Yesterday’s Shadow. Jon Cleary

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      ‘Righto? I thought only upper-class Englishmen said that. You know – “Righto, old chap.”’

      ‘If I’d been born an upper-class Englishman, my dad would’ve strangled me at birth. He’s never been near Ireland, but he’s an Irish patriot – more so than my mother, who was born there. No, righto has just stuck to my tongue since I was a kid.’

      ‘What do you say when things are okay?’

      ‘Okay.’

      Himes gazed at Malone and after a long pause said, ‘I think you and I are gonna get along, Scobie.’

      ‘I hope so, Joe. We’re going to need help – a lot of it.’ He sat down, then told Himes of the intimate personal side of the Pavane murder. ‘We’re not putting out anything about that – our media would make a meal of it.’

      ‘Not just yours. Ours, too.’

      ‘There’s something else besides the sex bit. Mrs Pavane has some mystery about her, something that seems to puzzle even the Ambassador. Does the FBI have a bureau in Oregon?’

      Himes smiled; he had big white teeth that seemed to alter the whole set of his face. Almost impish, like a boy of long ago suddenly appearing in the man he had become. ‘We’ve got ’em all over. The local cops think we’re a pain in the ass.’

      Malone returned the smile. ‘We think the same about our Feds here. Anyhow, can you have them trace –’ He looked at his notebook again. ‘Mrs Pavane’s maiden name was Wilhelmina Page, but she was known as Billie. She also used an American Express card under the name of Mrs Belinda Paterson. Home address, Corvallis. Her parents, who were killed in a car accident, lived there – roughly, I guess, in the late seventies. Her father had some sort of job at the State College, a groundsman or something.’

      ‘I’ll get on to that pronto.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Unless they’re having an early night.’

      ‘The FBI sleeps?’

      Again the smile. ‘Not as much as the CIA.’

      In heaven the seraphim criticize the cherubim, who look down on the thrones: the original bureaucracy.

      ‘Anything else?’

      ‘Mrs Pavane told Miss Caporetto, one day at lunch, that she’d made a quick business trip to Sydney some years ago. The Ambassador says that can’t be right. But at the lunch some feller came up, tried to speak to Mrs Pavane, but she just wiped him. Is there any way you can trace if a Miss Page or a Mrs Paterson came to Sydney eight or nine years ago? We’ll check with our Immigration.’

      Himes made a note. ‘I’m told there was another homicide at the same hotel. Any connection?’

      ‘We don’t think so. It’s a domestic. I’m on my way now to question the wife.’

      ‘I don’t envy you. In my job I never got caught up in domestics, not like local cops. This one –’ He shook his head as if in disbelief. ‘This one’s the closest I’ve ever been to a domestic.’

      ‘Joe, a domestic for us is when the husband kills the wife or vice versa.’

      ‘I know. But from what you’ve told me, this isn’t the usual security thing. Terrorists, someone with a grudge against the US – it looks like nothing more than plain murder. To which Mrs Pavane might’ve contributed by being where she was in that flea-bag.’

      ‘It’s not a flea-bag, Joe. It’s just a hotel where the rate is about three or four hundred dollars a night less than she’d be used to paying. What do you know about her?’

      ‘You couldn’t meet a nicer woman. She had – what do they call it? – the common touch. I know no more about her than what I saw down in Canberra – the embassy staff love her. She’d have been checked by the FBI back home before she and the Ambassador got the appointment – it’s standard procedure –’

      ‘They missed somewhere along the line. They didn’t link her with Mrs Belinda Paterson.’

      ‘The FBI is thorough –’

      ‘Joe, I’m not criticizing. I’m stating a fact, that’s all. Mrs Pavane apparently has had three names – I’d like to find out which was her real one. Then, maybe, we can start tracing her killer.’

      ‘You think it was someone from her past who killed her?’

      ‘I haven’t a clue, Joe. But it would be better if it were, wouldn’t it?’

      Himes stood up, looking weary. ‘I dunno, Scobie. There are no good aspects to murder, are there?’

      ‘I’m not sure of that, either. I’ve seen some bastards who were better dead than alive.’ He, too, stood up. They both looked weary enough to be at the end of a case rather than the beginning of it. ‘What if the bloke who killed her didn’t know who she really was? She had all her valuables up in the room with her. Only her passport was in the safe deposit box. Didn’t she want him to know who she was?’

      ‘I hate the thought she might just have been there as a pick-up. Are you gonna ask the Ambassador what their sex life was like?’

      Malone grinned without humour. ‘I think I’ll leave that to Foreign Affairs.’

      3

      On his way out Malone looked in on Consul-General Avery. ‘We’ve started, sir. But there’s a long way to go.’

      ‘I once played in a Rose Bowl game. We were behind thirty-eight to nil at the end of the second quarter.’

      ‘Did you win?’

      ‘No, but we gave UCLA a helluva fright.’

      Malone shook his head. ‘I’ve spent all my police career trying to give crims a fright. It never works, not with the pros. This feller who killed Mrs Pavane, he’s way ahead at the moment.’

      ‘You sound pessimistic.’

      ‘No, just realistic. It’s a cop’s philosophy.’

      Ms Caporetto rode down in the lift with him. She was wearing a thick brown coat and the sort of tea-cosy hat that he thought was worn only by seven-year-olds with fashion-conscious mothers. She did not look demure, nor as innocent as a seven-year-old, but the body was not visible to be whistled at.

      ‘I’m on my way to see your Premier.’

      ‘Is he getting into the act?’

      ‘I don’t think so. It’s a courtesy call on our part. We want to ask if everything can be played down, if and when the questions come up in Parliament.’

      ‘Not if. When. Another twenty-four hours and the Opposition will be asking why we police haven’t wrapped it up. It’s par for the course. Never be constructive when in Opposition.’

      ‘I love working here. You’re such a СКАЧАТЬ