Autumn Maze (40 page)

“We have something else to do,” said the leader. “We have to go back to Canterbury to see if the cops are humming about Mr. Bassano. Or we may have to pay a visit to the morgue, if they've already collected him. We have to find him and re-kill him.”

“Jesus! I done some jobs, but this is fucking bizarre!”

“Goodnight, Mr. Casement,” said the leader. “Have you touched anything in here? Had a drink or anything? Fingerprints,” he explained. “We don't want you connected with any of this.”

“No. No, nothing. I—I may have touched the door as I came in—”
Good God, they're teaching me how to think criminally!

“Better wipe the door,” the leader told one of the men. “Mr. Casement, I think you should now go up to your own apartment and leave this to us. It's in your own interests to forget what you saw tonight. I'm sure our friends would remind you of that if you should be careless.”

Casement had done as he was told. He went back upstairs to the penthouse, poured himself a
stiff
drink, sat down and stared out at the harbour, feeling the foundations of himself slowly crumbling away as the terrible realization hit him that he had become an associate to murder.

And now, here in the ballroom of the Congress, he smelled the perfume again. He turned round, saw the slim man in the horn-rimmed glasses and the light grey suit, saw the thing that looked like a cloth-covered gun and knew it was all over. And in that instant Malone came in from the side, hit the man's arm and knocked it upwards. There was a faint explosion of air and something silver flashed in the overhead lights, then buried itself in the plaster cheek of a cherub on the decorated ceiling. The man struggled, but Malone, standing close to him, had produced his gun and was jabbing it into the man's side.

“No fuss, understand? Let's go quietly. Sorry about this, but you're done for, sport.”

16

I

TWO DAYS
later Malone sat in the Police Minister's office with Sweden and Assistant Commissioner Zanuch.

“We went to the house where Belgarda's been staying, in Roseville. It had been rented by a Japanese, who we guess was Tajiri. The place was empty. But we found a gun, a Russian make, a Makarov. Ballistics have identified it as the gun that killed three of the victims. We also found a scalpel, we can't prove it's the one that killed your son, but we can present it as circumstantial evidence.”

“What's Belgarda got to say?” asked Zanuch.

“He's not saying anything, sir, but we have enough on him for any magistrate to commit him for trial. He'll go down, for sure.”

“You got nothing at all out of him?”

“Well, not much. We did find out, Mr. Sweden, that your maid was the one who'd left the back door to your apartment open for him. She'd been planted on you when they first found out Rob was your son.”

Sweden, from the moment Malone had entered his office, had said virtually nothing. When Belgarda's arrest had been headlined in yesterday morning's newspapers, sharing almost equal space with the US bombing of Iraq, one of the first on the phone to him had been Hans Vanderberg:

“All right, Derek, don't you worry about what we talked about the other night. I know when to score points and when to kick the ball out of play. You're a hero, the coppers have done you proud. Now's not the time for me to be screwing your balls off in the scrum. But watch out, Derek, I'm not dead yet. You could be, though, there's always tomorrow.”

Now
Sweden said to Malone, “Will he talk once he's in court?”

Malone glanced at Zanuch, then looked back at the Minister.
Watch your tongue here, son
. “I don't know, sir. If he doesn't, I think the Crown Prosecutor will. The Crown's case is going to look better if it gives a reason for Rob's murder. Your son was a thief, sir, there's no getting away from that.”

For a moment Sweden's face hardened; but it was Zanuch who said, “There's no need to rub it in, Scobie.”

“That's not what I intended, sir. But this whole thing's been pretty dirty. We've had five—no, six murders. We keep forgetting about the girl who worked for Belgarda in his office—she obviously found out more than she was supposed to. And the morgue attendant, Frank Minto. He's the one I'm sorry for, he had absolutely nothing to do with this, he just happened to be in the way. He was killed because Belgarda liked killing. We've picked up the two heavies who helped Belgarda. They're locals, Kenny Sturgess and George Paderewsky—one of „em, maybe both, will talk if they can make a deal. It's all going to come out, one way or another.”

“What about Casement Trust and their being partners with the
yakuza
?”

Malone shrugged. “That's Mr. Casement's problem. My job's homicide.” It was another of their small challenges; but he was tired and wanted to be out of this room. “He could have been more helpful at the start.”

Casement had been no help at all even at the end. After Belgarda had been taken away by Kagal and Graham, Malone and Clements had suggested they go back to The Wharf with the Casements. There the two detectives had tried to get Casement to open up, but the old man, shaken by how close he had come to death for the second time, had given them nothing.

“Please—” Ophelia was grateful to Malone for having saved her husband's life; but now he needed further saving. “Leave us alone for this evening. It's been too much—”

“We just want to know why Belgarda was trying to kill you, Mr. Casement.”

Casement shook his head, still seemingly dumb with shock. Ophelia said, “Please go. Perhaps my husband can talk tomorrow . . .”

The
two detectives had left the Casements, he clutching her arm as if she might steal away from him, she stroking his hand as she might have a child's. Going down in the lift Clements said, “How much do you reckon he hasn't told us? Won't tell us?”

“I think he knows what happened the night Rob was murdered. Belgarda said something when I was hustling him out of the ballroom—he said, “I should've killed him the first night.” I dunno, maybe Casement was in on the killing.”

“He's afraid of losing his wife.”

Malone looked at him a moment; then he nodded. “You're probably right. Would you kill to keep Romy?”

“That's a bastard of a question . . . But
he
would. The thing is, I don't think he would ever lose her. She might play around, but she'll never leave him. She's reached the top of the tree, why slide down?”

“You're pretty cynical about women.”

“Only some of „em. I'm the same way about some men.”

They went out of the apartment building, round the corner to their car. Clements, without realizing it, had parked the car right at the spot where Rob Sweden had crashed into the pavement. The white outline of the body and the blood had been scrubbed away, feet had trodden the ghost into the ground.

Now, on the second day, Malone stood up, dismissing himself, “If I say it myself, sir, I think we've done a good job. The newspapers are satisfied with it, for once they're not criticizing us. I think we should leave it as it is. The full report will be on your desk in the morning, Minister.”

“Thank you,” said Sweden; he sounded anything but ministerial. “And thank you, on a personal level.”

Outside in the corridor Zanuch said, “He's spoken to me about recommending you for a commendation.”

“Tell him to forget it. That'll take time, commendations always do. By then the case'll be forgotten, there'll be something else. Let it lie.”

“
You're more of a diplomat than I suspected.”

Malone relaxed, smiled. “Not really. When I was playing cricket, there were times when you knew you couldn't win. You played for a draw.”

II

“We're going to be married on the thirty-first of July,” said Romy. “A Saturday.”

“Why don't you make it the last Saturday in June? That gets you into this financial year and Russ can claim a full tax allowance for a spouse.”

“Oh God, Dad, that's really
gross
!” Both Claire and Maureen thumped him. “Mum, how can you
stand
him?”

It was a week later and Malone had brought Lisa and the children and Clements and Romy here to the Golden Gate for dinner. It was Lisa who had insisted on the venue—“We all like Chinese and it's the best Chinese restaurant I've been to. French cooking is wasted on Maureen and Tom and we're not going to Pizza Hut.”

Belgarda was still in custody, bail refused. His heavies, Sturgess and Paderewsky, having made a deal with the Director of Public Prosecutions, had been granted bail. Teresita Romero had been picked up, but, because nothing could be proved against her, she had been released and, as far as Malone knew or cared, she was now somewhere between Sydney and Manila. Tajiri had disappeared and it was assumed that he had somehow got out of Australia and was back in Tokyo. It irked Malone that he had never seen the man who had masterminded all the murders; he was known only by appearance to Cormac Casement and Jack Aldwych. Neither of whom, for his own reasons, would ever sit down and try to match him with an Identikit picture. Belgarda's trial still had to come, but the maze had been solved and all the work now lay with the DPP.

Autumn's cool had turned to winter's chill; it was a good night for hot food. The meal was almost finished when Aldwych and a white-haired woman rose from a back booth and came down towards the front door. They paused by the Malone table and Clements introduced Romy. “My fiancée.”

“
This is Emily Karp, a friend.”

Malone had not seen Aldwych since the day after Belgarda's arrest. He had driven out to Harbord to see the old crim, but Aldwych had been adamant he would not give evidence at any trial. “No, Scobie. You got the bugger in the act—he was trying to kill Casement. You don't need anything from me. No, mate, definitely no. I'm trying to cultivate respectable friends now. They don't wanna read about me being mixed up with a multiple killer.” He had had the grace to smile.

Malone wondered now if Emily Karp was the respectable friend. He smiled at her, appreciating her. “A pleasure meeting you, Mrs. Karp.”

She said a few words to Lisa and the children. Aldwych stepped round her and leaned down to speak quietly. “It's all been taken care of, Scobie. The bill. I owe you, remember?” He winked and straightened up.

Malone didn't demur. All had indeed been taken care of. Well, almost. Loose threads are in the weave of any cop's life.

Kirribilli

August, 1992-July 1993

THE
END

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WINTER CHILL

1

I

THE FOUR
carriages of the Harbourlink monorail softly whirred their way above the three-o'clock-in-the-morning city streets. An occasional car or taxi sped down the glistening wet cross streets; in two of the main north-south thoroughfares garbage trucks banged and rattled at the quiet. The monorail, with its metallic whisper, drifted by dark upper-storey windows of department stores and offices, moved down the slope of Market Street, over Pyrmont Bridge and into the sharp curve that led above the Darling Harbour exhibition complex. It did not stop at the station there but continued on, a ghost train of the future, and swung back to head up into the city again, looking even more ghostly in a sudden squall of rain, going round and round on its endless circuit.

There was no driver and there was only one passenger. To those who knew the painting he was the spitting image (though he had never been known to spit) of the farmer in Grant Wood's
American Gothic.
Tall, gaunt, face weathered (not from farming but from sailing), the first impression of those who had met him was that he was humourless and forbidding. Yet the gaunt face could break into the most charming smile and his friendliness, though not legendary, was sincere and surprising. He had enough perceived contradictions to make him a good lawyer, which he was—or had been. Witnesses and judges and juries had never been quite sure whom and what they were dealing with till he had delivered his final argument. His name was Orville Brame, he was one of two senior partners in one of New York's most prestigious law firms and he was the incumbent president of the American Bar Association. Or he would
have
been incumbent if he had not died in the past hour.

He sat in the compartment immediately behind the driver's cabin, held upright with his thin arm pushed into the handrail beside him. His dark eyes were open and had any other passengers boarded the carriage at that out-of-schedule hour they might have mistaken him for a man who had drunk himself into a glassy-eyed stupor at some professionals' dinner. Except for the dark red stain on the front of his white shirt and the twist of agony that had turned down one corner of his thin-lipped mouth.

The monorail slipped along its track, over the street-lights, past the black mirrors of the windows, down and across the oily finger of harbour, along the front of the exhibition centre. The sightless eyes of Orville Brame stared out at the city he had left thirty years ago and to which he had never returned until now. And now he was past memories and regret, past the anger and trepidation he had brought home with him.

II

It had stopped raining when Scobie Malone got up at six o'clock for his regular morning walk. He went into the bathroom for the ritual start-to-the-day leak, splashed some water in his face, ran his hand through his dark hair, which always curled during the night. He went back to the bedroom, pulled on his track-suit and trainers, went out to the front door and opened it. Despite the rain the weather had got colder; a cold wind sprang up out of nowhere and blew through his bones. He went back into the bedroom and pulled on a sweater.