Babylon South

by Jon Cleary

  “As far as I can remember. That was six months ago.”

  “Sure, but it wasn’t just an ordinary night when nothing happened. Let’s try another date.” He was looking at his notes now, which had nothing to do with the running sheet. “Thursday, October twenty-ninth, you went over to Adelaide with Mr. Dircks from Channel Fifteen.”

  “Did I?”

  Malone, tired now but trying not to show it, glanced at Langer. “Tell your client not to be a smart-arse, Freddie. It will be quicker and easier all round.”

  “I’d advise you to just answer the questions, Michael,” said Langer. “At this stage these are just questions of fact.”

  Broad stared at him as if deciding whether to sack him or not; then he looked back at Malone. “Yes, I went to Adelaide. It was business.”

  “I’m sure it was. Business business and personal business.”

  “This is where I have to advise my client to be careful, Inspector. We’re getting into conjecture now.”

  Malone acknowledged that with a nod. He picked up the tweed hat which was lying on his desk. “Did you wear this while in Adelaide?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  Malone tried another tack. “What were your relations with Emma?”

  “Cool but correct.” Broad had become stiff, in posture and voice. A vein throbbed just once in his temple.

  “She wasn’t threatening you?”

  There was just a flicker of apprehension in the eyes; it could have been a trick of light. “Why me? Her fight was with the Springfellow women.”

  “You worked for—the Springfellow women. She wasn’t threatening you with the Companies and Securities Commission?” He had remembered the entry in Emma’s diary: Someone should be reported to the NCSC. How do these people get away with these swindles?

  Again there was the flicker in the eyes: Broad was beginning to crack inside. But he was still ceramic-hard on the outside.

  “Don’t answer that,” said Langer.

  Broad waved him to be silent; he didn’t take his gaze away from Malone. “If she was threatening me, and I can’t remember that she was, it was only part of the larger threat to the Springfellow women.” The Springfellow women sounded like a tribe, one with whom he had only the slightest connection. He gestured at the running sheets. “I’m sure you have all that in there.”

  “You didn’t visit Emma on the night of her murder, after you had gone home to your flat?”

  “No.”

  Malone opened a drawer in his desk and took out the silencer in its plastic envelope. “Have you seen that before?”

  “No.”

  Malone stared at him for a while, till he saw the vein throb again in the temple. Broad was clutching at himself from the inside.

  “Mr. Broad, you didn’t ask what it was. Most law-abiding people have never seen a silencer—they would just take that for some sort of metal pipe. Did you know it was a silencer?”

  Broad looked at Langer, though he didn’t seem to see him. The latter said to Malone, “I’d advise him not to answer that.”

  “It’s a Gold Spot silencer, made here in Australia,” Malone told Broad, not taking his eyes off him. “Did you go to a gun dealer in Adelaide named—” he named the dealer “—and purchase this silencer and have him fit it to a Walther PPK .380? The same gun that’s been presented in evidence in Justine’s trial?”

  “Again, Inspector, I have to advise my client not to answer. You’re asking him to incriminate himself.”

  Malone nodded again, but hadn’t stopped looking at Broad. “Did you remove the Walther from the gun cabinet at the Springfellow home? You were a frequent visitor there, weren’t you?”

  “Not that frequent.” Broad now was almost robot-like.

  “I don’t think these questions should be allowed,” said Langer. “I don’t mean to be rude, Inspector, but I think it’s reached a stage of put up or shut up.”

  Malone grinned, though he had no real humour left. “Now you’re sounding like a smart-arse, Freddie. But one last question for Mr. Broad. Do you know a man named Koster?”

  “No.” Broad was holding himself rigid, the rein at breaking point.

  “He’s a gun dealer, mostly illegal. You approached him here in Sydney about buying a silencer.”

  “My client has already answered your question,” said Langer. “He’s said he doesn’t know this man Koster. So are you going to put up?”

  Malone looked at Clements, who nodded. Both knew that at the moment they had very little that would stand up in court; they could start nothing official till they had Broad’s fingerprints on the record. Then they would have to produce Koster and the gun dealer from Adelaide to identify him.

  Malone took the jump: “We’re arresting Mr. Broad on being an accessory before the fact of the murder of Emma Springfellow. There may be other charges to follow. We’ll take him up to Police Centre and charge him. We’ll ask that bail be denied tonight, but you can apply for it tomorrow morning when we take him before the magistrate. On your feet, Mr. Broad.”

  Broad sat as if refusing to move. Then he slowly stood up. None of the others recognized it, but the madness that had gripped his mother was taking hold of him. It had happened before, when Emma had threatened him with exposure to the NCSC. Everything that he had built in the last twenty years had been cracked at the base when he had lost so much in the Crash; Emma, with her malicious threat, had been ready to topple the whole edifice of his life to the ground. Then she was dead, out of the way, and Justine, his unlucky, unsuspecting saviour, had been laid with the blame. He had taken control of the Springfellow Corporation, and begun to rebuild his life and his fortune, had begun to enlarge his ambitions. And now this policeman, this Malone, this dull plodding nobody, was threatening the whole edifice again.

  “You’ll regret this, Mr. Malone. You’ll regret it to your dying day.” He said it quietly, like the sanest of men.

  13

  I

  MALONE WAS having breakfast next morning when the phone rang. Claire, house telephonist in case all calls were for her, answered it. “Dad, it’s for you!”

  Malone didn’t know why, but his first thought was that Broad had committed suicide in the cells at Police Centre. “Who is it?”

  “It’s the Commissioner.” Claire lowered her voice, put on her best elocution tones, a hundred dollars a term extra: “Just a moment, sir. My father is coming. Thank you, sir. One tries.” She put her hand over the mouthpiece as Malone came out into the hallway. “He said I had a nice phone voice.”

  “One tries?” said Malone. “You sound like a female stuffed shirt.”

  She made a face at him, gave him the phone and went back to her bedroom to finish getting ready for school. It was an ordinary day, just like any other weekday morning. Except, of course, that the Police Commissioner did not call every morning.

  “Scobie? Something’s come up. I’m at my office.” Malone looked at his watch: 7.50. The Commissioner was known to be an early starter, but he was not usually in his office before 8.30. “Come and see me at once.”

  Malone was on the point of refusing, of finding some excuse. He was exhausted; he had slept only fitfully last night. He knew instinctively that this wasn’t official business, it could have nothing to do with Broad’s arrest last night; or could it? He had already done far too much for the Commissioner. Yet even as he thought of trying to find an excuse, he knew that he couldn’t. It had nothing to do with rank; he bowed to that other badge, respect. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, sir.”

  He hung up the phone, went back to the kitchen. “I have to go.”

  “The Commissioner?” said Lisa. “Let him wait. Finish your breakfast. The bacon and eggs are ready.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Have your breakfast,” said Lisa firmly, as if she were speaking to one of the children. “Tell him you were held up in the traffic. Someone around here had better start arranging your priorities. You tossed and turned all night and no
w you want to rush off on an empty stomach.”

  “I’ve had my porridge—” Lisa still believed in a hearty Dutch breakfast for cold mornings.

  “There, eat that and no argument!” She thumped a plate of bacon and eggs in front of him. Then she kissed the top of his head. “You’re ours more than you’re his.”

  “If Dad takes the car,” said Tom, “who’s gunna drive us to school?”

  “You’re going to walk,” said Lisa. “Dutch children always walk to school or go on their bikes. It’s why they’re always so healthy.”

  “Stuff the Dutch,” said Maureen, who had been listening to rock stars being interviewed on 2JJJ, and got a heavy Dutch clip under the ear from her mother.

  Malone, having had his priorities arranged for him by his loving wife, ate his breakfast, had a second cup of coffee, then went out and got into the Commodore and drove with the peak-hour traffic into Homicide. He parked in the garage and got out of the car as Clements drove in beside him.

  “I’ve got to go and see the Commissioner.” Clements looked enquiringly at him. “I’ll tell you about it later. In the meantime, you handle Broad at the magistrate’s court. He’ll ask for bail. I’d rather object to it, but at this stage I don’t think we can, not till we get all the evidence in. Ask for as high a bail as you can get.”

  “How would a million do?” Clements had another rich yuppie he could turn his attention to.

  Malone grinned. “Try it. Then bring in Koster to identify Broad from those pictures we took of him last night. Fax a copy to Adelaide and get the fellers there to bring in the gun dealer and have him identify Broad. Have them get a statement from him.”

  “He’s a dangerous bugger, I think. We oughtn’t to let him go at all.”

  “We can’t hold him, not if he puts up the bail. You’d better warn the Crown Prosecutor, too, that the case against Justine may be going under.”

  “They’re gunna love that. Billy Wellbeck will tear his hair out, what’s left of it.”

  Malone left him and walked over to Police Headquarters. Commissioner Leeds was impatiently waiting for him.

  “You took your time!”

  “I’m sorry, sir. The traffic’s pretty heavy . . . I was going to call you first thing this morning—”

  “Scobie,” Leeds interrupted without preliminary, “Walter Springfellow is alive and back in Sydney. Or he was, up till yesterday afternoon.”

  Malone sat down without asking if he might. He squinted at Leeds as if the latter had told him something in a foreign language. “Alive?”

  “Lady Springfellow called me about seven o’clock last night. I went down to her office—I took a risk, I know, but I had to go, she sounded desperate. I thought it had something to do with Justine . . . Walter turned up out of the blue four days ago. He’s been living in Germany for the past twenty-odd years, working for British Intelligence. Venetia doesn’t know whether ASIO knew about it—maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. They could have been stringing you along all this time.”

  “I don’t think so. I think Fortague was fair dinkum with me. Whose was the skeleton we found—the Russian’s?”

  Leeds nodded. “Venetia told me everything. Walter shot him. He was blackmailing both Walter and her.”

  “Oh Christ.”

  “Exactly,” said Leeds, who had never been known to be profane. “He came back when he read that Justine was going on trial. He’s been in court these past three days—on his own, not with Venetia. His brother Edwin has been bringing him in each day, dropping him some distance away and picking him up again in the afternoon. He was to pick up Walter yesterday afternoon, but Walter didn’t turn up. I called Venetia first thing this morning. They’ve had no phone calls from him, nothing. He’s disappeared again.”

  “What do you want me to do?” He wanted to ask if John Leeds’s wife knew anything of this, but that was none of his business. He wished that none of it was his business, but it was too late now.

  “Find him.”

  Malone tried to laugh, but it was just a dry cough of disbelief. “Just like that? What do I do with him when I find him? What if ASIO has got him? Christ Almighty, I came over here to give you some good news—”

  “What good news?” Leeds looked as if he didn’t believe such a possibility existed.

  “We’re charging Michael Broad with the murder of Emma.”

  It was Leeds’s turn to look as if he didn’t understand what had been said. “Broad? The fellow who works for Venetia?”

  “I think we have enough on him to make it stick. He’s not going to offer any confession, not yet anyway. I tried for a verbal last night, but his lawyer was there. Still, I’m sure we can pin it on him.” He told Leeds what evidence they had.

  “Why didn’t you come up with all this before?” Leeds was angry.

  “Because all the evidence against him has only come up in the past couple of days.”

  “You were certain you had all the evidence you needed against Justine!” He was an angry father; or might-be father. “You’ve put us all through this—”

  Malone, too, was suddenly angry; but he contained himself. “We did have evidence against her. The Crown Prosecutor thought it was enough, they were the ones who decided to go ahead. You’ve read the evidence so far—Jesus, you’re a cop, the same as I am! You’d have gone on it, too—”

  “You had your doubts—you blamed Russ Clements for pushing it—”

  “In the end it was my decision and I went with it. Righto, I was wrong, but don’t blame me for not doing my best—” Abruptly he shut up, tried to cool down. “I’m sorry, sir. I shouldn’t have blown my top like that.”

  Leeds, too, cooled down. “I apologize, Scobie. I think we’ve both been stretched too far. So you think they’ll dismiss Justine?”

  “Once we’ve got the identification of Broad from the gun dealers, we’ll put the case to the Crown Prosecutor. Russ Clements is warning them this morning. They’ll probably ask for an adjournment today. She may even be free by this evening.”

  “One Springfellow goes free and you bring in another one. If you can find him.”

  “What frame of mind was he in? Was he likely to commit suicide?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t ask Venetia that—how could I? He is dying, though—he has terminal cancer. That was probably what prompted him to come home, to see Justine before he died. He certainly hasn’t helped her by coming back from the dead.”

  “If I find him, this is going to create a bigger sensation than Justine’s case.”

  “We know that. Venetia told me she thought long and hard before she called me. But she said she couldn’t just let him disappear again—”

  “Is she still in love with him?” What a question to ask your Commissioner, the man who himself had once been in love with the lady. How did I get myself into this? Tibooburra all at once began to look like Utopia.

  “She told me no. I believe her. I think she fees—sorry for him. And guilty.”

  So she should. “What does he look like now?”

  “He’s aged, she says. He has a white beard, he wears steel-rimmed glasses—”

  Malone had a sudden clear picture of the regulars in the spectators’ gallery. “I saw him! But I didn’t recognize him—I don’t think anyone would, not unless they knew who he was—”

  “The question is, do you go to ASIO and ask them if they know anything about him being back here?”

  “That’s your decision, not mine. I’ve had enough.”

  For a moment Leeds reverted to being the Commissioner; there was a flash of outrage in his face. Then he came back to the reality of the situation: there was no rank in this. He nodded reluctantly. “Yes, it is. I suppose we have to go to them—it’s the obvious place to start.”

  Malone stood up. “I’d prefer it if you came with me—sir.”

  Leeds remarked the note of respect; and respected Malone for it. The junior man had restored the equilibrium of their relationship. “Yes, I sho
uld. As you say, you’ve had enough. More than enough. But you’ll stay with it?” It was a plea, not an order.

  “I’ll stay with it,” said Malone, but prayed for a quick and merciful end to it all. Though he had no real hope that there would be any mercy at all in the end. “We’ll go in my car, it’s over at Homicide. Do you want me to pick you up?”

  Leeds had come to the office in mufti, almost as if he had expected this to be a day of clandestine meetings. He hated anything underhand, but the need for secrecy had trapped him. “I’ll walk through the park to Elizabeth Street. Pick me up at the corner of Bathurst.”

  Malone hesitated, then said, “Does Mr. Zanuch know anything about this?”

  “Nothing. If it should ever get out how I’ve been involved in this, he’ll be the next Commissioner. I’d have to recommend him.”

  Malone dragged up a sour grin. “Then I think I might ask for an early retirement.”

  He picked up Leeds on the other side of Hyde Park and they drove over to Kirribilli. “Should we have phoned ASIO and told them we were coming?” Leeds was a stickler for protocol.

  “No. I think Fortague is on our side, but I don’t want to give him the chance to put Springfellow away and hide him somewhere.”

  “Maybe they’ve done that already. You never know what the spooks are going to do.”

  Malone’s ear, like the rest of him, was tired, but it sounded to him as if Leeds was hoping that ASIO would have solved the problem of Walter Springfellow. He glanced at the Commissioner and saw that he looked just as weary, though in a different way. There was a weariness of spirit there in the stern face.

  When they were ushered into his office Fortague showed no surprise, not even at the presence of the Police Commissioner. “Hello, John. I didn’t expect to see you. But in the circumstances . . .”

  “You know why we’re here?” said Leeds.

  “I guessed it as soon as they told me who wanted to see me.”