Helga's Web

by Jon Cleary

  Guests began to drift out from the party, got into their cars and drove away. Scraps of conversation floated across to him, the metal filings of cocktail gossip:

  “Did you see that interior decorator and the antique he had with him? She must be old enough to be his mother—”

  “I thought Norma Helidon looked marvellous, didn’t you? That hand-made face of hers never shows a crack/’

  “I loved that little black Givenchy Louise County was wearing. It went so well with her dandruff accessories—”

  “All right, you women! This was supposed to be a charity show. How about showing a bit of charity?”

  “Oh, shut up! I heard you and Harry talking about that girl in the see-through blouse. What’s the difference between a little bit of gossip and sex talk?”

  “If you don’t know by now, I dunno why you married me. Come on, get in.”

  “Aren’t you going to open the door for me?”

  “Christ, what’s the matter, you crippled or something all of a sudden?”

  “Men!”

  Despite his depression, Helidon smiled. Other married couples had their problems and their frictions. He saw the Gibsons come out ancl walk across to their Rolls-Royce; there was one couple who did not seem to have any problems. He felt suddenly resentful of Grafter Gibson, the unscrupulous old bastard whom everyone hated but whom one woman loved with all the devotion that better men yearned for. Married bliss never made any sense; it happened to the most un-

  likely partners. He and Norma had once had it, but it was gone now.

  At last Norma came out of the clubhouse, looked around, then came across and got into the car. A government car had brought her to the function and he knew how much she liked that: it gave her a small cachet above her rivals. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I thought you might have gone back to Double Bay for another dressing on your eye.”

  He grunted wearily. “Sarcasm doesn’t become you. How did you find out about her? Did she phone you?”

  She was still wearing her smile, like jewelry she had forgotten to remove. “She was lucky to catch me. I had to go back to answer the phone. It could have been something important.”

  “Jesus!” He rarely swore, but her attitude had for the moment left him without any adequate words. He started up the car and they drove out of the car park and up towards the main road that led towards home. They rode a mile or more in silence, till at last he said, “All right. What are you going to do about her?”

  “It’s not what I’m going to do. It’s what you’re going to do.” She had taken off her smile and now in the dim light from the passing street-lights she looked old, haggard and unhappy. He felt a stirring of the old love for her, a regret that he had hurt her. But they had grown apart: he, who was so voluble with his constituents, could not now talk to his own wife. She looked at him when he didn’t answer and said, “You’re going to tell her to go to hell.”

  “I’ve already told her that.” He brought the car to a halt under the bloodshot eye of a traffic light. “When she asked me for some money this afternoon.”

  “How much?”

  “Twenty thousand dollars.”

  She uttered a sound that was halfway between a gasp and

  a laugh, a whinny of disbelief. Then she leaned her head against the window of the car and said, “I could kill her.”

  The light turned green and he drove on. “Don’t say things like that.”

  “I could!” she said fiercely through her teeth. “If she breaks us up, I could kill her! I’d never let you go, Wally—never!”

  It was years since she had called him Wally; not since the early happy years. He turned off Pacific Highway and swung down the long tree-lined street where they lived. They had lived for years south of the harbour because that was where his first electorate had been; three years ago he had been offered this much safer seat on the North Shore and both of them had leapt at the offer: he because he knew it guaranteed him a seat in the Assembly for as long as he wanted, she because at last it meant they would have a good address. It had been a cunning ploy on her part and he had admired her for it. Everyone these days was moving into the eastern suburbs, but they were becoming much too fashionable: they were plagued with social-climbers. Norma had chosen Pym-ble, one of the older, exclusive addresses, and some of the more bitchy social columnists, ready to score a point off some of her rivals, had remarked upon her taste and good sense. They had bought an old colonial style house, invited Sydney’s most expensive interior decorator to swindle them, then moved in with that pleasurable pain that accompanies the realization that there is nothing more to be desired. Helidon drove down the street towards the house, suddenly looking forward to it as a haven again. Once there he knew that, though it might take time, he would be able to explain to Norma the why and wherefore of Helga.

  He swung into the drive and the lights of the car lit up the other car parked before the front door. Even before he had braked sharply to a halt he had recognized Helga’s Datsun.

  3

  “Your maid let me in. I said it was business. Which it is, of course/’

  “Why did you come here?” Norma demanded.

  “I thought I should come and see you both,” said Helga. “I thought it would save time.”

  “How’s that?” said Helidon, unable at this moment to get any grasp at all on the situation.

  “It would save you running back and forth to Mrs. Helidon for instructions.” She looked at Norma. “I’m sure you will make the decisions, anyway.”

  They were in the Helidon living room, surrounded by all the expensive comforts of home. There were bars on all the windows, each outside door had two locks and there was a burglar alarm system. The decorator, who had done six months for importuning sailors, had given the Helidons the benefit of his experience in jail without telling them where he had acquired his knowledge. “You just don’t know what tricks these awful professional housebreakers get up to! Security, my dears—you can’t have enough security. Especially with all these lovely treasures I’m going to give you—” But he had neglected to build in any security against blackmailers. Helga sat there in the red velvet empress chair that was Norma’s pride as composed and secure as if she were a buyer come to make them an offer for their home that she knew they could not refuse. She was dressed in a dark linen suit, carried white gloves and wore a thin strand of pearls. She looked coolly elegant, as only some women can, and Norma, suddenly feeling over-dressed in her cocktail dress, choked by her double strand of pearls, hated her even more.

  “We could turn you over to the police,” Norma said wildly.

  Helga smiled and Helidon looked pained. “Darl—” He hadn’t called her that for several years: short for darling, there had been a time when he had called her nothing else.

  80 o

  But somehow or other it had slipped out of his vocabulary over the past couple of years. Since he had met Helga, he realized with a sour taste in his mouth. “Darl, that’s the last thing we could do.”

  Norma, recovering, nodded dumbly. She had been standing up ever since they had entered the house, but now she sat down opposite Helga, as if acknowledging at last that they were not going to be rid of her easily. She sat with her knees together, her hands folded primly on her lap, the way the nuns, years ago, had told her a lady should sit. “Miss Brand, what made you come to me so soon? I gather you only asked my husband for the money this afternoon.”

  Helga sat back at ease, crossed one beautiful leg over the other. She’s lovely, Helidon thought, but why does she have to be such a bitch? And felt an ache in the pit of his stomach that was a sense of loss and not of fear. “I thought about it, Mrs. Helidon. Walter—” she used his name with a slightly proprietary note, a reminder to Norma that they had shared him “—would not have paid the money without a great deal of trouble on my part. It might have taken me weeks to get it out of him.”

  “I told you,” said Helidon, “you won’t get a red cent.”
>
  “I think I shall, Walter. That’s why I came to see Mrs. Helidon. You see, she is just as afraid of bad publicity as you are. I’ve followed your career, Mrs. Helidon. If everything goes right for you, you should soon be the Number One hostess in Sydney. I think the Sunday Telegraph referred to you the other day as the queen-elect.”

  Norma flushed, a habit she thought she had conquered. “Go on.”

  “It would not be difficult for me to make known my relationship with Walter. There are several political scandal sheets that are always ready to print stuff like that.”

  “You’d get no money out of them” said Helidon.

  “I’m not looking for money from them,” Helga smiled. “I’m looking to you for it.”

  “You mean you’d give them a story like that just out of spite?” said Norma.

  “Of course not. I’m not spiteful, Mrs. Helidon. I’m just— practical? Or what’s that new word they use about politicians—pragmatic? I know you’ll give me the money before you’d let me go to those people.” She stood up, smoothing down her skirt. Norma looked at her with grudging admiration: the skirt was just the right length, not too short but just short enough to be fashionable: no one would ever take her for the whore she was. “Think about it. When Walter comes to see me on Monday, he can bring the check. Made out to Helga Brand Proprietary Limited.”

  “Proprietary Limited?” Helidon echoed.

  “I formed a private company a little while ago. It will be much more discreet. It will just look like a business investment for you.” She looked at Norma and smiled. “You see, I’m not really spiteful. I don’t want to ruin Walter’s career any more than you do.” The smile widened a little. “Nor do I want to ruin yours. It must mean an awful lot to you, the money you have spent on it. You must have spent much more than twenty thousand dollars. Goodnight. Monday as usual, Walter. Well—” The smile was even wider, but even then was not ugly. “Well, not as usual. Just business.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Tuesday, December 10

  1

  Malone and Clements had to wait two days for the answer to their query to Interpol on the dead girl’s fingerprints. In the meantime they worked with the only other clue they had. “It’s the wrong half of the tab,” said the manager of the dry-cleaning chain. “If it was the other half it’d give us the number of the shop where the dressing gown was cleaned. This’ll mean going through every order book in every shop we have.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll have to do,” said Malone. “Constable Clements will start in right away.” “Why me?” said Clements.

  “Because I’m the senior bloke and because you’re better at figures than I am. Just imagine you’re reading the form sheets and looking for another winner.”

  “What are you grinning at?” Clements said to the manager. “Listening to one cop telling another one what to do,” said the manager. He was a cheerful, stout man who looked as if he might be put through his own dry-cleaning process every morning; his shirt was immaculate, his trousers had a knife- edge crease, even his dark hair looked as if it had been cleaned and pressed. “Do you want to start here? This is our head office. We have another twenty-seven branches.”

  Clements looked at Malone, his big dark eyes as mournful as those of a dog that had just been told it was going to be locked up in the pound. Malone took pity on him. “Okay, you take half, 111 take half.” He took the dressing gown out of its brown paper bag again and showed it to the manager. “When do you reckon that was last cleaned?”

  The manager twisted his mouth in what Malone took to be a facial shrug. “I’d only be guessing. Say within the last three months.”

  “Could we have all the order books from all your shops for the last three months? We’ll go around and collect em this morning.”

  “That’s gunna be a bit of a bind, isn’t it?” said the manager. “Going through all that paper?”

  “Most police work is a bit of a bind. It’s only in movies that cops have all the fun.” As they were going out of the shop he stopped and sniffed. “Doesn’t that dry, clean smell ever get you down?”

  The manager nodded, smiling broadly. “Does it ever! Weekends, I don’t even shave or shower. Sat’day to Monday, I’m the dirtiest coot in Sydney. Good luck with your paper chase. You want any dry-cleaning done, bring it here. I’ll do it free.”

  “Why?” asked Malone.

  “I like a clean cop,” said the manager and creased his shirt as he bent over laughing.

  “I love funny bastards,” said Clements as they got into their car. He looked down at the pile of order books the manager had given them from the head office. “Twenty-seven more. Maybe we should’ve brought a trailer.”

  It took them three hours to collect all the order books from shop assistants who ranged from the eagerly co-operative to the aggressively antagonistic. “I’m too busy,” said the woman with hennaed hair, the pink-framed glasses and the mouth so

  heavy with lipstick she had difficulty in opening it. “Come back t’morra and I’ll see if I got ‘em ready by then.”

  “I’d like them now,” said Malone patiently. He stood aside as two women came in with armfuls of clothes and dumped them on the counter. He waited five minutes till they had gone, then said, “The order books, please.”

  “I told you, come back t’morra—”

  “If you don’t give me those books,” said Malone, “I’ll be back in half an hour with a warrant. I’ll close this shop up and you can explain that to your boss. Now get ‘em and stop mucking about!”

  The woman, muttering like a distant storm, went out to the rear of the shop, came back with some books and dumped them in front of Malone. He thanked her sarcastically, picked them up and went out to the car. “Some days I think there might be something to be said for a police state. I’d have the time of my bloody life with some of these voters.”

  “The day before I retire,” said Clements, weary, irritable and sweaty from sitting in the hot car, “I’m gunna book every bugger who even looks at me.”

  They spent the rest of that day going through the books. They knocked off when their eyes began to cross from deciphering the variety of scrawls on the pink slips. “I’ve been seeing things here that I thought were extinct,” said Clements. “Camisoles, antimacassars—there’s something here that looks like a chastity belt. Who’d be wearing one of those these days?”

  “The vice boys picked up a feller in drag the other night who was wearing one. He said he didn’t want to go all the way.” Malone threw down a book, rubbed his eyes. “Everything but a green silk dressing gown. You want to come back and finish these off tonight?”

  “No,” said Clements. “I’m going to the dogs tonight, see if I can lose some of the money I’ve been winning on the horses.”

  2

  Wednesday, December 11

  Clements came into the detectives’ room next morning shaking his head. “I can’t lose. I backed among last night that had only three legs and was three months pregnant and it finished up beating the bunny home. Twenty to one, it paid. At this rate I’m gunna have to retire pretty soon. Come up with anything yet?”

  Malone held up a book. “Double Bay. A green silk dressing gown turned in by someone named Brand.”

  Then Smiler Sparks, lugubrious as a camel, came in and dropped a sheet of paper on Malone’s desk. “Telex from Melbourne. Something to do with Interpol.”

  Malone read the sheet, then looked across at the expectant Clements. “No doubt about these Germans, they’re efficient. They’ve given us everything here except her brassiere size.”

  “Who was she?”

  “Her name was Helga Schmidt. Or anyway that’s the one she was booked under-not very original. She came from Hamburg. She was a pro there. That probably explains the tattoos on her bum-the Germans like their sex a bit kinky. They first booked her in 1958 when she was supposed to have been sixteen. They haven’t had a record of her for the last six years.” He laid the sheet beside the
dry-cleaning order book. “She’s our girl, all right.”

  They drove out to Double Bay through another steaming morning. The bottom of the sky was smudged with haze; in the dazzling brilliance high overhead a plane melted and disappeared. It was not a day for good tempers. Malone walked into the dry-cleaner’s and the henna-haired woman glared at him through her pink-framed glasses. “I hope you haven’t lost any of those order books—”

  Malone dumped the books, neatly tied with string, on the counter. Then he produced the green silk dressing gown. “Recognize that?”

  The woman inspected it, her face tightly concentrated behind the thin screw of her long nose. “I’ve seen it—yes! A foreign girl—German, I think—”

  “That’s the one,” said Malone. “Where does she live? It’s not on the order slip for this.”

  “We only take the address when someone first comes in.” The woman was a little more amenable; obviously something was wrong and she was dying to know what it was. She reached under the counter for a master order book. “What’s the matter, might I inquire?”

  “She’s dead,” said Malone.

  Even the weight of lipstick couldn’t keep her mouth closed this time. “Oh migod, isn’t it terrible! Where did it happen? How?”

  “The address, please,” said Malone, nodding at the book lying on the counter and now ignored by the woman. When he had first become a detective he had been impatient and frustrated by the scrub of obstructive people you had to beat your way through to get to a certain point. But now he accepted that detection work was much like old-time exploration: days and days of hard slogging till you reached a high ridge and looked out and saw something in the distance that kept you going. He had reached a ridge now, seen a name and an address. But it was really only the beginning of the journey and there would probably be more thorny obstructions like this woman before he reached the end of it.