Yesterday's Shadow

by Jon Cleary

  “The house and the pharmacy are small potatoes,” said Walter.

  “His portfolio manager—” said Sarah.

  “His what?” Julian sat up. “I know he had a few shares, blue-chip stuff, but not much—”

  “The portfolio,” said Walter in a measured voice, as if delivering a court judgement, “is worth nine and a half million dollars. Give or take a few dollars.”

  Julian looked at the glass of mineral water, then said, “May I have a whisky?”

  Walter poured him a whisky from a cut-glass decanter. This was not the sort of room in which bottles were displayed; at dinner the wine had been decanted. “I had a stiff whisky myself when I was told. We didn't know of the portfolio man's existence. He read of your father's death—evidently portfolio managers read the obituaries—”

  “Like lawyers?” But he smiled.

  Walter smiled in reply, but it was an effort. “Yes . . . Did you ever give your dad investment advice?”

  “Back in the eighties I mentioned some stocks, flyers that I thought might take off. It was just in conversation—when we talked at all—”

  “He must have taken your advice. He was buying and selling for years, evidently, before he took on the portfolio manager. He must have borrowed and borrowed big, but there's no debt now.”

  Julian sipped his whisky, trying to conjure up the image of his father as a stock exchange gambler. And yet it could have happened; he had seen plenty of it in the eighties. Cautious men who took a flutter, won, took another flutter and then, caught on the surf, just kept going. Was that how it had happened with his father?

  “As I say,” said Walter, “it's worth nine and a half million dollars. You're interested, of course?”

  Nothing stirs a moneyman's interest more than the mention of more money. Does a politician not stir at the rustle of extra votes? Does a priest not tremble with excitement in his cassock when penitents flock to the church after a catastrophe, investing prayers they have dug out of pockets of neglect? The self had always been one of Julian Baker's icons and he was not going to deny it now, even though he was in mild shock.

  “Yes,” he said and he was surprised at the evenness of his voice. “I'm interested.”

  “We thought you would be,” said Sarah and managed not to sound tart.

  “There should be no trouble in settling everything.” Walter looked settled now. “You and Sarah are the only natural heirs. We have a good firm of solicitors taking care of everything. I often work with them, they brief me as a barrister. Fairbrother, Milson and Gudersen. You may remember them?”

  Julian frowned. “They're still around? They've been going for years.”

  “That's what we need, not some of these ambulance-chasers who have sprung up, aping the Americans.”

  Julian had begun to suspect there was some anti-Americanism in this household. His father had believed that the last decent Americans had been Abraham Lincoln and James Stewart. He would have to keep reminding them that he was Canadian, if only by adoption.

  “They are a firm that knows the meaning of discretion,” said Sarah.

  “Of course,” said Julian; but memory was coming back: “Didn't they handle matters for the stockbrokers I worked for? Won't they recall there was a bit of a stink when we broke up, I mean when my name comes up?”

  Walter sniffed, as if mention of a bit of a stink had passed under his nose. “I said they are discreet. What's past is past.”

  Walter, Julian felt, would rewrite history in the interests of discretion.

  Then Sarah, proving she had learned something from being a lawyer's wife, said, “You have another identity in Canada, am I right? You never did tell us what you did or have been doing all these years. I always had some idea you were a travelling salesman, always writing to you at a box number.”

  “She's exaggerating,” said Walter. “You don't look like Willy Loman.”

  A no-hoper, that Willy Loman. Why had they thought he would be no more than a travelling salesman? But he gave them his sincere smile (a travelling salesman's smile?), at which he was very good. “What do I have to divulge to these solicitors when we start talking about Dad's estate?”

  “All you have to do is prove you are Charles' natural-born and legitimate son. We'll attest to that. It would be better if you could stay till all the paperwork is processed—there will be the usual advertisement when someone dies with no will, but we don't expect any claimants coming forth—” Walter smiled over his whisky. “Your father has surprised us all by being a gambler, but I don't think he is going to surprise us further with some illegitimate heirs showing up.”

  “He always thought I was a bastard.” But Julian smiled again and went on, “Yes, I have another identity in Canada. My name now is Julian Baker—”

  “Julian?” said Sarah. “I like that.”

  “I'm happily married to a French-Canadian girl, Lucille, and we have three kids, two girls and a boy. But do Fairbrother and company need to know that?”

  “We shan't ask why you want to keep it quiet—” said Sarah.

  “Oh, you can ask and I'll tell you why. It would mean that I should have to do an awful lot of explaining to Lucille and the kids—I've told her part of the story, but not all. And I don't want to have to explain to the bank where I'm a senior vice-president. When I left here, I decided on a fresh start with a fresh name . . . You'll understand, Walter?”

  Walter, who had spent most of his life defending clients with something to hide, nodded, understanding, if not sympathetically. “If you have a good, solid life now—”

  “I have. Julian Baker is a well-respected pillar in Toronto. I want to stay that way. The old past is long past.”

  “Of course,” said Walter and Sarah and looked relieved. As if their future was assured.

  That had been a week ago. But temptation, like an itch in the groin, had not allowed the past to remain where it was. He had phoned Trish Norval (or Billie Pavane) in Canberra and as he had expected she said she would see him, just for old times' sake.

  6

  I

  THERE WAS no progress in the Pavane homicide over the next five days. Malone asked Joe Himes to come out to Homicide and there on the Monday morning he told the FBI how much more they had learned about the past life of Mrs. Pavane.

  “Who tells the Ambassador when he comes back?” asked Himes.

  “He's coming back?”

  “So Canberra says.” Himes was still wearing his trenchcoat, as if, having just come in from the rain, he saw another storm rising. “I think we should call our FBI office in Kansas City and let them give him the bad news.”

  Malone for a moment was tempted; then saw that Himes, though far from cheerful, was kidding. “Do we tell Roger Bodine?”

  Himes considered for quite a long moment; he looked out the window at the rain, then back at Malone. At last he said, “Not yet. Stall him if he asks. I think we should protect the Ambassador as long as we can.”

  “Bodine wouldn't talk, would he?”

  “Scobie, in any organization secrecy is just molasses in a sieve—sooner or later it seeps through.” He smiled, the first time since arriving. Malone remarked again how boyish the heavy-set man could suddenly look; except for the eyes, which were still cautious. “I made that up when I first went into the Academy. It was one of the first lessons I learned there, though it wasn't in the curriculum. Roger has a secretary, who has a friend or husband, who has . . . You get the drift.”

  “I have to tell my boss, but I'm not putting it on paper or the computer. But eventually . . .” He, too, looked out the window as if there might be some message there. But the rain was smearing the window, the view was dim. “Righto, we sit on it as far as Canberra is concerned. But if they find out we've kept it from them, the embassy blokes, I mean, you take the kicks, okay?”

  “We've been doing that for years. The only one who ever loved us was J. Edgar. But none of us loved him. I didn't.” He stood up, buttoned up the trenchcoat; he
looked as wide as two commissionaires. “Our San Francisco office is trying to find out more about Wilhelmina Page's stay in that city. Or was she Belinda Paterson while she was there?” He put his hands in his pockets, looked dejected. “Why am I afraid they'll find out more than we want to tell the Ambassador?”

  “Joe, what if Mrs. Pavane was at the hotel because the bloke had picked it? Say he was blackmailing her—?”

  “And she paid him off by going to bed with him?”

  “It's happened.”

  Himes thought about it for a moment. “Possible. But if he was blackmailing her, was that all she was paying him? Sex?”

  “No, he could've been asking for money, too. Can you look into her bank account, see if she'd had any large withdrawals lately?”

  “Scobie—” Himes looked disappointed, as if he had credited Malone with more intelligence. “Do you expect me to go to the Ambassador and tell him I want to look into his wife's bank account, that we think she may have been paying off a blackmailer?”

  “Now that you mention it—”

  “Scobie, if you want to approach him—”

  “No, thanks. Sorry I brought it up.”

  Himes shook his head at the denseness at the lower levels of police work and left. Malone picked up the phone and rang Pamela Morrow.

  “Pam, we've been having trouble with your client, Delia.” He told her about last Saturday night. Tell her to pull her head in or she's going to finish up in Mulawa. She won't like it out there amongst some of the girls.”

  “Husband-killers, especially those who've been bashed and belted, some of them are looked up to in jail.” But then she sighed, almost like a moan. “But Delia can be a pain. Sometimes the ones you are trying to help are the worst of the lot. What was she like when you knew her? Or shouldn't I ask that?”

  “I'd rather you hadn't. But, okay—she could be demanding. We usually did what she wanted to do, not what I wanted.”

  “Most women try for that, didn't you know?” There was what sounded like a soft laugh; then she said, “Is she still insisting on seeing you?”

  “Not any more, Pam. I'm putting my foot down.”

  “I've heard that before. First lovers are the biggest suckers.”

  “What are you now? A marriage counsellor?”

  “You're married, aren't you? Happily married? That's Delia's beef. Look after yourself, Scobie. Find another case to occupy you.”

  “I have one—”

  “Of course. How's it going?”

  “Don't ask.”

  Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday went by. Five more murders: two domestics, two bikies executed, a gay bashed to death by a drunken homophobe. A week's working calendar, while the rest of the voters went to their offices, their factories, their trucks and buses and courier bikes and complained to fellow workers how tough life was. Homicide was called in only on the bikie executions and Clements assigned two detectives to the case. Malone, Andy Graham and Gail Lee and Sheryl Dallen remained on the Pavane strike force. The Jones murder was taken down from the flow-chart and Bruce Farro's name was added to the Pavane name-list. At the top of the list were still: Billie Pavane, Belinda Paterson, Wilhelmina Page and Patricia Norval. A quartet swimming in and out of each other like shadows.

  Friday Andy Graham struck pay-dirt: “Boss, I think I've traced Wayne Jones. He's got a website up on the Central Coast, he runs a sorta stock market consultancy, as far as I can gather. He's at Woy Woy.”

  “Woy Woy? That's a financial centre?”

  Woy Woy was a tiny community eighty kilometres north of Sydney that had for years slept undisturbed; it fronted a long wide bay known as Brisbane Water and its population, many of them retired pensioners, hardly gave a thought to the city slickers further south. Then the city slickers discovered the region and over the past thirty years the Central Coast had bloomed (like an atomic bomb, thought the old Woy Woy residents) and lush bush disappeared to make way for mini-mansions, vacation and conference hotels and retirement villages for the better-off. The surviving Woy Woy originals put out in their small rowing boats, tossed a line to the fish and watched the money floating through the area like a plague of locusts. Land prices soared and expensive cruisers began appearing on Brisbane Water like an invading armada, their wake hitting the edges where the locals floated like the sound of a slap in the face. The natives, sea-sick, rowed their boats back to shore and their modest weatherboard cottages. One pensioner, offered a small fortune for his “shack', shot the would-be buyer in the leg. The local police sergeant, born and bred in the area, called to arrest the gunman, was told, and accepted, the plea that the shot had not been fired in anger at the insult of the offer but the insult of his home being called a “shack'. No charges were laid and the slicker, hobbling, went back to the city and bought water-front at Hunter's Hill, where the natives are not gun-happy. The National Rifle Association in the United States sent a message of congratulation to the gun-toting pensioner, who wondered what they were on about, and the Real Estate Institute of New South Wales countered with a claim for police protection. Malone wondered if Wayne Jones was up there scamming the transplanted city slickers.

  “Does he know you're on to him, Andy?”

  “Nup.”

  “Righto, we'll leave him till tomorrow morning. We'll have another casual Saturday visit. Pick me up at eight at home in one of the office cars. Bring the blue light and the siren, in case we're held up on the freeway.”

  “Right!” said Andy Graham and Malone could already hear the siren and see the flashing blue light.

  The rain cleared overnight and Saturday was a cold, ice-blue day with a moderate wind to remind the voters that winter was still around. Graham picked up Malone and drove the eighty kilometres to Woy Woy with reasonable recklessness, using the siren and the blue light only once. They slid off the freeway and down the long hill, past stunted trees that had pushed up through the rocky escarpment, to the wind-scabbed Brisbane Water.

  Wayne Jones' house was not a shack. It was double-fronted brick, Spanish-styled, on a wide lot that faced east across the bay. He opened the teak door to a chime that played some notes inside the house. He was either expecting someone else or careless of security, and looked at them in expectation.

  “Clients? Mr.—?”

  “No,” said Malone. “Police.”

  Jones frowned, which was a regular expression that Malone had come to recognize when the word Police was sprung. He looked at the two strangers in their casual clothes, like golfers who had come looking for a missing ball, then said, “Police? It's not bad news? My wife—?”

  “No, not bad news. We just want to ask a few questions, Mr. Jones. I'm Detective-Inspector Malone and this is Detective-Constable Graham. We're from Homicide.”

  “Homicide?” This time the frown was even deeper.

  “May we come in?” Malone showed his badge: “Just in case you doubt us—”

  “Of course, of course.” He stood aside, closed the front door behind them, then led them through the house and out to a large sun-room that looked out on a wide terrace, a swimming pool and a jetty where a medium-sized cruiser was moored. Mr. Jones wasn't short a quid, Malone noted.

  “What's it about?”

  Jones waved them to a chair. He was young-middle-aged, with prematurely grey hair and a lean, long-jawed face. He was dressed in a brown cashmere sweater and tan cargo pants, with more pockets than a billiard-table and not even a pencil in any of them. He wore bright yellow socks and tan desert boots. He was a fashionplate but at the moment he looked rather cracked.

  “Homicide? Your beat's murder, isn't it?”

  “Yes,” said Malone and nodded to Graham.

  The latter opened his notebook and read Wayne Jones' history back in the 1980s. “That all correct, Mr. Jones?”

  “I don't like that word scam. I could sue you for that—”

  “Mr. Bruce Farro threatened us with the same line,” said Malone.

  “I haven't spoken to Bruce in
—God, what is it? Fourteen years. I see him occasionally in the papers, all those whingdings you have down in Sydney—”

  “Not us,” said Malone.

  Jones smiled weakly; he would always try to be affable, a salesman. “No, I guess not . . . Why are you bothering us? Me and him?”

  Malone gave him a quick run-down on the Pavane murder.

  “Holy shit!” Jones swung his head back and forth like an animal. It was a most peculiar movement and Malone wondered where he had picked it up. Rock-and-roll singers did it, but Jones, Malone guessed, would neither rock nor roll. “That's how Trish Norval finished up—wife of the American Ambassador?”

  “You're surprised?”

  Jones stopped the head-rolling. He looked out at the water, at the white scabs that were rising as the wind increased. A small tourist ferry cruised past, half a dozen winter-wrapped sightseers staring out like prisoners on their way to exile. Gulls crawled up the wall of the wind and a jet-skier swept by, spray trailing him like a broken wing, a petrol-driven petrel. Then Jones turned back to the two detectives.

  “No, on reflection, I'm not surprised.”

  “Were you,” asked Malone, “close to her?”

  Jones had thin eyes that almost closed when he smiled. “I'm glad you asked that while my wife isn't here. I took Trish out a coupla times—yes, we went to bed once, as I remember. But she had other fish to fry. And she fried them.”

  “Jack Brown and Grant Kael?” said Andy Graham, notebook still open.

  “You've done your homework.”

  “Bruce Farro helped,” said Malone.

  “He would. Bruce was always ready to put the knife in.”

  “You trusted him while the scam was on. Or did he put the knife in and you walked away with nothing?”

  “I can still sue you, you know—”

  It was Malone's turn to smile. “Wayne, this is just between you and us. All we are interested in is who murdered Mrs. Pavane—Trish Norval. Where were you last Tuesday week, around midnight?”

  The question was put without any raising of the voice, but it was like a thrown knife. Jones reeled back; or sat back. “Christ Almighty—what does that mean? Where was—? I don't fucking know—yes, I do! I was at a business seminar in Gosford. I was there till, I dunno, eleven or eleven-thirty. Then I came home. I can give you names to check—”