Yesterday's Shadow (10 page)

“Go on,” said Clements, aware of Malone's silence.

“I said no, I didn't have one, but I could get one without any trouble. She let me in and I made for the kitchen. There was a matched set of knives, in one of those wooden holders, on a bench beside the stove. I asked her which one she'd used to knife Boris. She kept her mouth shut, but after a minute she took one out and handed it to me. She hated my guts, but she wasn't gunna do me, too.” He reached down to the shopping bag and took out a plastic bag; in it was a long-bladed kitchen knife. Only then did he look at Malone: “Sorry, Scobie. It looks as if she went in to the hotel to kill Boris. She had the intention all along.”

There was silence for a while, everyone looking at Malone. Even the four other detectives at their computers were still, as if what had come up on their screens was not what they had expected. It was Clements who at last said, “Looks like we'll have to tell the DPP, get them to appeal to have the bail revoked.”

Malone still said nothing because he could think of nothing to say; then Sheryl said, “She's got two kids—what about them?”

“They're the ones I'm thinking of,” said Truach, who had four children of his own. “What if she tops them and then tops herself? She could be depressed enough,” he said, looking again at Malone as if to say,
I'm trying to find excuses for her, boss
. “It wouldn't be the first time it's happened.”

There was another silence; the room was carpeted with thin ice. Then Sheryl said, “I saw the kids last night, at Surry Hills. That Mrs. Quantock brought 'em in to see her—the duty sergeant let 'em talk to her. They're not three- and four-year-olds, they're kids who understand what's going on. She loves 'em and they love her—you should of seen them. She would never harm them. Not even by topping herself.”

“She's already harmed them,” said Malone at last, feeling he had to say something, remembering the effect on Jason Rockne and his younger sister when their mother had been indicted for murder.

“Well, yes,” said Sheryl, glad to be able to talk to him direct. “But she wouldn't
murder
them.”

“
How well did you know her?” asked Gail.

There was no rank in this talk and Malone, though selfishly tempted, did not pull any. He wanted help here, not antagonism. “Pretty well. But that was twenty-five years ago.” And a man never really knew a woman. Adam hadn't known Eve and it had been that way ever since. “You're right. I don't think she would harm the kids any more than she has.”

“So what do we do?” asked Clements; then answered himself: “We'll let things stand as they are.”

Truach was the only one not convinced, though he was not going to argue. But, holding up the knife in the plastic bag: “What do we do with this?”

“We can't withhold evidence,” said Malone, but lamely.

“Why not?” said Sheryl. “We'll produce it when she goes to trial. Give her counsel time to rebut it, if they can.”

“I think we should at least talk to the DPP,” said Truach.

“Leave it with me,” said Clements and put the plastic bag with the knife in the bottom drawer of his desk, where Malone knew it would stay till Clements decided it was time to produce it.

“Okay,” said Truach; did he look relieved? Malone wondered. “But we'd better keep an eye on her. Get the locals to look in on her occasionally. Not just wait for her weekly check-in with them.”

“She has to report to them once a week,” said Gail.

“I know,” said Truach. “But if they call in on her, maybe once or twice a month, have a cuppa with her, no heavy stuff, they can keep an eye on the kids. How did they feel about their father?”

“I talked with Mrs. Quantock last night. She holds nothing back—about him, anyway. The kids were dead scared of him, Phil. He was a monster. A real fucking
monster
—” For a moment she lost her customary calm; even Sheryl looked at her in surprise. “Let's leave her alone!”

Clements looked at Malone, who said nothing; then he stood up. “Okay, meeting's over. Sheryl, you go out to Balmain, they cover Rozelle, and ask them to keep an eye on her, go to the house maybe once or twice a month. Just a drop-in call.”

“
Do we tell 'em what we know about the knife?”

Clements didn't look at Malone this time. “No, that's our business.”

Truach got to his feet. “I need a smoke. I'll be downstairs.”

He went out of the room, the odd man out. But as he passed Malone he pressed the latter's shoulder, an intimate gesture that was out of character for him. Nobody said anything and Malone got up and went back into his own office. Clements followed him, said, “You're off this case. No more Delia Jones, okay?”

“Am I being soft on her?”

“Don't ask me, mate. I have a dozen girls I could be soft on if they came back into my life. With Delia, let Sheryl and Gail do the deciding. They trust her not to do any more damage.”

“I'm still not sure—” Then he threw up his hands. “Righto, I'm off it till she comes to trial. I'm sorry we made things so awkward for Phil—”

“Forget it. This isn't the first time evidence has been withheld till we wanted to produce it. In the meantime—”

“Yeah, in the meantime. Where have we got on the Ambassador's wife?”

“Romy phoned through a preliminary on her p-m report. The stomach contents show Mrs. Pavane had a very good dinner—Japanese cuisine—some hours before she was done in. Where? Who with?”

“The girls can look into that, too.” Then his phone rang and he picked it up. “Malone.”

“Joe Himes, Scobie.”

Malone waved Clements to a chair. “What've you got, Joe? If anything?”

“I stayed last night at the Southern Savoy—incognito, I think is the word they use. I wanted a look at the place, thought I might pick up something by osmosis.” Malone made no comment and Himes said, “You don't appreciate?”

“Joe, Osmosis was the Greek feller failed the police entrance exam. We just use suspicion and interrogation.” He rolled his eyes at Clements.
Bloody Yanks
. “What did you pick up?”

“Okay, no osmosis.” Himes still sounded good-humoured. “It's not the sorta hotel takes any
notice
of its guests unless they ask. But I guess that's the way it is nowadays, hotels. You pays your money and they don't give a fuck what you do, so long's you don't burn the place down. If Mrs. Pavane made any noise while she was being strangled, no one heard it. Or wanted to hear it.”

Malone sighed in agreement. “That's the way it is, Joe. Nobody wants to be involved. You got anything else?” He tried to sound patient. He liked Himes, but he didn't like interference. “The consulate got anything to add?”

“I talked to the consulate driver—he went out to meet Mrs. Pavane. She was supposed to come out of the terminal to where he was waiting for her—local rules say he can't go into the terminal and leave his car unattended. She didn't show. He waited ten minutes, then got a baggage handler to keep an eye on the car while he went in to look for her. A ground hostess said she'd seen a woman like the one the driver described come off the plane, but she hadn't taken much notice of her—”

“Wait a minute. An ambassador's wife—the
American
Ambassador's wife—flies up from Canberra and nobody takes any notice of her?”

“Scobie, I queried that.” Himes seemed to lose his good humour for the moment. “She'd have got special attention on the plane, but at this end—Scobie, there were two Cabinet Ministers on that plane. Who gets the attention—Cabinet Ministers or an ambassador's wife? There were six or eight guys waiting for the Ministers—”

“Righto, Joe, I get the point. So Mrs. Pavane just slipped out of sight?”

“The ground hostess thought—
thought
—she saw the woman, she didn't know who she was, go off with a man, but she couldn't be sure.”

“Did anyone do any checking yesterday morning when she went missing?”

“They contacted your Feds at lunchtime, but then it was called off when Mrs. Pavane phoned her husband—or rather, she got his secretary. All she said was that she would be catching a later plane back than she'd booked.”

Malone switched continents: “What have you heard from your FBI mates?”

“They expect to tell me something tomorrow. They're already down in Corvallis.” Himes was
starting
to sound not aggressive but certainly more definite, as if to say the FBI,
we Americans
, were not dragging their feet. “If there's anything more to find out about Mrs. Pavane, they'll find it.”

“I'm sure they will, Joe—”

“What have you come up with?” Definitely an edge to his voice now.

“We're tracing the feller who tried to speak to Mrs. Pavane at the restaurant a couple of weeks ago. And we know she had a Japanese meal the night before last, some time before she was murdered. We're doing a trace through them, the better ones.”

“Okay, I'll be back to you soon's I hear from our Portland office.” He hung up, the line cold in Malone's ear.

Malone put down the phone. “I've trodden on his toes . . . Put someone on that Japanese restaurant trace. What are you grinning at?”

“You said she'd had a Jap meal before her murder. We'd have had a mess if she'd had it
after
the murder.”

“Don't be such a bloody smartarse. Or are you trying to lighten my mood or something?”

“It needs it.” Clements stood up. “You're getting shit on the liver again—”

“Hang on. Sorry. Sit down. Now what have we got on who had lunch at Catalina that day the stranger thought he recognized Mrs. Pavane?”

Clements sat down again. “Andy Graham is on it.”

Graham was Homicide's bloodhound; he would follow a trail to the moon. He was big and awkward and always in a hurry, but he produced. Some men, like seamstresses in invisible mending workrooms, can weave loose threads together till a pattern is regained or established. Andy Graham, for all his blundering rush through life, had patience. And the seamstresses, searching for a loose thread, would have agreed that patience was necessary. They would not, however, have tolerated any canine comparison. No woman would want to be referred to as a bloodhound bitch.

Then Malone's phone rang again: “Scobie? It's Romy. I've just finished the p-m on Boris Jones—you'll have the full report this afternoon. But there is something interesting—”

Malone
waited.

“—Mr. Jones had sex with someone, I'd say not long before he was murdered. He hadn't washed his penis, there was dried semen on it.”

Malone took his time: “You're suggesting Mr. Jones might've had sex with Mrs. Pavane and then strangled her?”

“I'm not suggesting anything. I'll let you know when we get a DNA report on her from Biology at Lidcombe. You're still coming to dinner tonight?”

“We'll be there.”
If only to keep life on an even keel
. He hung up. “That was your wife.”

“I gathered. Good news or bad news?”

“I dunno. Mr. Jones had dipped his wick not long before Mrs. Jones did him in.”

Clements thought about that for a long moment; then he said, “It's against the odds. Why would an ambassador's wife take on some rough trade with a guy she couldn't have known? A cleaner.”

“Again, I dunno. Why would a film star pick up a street hooker, instead of a call girl, to go down on him? That happened. I've been in this game long enough never to make guesses about why people do things. You're the same.”

“Okay, the first thing we do is find out if he had it off with his wife before she stuck the knife in him. I'll send Gail and Sheryl out, that'll be better than you and me leaning on her.”

“Infinitely.”

“It's long odds, but if he did get into bed with Mrs. Pavane and then killed her, you'd better get off both cases right now.”

“I couldn't think of a better idea.”

II

Ambassador Stephen Pavane had hardly slept for two nights. Love is debilitating, the cynics said; but they were the ones, almost invariably men, who had been unsuccessful in love. He was no cynic and he had been successful in love several times, but he agreed: love could be debilitating. He had loved
Billie
with a passion that continually surprised him. He had loved his first wife, but her slow death from cancer had been a preparation for grief and loss. It had brought a void in his life, but it had not been as deep as he had expected; it had been like the filling-in of a grave from the bottom. When the headstone had been placed above her it had somehow been a release. Not a joyous one, but a relief nonetheless. There had been empty years afterwards and then Billie had come along. It had not been love at first sight, not for him, though she had said it had been for her. She had been good at flattery because in most instances she had meant it. Then, abruptly and deeply, he had fallen in love with her. And now . . .

“What?” He was in his office with Kortright, his Deputy Chief of Mission.

“Stephen—” Pavane had insisted that at their level there was no need for formality when they were alone. “You're not listening to me. Why don't you go back to the private quarters?”

“Walter, if I go back there, what do I do? Sit and stare out the window?” He sat up straight, did look out the window for a moment. It was a cold Canberra day, the trees bare, a white haze that looked like a dusting of snow on the surrounding hills. One of the Marine guards crossed the lawn, bent over against the wind in a most un-Marine-like hunch. Last night's weather report had said there had been heavy falls at Perisher and Thredbo up in the mountains and he and Billie had been planning a weekend of skiing. He looked back at Kortright. “What were you saying?”

Kortright had a bad habit of making his patience look obvious. He still had some way to go to achieve the bland hypocrisy of a true diplomat; he was aiming for the British or French models, but he had some years of learning ahead. “Roger Bodine thinks he should go up to Sydney.”