Babylon South

by Jon Cleary

  She got up and went to the largest of the windows, the one that looked out on to the harbour. Diagonally across from her she could see The Wharf; Justine’s daily maid was sweeping the apartment’s terrace. Beneath her feet was the prize she had been trying to win. Not visible from her office but only half a kilometre up behind the Springfellow building was The Vanderbilt, where Emma had schemed against her and been murdered. Within spitting distance, as it were, were all her problems. It was small comfort, but it meant she could keep in touch, even if she couldn’t solve them.

  She felt suddenly weak, but she resisted the temptation to sit down; that would be surrender. She prided herself on her strength, though she had never been one to boast. Boasting was a staff of those with a weakness; she had weaknesses, but she liked to think she had them under control. Her liking for men, the physical side of them, was a weakness; but she had been discreet about her choices, or thought she had been, and so far there had been no problems there. Except, of course, twenty-one years ago . . . The finding of Walter’s remains had revived her guilt about him, but nothing could be done about that. Guilt is a weakness, but only to the honourable and she had never claimed to be one of those.

  She had been bitterly disappointed at the collapse of the takeover bid. She had set her heart on taking over the Springfellow empire: from then on, the Springfellow name would be hers and Justine’s and all other members of the family would soon be forgotten. She had wanted the name and the power; the riches would be incidental. That she had been denied them had wounded her more deeply than she showed. But the opportunity was still there; the death of Emma had removed the major obstacle. A pox on Polux: she would look around for other finance. She was indomitable; or anyway optimistic. It was optimism that had brought her all the way from Cobar.

  Her intercom buzzed. “Mr. Edwin is here to see you, Lady Springfellow.”

  He had made no appointment; Edwin was always so meticulous about not dropping in. It was not Mosman. “Ask him to come in, Shirl.”

  Shirl, middle-aged and sensible, with a sensible name, a secretary who would keep any boss’s feet on the ground, opened the door and showed in Edwin. She gave him a wide smile; she had always liked Mr. Edwin, a gentleman of the old school. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Miller. Perhaps a double Scotch, though? No, I’m only joking.”

  Shirl gave him another smile and went out and Venetia said, “A double Scotch at this time of day? Are you taking up the grog, Edwin?”

  “I’ve been tempted once or twice in the past months. I don’t think I have the strength of character to surrender to it.” He had never been one for irony, either; he was changing day by day. She hadn’t seen much of him since the day of Walter’s funeral, but even the occasional glimpses had shown her that he was no longer the predictable Edwin she had known for more than twenty years. “Forgive me for bursting in on you like this.”

  She smiled. “You’d never burst in on anyone, Edwin.”

  He smiled in return, made himself comfortable, in his stiff way, in his chair. He was immaculately dressed as always, but one had to look twice to see the effect; everything about him was understated. She knew that he, like Walter, had always had his suits made by Cutlers; he bought his shirts in Jermyn Street on his annual trip to London; he always wore custom-made Lobb shoes. His ties, too, were always sober: plain dark colours with sometimes a discreet stripe. But not today: the white shirt was—disfigured? Was that the word?—by a green-and-blue-and-white creation tie—could it be a Hermès?

  “I like your tie. Very dashing.”

  “Thank you. It was a present from Ruth.” Was she stepping out, too? “I had a birthday a week ago. Before Emma . . . But Ruth says no one wears black any more, not for weeks, as we used to.”

  “Only Greek and Italian widows.” She was wearing a grey linen suit and a pink shirt. She would wear the unflattering black again to Emma’s funeral, when her body was released by the coroner.

  Edwin composed himself for an announcement. “I’m announcing my retirement. I thought you should know first.”

  “No! Edwin, you’ll never retire—”

  “Yes. You said something to me a few weeks ago—you said I was old. I’ve never thought of myself as such, but you are right. I don’t understand half of what goes on around me, not any more. It’s a different world. Not one that I particularly like.”

  “What will you do? Springfellow’s has been your life.”

  “I’ll find something. I’ll do more charity work—” He was on the boards of half a dozen charities, duties inherited from his father. It only occurred to her now (had she remarked it at the time?) that Walter had never interested himself in charity work. “Ruth and I will do more travelling. See more of Australia, take more time to see Europe.”

  “Well, I’ll miss you, Edwin.” She meant it. She was surprised she felt no elation at his going; he had never been one who had tried to exclude her as a Springfellow. “We haven’t always seen eye to eye, but now I think about it, you’ve always been a steadying influence on me.”

  He smiled at that. He had always liked her more than he had ever shown; or perhaps admired was the word. She was a handsome woman, more complimentary in his lexicon than calling her beautiful: beauty, these days, was something that could be manufactured. She also had sex appeal, but he would never have mentioned that to anyone. His sex life with Ruth had been adequate, but there had been the occasional dream . . .

  “I don’t think I ever influenced you one iota. But thank you for the thought. Now, there’s something else . . .”

  “Two surprises in one day?”

  “Yes, I suppose this will surprise you. Emma’s will has been read to me. I’ve inherited all her estate, except for a few bequests to her favourite charities and all her paintings going to the Art Gallery. Everything else is mine. Ruth and I don’t need it and we have no children to pass it on to. As I said, I’m retiring and that means leaving Springfellow altogether, a clean break. I want to sell you all of Emma’s shares at whatever is the going price. It would mean, of course, that you would have to make a full bid.”

  She felt her breath rise in her throat. At today’s prices she would be gaining full control of the family company and the bank at far less cost than she had ever dreamed, “I’ll have to think about it, Edwin.”

  It was his turn to be surprised. “Good heavens, why? I thought you’d leap across your desk at me, grab them before I changed my mind.”

  “The situation is a little different now from what it was a few weeks ago.”

  He might be old, but he was still sharp: “You mean you no longer have the finance?”

  “Something like that.” A month ago she would have lied to him.

  “That man Polux has let you down? I could have warned you about him, but it wasn’t my place.”

  “Will you sell to someone else? Intercapital or one of the other institutions?”

  He deliberated a moment. “No, I’d rather keep it in the family.”

  “Thank you, Edwin. For still thinking of me as family.” Then she said, “Where did you and Emma get the finance to buy out the other shares?”

  “That was Emma’s doing, not mine. She borrowed against everything we already owned.”

  “You let her do that?”

  “Venetia, I was sick of all the fighting. Truth to tell, I was sick of her. I gave in to her. It was against the grain of my whole life.” He sounded genuinely ashamed.

  “If things get worse—” Already there was talk of a depression, one to match that of the 1930s. With the exception of Hong Kong, the Australian market had plunged further than any of the world’s markets; the euphoria of the past year had suddenly given way to the deepest pessimism; the Jeremiahs were having a field day. “Your backers, whoever they are, could end up being the major partners in Springfellow. How will you feel about that?”

  “Worse than you will,” he said sadly. “The family will turn in its grave. Particula
rly Emma.”

  “Who was your bank?”

  “Asian-Malaysian, from Kuala Lumpur.”

  There had been a time when, as an old-fashioned Australian, he had looked upon Asian money as slippery coin. Xenophobia, like so many other things, had been bought out.

  She smiled wryly. “Perhaps I should have gone to them instead of Polux.”

  “Did you know about Polux’s failure before Emma was—murdered?”

  “No.”

  “Who did?”

  “You mean in Springfellow? Only Michael Broad. He’s just told me. It was as big a shock to me as it was to you. I’m tempted to fire him.”

  “Is this the time to do that? Who else could you call on as a financial adviser?”

  “You.” She smiled as she said it, but she was half-serious.

  He shook his head. “No, Venetia. I’m too ethical. I’m not boasting when I say that—it’s just that they have a different way of doing business these days. Sydney, Melbourne, Perth—they’ve all become modern Babylons. Greedy, hedonistic—all that’s missing are the Hanging Gardens.” She knew nothing of the ancient world, but she didn’t interrupt him. “It’s not for me, Venetia, not any longer. They’d shear me like a lamb. One of my old friends, the managing director of an overseas bank, it had better be nameless, he told me of one of his whiz-kids—” the slang term was as stiff as a foreign phrase on his tongue “—this young man made two and a half million dollars last financial year. He was tacking his own orders on to institutional orders, buying at their discount. My friend sacked him.”

  “I’d probably do the same.”

  “I don’t mean any offence, Venetia, but I don’t think you would. You would do what the overseas bank’s headquarters did. They told my friend to reinstate the whiz-kid. They said that if he was that bright, they couldn’t afford to lose him to the competition.”

  “What did your friend do?”

  “He reinstated the young man and then resigned as M.D. The bank told him he was a fool, but didn’t try to persuade him to stay. He was expendable, he’s in his late fifties, but the young man wasn’t. I’m afraid when you’ve given yourself time to think about it, you’ll feel the same way about Michael.”

  She knew he was right. She had arrived in Sydney from Cobar almost thirty years ago, plain Mary Magee then, bringing with her a country air, a stammer, an itching ambition and no sense of ethics at all. Nineteen fifty-eight was a time when the sharks that abounded today were just toothless minnows; honesty might not have been the best policy, but the financial men were still trying to find a better one. She had not, of course, known any financial men then; she had headed straight for a television station and got a job as a typist. It had meant dating the personnel manager; that had been her first lesson in ethics, or the lack of them. She was not a virgin—she had lost that status to a jackeroo from a sheep station outside Cobar; he, with all the grace of a bush lover, had referred to her as his favourite ewe—but she had managed to convince the personnel manager that she was. By the time he gave up chasing her she was settled in the typing pool and had attracted the attention of the senior executive producer, who was further up the station totem pole than the personnel manager. She still hadn’t learned anything about ethics, but she had learned what opportunism was. Now, after all these years, she fully understood what ethics were, but had decided that Mother Theresa was the only woman who could afford them. In a sea of sharks, mermaids get nowhere just by singing.

  She changed the subject. “The first thing we have to do is find out who killed Emma.”

  He nodded, put his hand over the modest brightness of his tie; he really should have worn black. “I hope you’re not thinking of doing that? Doing your own detective work?”

  “No. I think Inspector Malone will do all that for us.”

  “I just wish he’d leave it alone. I’m afraid if he persists, we’ll learn more than we want to know.” He was silent a moment; then: “Emma had left some things in our attic—Ruth let her use it as a storeroom. Paintings, things like that. Some childhood things. And a suitcase, one of Father’s old leather ones. It had all her diaries in it, going back to her schooldays.”

  “Is there anything in them?”

  His shock was genuine. “You don’t expect us to have read them?”

  “I would read them.” She couldn’t see that the dead were entitled to their secrets. Once she herself was gone, the world would be free to know everything it wanted to know about her. Once in the grave, she would be safe; as Emma now was. “They can’t hurt her, not now.”

  “They could hurt some of us who are still alive.”

  “You and Ruth? Me?”

  “Possibly. No, Venetia, I opened the suitcase and shut it at once as soon as I saw what was in it. When things have quietened down, I’ll have it burnt, with the diaries in it.”

  “There may be something in them that would give us a hint why Walter was murdered.”

  Edwin sighed. “As I said, I’m old. I don’t have the mental energy any more to try solving old mysteries. I’m ashamed to say it, but I shan’t be disappointed if the police don’t solve Emma’s murder. I think it’s time we Springfellows were left in peace.”

  Venetia said nothing to that. She knew that peace was a condition she had never contemplated.

  7

  I

  “I’D LIKE to pay another visit to Mrs. Magee,” said Clements.

  Am I imagining it, thought Malone, or has he always been as eager as this? He was starting to make Andy Graham look like a lead-swinger. “Why her?”

  “I think she’s the one with the loosest tongue in the family. And she knows more than she lets on.”

  Just like me; I must watch I don’t let my tongue rattle loose. Then his phone rang and he picked it up. With John Leeds on his mind, he feared it might be the Commissioner. Instead, it was Sergeant Greenup.

  “Scobie, we’ve found the murder weapon, I think. My boy Sobers did some fossicking over in the Gardens. He found a PPK .380 Walther under some bushes. What do you want done with it?”

  “I don’t want too much handling of it. Send it direct to Fingerprints, then tell „em to pass it on to Ballistics. Tell „em the reports are to come direct to me. Give my thanks to your constable.”

  “Are you getting anywhere with the case?”

  “Just plugging on, Jack.” He hung up; but the phone immediately rang again. “Inspector Malone.”

  “Ah, Inspector—” It was Assistant Commissioner Bill Zanuch, suave as a con man on one of the more expensive cruise ships. “Just checking on the Springfellow case. Both of them. Any progress?”

  There were seven Assistant Commissioners. The Assistant Commissioner, Administration, did not check on homicides. “We’re making marginal progress, sir.”

  “I have an interest in these cases. I was on the original one, when Sir Walter disappeared.”

  “Yes, sir, I remember. I was with you for a week or two.”

  “Of course, so you were!” The bugger hadn’t forgotten at all. What was his game? Then, oh so casually, “The Commissioner probably has an interest, too. He was a protégé of Sir Walter’s.”

  “I didn’t know that, sir.”

  Zanuch waited, as if he was expecting further comment from Malone. But Malone, too, could play the waiting game and after a moment the Assistant Commissioner said, “Well, keep me informed if anything interesting turns up. I’m always here.”

  “Yes, sir. Thanks for your help.” Malone waited; you didn’t hang up in a senior officer’s ear. There was silence for a moment, then Zanuch hung up.

  “Who was that?” said Clements.

  “Zanuch.”

  Clements frowned. “What the hell’s worrying him?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Malone blandly, but wondered if politics was going to invade the Police Department. Should he warn John Leeds? Then decided against it. He could read between the lines and he did not want to be caught between them.

  “Let’
s go and see Mrs. Magee,” he said and in his own ears sounded reckless. “Is she down at The Wharf or over at Mosman?”

  “When we left her yesterday she said we could always find her at Mosman.”

  But they didn’t find Alice Magee there. Instead they found only Mrs. Leyden, the housekeeper. “Mrs. Magee has gone shopping. She likes to do it herself.” It was difficult to tell whether she was resentful or relieved; neither Malone nor Clements had had much experience of housekeepers. “I’ll tell her you called.”

  “Perhaps we could come in and talk to you for a few minutes?” said Clements, carrying the ball again.

  “I have nothing to say, I’m sure.” She was a good-looking woman who put on a plain face when holding unwelcome visitors at bay.

  “Just a few questions, Mrs. Leyden.” Clements didn’t have one foot in the door, but looked as if he did.

  She led them through the house and out to the kitchen; that was her ground, where she would feel safest. It was a big room: in the old days, one could imagine, the Springfellow children would have had their meals here (though Malone could not imagine Emma and her brothers as children). Today, one could not imagine even the most modern child in it. It was clinical, stainless steel and plain grey tiles; the triple oven looked as if it might house scientific experiments. But Mrs. Leyden looked at home in it, as house-proud as a Nobel laureate.

  She offered them coffee, freshly brewed: none of your instant muck here. Playing hostess seemed to soften her: “I don’t really think I can help you much.”

  “Let’s try it,” said Clements, up and running as he sat down. “Were you at home here on Monday night?”

  “Monday?”

  “The night Miss Emma was murdered.”

  “You don’t think—? Of course you don’t. No, I wasn’t home, at least not till about one o’clock. Monday is my night off. And my husband’s—he’s Lady Springfellow’s chauffeur.”