Babylon South

by Jon Cleary

  Malone and Clements were asked to sit down; the Springfellows arranged themselves on chairs facing them. It could have been a seance, though a medium or even a spirit would not have been admitted to this house without the best of credentials.

  Edwin and Ruth looked more brother and sister than husband and wife; Ruth seemed more out of the same mould than did Emma. Both were grey-haired, had thin patrician features, looked at the world with the same superior eye. They brushed each other’s hair every night and, when the occasion demanded, did the same with each other’s ego. Yet Emma, self-contained, feline, was not out of place with them.

  “Mr. Springfellow,” said Malone, plunging straight in, “would your brother have been the sort of man likely to have committed suicide?”

  There were gasps from both women, as if Malone had accused Sir Walter of bestiality. Edwin’s expression did not change.

  “No,” he said in a clipped voice that sounded more English than Australian. “He certainly would not have done anything like that.”

  “What was his attitude towards guns?”

  “They were for sport, not suicide.” Edwin’s tone was polite but cold, “If that’s what you are getting at.”

  He’s too well prepared, Malone thought. He could be a lawyer instead of a stockbroker. “Everyone seems to think we’re getting at something. Your sister-in-law had the same idea. Don’t you want to know how your brother died?”

  “Of course we do!” Emma leaned forward; Malone waited for her to spring out of her chair. “But we’re not going to have his name besmirched!”

  Besmirched: he had heard that word only from learned judges in libel cases. But perhaps it was part of the vocabulary one would hear in a museum like this. “We don’t want it—besmirched, either. But let’s face it—this case is one of Australia’s biggest mysteries. I worked on it originally for a few days—it was front-page stuff in every newspaper in the country when he disappeared.”

  “I remember it.” Emma looked as if she might spit. “Reporters! Trying to turn our life into a goldfish bowl!”

  “It’s started again,” said Ruth Springfellow. “We have an ex-directory number, but somehow or other they’ve discovered it and are ringing all the time, day and night. Whatever happened to respect for privacy?”

  “We’re living in the past, sweetheart,” said her husband and, without irony, looked around the museum.

  Malone tried another tack, walking on hollow eggs. “This is a delicate question—” Both women looked at him with apprehensive anticipation; but Edwin looked offended in advance. “What were relations like between your brother and his wife?”

  Edwin and Ruth were shocked; but Emma leaned forward again. “There were arguments. I always said they were an ill-matched pair.”

  “Emma!” Edwin raised an open hand as if he intended to clamp it over his sister’s mouth.

  “It’s true. We all want to know what happened to Walter—” She faltered for a moment and her face softened; she looked a different woman, one capable of love. Then she hardened again. “What’s wrong with the truth?”

  “Nothing,” said Malone, getting in first. “It’s the only way we’ll solve anything.”

  “By dragging up the past?” said Edwin.

  Malone gave him a steady look. “Yes, Mr. Springfellow. That’s the only way we’re going to do it.”

  “Why not just let Walter rest in peace?” said Ruth, it’s what he would have wanted himself.”

  “No,” said Emma. “He wouldn’t have wanted it that way at all. You know as well as I do, he wasn’t a man to let things rest, not even as a boy. He was like me, we always were. Let’s have the truth. It’s what he would have said.”

  “Can any of you remember anything of the day he disappeared?”

  “Nothing,” said Edwin at once and Ruth, after a glance at him, shook her head.

  “I can,” said Emma, looking at neither of them, “I was living here then with Edwin and Ruth—”

  “Where do you live now?” said Clements. Malone always left it to him to take notes.

  “At The Vanderbilt in Macquarie Street. I’ve lived there for twenty years.” She said it bitterly, as if south of the harbour were another country where she was a remittance woman not wanted at home.

  Malone said, “What do you remember of that day?”

  “How can one remember exactly what happened all that time ago?” said Edwin.

  Emma ignored him. “Walter was very upset. I saw him for a moment before he left for the airport that morning—”

  “What did he say?”

  “It wasn’t what he said—I just knew. Walter and I were so close—we didn’t need to say things to each other. He just kissed me on the cheek and told me not to worry. Then he told me not to go near his wife.” The last word had a dagger through it.

  “And did you? Go near his wife?”

  “Not till the news came through that he was missing. The ASIO men came to see us, and some policemen—”

  “I was one of them,” said Malone.

  “Really?” She looked at him with sudden sharp interest. “And you never found anything?”

  “Nothing. We’re having to start all over again.”

  Edwin stood up. He had a certain dignity that was natural to him; old families sometimes bequeath other things besides money and a name. “I think that’s enough for today, Inspector. We are still upset by yesterday’s discovery. I should have been at my office if it weren’t for this . . .”

  “We haven’t finished—”

  “Yes, we have, Emma. The inspector will understand. Perhaps we’ll be in better shape to talk to you, Inspector, after the funeral. For the moment we’d rather be left alone.”

  Emma glared at him, then abruptly stood up and without a word stalked out of the room. Ruth, as dignified as her husband, said, “Please forgive her, Inspector. She and Walter were very close. Even after all these years she has never really reconciled herself to his disappearance. She has always believed he was still alive. And now . . .”

  Edwin took her hand and once again they were as still as statues. You will get no more out of us today, their stillness said. Malone, who knew when to wait for another day, said goodbye. Edwin, moving stiffly, showed the two detectives to the front door. When he closed the door behind them, Malone waited for the sound of bolts being shot; but there was none. The door, however, was as stout as a castle gate. Neither it nor the family behind it would be easy to break down.

  Going down the driveway Clements said, “Emma was in love with her brother.”

  Malone looked sideways at him: Clements was not usually given to such wild guessing. “You reckon? I didn’t think they went in for that sort of thing in Mosman.”

  “I don’t mean incest. But I saw it once before, when you were overseas on that High Commissioner case. Only it was the other way around, the brother was in love with the sister. He killed her because she married someone else.”

  Malone stopped at the front gates. “Are you saying Emma could have killed Walter?”

  “I don’t know,” said Clements, chewing his lip. “I’ll give you half a dozen who could have killed him. Including ASIO.”

  “Keep your mouth shut on that one or you’re headed for Tibooburra.” That was a one-pub town in the far north-west of the State, the NSW Police Force’s farthest outpost. “Just think it, don’t say it.”

  Clements grinned. “Let’s get at the truth, as Emma said.”

  3

  I

  THE SPRINGFELLOW Corporation was headquartered in a thirty-storey building overlooking Circular Quay. The first five floors were occupied by the Springfellow Bank; the next two by Springfellow and Company, stockbrokers; the next eighteen floors by outside tenants; and the top five floors by divisions, subsidiaries or affiliates of the Corporation. The very top floor was given up to the boardroom, a dividing office and reception lobby and the office of the Chief Executive Officer and Chairwoman of the Board. The Corporation’s PR chief,
a woman versed in anti-sexist jargon, had tried to persuade her boss to call herself President and Chairperson, but Venetia had squashed her with, “President has come to mean someone who’s a figurehead—that’s not me. Chairperson is sexless—and that’s not me, either.”

  Venetia sat in her office gazing out of the large picture-window at the ferries creeping into the quay, seeing them but only as on a memory screen; this had been her view for five years, ever since she had built Springfellow House. She had come an hour ago from the inquest on Walter. She felt at a loss, though of what she was not sure. She had long ago got over the physical loss of Walter; her widow’s weeds had soon turned floral. In those days she had worn a variety of colours. There had been the shock two weeks ago of the discovery of Walter’s skeleton (thank God they had not asked her to identify his bones), but she had recovered from that. The inquest this morning had been short, almost cold-blooded, and it had not upset her; she had been more concerned for its effect on Justine, who had accompanied her and who several times had shivered as if she were suffering from a chill. Then the coroner had declared that the remains were those of Walter Springfellow and that the deceased had died from a gunshot wound inflicted by a person or persons unknown and that the remains should be released into the care of the next of kin, namely Lady Springfellow. Up till then she had been calm, all her resources gathered together in her usual way, life (and death) put together as if according to the strictest of management principles.

  Then, after dropping Justine off at her office on the floor below, she had come up here, come into this big room, closed the door and sat down and wept, something she had not done in more years than she could remember. She had at last dried her eyes, repaired her make-up and now sat staring out at a day she was blind to, wondering what was missing from her emotions. There was no grief, that had died long ago; no lost hope, for she had given up hope of Walter’s return years ago; no anger at his murder, for she could not, after all this time, whip up the urge for revenge against a person or persons unknown. Her eyes cleared, she saw the familiar scene beyond the window, and at that moment her mind cleared. She turned back to her desk, deciding that it was love that was missing. She had lost count of the men who had been her lovers; but Walter had been the one she had married and, Until now, she had always told herself she had loved him. In her fashion, maybe; but it had been a deeper feeling than she had ever felt for any other man. With possibly one exception.

  There was a knock on the door and Michael Broad put his head in. He was, as usual, immaculate. A fashion dummy right out of the John Pardoe windows, Zegna all the way down to his socks, where the Gucci shoes stuck out like those of an intruder behind a curtain. Not a hair out of place, thought Venetia and, suddenly feeling better, smiled at his bald head.

  “I have Peter Polux here, Venetia. Perhaps we could have a word before this afternoon’s meeting.”

  He stood aside and Polux entered, his smile as usual chopping his red cheeks in half, his white shoes as bright as bandaged feet under his dark-blue suit. He must be the only white-shoe banker in the world, Venetia thought. She knew his history, as she knew the history of everyone who worked for her or with whom she did business. He had gone to Queensland twenty-five years ago from a small town in Victoria, and had made a fortune in real estate on the Gold Coast. Seven years ago he had gone into merchant banking and become one of banking’s high-flyers, taking risks declined by more staid bankers and bringing them off. He had been a founder member of the “white shoe brigade,” the new rich of the Gold Coast, and he had continued, as a thumb to the nose at the amused contempt of the supposed sophisticates of Sydney and Melbourne, to wear his white shoes on every occasion. He was a prominent Catholic, a papal knight, and he was famous for his gold rosary beads, which he often wore wrapped round his wrist like a holy bracelet. Venetia sometimes had the feeling that Polux looked upon the Catholic Church as a venture capital client: he certainly had a good deal of its business.

  “Venetia old girl—” His wife had once told him he had no charm and now he was working on it; it was as heavy and rough-edged as a cannibal’s table manners. “Today’s the big day, eh?”

  When Venetia decided to buy out the Springfellow Corporation and turn it into a private company, she had been thinking of going to London or New York for the money she needed, but the devalued Australian dollar and the volatility of foreign currency had made her demur. Michael Broad had suggested that, instead, she call in Polux and Company. It would be Polux’s biggest investment loan, they had the money and they offered good terms. After some thought, investigation and Broad’s persuasion, she had agreed.

  “Are we going to get any opposition from Intercapital?” Intercapital Insurance was the biggest outside shareholder in Springfellow. “They may want to hang on for us to offer more.”

  Polux shook his handsomely waved head; it was somehow an insult to the gleaming bald head sitting beside it. “Intercapital are cautious, Venetia old girl. They don’t think the bull market can last—they’re expecting prices to go down after yesterday. They’ll grab what they can while they can.”

  “What do you think about the market?”

  “Oh, it’ll bounce back—I don’t think it’ll peak till just before Christmas. Friday’s drop on Wall Street was just a hiccup, it happens all the time there. No worries there.” He took out his rosary beads, a gesture of habit, and ran them through his fingers. Holy Mary, Mother of God, thought Venetia, pray for us bankers now and at the hour of our bankruptcy . . . He saw Venetia looking at the beads and he laughed and put them away in his pocket.

  Venetia turned to Broad. “What about you, Michael? Are you bullish, too?”

  She paid him 200,000 dollars a year, plus bonuses, and so far he had not failed her. He was greedy and ambitious, just as she was; she knew herself well enough to recognize her faults in other people. He was ruthless, too: something she only half-admitted to herself. It is not in human nature to be totally honest with ourselves; evolution still has a way to go.

  “Of course. I shouldn’t be recommending we go into this deal if I weren’t. Now is the time to buy, when the rest of them are wondering when it’s going to end.”

  “We could wait till prices go down further.” She was only playing devil’s advocate and both of them knew it; she was as eager as he to complete the buy-out of Springfellow. Tomorrow she would be as rich as Holmes à Court and Kerry Packer and Alan Bond, at least in assets, Boadicea up there amongst the warring men. The thought made her giddy. Feminists would write hymns (hers?) to her, Maggie Thatcher might send a message of congratulations, if she could remember where Australia was . . . She smiled inwardly at her fantasies. She had a sense of humour, something the more rabid feminists and Margaret T., too, would never forgive her for. “It’s all hypothetical, anyway. We’ll have everything wrapped up by five o’clock this afternoon.”

  “Absolutely!”

  Broad’s bonily handsome face lit up. He was the Springfellow corporate finance director, in his early forties, a little old for a whiz-kid but still called one by the kid columnists on the financial pages. A clothes-horse from an expensive stable, he was determined to impress from the first impression; he had spent almost a whole year’s salary on an Aston-Martin convertible when everyone else was buying a Porsche or a Ferrari; he let everyone know, with a sort of cultured vulgarity, that he was not run-of-the-mill. But he would never go too far. The sharp observer (and Venetia was one) could always see the invisible rein he kept on himself.

  He had come out of Prague in 1968, when his name had been Mirek Brod and he had been a young idealist and patriot. He had told Venetia something, but far from all, of his early life in Czechoslovakia. He had told her of throwing rocks at the Russian tanks, of seeing them bounce off and realizing the futility of it all. He did not tell her of his father, a morbid sincere Communist who committed suicide when the Russians came in; nor did he tell her of his mother, an unstable woman who went mad after his father’s suicide and died in
a fit. He kept all that to himself, held in by the tight rein that now guided his ambition. He no longer threw rocks, was no longer a patriot of Czechoslovakia or his adopted country, was now an egoist if not an egotist. He loved no one but himself, but he harboured dreams that some day Venetia might turn to him for more than financial advice. Or if not her, then the boss’s daughter: it didn’t matter. But he was too shrewd to show it. What he didn’t know was that Venetia knew it.

  “By this evening we’ll be sitting pretty. I can’t wait to read it in the newspapers tomorrow.”

  “You’re gunna show „em, Venetia old girl!”

  Venetia old girl showed her teeth; both men, blind with dreams of triumph, took it for a smile. “Let’s go and have some lunch.”

  As he stood aside to let her pass out of the room ahead of him, Broad said, “Oh, how did the inquest go?”

  You cold son-of-a-bitch: he might have been asking her how a visit to the dentist had gone. “Murder by person or persons unknown.”

  “Eh?” He was startled and puzzled; it wasn’t the sort of answer he’d been expecting. Up till now, Venetia’s life before he had come into it had never interested him.

  “The funeral will be tomorrow,” she said, went past him, crossed the outer office and went into the boardroom where a light lunch had been laid out. Behind her she heard Broad say to Polux, “An extraordinary woman!” and Polux grunt in agreement. You don’t know the half of me, she told them silently. But then, she told herself, there is a percentage of myself that even I don’t know.

  The board meeting began an hour and a half later. The other board members filed in: Edwin and Emma, Justine, two directors from Intercapital and three outside directors representing the public shareholders. With them was a flock of legal eagles and financial advisers. Major wars, thought Venetia, have been started with smaller gatherings than this.