Winter Chill. Jon Cleary
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as in all families that manage to survive the generations, it suffered occasionally from drunks, fools and incompetents. Eventually the firm, to survive, had to merge with Schuyler and Barrymore, to become Schuyler, De Vries and Barrymore. There was no Schuyler now on the board of partners and the last Barrymore had disappeared at the end of World War Two. There was, however, still a De Vries: Richard De Vries the Third. He was no drunk, fool nor incompetent; but the margin for error, on all counts, was narrow. Still, he owned 30 per cent of the stock and stock ownership has its own competence, as the other partners, when pressed, heartily agreed. Dick De Vries was kept afloat by money, which is more buoyant than balloons on Wall Street.
‘I came as soon as I could—’ He was a small man with a round face, flushed from too much claret and Scotch, and reproachful brown eyes, as if he blamed others for his failings. He had silver hair, parted in the middle like that of a dandy from the Twenties, and tiny ears laid flat along his skull. Though he had just got off a fourteen-hour flight, he was dressed as if on his way to the offices in Broad Street, Manhattan. He wore a dark grey suit from Fioravanti, a custom-made shirt from Kabbaz, a Racquet-club tie and black wing-tips by Vogel. Not for him French shirts and English suits and shoes: he was Ail-American. Except for his clipped accent: as a young man he had always tried to imitate Ronald Colman and Robert Donat and now the voice came naturally to him.
He even dresses and speaks like a lie, thought Joanna Brame: inside there is an untidy, useless little man trying to get out. Orville had told her that several times.
‘Have they released the – er – body yet?’
‘Not yet. Australians, it seems, have a fetish for red tape. Did you have a good flight?’ Why am I asking him that? she wondered. But she had always had difficulty trying to keep a conversation going with Dick De Vries.
‘Not really. These days, with a lot of people, the only thing first class about them is their ticket.’ She agreed with him, but she wouldn’t tell him so. ‘To cap it all, everything here in Sydney is booked out. I’m having to share a room, something I haven’t done since I was in college.’
‘Whom with?’ She still had the precision in grammar that her mother, who had sat at the feet of Henry James, had taught her.
‘Young Tallis. It could be worse, I suppose, though there is hardly room to swing a cat. I could be sharing with one of those palimony shysters. Or an ambulance chaser from Chicago.’ He had his own snobbery.
She was not embarrassed that she was staying alone in a suite in which she could have swung a Bengal tiger. She changed the subject: ‘I am still coming to terms with Orville’s death. The way he – he died.’ For just a moment her voice faltered. Last night, lying awake in the strange bed, a huge bed that could have accommodated four people and so had an increased emptiness, reaching out on one occasion for the Orville who wasn’t there, who would never be there again, there had been a long moment when she had wondered at the worth of going on alone; it was uncharacteristic of her to think that way, and she had been both frightened by the thought and embarrassed by it. She went on: ‘The police don’t think it was a mugging, anything like that. Why should anyone want to kill him?’
‘You can’t expect me to answer that? I’ve only just arrived.’ He sounded irritated; but then he often sounded like that. ‘Are the local police any good?’
‘I suppose so. How would I know?’ It was her turn to sound irritated; she despised herself for the pettiness. ‘All police departments are different, I suppose. Just as people are different.’
‘May I?’ He helped himself to his second Scotch from the mobile drinks tray. ‘The first thing, Jo—’ She hated the name Jo, but she didn’t correct him this time. ‘ – The first thing is to get you and Orville on a plane for back home. I’ll stay here and handle things with the police.’
‘His brother came to see me.’
He looked at her (cautiously?) over the rim of his glass. ‘What’s he like?’
She shrugged. ‘I didn’t take to him. He didn’t seem very – upset by Orville’s death. Murder.’
‘From what Orville told me, they were never close.’
She was surprised. ‘He discussed his brother with you?’
Again there was what seemed to her some caution. ‘Once. Maybe twice. I don’t remember how his name came up – oh yes. It was when Sydney was nominated as the venue for this convention. Orville mentioned his brother then. Yes, it was then.’
She was alert to nuances; she would have made a good lawyer. ‘You sound a little hazy about when it was. Never mind,’ she said before he could protest, ‘the brother is here and doesn’t seem too put out by Orville’s murder. I’d better get used to calling it that,’ she added, more to herself than to him.
‘Perhaps I should contact him?’
‘To what purpose? But please yourself.’
‘Will you have dinner with me this evening? I understand the food in Sydney is edible and the wines are excellent.’
‘I wouldn’t be good company, Dick.’
He drained his glass, then stood up. ‘Oh, by the way, did Orville leave any papers here? He brought a stuffed briefcase with him, I believe. Young Tallis told me he was the one who had to carry it. Lug it, was the phrase he used.’
‘It’s in the other room.’ She rose and went into the bedroom. While she was gone he looked at the drinks tray, looked at his glass, then reluctantly put down the glass. When she came back she stopped in the bedroom doorway. ‘It’s not there.’
‘Perhaps Tallis has it?’
‘Perhaps. But he wouldn’t have taken it without telling me—’
‘Have you been out of here since you arrived?’ His voice was quick with concern.
‘No. Yes, yes, of course. I had to go to the morgue on – Monday? Two days ago? God, have I been sitting here that long?’
‘We better get Tallis up here. What’s our room number? Oh, yes.’ He picked up the phone, asked for the room: ‘Adam? Could you come up to Mrs Brame’s suite? Yes, now.’ He sounded irritated again; or edgy. He hung up the phone. ‘We have to find that briefcase.’
‘Pour me a gin-and-tonic, please. Light on the gin,’ she said, remembering his heavy hand. ‘Why did Orville bring papers all the way from New York to here? Were they ABA papers?’
‘Some of them, I guess. Yes, some of them would be. But there would have been others—’
There was a knock on the door; De Vries went to it and opened it. ‘That was quick, Adam.’
‘I came up the stairs, I didn’t wait for the elevator. You said now.’ The young man was not impolite, but Joanna recognized where his loyalties lay; and was pleased for Orville’s sake. ‘Something wrong?’
‘Mr Brame’s briefcase is missing.’
Tallis frowned, looked at Joanna. ‘You sure? It was there – damn! Come to think of it, I haven’t seen it since Sunday afternoon, when I gave it to Mr Brame. He gave it to me to take care of Sunday morning when he went out to see his brother.’
‘He told you he was going to see his brother?’ said De Vries.
‘Yes. He seemed – perturbed? I mean, at meeting him. But he didn’t say why. But what’s happened to the briefcase?’
‘That’s what – perturbs us,’ said De Vries. ‘Did you know what was in it?’
Tallis shook his head. ‘It was locked all the time I had it. Mr Brame never told me the combination. But I can’t understand …’
‘Someone must have taken it while I was out at the morgue on Monday morning. Or – once I went down to the coffee lounge when the maid came in.’ Joanna put down her glass, picked up the phone. ‘I