by Jon Cleary
“Don’t let’s talk of dying,” said Juliet. “Not this week.”
Aldwych looked at her across the table. They were lunching on the apartment’s small terrace, sheltered from the unseasonal sun by a large umbrella; the Harbour was a silver glare, a black-clad windsurfer stuck in the middle of it like a table ornament. Aldwych was the only one not wearing dark glasses. Juliet’s gold-framed glasses were flattering, but not revealing. “Have the police talked to you yet about Rob Sweden’s murder?”
“Just the morning after it happened, not since then. Do you think they’ll come to see me and Jack?”
“You can bet on it.” He ate some ocean trout; Juliet, a smart girl, knew what her father-in-law liked and did not like. “You remember who’s in charge?”
“An Inspector Malone. A nice man, I thought.”
“He is.”
“Did you ever have anything to do with him, Jack?” Bruna had the Eastern European curiosity born in those who came from the crossroads of history. He knew Aldwych’s history and was not embarrassed by it. In the art world you met all types, never questioned where their money came from, otherwise you would lose half your sales. He knew that many of his, paid for in cash, had been a means of laundering the client’s money but, like many an art critic, he never looked behind the paint.
“Not officially,” said Aldwych, smiling to himself at how pious he sounded.
“There’s no reason why he should trouble us.” Jack Junior had been quiet; he was the sort of diner who concentrated on his food. He was as tall and as well-built as his father, but he had a tendency to put on weight; Juliet now had him on a diet. They had been married twelve months and he was deeply in love with her, but lately the thought troubled him that she had taken over the running of his life. In the nicest possible and loving way, of course. “We had absolutely nothing to do with Rob and the way he lived.”
“That’s not quite true, darling.” Juliet was dressed in lightweight cashmere today, with a little gold in the ears and on both wrists, nothing too eye-catching except to her father and other jewelry assayers. Aldwych was no expert, though in the past his hauls had frequently included gold and gems, but he was becoming adept at sizing up Juliet and the way she spent Jack Junior’s money. His money, for he was still Chairman of the board, though none of the figurehead board members of Landfall Holdings knew that; they thought Jack Junior was the Chairman, just because he sat in the chair. Aldwych watched Juliet as she went on: “Rob often came to me and „Lind and „Phelia for advice. Social advice.”
“You mean advice on women?” said her father.
She smiled at him, as if he were the only one of the three men at the table who understood the relations between men and women. “Yes. He was juggling about six or seven girlfriends.” Or nine or ten, if one counted herself and her sisters. She did not regret going to bed with Rob, an affair for her was of no more consequence than a luncheon engagement, but Rob’s death, and the manner of his dying, might prove that his ghost would be more trouble than his living self had been. “He looked upon us as women of the world.”
“Which you are, of course,” said her father, and his smile winked on again as he looked at the two Aldwych men. “When they were small girls, that was what I decided they would be. Women of the world. It just turned out to be a smaller world than I’d planned.”
“Meaning Sydney?” said Aldwych, who loved his home town, even though he had robbed it blind. “Would Roumania have been a bigger, better world?”
“Touché.” Bruna smiled again, but it was more forced this time. It was forty years since the Brunas had escaped from Roumania, smuggled aboard a ship out of Constanta that had taken them down to Istanbul. After the fall of Ceausescu three years ago he had thought of paying a return visit, his roots stirring again, watered by memories, but in the end he had known there was nothing to go back for or to: the past of his own and Ileana’s family was dead. “No, not Roumania, old chap. Europe, all of Europe.”
“Europe has nothing but trouble,” said Aldwych.
Then the cook-housekeeper, who had arrived from Roumania after the fall of Ceausescu and still couldn’t believe her luck in getting out of Bucharest and falling into a job like this, came out on to the terrace. She looked frightened, as well she might, considering her previous experiences: “Two policemen. Secret ones.”
“Secret ones?” said Aldwych.
“She means they are not in uniform,” said Juliet. “They must be detectives.”
“Malone, I’ll bet,” said Aldwych and looked with a certain pleasure as Malone and Clements were ushered out on to the terrace. “Scobie! We were just talking about you.”
“Have you had lunch yet?” said Juliet. “Won’t you join us?”
“Thank you,” said Clements, who, always hungry, would have joined cannibals if invited.
The two detectives sat down and, over small talk, were served fish by the housekeeper, who looked as if she were being called upon to serve the Securitate. Malone was between Juliet and her father, Clements between the two Aldwych men. Clements took wine, but Malone asked for just water.
“You’ll like that wine, Russ,” said Aldwych. “It’s our own. We have a half-interest in a small vineyard up in the Hunter. That’s our „86 semillon.”
Malone was savouring the ocean trout. “You seem to go in only for half-interests, Jack.”
“Keeps our name out of the papers,” said Jack Junior, and his father nodded in smiling agreement. “Why are you here, Inspector?”
Malone cleared his mouth of fish. “We’re finding out a few things about young Rob that worry us.”
All the forks at the table, except Clements’, paused in midair. “Such as?” said Juliet.
“Seems he had sources of income outside of his salary and bonuses at Casement’s.” He looked across the table at Jack Junior. “Did he ever do any moonlighting for you, Jack?”
Jack Junior put down his fork, aware of his father’s watchful eye. Eighteen months ago, in his one venture outside the law, he had almost run afoul of Malone. He had been involved with another strong-minded girl then and it had been his father who had broken up the relationship and saved him from making a fool of himself and, probably, doing time behind bars, “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead—”
“Why not?” Bruna’s smile flashed around the table. “Isn’t that the best and safest time?”
Jesus, thought the elder Aldwych, no wonder Roumania fell apart.
Jack Junior ignored the interruption: “I wouldn’t have a bar of Rob, Inspector. Not in business.”
“Why not? As Mr. Bruna says, let’s speak ill of the dead. Maybe we’ll learn something.”
“He was too unreliable, I always had the feeling that if he could make money on a shonky deal, he would.” It was his turn to sound pious; he saw the faint glimmer of a smile at the corner of his father’s mouth. What surprised him was that his wife, too, seemed on the point of smiling. “He was a borrower, too. He put the bite on me a week after my wife introduced me to him.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” said Juliet.
Malone interrupted before a husband-and-wife diversion could get in the way: “Did you lend him any money?”
“No. I told him I only lent money at the going rate and with firm security.”
“That’s the only way to be in business,” said Aldwych and winked at Malone. “In our business, right, Scobie?”
“I didn’t think you were still in business, Jack. Our business.”
Juliet glanced sideways at the policeman beside her, then across at her father-in-law. She had no experience of how the law and the criminal element worked. She did not read crime novels, watch crime films or television series, never read crime stories in the newspapers. She was not naive and knew that the world only went round because the good and the evil recognized they were two sides of the same coin and the toss was often a matter of luck. It intrigued her that these two men appeared to have a working arrangement and she
wondered if Inspector Malone was corrupt. That thought intrigued her, too, because corruption fascinated her.
“A figure of speech, Scobie.”
“Did you know him, Jack?”
“Never met him. Mr. Bruna here knew him, didn’t you, Adam?” Aldwych threw a right hook, playful to be sure, but he wouldn’t have minded if it had hurt.
“Oh yes, I knew him. I always thought he was perfectly charming. He never tried to borrow from me,” he told Jack Junior. “Perhaps he knew that gallery owners live from hand-to-mouth.”
“Stop crying poor mouth,” Juliet rebuked him.
“Was I doing that? How vulgar.” The smile was intended to blind them all.
The two detectives finished their fish, joined the others in the baked cheesecake dessert served by the still apprehensive housekeeper. Aldwych, never having known Rob Sweden, was the spectator here at the table and he sat back to enjoy it. “No dessert for me,” he said, and almost said, I’ll sit back and watch. “More wine, Russ?”
“No, it’s a beauty, Jack, but I’d better not. I’m driving.” Then he looked at Bruna, knowing it was time he took up the bowling. “Did Rob ever do any business with you, Mr. Bruna? I understand you’re a very successful gallery owner?”
“You’re interested in art?” Bruna made no attempt to hide his surprise at what the modern cop got up to in his idle time.
“No, I just do my homework.”
Top marks, thought Aldwych with malicious pleasure.
“I should imagine in the gallery game, a lot depends on recommendations and introductions, right? Did young Sweden ever bring you any customers? He operated in circles where people, young people, have money to spend.”
“We call them clients, Sergeant, not customers. Customers go to supermarkets. Young people with money to spend—and they are scarcer than they used to be, much scarcer—if they buy art at all they buy paintings, not sculpture. I exhibit paintings, but mostly sculptors’ work. They buy as an investment and sculpture, if it’s not from a big name, is not looked upon as much of an investment. No, Rob never brought me any clients.”
“So how did you know him?” said Malone.
“Oh, I met him occasionally here at Juliet’s. And Jack’s,” he seemed to add as an afterthought. “And he would come to exhibitions at my gallery. He knew a lot of pretty girls, models, nobodies but pretty, and they always make an exhibition opening more attractive. They distract the husbands while the wives buy things.”
The smile this time had all the blandness of a smear of white blancmange. What a snob, thought Aldwych who, for all his sins, had never been a snob, not even towards the police. But the bastard was hiding something, those dark glasses were hiding more than his eyes.
“So he never brought a—a client, someone who wanted to pay a lot of money for a painting or piece of sculpture? But pay in cash?”
“No.”
“Do you ever get any clients who want to pay in cash?”
“Occasionally.” The dark glasses were as opaque as darkest night; by some trick of light nothing was reflected in them. “But they are never strangers.”
“No names, no pack drill?” said Malone.
Then Bruna took off the glasses, squinting a moment as he adjusted to the sunlight. He had dark artful eyes that, Aldwych guessed, could match a buyer and a painting in seconds, far faster than any artist could paint, even a graffiti dauber. “It’s not unusual, Inspector, for buyers to ask for anonymity. It protects them from burglars. Pictures are always being stolen, they can always be sold to buyers who are even more anonymous than the original owners.”
“Does the tax man ever enquire into any of this?”
Bruna pushed away his half-eaten cheesecake. “You have spoiled my lunch, Inspector.” The smile flashed again. “We Roumanians are like the South Americans, we think taxation is a social disease that should never be mentioned in polite company.”
“Is that what you think, Jack?” Malone looked at Aldwych.
The old man spread his hand on his chest; the Pope could not have looked holier. “Scobie, I haven’t missed a tax payment in I dunno how long.”
“How about twelve months?”
“Scobie, I’m an honest man now, won’t you ever believe that?”
Jack Junior said, “I don’t think you should insult my father.”
His father waved a quietening hand. “It’s all right, Jack. Mr. Malone and I understand each other. Better, maybe, than any of the rest of you here at this table. Except you, Russ.” He looked around, but Malone and Clements were only on the periphery of his gaze; he was focussed on Jack Junior, Juliet and Adam Bruna. He was smiling, but it was an old crim’s smile, full of guile and cynicism. “It puzzles you, Julie, how Mr. Malone and I understand each other, right?”
“Yes, it does.” She was not afraid of her father-in-law. She had only a sketchy idea of his history; Jack Junior, naturally, did not boast of his father’s record. She made her own on-the-spot judgements of those she met and she had already filed her verdict on Jack Senior. He had killed and would kill again if necessary; he had retired, but his moral superannuation was flexible. He would kill, she was certain, if it meant saving his son from some awful fate. “You appear to be genuine friends.”
“Are we, Scobie?”
“We seem to be heading that way,” said Malone; but everyone at the table recognized the caution in his voice. He pushed back his chair. “I think we’d better be going.”
“You won’t stay for coffee?” Juliet didn’t want the detectives to leave. They might be dangerous, to whom, she didn’t know; but they had made the day interesting. Lately she had started to become bored, which can happen when you discover you have married the wrong partner.
“I’ll come down with you.” Aldwych rose, pulled down his waistcoat. He always wore a three-piece suit; Shirl, his wife, had always insisted that he should camouflage what she called his Australian belly. Shirl was dead now, but in various ways, he still paid his respects to her every day.
“Can we give you a lift?” Clements asked.
“No, there’s a hire car waiting for me downstairs. I never drive, never did. I always had a wheel-man. I used him in getaways,” he explained to Juliet and her father. He delighted in shocking the straights of the world, though he had his doubts about how straight Bruna was. He ignored Jack Junior’s frown of disapproval. “Take care of yourself, Julie. And of Jack.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “I’m taking care of you, too, you dear old man.”
Going down in the lift Aldwych said, “She’s a great bullshit artist, my daughter-in-law. Women have always been better at it than men. It took me a long time to find that out.”
“Me, too,” said Clements, who, until he met Romy, had changed relationships almost as often as he changed his shirts. “I never understood why there weren’t more con-women.”
“Maybe there were. Maybe they were so good, they never got caught.”
The two chauvinists nodded at each other while Malone said, “What about Mr. Bruna?”
“You notice his hair? He not only sells to the blue-rinse set, he’s one of them. You think I’d look better with a blue tint, Russ?”
“It’d suit you, Jack. No bullshit.”
“Jack,” said Malone, “that wasn’t what I meant.”
Aldwych looked at him quizzically. “Scobie, are you trying to recruit me as a gig? Don’t waste your time, son.”
“Russ and I are trying to solve three murders. Yeah, three. You read about the corpse that went missing from the morgue?”
“How about that? Stealing stiffs. Even I never went in for that. So what’s the connection with young Sweden?”
“We don’t know, except that they were both done away with by the same method. A sharp instrument here—” Malone touched the back of his neck. “It’s not a common way of knocking someone off.”
They had reached the ground floor, walked out through the lobby into the short circular driveway where a white
Mercedes with HC plates and darkened windows stood waiting. A uniformed driver got out and opened the rear door. But Aldwych paused out of earshot of him. “Scobie, Russ, I know nothing. That’s the truth. If I find out anything that’ll help you, I’ll let you know.”
“But?” said Malone.
“But what?”
“But not if it concerns Jack Junior, right?” The old man’s face went suddenly stiff and Malone went on, “Jack, I’d never ask you to inform on your own son. But he almost got himself into bother with that girl Janis Eden eighteen months ago. She’s still loose, you know.”
“He hasn’t seen her, I can promise you that. I scared the shit outa her and she took me at my word. I’d come outa retirement if ever she came back and started making trouble.” A roughness had crept back into his voice, anger, controlled though it was, scraping the skin of the gang leader he had been.
“Righto, I take your word on it. But if you hear anything on any of the others . . .”
“What others? The whole clan? Juliet’s sisters and their husbands? You think Cormac Casement would get himself involved in something dirty?” He shook his head. “You’re barking up the wrong tree there, Scobie.”
“What about Derek Sweden?”
Aldwych shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I vote for him, or anyway his party, because I’m a conservative. What are you grinning at, Russ? You wouldn’t expect a bloke who’s earned his money like I did, you wouldn’t expect me to be a socialist, would you?”