Helga's Web

by Jon Cleary

  He went out to the street and got back into the car. “The

  address checks with one of those in the phone book,” he told Clements. There had been three H. Brands in the phone book, all of them with addresses within two miles of Double Bay. The greater majority of German-speaking migrants to Sydney tended to congregate in the area along the southern shores of the harbour: the map of Europe, with its national boundaries, was being re-drawn ten thousand miles from home. “Now all I’d like is for the feller who did her in to be sitting there waiting for us. I don’t want this bloody thing to drag on over Christmas.”

  They drove round to the address they had been given and parked in a No Standing section of the curb. Clements had to squeeze the Falcon in between two other cars and he got out cursing drivers who ignored police signs. “I ought give the bastards a ticket/’

  They went up into the flats and met more scrub that had to be beaten through. They rang the buzzer of Helga Brand’s flat, not expecting any answer and getting none. Then they rang the buzzer of the flat next door. The woman, garrulous as a disc jockey, took five minutes to tell them where they could find the managing agents. Clements went away to get the key and Malone went into the woman’s flat to have a cup of tea.

  “I’ve never seen her, you know. We moved in a week ago, but I’ve never seen her, definitely. Milk? Matter of fact, haven’t seen anyone here except for the first day we come. There was two fellers here—matter of fact I thought one of ‘em was the hubby, you know what I mean? He had a key. But you said her name was Miss Brand, isn’t she? Down on her letter-box there’s just Brand, no Mrs. or Miss. Is she all right? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with her or anything, is there? Sugar?”

  Malone was thinking: the gabby ones are often a help. The ones with the sharpest tongues are the ones with the sharpest eyes: Malone’s Law of Physiology. “You saw two men come here?”

  “Oh, definitely. Separately, not together. She wasn’t a—?” The woman gestured.

  “I mean, I wouldn’t wanna think the worst of anyone I hadn’t met—”

  “No,” said Malone, giving Helga Brand the benefit of the doubt. “She wasn’t in business, Mrs. Woolton.”

  “Wasn’t? You mean, she isn’t—I mean she isn’t dead or something, is she?” Malone nodded, and the woman whacked her head hard enough to knock it back on her shoulders. “Oh, migord, that’s a shock! Definitely. We come here for peace and quiet, we useta live up in Darlinghurst, and only a week and there’s a death right next door! She isn’t dead in there, is she?” She jerked her head at the wall that divided the two flats.

  “No, she’s not there. Those two men—would you recognize either of them if you saw them again?”

  “Oh, definitely. One was a tall feller, not bad-looking, with grey hair. But not old, if you know what I mean. Just gone grey early, I’d say. Dunno why we all don’t, the things we have to put up with these days. Oh, he was very well spoken, too. Real nice voice.”

  “What about the other chap?”

  “Well, I didn’t speak to him. Fact is, I’m not even sure he come to see her. But there’s only her flat and ours on this floor and he certainly didn’t come to see me, definitely. He looked sorta familiar, you know what I mean? Wore horn-rimmed glasses, very well dressed, sorta— smooth, you know what I mean? He could of been an estate agent or one of them fancy women’s doctors, you know what I mean? Very smooth, definitely.”

  Then Clements came back with a young man from the agent’s; he didn’t look smooth, Malone thought, but perhaps he hadn’t been in the game long enough. Mrs. Woolton wanted to follow them into Helga Brand’s flat, but Malone assured her she wouldn’t be needed for the moment and gently closed the door in her face. He took one quick look at

  the chaotic condition of the living room, then opened the front door again and nodded to the young man.

  “Thanks. We’ll call you from here when we’re leaving.”

  “But they said I had to stay with you—”

  Still protesting, he was gently pushed out of the flat and the door was closed behind him, too. Then Malone went into the living room where Clements was already sniffing about like a bloodhound. I wish I could get the dog image of him out of my mind, Malone thought. One of these days I’m going to whistle him instead of calling him.

  Malone put in a call for a police photographer and a fingerprint man, being careful to hold the phone only by its mouthpiece where he was unlikely to disturb any fingerprints left by a previous user of the phone. Then he and Clements set about searching the flat.

  It was Clements who found the torn-up check in the waste-basket and Malone who discovered the manila folder under the heavy lounge chair. They found a lot else that might or might not be clues and they spread it all out on a sheet of newspaper on the small dining table.

  “Five chocolate boxes—why do women save chocolate boxes? My mum does and so does my sister.” Clements shook his head at the inexplicable whims of women. “These coupla chewed matches—I don’t reckon they’d be hers. This bloodstained sheet—I found that in the laundry basket. There are some prints on those pieces of broken glass. And this key might have some on it.”

  “We’re doing all right so far,” said Malone. “Keep the chocolate boxes. That’s an expensive brand of chocolate and women don’t buy themselves expensive chocolates. They always depend on men for that.”

  “Not me,” said Clements. “A box of Black Magic is as far as I go, or Cadbury’s Milk Tray. What about these pearls and the broken bits? You reckon they belonged to her? She wasn’t

  wearing any stuff when we found her, so maybe that could be the motive—robbery.”

  Malone shook his head. “I’ve looked in the bedroom. There’s a stack of stuff there that wasn’t touched. Not much expensive stuff, but there’s a good watch and another strand of pearls. It wasn’t robbery. Why would he go to all the bother of carting her from here down to the Opera House?” He picked up the pieces of the check, laid them together till the pieces formed a ragged whole. Then he raised an eyebrow as he saw the name printed above the flourishing signature. “This feller, for instance, wouldn’t need to lift a few pieces of jewelry. Walter S. Helidon. The woman next door said she saw a man come down from this floor who looked vaguely familiar to her. That’s about all Cabinet Ministers are to anyone—vaguely familiar.”

  “If he’s involved in this,” said Clements, “I think I’ll ask to go back on the beat. It’s likely to get too complicated for me. %

  Malone opened the manila folder. The cuttings were all marked with the name and date of the newspaper or magazine from which they had been cut: none of them, he noticed, was more than six months old. The majority of the cuttings featured photos of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Helidon, together or alone; there were half a dozen of Mrs. Leslie Gibson, one of Mr. and Mrs. Gibson together, and a scowling one of Mr. Gibson alone; and a single photo of Mr. and Mrs. John Savanna, Mr. Savanna’s grey hair highlighted by the photographer’s flash bulb. Helga Brand’s portrait gallery was limited but interesting.

  Clements looked over Malone’s shoulder, then made a clicking noise with his tongue. “I don’t like the looks of this, Scobie.” He put a finger on the torn check, then nodded at the cuttings. “Blackmail?”

  “It would be a good bet.” Malone went across and sat down in the heavy lounge chair. There was a smell of perfume to

  the chair, as if it had been the favourite chair of one woman for a long time. He got up, feeling he had been sitting in the lap of Helga Brand, and moved to another chair. He felt uneasy and he wished there were some way he and Clements could walk out of this flat and leave the case to someone else. He had already been engaged in one case involving politicians and he had sworn to do his best to avoid another. Years of experience had taught him that the criminal mind, though cunning, was fairly predictable; but the political mind, equally cunning, was something that, as with most voters, baffled him. In Australian politics it could be vicious; the stab in the back was an occu
pational hazard. He had seen politicians with independent minds who had bucked their party and finished up with independent heads, carried under their arms; he hated to think what might happen to a policeman with an independent mind, especially one who would link a Cabinet Minister with the murder of a call girl. It would not help if Helidon had a long memory: he might remember the constable named Malone from the Fraud Squad who had been to question him seven or eight years ago on some land dealings.

  Malone looked up at Clements. “What do you reckon would be a nice easy beat to be posted to?”

  ‘Tve got mine picked out,” said Clements. “Place called Wilson’s Tank, out the back of Tibooburra. It’s got a population of two.”

  “That’ll do us,” said Malone. “We’ll double the population in one go.”

  3

  “Go ahead with it as if it were a routine case,” said Inspector Fulmer. “Politicians, even Ministers, are liable to the law just like the rest of us.”

  “I just thought I’d ask,” said Malone.

  “You did the right thing,” said Fulmer, and Malone could almost feel himself being patted on the head. “But 111 take the responsibility. You and Russ Clements do the donkey-work and 111 see you get the credit if you wrap up the case.”

  “I’m not worried about the credit. I was thinking about the boot in the behind if Helidon really had nothing to do with this and decided to get nasty.” After the police photographer and the fingerprint man had arrived and done their job, Ma-lone and Clements had put a seal on the front door of Helga Brand’s flat and come back to Division Y headquarters. Already feeling anxious and wanting someone else to make decisions for him, Malone had gone in to see Fulmer. “He may not have had anything to do with the girl, except on business. The check was made out to Helga Brand Proprietary Limited. Call girls usually don’t register themselves as companies. It would be a bit difficult listing their useable assets.”

  “All right, Scobie. Enough of that.” Fulmer sat back, putting his hands together in the position that had earned him the nickname of Steeple-Fingers or The Bishop. He was a very tall, lean man who might have been handsome if he had allowed his expression to relax. He had thick black hair, deep-set eyes and thick black eyebrows that seemed to clamp the one severe expression on his face as a vise might. He had come into the police force thirty years before with rigid ideas about right and wrong and had never changed them; he had never been known to swear or tell or listen to a dirty story; and it was on his record that after six months on the Vice Squad he had asked to be transferred to something less sordid. Still, as Malone knew, he was a good detective and he had been promoted on his merits. But he would never make Commissioner and that was the one bitter disappointment of his life. He had learned too late that black and white were not the only rungs in the ladder that took you to the top. There were now too many men between him and the Commissionership and he would be too close to retirement

  before he reached the rank from which the chief executive was chosen.

  “Report to me each day on how you’re progressing. Don’t wait till things get too sticky.” He allowed himself a moment of surmise, something he rarely did: “It would be interesting to see the reaction in high places if you had to arrest a Minister for murder.”

  Malone said nothing. Only the Police Commissioner and two senior Superintendents knew why he had been sent to London two years ago; politics had been behind that case and when the expected outcome had not eventuated, politics had seen that everything was conveniently buried. Malone knew that it was only the justness of the Commissioner that had prevented himself from being buried somewhere out in the bush, maybe even at Wilson’s Tank. Though right now that looked a desirable posting.

  “But be discreet,” Fulmer went on, every inch the bishop; Malone waited to be given absolution. “No comment to the Press at all. It might be an idea not to let on to our public relations boys that you know anything. That will save them having to cover up if the reporters worry them.”

  “Will you tell the Commissioner?”

  “Naturally. Til see the Superintendent and he and I will go and see the Commissioner together.” He demolished the steeple of his fingers. “You have nothing to worry about, Scobie. Just approach it as a routine case.”

  “But discreetly?” said Malone drily.

  “Naturally,” said Fulmer, who had a tin ear for nuances.

  Malone left Fulmer’s office, collected Clements and drove out to Pymble where Walter Helidon lived. It was a suburb he rarely visited, either officially or socially: it was off his beat on both accounts. It was a suburb as solid and respectable as a law court; judges and lawyers were liberally sprinkled among its population; at Christmas the garbage collectors were said to go their rounds chanting “Fiat Justitia” instead

  of the usual season’s greetings. The Helidon house looked a little more palatial than the others in its street, but it was still eminently respectable.

  “I have a cousin lives up here on the North Shore,” said Clements as they got out of the car. The North Shore was a region that had no definition, only a cachet; it had nothing to do with any shore and, by rough estimate and depending on where one lived, began some five or six miles from the shores of the harbour. “He always makes it sound as if he comes from another country.”

  “Well, let’s hope we don’t have to extradite Helidon.”

  Two cars stood parked in the red gravel driveway, a pale blue Mercedes and a small white Renault. Malone with a jolt suddenly recognized the smaller car, but it was too late to draw back now.

  “Don’t recognize anyone,” he said cryptically, and Clements looked at him blankly. They went up on to the wide verandah surrounding the house and rang the bell. A maid opened the door, a young pretty girl with an Italian accent and a look of instant fright at seeing two burly men standing on the doorstep.

  “It’s all right, love,” said Malone. “We’re harmless. We’d like to see Mr. Helidon.”

  “Mr. Helidon, he not at home—”

  “Who is it, Rosa?” Malone recognized Norma Helidon as soon as she came through into the large entrance hall behind the maid. The pictures in the cuttings, he thought, did her more than justice; in real life she looked strained and older, a good ten years older. But then maybe she had aged suddenly, since the photos were taken. She might even have aged in the last week.

  Malone introduced himself and Clements. “Just a routine inquiry, Mrs. Helidon. We’d like to wait for your husband—”

  Norma Helidon hesitated, then managed her hostess’ smile and waved them into the hall. Only then did Malone notice

  Lisa standing in the living room two steps down below the level of the hall.

  “Hello, Mrs. Pretorious—”

  “Miss Pretorious/’ said Lisa. “I’m not married— yet.”

  “You’ve met?” said Norma Helidon.

  “Miss Pretorious came to us once for some information. Still in public relations?” He looked at Lisa, wondering if he was doing a good job of appearing only casually interested in her. Behind him he could guess at the expressions chasing each other across Clements’ face: the big fellow would never put Olivier, or even Lassie, out of a job.

  Lisa nodded, her own face as cool and blank as that of a girl who did not think much of policemen. “Constable— Moloney, isn’t it? We met some time ago,” she told Norma Helidon. “He is the only policeman I’ve ever met with an inferiority complex. Remember that, Mrs. Helidon, and you’ll be safe. I’ll call you tomorrow about those press releases.” She nodded coolly to Malone and Clements and went out the front door. The maid closed it behind her, then disappeared towards the back of the house, leaving Malone and Clements alone with Norma Helidon.

  She knows why we are here, Malone thought. For a career hostess she was much too ill at ease. But the reason for their visit had to be kept under wraps until Helidon himself came home; Malone was cautious enough to know that this was one case where protocol had to be observed. Norma Helidon waved
them to seats and all three of them sat down, the policemen as stiffly and uncomfortably as their hostess.

  “My husband has probably been delayed. Parliament rises tomorrow for the Christmas recess, you know.”

  The three of them sat for an hour, tossing the conversational ball that bounced awkwardly every time it was missed, and it seemed to be missed on every second throw. They talked about the weather, gardens, the dullness of both police work and politics, and even about the Blue and Red Ball.

  “I don’t suppose you go to that sort of function much, Sergeant. Do the police have balls?”

  Malone kept a straight face, while Clements suddenly found something of intense interest in the garden outside. Then mercifully there was the sound of a key in the lock of the front door. Walter Helidon came in, pulling up sharply when he saw the two strangers sitting in the living room with his wife. All three rose as he came down the steps into the living room and Norma Helidon went to her husband and took his arm, almost seeming to lean on him.

  “We’ve come about a certain Miss Helga Brand,” said Malone after he had introduced himself and Clements. “Did you know her, Mr. Helidon?”

  Helidon, in the few steps it had taken him to come down from the hall into the room, had collected himself. Malone recognized the control: Helidon had been too long a politician to be caught by the question fired from the hip. He looked at Malone closely. “Haven’t we met before?”

  “Yes,” said Malone reluctantly; he did not want the issue complicated this early. “Several years ago. I was on something different to this.”

  Helidon’s face stiffened and beside him his wife blinked, as if she had just been reminded of a long-forgotten memory, one that had been deliberately locked away. Helidon said, “About this girl. Yes, I knew her, but only in a business way. Has there been some trouble?”

  “She is dead,” said Malone, and watched Mrs. Helidon instead of Helidon: she went pale behind her expensive makeup, her hand dug into her husband’s arm. “You might have read about her. She was the girl found down at the Opera House.”