Babylon South

by Jon Cleary

  Justine seemed to go totally rigid, as if even her young flesh had calcified. Her voice rasped: “What do you mean?”

  “You did go back to see your aunt a second time. A Mr. and Mrs. Pandon let you into The Vanderbilt and you went up in the lift with them. That was around eleven o’clock, when you went out for your walk.”

  “Don’t say anything, sweetheart.” Alice Magee stepped into the breach like a professional bodyguard.

  Justine said nothing for a moment; then the stone crumbled, just a little. “Yes. Yes, I did try to see Emma again.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us that the first time?”

  “I—I was frightened. I still am.”

  “Sweetheart—”

  “No, it’s all right, Nana. I haven’t done anything, I mean not to Emma. Yes, Inspector, I went back there. I went up to Emma’s apartment and rang the doorbell, but it wasn’t working. Then I knocked, but I got no answer. I didn’t know whether she guessed it was me or whether she had someone else in there. I just gave up and went back down in the lift. Then I went for the walk I told you about. I didn’t see Emma the second time. That’s the truth, Inspector.”

  Malone looked at her, wanting to believe her. “You saw no one else going into or coming out of The Vanderbilt?”

  “Only Mr. and Mrs. Pandon.”

  “I don’t think they’re suspects,” he said drily. He knew she should be questioned further; but abruptly he stood up. “I think that’ll be all for the moment, Miss Springfellow.”

  “Not quite,” said Clements, “I think we need some fingerprints. Would you come up to Homicide with us?”

  “No,” said Alice. “Not unless you’re going to charge her with something. That’s the law.”

  “You know something about the law?” said Clements.

  Whatever happened to my authority? Malone wondered. But he let it go: he hadn’t yet got his bearings, for attack or defence.

  “A little,” said Alice, “I had a husband who was always in trouble. I don’t think my granddaughter ought to say any more without her lawyer.”

  Clements stood up, bending over the coffee table to pick up his notebook. At the same time Malone glanced at Justine. She was standing now, her back straight. She’s scared stiff, he thought, but there’s a lot of her mother in her. And of her grandmother, who went on, still talking to Clements, “Justine didn’t murder Emma. You’ll never make a case against her.”

  “I’ve heard that before, Mrs. Magee.” Clements straightened up, slipping his notebook into his jacket pocket. He hadn’t raised his voice, but Malone could sense the hard antagonism in him. “You’d be surprised how many times they’ve been wrong.”

  II

  Going down in the lift Clements said, “What did you make of that?”

  Malone looked at himself in the brass-framed glass; he was surprised to find he hadn’t changed, that he still looked calm and unworried. “Why did you try that dumb trick? You were never going to get away with it. As soon as you got her into Homicide, she’d have been on the phone to her mum. Then we’d have had Lady S. down on us with a battalion of lawyers raising bloody hell. I can do without that.” He could do without a lot of things, including a sergeant who was, unexpectedly, turning nasty. “Russ, what’s the matter with you?”

  Clements looked into the mirrored walls, as if looking for an answer there. Then he shrugged. “I don’t bloody know. I think I’ve all of a sudden got shit on the liver against the rich. I’ve never been a red ragger—the Commos wouldn’t touch me with a forty-foot pole. I’ve never resented other people having money, but all of a sudden, with these bloody Springfellows—” He stepped out of the lift with a last look at himself in the mirrors. “They tell me there are always reasons for prejudices, but I dunno—I think it’s just like catching a cold. One day you’re okay and the next . . .”

  “You’re richer than I am. Are you going to give your money back to the bookies?”

  “I’m prejudiced, but I’m not bloody stupid.”

  But you’re going to be a weight round my neck on this case: Malone looked at his friend, the albatross. “Just tread carefully, Russ. We don’t know how much clout the Springfellows have.”

  “Clout has never worried you before.”

  “Maybe I’m like you. I’m feeling middle-aged.”

  Then Clements took out his notebook. Something slipped out of it and he held it gingerly by its narrow edges: it was a white drink coaster. “I lifted this.”

  “The one she was handling? For Chrissakes, Russ—”

  “I’m not going to use it officially. I’ll just get Don Cheshire out at Fingerprints to put it on file, no names, no pack-drill. Just so’s we’ll have something to refer back to, if and when.”

  “If and when what?” But he knew.

  “If and when we nail her. She did it, all right.” They retrieved their car from the garage in Springfellow House and drove back to Homicide. The air-conditioning had stopped working, a frequent malfunction in police vehicles, as if the taxpayers, even the honest law-abiding ones, occasionally put a hex on it to remind policemen who paid their wages. Malone and Clements wound down their windows, but the hot air that blew into the car did nothing for their comfort. As they passed Hyde Park Malone looked up through the trees and saw the Archibald fountain sparkling like falling ice-drops in the sunlight. They pulled up at some traffic lights and a girl crossed in front of them, looking as cool as a mermaid in a pale-green sleeveless dress.

  “Sometimes I wish I was a drag queen,” said Clements, “so’s I could dress like that.”

  Malone looked at the hulk beside him. “You’d set sex back five thousand years.”

  They grinned at each other, their faces glistening with sweat and, yes, affection, though both of them would have shied away from the word. I couldn’t wish for a better sidekick, thought Malone. It was a pity, though, that Clements wasn’t on vacation right now, somewhere out of the State or even out of the country.

  When they got back to Homicide Malone’s phone was ringing. He picked it up; the Commissioner was on the other end. “I’ve had a call from Lady Springfellow, Inspector. I believe you’ve been harassing her daughter.”

  “Harassing, sir?” Malone felt himself get suddenly hot and not with the summer heat.

  “Her word, Scobie. I hope you haven’t been—harassing her?”

  “No, sir. Just questioning her.”

  “I thought I told you I saw her leaving The Vanderbilt?”

  What’s happening to the man? He had never known the Commissioner to interfere like this. “Yes, sir, you did. But I just can’t stop.”

  “You could direct your enquiries elsewhere, for a start.”

  “I’ll do that too. Unfortunately, sir, I’m not on this case on my own.” He looked down the long room at Clements, who had stopped to talk to Andy Graham. “Sergeant Clements is working with me—and he’s pretty dogged.”

  There was silence at the other end of the line; then Leeds sighed, sounded weary. “I’m sorry, Scobie. Do it your way. The right way.”

  III

  Malone had a moment of inspired hope. After hanging up the phone he had sat utterly dejected; Clements, coming up to sit opposite him, had spoken to him but he hadn’t answered. The silence between the two men was threatening to become bitter; Malone was aware of it and was desperate to break it. Then he had his inspiration.

  “Maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  Clements gave him a hard look. “What tree’s that?”

  “The Springfellow tree. What about that cove Dural who was released the same time we found Walter’s bones? He was a raver against Walter for refusing his appeal. Maybe he’s revenging himself by killing off someone else in the family.”

  “You’re stretching it,” said Clements, unexcited.

  “Maybe. But it’s worth a try. Corrective Services will give us an address on him. I think I read he’s out on licence.”

  They went to see Chilla Dural, Clements s
howing no enthusiasm at all for the venture. Dural was just coming out of the front door of his rooming house when Malone and Clements drew up at the kerb. As soon as he saw the two tall men get out of the car parked in a No Parking zone, he recognized them for coppers. He felt something flutter inside him: was he going to be pinched after all? He gave them a genuine smile of welcome.

  “Could we go inside, Mr. Dural?” said Malone after he had introduced himself and Clements. “It’s a little hot out here.”

  Dural led them back down the hallway. At once Killeen’s door opened, the wrinkled face appeared, the watchdog eyes wary. “Trouble, mate?”

  “I don’t think so, Jerry. I’ll call you if I need you.”

  He ushered the two detectives into his room, closed the door. The room was still bare of any identification except for the photo on the dressing-table; he wasn’t prepared to declare this as home. He gestured to Malone and Clements to sit down on the room’s two chairs and he stood leaning against the dressing-table.

  Malone came straight to the point. “You’ve probably read about the murder of Emma Springfellow, Mr. Dural. She was the sister of the judge who sent you up twenty-odd years ago.”

  Dural went cold: for Chrissakes, they weren’t going to pin a murder rap on him, were they? He wanted to go home to Parramatta, but not with another murder marked against him.

  “I read about it.”

  “Where were you last Monday night?”

  Dural relaxed, though only inwardly; he showed the bulls nothing. “That’s easy. I was up at a jazz club up the street. I went up about, I dunno, nine o’clock, something like that, and I come home just after midnight.”

  “You have someone who’ll vouch for that?”

  “The little bloke next door, Jerry Killeen. He come with me. He’ll remember it, „cause he hated it. He’s no jazz fan, he kept asking the band to play some Nelson Eddy songs. Nelson Eddy, for Chrissakes! I remember it, all right, the night, I mean. I never been so bloody embarrassed in me life.”

  Clements grinned and Malone, who knew a little about jazz, nodded sympathetically.

  “Okay,” said Clements, “we’ll take your word for it. But while we’re here—do you know anyone around the Cross who’ll do a knock job if the price is right?”

  “Mr. Clements, I been outa the game for years. I dunno none of the rough „uns that are around today. Was she done by a hit man? I dunno I’d wanna know anyone who’d hurt a woman, I mean a decent woman. I done a few knock jobs in my time—I wouldn’t of been in Parramatta if I hadn’t—but I’d never do domestics. You know, hurting a woman „cause some bugger paid for it. How was she done? Shot, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes,” said Malone. “Two .380s, probably from a Walther.”

  Dural was suddenly aware of his own Walther in the drawer against which his right buttock was resting. Possession of a weapon, if the bulls wanted to search his room, could have his licence revoked. For a moment he was tempted to produce it: Parramatta beckoned. But in the same drawer were what remained of the five hundred dollar coins from the bank robbery at Leichhardt. He didn’t want to be connected to that. Those goons had shot at the police and that was a no-no in his book. He wanted to be on good terms with the screws when he went back home.

  “I don’t think it’d be a hit man with a piece like that. Maybe, but I don’t think so. He’d use a sawn-off .22, something like that, something he’d screw a silencer on to. I mean, if he was a professional. Fitting a silencer to a Walther ain’t easy.”

  “We don’t know that a silencer was used.”

  “You mean you ain’t found the gun yet? Then how d’you know it was a Walther?”

  Malone stood up. It had been a stupid forlorn hope that Dural might be the killer; anything that would lead them away from Justine and get John Leeds off his back. “Right, Mr. Dural, we just had to check. You’re staying out of trouble, I suppose?”

  “Doing me best, Mr. Malone.”

  He opened the door for them and they stepped out into the hallway. Killeen was there, broom in hand, making a mountain out of a molehill of dust. “Just cleaning up. Everything all right, Chilla?”

  Dural nodded, grinning inwardly at the old stickybeak. “Just a coupla old friends, Jerry. Inspector Malone and Sergeant Clements. Just checking where I was Monday night.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Nothing,” said Malone, but didn’t believe Killeen’s innocent look. The old man would know all the news that was printed or broadcast, and a great deal that wasn’t. “You and Mr. Dural were together that night, he says. Where’d you go?”

  “You think I could forget it? No offence, Chilla, but that was the night we went up to the jazz club. Jeez, what a night! You wouldn’t believe it, Inspector, they never heard of Nelson Eddy!”

  “Hard to believe.” Malone shook his head in sympathy.

  “Who’s Nelson Eddy?” Clements was straight-faced.

  “Come on,” said Malone and led the way out to the police car. Inside it, he said, “Why pick on the little feller? You know who Nelson Eddy was.”

  “I should be picking on you, bringing us out in this heat. That was a waste of time, Scobie. I tell you, we don’t have to look outside the Springfellow family for Emma’s murderer. Least of all, look at Chilla Dural. If ever I’ve seen an old lag who doesn’t want any more trouble, it’s him.”

  “Do a further check on him. Have Andy Graham check the jazz club.”

  All at once he wished that Chilla Dural was the murderer, but he knew in his policeman’s heart, a suspect organ amongst crims, that life was never that simple.

  IV

  “That film only proves that happy innocence isn’t possible, even for fools,” said Gil Holman.

  “Yves Montand’s character was typically French,” said his wife Jean. “If the story had been set today, he’d have been letting off bombs in Gerard Dépardieu’s back yard.”

  Her accent on the names was perfect: she taught French in one of the better private schools. She and Gil were both teachers, he at a State high school. Jean and Lisa had gone to university together, had lost contact and then, a year ago, had met again. Malone suspected that the friendship, on either woman’s part, was not a deep one; he also suspected that Lisa had taken up with the Holmans because they offered her some intellectual stimulus, even in their limited outlook, that he couldn’t give her. Though he would never have told her so.

  “I’m always half a street behind what’s going on when I see a foreign film,” he said. “By the time I’ve read the sub-titles, the actors have changed their expressions.” It wasn’t much of a contribution to the discussion, but he didn’t want to embarrass Lisa by sitting there like a log.

  They had been to see Jean de Florette at the Village cinema here in Double Bay and then come across to the International Café for supper. The Holmans had no children and so didn’t have to worry about baby-sitters; the Malone children were staying the night with Lisa’s parents at Rose Bay, probably still up way past their bed-time and making the most of their grandparents’ indulgence. Some day, when Jan and Elisabeth Pretorius died, the children would be indulged even further: a trust had been set up for them that would give each of them a very comfortable start in his or her adult life. Malone was unsure how he felt about the intended inheritance; he would have liked to have been responsible for the assurance of his children’s future himself. That, too, was something he would never mention to Lisa.

  The International was Double Bay’s principal meeting place. The tiny inner suburb, five minutes by car from the city centre, was also known as Double Pay; bargain was a rude word, except between wholesalers and retailers; customers who came looking for bargains were as optimistic as the hunters who came to the International looking for virgins. Here amongst the expensive boutiques, the European delicatessens and the coffee lounges, the post-war European immigrants, those with money or memories of it, had begun to meet in the 1950s at the International Café. They would sit, as they had in c
afés in Vienna and Berlin and Budapest, sipping their coffees and watching the passing parade and each other. At one time it was said that anyone with an Australian accent would not be served, but those reverse xenophobic days had gone. Now there were far fewer older immigrants, one heard much less foreign language, and the younger set had moved in, those with money of their own or with parents who had it. They still did what was expected of them: they sipped their coffee and watched the passing parade and each other. To Malone’s jaundiced eye, that of the boy with the mark of Erskineville still on him, they looked to be all from the same family, their smugness a distinguishable feature like a hereditary birthmark.

  Three young men came in, peacocks in white John Lane outfits, gold gleaming round their necks and their wrists. They sat down, turned their chairs to face in the same direction, and, as it happened, looked directly at Malone in his Fletcher Jones checked shirt and his 49-dollar Hagger fawn trousers. He might have been wearing a bikie’s leathers; they looked at each other as if to ask how he had got in here. They were black-haired, darkly tanned and handsome: they could have been Italian, Greek or Lebanese. Above a certain level of affluence, Malone thought, all Wogs look the same. And at once heard his father’s voice in his ears and felt ashamed. What was the matter with him? Where, all of a sudden, had his prejudices come from? Had he, like Clements, suddenly caught the virus of them?

  “What’s the matter?” said Lisa. “You look as if you’ve swallowed a cup of cold coffee.”

  He wondered what she would say if he told her what he had been thinking. He couldn’t, however, tell her in front of the Holmans. They were the sort who claimed they had no prejudices, except against the French, the Reagan Administration, the Nationalist Party, the Returned Servicemen’s League and all loggers and saw-millers and any anti-conservationist. He looked over Lisa’s shoulder and was saved.

  “There’s Justine Springfellow.”

  The other three turned; as had most of the big café’s customers. “My God, she’s beautiful!” said Jean Holman.

  “She’s just made the most of herself, that’s all,” said Gil, the expert on women.