The High Commissioner

by Jon Cleary

  JON CLEARY

  The High Commissioner

  Dedication

  TO HAM AND JOYCE

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Keep Reading

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  “We want you to go to London,” said the Premier, “and arrest the High Commissioner for murder.”

  He sat back, one clawed finger stroking the beak of his nose, a bald-headed old eaglehawk who had made this office his eyrie for twenty-five years. He ran his tongue round his thin dry lips, as if tasting the shock that showed on Scobie Malone’s face. He was seventy years old and fifty years of his hectic brawling life had been spent in politics. He knew and relished the value of shock.

  “The Commissioner tells me you detectives are like nuns, you’re usually only allowed out in pairs.” He looked at Malone, then at Police Commissioner Leeds, his hooded eyes glistening with an old hawk’s malicious humour. “Is that because you don’t trust each other, Jack?”

  John Leeds had been a policeman for forty years, Commissioner for ten, and he knew how to handle politicians. “Is that what you think of nuns, Mr. Premier?”

  Flannery’s laugh was more like a cough of mirth, as if it hurt him. “Are you trying to get me to lose the Catholic vote, Jack? Stone the bloody crows, I wouldn’t mind betting you vote Liberal!” He looked back at Malone. “What do you vote, Sergeant?”

  Malone was still getting over the shock of the Premier’s opening remark. After ten years in the force he was not unaccustomed to shocks; but nothing like this had ever been flung at him before. When Flannery had first spoken he had glanced quickly at the old man to see if he was joking; the ugly smile had told him that if there was a joke it was not intended for him. He was still dazed when Flannery spoke to him again, repeating his question. “What do you vote, Sergeant?”

  He tried to collect his thoughts, but the question seemed so irrelevant at a time like this. “It depends, sir.”

  “Depends? What on?”

  Malone saw Leeds’s warning glance and retreated. “I’m not political-minded, sir. I vote by whim, I suppose.”

  Flannery stared at him, his eyes suddenly dark and glazed: twice he had come close to defeat on the vote of those who voted by whim, the floaters, the I-don’t-knows of the opinion polls. Then abruptly he grinned, the surprisingly warm grin that had been winning him the women’s vote for years. Malone, watching him, knew that, despite what the newspapers said, women were not always influenced by a politician’s profile or his platform charm: a number of them, often enough to swing an election, voted for a father figure. But I’d have hated Flannery as a father, Malone thought: he’d have been using me as election bait before I was even weaned.

  “Well, in a way, Sergeant, you’re going to London to vote Labour. You want to tell him what’s what, Jack?”

  Leeds hesitated, then he leaned forward in his chair, both hands resting on his knees. Whenever Malone had been with the Commissioner, the latter had struck him as one of the most relaxed men he had ever met; Leeds gave the impression that time and circumstance were part of his pattern, not the other way round, as it was with Malone and the rest of the world. But not today: today Leeds was stiff and bony with concern, even anxiety. But he was not going to confide in Malone, only give him the case facts:

  “The Australian High Commissioner in London, as you know, is John Quentin. Or rather that’s his name now. It was John Corliss. Under that name he lived here in Sydney before the war and worked for the Water Board as an assistant surveyor. He married a German refugee girl named Freda Wiseman and they lived out in Coogee. He murdered her on 8th December, 1941, then disappeared. By the time the murder was discovered the newspapers were full of Pearl Harbour and the story got no play at all. Corliss just went into smoke and we were never able to trace him.” He glanced at Flannery, who sat watching him with the look of malicious humour varnished on the mottled skull of his face. “Not until now.”

  Malone waited for Flannery to say something, but the Premier remained silent. He looked at Leeds. “How did you get on to him, sir? I mean, that Quentin and Corliss are the same man?”

  Leeds looked at Flannery. There was an atmosphere between the two older men that had something to do with the room in which the three men sat. Malone was not insensitive to atmosphere: crime coarsened you, whether you were dealing in it or trying to prevent it, but it also heightened your perception of certain elements in which you moved. And one of them was atmosphere: the criminal or the policeman who was insensitive to it was never a lasting success in his job. Malone knew he himself would not be here if the Commissioner thought he was a failure.

  He glanced around the room while the other two men fenced in their silent secret duel. It was a big office and it had all the homely charm of a battle-room; which was what it was. This was where Flannery planned his campaigns to demolish the enemy: the official Opposition, the pressure groups, even members of his own party who showed too much ambition. A single painting, faded and fly-spotted, was his concession to the arts: painted by a third-rate artist, it depicted a hold-up of a mail coach by bushrangers: Flannery had been known to remark that it often gave him inspiration. A glass-fronted bookcase stood beneath the painting, its three shelves lined with leather-bound official volumes; on top of two volumes of Hansard lay a copy of They’re A Weird Mob: Flannery had been getting the lowdown on the citizens he led. The three other walls were studded with political graffiti, honorary membership for Flannery in a score of organisations, testimonials from others. Between the framed scrolls, like frozen moments of the old man’s life, were half a dozen photographs. Laying a foundation stone, the warm vote-catching grin as firmly in place as the stone he had just laid; shaking hands with the Prime Minister, both of them suffering from the spasm known as politicians’ bonhomie; standing like a little old bird of prey among the fat unsuspecting pigeons of his Cabinet, several of whom had since been shot down. Everything smelled overpoweringly of politics: the room, the atmosphere between the Premier and the Commissioner of Police. And yet Leeds had never been a political policeman; for him corruption was a worse crime than murder. Murder, Malone had heard him say to a class of police trainees, was rarely cold-blooded; corruption always was. Malone looked back at Flannery, who considered corruption a necessity of political life.

  The old man tapped the claw of his finger on a folder that lay on his desk. “It’s all in here, Sergeant. Documented like a White Paper. It doesn’t matter who got us started, the point is their tip was right. It happened six months ago and I’ve had a man working on it ever since.”

  “Someone from Headquarters?” Malone looked at Leeds, but it was Flannery who answered.

  “Not from Police Headquarters. From Party Headquarters. One of our political research officers. He enjoyed it, said it was a nice change from trying to guess voters’ intentions.” He coughed another laugh; but Leeds was the one who looked hurt this time.

  Malone hesitated, still finding everything incredible. Then he stuck his neck out, asking to be sent to the back of beyond: a bush beat or early retirement was usually the fate of a too-inquisitive detective. They were trained to ask questions, but not of the political boss of the State.

  “Why
wasn’t it turned over to our Murder Squad when you first got the tip, Mr. Premier?”

  Leeds shot Malone a glance that was both a warning and a look of gratitude; he had obviously asked this same question and got nowhere. But Flannery had spent most of his life dealing with questions that he didn’t feel he had to answer.

  “We just wanted to be sure, Sergeant. I’ve got where I am today—” He waved at the room around him, home sweet home; he had a wife and a grown-up family somewhere in Sydney, but a politician’s family in New South Wales were never expected to be in evidence. “I’ve got where I am by observing one principle – never libel anyone unless you’re sure of your facts.” He grinned to himself, no longer a warm grin, chewing on the bones of a hundred dead foes. “London is one of the two most important diplomatic posts Australia has. You don’t accuse our High Commissioner, our country’s ambassador there, you don’t accuse him of murdering his wife unless you are absolutely one hundred per cent sure of your facts.”

  “And this” – Malone stumbled a little: he could just picture this part-time Maigret down at Trades Hall – “this political research officer, he’s sure of all his facts?”

  Flannery coughed again: mirth sounded like lung cancer. “In twenty years he’s never been wrong in an election forecast, not even a by-election. He forecasts a conviction with this.” The claw scratched the folder again. “Says he’ll stake his life on it.”

  Malone couldn’t help himself: “Seems to me, sir, he’s staking someone else’s life on it.”

  The hoods dropped a little lower over the agate eyes. Malone could feel the old hawk peeling the flesh away from him, opening him up to look at the heart of Malone, scrutinising it to see if it had a political label on it, one that might be treasonable. Then the hoods lifted and he looked at Leeds. “I thought you said he was your best man, Jack.”

  “He’s the best man few this job.” Leeds was still sitting forward in his chair, still taut.

  “He’s only a detective-sergeant. I thought this would call for an inspector at least, maybe even a superintendent.”

  “You asked for secrecy.” Leeds’s gruff husky voice had a hint of sharpness in it; a spark of reaction showed in Flannery’s unblinking eyes. “It might be difficult to account for the absence for a week or ten days of an inspector from the Murder Squad. Someone would be sure to start asking questions.”

  “The sergeant here asks questions.”

  Malone felt he was just part of the furniture of the room, part of the furniture of Flannery’s bailiwick: he was there to be used. He could feel the temper rising in him, but he held it in check.

  “If Sergeant Malone sounded a little critical of” – Leeds also stumbled – “of your research worker, I think it’s a natural reaction. The real professional always suspects the amateur. I’ve heard you say that, sir, in the House.”

  “This feller of mine isn’t an amateur.”

  “He’s an amateur detective. Not even a private investigator. In any case, when Sergeant Malone has read that file, I’m sure he’ll agree your man has done a good job.” Leeds looked at Malone. “I’ve read it. Everything is there for an arrest.”

  “And a conviction,” said Flannery.

  “We never look that far,” said Leeds, showing his independence. “We’ll arrest him on the warrant that’s been issued, in the name of Corliss. The rest is up to the Crown Prosecutor.”

  Flannery looked at Malone again, still poking away at his insides. “This has to be kept quiet. Not a word to anyone, not even to your wife.”

  “I’m not married, sir.”

  “Good. But don’t quote me! I’m the patron saint of the Labour League of Married Women.” He coughed and once again Malone got the warm grin. Flannery had decided to trust him: he began to lay the flesh back on, strip by strip. “How can we keep it covered up in your department, Jack?”

  “He can apply for leave.” Leeds turned to Malone. “Better make it compassionate leave, to explain the hurry. Have your grandmother dying or something.”

  “I haven’t used that one since I was a kid at school.”

  “You’ll go the long way round. Fly over to Perth and pick up a plane there for Darwin. In Darwin you can catch the plane for London. If any of the airport reporters saw you getting on a plane for London, here in Sydney, they’d want to know the ins and outs of it all. But going to Perth – well, that’s where your grandmother is dying.”

  Malone, still a little bemused, couldn’t resist one more question: “But why all the secrecy, sir?”

  Leeds looked at Flannery again: it’s your question, you answer it. Flannery didn’t mind in the least: “Because if it’s at all possible I’d like Quentin back here in Sydney before his arrest is announced. I want to have the pleasure of ringing up someone and telling him myself.” For a moment malevolence made a ruin of his face. Malone stared at him and all at once thought: why, you old bastard, you’re a murderer, too. “I’ve waited a long time for this.”

  Leeds interrupted, a little too sharply, as if he were trying to stop the old man from exposing himself any further. This was the sort of indecent exposure for which there was no legal penalty, yet it was more shocking than any sex perversion. “I’ll impress on Sergeant Malone that there has to be absolute secrecy. He’ll be back here within a week. And he’ll have the High Commissioner with him.”

  Flannery sat nodding for a moment, a mote of sunlight from the window behind him rolling on the freckled dome of his bald head like a thin drop of yellow oil. “In a way I feel sorry for Quentin. I met him a couple of times down in Canberra. He’s not a bad bloke at all.”

  Leeds stood up. One look at his face told Malone that the Commissioner had had enough of the room’s atmosphere; he looked like a man choking for air. He reached out a hand for the file on the desk and Flannery, after a moment’s hesitation, gave it to him.

  “I want it done as quickly and quietly as possible, Jack.” Then he looked up at Malone. “Quentin may make a fuss. You may have to go to Scotland Yard, get them to bring him before an English court and get an extradition order. If that has to happen, get on the phone to the Commissioner here right away, before the London newspapers get wind of it. I don’t want a certain someone to hear about it before I have the chance of telling him myself.”

  “I’ll watch it, sir.” Malone was sickened by the look on the old man’s face.

  “I just hope you can talk him into coming back without any fuss, any need for extradition. If he’s got any sense of dignity he’ll see it’s better for him as High Commissioner to be arrested here in Sydney than in London. We’ve got to think of Australia’s good name. Don’t forget that, Sergeant.”

  II

  “Australia’s good name!” Leeds seemed to gasp for air as he and Malone came out into the bright early winter sunlight. He waved away the car that stood waiting for him at the kerb, as if even its large interior would be too confining for him in his present state of mind. “You mind walking?”

  “I started on the beat. I haven’t lost the habit.”

  “You were practically begging to be put back on the beat, a couple of those questions you put to him.”

  “I’m not querying your judgment, sir, but do you think I’m the right man for this job?”

  Leeds looked at the man beside him. Malone was tall, six feet, big in the shoulders and chest but not top-heavy; perhaps the well-shaped head, carried high, kept the feeling of balance. The face was too bony to be handsome but Leeds guessed women would find the eyes attractive: they were dark, almost Latin, and they were friendly. The mouth, too, was friendly: smiling was a natural exercise, not a stuthed social habit. Behind the façade Leeds knew there was a shrewd intelligence that could be relied upon in almost any circumstance. Malone gave the impression of being easy-going, but there was a competence about him that had marked him for promotion from his first days in the force.

  “You’re the man, all right” Leeds said. “What’s worrying you?”

  They w
alked up Macquarie Street, past the discreet tradesmen’s signs of the doctors’ brass plates. People went reluctantly, almost stealthily into the sombre doorways, taking their cancers, their coronaries, their troubled minds, in with them. Why was it, Malone wondered, that people always looked as if they were smuggling their illnesses into doctors’ consulting rooms? Or was it that he had suddenly become infected by secrecy, saw it even in the faces of strangers? He looked away from the doorways, at the cuter edge of the pavement where the young girls, on their way to the Botanical Gardens in their lunch-hour break, went by, carrying their youth and vitality and beauty like bold banners: no secrecy there. God, he thought, how young and wonderful they look. Then he wondered what had happened to him that he had begun to think of himself as old.

  “I don’t know, sir. This smells of politics and I’ve never been mixed up in that sort of thing before.” He knew of the rivalry and antagonism that existed between State and Federal political parties. “Another thing. How did the High Commissioner get away with this for so long? Is the file on him really fair dinkum?”

  “It’s about as factual and unarguable as you can get. Take my word for it, Scobie. I checked it and rechecked it before I put us out on a limb. As for Quentin getting away with it for so long. This is a big empty country. Western Australia where he’s officially supposed to come from, I mean as Quentin, that’s practically another country in itself. Perth is two thousand miles from Canberra or Sydney. On top of that, Australians never seem to take much interest in where their public men were born or how they grew up. Take Flannery, for instance. I’d bet not one per cent of this State’s population could tell you anything about his early life. They couldn’t care less. It’s what you are today that counts in this country, not what you were.”

  Malone nodded, realising for the first time his own ignorance of the men who, one way or another, had ruled his life: they were just names and faces and nothing more. But something else made him uneasy: