by Jon Cleary
Last night, when he had got home, he had phoned the Riverwood police station near Lugarno and suggested a twenty-four-hour watch be kept on the Kornsey home. “Is that an order, Inspector?” said the senior constable who had taken the call.
“It’s your beat. You want a second murder to keep you going?”
“Well, I’m not au fait with the ramifications, sir—”
Malone could just hear the old-timers, Jack Greenup and Thumper Murphy, being au fait with the ramifications. Education was replacing the sledgehammer. “Talk to your patrol commander. All I’m doing is recommending you take care of Mrs. Kornsey’s safety.”
When he had got off the phone in the kitchen, Lisa, sipping a cup of hot chocolate, had looked at him with concern. “You sound as if you have whatever-you-call-it on your liver.”
“Shit.”
“Yes, that’s it. I always have trouble remembering four-letter words.” But she leaned back as he passed behind her chair, put up her face to be kissed. “Darling, this one is getting you down.”
“Don’t they all?” He made himself some chocolate and sat down opposite her. “The trouble is, with this one I’m not sure the killing has stopped.”
“Can you do anything to prevent more killing?”
He shook his head. “We can try to stop Mrs. Kornsey being killed, but that’s about all.”
There was the sound of a key in the front door and in moment Claire came down the hallway and into the kitchen. “Oh, you’re still up.”
“Dad’s only just got in,” said Lisa. “Someone hit you in the mouth?”
Claire grinned with embarrassment, wiped the smeared lipstick from her mouth. “There, that better?”
“How’s Jay?” said Malone.
Eighteen months ago Jason Rockne’s mother and her lesbian lover had murdered his father. The two women were now doing life and the boy and his younger sister were living with their grandfather and their stepgrandmother. Jason had gone through a terrible trauma, an horrific jungle of emotions, but somehow he had kept his balance. It pleased Malone, who had arrested the mother, that Claire, his daughter, had helped the boy through his crisis: The pleasure came from pride in Claire, not from the prospect of any future in their relationship. She was only sixteen and he was sure the next four or five years were lined with young men, each of whom would be the love of her life till she would settle for some bastard whom, Malone knew with certainty, he would hate on sight.
“He’s okay.” Claire sat down with a glass of milk. “He’s finding uni. hard, he says. He’s not sure now that he wants to do chemical engineering when he graduates.”
“What does he think he’d like to do?” said Lisa.
Claire looked sideways at her father. “He thinks he’d like to be a cop, a detective.”
“Jesus!” Malone put down his mug, somehow managing not to spill any of the chocolate. “Why? You’d think he’d seen enough of cops to do him for the rest of his life.”
“I told him that. He just says he’s more interested in human nature than he is in science and chemicals.”
Lisa said quietly, “He sounds as if he’s still trying to work out what made his mother do what she did.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Claire. “But I didn’t tell him.”
“If he’s interested in what makes human nature tick,” said Malone, “tell him to be a school teacher. Kids simplify everything that adults eventually do.”
“Kids don’t murder. Except the psychopaths.”
“There are more of them around now than you realize. Maybe not at Holy Spirit, but they’re around. And not all of them are psychos. You don’t have to be one to belong to a colour gang.”
He was concerned at the increasing violence in schools; so far he had not been called in on a school homicide, though he expected a call any day. Then his theory would be tested that kids simplified everything that adults did. In the meantime a collection of adults were pulling him through a maze that no schoolyard would ever resemble.
“I’m going to bed.”
As he went through towards the front bedroom he heard Claire say, “He looks tired. Old.”
“Perhaps you should invite Jay around to see him when he looks like this,” said Lisa. “It might change Jay’s mind about being a detective.”
Malone had not slept well last night and now here he was in his office with Jack Aldwych having just added another twist to the maze. He was staring into space, as if asleep with his eyes open, when Clements, lounging against the door jamb, said, “You want me to come back later?”
Malone shook his head, like a dog coming out of water. “Sorry. I was in a maze then—”
“A daze?”
“No, a—forget it. You got anything?”
Clements remained lounging in the doorway; he, too, looked tired. Since his engagement Romy had somehow succeeded in smoothing out his rumpled look; but this morning he appeared in need of a good steam-pressing, especially his face. It was lined and baggy, as if it, and not the rest of him, had lost weight overnight.
“Romy’s just called. Kim was HIV-negative, so she’s done the autopsy. Kim must of insisted on safe sex with that creep Kelsey. It’s official—the same MO as they used on Rob Sweden and Kornsey. It’s a message, all right. Do we pass it on to the others in this mess?”
“Maze.”
“Eh?”
“Maze. That’s what this is. If we pass on the message—who to? Casement, his wife, Sweden, his wife, the Aldwyches?—are we going to have one of them suddenly head for the bush? If the Japs, the yakuza, have organized these killings, I don’t think I want to know. Tibooburra may not be a bad option, after all.”
“You’re putting your money on Mr. Tajiri? We dunno if he even exists, nobody’s ever met him.”
“He exists. Jack Aldwych has just been on to me. Last night he was at the Congress Hotel, he saw the young bloke who took him for the ride. He was with two other Japs. They went somewhere in a stretch limousine, number—” He handed over the scrap of paper on which he had noted the number. “Get Andy on to it. I want to know where the limo driver took the three Japs.”
Clements took the piece of paper. “While Andy’s working on this, I’ll get on to the Congress. There’s a girl on the reception desk I took out a coupla times. She’ll let me know what Japs are staying there.”
“I wish I had your contacts. What’re you going to do when you’re married? Girls don’t give information to married men, not nice girls.”
Clements was back in five minutes, no light of hope in his big face. “There are seventy-eight Japanese staying at the Congress. I’d forgotten—they own forty-nine per cent of it. But—” He seemed to be trying to lift the bags in his face. “Fourteen Japanese booked in yesterday. Four married couples, four businessmen in a party, and two businessmen who came in as a pair. Mr.—” He glanced at his notebook. “Mr. Kushida and Mr. Isogai. They were booked in from Tokyo by their firm, the Kunishima Bank.”
“Bankers? Who do bankers usually come to see?”
“Other bankers? I think we’re gunna find out that that limo took those three Japs to see someone at Shahriver International. Maybe Kunishima owns part of Shahriver.” He was suddenly revived; he put his head out of the door and yelled, “Andy! How’s it coming?”
Andy Graham appeared in a moment. “No problems, mate. The limo belongs to Sundance Hire Cars, out in Rosebery. The driver was a guy named Barker, it was booked to the Hotel Congress, to the account of a Mr. Kushida and he took Mr. Kushida and two other Japs to The Wharf apartments.”
II
Malone and Clements looked at each other. “Sweden or Casement?” said Clements.
“Casement. Another bank. Thanks, Andy.”
“No worries.” Graham galloped away.
Malone rose to his feet. “I don’t think we’ll report this one to Zanuch or the Minister till we’ve checked it out.”
All the way down to Circular Quay he wondered if he really wanted to find
a connection between Cormac Casement and the Japanese, especially if the latter were yakuza. He liked the older man, respected him. Though Malone was a gentle radical, he had some conservative traits; he admired some of the older ways and standards. If Casement had gone against the grain of generations, Malone knew he would not feel any satisfaction from confronting the older man with it.
The doorman at The Wharf told them that Mr. Casement was across the road at his office. “He’s back at work, he says he’s much better. I spoke to him this morning. You got the two young bastards who tried to burn him, that right?”
“No,” said Clements. “Someone got to them first.”
“Same difference, so long’s you got „em.” He went back behind his desk, secure in his judgements.
Across in the Casement building Mrs. Pallister, on the phone to Malone downstairs at the security desk, was quite adamant that Mr. Casement couldn’t see them. “He has someone with him right now and he has a board meeting in half an hour. It’s out of the question, Inspector. Call me this afternoon and I’ll see if I can fit you in around five.”
She hung up and Malone grinned at the security man. “The Wicked Witch says for us to go right on up.”
“You must have a way with you,” said the security man. “She gave me specific instructions the Old Man was seeing no one today.”
“It’s the police charm school. We’re both graduates.”
He and Clements rode to the fiftieth floor, stepped out of the lift and tried their charm on the girl on the outer desk. She looked at them dubiously. “He has someone with him.”
“Japanese?”
The question seemed to puzzle her. “Japanese. No. No—it’s Mrs. Casement.”
Malone wondered if that was a bonus; but it was too late to back out now. “Tell Mrs. Pallister we’re here. It’ll make her day.”
The receptionist smiled at that, but said nothing. She went through into the inner office and was back a moment later with Mrs. Pallister, the latter ready for battle: “I told you Inspector—”
“I know what you told us, Mrs. Pallister, but that’s not the way we work, being told when we can and cannot see customers. Now let Mr. Casement know we’re here and we’ll stay here till he sees us.”
She glared at him for a moment; but she was too well-bred to give way to anger in front of her junior. She spun round and disappeared. The receptionist blew out a soft gasp. “You haven’t made my day. She’ll be in a terrible mood now.”
“Sorry. Join the police force. We’re always in a good mood.”
Mrs. Pallister came back. “Mr. Casement will see you. But remember—he has a board meeting in half an hour.”
“He may have to miss it. Thanks, Mrs. Pallister. We’re just like you, y’know, only doing our job.”
She was not appeased; her loyalty had only one direction. She opened the door to Casement’s office and ushered them in. “The police,” she said and made it sound as if she were introducing the Gestapo.
Casement sat at his desk. Ophelia sat beside him, her chair close to his. Here we go, thought Malone, the battle lines drawn.
Ophelia said, “You seem to have a habit of barging—”
But Casement put a hand on her arm; the fingers, still brownish-yellow from the dressing, seemed to claw at her. “Let’s hear what the Inspector has to say.”
“May we sit down? Sergeant Clements and I may be here for some time.”
“Of course.” Casement’s glasses had been on his desk; he picked them up and put them on. He had looked aged without them; now he looked vulnerable, a man hiding behind clear glass. “Has something come up, something to clear up this whole damn mess?”
“We’re not sure. You read about Kim Weetbix’s murder? The girl you refused to lay charges against? Or anyway to identify.”
Casement nodded. There was silence for a moment, then with some asperity but quietly he said, “You’re not blaming me for her death, are you?”
Malone, one eye on Ophelia, said, “If she were still in custody, she’d still be alive.”
“That’s preposterous—” But again Ophelia had her arm pressed by her husband’s yellow claw.
“You haven’t come here just to accuse me of that, Inspector.”
“No. I just thought you might like to live with it.” All the sympathy Malone had felt on the way here for Casement had abruptly evaporated. “No, we’re here to ask you about some Japanese visitors you had last night.”
“What Japanese?”
Malone left the details to Clements, who had them at his tongue’s tip: “A Mr. Kushida and a Mr. Isogai, both from Kunishima Bank in Tokyo. The other Japanese, we think, was Mr. Tajiri.”
One hand was still clutching Ophelia’s arm, a silencer; the other was toying with a silver paperweight. It was a yacht on a heavy base, and Malone wondered if it was a model of the boat Casement had once raced. A reminder of carefree days . . . “Have you had me under surveillance?”
“Why should we do that, Mr. Casement?” said Malone. “No, we just did our job. Detective work. Was the third man Mr. Tajiri?”
He was watching Ophelia, waiting for the enquiring look at her husband; but there was none. The indignation had gone, too; her face had closed in, the beautiful eyes wary and dark. He had a sudden moment of indecision: what if the Japanese had come to see her?”
“We think,” said Clements, the change bowler, “Mr. Tajiri had something to do with the murder of the two kids who tried to burn you. And that makes us think he might also have had something to do with the murders of Rob Sweden and Mr. Kornsey.”
Malone remarked that Ophelia didn’t ask who Mr. Kornsey was; her husband must have filled her in on all the personae in this mess. Maze. “If you can put us in touch with Mr. Tajiri, Mr. Casement, maybe we can clear up all the murders. Your brother-in-law is on our backs to do that.”
“You have a sharp tongue, Inspector.” But Casement made the comment almost as an aside, something to fill the void while he thought what he really wanted to say. Then he took his hand off his wife’s arm, folded one hand gingerly within the other and said, “The other gentleman’s name is Itani, not Tajiri. At least that’s how he was introduced to me.”
“And Kushida and Isogai, you’ve met them before?”
A slight hesitation: “Yes.”
“Would they have anything to do with the missing twenty-five million?” The sum rolled off his tongue without effort; it was remarkable how other people’s money was not as valuable as your own.
“Why should it concern them?”
He’s fencing, thought Malone; who had fenced with the best of them. He turned to Ophelia. “Were you at the meeting, Mrs. Casement?”
“Only as a hostess,” she said coolly. “I wasn’t privy to what was being discussed.”
Privy: she might have been coached by a lawyer. “So the murders weren’t mentioned.”
“You have a blinkered view of business discussion,” said Casement.
“The Japs didn’t even comment on the attack on you,” said Clements.
“Well, yes. But only in passing. The Japanese are very polite about other people’s affairs.”
“So are we,” said Malone. “Except in a case of murder. Or five murders—no, six. There’s one you probably don’t know about, a girl who worked for one of the companies Mr. Tajiri was connected with.” Casement showed no reaction and Malone went on, “You’re stonewalling. Do you want to send for your lawyer and we’ll really get down to cases?”
“We might send for my brother-in-law,” said Ophelia, “and have you taken off this case.”
“That would suit me.” But it wouldn’t; all at once he wanted to stay with this. Tibooburra receded into the dust-haze of the far north-west. “But it wouldn’t look good if ever it got into the papers. Let’s stop threatening each other. Sergeant Clements and I might walk out of here with no satisfaction, but we’ll come back. Again and again. That’s the way we work.”
There was a knock on the d
oor and Mrs. Pallister looked in. “Mr. Casement, there is the board meeting—”
Casement stared at her as if not recognizing her; then he collected his thoughts and his options. “Call them and tell them to start without me, Alice. I’m going to be delayed.”
Mrs. Pallister gave the two detectives a look that should have sent them to Tibooburra, had she known about it; then she closed the door. Ophelia said, “I think we should send for Henry Gower, darling.”
Gower was the senior partner in the city’s most prestigious law firm; he would be a tank-trap. Malone was relieved when Casement, almost wearily, said, “No. We don’t want any outsiders . . . Inspector, the Kunishima Bank owns twenty-five per cent of Casement Trust. Mr. Kushida and Mr. Isogai were here regarding the missing twenty-five million. They are understandably concerned.”
“And Mr.—what was his name? Mr. Itani? What’s his role?”
“He is their local representative.”
“Does he have an office here in this building?”
“No-o. Kunishima has no office here in Sydney.”
“Mr. Casement, you are bull—you are stringing us along. Mr. Itani abducted Jack Aldwych two days ago, at gunpoint. He took him for a ride, as they used to say in gangster films, but didn’t bump him off—as they also used to say.”
“Jack Aldwych? They kidnapped him?”
“Laughable, isn’t it? We don’t think Itani—or Tajiri, whatever his real name is—we don’t think he quite knew what he might be starting. He knew who Jack was—I don’t think he knew how much clout Jack still has. If Itani is Kunishima’s rep in your bank, he’s not doing much for the reputation of Casement Trust.”
There was silence for a long moment; now Ophelia reached for her husband’s arm. “You’d better tell them, darling.”
Casement shook his head without looking at her. He took off his glasses again, was abruptly almost old enough to be her grandfather. Age had engulfed him. Beyond the window autumn, it seemed, had already succumbed to winter; the Harbour came and went behind gusts of cold rain, the arch of the Bridge was a mocking grey rainbow. He shook his head again, but this time in despair.