Autumn Maze (35 page)

“Why couldn't you have talked to me later?” Kim was a cold dead weight on Malone's hands. “Where are you holding the reception? In here?”

“Droll.” Then she looked at the two men. “Sorry. Have I upset you too,
liebchen
?”

Clements grinned. “Wait'll I tell my mum. She proposed to my dad while he was castrating a sheep.”

V

In the Police Minister's office the possibility of political murder, which is merely a misdemeanour and not a felony, was being canvassed.

“Derek, listen to me,” said Hans Vanderberg. “I'm doing the decent thing, I'm offering you an honourable way out. That doesn't happen often in politics, does it?”

“Hans, you're holding a gun at my head and you're doing the decent thing? Come off it, cut out
the
crap.”

The Dutchman was unoffended; insults, blunt talk, were his conversational forte. He could be annoyed if an opponent impugned his dishonesty, but that was only because it spoiled the political game. Idealists, sticklers for the truth, were the bane of his life.

“You can resign, like I said, you can say your son's death has been too much for you. Who's gunna be wise? You've been in parliament long enough, you've gotta be getting how much superannuation? Not to mention what we've been talking about.”

“You've already mentioned that. Twice. Where did you get your information?”

The old man smoothed down his quiff. “Derek, where does anyone in our game get their information? The walls don't only have ears, they've got lips, too. Don't you hear the whispers? I've got friends, you got enemies. And vice versa. A friend of mine and an enemy of yours told me about your insider trading. Four million dollars, that's better than the going rate to buy one of us.”

“You mean a Labor man?”

The Dutchman smiled, a horrible sight. “I mean any politician, meaning you government fellers. Us on the Labor side can't be bought, you know that. I've never taken a penny.”

Which, unfortunately, was true. Sweden knew that many things could be charged against the Opposition Leader, but a charge of taking a bribe would never stick. “You could never prove anything, Hans.”

“Who needs proof? You throw a little mud, someone picks it up and adds to it, pretty soon you've got a mud-bath and you're in it up to your neck.”

He sat back, sipped the mineral water that he had asked for, looked around the Minister's office. When his party had been in government and he had been Police Minister as well as Premier, he had operated out of the Premier's office downtown. Once back in power he would give this room back to the police administration; it would be a good public relations ploy. He must be getting old: there had been a time when he had scoffed at the idea of public relations. But that had been in the good old days before the rise of pressure groups and that double-headed, brainless monster, the swinging voter.

Sweden,
for his part, saw nothing of the room but only this vindictive, unscrupulous old man opposite him. Well, maybe not unscrupulous: what he was suggesting was legitimate politics. It was, of course, murder: resign or I'll cut your throat. But Sweden had read enough history to know that when it came to a question of power, the voting booth was only a prop in the drama. In his own party throats had been cut and backs stabbed; he himself bore previous scars. But he did not want to be murdered now, not now.

“Hans, if I resigned, you fellers couldn't win my seat. It's been ours for years.”

“Oh, we can win it all right. We'll get an Independent to run, they come in useful sometimes—” He had the party politician's contempt for any Independent running for office, all they did was clutter up the place and most of them, as he had been heard to say, didn't know their arse from their green thumb. “He'll take enough votes away from you fellers and we'll sneak in. We've done our sums, mate. We win your seat, then we're all square in the Assembly and we'll demand an election. Then we'll gallop in.”

Sweden took his time; after all, one doesn't go bungy-jumping without making sure the rubber rope will stand the strain. “Hans, I'm not going to resign. Try your luck, throw your mud. But if I resigned now, it wouldn't say much for me as Police Minister nor for my faith in the police. I want my son's murder solved and I'd cut my throat before I'd let you announce it as Police Minister.”

Vanderberg shrugged, put his glass down on the desk. “Have it your way. I see your point, I'm a father m'self. But you blokes are buggering up this State and it's my duty to see you don't bugger it up even more.”

“Bullshit, Hans. Your only idea of duty is what you pay on a bottle of Bols gin when you bring it into the country.”

“Maybe.” The old man grinned again. “But it sounds good, doesn't it? Have a second think, Derek, I'll give you another day or two. There's nothing personal in this, y'know. You were just the easiest target. You haven't done a bad job as Minister, the little time you've been in it.” Then he stopped, his grin widening till it looked as if his jaw might fall off. “There's an alternative. You could resign from your crowd, cross the floor and become one of ours. We're all birds of a birdcage these days, the voters dunno
the
difference between us, not since we got rid of our Loony Left. Have a think about it. Give my regards to your wife.” He was at the door when he turned back. “Incidentally, if the police solve the murder and it's close to home, what're you gunna do? Maybe you'll have to resign after all.”

Then he was gone, the door shut behind him. Sweden went limp in his chair, his hand reaching automatically for the button on his desk. But then he remembered that all his staff, including Tucker, had gone. Vanderberg had waited till he was sure there would be no interruptions. Sweden was alone with his pictures of himself and Rosalind in the Dunhill frames on his desk and on the bookcases behind him. He closed his eyes and, to his surprise, saw his first wife, Rob's mother, on the darkness of his lids. He suddenly wished she were alive, to help him as she so often had in the past.

14

I

“SCOBIE, ARE
these calls taped?”

Aldwych hadn't named himself, but Malone had recognized the voice. “No, Jack. We only do that with politicians and smartarse lawyers. What's on your mind?”

“If ever you call me up before ICAC, I'll deny I ever spoke to you. I couldn't go to my grave, people thinking I was a dog.”

“You going to dob someone in?”

“I dunno. Yeah, I guess I am. Last night I was at the Congress, the hotel. On my way out I saw the young Jap who took me for that ride the other day. He was coming out with two other Japs, older blokes. They got into a stretch limo, a hire job, and drove off. You want the number?”

Malone never let excitement boil his blood; too often, tip-offs and stumbled-upon clues had led nowhere. “Go ahead.”

“It's HC—” Aldwych gave him the number. “The hire company'd have a record of who hired it.”

“Thanks, Jack.” A cop always loved having a crim tell him how to do his job. “If we pick up the young bloke, I'll want you to identify him.”

“What for? He just took me for a drive. I'm not laying any charges, Scobie. I'm only telling you about him because it might help you clear up them murders you're working on.”

“There was another one last night. The young girl who tried to burn Cormac Casement.”

“I read about it this morning. They're keeping you busy.” Aldwych hung up abruptly, as if still suspicious his call was being taped.

Malone put down the phone and stared out through the glass wall of his office at the outer
office.
The linked cases were now all coordinated into the one investigation and Peta Smith had set up a room across the hall where charts, diagrams and photos gave facts but no solution, where the police work was on display. And now it might all fall into place on a single clue given by an old crim. Malone had to smile, though it hurt.

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.”