by Jon Cleary
“The one on the right, that’s Walter Springfellow. The other one—no, I don’t think so.” He knew who it was, but, unaccountably, was reluctant to say so.
“It’s him! It’s the Commissioner. Twenty-four or five years younger, but it’s him, all right.”
Malone made a pretence of studying the photo. “Yeah, it’s him. Who wrote the inscription—him or Walter?”
“Walter, I think. Here, have a look at this.”
Malone took the leather-covered diary, opening it where Clements had placed his finger. It was an expensive Italian edition, the paper too good for mundane social jottings; Emma seemed to have used it as much as a journal of her thoughts as a record of her daily events. Her handwriting was almost copperplate, small but with character and written with a thin-nibbed pen; no biro for her.
Malone read the entry for Tuesday, October 20:
They buried the last of Walter today; with it they buried the last of my love. Even after all these years I cannot believe I shall never see him again. But, of course, I shan’t . . . Venetia’s old lover made a reappearance. One supposes he felt an obligation to—as Walter’s supposed friend. I had a scene with Justine, who could be his bastard. I am ashamed of myself for letting it happen in public, but sometimes true feeling has to break out. I had to speak for Walter—
The entry broke off with a scratch, as if she had not been able to control her pen.
Malone looked at Clements. “Put these in your murder box, put the lid on it and lock it in your desk.”
Clements’s concern was a mirror of Malone’s own. He went to a desk against one wall, fumbled in several of the drawers and came up with a large manila envelope. He put the photo and the diary in it. “What do we do next?”
“You’re the expert on form. Tell me how we’re going to pick a winner on this one.”
III
They left the Scientific men still working in the apartment and went out to the lift. Going down, it stopped at the seventh floor and the young constable got in. “Nothing so far, sir. Most of the tenants are out. Those I’ve seen say they heard nothing—they said they’d have been watching TV about then. They’re a pretty elderly lot here, sir—they’d have the volume turned up pretty high, I reckon.”
Malone grinned, holding the lift door open as they came to the sixth floor. “You should hear my kids when they watch TV. What’s your name?”
“Gary Sobers.”
“You’re kidding.”
The young constable returned Malone’s grin. “No, sir. My old man thought Gary Sobers was the greatest cricketer he ever saw. Our name’s Sobers, so he called me after him.”
“You play cricket?”
“With a name like mine? Would a guy named Joe DiMaggio play baseball in the States? No, sir, I stick to golf.”
Crumbs, I’m old. I played against Sobers and now here’s a kid who was named after him. “I’ll be back at Homicide in an hour. Call me there and let me know what you’ve dug up.”
Sobers got out of the lift and the two detectives went on down to the ground floor. Clements said, “You trust the kid? I think we should get some of our own guys down here.”
“I’ll send „em down. I want a search for the gun, in case the killer got rid of it. They can try the Gardens over the road. Gary Sobers.” He shook his head. “He makes me feel I’m ready for my pension.”
The doorman rushed to open the front door for them. “Good luck—Inspector. I mean—I mean I hope you find out who done it. If I think of anything, I’ll let you know.”
“If you do, we’ll be truly grateful.”
Outside in the heat Clements said, “Truly grateful?”
“I think it was him opening the door for me. Nobody ever does that for me at Homicide.”
Clements opened the passenger’s door of their car and stood back. “Let’s hear that truly grateful bit again.”
He went round the car, took the parking ticket from under the windscreen wiper, tore it up and dropped it in the gutter and got in behind the wheel. Malone said, “How much did you win on the Cup?”
“I dunno. Kensei would’ve been about tens, maybe twelves, something like that. I guess I’ll come out with about six thousand for the win and another fifteen hundred for a place. Say seven and a half grand all up.”
“What are your bank tellers going to think? You must be richer than the Springfellows.”
“Where to now?”
“Springfellow House. We’ve got to go and tell Edwin Springfellow his sister is dead.”
“And then?”
“And then we’ll have a chat with Justine.”
Clements took the car down to Circular Quay and swung into the garage of Springfellow House. There was no attendant in sight, so he parked the car in the vacant space beside the grey Bentley. Police parking privileges are priceless.
Edwin Springfellow’s office was on the seventh floor, a darkly panelled room that suggested quill pens and abacuses and a leisurely approach to the making of money. There were no computers here, no hint of the feverish activity that usually shook the walls of the floor below. Though nothing was shaking on the sixth floor this week, except the staff: the effect of the Crash two weeks before was still being felt. The headless chooks, as Clements had described them, had their heads back on but held there only by the Scotch tape of desperate hope. Edwin, however, was calm; he had the sort of money that never sinks, that rides out recessions and depressions with the flotation of royal wealth.
He was calm, that is, Until Malone and Clements brought him the news of his sister’s murder. He seemed to shrink in his high-backed leather chair, to age visibly like a man who had suddenly had all substance drain out of him.
“You’re sure? Murder? But of course you’re sure, it’s your job, isn’t it? First Walter, now Emma—” He looked around him, as if looking for the third gun, the one that was meant for him. “Who, for God’s sake? Who would want to kill her?”
“When did you last see your sister?”
Edwin was shocked; but not numbed. “Are you suspecting me?”
“Why would you say that?”
Edwin looked flustered; he waved a helpless hand. “I don’t know . . .”
“Mr. Springfellow, we’re just trying to trace her movements last night.”
“I saw her at the weekend. Sunday—she came for lunch.” Edwin was collecting his thoughts; he sat up in his chair. “I spoke to her on the telephone last night about—I suppose it was about six. Just before I left the office.”
“How did she sound?”
Edwin hesitated. “Tense, a little tense. She’s been like that for several weeks. This family takeover battle . . . I advised her to put it out of her mind for today. She was going to a Cup luncheon at a friend’s. She liked that sort of thing, women getting together.”
“Did she say anything about expecting a visitor last night?”
“Well, no-o . . .”
“You mean yes.”
Edwin fiddled with a silver fountain pen; he, too, would never soil his fingers with a biro. “She just said she was expecting someone to drop in during the evening. She said she might have a surprise for me next time she talked to me.”
“She gave you no hint of what the surprise might be?”
“No. She didn’t say who was coming by.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Of course I’m sure! Dammit, Inspector . . . I’m sorry.” Edwin could not shed his good manners; as the trapdoor opened, he would raise his hat in farewell to the hangman. “No, she didn’t say who. My sister could be—could sometimes be, well, a little secretive. Maiden ladies can sometimes be like that. Perhaps it’s because they have no one to confide in.”
“Bachelors can be the same,” said Malone and looked sideways at Clements, who didn’t smile, just gave him a secretive look. He was holding the big manila envelope on his knees, but Malone didn’t ask him to open it and show the contents to Edwin.
He looked back at Edwin. “I’
d got the impression that you and your sister were close.”
“On the strength of one interview with us? Do you have any siblings, Inspector?”
Malone had to remember what a sibling was. “No, I’m an only child.”
“Do you have children of your own?”
“Three.”
“Ask them how much they confide in each other.” Not bloody likely, thought Malone. His kids’ secrets were their own. “My sister kept her confidences to herself.”
“Did she ever confide in your brother?”
Edwin fiddled with his pen again. “Ye-es. Yes, they were close. They were—friends, real friends. Brother and sister often aren’t. Emma and I weren’t.” There was no hint of regret or bitterness in his soft voice. “Do you think there’s any connection between her murder and my brother’s?”
The thought hadn’t occurred to Malone; he hid his surprise that Edwin’s mind should have gone in that direction. “Who knows? We’ll let you know if that’s the way it turns out.”
Malone and Clements left Edwin and went up to the twenty-ninth floor. They were admitted, after their credentials had been checked as if they were newly arrived immigrants, into Justine’s office. It was not a large office, there was no title on the door; but it was on a corner and it had a splendid view of the harbour. Location gave it its cachet.
They had no sooner told Justine of her aunt’s death than Venetia came down from above in a pink-and-grey storm. “Why didn’t you come to see me first? How dare you upset my daughter like this—”
“Calm down, Lady Springfellow,” said Malone.
“Don’t you tell me to calm down!”
“Please yourself,” said Malone and stood patient and calm; Clements looked equally at ease. The temperature in the room began to drop.
“All right. Inspector, I apologize. But this dreadful news—” She went round behind the desk and put her hands on Justine’s shoulders as if she were going to give her some relaxing massage. “My brother-in-law called me—”
“Another—murder?” For the second time shock was prompting only questions from Justine. “How? Why?”
“We’re hoping you might be able to help us,” said Malone, going off the deep end.
Justine, ashen-faced, looked at him in puzzlement. She put a hand up to her shoulder and squeezed her mother’s fingers. Venetia asked the question for her: “How can she help? How do you mean?”
“She might have been the last person to see her aunt alive. Except for the murderer, of course,” he added, though his voice was flat and had no hint of sympathy in it.
Venetia turned her daughter’s face up towards her, as one might a child’s. “Did you see Emma last night?”
Justine pulled her chin out of her mother’s hand, nodded her head almost defiantly. “I know you told me not to go near her. But I called her yesterday afternoon—”
“When was that?” Clements was making notes.
“Oh, I don’t know. Before I left here, about five, I guess. I went home—I live just across there—” She nodded out at the block of apartments by the Cahill Expressway. The Wharf was not as exclusive as The Vanderbilt, but it was more expensive; the money in it was so new one could smell the ink as one drove past. “Then I went up to see Aunt Emma about eight o’clock.”
“Why?” Venetia was ready to hold her own interrogation.
“I—I thought she might listen to a new offer. I knew she was never going to listen to you—”
She’s lying, Malone thought; either for her mother’s benefit or for ours. “What time did you leave her?”
“I’m not sure. I’m not very good about time—I never look at my watch.” She looked at it now, a gold-strapped one, as if to make sure she was still wearing it. “I suppose I was there an hour or so—”
“Just talking?”
She looked at her mother first, then back at Malone. “Arguing, most of the time. But I never got—violent. I mean, I didn’t threaten her or anything.”
“Nobody has said you did, darling,” said Venetia and looked threateningly at Malone.
Malone didn’t take up the challenge. “Did your aunt mention she was expecting someone else?”
“Yes,” said Justine. “She said someone was coming to see her.”
“She didn’t say who?”
“No.”
“When you left, did you part on a friendly note?”
“No-o. It was impossible to be friends with Emma. It was for me.”
“How was she with you, Lady Springfellow?”
“We were never close. And lately—you’ve read the papers, I’m sure. We were business enemies, one of the columnists called us.”
“I didn’t read that,” said Malone, who had sent for back issues of the newspapers after attending Walter Springfellow’s funeral and read every word about the family war. “So there was bad feeling between you and the deceased?”
“Yes.” Venetia’s hand tightened just slightly on Justine’s shoulder; Malone saw the material of the daughter’s dress drawn up in a crease. “Why lie about it? It was common knowledge.”
“We miss out on a lot of common knowledge,” said Malone. “We live a pretty sheltered existence in Homicide.”
“Balls,” said Lady Springfellow. For a moment the cultivated voice coarsened, she was the young girl down from the bush and determined to take on all-comers in the tough, dirty city. She had been younger than Justine was now, but tougher, much tougher. “Don’t beat about the bush with me, Inspector. If you have something to accuse us of, do it!”
“Calm down,” Malone said again. “We’ve only just started on this. We don’t rush in without all the evidence we can roundup.”
“How much have you got? Is that evidence?” She nodded at the manila envelope in Clements’s big hand. “Have you been taking things from Emma’s flat? Can you do that?”
“We could strip the flat,” said Clements. “Carpets, everything. We’d give the next of kin a list, of course.”
“Is what you have in there on the list? What is it?”
“You’re not the next of kin. Her brother Edwin is that.”
“Let Lady Springfellow see the photo,” said Malone.
Clements raised an eyebrow; then without a word he took the photo out of the envelope. “Do you recognize these two men?”
“The one on the right is my husband.”
“Who is the other one?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” said Venetia.
Clements turned the photo towards Justine. “Miss Springfellow?”
She leaned forward to look at the photo; her mother’s hand slipped off her shoulder. “Yes, the man on the right is my—my father. I don’t recognize the other man. What does the inscription say?”
“„Roper River, June 1963,’” said Malone. “„With much love.’ Do you recognize the handwriting, Lady Springfellow?”
“No,” said Venetia.
Women, generally, don’t show the gall that men do as liars. They are subtler and sometimes their subtlety shows, especially when there is no time to weave it properly. These two are lying, Malone thought, telling different lies but lying all the same.
“What else do you have in the envelope?” said Venetia.
“There’s a diary,” said Clements, but didn’t take it out of the envelope. “We can’t let you read that. That’s the deceased’s property.”
“And yours, of course.”
“And ours,” said Malone, “of course.”
Clements stood up, looked at Malone, who nodded. Justine stood up beside her mother; they were shoulder to shoulder but they did not look indomitable, not even Venetia. But she faced them full on, because that was her best side; and anyway, to turn in profile is to half-retreat. This one won’t retreat, thought Malone. But Justine, ah: she was already in retreat, front on.
“We’ll be back,” he said.
IV
On their way back to Homicide Clements said, “I was surprised when you showed h
er the photo.”
“I don’t know whether I did the right thing. It’s out in the open now, a little bit anyway. She’s lying, though. She knew who the second man was.”
“Do I still lock it away in my desk or do I tell Greg Random?”
“He’ll know about it eventually. I guess we might as well show it to him now.”
But when they got back to Homicide Chief Inspector Random had left the office and wouldn’t be back till the next day. Clements got out his “murder box,” the repository of a thousand items from a hundred crimes, an old shoebox held together by what looked like metres of Scotch tape; he was superstitious about it, to lose it would be like saying goodbye to all his experience. It was empty now, ready for a new crime. He tried to put the framed photo in the box, but it wouldn’t fit. He put the photo and the diary back in the manila envelope.
“Maybe I’d better start a new box for the Springfellows.”
“Maybe you’d better. We still have Walter’s murder on our hands.”
“What about the Commissioner?”
“That’s Greg Random’s problem,” said Malone; but little did he know.
5
I
“I HAD to come and see you,” said John Leeds. “I thought it better that I see you here at home.”
Venetia had been surprised when he had called her; even more surprised when he said he had to see her at once, preferably where they would not be disturbed. She had left her office immediately and had been at home in Mosman only ten minutes when he had arrived. She had noticed that when he had driven up the driveway he had been in what she assumed was his own car. He was not in uniform and she wondered if he had changed before leaving the office. She never missed a detail, especially about men.
“Did you tell the security guard who you were?” She held his hand as she led him through to the back of the house, but she did not attempt to kiss him.
“That I was the Police Commissioner? No, I just said my name was Leeds and you were expecting me. He may have recognized me, but that’s a risk . . .”
“Why all the secrecy, John?”
“Because I am the Commissioner and as such I shouldn’t be here.”
Her memories of him weren’t as sharp as she had imagined. Had he always been as ill at ease as he appeared now?