Bleak Spring. Jon Cleary
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you report them to the police?’
‘What would be the point? They were phone threats, I had no idea who they were.’
‘Dissatisfied punters?’ suggested Clements.
‘You would understand their frame of mind better than I would, Sergeant. I’ve never been a punter, not on horses, just in politics.’
‘Did you arrange for any protection?’ said Malone. ‘A bodyguard?’
Bezrow shook his head. ‘I told you, Inspector, I’m a fatalist. You really are trying to connect me in some way with Mr Rockne’s death.’
Malone stood up. ‘No, Mr Bezrow. But nothing any of us ever does is unconnected to anyone else. I read that somewhere. I’m working on the meaning of it.’
Clements rose, too, but Bezrow remained seated, as if the mere act of getting to his feet was something he avoided as much as possible. ‘Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee . . . I don’t think Mr Rockne’s bell is going to toll for me, Inspector.’
Malone could think of no literary answer, settled instead for, ‘We’ll be in touch, Mr Bezrow.’
‘Just a moment till I call off the dogs.’ He picked up a small microphone from the table beside him, put two fingers in his mouth and uttered an earsplitting whistle. A few moments, then Malone heard the two dogs, barking excitedly, go round the side of the house. ‘You have about two minutes before they’ll be out front again.’
‘Have they ever attacked anyone?’
‘Only punters,’ said Bezrow and smiled at Clements.
As soon as the Filipino maid had closed the front door behind them, Malone and Clements went briskly down the steps, ears cocked for the rush of the bull terriers behind them. Once outside the front gate the two detectives stood beside the Commodore. Clements’s green Toyota standing behind it shone as it hadn’t shone since it had first come out of the showroom; Romy was either polishing the car for him or she was holding a gun at his head. ‘What do you reckon?’ said Malone.
‘Despite all his fat, he’s got a bigger sidestep than David Campese,’ said Clements.
‘I thought so, too. He missed his step once, though. He said that Will Rockne wasn’t the slightest bit interested in racing. Last night Will said, I quote, “If you knew what I know about the racing game . . . ” Will was a bullshit artist, but I don’t think he was playing that game last night.’
‘I just wonder . . .’ Clements was staring back up at Tiflis Hall. ‘I wonder if that five-and-a-bit million in Shahriver belongs to Bernie? He doesn’t just field on the courses – legitimately, that is. He has a big SP business – the Gaming Squad have tried to close it down a coupla times, but have never been able to nail him. That’d all be cash he wouldn’t want to declare for tax.’
‘Get what you can out of the Gaming Squad on him. In the meantime we’ll stay off his back for a while.’
Inside the house Bezrow was making a phone call: ‘You better get over here quick smart. We’re in deep-shit trouble.’
Which is not a literary term.
2
‘You’re joking!’ said Olive Rockne. ‘How could you, Jason? This is no time for joking!’
‘I tell you it’s true, Mum. There was ten thousand dollars in the safe and a bank statement saying Dad was holding five-and-something million dollars in an account at some bank. In his own name.’
‘Did you see the statement?’
‘No, I was outside in Jill’s office by then, but I heard them through the door, it was open and I could hear everything.’
Olive looked at Angela Bodalle. ‘Is it true?’
‘I’m afraid it is.’
‘Afraid? Why are you afraid?’
The three of them were in the living room at the front of the house; Mrs Carss, Rose and Shelley were out in the kitchen getting lunch. As Mrs Carss, light-headed but with her feet on the ground, had said, the dead might die but the living had to go on eating. She had said it with the best of intentions, trying to make everyone feel better.
Jason lay slouched in a deep chair, his long limbs piled about him like sticks stacked on a sack of shit; which was the way he felt, he told himself. He looked at his mother and Mrs Bodalle and wondered what his mother saw in the other woman. He was no expert on what made a friendship, Christ knows; he had no close friends of his own, unless you counted Claire Malone and she wasn’t really that close. He got on okay with the guys in the basketball team, but that was only on the court; they threw him the ball but nothing else, nothing like friendship. Angela, he had decided after meeting her only twice, was the most self-contained bag he’d ever met. Not that she was exactly a bag: she was sexy-looking, if you went for older women, though he could never imagine himself having a wet dream about her. He’d been reading in one of his mother’s women’s magazines about older women and their toy-boys, but Angela, it seemed to him, didn’t seem to like even men. She hadn’t liked his father and Dad certainly hadn’t liked her. Maybe it had something to do with her being in the legal profession, which was chock-a-block with men.
Angela said, ‘Inspector Malone seems very interested in it. He’s probably going to ask you questions.’
‘I know nothing about – how much did you say it was? Five million!’
‘Five and a bit.’ Jason was doing his best to look laid-back, but inside he could feel himself beginning to bubble. Five-and-a-bit million dollars, for Chrissake! He knew now how Charlie Sheen had felt in Wall Street. He had seen the video of that movie only six months ago, for the first time, and he had been disgusted at the greed in it; he had also been disgusted at the way his father had nodded approvingly all through the goddamn film. But now . . . Five-and-a-bit million, all in his father’s name! ‘Plus the ten thousand. Chicken feed.’
‘Don’t be so laid-back, Jay,’ said Angela; he could have hit her. ‘It’s a lot, a lot of money.’
‘You still haven’t told me what’s to be afraid of?’ said Olive.
‘Darling, it complicates things. It adds more mystery to why Will was killed.’
‘Of course it does,’ said Olive peevishly. ‘But if it’s in Will’s name, who does it belong to now?’
‘Us,’ said Jason and frowned, trying to imagine what all that money was actually worth.
‘I don’t think you should lay claim to it,’ said Angela. ‘Not yet.’
‘Why not?’ Olive, unlike her son, was not laid-back, never had been. She had always been nervy, her emotions always on springs. Now she was holding tightly on to herself, but the effort was plain, bones and muscles showing through her thinness. ‘Why not?’
‘Let’s wait till we see if someone else, a client or somebody, claims it. At this stage I don’t think you should run the risk of looking greedy.’
‘Oh, for Chrissake!’ Jason stood up, all of him falling into place.
Olive looked at him as if she meant to reprove him; then she changed her mind and looked back at Angela. ‘Yes, for Chrissake! What are you getting at, Angie? God, greedy? Is that how you think it’s going to look?’
Jason sat watching the two women. He had never understood their relationship; it was different from those his mother had with other women. He could not tell you what the difference was, except that Angela always seemed to be the one in charge. Of course, Mum was weak: Dad had had her under his thumb ever since he could remember. Lately, though, since Angela had come along, she had started to stand up to Dad. Not in any up-you-Jack sort of way; just a sort of taking the mickey out of him. He had begun to admire Mum, even if the influence had come from the wrong