The Easy Sin

by Jon Cleary

  “It's no longer a game,” said Sheryl, taking the car over the Harbour Bridge.

  “No,” said Kylie and was abruptly silent.

  Milson's Point was another of the original grants to early settlers; modern-day developers wince at the luck of James Milson. He was a farmer from Lincolnshire, who, to his credit, couldn't believe his own luck. Today the Point and its neighbour, Kirribilli, are the most densely settled area north of the harbour. The ghost of James Milson occasionally stands on the Point, beneath the grey rainbow of the bridge, and looks across at the city skyline. Standing behind him, more solidly fleshed, are developers and estate agents wondering how much higher they can push property prices.

  Errol Magee had had the sense not to call his building I-Saw House. It had a number, was twelve storeys high and stood between two high-rise blocks of units—excuse me, apartments. Other high-rise buildings ran down to the water's edge, a wall of cliff. Gulls cruised the upper storeys as if looking for ledges on which to nest.

  Sheryl, true to her training, parked in a No Standing zone. The three of them got out of the car and went into the building and up to the executive floor. There was no one in the lobby and no one in the lifts. Malone had the abrupt feeling that he was entering a shell.

  The executive floor was like none that Malone had ever been on. A receptionist lolled in a chair behind a desk on which were two computers. Behind her were empty work-stations, yards from which the horses had bolted. In the far distance two men sat behind a long table.

  “Can I help you?” She was in her early twenties, jeans and a plaid shirt open almost to her belt. She was pretty but appeared to have done everything she could to avoid the label. “Oh, it's you, Kylie! Hi.”

  “These are the police, Louise. Who's in today?”

  The girl looked over her shoulder towards the far distance, then turned back. She hadn't risen. “Just Jared. You want to see him?”

  “No,” said Malone, “she doesn't want to see him. I do, Inspector Malone. Now do you think you could stir yourself and tell Jared we're here and that I'm not a patient man? Right, Detective Dallen?”

  “Oh, boss,” said Sheryl, “you have a terrible temper. Better do what he says, love.”

  The girl looked at Kylie as if to say, Where’d you dig up these two? Then she got up and sauntered down towards the end of the room.

  Malone looked at Kylie. “Are they all like that who work in IT? Rude and laid back?”

  For the first time since leaving Minto she smiled. “No. But she's a mathematical whiz, she's not really the receptionist. The girl they had had manners.”

  “Where's she now?” Malone looked around. “Where's everybody?”

  Kylie shrugged, the smile suddenly gone. She's more worried than she's letting on, thought Malone.

  Then Louise, the mathematical whiz, came back. “He'll see you.”

  Malone, Sheryl and Kylie travelled the huge floor, walking between the work-stations that, empty, looked like stylized roofless caves. As they came to the end of the room the two men at the long table stood up.

  The taller of the two men came round the table and put out his hand. “I'm Jared Cragg.” It sounded more like a rock-heap than a name, but Malone, who remembered the good old days of Clarrie and Joe and Smithy, kept his face expressionless. He couldn't imagine this soft-faced, slimly built man being called Craggy. But the soft paw was much firmer in its grip than he had expected. “It's about Errol? Oh, this is Joe Smith.”

  Malone couldn't believe his luck; he shook hands warmly with Smithy. “Yes, it's about Mr. Magee.”

  “Well, basically, he's a bastard.” Cragg couldn't have been more than thirty, but he looked as if his last ten years had been flattened and stretched like strudel dough. His eyes were tired and disillusioned, they had none of the spark of the New Economy. “Have you caught him yet?”

  “Caught him?”

  “Well, he's basically done a bunk, hasn't he? He knew who was coming in today. Mr. Smith is from Ballantine, Ballantine and Kowinsky. The receivers.”

  Smith was middle-aged in every way: dress, looks, demeanour. He made Cragg in his dark blue shirt with button-down collar and no tie, his off-white cargo pants and his trainers look like an over-the-hill teenager. But he was good-humoured, as if he had decided that was the only way to combat the depression of throwing businesses out on the street.

  “My men are down in the finance department,” he said. “When we came in this morning all Mr. Cragg's staff just up and left, as if we'd come to fumigate the place. No offence, Mr. Cragg. It's the way we're always greeted.” He smiled as if to show it was water off a platypus' back. “One gets used to it.”

  “It's a regular business, receivership?” said Malone.

  “Like cremation,” said Smith and smiled again.

  “Who ordered the cremation?”

  Smith hesitated, but Malone's look told him: don't hedge, mate. “The Kunishima Bank. They're Japanese, from Osaka.”

  “And what have you found?”

  “It's too early to say,” said Smith, hedging. “But the losses are considerable, otherwise we wouldn't be here.”

  Malone looked back at Cragg. “What do you think happened to Magee?”

  Cragg ran a pondering hand over his head. His hair was cut to such a short stubble that it looked like dust; Malone waited for him to look at his hand to see if any had come off. He, too, was hedging. “Well, basically, from what I read in the papers, the joke on the computers about a ransom for Kylie—” He nodded at her as if she were no more than a prize doll on a sideshow stall.

  Malone wondered who had told the media about the messages on the computers. “You don't want to believe everything you read in the newspapers. So you think he killed the maid on his way out, just as an afterthought?”

  “No!” Kylie up till now had remained silent in the background. “Errol wouldn't hurt a fly—”

  “He's hurt three hundred workers,” said Cragg. “All of them downsized without, basically, any redundancy pay. He's a bastard,” he repeated.

  “You haven't answered my question,” said Malone. “You think he killed the maid?”

  “Well, no-o . . .” Cragg all at once looked lost: not just for words, but as if the scene he looked out on, the rows of work-stations, had abruptly turned into a landscape he didn't recognize. “No, I know it doesn't sound like him—basically—”

  “Of course it doesn't!”

  Malone motioned for Kylie to keep quiet. “Could he have been kidnapped?”

  “Why? Why would anyone want to kidnap him and ask for a ransom?” Cragg frowned. “Jesus, everyone's known for the past week we're broke—”

  “Maybe one of your staff, or several of them, thought there was some money hidden that would pay for him?” Sheryl had picked up a nod from Malone. Two interrogators were always better than one. It was Malone's old cricket strategy, different-type bowlers from opposite ends. “Is there any money missing?”

  The last question was directed at Smith; he shook his head. “Too early to tell.” Then he added undiplomatically, “There often is.”

  “Where would it be?” Kylie had lapsed back into sullen silence, but now her nose pointed to the scent of money.

  Smith shrugged. “Anywhere in the world. I'm not saying there is any, but if there is our clients have first call on it. They are the major debtors.”

  Malone gave Cragg a hard stare, taking over the bowling again. “Did you know the state of affairs?”

  Cragg spread his hands, like a man pushing away cards he had been dealt that had no value. “I'm not a money man. I came in here two years after Errol had got it off the ground—he wanted my technical experience. I worked in Silicon Valley for two years—I came back here and I could take my pick of jobs. Errol made the best offer.”

  “You've got options?” said Sheryl and again after a slight hesitation Cragg nodded. He seemed off-balance with the two-pronged attack. “On paper you'd have been wealthy. Did you sell when you saw th
e share price going down?”

  “What business is it of yours?” He was growing angry.

  “We cover every angle,” said Malone and waited.

  Cragg hesitated again, looked at Smith, then back again at Malone and Sheryl. “Well, basically, yes—”

  Then Malone saw the woman come in the door at the far end of the long room and pause by the reception desk. He was long-sighted, but it was a moment before he recognized Caroline Magee. She stared down towards the group, then turned and was about to disappear when Malone called out, almost a shout, “Mrs. Magee!”

  “Mrs. Magee?” said Cragg. “Who's that, his mum?”

  “He doesn't have a mum,” said Kylie. “It's his bloody wife!”

  “His wife?” Cragg looked at Kylie as if she had suddenly become an unwanted refugee. “He has a wife?”

  “I wonder if she controls any of his assets?” said Smith and looked like a prospector who had just come on an unexpected reef. Then he saw Malone look at him and he smiled yet again. “Sorry. Just a thought.”

  Caroline Magee came leisurely down through the desert of work-stations. She has style, thought Malone; the sort of style Kylie Doolan would never achieve. She was dressed in a dark-green suit with a cream silk shirt under it; a heavy gold bracelet on her wrist and a thin gold chain round her neck were the only decoration. The dark auburn hair was sleek on her head and the large hazel eyes were cautious but confident. She smiled at Malone, ignoring the others.

  “Hello, Inspector. What do we have—good news or bad news?”

  “No news so far.” Malone introduced her to Sheryl, Cragg and Smith. Kylie had stepped back a pace or two, as if into a frigid zone. “Has he contacted you?”

  “Not a word.” Then she turned to Cragg. “Errol mentioned you, Mr. Cragg. Said you held the company together.”

  Smith laughed; he was the most jovial accountant Malone had ever met. Cragg gave him a sour look, then said, “I think Errol was kidding, Mrs. Magee. While I was holding it together, he was basically pulling it apart.”

  Caroline nodded agreeably. “That would be Errol. Wouldn't it, Miss Doolan?”

  Kylie thawed, but only a degree. “He always treated me okay.”

  “One can see that,” said Caroline, spraying freezer. Then she turned to Smith. “Will there be any debt?”

  “Oh, I should think so.” Christ, thought Malone, I bet he goes to cemeteries and dances on graves. “Perhaps you could spare me half an hour for a talk?”

  She returned his smile. “Forget it, Mr. Smith. There's nothing in my name nor with my signature on it. Did he have you sign anything?” She drew Kylie in again from Antarctica.

  Kylie suddenly looked pinched, even sick. “Only for credit cards.”

  “Jesus!” Cragg ran his hand over his head. “He's left us all holding the can!”

  “Not me,” said Caroline.

  Then Sheryl, who had been silent up till now, said, “Did he ever talk with you about places he'd like to go to, to live in retirement?”

  “Like Majorca? It's a little crowded there, isn't it? But then, it's easier to get lost in a crowd, isn't it?”

  Malone wondered what sort of man Errol Magee had been that neither his wife nor his girlfriend appeared too upset at his disappearance. But then as he and Detective Constable Fernandez had agreed, women were a mystery.

  “We'll find him eventually, Mrs. Magee,” he said. “We sometimes have unsolved murders on our books, but when we know who the murderer is, we usually find him. No matter how long it takes.”

  “So you basically think he killed the maid,” said Cragg.

  “We never use the word basically in Homicide, Mr. Cragg. With us, it either is or it ain't. Not basically.”

  “I don't believe Errol killed Juanita,” said Kylie.

  “Neither do I,” said Caroline.

  They looked at each other as if they had heard disembodied voices. They will never be friends, thought Malone, but they'll defend Magee if only because they want to get to him before we do. And he began to wonder if the women, separately, knew more than they were telling.

  Then the computer on the table behind Cragg began to print out a message. Malone stepped round Cragg and read it: There’s a call for you, Jared. They won’t speak to anyone but you.

  He looked towards the far end of the room. Louise had sat back from the computer on her desk and was looking towards them. Crumbs, he thought, they even talk to each other on the screens. “It's for you, Mr. Cragg. The phone.”

  “Thanks,” said Cragg sarcastically and picked up one of the three phones on the table. “Put them through, Louise.”

  Then: “Yes, this is Jared Cragg. Who's that? Who?”

  Then he looked at Malone, nodded at a second phone and reached across and pressed a button. Malone picked up the second phone.

  “Look—” Cragg was showing no agitation; Malone, watching him, had to admire him. “How do we know you've got Mr. Magee?”

  “He was the one who gave us your name,” said the woman at the other end of the line. It was an Australian voice, Malone remarked, no accent. Over the past few years the police had started to divide crims up into ethnic groups, much to the loud disapproval of ethnic groups. “He's all right, Mr. Cragg. He hasn't been harmed—not so far. He said you'd be able to raise the money we're asking. Five million dollars, US.”

  Cragg raised his eyebrows at Malone, who gestured at him to keep talking. “US? Why US?”

  “You know what the Aussie dollar is like, Mr. Cragg. Up and down like a yo-yo. Five million, American.”

  “Mr. Magee knows we don't have that sort of money right now, US or Aussie. He would've told you that, right?” There was silence at the other end. “Right? Well, I'm confirming it. Name a reasonable sum and I'll see what we can raise.”

  “You can raise the five million. Try your partners, the Kunishima Bank. I'll call back at five this evening. Have the money by then.”

  “Just a moment,” said Malone, cutting in. “This is Detective-Inspector Malone, of Homicide. Put Mr. Magee himself on.”

  The woman laughed, a pleasant laugh. “You're kidding, aren't you? Get lost, copper. This is between us and Magee's company.”

  “Did you kill the Magee maid? That puts it between you and me.”

  There was a moment's silence, then the phone went dead.

  Cragg said, “Can you trace that call?”

  “Maybe the area, but not the actual phone. Sheryl, get them started on that.”

  “Right away, sir.” She checked the number of I-Saw, then went quickly down to the reception desk.

  “Did you recognize the woman's voice?” Malone asked Cragg.

  “A woman?” Kylie's voice rose. “Holy shit, he's got another woman?”

  “It's getting crowded,” said Caroline Magee and there was just a hint of a smile around her lips.

  Malone ignored them both. “If they're demanding ransom for Magee, if they do have him, why the pantomime of the ransom notes on the computers for Miss Doolan?” But he was talking to himself; he wasn't looking for an answer from the others. “Could the woman on the phone be someone who works here?”

  “I didn't recognize the voice,” said Cragg. “You still think someone from here organized all this?”

  “I don't know. We consider every possibility and then start eliminating them. I still think the strongest possibility is that Errol organized his own kidnapping and it all went wrong when the maid was killed. Maybe the woman is in on the scam with him—”

  “Bastard!” said Kylie.

  Malone had been thinking aloud, something no cop should ever do. He realized it and tried to get his thoughts and his tongue under control. He looked at Caroline: “Did he ever mention another woman to you?”

  “Only Miss Doolan,” said Caroline and made it sound as if Miss Doolan were no more than graffiti on a wall.

  Malone swallowed his smile, turned back to Cragg. “I want a list of everyone who's worked here in the past twelve months.
”

  “Everyone?”

  “Everyone. It shouldn't be any problem, Mr. Cragg.” He nodded at the deserted work-stations, every one with its own computer. “Not with Information Technology.”

  He spoke with the sarcasm of a troglodyte who still scratched sketches on the wall of his cave. Cragg and Smith looked at him as if they saw him exactly like that.

  “Can we help?” asked Smith.

  “Just see no money goes out, five million or even a dollar. No ransom, unless you talk to us first. We'll be in touch.”

  He walked down the long room to where Sheryl waited for him at the reception desk.

  “They've started the trace,” she said. “But they're not hopeful.”

  “Good,” said Malone, but entertained no hope. “Have you got Louise's full name?”

  “Louise Cobcroft.”

  “Why do you want my name?” Louise was standing at her desk, antagonism in every line of her slim body. She had drawn her hair back, holding it in place with a headband, and it improved her looks, showing the fine bonework in her face. Her eyes were almost glassy in their severity. “What's going on?”

  “Louise, you stayed on the phone when that call came through for Mr. Cragg. I saw you, you listened to every word. Do you usually do that on your boss' calls?”

  “No-o.” She backed down, but only an inch.

  “Did you recognize that woman's voice? One of your workmates, for instance?”

  “No, I didn't.”

  “Why were you so interested in the call? Did the woman mention Mr. Magee when she first came on the line?”

  “No-o.” She was looking less and less confident.

  “How well did you know Mr. Magee? Did you work closely with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “How close?” said Sheryl, coming in at the other end of the pitch. She's learning, thought Malone, she's going to be a good change bowler.

  “We'd work at night together—”

  “That all?”

  Suddenly all the stiffness went out of Louise. She glanced down towards the far end of the room. The group there were looking in the direction of Malone and the two women. Louise sighed and turned back to Malone and Sheryl. “Okay, sometimes we'd hold hands—”