by Jon Cleary
“Not always.” Remembering how she had been in bed.
“No, not always.” For a moment there was the hint of a smile at the corner of her bruised mouth; then it was gone: “I didn't show it, but I wasn't calm when you told me you were going to marry another girl.”
“Delia, please—” He had taken his hand away from hers.
There was silence in the small room; even Mrs. Quantock seemed engulfed by it. Then Gail Lee said quietly, “Mrs. Jones, do you know anyone who would want to kill your husband?”
Delia looked at her as if seeing her for the first time; she glanced back at Malone, as if waiting for him to say something, then looked at Gail again. “Yes.”
“Who?”
“Me.”
“Oh, for Crissake, Delia!” Mrs. Quantock moved even closer to her, grabbed her friend's hand. “Don't be so—so bloody cool! Your life's been hell—”
Delia pressed Rosie Quantock's hand again, stared straight at Malone. “I killed him, Scobie. I stabbed him, I dunno how many times.”
There was silence again but for a gasp from Mrs. Quantock. Malone sat back, gathering himself together, trying to find the cop who had been lost in himself for a minute or two. “Delia, if you're going to make a confession to killing your husband, I'll have to turn that on.” He pointed to the video recorder. “Then we'll have to warn you—”
“I know. I watch The Bill, Law and Order, all those shows—”
“We have to warn you anyway,” he said and did so. “Righto—What's the matter?”
“You still say that.” Again the small smile. “Righto.”
“Yes, I guess I do. Now I'll put the question—did you kill your husband Boris Jones?”
“Yes, this morning at the hotel where he worked, the Southern Savoy. In the room where he kept all the cleaning stuff.”
“Was it self-defence? Did he bash you?” He should not have put leading questions like that; he was still coming back out of that dim distant past. The coin had been spun again, the irrational had invaded the orderly again.
“He bashed me before he went to work last night.” She put her hand up to her face almost automatically: as if she had been doing it for years.
“You went to the hotel, followed him to work, to kill him?” said Gail.
“Hold on!” Rosie Quantock was there again, throwing lifebelts. “If you're gunna question her like that, she needs a solicitor. Keep quiet, Delia, don't tell 'em any more.”
“It's all right, Rosie—”
“It's not all right! For Crissake, love, think of yourself and the kids!” She looked at Malone: as Delia's old lover, not a cop: “Tell her for her own good—”
Malone switched off the recorder. “We'll have to hold you till you get someone here to brief you, Delia. We'll send you over to Police Centre, to Surry Hills, and they'll hold you there. Do you have a solicitor? Better if you can get one who has some experience in this sort of thing. A conveyancing solicitor isn't going to be much good for you.”
“We'll get one,” said Rosie Quantock. She's a pain in the arse, thought Malone, but she's the sort of friend everyone should have. “I'll take care of it, Delia. I'll take care of the kids, too. And get on to your mother—”
“How old are the children?” asked Gail.
“Eleven and twelve, a boy and a girl.” Delia looked at Malone, read the question in his face: “No, I didn't start late. Boris was my second husband, they're his kids. I have a daughter who's twenty.”
“Where's she?” asked Malone.
“In England—London. With her father. He's English, a teacher.”
English, Russian: because she had been jilted by an Australian? “Do you want us to get in touch with her?”
She shrugged, the calmness still there. There was just a faint shake of the head, not of negation but of wonder, as if she were only just coming to realize the seriousness of her situation. She gazed at Malone for a long moment, then she said, “We never thought it would come to this, did we, Scobie?”
He was all cop now, the only protection. “No, Delia, we didn't . . . Detective Lee and another officer will take you over to Surry Hills.” He turned to Rosie Quantock. “How soon can you get a lawyer for her?”
“Give me an hour.” She could raise an army in an hour, you knew it would not be beyond her.
“Don't rush, get a good one. Detective Lee and the other officer will then question Delia—”
“No,” said Delia.
He looked at her. “No what?”
“You're the only one I'll talk to.”
“Delia, I have another homicide to look into—”
“No.” It was more than calmness now, it was cold adamancy.
He took a deep breath, trying to remain calm himself. “Righto, but it may not be till late afternoon before I can get back to you.”
“That will do,” said Rosie Quantock and stood up, putting an arm under Delia's. “Buck up, love. It's not over till the Fat Lady sings.”
“She used to be in the chorus at the Opera House.” Again there was just the hint of a smile at the corner of the bruised mouth. She looked almost relaxed again, as if the only point that had worried her was that Malone might not question her. And now he had promised that he would.
“Were you a Valkyrie?” Gail asked Rosie Quantock and Malone could see that she was trying to keep the mood light.
“What else? Come on, love. We're still ahead.”
She would not give in, she would be raising spirits, like flags.
2
I
AFTER THE women had gone, Sheryl Dallen going with Gail Lee, Malone called Clements and Phil Truach into his office. Clements examined him frankly and Malone stared back at him.
“You've got a problem,” said the big man and lowered himself into his usual seat on the couch beneath the window. Out on the ledge a pigeon looked in at them with an impersonal eye.
“You're right, a big one.”
“She did her husband?” said Truach.
“Yes. But this is personal—for me. Delia Jones is an old girlfriend of mine. We went steady for almost a year. She expected me to marry her.”
Clements frowned. “Delia—Bates? Bateman? You brought her once to a party. Her?”
“Her. Delia Bates.”
“No problem,” said Truach. “I'll handle it, you don't need to come within a mile of her.”
“That won't work, Phil. She won't talk to anyone but me. I tried her with Gail, but no go. I'm just starting to remember how stubborn she could be.”
Clements, the personal friend, said, “Does Lisa know about her? I mean before you married her?”
“I mentioned her once or twice—just joking, I think. Do you talk about your old girlfriends to Romy? Do you tell your wife about them, Phil?”
“What old girlfriends?” said Truach. “I was an altar boy till I met her. Of course, there was Father Mulcahy—”
“Righto, lay off. This is no time for joking—”
“Sorry. So she was the one who did the damage? Because he belted her?”
“Evidently he's been doing it for years. He had a go at her last night.”
“So it was self-defence?” Clements, like most cops, was sympathetic to battered women.
“They must of had a fight at the hotel,” said Truach. “Maybe he tried to belt her again, her following him to work. The room where he was done, everything was in its place when we looked at it. But Norma Nickles rang in with a preliminary report. There were prints, blood on them, on a lot of the stuff, the buckets and mops and things. As if someone had picked it all up and put it back in place.”
“That could be her.” Memory was coming back. She had been wild and uninhibited in bed, but once out of it she had been as neat as a drill sergeant, a place for everything and everything in its place. She had dressed with almost convent-like neatness, then made the bed that they had wrecked. They had joked about her passion for order. Neither of them had known then that her life would be totally
disordered. Or so it looked. “She was like that. She could make a rugby scrum look neat.”
“Then that could save her,” said Clements. “She gets a good lawyer, they plead the bashing and the self-defence—”
“We can make it look—” said Truach.
“Phil, don't make it look like anything but the facts. I don't want some prosecutor tearing you apart . . . She was my girlfriend, but that was twenty-five years ago. We've both had our own lives since then. I've been the lucky one . . .”
Clements stepped out of his cop's role: “Are you gunna tell Lisa?”
“Whom—” He had been coached by Lisa who, like most educated foreigners, had more respect for English grammar than the natives. “Whom do you think she is going to be interested in, an ex- girlfriend who's murdered her husband or the murdered wife of the American Ambassador?”
“The Ambassador's wife,” said Truach. “That will be the one all over the news tonight—”
“You're kidding. You're still influenced by Father Whatshisname. She will ask me about Delia and so will my daughters. And even Tom will look at me with new interest. They know I've never looked at another woman since I met Lisa and they think my life before her was just a blank. Or at worst I spent all my time with blokes.”
Clements stood up. “Let's put Delia on the back burner for a while. It's time you went down to the Yanks again, to meet the Ambassador.”
“I think I might ask for a transfer to Fingerprints.” Malone got to his feet, feeling stiff and aged. “Nothing there turns round and bites you. Call Greg and tell him I'll pick him up.”
The pigeon on the window ledge had been joined by four others. They sat there sheltering against the south wind, looking over their shoulders at the humans inside, their heads bobbing as if in gossip. Malone leaned across and banged on the window and the pigeons took off, caught at once by the wind.
“Bloody birds, crapping all the time on that ledge—”
“Simmer down,” said Clements. “Don't take Delia down with you to the Yanks. Leave her here with me and Phil.”
Malone nodded appreciatively. “Yeah, you're right . . . Phil, get someone to check the restaurant, Catalina, where Miss Caporetto took Mrs. Pavane for lunch. Get the names of all male guests that day. Restaurants always ask for a contact number, case you don't turn up. We just have to hope they kept their booking list for—how long was it?”
“Two weeks,” said Clements, who had put it all on the computer.
“Righto, get on with it. We'll try and find that bloke.”
“I don't want to keep harping on her,” said Truach, “but what about Mrs. Jones?”
For a moment the name meant nothing: it was as if he were trying to shut Delia out of his mind. “Let's hope she comes to her senses and talks to Gail and Sheryl.”
“Yeah,” said Clements but didn't sound encouraging. “It would be nice if someone would come in and talk to us about the Ambassador's wife.”
“Fat chance,” said Malone and left to pick up Greg Random. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the pigeons come back to the window ledge. They knew better than to be blown about by the wind.
Random came out of Police Centre, got into the car beside Malone and said without preamble, “I've set up the Incident Room here at the Centre—that way I can keep an eye on things. I've asked your two girls, Gail and Sheryl, to run it with the senior sergeant from Surry Hills. We'll treat both murders as the one investigation till we've got things sorted out. Gail told me the woman who knifed her husband won't talk to anyone but you.”
Malone told him why, as he drove through a snaking river of drivers who raged at everyone else for their own frustrations. “I've got to get out of it somehow, Greg.”
“Do the media know about the relationship?”
“Not yet, not unless she wants to tell them. Gail tells me she was photographed, by the press and by the TV cameras, when she was brought in from Rozelle. At that time she hadn't been charged, she was just the widow of the murdered man. You know, the usual hearts-and-flowers thing. They wanted to photograph her two kids, but they'd been taken away by their grandmother. It's a mess, Greg.”
Random said nothing more till they had parked the car in the basement of the MLC building and they were walking towards the lifts. Then: “Keep her at arm's length. Get any closer and you're off that case.”
“You couldn't make me a better offer.”
There were only four people in the Consul-General's office besides Avery and Ms Caporetto. Malone had expected the Ambassador to bring an entourage. Newsreel clips of delegations to conferences, football teams running into a stadium, preparations for war: all had shown that Americans never arrived under-manned. More was better: it was a second national motto. Like sweat, resentment was building up against the possibility of his turf being invaded. Even if, given his druthers, he'd druther be in Tibooburra, the State foreign legion outpost.
“Ambassador Pavane,” said Avery, and the tall, handsome blond man stepped forward and shook hands with Random and Malone.
“I've identified—my—my wife.” The break in his voice was barely perceptible. “This is Walter Kortright, our DCM. Roger Bodine, our RSO. And Joe Himes, FBI.”
Initials, initials, thought Malone, and his puzzlement showed. As it did with Random.
“Sorry,” said Pavane, reading their faces. “Walter is our Deputy Charge of Mission. Roger is the Regional Security Officer. He works with your Federal Police, when called upon.”
“And Mr. Himes?” asked Random.
Pavane didn't answer, just looked at Himes. The Ambassador looked suddenly tired, as if he wanted to be shed of his role. He was well-built, looked very fit and had a presence; but at the moment, Malone felt, it was all facade. The man had been punched hollow by the death of his wife and the manner of it. He was above politics, investigation politics, at the moment. Himes could answer for himself.
“It's your turf, Superintendent.” Himes understood the term; he also obviously understood the territorial imperative. Malone abruptly remembered movies where American local officers resented the intrusion of the FBI. Himes might, just might, be easy to work with.
He was a thickset, black-haired man with a husky voice and eyes that once might have been fearless but had learned caution. “I'll help all I can—when asked.”
“Same here,” said Bodine, the RSO. He looked as if, like Avery, he had been a football player; but not a quarterback, not by at least two halves. He was b-i-i-i-g; and fat. The diplomatic party circuit had got to him, his security was ungirdled. He had a voice that went with his build, like an internal landslide.
“What's the media situation?” Kortright was a soft-featured man with thinning blond hair and an almost incongruously dark moustache, like a military character struggling to get out of an appeaser. His question had little bite to it.
“So far,” said Malone, “they only know Mrs. Pavane under the name she registered at the hotel. Mrs. Belinda Paterson.”
“Who?” Pavane was puzzled.
Malone looked at Random, who nodded; then he said to the Ambassador, “Mr. Pavane, could I see you alone?”
Now there was puzzlement on the faces of Kortright and Bodine. Himes was blank-faced and Malone recognized a law officer who had been in a similar situation, telling secrets best left unrevealed.
Pavane looked at the Consul-General, who said, “Use Miz Caporetto's office.”
Malone and the Ambassador went out and crossed to the press secretary's office. Malone closed the door, turned to find the Ambassador had sat down heavily in one of the chairs in front of the desk. The coffee-pot was on the hot-plate, but this was no time for offering coffee. Something stronger might be better, but there was nothing in sight in the room. Malone sat down in the other chair and waited till the older man at last looked across at him.
“Sorry, Inspector. I'm still coming to terms—”
Malone decided to ease his way into the situation: “Did your wife tell you where she w
as going in Sydney? Why she was up here?”
“She was going shopping. And to the Art Gallery. She phoned me, but I was out and my secretary spoke to her—”
“When was this?”
“I think she said two-thirty. My wife said to tell me she'd be back on a later plane than the five o'clock one. That was all.” He was looking at Malone, but his gaze was almost blank. “I just don't understand—” Then he made a helpless gesture with a big hand. “It's just not like her—”
Malone said gently, “I'm afraid I'm going to tell you something that will further upset you. That's why I asked could I see you alone—”
Pavane waited, a hand tightening on the arm of his chair.
Malone always hated this intrusion into another man or woman's personal life: “There had been intercourse before your wife was murdered—”
The hand tightened even more: “She'd been raped?”
“No, sir. The Medical Examiner said there was no evidence of that—rape always shows. Bruises, marks, things like that.”
The hand fell loose. “Jesus Christ, you know what you're saying?”
Husband to husband, not cop to diplomat: “Yes, sir. And I hate telling you this. But it may be our only clue to who killed her. They are taking semen samples, there'll be DNA tests when we have a suspect—”
Pavane waved a hand, not wanting to hear any more. He looked older, but age is a ghost that comes and goes till finally it settles. At last he said, “You know what you're saying? You are accusing my wife—”
“Sir, please—” Malone held up his own hand. “I'm not accusing your wife of anything. I hate scandal and I'm not interested in it. All I want is to find out who killed her.” He was about to add: and why. But now was not the moment.
Pavane sat silent and at last Malone said, “You were surprised when I said she was registered as Mrs. Belinda Paterson. Was that her name before you were married?”
“No.”
Again a long silence, then Malone said, “What was her name?”
A deep sigh; then Pavane's gaze focused again. He frowned, drew in a deep breath: “Page, Wilhelmina Page. But she was always called Billie.”