million. That's not pension stuff.”

For the first time in several hours Corey grinned, behind the hood. “It is for me, sport. You want a leak or anything?”

“Not yet. I'd like a beer, a light one.”

Corey laughed this time; the hood fluttered like a mask about to crumble. “You're on your own, Errol. I'll get you a beer, but it's a VB, not a light one. That okay, sir?”

“Up yours,” said Magee. “Yeah, a VB.”

Out in the kitchen Corey said, “What do we do with him if the cops come?”

“You better gag him,” said Shirlee. “Case he hears ‘em and starts yelling. What're you doing?”

“Getting him a beer.”

“You're spoiling him.”

“Yeah. Fucking ridiculous, ain't it?”

“Wash your mouth out.”

The police sergeant and another constable arrived at seven-thirty in the last light of the day. The sun had gone down beyond the escarpment and there were no shadows, just the diminishing light. The timber back beyond the house was losing its shape, the trees merging into each other, a dark grey wall. Down in front of the house, beyond the road, the timber there had some pale-trunked eucalyptus that still reflected a little light, like thin ghosts waiting for the nights.

Corey, at his mother's instructions, had been waiting out on the front verandah for the police that he and she knew would come. As soon as he saw the police car coming up the road, its headlights already on, he got up and walked unhurriedly, but like a gaited two-legged horse, down to the front gate. Shirlee had come out on to the front verandah, but stayed there, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

“You got some word on my brother?” Corey tried to sound natural. He stepped carefully round a mud patch, noting out of the corner of his eyes that the wallow of mud across the other, wider gate showed only the tracks of one car, the Toyota. “I mean, we ain't heard anything—”

“No,” said the sergeant, “it's another matter. Did Constable Haywood come up here this afternoon?”

“Constable Hay—Oh, the young guy with you this morning? No. Was he supposed to?”

“He said he might.” The two policemen, the younger man standing behind the sergeant, were almost po-faced in their seriousness. “You been here all afternoon?”

“All the time. Me mum come back about an hour ago. When she left, me brother was okay, still unconscious but okay. Me sister's staying with him.” Every word made the Briskins sound like a tightly- knit family, battlers to the core. “When I seen you coming . . . Why are you looking for your mate?”

“We're not looking for him,” said the sergeant. “He's been found. Dead, from a wound in the head.”

“Jesus!” Corey shook his own head, as if it had been clouted. “How'd it happen? Where?”

“We dunno where it happened or how. We thought you might of seen him up here and he'd told you where he was going next.”

“I'm sorry, mate, I can't help you. This is gunna upset me mum when I tell her—she's got a lotta time for you guys.” Feeling more confident, he was letting his tongue get away from him. He pulled back: “I dunno I oughta tell her. Not while she's worrying about me brother.”

The sergeant looked up towards Shirlee on the verandah, now barely discernible in the gloom. “No, don't mention it. Tell her, I dunno, tell her I was introducing Constable Gilchrist here, he's new to our station. Case you wanted any help. Tell her that. Thanks, anyway, for your help.”

“I didn't help at all, Sarge. And I'm sorry about your mate.”

“Yeah,” said the sergeant, getting back into the car. “So are we.”

The junior officer swung the car round and they drove away, disappearing round a bend in the road. Corey stood staring after them, feeling no lift in his spirits. He felt like a swimmer in the surf who knew the waves would keep coming, getting bigger and bigger. The moon came up above the timber and a flying-fox scratched a line across it, defacing it for the moment. He turned and walked back up towards the house while a night-bird called from the timber, up where his father lay buried.

“What did they want?” asked Shirlee.

“Nothing to worry about, Mum.”

The rest of the night dragged till midnight. Then they woke the dozing Magee, put him in the boot of the Toyota.

“Where the fuck are we going now?”

“Wash your mouth out,” Shirlee told him from inside her hood.

They drove up to Hurstville and the three bedroomed house in a quiet street. They smuggled Magee, who had been gagged again, into the house and tied him to a bed in what was Darlene's room. Darlene was at home, waiting for them.

“Pheeny's still unconscious, but they say he's improving. They'll call if there's any change. What do we do now?”

“Go to bed,” said Shirlee, all of a sudden looking tired and (Darlene thought with shock) old. “Tomorrow's the last day.”

“The last day for what?”

“We'll see,” said Shirlee and said nothing more.

In the morning they heard the news on the radio that Errol Magee's girlfriend, Kylie Doolan, was also missing.

III

Malone waited in the foyer of the I-Saw building for Daniela Bonicelli. He had to wait longer than he had expected, but he was a patient man. She stepped out of the lift after twenty minutes, pulled up sharply when she saw him.

“Waiting for me?”

“Who else, Daniela?”

Again there was no coquetry. “I saw you eyeing Mrs. Magee.”

“No more than I was eyeing you and Louise.”

“Are you going to offer me protection?”

“Against possible kidnapping? No, Daniela. I'm with Homicide, we come in after the event.” He was using the big club this morning. Pull your head in, Malone. “I don't think you're in any danger, Daniela. Not unless there's something you haven't told me about?”

“Such as?”

“Did you go and see Mr. Magee at his apartment a coupla weeks ago?”

She looked at him, then looked away. She was carrying a bottle of spring water; she unscrewed the cap and took a swig. Behind her Malone saw four other women, all with the statutory accoutrement of mobile phone and bottle of spring water. No one under the age of thirty, apparently, drank tap water any more. Ecstasy tablets were washed down with spring water; intestines had to be cleaned, though minds might be fogged. He waited till Daniela had capped the bottle again. But his patience was now beginning to wear thin; perhaps he should ask for a swig of spring water to cool him down. At last Daniela looked back at him.

“Yes, I did. I forget which day, I went there one morning when the place was clear. When Kylie wasn't there.”

“What for? I thought you and he had finished that sort of thing.”

“I didn't go there for that. I wouldn't have gone to bed with Errol again for—how much is the ransom supposed to be? Not for any money. I went there because I'd heard a whisper that things were much worse than we'd been told.”

“And what did he tell you?”

“Not to worry. The bastard!” He waited for her to take another swig at the bottle, but evidently she needed something stronger than water. “He said they were negotiating for a Japanese company to come in and bail them out.”

“You believed him?”

“Well, yes and no. I believed him because I wanted to. Errol could be very convincing . . . But when I got back here to the office—” She nodded over her shoulder—“I knew we were finished.”

“And what did you think of doing then?” Like arranging a kidnapping?

“I started looking for another job.” She uncapped the bottle, took another swig, capped the bottle again. Could someone go downhill from non-alcoholism? In the background the other four women, all unconnected, it seemed, had their bottles to their lips, like a silent back-up group. “Which I've decided to take.”

“Who with?”

She looked at him, still with no coquetry. “Inspector, am I under suspicion or something?”

“Why would you think that, Daniela? I never suspect my son's girlfriends.”

“You should,” she said enigmatically; and Malone wondered what Tom got up to, or down to, in bed. “I'm not Tom's girlfriend. We're just—friends. The job? I'm going to work for Kunishima Bank.”

“From IT to banking? The New Economy to the Old Economy?”

“They're connected these days. Don't you bank electronically?”

“No, I have it all in a jar under my bed. Take care, Daniela. And good luck at Kunishima. Especially take care there.”

He left her on that. When he looked back she had the bottle of spring water to her mouth again. Behind her the four women, bottles in one hand, had their mobiles to their ears.

He left Daniela with doubts about her still troubling him. Why had a job at Kunishima suddenly become available? Who had offered it to her? Okada? Tajiri?

He was halfway to his car when his own mobile rang. He stepped into a doorway, as if the call he was about to receive was from a sex worker. Instead, it was Paula Decker, not breathing heavily: “Sir, I took time out from the Magee apartment—someone else is on duty there now. I went up to the Aurora building garage and had a word with Mr. Okada's driver, from the Kunishima Bank.”

“Is he Japanese? You wouldn't have got far.”

“No, sir, he's Italian. I lifted my skirt a couple of inches and he was ready to talk.” Malone said nothing and after a pause she said, “Sir, am I being too facetious?”

“No, Paula. I'm just sorry we don't have those male advantages. I'm also wondering why he wasn't interviewed before this.”

“Today is his first day back at work. Mr. Okada told him to take a coupla days off.”

“That usual with Mr. Okada?”

“The driver says no. I asked him about Mr. Tajiri and Mr. Nakasone. Seems the three of ‘em aren't close mates. The driver says he's never driven Mr. Okada to Tajiri's place. He also said that Mr. Tajiri was not in the office today.”

“Does the driver know Miss Doolan?”

“No, he's never seen her.”

“Did he ever take Okada to the Magee apartment?”

“Never.”

“Where does Tajiri live?”

“I've checked that. He has an unlisted phone number, but Telstra turned it over to me. He lives at Kirribilli, just along the street from Kirribilli House and Admiralty House. He's a neighbour to the Prime Minister and the Governor-General. As respectable as you could ask. It must impress his yakuza mates back home.”

“Paula, don't forget—the yakuza connection is still not on the record. We don't want the media playing around with that, not on our say-so. What's the address?” She gave it to him. “Have you got wheels?”

“No, sir.” She sounded disappointed.

“Go down to the Quay, catch the ferry to Kirribilli—I'll wait for you there at the wharf.” This was not, strictly, Homicide business; but he was part of Strike Force RLS. Greg Random would understand. “Good work, Paula.”

“Thank you, sir.” She sounded as if she had curtsied.

He drove over to Kirribilli, two minutes away, parked the car and went down to the ferry wharf. Years ago he had caught the ferry from here to go to work; the skyline across the water, even life itself, had been much simpler then. The area had climbed up-market, bedsits had given way to million-dollar apartments. Breezes blew across from the city, carrying the scent of money.

When Paula Decker stepped off the ferry twenty minutes later he looked at her before he went to meet her. She was wearing a blue skirt and white shirt today and he saw that she had long slim legs that would have enhanced a stockings advertisement. He could understand why the Italian had responded.

“Are you armed?”

She patted the large handbag slung over one shoulder. “My Glock and also a capsicum spray. Are you expecting trouble?”

“I hope not. But just in case—”

Back in his car he drove it along Kirribilli Avenue, past the two official residences, and parked it at a bus stop. They got out and walked along to the waterfront block of apartments. Malone stood a moment, appraising them like an estate agent looking for business. Even the smallest apartment in the block would have cost a million and a half; the penthouse would probably bring three or four million. Tajiri was doing well for a yakuza.

Paula Decker pressed the buzzer under Tajiri's name. A moment, then a voice said, “Yes?”

“Police. We'd like to talk to Mr. Tajiri.”

“What about?”

“We'll tell him that when we meet him. Let us in.”

“Just a moment, please.”

They waited, and three cars went past, one of them flying a standard on its wings. The Governor-General was on his way to a function, while two detectives waited to interview his neighbour, a yakuza gangster-banker. Only in Sydney, Malone thought.

Then the voice said, “Please come in. First floor,” and the security lock on the front door clicked open. Malone and Paula Decker walked in, found that the first floor was at street level. A slim young man in white shirt, striped waistcoat and black trousers stood waiting for them at an open door.

“I am Teagarden,” said the young man. “Mr. Tajiri's butler.”

“Jack Teagarden?” said Malone.

“No, sir.” Slightly puzzled. “Jocelyn Teagarden.”

“But you play trombone?”

“No, sir.” Still puzzled. “Soccer.”

Malone gave up being a smartarse; he was getting old, the jokes were going downhill. In his mind's ear he could hear the needle screeching to a halt on his old vinyl of Jack Teagarden playing “Lazy River.” “Is Mr. Tajiri in?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you speak Japanese?”

“No, sir.” Jocelyn Teagarden spoke No, sir fluently. Butlers were a rare breed in Australia, but he, apparently, was a well-bred one.

“Then how do you and Mr. Tajiri communicate? I understand he doesn't speak English. Whom did you speak to before you decided to let us come in?”

Teagarden suddenly looked flustered, like a trombone player who had hit a flat note. They had come in through the small entrance lobby and now were standing in the big living room. Behind the butler sliding glass doors led out to a wide terrace; the city skyline was like a mural on a wall of the room, the Opera House shells hiding the lower face like a fan. Doors led off the living room, two on either side, all closed.

“I think you had better tell Mr. Tajiri we're not leaving till he comes out to talk to us.”

The butler hesitated, but before he could turn one of the doors opened; out stepped Nakasone. “Mr. Tajiri is not here, Inspector.”

Malone looked at him, then turned his head towards Paula Decker, who up till now had been still and silent: “This is Mr. Nakasone, Detective Decker.”

Paula gave him a polite nod and he gave a small bow in return.

“He's from the Kunishima Bank. Yesterday I was told he didn't speak English.” He looked back at Nakasone. “A quick course at Berlitz, Mr. Nakasone? I know a Berlitz teacher who might help you.”

“No jokes, please, Inspector. Yesterday Mr. Okada was our spokesman. In Japan we do not all try to be vocal at once.”

“Not like here, eh? We're a very vocal lot. But today you're the spokesman?”

“Yes, today, Inspector. How can I help you?”

Malone looked around. The apartment was apparently rented furnished. There was nothing Japanese in the room except a print of a chrysanthemum against the outline of a snow-capped mountain, a picture as delicate as the flower's petals. Everything else in the room was solidly Ikea. Whoever owned the apartment hadn't splashed money around.

“Do you live here, Mr. Nakasone?”

“No.”

“Then you're just visiting Mr. Tajiri?”

“Yes.”

“Even though he's not here? Is that a Japanese custom?”

Nakasone said nothing; then Paula Decker spoke for the first time: “But you're visiting a woman?”

Up till now Nakasone had ignored her except for his small bow to her; he looked at her sharply, as if to admonish her for having spoken. “What woman?”

“The one who owns that handbag on that chair there.”

Malone hadn't noticed the brown leather handbag tucked into the curve of a club chair. He mentally patted Paula Decker on the back. He let her continue the questioning:

“You're not entertaining the Australian version of a geisha, are you?”

Nice one, Paula. But Nakasone said, “An insulting question.”

Paula went on: “Or would it be Miss Doolan? She's been missing since yesterday afternoon and we know she paid a visit to Kunishima just before she disappeared.”

It was a moment before Nakasone replied: “I know nothing about Miss Doolan. I heard the news this morning that she had disappeared, that she was Mr. Magee's girlfriend. But I have never met her.”

“So whose handbag is that?” said Malone. “There's no Mrs. Nakasone or Mrs. Tajiri, is there? If it's an Aussie geisha you're entertaining, we'll understand, we're broadminded. But just so's we'll know . . . Teagarden, open that door there and ask the lady to come out. We shan't hurt her.”

The butler hesitated, waited on his cue from Nakasone. The latter looked as if he might suddenly erupt in a burst of temper; one could almost see the effort at control. He drew a deep breath, then nodded. Teagarden moved to the door and opened it.

Malone would not have been surprised if Kylie Doolan had come through the doorway. Instead Louise Cobcroft appeared in it.

Malone sighed; this case was turning into a revolving door circus. “Hello, Louise. Holding hands again?” I’m getting to be as sour as that middle-aged cop in NYPD Blue, the one who never smiles. “Or are you like Daniela, taking a job with Kunishima?”

“Yes. And I'm not holding hands, nor am I an Aussie geisha.” She gave Paula Decker a look meant to slice her; but Paula just smiled. “And I don't think it's any of your business.”

She was not flustered, she was cold and defiant. In the company of Caroline Magee and Daniela Bonicelli she had been quiet, just background to their defiance. Now she was throwing up her own barricades. She was smartly dressed today, in a black slimline dress with a silver belt and high-heeled shoes. Her hair was loose but neat and she was remarkably attractive. Errol Magee knew how to pick his women.

“Oh, you're wrong there, Louise,” said Malone. “You'd be surprised just how wide police business can spread. The civil rights know-alls will give you chapter and verse.” He wondered how he sounded to Paula Decker, but she showed no expression. “You're all deserting Mr. Cragg?”

“He's already deserted us. You're okay in the police service, but out in the real world we have to look after ourselves.”

“So we're being told, all the time.” Malone turned to Nakasone, who had been almost rigid since Louise Cobcroft had come through the bedroom doorway. “Is Kunishima taking over I-Saw from the receivers?”

Nakasone hesitated, then nodded. “If the price is right, yes.”

“Five cents on the dollar?” Clements might get back a few bucks.

Nakasone unexpectedly smiled; he had good teeth, expensive ones. “More than that, Inspector. We would hope to get all the money that Mr. Magee has stolen.”

“And where is Mr. Tajiri now? Out looking for it?”

“No. He is away on business.”

“Bank business or yakuza business?” Malone knew he was being reckless, but recklessness sometimes paid off. Be a samurai, he told himself as he stared at the Japanese, wield the sword or whatever it was they used.

Nakasone was unimpressed: “You are very foolish with those sort of remarks.”

But Malone had seen Louise Cobcroft raise her chin and frown, as if she knew what the yakuza was. It was time to leave, now the pot had been stirred, if by a sword instead of a spoon.

“I'd think twice about taking the job, Louise. Goodbye, Mr. Nakasone. Tell Mr. Tajiri that we still want to talk to him.”

Teagarden showed them out. He, too, was frowning, as if suddenly wondering what extra duties a butler might be called upon to do.

Out in the street Paula Decker said, “You put the wind up Miss Cobcroft.”

“I think we put the wind up Mr. Nakasone, too. But we still have to find Miss Doolan.”

As they went to get into their car Paula said, “Who is Jack Teagarden?”

“Was, not is,” said Malone. “One of the best jazz trombonists ever, if not the best.”

She opened the car door and got in. He slid in beside her, anticipating her next remark: “Never heard of him.”

Ah, he thought, lyrical and Celtic all at once, the small horizons of the young. “You disappoint me, Paula. Your generation thinks that the Big Bang of Creation was in the 1960s, that Woodstock was the Garden of Eden. Back in prehistoric times we had music and movies and sex, all the things your generation thinks it invented. Some day I'll bring in my LPs of Bix Beiderbecke and Benny Goodman—”

“LPs?” She was all innocence. “What are they?”

“Pull your head in,” he said, put the car in Drive and drove back through the present: clogged traffic, road rage, middle-finger salutes and some girl on the car radio screaming (not singing, like Doris Day or Kay Starr) lyrics that sounded like Yah, yah, yah. He was getting old, no samurai mob would take a second look at him.

IV

Kylie Doolan was being held prisoner in a deserted warehouse in Chippendale. The warehouse had been taken over by Kunishima Bank as part of a failed mortgage, that of another IT company that had disappeared into the outer space of cyberspace. The building, one-storied and the lone commercial property on the block, was empty while the bank decided whether it should be sold or leased. With the economy going downhill banks, for the first time in a long time, were having to entertain second thoughts.

Chippendale is an old working-class area that is now becoming gentrified, like so many of the inner-city quarters. The old-time residents never went in for up-market crime such as kidnapping; thuggery was more in their line when they decided to break the law. There had been brothels catering to randy students from Sydney University up the road; there was still a brothel close to the university which, with its higher prices and wider variety of service, was only affordable by graduates. For the most part the area was now respectable, if not genteel, with just a few remaining warehouses and small businesses. It would not have condoned Kylie Doolan's kidnapping if it had known of it.

Kylie knew who her kidnapper was. Tajiri had been waiting for her in the lobby of Kunishima. He had introduced himself as Chojoro Ikura, head of security for Kunishima and she had accepted him without query; she liked men's attention and he had been very attentive. He had told her they had got word where Errol Magee was and he was taking her to him. She had never met Tajiri, but he was Japanese and gentlemanly and an executive of the Kunishima Bank and she was delighted that Errol had been located and she was being taken to him. Only when they got down to the garage and the two men, coming out from behind a black van, put a pad over her face did she realize how dumb and stupid she had been. Errol had told her that, several times, and she had just laughed and told him he didn't understand women . . .

When she had woken last night, sick from the chloroform, she had found herself in a small glass-walled office that looked out on a dark, empty floor. The office had a cheap table, on which she lay, and four canvas-backed chairs; it was lit by a standard lamp almost at floor level. Two men, both wearing ski-masks, sat watching her.

As soon as she sat up she wanted to be sick. One of the men, gruff but solicitous, took her out to a toilet and she threw up in the bowl. He produced a paper napkin from somewhere and she wiped her mouth; he was awkward, as if not used to kidnapping women. He took her back to the office, sat her down in a chair and from one of two portable ice-boxes took a bottle of spring water and handed it to her.

“Unless you'd like a beer?”

She gagged at the thought. “I don't drink beer. Why am I here? Where's Mr. What'shisname? Ikura?”

Both men were burly with beer-belly profiles; they had rough Australian accents. The man who had given her the drink looked at the other, who said, “Just relax, love. You'll get all the info you want tomorrow morning. We're just your minders. Like politicians have.” Both men laughed inside their masks.

“Who'll give me information? Mr. Ikura?”

“Yeah, him. He's the boss. You want a sandwich?” The first man produced a plastic-wrapped sandwich from the ice-box. “Ham salad? Or—” He ferreted around in the ice-box. “Or some sushi?”

“No, thanks.” She was afraid, but she had the feeling that these two men would not hurt her unless she was—dumb and stupid. All at once she knew she was here because of bloody Errol and all at once she began hating him. He was a jerk, a rat . . . “Do you know where my boyfriend, Mr. Magee, is?”

“Save the questions till the morning, love. We're gunna have to tie you up in that chair, so you're gunna be a bit uncomfortable. If you promise not to be silly and yell, we won't gag you. But you try yelling and we gunna have to belt you, y'know what I mean? So okay, no yelling or screaming and we don't gag you, okay?”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“You wanna go to the toilet? A bedtime pee?”

“I'd better. You're not going to rape me or anything?”

“Us? We're gay.” Both bellies shook with laughter. “No, love, you're safe. Me and me mate don't go in for rape. Only mongrels do that.”

She went to the toilet, came back and sat down in the chair while they tied her up. “Why are you doing this?”

“For the money, love,” said the second man. “What else?”

She had never spent a more uncomfortable night; nor a more fearful one. She fell asleep after a long time and dreamed, not of the life she had led for the past four years but of Minto, which, for some strange reason, was vague in a golden light.

In the morning when Tajiri (or Ikura, as she knew him) came she felt like a limp doll, everything drained out of her. He stood facing her, bare-faced, no mask.

“You have been treated well, Miss Doolan?” She nodded, her mouth dry, and he jerked a hand at the two men: “Untie her.”

She massaged her wrists and her ankles; he waited patiently. At last he said, “This room is stuffy. We'll go outside.”

The two masked men carried two chairs out into the wide empty floor. Tajiri gestured to Kylie to take a seat and he sat down opposite her. The two men went back into the office, began breakfasting from the ice-box.

“Miss Doolan,” said Tajiri, “we want to know where Mr. Magee is.”

Sitting still and stiff in her chair she looked at him blankly, as if he had spoken Japanese. “What?”

“We know you and Mr. Magee planned his kidnapping. The five-million dollar ransom was just to put us off the scent. You and he planned to disappear with the forty million dollars he has stolen and we were supposed to believe that the kidnappers, whoever they were, had killed him. That, as they say, would be the end of the story. But it isn't. . .” He stopped and waited.

She had difficulty keeping her voice steady. “Mr. Ikura, you are out of your head. No, really. I have no idea where Errol is—I know nothing about the kidnapping—”

He held up a hand for her to be quiet; then he gestured to the two masked men to come out of the office. “Would you gentlemen go for a walk, please? Without your masks.” He said it with a smile, a genial boss.

“Sure,” they said. “Ten minutes enough?”

“Enough,” said Tajiri. He waited till the two men had gone, then he turned back to Kylie. “I don't like hurting women, Miss Doolan, but I do it if it's necessary.”

Kylie looked around her. The windows of the warehouse were high in the walls, all of them barred. In one corner of the big space she saw a computer, its window smashed, on a small table. She was suddenly very afraid; but still she managed not to show it. She was fearful of physical abuse; Errol had never hit her nor had any of her previous boyfriends. She would have retaliated, anger overcoming her fear; but she knew she would not do that with Mr. Ikura. There was a menace to him that she had never met before.

“Is that how you Japanese men treat your women?” She was working for time.

“Not necessarily.” He seemed prepared to talk with her, as if putting her at her ease; but the threat was still there: “A long time ago one of our scholars, who had studied Confucius, said a woman's duty is obedience. He said the five worst things about a woman are for her not to be docile, to be discontented, to slander, to be jealous and to be silly. Seven out of ten women have all those faults. I hope you haven't, Miss Doolan.”

“I'm telling you, Mr. Ikura, I know nothing about the kidnapping of Errol.” Her voice was shaky, but she managed to get the words out without stumbling. “I was the one who called the police, for God's sake! Why would I have done that?”

“Because Mr. Magee made a mistake and killed your maid.” Tajiri was drawing on a black leather glove, just the one. “You knew her body would be discovered eventually. You had to change your plans. That was why you had to stay behind.”

“He killed no one! Jesus, he couldn't even kick a dog or throw a stone at a cat! He hated violence—” Then she stopped and looked at his gloved hand. “Are you going to hit me?”

“I think so. Unless you stop telling lies.”

Then she found courage, or bravado: something found at the bottom of a barrel that she had never searched before: “Then you'll have to kill me, too.”

“I can do that,” he said, but all at once sounded less sure of himself and what he intended to do.

“That's your job as head of security for the bank, to kill women?” The bravado, or whatever it was, was increasing; she had noticed his hesitancy. “Does the bank know that?”

He was unsure of himself with women. Kaibara Ekken had been writing of women's faults in the seventeenth century; he might be confounded with Japanese women in the twenty-first century. For himself, Australian women, the ones in the offices of Kunishima, puzzled him with their independence; the younger women back in Tokyo and Osaka were going the same way. His father, a garbage collector in Osaka, had picked up bits of wisdom besides garbage: never trust a woman was part of his collection. But that had been because Tajiri's own mother had been a woman of independent mind. Here in Sydney it sometimes seemed that he was surrounded by independent women, chewing away at their men as at a meal.

He put the gloved hand in his lap, as if laying away a tool for a moment. “Let's be reasonable, Miss Doolan. The bank is never going to pay the ransom you are asking—”

She shook her head, growing confident by the moment: “Mr. Ikura, I had nothing to do with that ransom. Why would Errol bother about a lousy five million—” She paused, not believing her own tongue. “Why would he bother when you say he has forty million salted away somewhere? Don't you think I'd be over there now, wherever it is, trying to get at it instead of hanging around in Sydney? You don't understand women, Mr. Ikura, not practical women. And I'm practical.”

He was almost convinced she was telling the truth; and hated himself for his weakness. “Then he arranged his own kidnapping and you had nothing to do with it?”

“Yes,” she said flatly. “Errol could be a real bastard. Always looking out only for himself. I dunno what I saw in him,” she said, but Tajiri was unimpressed.

He had taken a risk in meeting Miss Doolan yesterday and coming here this morning. But he was returning to Osaka in two days' time and Nakasone would deny that a Mr. Ikura had ever worked for Kunishima. Okada might prove a problem, but then honest bankers could never be relied upon. His father, the collector of wisdom, had told him that. Only the gods and garbage collectors knew what secrets were found in the waste bins of banks.

“Can you tell us where we might find him? A hideaway, some place in the country?”

She knew she was on top of him now. “If I knew, don't you think I'd have already found him? I think you and the police have all made a mistake, Mr. Ikura. Someone else arranged the kidnapping. I don't know whether Errol had anything to do with it, but I'm sure there's someone else in on it.”

“Who?”

Sometimes she wondered at the intelligence of men, though she had not worked her way through too many nationalities. An American, an Italian, a Brazilian; but no Asians. “Mr. Ikura, if I knew who, I'd have been on their back as soon as I saw those stupid bloody messages on the computers.”

He didn't ask what computers. He had seen them two nights ago when he had gone to the apartment to kill, or torture, Magee.

He said nothing and she knew now she had him by the balls, a woman's cruellest hold: “Take the glove off, Mr. Ikura. You may not appreciate it, but we're on the same side.”

Tajiri stared at her. He was not accustomed to decision-making; the comfort of the yakuza was its committee-like resolutions. Yamamoto Jocho had taught that it was wrong to have personal convictions. Kunishima Bank should be here making this decision.

He was taking off the glove when the two men, pulling their ski-masks back on, appeared at the far door of the warehouse. “Finished, mate?”

These two men wouldn't have lasted a day in the yakuza. They had their own discipline, take it or leave it, mate.

“Just a moment,” said Tajiri, putting up the ungloved hand and holding them at room's length. Then he turned to Kylie: “If Mr. Magee came back to you, would you kill him?”

She had lost her grip on him. “What? No—no, of course not!”

Tajiri put the glove in his pocket, stood up. “I would—after he'd told us where he has the forty million dollars. He's caused far too much trouble.”