Читать книгу Bleak Spring - Jon Cleary, Jon Cleary - Страница 6

Chapter Two

1

Tiflis Hall was a Coogee landmark. It stood just below the crest of the ridge that was the southern rim of the valley that ran down from Randwick to the beach. It stood in about an acre of terraced gardens, a small mansion with two towers, topped by copper cupolas, like bookends holding up the wing of the house that faced the street. Balconies bulged in the upper storey, inviting fantasies of fairy-tale princesses imprisoned behind the grey stone walls and the barred windows. Four Chinese rain trees, bare but for a sprinkling of early spring green, stood beneath the balconies like the skeletons of lovers who had forgotten their ladders. A high iron-spiked fence surrounded the property and two white bull terriers roamed through the blaze of azaleas and marigolds like two red-eyed demons in the wrong fairy-tale illustration. Coogee, in its day, had had its share of eccentricities but most of them had been human. This house had outlasted them all, was well over a hundred years old.

Malone announced himself and Clements through the intercom beside the big front gate. A moment later there was a piercing whistle over a hidden sound system and at once the dogs came at full gallop out of the azaleas and went up and round the side of the house. Then the gate-release buzzed.

As they walked up the long flight of stone steps Malone said, ‘They don’t build ’em like this any more.’

‘Who’d want to?’ said Clements, for once showing some aesthetic taste.

The front door, thick enough to have withstood a tank attack, was opened by a Filipino maid, who turned pale and looked ready to flee when the two tall men said they were Inspector Malone and Sergeant Clements. But Malone smiled and told her they were not from Immigration and she stepped back and gestured for them to enter. Then she led them into a big room off the woodpanelled hall.

Bernie Bezrow looked like a half-acre of fashion-plate. He was no more than five nine, Malone guessed, but he weighed at least three hundred pounds. He wore a cream silk shirt, a caramel-coloured alpaca cardigan, beige trousers, yellow socks and brown loafers, polished till they looked as if they had been cut from glass. He was sixty years old, but looked at least ten years younger; his unblemished skin was stretched tightly across the good bones beneath it. His dark eyes, unlike many fat men’s, were not trapped in rolls of fat; he had a well-shaped nose and a wide mouth in which the slightly turned-out lips sat one on the other like steps. Only his chins did not assert themselves; there the fat, firm as it was, had taken charge. The steps parted in a bookmaker’s smile, the cousin of a politician’s.

‘A Sunday morning visit from the police?’ He had a light voice, too light for his size; Malone had expected a bass. ‘Inspector Malone, I’ve heard of you. How is it we’ve never met?’

‘I’m with Homicide.’

‘Ah, that explains it.’ Bezrow was quick; he would never be slow to calculate the odds. ‘I hope this hasn’t something to do with a homicide?’

‘I’m afraid it has.’ Malone told him about the murder of Will Rockne. ‘I thought you might have heard about it on the morning news.’

‘Inspector, I don’t own a radio.’ Malone raised an eyebrow and Bezrow smiled and went on: ‘I hate being chattered at. There is enough pollution in the air without all those voices. How was Mr Rockne – murdered?’

‘Gunshot, in the face.’

Bezrow shook his head just a little; none of the fat wobbled. ‘The world is becoming too violent. But why have you come to see me?’

‘We understand you were a client of his.’

‘No, no. Not a client . . . I see you are taking notes, Sergeant. Is this going to be held in evidence against me?’ He smiled again. ‘Only kidding. But I shouldn’t be, should I? This is serious.’

Malone nodded, unsure of how he felt towards the bookmaker, whether he liked or disliked him. ‘I’m afraid it is. If you weren’t a client, what were you, Mr Bezrow? We understand Mr Rockne had some sort of dealings with you.’

Bezrow folded small, well-shaped hands across the slope of his belly. ‘Dealings? I am – was his landlord. And he would occasionally come to me for advice, that was all. But no dealings.’

‘Advice on horses?’ said Clements.

‘No, no. I don’t think he had the slightest interest in racing. No, I met him some years ago, he ran for alderman on the local council. We had a terrible lot in the town hall in those days – you may remember it, the newspapers had a field day. The council’s motto was an honest day’s work for an honest week’s pay. They used to boast none of them was afraid of work – they’d go to sleep beside it every Monday to Friday. I organized the campaign to throw them out. Surprises you, eh? A bookmaker involved in local politics? Why not? Politics is just another question of the odds, everything’s a gamble, isn’t it?’

‘Sergeant Clements doesn’t think so.’

Bezrow winked at Clements. ‘I didn’t mention it before, Sergeant, but I’ve heard of you. You are, or should I say were, on every bookmaker’s poison-ivy list. We were always thankful you never betted hugely like some of those who shall be nameless.’

The room in which they sat was a combination drawing room and library. Two walls were stacked to the high ceiling with books, many of them leather-bound. Bezrow spoke in a slightly literary way, as if whatever time he spent in this room had its influence on him. It was not a room for betting sheets, form guides and computers.

‘Back to Mr Rockne?’ Malone suggested.

‘Oh yes. As I say, he ran for alderman. He didn’t make it, but I was impressed by him.’

‘In what way?’

‘For one thing, he had a very analytical mind.’

Argumentative would have been Malone’s judgement, not analytical. ‘So why did he keep coming to you for advice?’

Bezrow ran a hand over his head. He had dark wavy hair that lay flat on his flat-topped head; there were streaks of grey along his temples. His hand rested a moment on top of his head, like a child’s nervous gesture, then he took it back to rejoin its mate on his lap. ‘Advice on local politics. Solicitors come up against local politics all the time. Is this conversation going to go on for long? Perhaps you’d like some coffee?’

Clements, who would have stopped for coffee in the middle of a hanging, nodded; but Malone said, ‘No, thanks. Are you telling us you are some sort of political boss?’

‘No, no!’ Bezrow held up a modest hand. ‘I’m interested in politics, not just at the local level, but all levels. People know that. Look at the books on those shelves, most of them political history or biographies, the good and the bad.’

Clements, denied coffee, got up and scanned the shelves. ‘He’s right,’ he told Malone. ‘There’s a lot here on Russia, Mr Bezrow. You’re not a communist, are you?’ The thought of a communist bookmaker amused him and he sat down laughing. ‘That’d be one for the books.’

Bezrow also laughed, a gurgling sound coming from within his huge frame. ‘I’m of Georgian descent. My greatgrandfather came out here from Tbilisi in Georgia in eighteen-fifty-four – Tbilisi has sometimes been called Tiflis, hence the name of this house. Our name then was Bezroff, he was a count – though the joke used to be that anyone who owned three sheep in Georgia had a title of some sort. Could you imagine if I called myself Count Bezrow in the betting ring? The eastern suburbs ladies would be flocking back to the races. It was my greatgrandfather who built the house. His son, my grandfather, became a horse breeder, thoroughbreds and remounts – he supplied a lot of the horses for the Australian Light Horse in World War One and for years he supplied horses to the Indian Army. My father took the interest in horses one step further – he became a trainer. He trained two Melbourne Cup winners. The next step – downwards, I suppose some might call it – was for me to have been a jockey. But you see – ’ The hands spread like upturned starfish on the beach of his stomach and thighs. ‘Bookies are not numskulls, Sergeant. Some of us know there is another world outside the racing game.’

For a moment the affability had disappeared; there was sharp venom in the light voice. Clements showed no sign of resentment at being ticked off; but Malone, who had been reading his partner’s signs for a decade or more, recognized what lay behind the blank stare on the big man’s face. He took up the action again himself: ‘Did he ever come to you for financial advice?’

Bezrow quickly regained his good humour. ‘What makes you think bookmakers are financial experts? That’s a myth, Inspector. There are as many bankrupt bookies as there are in any other business, especially in these times.’

Malone grinned. ‘I don’t think you’d find too many punters who’d believe that.’ Then he bowled a bumper, straight at the wavy-haired head. ‘Did he ever ask you about a bank called Shahriver Credit International?’

The dark eyes clouded for just a moment. ‘Shahriver? No.’

‘We guess it’s a merchant bank. Neither Sergeant Clements nor I have ever heard of it, but then we keep our money under the mattress. Banks don’t have a very good reputation these days. Shahriver has branches in places like Kuwait and Beirut.’

‘An Arab bank?’

‘We don’t know. We’ll check on it tomorrow. But we thought Mr Rockne might’ve mentioned it to you, especially since you say he came to you for financial advice – ’

‘I didn’t say that, Inspector. You said it.’ The smile was not quite a smirk.

‘So I did. Well, anyway, he had a sizeable deposit with Shahriver. We don’t think he would have put it there without advice from someone.’

‘How much?’

Malone’s smile was also almost a smirk. ‘Mr Bezrow, do you tell the other bookies how much you have in your bag?’

Bezrow’s smile widened. ‘Of course not. Sorry. I’m just surprised Mr Rockne would have bothered with such an obscure bank.’

‘I’m surprised you’re surprised,’ said Malone and bowled another bumper, two in an over, the allowable limit in cricket these days; but this wasn’t cricket: ‘You didn’t show any surprise when we told you Mr Rockne had been murdered.’

Bezrow said nothing. He shifted slightly in the wide chair, a small couch, on which he sat; the springs beneath the green velvet upholstery sighed metallically. The hands were very still on his thighs; the fat of his face seemed to have turned to stone, or anyway hard putty. Then he said very quietly, ‘Nobody’s death surprises me, Inspector. I’m a fatalist.’

‘Is that the Russian in you?’

‘It could be, except that no Georgian would ever call himself a Russian. Not these days, nor in my greatgrandfather’s day.’

‘Stalin was a Georgian, wasn’t he?’ said Clements, not highly educated but a barrel of inconsequential data.

Bezrow ignored that and Malone said, ‘Did Will Rockne ever mention to you that he’d received a death threat?’

‘Never. Why should he? We were not confidential friends, Inspector.’

‘Did you ever have any falling-out with him?’

Bezrow’s gaze was steady. ‘No. If you are implying did I threaten him . . .’

‘No, Mr Bezrow. Have you yourself ever received any threats?’

‘Death threats? Yes, three or four times.’

‘Did 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 direction.

Angela said, ‘Jay, would you leave your mother and me alone for a moment?’

‘Do I have to?’ He looked at his mother.

‘Just for a few minutes, Jason.’ He knew she would give in to Angela.

He climbed out of the chair, trying to be adult. ‘Okay. But if any big decisions are gunna be made, Mum, I wanna be in on them, okay?’

‘Yes, Jason.’

He wasn’t sure, but his mother seemed to look at him with a new eye, as if she had just realized he was the new man of the house. But then she turned away to look at Angela and he felt his grasp on her slipping. Maturity was being thrust on him, though he did not recognize it; it felt uncomfortable, whatever it was, like a school guernsey that belonged to an older, more talented guy. He had been impatient to grow up, which is natural, since the real world is made up of bloody adults. But now he was not so sure.

‘Don’t let the money go,’ he said, which is what Charlie Sheen would have said.

3

Sunday evening Sergeant Ellsworth rang from Maroubra. ‘Scobie? We’ve come up with someone who was in the car park last night. He says there was no shot, none that could be heard.’

‘Where was he last night when we were looking for him?’

‘He did a bunk as soon as he heard Mrs Rockne scream. He was out there in the car park with some piece who wasn’t his wife.’

‘And he didn’t bother to find out why Mrs Rockne screamed?’

‘No.’

‘Nice feller. So what’s he told you?’

‘He says he was about thirty or forty yards from the Rockne Volvo. He saw it come into the car park, but didn’t take any notice of who was in it. He saw Mrs Rockne walk towards the surf pavilion, stand waiting for, he doesn’t know, maybe a minute, maybe less, then she walked back to the Volvo and the next thing he heard her scream.’

‘He didn’t see Will Rockne get out of the car?’

‘He swears not.’

‘Did he hear the shot?’

‘He swears blind there was no shot. He says he’d wound down his car window to throw out his cigarette.’

‘If there was no shot, then it looks as if there was a silencer on the gun. That makes it a professional job. Were the Volvo’s lights on? She says her husband had left them on and went back to turn them off.’

‘This guy says no, that Rockne didn’t get out of the car.’

‘He sounds pretty sharp-eyed.’

‘He’s a tax agent,’ said Ellsworth, adding another scout to the lynx-eyed of the world.

‘Righto, put his statement on the running sheet, I’ll read it tomorrow when it comes through on the computer. Have Physical Evidence come up with anything?’

‘Nothing exciting so far. There’s a lot of fine sand on the car park, but there are dozens, more, shoe-prints. There are some fingerprints on the car, but those could be anybody’s. They’re checking. I think we should question Mrs Rockne again, Scobie.’

‘I’m going to do that, Carl.’ Any inspector loves being told by a sergeant what he should do. ‘She’s not going to run away, not with two kids to anchor her.’

‘I dunno, you never know with women. Have you got something to follow up?’

Malone told him about the money Rockne had mysteriously accumulated. ‘I’ll have someone check that first thing tomorrow morning. Then there’s Bernie Bezrow, Russ Clements and I are keeping an eye on him. He was closer to Rockne than he’s prepared to admit.’

‘I know Bezrow, he doesn’t have a record, though in the racing game he knows some characters you wouldn’t take home to meet your mother. I don’t think he’s the sort of guy who sends out stand-over men to break punters’ kneecaps. Or shoot ’em in the face.’

Malone hung up and went back into the living room where Lisa and Claire were watching the latest in a series on SBS devoted to women in the world: it was a programme that would have had Ellsworth hit the Off button at once. Maureen was in her room, earphones on, listening to a rock programme, and Tom was in bed reading, halfway between sleep and the world of Roald Dahl. Malone sat down in his favourite chair across from his wife and daughter; they were leaning against each other, feet up, on the couch. Two women on the screen, no external bruises showing but with bruises behind their eyes and in their very being, were telling in quiet voices what life was like for a battered wife.

‘Do you get much of that, Dad?’ Claire said, taking her eyes away from the screen for a moment. She had a lot to learn about married life and, the protective father, he wondered if she was learning too much too early.

‘By the time we get there, the wife is dead. Or the husband,’ he added.

Lisa switched off the set. ‘Anything on Will Rockne’s death?’

‘I don’t think we want to spend Sunday night talking about murder, do we?’

‘You mean, not in front of the child, right?’ said Claire. ‘Come on, Dad. If you want to be a cop, what d’you want us to do? Think of you as a bus driver or a schoolteacher like Mr Cayburn next door? For God’s sake, I knew Mr Rockne! Why can’t I be interested?’

Malone sighed, nodded. ‘Have you spoken to Jason?’

‘I called him this afternoon, he sounded really low. God, just imagine when he goes back to school tomorrow!’

‘He probably won’t be going to school tomorrow,’ said Lisa. ‘When’s the funeral?’

‘I dunno. That’ll depend on when the coroner releases the body. Romy’s handling it.’ He looked at Claire, who had suddenly stiffened. ‘That’s what murder is all about, love, at least after the event. Mr Rockne is now just a body, a name and a number on a computer print-out – you still want to discuss it?’

‘That’s enough!’ said Lisa.

Tiredness had brought cruelty. ‘I’m sorry, Claire. Maybe I’ll talk to you about it when it’s all over, when we’ve caught whoever killed him – if we ever do. But right now . . .’

Claire stood up, crossed to him and kissed the top of his head. ‘Why couldn’t you have been a lawyer or a doctor?’

‘Tom once asked me why I couldn’t have been the Pope. I think he saw us there on that balcony at St Peter’s every Sunday morning, waving to the mob. The Holy Family, Part Two.’

She kissed him again, this time on the forehead. ‘Mother Brendan thinks you’re a heretic.’

‘I’ve had the Commissioner call me that, too. I must look it up. Goodnight, love. Tell your sister to get her ears out of that rock concert and go to sleep. And put Tom’s light out.’

Claire went in to prepare for bed and Malone went out to the kitchen to make himself some tea and toast; he had not eaten much during the day and now suddenly he felt hungry. Lisa followed him. ‘So how is it going?’

‘The Rockne case? We’re stumbling. Olive told me a few things last night that don’t jell with some of the evidence we’ve dug up today.’

‘Are you saying she might have killed Will?’ She showed no surprise, but that was because over the years she had learned not to.

‘I don’t know.’ He dropped two slices of multigrain into the toaster. ‘Do you know Angela Bodalle?’

It took her a moment to identify the name. ‘The QC? Is she representing Olive? Already?’

‘No, not officially, not yet. She’s a friend of the family. Didn’t Olive ever mention her to you?’

‘Darling, I’ve never been close to Olive. You warned me against getting too involved with them, remember?’

‘Just as well I did. Where’s the leatherwood honey?’

Lisa reached into a cupboard for a jar, put it on the table. This morning the honey had been in the plastic container in which he had bought it yesterday; now it was in the decorated jar with the silver spoon beside it. Lisa’s table was always properly set, none of your slapdash cartons and plastic containers cluttering it. Her Dutch neatness was legendary with him and the children, though sometimes he wondered if neatness was a myth back home in Holland. It struck him that Olive Rockne probably fan her own house with the same style, though he suspected there would be a fussiness to her neatness.

‘I can’t believe you might suspect Olive of – you know. She always struck me as being a bit wimpy. I mean Will trod all over her.’

‘That sort get tired of being trodden on, though usually they kill their husbands on the spur of the moment, not cold-bloodedly. What would you do as a wife if you found out your husband had five and a quarter million dollars tucked away in a bank account?’

‘You’ve probably got that much salted away somewhere, you never spend anything.’

‘Be serious.’ He told her what he had found in the Rockne safe. ‘Would you claim it or would you turn your back on it because it might have blood on it?’

She thought about it while she made the tea: tea leaves, not tea bags, in a crockery pot. ‘I honestly don’t know. What are you expecting Olive to do?’

‘I’m expecting Olive to claim it. I don’t think she is as much of a wimp as we thought.’

4

Monday morning Clarrie Binyan, the sergeant in charge of Ballistics, came into Malone’s small office in Homicide. Binyan was part-Aborigine, the recognized expert on white men’s weapons; he often joked he couldn’t tell the difference between a boomerang and a didgeridoo, but he could tell you whether a bullet had been fired from a Webley or a Walther. ‘There you are, Scobie, the Maroubra bullet. Fired from a Ruger, I’d say.’

‘Through a silencer?’

‘Could be. Silencers usually have no effect on a bullet. But if it was a Ruger fitted with a silencer, then I’d say it was a professional hit job.’

‘How many hitmen do we know who use a Ruger?’ But it was a useless question and he knew it. Crime in Australia had become organized over the past few years, coinciding with the national greed of the Eighties. But professional killings were still just casual work, often done crudely. ‘We don’t have much in the way of clues on this one, Clarrie.’

‘I can’t help you there, mate. You gimme something more than one bullet to go on and I’ll try and build you a case. Or gimme a particular gun. But one slug . . .’ He shook his dark head, rolled a black eye that showed a lot of white. ‘Some day you’re gunna bring in a spear and ask me to name it. I’m looking forward to that. I might run it right through you.’

‘Get out of here, you black bastard.’

Binyan grinned and left: the two of them respected each other’s ability and there had never been a moment’s friction between them. The big room outside began to fill up with detectives; Malone had seventeen men under him in Homicide. There had been a spate of murders since the Strathfield massacre, but that was often the case, as if a damn had burst and murder had escaped. All the detectives were assigned. He looked out at them through the glass wall of his office and, not for the first time, remarked how few of them had come out of the same mould. Some of them were straight down the line, as if they worked under the eye of some stern judge; others bent the rules because, they argued, life itself didn’t run according to the rules. There was Andy Graham, all tiring enthusiasm; chainsmoking Phil Truach, so laconic he seemed bored by whatever he had to investigate; John Kagal, young and ambitious, his eye already on Malone’s chair, a fact that Malone had noticed without letting Kagal know; and Mike Mesic, the Croat whose attention for the past month had been home in Yugoslavia where his hometown was being blasted by the Serbs. There were twelve others and there was Russ Clements, who came into the room as he sat staring out through the glass.

‘What’s the matter? You counting the bodies or something?’

The men outside had begun to disappear, going off on their enquiries. ‘I was looking in at a show the other night. Cops, on Channel Ten. The Yanks seem to have a bloody army of cops. And hardware! When their helicopters take off, it’s like that scene in Apocalypse Now, you remember? I sat there and I lost heart.’

Clements dropped into a chair that threatened to break under his bulk. ‘Let me cheer you up. I’ve done a trace, through a mate of mine in a stockbroker’s office, on Shahriver Credit International. It’s as gen-u-ine as those Reeboks they sell you off the back of a truck.’

‘It’s not a bank?’

‘Oh, it’s a bank all right, properly registered here, with its headquarters in Abadan.’

‘Abadan? That wasn’t mentioned on the letterhead. Where’s that?’

‘In Iran, just over the border from Iraq. My contact tells me nobody worthwhile here in Sydney does any business with it.’

‘It sounds like the O’Brien Cossack Bank.’ He and Clements had worked on that case. ‘Or Nugan Hand.’

‘Worse. It’s nowhere near as big as that other one that’s in the news right now, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the BCCI – ’

‘I love the way these banks just roll off your tongue.’

Clements went on as if he hadn’t been interrupted: ‘Shahriver is the same shonky set-up, I gather.’

‘Is it being investigated?’

‘Not yet, but it’s on the cards, according to my mate. They took forever to get into BCCI and that’s twenty times bigger than this outfit.’

‘Who deals with it if no one here in town does?’

‘That’s something we’ve got to track down.’

‘You come up with anything else?’

‘Yeah, I got in touch with the Commonwealth, out at Coogee. There was a withdrawal last week from that joint account – five thousand in cash.’

Malone pondered that a moment, then: ‘Where does Shahriver hang out?’

‘Down in The Rocks.’

‘That’s not bank territory.’ He stood up, reached for his hat. ‘Let’s go down and see if they offer us anything. We might get a cheap pair of Reeboks.’

The area known as The Rocks is a narrow strip crouched between Circular Quay, where the harbour ferries dock, and the hill that carries the southern approach to the Harbour Bridge. For the last half of the nineteenth century it held its own as one of the roughest, toughest enclaves in the world; its gangs, or ‘pushes’, with their eye-gouging, elbows to the jaw and knees in the kidneys had set the example for footballers of the future. For a brief while it was Sydney’s Chinatown; the smell of opium was only slightly less than that of the sewage that ran down the hill. A prostitute did not cost much more than a meal, except that, when the exercise was finished, her pimp stood over the client and, with a knife or a razor, extorted his own value-added tax. Nowadays The Rocks is a tourist area, the old shops dolled up, the warehouses turned into museums, the Chinese opium dens now Japanese sushi restaurants. The occasional prostitute can be seen propositioning male tourists, but she is tolerated by the police as reducing the country’s external debt. The Rocks is chicly historical, but at least it is where it was born and happened and has not been transplanted.

Shahriver Credit International was housed in a restored colonial mansion in what was known as the High Rocks. Driving up through the Argyle Cut, the 80-foot-wide and 120-foot-deep cut hacked out by convicts using only picks and shovels, Malone said, ‘When they first moved me in from the suburbs, I was posted down here.’

‘You want to come back?’ said Clements. ‘You’d look good in uniform. A nice cap with silver braid on it instead of that bloody awful pork-pie you’re wearing.’

‘I’ll stay where I am. One thing about Homicide, the public isn’t always on your back.’

Here in the High Rocks one caught a glimpse of what life, for the colonial middle class, had been like. They had built homes that reminded them of Home; from the rear windows of their houses they could look down on the ships bringing them their wealth, for most of those who had lived here on the ridge had been shipowners or importers. Devon House, headquarters of Shahriver Credit International, was the largest house in the street, an English Georgian residence given a colonnaded verandah across its front as a concession to the southern sun. A spiked railing fence separated it from the street; a discreet brass plate beside the big oak door was the only hint that business was conducted inside the mansion. It was not a bank that invited small-time depositors or offered chargefree cheque accounts.

Malone and Clements, having taken the receptionist by surprise, were shown into the office of the managing director. The receptionist, a Chinese girl whose English was as affected and precise as that of a bad elocution teacher, said, ‘We have two police officers here, Mr Palady. They had no appointment.’

‘That’s all right, Kim.’

Palady rose from behind his big desk. He was short and thin, black-haired and sallow-skinned, further monotoned in banker’s grey. It was impossible to tell his nationality; the roots of his family tree could have stretched from Constantinople to Cathay. He had a soft silky handshake and a voice to match. He would not have had a clue how to run a suburban bank branch, but one had the feeling he could rip off a million or two in added fees from even the smartest entrepreneur. Still, his smile was practised enough to make the two detectives feel not unwelcome, though Malone doubted they would be asked to stay to lunch in the boardroom.

‘Mr Palady, we’re investigating the murder of one of your depositors, Mr Will Rockne.’

‘The name doesn’t ring a bell, Inspector.’

‘He had five and a quarter million dollars deposited here. I don’t want to sound a smart-arse, Mr Palady, but how much do you have to have in your bank before a name rings a bell?’

Palady smiled; he had been offended by the best, so a smart-arse Sydney cop could be suffered. ‘I am new here, Inspector, only a few weeks in your country. I still have to acquaint myself with all our depositors. At the moment, like all banks, we are concerned only with those clients going bankrupt or reneging on loans.’

‘You have your share of those?’ said Clements, making notes.

‘Not as many as other banks.’ He smiled again, smugly.

‘Where did you come from, Mr Palady?’ said Malone. ‘You said you’ve just arrived here.’

‘From Kuwait. I was there all through the Iraqi occupation. Our board thought I needed a rest cure.’

‘Where are your board?’

‘In Curaçao, the Netherlands Antilles.’

‘Your board’s in Curaçao,’ said Clements, ‘but your head office is in Abadan?’

Palady seemed to look with new respect at Clements; up till now he had hardly glanced at the big man, as if treating him as Malone’s office boy. ‘Our board is international. Curaçao is safer at the moment than Abadan.’

‘I’m sure you’ll feel safe here in Sydney,’ said Malone. ‘Now, could we see someone who would know of Mr Rockne?’

‘Certainly.’ Palady spoke into his intercom. ‘Kim, would you ask Mr Junor to come in? . . . You say Mr – Rockne? – was murdered, Inspector?’

‘It’s in the morning papers.’

‘Ah, I never read such items. By the time I have read and understood what your politicians are doing, I have no stamina for matters such as murder and rape. I saw enough of that in Kuwait, performed by experts. Ah, Harold, come in.’

Harold Junor was English, an ex-rugby forward, ruddyfaced and flustered, who looked as if he had just come out of a ruck without the ball; the Chinese scrum-half had told him there were two police breakaways waiting to tackle him, with or without the ball. Told why the police were here he said in a loud voice, ‘Ghastly! I read about it this morning – I knew it was our Mr Rockne, it’s not a common name. Ghastly! Do you want me to take the gentlemen out to my office, Walter?’

‘There’s no need, Harold. I should like to acquaint myself with our Mr Rockne, dead though he may be.’

Malone could hear echoes in his head; but Palady’s phrasing was not literary, as Bezrow’s had been, but hinted of the pedantry of someone whose English was not his native tongue. Palady was stroking his grey silk tie, which was no softer than his hands. It struck Malone that he was feline, a description he had never applied to a man before.

‘Where did we acquire him, Harold?’

Junor seemed to wince: he was a rugby forward, blunt and head-on, but he would never have acquired a client. ‘I think he was recommended by another client.’

‘Would you know who the other client was?’ said Malone.

‘Oh, I don’t think we could tell you that,’ said Junor, and Palady nodded appreciatively. ‘Not without the client’s permission.’

‘Would you ask him?’ said Malone.

Junor looked at Palady, who left him in no-man’s-land. ‘Well, yes, if you insist. Yes, we’ll do that.’

‘Now.’

‘Now?’

‘I don’t know what merchant banking is like, Mr Junor, but murder is handled better if you can beat it from going cold on you. The murderer has about thirty-six hours’ start on us at the moment and I’d rather he didn’t get any further ahead.’

‘But why do you need to talk to our client?’ said Palady.

‘Because, Mr Palady, the starting point for any murder case is the victim. The next step is who knew him and why.’

‘Of course. Elementary. Go ahead, Harold, call your client, see if he wishes his name to be used.’

Junor went out of the room and the two detectives and Palady sat watching and smiling at each other. The room showed its colonial heritage. The metal ceiling pictured cream Aborigines hiding among cream English trees; the half-panelled walls were of cedar no longer available. Colonial prints hung on the regency-striped upper halves of the walls: ships at anchor in Sydney Cove, St Philip’s Church, the original still standing just up the street from this house. There were no prints of Kuwait or Abadan or Curaçao.

Junor came back, smiling apologetically. ‘I’m afraid I could not raise him. No answer.’

‘Keep trying, Mr Junor. I’ll leave you my card. In the meantime we want Mr Rockne’s account frozen.’

‘Oh, no trouble at all there. Frozen it is, as of now. But we’ll need a piece of paper, a court order or something. Will there be any claimants?’

‘I’m sure there will be. If not his family, then someone else. Five and a quarter million isn’t usually left in limbo, is it?’

‘There is no limbo in a bank,’ said Palady, the smile still at work. A feline smile, Malone thought, and wondered if he had ever seen a Persian cat smile. Cheshire cats were said to smile, but Palady came from further east than there.

‘We’ll get a court order and I’ll send someone here to look at the account. I take it that the five and a quarter million wasn’t all in one deposit? And you’ll be able to trace where the cheques came from?’

Neither Junor nor Palady looked at each other; but the current that passed between them was palpable. Palady said, ‘That may be something that Mr Rockne wouldn’t have wanted.’

‘I’m afraid it’s too late to ask him. In the meantime keep trying with the man who recommended him to you. It was a man?’

Junor’s smile was the sort he would have given a referee who had just awarded a penalty against him, right in front of the goalposts. ‘Yes. Yes, it was a man. We don’t deal very much with the ladies. They don’t appear to have the money, not in this country.’

‘They’re working on it,’ said Malone, whose wife was continually working on him.

Outside in the bright sunshine the two detectives exchanged glances that said they had both arrived at the same conclusion: Shahriver Credit International, for all the dignified façade behind which it hid, had darker secrets than most banks. Clements said, ‘I don’t think I’d deposit pocket money with them.’

The Harbour Bridge towered above them like a grey rainbow; Malone waited till a train had rumbled across it, taking its sound with it. ‘Do you think their client who recommended Rockne could be Bernie Bezrow?’

‘I’d put money on it.’

‘Take John Kagal off whatever he’s on and put him on this. He’s thorough and he’s quick. Get him to check on that joint account withdrawal.’

Clements nodded. ‘Where do we go from here?’

‘We go back and see Olive. We’ll see what she has to say about no sound of a shot. And we’ll see how she reacts when we tell her we’ve frozen that five and a quarter million.’