Helga's Web

by Jon Cleary

  He went back to his office, the notes feeling like a ton of lead in his briefcase, and spent the rest of the day, for want of something to fill in the time, trying to catch up on Departmental paperwork. His secretary kept popping in and out to ask how he was; at lunch time she brought him some dry biscuits, a glass of milk and a stomach sedative. At four-thirty she called on the inter-office phone.

  “There’s a gentleman on the phone, Mr. Helidon. He sounds like a man who called the other day. Do you want to be troubled by him?”

  “Put him on, Paula. I know who it is. It’s a private matter.” He knew he could trust her if he told her that; she would not listen in on the conversation.

  There was a click; then Bixby said, “G’day, been a scorcher, hasn’t it? You get the extra necessary?”

  “I have it. Now what?” It was an effort to keep his voice cool and calm.

  “Well, I don’t think we wanna be too conspicuous, you know what I mean? So how about we meet on your boat again? Make it eight o’clock, it’ll be dark by then. Don’t bother to wait for me—I’ll be out on the boat. And remember, sport. No one else but you and me, okay?”

  When Bixby hung up, Helidon called Norma. “I’m meeting him on the boat at eight o’clock. I should be home by nine.”

  “Darling, do you think you should? I don’t trust him. What if-?”

  “If what?” But he knew what she meant and his tone softened. “Darl, he won’t try anything— drastic.” It was an inadequate word for murder. “I’ll tell him that you know where I am. All he wants is the money. I’ll give him that and get the —the diary in exchange. And then—”

  “And then?” But she didn’t want an answer. Before he could reply she said, “Wally, don’t bring the diary home. I don’t want to see it. Burn it or tear it up. Anything.”

  “You won’t see it, darl,” he promised, determined to protect her from now on from any further pain or worry.

  “Will you come home first?”

  He hesitated. There were over three hours to fill in before he had to meet Bixby. But if he went home he knew what a wrench it would be to leave there again when the time came: unsafe though it had been to the invasions of Helga and Bixby, it was still the only haven he knew, the only place where there was any comfort. “No, I’ll stay here till it’s time. But come in and pick me up at the club. Wait for me in the car park.”

  “Ill be there at eight. You shouldn’t be with him too long. And darling— he careful!’

  God, he thought as he hung up, whatever made our love go cold for as long as it did?

  At five-thirty his secretary came in, smartly dressed, freshly painted: Friday night was her night on the town with the girls. Helidon had remarked this local phenomenon before and now, to allay her concern for him, he tried for a light note: “Hunting night again, Paula?”

  “We don’t hunt, Mr. Helidon. It’s just a girls’ night out.”

  In night clubs and restaurants he had seen the groups of women all determinedly enjoying themselves without the company of men; but the occasional girl’s head would turn as a goodlooking man went by and a wistful look would come over her face, as if she knew that what she was enjoying with the other women was only second best. On a sudden impulse he took out his wallet and extracted five ten-dollar notes. “I don’t know how many there are of you, but let the dinner be on me.”

  “But, Mr. Helidon—” She was surprised and uncertain. A girls’ night out should not be paid for by a man: it was a surrender of their independence.

  “Call it a Christmas present,” he said, still unsure why he had made the gesture, but aware of the twenty thousand dollars in the two briefcases standing by his chair. A bunch of lonely women were entitled to some donation if a blackmailer was worth twenty thousand. I wonder what she would say if I put the briefcases on the desk, opened them and told her to take as much as she wanted?

  Reluctantly she took the fifty dollars. “Thank you, Mr. Helidon. We’ll drink a toast to you. Shall I call your driver?”

  “No, I’m—I’m going out with Mrs. Helidon. Enjoy yourselves.”

  “Oh, we always do,” she said, but she was a little too emphatic; behind her thirty-five-years-old, not unpretty face there was a hint of the effort it took to enjoy what was less than she dreamed of. “Have a nice weekend, Mr. Helidon.”

  He sat on in the office in the deepening dusk, not getting up to turn on the lights when the furniture of the room finally became indistinguishable. He had turned his chair round and sat facing out towards the harbour. A half a mile away and below him he could see the floodlit shells of the Opera House; he had been staring at it for a full five minutes before he realized what it was; then he abruptly swung his chair round and looked back into the darkness of the room. When at last he switched on a desk lamp to look at his watch he had made up his mind not to come back to this office in the New Year. He would resign from politics and take a long trip overseas with Norma, start a new life and begin to enjoy more fully the money he had made.

  He reached for a sheet of notepaper, took the gold pen out of his pocket, wrote Dear Mr. Premier. One part of his mind noted how steady was his hand: the act of resignation was not so difficult after all. He put all he wanted to say on one sheet; he had never been noted for short speeches or memoranda, but this one could not have been shorter and still made its point. He folded the sheet with his customary neatness, making sure the corners matched, put it in an envelope and sealed it. He put on his jacket and hat, picked up the two briefcases, went down in the lift and handed the envelope to the night duty porter.

  “See that gets to the Premier tonight. At his home, if necessary.”

  “She’ll be right, Mr. Helidon. Goodnight. Have a nice weekend.”

  He caught a cab over to the Yacht Club, asking the driver to pull up at the entrance to the car park. He walked down through the car park to the boat attendant’s office on the jetty below the club house. The attendant, a man in his early

  thirties but already scarred and bleached by sun and salt into the effigy of a much older man, was in his office.

  “Never get away before nine or ten on a Friday night. You want me to run you out to your boat, Mr. Helidon?”

  “No, I’ll be all right, Jack, if I can just borrow one of the runabouts.”

  “Any one you want. You look loaded down there.”

  “Paperwork, Jack. I’m going outside the Heads tomorrow and dump it all at sea.” He felt far better than he had all day, almost a little light-headed. Now that he had made his decision to resign, the twenty thousand was more than blackmail money: it was the price of a new life, one he was surprised to find he was looking forward to.

  As he drew in beside the yacht the dark bulk of Bixby rose up out of the cockpit. He hesitated, then handed up the two briefcases. Bixby took them, put them down, then reached out a hand to help him aboard. When Helidon took hold of the hand he felt the strength in the rough, calloused fingers and all at once his new-found relief went out of him. This hand in his could be the hand that had strangled Helga.

  He almost fell into the cockpit, sat down at once, feeling his legs weakening again. Bixby sat down opposite him, a dim burly shape against the lights of the distant club house and those on one or two yachts whose owners were on board their craft. There was the rattle of matches in a box, then Bixby’s hand went up to his mouth.

  “The money in the briefcases?”

  Helidon had to clear his throat before he could reply. “It’s there.”

  “That’s the ticket. It don’t amount to much, does it? I never seen twenty thousand in cash before. Somehow you’d think it’d amount to a pile Jack Rice couldn’t jump over.”

  Helidon wondered who Jack Rice was; then remembered it was a famous hurdle horse with a prodigious leap. It was a cliche to say of something that Jack Rice couldn’t jump

  over it; and the cliche suddenly reduced the bizarre moment to a sordid little business deal. Helidon straightened up, knowing now he could handle t
he next few minutes. “Do you want to count the money?”

  “Nah, I don’t think so.” Bixby took the briefcases, opened them, lifted out the bundles of notes one by one, fingered a few notes as if to satisfy himself that it was money, then dropped the bundles into the large suitcase he produced from the darkness at his feet. “If you’ve weighed in short, I can always come back.”

  “I don’t want to see you again after tonight.” Helidon would never know what made him make the next remark: perhaps it was regret for the lost Helga, perhaps it was the curiosity that might become too much of a burden as time went on: “Do you know who killed Helga?”

  Bixby was bent over, lost in the shadows of the cockpit. He snapped shut the lock of the suitcase, a sound like the clicking back of the hammer of a gun, then slowly straightened up. “Why would I know that, sport?”

  Helidon leaned back, felt something jabbing him in the base of the spine, put a hand behind him and removed it. “Why didn’t you turn up on Monday?” His voice seemed no longer to belong to him; he was drugged now by the passion to know. “You must have known something—nobody else recognized Helga from the description in Monday night’s paper. Did you kill her?”

  “I’d keep your voice down.” Bixby’s hand went to his mouth, took out the chewed match, dropped it. “Sound carries over water. You oughta know that.”

  Helidon struggled to lower his voice, but he was on the verge of hysteria now. Everything had been there in his subconscious, hazy as a partially developed film, deliberately submerged by fear and the primitive urge for self-protection. But now he was unable to stop himself: “You bastard! It must have been you! Oh Christ, gimme the diary and go!”

  Bixby stood up, moved towards Helidon. The latter swayed aside, already feeling the death blow before it was delivered; but Bixby was only lifting the suitcase up on to the gunwale. Helidon twisted his head round, for the first time saw how Bixby had got out here to the yacht: a small rowboat lay in the larger boat’s shadow, bouncing gently on the ebbing tide.

  Bixby rested the suitcase on the gunwale and looked at Helidon.

  “I think I’ll hang on to the diary just a bit longer, sport. You got some ideas in that head of yours that you better have a second think about.”

  He leant over the side to drop the suitcase down into the rowboat. Helidon leant further away from him, felt the something sticking into his hip this time. His hand felt for it, felt the cold iron head of a wrench. He looked up, saw the big dark shape still bent over the side of the boat. He had a vague feeling of disembodiment, like a man coming awake in a place he did not recognize. His hand came up with the wrench clutched in it; it was the action of a man brushing away a nightmare. He saw the shape of the wrench go past his face, but there was nothing he could do to stop it; Bixby’s head, as he straightened up, came right into the arc of the swing. The heavy iron met the bone of the skull with a crunch that would echo in Helidon’s ears forever. Bixby made a soft sound, half grunt, half hiss, then he fell over the side into the rowboat.

  Helidon dropped the wrench into the rowboat. Then he leaned over the side of the yacht and was violently ill.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Saturday, December 14

  1

  Malone drove up Pacific Highway through the sparse Sat- urday lunchtime traffic. He had waited in the office for Ful- mer’s return, then at last called the Commissioner’s office: no, they were still in conference and the secretary had no idea when it would end. Malone, impatient, frustrated and worried, had finally left a message with Kildare and Welch. “Tell Tom Fulmer I’ve gone up to see our friend at Pymble.” “I thought you said you were going out to Bondi?” Kildare looked up from his two-fingered report on Bixby’s death. “Who’s your friend at Pymble?” Welch asked.

  Be cautious, Malone. You’re still some way from nailing your first Cabinet Minister. “You’ll read about it in the papers.”

  He escaped from the cool dark room into the hot brilliance of the day, and now as he approached Helidon’s street in Pymble he hoped he had done the right thing in coming up here alone and on his own initiative. But he had to know if Helidon was still around. He had nothing with which to con- nect Helidon with Bixby’s murder; but Bixby almost cer- tainly had had something to do with Helga’s murder. And Helidon might be the only man who knew what that connec- tion had been.

  He got out of the car and went up to the front door of the house. Even before he rang the bell he knew there was nobody home. Experience over the years had taught him to feel when a house was empty; it was a sixth sense that had saved him a lot of time and trouble. But he rang the bell anyway, twice; then he went round the side of the house to the back garden. The swimming pool winked invitingly. That’s what I should do, he thought: strip off and spend the afternoon in the water waiting for Helidon to come home. Except that Helidon might never come home.

  There was a splash from a pool next door. He pushed between some hibiscus, looked over the fence into the neighbouring garden. Two children splashed in the pool, heaving and diving like ungainly dolphins. A fat man, oozing out of his trunks like brown blancmange, sat under an umbrella listening to a race broadcast on a transistor radio.

  “Excuse me,” said Malone; but the man could hear nothing but the Donald Duck voice of the race caller. Malone waited resignedly. You did not interrupt anthems or prayers: why interrupt a race broadcast, which was something of both? The race finished and he tried again: “Excuse me, do you know if Mr. and Mrs. Helidon are away?”

  “They were there this morning.” The fat man sounded sour; he must have backed a loser. “They could be down at their boat.”

  “Where’s that?”

  The fat man told him, then turned up his radio, getting the starters and riders for the next race. Malone left him to his tribal ceremonies, went out to the car and drove back to the harbour. He felt a mixture of relief and trepidation when the attendant at the club house told him that Mr. and Mrs. Helidon were out on their boat. The attendant took him out and as they approached the yacht he could see the Helidons sitting unmoving in the cockpit of the yacht. Neither of them rose as the runabout came alongside and the attendant, puzzled, looked up at them.

  “You want your visitor to come aboard, Mr. Helidon?”

  “If he wishes,” said Helidon tonelessly. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Malone.”

  He has his wits about him enough to call me Mister, not Sergeant. Malone clambered up on to the yacht, dropped his jacket on a seat and sat down opposite Mrs. Helidon. Helidon himself was in the chair behind the wheel. Both of them were in cotton shirts, slacks and canvas shoes; and both of them wore blue terry-towelling hats against the fierce beat of the sun. Beside them Malone felt stiff, conservative and over-dressed. He took off his tie in an attempt at informality and equality. After all, this was a long way from a formal police call. Now that he had been reassured that Helidon was still here in Sydney, had not done a bunk, his misgivings about leaving Headquarters returned.

  “What is it this time?” Helidon said wearily.

  “It’s about a man named Bixby.”

  Neither of the Helidons turned a face towards the other, but Malone was sure that behind the dark glasses they both wore there was a quick exchange of glances. “I don’t know anyone named Bixby.”

  “He was a trawler captain, worked out of the harbour here.” Malone watched Mrs. Helidon closely as he said, “He had a habit of chewing matches.”

  But there was no reaction at all from Norma Helidon. All she said was, “What has this Mr.—Bixby?—got to do with my husband?”

  “Probably nothing at all.” Malone squinted against the glare off the water, wishing he had brought his dark glasses with him from the car. I’m at a disadvantage here: my Irish face, in this glare, is going to be as readable as one of those large-type books for the nearly blind. The only thing to do was to attack: “But we think Helga Brand knew Bixby. And I—we think he was in her flat on the day she was murdered.”

  Helidon’s ha
nd was on the wheel. The knuckles whitened, but he managed to show no other reaction. He looked at this policeman, wondering how much he knew. He had had no sleep at all last night and a fierce ache had tightened itself across his brows from temple to temple. Malone was leaning back against the gunwale where Bixby had fallen over into the rowboat. Thank God there had been no blood to wash off the yacht; Bixby had bled out his life into the rowboat. And that was somewhere out in the harbour now, God knew how many fathoms down.

  “I still don’t see what that has to do with me.”

  All right, you asked for it, Malone thought. “We think you were there that day, too, Mr. Helidon. We found your fingerprints on several things in the flat. The phone, a piece of a broken glass, a key—”

  Helidon’s hand tightened still harder on the wheel; his knuckles looked as if they might burst right through the skin. But he said nothing, because his tongue had suddenly become swollen in his mouth; and Norma snapped, “That’s ridiculous! How would you know they were my husband’s fingerprints?”

  Even behind his dark glasses Helidon’s grateful glance towards his wife was evident. “Yes, how would you know they were my prints?”

  “I borrowed one of your pipes.” Malone reached for his jacket, took the pipe out of a pocket and held it out to Helidon.

  But Helidon could not put out a hand to take it. God, could they find fingerprints on a boat and wrench after they had been in the water for some time? After he had recovered from his violent vomiting he had laboriously got down into the rowboat and lifted the suitcase back on to the yacht. He had climbed back, put the money back into the briefcases, then dropped the suitcase down into the rowboat again. He