Autumn Maze. Jon Cleary
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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.
4
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.
Chapter Four
1
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.