Babylon South. Jon Cleary

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      Malone shook his head in wonder. ‘Does Corporate Affairs know about you? They might offer you a job.’

      ‘When you’ve tried to keep track of the form of horses and jockeys, the stock exchange is kids’ stuff. You wanna know more about Lady Springfellow? Well, she applied to inherit her husband’s estate three years after he disappeared. Her sister-in-law Emma tried to fight it but got nowhere. The irony of it was that she got her husband’s old law firm to prepare the affidavits.’

      ‘You’ve done your homework,’ Malone said appreciatively. He was no longer surprised at the acumen and thoroughness of his partner, whom so many, at first acquaintance, took for an amiable oaf.

      ‘This one interests me. I like to see what happens when money’s involved. It’s the punter in me … When she inherited the estate, she just took off. She used that as a springboard – no pun—’he gave his slow grin’ – to start buying everything else she now owns. The radio stations, the country and suburban newspapers, part of a diamond mine, all of a gold mine. And now she owns the Channel 15 network.’

      ‘What about the bank?’

      ‘Springfellow and Co. started that six years ago – they were one of the few who didn’t go overseas for a partner. It’s done okay, but not as well as it might. A London bank and a New York one have been eyeing it. The daughter claims she’s moving in to make sure it remains an Australian bank. A 21-year-old banker and a girl at that.’ A true punter, he was a misogynist: he rarely backed mares.

      ‘What do you reckon?’

      ‘I reckon it’s just greed, but I’m old-fashioned. Greed is now an acceptable thing. I’m falling for it myself.’

      ‘So Venetia gained a whole lot when her old man disappeared?’

      ‘I guess so. All I’m telling you is gossip and what I’ve read in the Financial Review.’

      ‘The what? Have you given up on Best Bets? Have you sold all your shares?’

      ‘I’ve put ’em on the market today. I’m ashamed of how much I’m gunna make. When I put the cheque in the bank, the tellers are gunna start ringing Evan Whitton at the Herald.’ Whitton was a journalist who could turn over a spadeful of corruption with a VDU key.

      They turned off the Bridge approach and circled round on to the end of the tiny Kirribilli peninsula. This was an area of tall apartment buildings bum-to-cheek with squat old houses, some middle-class grand, some just workmen’s stone cottages. The population was a mix of incomes and ages, with no sleaze and mostly respectability. It also harboured the Sydney residences of the Prime Minister and the Governor-General, side by side, though the G-G’s was the larger and more imposing, as if to remind the politician next door that its occupant was not dependent on the whim of the voters.

      ASIO lived in a converted mansion on the waterfront: one had to look through barred windows, but the KGB would have given away half its secrets for such a vista. Malone and Clements were shown into the office of the chief executive, a room with a view that must have driven the Director-General, now headquartered in Canberra, subversive with envy.

      Guy Fortague, the Sydney Regional-Director, was big, rugged and all smiles as if making an all-out effort to prove that spy chiefs were not really spooky. There’s nothing to be frightened of, his smile assured them; a thought that had not occurred to either Malone or Clements. But he was certainly making their reception easier than they had expected.

      ‘We were surprised when you mentioned murder to us.’ But Malone suspected he was not the sort of man to be surprised by anything; if he were, he would not be in this job. ‘We did think of it originally, of course.’

      ‘Why did you change your minds?’ said Malone.

      ‘Well, we didn’t exactly change our minds.’ Fortague retreated a little; he was no longer smiling. ‘But we had no evidence, just suspicions.’

      Malone thought that one of the bases for counter-espionage would have been suspicion; but he didn’t say so. ‘How was security in those days? I mean national security.’

      Fortague shrugged. ‘We were busy – I’d just joined the organization. The anti-Vietnam business was just beginning to warm up. But we never expected murder or terrorism or anything like that, not from those here in Australia. Their violence never seemed to extend beyond demonstrations on campus and in the streets.’

      ‘What about outsiders? Foreign agents?’

      Fortague smiled. ‘Foreign agents don’t kill the opposition’s boss – it’s one of the unwritten rules in our game. Just like in yours. How many police commissioners have been murdered by a criminal, a professional one?’

      Malone nodded, agreeing with the etiquette. ‘Our file on him is missing. Has been for twenty-odd years.’

      ‘Really?’ Fortague’s tone implied that he wasn’t surprised; anything might go missing in the NSW Police Force.

      Malone nodded at the thin file on the desk in front of Fortague. ‘Is that your file on him? It’s pretty slim, isn’t it?’

      All that Fortague said was, ‘I’ afraid I can’t show it to you.’

      Behind that smile, Malone thought, there’s only just so much co-operation. They don’t want any coppers on their turf. ‘Well, maybe you can tell me one or two things that might be in it?’

      ‘I don’t think so,’ said Fortague and smiled again.

      Malone hesitated, wondering where to go next. He decided to lay his cards on the table, a hand that was almost blank. ‘Righto, I’ll tell you what we’ve found. A skeleton. No weapon. No shoes, which might have been the one item of clothing that would have survived the weather. All that was left, the only things to identify the body, were the signet ring and the briefcase. But it was empty.’

      Fortague tapped his file without opening it. ‘I’ add those details later.’

      ‘Righto, now the 64,000-dollar question – what was in the briefcase?’

      Fortague took his time, the smile now gone from his big rugged face. He looked faintly familiar and Malone suddenly remembered who he was, the odd name striking a bell. He had been one of the young university recruits who had sat in on this case at its beginning. He was now an old hand at intelligence, infected by the profession’s endemic suspicion of outsiders, especially other investigators.

      At last he said, ‘I can’t tell you the specifics of what was in the briefcase – that’s classified. We know what he took home with him the previous Friday. It was all labelled top Secret.’

      ‘He took stuff like that home with him?’

      ‘He was an independent-minded man.’ Meaning: I would never do such a thing myself. ‘But 1 don’t mean to imply he was careless – nothing like that at all. He had his own way of working.’

      ‘What sort of man was he?’

      ‘Brilliant. A bit hard to get to know, but brilliant. He spoke French and German fluently and when he came to us started learning Chinese and Indonesian.’

      ‘What СКАЧАТЬ