Bleak Spring (6 page)

Mr. Rockne appeared to have changed quite a bit lately,
“How's Jason?”

“He's okay. He's a very intelligent boy, but I guess that doesn't help much when a situation like this happens, right?”

Malone had seen the stupid and the wise equally devastated by grief; it didn't require much intelligence to remark that. He looked at Angela Bodalle. “Would you leave us alone with Miss Weigall for a few moments?”

“I think I should remain here—”

“Only if Miss Weigall insists?” He looked at the girl.

She hesitated, then said, “I'll be okay, Mrs. Bodalle. If I need you, I'll—”

Angela stood up abruptly and went out of the room; she did it in such a way that Malone had a mental image of her swirling her barrister's gown as she exited; she left behind a strong smell of her perfume, as if she had generated some sudden heat. Both Clements and Jill Weigall were impressed. The girl said “Now I've upset her—”

“Don't worry, Jill. Sit down. Did Mr. Rockne hold trust accounts for clients, money held in escrow, stuff like that?”

“Of course. All solicitors do.”

“With what bank?”

“The Commonwealth, the one here in Coogee.”

Not a bank with branches in Kuwait or Beirut. “What about Shahriver Credit International?”

She
shook her head, the hair fell down, was pushed back up again; Malone began to wonder if the gesture was part of the fashion. “We never did any business with them—wait a minute!” She had thick, unplucked eyebrows; they came down in a frown. “They called a coupla times. I put them through to Mr. Rockne, but then he'd hang up and call them back on his private line. He had that put in about four or five months ago, the private line.”

“Did you think that was strange?”

“Well, yes, a bit. He used to be always so open with me. And then about six months ago, maybe a bit more, he just sort of, well, played things close to his chest. Just with one or two clients.”

“You remember who they are?”

“Inspector, I dunno I should be telling you all this . . .” She glanced towards the still open door. “I mean, there's client confidentiality—”

“That's true. Do you have a law degree?”

“No, why?”

He kept one eye on the doorway, wondering how much Angela Bodalle could hear in the outer office. “Well then, there's no client confidentiality, is there? You were Mr. Rockne's secretary, not his law partner.” He knew he was drawing a fine line, but the law, after all, was a mass, or mess, of fine lines. He had suffered more than once from judges who had had their own reading of the law. “We're not here to probe clients' secrets, pry into their affairs. We're just trying to find out if there is something in this office that might lead us to whoever killed Mr. Rockne.”

All at once she broke down, leaned forward as if she were about to fall off her chair. Clements leaned across from his own chair and eased her back; the two men waited while she wept silently. Then Jason said from the doorway, “Leave her alone, Mr. Malone. She was in love with my dad. They were having an affair.”

The words had been blurted out. Then suddenly he looked embarrassed and angry at himself; he had opened a door and was hurt by what he had exposed to the police. But it was obvious that he had sympathy for Jill Weigall, that he did not feel she was to blame for the affair. He appeared more puzzled by
her
than angry at her.

Angela Bodalle appeared in the doorway behind the boy. “I wouldn't say any more, Jay, not right now.”

Malone ignored her, looked at the girl. “Jill?”

“It wasn't an
affair—
it was just one weekend—” She dried her eyes, pushed back the hair that had fallen down over her brow again; it was beginning to annoy Malone and he felt like offering her one of the paperclips on the desk in front of him. “I knew it was never going to get anywhere—”

He had long ago given up wondering what attraction women felt for certain men. What had this very good-looking girl seen in the opinionated, chauvinistic, bony-faced man twenty years her senior? But no detective, from Homicide or even the Fraud Squad, will ever solve a woman's emotions. He looked up at Jason, still hanging like a bag of bones in the doorway. “Did your mother know?”

“I don't think you should be asking the boy those sort of questions,” said Angela Bodalle.

“Why not?”

“It's a question you should ask her, not her son.”

“How did
you
know, Jay?” That was Jill, turned questioner.

“Just luck.
Bad
luck.” A sardonic air coated him at odd moments, like something borrowed from an older generation. “You went to that place at Terrigal, Peppers, and one of my mates from school, he was there with his parents, he saw you and Dad.”

“Did he tell all the school?”

“No. I'd of belted him if he had, he knew that.”

“Thank you, Jay.” For a moment she looked as young as he.

Malone nodded to Clements. “Russ, take Jay and Mrs. Bodalle back outside. I want a moment alone with Miss Weigall.”

The girl suddenly looked apprehensive, but it was Angela who caught Malone's attention. “Are you going to question her, Inspector?”

“Yes.” His voice was sharp; he was growing tired of her interference.

“
Would you like me to stay with you, Jill?”

Again the girl hesitated; then again she came down on Malone's side, if reluctantly. “I'll be okay. I'll call you if Inspector Malone gets too tough with me.”

“You're not going to do that, are you, Inspector?”

Malone's smile was more like a grimace. “I'm a gentleman, Mrs. Bodalle.”

Her smile was wide, one of disbelief; but she went out, closing the door behind her. Then Jill looked at Malone, all at once seeming to gain some confidence. “What are you expecting me to tell you you didn't want them to hear?”

“It's not that I don't want them to hear, it's that I think you'll talk to me easier if they're not in the room with us. Did
you
kill Will Rockne?”

He hadn't altered his tone, but the question was like a rock thrown at her head; she seemed to duck, then looked up at him from under the fallen hair. “How can you say something like that? Jesus!” She pushed the hair back, sat up. She looked towards the door, as if she meant to call for Angela Bodalle, then she turned back to Malone. “No, I didn't! What makes you think I'd want to kill him?”

“Righto, forget I asked. Have you seen that before?” He had put the Beretta in a side drawer of the desk; now he took it out and laid it in front of her.

“No.” She stared at it, her fear genuine. “Where was it—in the desk?”

“No, in the safe. Did Mr. Rockne ever talk about wanting to defend himself?”

“Never.”

“How long ago did you have the af—did you have that weekend with him?”

“Two months ago, the last weekend in June.”

“And what happened? I mean afterwards, when you came back here on the Monday?”

She picked up a paperweight from the desk. It was a brass lion on a marble base; there was a Lions Club emblem on the base. Malone hoped she was not going to throw it at him. “Nothing happened. That was it—the one weekend, and just
nothing.
I thought I was in love with him, but it only took that weekend to find out I wasn't.”

“
What about him?”

She put the paperweight back on the desk. “He couldn't have cared less. I was just someone who'd given him a good weekend, a bit of young stuff. I don't mean Mrs. Rockne is
old,
but you know what I mean. Do we really have to go on with all this?” She said it almost with boredom; she was a mixture of gauche-ness and sophistication. But it was disco sophistication, a veneer as skimpy as the clothes they wore to the clubs. “To tell you the truth, I would've gone looking for another job. Only they're so scarce, the recession and that.”

Malone put the gun in a manila envelope. “I'm taking the gun with me, okay? Now let's get back to what I asked you before. You said there were one or two clients he kept to himself, played things close to his chest. Who were they?”

She gazed at him a moment, but she appeared to trust him now. “Mr. Bezrow was one, Bernie Bezrow the bookmaker. He was our landlord, too.”

Even Malone, who hadn't the slightest interest in horse-racing, who hadn't known Phar Lap was dead till he'd seen the movie, knew Bernie Bezrow. “Who was the other one?”

“He just called himself Mr. Jones, but I never believed that was his real name. I asked Will about him once and he just smiled and said not to worry my pretty head about it. He actually said that,
my pretty head.
He could be bloody annoying at times.” She was beginning to sound as if she was not regretting Rockne's death after all. “Mr. Jones came here twice, I think. He was tall and well-dressed and, I suppose, not bad-looking. He had an accent, but I couldn't tell you what it was.”

“Was he dark? Fair? Bald?”

“He had dark hair, but I think it was thin on top. I remember thinking, I dunno why, he was like an expensive car salesman, you know, Rolls-Royces, cars like that.”

“I've never been in a Rolls-Royce saleroom.”

Somehow she managed a weak smile. “Neither have I. But you know what I mean.”

“What about Mr. Bezrow?”

“Oh, he never came up here to the office, he couldn't get up the stairs. He's so fat—he's
huge.
He
came here once in his car,
he
has a Rolls-Royce, he had someone driving it, and I had to go downstairs and give him an envelope. Will wasn't here.”

“Are there any letters to him in the files?”

“None. That's what I meant by Will playing things close to his chest.”

“You didn't suspect there was something fishy going on with Mr. Bezrow and Mr. Jones?”

She looked down at her lap; her hair fell down again. She was dressed in grey slacks and a black sweater, the casual style for a death; the slacks were tucked into black suede boots. She was very still for a while, then she sat back in the chair, seeming to go limp. She tossed her head back, the hair flopping away from her brow. She was giving up, but Malone was not sure what: her job, her love or infatuation for Rockne.

She said quietly, “Of course I did. But everything's fishy now, isn't it? Men get away with murder—well, no, that's the wrong word this morning, isn't it? They get away with shonky schemes, or they did, and everyone thought they were heroes, the government gave them decorations. My mother and father are old-fashioned, they believe in morality and honesty and all that, and I was brought up that way. But out in the real world . . .” She looked past him out at the sky above the sea; but there was no evidence written there of the real world. Then she looked back at him, pausing as if wondering whether she was wasting her words on him. “I knew Will was up to something fishy, as you call it. But I didn't know what and I didn't want to know. I just wanted to hold on to my job.”

He stood up. “That'll be enough for today, Jill. I'm taking the cash box, the safety-deposit box and the gun with me—I don't think they should be left here, not even in the safe. I'll get you to sign a release. Either I or Sergeant Clements will be back tomorrow or the next day. You'll be opening the office?” She nodded, the hair falling down again over her brow. He was standing beside her now and he reached down and pushed back the hair. “That's been annoying me.”

She looked up at him, suddenly smiled, a full-toothed effort. “It annoys my father, too.”

“Thanks,” he said with a grin. “That puts me in my place.”

They went out to the outer office where Clements sat with two people who didn't want to speak
to
him or to each other. Jason stood up at once. “You okay, Jill?”

“Sure. How about you?”

“I'm fine. Can you give me a lift back home?”

“You can come with me, Jay,” said Angela Bodalle. “I'm going back there—”

“Thanks, Mrs. Bodalle, but I want to go with Jill.” It was rude, a slap across the face, but Angela showed no expression.

The boy waited while Jill signed the release form she had typed out for Malone; the silence in the office was so heavy it made even the tapping of the word-processor keys sound like that of an old iron-frame portable. Angela Bodalle said nothing till the two young people had departed. Then:

“Will you be coming back to talk to Olive?”

“Not this morning. I'm sure you'll tell her everything we've found here.”

“Of course. If you should want me again, call me at my chambers. My home number is unlisted.”

“Oh, we never phone,” said Malone amiably. “We just knock on the door.”

She appeared to be looking for the last word, but couldn't find it; she gave up and went clack-clacking down the stairs in her high heels. Clements let out a deep breath. “I been sitting here doing my damnedest to be polite—”

“I wouldn't worry, Russ. Not with her. Get on to Randwick, ask them to send someone down here and put a seal on the downstairs door and that front door there. We don't want someone busting in here tonight looking for that cash and that bank statement. Ask them to keep the place under surveillance, at least till I talk to them tomorrow. Tell them the secretary will be coming in here tomorrow. When you've done that, you can tell me what you know about Bernie Bezrow.”

Clements was, or had been, Homicide's expert on the racing game. His luck at punting had been legendary; it was said that the horses ran with one eye on him on those days he was at the races. Then, some years ago, he had switched to punting on the stock market, a switch that Malone, an idiot when it came to punting on anything at all, had failed to understand. Clements had patiently explained to
him
that it had to be either shares or property; property meant possessions and he was not a man for such things. At least that had been his philosophy till he had met Romy Keller last summer and since then Malone had had no idea what was Clements's attitude towards punting or possessions. He, Malone, was an old-fashioned man who did not believe you asked another man what lay in his secret heart.