Autumn Maze

by Jon Cleary

  Again she nodded, briskly. “I went down in the service lift, it goes right down to the basement garage. The PE team had been down there, but said they found nothing.”

  “What’s the security like?”

  She grimaced. “Pretty lousy, considering what it’s like in the rest of the building. There’s a grille door at the top of a ramp, it’s operated electronically by a card-in-the-slot. There’s a smaller door in that large one, its latch is loose, anyone could open the door. It’s a joke, security down in that garage.”

  “One other thing—would anyone hear the service lift when it’s going up or down? I mean from the front desk?”

  “I checked that with the doorman. He said no, everything in the building is supposed to be for the comfort of the tenants. Silent lifts, things like that.”

  He sat back. “Peta, do you ever fall down on anything?”

  “Only in the guys I choose.” She smiled and left him wondering if she was having love trouble here in Homicide.

  Clements came in with the preliminary report from the Physical Evidence team on the Sweden case. “They haven’t come up with much. There are fingerprints all over the apartment—evidently the maid goes pretty light on with the duster, she just re-arranges the dust. Fingerprints will check „em out with everyone who comes and goes in the apartment, including all those we talked to this morning. I asked „em to get Cormac Casement’s—that’ll go down well with the Wicked Witch when our guys walk in with their little pads.”

  “Anything else?”

  “They found a trace of blood on the fancy coverlet in the second bedroom, where there might of been a struggle. Just a faint smear, as if a needle or something with blood on it had fallen on the coverlet. It’s a fancy pattern, they say, and the killer could of missed the smear in it. There’s nothing else. If Rob Sweden had a visitor he knew, we don’t know if he offered him a drink. The maid said she washed up all the glasses this morning, Mrs. Sweden told her to. Evidently Mr. and Mrs. Sweden had a drink when they got home from the opera and the uniformed boys were there to tell them what had happened. I’d have a drink, too.”

  “Righto, I’ve told Peta to start drawing up a chart. The Rocks can set up a command room, it’s on their turf. I don’t know why their D’s weren’t there when we were down there.”

  Clements bit his lip, an old habit. “Wayne Murrow gave me the word on that.”

  Murrow was a senior constable with the Physical Evidence Section. “Yes?”

  “Seems that AC Zanuch got in first. He laid down that it was to be handled directly by Police Centre. I think he also suspected it could be more than an accident. He wants to keep a rein on what goes on.”

  “Fred Falkender’s not going to like that.” Falkender was the Assistant Commissioner, Crime, one of the seven ACs and no less senior than Zanuch, though without his ambition. Politics was part of the weather in this State and Malone could see the clouds already beginning to loom.

  “Scobie, let them work it out between them. Pull your head in.”

  “It’s right in, I’m not starting any fights on this one. We’ll do the donkey-work and let them up above make the decisions. In the meantime we’ll start talking to everyone connected to young Sweden. We’ll do them individually. The three sisters, their husbands—who do you want?”

  “Not the women. I’ve got Romy on my mind at the moment. One’s enough.”

  “Propose to her and all your worries will be over. Righto, I’ll take the sisters. I’ll also take young Jack Aldwych. We’ll leave Casement, we’ve got enough out of him for the moment.”

  “That leaves me the Minister. Thanks.”

  “No, we’ll skip him, too, for a while. There’s someone else you’ve forgotten. The cove they pinched from the morgue. If he was killed by the same method as young Sweden, then I’ll bet on it, he was connected to him. Try your luck.”

  Frank Minto was on the running sheet in the computer, but he was likely to be overlooked if pressure increased on the Sweden case. It was not true that death made a level playing field.

  IV

  That morning, coming back late from its all-night fishing, a trawler turned seawards to dodge the huge waterspout heading for it. It dragged in the last of its nets: in it was a badly mutilated leg.

  “We t’ought the spout, it gonna send us down,” the Italian skipper reported to the police. “We said the prayers, pretty hard. Da spout, it missed us. Den we look in da net and dere was dis horrible t’ing!”

  Though the leg was badly mangled, the foot was intact. Attached to the big toe was a tag, the figures on it almost washed out but decipherable under a microscope: E.50710.

  4

  I

  THAT EVENING Malone took Lisa and the three children to the Golden Gate, a restaurant in Chinatown. Lisa recognized the outing for what it was, a penance for sins of omission, but she said nothing. Any sense of guilt that could make him spend money on the children was all right by her. She was not extravagant and ran their home with old-time Dutch thrift, but at times Scobie’s attachment to a dollar, as if it were an organ of his body, upset her. Money was to be saved, sure, but it was also to be spent.

  The restaurant manager knew Malone, though the latter was not a regular customer here; the manager knew every police officer in the central business district. With an illegal gambling club on an upper floor of the building, it was politic to recognize the enemy, declared or otherwise.

  The manager came back to their booth after he had taken the Malones’ orders. “Inspector, Mr. Aldwych’s compliments and he would like you and your family to be our guests.”

  Malone looked towards the back of the restaurant, saw Jack Aldwych seated alone in a booth. The silver-haired old man nodded and raised a hand in salute. Malone nodded, then turned back to the manager. “Thank Mr. Aldwych, but no. He’ll understand.”

  The manager smiled, a Chinese smile that gave nothing away. “Of course, Inspector. Enjoy your meal when it comes.”

  When the manager had gone Claire said, “Why did you do that, Dad? That was rude.”

  “I’m supposed to be the rude one in the family,” said Maureen.

  “You are,” said Tom.

  Malone looked at his three. Claire, almost seventeen, beautiful (in his eyes) and (also in his eyes) about to be ravished by sex-mad thugs masquerading as ordinary decent young Australian men. Maureen, going on fifteen but already with one foot in the doorway of adulthood, pretty but unconscious of it, both eyes wide open, but not with innocence, to the world. And Tom, who at ten was beginning to realize that being a cop’s son was not all fun.

  “The man who offered to pay for us is part-owner of this restaurant, but he was once the biggest criminal in the country. A cop can’t take favours from a man like that.”

  Maureen had raised herself in her seat, taken a polite look at Jack Aldwych, who gave her a small wave. She sank back. “I read about him in the papers. He’s retired, it said.”

  “People would still look at it the wrong way.” Especially now. This very week two senior police officers were being investigated for having lunched with two top crims.

  Claire gave him a smile and patted his hand. “Well, it’s nice to know you’re not bent.”

  “Thanks,” he said and looked at Lisa. “What more can kids say about their father than that? Now, when dinner comes, eat everything, since I’m paying.”

  “We knew you’d say that,” said Maureen and produced a plastic bag. “So I brought a doggy-bag, just in case.”

  They had almost finished dinner when Jack Aldwych, tall and well-dressed, looking more like a slightly battered banker, of whom there were many these days, than a man who had murdered and ordered murders, came past their booth. Lisa put out a hand.

  “Mr. Aldwych, we haven’t met. I’m Lisa Malone and these are our children. We’d like to thank you for your offer of dinner. It wasn’t meant to be a rude refusal.”

  Aldwych smiled at her. He liked good-looking women and this was a good-
looking woman: blonde, well-figured, quietly dressed, with a frank but intelligent face. There had been a time when, intent only on the male enemy, cops and other crims, he had made little attempt to understand women. Except, of course, Shirl, the wife, whom he had understood and loved.

  “Mrs. Malone, it’s a pleasure to meet you. And you, too.” He looked around the booth at the three children; then at Malone: “Scobie, I understand. I wasn’t offended—I read the papers. It’s just a pity a simple gesture is suspected. I don’t mean you, you know who I mean.”

  “Sure, Jack. You well?”

  “Hoping to live till I’m a hundred. I’ll buy you all dinner on the day. By then I should be respectable.” He smiled again at the children, then at Lisa. “Goodnight, Mrs. Malone. The children are a credit to you. So is he.”

  He winked at Malone and passed on. Claire said, “What a nice old man! It’s hard to believe—”

  “Believe it,” said Malone, “whatever it is. Why did you do that, darl? Stop him?”

  “It was spur of the moment,” said Lisa. “I’ve been hearing about him off and on, bits and pieces, for—what?—three years now. A wife gets curious, whether she is married to a policeman or not. I just wanted to see if he was real.”

  “Is he?” said Tom.

  “Yes, he is. Very real.” And she looked across the table at Malone. Somehow, he thought, she had seen inside Jack Aldwych, seen the ruthlessness, dormant now maybe, that had been his nature for so long. “But why did you bring us here?”

  “Because it’s the best restaurant in Chinatown. I’d just forgotten he’s a part-owner. Righto, now here’s the worst part of the evening. The bill.”

  Going through their usual mockery of him, the two girls opened their purses and Tom put his hand in his pocket. Their mother said, “Put your money away. If he doesn’t pay, we’re all leaving home.”

  Malone grinned and even left a tip, a bounty that left the Chinese waiters unimpressed. It was only five per cent, but it was almost a mortal wound to the donor.

  II

  Next morning Chief Superintendent Greg Random, Commander of the Regional Crime Squad, came across from Police Centre to the Hat Factory. Malone had just called the morning conference when Random walked in.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he said. Tall, lean and grey-haired, laconic as a recorded weather report, he had once been in charge here at Homicide. “You must have expected me.”

  “It crossed my mind,” said Malone. “Who suggested it? AC Zanuch? Or the Minister?”

  “It was my own idea. Get on with it.”

  There were six Homicide staff at the conference, plus two detectives from The Rocks and two from Campsie. Malone introduced the outsiders to Random, then nodded to Clements to open the meeting.

  “So far we haven’t got out of the barrier,” said the big man. “The missing corpse has turned up, or part of it. But we still dunno who he is or where he came from.”

  “There’s nothing in Missing Persons,” said Peta Smith. She was sitting with her knees together, her longish skirt covering them, giving the newcomers from The Rocks and Campsie no opportunity to appreciate her good legs. “It’s early days yet. Maybe so far nobody’s missed him. Andy Graham is keeping an eye out.”

  “Someone, somewhere, is going to miss him soon,” said Malone. “You think he came from your area, Mick?”

  Mick Griffin was one of the Campsie detectives, a young redheaded giant who on Saturday afternoons, when he wasn’t throwing his weight at crims, threw the discus in inter-district athletic meetings. “I don’t think he came from around our way, Inspector. We’ve been to all the pubs and clubs and showed the photos of him taken when he was found by the river. Nobody could tell us anything. We’ve talked to the girls on the beat on Canterbury Road, we thought he might of been an outsider trying to muscle in on the pimps there, but they told us there’s been no trouble for months.”

  “He doesn’t have to have had a record,” said John Kagal.

  “No,” said Malone, “but I’ll bet Sydney to a brick that whoever did him and young Sweden in has a record. Or if he hasn’t, he’s building up to one. This isn’t a domestic, these two were killed by a pro. Have you dug up anything in young Sweden’s flat?”

  “I went out to Edgecliff yesterday afternoon,” said Kagal. “His flat is in one of the older blocks out there, but nicely furnished. Looks like he went for the good things. His car is a BMW 525, we found it yesterday morning still down in the garage of The Wharf.”

  “What did you find at his flat?”

  “These.” Kagal emptied a large plastic envelope on to the table round which they sat. “There was a lot of the usual stuff in the closets and drawers—there were ten suits, for instance. All imported stuff, Italian.” Kagal sounded envious. “Zegna, Armani.”

  “They’re expensive, right?” Malone bought his home-grown wardrobe off the rack at Fletcher Jones or Gowings, usually at sale time.

  “Even I know that,” said Clements, another poor fashion-plate.

  “Could we get off the style notes?” said Random. “What you’re saying, John, is this man lived above his means?”

  “Not necessarily,” said Malone, getting in first. “He made sixty thousand a year, plus bonuses. He could’ve spent every cent of it. Young fellers do.”

  The young fellers around the table shifted uneasily. Kagal went on, “He must have liked the ladies—his bedside drawer had enough condoms in it to cover every cock in the eastern suburbs. Sorry, Peta.”

  She said nothing, but Malone said, “Nicely put, John. Just don’t put it on the computer. Go on.”

  “There are these American Express card account statements. He made a trip to Manila last month, stayed at the Manila Plaza, that’s a five-star hotel.”

  “He could’ve gone there for his firm.”

  “Yes, except I checked the dates. He flew out on the Friday night, came back on the Sunday. I rang Casement’s, they said they’d never sent him overseas on business.”

  “Could he have gone on one of those sex tours?” asked one of the men from The Rocks.

  Kagal shook his head. “I don’t think so, not when he was getting so much here at home.”

  “Anything else?” said Malone.

  “There’s this.” Kagal pushed a cheque-book and bank statement across the table. “There are deposits every fortnight. The same amount, obviously his salary cheques. But look at the other deposits. Where did that money come from?”

  Malone looked at the statement: there were three deposits, each of five thousand dollars. “Bonuses?”

  “I checked with his office. The bonus is paid once a year, in June, just before the end of the financial year. He hadn’t received this year’s yet.”

  “Could it be money he made trading on the side?” said Random.

  Malone shook his head. “That’s not allowed and, as far as we know, young Sweden never tried it.”

  “Could it be gambling winnings?” said Peta Smith.

  Clements, the gambling man, said, “Five thousand each time? Your winnings are never as regular as that.”

  “You’re listening to the expert,” Malone explained to the others. “Anything else, John?”

  Kagal produced another envelope, dropped one item on the table, a second cheque-book. He did it with some flair, like a magician producing a second rabbit from a small hat. You show-off young bastard, Malone thought; and out of the corner of his eye waited for some reaction from Greg Random. But the older man’s lean, gullied face showed nothing.

  “That account’s in another name. Raymond Sexton. R.S. Same initials. It’s supposed to be difficult to open a bank account now without proper identification, but it can be done. Look at the deposits. Eight thousand, nine thousand five hundred, eight thousand again, seven thousand eight hundred. There’s just over seventy-two thousand dollars deposited in that account in the past three months, all in amounts under ten thousand dollars. That way the bank doesn’t have to inform the tax people
.”

  Malone picked up the cheque-book, glanced at the name of the bank. Then he looked at Clements. “Well, waddiaknow! Our old mates down at Shahriver Credit International.”

  “They’re in our territory, aren’t they?” Terry Leboy, from The Rocks, was a young blond-headed man almost as well-dressed as Kagal.

  Malone nodded. “We had something to do with them a coupla years ago. They’re shonky— plenty of capital, but they don’t care particularly who their clients are. So far they haven’t been closed down. Maybe they’ve been keeping their noses clean. Except—” He tapped the cheque-book on the table. “Young Sweden was up to something. Try the bank. Find out if the deposits there by Mr. Sexton were in cheques or cash. These statements don’t show.”

  “Do we tell „em we think Sexton and Sweden are the same man?”

  “Sure, why not? If they’re trying to keep their noses clean, they’ll lean over backwards to be cooperative. Be polite.”

  Malone gave out instructions to the other detectives and everyone left the table but Malone, Clements and Random. There were other Homicide men working on other cases in the big room. Random rose, jerked his head and led the way back into Malone’s small office.

  “Close the door.”

  Malone did so. “We’re in trouble, right?”

  “Not yet.” Random took a pipe from his jacket pocket and put it between his teeth. Malone, in all the years he had known Random, had never seen him light it. He had begun to suspect that the older man, the least actorish of men, used it as a prop. “The Minister is making noises.”

  “What sort of noises? Does he want us to call off the investigation?”

  “I’m not sure.” Random sucked on his pipe. “There are waves coming down from above, from Bill Zanuch, even from the Commissioner, that I can’t fathom. The government’s got a majority of two, it’s had a few messy cock-ups the past couple of months, it doesn’t want its boat rocked again. If the Minister’s son was involved in something shonky, if the Minister knew of it—”