13

I

“I MISSED her,” said Andy Graham. “I shouldn’t have gone by car. We got held up in the traffic, there’s a pile-up in Elizabeth Street, two cars and a bus. Sorry.”

Malone couldn’t complain. Despite the State government’s and the city council’s much publicized efforts at traffic control, for every new rule announced a thousand more cars seemed to be spawned. The Harbour Tunnel had reduced traffic on the Harbour Bridge, only to spew out a gridlock in the inner city. Nobody was going to be denied the use of his car, or what was the point of getting into debt to pay for it? Armageddon would not be a battle but just one last huge traffic jam. Eternity, it seemed, would be history’s biggest junkyard.

“Righto, Andy. Keep the ASM on her going, on the coach stations as well as the airports. I don’t want her killed, that’s all. We couldn’t have held her, I just wanted to keep tabs on her. But if she’s done a bunk . . .”

“Maybe she hasn’t.” Andy Graham hadn’t sat down; he never did, unless told to do so. Malone sometimes wondered if the big young detective had been born standing up, bouncing up and down between his mother’s legs on his already ungainly big feet. “I checked if anyone had seen her come out of the court. One of the sheriff’s men had. He’d come out for a smoke, he said, and saw her go down the steps to the street—he was looking after her, he said, because she was such a good sort. Some woman, another slopehead he thought, came up to her and said something. The last he saw of them they were walking up Liverpool Street. I must’ve passed her and didn’t recognize her. I hadn’t seen her before, you know,” he added defensively.

Malone threw down his pen; he had been making notes before feeding yesterday’s report into the computer. “She could’ve gone off with anyone. One of the killers, a friend, anyone . . . Oh, hullo, Mr. Junor.”

Clements had appeared behind Andy Graham, escorting Harold Junor from Shahriver International Credit Bank. Graham excused himself and Malone waved Junor to a chair. “Thanks for coming in.”

“I had very little choice.” Junor looked at Clements, who had seated himself at the corner of Malone’s desk; he did not seem to resent the big detective, seemed more resigned. “I’ve been left holding the bag, as they say.”

“Mr. Palady couldn’t come?”

“Mr. Palady left this morning, our head office recalled him last night.”

“That was a bit sudden, wasn’t it? As I remember it, your head office is in Abadan. Not a healthy place to be recalled to right now, is it?”

“Well, actually, no. He’s gone to Hong Kong.”

“To look into this transfer of twenty-five million dollars stolen from Casement Trust?”

Though Junor had spent a good deal of his youth in the front row of a rugby scrum, not an intellectual haunt but a place where your opponents, when not trying to screw your genitals off, tried to mash your brains, he had not lost a talent for quick thinking. He was not fazed by Malone’s question; he caught the ball on the full: “We had nothing to do with the theft, you know. We were merely the conduit, which is what banks are, mostly. I’m surprised you know about it. Casement’s have kept it pretty quiet.”

Malone let that pass. “Are you going to return the money to them?”

“That’s why Mr. Palady has gone to Hong Kong.”

“Casement’s are under the impression that you’d like to hang on to it.”

Junor flushed at that, as if he had been uppercut in the scrum. “I don’t know where they got that impression. Mr. Palady and I have talked about it, we’ve done our best to advise Hong Kong to play it straight and return the money as soon as possible. Head office, I gather, thinks the same way as we do.”

“Has Hong Kong got some sort of autonomy? Is that how your branches work?”

Junor glanced from one detective to the other, grated his teeth together. He was not a born banker, but so few are; the talent has to be bred through generations. He had been recruited because, as a sporting hero in England, he had presented an image of bluff honesty; honesty, even bluff, always looks good in the doorway of any bank, especially one as questionable as Shahriver. He had learned to skirt the truth, if not to be exactly untruthful, but even reputable banks do that; truth is not only the first casualty of war but, too frequently, also of finance. He wanted to lie, but all at once saw the profit in truth.

“What I tell you is just between us?”

“You have no idea how many times we’re asked that, Mr. Junor. But, righto, go ahead. It’s off the record.”

“Well—” He sat back on his chair, took a deep breath. “Some of our branches have local equity.”

“Here in Sydney?”

“No, we’re totally owned by head office. But Hong Kong—” He paused as if wondering if he was pursuing the right course. But he had been left holding the bag and the bag was proving to be heavy. Another deep breath: “Hong Kong doesn’t really bear looking into. Shahriver owns only a third. The other two-thirds are owned by Chinese and Japanese interests.”

“Triads and yakuza?”

Caution fell on his face like a visor, as if he had abruptly realized he might be talking dangerously; he frowned, peering at Malone and Clements suspiciously. “Well, no, I didn’t say that. Do you mean you know something?”

Malone went off at an angle: “When you were last in here, Mr. Junor, you told us that Rob Sweden had never transferred any money overseas, that he was a pretty small depositor by your standards. But he was the feller who transferred the twenty-five million.”

“We didn’t know that, then. The money didn’t pass through us, it went direct to Hong Kong and his name wouldn’t have been on the transfer. We only learned of it two days ago, when Casement’s started leaning on us out here.”

“We know the money’s gone to one of Mr. Kornsey’s companies. Has Mrs. Kornsey been in touch with you?”

“Well, yes. Not her exactly—her solicitor. She’s claiming everything in his name in our accounts.”

“Including the twenty-five million?”

“I don’t think she knows of that.”

“Are you going to tell her?”

Junor looked surprised at the question. “Do you want me to?”

“I don’t really care,” said Malone. “I care when someone is done out of a thousand bucks or ten thousand, especially when it means something to them. But twenty-five million?” He shook his head. “That’s not money, Mr. Junor, not the way I understand it. That’s just figures.”

There was a sudden silence, broken only by voices in the outer room and the ringing of a phone. Junor looked from one man to the other. He looked less flushed now, less worried. “So is there anything more?”

“I don’t think so, unless Mr. Palady comes back with the money.”

“Or,” said Clements, who had been taking the occasional note, “unless someone from here in Sydney starts applying pressure on you.”

Junor frowned. “Such as?”

“Oh, half a dozen people. Casement, Mrs. Kornsey, your other clients Belgarda and Tajiri, Rob Sweden’s father . . . We’ve got enough candidates lined up. If they do call on you, Mr. Junor, let us know. We don’t want to be called in on your homicide. Come on, I’ll show you out.”

“Thanks for coming,” said Malone.

Junor, on his feet, squeezed out a wry smile. “You’ve made my day, old chap.”

When Clements came back, Malone said, “I think we should pay Mrs. Kornsey another visit. She’s shoving her neck out too far too soon.”

They drove out to Lugarno through a crisp day, the rain gone, the air positively shining under the slight wind coming up from the south-west. This autumn was proving variable, almost mocking.

The silver Mercedes was standing in the driveway and as soon as he saw it Malone had one of those moments when one’s forgetfulness, incompetence, stupidity, call it what you will, hits one right between the eyes. “Bugger!”

Clements drew the unmarked police car into the kerb. “What’s bitten you now?”

“When Kornsey went missing, did anyone ask Mrs. Kornsey how he left home? Why didn’t he go wherever he was going in that Merc, or in his wife’s car?”

Clements shrugged. “I can’t tell you. There may have been something about it in the Missing Persons report, but I dunno. You were the one who talked to her.”

Malone, getting out of the car, looked back over his shoulder. “Are you accusing me of being slipshod?”

“Looks like it.” Clements got out, looked at Malone across the roof of the car. He could be irritatingly urbane at times, even though it was just a front. “It happens to all of us.”

They walked up the path to the front door. All the blooms had fallen from the tibouchina tree and had been swept up into a tapering heap that made them look like one huge bloom. The Welcome mat had disappeared from the front step; it had been replaced by a new coir mat with no message at all on it.

Mrs. Kornsey came to the door, peered short-sightedly at them through the screen of the security door. Then she put on the blue-framed glasses. “Oh it’s you!” Her voice was like the mat on which Malone stood, blank of welcome. “Not more bad news, I hope?”

“No. May we come in?”

She seemed to remember her manners; all at once she was flustered. “Of course! What’s the matter with me?” She opened the security door, ushered them into the house, led them through to the sun-room. “I’ve been—what’s the word?—inundated with visitors since . . . A death brings you together, doesn’t it?” She didn’t say whom it had brought together. “Would you like some coffee? Come into the kitchen, I feel better there. It’s the only room in the house where I can keep myself busy. I’ve made so much bloody jam, biscuits . . .”

Malone and Clements settled themselves on stools at the breakfast bar. At one end of the bar there were at least two dozen jars of marmalade, all of them topped with fancy cloth covers. Mrs. Kornsey busied herself putting on a percolator and setting out cups. She seemed thinner than Malone remembered her, but her hair was newly done, her sweater and skirt were more than just around-the-house gear and she was wearing costume jewelry, earrings and a bracelet. She would hold herself together from the outside in.

“Have you had any calls, Mrs. Bassano?”

She gave Malone a chiding look. “Mrs. Kornsey.”

“You know what I mean. From the man who called you, said he was sorry about what happened to Vince.”

“Terry,” she corrected automatically; it was as if she were protecting her own identity. “No, nobody’s called. Why would they?”

“We understand you’re enquiring into your husband’s estate?”

“Bikkies? They’re an American recipe, I make „em myself.” She put a plate of coconut biscuits in front of them. “Have you been stickybeaking into my affairs? You’ve got a hide!”

“We learned of it by accident. We don’t like stickybeaking, we both hate it, in fact, but too often we have to do it. We only find killers by—well, stickybeaking. Did anyone suggest you try to trace Terry’s estate?”

She looked at both men over her coffee cup, the hard look of a woman who had been hard done by by men. “Are you trying to make trouble for me?”

“We’re here to help you,” said Clements. “Nice cookies. I have another?”

“Help yourself. How do you mean—help me?”

“We still haven’t found the killers,” said Malone. “We don’t want them coming here, paying you a visit. Has your solicitor told you how much is in the estate?”

“Not exactly, he’s still trying to add it all up. He’s found another bank that Terry had money in, Shahriver International.”

“What’s your solicitor’s name?”

“Fairbanks, Douglas Fairbanks.”

“Senior or Junior?” Clements, choking on a biscuit, barely got out the question.

She smiled, the first time since they had entered the house. “I know, it sounds like a joke, but it’s his real name. He’s just not—dashing? He’s as dull as dishwater. He was Terry’s solicitor, though I didn’t know it till he got in touch with me. His offices are up in Hurstville, next door to the Treasury bank. The only bank I thought Terry had,” she added and for a moment there was a sour, almost spiteful note in her voice. “More coffee?”

“Terry never discussed his affairs with you at all? Gave you a hint of where his money was?”

“Never. I suppose I was stupid not to ask, but I just—well, I just trusted him, the way you do with someone you love. Or do only women do that?” But she didn’t wait for either of the men to answer and she went on, “He used to get the Financial Review every morning, but he said it was just a hobby with him, following the stock exchange.”

“He never mentioned the futures exchange?” said Clements, on his third biscuit.

She frowned. “Funny you should say that. Only a coupla weeks ago he said something like, There’s a future in futures. I thought it was just one of those, you know, smarty remarks you men make to dumb women.”

“You’re not dumb, Mrs. Kornsey.” Malone got up and looked out through the bars that protected the wide kitchen window. “I notice that every window I’ve seen in the house has bars on it. Inside there, there’s a sliding security grille across the sun-room’s doors. Did Terry ever explain to you why all that security was necessary?”

“He was paranoid about people breaking in. Not for himself, he said, but for me. Whenever someone broke into a house and raped a woman or killed her, he’d throw the newspaper at me and say, See?”

“When were the bars put on, and the grille?”

“I dunno. Three months ago, maybe more.”

“Up till then he hadn’t been worried?”

“Well, no. But the last twelve months there’s been a lot of rape and murder of housewives. You’d know that.”

Malone nodded, still looking out the window. “Your land runs right down to the river?”

“Yes, we have a jetty down there and a small runabout. Terry’d sometimes go out fishing.”

Some trees fringed the rear of the garden beyond the pool. Someone could come up from the river without being seen from the house. “Are you still living here alone? No friend or relative has come to stay with you?”

“My niece wanted to, but I said no. I’m all right, aren’t I? I mean I’m safe enough, right?” She took off her glasses. “I am, aren’t I?”

“Mrs. Kornsey,” he said gently, “I think it’d be an idea if you went and stayed with someone. Just till this is over, till we get Terry’s killer. It’s a precaution, that’s all.”

She thought about it, then nodded. “Okay, I’ll go to my sister’s. In the morning.”

“Why not tonight? Now?”

“She talked to me this morning, she called me. Her and her husband have had a donnybrook, they aren’t speaking—it gets a bit tense over there sometimes. I don’t wanna walk into her house with things like that between „em. I’ll ring and ask if I can come tomorrow and that’ll give „em time to patch things up.”

Other people, other wars: they went on all the time. Malone nodded. “Righto. In the meantime get your niece over here to stay the night.”

She lifted her head to peer up at him. “Jesus, you sound just like Terry! Is someone really gunna try and hurt me? For what? For just being married to him?”

“At the moment, Mrs. Kornsey, we don’t know why they killed him. We don’t think it was the Mafia, after all. It was someone else, we’re not sure who. Until we find out, Sergeant Clements and I would feel better if we knew you were safe. We can get you police protection—”

“No!” Her hand knocked her cup, spilling some coffee. “No, I won’t have that, not if I’m gunna stay with Carmel. Joe, her husband, would go off the deep end—he can’t stand cops, he’s always saying . . . Sorry, I don’t mean you. No, no police protection . . .” She was wiping up the spilled coffee with a Wettex. “I’m coming to the conclusion that I didn’t know Terry at all. Conclusion. He used to say, a joke, that a woman never came to a firm conclusion till she died. I used to throw this at him.” She held up the Wettex.

Malone wondered how Lisa would have reacted to Kornsey’s piece of male chauvinism; but Leanne Kornsey had uttered it without any apparent resentment.

He tried for one last time to pierce this woman’s total acceptance of her husband: “Mrs. Kornsey, didn’t you ever query anything about your husband’s past life?”

She took her time, not wanting to open up too much of herself: Malone had seen the same self-protection countless times, not always with women. “I sometimes wondered if there’d been another wife before me. But I—I didn’t wanna know, you know what I mean? Well, no, mebbe you don’t. I—I’ve never had much luck with men, not before Terry. I was married once—it was a disaster, I try not to think about it. Then there were a coupla others . . . Then Terry came along. A woman gets to my age, she doesn’t query her luck, right? D’you gamble? I do. Not big, I just play the poker machines down at the club. When you hit the jackpot on the pokies, you don’t question your luck. It was the same with Terry, he was my jackpot. He was kind and loving and—permanent. Or so I thought.”

“When your husband left the house, the day he disappeared, how did he go?”

She paused on her way to the sink to wash out the Wettex. “How d’you mean?”

“The day I came here to tell you we’d found his—his body, his Mercedes was in the garage. So was your Honda. So how did he leave? Did you see him go?”

“He took the dog out for a walk. It’s something, isn’t it, when the last words your husband says to you is, I’m taking the dog for a walk.”

“Did the dog come back?”

She shook her head. “They probably killed it, too. He was a gentle dog, a real sook, he wouldn’t have attacked anyone. We had all the windows barred and the security doors and a dog that would’ve slobbered all over anyone who tried to break in.” She was melting the irony; which was preferable to seeing her weep. “You sure you don’t want more coffee?”

“It’s time we went. Get your niece over here as soon as you can. If anyone calls you, or comes to the door, someone you don’t know . . .”

“You’ve already warned me. I still can’t believe this has happened—” She had put her glasses back on, but now she took them off again; Malone saw the beginning of tears. “I’ll be careful.”

“And, Mrs. Kornsey—” He didn’t want to mention the twenty-five million; but: “Tell your solicitor to go easy for a while. If there’s anything coming to you out of your husband’s estate, you’ll get it eventually.”

“I’m not hungry for it,” she said defensively.

He wondered how hungry she would be if she knew of the twenty-five million; but that was judging her by the standards of too many others in this case. “Take care,” he said, and he and Clements were ready to leave.

“Do you like marmalade?” She gave them each a jar. “It was Terry’s favourite, said he’d never tasted a decent jam all the time he’d lived in America.”

Driving away, Clements said, “You think they’ll try to get to her?”

“I don’t know. Let’s go and see Douglas Fairbanks. I should’ve brought my autograph book.”

“You think your kids would know who Douglas Fairbanks was? Even Junior? They wouldn’t know who Clark Gable was.”

“You’ve got him on your mind since that estate agent said you looked like him. You going to grow a moustache?”

It was the sort of prattle that helped them unwind; they had both been tense while they were with Leanne Kornsey, not wanting her to break up on them. Prattle does more than fill empty air.

The main street of Hurstville was chock-a-block with parked cars. Clements pulled into a No Parking zone and a parking warden appeared out of nowhere like a grey genie. “Not there, mate. Move it.”

“Police.”

“Okay,” said the warden, a huge Fijian who looked as if he could have picked up the Commodore and carted it away under his arm. “But it sets a bad example.”

“You sound just like my mother.”

The two detectives went into the building next to the Treasury bank, where Malone had visited last week, went up a flight of stairs and into the offices of Douglas Fairbanks, Solicitor. A grey-haired woman, old enough to have been a fan of Fairbanks Junior, took them into an inner office.

Fairbanks, as Leanne Kornsey had said, was as dull as dishwater. There was nothing about him that suggested he might leap over his desk to greet them, that he might even leap over a flooded gutter. In the latter case he would take off his shoes and socks, roll up his trousers and wade through the water, mentally composing a stern letter to the local council. He was in his fifties, with wispy grey hair, of stout build and a bland face that looked as if it had never known excitement, not even in love-making. His voice was thin and reedy, a silent film star’s voice.

Malone explained the reason for their visit. “How did you know where to look for Mr. Kornsey’s estate?”

“He left a will.” Fairbanks’ elbows rested on the arms of his chair, his long but plump fingers locked together.

“May we see it?”

“You know better than that, Inspector. It’s in probate.”

“Is everything left to the widow?”

The solicitor hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”

“Are Sue City Investments and Hannibal Development mentioned in the will?” said Clements, who had a better memory for such details than Malone.

“Yes.”

“Mr. Fairbanks,” said Malone, “we respect client confidentiality, but your client is dead and we’re trying to find out who killed him.”

“My client is now Mrs. Kornsey.”

“You’re getting to be a pain in the arse—” said Clements.

“It’s a lawyer’s talent.” There was no smile, not even a twist of the lips, so there was no way of knowing if Fairbanks had any sense of humour.

“We’re also trying to prevent Mrs. Kornsey from being killed,” said Malone.

That stiffened the locked fingers. “H’m. That makes a difference, doesn’t it?”

“Especially if they come bounding up those stairs outside, like the villains in your grandfather’s movies,” said Clements.

Even then Fairbanks didn’t smile. “Those sort of jokes are a real pain in the arse.”

“Righto, let’s say we’re even-Stephen on who’s a pain.” Malone was losing patience, as he often did with lawyers. “Let’s agree it’ll be no joke if Mrs. Kornsey goes the same way as her husband. And it’s likely to happen if you start scratching around too deeply into where Mr. Kornsey’s money is stashed away. How well did you know him?”

The lawyer unlocked his fingers. “Hardly at all. I saw him only twice, to my recollection. He played everything close to his chest, he reminded me of those gangsters you see in American films.”

“He was one,” said Malone.

“Oh. Are you going to tell me more? No? All right, then. He came in and asked me to make out a will, just a few lines leaving everything to his wife. Then he came back a week later and signed it. He left a sealed envelope with me, said it was a list of everything he owned, but I wasn’t to open it till his death.”

“When was this?”

“A month ago. The next I heard of him was the report the other day in the newspapers of his death. I gave his widow time to get over the shock, then I got in touch with her.”

“Is she on your back to get everything cleared up in a hurry?”

“No. But I have the feeling she will ask me to account for every penny. She’s a lady who likes everything neat and tidy. Well ordered.”

Except for the huge hole in her life. “Let’s keep it neat and tidy. Ease off till we clear up the murder. Otherwise you might be risking her life.”

One of the plump fingers scratched the plum nose. “Am I likely to be receiving a visit from whoever killed Mr. Kornsey?”

“Probably not. But like I said, don’t scratch too deep.”

On their way down to the street Clements said, “He doesn’t know about the twenty-five million.”

When they got out to their car the traffic warden was writing out a ticket for a car parked in front of the Commodore. “You see? I told you you were setting a bad example.” He gave them a huge smile, a metre of teeth. “You make good bait. This woman fell for it.”

“How do you know this is a woman’s car?”

“It’s parked a short walk from the kerb.”

Another huge smile. Male chauvinism knew no national boundaries.

II

Malone was having dinner, steak-and-kidney pie with two veg, a glass of Hunter red and with poached pears to follow, when the phone rang. He looked at his three children. “If that’s for any of you, hang up. We’re going to finish dinner together and in peace.”

“I’ll get it.” Maureen went out to the kitchen. She had a few moments’ conversation with someone on the other end of the line, then she came back into the dining room. “It’s Uncle Russ. I asked him when he and Romy are getting married.”

“Why don’t you mind your business?” Malone pushed back his chair.

“It is our business.”

Malone went out to the kitchen, picked up the phone. “I’m in the middle of dinner. This had better be important.”

“They’ve found the Viet girl, Kim Weetbix. Killed the same way as Rob Sweden, the puncture in the back of the neck.”

“Where did they find her?”

“She was dumped on Mrs. Kornsey’s front doormat.”

III

Jack Aldwych had brought Emily Karp to dinner in the Gold Room at the Hotel Congress. The waiters were too young to know who he was or had been. The maitre d’, if he knew, didn’t care: business had been so bad all this year that even Pol Pot would have been welcome, with or without his American Express card. Emily, beautiful and elegant in black silk, did the unexpected: she didn’t order the most expensive items on the expensive menu nor did she ask for French champagne. “Just a glass of the house white.”

Aldwych smiled, pleased with her. “Give the lady the best white you have. Australian.”

“Sir, we have splendid French whites. Perhaps a Montrachet?”

“Australian,” said Aldwych and gave him his killer’s look. The maitre d’ went away, his blood turned to mineral water, and Aldwych smiled again at Emily. “There are two kinds of conmen who never get locked up, head waiters and fashion designers.”

“I was a fashion designer, once. Till I married.”

“I know. I got Juliet to tell me all about you.”

“You think I’m a conwoman? Or was one?”

“Not now. You would’ve been when you were a designer. I read it somewhere, fashion is for sheep who like a conman as their shepherd.”

“Vogue would put out a contract on you if they heard you say that. Were you ever a conman?”

The young waiter, bringing fish-knives, managed not to drop his eyeballs on the table. Aldwych waited till he had gone: “You don’t mind being with an old crim?”

“I might, if you hadn’t told me you’d retired.”

“No, I was never a conman. I didn’t have that sorta brain. Early in the piece I was a bash artist, what you’d call a thug. I was pretty nasty.” He had a certain honesty about his youth that some of the elderly manage to carry without embarrassment. “Then I graduated, I learned to leave the rough stuff to others. I became a general, I planned things. I could of run the Gulf war if they’d asked me,” he said with self-mocking conceit. “Being a successful crim is all strategy and tactics, that’s all, just like running a war.”

“Maybe you’d be better than the police at solving the murder of Ophelia’s stepson.”

“Maybe. But I dunno if it’s any of my business, not any more. Once I made sure my son Jack wasn’t gunna be dragged into it . . .” The maitre d’ had not come back, but had sent the wine waiter, who held out a bottle for Aldwych’s inspection. “I wouldn’t know one label from another, son. But if it’s no good . . .”

The wine waiter got the message, but, given to waiter’s hyperbole, made the wrong recommendation. “I’d stake my life on this one, sir—”

Aldwych smiled, winked at Emily. “I’d already done that for you, son.”

After the waiter, with shaking hand, had poured their wine and gone away, Aldwych said, “Do you mind me playing the old terror like that?”

“Just so long as you don’t overdo it.”

She was enjoying his company; but then almost any company was enjoyable. She had lost her husband five years ago, her only son ten years ago; she had loved them both with perhaps too much love; their deaths had left a hollowness in her. She had been left with very little money and it had been too late for her to go back into fashion; tastes had changed, which they do every year in fashion, and she would have had to gallop to have caught up. Women in their fifties never look attractive galloping; she had settled for a slow walk, which attracts more invitations from men than a quick trot. She never took expensive gifts from men; she was promiscuous but honest and selective. She lived frugally at home, but no one ever got rich by economizing. So she was an always available dinner companion, even if people talked about her. She reasoned they would have talked about her if she had remained at home in the lonely flat and she preferred gossip to pity. She was, as she said, a lady but only just.

“Do you think the police will solve the murder?”

Aldwych toyed with his smoked salmon. The Gold Room was a hangover from the boom years of the Eighties, when extravagance had been mistaken for a virtue, when designers thought they had been let loose in Byzantium. The crystal was gold-rimmed, the plate gold-patterned: the smoked salmon was spread on a gold grid. “Eventually they will. The man in charge is one of the best, Inspector Malone. He won’t give up. Did you know young Rob?”

“Yes, I knew him. I couldn’t stand him, though he was always charming to me. But he wanted to go to bed with every woman he met.”

“Including you?”

“No, I was just out of his age group. But he didn’t mind a middle-aged woman, so long as she wasn’t sagging in the wrong places.”

“Like the Bruna sisters?”

She looked at him above her gold-rimmed soup spoon. “You don’t miss much, do you?”

“Are you saying he went to bed with them? All of them?”

“Not with your daughter-in-law.” She had suddenly recognized that in certain things he was strait-laced; under the criminal was a Methodist struggling to get out. She was not a good liar, but she managed to convince him: “No, not Juliet. Nor Rosalind, I’d say, though I’m not sure. But Ophelia . . .”

“Why her?”

“Jack, what do you know about women?”

He grinned, not afraid to be honest with this woman. “Not much. You never learn much from hookers, not unless you’re their pimp. I ran a string of brothels, but I never thought of myself as their pimp. I was the managing director.”

Roland, her husband, would never believe this conversation if he were alive and she could tell him; Roland had been a senior executive with a trustee company, handling trusts for old ladies who, if they knew anything at all about brothels, believed they were women’s cooperatives. Pimps were girls who had told tales on them in school. Roland had not been as innocent as the old ladies, but he had been a sweet gentle man who looked for the best in everyone. Since his death she had been out with and into bed with crooked politicians, crooked lawyers, crooked bankers; but none of them had been killers or run brothels. She had to treat Jack Aldwych differently from all the others.

“Ophelia thinks the world is her oyster. She would never miss an opportunity, no matter what the opportunity was. Cormac is an old man . . . Are you offended at me saying that?”

“Emily, I am old. Why should I be offended?”

“Male vanity.”

“I’m not gunna put the hard word on you, love. I’m too old for that, so if you had your hopes up—Did you?” He smiled, enjoying her almost as much as if making love to her. “I wouldn’t wanna die on top of a woman. We had that politician of ours who did—”

She nodded, “I know the lady in question. It was a nightmare for her.”

“I won’t ask who she was. There was an ex-governor in the States, too, you would of read about him. That must of been funny. The woman in that case, she called his minders and they went rushing to his place. He was naked and they tried to put his clothes back on before they called the ambulance. But they couldn’t get his shoes on—Did you know it’s almost impossible to put shoes on a dead man? It’s got something to do with the way the bones of the foot set. There’s a moral there. Over a certain age a man should always make love with his shoes on, just in case . . . I wanna die with dignity. Some men think it’d be a wonderful way to go, while making love.” He shook his big head. “Not me. I think it’d be the most undignified way to go.”

“It wouldn’t be very dignified for the woman, either,” she said and they both laughed. “How’d we get into this conversation?”

“You were telling me about Ophelia. And Cormac.”

“He’s too old for her, he couldn’t keep up with her. Not in bed.”

He waited till the waiter had put their main courses in front of them, rack of lamb for her and fish for him. “You’re full up tonight?” He had looked around the suddenly crowded dining room.

“Yes, sir,” said the waiter. “It’s a change. There’s an international bankers’ convention. Mint sauce, madame?”

When the waiter had gone, Aldwych said, “How do you know what goes on in their bedroom?”

“Ophelia can’t help boasting. Not directly, she doesn’t exactly come out and tell you what she’s done. But another woman can tell. She’s had half a dozen lovers since she married Cormac. I’ll bet Rob was one of them.”

“Are you saying she might have had a hand in killing the young bastard?” He asked the question as casually as he might have asked her if she was liking her lamb.

She was shocked at how she had let the conversation run away with her. Because he was an old criminal, must they talk of things criminal? But then the businessmen she had gone to dinner with had talked business, the horse trainer had talked horses. “No. I wouldn’t accuse anyone of murder unless I actually saw them do it.”

“That’s always a dangerous thing, seeing someone commit murder.” The ocean trout was over-cooked, but he wouldn’t embarrass her by sending it back. Shirl wouldn’t have let him. “If ever you see a murder, turn your back and walk away.”

You couldn’t ask for anyone better than he to give that sort of advice; but she didn’t say that. He went on: “She didn’t kill him, it was a professional job. Unless she paid to have it done.”

She felt a mixture of queasiness and excitement; the rack of lamb was under-cooked, she could see blood. “We shouldn’t be talking about a friend like this—”

“She’s no friend of mine. But I like Cormac—I’d hate to see him mixed up in anything as dirty as murder.”

“He was almost killed himself.”

“A rich man’s risk.”

“Did you only rob the rich?”

“What’s the point in robbing the poor? Like the Bible says, the poor are always with us. But they’re bloody useless if you’re trying to make a living.” He was a reactionary, the only sensible stance for a professional criminal. He had no time for the welfare state; it only encouraged bludgers. Socialism bred its own crims, members of the ruling clique; there was no place for outsiders; he was amused when he read that the only successes in the old Soviet Union, now that socialism was dead, were the Russian Mafia. “Cormac copped it because he advertised he was rich.”

“No, Jack, he’s always been discreet about how much he is worth.”

“That was before he married Ophelia. Jack Junior told me about him. He never had a private jet, he didn’t own a string of polo ponies, he didn’t let the world know when he bought a valuable painting. He had a yacht, I think, but Jack tells me he was only part-owner of that. Then Ophelia comes along and next thing they’ve got that penthouse in The Wharf and a new place in the country and the Bentley . . . I dunno what he thought of it all, he’d be too conservative to tell you anyway, but Ophelia made sure of the advertising. Muggers like those kids who tried to burn him, they go by appearances. He looked rich, so they did him.”

She looked around the dining room, now full. “You look like a rich man. Aren’t you afraid the muggers might—do you? Or do they all know who you are and they wouldn’t dare?”

“Today’s muggers and street kids wouldn’t know me from Ned Kelly. I was before their time. I take my chances, like everyone else. There’s gunna be more and more muggers, the world’s going to the dogs. History repeats itself—I read that. The only difference now is you got muggers and hookers out in the suburbs. It wasn’t like that in my day.”

Then they got off mugging and murders and crime in general; the subject bored him after a while. But Ophelia Casement stayed in a corner of his mind, suddenly a suspect. It shocked him that he was thinking in terms of justice, like a policeman.

He paid the bill with cash, as he always did; credit cards were like fingerprints. He left no tip, which would have upset Shirl; he hadn’t liked the condescension of the waiters, which Shirl would have counteracted by over-tipping. As he and Emily walked out of the dining room several diners turned to look after them. Like a true male chauvinist he was all at once immensely proud of the beautiful woman he was escorting; he saw her through the eyes of the men staring at them, not through those of the women. Some of the latter, recognizing Emily from the Sunday social pages, marvelled at how she carried her age. None of them, men or women, recognized Aldwych. His minders had always smashed the cameras of anyone who tried to take photos of him. Photos of him had appeared in the newspapers, but he had always been walking away from the camera.

As they waited outside the lobby of the hotel for their hire car, another hire car, a stretch limousine, drew into the kerb. Aldwych glanced at it, wondering why anyone would want to ride in anything so conspicuous. He grinned at Emily. “Would you have come out with me if I’d called for you in that battleship?”

Then three men, all Japanese, came out of the hotel lobby, down the steps and into the car. Two of them were middle-aged; the third was the young Japanese who had abducted him. They got into the limousine, disappearing behind its dark windows and the long car drew out of the driveway and into the street. But not before Aldwych had noted its number; he took out a small notebook and biro and wrote it down. Then he was aware of Emily looking hard at him.

“Do you often do that? Take down a car’s registration?”

He smiled. “It’s a hobby, like train-watching. Here’s our car.”

“Have you got its number?”

His smile broadened. He knew now that if he had met Emily twenty years ago he would have been unfaithful to Shirl. The thought hurt him, so that the smile was more a grimace.

IV

This late in the evening the morgue was deserted, at least of the living. Malone walked down the long main room towards the murder room, past the stainless steel tables now washed clean of the blood and tissue of the day. Insect-killers hung from the ceiling like blue honeycomb and on one wall a row of white rubber aprons were draped like corpses that had been gutted. The air reeked of death, disguised as disinfectant.

Romy Keller and Clements were in the murder room with the body of Kim Weetbix. It lay on a stainless steel table under the bright light of a green-domed lamp. Face down, arms by her side, Kim looked much thinner than she had in life.

“I haven’t touched her yet.” Romy, in a white coat but with no rubber apron, blew a kiss to Malone across the corpse. “I’m waiting on the HIV or hepatitis test. I don’t think it matters—the autopsy, I mean. She was killed the same way as Mr. Sweden and Mr. Kornsey.”

She lifted the short hair on the girl’s neck and Malone saw the small wound. “Who found her, Russ? Mrs. Kornsey?”

“She came back to the house, she’d been to pick up her niece, and there was this girl on her doorstep. Just dumped there on the mat. She’s hysterical, Mrs. Kornsey, so the local D’s said. I didn’t go out to see her—”

“Leave her, her family will look after her. Why’d the buggers do this to her? Is it some sort of warning?”

“I’d say so. Telling her to lay off, not try for the twenty-five million.”

Romy had been listening to this without comment, but now she whistled softly. “Twenty-five million? This girl was mixed up in something as big as that? I thought she was supposed to be a street-kid?”

“She was. If she knew anything about the money we’re talking about, it was by accident. Maybe whoever killed her thought she knew more than she did.”

“She’d been tortured. There are burns, they look like cigarette marks, on her breasts. And there are bruises on her arms—she’d been pretty heavily handled.”

Malone leaned with his back against the wall looking at the thin pitiful body; it looked more yellow than white, as if her mother was asserting herself. He knew nothing of the girl’s background, but he guessed it had been neither happy nor promising. But she had not deserved to finish up, tortured and dead, on this table in this pitiless room. “I don’t suppose there’ll be anyone to claim the body for the burial?”

Clements shrugged. “Who? Some street-kid?”

“Do you expect to find anything, Romy, when you do the autopsy?”

“Not really. All that’ll help you is what you see there.”

“Anything in her clothes?”

“I’ve got the PE guys on that,” said Clements. “Fibres, dirt, anything. But I don’t think we’re gunna come up with anything that’ll help. There was nothing in her pockets, not even a handkerchief.”

Malone heaved himself off the wall. He could feel the weight of these cases building up; he was an unwilling weightlifter as the kilos were added to the bar. “We’d better mount security on Mrs. Kornsey, we don’t want her finishing up in here.”

Romy was attaching a label to one of Kim’s big toes. “I’ll park her in the body room till morning.”

“And let’s hope nobody comes trying to steal her,” said Clements.

Romy pushed the wheeled table out of the murder room and down the long main room. She looked back as the men followed her. “Has Russ told you we’re being married in July?”

Malone waited for the corpse to roll over and sit up. “No. When did you decide that?”

“While we were waiting for you back there.” She jerked her head back towards the murder room. “We want you to be the best man and Lisa matron of honour and the girls to be our bridesmaids.”

They had reached the door to the body room. She unlocked it, pushed the table ahead of her and the three of them went into the chilled room. “Will you?” She gestured for the men to help her move the body on to one of the shelves. “I’ll talk to Lisa later.”

“Why couldn’t you have talked to me later?” Kim was a cold dead weight on Malone’s hands. “Where are you holding the reception? In here?”

“Droll.” Then she looked at the two men. “Sorry. Have I upset you too, liebchen?”

Clements grinned. “Wait’ll I tell my mum. She proposed to my dad while he was castrating a sheep.”

V

In the Police Minister’s office the possibility of political murder, which is merely a misdemeanour and not a felony, was being canvassed.

“Derek, listen to me,” said Hans Vanderberg. “I’m doing the decent thing, I’m offering you an honourable way out. That doesn’t happen often in politics, does it?”

“Hans, you’re holding a gun at my head and you’re doing the decent thing? Come off it, cut out the crap.”

The Dutchman was unoffended; insults, blunt talk, were his conversational forte. He could be annoyed if an opponent impugned his dishonesty, but that was only because it spoiled the political game. Idealists, sticklers for the truth, were the bane of his life.

“You can resign, like I said, you can say your son’s death has been too much for you. Who’s gunna be wise? You’ve been in parliament long enough, you’ve gotta be getting how much superannuation? Not to mention what we’ve been talking about.”

“You’ve already mentioned that. Twice. Where did you get your information?”

The old man smoothed down his quiff. “Derek, where does anyone in our game get their information? The walls don’t only have ears, they’ve got lips, too. Don’t you hear the whispers? I’ve got friends, you got enemies. And vice versa. A friend of mine and an enemy of yours told me about your insider trading. Four million dollars, that’s better than the going rate to buy one of us.”

“You mean a Labor man?”

The Dutchman smiled, a horrible sight. “I mean any politician, meaning you government fellers. Us on the Labor side can’t be bought, you know that. I’ve never taken a penny.”

Which, unfortunately, was true. Sweden knew that many things could be charged against the Opposition Leader, but a charge of taking a bribe would never stick. “You could never prove anything, Hans.”

“Who needs proof? You throw a little mud, someone picks it up and adds to it, pretty soon you’ve got a mud-bath and you’re in it up to your neck.”

He sat back, sipped the mineral water that he had asked for, looked around the Minister’s office. When his party had been in government and he had been Police Minister as well as Premier, he had operated out of the Premier’s office downtown. Once back in power he would give this room back to the police administration; it would be a good public relations ploy. He must be getting old: there had been a time when he had scoffed at the idea of public relations. But that had been in the good old days before the rise of pressure groups and that double-headed, brainless monster, the swinging voter.

Sweden, for his part, saw nothing of the room but only this vindictive, unscrupulous old man opposite him. Well, maybe not unscrupulous: what he was suggesting was legitimate politics. It was, of course, murder: resign or I’ll cut your throat. But Sweden had read enough history to know that when it came to a question of power, the voting booth was only a prop in the drama. In his own party throats had been cut and backs stabbed; he himself bore previous scars. But he did not want to be murdered now, not now.

“Hans, if I resigned, you fellers couldn’t win my seat. It’s been ours for years.”

“Oh, we can win it all right. We’ll get an Independent to run, they come in useful sometimes—” He had the party politician’s contempt for any Independent running for office, all they did was clutter up the place and most of them, as he had been heard to say, didn’t know their arse from their green thumb. “He’ll take enough votes away from you fellers and we’ll sneak in. We’ve done our sums, mate. We win your seat, then we’re all square in the Assembly and we’ll demand an election. Then we’ll gallop in.”

Sweden took his time; after all, one doesn’t go bungy-jumping without making sure the rubber rope will stand the strain. “Hans, I’m not going to resign. Try your luck, throw your mud. But if I resigned now, it wouldn’t say much for me as Police Minister nor for my faith in the police. I want my son’s murder solved and I’d cut my throat before I’d let you announce it as Police Minister.”

Vanderberg shrugged, put his glass down on the desk. “Have it your way. I see your point, I’m a father m’self. But you blokes are buggering up this State and it’s my duty to see you don’t bugger it up even more.”

“Bullshit, Hans. Your only idea of duty is what you pay on a bottle of Bols gin when you bring it into the country.”

“Maybe.” The old man grinned again. “But it sounds good, doesn’t it? Have a second think, Derek, I’ll give you another day or two. There’s nothing personal in this, y’know. You were just the easiest target. You haven’t done a bad job as Minister, the little time you’ve been in it.” Then he stopped, his grin widening till it looked as if his jaw might fall off. “There’s an alternative. You could resign from your crowd, cross the floor and become one of ours. We’re all birds of a birdcage these days, the voters dunno the difference between us, not since we got rid of our Loony Left. Have a think about it. Give my regards to your wife.” He was at the door when he turned back. “Incidentally, if the police solve the murder and it’s close to home, what’re you gunna do? Maybe you’ll have to resign after all.”

Then he was gone, the door shut behind him. Sweden went limp in his chair, his hand reaching automatically for the button on his desk. But then he remembered that all his staff, including Tucker, had gone. Vanderberg had waited till he was sure there would be no interruptions. Sweden was alone with his pictures of himself and Rosalind in the Dunhill frames on his desk and on the bookcases behind him. He closed his eyes and, to his surprise, saw his first wife, Rob’s mother, on the darkness of his lids. He suddenly wished she were alive, to help him as she so often had in the past.