Autumn Maze (30 page)

“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 something 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.”

“Where from?”

“I'd rather be silent on that.”

Malone felt his own irritation itching him. “I'm sure you would, Mr. Casement. But you seem to forget that Sergeant Clements and I are working on the murder of the young man who's supposed to have stolen this money. There may be no connection in your banker's mind—”

“Oh stop it, for Christ's sake!” A hand slapped the arm of the chair; Casement winced, put the hand gently on his thigh. He was suddenly weary, worse than being merely tired. “Do you think I'm trying to obstruct you?”

“Frankly, yes.”

“All my life I've had my own way,” said Casement, as if to himself. “But then I've never had
anything
to do with the police. From all accounts, some of you act as if you're a law unto yourselves.”

“Just as you must have,” said Malone tartly. “We cops aren't perfect. But if you don't like us and the way we work, what's the alternative? The army? Try some of the Latin Americans who've come to Australia, ask them what law and order is like under the army. Let's cut out the bullshit and get down to the works. Where's the money?”

Casement, it seemed, had never been spoken to so bluntly; he had, indeed, always had his own way. He flushed; but he had control of himself. He hesitated only slightly, then he said in a flat voice, “It's in a company account in Hong Kong.”

“The name of the company?” said Clements, notebook ready.

“Hannibal Development.”

“One of Kornsey's companies,” Clements told Malone. “Would the money have gone through Shahriver Credit International?”

Casement looked surprised; and more alert. “You seem to have a fix on this?”

“Not entirely,” said Clements. “But we're not as far behind as you seem to think. Kornsey was the man killed the same night as young Sweden, killed the same way. The one whose body was stolen from the morgue. So now we've made that connection. Are you dealing through Shahriver or direct with Hong Kong?”

“The Hong Kong bank is another Shahriver branch. They're not very reputable, but you probably know that.”

“Are they cooperating?”

“The office here is—or anyway, up to a point.”

“We know Mr. Palady, the managing director. That's his form—he cooperates up to a point. But Hong Kong, what about them?”

“They're stonewalling. I fear the money may have gone on further, to another bank in some other part of the world.”

“Manila, for instance?”

There
was no reaction. “We wouldn't know.”

“Who outside your bank knows about the theft?”

Once again Casement hesitated. He obviously was not accustomed to telling any more than he wanted to disclose; Malone could see him as chairman at annual general meetings snubbing questioning shareholders. “If you must know—”

“We must,” said Malone, patience wearing thin.

“Derek Sweden knows. That's all, as far as I know.”

“Not your wife?”

Casement's neck stiffened. “Why should she know?”

“I can understand you not telling her about the day-to-day troubles in the bank. But a missing twenty-five million? That's not day-to-day stuff.”

Casement remained stiff-necked for a long moment; then abruptly he nodded. “All right, she knows. Just the fact, none of the details. The sort of thing I presume you tell your wife about homicides.”

Malone made a pretence of pulling the dagger out of his chest. “Not quite, Mr. Casement. Interest in homicide is morbid, interest in money is not. Now would you come down to Police Centre with us? We want you to identify this girl.”

For a moment it looked as if Casement would refuse to move; then he raised himself awkwardly from his chair. He had suddenly become older, as if he had stepped through a doorway into a climate that had weathered and broken him. “Jesus,” he said, more to himself than to the two detectives, “I think I'm getting old.”

“It happens,” said Malone, smug in his early forties, and Clements, on equally firm ground, nodded.

Inside the front door Casement reached for a topcoat and tweed hat, put them on, Clements helping him don the coat.

As they turned towards the door it opened in their faces and Ophelia stood there, key held like a small knife. “You're going
out
?”

Her
husband explained. “It will only take a little while, darling. Half an hour at the most. Order dinner to be sent up from Verady's.”

“I'm coming with you. I want to see this bitch who tried to kill you.”

“I don't think it would be advisable,” said Malone, though he knew he couldn't stop her.

She took no notice of him, taking instead her husband's arm. “I let the driver go—” she told her husband; then looked at Malone. “We've been using a hire car since ours was burnt out. I don't drive.”

“We'll go in the police car,” said Malone. “It's unmarked, so the neighbours won't notice.”

Casement smiled, blew on a spark of humour. “You think she cares about the neighbours? She's Roumanian.”

“I love him,” said Ophelia and gave her husband a kiss. “Now let's go and see this little pyromaniac. Or is there another name for people who set fire to people?”

They drove up through the city, through the drizzle of rain that gave a shine to the lamp-lit darkness. By the time they got to Police Centre, the rain had stopped and been replaced by a cold wind. “Are police stations cold places?” Ophelia asked as they went up the broad outside steps.

“Only for the guilty,” said Malone. “We're always very comfortable ourselves.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a slight smile from Casement; the old man had taken on some new energy from his wife's presence. They were arm-in-arm and Malone suspected he would be dealing with them as a pair while they were in the station.

The Surrey Hills station was an annexe on the ground floor of Police Centre; like the big building it was only a few years old and not yet soiled by the human waste that went through it each and every night and day. This evening business was in the doldrums, the hour was early, and the sergeant behind the desk gave Malone and Clements all his attention when they walked in with the Casements. A battered housewife, face dark with bruises, sat on a chair in a corner of the charge-room, a small girl, face pale with fear and bewilderment, standing beside her; there were no other customers at the moment. Ophelia looked at the woman and child, then shook her head at Clements but said nothing. The big man was surprised at the troubled look of compassion on the face that, up till now, he had seen only as a
beautifully
made-up mask.

“G'day, Barry,” said Malone. “You still got that Viet girl they brought in this afternoon for rolling the drunk, what's her name?”

The sergeant ran a bony finger down a page of the book open in front of him. He was not tall for a policeman and one could see the bones of his shoulders under the dark blue sweater he wore. His face was equally bony, chipped and repaired like an old vase; his nose had been broken three times in brawls with citizens who had later claimed to be law-abiding. “Kim—you're not gunna believe this— Weetbix. She's downstairs in the cells. You want me to bring her up?”

“I want Mr. Casement to identify her in a case we're working on. She's entitled to a line-up, but how long would it take to round up six or seven girls who look something like her? Has she asked for a lawyer yet?”

“She hasn't opened her mouth, except to abuse the policewoman who took her her tea. We're holding her overnight. She's due in magistrate's court tomorrow at ten.”

Some other police had come in from the back offices, two young men and a young woman constable. They looked curiously at the Casements, recognizing them as the sort of visitors not usually seen here in the station; then the policewoman went to the woman seated in the corner. The child cringed away from the woman in uniform and her mother held her close to her.

“We've locked up your husband, Mrs. Pockley. Have you got somewhere you can spend the night? I don't think you should go back home, not yet.”

The woman shook her head. “Nowhere,” she mumbled through swollen lips that didn't hide the teeth that had been broken off. “How is he?”

“He's passed out,” said the young policewoman. “
He's
not worried, he'll sleep till morning, the bastard.”

“Chris—” said the sergeant warningly.