by Jon Cleary
Malone told him, waiting for an explosion of indignation; but there was none. Sweden listened without interrupting, then sat back and was silent for a full minute. Then he nodded. “I knew all that. Not about the other two kids being involved, just my son. I found out a couple of weeks ago.”
“What did you do?”
“I blew the shit out of him.”
“To what effect?”
“I don’t know. He took it pretty quietly, more so than I’d expected. We were never the best of mates, even though he was an only child. We never fought, but somehow we were never close. When his mother died, he thought I didn’t waste any time in marrying again. What I’m telling you doesn’t go out of this room, okay?”
“So long as you don’t report me to my AC for talking back.”
Sweden shook his head, looked on the point of smiling. “Jesus, Malone . . . Have you ever thought of going into politics? Never mind, don’t answer that.”
“How did you find out what your son was up to?”
“That firm you mentioned, Pinatubo. When it set up in business here two, three years ago, I was Minister for Health. I had to okay a couple of contracts for them, medical equipment for a hospital and the city morgue, as I remember it. They seemed okay to my department at the time. Then all of a sudden they stopped submitting bids and we started to hear rumours about them.”
“What sort of rumours?”
“That they were really owned by the yakuza, the Japanese crims. We have no proof, they’re still being investigated by the Securities Commission, but the last thing I wanted was Rob being associated with them. I don’t think he knew who he was really dealing with, he sometimes wasn’t as smart as he thought he was.” He picked up his glass, finished his drink. “If this gets out, the Opposition will make all the capital it can out of it. And our majority’s so slim. Do you know Hans Vanderberg?”
Malone grinned. “Do you mean do I know what he’s like? Sure I know. When he was Police Minister . . . Well, never mind.” Political histories are written; but histories of the relations between ministers and their departments never see the public light. Yet the past, even yesterday, is thick with gossip, innuendo, suspicion and often downright hatred. A hypocritically clean sheet was always opened to the new Minister . . . “This other case, the body stolen from the morgue, it’s connected to Pinatubo. I can’t find any connection between your son and the dead man, his name was Kornsey, but there is one somewhere along the line. You’ve never met Tajiri, the feller who supposedly runs Pinatubo now?” Sweden shook his head. “What about Belgarda, the original manager? He’d have been running it when you signed those contracts with them.”
“Once I met him, but I can’t remember him. He came to some reception we gave, when they got their first contract. I can’t help you with any detail about him. As a Minister you meet hundreds of businessmen like him.”
“We presume he’s a Filipino. So’s your maid, isn’t she?”
Sweden’s raised eyebrows went up beyond what would have been his hairline in the past. “Luisa? You’ve already questioned her.”
“Not me. Can I talk to her now?”
“Sure.” Sweden stood up. “In here?”
“No, I’d rather talk to her out in the kitchen, alone. All right?”
A narrow hallway led from the study out to the kitchen. Sweden led the way, pushing open the swing door into the kitchen and calling, “Luisa!”
The kitchen was empty, cold and clinical as a morgue but with no bodies, not even one. Luisa was gone: her bedroom, too, was empty. The closet doors were open, there were empty spaces amongst the clothes on the racks. The rear service door to the apartment was slightly ajar, as if Luisa, leaving, had not wanted its closing to be heard.
Out in the big living room Rosalind said, “She’s not there? But I spoke to her five minutes ago.”
“Maybe she’s gone downstairs for something,” said Juliet.
“I don’t think so,” said Malone. “She’s packed a bag and left. Does she have a car?”
“No.” Sweden was perturbed. “Do you think she’s connected to Pinatubo, too?”
“I’m not even making a guess at this stage. Could be. Probably. How did she come to you?”
“From an agency,” said Rosalind. “She came to us five, six months ago. She had excellent references, I took her on right away. Good help is so hard to get these days, despite the recession.”
“We have the same trouble in the Service,” said Malone; he saw Juliet smile, just a twist of her full lips. Rosalind and Sweden didn’t smile and he went on, “Did you talk to her about your stepson’s murder?”
“Of course not. It was none of her business.” Rosalind sounded haughty.
“I think it may have been very much her business.” He glanced at Sweden. “She told one of my men that your son had given her fifty dollars to go out to the movies. Maybe he gave her nothing, we had only her word for that. Maybe she let the murderer in, then went out, to be out of the way when it happened.”
All at once Rosalind lost her composure; she shivered. “God, it’s all getting worse! It’s—bizarre, Frightening!”
Juliet put an arm round her. “Be calm, darling. Nobody else is going to be hurt. That’s right, isn’t it, Derek?”
She addressed the question to her brother-in-law, but looked at both men. The answer was in their faces.
8
I
SATURDAY AFTERNOON Malone was playing tennis down at the public courts at Coogee with Keith Cayburn, his neighbour, and two other men with whom he played regularly. He looked forward each weekend to the exercise, serving powerfully, hitting hard on both forehand and backhand, not really caring whether he and his partner won or lost, just intent on getting the past week out of his system. He was a natural player, but, as in his cricket, he might have been better had he taken the game more seriously. But for him sport was sport and dedication was not in his weekend lexicon. Even as he crossed over between games on this Saturday afternoon, a well-known marathon runner ran by on the road outside, all sinew and bone, legs pumping, face gaunt and aged by dedication, running willingly into arthritis, crippled knee-joints and an early grave. Malone, who knew the runner, gave him a derisive wave and the athlete raised an answering arm, like that of a drowning iron-man swimmer.
“Inspector Malone?”
Malone frowned, not recognizing the newcomer who had appeared at the back of the court. He was tall and athletic-looking and his hair had gone grey along the temples since Malone had last seen him. “Sergeant Kenthurst?”
“Superintendent now.” He had a long-jawed bony face, a dark military-style moustache and quick brown eyes that were frank rather than foxy. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but . . .”
“Can it wait till I finish the set? We’re nearly there.”
Malone’s concentration had been distracted; the set took longer than expected, mainly due to his errors. What was Kenthurst doing here on a Saturday afternoon, all the way up from Canberra? Had the Federal police suddenly become involved in the Sweden case? He hoped not. The stew had already become too thick and another cook in the kitchen was the last thing he wanted. When the match was over, he and Keith Cayburn had lost it.
“Sorry, Keith, I blew that. I’ll sit the next one out, get someone else to take my place.”
“Police business?” Malone nodded and Cayburn said, “Do you get extra pay if you bring a crim to justice at the weekend?”
Malone grinned, went across to Kenthurst and led him to some chairs at the side of the clubhouse. Kenthurst waited till each of them had opened his can of light beer, then said, “Terry Kornsey, you were making enquiries about him?”
“To the FBI in Washington. You acting for them now?”
“We do, but not on this one. The US Marshals’ Service has been in touch with us. Kornsey was their pigeon. They’ve been looking after him under their Witness Protection Scheme.”
“What was he—Mafia?”
Kenthurst nodded
. He was dressed in a navy blazer, tattersail-checked shirt, police tie, cavalry twill trousers and desert boots; he looked like a staff officer from Duntroon, the military school near Canberra. A major-general, at least; Malone wondered what a superintendent’s pay was compared to his own. There was no rank of inspector in the Federal service. “He turned informant against the Mob in New York, his evidence sent three of the bosses to jail for life. He’s been in Australia seven years under the Protection Scheme. His real name is—was Vincent Bassano.”
“Did you people know he was here?”
“No. They don’t take us into their confidence on those things. We knew nothing of him till they contacted us this morning. My commander put me on a plane for Sydney after we’d talked to them. I’m sorry about spoiling your afternoon, but I have to be back in Canberra this evening, the Prime Minister is having a dinner for senior officers.”
Can’t miss that, can we? “How did you know where to find me?”
“Your wife told me.”
Malone hated the thought of Lisa being disturbed for police business, especially on the weekend. “What do the Yanks want us to do?”
“They don’t want any more than the usual paperwork.” Kenthurst smiled, his teeth very white under the dark moustache. “That he’s officially dead and buried—”
“He’s not, not yet. All we have of him is a foot and half a leg.”
“That should satisfy them. I’d guess they work the same way as us, get the paperwork done so his name can be removed from the payroll. They paid him full subsistence for two years. Then he’s bitten them for odd sums since then.”
“He was adding to it, you know. He’d raised capital from somewhere, he was using it to deal on the futures exchange.”
“Do you think his Mafia mates caught up with him? They blew up his parents while he was giving evidence. Bombed their house, killed them both. Nice types.”
Malone pulled on a sweater against the cool of the afternoon as the sun moved round behind the clubhouse. From over at Coogee oval, a hundred yards away, there came a roar as someone scored a try in the rugby match being played there. A youth and a girl leaned against the wire netting at the end of the court, watching a mixed doubles match; the boy and the girl each had a hand grasping the netting as if trying to hold themselves upright while their passion for each other weakened their knees; their other arms were wrapped round each other, hands groping over buttocks like horny crabs. From the courts there came the soft thump of a ball on racquet and the occasional shout or squeal. An ordinary Saturday afternoon as background to talk of murder and Mafia; but Malone knew the world was painted in colours as juxtaposed as these. “They could have, but we’ve got no evidence. At the moment our lead suspects are Japanese and Filipinos.”
“Japs? You mean the yakuza?” Kenthurst twisted his thin lips, the moustache wriggling. “We don’t want them. They’re here, we know that, but so far they’ve kept a low profile. The PM has been preaching closer trade ties with Japan, but there’s a limit.”
Malone grinned. He had met Kenthurst five years ago for the first and only time and found the man humourless and stiff with Canberra starch and superiority; promotion and time had humanized him. “Spoil his dinner for him tonight, tell him who we think are now in business.” He stood up. “Between you and me, Ron, I’m having to treat this case pretty gently. It’s linked with the homicide of young Sweden, our Minister’s son.” Kenthurst pursed his lips. “Don’t mention that at the dinner tonight or it’ll curdle the vichyssoise. We’ve got no evidence of a direct link, but if the Yanks have anything that might help on what they know of—what was his name? Bassano? If they have anything, I’d be grateful for it. Are you the one handling things direct with them?”
“For the time being. I don’t think it’s going to last more than a week or two.”
“Stick with it, as a favour to us. I don’t want this spread around any more than is necessary. I’ve got a Minister, two ACs and an Opposition Leader breathing down my neck and I don’t like the smell of any of it.”
Kenthurst put out his hand. “Let me have what you have, the bare bones. Enough to satisfy my chief and the US Marshals’ Service. Then we’ll see what turns up when I put some questions to the Yanks.”
“A fax’ll be on your desk Monday morning. Why did they send you all the way up here instead of just getting me on the phone?”
“That’s where I’m to ask you a favour—for the US Marshals’ Service. They don’t want it broadcast that they’ve been hiding ex-Mafia out here, they’d rather the less people know about the Witness Protection Scheme, the better. If you can work it, they’d like it if you can keep Bassano’s history out of your report.”
“That’s asking a lot.”
“They appreciate that. But there are political implications—” He came from the city propped up by political implications; Canberra would fall down, a hollow shell, if politics, implied or otherwise, deserted it. “The Brits started this country by dumping their unwanted crims out here. You can imagine what the Lefties would make of it if the Yanks started doing the same thing.”
“How many protected ex-Mafia do they have out here?”
“I have no idea, they’d never divulge that. Maybe none, now Bassano’s dead. Maybe a dozen. You notice how basketball, baseball, the American games are catching on out here?” He smiled to show he was just kidding. “So far the only ones who know who Bassano really was are my commander, you and I. Phone me Monday, don’t fax.”
“I’ll have to tell my boss, Greg Random. He’s the one who decides what goes further.”
“Is he likely to make waves?”
“Greg? He wouldn’t make a wave if he farted in his bath.”
“You should move to Canberra. You speak the language.”
“What’s it like down there, now Labor’s been re-elected?”
“Peculiar. The rumour is that Cabinet has made a mass appointment with a psychiatrist—with Medicare, of course—to see what will happen to their pysches if they act gracious in victory. They’ve only been taught to put the boot in.”
Kenthurst left to go back to Canberra, another planet. Malone went back on court and played badly. The Mafia and the yakuza: who needed them to call the shots? He mis-hit a forehand drive into Cayburn’s back, causing another wave, this time of indignation.
When he got home, exercised physically and mentally, Lisa said, “Did that Federal man catch up with you? More trouble?”
After his shower he sat on the side of their bed in his underpants and told her; if the US Marshals’ Service thought wives should be forbidden its secrets, then none of its marshals could be married. She sat opposite him in the bedroom’s one tub chair, a slim leg showing through the opening of her bathrobe, her hair still wet from her own shower. She looked beautiful and desirable, but he had other things on his mind. “How do you fancy Tibooburra? Out there I’d be my own boss, just checking the rabbit-proof fence, drying out the occasional drunken drover . . . No Mafia, no yakuza, no politicians, no greedy money-hungry bastards—”
“You’re getting angry.” She got up, came across and stood in front of him, opened her robe and pushed his face against her breasts. “There, have a nibble.”
He did. “You’re disgusting. You think sex is the answer to everything. Where are the kids?”
There was the sound of a key in the front door. “There they are now. Tough luck, old chap.”
She closed her robe and went out to greet the children, while he, half-aroused, sat on the side of the bed and wondered how many other frustrations he would face in the coming weeks.
II
“Our Premier is a bugger for stating the irremediable obvious.” Jack Aldwych was showing the benefits of his retirement reading, though he was careful how he got out irremediable, “That’s as distinct from telling the truth.”
Bruna looked at him with surprise. “Such cynicism! You could be East European.”
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
Aldwych was in good humour.
“Of course.” Bruna, too, was in good humour. He always was when his daughters, any one of them, entertained him in the manner for which he had raised them. He loved these outings on the Harbour, moving majestically past lesser craft crowded with hoi polloi. Somewhere back in his lineage there was an ancestor who was an asterisk in the Almanack de Gotha, that bible of snobbery, and he had inherited the talent of waving at the peasants with the proper kindly condescension. The peasants, at least those on the harbour, usually replied with a hoi-polloi finger.
Jack Junior and Juliet’s cruiser was a fifty-two-footer with two 450-horsepower diesels and an interior that always made Jack Senior think of a floating brothel, though he had never been aboard one of the latter. He had no idea what it had cost Jack Junior, but whatever the cost, it would have been too much; Aldwych himself had never gone in for expensive toys. Juliet had decorated it, not letting taste get in the way of its luxury. She spent money wisely; that is, never from her own purse. This was a company boat, something her father-in-law would not know till next year’s accounts were in. In the meantime she wooed him with its luxury, trusting that he would fall in love with it and not complain about the cost. She had misread him.
She came and sat beside him under the awning on the aft deck. Her father had got up and gone into the saloon to put his arm round his woman for today, a grey-, almost white-haired beauty who was notorious as an always-available freeloader. There were two other couples on board, two young executives of Landfall Holdings and their equally young wives. Juliet knew that the two old men in her life liked to look at attractive young women; she knew her father was lecherous, but she could never be sure of Jack Senior.
“Enjoying yourself?”
“I’m expected to, aren’t I?” His smile was friendly; but he could have smiled like that as he killed someone. He was still dangerous, she was sure of that, but the danger of him thrilled her. Had he been thirty years younger she would have married him instead of his son.
She put a silky hand on his hessian one. “Jack, dear, why don’t you trust me?”