by Jon Cleary
“I was out in the alley myself,” said Malone.
“From what I read in the papers this morning, you were the principal witness.”
“Thanks,” said Malone, but he grinned; Truach’s humour could be dry but it was never malicious. “Andy?”
Andy Graham had been with Homicide five years. For too long he had exhausted everyone with his galloping zeal; sometimes he had rushed right by clues and had had to come back to them. He had been the unit’s Airedale pup; now he had become its bloodhound. “I’ve tracked down all the kitchen staff. Well, all but two—they were illegals and they’d shot through by the time I got to their boarding-house. The others, they all said they were headfirst into their pots and woks. Nobody heard the shots. One guy said he thought the killer was a health inspector.”
“With a stocking mask?” said Clements. “That’s real undercover stuff.”
“Gail? John?”
“I tried the Chinese consulate,” said Gail Lee. “Then the embassy in Canberra. Both of them told me they didn’t work on Saturday, they said call back Monday.”
“They’ve been too long in Australia,” said John Kagal. “The Great Leap Backwards. Chairman Mao must be spinning in his grave.”
“What did you learn?”
Kagal took out his notes. “The Bund Corporation is a private outfit, not a Chinese government body. It claims it has capital assets of two hundred million dollars, but that’s a dicey figure.”
“Where do you get all your info?” said Malone in wonderment. “On a Saturday, too?”
“Don’t ask.” Even when he thought he was unobserved, Kagal always looked smug; he looked that way now. He had more connections in the financial world than an Internet computer, but he never divulged them. There was money in the family background, but he never mentioned the background and Malone and the others never asked. It was known he had gone to Cranbrook, one of the more expensive private schools, and to Macquarie University, where he had taken two degrees. He lived in a flat in one of the better blocks in Double Bay, otherwise known as Double Pay because of its prices, and he drove a Honda Accord. However, though smug, he was discreet. Two attributes, Malone knew, that did not always go together. “These figures are what’s public, but I think I need to do some further checking. The company is registered in Hong Kong, but I’ll have to find out whether it was registered there before the Brits left or after China took over.”
“Is there much private capital in China today?” Phil Truach was bouncing his lighter up and down in his hand: time for another smoke. “What do the old men in Beijing think about it?”
“Millionaires are springing up like rice shoots,” said Kagal, whose reports always had a little more decoration than the others’. “There’s not much the old men can do about it. Gail would know more about it than I do.”
“Why would I?” Conversationally, Malone had noticed, Gail Lee could leave a high-diver two feet off the board with no water in the pool.
“Well—” Kagal gestured, left airborne.
“My father won’t let us discuss modern China. For him China stopped the day the Communists took over.”
So much, Malone thought, for Jack Aldwych’s theory that China was always in the blood of mainland-born Chinese.
“Righto,” he said, “what about Lotus Development?”
“It was registered eighteen months ago,” said Kagal. “It was a two-dollar shelf company that Les Chung bought. So far I haven’t been able to find out what its capital is now. But when the present consortium took over the Olympic Tower hole in the ground, they assumed a seventy-million-dollar debt. Someone put up the seed money.”
Malone looked at Clements. “Jack Aldwych?”
Clements shook his head. “If Jack’s true to his old form, he wouldn’t put seed money into a bank hold-up. He and his son are worth Christ knows how much, but they don’t start projects. They come in when all the groundwork’s been done.”
“I think we’re getting into one of those Chinese box puzzles,” said Malone.
“Jack said last night there’d been some union trouble. Do we talk to them? Maybe we’ll pick up something there.”
“Let Day Street do that. Union Hall is on their turf. We don’t have anyone to spare, not yet anyway.”
“I can do it,” said Boston from his distant seat. “I worked out of Day Street, I know everyone at Union Hall.”
Malone didn’t want any help from Boston; he was not interested in allowing him to rehabilitate himself. Yet if the ex-uniformed man had contacts amongst the union officials, a lot of time could be saved. Homicide had little or nothing to do with union troubles; lately, aside from some election rorts, the unions had been relatively law-abiding. The old days, in which his own father, Con, had been one of the principal troublemakers, always straddling not only the picket line but also the line of the law, had gone. Industrial reform, long coming and still with only one foot in the door, had brought a more pragmatic union official, one who had at last realized that the writing on the wall was more than just graffiti. Perhaps Boston could help.
“It’s yours, Harold. I’d like to know something by lunchtime Monday.” Meaning: not lunchtime Wednesday or Thursday.
Boston caught the hint; his face stiffened. “It’ll be here. Lunchtime Monday.”
Malone looked at the other detectives. “You, Andy, can go home, but you’re on call. Phil, you and John go out and talk to the Sun family, see if they know anything. Gail and I’ll go out later and talk to the Feng family . . . Russ, ring Les Chung, see if he’s going to drop in. If not, tell him we’ll be out to his house, flashing lights, siren, the lot. He mightn’t like that, not out in Bellevue Hill. He lives just up the road from Kerry Packer, doesn’t he?”
“Kerry wouldn’t like it, either.”
Malone went back into his office, sat down and looked at his phone. Breakfast with the family had been an uncomfortable meal; for once on a Saturday morning the girls and Tom had got themselves out of bed and eaten with him and Lisa. There had been no discomfort on their part; or none that had been apparent. It had all been on his part. When Claire had casually remarked that last night’s murders had been pretty brutal—“doesn’t a killer like that think of other people? Those in the restaurant, innocent people just having a night out?” he had snapped, “Professional killers aren’t interested in innocent people.”
The sharpness in his voice made Lisa look up from her toast, but he had ignored her. He knew he was wrong in his attitude. He was a cop and this was a cop’s family; he couldn’t go on protecting them from everything forever. But he was unwilling, could not bring himself to the fact, to let them be part of his job. The murder of strangers was not a subject that bound a family together.
He said as much and Lisa said, “May we quote you? We were there, we saw what happened. We’re not blaming you for taking us there—it was the girls’ suggestion.”
“Yes,” said the girls, looking at him over their cereal with the eyes of a biassed jury.
“Mine, too,” said Tom. “Incidentally, we never got to eat.”
“Stay out of this,” Maureen told him. “You’re not helping the argument.”
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to do. Lighten things up.”
“It’s not an argument,” said Malone defensively.
“All right, then,” said Lisa. “It’s not an argument. But you don’t want it to be a discussion, either. So we’ll drop it.”
“But—” said Claire.
“I said, drop it!”
The milk had turned sour on his cereal, his toast had tasted like brittle brick. When he had left to come to the office, had kissed Lisa, her cheek had tasted as if she had been out in a cold wind.
He was still looking at the phone, wanting to call her, when Clements said from the doorway, “Les Chung is already here, he’s on his way up.”
He put away the thought of the call to home, said, “Let’s hope he’s decided to loosen up. I’m fed up with Oriental insc
rutability.” Then he saw Gail Lee just behind the big man. “Not you, Gail.”
“Of course not. I’m saved by my in-your-face Aussie side.” Then she blinked, a small-girl expression that was out of character with her. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
He grinned, though it was an effort. “Gail, the day your Aussie side becomes subtle or inscrutable, we’re done for. Come in and sit down. Make Mr. Chung feel at home.”
Chung was dressed almost exactly like Clements; unlike the big man, he looked like the yacht squadron commodore. He sat down opposite Malone, crossing one leg over the other, showing a black loafer that looked as if it had been hand-polished three times a day by a coolie bootblack. He looked around at the three detectives. “I’m here against my will,” he announced.
“So many of our visitors are, Les,” said Malone, relaxing back in his chair, ready for the patience game if it was to be played again. “But we always try to make you welcome.”
Chung smiled. “I’m sure you do. So what do you want to know?”
“What’ve you got to tell us?” said Clements.
Chung looked at Gail. “Do you find it difficult, dealing with the local bluntness?”
“One gets used to it, Mr. Chung.”
Malone was watching her; it was difficult to tell whether the Chinese or the Australian side of her was working. Then he said, “Les, tell us about the Bund Corporation.”
“Can I speak off the record?”
Malone gestured. “No notebooks, Les, no tape recorder. Go ahead.”
“Why off the record?” Clements asked, blunt as ever. “Are you afraid of them?”
Chung put both feet flat on the floor, seemed to lose some of his relaxed air. “I could be. It’s only a suspicion . . . I said I’m here against my will. I’m also here against my good judgement.”
“Let us be the judge of that,” said Malone, still sitting back in his chair. “Tell us exactly who the Bund Corporation are.”
Chung took his time; he might be giving evidence that could be used against him. “They are a private company—a proprietary limited one, just like mine and Jack Aldwych’s, no public investors. It’s not listed on the stock exchange here.”
“What about the Chinese government?” said Clements. “Are they in it?”
“No-o. I was led to believe—” He stopped.
“Go on, Les. I find it hard to believe that you were led to believe . . .” Malone smiled. “No offence. I’m paying you a compliment.”
Chung smiled in return, appeared to relax. “I think I wanted to believe . . . When someone comes to you and offers you seventy million dollars for openers . . .” He gave an elegant shrug. “I took them at face value.”
“One would,” said Malone. “Wouldn’t you, Russ?”
“Only up to a point,” said Clements. “But then, I take it, you did some due diligence.”
“Ye-es.” It was like a soft hiss. “Things weren’t quite what I was told.”
“We’ve been to see Jack Aldwych,” said Malone. “He said his son had done due diligence on Bund. Did he come up with what you discovered?”
Chung nodded.
Malone and Clements looked at each other. “Jack wasn’t telling us the truth.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” said Malone.
“Maybe he’s become a Taoist,” said Chung. “They believe all truth is relative.”
“Do you?” Malone knew nothing of Taoism.
“If it suits me.”
“Let’s not be relative now, Les. What did you find out about Bund that they hadn’t told you? Who was Mr. Shan? Some Shanghai buccaneer?”
“Oh yes, I guess he was that, all right.” Now that he had started to open up, Chung seemed more relaxed. “But he was also a senior government official in the Central China Department of Trade. So he said.”
“So he said?”
“It took us some time to check. Communist government offices don’t exactly open up to you when you ask questions.”
“The Great Wall of China approach?”
“Jack has been talking to you? Yes. Mr. Shan had been only a consultant to the department, but he’d left them more than a year ago.”
Malone switched tack: “What about Madame Tzu?”
Chung raised an eyebrow. “Jack’s told you about her?”
“Just in passing. You tell us something about her.”
“Madame Tzu—she likes to be called Madame—is a throwback. I’m not sure how old she is—she looks about forty, but I think she might have been at the court of the Last Empress. She acts like that at times. She’s not a government official, but she seems to know everyone in government. She lives in Hong Kong, but she comes and goes to Canton, Shanghai, Beijing. She’s a remarkable woman.”
“And you don’t like her?” said Clements.
“Oh, I like her. I just don’t trust her.”
“How long did it take you to find that out?” said Malone. “That you don’t trust her?”
“Some time, a few months.”
“Is she in Sydney now?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Not that you know of?” said Clements. “She’s your partner and she doesn’t let you know when she’s in town?”
Chung spread his hands, almost a Gallic gesture. “That’s Madame Tzu. She might have come to Sydney with Shan—he arrived yesterday morning—but he didn’t mention her.”
“Check with Immigration,” Malone said to Gail. Then to Chung: “Are you Chinese inscrutable with each other?”
“Are we?” Chung smiled at Gail.
“My father tells me I’m an open book,” she said. “That’s the Australian side of me. I’ll check on Madame Tzu, sir, find out if she is in town. Where does she usually stay, Mr. Chung?”
“The Bund Corporation has an apartment in the Vanderbilt.”
The three detectives looked at each other: no inscrutability there. “Do the comrades back home know about this luxury?”
“The comrades back home don’t know the half of it about the Bund Corporation,” said Chung.
Out in the main room a phone rang. Sheryl Dallen turned away from her wall chart and picked it up. She listened, then hung up and came to Malone’s doorway. “Excuse me, sir. That was Bondi. There’s been another homicide.”
“Do they want us?” asked Malone.
“It’s another Chinese. They thought we might be interested.”
Malone looked at Chung. “Do you know anyone at Bondi, Les?”
Chung shook his head. “I never go near Bondi, Inspector, even though I live only a mile or two from it.”
“A bit below your idea of class?” said Clements.
Chung smiled. “No, I’m afraid of sun cancers. Leave me out of this homicide. As you must occasionally say, I haven’t a clue.”
II
Bondi has one of the most magnificent of Sydney’s twenty-two surf beaches. It is a long shallow curve of white sand between two headlands; it has two life-saving clubs. The southern end is the topless end, where male eyeballs are as susceptible to melanomas as the bosoms they are staring at; the northern end is populated mainly by youngsters waiting to grow up and migrate to the southern end. Behind the beach is a wide esplanade, neglected for so long that it grew to look like a wasteland staked with parking meters; recently the local council had raised enough energy and money to turn it into a broad attractive plaza. In the middle was a pavilion that had started out to be a Greek temple for the surf gods and goddesses on the sands in front of it; somehow, along the way, the philosophy and plot had been lost and for years it had been no more than a columned eyesore. Behind the esplanade was a breakwater of surf shops, cafés and restaurants, a hotel that looked as if it had drifted ashore from Miami and, at the southern end, a drinkers’ hotel that had been a Saturday night blood bin till the police had at last asserted their authority. Behind the shops and hotels a shallow valley sloped upwards, its streets lined with modest houses and cheap blocks of flats. Bondi
had once been a suburb that had its pride, but over the years the pride had been stained and badly dented. Drugs had been freely available; New Year’s Eve celebrations had turned into riots; women had been afraid to walk alone down certain streets. Now, however, with Sydney being told that it had to be an exemplary city by the time of the Olympics, like a child being dressed up for the visit of some rich relatives, Bondi had a certain shine to it, even if it was only veneer.
“Homicide sent two women?” The detective sergeant from the Bondi station was stocky, overweight and had the weary air of a chauvinist who knew the war between the sexes was lost.
“You have a problem with that?” Gail Lee looked at Sheryl Dallen; they nodded at each other, they were on familiar turf. “We’re here just to do the housekeeping.”
Sergeant Napolani’s smile was unexpectedly friendly. “Girls, you couldn’t be more welcome. There’s a pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen . . . Only kidding. Actually, the dead guy kept a very neat pad. Almost too neat. Or else someone’s been through the place and tidied it up.”
Zhang Yong had lived in a one-bedroom flat in a drab block halfway up the southern hill from the valley. His body had been taken away, but Crime Scene tapes hung across the front door like an auctioneer’s invitation. The Physical Evidence team were still at work, but showing no excitement, as if they had already decided that whatever they unearthed here was not going to be of much value. The flat was typical rent-stuff: cheap carpet, cheap furniture, a faded print of a bush scene on one wall, the bare essentials in the kitchen. Zhang’s body, fully clothed, had been found huddled in the shower-stall, the shower drenching him like a last benediction.
“The water seeped down into the flat below,” said Napolani. “A coupla Maoris. They came up to complain, so they said—they look more like they would of beat the shit outa him. When he didn’t answer the door, they kicked it in—they tell us they play rugby for Easts. They found him and, like good citizens, they phoned us.”
