Babylon South (32 page)

“Did he have any money?”

She laughed, a harsh giggle. “You kidding? The Russians don't pay their people anything, leastways they didn't in those days. That was why he picked me up in the first place, I used to tell him. I used to fiddle the bill at the restaurant where I worked. He got a cheap meal and a free lay. I
sound
cheap, don't I?”

“No,” said Malone gently. “If you fell for him . . . I believe he was very attractive to women.”

“
Oh, he was that, all right. He was a real ladies' man. I was flattered he paid me more attention than he did the others. You don't believe I was a good-looker then, do you?”

“Why not? Sergeant Clements once was handsome and slim.”

She looked at Clements, then laughed softly: the Jenny Acton of twenty-one years ago peeped through the fat screen. “I'll believe you if you believe me.”

Clements smiled. “I've never doubted a lady's word.”

Reassured, Jenny Ventnor looked back at Malone. “You were talking about money. No, Alex never had any. But he told me that week before he disappeared that he knew where to get some. He said he had two—sources? Is that the word?—who were gunna come good. I remember him saying it was gunna be easier than winning the lottery.”

“Did he say how much?”

She shook her head. A lock of hair fell down and for the first time Malone noticed how much grey there was in the light-brown hair. “No, he could shut up, just like that, sometimes when we were talking. As if he was scared he was gunna tell me some secret or something.”

“He was rumoured to be one of their KGB men at the embassy.”

“Alex? A spy?” Again she shook her head; more hair fell down. “Well, I dunno, I suppose he could of been. Nobody ever told me what happened to him. I went to the embassy to find out, after I hadn't seen him for a coupla weeks, but they just told me to get lost.”

“Did ASIO interview you?”

“ASIO? Oh you mean our crowd? Yeah, they come to see me. You'd of thought
I
was a spy, the way they treated me. They aren't like James Bond, are they? You guys are much politer.”

“We have more experience with women. ASIO doesn't meet many women spies—they think it's a man's club, like Rotary. So you never heard from Alex again after he disappeared?”

“Nothing, not a word. I suppose he's in Siberia or wherever they send „em. Poor devil.” She'd forgive him, no matter what he had done to her. Then she looked out of the window again, saw her own Siberia and a note of self-pity crept back into her voice: “I often used to wonder where I'd be if he'd taken
me
with him.”

“One last question, Jenny. Did he ever mention the name Springfellow to you?”

“Springfellow? That's them that's been on the news lately, right? I remember now, the ASIO guys asked me that. No, I don't think he ever mentioned them. On the last night I saw him, the Wednesday I think it was, I'm not sure but I think it was the Wednesday or it might of been the Thursday, he said he was going up to Sydney to see if one of his—sources?—was gunna help him. But he didn't mention no names. He just said it was a woman who had more money than sense. No, not sense. What's another word?”

Malone thought a moment. “Discretion?”

“Yeah, that's it.” She smiled again. “You could say that about me, I guess. No money, but no discretion, either. A lot of women are like it. We're a dumb lot when it comes to you men.”

Malone couldn't argue with that; he had seen too many willing victims. He and Clements stood up. “Thanks, Jenny, you've been a great help.”

“Are you trying to find him after all this time? If you do, don't tell him you saw me, okay? I wouldn't want him to see me . . . Jesus, how does life get away from you?”

Malone put his hand on her fat, bare arm; even there he could feel the sobs quivering to get out of her gross body. “I'm sorry we had to come, Jenny. It would've been better if we hadn't had to drag up the past. But it has a habit of coming back . .
.
”
As my Commissioner would tell you if you asked him for sympathy.
“Don't forget—if your neighbours get nosey, we were from Social Welfare and it was all a mistake, a computer mistake.”

She managed a smile, the sobs subsiding before they could surface. “I might keep „em guessing. Two good-looking guys . . . Will you have to come back?”

“No,” said Malone, having caused her enough pain. “Good luck, Jenny. Don't say anything to Clicker about our visit.”

“Are you kidding?” Her hand went again to the bruise on her arm.

They left her on that. At least she was smiling and the whine had gone from her voice. For a
few
minutes, though unhappy, she had been Jenny Acton of long ago and far away from Paradise Valley.

9

I

“IT WAS
unavoidable,” said Justine. “It was all arranged months ago.”

“It just seems—
inappropriate
,” said Ruth Springfellow. “Going to a coroner's inquest, then going home to get dressed for
this.
”

“You didn't have to go to the inquest, Aunt Ruth.”

“I thought I should.” Ruth had a sense of what was proper about death and sickness: one had to
attend.
Emma, of course, had not died from sickness (unless one thought of murder as a sickness): murder had made her death a public affair and Ruth had had to attend to ensure there was proper respect and decorum. As if an inquest stood the chance of turning into a circus. “Fortunately, the media stayed away. But they're here tonight. Or anyway the gossip columnists are. They are hounding Venetia.”

“I doubt very much if the Vandals and the Goths could hound her,” said Edwin, and smiled at Justine. “Your mother has a certain impregnability about her.” Edwin at times could sound like a third-rate academic. He hated occasions such as these, but he was an Art Gallery trustee and had had to attend. He had no cocktail talk and so settled for draught beer.

Venetia came towards them, brushing off a gossip columnist as if he were a union picket. She had once walked through a line of pickets when Springfellow House was being built and the rough, tough building labourers had folded like a jelly of gigolos. She was dressed as usual in pink this evening, the only grey being her pale grey wallet and shoes and stockings; she always wore stockings because, as she had told one of her lovers, pantyhose locked in her juices. She wore no jewellery other than two small diamond earrings—“I am not here to distract attention from the paintings,” she had told the columnist.

But,
of course, she was incapable of not attracting attention. The cream, a lot of the skim milk and a few curds of Sydney were here in force tonight. Captains of industry and commerce (no one seems to rise above the rank of captain in the financial ranks) and their Other Ranks ladies mingled with free-loading artists and writers. Politicians trusted voters enough to shake hands with them; ambassadors, up in town from Canberra, and consuls-general, down in rank for the evening, exchanged smiles and hypocrisies. The artists looked at the paintings and told each other they could do better: the Americans, they said, always, like their foreign policies, just missed out. The American ambassador, a patient, tolerant man, though from Texas, listened and smiled. Envy is a form of flattery, he knew; he was a Roman scholar, though from Dallas, and took a broad view. Envy was what turned most of the women to look after Venetia; the men looked out of lust, though two artists held hands and looked at each other. Venetia swept on through the rooms, past the canvas of America.

People turned from a portrait of George Washington or a Winslow Homer seascape to stare after her; what was a Sargent painting of Mrs. Jack Gardner against a living, breathing Lady Springfellow? This evening was the gala night of the year for the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Venetia had, through the Springfellow Corporation, sponsored this huge collection of American art. It was a motley collection, from Copley through Remington to Stella, but the gallery had solved the problem by dividing it and hanging the paintings of different periods in separate rooms. John Singer Sargent would have chased Venetia; but so would de Kooning. Between them they might have captured her on canvas.

The Springfellows, the rest of them, were in the Early 19th Century Room, where Edwin, at least, felt at home. Venetia approached them gladly; she was in no mood for strangers tonight. “God, why did I choose tonight for the opening?”

“Exactly what I said,” Ruth also had a proper sense of occasion, though she could never bring herself to miss one.

“How was the inquest?”

“So—so cold-blooded.”

“That's what inquests are about. Blood that has run cold.” Venetia saw the slight crease of pain
on
Edwin's face and she put a hand on his arm. “I'm sorry, Edwin. I'm uptight tonight. What did the coroner say, Ruth?”

“Murder by person or persons unknown. The same as he said for Walter. It was the same coroner.”

“The police offered no evidence? I mean, they didn't name anyone as a suspect?”

“Should they have?”

Venetia looked at Justine, then back at her in-laws. “They suspect Justine murdered Emma.”

Ruth felt for her niece's hand, but didn't take her eyes off Venetia. Edwin said, “Where on earth did you hear that?”

“John Leeds told me. That Inspector Malone is building up a case against her.”

II

Outside the Gallery, Malone and Clements sat in their car on the opposite side of the road. A marked police car had already been along and told them to move on; but police never move along for other police, unless they are outranked. The two constables in the marked car apologized and themselves moved on. Malone and Clements continued to munch on their Mars bars, while thirty metres away diners in the Pavilion on the Park toyed with their Tasmanian salmon and drank their 1982 Chardonnay.

The dark park of the Domain, by day a green playground in the heart of the city, by night a green-black lake, stretched away on their left. At its far edge was the rear of Parliament House and the parliamentary offices; the politicians had gone home or were at the Art Gallery reception, while the cleaners were at work, vacuuming the visible, if not the political, dirt. Farther over, the city office blocks, gold-riveted by their lighted windows, appeared to have no more substance than a stage back-cloth. To the detectives' right, the pillared front of the Gallery was floodlit, the gleaming cars of the guests drawn up in front of it like chariots before a temple. There were no gods in the temple, however, just a few impersonators.

One of them had just arrived, not in a chariot but in a Commonwealth car. “There's the PM,”
said
Clements. “He's opening the show.”

Malone watched the famous blond head run up the steps to the entrance. He paused at the top and looked back. “He thinks he's going into Parliament House. He's waiting for the media to interview him.”

“When we arrest Justine, you think we should ask him to say a few words?”

“He's never said a few words in his life. We haven't got all night.”

“There's a rumour he's one of Venetia's boyfriends.”

“Could be. She's had more boyfriends than Catherine the Great.” He wondered how John Leeds felt about being part of a stable, even if he had long left it.

“You're a great one for all these Greats. Alexander the Great, Catherine the Great. Where'd you learn about „em?”

“On SBS.”

SBS was the multicultural television channel, founded and funded by a benevolent government that thought all the immigrant ethnics would be clamouring to see all the Greek, Italian, Turkish, Egyptian and Brazilian classic films that they had missed at the local cinema in Larissa, Salerno, Eskisehir, El Faiyum and Santa Maria. Instead, it was said, the culturally deprived immigrants were devoted fans of Australian soaps, while SBS's minuscule audience was made up of academics and would-be intellectuals who were fortunate enough to live in areas where their aerials could pick up SBS's weak signal. Malone watched it because Lisa, neither an academic nor a would-be intellectual, watched it. He had always been weak on history; living with Lisa, he had gleaned some knowledge of world history but still remained not uncommonly ignorant about Australian history. The nation's bicentenary was only a couple of months away and he sometimes felt he should educate himself in Australia's history. Try as he might to avoid it, he was intellectually hamstrung by his job. History is full of homicide; the trouble with Australian history was that it was all at a mundane level. No kings here to order murder, no presidents to be assassinated: the truth was, he guessed, he liked history to be spectacular.

The Prime Minister disappeared into the Gallery and Malone said, “I don't think now's the
time
to pinch Justine. What if she and Venetia come out with the PM?”

Clements chewed his lip. “Well, if that happens, we call it off. Otherwise, tonight's the night to grab her. It'll make a good spread tomorrow.”

Malone looked at him sourly. “You were never one for publicity. What the hell's got into you?”

“I told you,” said Clements, unrepentant, “I'm dead set against the rich yuppies.”

“She's no yuppie.”

“She's rich and she goes around with yuppies. She did her aunt in, no two ways about it, so why not grab her and get as much publicity as we can? The Department's had some bad publicity lately, with those bent cops they got rid of. This'll look good, show we play no favourites, that the Police Department doesn't go in for rich mates.”

Clements had always been the most easy-going, almost phlegmatic of policemen; he did his job methodically and conscientiously, but he had rarely, if ever, become exercised about it. True, there had been some particularly brutal murders that had aroused him, but the anger had been directed at the particular murderer or murderers and not at a group or class. Now he was acting like Wat Tyler, who had been on SBS only last week.