by Jon Cleary
“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?”
“That was where she was? Where is it? I mean, on that floor?”
Gail closed her eyes; the room came back out of memory. She opened her eyes. “At the end of the corridor, on the right-hand side. Looking out on Central Square.”
Delia was searching her own memory, though she didn't close her eyes. “A man came out of there, that room—well, he half came out. I remember staring at him and he stared back. Then he stepped back inside, he closed the door again.”
“Was it the same man you saw outside the hotel when you were waiting for a taxi?”
“I dunno. It could of been. If it was, when he came out looking for the taxi, he was wearing an overcoat and a hat. The guy in the room, he had grey hair. I remember that.”
The two detectives looked at each other, but said nothing.
“He was definitely there.” Her voice had changed, was precise. “In that room, 342. But as for Boris—no. I don't know who he had sex with, but it wasn't with Mrs. Whatsername. No way. He hated Americans. He was still Russian like that, still fighting the Cold War.”
Gail and Sheryl stood up. “We'll be in touch, Delia—”
Delia suddenly looked perturbed. “Oh God, I'm sorry—I should have offered you coffee or something—”
“Delia, it doesn't matter—” Gail all at once felt sorry for her. She wondered what background Delia came from that, even in these circumstances, she felt hospitality was important. Her speech at times was slovenly, but it was as if from weariness rather than habit; there were hints in the voice, as a moment ago, of education, even elocution. “Stay out of trouble. Take care of your children.”
“They're not going to revoke my bail, are they?”
“I don't think so,” said Gail, but she couldn't sound optimistic.
“Things will work out, Delia,” said Sheryl, but she sounded no more optimistic than Gail.
Out in the street the two detectives paused by their car. Gail looked up and down the narrow roadway; there were only a few cars parked by the kerb on one side of the road. The houses were all small and one-storied, aged by a century or more of storm, heat and, in some cases, neglect.
Under the dull grey day they had a melancholy air to them. As if they knew they were doomed: the developers were just out of sight, bulldozers at the ready.
“Do you think Boris might of killed Mrs. Pavane because she was an American?” said Sheryl.
Gail looked at her across the roof of the car. “He'd have raped her first—he didn't do that. No, I don't think he had anything to do with Mrs. Pavane.”
“Then are we gunna look for the woman he had sex with?”
“I suppose we'd better,” said Gail. “But do you care?”
Then they were aware of Rosie Quantock standing at the gate of the house next door. “You're not gunna leave her alone, are you?”
Gail walked across to her. “Rosie, we're only doing our job. Detective Dallen and I aren't going to ride her into the ground. We're here just to find out more about Boris.”
“An arsehole. Absolutely. I'd hear him belting her and the kids and I'd hammer on the wall—” She seemed ready to burst with emotion; there were tears in her eyes. “Jesus, she had to kill him to save herself and the kids! Can't you fucking understand that?”
Gail put a hand on the big plump arm on top of the gate. “We do understand, Rosie. We see this sort of thing as frequently as you did—more so. We're not going to ride Delia, I promise you.”
“What about the male cops? That Inspector Malone?” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“He's on her side, too,” said Sheryl from beside the car.
Gail looked at her, frowned warningly; then looked back at Rosie Quantock. “Go in and sit with Delia a while.” She turned to go back to the car, then stopped. “Were you really with the Opera House chorus?”
Rosie Quantock gestured at herself, at her surroundings; but somehow managed a smile. “You'd never believe it, would you? I had a voice, a good one, but never good enough to get outa the chorus. Twelve years, singing me head off. I just never had the education or the ambition. But I enjoyed it, it was better'n working in a factory or behind a counter. I married one of the stagehands—another arsehole, though he never belted me—”
She'd have floored him, thought Sheryl.
The three of them stood there, contemplating the arse-holes that men were, then Gail said, “Look after Delia, Rosie. Sing her a song or two.”
“Something from Lucia di Lammermoor? Around here I can do a very good mad scene, any day of the week. Look after yourselves.”
She had recovered her spirits. She went in to help Delia recover hers. The two detectiv
es got into their car and drove away. Looking back in the driving mirror Gail wondered why the street suddenly looked empty.
IV
The Clements' home was Victorian, a solid double-fronted, one-storied residence that, ever since it had been built back in 1892, had looked aggressively at anyone who had wanted to change it. The front bedroom projected like a challenge from the rest of the frontage: we're here and here we stay. The house looked out across a small reserve and the calm backwater of Iron Cove; beyond the water the land sloped up to the old asylum. Here was middle-class territory and melancholy, if any, was something one felt when real estate prices fell.
The house had been changed: Romy had had reverse-cycle air-conditioning installed. But each room still had its own fireplace and now the Clements and the Malones sat round a fire in the big living room. The dinner table had been cleared, the dishes rinsed and put in the dishwasher for Romy's cleaning woman to wash and put away tomorrow. Romy and Lisa were finishing off their wine, Clements was sipping his after-dinner cooling ale and Malone, who would be driving when he and Lisa left for home, had decided he had had enough for the evening.
Somehow, in the idle way of after-dinner chat, the conversation had got round to demonstrations and police involvement in them:
“I asked this guy,” said Clements, “pointing out to him I wasn't anti-conservation, just anti-conservationists, I asked him why they were protecting the hyper-active sloth or the double-pouched kangaroo or something. I asked him if he felt emotionally or materially deprived because there were no more dinosaurs or brontosauruses—”
“And what did he say?” asked Romy.
“He didn't say anything. He kicked me in the crotch.”
“And what did you say then?” asked Lisa.
“I pinched him. I said he was under arrest for despoiling a protected area.”
The two foreign-born wives looked at each other. “They have lovely simple minds,” said Romy. “Do you think that's why we married them?”
“I think so,” said Lisa. “To maintain our European superiority. I think I'm still a Dutch imperialist at heart.”
“I'll second that,” said Malone. “Have you noticed, Russ, that the Devil is always portrayed as a man? I think the Old Testament was written by women.”
“Of course,” said the women.
Malone loved them both. Then he suddenly realized, though the thought was a simple and obvious one, that he would never have truly known either of them if he had come back to Sydney from London twenty-five years ago and married Delia Bates. And felt a selfish sense of relief.
“Let's change the subject,” said Romy and did: “Excuse me talking shop, Lisa—”
Lisa waved a dismissive hand, but didn't look enthused.
“What's happening on the Pavane case?”
For a moment Malone had been afraid that she was going to mention the Jones case. “I think things would have been simpler if you hadn't told us she'd had sex just before the murder.”
“Not much simpler. There's still that mystery, what was she doing in that particular hotel and under an assumed name?”
“It's going to be awful for the husband when that comes out.” Lisa, too, had been afraid that the Jones case would be mentioned. She joined in with relief: “It will come out eventually, won't it? These things always do, these days.”
“It'll come out,” said Clements. “It will have to, as evidence, if we nail the killer on a DNA test.”
“What if she'd had sex before she got back to the hotel?” said Romy. “And the killer was waiting in the room for her?”
“Don't complicate things,” said Malone.
“Mrs. Pavane had been around, as they describe it. When we did the p-m we found she'd had an abortion, a bungled job that had made a mess of her uterus.”
“A recent job?” asked Malone.
“No, I'd say not. She couldn't have had children.” Then she looked at him sympathetically: “It can't be easy talking to the Ambassador. Not if you have to mention that to him.”
“Will you mention it at the inquest?”
“Not necessarily. But you might have to say something to him about it.”
Going home through the cold night, under a broken moon, Lisa said, “Is it time to retire?”
He looked at her in surprise. “I'm too young. I'd lose a stack in superannuation—”
“I don't mean retire from the Service. Retire into a softer job. Give up on other people's troubled lives. Sit at a desk and make faces at a computer.”
“I wouldn't be easy to live with, you know that.”
“I'd put up with it. I hate to see you taking these cases as if—as if they were personal.”
“Are we talking about the Ambassador's wife? Or Delia Bates?” They had pulled up at a traffic light. A car full of yelling hoons went through the lights, horn blasting, but he ignored them. Traffic fatalities were not Homicide business, he thought cynically; then gave his attention back to Lisa. “Is that what you mean by personal?”
“I wasn't thinking of her.” But she had been.
The lights turned green and they moved on; but their conversation had the brakes on. They rode in silence for five minutes, till they were crossing the Anzac Bridge, its cables above them like a giant net ready to catch the sliding moon, before he said, “Mrs. Pavane seems to have told her husband nothing, or practically nothing, about herself. How much did you tell me about yourself?”
“As much as I wanted to,” she said. “Come to think of it, I don't think you ever asked.”
Come to think of it, he hadn't. Her life before she married him had been richer, fuller than his own. The wealthy Dutch parents, the finishing school in Switzerland, the high social life in London on the diplomatic circle: he hadn't wanted to know, as if afraid to compare it with his own mundane, working-class background.
“You never asked me much about me.”
“No. What would it have been? Cricket, football, girls, beer parties with your mates. I fell in love with you, not your background. As you were, at that moment.”
He put his hand on her knee, squeezed it. “The best way. The way I felt about you.”
They rode on, in a comfortable silence this time, up through the city and out towards Randwick. When they drew up outside their house she said, “Think about going into another division.”
“No,” he said. “I'd rather be troubled by people's lives than by a computer.”
4
I
THE PAVANE case was at a standstill, though the media did its best to keep it moving. Diplomatic circles did not get much of a run in State capitals; they are as peripheral as a species that not even conservationists could care about. No editor could tell you the number of embassies in Canberra nor the names of 95 per cent of the ambassadors. But this case was a juicy fruit and they were determined to squeeze every drop from it. Even the talkback hosts were inviting their listeners to voice an opinion and the experts way out there at the end of the airwaves were not backward in coming forward. The only opinion-makers withholding their pens were the cartoonists. The case was not yet a joke nor fit for jokes.
Chief Superintendent Random was not joking as he addressed the morning conference in the Incident Room at Surry Hills:
“We've got to get our finger out. The Prime Minister has been on to the Premier, he's been on to the Police Minister, he's been on to the Commissioner, he's been on to Assistant Commissioner Hassett and he's—” He gave his thin grin. “I'm at the end of the line and I'm black-and-blue. What's your score, Scobie?”
“Nil-all, sir.”
“You mean bugger-all?”
There was a murmur of laughter, though no one felt in good humour. The display board hung on one wall like an art exhibition that no one appreciated. The two homicides were part of the one exhibition, but everyone knew that Random was not talking about the Jones murder.
“I guess so,” said Malone. “Agent Himes says he has something—”
Joe Himes, s
eated beside Malone, said, “I've heard back from our guys in Portland, sir. Oregon. It doesn't tell us much—just adds to the mystery. I'll talk it over with Inspector Malone and you'll have the report in an hour, after I've made a coupla calls to Canberra.”
“Are they still wanting to get in on the act?”
“I think the Ambassador has got a rein on them, sir. I'll be talking direct to him.”
“Is he going back to the States?”
“Tonight. Mrs. Pavane's body is being released this morning and he'll be on a chartered flight tonight with it.”
When the meeting broke up Malone and Himes moved into a side room. Malone had noticed that the FBI man had kept to himself while the strike force in the Incident Room was waiting for Greg Random to arrive. He had the look of a man not quite sure that he was welcome. But he relaxed now with Malone.
“Good news or bad news?” said the latter.
“Bad news, maybe it ain't. Good news, it surely ain't.” Himes took a fax sheet out of his pocket, smoothed it out. Malone had remarked he had a certain deliberation about his movements, as if nothing was presented till he was certain of it. “Mrs. Pavane had been checked. The usual thing is not to go back further than ten years on a spouse, unless there is evidence that she had a record at college or around that time. Involvement in demonstrations, that sorta thing. She was clear up to ten years ago. Worked for a mutual fund in San Francisco a coupla years. Then with a public relations outfit same city, three years. Went to Kansas City then, worked for MidWest National, the biggest bank there, doing PR work. Was working there and also doing volunteer political fund-raising when she met Mr. Pavane. The investigation is always done by a single agent and it's left to his judgement. He passed her as clean.”
He paused and Malone said, “And then?”
“Yeah, and then.” Himes again smoothed out the creases in the sheet, as if some lines might be hidden in them. But Malone was sure he had read and re-read the sheet. “Our Portland guys went down to Corvallis, Mrs. Pavane's supposed birthplace. As Wilhelmina Page, the name she used at those jobs I've just mentioned, the one that's on her marriage certificate in Missouri. Billie Page. Her father was supposed to have worked at State College at Corvallis. No record of him. No record of a Wilhelmina Page being born or registered in Corvallis. No record of her ever having attended the local high school. Before June 1991, when she went to work in the mutual fund in 'Frisco—zilch. She didn't exist.”
