Helga's Web

by Jon Cleary

  “Who?” Malone grinned. “The copper or Uncle Seamus?”

  “Bloody funny.”

  They spent half an hour searching the chamber, but they found no chewed matches. At last Con Malone straightened up. “We’re wasting our time, Scobie. Nobody’s been in here who chewed matches. Or if he was, he was too busy to be chewing ‘em. You think he might be the bloke who done her in?”

  “I don’t know,” said Malone, still riding tight on his own suspicions. “But if he didn’t kill her, he’ll be able to tell us who did.”

  “I don’t think I’d snitch on a mate,” said Con Malone. “Not even for murder.”

  “Not even if they murdered Mum or me?”

  “That’d be different, but!” Con looked shocked, as if he had never thought that anyone close to him could be murdered.

  “It always is,” said Malone a trifle sadly.

  He took one more look around the chamber; then Con Malone took down the lights and they made their way up through the maze of passages, out of the cool, damp gloom, and came out on to one of the outdoor podiums above the wide expanse of steps. They stood there in the threatening heat; Malone took some time to adjust to the assault on his senses. In front of them the city, all glass and concrete, glittered like a broken escarpment of pure quartz: people worked behind those glass cliffs, the buildings were alive, but you would never know it: the sun blazed on them, the window reflected a blinding uninhabited infinity. Behind him he could hear the sound of hammering, magnified a thousand times by the giant horn of the roof shell: it pounded against his eardrum. He shut his eyes, wishing he had brought some sunglasses with him. When he opened them

  and looked down the long broad flight of steps he saw a party of Japanese coming up, little men in dark business suits whose helmets looked like white bowlers. At their head, dressed in the same farcical uniform, was Walter Helidon.

  “Well, Sergeant Malone!”

  Helidon paused at the top of the steps and Malone waited for him to doff his helmet; but Helidon knew when political politeness could descend into ridicule. He excused himself from the group; the Japanese moved on under the guidance of one of Helidon s officials. Malone looked after them as they moved on up another flight of steps, their cameras clicking like the hammers of empty guns; the Japanese must be the world’s most indefatigable photographers, Japan itself would soon be buried in a snowdrift of pictures of other parts of the world. Con Malone also looked after them. Then he spat, an old-timer who had no time for old-time enemies. He stepped to the end of the podium, stood looking out at the skyline of the city as if viewing it for the first time. But it wasn’t the Japanese who had driven him there. It was bad enough to be seen in the company of his son, the policeman, but to be seen in the company of both a policeman and a Cabinet Minister was more than his life was worth; there were certain lengths to which an old Labour radical could never go; even to have spoken to the Japanese would have been more forgivable. Malone and Helidon were left alone on the top of the steps.

  “A trade delegation,” said Helidon, nodding after the Japanese. “They weren’t very impressed when I told them we had been working on the Opera House for ten years. Seems it took them only fifteen years to re-build the whole of Hiroshima.” He took out a handkerchief, took off his glasses, wiped the sweat from his face, then replaced the glasses. Malone recognized the ritual: he waited for the remark that had to follow: “My wife called me. You’ve been up to see her.”

  “Yes,” Malone said cautiously; again he felt his dislike of

  the self-assured politician coming to the surface. “I hope we didn’t upset her too much?”

  “What do you think?” Helidon snapped. “My wife isn’t used to being questioned by the police. Neither am I, for that matter.”

  “As I remember it, Mr. Helidon, you told me that once before.”

  “Have you got some sort of grudge against me, Malone?” Helidon looked at him warily.

  “No,” Malone lied; or thought he lied.

  “You left my wife with the distinct impression that you did not believe what she had told you.”

  Malone tried to look surprised; somewhere up in the roof shell a workman laughed, the sound a giant giggle of mirth. “I don’t know how she got that idea. The questions were only routine.”

  “Don’t treat my wife as a suspect, Sergeant. I’m warning you. If you bother her again, I’ll have a word with the Commissioner. You have no grounds at all for questioning her the way you did.”

  Malone felt himself get hot, far hotter than the sun had made him. Keep cool for Christ’s sake, Malone! Don’t knock the Cabinet Minister arse-over-charlie down the steps, not in front of the Japanese: this isn’t the Diet. The group had turned to look back at the city: Malone and Helidon were center stage, right in the line of their gaze. “I’m acting on instructions, sir. I was told to treat this as a routine murder case and that’s what I’m doing. The only way to solve any case is by asking questions.”

  “You have no questions you have to ask my wife. Come to me with them if you have any. Though I can’t imagine what else we’d have to tell you.”

  Malone hesitated, then put his hand in his pocket, took out the chewed matchstick and held it in the palm of his hand. He did not know why he had not thrown the match away

  down in the basement chamber; but he had learned to profit from his unexplained actions and he never queried them. He had the Celt’s respect for mysterious influences, the visions hidden but felt.

  “Do you know a man who does that? Chews matches?”

  Helidon looked down at the tiny frayed stick. He stared at it while his hand went to his pocket, took out his handkerchief again. He did not take off his glasses this time, but wiped his face and ran his handkerchief round inside his collar. Then he said, “No, no one. No one at all.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Very sure, indeed. Was that one of the questions you asked my wife?”

  “No.” Then Malone looked towards the group of Japanese as they began to move into the main building. “I shan’t keep you, Mr. Helidon. I think your friends from Hiroshima are getting a little impatient. You’re probably losing face.”

  He spun round and walked along the broad podium to where his father stood. Con Malone turned, his face squeezed into a wrinkled gourd by the glare of the sun, and nodded at Helidon as the politician disappeared into the dark shadow of one of the giant shells.

  “Didn’t know you knew him. Seen him on TV the other night. A smarmy bastard like all his sort. He’s got nothing to do with this case, has he?”

  “No,” said Malone, and could still see the look of utter fear that had been in Helidon’s eyes when he had looked down at the chewed match.

  “His mob gets away with murder,” said Con Malone. “But even he wouldn’t go in for the real stuff. He’d be too gutless, they’re all gutless today. He’d be the sort’d pay someone else to do it.”

  Malone looked sharply at his father, then forced a grin. “You’re starting to sound like a real cop.”

  Con spat disgustedly at a passing seagull. “I pity that poor girl of yours. She dunno what she’s marrying.”

  You’re right, Malone thought. And wondered what questions had been in Norma Helidon’s mind when she had married Walter Helidon.

  2

  When Malone got back to Y Division headquarters, Inspector Fulmer was in the detectives’ room. “How’s it coming, Scobie?”

  Malone put down the sandwiches and bottle of milk he had brought in with him for his lunch. “Not easy. I’ve just been talking to Helidon again.” He summarized his conversation with Helidon. “He knows who killed her. Or if he doesn’t know for sure, he’s got a bloody good idea. I thought he was going to have a heart attack when I showed him this.” He took the chewed matchstick out of his pocket. “But I think you’ll have to start backing me up, Tom. I don’t think the Commissioner is the sort who’d let himself be pressured by any politician. But I just don’t want to be sent for and
have to lay all my cards on the table at once. The truth is, I don’t have all the cards right now.”

  “You won’t be sent for.” Fulmer was walking up and down, rubbing his hands together; Malone had never seen him so animated. “I’ll see to that. You might as well know—” He stopped, smiling like a bishop who had just been canonized before they had buried him. “I’m the new Divisional Superintendent. It’s going to be announced officially on Monday. Harry Chester is retiring—bad heart. I’ll see you’re not worried, Scobie. Go ahead on the case just the way you were.”

  Malone congratulated him. “Who’s coming in as Div. Inspector?”

  “It hasn’t been decided yet. Pity it couldn’t be you. But your day will come.”

  “There are at least ten fellers ahead of me. I’ll be fifty be-

  fore I make Inspector. That’s the worst of the Public Service. You always have to wait till the bloke ahead of you dies or retires before you get promotion. I could be the greatest cop in the country and I could still not make Inspector before I was forty-five at the least.”

  Fulmer nodded sympathetically. “I never thought I’d make Super so soon. I thought another five years at least.”

  Malone grinned. “You could make Commissioner yet.”

  Light gleamed for a moment in Fulmer’s dark eyes; then he shook his head. “That will never happen. John Leeds still has six years to go before he retires as Commissioner and there are four other men who could make it ahead of me. In six years’ time 111 be within two years of retiring. They’d never consider me.” Promotion to the top was a mathematical calculation: Fulmer’s sums and his dreams did not add up to a common total. His guard let down by his elation at his unexpected promotion, he did not seem to realize how much he was confiding in a junior officer. The gap between sergeant and inspector was not much: it allowed for confidences and even argument; but on Monday he would be a superintendent, another species altogether. He looked at the Christmas cards on the mantelpiece. “Could not have come at a more appropriate time. A wonderful Christmas present for my wife.”

  I wonder if he’ll promote her, Malone thought. He had met Fulmer’s wife at several police functions: a small dowdy woman who stood as in awe of her husband as a cadet policeman. “Well, anyway, it’ll be nice to know you’re standing between me and the Commissioner.”

  “You’ll have nothing to worry about. If Helidon can contribute anything more, you go at him. We don’t have to be respecters of position in a murder case. It would be nice if you could wrap it up before Christmas.” He nodded at the matchstick. “Find that fellow and perhaps that will be it.”

  He left and Malone sat down to his lunch. He put his feet

  up on his desk, picked up an early edition of the afternoon paper. Other detectives drifted in, all of them looking worn out by the heat. Nobody discussed the cases they were on; each man respected the troubles of another. Malone read the newspaper, marvelling at the amount of trouble there was in the world outside his own bailiwick: the war in Vietnam, the guerrilla fighting in the Middle East, the war in Biafra, an earthquake in Turkey, floods in Italy, Australia in trouble in the cricket Test against the West Indies. Only the advertisements seemed to have the right happy note: spend your money and enjoy a bankrupt Christmas. Malone drank his milk, wondering why it tasted a little sour.

  Then his phone rang: it was Lisa. “It’s in the papers.”

  “What is?”

  “Mrs. Helidon’s abdication. Didn’t you see it? It is headlines in the women’s section.”

  He flipped over the pages of the newspaper to the women’s section, an area of print normally as esoteric to him as the pages of Cybernetics Weekly. The story of Norma Helidon took up half a page and was illustrated with a photo of her in evening dress: evidently she had not given any interviews this morning. But the writer of the story had not been lost for words: the Virgin Mary, Malone mused, had retired from the scene with less fuss.

  “I called her,” Lisa said in his ear. “She told me she will not be wanting our services any longer. She said her health was not good and she was thinking of going abroad. But that wasn’t for publication. Don’t you think that’s interesting?”

  “You’re playing detective again.”

  “All right. I’m sorry. But I thought you would like to know.” The coolness was in her voice for a moment, but then it went when she said, “Am I seeing you tonight?”

  “A beer, a sausage roll and thou beside me—what more could a man want?”

  “A little culture,” she said, and hung up in his ear.

  It was three o’clock before Clements returned. He came in, his jacket over his arm, his shirt stuck to his back and chest with sweat, his eyes streaming. He flopped down in his chair, blew his nose, wiped his eyes and slubbered like an exhausted horse.

  “Donna ask me whata sorta day itsa been!” He threw back his head and laughed, an hysterical sound. “I’ve just spent five bloody hours talking broken English and pidgin Italian. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that I’m no linguist!”

  Malone grinned, held up a paper bag. “Had your lunch? There’s one sandwich left.”

  “I’ve been doing nothing else but eat and drink ever since I left you. I’m chockablock with pizza and capuccino. They didn’t want to know me at first in the clubs, but once I convinced them I wasn’t looking for Rosa to pinch her, were they hospitable and talkative!”

  “Why did it take you five hours then?”

  “The first six clubs, there was someone at every one of ‘em who thought he knew her. Then everyone’d get into the act—” He shook his head, still laughing. “They’ve all asked me back on their Guest Night. I think I’ll go, too. Some of these Italian birds aren’t bad. Especially Rosa. When she’s out of that maid’s uniform she’s a bit of all right.”

  Malone said patiently, “Where did you find her?”

  Clements grinned. “Sorry, mate. Well, I got on to her at the seventh club, one out in Paddington. They gave me her address—she’s moved in with an aunt and uncle out that way.” He stopped smiling, blew his nose again. “She didn’t leave the Helidons. Mrs. Helidon sacked her. Gave her two months’ pay and told her to get lost.”

  “Rosa say if she gave any reason for the sacking?”

  “None, except that she and Helidon had been upset by the death of an old friend and were thinking of going abroad.” He put his big hand down on Malone’s desk as if he were laying a card there. “Helga had been to their house. Rosa re-

  membered her—she was there the week before she was murdered, Rosa couldn’t remember the night. But when Helga was leaving, Rosa heard her say something about seeing Heli-don on the Monday. She couldn’t remember exactly what it was, her English isn’t that good, but she remembered it. Evidently she came to the front of the house, was about to go into the living room to ask the Helidons if they wanted something to eat, when she saw the two of them looking as if they were just about to start a fight. Helidon was holding his cheek as if his missus had clocked him one. Rosa beat it back to the kitchen.”

  “What else did you find out?”

  “I asked her about the pearls. I was right—Mrs. Helidon had had them in to a jeweler’s last week. Rosa saw them on the dressing-table one morning—she thought it was the Tuesday but she couldn’t be sure—the string was broken and they were lying loose. She asked Mrs. Helidon about them, but Mrs. Helidon gave her the brush-off, said there’d been a bit of an accident and not to worry about them. That day Mrs. H. took them into town to have them re-strung.” He stood up. “I’ll be back. I’ve got a gallon of capuccino I’ve got to get rid of.”

  When he came back Malone said, “I think we’ll go out and see Savanna. Then if we’ve got time, we’ll make another call on Grafter Gibson.”

  Clements looked surprised. “Why those two? Why not go out and see the Helidons again?”

  Malone still lay back in his chair, his feet still up on his desk. But he could feel the tension within himself, the co
ming to a decision that worried him because he had anticipated it long before he’had had good grounds for it.

  “Who do you think killed Helga?”

  Clements had been about to fix his tie which he had loosened. He stopped with his hand to his collar. “You asking me to lay it on the line? Getting ready to charge someone?”

  Malone didn’t reply at once, then he nodded. “Yes.”

  Clements fixed his tie, patted it down against his still-damp chest. Then he said, “Either Helidon or his missus. The bloke who chewed those matches was probably in on it, but whether he did the actual job or was just there to help get rid of the body, I’d lay money the Helidons were the ones who thought up the idea.”

  “That’s the way I see it, too,” said Malone, and felt as if a weight had been lifted from him. He stood up, put on his jacket. “Okay, let’s go and see Savanna.”

  “Why him? And then Gibson?”

  “Because I want to be a hundred per cent sure. I want those two absolutely in the clear before we go to The Bishop and tell him we want a warrant for Helidon.”

  Clements blew his nose, wiped his eyes. “I guess you’re right. But this time next week I think I’m gunna have more wrong with me than a cold in the head.”

  3

  Savanna was not at Olympus. Malone and Clements swam up to his office on a heavy current of meat pie and beer smells; the bakery and the brewery seemed to be doubling production for the Christmas demand. The secretary, her crisp appearance wilted at the edges by the heat, looked up distractedly as they entered the tiny outer office. “No, Mr. Savanna isn’t here! Suddenly everything’s happening and he’s taken the day off—” The phone rang and she snapped into it for a minute or two, then slammed it back into its cradle. Then for the first time she seemed to remember who they were and some of the temper went out of her face, to be replaced by a grey look of concern. “Mr. Savanna isn’t in any trouble, is he? I mean, you’re not from the, you know, Fraud Squad or whatever it is?”