Babylon South

by Jon Cleary

  Boredom settled on the court. The judge began to nod; the spectators shifted restlessly; even Justine looked uninterested. But Billy Wellbeck was leaving nothing to chance: that was not his method.

  Just before the lunch adjournment a court officer came in to whisper to Malone that he was wanted on the phone. Malone went out to the sheriffs office to take the call. It was Sergeant Cheshire.

  “The print on the bedside table matches the one on the silencer. We got a problem, Scobie.”

  “Yeah,” Malone said nothing for a moment; then: “You’d go into the box and swear they match?”

  “If I have to.” Cheshire knew how detectives, having worked to present a watertight case, hated to see cracks in the dam. “They match, all right, and they ain’t Justine’s. What are you gunna do? Ask for an adjournment while you follow this up?”

  “I can’t, Don, not right away. Not till I’ve got something else to give the Crown Prosecutor besides the prints. If I go in now and say I’m a bit doubtful, Billy Wellbeck’s not going to be too bloody happy.”

  He thanked Cheshire for his work, hung up and then sent word in for Clements to come out and see him. The big man, as soon as he saw Malone’s face, made the correct guess. He bit his lower lip and said, “The prints match, right?”

  Malone nodded. They were alone in the sheriff’s office, but he knew the court officer would be back soon. “Do you have to stay here for the rest of the day?”

  “Wellbeck says he may call me again today. I dunno why, but he’s not sticking to his usual continuity—he’s all over the place in the way he’s calling his witnesses. I think he’s trying to keep Albemarle off balance.”

  “Wellbeck told me this morning he thinks the trial will run another five or six days—he’s going to pile on the evidence, the diaries, company papers, Christ knows what. We’ve got to move fast, if we’re to check out those prints. I’ll use Andy and get Greg Random to give me a couple of other blokes.”

  “Do we tell Billy Wellbeck what’s turned up?”

  “No,” said Malone firmly. “Where’s the silencer? In your murder box?”

  “No, it’s in the bottom drawer of my desk. I was keeping it separate.”

  “It’s not separate any longer, Russ.”

  “No, I know that.” Clements was morose; he had worked hard on this case and now it looked as if they might be back at square one. “I wonder if Justine had a boyfriend who helped her?”

  “I’m going to start looking for him now.”

  As they went out of the office the sheriff, a middle-aged man, cheerful and hidebound, the only way to survive in a job where the everyday environment was the wreckage of lives, came in. “G’day, Scobie, how’s it going in Number Five? You look as if you’ve got it cut and dried.”

  “Could be,” said Malone.

  II

  He went back to Homicide, got the silencer from Clements’s desk and walked up to Police Centre. Ballistics was on the fifth level of the big new fortress-like complex, which looked as if the architect had been told to design something that would withstand a siege. All it did, Malone thought, was frighten the honest voters.

  He checked in, then went up to the fifth level. Constable James met him and grinned as Malone, who had never been up here before, looked around him. “Spacious, eh, Inspector?”

  “I remember when we used to work out of cubby-holes.” But he didn’t have time for social conversation; half a mile from here Billy Wellbeck was piling up the case against Justine. “That’s the silencer. Would it fit the Walther?”

  “You don’t have the piece?”

  “No, I can’t ask the court to release it, not yet.”

  James looked innocent, but Malone remarked the unspoken question in the young constable’s eyes. You’re learning, son, he thought. Nothing is as straight and simple as it seems, certainly not police work.

  James examined the silencer. “It’d fit, all right, but I don’t know whether it’s the one that was used on the murder piece. I’d need that Walther to be absolutely sure.”

  “I’m not asking you to go into the box—not yet, anyway. I’m sure the Springfellow Walther and this go together. Could it have been bought here in Sydney?”

  “Sure, if you knew where to go. You can buy anything in this town if you know where to go.” James gestured at the stacks of shoulder-high metal cabinets all around them, all of them with deep drawers in them. He pulled out a drawer about five feet wide; it was full of hand-guns, all labelled. “Everything we have in these cabinets, or the rifles in those racks over there—they’re all confiscated weapons, over seven thousand of them. As I say, you can buy anything you want in this town. But you’d have to know where to go. And I don’t think Miss Springfellow would know where to go, she didn’t look the type. Can you see her in a gun-shop asking where she can buy a silencer, or bailing up someone in a coffee shop up the Cross and trying to buy one?”

  “What about South Australia—Adelaide?”

  “No problem there.”

  “Would they keep a record of the sales?”

  “I guess so. I can check—we have a good contact in Ballistics in Adelaide.”

  “Check for me. And get a list of all gun-shops in Adelaide. Do you know any of the villains in Sydney who sell guns or silencers under the counter?”

  “I don’t, but Sergeant Binyan does. He knows everyone” James grinned. “Let’s try him.”

  Clarrie Binyan was in his office; he was the sergeant in charge of Ballistics. He was part-Aborigine, a product of the Police Boys’ Club, a street fighter who had become a twenty-five-year veteran, who had started on the beat and sometimes hankered for the good old days; he was safe from his hankering and so could afford it. He was overweight and had become lazy, but there was nothing he didn’t know about guns and the crims of Sydney.

  “How soon do you want the info, Scobie?”

  “Yesterday,” said Malone. “It’s urgent, Clarrie. Give me the names of the six most likely villains who’d sell a stranger a silencer, and I’ll have my blokes visit them.”

  Binyan ran his hand through his thick greying curls; his black-brown eyes had a gleam of humour in them. “Tell your blokes to treat „em gentle. Some of these crims are mates of mine from the old days. I don’t wanna ruin my contact with „em—they come in handy when we’re trying to trace things.”

  “I’ll have my blokes take them a box of chocolates and some flowers. Now can I have their names?”

  “This must be bloody urgent. I thought you had everything wrapped up in the Springfellow case?”

  “Just making sure, Clarrie, that’s all. Now the names?”

  Binyan scratched some names and addresses on a slip of paper and Malone grabbed it. As he left Binyan’s office James was waiting for him. “I’ve just remembered, Inspector. There was a faint scratch on the barrel of that Walther, a burring on the thread as if whoever used it had tried to force the silencer on it. Leave me the silencer. I’ll try an endoscope on it and see if there’s any corresponding mark inside.”

  Malone handed him the silencer. “Jason, when this is all over, I’ll buy you lunch. Are you expensive?”

  “I usually eat at McDonald’s.”

  “We’ll go there,” said Malone, careful not to raise the youngster above his station.

  He went back to Homicide. He called Andy Graham and two other detectives down to his desk. “Work singly, take two names each—I want you back here no later than three o’clock. Treat „em gently, but hint you’ll get heavy if you have to. Tell „em we’re not looking for a professional hit man—at least I don’t think we are. Just ask them if anyone bought a Gold Spot silencer from them in the month of October or the first week in November last year and if he asked them to do some thread-work on the barrel of a Walther PPK .380.”

  “Do we tell „em Clarrie Binyan sent us?” said Andy Graham.

  Malone grinned. “Why not? That’ll probably make it legitimate.”

  “Right,” said Graham and
led the charge out of the office.

  The three of them were back before three o’clock. Malone, in the meantime, had got out his notes and the running sheet on the Emma Springfellow murder, had gone back over everything to see what he and Clements had missed in their investigation. Clements had been particularly thorough: he seemed to have questioned everyone who would have been even remotely connected with Justine. Most of them, unable to believe that Justine would commit murder, had been totally nonplussed by the questioning; one or two, including Michael Broad, had been hostile in their defence of Justine. Several others, who had obviously felt the sting of the Springfellow women, had been slyly malicious in their answers; one of them had been Roger Dircks. Yet as Malone laid down his notes and the running sheet he was convinced they had missed nothing. Then Andy Graham came back, followed a few minutes later by the other two detectives, Truach and Kagal.

  “Nothing,” said Graham. Malone was not sure whether he sounded disappointed or not. Then he added, “If this was meant to save Justine, it isn’t going to work.”

  “I’m not interested in saving Justine,” Malone snapped; but he knew in his heart that he was. “I just don’t want us out on a limb when the appeal comes up. And you can bet your bottom dollar Albemarle will appeal if the case goes against her.”

  Then Truach and Kagal came in. “I got nothing,” said Kagal, a good-looking young man who had come into plainclothes at the same time as Graham, who had the same enthusiasm but managed to control it more than Graham. “I think they were playing square. As soon’s I mentioned Clarrie Binyan, they opened up. But my two guys knew nothing.”

  Truach was older than the other two, a senior constable who would plod his way up the promotion ladder. “I drew a blank with the first guy. But the second, Joe Koster, he lives up the Cross, he remembers a guy coming to him some time last October, wanting to buy a silencer.”

  “Why didn’t Koster sell him one?”

  “He said he didn’t trust the guy. I asked for a description, but all he could remember was that he was tallish and wore dark glasses and a hat. If someone came to me dressed like that, I’d be suspicious, too. Koster was frank, he thought the guy might be an undercover man we’d planted. He seemed hurt we’d stoop to something underhand like that. You remember, we were having a crack-down on guns about then—we had that gun amnesty for anyone with an unlicensed weapon.”

  “What did Koster tell him?”

  “He said he didn’t have any silencers in stock, but if the guy wanted to, he could go to Adelaide and buy one across the counter.”

  “Righto,” said Malone, acting swiftly; whatever decisions he made in the next few days, they had to be either totally wrong or totally right. At least, when it was all over, no one would be able to say he hadn’t tried. “Here’s a list of gun-shops in Adelaide. When you get there, check in with Police Headquarters and tell „em what you’re after. They may be able to help. I’ll get Greg Random to authorize your travel. Go home, pack an overnight bag and be back here to pick up your ticket and catch whatever plane we can get you on tonight.”

  Truach went off, followed by Kagal, and Malone looked at the obviously disappointed Graham. “You wondering why I’m not sending you?”

  “Well, I have been on the case since the jump—”

  “And you’re no longer objective about it, Andy. You’re convinced Justine did the murder and you don’t want all your work wasted. You may be right. But if we’ve fouled up somewhere and the case goes to appeal, you aren’t going to be the one to carry the can. I’ll be the bunny. You’d have got the trip to Adelaide if you’d been open-minded that someone else may be involved in this. But you’re not.”

  But even as he ticked off Andy Graham, he could taste hypocrisy on his tongue. If he himself was open-minded, the entrance was only through a revolving door. Then his phone rang.

  It was Constable James. “I used the endoscope on the silencer. There’s a burring on the thread. I can’t guarantee it matches that on the Walther barrel, not without having another look at the gun. But I’d like to take a bet on it.”

  “Good, Jason. Send over the silencer. I’ll be back to you when I need you. You may have to go back into the box.”

  “Does this mean Justine mightn’t have done it?” It was a hesitant question.

  “Have you fallen for a pretty face?”

  “Well, no-o . . .”

  Malone hung up, smiling sourly. Justine, unknowingly, was gathering backers; but she was a long way from being out of the woods. He looked at Graham, who, so far, seemed to have no doubts about her.

  “You wouldn’t fall for a pretty face, would you?”

  “No,” said Graham doggedly. “We’ve worked our guts out on this one. I don’t think we’ve made any mistakes—”

  “Our one mistake might be the big one. Sending her to gaol when she didn’t commit the murder.”

  Truach got back from Adelaide the following afternoon. He rang Malone from Adelaide airport and the latter stayed at Homicide to wait for him. Clements was with him, as morose as yesterday, feeling his case slipping away from him.

  Truach came in, unhurried, unexcited, phlegmatic as an old bloodhound familiar with old scents. He sat down opposite Malone and said flatly, “Bingo.”

  “Good,” said Malone, containing his impatience. “What’s the prize?”

  “The Adelaide fellers were on our side right from the jump. They sent me to several dealers—the first four, I drew nothing. Then the fifth guy came up with what we wanted.” He paused and lit a cigarette. “I been dying for a smoke. I couldn’t smoke on the plane and then, bugger me, I copped a taxi driver who wouldn’t allow smoking in his cab.”

  “If you don’t get a move on,” said Malone, “you’re going to find this is a no-smoking zone.”

  Truach grinned, nodded and stubbed out the cigarette on the floor. “This guy has a small gun-shop. I’ve got his name if we have to bring him over to give evidence, though he wasn’t too happy when I suggested it. You know what they’re like, gun dealers.”

  “Yes,” said Malone, still patient but only just.

  “Anyhow, he said yeah, he’d had a guy come in last October to buy a silencer. He sold him a Gold Spot. Then the guy produced this Walther, a PPK .380, and asked the dealer to fit the silencer to it.”

  “The dealer asked no questions? No registration of the gun?”

  “He was covering up, Scobie. I didn’t press him on it, I figured that was something for the Adelaide police. All we wanted was information.”

  “Fair enough. Did he ask the cove why he wanted the silencer?”

  “Yeah. The guy gave the name of—” Truach looked at his notes. “Yeah, here it is. Roger Hart. He said the gun and the silencer were needed for a TV fillum they were shooting and they needed it in a hurry, something about the gun not being in the original script.”

  “Did the dealer fit the silencer?”

  “Yeah. The guy went away while it was done, then come back and paid cash.”

  “Any description of him?”

  “Tallish, wore a hat and dark glasses, the sort that get darker when you go out in the sunlight. It fits the description of the feller here in Sydney.”

  “Did he buy any ammunition?”

  “Only a box of blanks—he said that was all they needed for the TV fillum. He could have bought live ammo at another gun-shop.”

  Malone looked at Clements. “At best, it looks like Justine had an accomplice.”

  “And at worst?”

  “The worst for us? It looks like this cove did it on his own.”

  “You got a suspect?”

  “Who do you think? Who do we know who’d know something about making TV films?”

  “Can I go now?” said Truach. “I’m dying for a smoke.”

  “Go and get lung cancer,” said Malone, but he was smiling. “Thanks, Phil. Nice work.”

  When Truach, already lighting a cigarette, had gone, Malone looked at his watch. “What time do TV
executives knock off?”

  “Who cares?” said Clements. “If he’s not at the studio, we’ll go to his home.”

  “This may mean upsetting the whole bloody apple-cart. You don’t mind?”

  “I’d be a lying bastard if I said I didn’t mind—I thought we had all this sewn up. But like I said, I’ve never sent the wrong person to gaol yet.”

  They drove out to Channel 15 through a clear autumn day, the air sparkling almost as if it were spring. The jacaranda trees were still thick, the green fronds only just streaked with brown needles. As Clements turned the Holden into the parking lot, Malone saw some of the crew and cast of Sydney Beat coming out to get into their cars. They were quiet and looked depressed, as if they had just filmed an episode in which the heroes had been beaten to a pulp.

  Debby, the assistant floor manager, was about to get into her battered old Honda Civic when Malone got out of the police car right beside her.

  “G’day, Debby. How are the dynamics today?”’

  “Full of shit.” Then she recognized him; he noticed now that her eyes were full of tears. “Oh, hello, Scobie. We’ve all just been fired. They’re stopping production. The ratings are lousy. But . . .”

  “Tough luck.” He couldn’t crow, not over someone who had just lost her job. “Try to get into the soaps. That’s what everyone watches. Misery is the recipe.”

  “Oh, you got no idea how fucking miserable I am!”

  Then he found himself in the parking lot of Channel 15 holding a young foul-mouthed girl while she cried her heart out against his shirt and bawled obscenities for which, in his more strait-laced days, he’d have booked her. Clements stood in the background, grinning with delight. He had hated Sydney Beat as much as Malone.