6

I

THE SUN family had been visited by Phil Truach and Sheryl Dallen on Saturday morning; the two detectives had come back to report that the family, devastated by the tragedy, could offer no help at all. When Deng, the consul-general, had left, Malone called Gail Lee back into his office.

“We’re going over to see the Sun family, Gail. I’ve looked up Phil’s notes—there are two sons in the family about the same age as General Huang’s son and daughter. Maybe the Sun boys knew them.”

“What about Camilla Feng? Maybe she knew them, too.”

“We’ll try her, too. But first . . .”

“Phil showed me his notes. The two sons work in the father’s office—it might be better to try there first.”

“Do you know where the office is?” Why do I bother to ask?

She looked at her own notebook. “In the Optus building in North Sydney.”

“Gail, are Chinese women all as thorough as you?” He said it with a smile to make it politically correct.

“Of course. The most efficient rulers of China have always been women.”

“I thought you said those two women, Tzu and the other one, were cruel and brutal?”

“So?” she said with her own smile.

“I’m going to have to watch out for you.”

“No,” she said without a smile. “I have too much respect for you.”

He could accept praise and respect; he had just not expected her to offer it. “Thank you.”

On the way out of the main office he spoke to Sheryl Dallen. “Ask Immigration for a list of all arrivals in the past two weeks travelling on Chinese passports. Eliminate the women and old men. I’m guessing, but we’re looking for a man in the twenty-five-to-forty-five age group. It’s a long shot, but try it. How are we going on the mobile phone trace?”

“Nothing so far. The media may have stuffed it up for us. There’s a piece in the paper this morning about how Telephone Intercepts was used to trace a rapist. If our missing guys read it, they could be shrewd enough to stay off their mobiles.”

He said nothing, frustration choking him.

He and Gail drove through the city and over the Harbour Bridge through a humid day that threatened a late afternoon storm. Haze hung like the thinnest of veils and already out west, towards the mountains, clouds were piling on top of each other like another, higher range. Up ahead an illuminated sign on top of an office building said the temperature was 34°C, but that was up where the pigeons flew. Down in the narrow streets of North Sydney Malone knew it would be much more uncomfortable.

North Sydney lies at the northern approach to the Bridge, no more than a couple of kilometres from the main city. It is a post-World War Two development, an inner suburb of terraced houses and a few mansions that was now a jumble of office high-rises. The jumble had sprouted before town planners had grown to have influence. Houses and small shops had been pulled down, high-rise buildings had gone up like controlled explosions. Belatedly there had been efforts to control planning and development, but the damage was done thirty or forty years ago. The largest open space is its busiest cross-intersection.

Gail parked the car in the Optus building underground car park and the two detectives rode up to a middle-level floor where the Sun family company had its offices. It was a modest establishment behind two large glass doors: an outer office and two inner offices. The gold letters on the glass doors said no more than Sun Limited, like a cautious weather forecast.

There were two girls at separate desks in the outer office, a bottle-blonde Caucasian and a blue-black Chinese. They had almost identical hairstyles and looked like a positive and negative image of the same girl.

Malone produced his badge. “We’d like to see Mr. Sun.”

“Certainly, sir. Mr. Darren or Mr. Troy?”

I don’t believe this: Chinese Rugby league players? “Both.”

Both Sun sons were in the same inner office, at desks on opposite sides of the room. Through an open door there was a glimpse of a large corner office with a view down to the Bridge and across the water to the main city. Evidently it had not yet been decided which heir would move in there.

Darren was the taller and older of the two brothers, Troy the plumper. Both were without their jackets, wore uncrumpled white shirts with plain black ties, were stiff and formal: starched either with grief or at this intrusion on their grief.

“Has your father been buried yet?” Malone asked.

“Not yet. He is being cremated tomorrow.” Darren appeared to be the spokesman: Troy stood to one side, on the bench as it were. “I hope you have not been worrying our mother?”

“We try not to worry anyone, Mr. Sun, but we do have to ask questions if you want us to find the man who murdered your father.” It was an explanation cops had to make time and time again. It was extraordinary the number of people who seemed to believe that a murder could be investigated without any input from them, no matter how close they might be to the victim. “I’ll be as brief as possible. Did your father confide much in you?”

The brothers glanced at each other; then Darren said, “Yes. We’re partners—junior partners—in the family company.”

“The sign on the door,” said Gail Lee, “says Sun Limited. You’re not a proprietary company?”

“We’re a public company, but not a listed one. It was my father’s whim—he wanted people to think the family company was publicly listed on the stock exchange.”

“Quite a whim,” said Gail. “Not Chinese at all.”

I’m glad you said it, thought Malone.

“It’s the Australian in us,” said Darren. “Everything out in the open.”

“If you are partners,” said Malone, stepping into what looked like the beginning of a civil war, “you’ll have some idea of what was going on at Olympic Tower?”

“In what way?”

Uh-uh, we’re suddenly Chinese now. “Did your father know Mr. Shan’s true identity? Did you?”

Again a glance between the brothers; then: “Our father knew who he was. He didn’t tell us till about a month ago.”

“Why then?”

It suddenly appeared to dawn on the brothers that this questioning might go on; up till now they had remained on their feet and had not invited the two detectives to sit down. Now Troy said, “Perhaps we should go into the other room—it’s more comfortable there.”

He led the way, waved Malone and Gail to two chairs, sat down beside the large carved teak table that served as a desk. Darren followed, sat down behind the desk. The heir had been decided.

“About a month ago,” said Darren, “Mr. Shan—General Huang, if you like—looked to be having money problems. The Bund Corporations progress payments on the construction weren’t coming through on time. That was when our father explained General Huang’s connections, when he suspected that the Bund set-up wasn’t kosher.”

“Kosher?” Malone grinned.

The grin seemed to take some of the starch out of the brothers. “We have a Jewish accountant.”

“Chinese and Jewish?” said Gail. “You must be unbeatable.”

The brothers said nothing and the joke fell flat. Back off, Gail: Malone said, “Did the money situation improve?”

Both brothers had their eyes on Gail, as if trying to place why a half-Chinese woman detective should be here. Then Darren looked back at Malone. “Not immediately, no.”

“Was the Bund Corporation still behind on its payments when General Huang was killed?”

“Yes.”

“What about Madame Tzu? She’s a director of Bund.”

“Madame Tzu came good, yes.” Darren looked at his brother: “How much?”

Troy felt obliged to explain himself: “I’m the finance officer. Madame Tzu came up with thirty per cent of the progress payment.”

“How much?” said Gail.

“Five million.”

“That leaves quite a lot short,” said Malone. “Did you know General Huang’s son and daughter?”

The brothers seemed surprised at how much the detectives knew.

“We thought that had been kept very quiet,” said Troy. “We met them for the first time about two or three weeks ago. General Huang brought them to our parents’ house.”

“Did you get to know them?”

“We took them out to dinner,” said Darren. “To the Golden Gate, as it happened. Just the once. They were not easy to know.”

“In what way?”

Another glance between the brothers, then Troy said, “We thought they were scared.”

“So they should’ve been,” said Malone. “They were sitting on the money that should’ve been going into Olympic Tower.”

A moment, then Troy said, “We know. Investigators from the government were here—they told us they were investigating infractions of the Cash Transactions Reporting Act.” He recited the title as if he were familiar with it and Malone wondered if Sun Limited had occasionally been guilty of an infraction or two. “There was money here in certain accounts that they thought might have been meant for Chinese investment in Sydney. We were on the list as possible targets. They didn’t tell us how much money was involved, but they did tell us it was in two students’ bank accounts. Dad and us, we put two and two together. We guessed who the students were.”

“The investigators didn’t tell you how much was involved?” said Gail.

The Sun brothers shook their heads.

“Fifty-one million. US dollars.”

If Gail had expected any reaction from the brothers, she was disappointed; they were suddenly inscrutable. “Well!” said Darren, and that was the only reaction from either of them.

“Why were the two of them scared?” asked Malone.

“We don’t know,” said Darren. He had a habit of wiping one hand across the other, as if washing his hands of something; now it looked to be more a hint of panicky nerves. “Maybe they were unused to such large amounts of money—”

“People do get afraid of large amounts of money,” said Troy, who looked as if it would take the national debt to frighten him. “That’s why so many lottery and casino winners blow the lot, soon’s they get it. They’re scared of it.”

Malone, who never bought a lottery ticket or paid a bet, said nothing, just nodded to Darren to go on. Who did: “The other thing that may have scared them was because they suspected someone other than the government investigators knew about it.”

“Such as someone from China?” said Malone.

Both brothers nodded, Darren wiped his hands furiously, and Malone went on: “Are you scared?”

Darren looked down at the arms of the heavy teak chair in which he sat, as if he half-expected to see the ghostly hands of his father clutching at them. He’s not sure he wants to sit in that chair, thought Malone.

Then Darren said, “Wouldn’t you be scared?”

“Yes, I think I would be. It might be an idea if you hired a coupla security guards. You know that the son is dead. Li Ping, the daughter, is missing—she may be dead, too. The two Chinese engineers who were working on Olympic Tower—they’re missing, too. Did you know them?”

Troy nodded. “Madame Tzu brought them to our house once. Nice guys, very clued up.”

“Clued up about what?”

Troy raised his shoulders, spread his hands. “Everything. These guys weren’t peasants.”

“Were they Communists?” asked Gail.

“I doubt it. I don’t think any young people in China today are Communists, not the old-fashioned sort. These guys were into fashion—” He unexpectedly laughed, a pleasant sound. “Darren and I were square compared to them. They were into all the Italian gear. I didn’t get any idea that they believed in spreading the wealth.”

“But well-dressed as they were,” said Malone, “you still got the idea they were scared?”

“Not them, no,” said Darren. “They acted as if they had the world made.”

“Till Friday night,” said Malone. “They were gone Saturday morning.”

The phone on the desk rang and Darren picked it up. He frowned, then said, “Tell her to come back later.”

Malone was on his feet ready to leave. Something in Darren’s face made him pause; the young Chinese this time was not inscrutable or had not practised enough. “Madame Tzu?” Malone said.

Darren frowned again. “No.”

Malone turned swiftly, crossed to the door that led to the outer office and opened it. “Miss Feng?”

Camilla Feng turned back from the main doors. “Inspector Malone! Why, what a nice surprise.”

I’ll bet. “Care to come in and join us? Better than coming back later, as Mr. Sun advised.”

She went past him into the corner office. She was dressed in a black suit with a single strand of pearls and matching ear-rings; she wore black crocodile shoes and carried a matching bag. She looked most elegant, but if animal welfare activists had fired on her Malone was sure she would have fired back.

Both Sun brothers came forward to kiss her on the cheek; it was obvious all three were old friends. Then she turned to the two detectives and did her best to look on them as friends. She certainly looked more at ease than the Suns.

“Were you expecting me?” she asked.

“No,” said Malone. “To be honest, you weren’t on my mind at all—someone else was. But now you’re here . . .” He recounted the conversation he and Gail Lee had had with the Sun brothers. “Did you know all this?”

The hesitation was almost imperceptible; but Malone caught it. “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell us when we came to see you at your home?”

“I didn’t know it then.”

If she was lying, it was difficult to tell. Malone sighed, an act he was good at. “Seems that everyone around here arrived at a lot of information pretty late in the piece. Wouldn’t you say so, Constable Lee?”

Gail nodded; she hadn’t yet learned the change-the-bowler act that Malone had developed with Clements. But she wasn’t entirely clueless: “Exactly why are you here, Miss Feng?”

“Ms. Feng,” Camilla corrected her; it was the first time Malone had heard one woman correct another on the title. “For the moment I am running my father’s company. And he was in partnership with Darren and Troy’s father on a number of other things besides Olympic Tower.”

“Good,” said Malone, deciding for the moment to leave out what the number of other things might be. “We’re starting to get some focus here. So what are you planning to do? The three of you?”

The three of them looked at each other; then Darren said, “Continue with Olympic Tower.”

“What are you going to do about the shortage of capital?” said Gail.

Good on you, thought Malone. A Chinese woman counting the money.

Camilla turned to the Sun brothers. “Haven’t you told them?”

“Not yet,” said Darren, anything but inscrutable this time.

“Told us what?” said Malone.

The brothers were distinctly uncomfortable; then Troy said, “We are trying to negotiate something with General Wang-Te.”

“And who the hell is General Wang-Te?” Malone’s patience was now paper thin. Even Gail Lee looked exasperated.

The three Chinese were silent a moment; then Camilla, the most composed, said, “He arrived yesterday from Shanghai. He is the financial comptroller of the Southern Command army. He is here to try and have the money in those frozen bank accounts returned to China.”

“And you think he might be seduced into putting the money into Olympic Tower?”

Camilla smiled, still more at ease than the Sun brothers. “Seduced is hardly the word, Inspector—I wouldn’t go that far.”

Malone returned her smile, keeping her in good humour. “Not for fifty-one million?”

“If it was for myself . . .” She gave her smile this time to the Sun brothers, who both looked even more uncomfortable. “No, Inspector, we are trying to talk to General Wang purely on commercial terms.”

“Does the Chinese army go in for commercial deals?” asked Gail.

“That’s what we are hoping to find out.”

“Where is General Wang now?”

“Staying with Madame Tzu.”

II

“Gail, you stay here with these gentlemen, see they don’t make any phone calls to Madame Tzu or General Wang.”

Darren was highly offended. “Don’t you trust us?”

“Absolutely,” said Malone. “It’s just that we cops are so damned suspicious. May I use your phone?”

“Have we any choice?”

“No, but we always like to ask.” He picked up the phone, dialled Homicide. “Russ? Meet me down at the Vanderbilt, wait for me in the lobby.”

“When?” said Clements. “I’m up to my navel in paperwork—”

“Now.” He hung up. “Do you have a car, Ms. Feng?”

“It’s down in the garage. Are you going to borrow it?”

“No, I’m asking you to drive me in to see Madame Tzu and General Wang.”

“As Darren asked, do I have any choice?”

Malone grinned. “Of course you do. But you wouldn’t like to be suspected of complicity in theft, fifty-one million dollars, would you? That money General Wang is trying to retrieve was stolen, wasn’t it?”

“Put like that—”

“There’s no other way to put it.” He turned to Gail: “Think up some more questions for the gentlemen, Gail.” He looked back at the brothers: “Who knows who Mr. Shan really was?”

“Only us and Camilla,” said Darren. “And of course our fathers knew.”

“And Madame Tzu. Keep it that way. Anyone comes to talk to you. General Huang is still Mr. Shan.”

Going down in the lift Camilla said, “Are you any closer to finding out who murdered my father?”

“A little closer,” was all Malone would tell her.

Then two girls got into the lift, discussing some male yahoo who made Bruce Willis look like Prince Charming, and Camilla and Malone rode the rest of the way in silence. When they got out in the garage she led him to a blue Mercedes.

“I thought you’d be a BMW girl.”

She slid in behind the wheel. “This was my father’s car. I do have a BMW, but not for business. This is a fringe benefit.”

She drove out of the garage, handling the heavy car expertly, found her way on to the approach to the Bridge. “Do you have the toll?”

He glanced sideways at her. “You mean a car like this doesn’t have a piggy-bank?”

“It does, but I’m not here by choice. Two dollars, please.”

He fished in his pocket, gave her two dollars. “You’d have paid two bucks to get home to Drummoyne.”

“I go home by way of Gladesville Bridge—there’s no toll.”

“My family think I’m tight-fisted. I think you’d give me a run for the money.”

Her gaze was intent on her driving. “My father began life mixing and selling herbs in the old Paddy’s Markets. He built his fortune by saving pennies.”

“You’re going to do the same?”

She turned her head for a moment. “No, I’m saving bigger denominations than that.”

“Do you and Madame Tzu have much in common?”

“What sort of question is that?” But she gave him an answer after driving some distance in silence: “Yes, we possibly do. Does that worry you?”

“It might—some time,” he said.

She turned her head again. “That’s an enigmatic answer.”

“It’s the Irish in me,” he said, and she threw back her head and gave a full-throated laugh. She looked all at once a different girl. How many sides are there to her?

“Are you married, Inspector?”

“With three kids.”

“What a pity.”

When they achieved a parking space in Macquarie Street right opposite the Vanderbilt Malone felt his luck might be in. General Wang might prove more co-operative than anyone else involved in Olympic Tower. But he made no immediate attempt to get out of the car.

“Last Saturday you said Madame Tzu was your mother’s cousin.”

“Second cousin, actually.”

“How long have you known her?”

She appeared co-operative, almost too friendly. She had turned in her seat, leaning back against the car door, facing him squarely. “She just turned up out of the blue about a year ago. She sort of adopted us.”

“How did your father get on with her?”

“Dad would fall over like a puppy if a good-looking woman looked at him.”

“How did your mother feel about her second cousin?”

“She didn’t trust her.”

“Is there a Mr. Tzu?”

“There was. She says he’s dead. He was a banker or something in Hong Kong. But we have only her word for it.”

“You’re like your mother—you don’t trust her?”

“I can handle her.”

“I’m sure you can.”

As they got out of the car Malone looked up; the sky was black, clouds spewing up like oil smoke. Then there was a deafening crash of thunder and a blaze of lightning in which the buildings across the road seemed to tremble.

“Do you believe in omens?” Camilla said as they crossed the street.

“All the time.”

He had taken her arm as they dodged the traffic and now she squeezed his hand between her arm and ribs. Cut it out; but he didn’t take away his hand.

Clements was waiting for them in the lobby. “You haven’t met Ms. Feng?” said Malone, removing his hand now.

“No,” said Clements, impressed but cautious. Then to Malone: “What are we doing here?”

Malone explained what he had learned at the Sun office. “The madame doesn’t know we’re coming. Let’s hope the general is still with her.”

“He will be,” said Camilla. “He’s expecting me. This was to be my next call.”

“Then you owe me two bucks,” said Malone.

She opened her handbag, gave him two dollars with a smile and led the way to the lift. Clements raised his eyebrows enquiringly, but Malone just shook his head. He could smell a Chinese stew on the menu.

There was no doorman in sight to announce them to Madame Tzu and as they stepped into the lift Malone said, “If they ask who you are over the intercom, don’t mention us. We’ll just follow you in when they open the door.”

“You may get a blast from Madame Tzu,” said Camilla.

“Just so long as it’s not from a gun,” said Malone, and was instantly sorry when he saw her wince. Even Clements, used to Malone’s sometimes loose tongue, looked at him.

The door was opened by the maid, who looked at the two detectives in surprise, then scurried away into the apartment, saying something in Chinese. Only a moment or two passed before Malone and Clements followed Camilla into the big living room, but Madame Tzu, it seemed, had already prepared herself.

“Why, Inspector, how unexpected! The gentleman with you is also a policeman?”

She’s warning the general “Sergeant Clements, our Supervisor at Homicide. And this gentleman is . . .?”

“General Wang-Te.”

Malone had had no experience of Chinese generals. He had a dim image of Chiang Kai-shek from a documentary he had seen months ago on the Soong sisters; the generalissimo had appeared to have more than the usual straight-backed arrogance of Western generals. Wang-Te was thin, stoop-backed and wore glasses; he was in a black suit and stiff white collar and looked like the cliché bookkeeper. Perhaps that was why he was the financial comptroller. He just smiled a big-toothed smile at the two detectives, but said nothing.

“Does the general speak English?” Malone asked.

“Fluently,” said Madama Tzu. “And French and German.”

“We’ll stick to English, our French and German are a little rusty. May we sit down?”

“Of course, how rude of me.” She said something in Mandarin to the general.

“What did Madame Tzu say?” Malone, rudely, asked Camilla.

Camilla looked at the older woman, who said, “I told the general, one can forget one’s manners after a day or two amongst Australians.”

Malone ducked his head in mock acknowledgement. “Take no notice of her, General. We’re not really rude, it’s just our rough-and-ready ways—”

There was another tremendous crack of thunder and the building seemed to shake. Then beyond the windows the rain fell down in a thick curtain, silvered by lightning.

There was silence in the room for a moment, as if everyone was waiting for another avalanche of thunder; then Malone said, “I understand you are here to try and recover some millions of dollars that ex-General Huang seems to have misappropriated?”

“That is correct.” Wang had a soft precise voice. “Fifty-one million. A large amount.”

“When did you find out the money was missing?” said Clements, taking over the bowling.

Wang-Te might look like a bookkeeper, but he had a general’s appreciation of rank. “You are only a sergeant?”

“A senior sergeant, actually,” said Clements. “Licensed to ask questions of anyone of any rank.”

Good for you, thought Malone; but looked at Madame Tzu. “Madame, I think things will go better if we stop trying to score points off each other.”

The general and Madame Tzu exchanged glances; then she nodded. “As you wish. Inspector.”

Wang-Te looked at Camilla Feng. “What have you told the gentlemen, Miss Feng?”

She didn’t correct him to Ms.; she knew an irredeemable chauvinist when she saw one. “Nothing they didn’t already know.”

Nice one, thought Malone: looks like we’re in for a little prevarication.

“Inspector—” said Wang-Te, ignoring the senior sergeant. “We only learned of the missing money three weeks ago. It had, of course, been coming here for some months—not here, exactly, but into Hong Kong on its way here.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, General, but I understand you are the financial comptroller—wouldn’t you have noticed such a large sum of money missing from your army accounts?”

“You are naïve, Inspector—” There was another clap of thunder, as if to underline the insult. Wang-Te waited, then went on, “The money didn’t come from army accounts—not all of it.”

“Then where from?” said Clements.

It seemed to pain Wang-Te that he had to answer someone so far down the totem pole in rank. “Investments.”

“Army investments?”

The general ignored the question, looked back at Malone. “The army has a bureaucracy like everything else. Scandal takes a long time to float to the top.”

“When you did learn it was missing, did you send someone out here to Sydney to, well, influence General Huang?”

“In what way?”

“I’m going to be rough-and-ready—by threatening him?”

Wang-Te looked at Madame Tzu, who was ready for her cue: “Are you accusing the general of ordering the murder of General Huang?”

There was another clap of thunder, further away; the rain abruptly ceased. There was a weak blaze of sheet lightning and a moment later a bedraggled pigeon, an orphan of the storm, stumbled onto the windowsill, flapping its wings furiously.

“Poor bird,” said Camilla, but no one else seemed at all interested in the sodden pigeon.

Malone said, “He may not have ordered the murders, but if he sent someone out here, things got out of hand. The gun that killed General Huang, Mr. Sun and Miss Feng’s father was the sort of weapon that’s used by the Chinese army in covert operations. A Type 67,” he told Wang-Te.

“I know the gun,” said the general, “but I am not an ordnance man—that is not my field. Neither are, as you call them, covert operations. I did not send anyone out here to see Huang, with or without a gun.”

“He must of had accomplices in China,” said Clements, too long out of the attack. “Have you discovered them and dealt with them?”

“Yes.”

“Executed?”

“They are still awaiting trial. Our legal system is not as rough-and-ready as you seem to suggest, Sergeant.” The rank was emphasized, a put-down.

Malone turned to Madame Tzu. “If the fifty-one million dollars goes home to China, is your investment in Olympic Tower in trouble?”

“What have you told them?” Madame Tzu snapped at Camilla.

“I told you—nothing they don’t already know.”

Another brick in the Great Wall: keep it up, Camilla. Malone waited patiently till Madame Tzu looked back at him.

“Yes,” she said in a flat tone, “It will place the whole project in jeopardy.”

“Not quite,” said Camilla quietly. She had been sitting between Malone and Clements, demure as an old-fashioned convent girl: one who would think nothing of cheating at exams after three Hail Marys. Malone had remarked how totally self-contained she appeared to be, as if the two older Chinese did not in the least awe her. “There are half a dozen corporations around town that will jump in if we invite them. The trouble is if we do that, then our investment goes out the window. You and I and the Sun brothers will be told to get lost.”

The older woman’s face was suddenly as hard as ivory. Malone wondered if anyone, even the Red Guards, had ever told her to get lost. Camilla’s pragmatism, it seemed, was devastatingly offensive.

“What about the Aldwyches and Les Chung?” asked Clements.

“They have more clout than we have,” said Camilla. “They would stay.”

She was businesslike to a degree that Malone had to admire; he was beginning to be on her side. But there was a coolness, almost a coldness, to her that took the edge off his admiration. Did she weep for her dead father when she was alone? Was she more concerned for her legacy than for him?

Malone said, “While the money is still here. General, would your army command be interested in putting the money into Olympic Tower? You mentioned army investment.”

Wang-Te might have been asked if the army command should be asked to declare war. “Inspector, I wouldn’t ask a question like that from here.”

“But you might ask it when you get back to Shanghai?”

Wang-Te shrugged, it wouldn’t be an army command decision. “Do your defence forces throw money around?”

“We civilians think so,” said Clements. “They’re the only ones who never suffer a cut in their budget.”

“Whom are they afraid of? China?” Wang-Te almost smiled as he threw the bait.

Clements didn’t bite. “While you’re here, why don’t you ask them?”

Madame Tzu had been on the sidelines too long. Her models were Mei-ling Soong and Margaret Thatcher; she was not a by-stander. “Olympic Tower is a solid investment with a guaranteed return. It is not like some of the schemes some of your con men, your entrepreneurs—” she gave the word a swipe of acid—“the schemes they launched a few years ago. Do you think Mr. Aldwych would have put money into this if he thought it was a risk? I know his past record—”

“You did homework on him?” said Clements.

“Of course.”

“You told him?”

“Yes. It didn’t upset him. He told me he had retired from his old line of work—”

“Did he tell you that he’d retired but not reformed?” asked Malone.

“Yes, he told me that. Every country has its retired criminals, doesn’t it? You accept their money at face value.”

Malone grinned, shook his head. “Do you voice that sort of opinion in China?”

Madame Tzu looked at Wang-Te; he gave a thin smile and she took that as approval of what she was about to say: “In Shanghai, yes. If one doesn’t take money at face value in Shanghai, one never attracts it.”

Malone looked at Wang-Te. “So will you recommend the investment of the fifty-one million in Olympic Tower?”

“That will depend,” said the general. “First, your authorities have to release the money, then it has to be transferred back to China. But why do you ask? Aren’t you interested only in the murders?”

“You look in every mirror you find,” said Malone, and smiled at Madame Tzu. “Old Homicide aphorism.”

“In the meantime,” said Camilla Feng, “you appear to be getting no nearer to finding who killed my father and Mr. Sun.”

Malone remarked that she hadn’t mentioned General Huang: the disposable one? “Oh, we’ve come some way, much further than we were last Friday night.”

Clements came in: “You are quite sure. General, that no one came here from China to kill General Huang?”

“I didn’t say that. I said I didn’t send anyone on such a mission.”

“So the killer could of come from China?”

“Possibly. Huang had many enemies.”

“Did you know any of them, Madame Tzu? You were in business with him.”

“In business, Sergeant, one makes and needs enemies. Friends never sharpen your wits the way enemies do.” She looked at Malone. “Old commercial aphorism.”

He grinned and got to his feet. “When this is over, I’ll come for tea . . . When are you going back to China, General?”

“As soon as possible.”

“Before you go, I hope to be able to tell you who committed the murders.” It was a dim hope, but the credo had to be demonstrated: the police are hopeful of an early arrest. “May I use your phone, Madame Tzu?”

She waved her hand towards the entrance hall and he went out there; then had to put his head round the door: “Miss Feng, what is the Sun office number?”

She took a small Filofax from her handbag, but before she could flip it open Madame Tzu gave the number.

Clements said, “You have a good memory.”

“One needs it,” she said but didn’t explain why.

Malone, out in the hall, dialled the number, asked for Gail Lee, who came on the line almost at once. “You can go back to the office, Gail. How’d you go with the brothers? Learn anything more?”

“Yes,” she said, and he could hear the undercurrent of excitement in her voice: “Li Ping, the missing girl, was not Huang’s daughter—she was adopted. She and Zhang, who was Huang’s natural son, didn’t get on. They hated each other.”

III

“He used to play one against the other.”

“Splitting heirs?” said Clements. Malone and Gail didn’t get it at first; then Malone groaned and Gail rolled her eyes. Clements grinned and went on, “What sort of bastard was he? Anyhow, an adopted daughter? I thought sons were the first priority with Chinese fathers?”

“My father would dispute that,” said Gail with a smile.

They were back at Homicide, in Malone’s office. Clements was going through the print-out of the running sheets. He looked to Malone like the Clements of old: the bloodhound that smelled blood. For a while, since he had become a father, he had been only going through the motions of being a detective. His daughter, Amanda, was now a year old and to all intents and purposes he had seemed concerned only to protect her against the rapists, robbers and romeos converging on her from the future. Yet even on automatic he was the best detective on Malone’s staff and the latter had never complained.

“How many suspects have we?” Clements held up the sheets. “Madame Tzu, General Wang, the two missing engineers—” He looked at the sheets again; the Chinese names did not seem to lodge in his memory. “Tong Haifeng and Guo Yi. And the missing daughter, Li Ping. And Les Chung and Jack Aldwych.”

“Cross Jack off the list. But why Les Chung? What would he have to gain by bumping off two of his partners besides General Huang? While I think of it—” He looked up, gestured at Sheryl Dallen in the outer room. She got up and came to the doorway of his office. “Sheryl, get on to Immigration. If General Wang-Te attempts to leave the country without getting in touch with me, I want him held. Tell ‘em I want every airport covered from Cairns to Perth.”

“Sure, boss.” She was all aglow, as if she had just come from a session at the gym. He had never seen anyone who looked so damned healthy. He could feel the fat growing by the minute round his waist.

“Has your sweaty friend at the gym come up with anything new?” She looked puzzled and he went on, “The feller at the Securities Commission?”

She grinned. “All my friends at the gym are sweaty. It’s one of the things we have in common. Yes, Boris has told me a few more things—I’m putting them into the computer now.”

“Such as?”

“The Feng family companies are in trouble with the Taxation Office. And the banks are threatening to foreclose.”

“For Crissakes!” Clements almost crumpled the print-out in exasperation. “Aren’t there any cleanskins in this Olympic set-up?”

“Jack Aldwych,” said Malone; but he, too, wondered at the nest of snakes in the basement of Olympic Tower. And that Aldwych, of all people, should look like the only untainted one. “How deep’s the trouble with the Fengs?”

“Enough to bankrupt them,” said Sheryl. “Which would mean they would have to withdraw from the consortium with Les Chung and the Sun family.”

“What about the Sun companies?” asked Malone.

“My friend Boris didn’t say anything about them. They apparently are clean.”

Malone looked at Gail Lee. “I think we’d better have Ms. Feng in here. She’s not telling us as much as she knows.”

“What if she refuses to come in?” said Clements. “She’s not the one in trouble with the Tax guys. Let Gail and Sheryl go out to Drummoyne and talk to her. Get cracking, girls.”

He waited till the girls had gone out of the small office, then he stood up, laid the print-out on Malone’s desk. “I’ve got ten more like that on my desk outside. I’m up to my balls in paperwork and you aren’t helping, mate. We’ve also got a problem with our friend Boston. He’s not going to Archives, as you recommended. He’s going to Headquarters.”

“How’d he manage that? What sort of report did you put in?”

“As dirty as I could make it without being sued for libel. But someone at Headquarters in on his side. Guess who was his patrol commander when he first worked out of Day Street?”

“I’ve run out of guesses on this Olympic case. I’m not trying for any more. Who?”

“Commissioner Zanuch. I dunno whether Zanuch asked for him or not, but Boston’s going over there tomorrow morning.”

“He’s got no rank. What the hell use will he be over there?”

“Mate, half the establishment in Headquarters are no bloody use.”

Malone nodded and they both pondered this terrible state of affairs. In every uniformed service it was a given that deadheads were the airbags round the brass. Troops from Caesar’s day to the Gulf War had chewed on the subject.

“I couldn’t care less what use he’ll be over there. It’s the harm he might do us that worries me. He hates our guts—or anyway, yours. I just got sideswiped with the shit he feels towards you.”

Malone looked out into the main room. Boston had just come in, had sat down at his desk, which was completely clear of any paper. He swung his chair round and sat staring out the big windows at the sky that had now started to clear. Malone, watching him, saw a man who, suddenly and unexpectedly, exuded self-confidence. He had put one foot in heaven’s gate, going to Headquarters.

“Send him in to me.”

“Don’t blow your top, mate. Even though we don’t like where he’s going, we’re glad to be rid of him.”

Clements gathered up the pile of letters Malone pushed towards him, grimaced at them, then went out into the main room and across to speak to Boston.

The latter looked across at Malone’s office, then rose unhurriedly and came to stand in Malone’s doorway. “You wanted to see me?”

Yes, you arrogant bugger. “I hear you managed to dodge my recommended transfer and you’re going to Headquarters. They haven’t told me.”

“I’m sure they will—it only happened yesterday afternoon.” He had sat down in the chair opposite Malone without being invited; but Malone was determined to keep his cool. “You don’t mind, you know, not so long as I’m gone from here.”

Stay calm, Scobie. “How did you manage it?”

Boston pursed his lips, as if deciding whether to give away a secret; then he said, “The Commissioner and I go back a long way.”

“So do he and I, but I don’t think he’d do me any favours.”

“Maybe you wear the wrong colours. The Irish green.”

Malone frowned, but said nothing.

Again Boston pursed his lips; then he gave away the secret: “He and I belong to the same lodge.”

For a moment Malone didn’t make the connection; then his frown deepened, disbelieving: “The Masons?” Boston nodded, as smug as a Grand Master. “For Crissakes, that sort of thing went out ages ago. In the old days, yes—but now?”

In the old days, thirty or more years ago, Catholics ran up against barriers in certain sections of the Public Service; there had been certain large firms that would not employ Masons. But that sort of bigotry had disappeared; or so he had thought.

“He knows me better than you do,” said Boston. “He remembers the work I did under him when he was my patrol commander. There’s a vacancy at Headquarters, I heard about it and I spoke to him at a lodge meeting. I’m going into the security unit that is being built up for the Olympics. As a sergeant.”

Malone didn’t stand up or put out his hand. “Righto, good luck. You may as well sign off now.”

Boston took his time about getting to his feet; his rank could have been equal to that of Malone’s. “I can’t say it’s been a pleasure working here.”

“Don’t even try.”

When Boston had gone Malone leaned back in his chair and stared out the window. A pigeon strutted on the windowsill, full of importance. It turned an incurious eye on him; man and bird stared at each other. Then it spread its wings, shook them at him almost derisively, and flew away. He would have wrung its neck if he could have reached it.

IV

Gail Lee had taken the precaution of calling the Feng home at Drummoyne. No. Ms. Feng was at the family offices in Chinatown. The two women detectives drove into the city, parking in a lane in a Loading zone and walked round into Dixon Street, the heart of Chinatown. A slow surf of white hair was spilling out of a tourist bus; senior citizens had come for a Chinese lunch at a restaurant opposite the Golden Gate. The group paused for a moment and looked across at the Golden Gate as if it still had an aura of murder. But the Crime Scene tapes were gone and inside the restaurant the bloodstained velvet of the back booth had been replaced. It was business as usual, though its prices were above the pockets of the senior citizens.

The Feng offices were in a modest four-storeyed building diagonally opposite the Golden Gate. The ground floor was occupied by a store that appeared to sell everything from sharks’ fins to firecrackers and elaborate kites: the window was almost a parody of Chinese commerce. A narrow flight of stairs at the side led up to the Feng offices.

“I love all those spicy smells,” said Sheryl Dallen as they climbed the stairs.

Gail wrinkled her nose. “I’m a steak-and-kidney pie girl, myself.”

“So am I,” said Sheryl. “But just a look at a pie and I put on three kilos.”

There was no hint about the Feng offices that the family went in for multimillion-dollar investments. There was no reception area; the stairs ended on a narrow landing off which there were three small rooms. Camilla Feng was in the front room.

She stood up as the two detectives were ushered in by the very young Chinese girl who had intercepted them at the head of the stairs. “I’ve been expecting you. My mother said you had phoned me at home.”

“What made you expect us?” said Gail.

Camilla waved them to the only two spare chairs in the small office. It was a room in which expense had been spared to a spartan degree; Samuel Feng had been able to work without luxury or the need to impress. There were no pictures on the walls, just a framed certificate of a degree in Economics from the University of New South Wales. There was no air-conditioning and the two narrow windows were closed against the noise in the street outside. Sheryl, who had more boyfriends than Gail, thought the room smelled like a bachelor’s microwave oven.

“What made you expect us?” Gail repeated.

Camilla looked weary, not at all like the girl Gail had seen in the Sun offices in North Sydney only an hour or two before. Her make-up was washed out, the full lips no longer bright red. “You don’t sit on your hands on a murder case, do you?”

“Would you expect that of us?”

Camilla sighed, picked at some papers on the table that passed for a desk. “No . . . Look, I want the murderer of my father found—I appreciate everything you are doing in that regard. But . . .” She picked at the papers again, then looked up at the two detectives. “The roof has fallen in on us—my mother and my two sisters and me. Not just Dad’s murder, but other things—”

“What other things?” said Gail, for the moment playing ignorant.

Sheryl sat quietly, the outsider, leaving the two Chinese girls to play the game. She was at ease with other ethnics, the Italians, the Greeks, the Lebanese; but she was always cautious with Asians. Especially with the Chinese, who made her feel—immature? Whatever it was she felt, she was glad that Gail was here now.

“What other things?” Camilla stared at the two of them for a moment and looked as if she would keep those things to herself. Then she flung up her hands in despair; she was definitely not the girl of a couple of hours ago. All her composure was gone; in its place was something that even Sheryl recognized as fear. “Half an hour ago, just after I got back here, a man called and told me to do the right thing or I’d be dead like my father.”

“The right thing?” asked Sheryl, feeling she could now come into the game. “What did he mean by that?”

“I can’t tell you that—”

“I think you’d better, Camilla,” said Gail. “Is it to do with the tax charge that’s hanging over you? And the bank debt? That if you can’t pay it and you go into receivership you’ll have to draw out of the Olympic Tower project? Is that what they want you to do?”

“How much don’t you know?” Camilla was surprised; she had been slumped in her chair, but now she sat up. “Who’s been talking? Madame Tzu?”

“How much does she know?”

Camilla gestured in frustration. “I don’t know. But knowing her, she’d know everything . . . Have you talked to her?”

“Not about these matters, no. We have our own sources—” Gail glanced at Sheryl and gave her a tiny smile. “Have you any idea who was the man who called you up? Was he Chinese?”

“I think so—he spoke perfect Mandarin. Foreigners always sound different when they speak it. But he was pedantic, like a scholar.”

“How many men do you know who speak Mandarin?”

Camilla spread her hands; still sitting forward, she was nervous. “I don’t know—maybe a dozen, maybe more. Mostly the older men, friends of my father. But I don’t think this man was someone I know—you know when a stranger’s speaking to you—”

“Mandarin?” Sheryl looked at Gail for enlightenment.

“It’s the main Chinese language, but a lot of them here in Sydney speak Cantonese.” Gail turned back to Camilla. “What are you going to do? Do the right thing, like he asked? Drop out of the project?”

Camilla sat back, was silent for a long moment; she picked at the papers on her desk again, then she said, “I don’t want to give up. Olympic Tower was my father’s dream, to be involved in something as big as that. To be part of a landmark of Sydney. He was out of his league, that was how he got into trouble with the tax people. He put everything he had into the project, just ignored his tax and bank debts, which got bigger and bigger . . . I’m not naïve and romantic. I don’t want to stay in the project for Dad’s sake, to build his dream. If I can somehow stay in it, it will be because I can see the pay-off when it’s completed. I’m not greedy, but I am ambitous. If I let our company go into bankruptcy it could be years before I get it out of it.”

There was silence in the room for a while; faint noises came from the street, but there was no definition to them. Gail wondered if Camilla had unburdened herself to anyone else as she had to the two strangers. She thought not: Camilla, up till now, would have been self-contained. But police, Gail was learning, were often a sounding board.

“So how do you avoid it?” asked Sheryl.

Camilla looked steadily at her. “I ask someone to bail us out.”

“Who, for instance? A Hong Kong bank?”

Camilla hesitated. “No-o. Jack Aldwych.”

The two detectives looked at each other, then Gail said, “I don’t know Jack Aldwych, but from what Inspector Malone and Sergeant Clements tell us, Mr. Aldwych wouldn’t lend the Pope a dollar.”

“Or even the Queen,” said Sheryl, a royalist and a non-Catholic.

“What about Madame Tzu?” said Gail. “She seems to be the queen bee in all this.”

Camilla shook her head. “She’s got her own problems.”

“Such as?”

“Ask her.”

Gail considered a moment, then nodded. “Okay, we will. But whoever threatened you wants the whole Olympic Tower business to collapse. Why?”

“I don’t know. If it was something more closely connected to the Games, there might be a reason. There are some people in China who are still pissed off that Beijing didn’t get the 2000 Games—they might be happy to see, say, the stadium or the Olympic village in trouble. But the Tower? Sure, it’s already booked solid for Games delegations, but . . .” She shook her head again.

“What about the competition? Other developers who wanted that site and that project?”

“The others who missed out were all local developers, Australians. The man who threatened me was Chinese, I’m sure of it. The man who killed my father was Chinese. Why would Australians hire a Chinese to do their dirty work? If there’s any local influence, it’s only indirect. Everything to do with this is coming out of China.”

“Or Hong Kong,” said Sheryl.

“The same thing these days.”

Gail stood up. “I think you should get some protection, Camilla. Get a security firm to give you twenty-four-hour protection. We’ll let the Day Street police know you’ve been threatened. And the Drummoyne police—they can keep an eye on your home. Just sit tight and don’t do anything till we’ve got this cleared up.”

“When will that be?” Camilla looked too exhausted to stand up to show them out. “I have just a week to try and stall off the banks and the tax office.”

Gail was standing by the framed degree certificate on the wall. “This yours? You’re a Bachelor of Economics?”

“I also have an MBA. Fat lot of good they’re worth right now.” Then she stood up, but did not move out from behind the desk. “Thanks. I know you’re trying to help, but—”

“We’ll do everything we can,” said Gail.

When they got down into Dixon Street Sheryl said, “I’ve always envied the rich. But I wouldn’t fancy being in her shoes.”

“All she has to do is not be killed,” said Gail. “She’ll be rich in another five years. She’s got Shanghai blood in her.”

“How do you know?”

“Those who haven’t got it always recognize it.”

“You Chinese,” said Sheryl but smiled as she said it.

When they approached their car in the Loading zone in the rear lane, a young Chinese was waiting for them, his van parked alongside the unmarked police car. He immediately began yelling at Gail in Cantonese.

“Do you speak Mandarin?”

“Yes,” he said, spittle at the corners of his mouth. “A little—”

Mandarin for centuries was a stately, elegant language. Then in the 1920s the woodworm of colloquialism crept in: “Then get stuffed,” said Gail, but managed to sound decorous.

“Was that Mandarin?” asked Sheryl as they got into their car.

“Yes,” said Gail. “Word perfect.”

V

Malone waited for Lisa in the vestibule of the Town Hall. Once a week, since she had started back at work, they had lunch together; their only meal alone. They were both waiting for the two girls to move out to share flats with their friends; neither of them looked forward to the prospect, but they knew it was inevitable. Tom was more of a homebody than his two sisters, but even he would eventually move out. Until the general exodus began the meals at home were a family affair and Malone always enjoyed them. But, like all parents, he and Lisa had learned that, as their family grew older, their own privacy lessened. Their love-making, for instance, had its own rhythm method: the rhythm of the children’s absences. He would have shouted them all to the movies seven nights a week, except that he knew the girls’ sly smiles would have embarrassed him.

Lisa came towards him with the Lord Mayor. Rupert Amberton had been a fixture in Sydney civic affairs for almost a generation. He was in his early fifties, but looked younger. He had a mane of dark hair that was his pride and a cartoonist’s joy; he was handsome, as any mirror, and he looked at several a day, told him. He leaped onto any charity bandwagon that rolled past, always ready with a cheque and a tear or two or three. He wore his heart on his sleeve, only because the usual cavity was chock-a-block with ego, and nothing would please him more, in the year 2000, than to see his heart up there on the flag with the five rings. He lived for Sydney and liked to think it lived for him.

“Inspector! I’ve only just learned you are Mrs. Malone’s husband. You’re a very lucky man!” He always spoke in exclamations, as if at a rowdy council meeting. “You’re conducting this dreadful business connected with Olympic Tower!”

Malone wouldn’t have put it that way. “We have the matter in hand, but there’s a long way to go.”

He had kept his voice low, but Amberton couldn’t be anything less than operatic: “Good luck! The last thing we want is a spate of racist murders!”

Malone looked around without moving his head: why doesn’t someone murder this loudmouth? People passing through the vestibule, which had never been designed to stifle secrets, an oversight on the part of the architect, were slowing their steps, waiting for more details. Malone, voice still low, said, “It’s not as bad as that, Mr. Amberton.”

The Lord Mayor all at once seemed to become aware that the passing traffic was in slow motion as if underwater; all heads were turned towards him and the Malones. He threw out a glittering smile, like a royal salute, his head swivelling round so that he missed no one. Then he looked back at Malone, dropped his voice and the exclamation marks: “Of course, of course. Well, good luck. The sooner you clear it up, you know, the better for us.”

“Us?” Malone couldn’t resist it, the old tongue getting away from him again.

“Of course!” The operatic voice was back. “The city! Sydney!”

“Of course,” said Malone, and tried to show some civic pride; he even threw in an exclamation: “Keep the flag flying! The Olympic flag!”

Amberton raised his fist, like an Olympic winner, tossed his mane and went back across the vestibule, his smile lassoing bystanders whether they wanted it or not. The year 2000 couldn’t come soon enough.

As they crossed the road to the Queen Victoria Building, the QVB as it was called, Lisa said, “You’ll have me fired.”

Malone shook his head. “Look at his record. He wouldn’t have sacked Judas Iscariot, for fear of making waves. You’re a good-looking woman, too. He’s a closet lecher.”

“What do I do if he makes a pass? Make a civilian arrest?”

They climbed the stairs to an upper gallery, found a table in one of the restaurants. They sat by the big window that looked out into the heart of the old restored building. For years it had been an almost empty shell; it was foreign money that had rescued it from demolition. All the local developers had passed it by, their hands stuck in their pockets.

Window-shoppers cruised the galleries, balancing their credit cards against what the boutiques offered. The economy had been slow all year and the store owners, atheists and believers alike, were on their knees hoping Christ and Christmas would bring buyers from the East, preferably Japanese, with gold and Diners frankincense and American Express myrrh. Father Christmas, two weeks early, wandered by outside the window, eyes dull and tired above the froth of white beard.

“You look worried,” said Lisa when they were settled.

Malone glanced up from the menu. “Gail and Sheryl came back to the office just before I left. The Feng girl, she’s taken over from her dad, she’s been threatened. By a Chinese, she thought.”

“Do you have to protect her?”

“We’ll have to keep an eye on her, but we can’t give her round-the-clock protection. She’s not in the Witness Protection scheme. How are things at Town Hall?”

Lisa waited till the waitress had taken their order and gone away. Then: “I’ve been instructed to tell lies.”

He wasn’t sure whether she was joking or not. “Like the old days? That was what diplomacy was all about, wasn’t it? Still is.”

In her two years as the High Commissioner’s secretary in London, where she had first met Malone, Lisa had recognized that diplomacy and hypocrisy were partners in the trade; the honesty lay in the simultaneous recognition of the fact. She, for her part, had always tried to avoid the cynicism of the diplomatic profession. Diplomacy was the art of telling lies for one’s country. Telling lies for one’s city somehow did not have the same cachet.

“The murder of those men connected with Olympic Tower is uncovering a lot of dirt. I’ve been told I have to put a spin on it, somehow disguise it as top dressing. I’m out of practice at that sort of thing.”

“No!” With an exclamation mark. Two girls at a nearby table turned their heads.

“Keep your voice down,” said Lisa. “No what?”

“No, you don’t get involved in this.” Now that he knew she wasn’t joking, he was afraid for her. More than dirt had been uncovered in Olympic Tower; blood, a lot of it, was showing. “We don’t know how far these people will go.”

“Which people?”

He sat back in his chair, shrugged with frustration. “I wish I knew.” He glanced out of the big window, saw two Asian women come out of a boutique on the opposite gallery. He leaned forward, almost pressing his nose against the glass. Then he shook his head and sat back.

“What’s the matter? See someone you know?”

“I thought it was Madame Tzu. I’ve got her on the brain.”

Lisa stared out through the glass at the two women who had now paused outside another boutique. Each of them held three fancy shopping bags; there was always room on the arm for another. “They are Japanese.”

He nodded. “I know. But at first glance . . . Like I said, I’ve got her on the brain.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. She just seems central to all this.”

Lisa waited while the waitress put the smoked salmon salad in front of her. When the waitress had gone she said, “I think she might have been over the road this morning.”

“Madame Tzu? At the Town Hall?”

“Yes. From the way you described her to me, it could have been her. Just as I was getting to work. She was coming out of Councillor Brode’s office with a Chinese man.”

“What did he look like?”

“Medium height, thin, middle-aged. With glasses, not designer ones.”

He grinned, though he felt no humour. “You can come and work at Homicide any time you like . . . Madame Tzu and General Wang-Te.”

She sipped her glass of white wine, reached for a wheatmeal roll and buttered it. He had ordered a small steak, a salad and a glass of red; anything heavier and she would have re-ordered for him. He knew that if he were not married to her, he would be as big as Russ Clements.

“I could find out what they were doing in Brode’s office.”

“No.” He was chewing on a roll, so there was no exclamation this time. He cleared his mouth. “Stay out of it. One cop in the family is enough.”

“Are you going to tell that to Claire when she graduates? She still wants to join the police.” She ate a mouthful of smoked salmon, then said, “I’m on good terms with Rosalie, who acts as Brode’s secretary. We exchange bits and pieces.”

The restaurant had filled up, chatter chipped away at any silence. Father Christmas rolled slowly by out on the gallery, this time tolling a bell; somehow it had no merry sound to it. Malone leaned forward, keeping his voice low. “Darl, this Olympic job is a bloody mess, in more ways than one.”

“I know that. I’m not going to act stupidly. I’m not going to play at Joan of Arc storming some citadel—”

“You’d be good at that.” He tried to divert her by being facetious, a frayed marital ploy.

She ignored it. “I’d forgotten there’s a girls’ network as well as a boys’ network. Private secretaries aren’t always so private when someone else has some gossip to exchange. Rosalie isn’t a private secretary to Mr. Brode, she’s just someone who attends to his council business. She works for the council, for the city. She’s a public servant, like you and me.”

“I’m a little more public than either of you. And I say stay out of this.”

She took another sip of her wine. “I’ll think about it.”

He knew there was no point in further argument. She had told him more than once that it was only Dutch stubbornness that had kept the North Sea from flooding the Lowlands.