by Jon Cleary
“Not a chance. Cormac won’t let me spend a penny, not on extravagances. We’ve tightened our belts.” She patted the Hermés gold-buckled belt she wore. “He says we should be setting an example. I don’t know who to. But there it is. He would blow his top if I bought something like that.” She nodded at the paintings.
“Cormac blow his top?” said Rosalind. “I can’t imagine that. How is he, anyway?”
“Recovering. He’s been upset since they discovered the body of the boy who’s supposed to have burned him.” She twirled the champagne flute in her hand. “Father, haven’t you any real bubbly? Where’s the Taittinger I sent you?”
“You sent him some?” said Juliet. “I did, too.”
“Me, too,” said Rosalind.
All three sisters aimed their empty flutes like guns at their father. He shrugged and went away, came back with two bottles of Taittinger. “I was saving it for my retirement. As the natives say, things are crook.”
“Crook or crooked?” said Ophelia, who had never bothered, in all the years she had been here, to learn the native slang.
“I hope there’s nothing crooked?” said Bruna, looking around the three of them. A born cynic, he always looked for dirt in corners. “Have my sons-in-law told you something?”
“Nothing,” said Juliet. “So things are just crook, as you say. Bad. Parlous. Bloody dreadful.” She raised her glass and drank to her pessimism. “All this violence.”
“That’s what I mean.” Bruna had poured himself some champagne, but so far hadn’t touched it. “It was bad enough, Rob being killed. But then the strangers, too . . . One shudders.” He did, theatrically. “And Cormac, a harmless old man.”
“Not much older than you.” Ophelia sounded defensive, as if she had been accused of marrying an ancient.
“Is this all connected to your father-in-law?” Bruna looked at Juliet.
“Jack Senior?” She laughed. “Oh, come off it, Pa. He’s retired. All right, he must have been a terror at one time, a real criminal. But he’s respectable now. Well, almost.”
“He’s reformed?” asked Rosalind.
“No, retired. He says there’s a difference. If he’d reformed, he’d have a conscience about what he used to do. But he doesn’t. At least he’s honest about that. A lot of truly respectable people wouldn’t be so honest. In politics, for instance.”
“Don’t start that,” said Rosalind.
There was tension between the two younger sisters, always had been. Rosalind had never been the free-wheeler that the other two were; she had had her share of marriages, but still one less husband than her sisters had had. Her first husband had died of a heart attack while making love to her, a not unnatural way to go; he had died happy, or at least in ecstasy. He had not been discarded, as her sisters’ previous husbands had been, just cremated.
“Derek is as honest as it’s possible to be, considering. Politics is compromise and compromise isn’t necessarily being dishonest. In any case, this isn’t Roumania, the politicians here don’t have people bumped off.”
“Darling,” said her father, “don’t put down our country. It was once a wonderful place to live. Your mother loved it.”
“Even so,” said Ophelia, “they were always, as „Lind puts it, bumping off people.” She had spoken lightly; then she abruptly shivered. “Let’s stop all this talk about killing. I’ve had enough of it.” She stood up. “Coming, Julie? I’ll drop you off.”
They gave perfunctory kisses to their father and Rosalind, then were gone. As they walked away down the gallery Bruna looked after them. “You all have a certain queenliness. You got it from your mother.”
“Don’t mention it in front of Derek, he’s suddenly become a republican. Political compromise,” she explained. Then she said, “Why do you praise us so much, to our faces? Since I married Derek I’ve started to hear gossip about us. A lot of people think we’re stuck-up bitches. I don’t think I ever heard that about us before, but since I’ve become a Minister’s wife . . . Derek has enemies and I’ve inherited them by marrying him.”
“Enemies who want to kill him?” The caterers and the gallery assistant had gone; Bruna’s voice sounded unnaturally loud in the big empty rooms. “Do you mean they might have meant to kill him and not Rob?”
She usually wore her blonde hair in a chignon, but tonight it was loose; she shook her head and it fell down over her forehead, making her look younger. She also looked abruptly vulnerable. “Pa, I’m worried. Derek knows more about why Rob was killed than he’s letting on. He says no, when I question him. But I’m sure of it, sure that he does know.”
Bruna put down his glass. They were seated on a couch that stood against one wall, under a painting of what looked like a dozen or more wooden stakes in various shades of grey. In front of the couch was a low glass table on which was an unopened order book. He glanced around the gallery, the business part of his mind wondering how he could have expected to sell such a depressing collection in these depressed times. Then he looked at Rosalind, put a hand on her arm. He loved these girls of his, had worked hard to educate them, had steered them through their difficult times. This, however, was the first time he had been truly afraid for one of them. He knew enough of history to know what ambition could do to a man. But, it struck him only now, he didn’t really know Derek Sweden.
“Has Derek mentioned to you that he could become Premier?”
She frowned. “No. You mean he’s said something to you?”
“No. I had a chat with someone, never mind who.” It had been another Cabinet minister, a gallery client who liked to snap up bargains at art auctions. Though their hold on government was precarious, there was little or no solidarity in Cabinet. The back-stabbing could have been that usually found amongst Labor factions. Or in Roumanian cabinets. “They want to dump Bigelow, he’s a wimp. He sits on the fence on every issue, they’re calling him Cement-Crotch. Derek is the tip to take over from him. But—”
“But what?”
“If you speak to Derek about this, will you tell him where you got the information?” He always covered his tracks, even in the family.
She had long ago got over any disappointment she might have felt in him; mostly she was amused by his deviousness. But there was nothing to be amused about now. “You’re safe. Tell me what you know.”
He moved a little closer to her, the movement of a born gossip. “Derek did some insider trading on a takeover—someone on the board of one of the companies gave him the word on it. It was a bribe—the company wanted something done in Parliament and Derek got it through for them. He had to hide the shares he bought, so he warehoused them—the Americans call it parking—at Casement’s, had someone put them in their name. Presumably it was Rob. When the takeover went through, Derek made four million dollars. Some might call that peanuts, but right now I’d like such a shower of nuts.”
“Is it illegal, what he did?”
“Of course it is, both the insider trading and the warehousing. If it got out, it would mean the end of Derek in politics. Not to mention being Premier.”
“Who knows about this? Besides whoever told you?”
He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Presumably someone in Casement’s would know about it. Perhaps one or two in Cabinet, but not the Premier. On the other side, if that horrible man The Dutchman knew about it, he’d have had it all over the front pages by now. It happened six months ago.” He finished his champagne, picked up the unopened second bottle. Waste not, want not: he lived extravagantly, but at other people’s expense. “I think your husband would like Rob’s murder to die quietly, for the police to roll up their little blue-and-white strips of tape and disappear. He can never be sure of what they are going to turn up next.”
12
I
KIM WEETBIX waited outside the Koala Motor Inn off Oxford Street for the Greyhound bus to the Gold Coast. It was due to leave at three-thirty and the day had seemed extraordinarily long since she had arrived in th
e city with Annie on the early-morning train from Cabramatta. She had not gone up to Kings Cross with Annie; better to stay away from her usual haunts. Instead, she had wandered about the city’s main shopping centre, tempted at times in the better boutiques to do a little shoplifting, especially when she saw some outfit that would fit her into the Gold Coast scene, all bright colours and glass slippers. Twice she thought she saw patrolling policemen look at her and after lunch, retreating from the main streets, she had found herself wandering across the green sward of the Domain towards the Art Gallery. There, in the big halls, she had felt secure. Even, to her surprise, interested: for the first time in her life she looked at paintings and found some meaning in them.
At three o’clock she was at the bus station, had paid her sixty dollars for a one-way ticket and was waiting for the coach to pull in. Then the drunk approached her. “G’day, love. You going all the way?”
She had never liked drunks, especially Australian ones, though she had rolled a number. “Get lost, Jack.”
“Don’t be like that, love.” He was in his mid-forties and looked as if he might have been drunk for the last thirty years; his beer belly had not been grown on a fast diet. He had a round red face with the blood vessels seemingly on the outside of his skin, deep-set bleary eyes under thick brows, a Mexican bandit’s moustache, receding black hair with long sideburns and a sweaty stink that shrank one’s nostrils. Enough to turn off any woman: except that he had a roll of notes that, thrown with force, could have knocked any woman flat. He produced the roll. “Four days on the town, love. You wanna share it?”
“No, thanks.”
“You too good for me?” He suddenly looked dangerously angry. “Fucking slopehead—”
He tottered, fell back against the wall and let go a belch that turned the air alcoholic. His speech had suddenly slurred and he looked at Kim with eyes that had abruptly become glazed, just tiny orbs of brewery glass. “Howaboutit?” he mumbled, then slid down the wall and fell on his side, the roll of notes clutched loosely in his hand like a paper grenade.
There were other people waiting for the coach; but they had turned away as the coach now drew into the kerb. Kim glanced around her, saw the turned backs and at the same time saw her opportunity. She bent quickly, grabbed the roll of notes from the drunk’s hand, picked up her suitcase and moved towards the coach. She almost fell over with shock when the strong hand clutched her arm.
“Okay, miss.” He had come out of the doorway behind her, one of the Greyhound handlers. He was young and muscular and not at all sympathetic. “Inside! Don’t make a fuss.”
“What’s the matter, for Chrissake?” She was all innocent indignation, with the roll of notes still in her hand. “I was going to bring it in to you—”
“Bullshit,” said the young man. “We get hustlers like you around here every day in the week. Inside, I said. No fuss, hear me?”
“I wasn’t hustling!” She was beginning to panic. She struggled to break free, but his grip was too tight. “What’re you gunna do?”
“Call the police,” he said. Tell your story to them, not me.”
II
“Mrs. Pallister told me you were coming,” said Cormac Casement. “I gather she tried to persuade you not to, but you wouldn’t take no for an answer?”
“Afraid not, Mr. Casement. How’re you feeling?”
“Not the best. But that won’t make any difference, will it?”
Malone shook his head. He and Clements had been let into the penthouse by Casement himself; if there was a servant here, he or she was not visible. The penthouse was two-storeyed, the main sitting room rising to a gallery; Malone wondered what two people could do with all this space. If the homes of the other two Bruna sisters were luxurious, Ophelia Casement’s apartment went beyond that adjective. It was the sort of surroundings that aroused envy in even the most incorruptible cop. The two detectives, doing their best to hide their envy, managed to look unimpressed. Casement, having lived all his life amongst luxury, did not remark their indifference.
Still, as if afraid of letting the oxen loose amongst all the elegance, Casement led them into a study. This room was all leather and polished wood; two walls were solid with books, many of them leatherbound editions. There were also old prints, many of them sailing ships. It seemed that Casement liked to surround himself with the past. Except for the computer on an antique side-table: the timeless world of finance evidently could not be kept out.
“I used to sail, ocean sailing. I did the Sydney-Hobart a dozen times. Either of you sail?”
Neither of them did. “I get seasick on the ferry to Manly,” said Clements.
“Did you ever play sport?”
“I played for Easts, rugby league. Inspector Malone played cricket.”
“Of course! Why didn’t I connect you with that Malone?” It seemed to Malone that Casement was trying to delay asking why the two detectives had come to see him. “Do you miss it?”
“Occasionally.”
Casement offered the two of them a drink, but they declined and at last he settled down opposite them in one of the three red leather chairs. His hands were ungloved today, though still coated with gauze dressing. He was wearing a houndstooth jacket, corduroys and an open-necked dark blue shirt, but he did not look at ease, not even in this, his own den. He also, Malone thought, looked ten years older than he had the day they had first interviewed him.
“So?” He was the chairman of the board, calling the meeting to order.
“We’ve picked up the girl who tried to burn you,” said Malone.
There was no reaction from Casement at first, as if this point wasn’t expected on the agenda. Then: “Has she anything to say?”
“We haven’t interviewed her yet. We only got word just as we were leaving to come down here to see you.”
“Where is she? I presume she’d left Sydney?”
“She was about to. No, she’s being held at Surrey Hills police station at Police Centre. She’s been charged with rolling a drunk.”
“Rolling a drunk?”
“That’s not the legal term. She had almost three thousand dollars of some drunk’s money when a feller from Greyhound grabbed her.”
“Greyhound?”
“Greyhound buses.” Then it struck Malone that Casement was not ignorant of how drunks were rolled nor of the names of coach lines; he was playing for time, trying to get his thoughts in order. “You don’t look happy that we’ve picked her up.”
“What? Oh, I am. Of course I am.” He opened his hands on his lap, looked down at them as if now remembering that these were his connection with the girl. “I don’t know that I want to see her.”
“We’ll need you to identify her.”
“She was masked, she had a scarf round her face—” Then he saw the look on Malone’s face and reluctantly he nodded. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“There’s something else, Mr. Casement . . .”
“I thought there might be. What?”
Malone looked at Clements. “Fill Mr. Casement in, Russ.”
Clements took out his notes, glanced at them, then looked direct at the old man. His look was hard: there were times when he appeared to shed weight, or when bone replaced flesh. “Has Casement Trust had any money stolen from it in the past three months?”
Casement frowned. “I don’t know. Possibly. What sort of money are you talking about?”
“Twenty-five million.” Clements glanced at Malone and half-smiled: the amount had rolled off his tongue like a small each-way bet. “How’s your wallet?”
“Still in a ball. Sorry, Mr. Casement. A private joke.”
“I hope this question you’ve put to me isn’t some private joke.” Casement was building up some irritation. His glasses slipped down his nose and he pushed them back with an awkward hand. “Where’d you get this from?”
“We can’t tell you,” said Malone. “But we know Rob Sweden had something like that amount in mind. We think he wanted somet
hing much bigger than his rake-off from laundering money.”
“How? I mean how was he going to steal so much? The sum is ridiculous!”
“Not the way it’s been explained to us. Tell him, Russ.” He left it to the figures man.
Clements explained the method of theft. He sounded expert, as if he had been dealing in electronic transfers all his working life; once again Malone was amazed at how sharply the big man’s mind could work when it came to the mathematics of money. “We’d like to check with Casement Trust, with the bank executives.”
Casement took off his glasses, sat silent, staring at the two detectives, but as if not seeing them. Out in the drawing-room a clock struck the half-hour, like a golden gong. The sound seemed to break Casement’s stare; he put his glasses back on and his eyes came into focus again. His voice sounded like a croak: “There’s no need for that.”
The two detectives waited. Silence seeped into the study from the rest of the apartment like smoke, hung heavily. Casement had lifted his hands, rested them on the arms of his chair; they looked like half-roasted birds. His legs were together, but one foot was raised on its ball; his knee started to tremble and he abruptly dropped a hand on it. He looked down at it and managed a smile.
“An 18th century American lawyer once said, A sense of humour is the first requisite in a man; the second best sense is that of silence. This, I think, is when the senses should be reversed.”
He’s stalling again, Malone thought; and his own gaze became a stare. Casement got the point: he took a deep breath, as if entering a confessional:
“Yes, the money has been stolen, the sum you named. We know where it is and we are endeavouring to get it back.”
“Have you reported the theft? To the Reserve Bank? The ASC? Anyone?”
“No.”
“Why not? Twenty-five million isn’t a sum you mislay every day.”
Casement bridled at the sarcasm; he was far less friendly than he had been. “That’s a smart-aleck remark, Inspector.” Then he made a visible effort to calm himself. “Banks have had a bad press these past couple of years. There has been a lot of stupid management, incompetence—you name the mistakes, the banks have managed to make them. Not all of them, but far too many of them. If we let out that we’ve been robbed of twenty-five million by one of our own employees, the son of the Police Minister, indeed a nephew of mine by marriage, what do you think the media would make of that? There have been bigger losses, much bigger, but most of those were due to stupidity or incompetence, lending millions against useless paper collateral. This is just plain theft, the biggest in any Australian bank’s history. We could wear it in money terms, but it would cripple us as far as reputation. So we have kept a lid on it, only a few top people at the bank know of it, and we’re optimistic we can get the money back before we have to close our yearly accounts.”