Autumn Maze (18 page)

“Are you any closer to solving Rob's murder?” said Juliet.

Malone held up his finger and thumb half an inch apart. “We're making progress. Homicides are rarely solved the same day. Except domestics,” he added, putting salt in the honey.

“Domestics?”

“When a wife kills a husband,” said the Police Minister's wife. “Or vice versa. I'm learning the jargon since Derek has been bringing home papers from the office.”

Malone had never shown a paper from the office to Lisa in all their married life. “You find the papers interesting?”

All three sisters caught the note in his voice; they had been reading men's voices since kindergarten. “Of course, Inspector. I did a year of sociology at university.” It had been a waste of time, she had soon discovered there were no rich sociologists. “But I suppose you look at the papers differently. You
write
them.”

So far he had written none on the Sweden case. “I'm sure you'll find the papers on your stepson interesting when they're all in. Especially if I can link up his murder with another one.”

That sat them up; he actually thought he heard Ophelia's girdle creak. They looked at each other, then gave him the glare of a concentrated gaze. “Another murder?”

“Have any of you heard of a man named Terry Kornsey? Or he might've called himself Joseph Caccia. He was an American.”

There was a flicker in only one of the three pairs of eyes: Ophelia's. Then all three heads were shaken. “The names mean nothing to me,” said Rosalind. “Julie? „Phelia?”

“No.”

“Was he a friend of Rob's?” said Juliet. “Thanks, Luisa.”

The maid had brought in some canapés to go with the drinks she had served. Malone had noticed that she had poured the drinks with the measured skill of a barmaid. He had asked for a light beer and she had poured it without choking it with a heavy collar.

“
Rob never brought any of his friends here,” said Rosalind. “Except girls. Very pretty girls with nothing between their ears.” A description that had never fitted her or her sisters.

“Maybe I should talk to some of them. Can you remember their names?”

“Not their surnames. They were always Caroline or Felicity or Joanna.”

“Nice North Shore names,” said Ophelia. “Murderers never have names like that, do they?”

Come to think of it, no they don't.
“You follow the crime stories in the papers?”

“Only since my brother-in-law has become Police Minister. Hello, Derek, we're talking murders.”

The look of disapproval on Sweden's face as he came down from the front door was blatant. “Jesus, „Phelia, do you have to turn everything into party chatter? A whisky, Luisa, a double.”

“My, we are in a mood.” Ophelia stood up. “I think it's time I went back to the hospital. I'm bringing Cormac home tomorrow. We'll have a nurse come in, just in case. Goodbye, Inspector. Good luck with your inspecting. Are you handling my husband's case?”

“Only indirectly, Mrs. Casement. I think it's been entered in the papers as assault, not homicide.” It was cruel: they both knew it, but she didn't blink.

She put on a hat, drew on gloves: it was like watching someone getting ready to go out to face the 1950s. The hat reminded Malone of the large-crowned caps worn by Soviet generals, who looked as if, if a wind blew up, their heads would spin away in the updraft. But Ophelia would never lose her head any way at all.

“Nobody will kill Cormac. He'll die in his own time,” she said and left. Winds would blow round her, but never through her.

Sweden took Malone into a small study; Rosalind called after them, “Do you want us, too?”

“No,” said her husband, “this is police business.”

Malone was at once wary, wondering in what sense this was police business. He followed Sweden into the study, closing the door when the Minister gestured for him to do so. A quick glance around the room gave Malone a new look at the Minister: unless the bookshelves were there just for show,
Sweden
had wider and deeper interests than Malone had suspected. There was what looked like a whole shelf of political history, national and international; a book by Gough Whitlam was somehow stuffed between two volumes of a biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson, a juxtaposition that would have sent the ex-President cross-eyed. There were books on music, art and there were two shelves of what Malone, lately converted to reading, took to be serious fiction: Bellow, Greene, Malouf. Then he saw the two vases of flowers and the small triptych of the three Bruna sisters on the wall. He guessed this was as much Rosalind's room as her husband's, this was where she read
the papers
.

Sweden slipped off his jacket, took off his tie (a police tie, Malone remarked), sat down and motioned Malone into the chair on the opposite side of the small, neat desk. He sipped his drink, taking his time, looking at the detective with deliberate scrutiny that was insulting. Malone held his temper.

At last Sweden said, “So what do you know that hasn't been in your reports?”

They were one-on-one, outside police precincts; Malone let his tongue go: “What makes you think I'm holding anything back?”

Sweden was about to take another sip of his drink; the glass was stuck halfway to his mouth. “Don't let's you and I get off on the wrong foot, Inspector.”

“I think we've already done that. You're accusing me of holding something back on your son's case.”

“Aren't you? I've looked at the summary briefs, there's bugger-all in them. You want another beer?”

Malone put down his empty glass. “No, thanks. Look, you're the father as well as the Minister. I've learned a few things about your son that smell—would you want me to put those in the reports before I've had time to double-check whether they're true or not? I'm a father, too. That comes first, before being a cop.”

Sweden put down his glass, leaned forward. The small room was warm and there was a shine of perspiration on his bald head. “Okay, point taken. So what have you learned?”

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?”