Babylon South. Jon Cleary

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      Justine looked at her curiously. ‘Was there any jealousy between you?’

      ‘Of course not. Nana was happy that I was happy. But she was – still is – a romantic. Walter was everything she’d dreamed of in a man. Sometimes she couldn’t believe her daughter was married to him.’

      ‘So she must have missed him as much as you when he disappeared?’

      Venetia nodded. ‘She’s never really got over it.’

      ‘Have you?’

      Venetia had a last look at herself in the mirror, looking for the truth in her image. ‘Yes.’

      They went out to the grey Bentley (more chic than a Rolls-Royce, Venetia had told her daughter). She had thought of having pink upholstery as a joke; but that would only have brought more sneers from the family. Occasionally the sneers rubbed her raw and she tried to avoid them. The chauffeur, dressed in grey with a pink shirt and a dark-grey tie, drove them, out of habit, at his usual brisk speed to the cemetery. His mistress, he knew, prided herself on her punctuality and he wondered why she had been a little late coming out of the house this morning.

      Walter Springfellow was being buried in the family vault. The first Springfellow had been buried here ninety-nine years ago when the cemetery had first been opened. It was called the Field of Mars and Justine thought it an ideal meeting place for the warring family. She hoped that, for the sake of the father she had never known, there would be no battle today.

      An old jacaranda stood just behind the vault, its blossom lying like purple snow on the white marble. Two magpies sat in branches carolling a warning to the humans below: don’t hang around or you’ll be dive-bombed. A bulbul, as cocky as its red crest, sat on the cross atop the vault. A blimp drifted by overhead, tourists in its gondola busily snapping the grieving ants far below. Edwin Springfellow had used his influence and the media photographers had been stopped at the gates. Some of the more enterprising, however, were perched like magpies in distant trees. Cameramen hate to see grief kept private, especially if it is moneyed. The public, while t’ch, t’ching in disgust, never turns its eyes away from the pictures.

      Malone and Clements were also there, though standing well away from the mourners; looking, indeed, like visitors to another grave. Venetia had asked that the burial be kept as private as possible, but at least fifty mourners had arrived, most of them elderly. Malone recognized several retired judges; Fortague, from ASIO, was there too. There was one surprise mourner: John Leeds, Commissioner of Police.

      ‘What’s the boss doing here?’ said Clements.

      Malone was watching the neat-as-always Commissioner standing in the background, making no effort to approach those gathered around the vault. Malone was too far away to see the expression on Leeds’s face, but the Commissioner did not seem to have his usual stiffly upright stance. It was hard to tell whether he was grieving or suffering from lumbago.

      Venetia turned away as the door of the vault was closed until another day, another death. Edwin stood in front of her, looking at the closed door as if expecting it should have been left ajar for him. She touched his arm. ‘Not yet, Edwin. Perhaps you’ll be next, but not now.’

      ‘What a cruel thing to say!’ Emma had come up behind them.

      Edwin, recovering his focus, shook his head; he wanted no scene today. ‘No, Venetia has hit the nail on the head. As usual.’

      ‘There’s a time and place for hitting nails on the head.’

      The three of them were slightly apart from the crowd of mourners. Their voices were low; good manners were everything in front of non-family. Emma and Edwin came of an old school where even murder, if committed, would be in a low key; Emma’s behaviour yesterday in the boardroom had been an aberration, something for which Edwin had berated her, in well-mannered terms, on their way home. She had not welcomed the admonition, had secretly enjoyed being bad-mannered and outspoken.

      Edwin said, still in a low voice, ‘Let’s behave ourselves. We still have to come back to your house, Venetia. We’re still welcome, I take it?’

      ‘Only for today.’

      ‘I shan’t be coming,’ said Emma.

      ‘Yes, you will,’ said Edwin quietly but firmly. ‘We keep up appearances today. Out of respect for Walter.’

      Emma said nothing. She glared at them both, then turned and walked away, stumbling in her blind anger over a nearby grave. As she passed the other mourners she managed to produce a smile that sat on her face like a slice of thrown pie. Justine, hurrying by her towards the Bentley, gave her aunt a look of hatred that only the more elderly, dim-sighted bystanders missed. Accustomed to hypocrisy at funerals, some of the women were shocked. The retired judges and the ASIO chief, more accustomed to hypocrisy, wondered what the man they had just laid to rest would have thought of this enmity.

      Venetia left Edwin, who had been joined by Ruth, his wife, and moved amongst the crowd as it began to straggle away with that lack of direction that affects mourners at a funeral, as if for a moment they have lost their grip on life. Everyone treated her warily and none with affection; these were Springfellow family friends. All except Roger Dircks and Michael Broad, who were wary but not cool.

      ‘You must be glad that’s over,’ said Dircks, stating the obvious yet again. As axeman, he would have told Anne Boleyn the same thing.

      ‘It’s not over, is it, Venetia?’ said Broad solicitously.

      ‘Not really. Did you sleep well last night?’

      ‘No. I don’t know what we’re going to do about your sister-in-law.’ He looked worried, even slightly creased. ‘Did you look at the messages this morning?’

      She shook her head. ‘I’ve had this—’ she waved a hand back at the vault ‘– on my mind.’

      ‘The New York market crashed last night, five hundred and eight points. That means the local market will go down today.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s probably already started.’

      ‘Jesus, of course!’ Dircks looked at his own watch; the dead man was forgotten, he had never known him anyway. ‘We’d better be going. We’ll call you later, Venetia. Nice funeral.’

      He moved off, not waiting for Broad. The latter looked after him. ‘We’ll have to get rid of him. He’s bloody embarrassing. What do we do if the worst comes to the worst? I mean our share holdings?’

      ‘Call me as soon as you get back to the office and see what’s happening. Who knows? This may be our salvation. If prices do drop, we may be able to buy up enough to drop the bucket on Emma and Edwin.’

      He looked at her admiringly, though there was still strain in his lean face. ‘You never give up, do you?’

      ‘Never.’

      She turned away from him and pushed her way through the mulga scrub of polite hostility; these mostly elderly conservatives had never taken to her. She was surprised when she came face to face with a sincere, if restrained, smile. ‘John! Oh, it’s been so long—’

      ‘Hello, Venetia. I had to come – I felt it was time …’ John Leeds opened his hand in what, in a less self-contained man, might have been mistaken for a helpless gesture.

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