The Easy Sin

by Jon Cleary

  “The registration—it's at home—”

  “Sorry,” said the salesman, seeing another prospect, a sales prospect, and heading in his direction. “Come back with the rego and we got a deal.”

  Corey and Darlene got back into the car, sat staring ahead of them, at the future blank as a windscreen with sun on it.

  II

  As the two unmarked cars pulled up outside the Briskin house, Random's mobile rang. He got out of the car and went to one side to take the call. He listened for a minute or two, said, “Okay,” and switched off. Then he called Malone aside.

  “The Briskin girl and one of her brothers have scooted. Both walked out of where they work without saying anything to anyone—they've done a bunk. I'd say that wraps it up. The family did the kidnapping.”

  “What about the one in hospital?”

  “He's not going anywhere. Two of our fellers are keeping him company. He's kept his trap shut, except to say he's not saying anything till he sees his mum.”

  Malone couldn't hide his grin of pleasure. “Righto, we'll get Errol to identify the room where he was kept, then we'll charge Mrs. Briskin. That might bring in the son and daughter who've buzzed off, depending on how loving they are.”

  “You going to charge Magee's wife, too?”

  “The whole family. A package deal, like at the Royal Easter Show.”

  They went round the car and rejoined Magee, Shirlee Briskin and Peeples. As they went in the front gate Mrs. Charlton appeared at the side fence, a genie at the first rub of gossip.

  “More trouble, Shirl? Oh, you're from the council,” she said, recognizing Malone. “Back again?”

  “Sewer trouble.” Malone was light-headed, or light-hearted. This was his last Homicide case and he was going to close it successfully. “We may have to dig up the whole street.”

  “That right, Shirl?”

  “It's on the cards, Daph. Better be ready for the night-soil man.” She flickered a grin at Malone, then marched up to her front door, key at the ready.

  “What's that all about?” asked Random.

  “Tell you later,” said Malone, grinning, and followed Shirlee into the front hallway. He stood aside for the others to follow him. “Here we are, Errol. We'll take you through the house and see what you recognize. You weren't blindfolded all the time, were you?”

  “No,” said Magee, looking at Shirlee.

  She returned his stare, saying nothing. Malone glanced at her, saw the crumbling in her. “Righto, Mrs. Briskin? Can we start here at the front of the house and work our way through?”

  “Do what you like,” she said sniffily. “Just leave everything like you find it. Neat.”

  “Perhaps you and I can wait in the kitchen, Mrs. Briskin?” said Random.

  She appeared not to have heard him, just stared at Magee. Then abruptly she turned and went down the hallway. Random raised an eyebrow at Malone and Peeples, then followed her.

  “Was she trying to tell you something, Errol?” said Malone.

  “What?” Magee blinked, then recovered. “What would she have to tell me?”

  “She's your mother-in-law,” said Peeples. “They usually have a lot to say.”

  “You being funny? She's got something on her mind, but I don't know what it is. She's my mother-in-law, yeah, but I've never spoken a word to her. Ever.”

  Malone studied him a moment, then he said, “Righto, let's start in here. Looks like the main bedroom.”

  They went into the room and Peeples looked around. “Like she said, neat. I don't think they would of held you in here, Mr. Magee, not the front of the house. You weren't gagged all the time, were you?”

  “No.” Magee looked around the room. “No, I don't recognize any of this.”

  “If you weren't gagged,” said Malone, “why didn't you try yelling out? The woman next door would have heard you.”

  “Have you ever been kidnapped?”

  “No-o—”

  Magee said nothing, his look was enough. Peeples, diplomatically, said, “Okay, let's move on. There's another bedroom across the hall.”

  Malone suddenly began to feel uneasy, for no reason he could name. He followed Magee and Peeples into the second bedroom, also at the front of the house. This, too, was neat; there were two single beds, coverlets as neat as coffin drapes. Two enlarged photos on a wall: football teams, young men with arms crossed ready to take on the world. Magee looked around, then shook his head, saying nothing.

  “Righto,” said Malone, keeping his voice steady. “There looks to be another bedroom behind this one. Let's try it.”

  They moved down the hallway, Peeples leading the way. They went into the third bedroom, a room smaller than the other two at the front of the house. Malone stood in the doorway, watching Magee as the latter looked around the room.

  This room, like the others, was almost impossibly neat, Malone thought. Lisa, at Randwick, kept a neat house, but it was a shambles compared to the Briskin house. This room looked almost unlived in. The solitary picture on the wall, a Hans Heysen print of gum trees and glaring sunlight, might have hung there, perfectly straight, since the day Heysen had painted the original. Malone, for no reason at all, all at once had the feeling he had walked into a vacuum.

  Magee looked around the room twice, then turned back to Malone. “No,” he said calmly. “I don't recognize anything here.”

  You lying bastard! But it was just a silent exclamation in Malone's brain. He looked at Peeples and the latter heard what hadn't been said.

  “You're sure, Mr. Magee?” said Peeples. “Absolutely sure?”

  “Sure,” said Magee. “Absolutely.”

  III

  Errol Magee wasn't sure yet why he had lied. He had been shocked when they had told him that Caroline was probably the organizer of his kidnapping. There had been anger at what she had done; if she had done it. It was bizarre to think she had come home all the way from London to do such a thing.

  He had been surprised and pleased when she had turned up two weeks ago. He had, in a moment of loose thinking, entertained the idea of asking her to go with him when he fled abroad; better her than Kylie. Seeing her again he had realized she had been a better part of his life, for all their differences, than any of his other women. That first night he would have asked her to stay, if Kylie, out at some fashion opening, had not been coming back to the apartment.

  He had known vaguely that she had a family; letters had arrived regularly in London for her. But, not being a family man himself, he had asked no questions when she had advanced no answers. He still couldn't quite believe that she would organize a gang, a family, to kidnap him.

  In the car riding out to Hurstville he had sat silent most of the time. He had started to think about Caroline's family and had been surprised again. He had liked them; well, anyway, the brother and sister who had spent most time with him. Did he really want all of them, Caroline included, sent to jail? Sure, there was the accusation that one of them might have killed Juanita, his maid, but was there any proof?

  By the time they had arrived outside the Briskin house he had made up his mind. He would not seek Caradoc Evans' advice; the Welshman, for all his efforts to beat the law, was too honest. He would not, for instance, approve Magee's over-riding reason for not accusing the Briskins.

  If the Briskins were indicated he would have to stay in Australia to give evidence against them. And if he stayed, the yakuza would still be here in Sydney wanting their pound of flesh, his. It would be self-defence to defend the Briskins. It was a form of hedging, which his friends on the stock exchange, if he still had any, would understand, though they might not approve.

  When they had left the Briskin house, Shirlee Briskin had followed them to the front door. He had remarked her composure, as if she had known all along that he would not point the finger at her and her family.

  “Satisfied?” she had asked Inspector Malone. “Putting me to all this bother, not to mention the embarrassment.” With one eye on the ne
ighbour next door, still at the side fence. “Are you gunna let my daughter go?”

  “Of course,” said Malone, though Magee thought he sounded reluctant.

  Mrs. Briskin had looked at Magee. “Are you gunna make it up with Chantelle?”

  “Who?”

  “My daughter. Caroline.”

  He was walking on very thin ice here. “I think we'll be talking about it.”

  “Good. I've always wanted a son-in-law.”

  He didn't want a mother-in-law; not her, anyway.

  As they went down the front path, the four men walking close together to avoid stepping on the neat garden strips bordering the path, the woman next door called out: “Everything all right?”

  “Everything's okay, Daph,” said Malone. “We won't need to dig up the sewers.” Then he added, “You might go in and talk to Mrs. Briskin. She's upset.”

  “That was pretty malicious,” said Random in a low voice.

  “I couldn't be happier,” said Malone and looked at Magee with what the latter took to be real venom.

  Magee did his best to ignore the look. “Are you taking me back to Police Centre? My car's there.”

  “We'll do that,” said Random, taking over; it was obvious he was muzzling Malone. “It's part of the service. You ride with me and my driver.”

  As Inspector Malone got into his car, he looked back over his shoulder. Magee knew there was no mistaking the look: he had made an enemy.

  “Inspector Malone never forgets,” said Chief Superintendent Random. “Remember that, Errol.”

  They drew away from the kerb. Magee didn't look back, or he would have seen Shirlee closing the front door as the woman next door hurried up the path.

  There was casual small talk on the way back to Police Centre; then Random said, with no change in his tone, “Why did you bullshit us? You know the Briskins kidnapped you. They know it, we know it, you know it.”

  Magee's mind now was a computer, one guarded against viruses. “All I did was tell the truth.”

  “Tomorrow, keep the day free. We'll take you down the South Coast, you can have a look at the house there that's owned by the Briskins.”

  Careful, careful. “Is that necessary?”

  “Everything's necessary in the pursuit of truth, Errol. I thought you'd appreciate that. Didn't I- Saw work only for lawyers?”

  “You cops don't like lawyers, do you?”

  “Democracy is made up of necessary nuisances. Ask any politician who believes in it.”

  Magee saw the driver smile in the rear-vision mirror. He would have to beware of their mockery.

  IV

  Shirlee Briskin waited ten minutes after the police and that Magee, her son-in-law, had left, then she phoned for a cab. Daphne Charlton had rung the doorbell, but she had ignored it and after a few minutes Daphne had retreated next door.

  But when she went out of the house to get into the cab, Daphne, damn her, was at the side fence, on cue.

  “They weren't from the council, were they, Shirl? What's going on?”

  “I'll tell you later, Daph. Just relax. Nothing's happened, nothing's gunna happen. I'm on my way to see Pheeny. Ta-ta.”

  She got into the cab, in the front seat beside the driver; she was a true-blue Aussie. He was from Mongolia and hadn't a clue where the hospital was. She almost got out and into the back seat. Bloody multiculturism . . .

  When the driver finally found the hospital, having searched for it as if it were a tin shed on an allotment instead of a complex of buildings on several hectares, Shirlee gave him the exact fare, waiting for change. He gave her a look he had inherited from Jenghis Khan, she gave him a look that women had patented a millennium before Jenghis Khan.

  When she walked into Phoenix's ward she met two men coming out. They stopped, then one of them said, “You Mrs. Briskin?”

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  “Police officers.” She should have recognized them. They were big and had that look that she was sure policemen put on every morning with their uniforms or their badges. She was starting to think like Clyde used to. “We've been keeping your son company.”

  “And you're leaving now?”

  “We just got word you're all in the clear. Your son's just got another visitor. It's been your lucky day.”

  “Thanks for nothing,” she said and walked past them into the ward.

  Phoenix did, indeed, have another visitor. “Mr. Bomaker, what are you doing here?”

  “Giving Phoenix the good news!” Bomaker's glaze was cracking with excitement. But there was also some caution: “They were cops, weren't they?”

  “A misunderstanding, Mr. Bomaker, that was all. What's the good news?”

  “We're going to be in the money!”

  “Keep your voice down.” Shirlee had looked around. Yesterday's patients had been replaced by new arrivals, all supposedly ill or injured. But now they were as alert as cattle dogs. “How?”

  “We did due diligence on our lady friend, the lousy driver—”

  “Due diligence?” said Phoenix, his leg still strung up. “What's that?”

  “Enquiries. Don't ask—” Bomaker put his finger alongside his nose. Shirlee had always thought only bad actors in bad movies did that. “Our lady friend is worth fourteen million! It seems her husband, the developer, has a record of being sued by builders and unhappy home-owners. He put everything he owns in his wife's name. She's rolling in it. Oh, the thrill we got when we found out about that!”

  He's a fairy, thought Shirlee; but a good one. “How much?”

  “How much what?”

  “How much will our share be? How much will Pheeny get?”

  “It's hard to tell. Depends whether we go before a judge or a jury.” He looked at Phoenix as he might have at livestock. “He's been affected emotionally, you can tell that. And psychologically—it's slowed his grasp of things—”

  Shirlee said nothing. Pheeny was slow, psychologically.

  “—with a bit of luck, half a million, I should think. If we get a jury, if some of them are greenies, they hate developers—who knows what they'll give us?”

  Shirlee all at once felt better. She still wasn't sure why Errol Magee had denied recognizing her. Being a romantic, but a hard-bitten one, she could only assume that he was still in love with Chantelle, had done it for her sake. And now here was money, maybe more than her share of the ransom would have been, dangling in the air before her.

  She took Pheeny's hand, suddenly aglow with warm feelings towards the world. She could imagine the look on Daph Charlton's face when she told her.

  Then she took out her mobile and called Darlene. “. . . Corey's with you? Good . . . No, no worries, love. Come to the hospital. Everything's rosy.”

  11

  I

  “YOU’RE FREE to go,” said Malone.

  Caroline Magee didn't rise from her chair, but looked up at Malone as if he had just told her it had stopped raining outside. “Really? That's nice. So it was a lot of fuss about nothing.”

  “Not quite. We haven't finished yet. We're letting you go for now, but cancel your ticket for London. We'll be talking to you again.”

  She stood up, taking her time, turned to Clements. “It's been an interesting chat, Sergeant. I didn't realize the police knew so much about money and the stock exchange.”

  “I'm in training for the Fraud Squad.” Clements also stood up. He looked as if he had enjoyed the last hour. “Look after yourself, Caroline. You'll be staying where?”

  “Are you holding Errol?” she asked Malone.

  “Why would we hold him, Chantelle?”

  Her smile was wry. “Didn't you ever want to change Scobie to something else? Cary or Justin?”

  He had to admire her, but reluctantly. “Fred. But Fred Malone didn't have the proper ring to it. Go back to the hotel, Caroline, not the apartment. We'll have one of our policewomen keep you company.”

  She had been about to pick up her jacket and handbag, but she paused and l
ooked at him. “You still think the yakuza are a threat?”

  “Till we find Mr. Tajiri, yes.”

  “I'll be safer in London, though I don't know why they should be interested in me.”

  “For the same reason we are, Caroline.”

  She didn't question that, but said, “Is Errol still outside? I'd like to see him.”

  “Why?”

  “He's my husband.”

  Malone glanced at Clements, but the big man showed no reaction. “Okay, five minutes. Then I'm taking him back to the apartment.”

  Magee was out in the corridor with the young strike force officer who had brought him to Police Centre. Caradoc Evans had gone, bound for the Central Criminal Courts where arguments waited to be flourished like leeks and other Welsh symbols.

  When Magee saw Caroline come out of the inner room there was a sudden jumble of emotion in him. He didn't know what love was, otherwise he might have recognized it. He had never read that in medieval times love had been listed as a mental disease; he knew nothing of the later belief that it was a mutual selfishness. All he had ever felt for women had been in his balls; testosterone and money, not love, made the world go round. Yet now he felt a need for Caroline and it weakened him.

  She took his hand and they moved down the corridor away from the three police officers. “I'm going back to London, Errol.”

  He had to ask: “Did you organize for me to be kidnapped?”

  Her gaze was direct, as innocent as that of a ten-year-old from Coonabarabran. “No.”

  He wanted to believe her; he had to. He kept his voice low: “Then how did your mother and the others organize it?”

  “You didn't say anything to the police?” Her eyes slid sideways towards Malone and Clements. She didn't turn her head, still held his hand. “Why?”

  “I had my reasons.” Maybe he would tell her later, when . . . But he was not sure what was going to happen when. The Turks and Caicos Islands were the other side of Mars. “Did you know they'd done it?”

  “Yes.” She was all honesty. “As soon as I found out, I got them to let you go. It was a stupid idea, the whole thing—”

  “Did one of your brothers kill my maid Juanita?”