Читать книгу Endpeace - Jon Cleary, Jon Cleary - Страница 6

For several years the Homicide Unit of the Major Crime Squad, South Region, had been housed in the Hat Factory, a one-time commercial building where the ambience had suggested that the Police Service was down on its luck, that the hat had had to be passed around before the rent could be raised. Recently Homicide, along with other units in the Major Crime Squad, had been moved to quarters that, for the first few weeks, had brought on delusions that money had been thrown at the Service which the State government had actually meant for more deserving causes such as casino construction or pork-barrelling in marginal electorates.

Strawberry Hills was the enticing name of the new location, though no strawberry had ever been grown there nor had it ever been really enticing. It had begun as clay-topped sandhills held together by blackbutts, blood-woods, angophoras and banksias, but those trees had soon disappeared as the men with axes arrived and development raised its ugly shacks. ‘Environment’, in its modern meaning, had just been adopted in England, but so far word, or the word, had not reached the colony. For years there was a slow battle between the sandhills and the houses built on them, but that did not stop a developer from naming his estate after the sylvan Strawberry Hill in England where Horace Walpole, in between writing letters to addressees still to be chosen, had built a villa that would never have got above foundation level if it had been built on the colony’s sandhills. Time passed and gradually Strawberry Hills, like the sandhills, virtually disappeared off maps. The city reached out and swamped it. A vast mail exchange was built where once tenement houses had stood, but though Australia Post could sort a million letters an hour it couldn’t sort out the industrial troubles in the exchange. Eventually the huge ugly structure was closed as a mail exchange, an impressive glass facade was added, as if to mask what a problem place it had been. Six huge Canary Islands date palms stood sentinel in the forecourt, looking as out of place as Nubian palace guards would have been. The winos across the street in Prince Alfred Park suffered the DTs for a week or two, but became accustomed to the new vista and soon settled back into the comfort of the bottle.

Australia Post moved its administrative staff back in and then looked around for tenants who would be less of a problem than its unions had been. Whether it was conscious of the irony or not, it chose the Major Crime Squad. Level Four in the refurbished building was almost too rich in its space and comfort for the Squad’s members, but it is difficult to be stoical against luxury. One of the pleasures for those in Homicide on night duty was to put their feet up on their brand-new desks, lean back and, on the Unit’s television set, watch re-runs of Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue and pity the poor bastards who had to work in such conditions.

The morning after the Huxwood dinner Malone overslept, but, a creature of certain habits, he still went for his five-kilometre walk before breakfast. It was nine-thirty before he reached Homicide and let himself in through the security door. Russ Clements was waiting for him, looking worried.

‘You sick or something? I rang Lisa ten minutes ago -’

‘I’m okay. I knew there was nothing in the synopsis -’

‘There is now. Four murders in our Region alone, two in North Region’s. You and I are on our way out to Vaucluse –’

‘I’m not going out on any job. That’s for you –’

The big man shook his head. ‘I think you’d better come on this one, Scobie.’

Malone frowned. ‘Why?’

‘Lisa told me where you were last night. Malmaison House. That’s where we’re going. Kate Arletti’s out there waiting for us – I sent her out as soon as Rose Bay called in. It’s their turf, theirs and Waverley’s.’

‘A homicide at Malmaison?’ Lady Huxwood invites homicide. ‘Who? Lady Huxwood?’

Clements looked at him curiously. ‘What made you say that?’

‘Lisa and I were talking about her on our way home ... It was a bugger of a night, you’ve got no idea. She’s the – she was the Dragon Lady of all time.’

‘She probably still is. It was the old man, Sir Harry, who was done in.’

Malone managed not to look surprised. No one knew better than he that murder always held surprises, not least to the victim. But Sir Harry? ‘How?’

‘I’m not sure yet. Rose Bay called in, said there was a homicide, but gave no details other than that it was Sir Harry who copped it. The place is probably already overrun with the media clowns.’

‘What about the other murders?’

‘I’ve organized those. I’ll tell you about them on the way out to Vaucluse.’

Homicide had been re-organized late last year in another of the Service’s constant changes. Modern life, Malone thought, had been taken over by planners; they were everywhere, termites in the woodwork of progress. Change for change’s sake had become a battle cry: if it ain’t broke, let’s fix it before it does break. Malone was still the Inspector in charge of Homicide, but he was now called Co-ordinator and his job, supposedly, was now more desk-bound. Clements had been promoted to senior-sergeant and was now the Field Supervisor. Murder was still committed, evidence was still collected, the pattern never changed; only the paperwork. Malone knew that conservatism was creeping over him like a slow rash, but he didn’t mind. The itch, actually, was a pleasure.

The two detectives drove in an unmarked car out to the farthest of the affluent eastern suburbs. Vaucluse lies within the shoulder of the ridge that runs out to end in South Head at the gateway to the harbour; it is a small area facing down the harbour like a dowager gladly distant from the hoi polloi. The suburb is named after a property once owned by a titled convict who was as thick in the head as the timber that grew down the slope from the ridge. He built a small stone house and surrounded it with a moat filled with soil shipped out from the Irish bogs – ‘to keep out the snakes’. The area has had several notable eccentrics since then, but Sir Henry Brown Hayes had established the standard. The Wentworths, a family with its own quota of eccentrics, were the first to give the suburb its social tone, which it has never lost.

The first Huxwood arrived in 1838, bought five acres along the shore and built the first stage of what was to become La Malmaison. Huxwoods still owned the five acres, paying local taxes that exceeded the annual entertainment allowance of the entire local council. There were three houses on the estate, which had not been subdivided: the Big House, Little House One and Little House Two. Tradesmen, coming to the estate for the first time, had been known to expect fairies at the bottom of the extensive gardens and were surprised to find the family appeared to be both sensible and heterosexual.

Huxwood Road had been named by the founder of the family, determined to have his name on the map; in the 1840s, when he had suffered his first delusion of grandeur, it had been no more than a dirt track. Some years ago, Sir Harry, at the urging of his wife, had attempted to have the council change the name, insisting the family was not interested in advertising or being on any map. But Huxwood Road was now the street in Vaucluse, if not in Sydney, and the residents, having paid fortunes for the address, were not going to find themselves at a location that nobody would recognize. One didn’t pay thousands of dollars a year in taxes to live in Wattle Avenue or, God forbid, Coronation Street.

When Malone and Clements arrived, the street had gone down several hundred thousand dollars in rateable value, at least temporarily. It was chockablock with police cars, press and radio cars, TV vans and an assorted crowd of two or three hundred spectators, most of whom looked as if they had rushed here from nearby Neilsen Park beach. The street had not looked so low grade since the titled convict’s day. The snakes had taken over the Garden of Eden, Irish bog soil notwithstanding.

‘Christ Almighty,’ said Clements. ‘It looks like the finish to the City to Surf gallop.’

He nudged the car through the crowd, in through the wide gates of the estate and down the driveway to the front of the house. Several vehicles were parked there, including three police cars and a private ambulance. As Clements pulled up, another car came down the driveway behind them. Romy Clements got out.

‘What’re you doing here?’ It had the directness of a husband-to-wife remark.

Romy gave Clements a brush-off smile, looked instead at Malone. ‘I thought I’d have a look at how the other two per cent lives. I used rank and told Len Paul I’d do the job.’ She was the Deputy-Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine and ran the day-to-day routine of the city morgue; normally she would not respond to a call for a government medical officer in a homicide. ‘Shall we go in?’

‘I’ll bet she fingers the curtains first,’ Clements told Malone. ‘Then she’ll look at the kitchen. Then she’ll look at the corpse.’

Malone was glad there was nobody close enough to hear the banter. Outsiders might not appreciate that no disrespect was intended, just that murder was part of the day’s work. They went in through the open door, beneath a carved stone replica, like a coat-of-arms, of the Huxwood Press logo: an open book marked with a bookmark, inscribed Only the Truth. The wide hallway inside seemed crowded with people standing around looking lost. It reminded Malone of a theatre lobby and latecomers wondering if seats were still available.

Kate Arletti pushed her way into Malone’s path. ‘Morning, sir. The Rose Bay officers are here and between us we’ve got a few facts. Can we go into that room there?’

It was the library, where Sir Harry last night had said his beliefs had turned to water. The room now had none of last night’s shadows; the summer sun streamed in through the big bay window. Out in the tiny bay a small yacht rocked daintily in the wake from a passing ferry. Then a launch hove into view, crowded with photographers trying to capture the house from the water. Two uniformed policemen appeared down on the shoreline and waved them away. With the policemen was an elderly gardener holding a spade like an axe. Malone nodded, condoning the gardener’s threat of assault and battery.

‘The body was discovered at seven o’clock this morning,’ said Kate Arletti. ‘The butler went up with his morning tea. What’s the matter?’

‘I shouldn’t be grinning. But all this sounds like something out of Agatha Christie. Butler, morning tea ... We don’t get many crime scenes like this, Kate. How did he die?’

‘A gunshot wound to the side of the head, left temple. It looks like death would have been instantaneous. Dr Clements will confirm that, I suppose.’

‘How are the family?’

‘Shattered, those I’ve met. All except the eldest son, Derek. He’s got some men from the Chronicle out in the garden room, he’s organizing how the homicide is to be reported. He strikes me as cold-blooded. Sorry, I shouldn’t be making comments like that so early in the piece.’

She was small and blonde, a little untidy in her dress but crisp in everything she did. She was dressed in a tan skirt and a brown cotton shirt; somewhere there would be a jacket and Malone would bet she had already forgotten where she had left it. She was pretty in an unremarkable way, her face not disfigured but lent character by the scar down her left jawline. When she had been a uniformed cop a junkie had tried to carve her up with a razor and she had retaliated by breaking his nose with the butt of her gun. Six months ago, when Malone had first met her, she had been in uniform, neat and tidy as a poster figure. Since coming into Homicide, into plainclothes, her natural untidiness had emerged. All that was still neat about her was her work. With a sartorial wreck like Russ Clements setting an example, Malone had never had the heart to ask her to do up a button or roll up a loose sleeve.

‘What about Lady Huxwood?’

She hesitated. ‘Composed, I guess would be the word. She’s pretty – formidable?’

‘That’s another good word. I was here for dinner last night, I’ll tell you why some other time. They’re a weird mob, Kate. Don’t entertain any preconceived notions about them. Take ’em bit by bit, inch by inch.’

‘It sounds as if you didn’t enjoy last night?’

‘I’m not going to enjoy this morning, either.’

They went out into the hallway, which was less crowded now. Clements came towards them, biting his lip, an old habit when his thoughts did not fit as they should. Whether it was because Romy had dressed him or he had known, subconsciously, that he would be coming to this elegant house, this morning he was not his usual rumpled self. He wore an olive-grey lightweight suit, a blue button-down shirt and a blue silk tie with club or regimental stripes; though he had not belonged to a club in fifteen years and never to a regiment. His broad face, just shy of being good-looking, had a harried look, an expression unusual for him.

‘I’ve had only a glance at the family so far – that’s enough. Listening to ’em ...’ He shook his head. ‘Keep an eye on ’em, Kate. We’re going upstairs.’

He and Malone climbed the curve of the stairs. Halfway up Malone paused and looked down: this was the spot where Lady Huxwood had told her children she should have aborted the lot of them. It was an elevation for delivering pronouncements; he wondered how many other insults and dismissals had been hurled from here. Then he went on after Clements, following him into a bedroom off the gallery.

It was a big room with old-fashioned furniture: a four-poster bed, a heavy wardrobe and a dressing-table that could have accommodated at least two people. A large television set, in an equally large cabinet, stood in one corner. On a table by the two tall windows was the only modern note, a computer.

Romy, in a white coat now, was drawing off a pair of rubber gloves. She gestured at the body on the bed and nodded to the two men from the funeral contractors. ‘You can take him to the morgue now. Tell them I’ll do the autopsy.’ Then she crossed to join Malone and Clements by the windows. ‘Time of death is always guess-work, but I’d say he’d been dead ten to twelve hours. I’ll take some fluid from his eyes when I get back to the morgue, check the amount of potassium in it. That gives a bit more precision in the timing, but don’t expect me to pinpoint it.’

‘Any sign of a struggle?’

‘None. He could have been asleep when he was shot, I don’t know. There are powder-marks on a pillow, looks as if whoever killed him used it to muffle the shot.’

Malone walked over to the bed to take a last look at Sir Harry before the contractors zipped him up in the body bag. The democracy of death had done nothing for Sir Harry’s arrogance; a last spasm of pain looked more like an expression of distaste at the world he had just left. Malone nodded to one of the men and the zip closed over Sir Harry Huxwood, like a blue pencil through one of the many editorials he had written.

‘There’s this –’ Romy pulled on one of the rubber gloves, took a small scrap of paper from the pocket of her white coat. ‘Looks like he had a cadaveric spasm. It happens – the muscles tighten like a vice. It’s usually the hand that spasms, but sometimes the whole body does, though that’s pretty rare.’

Malone held the piece of paper with the pair of hair-tweezers he always carried. Clements said, ‘It’s a torn scrap, looks like it’s been torn off the corner of a letter or a memo. Good quality paper. Evidently whoever did him in tried to take the whole paper, but he wouldn’t let go. If they shot him in the dark, maybe they didn’t know it was torn till they got outside.’

‘Why would he be holding a letter or a memo in the dark?’ Malone held up the fragment. ‘There’s one word on it in red pencil. No – N – O, exclamation mark. Got your French letter?’

Clements produced one of the small plastic envelopes he always had in his pockets, grinning at Romy as he did so. He slipped the scrap of paper into the envelope. ‘I’ve never used these as condoms, in case you’re wondering.’

‘I shouldn’t be surprised at anything he did before we met,’ she told Malone, taking off her white coat and folding it neatly. ‘I’ll see Ballistics gets the bullet when I’ve done the autopsy.’

‘How’s business? Can you do him this morning?’

‘They told me before I came out here there’d been six homicides last night, plus four dead in accidents. He may have to take his turn.’

‘He hasn’t been used to that. Put him at the head of the list.’

‘Inspector –’ All at once she was not Mrs Clements but the Deputy-Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine. Her squarely beautiful face became squarer as she set her jaw; her dark eyes lost their gleam, seemed to become even darker. It was what Clements called her Teutonic look. ‘Nobody jumps the queue in our morgue. I’ll get to him when I get to him.’

Malone was glad the funeral contractors had already gone with the body; he did not like being ticked off in public. Clements looked embarrassed for him, but said nothing.

‘Romy, I’m not pandering to Sir Harry because of who he is. Or was. But with all due respect to the other five murder victims, the media aren’t going to be interested in them. They’re going to be on my back about this one. And so will my boss and the AC Crime and the Commissioner and the Premier and, for all I know, maybe God Himself.’

‘Tough titty, as you vulgarians say. I’ll do him when I do him. That all?’ She had packed her small bag, stood like a wife walking out on two husbands.

Malone recognized he was not going to get anywhere with her. He nodded at the door to an adjoining room. ‘Whose room is that?’

‘Lady Huxwood’s. I was told she wasn’t to be disturbed.’ Romy was still cool. ‘I’ll see you at home, Russ. Pick up the meat.’

Then she was gone and Clements said, ‘Don’t you know you don’t push a German around? You went about that in the wrong way, mate.’

‘Righto, you work on her, if you’re so bloody subtle.’

‘It’s not that I’m subtle. I’m married to her. You learn a few things. I thought you would have known that. The Dutch are as stubborn as the Germans, aren’t they?’

‘One thing I’ve learned, never bring up ethnic differences in a marriage. That’s a good way of starting World War Three ... All right, see what you can do with her. I don’t want to be carrying the can for the next week. Let’s go down and talk to the family.’

Down in the hallway one of the Rose Bay detectives, a middle-aged man named Akers, was waiting for them. He was a senior-constable and had the resigned look of a man who realized he might, just might, make sergeant before he retired. His hair was already grey and his plump face was pink with blood vessels close to the surface.

‘Some of the family are here, Scobie, some have gone home. You’ll want to talk to them?’

‘I’ll talk to those that are here.’ Malone looked up and around the high hallway. ‘What’s the set-up here? How many rooms?’

‘Fourteen in this house, not including the bathrooms but including three rooms for the staff. There’s a wing out the back for them, beside the garages. The butler and cook are husband and wife, name’s Krilich, they’re Yugoslavs. Outside there’s what they call Little House One and Little House Two –’ He made a face. ‘I think Enid Blyton or Beatrix Potter must of stayed here once.’

‘You’re well read, Jim.’

Akers grinned, relaxing; up till now he had been a bit stiff. Local Ds never did like Major Crime Squad men appearing on their turf. ‘My wife’s a schoolteacher ... Derek, the eldest son, and his family live in Little House One – it has eight rooms, I believe. Little House Two has six rooms and Sheila, the elder daughter, and her husband live there – they have a child, but she lives out.’

‘What about Nigel and his wife? And Linden and her husband?’

Akers looked surprised that Malone was so well acquainted, but he made no comment. ‘Nigel, the actor –’ He uttered ‘the actor’ as he might have said ‘the poofter’; the theatrical profession obviously got no rating with him. ‘He and his wife, she’s an actor too, I hear. Or was. They have a flat at Point Piper. He has two kids, a boy and a girl – he’s been married twice before. The kids are from different mothers. The younger sister – Linden, did you say? – she and her husband – actually, he’s her de facto – they live out in the country, somewhere south of Bowral. They have no kids, though she’s been married before. They stayed here last night. In the Big House,’ he said and just managed not to simper.

‘Nice rundown, Jim. You been here before?’

‘About two years ago. There was an attempted break and enter, but they were disturbed and got away.’

‘Righto, let’s go and talk to someone. Derek, the eldest, first.’

‘He’s in the garden room. Got three guys from the Chronicle with him. I’ll leave him to you and Russ. I’ve gotta report to my boss at Waverley.’

‘Tell him I’ll check with him later.’ It was the old territorial imperative, everybody protected his own little authority. ‘He didn’t put in an appearance?’

‘Superintendent Lozelle leaves the silvertails to us. I think he finds the riff-raff easier to deal with. Don’t quote me.’

Jim Akers, having had no rank for so long, had no respect for it. But he was not disrespectful of Malone and the latter let him get away with it. ‘Maybe he’s wiser than either of us. Give him my regards.’

Then he and Clements turned into the garden room, next door to the library. The entire wall that faced the harbour was one big bay window; the room was half-conservatory. Sections of the huge window were open, letting in some of the mild nor’easter, but the room was still warm. Derek and the three men with him were in their shirtsleeves. They stood as if lined up for a team photo, backed by a bank of palms in big brass-bound wooden tubs. There were no pictures decorating the walls, but flowers cried out for attention in a profusion of vases of all shapes and sizes. It was a room, Malone guessed, where the watering-can would be used more than tea- or coffee-pot.

Derek stepped forward, raised his hand as if to shake Malone’s, then thought better of it. He didn’t smile when he said, ‘So you’re here officially after all, Scobie.’

Malone kept it official: none of the old cricket mates’ act. ‘That’s how it is, Mr Huxwood. This is Detective-Sergeant Clements. Who are these gentlemen?’

Huxwood looked surprised, as if he had expected Malone to be less formal. Then: ‘Oh yes. This is Mr Gates, our managing editor –’ He seemed to emphasize the Mr. ‘Mr Shoemaker, the Chronicle’s editor. And Mr Van Dieman, of –’ He named one of the three top law firms in Sydney. ‘We’ve been deciding how to handle the story of – of what’s happened.’

‘How are you going to handle it?’

‘It’s difficult. My own impulse – a member of the family, all that – my own impulse would be to bury – no, that’s the wrong word –’ Despite what Kate Arletti had said, Derek did sound flappable, something Malone had not expected. ‘Put the story on one of the inside pages. But it’s Page One stuff, let’s face it. What the Herald and the Australian and the Telegraph-Mirror, especially them, will make of it, God only knows. And every other paper in the country.’

‘Not to mention radio and TV.’ Gates was a plump little man with soft brown, almost womanly eyes, a neat moustache above a neat mouth and an harassed air that did not appear to be habitual. Malone had no idea what a managing editor did, but Mr Gates was not managing too well at the moment. ‘Christ knows what rumours they’ll spout. I can hear them now ...’

Shoemaker couldn’t hear them; or if he could, he gave no sign. He was a tall, wide man with black kinked hair; he had fierce black eyebrows and a bulldozer jaw. Malone could imagine his scaring the pants off cadet reporters, boy and girl alike; but whatever his approach, it must have pleased the Huxwoods. He had been editor for ten years, a long time in modern Australian newspapers. ‘We’ll run the story straight, as if it was some other proprietor, not our own, who’d been murdered. Will you be in charge of the investigation, Inspector? Can I come to you for progress reports?’

‘I’ll let you know,’ said Malone. ‘For now it looks as if I’m in charge. But I could be out-ranked by lunchtime.’

Shoemaker grinned; or gave a grimace that might have been a grin. ‘I follow. It could be like our Olympic challenge, everyone jumping into the act. Well, I’d better be getting back to the Haymarket.’ Huxwood Press, its offices and printing press, was in an uptown area of the city, had been there for a hundred and fifty years. ‘Give my sympathy to the family, Derek. I’ll come back this afternoon, be more formal.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Gates and was gone out the door ahead of Shoemaker.

‘What does Mr Gates do?’ said Clements, who liked everyone labelled. ‘Managing editor?’

Derek looked at Van Dieman before he replied. ‘It’s a title we borrowed from the Americans and changed it a little. He sort of manages the editorial side.’

This, Malone realized, was office politics and he didn’t want to get into that, not now.

‘Do you mind if Alan stays?’ Derek gestured at Van Dieman. ‘Or will that look as if I’m preparing some sort of defence?’

‘Do you expect to be on the defensive?’ said Malone.

‘No.’ Derek sat down on a cushioned cane lounge, waved to the other three men to take seats. ‘But it is murder. Christ!’ He abruptly put a hand over his eyes, was silent a long moment. The others waited; then he withdrew his hand and blinked. But Malone could see no tears. ‘No one deserves to go out like that.’

‘We want no sensationalism,’ said Van Dieman.

Resentment shot up in Malone like a missile; but it was Clements who said, ‘The Police Service doesn’t go in for sensationalism, Mr Van Dieman. It’s the media does that.’

‘That’s what I mean,’ said the lawyer, but he sounded a little too hasty to convey that.

Though he was no more than forty, he was a grey man: grey-faced, grey-haired, grey-suited. The only spot of colour was his tie, but even that was plain purple rather than the strips of regurgitation that had been the fashion for the past couple of years. He had a soft voice, a grey voice, and a composure about him that hid his reputation. Malone had never met him, but knew that Van Dieman was considered the toughest corporation lawyer in town, if not the country.

Malone decided it was time to get down to cases. ‘It’s only a guess at the moment, but we think the murder occurred last night somewhere around midnight. Had the dinner party broken up by then?’

Derek nodded. ‘I think so. My wife and I were over in our house by eleven-thirty. The others who weren’t staying here had gone.’

‘Leaving who here?’

‘My sister Linden and her – her partner. They usually stay here when they come down from Sutton Forest. And Ivor and Beatrice Supple are staying here – or they were. We moved them out an hour ago, sent them into the Sheraton-on-the-Park. Sheila and her husband live over in the other house.’

‘Little House Two?’

‘You find that quaint? Or twee? Don’t look like that when you mention the houses in front of my mother. She thought she was being sarcastic when she named them, but everyone took the names seriously. If you can take names like that seriously ...’ Derek seemed to be talking too much.

‘How is your mother?’

‘Pretty shattered. She and Dad –’ He stopped, looked at Van Dieman as if for advice, then went on, ‘It’s hard to describe how close they were. People outside the family might have mistakenly thought they were always at odds with each other. They weren’t –’ He shook his head. ‘All our lives it was them against us. The children.’

‘Derek –’ said Van Dieman warningly.

‘Ah Christ, what’s it matter now, Alan? It’s all going to come out soon enough.’

There was silence in the big room but for the rustle of a sudden breeze amongst the potted palms. Out on the water someone in the photographers’ launch shouted something at one of the policemen on the shore; the policeman, risking being photographed in the act, gave the someone the finger. Then Malone said, ‘What’s going to come out? You mind telling us?’

A palm frond was brushing Derek’s shoulder; he raised a hand and absent-mindedly stroked it, as he might have a woman’s comforting fingers. He didn’t look at either of the detectives as he said, ‘There are certain members of the family want to sell the Press. Lock, stock and barrel, as they say.’

Malone looked at Clements, the business expert; the latter was frowning, not quite believing what he had heard. ‘Sell Huxwood Press? Everything?’

‘Everything. The papers, the magazines, the radio and TV stations in the other States ... Sounds crazy?’

‘But why? Huxwood is, I dunno, an empire. Its share price is higher than anyone else in its field, higher than News Corp. or Fairfax, your debt is nothing –’

Derek looked at Malone. ‘He’s a ring-in, isn’t he? He’s not with Homicide?’

Malone grinned. ‘Russ just does homicide as part-time ... Sorry, that’s tasteless, considering. No, he’s a punter. Used to be on the horses, now it’s on the stock exchange. He’s probably got shares in Huxwood.’

‘I have,’ said Clements. ‘But I won’t get a say, will I? Or any of the other public shareholders?’

‘Afraid not,’ said Derek Huxwood and made no attempt to sound less than privileged. He was part of the dynasty, for a moment he had the arrogance of his parents. ‘The family owns sixty per cent, we have the controlling interest.’

‘And who has the controlling interest in the family?’

Van Dieman said, ‘Is any of this really relevant at this stage?’

‘Yes,’ said Malone flatly. ‘Everything is relevant that will give us a lead on why Sir Harry was shot.’

‘Jesus!’ Derek snapped off a piece of the palm frond. ‘You’re saying one of us killed him?’

‘We’re not saying anything like that. Everyone working on a homicide has got his own way of doing it. Russ and I work from the outside inwards. It’s called elimination. You tell us everything about this house, the three houses, about the family, and we’ll do our own picking and choosing what to eliminate. So who has the controlling interest in Huxwood Press?’

Derek said nothing, looked at Van Dieman. It seemed that they had arrived rather late at the idea that this was a matter that was out of their hands, that could not be contained by a Chronicle editorial or a legal restraining order. The lawyer tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair, then he nodded:

‘Okay, the family shares are parked in a holding company which has no other assets. The shares will always be voted in one line to maintain control.’

‘So who decides how the holding company votes?’ Clements seemed to have taken on a whole new image, sounded smoother. He is turning into a lawyer or a banker before my very eyes, thought Malone, amused at the thought but backing Clements all the way.

‘Sir Harry has – had the shares which carried the whole of the voting power.’

‘What about Lady Huxwood?’

‘No, not in Sir Harry’s lifetime.’

‘But she does now?’

‘We-ell –’

‘Why are you hesitating?’ Clements persisted.

Van Dieman took his time, as if he expected to fob off the question with a brusque answer or two. He said almost haughtily, ‘I wasn’t hesitating –’

‘Okay, you were stalling, then. Keep going.’

Both Van Dieman and Derek Huxwood glanced at Malone: who’s the senior man here, you or him? But Malone just returned their gaze: ‘You’d better give us an answer, Mr Van Dieman. We cops always have more time than lawyers. That’s why we charge less for it.’

Van Dieman flushed and Derek Huxwood turned his head away in disgust: ‘Jesus!’

Malone relaxed his official (officious? he wondered) air for a moment. ‘Take it easy, Derek. We’re not here to kick the shit out of you, we’re trying to find out who killed your father. If you and Mr Van Dieman will stop fartarsing about and get down to cases, we can be out of here and get on to talking to other members of the family. Sooner or later someone is going to tell us the truth, give us the dirt, if you like, and I think it might be better if we got it from you. Okay?’

Derek stared at him; then abruptly there was the old whimsical smile: ‘If you’d been as shitty as this as a fast bowler, you’d have played for Australia. You never had the killer instinct.’

‘I’m older and wiser, Derek. And shiftier – sometimes ... Let’s hear what you were almost going to tell us, Mr Dieman.’

‘Van Dieman,’ said the lawyer, as if it were a legal point. ‘No, now Sir Harry is dead, the voting power drops off and passes to all the shareholders. Lady Huxwood has no more voting power than any of the others.’

‘How did that arrangement come about?’ said Clements.

‘My father insisted,’ said Derek. ‘He’d be regretting it now.’

‘Why?’ said Malone.

Derek and Van Dieman looked at each other; then the lawyer said, ‘There is – shall we say – dissension – in the family. For some time now some of the younger ones have been threatening to ask for a winding-up of the company and a distribution of the group shares.’

‘So the younger ones could then combine their shares and have some real clout?’ Clements sat back, was his old self: a rough-edged cynical detective with class prejudices. Just like my Old Man, thought Malone: Us and Them. ‘That right? All the yuppies suddenly turning greedy?’

‘I don’t know that they’d appreciate being called yuppies. These young people are not upwardly mobile, they don’t need to be. But yes, I suppose you could call them greedy?’ He looked at Derek.

‘Greedy as hell,’ said Derek. ‘Some of them.’

‘Who are the grandchildren?’ asked Malone.

Derek said, ‘There are my three – Alexandra, Colin and Ross. There are Sarah and Michael, Nigel’s two. And there’s Camilla, she’s Sheila’s.’

‘All of voting age?’

Derek nodded. ‘I don’t know that all of them would want to sell.’

Van Dieman contradicted him: ‘I’m not so sure, Derek. If they all combine their shares, it could be a stand-off. And that, I’m afraid –’ he looked at Malone, ‘is what’s happening. Or was happening up till – till last night.’

Malone said, ‘Exactly what is your position in all this, Derek?’

‘You mean, how do I feel about selling? I’m against it, dead against it.’

‘How much – clout do you have?’

Derek shrugged. ‘No more than my brother and sisters. I’m executive editor and publisher of the newspaper and I’m deputy-chairman of the whole group. But that means zilch when it comes to voting.’

‘Your father was chairman?’ Derek nodded. ‘And the rest of the family?’

‘Nigel and my sisters are directors on the group board.’

‘The in-laws, too? And the grandchildren?’

‘They just run – what do they call it in American football? – they run interference. You’d go a long way to meet a more interfering lot of buggers, including the kids.’

Malone was surprised at the amount of venom Derek showed; but he made no remark on it. ‘Is there a buyer for the business?’

Derek looked at Van Dieman again, left it to him: ‘Let’s say there is strong interest.’

‘Who?’ Van Dieman said nothing and Malone snapped, ‘Come on, you’re fartarsing again! We’re here because of a murder, not some bloody business deal! Who?’

‘Metropolitan Newspapers,’ said Derek. ‘From London. That is why Ivor and Beatrice Supple are here. She’s deputy-chairman – chairwoman, chairperson, whichever you like – she’s here for Metropolitan. There are two lawyers and two bankers with her, they’re at the Sheraton-on-the-Park. But that’s not for publication,’ he said, apparently in his status as executive editor and publisher.

‘Pull your head in, Mr Huxwood,’ said Malone officially and officiously; he was getting stiff-necked about these two sitting opposite him. ‘I’m not in the habit of shooting off my mouth to the media.’

Derek backed down. ‘Sorry.’

Then there was a knock at the garden-room door and the butler, Krilich, looked in. He was a tall middle-aged man, dark-haired, heavy-browed and thick-shouldered; even last night Malone had thought he looked more like a builder’s labourer than what he had imagined a butler should look like. This morning he was in shirtsleeves and a blue-and-black striped vest, but wore a tie, a black one.

‘Assistant Commissioner Zanuch is here, Mr Huxwood.’

2

Assistant Commissioner Bill Zanuch did not look uncomfortable in this big house. The air of arrogance was there as always, the familiarity with top company as apparent. Malone had once described him, though not in his presence, as being so far up himself he had turned ego into a pretzel. In the latest of the Service’s shuffling of senior ranks, he had been moved from AC Administration to AC Crime, a criminal act in itself in Malone’s opinion. Zanuch was very much hands-on, to the point of throttling those under him. He and Malone in particular were not mates.

‘Hello, Bill,’ said Derek Huxwood, rising from the couch. ‘You here to take charge?’ He avoided looking at Malone as he said it.

‘No, Derek. I’m here to offer condolences – from the Commissioner, too. I’m not here to take charge.’

No, thought Malone, he’s not here to take charge: in the same way that General Schwarzkopf didn’t take charge of the Gulf War, as Napoleon went to Moscow for the snow sports.

‘Any leads, Inspector?’

‘Not yet, sir.’

‘Well, go ahead with whatever you were doing. I’ll just sit in.’ He sat down, arranged the crease in his trousers, undid the button of his double-breasted suit so there would be no strain on it, laid his police tie, silk of course, flat on his white shirt. He never wore anything that showed a label, he aspired to be too wellbred for that, yet somehow he gave the distinct impression that everywhere on him was a label, only the best, waiting to be displayed. ‘I’m here to help.’

But Malone wasn’t going to fall for that. ‘Sergeant Clements and I are finished here for the moment, sir. We have to see others in the family.’

‘Who?’ said Huxwood, irritation plain. ‘I can tell you everything you want to know –’

‘It’s just routine, Mr Huxwood,’ said Malone, waiting to be interrupted by Zanuch. But the Assistant Commissioner said nothing and Malone went on, ‘We like to interview everyone at the scene of the crime.’

‘Scene of the crime! Christ –’ Derek Huxwood looked at Zanuch as if expecting him to correct his junior officer. Then abruptly his broad shoulders slumped and he gestured futilely. ‘Why the hell am I protesting? It’s what we’ll call it in the paper tomorrow – the scene of the crime ... Go ahead, Scobie. Talk to the others. They’re all somewhere, here or in the other houses.’

‘Your mother?’

‘She’s upstairs in her room. Leave her – please?’

Malone hesitated, then nodded. He and Clements said goodbye to Van Dieman and Zanuch and left the garden room. Outside in the hallway they met Kate Arletti, looking even more untidy than ever. ‘Having a hard time of it, Kate? You’ve lost another button off your shirt.’

She looked down in surprise. ‘So I have! Sorry, sir ... This family is worse than any Italian family I’ve ever met. They can’t make up their minds whether to grieve or to argue.’

‘Where’s the elder sister, Sheila? And her husband?’

‘They’ve gone back to their own house.’

‘Righto, you and Russ continue with the others. I’m going over to Little House Two. Russ, give me the envelope with that scrap of paper.’

He went out through large French doors on to a wide stone terrace that ran the entire breadth of the main house, crossed half an acre of lawn, went through an opening in a head-high privet hedge and came to Little House Two.

The main house had been built in the 1860s, a hodgepodge of English country house, Roman villa and Colonial homestead, as if the architect, uncertain of his surroundings, had gone on a drunken spree yet had somehow produced something that was not an eye-sore. The two smaller houses had been built a hundred years later and the style, with just minor modifications, copied. The three stood in line facing north across the tiny bay, resembling nothing more than a slapdash Nash project that, like the convicts, had been transported and survived the change.

Ned Custer met Malone at the heavy oak front door. ‘I saw you coming, I’ve been expecting you. Finished with that lot over there? Van Dieman there, putting his oar in? Best lawyer in town. Pity he knows it better than anyone else.’

‘How’s Mrs Custer?’

Custer was leading the way into a large comfortable room that looked out past a lawn and a jetty, where a yacht was moored, to the bay. He was dressed in lightweight blue trousers, a blue-and-white cotton jumper and espadrilles; but at least his face showed appropriate gloom. ‘Not the best. We don’t get on, the family, but Jesus wept – murder?’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘What?’

‘You implied someone in the family committed the murder.’

Custer waved his hands in front of him, as if beating off smoke. ‘No, no! Christ, I didn’t mean anything like that – oh darling. Here’s Scobie, come to interrogate us.’

Spoken like a true lawyer.

Sheila was more appropriately dressed; she was not in funeral black, but at least she didn’t look as if she were ready for a yachting picnic. She was in dark blue linen, skirt and shirt, with dark blue casual shoes. Her glasses did not hide the fact that she had been weeping. Without make-up she looked older than she had last night.

‘Sit down, sit down.’ Custer bustled about, like a front-row forward looking for the ball that had come out on the wrong side of the scrum. ‘Drink? Coffee?’

‘Nothing, thanks.’ Malone sat down in a comfortable chair, one of four in the room meant to relax their occupants; this was a room obviously meant for relaxation, the afternoon read, the pre-dinner drink. It was, Malone guessed, what the Custers called their family room, though the furnishings were much richer than he had seen in other family rooms. One narrow wall was taken up with an entertainment ensemble: television set with the largest screen Malone had ever seen, video recorder, tape-deck and shelves full of videos, tapes, CDs and even a stack of old LPs. Yet the room showed no wear and tear, it was a room for a phantom family. Sheila was already seated and Custer now dropped into a chair beside her, but neither of them looked comfortable. ‘All we’re after at this stage is what you may know of last night.’

‘You mean the murder? Bugger-all. Harry had gone to bed when we left.’

‘What time was that?’

‘I never wear a watch,’ Custer said and looked at his wife.

‘Midnight,’ she said. ‘What time is my father supposed to have been – ?’ Her voice was unsteady, she didn’t finish the sentence.

‘Around midnight, give or take an hour.’

‘So whoever killed him could have been in the house while we were there?’

Custer got up, poured himself a whisky, straight, no ice, no water or soda.

‘If it was an intruder –’

‘Of course it was a bloody intruder!’ The drink splashed in Custer’s hand as he sat down heavily.

‘What’s the security like over at the main house?’

‘Adequate.’ Custer sipped his whisky. ‘That’s about all you can say for any security in domestic circumstances – you’d know that as well as I do.’ Malone nodded. ‘We employ two security firms to watch the estate – and each other. But there was a break-in a coupla years ago – they caught no one – so it could easily have happened again. Burglars not so long ago didn’t carry guns or knives. But now ...’

There had been several incidents in the past year of murder by intruders, householders shot or knifed, people worth not one-hundredth of the Huxwood wealth.

‘Is there any way up to the first floor over there besides up the main staircase in the hallway?’

‘Of course.’ Sheila was beginning to regain some composure. ‘There’s a rear stairwell for the staff. And there’s all that latticework on the east wall. We’ve wanted to pull it down, but Mother wouldn’t allow it.’

‘What’s that there for?’

‘The roses, of course. The climbing roses, the Chinese hybrids – don’t you know what Malmaison is famous for?’

‘I thought it was – famous, if you like, for the Huxwoods.’

‘Nicely put, Scobie,’ said Custer. ‘I’d have said notorious.’

‘La Malmaison was where Napoleon’s Josephine lived. She was the one who really popularized rose-growing in Europe, she had roses brought in by the boat-load from all over, China, Turkey, everywhere. My great-great-grandfather, who built the original house, was a great admirer of Napoleon and Josephine. And he loved roses. I take it you’re not a gardener?’

‘I grow camellias and azaleas, they’re easy. But no, I’m not a gardener. Burke’s Backyard leaves me cold,’ he said, naming one of television’s top rating shows.

‘And,’ said Custer, looking halfway to being half-drunk again, on one glass of whisky, ‘you’re not a student of Sydney’s history?’

‘Not this side of town, no. Ask me about the arse-end of Sydney and I’ll give you chapter and verse. Sorry,’ he said to Sheila.

‘Take it easy, Ned,’ Sheila told her husband, then looked back at Malone. ‘We were saying ... Yes, it would be easy to get up to the first floor, where the bedrooms are. Someone going up the east wall might get scratched or pricked, but not if he wore gloves.’

Malone took the plastic envelope from his pocket, extracted the scrap of notepaper with his tweezers. He held it out: ‘I can’t let you touch this, not till it’s been fingerprinted. It was found in your father’s hand, as if it had been torn off a full sheet. Do you recognize the notepaper?’

Both the Custers leaned forward; then they glanced at each other before Sheila said, ‘It’s the family’s – well, Malmaison’s. My mother orders it every year through the company – it’s special paper. She likes us all to use it, so we do. Boxes of it are delivered to us, Derek, Nigel, my sister and I, every Christmas.’

‘Did you use it to write your father a note?’

‘No.’ She was taking off her glasses while she answered, so he didn’t see her eyes at that instant. Then she was polishing the glasses, carefully, giving them her attention. ‘I was not in the habit of writing my parents notes. After all, they’re just over there –’ She waved vaguely.

‘We think this may have been more than just a note. There’s a very strong No scrawled on it in red pencil.’

‘That wouldn’t be Harry,’ said Custer, getting up to pour himself another drink. ‘He wasn’t the type for expressing himself strongly. He was always the mediator, he liked to take options. He was a bugger for that,’ he said as if to himself.

‘So it could’ve been anyone in the family who wrote it?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Sheila, reluctantly, it sounded.

‘Don’t forget the kids.’ Custer came back to his chair. ‘The grandkids. They’re all literate, very literate. And numerate, too. All interested in –’

‘That’s not fair, Ned,’ said Sheila, as if this had been a continuous argument. Then Malone remembered that her child was Custer’s step-child. Maybe this sort of argument went on in many families. ‘They’re not all interested in money, not all of them.’ Her tone said: not mine.

Malone had had this feeling once or twice before, the urge to get up and walk away from a case. Detectives are driven to solve a murder, as doctors are towards a cure. But sometimes a murder becomes obscured by the atmosphere that surrounds it; the detective becomes at risk to other dangers. One’s own values had to be protected, there was a limit to objectivity.

‘How many children do you have, Mrs Custer?’

‘Just one, a girl.’

‘She lives here?’

‘No, Camilla has her own flat. She’s at work today – she works at 2HP, she’s learning the ropes. We – that is, Huxwood – own the station,’ she explained.

‘How can you do that? With the rules against cross-media ownership in the same State?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Sheila, but she did know.

Beside her Custer grinned. ‘Don’t ask. You know the old one, about friends in high places. The media barons in this country have got that sort of friendship down to a fine art.’

‘Careful, Ned,’ said his wife.

‘You mentioned money,’ said Malone, ‘Would you sell Huxwood Press?’

Sheila squinted, put her glasses back on; Custer held up his glass, as if looking for an answer in the half-inch of whisky still in it. Then he said, ‘We’d probably sell. Anything for fucking peace and quiet.’

‘Who told you the Press is for sale?’ said Sheila.

Malone stood up. ‘We’re not answering questions at this stage. Just asking them. I’ll be in touch.’

He made his own way out of the house, crossed the lawn again and went round to the east wall of the main house. The roses were there, as Sheila had said; and the latticework up the wall. The gardener was also there, the long-handled shovel he had brandished down on the shore now driven into the earth, a pair of secateurs in his hand. He looked at Malone: ‘Lady Huxwood wants fresh flowers in the house every day. You think I ought to, today?’

‘I wouldn’t. You’re –?’

‘Eh? Oh yeah.’ He appeared to look closely at Malone for the first time. ‘You’re one of the Ds?’

Malone introduced himself.

‘Oh sure, I’ve read about you a coupla times. You work for someone publishes a newspaper, you read it all the way through. Just in case you get a mention, even in the obituaries. It’ll be interesting to see what the Old Man’s obit says ... I’m Dan Darling. Or Darling Dan, as the Old Lady calls me. A poor bloody joke, but most of her jokes are. She doesn’t have much chop for the intelligence of the working class.’

He said it without emphasis, neither bitterly nor with affection. He was in his sixties, a grizzled bear of a man with the face and arms of someone who had spent the best part of his life in the sun and, by some miracle, escaped the rat-like nibbling of sun cancers. He had eyes and mouth of strong opinions and Malone wondered how he got on with Lady Huxwood.

‘The feller from Rose Bay has already been around here, looking for footprints, he said. There’s nothing.’

‘Nothing on the latticework?’ The gardener shook his head. ‘If it was an outsider, how d’you reckon he got upstairs?’

‘Up the back stairs. That door’s never locked. All the bloody security, costs a bloody fortune, and the back door’s always left unlocked.’

‘Why’s that?’

Darling shrugged. ‘Beats me. Ask the Yugoslavs, the butler and his missus.’ There was a sudden bedlam of birds in a nearby tree; it went on for almost half a minute, then the birds were gone as suddenly as they had come. The gardener spat into the dry soil at his feet. ‘Bloody foreigners.’

‘Who?’ Dan Darling sounded like Con Malone, the xenophobe from way back. Malone had grown up listening to his father complaining about ‘bloody foreigners’.

‘The birds. They’re Indian mynahs. Taking over everything.’

Malone said off-handedly, ‘Do the family fight like those birds?’

Darling squinted at him sideways, but still challengingly. ‘You don’t expect me to gossip about the family, do you? Christ, I’m family, too. So the Old Lady is always telling me.’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Forty-two years. I was a printer’s apprentice at the Chronicle, in my last year. I got my hand caught in the rollers –’ He held up his left hand and for the first time Malone saw how maimed it was, an ugly stump-fingered fist. ‘I never went back, I was scared shitless of the rollers. Sir John, Harry’s father, he was the boss then. He gave me a job here as under-gardener and I fell into it like a pig into muck – I didn’t know it, but that was what I wanted to be, a gardener in a garden like this.’ He waved his good hand, the one holding the secateurs, around him. ‘The paper’s gardening expert, she comes out to see me whenever she’s got a problem.’

‘You do it all on your own?’ Malone looked around: the gardens were more extensive than he had thought.

‘No, I’ve got a young bloke works for me. Two of us are enough. I been here all them years, I’ve got everything under control.’

‘Where’s he?’

‘Well, I dunno. He ain’t come in this morning, ain’t rung. I can’t say it’s not like him, he’s only been here a coupla weeks. I dunno him that well.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Dwayne Harod. His dad’s a Turk, he says, his mum’s a Lebanese. He lives out in Marrickville with an uncle and aunt. Dwayne’s an old Turkish name, I gather.’ A crack of a grin, dry as an eroded creek bank.

‘So I wonder why he didn’t come in today, of all days?’

‘He’d of heard about it on the radio. He’s pretty quiet, maybe he just wanted to miss all the commotion. Maybe he ain’t a stickybeak, like them out there.’ He gestured towards the launchful of photographers, now retreating like other, earlier invaders who had been repelled by the natives. ‘I wouldn’t worry about Dwayne, you got enough on your plate. You think flowers would be outa place in the house today?’ He snapped the secateurs, as if they were used every day and he hated the thought of interrupting the routine.

‘Not today, Dan. I’ll be in touch. They smell beautiful, though.’

As he walked round the corner of the east wall he heard a sound coming from an open window on the first floor. He wasn’t sure whose room it was, but it was in the main bedroom wing. The sound was a low moaning, faintly ululating, a primitive murmur of grief, almost animal-like.

3

Assistant Commissioner Bill Zanuch moved around the Big House without hurrying, with the proprietorial air of an old friend or a bailiff. He had his hands clasped behind his back, a habit he had adopted since he had, several years ago, been assigned to accompany Prince Charles on another Royal visit to Australia. It had been a characteristic of the Duke of Edinburgh, the prince’s father, and the prince himself had adopted it. Lately, however, Zanuch had noted from newsreels that the prince had moved his hands in front of him, where they nervously wove patterns in the air as if practising argument with his estranged wife. The Assistant Commissioner had none of the Royal problems; he had not made a nervous gesture since kindergarten and even there the other infants had known who was Number One.

Socially he had never aimed higher than God; he always felt that he fitted in. Wherever he went in the city’s social circles he was treated as an equal amongst equals, proving that flattery is no burden if one leaves others to carry it. He knew, just as the prince did, who would be king one day. Soon, maybe just a year or so down the track, he would be Commissioner. The thought did not make him giddy, since he had been tasting it ever since he had been promoted to sergeant, but he savoured it every day.

He stood outside the bedroom door listening to the low moaning coming from inside. He was not insensitive, but he knew Phillipa Huxwood would have to be interviewed and it was better that he do it rather than one of the five or six detectives still on the estate. After all, he could talk to her as an equal.

But first he moved along the hall to the next door, which was open. He had never been upstairs here, but this, he guessed, was Harry Huxwood’s room. He went in, ducking under the Crime Scene tape across the doorway. Another tape was strung round the four-poster bed, like a decoration from some old wedding-night bed.

Then the door to the adjoining room opened and Phillipa Huxwood stood there. Her face was even gaunter than usual, her eyes were red from weeping; but her carriage was still stiff and straight, her voice as firm as ever: ‘Do they have to put that ridiculous piece of ribbon on the bed?’

‘I’m afraid so, Phillipa. How are you?’

She waved a hand, almost a dismissive why-do-you-ask? ‘It’s unbelievable, isn’t it? I’ve been laying there –’

She used the Americanism. Up till her late teens she had lived a nomadic life with her archaeologist father and travel-writer mother; she still threw in local usage like postcards, as if to show she had been around. When she used a foreign phrase the accent was always immaculate, no matter what the language. Yet she wrote to reporters and anchor-people on the corporation’s radio and television stations who said ‘d-bree’ for ‘debris’ and used other Americanisms. She was rigid in her inconsistency, as despots are.

‘How are the others taking it?’ She led him back into her own room, seated herself in what he took to be her favourite chair by a window that looked down on the rose gardens.

‘I’ve only seen Derek,’ he said. He remained standing, aware of the disorder of her room, which surprised him; he had always thought of her as a meticulously neat person. But her bed was rumpled, the sheets twisted as if she had writhed in them in a frenzy. Her clothing, her dress and underwear, were thrown on the second chair in the room; the underwear, he thought, looked skimpy for a woman of her age. There was also a couch, an antique chaise-longue, but it was against a far wall; he could not seat himself there and talk to her across the width of the room.

‘How is Derek? Shocked?’

‘Of course.’

‘When I saw Harry –’ She closed her eyes, was silent for a moment, then she opened them. ‘I’m alone now, Bill. What do I do?’

He knew she didn’t want an answer. They were acquaintances, not friends, which is how it is in half of any large city’s social circles. He had known nothing of the intended selling of the publishing empire till Derek had filled him in this morning. What he knew of this family, even though he had been coming here for years as a dinner or luncheon guest, had been gleaned from observation and not from confidences.

‘How long have we known you?’ Her mind, it seemed, was shooting off at tangents this morning.

‘Twenty-five years.’

She looked at him in astonishment. ‘You’re joking!’

‘No. I first came here twenty-five years ago on a police matter –’

‘Ah.’ She nodded, was silent a while. He thought she was going to say no more, then she went on. ‘There was mystery then, too, wasn’t there? This is a mystery, Bill. Or is it?’ She glanced sideways at him, almost slyly.

He didn’t take the bait, if there was any. ‘Yes, I think it is, Phillipa. But we’ll find whoever killed Harry. I promise you that.’

She nodded. ‘Yes, I’d like that,’ she said, as if he had promised her no more than a small gift. ‘I’ll miss him, Bill. We fought, oh, often we fought ... But we loved each other. Those downstairs don’t know what love is. Do you?’

But she didn’t wait for his answer. He wondered if she talked to her children, those downstairs, as she was now to him. He knew how people could sometimes confide in strangers thoughts they would never expose to those close to them. But why had she chosen him?

‘I’ll have to go down soon and face them all, I suppose. I’m the matriarch, they’ll expect it. When we first built the other two houses, Derek and Cordelia and Ned and Sheila used to come here every evening, we’d dine en famille. It was Harry’s idea. I’ve never liked the idea of matriarch -’

You could have fooled me.

‘– but Harry saw himself as the patriarch. He always wanted to fill his father’s shoes and there never was a patriarch like Old John. You met him?’

‘Once.’ Twenty-five years ago.

‘He was Biblical, he and I never got on. The en famille idea lasted a year, no more. The nuclear family is a pain in the uterus.’

He loved social gossip; but this was not gossip. ‘Phillipa, don’t tire yourself –’

She gave him the sly look again. ‘I’m talking too much, you mean? Why did you come up here if you didn’t want to talk to me?’

He was wearing out his welcome, she would turn nasty in a moment; he had seen it once or twice over the years. ‘Phillipa, did you hear the shot next door?’

She stared into space, the myopic eyes blank; then she blinked and looked back at him. ‘I’d taken two sleeping pills, I was upset last night. I heard nothing, the roof could have fallen in ...’

He began to move towards the door. ‘Fair enough. We’ll leave you alone now, you and the family.’

‘But you’ll be back?’

‘Not me, but Inspector Malone and one or two of the other detectives.’

‘I wish you would take charge. You can be circumspect.’

Now he knew why she was taking him into her confidence. She had said exactly that, you can be circumspect, twenty-five years ago.