Autumn Maze

by Jon Cleary

  “I thought it would do him good. He loves ballet. He’s recovering—he was at a board meeting this afternoon. Cormac is tough, Mr. Malone, very durable.” She looked at him sideways and he wondered if there was any sexual innuendo in her words. She was wearing a strong perfume and he was aware of the animal in her. He gave her no encouraging reaction, not with Lisa three paces behind him and reading his thoughts.

  Verady’s was the sort of restaurant where Malone was glad he was not picking up the tab; financial arthritis would have gripped him from the shoulder down. The place was full, a mix of young people and some older Opera House patrons; in these hard times Malone wondered where the money came from. But then, he had read, even the restaurants in today’s Belgrade were full: money or credit cards, like water, could always find an empty vessel. The Casement party settled into a corner booth, the head waiter hovering around like a man on a retainer. Orders were taken, then the four were left alone.

  Casement was wearing white gloves to cover the dressing on his hands; he was unselfconscious of them. “You’re a ballet fan, Mr. Malone?”

  Malone shrugged and Lisa said, “Just occasionally. Most of the time he’s a Philistine. But my favourite Philistine,” she said and smiled a warning smile at Ophelia.

  “Why haven’t the Philistines founded an international organization?” Casement, it seemed, was doing his best to keep the mood light. “There are so many of them around the world. They had their own Diaspora, like the Jews, but they never got themselves organized.”

  “They try,” said Lisa. She was at ease with the Casements, more so than Malone. But then other people’s money and social position had always worried her less than it did him.

  Supper was brought, omelettes for three, blueberry pancakes for Malone. He was a sweet-tooth man and he knew they would lie on his chest all night, but he hadn’t been able to resist them. In the next booth two young couples had just ordered another bottle of Bollinger and he wondered what they had to celebrate. When he turned his head he saw that one of the young women was Justine Springfellow, who had once lived in this building, whom he had once wrongfully arrested for murder. He looked away quickly, but not before she had seen him and her face had turned to stone.

  Ophelia was saying, “It must be a relief for you to get your mind off your work. And for you too, Mrs. Malone.”

  Both women seemed wary of each other. “He never brings his work home,” said Lisa. “It’s a rule. He’s broken it once or twice, but that wasn’t his fault. Someone once dumped a body in our pool.”

  “Ugh!” But it was a muted exclamation; Ophelia neither shuddered nor even looked upset. “Cormac brings his work home occasionally, but he says he tries to protect me. Business fascinates me. It’s the last field for the would-be Napoleons.”

  Casement, fumbling with the fork in his gloved hand but refusing any help, smiled at Malone. “He was never one of my heroes. I preferred De Gaulle . . . My secretary called me, said you wanted to see me tomorrow morning.”

  “It can wait.” Then, tired and abruptly irritable, he thought, What the hell? “It was about your briefcase.”

  The fumbling hand in its glove was suddenly still. “My briefcase?”

  “You made no mention of it. Had you forgotten it? Did those kids steal it?”

  The fork sliced into the omelette. “I can only assume I forgot it, forgot to mention it. I’d dropped it on the front seat of the car, I think—when the car went up in flames, I suppose I took it for granted the briefcase went up, too. How did you know about it? Have you found it?”

  Malone was aware that Lisa was concentrating on her omelette; if she was displeased at his raising police business at the table, she was hiding it. Ophelia, on the other hand, was leaning forward, her interest almost intense. He said, “Jack Aldwych told me about it.”

  “Jack? Did he find it? He brought me the watch they stole—”

  “He told me about that. As for the briefcase—” He told them what had happened to Aldwych that morning. The two Casements both leaned forward, their food forgotten; even Lisa stopped eating. “The two fellers who abducted him asked him if he had been after the briefcase when he went around the pawnbrokers. He said they appeared pretty concerned about it.”

  “Did Jack say whether they had it or not?”

  “He couldn’t tell. What was in the briefcase that would interest them?”

  The two couples in the next booth were leaving. As they passed on their way out, Ophelia, who had had her back to them, looked up. “Justine! How wonderful you look! Oh, this is Mr. and Mrs. Malone—”

  “We’ve met,” said Malone. “How are you, Miss Springfellow?”

  “Not guilty,” she said and with a nod to the Casements walked quickly towards the door.

  There was silence for a moment in the booth, then Casement said, “Do you get that often? People who never forgive you?”

  “Were you in charge of the Springfellow case? Oh my God!” Ophelia wanted to give herself over to gossip, which always reduces one; she suddenly did not look as formidable, no more than a society matron. “I never connected you with it—”

  “No one ever does,” said Lisa, her voice tart, as if the omelette had too much salt in it. “Perhaps it’s just as well.”

  “We got the real killer in the end,” said Malone. “He almost blew my head off, but we got him. I thought she might have forgiven me.” He looked towards the revolving door at the front of the restaurant.

  “The female of the species,” said Casement, then ducked his head apologetically at Lisa. “Sorry, Mrs. Malone, that’s an old man’s chauvinism.”

  “I’m used to it,” said Lisa. “Old and young.”

  She glanced at Ophelia, but the latter, whatever she thought of men, had never put them down. Instead, she patted her husband’s gloved hand. “Darling, you’re not old. I was telling Mr. Malone how durable you are.”

  Malone got the conversation back on track: “What sort of briefcase was it?”

  “Leather. Coach-hide, with combination locks.”

  “Coach-hide? That’s fairly thick, isn’t it? It probably wouldn’t burn to a cinder. What was in it?”

  Casement pushed his plate away, the omelette hardly touched. “Just papers, minutes of a board meeting. I can’t understand why the men who grabbed Jack would be interested in them. Nothing’s going on at—” He named the company, one of the icons of the country’s commercial world. He all at once did look old; he put the gloves up on either side of his face and stroked the corners of his eyes. “I’m tired. Will you excuse us?”

  Ophelia dropped the society look, was a hospital matron. She gathered up her handbag and stole, was on her feet, helping her husband out of the booth while Malone had a forkful of blueberry pancake halfway to his mouth. “I’ve worn you out! I shouldn’t have insisted we go to the ballet—”

  “No, no, it was a good idea—” They might have been alone. Then Casement, now on his feet, stood still and looked down at the Malones. “I’m not usually as rude as this, will you forgive me? But all of a sudden I feel I’m going to fall over—”

  “They understand, darling. Come on, I must get you to bed. Goodnight, Mrs. Malone. Finish your supper. The bill will be taken care of.”

  Then they were making their way towards the front door, the head waiter backing his way ahead of them, heads turning at the other tables as the Casements were recognized. Ophelia knew how to make an exit: she straightened up and marched towards the door and Casement all at once had to quicken his pace so that he was not left behind. He caught her in the revolving door and they disappeared, though Malone, mouth full of pancake, would not have been surprised to see the old man come spinning back into the restaurant.

  Lisa said, “Well, that’s the first time someone else but you has dumped me.”

  “What did you think of them?”

  “Her or him? They’re not a pair. But he’s afraid of losing her.”

  “Him? Why would he be afraid of losing her?
He’s rich, he’s powerful—though I don’t think he’s really interested in power, not the way his brother-in-law, Sweden, is. He’s secure, the way the rest of us will never be. And he’s too old to be lovesick.”

  “I hope you’re still lovesick over me when you’re his age. He’s in love, he’s afraid of losing her, I tell you. Not that I think she’d ever leave him, not till he’s dead. I didn’t like her at all.”

  “I gathered that. Neither do I.”

  “Were you satisfied with his answer about the briefcase?”

  “You’re playing cop again. No.”

  “Let’s go home to bed. What do you think of Russ sharing Romy’s bed?”

  “It’s none of our business.”

  “Of course it isn’t. But I’m glad, anyway. They’ll be happier than Mr. and Mrs. Casement.” She looked up as the head waiter, thin, blond, hands doing a ballet of their own, loomed above them. “Has the bill been attended to?”

  “It will go on Mr. Casement’s account. He looked so ill—was it something he ate? The omelette?”

  “No,” said Malone. “It was something else entirely.”

  II

  Zanuch’s office was hung with photos of himself with prominent people, like diplomas of merit. The feature of each picture was that one’s eye was caught by him, not by whoever was with him: the Prince of Wales, the Premier, Dame Joan Sutherland. He appeared to be just that much more forward in the photo, in bas-relief compared to the flat image beside him. On his desk was a family photo, of himself, his wife and their two sons: even there he was the dominant figure. It was pointless to wonder if the man ever grew tired of looking at himself.

  “You know AC Falkender’s gone on leave?”

  Malone had a sudden sinking feeling. “No, I didn’t know. That was sudden, wasn’t it?”

  “His wife’s seriously ill.” So am I, thought Malone. “I’m taking charge of the Sweden and Kornsey cases. The Minister specifically recommended that I do so.” He gazed steadily across his desk at Malone; the challenge was unmistakeable. “We’ve got to clear this up, Scobie, and soon.”

  “The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned. Do I report direct to you or through Chief Super Random?”

  “Direct to me, it’ll save time. Copies of the reports, of course, to Greg Random.” He sat back, in charge. “So where are we at now?”

  Malone told him, including yesterday’s abduction of Jack Aldwych.

  “Have you any trace on the car they used?”

  “Aldwych’s driver was smart enough to get the number. They’d smeared the plates with mud, but he managed to pick out the registration. It was a rental job. We’ve checked, whoever took it out used a fake licence, there was no record of it in the RTA computer.”

  “What about the Filipino or the Jap—did they own cars?”

  “The Jap didn’t, not as far as we know. The Filipino had a Mazda 929, registered to Pinatubo Engineering. We’ve traced it. He sold it to a second-hand dealer out on the Windsor Road, got a cash cheque for it. If he’s got wheels now, they’re probably rented.”

  “You don’t seem to be getting far.” Zanuch’s tone was flat.

  “All our leads are pretty frayed ones. My wife and I had supper with Cormac Casement and his wife last night—” He waited for a reaction from Zanuch, the social mountaineer, but there was none. “His briefcase, the one the Jap and the Filipino seemed concerned about, he said he thought it went up with the car when it was burnt out. I checked with Physical Evidence this morning, they said they found nothing like a briefcase, no metal locks, no charred leather.”

  “What did he say was in it?”

  “He never got around to telling me, just to say it was some minutes of a board meeting, at—” He named the corporation. “He suddenly had a turn of some sort and he and his wife just up and left, went home.”

  “You weren’t having supper at their apartment?”

  “No, downstairs in the restaurant, Verady’s. We met them coming out of the Opera House, we’d been to the ballet.”

  Zanuch’s eyes opened a little wider, as if he had expected Malone to be a fan of nothing more than break-dancing or even a waltz; but he made no comment. Instead he said, “Do you think Casement has something to hide?”

  “It seems to me that everyone in that family, the sisters and their husbands, has got something to hide.”

  “Including the Minister?”

  There was a warning there, but Malone took a chance: “Including the Minister. He’s trying to protect his son’s name, Jack Aldwych is trying to do the same with his son, Casement—I dunno, but he could be protecting his wife. Or vice versa. But there’s more hidden there than anyone wants to tell us.”

  “Do you expect me to tell the Minister that? I’m his surrogate.”

  Malone wondered if, except for the downgrading in pay, Tibooburra could be any worse. “Can you stall him?”

  “I don’t know. Hans Vanderberg is breathing down his neck like a dragon. You never know what The Dutchman is going to come up with, Labor has more moles than the KGB ever had. What have you got in mind?”

  “Finding the girl who was one of the two who burnt up Casement. She’s around somewhere, otherwise they’d have killed her along with her punk boyfriend. She might’ve read the papers in the briefcase.”

  “You don’t expect Casement to tell you?”

  “I think there must’ve been something else in the briefcase besides those board minutes, something that gave him his bad turn. I could go back to him, lean on him, but he could complain to the Minister and I know who’d get the push. I’d rather try our luck at picking up the girl. I’ve put out an ASM on her, though our description of her is pretty skimpy. And she could’ve skipped the State, especially after she found her boyfriend murdered. Our guess is that she was the one who called in to report to Redfern.”

  “Can you pick her up through Social Security? If she’s a street kid, she’s probably drawing the dole.”

  “They can’t help. Anything on her is sacrosanct under the Privacy Act and the Crimes Act and half a dozen other acts, unless we can prove she’s a menace to public security. She’s not a serial killer or a terrorist, so she’s free.”

  “She tried to kill Casement, burn him.”

  “According to his testimony, it was the punk with her who did that. No, we’ve got to take our chances on picking her up through the ASM or one of her mates dobbing her in.”

  “All right, do your best. We’re between the devil and the deep blue sea or a rock and a hard place, any cliché you want to use. The Premier wants it all wrapped up as soon as possible, the Minister would like it all forgotten and The Dutchman would like it all to turn out much worse than it is. As the Herald journalists say, we’re in no-win mode.”

  Malone abruptly got the impression that the Assistant Commissioner wished he had not become involved, that he had stuck to administration and left crime to the crime specialists. Scaling the heights, he had slipped on a cliff-face. We’re on the same rope, Malone thought; but he knew who would fall first and farthest.

  When he got back to Homicide there was a message to call Mrs. Pallister. She came on the line, her voice as cold as a blade. “Your appointment with Mr. Casement is cancelled. He is under doctor’s orders.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. He wasn’t well last night.”

  “You saw him last night?” Her tone suggested that she knew now who was to blame for her boss’s indisposition. “I’ll let you know when Mr. Casement will be available.” She hung up.

  Malone put down the phone. He looked up at the map of New South Wales on his office wall. Tibooburra was in letters too small for him to read from where he sat, but he knew its location as well as he knew his home address. It was beginning to look like Shangri-La.

  III

  Kim Weetbix said, “Mrs. Hoang, let me do that.”

  “No, no. My job.”

  They were speaking in English, Kim’s almost fluent, the old lady’s broken. Mr
s. Hoang had been in Australia five years, but the natives frightened her and she had never learned to be easy with them in their language; Kim, for her part, had become rusty in her own tongue. There was, however, a warmth to Mrs. Hoang that overcame the communication difficulty and Kim, after two days, felt at home with her. More so than she ever had with her own mother: there had been no home with that cheap bitch.

  Kim had come here to this modest Fibro cottage in Cabramatta with Mrs. Hoang’s daughter-in-law, Annie. The latter worked in a fast-food cafe in Kings Cross and Kim had got to know her over the past year. She was a cheerful midget of a woman who, you knew, would one day own the fast-food shop, taking it over from the slow-witted Greek who ran it and who would never recognize his exit being greased, not till he was out of the place and Annie Hoang was in charge. She had a husband who worked in a dry-cleaning establishment and two small daughters who were already earmarked for university and professional careers in the 21st century. When Kim had confided to her that she had broken up with Kel and had nowhere to go, Annie had invited her home, one refugee who had made good taking in another who still had to make it.

  Mrs. Hoang, only fifty but looking seventy, had a face where pain, grief, worry and laughter had resulted in a scribble of lines that obviously distressed her; Kim had already noticed that every time Mrs. Hoang passed a mirror she turned her head away. Kim, proud of her own looks, guessed that somewhere in the past was a mirror that held the reflection of a good-looking woman who had been the young Mrs. Hoang, before the bombs and the landmines and defoliation sprays had come to Vietnam.

  “You get job?” said Mrs. Hoang. She was preparing the evening meal, working with the precision of a mortician, the vegetables sliced just so, the chicken dissected clinically.

  “When I get to Queensland,” said Kim. “The Gold Coast.”

  “The Gold Coast? Gold is there?”

  Kim smiled; it occurred to her that in the two days she had been here in this house she had smiled more easily than in two years with Kel. “I don’t think so. It is just a name for a place. People hope, but only the rich find gold there. Not real gold, just money.”