Helga's Web (16 page)

Then he coughed, felt the pain in his chest and shivered. He sat up, reached for the phone. “Get me Phil Bixby. He’s one of the trawler captains.”

“Where do I find him, Mr. Gibson?”

“Frances, if I bloody knew where to get him, I wouldn’t be asking you.”

“Yes, Mr. Gibson. Mind your ear, I’m going to hang up.”

He put the phone back on its cradle and grinned. He might have fallen in love with Frances Kingsley if he had not met Glenda first.

Bixby arrived within the hour. He came lumbering into the office, dressed in slacks, blue sports jacket and bright orange shirt. There was no awkwardness or embarrassment about him; he had already guessed why the Old Man had sent for him. He looked around for the Old Man’s brother-in-law, but there was no sign of him. He went to sit down in the chair opposite Gibson, but his bottom didn’t reach it.

“I didn’t invite you to sit down,” Gibson snapped.

Bixby straightened up, his thick-featured face flushing. “Okay, Mr. Gibson. What can I do for you?”

Gibson never wasted time with his employees, especially ones he was about to sack. “You can stop picking up drugs on my boats, that’s the first thing. The second thing is, you’re drawing your time, you and all your crew. The third thing is, you’re gunna pay a visit to a girl named Helga Brand and warn her to keep her mouth shut. If she doesn’t keep it shut,

you’re gunna have the demons down on you and you’ll go up for seven to ten years. The judges are getting pretty severe on bastards who bring in drugs. And you’ve already done time once. Second time up they’re always ready to give you the maximum.”

Bixby took a match out of his pocket and chewed on it. Then he looked at the chair beside him, looked back at Gibson, then sat down in the chair. He crossed one leg over the other, showing a length of bright orange sock to match the shirt, and sat back.

“If I ain’t working for you any more, Grafter, then I ain’t asking you whether I can sit down or not. If you brought me up here for a talk, then I’m gunna have it in comfort. I left school a long while ago, sport, and I’m too old for lectures. But first, let me get a few things straight. What’s this about me running drugs?”

“You pick ‘em up somewhere outside after they’ve been dropped and you bring ‘em in with the ordinary fish catch.”

“Who told you that? That poofter brother-in-law of yours?” Bixby laughed, a rumble in his chest more like an indigestion sound. He undid his jacket and the orange shirt stretched tight across the muscles of his broad chest. Though he was a heavy beer drinker, twenty years of trawler fishing had kept him from running to fat. He was a violent man, taking pride in his ability to frighten others, a bully who had recognized there was no other way of asserting himself and making his mark in a world that preferred to ignore him. But he was not an unintelligent bully and he knew he was not going to frighten this little old sonofabitch behind the big leather-topped desk. “You’d have a bit of trouble proving it, Grafter.”

“I don’t have to prove anything,” said Gibson, not offended by the nickname; there had been a time when he had taken pride in that. It hurt Glenda to hear him called the name; but she wasn’t going to be meeting this lout on the other side of the desk. “You’re not working for me any longer, so you won’t

be using my boat and it’ll be none of my business. But that still leaves the girl. If she starts talking, you’ll have the demons watching you. And they’ll get you sooner or later.”

Bixby chewed on his match. “You’ve become a sanctimonious old coot, haven’t you? I can remember a time when I was doing some smuggling for you.”

“Not drugs. I was bringing in gold then, and gold never hurt anyone. Anyhow, that’s all past now.”

“Yeah, you’ve made your pile, ain’t you?” Bixby snapped off the match in his teeth, leant forward and dropped the two chewed pieces into the ashtray on the desk. “What d’you want me to do with this piece?”

Gibson stared at the ashtray as if he might pick it up and hurl it at Bixby’s head. Then he looked up and said, “Tell her to keep her mouth shut. I don’t care how you do it, but don’t rough her up. If you scare her enough, she might take to the idea that she oughta go back to Europe. She’s a Hun. I’ll pay for her ticket.”

“Why would you do that, Grafter, if it ain’t none of your business?”

But Gibson had all the answers ready: “If you were picked up, they’d start investigating all my boats. That’d cost me money and it wouldn’t make the rest of the crews too happy.”

“How much do I get as a—” Bixby grinned “a golden handshake?”

Gibson picked up the ashtray, dropped the two pieces of match into the wastebasket beside his chair, then put the ashtray back on the desk well away from Bixby. “A month’s pay.”

“That ain’t much. I could tell ‘em a few yarns about the gold we used to bring in.”

“That was nearly twenty years ago. As you say, you’d have a bit of trouble proving it. Consider yourself lucky I was able to warn you. If the girl had gone to the demons about you—”

“Why would she do that? If she’s the piece who was with that feller Savanna, a blonde bit, she ain’t the public-spirited sort. I seen her kind around too much—they ain’t innarested in anyone ‘cept themselves. Did she come and try and put the bite on you?”

“I’ve never seen or heard from her,” said Gibson, and felt that odd little thrill that always came when he was able to win a point merely by telling the truth. So much of his life in business had been taken up with double-dealing, prevarication and outright lies that the truth had become a luxury to be appreciated. That was something else he had learned from his reading of history: only the liar knew the full value of truth. “She’s your concern, not mine. If you can persuade her to go back to Germany or anywhere she wants to go, I’ll pay her air fare, just to stop any interference with my boats. Economy class,” he added as an afterthought, not wanting to reward sin too extravagantly.

Bixby took out another match, chewed on it, then nodded. “Okay, you win. But I dunno how you do it, Grafter, you got me beat.”

“Do what?”

“Stay outa jail.”

Gibson permitted himself a confiding smile. “I’m careful and I don’t act like a damned fool. See the girl, then phone me up what she’s gunna do. I’ll give you the fare in cash when you’re ready to buy the ticket for her. Just give me some warning so I can have the money.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“Would you?” said Gibson.

Thursday, December 12

“Who do we go to see first?” asked Clements. “This bloke Savanna or old Grafter Gibson?”

“What have we got on Gibson so far? Just the photos of him and his wife. Nothing else.”

“Are you going to pass him up then?”

“We’ll get around to him. But Savanna looks the better bet. Just the one photo of him and his missus. But that gabby woman next door to Helga’s said she’d seen a handsome, grey-haired feller knocking on Helga’s door. Or rather, she said he had a key.” Malone picked up the photo, turned it round towards Clements. “He’s grey-haired and I think you might say he was handsome.”

“I never know what handsome is, not the way some women

see it. What else have we got on him? Personally, I’d rather try Gibson. I’d like to see how these millionaires live.”

“Russ, mate, you’re too frivolous-minded. Is that all you want to do as a copper-go around interviewing millionaires in luxury homes?”

Clements thought about it, then nodded. “Yeah, I think I’d settle for that.”

Malone shook his head. “A snob cop. I never thought I’d live to see the day. It’s these TV films,
Burke’s Law
and that.”

Clements took out a handkerchief, blew his nose. “Think I’m getting a summer cold or something.”

“It was that chilly atmosphere up at Helidon’s last night. It might be even worse at Grafter Gibsons.” Then he turned round as Inspector Fulmer came into the room. “We went to see Walter Helidon last night.”

“I know,” said Fulmer gravely, like a bishop who had just heard there had been heresy in his diocese. “The Commissioner has just been on the phone to find out what it’s all about. Seems Mr. Helidon called him this morning, wanting to know couldn’t you have gone to see him at his office instead of worrying his wife at home.”

“We tried his home because we thought he’d prefer the privacy there.”

“It seems you weren’t too diplomatic—”

Malone didn’t answer that. Instead he said, “Are you on our side or not, Tom?”

“I’m not on Helidon’s side, if that’s what you mean. But from what he told the Commissioner, you could have been a little politer. I’m supposed to be ticking you off for your attitude towards Mrs. Helidon.”

“I wasn’t upset so much by her—” Then Malone shrugged. “All right, tick me off.”

Clements sniffled in the background, wiped his nose again. “We didn’t get much co-operation up there, Tom.”

Fulmer said nothing, then at last nodded. “All right, consider yourselves ticked off. Now, do you think Helidon had anything to do with the girl’s murder?”

Malone, though his tongue sometimes got away from him, had learned the value of caution. A police sergeant, on four and a half thousand dollars a year, wasn’t expected to be a judge. Fulmer had been known to jump on a junior constable who had once advanced an opinion that prostitution would never be wiped out so long as men had penises. Fulmer might think that life was either white or black, but Malone, for the

time being, was prepared to stay in any grey corner he could find.

“We still have a way to go before I start naming suspects. We’ve got enough clues, God knows—” He gestured at the objects, now labelled, that lay on his desk. “They’ve checked the blood on the sheets we found in the laundry basket—it doesn’t match Helga’s. They’ve found a sliver of skin under one of her nails and a thread of blue material under another of them. We can’t check on Helidon’s blood group till we lay a charge against him. But he was wearing a blue suit last night and in all the photos of him he has on dark suits that could be blue. And when he took his glasses off last night there was just a faint mark, it could have been a scratch or even an old scar, on his eyebrow. I couldn’t see properly, the room wasn’t that well lit. We’ve still got several others to question. Any one of those could wear blue suits or jackets and could have a scratch on his face. I’d rather wait, Tom, before I start giving an opinion.”

“You’re right,” said Fulmer. He picked up one of the chocolate boxes, still tied with a pink silk ribbon, from Malone’s desk. “Fancy, isn’t it? What prompted you to bring these in? Lots of women eat chocolates.”

“I don’t think women buy themselves fancy boxes, not girls who live alone.” He glanced at Clements, who was wiping his nose again. “They usually buy them by the pound or half-pound, loose.”

“Well, you’d know more about that than I would. My wife’s fancy runs to licorice allsorts.” It would, thought Ma-lone, and she’d follow them with a lemonade chaser. Fulmer picked up a label to which two tiny objects were affixed by scotch tape. “What’s this? Two chewed matches?”

“They were in an ashtray. The dead girl didn’t look the sort who would chew matches.” Malone kept his voice dry, but behind him he heard Clements smother a sound that could have been either a sniffle” or a snicker.

Fulmer glanced across at Clements, then looked back at Malone. “All right. But don’t get yourself confused by following up too many leads. Not if they’re going to lead you away from where most of the evidence points.”

It’s almost as if he wants Helidon to be the murderer, Malone thought. As if, by arresting a Cabinet Minister, he’d be proving his own integrity. Wowsers, with their interfering puritanical hatred of other people’s pleasures, were bad enough. But a wowser cop could be dangerous.

He and Clements drove out to Double Bay, taking one of the chocolate boxes with them. Clements’ eyes had now begun to run with his cold, so Malone drove. It was hot again today and the car radio told them that bushfires were raging on the city’s outskirts; a firefighter or two might die before tonight and a dozen families lose their own homes. But that was someone else’s misfortune: two cars went speeding past, surfboards strapped to the racks on their tops, heading for Bondi and escape from the heat. Malone’s foot automatically trod down on the accelerator as the cars whizzed by him, but then almost at once he lifted it.

“Let ‘em go,” he said to himself as much as to Clements. Then he looked at the unhappy Clements as the latter wiped his streaming eyes. “Do you think anyone really cares whether we find out who killed Helga?”

“Well, I don’t, right now,” said Clements.

“You want to knock off and go home?”

“Not yet. I’ll see how I feel tonight.”

“You do care, you bastard. You’d hate it if I solved this thing on my own while you were home taking Aspros and hot lemon drinks.”

Clements blew his nose, then nodded. “I guess so. Funny thing is, Helga was a whore and a possible blackmailer, but after last night at the Helidons’, I’m a bit on her side.”

“You’ve just made me feel better,” said Malone.

“Why, were you getting a cold, too?”

“No. Just a dose of conscience.”

Clements sniffled. “Don’t pass it on to me. I got enough to worry me as it is.”

They found the candy store, a chi-chi shop that looked as if it, too, should have been decorated with a pink silk bow. They both went in, filling the tiny shop like a couple of bulls. The woman behind the glass display counter peered at them from a barricade of soft centers, nougat squares and a rainbow of ribbons. It was obvious that she expected either a hold-up or the shop to be wrecked: these were not the sort of men who bought expensive fancy chocolates for their girl friends.

Clements said, “Do you have any menthol jubes?”

The woman blinked: he might have asked her for boiled lollies. “In here?”

Malone laid down the box he had brought with him. “Is this your only shop? You don’t have another branch?”

The woman shook her head, still entrenched in her candy fort. “The only one. Something is wrong?”