Babylon South. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ to her mother, though she was more beautiful, her features more perfect; she had dark hair, instead of her mother’s blonde, but it was cut in the same full style. She was dressed as stylishly as Venetia, though not in pink and grey. She was in a blue silk suit and Malone didn’t feel quite so much of a blot. She had all the looks, but there was something missing: her mother’s shadow dimmed the edges of her.

      ‘Bad news? What bad news?’

      ‘They have found your father’s – skeleton.’ The image was still troubling her. A collection of old bones: could one have once loved that? ‘Somewhere up in the Blue Mountains.’

      ‘Blackheath,’ said Malone.

      Justine sat down in one of the grey chairs. Dircks moved to her and put his hand on her shoulder; she was touchable, her mother’s daughter but not yet the boss. ‘It’s dreadful, love. You don’t need such a shock—’ Then he looked at Venetia, knowing he had said the wrong thing again. His shallowness had less depth than one would have thought. He had risen to this position as chief executive only because he was a survivor; he had no talent, managerial or creative, but that often wasn’t necessary in the entertainment business. Selling oneself was as important as selling air-time and up till now he had sold himself well. ‘I’ get your driver to take you both home—’

      ‘No,’ said Venetia. ‘We’ll finish our business first. After – what? – twenty-one years, another half-hour … When will you bring the ring and the briefcase, Inspector, for me to identify?’

      ‘The Scientific men will bring that, I guess.’

      ‘Was there nothing else? His clothes?’

      ‘They didn’t mention any. Can you remember what he was wearing when he disappeared?’

      She shook her head. ‘Of course not. All those years ago? There would have been a label in them – he had everything made at Cutlers – he prided himself on the way he dressed.’

      ‘I’ see they bring everything to you that they’ve found. I have to go up to Blackheath now.’

      ‘To the scene of the crime?’ said Dircks, once more saying the wrong thing.

      ‘Crime?’ Justine spoke for the first time since she had sat down. She had just been presented with the discovery of the skeleton of the father she had never known. All her life she had felt a sense of loss at never knowing him and often, even these days, she sat in front of the photograph of him in the Springfellow drawing-room and wondered how much she would have loved the rather stern-looking, handsome man who had sired her. She had dreamed as a child, as a schoolgirl, even now as a young woman, that he was still alive, that some day he would come out of the past, like a figure in a mirage, and into their lives again. It gave her a shock and a terrible sense of final loss to learn that only his bones were left. ‘What crime?’

      Venetia looked at Malone: there were certain things a mother should not have to tell her daughter. He caught her unspoken plea and said, ‘We think your father was murdered. I’m going up to Blackheath to start the investigation.’

      ‘Murdered?’ All her conversation so far had been questions. Malone had seen it before; shock could leave some people only with questions.

      ‘It’s only a guess at the moment,’ he said gently, ‘It’s not going to be easy to find out exactly what happened, not after so long.’

      He was at the door when Dircks, foot in mouth again, said, ‘You didn’t tell us what’s wrong with our series.’

      Malone noticed that, though Venetia was annoyed, she was waiting on his reply. ‘The cops solve everything too easily. It never happens that way, not in real life.’

      2

      A studio car had picked up Malone each week and brought him out here to Carlingford on the inner edge of the western suburbs. The studio, surrounded by landscaped grounds, backed on to a Housing Commission development; the Commission residents, battlers all, looked over their back fences at the factory where their dreams were made. They waved to the stars of the soaps who drove in every day; stars dim and tiny, but any galaxy is a relief from the kitchen sink and the ironing-board and a husband who thinks foreplay is a rugby league warm-up. One morning a woman had waved to Malone and he had waved back, hoping she had not recognized her mistake. He hated to disappoint people.

      The driver got out of his car when he saw Malone come out of the front door of the administration building; but the detective waved him back. He stood on the front steps, savouring the mild sunny day. October was a good month; it brought the jacaranda blooms, one of his favourite sights. The landscape designer had planted jacarandas, interspersed with the occasional flame tree, all along the front fence of the big gardens; Malone wondered if, with the new owner, he would be told to replace them with pink blossom trees and grey gums. But Venetia Springfellow, he guessed, was an indoors person and probably never noticed the outdoors through which she passed. The seasons would mean nothing to her, except the financial ones. He wondered if he was going to finish up disliking her.

      Russ Clements arrived fifteen minutes later in the unmarked police Falcon. It was a new car, so far with not a scratch or a dent in it. The State government, with an election due within months, had embarked on a new law and order policy; the police had benefited, with new cars, new computers, even a couple of new helicopters. There were fewer muggings in the streets but more in the gaols, which the government was claiming was an improvement. The voters, cynical of politics, gave no hint of how they would vote in the elections. They knew when they were being mugged.

      Malone got into the car and Clements headed west towards the Blue Mountains. The new car had not improved his appearance; he was as unkempt as ever, a big lumbering man who looked as if he had slept in his clothes. He was the same age as Malone, still a bachelor, and Lisa Malone was forever promising to find him a wife, an offer he always received with a grin but no enthusiasm.

      ‘So how’d the Queen Bee take it?’ A gossip columnist in the financial pages of the Herald, a man of infinite imagination, had given her that name and now it was common usage, even amongst those who were not her drones.

      ‘She’s a cool bitch.’ Why had he called her a bitch? He would have to watch out, to kill his prejudices before they grew too far. ‘But I think she was shocked.’

      ‘I was in the Springfellow offices this morning. They’re my stockbrokers.’ He grinned at Malone’s querying eyebrow. ‘It’s not coincidence. I’ve been with them since the beginning of the year. They can’t get over having me as a client. I have to keep telling ’em I’m not with the Fraud Squad.’

      ‘She has nothing to do with the broking firm, has she?’

      ‘Only as the biggest shareholder in the holding corporation. She has nothing to do with the day-to-day running of it.’

      ‘So what are you doing with a broker?’

      Clements’s grin widened. ‘I’ve been winning so much on the ponies, it was getting embarrassing. I was going into the bank every Monday morning putting in three or four hundred bucks every time. The tellers were starting to look suspicious. How could I tell ’em I was just an honest cop having luck at the races? So I started investing some of it on the stock market – this boom looks too good to be true.’

      ‘The boom can’t last.’

      Clements nodded. ‘That’s why I was in their office this morning. I’m thinking of СКАЧАТЬ