by Jon Cleary
“No.” Juliet looked amused. “Are we all on a list of suspects or what?”
“Not at all,” said Zanuch, literally stepping into the conversation; he moved a pace forward. He had been unexpectedly quiet during Malone’s questioning and it struck Malone only now that the Assistant Commissioner was only on approval here in this circle. “I’m sure Inspector Malone has no thoughts along those lines, right?” He looked at Malone: it was an order.
“Of course not, sir. It’s just for the record, just in case.” He was looking east past the AC, down the harbour. Out at sea, beyond the Heads, he could see a giant waterspout, a dark frightening funnel. It was unusual and he wondered if it was some sort of omen.
“I live at Point Piper,” said Juliet. “Wolseley Road.”
One of the toniest addresses in Sydney: where else? “Of course. I’ve met your husband.” Then the tongue slipped its leash again: “And your father-in-law.”
The AC looked as if he were about to take another step, or two or three, into the conversation; but Juliet said sweetly, “Old Jack? The best of my fathers-in-law. He’s the third.”
“Minister,” said Tucker, gold watch held aloft as if about to clock Sweden in a sprint to Parliament House. “It’s getting on, we should be moving—”
Sweden looked at Zanuch, ignoring Malone. “Is that all then, Bill?”
Zanuch, too, ignored Malone. “For now. But there’s bound to be other questions, if it is a homicide—”
This time the tongue was trapped firmly inside Malone’s teeth. It was Clements who said, “It’s homicide all right, sir. The deputy director of Forensic was sure of that.”
“They make mistakes—”
“Not this one, sir. She’s my girlfriend.”
3
I
ALL THE men had gone and the three Bruna sisters were alone. Said Rosalind, “You two didn’t show much concern over Rob’s death.”
“’Lind,” said Ophelia, “your stepson was a shit.”
“Why did Cormac give him a job then?”
“Because he wanted a favour from your Derek, something political. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Or your son’s.”
Rosalind did not question that. She and Juliet nodded understandingly; they were, after all, Roumanian, though long removed. They had arrived in Australia when Juliet was six months old, Rosalind five years old and Ophelia ten, but there were centuries of intrigue in their blood. Their mother, Ileana, had come of a family noted for its political chicanery; she had died of sunstroke six months after her arrival in Sydney, sad to depart but happy in the thought that her daughters would grow up in a community where the politicians of the time were as buyable as those back home. She had been ten years older than her sculptor husband, Adam, and, though not expecting to go so soon, had told him she would die before he turned to chasing younger women. He, distraught at the thought of losing her, had asked for advice on how to bring up their daughters. She, with her last breath but still aware of the world’s opportunities, especially amongst the native barbarians, had murmured, “See that they marry rich.” The sisters had done their best to honour their mother’s wish. The blood of their mother’s family ran like liquid gold through them, their vote was always buyable if the price was right.
“Did Derek arrange it? The political favour?”
“I suppose he must have. Cormac doesn’t tell me everything that goes on, though I’m often tempted to ask.”
Ophelia was the impulsive one of the three sisters. On the spur of the moment she had asked Cormac Casement to marry her; a spur of a different sort had been that he had as much money as her dreams were made on. They had gone to bed on their second meeting, she experimenting with an older lover, wondering if his technique would be so simple as to be puritanical; he wondering if his heart would stand up to the demands of what the feminists called a “woman in her post-menopausal prime.” Each had surprised the other and a month after they had met she proposed. He, not given to impulsiveness, further surprised himself by accepting.
“But Cormac did say something last week that I didn’t take much notice of. He said Rob was up to something and he’d have to speak to him.”
“Rob was always up to something,” said Juliet. “Or up something.”
“Don’t be vulgar,” said Rosalind, who could be as vulgar as any gypsy when her temper got away from her. Aware of this, she had cultivated a cautiousness that sometimes made her seem much more callous than her sisters. “He liked girls, but that’s healthy. Or it used to be.”
Juliet, who even as a child in a bath had liked to make waves, said, “’Lind, he liked women, not just girls. Any age. His fly was permanently unzipped.”
Ophelia, who could catch a nuance as if it were floodlit, said, “You too?”
The two sisters, the youngest and the eldest, exchanged glances, then both looked at Rosalind. “He got me into bed four or five times,” said Juliet. “He was a marvellous lover, so long as he kept his mouth shut. He always sounded like that loud-mouthed football commentator. He would give a description they could hear down in Melbourne. As if I didn’t know what was going on. What about you, „Phelia?”
“The same. I always felt I was in the middle of an All Blacks-Wallabies scrum.” She knew that rugby was played in Roumania and, though she had no interest in the game, she went to rugby internationals with Cormac because he had in his youth been a representative player and still followed the sport. She never went to rugby league matches, that was the peasants’ game. Her mother would have approved of her discrimination. Twice was enough. I blew the whistle after that, told him the game was over. Well?”
The eldest and the youngest waited for Rosalind to comment. She sighed, then nodded. “Me, too. His stepmother.” She was less Roumanian than her sisters, almost as if a Methodist had somehow got into the bloodstream. At times she even displayed a conscience, something her husband found disconcerting. “Just the once. Too noisy. It’s the first time I’ve been cheered for what I was doing to someone.”
“Did he ever suggest he might tell Derek?”
“Never. Derek would have killed him—” Rosalind broke off sharply and she frowned. “God, why did I say that?”
“Do you think Derek found out?” said Juliet, scooping up some small waves.
Rosalind shook her head vigorously. “He would have spoken to me first. He’s like that. He can be sweet, but he’ll always blame the women for everything.”
“Balls,” said Ophelia, who had fondled more than her share. “It takes two to seduce.”
“Did Cormac suspect anything between you and Rob?”
“No. When he told me he thought Rob was up to something, I wondered for a moment if he meant with me. But Cormac, dear old soul, can be read like a book—there wasn’t a glint of suspicion about me. I’ve never understood why they say the Irish are like the Roumanians and vice versa. They’re children, really.”
Her sisters nodded: innocence had never bothered them. At their convent school in Rose Bay the nuns had been convinced that, in succession, all three of them were headed for Hell.
The sisters had been unperturbed. That was where most of the rich finished up, anyway.
“So who killed Rob?” said Juliet. “Or would it be better if we didn’t know?”
II
When Malone and Clements came out of The Wharf they turned into the side street. Two council workers in overalls were cleaning the pavement, scrubbing it with hard brooms. The Crime Scene tapes had been removed and there was no sign of any police. Two young girls paused on the other side of the street, shuddered and moved on, heads close together in a whisper, as if the council workers were gravediggers throwing the last sod on Rob Sweden.
One of the sweepers leaned on his broom and looked at the two detectives. “You guys stopped for a bit of ghouling?”
Malone had never heard the gerund before; the recession had brought the educated to the gutter. “We’re police, not ghouls.”
�
�Sorry.” He was a young man, young enough to be the son of his fellow worker, who looked as if he had been sweeping the streets all his life. “This job is shitty enough, without having to clean up something like this.”
Malone looked up at the stack of balconies above them. “They must’ve tossed him out wide so he wouldn’t hit the lower balconies.”
“It was a neat throw,” said Clements. “Three feet further out and he’d of landed on any car parked here.”
The young cleaner was still leaning on his broom, an occupational habit. “Are you guys always so clinical about something like this?”
Malone wanted to tell him how they felt when they investigated the murder of a child or a woman, but all he said was, “It’s like you and your street sweeping, it’s a job.”
“You put your finger on it, mate.” The older worker had stopped sweeping, leaned on his broom with the ease of long practice. “I keep telling him, don’t ever look too hard at what your broom picks up. Right?”
“Right,” said Clements, and he and Malone grinned at each other and walked back down the short hill.
“Where to now?”
Malone paused on the corner, looked along Circular Quay and up at the tall tower of the Casement building. “While we’re down here, why don’t we drop in on Mr. Casement? Young Sweden worked for him.”
They crossed the road, stopping to allow a group of Japanese tourists, herded together by their guides as if the local natives were expected to attack at any moment, to make their way towards a waiting cruise ferry at one of the wharves. Clements, a man who couldn’t help his prejudices, shook his head but said nothing to Malone. The latter, who fought his inherited prejudices and usually won, just smiled at the Japanese and was rewarded by the bobbing of several heads.
“Our salvation,” he said.
“Japs?”
“Tourists.”
The Casement building, like The Wharf, had been built in the boom of the early Eighties. There were fifty storeys, seven of them occupied by Casement Trust, the merchant bank, and Casement and Co., the stockbrokers. In the big entrance lobby there was enough Italian marble to re-fill the Carrara quarries; thick columns soared three storeys, like branchless marble trees. An overalled cleaner with a toy broom and a tiny scoop shuffled about the lobby keeping the marble dirt-free and butt-free. Visitors were welcome, but expected to be impressed or else.
A uniformed security guard asked the two detectives if he might help them. “We’d like to see Mr. Casement?”
“You have an appointment?” The guard looked at a book on his counter. “Nobody is allowed on the fiftieth floor without an appointment.”
Malone produced his badge. “Is that a good enough reference?”
“It’s good enough for me. I’ll see if it’s good enough for Mr. Casement’s secretary. She’s the Wicked Witch. Don’t quote me.”
There was a short conversation with the Wicked Witch, a wait, then the guard put down the phone. “It’s okay. Ask for Mrs. Pallister. It’s about the ugly business over the road, right?”
Malone just nodded, then led Clements along to the private lift pointed out to them by the guard. They rode to the fiftieth floor in ten feet square of luxury: no marble, but top quality leather for which any craftsman would have given his awl. The carpet on the floor looked as if it were newly laid each morning, fresh from the merino’s back. Clements looked around admiringly.
“I think I’ve got a split personality. I get into something like this and I hate the bastards it’s made for, yet I like it.”
When they stepped out of the lift they were in a reception area that suggested luxury was the norm on the fiftieth floor. A dark-haired receptionist turned from her word processor and gave them a pleasant smile. “Mrs. Pallister is expecting you.” Not Mr. Casement is expecting you: everybody these days had minders. The receptionist stood up, opened a door in the oak-lined wall behind her. “The police.”
The police went through into an inner office, three walls oak-lined and the fourth a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out on to the harbour. A blonde woman sat with her back to the view, a paper-strewn desk in front of her. The mess on her desk contrasted sharply with her too-neat appearance. She rose as the two men came into her office, but that was her only hint of politeness.
“Gentlemen.” Her vowels came from eastern-suburbs’ private schools, but there was an edge to her voice that suggested it could cut throats if needs be. “I think it would have been better if you had telephoned so that I could have fitted you into Mr. Casement’s schedule. He can give you only ten minutes.”
“We’ll keep that in mind,” said Malone, instantly forgetting it.
Mrs. Pallister was middle-aged and would have been attractive if she had not frozen her face ten years before. Divorce had turned her 180 degrees; her career had become her life. She made forty-five thousand dollars a year, ten thousand a year less than Malone made as an inspector, but she had the air of an assistant commissioner. “Mr. Casement is a busy man.”
“Aren’t we all?” said Malone.
She looked at him down her nose, which, snub as it was, rather destroyed the effect intended. She led them through into an office that surprised Malone with its lack of size; he had expected to be led into a luxurious auditorium. But this room was not much bigger than the Wicked Witch’s, though there was no denying the luxury of it. Even to Malone’s inexpert eye, the paintings on two of the walls were worth a fortune: a Streeton, a Bunny, a Renoir and a Monet. The mix showed that the man who worked in this office did not want to be disturbed by any angst-spattered artwork. The furniture was equally comforting, rich in leather and timber. This was a man’s room, but Malone, who was learning to be more observant about surroundings, guessed it had been furnished by a woman.
“Inspector Malone?” Cormac Casement stood up from behind the large desk that was almost a barricade. “This is about poor Rob Sweden’s death? A dreadful accident.”
He was twenty-five years older than his second wife, but, as the old shoe-polish advertisement said, though he was well-worn he had worn well. He was shorter than Malone had expected from the photos he had seen of the older man, just medium height and barrel-shaped. He had thin iron-grey hair, a square face that sagged under the chin, and he wore designer glasses that looked out of place on him, much too young for him, as if he were wearing Reeboks on his small dainty feet. The eyes behind the glasses, however, suggested they could open a steel safe without any twirling of a combination lock. His wife was wrong when she claimed she could read him like a book. There were some pages of him still uncut and only he knew what, if anything, was written there.
“Not an accident, Mr. Casement. It was murder. We’ve just come from giving Mr. and Mrs. Sweden the bad news.”
“Murder?” Casement did not look surprised; which surprised Malone. “Really? Oh well . . .” He sat down again, waved to the two detectives to take the chairs opposite him. “You never can tell what’s going to happen with today’s youth, can you?”
“Do you know much about today’s youth, Mr. Casement?”
“Only what I read in the newspapers.” The old eyes were steady behind the young man’s glasses. “If you’re asking me what I knew about young Rob, the answer’s not much. You should be asking someone who worked with him. The general manager of our stockbroking firm, for instance. He would be the one who saw Rob from day to day.”
“He transferred to your banking side a few weeks ago.”
The glasses flashed as he lifted his head. “Did he? I didn’t know that. I don’t have any executive position in the bank any more, I’m just chairman of the board. I only saw him on social occasions, he never mentioned it.”
“How did he strike you? On social occasions?”
Casement pondered; he appeared as if he had never really been interested in young Sweden. “Gregarious, I suppose one would say. He was very popular with the ladies.”
“Any particular one?”
Casement shook h
is head. “Not that I noticed.”
“Was he ambitious? I mean, he worked for you, would he have gone far in your corporation, the stockbrokers or the bank?”
“I really don’t know, Inspector. I told you, I’m only involved at board level, the day-to-day stuff is behind me. To tell you the truth, I was never interested in the boy’s future.”
Cormac Casement came of a rare species in the country’s pioneer society, the rich Irish. He was not one of the bog Irish, not one of those driven out of Ireland by the potato famine of the 1840’s. An ancestor had landed in the colony of New South Wales in 1842 and been given a large land grant on the southern slopes a couple of hundred miles south of Sydney. Wool had been the first interest, but gradually the family had widened its grasp, into cattle, mining, sugar and banking. There was no major corporation in the nation that had not had a Casement as an original investor. Society, which is a corporation in itself, had taken them up; or rather, the Casements allowed themselves to be taken up, for, though Irish, they had been gentlemen and ladies long before the colonials had learned how to handle a full teacup or an empty compliment. Theirs had been old money when the later fortunes of other colonists were still just dreams based on mortgages.
“Did he appear to you to take drugs?”
“Why do you ask me that?”
“You’re an observant man.”
Casement shook his head, turned away and looked out through the big window behind him. The glass here did not extend from floor to ceiling; Casement wanted some privacy, did not want to be spied upon by someone with binoculars. Still, the view was breathtaking. A container ship was passing under the Harbour Bridge, its decks half-empty; exports this year were still down, the foreign debt steady on the graph like a dead man’s heart signature. He was too old to be distressed by election results, though he had been disappointed when the Coalition had, as every cliché-ridden columnist put it, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The country would continue to go downhill under Labor; he could not bring himself to believe that men from the wrong side of the street could run a country. He turned back to the two detectives, glad of his age, glad that, though born rich, he was not starting life over again.