Yesterday's Shadow (27 page)

“We don't know. That's what we want to ask him.”

She smiled again, less sour this time. “I'd hate to cross-examine you in the witness box.”

“I'm a novice compared to Detective Graham.”

Andy Graham smiled and took the compliment. Then Mr. Brown was announced by Rita Gudersen's secretary. He came in, overcoated, hat in hand, and pulled up sharply when he saw the two strangers.

“I'm sorry, Miz.Gudersen. Am I too early?”

“Not at all,” said Malone and introduced himself and Graham. “We'd like to talk to you, ask a few questions.”

“What about?”

“Not here, Mr. Brown—”

Julian
looked at Rita Gudersen, who had moved back to her desk but was still standing. “Did you arrange this?”

“No, I did not, Mr. Brown. We are not in the habit of ambushing our clients—” Her voice was like a double-edged sword.

He dipped his head. “I apologize.”

“Miss Gudersen had nothing to do with this,” said Malone. “We'd like you to come up to Police Centre with us. We shan't keep you any longer than is necessary.”

“I can't come now. Can't it wait? I have a meeting—” He looked at Rita Gudersen. “Are my sister and her husband here?”

“No.” She was playing her part better than Malone had expected from her early attitude towards him and Graham. “Mr. Wexall phoned—they've been held up. They'll be twenty or thirty minutes late.”

“You'll be back here by then, Mr. Brown,” said Malone. “Do you mind coming with us?”

“And if I do mind?” For a moment there was a show of belligerence; then he thought better of it. “Okay . . . Tell the Wexalls I'll be back here before ten, Rita.” Then his face stiffened with shrewdness: “Walter told me he had to be in court at ten. So he won't be coming?”

He's guessed who gave us the word, thought Malone.

“I wouldn't know about that,” said Rita Gudersen.

He studied her, then said, “Okay, we'll get everything signed and sealed. I'm booked out this afternoon for San Francisco.” Then he looked at Malone. “Ready, Inspector?”

The bastard's cool
. “All the time, any time. It's the Police Service motto. Right, Detective Graham?”

“All the time, sir,” said Andy Graham.

8

I

“DELIA,” SAID
Rosie Quantock, “you gotta find yourself something to do. A job or something.”

She was wearing the burden of Delia and her crime and the care of Delia's two kids, but it hardly showed. She had been a battler all her life, coming from a large family with no money; she had had her dreams, but they had always been beyond her reach. She had had a voice that, in other circumstances, might have at least got her out of the chorus; but she had never had enough money to hire a top coach, she had never been quite good enough to win a scholarship, she had been a union organizer and management had always shied away from her, fearful that if they promoted her she would have organized Sutherland, Pavarotti and only God knew who else. She had married a stagehand and retired, but still went to the Opera House, stood in the wings and sang silently every note with those on stage. She had surrendered but no one but her husband knew.

Delia Jones looked at her two children. “What d'you reckon? You want me to work?”

The boy and girl looked like each other and both looked like their mother. If there was anything of their father in them, it was only that their cheeks were wider than their mother's. They both had her dark hair and the girl had her mother's lively, pretty mouth. The boy had a quiet countenance to him, as if always waiting for tomorrow.

“It'd help, wouldn't it, Mum?” said the girl. “I mean, it'd give you something to do, instead of sitting around, moping all day.”

“You think that's what I do?” She loved them and was tolerant of their criticism.

“Yeah,” said the boy. He was eleven years old, but already he had put a foot inside the door of
adulthood,
opened for him by his warring parents. “Get a job, Mum. It'd give us more money to spend.”

“You need it, the extra money,” said Rosie Quantock. “You dunno how long this—this thing is gunna drag on. Are you behind in the rent?”

Delia didn't answer and the girl said, “Yeah. The man was here yesterday and Mum sent me to the door—”

“Dakota, you talk too much,” said her mother, but wearily.

They were seated round the kitchen table, the breakfast things still in front of them. Morning light streamed in the curtainless window, but it did nothing to relieve the drabness of the small room. In the past two weeks Rosie Quantock had noticed that Delia had grown careless about housekeeping. The woman who, even when battered and bruised, had kept the small house as neat as a cell no longer appeared to care. But the calendar, with those battle days circled in red, had disappeared from the wall above the fridge. A certain amount of housekeeping had been done.

Delia looked at her friend. “Rosie, what would I do? They don't want me back where I used to work—like when I take calls on the board, people are gunna recognize who I am.”

“Change your name,” said the boy.

“Calvin, I can't do that.”

“I'm gunna change mine,” he said.

“What? Calvin or Jones?” said Rosie Quantock, who had no children of her own, and smiled at him and rubbed the back of his neck. Then she looked at Delia with real concern. “Go down to the job office this morning, love. Take anything they offer you. But get off your arse, get out and do something!”

“Rosie's right, Mum,” said the girl. “While we're on holidays, I'm gunna do some baby-sitting.”

Delia looked at the boy with a tired smile. “And what are you gunna do?”

“I dunno. I could mow lawns, only grass don't grow in winter. Maybe I can wash someone's car.”

“Well, wash all these things up first,” said Delia and rose. She led Rosie Quantock to the front door, opened it and stepped out into the cold sunlight. “I really appreciate you trying to help me, Rosie.
But
it isn't easy, going into places where people recognize me. I see 'em nudging each other—
There she is
.”

“Stuff 'em, love. The only ones who wouldn't be on your side would be the men. The women understand. You had the guts to do something some of them might want to do.”

She opened the front gate, stepped out. “Go and register for a sole parent's pension.”

Delia laughed. “Rosie, I'm a sole parent because I killed my husband!”

“Don't matter. You'll be dealing with bureaucrats—they're only interested in facts, not reasons.”

Delia smiled; her smiles now all looked tired. “You're on your own, Rosie. I dunno what I'd do without you to buck me up.”

“You need bucking up.” Rosie closed the gate. “Go out and get yourself some money. Only don't hold up a bank or some guy flashing his money around.”

“You think I might do that?”

“I wouldn't blame you, love—” She was smiling, not tiredly.

“You never blamed me for—for what I did to Boris.”

“He had it coming to him. I'll never blame you for that. Neither will the kids. If it hadn't been him, it would of been you that some day would of finished up dead.” She was inside her own gate now, talking over the small dividing fence. “Now go and get a job, pay the rent, buy the kids a meal at McDonald's or Pizza Hut. Get yourself a life again. It's gunna be a long wait till you go to trial.”

She went into her house, closing the front door as if to say there was no further argument. Delia leaned on her own front gate and looked up and down the narrow street. A few cars were parked along one kerb: nothing new, nothing that would excite the revheads who went to motor shows: four wheels, an engine, a means of escape for a day or two to something better than this. She had dreamed of better than this, she was convinced; twenty-five years ago came back to mind like an old movie. Scobie had been in the dream, she had told herself over the past weeks. They had been more than lovers, they had been deeply in love. He had proposed to her, she could hear the words even now . . . Her mind whirled, just as it had when she had driven the knife into Boris.

She clutched at the gate to steady herself. Her gaze had blurred; she blinked and tried to clear it.
Slowly
she recovered, still holding to the gate. Then her mind cleared, her legs strengthened and she was all right. She must not let the kids see her like this . . .

“Mum?”

She turned her head. Dakota was in the doorway. “Yes?”

“Calvin's out the back, he's burning Dad's photo. The one you threw out.”

“Let him go. If that's what he wants to do—” She felt a sort of mad glee.

Dakota looked at her, then the lively, pretty mouth curved in a smile. They were mother and daughter.

Delia smiled back. She loved both of her children so much. She would get another job, find money somehow to give them a good life . . .

II

Before he left home that morning Malone had called Gail Lee at her flat in Leichhardt. He had never been to her home nor she to his; they lived three lives, only sharing the one at Homicide. Once or twice he had thought of inviting Gail and Sheryl Dallen home to meet his girls and Tom, but decided against it. Police life had enough skeins to it without getting them tangled.

“Gail, you and Sheryl go out and pick up Delia Jones, bring her in to Police Centre.”

“Something on?” Gail sounded as if she might be brushing her teeth, her usual clear speech was indistinct.

“We're picking up Julian Baker. I want her to have a look at him in a line-up, but don't tell her that.”

“What if she won't come?” Her voice was clearer, the question clearer still.

“Tell her I want to talk to her. That'll bring her in.” He hung up and turned round to find Lisa leaning against the wall only feet from him. “Ah.”

“Yes—ah. Another little tryst?”

“I'm just going to ask her what she's doing this weekend. I thought we might have her over for
dinner.”

She peeled herself off the wall, came to him and put her arms round his neck. “Will she be a help in the Pavane case?”

“I'm hoping so. If she can pick him out of a line-up—” He kissed her. Then cocked an eye over her shoulder at Tom standing in his bedroom doorway.

“I wish you wouldn't do that in front of the kid,” said Tom. “You're worse than a Spanish movie.”

“It's his hot Irish blood,” said Lisa. “You should be so lucky to have some.”

She went down towards the kitchen and Tom grinned after her. “You're lucky, aren't you? We both are.”

“How's your tutor?” asked Malone.

“Like as if we'd never met. We just nod to each other in class.”

“She doesn't resent you jilting her?”

“I didn't
jilt
her. I just didn't renew my subscription. I heard you then on the phone—your ex-girlfriend coming to see you?”

For the first time he could remember he looked with suspicion at his son. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing.” Tom looked surprised. “What—oh, come on, Dad! What do you think I'm doing? Spying for Mum? It was just a question, that was all. I heard you say the other night she wouldn't talk to anyone but you—”

“Righto—”Malone waved an apologetic hand. “She's a bloody nuisance, if you want the truth. But she's a witness and I have to talk to her.”

“A witness? I thought she was a killer?”

Malone had said enough; Delia kept tripping him up. “I'll tell you about it when it's all over.”

“No, you won't,” said Tom; then smiled. “Mum'll have your balls if you mention that woman again.”

“
Mum would never have thoughts like that—”

“You kidding?” said Tom and, grinning, went into the bathroom.

Where did the innocent four-year-old go, the one who used to greet me with “Friend or fuzz?”
He just wished he could not renew his subscription with Delia. Had his own life been so simple when he was young? But he knew the question had been answered in Delia's mind. She didn't think so. She had never thought of him as part of her library. It only came back to him now that he had broken her hymen. Where had he read that first love is never forgotten? He would have to handle Delia with kid gloves, which were not a uniform issue with police.

Now, gloveless, he was escorting Julian Baker into Police Centre. “A few questions, Mr. Baker, and you can be back at your meeting and then on your way home to—Toronto, is it?”

“How do you know so much?” Baker had regained his good temper, though he was not affable.

“It's a computer world, Mr. Baker. There are no secrets any more—you must know that. They're hacking into the Pentagon. Next thing they'll be hacking into the Vatican and nothing will be secret any more . . . In here?” He led Baker into an interview room, gestured for him to be seated. “Detective Graham and I have a few questions about Mrs. Pavane. You remember her? She used to be Patricia Norval.”

He and Andy Graham sat down on the other side of the table from Baker. The latter looked at the video recorder, but made no comment. Then he stood up and took off his overcoat, folded it and laid it over the back of the empty chair beside him. Then he sat down again, shot his cuffs and laid his hands flat on the table. It was an act and Malone had to admire it.

“Yes, I knew Trish. Who told you?”

“We've been visiting some of your old workmates,” said Malone. “We know something of what went on in those offices—the scam, gossip, stuff like that—”

“What scam was that?”

This bastard is so cool
. “It's none of our business, Jack—”

“Julian.”

“
Sorry. Julian. It's none of our business, we're Homicide, so we won't go into it. Patricia Norval—or Mrs. Billie Pavane, which was who she was when she was murdered—she's our business. Did you see her after you came back to Sydney this time?”