12

I

“IT WAS down in the Gardens, Inspector,” said Gary Sobers. “We missed it the first time—it hadn’t been thrown away near where we found the gun. A gardener found it this morning under a pile of mulch. He called the station and Sergeant Greenup told me to bring it up to you right away.”

Malone looked at the metal cylinder in the narrow plastic envelope. “Was it in the plastic when you found it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If she bought that, and it doesn’t look like a home-made job, it would be in the plastic bag.” Clements took the envelope and opened it, but did not remove the silencer. “No, it’s not home-made. It’s a Gold Spot, the Aussie make. It’d fit the Walther.”

The three policemen were outside the courthouse. Out of the corner of his eye Malone could see the TV cameramen at the gates; one of them had raised his shoulder-borne camera and was aiming it at them. Malone moved round so that what he and the other two were discussing was hidden from the inquisitive eye of the camera.

“Where would she have got it? They’re illegal here in New South Wales. I doubt if Justine would have known where to buy it under the counter.”

“You can buy them over the counter in South Australia,” said Clements. “Evidently the South Australians see no harm in murder, so long as it doesn’t wake anyone.”

“Well, first we have to see if there are any prints on it. Then we’ll check if it fits the Walther. Don Cheshire is giving evidence today—we’ll hold on to it and pass it over to him. Then Ballistics can have a look at it, see if it fits the Walther.”

Sobers looked disappointed. “You won’t be wanting me any further then, Inspector?”

Malone grinned sympathetically. “Don’t worry, Gary, your day will come. If ever you apply to come over to plainclothes, let me know. I’ll give you a recommendation.”

Sobers went off, satisfied, and Clements looked after him. “Were we ever as young and keen as that?”

“Sure,” said Malone. “In another life.”

He looked at the silencer in the plastic envelope, wondering if it would prove to be another nail to pin Justine to the wall. Then he went looking for Sergeant Cheshire. On the way he passed Chilla Dural and Jerry Killeen coming out of the court, which had risen for the lunch adjournment.

“Hello, Chilla. I thought you’d have had enough of courts.”

“Just looking, Inspector.”

“Seeing how the other half lives,” said Jerry Killeen. “The public seats are full of silvertails. I never seen so many.”

“Excuse me,” said Walter Springfellow, and Malone and the other two men stood aside to let him pass as he came out of the court entrance.

Dural looked after him. “He’d be one.”

Malone didn’t look after the white-bearded man, just grinned at Dural and Killeen. “They’re everywhere in Sydney now. Everybody’s rich but thee and me. Ask Sergeant Clements about them—he’s an authority on them.”

“Good luck to „em,” said Dural.

“Bugger „em,” said Jerry Killeen.

After lunch on that second day Justine did not have a good day in court. The evidence continued to pile up against her, despite Albemarle’s efforts to divert the prosecution’s line. Malone went home convinced that Justine had no real hope of being acquitted.

The phone rang that evening at Randwick. Lisa went out to answer it and Malone remained in the living-room, sprawled on the couch. The children had gone to bed and he was looking at LA Law, wondering at the lifestyles and why he hadn’t gone to university and become a lawyer. Lisa came back. “It’s the Commissioner.”

Malone closed his eyes for a moment: Arnie Becker and Michael Kuzak and the others didn’t know what trouble was. Then he opened his eyes and looked up at Lisa. “How did he sound?”

“Quiet. But I don’t know him, really. Maybe he’s always quiet.”

Malone got up and went out to the hallway. “Yes, sir?”

“Scobie, I’m sorry to call you at home. I’m ringing from my office. I’ve just had a session with Deputy Commissioner Zanuch. He tells me things didn’t go well today for Miss Springfellow.” The Commissioner’s line would never be tapped, but he sounded to Malone as if he feared it might be. “Does it look bad?”

“I’m afraid so, sir. The Crown start producing Emma’s diaries tomorrow. Things will get worse. There are entries about Justine threatening her, all that . . .” He could offer John Leeds no hope for the acquittal of his (possible) daughter. “What did Mr. Zanuch have to say?”

“When it’s all over, he wants to announce a commendation for you and Sergeant Clements.”

“Oh Christ,” said Malone softly.

There was silence for a moment, then Leeds said, “How is Lady Springfellow taking it?”

“It’s hard to tell. Bravely, I think would be the word.”

“Yes, I think that would describe her.”

“How are you taking it?”

There was a sound at the other end of the line: it might have been a clearing of the throat or a sour chuckle. “I can’t think of a word. Good-night, Scobie. I’m sorry I called.”

The phone went dead, but Malone continued to hold it in his hand, trying to picture the stricken man at the other end of the line. Then he hung up. There was nothing he could do for the Commissioner or, for that matter, for Justine.

He went back into the living-room. Lisa had turned off the television and was waiting for him. “He’s never done that before.”

“No.”

“Why?”

He sat down beside her on the couch, put his arm round her. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

She waited, knowing he wanted to tell it.

“The Commissioner isn’t sure he’s not Justine Springfellow’s father.” He went on to tell her everything about John Leeds and Venetia. It would help no one but himself, but telling her seemed to lighten the load. Some of us feed on secrets, hiding them like candy bars in a cupboard, but they only made him sick. He told the nurse everything.

She, with an attempt at Dutch practicality, said, “There’s nothing you can do, so try and forget it.”

“That’s the bugger of it—I can’t. You couldn’t, either.”

“No,” she admitted. “But I’d be seeing the woman’s side. The Commissioner isn’t going to suffer as much as Venetia.”

Late next morning Sergeant Cheshire came to the courthouse and sent in word that he wanted to see Inspector Malone. The latter came out. “Come up with anything, Don?”

“G’day, Scobie. We went okay yesterday, don’t you reckon? That bastard Albemarle gave me a pain, though. All lawyers do. Yeah, I come up with something.” He held out the silencer in the plastic envelope. “The plastic protected it. There’s a partial print on it, not much, as if he held it by his fingertips.”

“He?”

“I couldn’t swear to it, but it looks like it could be a male’s print. It ain’t Justine’s, definitely.”

Clements had followed Malone out of the courtroom. He took the silencer, holding it carefully, as if a loaded pistol were attached to it. “If her prints aren’t on it, then I don’t think we need to mention this, do we?”

Malone could read what was in Clements’s mind: he wanted nothing that would weaken the case against Justine, no contradictory evidence. He would not be the first cop who didn’t want his convictions discouraged.

“If that’s the way you want it,” said Cheshire. “I’m not gunna say anything. I’ve never seen the silencer.”

Malone said quietly, “I don’t think that’s the way we want it at all. When your fellers went through Emma’s flat, how many prints did you come up with?”

“There were six different ones. I give all that information to Russ.” Cheshire was rough and bluff, but he had worked for years in a Department where men rubbed up against each other every day; he was sensitive to friction, if to very little else. He sensed now that Malone and Clements were at odds, and he was surprised: he knew their reputation in the Department as a team.

“What were they? Male or female?”

“Three of them I put down as male. One of them was the doorkeeper’s, the one on the bedroom door, so you can cross him off the list. The other two belonged to two different men. One set was on the drinking glass and the other, a single print, was on the bedside table, if I remember right.”

Too late Malone saw his mistake: he had forgotten John Leeds’s print on the drinking glass. But he couldn’t turn back now. “Try the one on the bedside table, see if it matches this one on the silencer.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow. I gotta give evidence at two other courts today.”

When Cheshire had gone, Malone said to Clements, “I’m not out to ruin the case against Justine. But . . .”

“I guess you’re right,” said Clements reluctantly. “I’m still sure she did the job. But I’ve never yet had the wrong person convicted. I don’t wanna spoil my record. But unless we get something conclusive from that other print . . .”

“I promise you. Nothing conclusive, we don’t mention it.”

“Are you going to ask for the Walther so’s we can check the fit of the silencer?”

“Not right away.” Malone knew he had to make some concession to Clements. “As soon as we start asking for a second look at one of the exhibits, especially the gun, Albemarle is going to be suspicious. He’ll start asking awkward questions.”

The third day of the trial was more presentation of evidence; Wellbeck pouring water on the stone. There were minutes of board meetings in which the bitter antagonism between Emma and Justine stood out; there were statements of share sales and purchases by both sides in the takeover battle. The papers were passed round the jury; one woman, a copious note-taker, took fifteen minutes to read her copy, as if she were being paid by the word. The forewoman, as if aware that her ship was slow in the water, whispered to the woman to hurry up, but the latter took no notice of her. Madame Forewoman began to look like Captain Bligh’s sister: she was not accustomed to mutiny, she would deal with it once they got back to the jury room.

Boredom settled on the court. The judge began to nod; the spectators shifted restlessly; even Justine looked uninterested. But Billy Wellbeck was leaving nothing to chance: that was not his method.

Just before the lunch adjournment a court officer came in to whisper to Malone that he was wanted on the phone. Malone went out to the sheriffs office to take the call. It was Sergeant Cheshire.

“The print on the bedside table matches the one on the silencer. We got a problem, Scobie.”

“Yeah,” Malone said nothing for a moment; then: “You’d go into the box and swear they match?”

“If I have to.” Cheshire knew how detectives, having worked to present a watertight case, hated to see cracks in the dam. “They match, all right, and they ain’t Justine’s. What are you gunna do? Ask for an adjournment while you follow this up?”

“I can’t, Don, not right away. Not till I’ve got something else to give the Crown Prosecutor besides the prints. If I go in now and say I’m a bit doubtful, Billy Wellbeck’s not going to be too bloody happy.”

He thanked Cheshire for his work, hung up and then sent word in for Clements to come out and see him. The big man, as soon as he saw Malone’s face, made the correct guess. He bit his lower lip and said, “The prints match, right?”

Malone nodded. They were alone in the sheriff’s office, but he knew the court officer would be back soon. “Do you have to stay here for the rest of the day?”

“Wellbeck says he may call me again today. I dunno why, but he’s not sticking to his usual continuity—he’s all over the place in the way he’s calling his witnesses. I think he’s trying to keep Albemarle off balance.”

“Wellbeck told me this morning he thinks the trial will run another five or six days—he’s going to pile on the evidence, the diaries, company papers, Christ knows what. We’ve got to move fast, if we’re to check out those prints. I’ll use Andy and get Greg Random to give me a couple of other blokes.”

“Do we tell Billy Wellbeck what’s turned up?”

“No,” said Malone firmly. “Where’s the silencer? In your murder box?”

“No, it’s in the bottom drawer of my desk. I was keeping it separate.”

“It’s not separate any longer, Russ.”

“No, I know that.” Clements was morose; he had worked hard on this case and now it looked as if they might be back at square one. “I wonder if Justine had a boyfriend who helped her?”

“I’m going to start looking for him now.”

As they went out of the office the sheriff, a middle-aged man, cheerful and hidebound, the only way to survive in a job where the everyday environment was the wreckage of lives, came in. “G’day, Scobie, how’s it going in Number Five? You look as if you’ve got it cut and dried.”

“Could be,” said Malone.

II

He went back to Homicide, got the silencer from Clements’s desk and walked up to Police Centre. Ballistics was on the fifth level of the big new fortress-like complex, which looked as if the architect had been told to design something that would withstand a siege. All it did, Malone thought, was frighten the honest voters.

He checked in, then went up to the fifth level. Constable James met him and grinned as Malone, who had never been up here before, looked around him. “Spacious, eh, Inspector?”

“I remember when we used to work out of cubby-holes.” But he didn’t have time for social conversation; half a mile from here Billy Wellbeck was piling up the case against Justine. “That’s the silencer. Would it fit the Walther?”

“You don’t have the piece?”

“No, I can’t ask the court to release it, not yet.”

James looked innocent, but Malone remarked the unspoken question in the young constable’s eyes. You’re learning, son, he thought. Nothing is as straight and simple as it seems, certainly not police work.

James examined the silencer. “It’d fit, all right, but I don’t know whether it’s the one that was used on the murder piece. I’d need that Walther to be absolutely sure.”

“I’m not asking you to go into the box—not yet, anyway. I’m sure the Springfellow Walther and this go together. Could it have been bought here in Sydney?”

“Sure, if you knew where to go. You can buy anything in this town if you know where to go.” James gestured at the stacks of shoulder-high metal cabinets all around them, all of them with deep drawers in them. He pulled out a drawer about five feet wide; it was full of hand-guns, all labelled. “Everything we have in these cabinets, or the rifles in those racks over there—they’re all confiscated weapons, over seven thousand of them. As I say, you can buy anything you want in this town. But you’d have to know where to go. And I don’t think Miss Springfellow would know where to go, she didn’t look the type. Can you see her in a gun-shop asking where she can buy a silencer, or bailing up someone in a coffee shop up the Cross and trying to buy one?”

“What about South Australia—Adelaide?”

“No problem there.”

“Would they keep a record of the sales?”

“I guess so. I can check—we have a good contact in Ballistics in Adelaide.”

“Check for me. And get a list of all gun-shops in Adelaide. Do you know any of the villains in Sydney who sell guns or silencers under the counter?”

“I don’t, but Sergeant Binyan does. He knows everyone” James grinned. “Let’s try him.”

Clarrie Binyan was in his office; he was the sergeant in charge of Ballistics. He was part-Aborigine, a product of the Police Boys’ Club, a street fighter who had become a twenty-five-year veteran, who had started on the beat and sometimes hankered for the good old days; he was safe from his hankering and so could afford it. He was overweight and had become lazy, but there was nothing he didn’t know about guns and the crims of Sydney.

“How soon do you want the info, Scobie?”

“Yesterday,” said Malone. “It’s urgent, Clarrie. Give me the names of the six most likely villains who’d sell a stranger a silencer, and I’ll have my blokes visit them.”

Binyan ran his hand through his thick greying curls; his black-brown eyes had a gleam of humour in them. “Tell your blokes to treat „em gentle. Some of these crims are mates of mine from the old days. I don’t wanna ruin my contact with „em—they come in handy when we’re trying to trace things.”

“I’ll have my blokes take them a box of chocolates and some flowers. Now can I have their names?”

“This must be bloody urgent. I thought you had everything wrapped up in the Springfellow case?”

“Just making sure, Clarrie, that’s all. Now the names?”

Binyan scratched some names and addresses on a slip of paper and Malone grabbed it. As he left Binyan’s office James was waiting for him. “I’ve just remembered, Inspector. There was a faint scratch on the barrel of that Walther, a burring on the thread as if whoever used it had tried to force the silencer on it. Leave me the silencer. I’ll try an endoscope on it and see if there’s any corresponding mark inside.”

Malone handed him the silencer. “Jason, when this is all over, I’ll buy you lunch. Are you expensive?”

“I usually eat at McDonald’s.”

“We’ll go there,” said Malone, careful not to raise the youngster above his station.

He went back to Homicide. He called Andy Graham and two other detectives down to his desk. “Work singly, take two names each—I want you back here no later than three o’clock. Treat „em gently, but hint you’ll get heavy if you have to. Tell „em we’re not looking for a professional hit man—at least I don’t think we are. Just ask them if anyone bought a Gold Spot silencer from them in the month of October or the first week in November last year and if he asked them to do some thread-work on the barrel of a Walther PPK .380.”

“Do we tell „em Clarrie Binyan sent us?” said Andy Graham.

Malone grinned. “Why not? That’ll probably make it legitimate.”

“Right,” said Graham and led the charge out of the office.

The three of them were back before three o’clock. Malone, in the meantime, had got out his notes and the running sheet on the Emma Springfellow murder, had gone back over everything to see what he and Clements had missed in their investigation. Clements had been particularly thorough: he seemed to have questioned everyone who would have been even remotely connected with Justine. Most of them, unable to believe that Justine would commit murder, had been totally nonplussed by the questioning; one or two, including Michael Broad, had been hostile in their defence of Justine. Several others, who had obviously felt the sting of the Springfellow women, had been slyly malicious in their answers; one of them had been Roger Dircks. Yet as Malone laid down his notes and the running sheet he was convinced they had missed nothing. Then Andy Graham came back, followed a few minutes later by the other two detectives, Truach and Kagal.

“Nothing,” said Graham. Malone was not sure whether he sounded disappointed or not. Then he added, “If this was meant to save Justine, it isn’t going to work.”

“I’m not interested in saving Justine,” Malone snapped; but he knew in his heart that he was. “I just don’t want us out on a limb when the appeal comes up. And you can bet your bottom dollar Albemarle will appeal if the case goes against her.”

Then Truach and Kagal came in. “I got nothing,” said Kagal, a good-looking young man who had come into plainclothes at the same time as Graham, who had the same enthusiasm but managed to control it more than Graham. “I think they were playing square. As soon’s I mentioned Clarrie Binyan, they opened up. But my two guys knew nothing.”

Truach was older than the other two, a senior constable who would plod his way up the promotion ladder. “I drew a blank with the first guy. But the second, Joe Koster, he lives up the Cross, he remembers a guy coming to him some time last October, wanting to buy a silencer.”

“Why didn’t Koster sell him one?”

“He said he didn’t trust the guy. I asked for a description, but all he could remember was that he was tallish and wore dark glasses and a hat. If someone came to me dressed like that, I’d be suspicious, too. Koster was frank, he thought the guy might be an undercover man we’d planted. He seemed hurt we’d stoop to something underhand like that. You remember, we were having a crack-down on guns about then—we had that gun amnesty for anyone with an unlicensed weapon.”

“What did Koster tell him?”

“He said he didn’t have any silencers in stock, but if the guy wanted to, he could go to Adelaide and buy one across the counter.”

“Righto,” said Malone, acting swiftly; whatever decisions he made in the next few days, they had to be either totally wrong or totally right. At least, when it was all over, no one would be able to say he hadn’t tried. “Here’s a list of gun-shops in Adelaide. When you get there, check in with Police Headquarters and tell „em what you’re after. They may be able to help. I’ll get Greg Random to authorize your travel. Go home, pack an overnight bag and be back here to pick up your ticket and catch whatever plane we can get you on tonight.”

Truach went off, followed by Kagal, and Malone looked at the obviously disappointed Graham. “You wondering why I’m not sending you?”

“Well, I have been on the case since the jump—”

“And you’re no longer objective about it, Andy. You’re convinced Justine did the murder and you don’t want all your work wasted. You may be right. But if we’ve fouled up somewhere and the case goes to appeal, you aren’t going to be the one to carry the can. I’ll be the bunny. You’d have got the trip to Adelaide if you’d been open-minded that someone else may be involved in this. But you’re not.”

But even as he ticked off Andy Graham, he could taste hypocrisy on his tongue. If he himself was open-minded, the entrance was only through a revolving door. Then his phone rang.

It was Constable James. “I used the endoscope on the silencer. There’s a burring on the thread. I can’t guarantee it matches that on the Walther barrel, not without having another look at the gun. But I’d like to take a bet on it.”

“Good, Jason. Send over the silencer. I’ll be back to you when I need you. You may have to go back into the box.”

“Does this mean Justine mightn’t have done it?” It was a hesitant question.

“Have you fallen for a pretty face?”

“Well, no-o . . .”

Malone hung up, smiling sourly. Justine, unknowingly, was gathering backers; but she was a long way from being out of the woods. He looked at Graham, who, so far, seemed to have no doubts about her.

“You wouldn’t fall for a pretty face, would you?”

“No,” said Graham doggedly. “We’ve worked our guts out on this one. I don’t think we’ve made any mistakes—”

“Our one mistake might be the big one. Sending her to gaol when she didn’t commit the murder.”

Truach got back from Adelaide the following afternoon. He rang Malone from Adelaide airport and the latter stayed at Homicide to wait for him. Clements was with him, as morose as yesterday, feeling his case slipping away from him.

Truach came in, unhurried, unexcited, phlegmatic as an old bloodhound familiar with old scents. He sat down opposite Malone and said flatly, “Bingo.”

“Good,” said Malone, containing his impatience. “What’s the prize?”

“The Adelaide fellers were on our side right from the jump. They sent me to several dealers—the first four, I drew nothing. Then the fifth guy came up with what we wanted.” He paused and lit a cigarette. “I been dying for a smoke. I couldn’t smoke on the plane and then, bugger me, I copped a taxi driver who wouldn’t allow smoking in his cab.”

“If you don’t get a move on,” said Malone, “you’re going to find this is a no-smoking zone.”

Truach grinned, nodded and stubbed out the cigarette on the floor. “This guy has a small gun-shop. I’ve got his name if we have to bring him over to give evidence, though he wasn’t too happy when I suggested it. You know what they’re like, gun dealers.”

“Yes,” said Malone, still patient but only just.

“Anyhow, he said yeah, he’d had a guy come in last October to buy a silencer. He sold him a Gold Spot. Then the guy produced this Walther, a PPK .380, and asked the dealer to fit the silencer to it.”

“The dealer asked no questions? No registration of the gun?”

“He was covering up, Scobie. I didn’t press him on it, I figured that was something for the Adelaide police. All we wanted was information.”

“Fair enough. Did he ask the cove why he wanted the silencer?”

“Yeah. The guy gave the name of—” Truach looked at his notes. “Yeah, here it is. Roger Hart. He said the gun and the silencer were needed for a TV fillum they were shooting and they needed it in a hurry, something about the gun not being in the original script.”

“Did the dealer fit the silencer?”

“Yeah. The guy went away while it was done, then come back and paid cash.”

“Any description of him?”

“Tallish, wore a hat and dark glasses, the sort that get darker when you go out in the sunlight. It fits the description of the feller here in Sydney.”

“Did he buy any ammunition?”

“Only a box of blanks—he said that was all they needed for the TV fillum. He could have bought live ammo at another gun-shop.”

Malone looked at Clements. “At best, it looks like Justine had an accomplice.”

“And at worst?”

“The worst for us? It looks like this cove did it on his own.”

“You got a suspect?”

“Who do you think? Who do we know who’d know something about making TV films?”

“Can I go now?” said Truach. “I’m dying for a smoke.”

“Go and get lung cancer,” said Malone, but he was smiling. “Thanks, Phil. Nice work.”

When Truach, already lighting a cigarette, had gone, Malone looked at his watch. “What time do TV executives knock off?”

“Who cares?” said Clements. “If he’s not at the studio, we’ll go to his home.”

“This may mean upsetting the whole bloody apple-cart. You don’t mind?”

“I’d be a lying bastard if I said I didn’t mind—I thought we had all this sewn up. But like I said, I’ve never sent the wrong person to gaol yet.”

They drove out to Channel 15 through a clear autumn day, the air sparkling almost as if it were spring. The jacaranda trees were still thick, the green fronds only just streaked with brown needles. As Clements turned the Holden into the parking lot, Malone saw some of the crew and cast of Sydney Beat coming out to get into their cars. They were quiet and looked depressed, as if they had just filmed an episode in which the heroes had been beaten to a pulp.

Debby, the assistant floor manager, was about to get into her battered old Honda Civic when Malone got out of the police car right beside her.

“G’day, Debby. How are the dynamics today?”’

“Full of shit.” Then she recognized him; he noticed now that her eyes were full of tears. “Oh, hello, Scobie. We’ve all just been fired. They’re stopping production. The ratings are lousy. But . . .”

“Tough luck.” He couldn’t crow, not over someone who had just lost her job. “Try to get into the soaps. That’s what everyone watches. Misery is the recipe.”

“Oh, you got no idea how fucking miserable I am!”

Then he found himself in the parking lot of Channel 15 holding a young foul-mouthed girl while she cried her heart out against his shirt and bawled obscenities for which, in his more strait-laced days, he’d have booked her. Clements stood in the background, grinning with delight. He had hated Sydney Beat as much as Malone.

Malone detached himself from Debby. “Who did the firing? Mr. Dircks?”

“No, it came from the fucking Springfellow office—they own us, you know.” She dried her eyes on the sleeve of her bulky sweater, hitched up her jeans. She had dreamed of being another Gillian Armstrong or even a Lina Wertmüller, but some bastard had just removed all the bottom rungs of the ladder. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Getting my own back,” said Malone; then grinned. “No, it’s just public relations.”

He and Clements went on into the administration building, to the receptionist sitting beneath the big pink-and-grey logo.

“Oh, Inspector Malone, you’re not back for Sydney Beat, are you?”

“I’m told we’re a little late for that. Can we see Mr. Dircks?”

The girl looked doubtful. “I gather he’s not seeing anyone right now. He’s leaving, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know. Where’s he going?”

The girl shrugged. “I only work here. Nobody tells me anything.”

“Where’s his office? Still on the same floor? Thanks, Sally.”

“Inspector, you can’t—!”

But Malone and Clements were already on their way up to the first floor. They strode down the long corridor past the big portraits of stars who were no longer stars; Sydney Beat would be off the walls tomorrow, flops had to be erased from memory as quickly as possible. The Singapore Chinese secretary was at her desk, still minding the gates, her sword already half out of its scabbard as soon as she recognized Malone.

“Mr. Dircks is not seeing anyone—”

“Wrong, Miss Wong. He’s seeing us. Excuse me, please.” She stood up in front of him, but he took her gently by the elbows and lifted her aside. “I admire your sense of duty, love, but you’re in the way.”

All at once she seemed to sense that this intrusion was something serious. “He’ll kill me for letting you go in—”

“I don’t think he’s going to be around much longer,” said Malone. “You’ll be safe.”

He and Clements stepped round her, opened the door behind her and went into the pink-and-grey executive office. Roger Dircks, looking not at all pink but only grey, was standing at his desk shoving papers into his briefcases. On the floor beside the desk were two large cartons crammed with books, framed prints and a brass desk lamp. It looked as if Dircks, before he fled, was taking looter’s privileges. Malone had heard the gossip on the studio floor that it was the custom at top level in the television industry, except at the ABC, where there was nothing to loot.

“Going somewhere, Mr. Dircks?”

“Christ Almighty, how did you get in here? Rose, what the hell—?”

“Don’t blame her,” said Clements, closing the door. “She tried to stop us.”

“What the hell do you want? I’ve got enough to fucking worry about—”

“First,” said Malone, “I’d better give you the usual warning. You’ve heard it often enough in Sydney Beat, though your actors always seemed to get it wrong. Anything you may say, et cetera . . .”

Dircks’s small mouth fell open. “Anything I may say? Christ, what is this?”

“Mr. Dircks, did you go to Adelaide last October?”

“How the fuck do I know? You’d have to ask Rose to look up my diary.” Dircks was in shirt-sleeves, his tie off; he looked unstarched, wilted. With his anger he had regained some colour in his face, he was pink and grey again. “What is this, for Chrissakes? I got all the bad news I can handle, then you come busting in here—”

“Last October, Mr. Dircks—did you go to Adelaide and purchase a silencer for a gun at a dealer’s named—” Malone named the Adelaide gun dealer.

Dircks shook his head in wonder. “Why would I want to do that?”

“You told the dealer you wanted it for a TV film you were shooting.”

“You’re crazy, man. We’ve never shot anything in Adelaide—Christ, nobody shoots anything in Adelaide. It’s a cemetery.” There was only one city in Australia, right here where he worked and lived; he was not honorary television adviser to the Sydney Chamber of Commerce for nothing. “The only time I go there is every three months for a board meeting at our network station there. Yeah, I remember—I did go to Adelaide in October, the last week of October. It was a special meeting, it had to do with what was going to happen after the stock market crash and the takeover bid. I spent the whole of my time with the local executives. They were worried about their jobs. I spent all my time reassuring them.” He made a noise that sounded like an attempt at a laugh, but which got caught in his throat. “Jesus!”

“Have you someone from here who can vouch for that?”

“Not from here, but from head office. Michael Broad. He wasn’t with us all the time—he was looking at some of the other Springfellow interests over there. Springfellow owns a couple of vineyards up in the Barossa Valley.”

“Does he usually go with you to the quarterly meetings of the network?”

“Never. He’s never concerned himself with the network—not up till now.” There was no mistaking the bitterness in his voice. “He’s just fired me.”

Malone contained his surprise. “Who usually went with you to Adelaide?”

“Miss Springfellow, Justine. But Michael stepped in for that trip—Justine had that family takeover bid on her hands. Why, are you suggesting he bought a silencer?” Dircks was not big enough for this job he had held, but he was not unintelligent. He had got as far as he had on his wits and now, all at once, they came back to full spark. “Has this got something to do with Justine’s trial?”

It had dawned on Malone that they had come to arrest the wrong man. He had been, subconsciously, so intent on getting Justine off the hook that he had lunged for the first alternative suspect. It was sloppy police work and he knew it.

“Can you remember the date you went to Adelaide?”

Dircks was suddenly more helpful. He dipped into one of the briefcases, came up with a diary. “Yeah, here it is. We flew over on the seven-thirty flight on October 29, a Thursday, and we stayed overnight. Michael was with me.”

Then Clements said, “Mr. Dircks, do you wear a hat?”

“A hat?” Dircks touched his thick grey pelt. It was obvious from the smooth cut of it that he spent money on it, was proud of it, a man in his fifties with not a hint of a bald patch. “No, never. Well, yes, when I’m out on my boat or playing golf I wear an old terry-towelling job, to keep the sun off. I have to watch out for sun cancers.” He pointed to his pink complexion.

“Does Mr. Broad wear a hat?”

“No. I think he likes showing off that bald skull of his—no, wait a minute. He had a hat in Adelaide! I saw him going out of the hotel the second morning wearing one, a tweed one, you know, like the rah-rah boys wear to rugby matches.” Another one with prejudices, Malone thought irrelevantly. “I thought it a bit peculiar, you know, a winter one, when it was so warm over there—”

“Did you mention it to him?”

“Yeah, I did, but he just ignored me. He’s a cold shit, he can cut you dead—” He looked at them shrewdly. “He’s in trouble, isn’t he? It couldn’t happen to a nicer sonofabitch. You want me to say something against him?” He was once more ready to state the obvious, even if he had to concoct it.

“We may,” said Malone. “We’ll let you know. You’re not leaving the country or anything, are you?” He gestured at the briefcases and the cartons.

“Are you kidding? And miss the chance to shaft Michael up the arse? Look, here’s my home number, it’s unlisted—” He scribbled a number on a slip of paper, shoved it at Malone. He was almost gleeful: he was like a drowning man who, at the moment he felt the rock beneath his feet, had seen a fellow swimmer taken by a shark. I complained because I had no shoes . . . He had seen that once on someone’s desk. “Call me any time, any time at all. Oh shit, you don’t know how good this makes me feel!”

I’d better get out of here, Malone thought, before I knock him down. On the way out he stopped by the secretary’s desk. “Thanks, Rose. I’m sorry we were so aggressive. Sergeant Clements will send you some flowers.”

“Flowers and dinner,” said Clements, all at once chivalrous, a state of mind that made him giddy. “How about that?”

“May I bring my husband?” said Rose, but gave them both a charming smile and put away her sword. “By the way, my name isn’t Wong. It’s Robinson.”

Out in the car-park Malone leaned on the roof of the Holden and looked across it at Clements. “Thanks, Russ. We agree who killed Emma?”

Clements nodded. “Unless he did it in cahoots with Justine. But I don’t think so. I dunno what his motive was, but he did it, all right. If that print on the bedside table and on the silencer are his . . .”

They got into the car. Clements put the key in the ignition, but before he turned it he looked at Malone again. “You still owe me an explanation.”

“I know it, Russ.” He could feel Leeds’s secret, like a fishhook in his mouth. “But I can’t tell you.”

“It’s something to do with the Commissioner, isn’t it?”

Malone didn’t reply.

Clements sighed. “Okay, you don’t need to tell me. I read the diaries, too. Whose bastard child . . . He thinks Justine is his daughter, right?”

Malone felt the hook slip free. “Let’s go and pick up Mr. Broad.”

III

Walter Springfellow was not exactly jubilant when he came out of the courtroom, but old chemistry was bubbling in him. He had been witness for three days now to the law at work and, though matters were not going as he wanted them to, the professional side of his mind had responded to the atmosphere. He had put himself in the place of Gilligan J. and, as the evidence was presented and the questioning and cross-examination had sliced across the court, he had realized how much he had missed his original profession. The personal side of him had, however, seen what the process was doing to his daughter. Albemarle, QC, was fighting a losing battle for her, and Walter, all the old experience coming back to him, sensed that Albemarle knew it.

He had not yet spoken to Justine. Venetia had decided that she would wait till the weekend before introducing Walter to her; he had agreed with the sense of her suggestion. Thirty seconds, a minute at the most, was not enough for the meeting of a father and daughter who had never met before; he could not come back from the dead and greet her casually . . . “I’m your father, Justine. Glad we finally met. Now go back to prison and we’ll have another thirty-second chat tomorrow.” All that, with the media reporters, rising to leave the press box and stopping, along with everyone else in court, to witness the reunion.

He was impatient for the weekend and the meeting at Mulawa; yet he was afraid of it. He could never tell Justine how and why he had deserted her and her mother; perhaps Venetia could do that when he was dead and buried. Once he had been as confident as any man in dealing with a situation; perhaps too confident, even arrogant. In a couple of days he would be hauled into the court of her affections and he was as depressed and afraid as she had been in the court he had just left.

He walked down Bourke Street, towards Liverpool Street, where Edwin, as on the two previous days, was to pick him up. He felt he had gone unnoticed in the court, had been accepted as no more than a daily spectator. He had not yet decided whether or when he would turn himself in to either the police or ASIO. He would make that decision after he had had his reunion with Justine and after the verdict on her had been brought down. If she was convicted, he would go back to Germany, disappear again. Two convicted murderers in the one family, the Springfellow family, would be too much for the name to bear.

“Judge Springfeller?”

Age, sickness and worry had dulled his wits: he responded automatically. “Yes?”

He looked at the beefy man in the straw hat standing beside him as they waited for the traffic lights. He remembered the man had been sitting behind him for the past three days in court, but they hadn’t exchanged so much as a nod, even though they had become regulars. He had no idea who the man was.

“I been looking at you for three days now,” said Chilla Dural. “I knew I’d seen you before, but I couldn’t place you. No, don’t cross. We’re going up this way.”

He nodded up the steep hill of Liverpool Street. Edwin, Walter knew, would be waiting two blocks down the other way. “I’m afraid you have the wrong man—”

“Don’t argue, Judge.” Dural had his hand in his jacket pocket. “I got a gun in here. Now let’s go nice and quiet up this way. You don’t recognize me, do you? I’m Chilla Dural. You gimme life, your last time on the Bench before you went to join them spooks, ASIO, whatever it is.”

Throughout his adult life Walter had become accustomed to the bizarre. The years in the courts, as barrister and then as judge, the year as ASIO chief, the long years since his disappearance, had taught him that beneath the surface of the mundane the grotesque was always ready to erupt. He stood now in a street busy with motor traffic, though there were no pedestrians but Dural and himself; life flowed by in the cars and trucks, but it was as remote as a newsreel on a screen. He was being kidnapped by a man with a gun, but the peak-hour traffic couldn’t be stopped, everyone was rushing to get home to the mundane or the bizarre, whatever their luck was.

Halfway up the steep incline Walter paused to catch his breath. “You will have to give me a moment. I’m not well.”

“Take your time. Once we get to the top, it’s flat all the rest of the way.”

Dural stood looking patiently at this man whom he had once hated so fiercely. It had taken him two full days to recognize Walter Springfellow at last; memory plays games, it hinders us as we try to remove the layers of age from a once-familiar face. He had become obsessed with identifying the white-bearded man in front of him as, in less serious circumstances, we lie in bed and try to remember the name of an old actor we have just seen in a late-night movie.

Jerry Killeen had not come with him to the trial after the first day; the little man had had to go into hospital for removal of a poisoned cyst. Dural, no lover of hospitals, had not visited the garrulous Killeen; the little man would give him all the details when he came home. Dural had gone to the court today, but left when the afternoon session began, after satisfying himself that Springfellow would be there till the court rose at four o’clock. He had gone back to the rooming-house, got the Walther and come back to wait for Springfellow in the grounds of the courthouse. He had no plan in mind. His mind, in fact, was still getting over the shock of his recognition of the ex-judge. What did you do with a man who was supposed to be dead? Heinie Odets might have advised him, but Heinie was genuinely dead.

“What are you going to do with me?” Walter was taking deep breaths.

“I dunno, exactly. We’ll see when we get to my place.”

“You’re kidnapping me and taking me to your own house or flat? That’s not the way it’s usually done, is it?” He had got his breath back.

Dural smiled. “No, I guess not. But you and me ain’t a usual pair, are we? You okay now?”

The short halt seemed to have put them on an amiable basis; stiff perhaps, but agreeable. Walter had twice been in close danger when he had crossed into East Germany; each time he had kept his head and escaped. He would try to do the same this time, but he was weakened by resignation. It was as if the cancer had suddenly begun to race inside him.

It took them ten minutes, at a slow pace, to walk to Dural’s rooming-house. As they entered the front door the two Vietnamese from upstairs came down the hallway. They smiled at Dural, said, “G’day, mate,” passed him, one of them munching a meat pie as they went, and were gone. They were halfway to becoming Aussies, a prospect that would poison Jerry Killeen even more.

Dural looked at Walter. “Why didn’t you grab one of them, tell him what I’m doing?”

“I—I really don’t know. I wasn’t sure they’d understand. I’m not used to Asians.”

“It’s another country now, Judge. Even the gaols, they’re full of Wogs and darkies.”

He opened his door and stood back to let the other conservative enter. They were birds of a feather, Anglo-Saxon birds: the jungle was becoming too exotic for them.

In Dural’s room Walter looked at the impersonal bareness, except for the single photo of a young woman and two small girls. “This is your home?” The old upper-middle-class attitude still lingered; he was still continually surprised at how the other 90 per cent lived. “You live here permanently?”

Chilla Dural missed the unintended snobbery. “It’s only temporary. I don’t think of it as home.” He took the gun out of his pocket; he still had no ammunition for it, but Springfellow wouldn’t know that. “You see, a Walther? Just like your daughter used.”

“I don’t believe she used any gun at all. Is that why I’m here, to discuss the trial?”

“Siddown, Judge. You want some tea or coffee?” Dural switched on an electric kettle, got some cups and saucers out of a small corner cupboard. He had put the gun down on the bench beside the electric-plate, but Walter was on the opposite side of the room and too far away to grab it. “I dunno what I’m gunna do with you, but I hadda get you here and let you know I hadn’t forgotten you. I had a sort of—” He fumbled for the word.

“Compulsion? No milk, thanks. I like it black.”

“Compulsion, yeah. I got some biscuits here, Iced Vo-Vo’s. I’m old-fashioned in me taste.”

“So am I.” Keep them talking, let them ramble on; he remembered the intelligence lessons. “Mr. Dural, you may not know what you are going to do with me—neither do I. But I don’t think you’re going to make any profit out of it.”

Dural picked up the gun again. He looked at this thin, sick-looking man and suddenly had a resurgence of the old hatred for him. He had thought he had long forgotten it, but it came surging back. He felt himself trembling and his grip tightened on the gun; there were no bullets in it, but he could use it to smash in the old man’s thin skull. This bastard had put him away for life: everything he had once had, the easy living, the working for Heinie Odets, the available women, had been taken away from him by this cold, soft-spoken bastard. His vision blurred and for a moment he was on the point of yet another murder.

Walter Springfellow said, “Are you going to kill me, Mr. Dural?”

Then the trembling stopped, his vision cleared. He looked down at the gun in his hand and was surprised to see how tightly he was grasping it. He put it down again on the bench, was all at once, and with relief, sane again. If he killed the judge, he might just as well go out and buy some bullets and kill himself. The screws at Parramatta wouldn’t welcome him back.

“I was gunna ask for a ransom for you. I thought I might ask you to set the price.” He grinned, but it was lopsided on his face, as if he had no control over it.

“There’d be no point,” said Walter, dying gradually and not afraid.

“You mean your missus won’t pay cash to get you back?” Dural made the instant coffee, handed Walter his cup and saucer and a small plate of sweet biscuits. He sat down opposite Walter, the gun on the bench beside him. “I dunno I’m even interested in the money any more. You’re just a means to an end.” He was pleased with the phrase and hoped the educated joker opposite him appreciated it. He had always respected education: Heinie Odets had had it.

“What end is that?” Walter ate an Iced Vo-Vo: it was another step nearer home, a retreat from apfel strudel or schnecken.

Dural took his time about answering that. Would this man, an ex-judge, understand his obsession? He took a risk, a small one; after all, his aim was to be caught eventually. “I done time in Parramatta, a long time—you helped with that. I got used to it, you know what I mean?”

Walter took his own time, sipping his coffee. After years of the best German coffee, the instant muck had nothing to recommend it; but he had always been well-mannered, at least in the smaller customs. At last he said, “Yes, I think I do know what you mean, Mr. Dural. I was in a sort of gaol for many years, though not in your sense. I grew accustomed to it. There was a sort of safety to it, is that what you mean?”

“You put your finger on it, Judge!” Chilla Dural leaned forward. “Now I could shoot you and give meself up and they’d chuck me back in quick as you like. But it wouldn’t work. Villains who kill cops and judges don’t have a good time of it in gaol. I wanna go back to what I was used to, comfort and security.”

Walter began to feel safe; he was not going to be murdered. “Well, we’ll have to work something out, won’t we? I think we both have a problem, Mr. Dural.”

“You, too? Yeah, of course, your daughter. More coffee?”

“No, thanks. Yes, I too. Perhaps we can help each other.” But he could think of nothing that would help either of them. Depression settled on him again, as it had while he had listened to the prosecution of his daughter. “You see, Mr. Dural, I’m dying.”

“I can’t help you there,” said Chilla Dural, rearing back in shock. “I’m sorry to hear it. But don’t ask me to kill you. I never done a mercy killing.”

IV

Malone and Clements drove straight from Channel 15 to Springfellow House at Circular Quay. It was dark now, light reflections trembling on the harbour waters like fish scales, the floodlit bridge looming like the grey-green skeleton of a monster wombat. Homeward-bound workers streamed towards the wharves and the ferries, cars crawled along the expressway above their heads, trains rumbled along the elevated tracks. Working Sydney was closing down till another day, its blood was draining out of it towards the suburbs.

The two detectives, still working, went up to the twenty-ninth floor, where they had interviewed Michael Broad at the beginning of their investigations into the murder of Emma Springfellow. It was the sort of floor that had become standard environment for top executives during the boom: spacious, thickly carpeted, expensively furnished, enough art on the walls to start a small gallery; it was commercial pomp. The colour scheme, of course, was pink and grey.

Broad’s secretary, pink and blonde, was behind her grey word processor on her grey desk. She looked up with some disdain at the two detectives spoiling the colour scheme in their polyester blue. Reception desks have created a new class of snobbery.

“Mr. Broad is not in. He is upstairs with the chairwoman.”

“Good,” said Malone, thinking quickly. “Then I’ll have a look in his office.”

“You will not!”

Malone looked at Clements. “Read the Riot Act to her, Russ. The bit about obstructing the police in the course of their duty.”

He opened the door to Broad’s office and went in, closing it behind him. It was an office in which the word success was all but inscribed on the walls. Some shareholders had contributed, unwittingly, all their lifetime dividends to the furnishing of this room. Broad, with or without the chairwoman’s consent, had surrounded himself with the trappings: appearances were everywhere, even when he was alone. The framed scrolls on the walls, between the paintings, told him what he already knew: Businessman of the Year, Corporation Man of the Year, Et Cetera of the Year . . . It would send him into a nervous breakdown to give up all this.

Malone went behind the big desk, remarking its neatness as he looked for what he wanted. He saw the gold pen and pencil set; the pen was missing, probably upstairs with Broad. Malone carefully took the pencil out of its holder, laid it on the leather top of the desk. Just as carefully he picked up the gold-embossed blotter, taking it by the blotter half-cylinder and not by the handle. He laid it beside the pencil, then added a leather spectacles case to the other two items. A large envelope full of papers was in the In basket; he emptied the papers from it and put the pencil, the blotter and the spectacles case in the envelope. Then he went back to the outer office.

He handed the envelope to Clements. “Ring Don Cheshire, tell him to stay at his office and you’re on your way out there now. If he’s already gone home, get him there and tell him to meet you at his office. I want a check on those prints within two hours. I’ll be back at Homicide by then with you-know-who.”

“Have you been doing what I think you’ve been doing?”

Malone winked. “You’ve only got yourself to blame. You taught me.” Then he looked at the secretary. “Sorry, miss, for barging in like that.”

“Shouldn’t you have a warrant or something?”

Malone clicked his fingers. “Damn! I left it back on my desk. I knew I’d forgotten something. It’s been one of those days.”

The secretary’s look told him she knew a liar when she heard one. “Shall I tell Mr. Broad you want to see him?”

She reached for her phone, but Clements already had his hand on it. “No, love, Inspector Malone will announce himself. He’s good at that. Good luck, Scobie. I’ll see you back at the office.”

Malone didn’t bother to wait for the lifts, which had been commandeered by the workers on the lower floors on their way home. He went up the fire stairs two at a time. On the thirtieth floor the secretaries were still at their desks; up here you went home, if you were lucky, when the boss went home. There were two secretaries and they both stood up as Malone, a little abruptly, demanded to see Lady Springfellow.

“She’s in conference—”

“Tell her I’ve got something to add to the conference. Come on, girls, don’t muck around!” He was losing patience, one of his best assets. “I want to see her now!”

The secretaries looked at each other, then one of them went into the inner office. She was gone a full minute before she emerged; she came out just as Malone was on the point of bursting in. “Lady Springfellow says you may go in. But I warn you, she’s not happy—”

“I’ll make her happy,” said Malone.

He went into the chairwoman’s office, closing the door behind him. He had not been in this room before; he was not surprised to find that it suited Venetia exactly. She sat behind her big desk and looked at him with all the hospitality of Elizabeth I greeting a Spanish messenger boy. Beside her desk Michael Broad sat like a chancellor, his chair pulled round to face the intruder.

“This had better be important, Inspector—”

“It is, Lady Springfellow. I’ve really come to see Mr. Broad, but I think you’ll be interested in what I have to say.”

Broad had stiffened almost imperceptibly, but Malone had caught the clawing of the hand on the knee. “I think you’d better explain all that, Inspector.”

“I’d like you to come up to Homicide with me, Mr. Broad. I think you can help us with our enquiries into the murder of Emma Springfellow.”

“What enquiries? They’re all finished! Dammit, is this some police joke?” Broad now had both hands on the arms of his chair; he seemed to be holding himself in. “Lady Springfellow doesn’t want this sort of sick joke played on her—”

“Just a minute, Michael,” said Venetia. “It’s not a joke, is it, Mr. Malone?”

“No, it isn’t. I have to warn you, Mr. Broad, don’t say anything till you have your lawyer with you. In the meantime it will save a lot of fuss and bother if you come quietly.”

Broad still sat tensed in his chair, but he said nothing. His face had become a mask; almost, with his bald skull, a death-mask. Venetia turned towards him; for a moment she looked ugly. Then the expression was gone as quickly as it had come and she looked back at Malone. “Is this going to help Justine?”

“I don’t know,” said Malone. “I hope so. But it will depend on how much we get out of Mr. Broad. Coming?”

For a moment it looked as if Broad was going to refuse; then he stood up, his legs unlocking like those of a mechanical man. “I’ll be back, Venetia. This is all some stupid mistake—”

Then the phone rang. Venetia picked it up. “Yes, Edwin? Oh no—where can he—?” Then she collected herself, put her hand over the mouthpiece and looked at Malone. “I’m sorry, there’s an emergency at home. Will you excuse me?”

Broad said, “Venetia, will you ring Brownlow and tell him I want him up at Homicide, wherever it is?”

Venetia looked directly at Broad with a stare that chilled even Malone: Christ, he thought, she’s tough.

“No, Michael,” she said. “Get your own lawyer. Mr. Brownlow works for me and Justine.”

Malone saw the sudden look of hatred in Broad’s face; or was it fear? He stared at Venetia, then abruptly he turned and went ahead of Malone out of the room. Malone paused a moment.

“I’ll let you know how it goes. But don’t build your hopes too high.”

“Thank you, Scobie.”

She waited till the door closed behind him, then she took her hand away from the phone’s mouthpiece. “Edwin?”

“I’m sorry—I’ve interrupted you at something—”

“No, no. Something’s happening, but I’ll tell you when I come home . . . I’m worried about Walter. How could he disappear in a couple of blocks? I saw him leave the court. I hope, oh God, I hope he hasn’t gone off again!”

“Don’t let’s think the worst, not yet.” But Edwin sounded as if he had already begun to feel that way. “He may have just decided he wanted to be on his own to think. How was he at court today?”

“He looked all right. But how can I tell? Alice and I never speak to him there—we play at being strangers. Is Alice at the house?”

“Yes, I’ve spoken to her—I thought he might have called and left a message. But she hasn’t heard from him. I’m stumped as to what we should do. If he doesn’t turn up in the next hour or so, do we go to the police? Or to ASIO?”

“Edwin, we can’t! Let’s wait a while. I’ll be home in an hour or so—I have things to tidy up here. You and Ruth go over to the house, stay with Alice, just in case he rings.”

“We’ll do that.” Then he said solicitously, “Are you all right? You sound as if something had happened before I called . . .”

“I’ll tell you when I come home.”

She hung up the phone. Though she had sounded reasonably calm, she was in absolute turmoil. She was still in shock from the revelation that Michael Broad might have murdered Emma, when Edwin hit her with the news that Walter had once more disappeared. She was accustomed to coping with crises; but the last five minutes had been too much. She began to shiver, then she burst into tears. She was weeping, crumpled in her chair, when one of her secretaries knocked on the door and came in.

Miss Misson was a practical, commonsensical girl. She had never seen her boss like this before, but she knew that everyone had some tears in them. She didn’t ask what had brought on the tears, just said, “Tea or a drink?”

Venetia dried her eyes, sighed deeply to move the weight in her chest, “I think tea would be best, Kate. My mind’s in a fog enough as it is.”

“A bad day at court?”

“Tomorrow may be better. But if it’s not one thing, it’s another.”

But already her spirit was reviving, even before the tea arrived. There is nothing to be done but to make the best of what cannot be helped: she had read that somewhere. She placed her faith in God, a partner she had never previously considered. God, somewhere, smiled in satisfaction, if a little surprised.

“I think I’ll learn to pray again,” she said and Miss Misson, on her way out, stumbled on an invisible hump in the carpet.

V

Clements and Sergeant Cheshire arrived at Homicide an hour and a half after Malone had brought Michael Broad back there. When they had gone down in the lift at Springfellow House Malone had said, “I don’t have a car. We’ve got the choice of yours or a taxi.”

There was no one else in the lift; the last of the workers had gone. “You mean I have to drive myself to my own arrest?”

“I thought that would appeal to your sense of style.”

As they drove up Macquarie Street in the Porsche, past The Vanderbilt looking solid and impregnable, the murder inside it those six months ago now swept into a cupboard and never mentioned, despite the current trial, Broad said, “You’re making a great mistake.”

“Maybe. Our game is a bit like yours, I think. You make your assessments, then you make your investment. We do the same. You win a few, you lose a few. The difference is, when we lose we can’t write it off as a tax loss.”

“You’re going to lose this one. I had nothing to do with Emma’s murder.”

Malone glanced back at the tweed hat lying on the back bench of the car. “Bring that hat with you when we go up to my office.”

Broad didn’t ask why: which was the first of his mistakes. He had evidently decided indignation was no defence; he had gone to the other extreme, he had decided to remain silent. But there was a growing tension in him that Malone noted: Broad was more highly strung than he had suspected. The cold exterior was an armour.

Broad said nothing further till he reached the sixth floor of the Remington Rand building and asked Malone if he could call a lawyer.

“Go ahead. But don’t try Brownlow—I wouldn’t mind betting Lady Springfellow has already been on to him.”

“The bitch,” said Broad, but he was talking to himself and not to Malone.

He called a lawyer named Langer, who arrived within twenty minutes. He was Jewish, a refugee like Broad but an earlier arrival. He had come out of an Austrian Displaced Persons camp as a boy after the Second World War and had taken to Australia like a native. He had played rugby and now played golf; he preferred beer to wine and he couldn’t stand Strauss or Schubert; his tales from the Vienna Woods were usually dirty. He was short, fat and knew as much about the law as a whole Bench of judges.

“Hello, Scobie, what have we got here?

“Nothing so far, Freddie, just some questions.”

Broad was shocked that Malone and Langer were so friendly. “Relax,” said Langer. “The police don’t pay me, you do. You’ll get your money’s worth. Can we go somewhere Scobie, while I talk to my client?”

Most of Homicide had gone home; only a few detectives remained at their desks. Malone gestured to an empty corner at the far end of the room. “Take your time. I don’t want to start questioning Mr. Broad till some evidence I’m expecting arrives.”

When Clements and Cheshire did arrive, Broad and Langer were still down at the far end of the room, though they seemed now to have nothing to say to each other. They half-rose as the two newcomers arrived, but Malone waved to them to stay where they were.

“Well, do we have anything?”

“Bloody oath we do,” said Cheshire and laid out some magnified prints on Malone’s desk. “This is the print from the silencer. This is the one from the bedside table in Emma’s flat. These I took from the gold pencil, the blotter handle and the glasses case. He goes in for the best, don’t he?” Cheshire paused to admire the taste of someone who could afford the best. Then he said, “They all match perfectly. They’re his index finger.”

“We’ve got him!” said Clements.

“Have we got him on his own? That’s the point.” Malone looked down the long room. “Did he do the job for Justine? Or with her? Or on his own?”

Cheshire was gathering up the prints. “I’ll leave you blokes to work that out. I better make myself scarce with these, except the ones on the silencer and the table. We don’t want his legal eagle to know how you got the other prints. You want me to throw „em away?”

“Don, you know better than that—we never throw anything away. Sometimes we can’t find things, like illegal tapes, but we never throw anything away. Keep „em. I’ll question him, then I’ll take him over to the Centre and charge him and take his prints officially. I’ll let you know when we need you. And thanks, Don.”

“Any time,” said Cheshire and departed, a tradesman to his fingertips and anyone else’s.

Malone got out his running sheets and waved to Broad and Langer to join him and Clements. The few remaining detectives in the big room looked up curiously as the two men passed them, but once Malone got down to his questioning they studiously avoided looking towards him and Clements. It was the old territorial imperative at work: stay out of my case till you’re invited in.

“According to our earlier investigation, Mr. Broad, on the night of Emma Springfellow’s murder you went to dinner with a Miss Donatelli, you took her home, left her at her door and went home to your own flat at Double Bay. Miss Donatelli corroborated all that, at least her part. You reached home at approximately ten-fifteen. Correct?”

“As far as I can remember. That was six months ago.”

“Sure, but it wasn’t just an ordinary night when nothing happened. Let’s try another date.” He was looking at his notes now, which had nothing to do with the running sheet. “Thursday, October twenty-ninth, you went over to Adelaide with Mr. Dircks from Channel Fifteen.”

“Did I?”

Malone, tired now but trying not to show it, glanced at Langer. “Tell your client not to be a smart-arse, Freddie. It will be quicker and easier all round.”

“I’d advise you to just answer the questions, Michael,” said Langer. “At this stage these are just questions of fact.”

Broad stared at him as if deciding whether to sack him or not; then he looked back at Malone. “Yes, I went to Adelaide. It was business.”

“I’m sure it was. Business business and personal business.”

“This is where I have to advise my client to be careful, Inspector. We’re getting into conjecture now.”

Malone acknowledged that with a nod. He picked up the tweed hat which was lying on his desk. “Did you wear this while in Adelaide?”

“Not that I remember.”

Malone tried another tack. “What were your relations with Emma?”

“Cool but correct.” Broad had become stiff, in posture and voice. A vein throbbed just once in his temple.

“She wasn’t threatening you?”

There was just a flicker of apprehension in the eyes; it could have been a trick of light. “Why me? Her fight was with the Springfellow women.”

“You worked for—the Springfellow women. She wasn’t threatening you with the Companies and Securities Commission?” He had remembered the entry in Emma’s diary: Someone should be reported to the NCSC. How do these people get away with these swindles?

Again there was the flicker in the eyes: Broad was beginning to crack inside. But he was still ceramic-hard on the outside.

“Don’t answer that,” said Langer.

Broad waved him to be silent; he didn’t take his gaze away from Malone. “If she was threatening me, and I can’t remember that she was, it was only part of the larger threat to the Springfellow women.” The Springfellow women sounded like a tribe, one with whom he had only the slightest connection. He gestured at the running sheets. “I’m sure you have all that in there.”

“You didn’t visit Emma on the night of her murder, after you had gone home to your flat?”

“No.”

Malone opened a drawer in his desk and took out the silencer in its plastic envelope. “Have you seen that before?”

“No.”

Malone stared at him for a while, till he saw the vein throb again in the temple. Broad was clutching at himself from the inside.

“Mr. Broad, you didn’t ask what it was. Most law-abiding people have never seen a silencer—they would just take that for some sort of metal pipe. Did you know it was a silencer?”

Broad looked at Langer, though he didn’t seem to see him. The latter said to Malone, “I’d advise him not to answer that.”

“It’s a Gold Spot silencer, made here in Australia,” Malone told Broad, not taking his eyes off him. “Did you go to a gun dealer in Adelaide named—” he named the dealer “—and purchase this silencer and have him fit it to a Walther PPK .380? The same gun that’s been presented in evidence in Justine’s trial?”

“Again, Inspector, I have to advise my client not to answer. You’re asking him to incriminate himself.”

Malone nodded again, but hadn’t stopped looking at Broad. “Did you remove the Walther from the gun cabinet at the Springfellow home? You were a frequent visitor there, weren’t you?”

“Not that frequent.” Broad now was almost robot-like.

“I don’t think these questions should be allowed,” said Langer. “I don’t mean to be rude, Inspector, but I think it’s reached a stage of put up or shut up.”

Malone grinned, though he had no real humour left. “Now you’re sounding like a smart-arse, Freddie. But one last question for Mr. Broad. Do you know a man named Koster?”

“No.” Broad was holding himself rigid, the rein at breaking point.

“He’s a gun dealer, mostly illegal. You approached him here in Sydney about buying a silencer.”

“My client has already answered your question,” said Langer. “He’s said he doesn’t know this man Koster. So are you going to put up?”

Malone looked at Clements, who nodded. Both knew that at the moment they had very little that would stand up in court; they could start nothing official till they had Broad’s fingerprints on the record. Then they would have to produce Koster and the gun dealer from Adelaide to identify him.

Malone took the jump: “We’re arresting Mr. Broad on being an accessory before the fact of the murder of Emma Springfellow. There may be other charges to follow. We’ll take him up to Police Centre and charge him. We’ll ask that bail be denied tonight, but you can apply for it tomorrow morning when we take him before the magistrate. On your feet, Mr. Broad.”

Broad sat as if refusing to move. Then he slowly stood up. None of the others recognized it, but the madness that had gripped his mother was taking hold of him. It had happened before, when Emma had threatened him with exposure to the NCSC. Everything that he had built in the last twenty years had been cracked at the base when he had lost so much in the Crash; Emma, with her malicious threat, had been ready to topple the whole edifice of his life to the ground. Then she was dead, out of the way, and Justine, his unlucky, unsuspecting saviour, had been laid with the blame. He had taken control of the Springfellow Corporation, and begun to rebuild his life and his fortune, had begun to enlarge his ambitions. And now this policeman, this Malone, this dull plodding nobody, was threatening the whole edifice again.

“You’ll regret this, Mr. Malone. You’ll regret it to your dying day.” He said it quietly, like the sanest of men.