Yesterday's Shadow (11 page)

“Joe Himes is there. The Sydney police don't want us interfering.”

“Roger is aware of that. But he thinks this may be more than—than just an ordinary case of murder.” He had been fortunate so far in his postings, at embassies where Americans had not been in danger.

Pavane gave him a hard eye. “It's not an ordinary case, Walter. It's my wife, the wife of an ambassador. You're a professional diplomat, but sometimes—” He gave up, realizing his grief was turning into random anger. “Go on.”

Kortright
had remained bland at the insult; he was enough of a diplomat to have progressed that far. “There are religious fanatics threatening to kill Americans wherever they are—”

She slept with whoever killed her
: but he couldn't tell Kortright that. Eventually it would come out, but he still hoped it would not be necessary. The hollowness in him deepened.

Still he managed to say: “There are no religious fanatics in this country, Walter—their religion is sport, but they don't shoot the players the way South Americans do. Walter, she checked into that hotel alone—don't ask me why, I can't explain it.
She
booked the room. There's a much simpler explanation than some religious fanatic luring her there to kill her. But don't ask me what it is.”

“So we keep Roger out of the scene?”

“For the time being, yes.” He had no trouble sounding firm. He was protecting Billie. Or himself?

“Well . . .” Kortright closed the folder he had brought in, though he had taken nothing from it. But it struck Pavane now that his DCM always carried a folder, almost like a talisman. He was still a bureaucrat at heart, though they can be liars like diplomats. “There are hundreds of messages of sympathy. I'll see that a general acknowledgement is prepared.”

Pavane had come to like Canberra in the two months he had been here, despite its isolation from the mainstream of Australian life. It was isolated. But then so were Islamabad and Brasilia and they were much more important postings. It was Billie who had described Canberra as a multi-racial country club, with everyone paying their dues and with the two senior members the Americans and the British. But waves, he knew, would already be in the making; as in any country club. There would have been ripples last night at the reception at the French Embassy. There would be a rising swell this evening at the Israeli Embassy. And, a long way away, at those other country clubs, Mission Hills and Kansas City.

“Roger has asked for diplomatic security and got it,” said Kortright, as if reading his thoughts. “There'll be no announcements from the Sydney police without talking to us first.”

“Good. The Aussies can be cooperative—”

“Sometimes.”

Kortright'
s mouth did not make a
moue
of contempt, but the dark military moustache seemed to bend in a curve downwards. He had said nothing to Pavane and he did his job extremely well, but the Ambassador, before leaving Washington, had learned as much as he could about the people he would be working with. Kortright was marking time, waiting for the posting to an
important
capital. London or Paris or Rome, somewhere where sophistication was not suspect and an object like Jackson Pollock's
Blue Poles
would not be treasured as much as the Elgin Marbles or the
Mona Lisa
. He was not a snob, just that he had been to Harvard. Pavane, if he stayed, would not be sorry to lose him.
If he stayed
: it was the first time the thought had entered his head.

“My wife's body will be released tomorrow. I'd like to be on a plane tomorrow night with it.”

“We've made several bookings with United—”

“No, charter a private plane—I'll pay for it. I don't want to be sitting amongst a lot of passengers with my wife's body in the hold.”

“No, of course not.” Kortright was not all State Department; he could be genuinely sympathetic. “How long will you stay?”

“I don't know, Walter. After the funeral, I'll go on to Washington, talk to the President. A week, ten days at the most. I'll be back—” He ended in mid-air. He could not talk about the future till he found out what had happened in the past. Billie's past . . .

When Kortright had gone, Pavane got up and walked to the window. The embassy was on a small hill, a Southern Georgian construction that had both amused and pleased him when he first saw it. One looked for Spanish moss hanging from the local eucalypts and darky retainers humming spirituals to arriving embassy guests. But he had recognized at once that it was a statement; other embassies declared their origins. Even the Chinese had looked to their past, with dragons and pagoda-like rooflines in the design of their embassy.

He had looked forward to this post, though he had known it would be no bed of roses, at least not all the way. There were matters of defence to be discussed and investment, too; the Australians were running hard to jump aboard the carousel of globalism. But trade was the bogey that kept cropping up all
the
time, especially in terms of wheat, meat and cotton, which were his business interests. The Australians were like old-time pirates in their trumpeting of free trade. They chose to ignore the local pressures on Congressmen back home, seemingly unaware that the farm lobby didn't care a damn whether a Congressman was a Democrat or a Republican, so long as he did what he was told or he'd be out at the next election.

Still, in his short time here he had come to enjoy working with the Australians. They were civilized, to a certain extent, and no more devious than the politicians back home in Missouri and Kansas. There was a bluntness to them that he admired and that reminded him of stories his own father had told him of Harry Truman and, before him, Jim Pendergast. They understood the true nature of politics and he was reminded again of another man back home, the Irish sage from Kansas City, Jerry Jette, who had said, “Political science is to politics what botany is to neurosurgery.” The natives here in Canberra understood that and he had felt at home with them.

And now, for the moment anyway, it all meant nothing.

III

“Where's Inspector Malone?” said Delia Jones.

“He couldn't come,” said Gail Lee. “He's caught up in the murder of the American Ambassador's wife.”

“And she's more important than me?”

“No, she's not, Delia. But there are pressures—he's got everyone and his brother on his back.”

“You dunno what it's like,” said Sheryl Dallen.

Delia stared at them; then appeared to be mollified. “Okay, but why's he sent you? Are you going to be harassing me all the time I'm on bail? One of your guys was out here this morning without a warrant—”

“That's why we're here, Delia.”

The two women detectives had come to this semidetached cottage in a back street of Rozelle.
The
small suburb, like so many inner sections of colonial Sydney, had been part of a land grant; the welfare state was invented for the upper classes long before it filtered down to the poor. Rozelle was originally called West Balmain after its lucky grantee, William Balmain, the colony's Principal Surgeon. To get a land grant was a better return than anything provided by Medicare to latterday medicos. The land was sub-divided and sub-divided again; terraces of workers' cottages sprang up like hedgerows. In the 1870s the area got its most imposing institution, the Callan Park asylum for the insane; the locals, though out of their own wits on poor wages, were not impressed. The old asylum is now a writers' centre, not much of an improvement in the opinion of the drinkers at the local pubs.

Gentrification was round the corner in some of the other streets, but here the lowly-paid and the pensioner widows and widowers with thirty or forty years' residence still held their ground. This house had been built in the days when sunshine was kept out for fear it would fade the curtains; the windows were narrow, like defence slots in a castle that had shrunk. There was a small neat garden at the front of the house and Sheryl had wondered to Gail who had tended it, Boris the cleaner or Delia the neat one.

They were in the small kitchen; it was neat and clean. The saucepans that hung above the stove, Gail had noted, were not expensive ones; the magazine on the table was
New Idea
, not
House & Garden
. There was no lingering smell of cooking, though this kitchen, she guessed, had been in use for over a hundred years. Everything was worn, but everything was spotless. Delia might be a battered wife, but she was not a slatternly one.

“We're not here to harass you,” said Sheryl. “Just to ask a question or two. Did your husband play around? You know, with other women?”

Delia didn't frown or look surprised or annoyed; she could have been asked if her husband played bowls. “Yes.”

“You knew?”

“It took me a long while to find out. But yes, I found out about two years ago.”

“Anyone in particular?”

“No.” She was composed again; Gail had to admire her. “He'd have a woman for a week or two,
then
dump her.”

“Boris sounds a real shit. Why—?” Then Sheryl waved a hand at herself, as if trying to sweep away her disgust. “Sorry, Delia. I shouldn't have said that.”

“Why did I marry him? Sometimes I wonder, myself. He was, I dunno, comforting, I guess you'd call it. When I first met him. I needed that, I'd just broken up with Hugh, my first husband—” Then she leaned forward, not eagerly but as if wanting to make sure: “You're both sympathetic to me, aren't you?”

“Well—” Sheryl leaned back; police sympathy was not something to be handed out like a leaflet. “Delia, you killed your husband. You had that intention all along—”

“No, I didn't!” For a moment the composure was gone.

“Delia—”

“You don't understand. You should of brought Scobie—he'd of understood—” Then she collected herself, gathering the pebbles that had burst out of her like shot. “No, I shouldn't of said that. Forget I said it—I don't wanna get him in trouble. I
didn't
intend killing Boris—”

Gail had noticed the calendar on the wall above the small fridge. Dates were circled in red, several days apart. “What are those dates?”

Delia turned her head, stared at the calendar as if she had not looked at it before, then turned back. “I was keeping count.”

“Keeping count?”

“When he bashed me. It used to be once a month, six weeks. But lately—”

“You took the knife with you,” said Gail, almost gently.

“Yes. Yeah, I took it—to frighten him. And to frighten
her
.”

“Who?”

“I dunno. Someone at the hotel. Why, what do you know?”

“Delia,” said Gail, still gently, “Boris had sex with someone not long before you stabbed him. Was it with you?”

“
Of course not! Jesus—”

She shook her head fiercely. A lock of hair fell down and she pushed it back:
neatly
, Gail noted. Delia Jones would have been a good-looking girl when Inspector Malone would have known her; the looks were still there, vague, as if behind a frosted glass. The dark brown hair had hints of grey in it; the brown eyes were dulled (or hurt); the figure was thin but once might have been rounded. She was bruised and battered, but somehow she had not totally surrendered.

“If it was someone else, would you know who it was?”

“No, I dunno. It could of been one of the women worked there on night shift—”

“Or one of the guests?” asked Sheryl. “A woman on her own looking for company?”

“I don't think so. Boris was a
cleaner
—why would some woman, a guest, pick him?” She sounded choosy; but she had picked him. “No, it was someone who knew him or knew he worked at the hotel. I dunno any of the staff. I suppose there'd be some women there who'd let Boris put the hard word on 'em. He wasn't bad to look at and he had—I suppose you'd call it charm.”

“Bullshit,” said Sheryl, but she said it to herself.

“Where was he when you got to the hotel?” asked Gail. “Did you ask anyone where he was?”

“No. I went looking for him. He was upstairs, I think it was the third floor. Yes, it was.”

“On the third floor? That—” Gail stopped.

“What?”

“That was where the American Ambassador's wife was murdered,” said Sheryl.

“What?” Delia said again; then was silent. Out beyond the small back yard a voice called,
Delia
! It sounded like Mrs. Quantock, but neither Delia nor the two detectives took any notice.

Then Delia looked at them: “You're not suggesting—Oh God! No. No!” She shook her head again, determinedly. “She wouldn't have—have looked at him. A
cleaner
? In his overalls, with his hoover and his bucket and mop? No.” She was emphatic. The lock of hair fell down again and this time she didn't push it back. “No, he was in the corridor, hoovering, when I got up there. I came up by the stairs, I didn't take the lift. I asked him why he hoovered at night, when the guests were asleep, and he said he did
it
because he was told not to. He was like that. You didn't tell Boris what he could and couldn't do.”

He certainly had charm, thought Sheryl.

“That was why he never lasted long in a job. And then—”

“And then what?”

“Then he'd take it out on me and the kids. You know what it's like. Or do you?”

“No,” said Gail and Sheryl, both unmarried and not living with partners.

“Did he hit you then, when you came up looking for him?” said Gail.

“No, not then. Down in the store room, when we went back down there. He finished hoovering, kept me just standing there, and then we went back downstairs.”

“What a bastard,” said Sheryl. “So you rule out that he'd been into Room 342?”