Autumn Maze (9 page)

Malone picked up the cheque-book, glanced at the name of the bank. Then he looked at Clements. “Well, waddiaknow! Our old mates down at Shahriver Credit International.”

“They're in our territory, aren't they?” Terry Leboy, from The Rocks, was a young blond-headed
man
almost as well-dressed as Kagal.

Malone nodded. “We had something to do with them a coupla years ago. They're shonky— plenty of capital, but they don't care particularly who their clients are. So far they haven't been closed down. Maybe they've been keeping their noses clean. Except—” He tapped the cheque-book on the table. “Young Sweden was up to something. Try the bank. Find out if the deposits there by Mr. Sexton were in cheques or cash. These statements don't show.”

“Do we tell „em we think Sexton and Sweden are the same man?”

“Sure, why not? If they're trying to keep their noses clean, they'll lean over backwards to be cooperative. Be polite.”

Malone gave out instructions to the other detectives and everyone left the table but Malone, Clements and Random. There were other Homicide men working on other cases in the big room. Random rose, jerked his head and led the way back into Malone's small office.

“Close the door.”

Malone did so. “We're in trouble, right?”

“Not yet.” Random took a pipe from his jacket pocket and put it between his teeth. Malone, in all the years he had known Random, had never seen him light it. He had begun to suspect that the older man, the least actorish of men, used it as a prop. “The Minister is making noises.”

“What sort of noises? Does he want us to call off the investigation?”

“I'm not sure.” Random sucked on his pipe. “There are waves coming down from above, from Bill Zanuch, even from the Commissioner, that I can't fathom. The government's got a majority of two, it's had a few messy cock-ups the past couple of months, it doesn't want its boat rocked again. If the Minister's son was involved in something shonky, if the Minister knew of it—”

“Do you think he did?”

Random shrugged, sucked on the pipe again. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Malone and Clements looked at each other. They had been this route before, with a Labor government, with past and present Conservative coalition governments. In any democratic State, politics
is
always ready to interfere; that, Malone was convinced, was what democracy was about. Power had to be protected, to a political party it was as precious as motherhood. So long, that is, as the mothers voted the right way.

“Greg,” said Clements, “we can't just let this lay. We've got another four unsolved murders out there, ones that have got nothing to do with the Sweden case.” He nodded through the half-glass wall to the big room. “If we drop another one in the Too Hard basket, the media will be on us like a ton of bricks. They're ready to pile the shit. There's those four young coppers accused of stealing drugs, there's the suspected cover-up by our two senior blokes—” He bit his lip. “Nothing may come of those, we dunno. But I'd rather protect the service than take care of the Minister.
Four Corners
is just itching to make another TV documentary that makes us look fools. If the media starts querying why we're back-pedalling on the Sweden case, we might as well pack up, take our superannuation and go fishing.”

Random looked at Malone, held up a finger. “My finger in the wind tells me you feel the same way?”

Malone nodded. “Let's do it our way, Greg. If the boat has to be rocked, too bad.” He sighed, leaned back in his chair, stretched his legs; he was not relaxing, just trying to ease the sudden tension that had taken hold of his limbs. “I've reached a point where I don't care a stuff about politics. I think I might welcome being shifted out to Tibooburra.”

“Don't write it off as a possibility.” Random stood up, put his pipe back in his pocket. “Okay, go ahead. But keep me informed all along the way, everything you come up with, including stuff you won't put in the briefs. I'll make the decisions, understand?”

“You don't think I want to make „em, do you?” Malone grinned, but there was stiffness in his facial muscles, too.

As soon as Random had gone, Malone tried some politics of his own. He rang Fred Falkender, AC, Crime. “Sir, I'd like to come over to Headquarters and talk to the Minister. I thought I'd better tell you first.”

“Does Chief Super Random know?”

“
He's told me to pursue the Sweden case my own way,” Malone half-lied.

“You mean you haven't told him you're coming over here? Scobie, you really are a pain in the arse.” Falkender had worked his way up from the ranks; there wasn't a trick he did not know. Still, he laughed. He was always laughing, but the unsuspecting had too often found it was just a smokescreen. The Assistant Commissioner was too experienced to believe that all was laughter in the human comedy. “Okay, come over. See me first, I'll find out if the Minister wants to see you.”

When Malone reached Administration Headquarters several blocks away, Falkender was coming down the corridor from another of the offices occupied by the seven assistant commissioners. “I've just been talking to AC Zanuch.”

Malone looked warily at him. “Yes?”

“Don't worry, I'm running you, no one else.” Falkender was built like a bowling ball and as hard; he had skittled more opponents and competitors than he had bothered to count. He presented a jovial face to the world, but he was as shrewd as any long-time politician and he knew more about the law than anyone else in the service. “You want to tell me why you want to see the Minister?”

He had led Malone into his office, but both men remained standing. Malone knew at once that there was no guarantee Falkender would allow him to see Derek Sweden. “We've dug up something on his son that doesn't look too good.” He went on to explain all the new details that had been added, or were about to be added, to the running sheet on the Sweden case. “The son wasn't murdered by some break-and-enter stranger. He was murdered by someone he knew and for a reason. There's also this corpse that was stolen from the morgue. Looks like he was killed by the same method, a needle or a scalpel or something in the back of the neck. There could be a connection.”

Falkender was usually an almost non-stop talker; but he had listened patiently while Malone gave him the facts. Now he folded his plump hands in front of him and rolled his thumbs. He was silent a moment, no joviality at all in his bright blue eyes. Then, “If that's the way it is, you have to see the Minister,” he said, abruptly taciturn for a change. “Okay, let's go.”

They went up to the Minister's office, a large suite that fitted the ministerial ego. Up till a few
years
ago, Police Ministers had been well removed from their department; when one of Sweden's predecessors had insisted on moving into the building, he had been as welcome as one of the city's top crims. The situation had settled down somewhat since then, but there was still a suspicion that, with their boss virtually sitting on top of them, the service could become politicized. Malone and Falkender walked into Sweden's office prepared for the worst.

Sweden was a coat-off, shirtsleeves Minister; it was not a pose for media cameras, he was a genuine worker. He waved Falkender and Malone to chairs, offered them coffee, then sat back. “I'm as busy as a girl when the Yank fleet's in and I'm about as stuffed. I hope you have some good news, Inspector.”

Malone looked at Falkender, who nodded; he noted that the AC had not laughed or even smiled since they had met downstairs in the corridor. “Well, Minister, it's like this—” He went on to tell Sweden what he had told Falkender. “It's not good news, I'm afraid.”

Sweden's desk was the sort that Malone always thought of as being furnished by a woman. There was the gold desk set, the gold-embossed leather barrel for pencils, the gold-embossed leather writing pad, the blotting-roller, the address book, the diary; the desk looked like a Dunhill show-case, stacked with paraphernalia that few men ever bought for themselves. Sweden picked up a gold-plated letter-opener, a business stiletto.

“You're accusing my son of being some sort of criminal, is that what you're saying?”

“I'm not accusing him of anything so far.” Malone's tone was as sharp as Sweden's; he couldn't help it. He glanced at Falkender, expecting some sort of rebuke, but the big round face was impassive. “All I'm giving you, Minister, are facts that are
real
. I hope we can give you more when our men have come back from the bank I mentioned. You don't know anything about Shahriver, do you?”

Sweden's dark narrow eyes seemed to darken even further; then he put down the letter-opener and leaned forward. “Yes, I know about it, we've discussed it in Cabinet a couple of times. The Minister for Finance has his eye on it. That's all I know about it. I certainly would never have suggested to my son that he do business with it. You still have to convince me that the bank statement in that name—Sexton?—
that
it's actually a statement of my son's account with the bank. I hope you're not going to let something like this out to the media, Fred?”

Malone waited for Falkender to back down; but the AC, Crime, bent his knee to no one. “Inspector Malone is not out to make political capital of this.”

Sweden banged his desk; his bony face abruptly looked ugly. “Jesus Christ, I'm not talking politics! We're talking about my
son
! Is that all you think I'm capable of, worrying about the fucking politics of it?”

“I'm sorry.” Falkender at least sounded genuinely contrite.

There was a knock at the door and Tucker, the minder, the guardian of the gate, was there, though a little late. “Minister, I would've been here if I'd known—”

“Beat it, Rufus.” Sweden waved a rude hand, hardly glancing at the press secretary. “I'm okay. I'll let you know when I want you.” He waved the hand again and Tucker, red in the face, disappeared, shutting the door with some force. “Bloody minders, they think you can't survive without them. All right, Fred, I'm sorry I flew off the handle. But, Jesus, I'm still in shock—” He looked at Malone. “You're used to murder, I suppose? I'm not.”

Malone had learned to cope with murder, but he hoped he would never become
used
to it; that way lay barbarism. “Did your son ever give any hint of being in trouble?” He was quiet but persistent, certain now that Falkender was not going to obstruct him in the interests of harmony here at Headquarters. AC Zanuch, he was equally certain, would now have been on his feet leading the way out of the Minister's suite. “Did he ever make any unexplained trips anywhere?”

Sweden picked up the stiletto again; it was, Malone remarked, an ideal weapon for puncturing the base of a man's skull. “Rob was always going away on unexplained trips, usually with a girl. They were unexplained because I never asked about them. I did the same sort of thing when I was young. Didn't you?”

“I couldn't afford it, not on a constable's pay.” There was the tongue again; he smiled to take the edge off it. “Rob made a quick trip to Manila last month, a weekend trip. Would you know why?”

“
No.” The stiletto was steady, its point pressed against one palm.

“This isn't a smart-arse remark, Minister, but your son wouldn't have gone there on one of those quick sex tours. He went there, I think, on business. His own business, not his firm's. They've said they never sent him overseas, he wasn't experienced enough.”

Sweden looked at the stiletto, then carefully set it back on the desk, as if he had just realized it was a weapon. He leaned forward again, finger pointing. This was how he attacked the opposition in the Bear Pit, the State Parliament: Malone had seen clips of him on television. “Inspector, I am not going to help you besmirch my son's name. All I want from you is to find his murderer.”

Malone's tone was measured: That's what we're trying to do, Minister. Murder, unfortunately, is rarely a nice clean job, there's always dirt around the edges. Mr. Falkender will back me up there.”

Falkender, rather than acting as if he had been put on the spot, as indeed he had, spoke up. “That's true, Minister. We'll do our best not to spread any dirt. But we think your son's murder is connected to another on the same night.”

“Whose?”

“We don't know,” said Malone. “The body was stolen from the morgue. It's been in the papers.”

“I haven't had time to look at the papers today. Or yesterday's. It's probably there in that file of clippings. A corpse stolen from the
morgue
? Christ, what next?”

Malone wondered why the Police Minister's press secretary didn't insist his master look at all crime reports as soon as they appeared. So he told Sweden what he knew of the missing corpse and why they thought its murder was linked to Rob Sweden's.

“That's bloody ridiculous! You're linking Rob to some stranger—”

“He's a stranger to us, Minister, but he may not have been to your son.”

Sweden looked at Falkender; the top of his bald head was glistening, though there was no sweat on his face. But he was angry, ready to boil: “I hope these sort of insinuations are not going to be broadcast?”

“
We don't work that way,” said Falkender in a voice that suggested he was giving a lecture to a Minister still new to the job.

“Okay, I'll see the Commissioner.” Sweden's own tone suggested that he knew the chain of command. “In the meantime, no press conferences on this, not till you have solid evidence. If the media want to hear about my son I'll get Rufus Tucker to arrange it and I'll do the talking.”

Falkender stood up. From long experience of politicians, he recognized a brick wall when it was being built. “Inspector Malone will handle this with his usual discretion, Minister. You'll get a daily report on how he is progressing.”