Bleak Spring. Jon Cleary

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of Mr Rockne?’

      ‘Certainly.’ Palady spoke into his intercom. ‘Kim, would you ask Mr Junor to come in? . . . You say Mr – Rockne? – was murdered, Inspector?’

      ‘It’s in the morning papers.’

      ‘Ah, I never read such items. By the time I have read and understood what your politicians are doing, I have no stamina for matters such as murder and rape. I saw enough of that in Kuwait, performed by experts. Ah, Harold, come in.’

      Harold Junor was English, an ex-rugby forward, ruddyfaced and flustered, who looked as if he had just come out of a ruck without the ball; the Chinese scrum-half had told him there were two police breakaways waiting to tackle him, with or without the ball. Told why the police were here he said in a loud voice, ‘Ghastly! I read about it this morning – I knew it was our Mr Rockne, it’s not a common name. Ghastly! Do you want me to take the gentlemen out to my office, Walter?’

      ‘There’s no need, Harold. I should like to acquaint myself with our Mr Rockne, dead though he may be.’

      Malone could hear echoes in his head; but Palady’s phrasing was not literary, as Bezrow’s had been, but hinted of the pedantry of someone whose English was not his native tongue. Palady was stroking his grey silk tie, which was no softer than his hands. It struck Malone that he was feline, a description he had never applied to a man before.

      ‘Where did we acquire him, Harold?’

      Junor seemed to wince: he was a rugby forward, blunt and head-on, but he would never have acquired a client. ‘I think he was recommended by another client.’

      ‘Would you know who the other client was?’ said Malone.

      ‘Oh, I don’t think we could tell you that,’ said Junor, and Palady nodded appreciatively. ‘Not without the client’s permission.’

      ‘Would you ask him?’ said Malone.

      Junor looked at Palady, who left him in no-man’s-land. ‘Well, yes, if you insist. Yes, we’ll do that.’

      ‘Now.’

      ‘Now?’

      ‘I don’t know what merchant banking is like, Mr Junor, but murder is handled better if you can beat it from going cold on you. The murderer has about thirty-six hours’ start on us at the moment and I’d rather he didn’t get any further ahead.’

      ‘But why do you need to talk to our client?’ said Palady.

      ‘Because, Mr Palady, the starting point for any murder case is the victim. The next step is who knew him and why.’

      ‘Of course. Elementary. Go ahead, Harold, call your client, see if he wishes his name to be used.’

      Junor went out of the room and the two detectives and Palady sat watching and smiling at each other. The room showed its colonial heritage. The metal ceiling pictured cream Aborigines hiding among cream English trees; the half-panelled walls were of cedar no longer available. Colonial prints hung on the regency-striped upper halves of the walls: ships at anchor in Sydney Cove, St Philip’s Church, the original still standing just up the street from this house. There were no prints of Kuwait or Abadan or Curaçao.

      Junor came back, smiling apologetically. ‘I’m afraid I could not raise him. No answer.’

      ‘Keep trying, Mr Junor. I’ll leave you my card. In the meantime we want Mr Rockne’s account frozen.’

      ‘Oh, no trouble at all there. Frozen it is, as of now. But we’ll need a piece of paper, a court order or something. Will there be any claimants?’

      ‘I’m sure there will be. If not his family, then someone else. Five and a quarter million isn’t usually left in limbo, is it?’

      ‘There is no limbo in a bank,’ said Palady, the smile still at work. A feline smile, Malone thought, and wondered if he had ever seen a Persian cat smile. Cheshire cats were said to smile, but Palady came from further east than there.

      ‘We’ll get a court order and I’ll send someone here to look at the account. I take it that the five and a quarter million wasn’t all in one deposit? And you’ll be able to trace where the cheques came from?’

      Neither Junor nor Palady looked at each other; but the current that passed between them was palpable. Palady said, ‘That may be something that Mr Rockne wouldn’t have wanted.’

      ‘I’m afraid it’s too late to ask him. In the meantime keep trying with the man who recommended him to you. It was a man?’

      Junor’s smile was the sort he would have given a referee who had just awarded a penalty against him, right in front of the goalposts. ‘Yes. Yes, it was a man. We don’t deal very much with the ladies. They don’t appear to have the money, not in this country.’

      ‘They’re working on it,’ said Malone, whose wife was continually working on him.

      Outside in the bright sunshine the two detectives exchanged glances that said they had both arrived at the same conclusion: Shahriver Credit International, for all the dignified façade behind which it hid, had darker secrets than most banks. Clements said, ‘I don’t think I’d deposit pocket money with them.’

      The Harbour Bridge towered above them like a grey rainbow; Malone waited till a train had rumbled across it, taking its sound with it. ‘Do you think their client who recommended Rockne could be Bernie Bezrow?’

      ‘I’d put money on it.’

      ‘Take John Kagal off whatever he’s on and put him on this. He’s thorough and he’s quick. Get him to check on that joint account withdrawal.’

      Clements nodded. ‘Where do we go from here?’

      ‘We go back and see Olive. We’ll see what she has to say about no sound of a shot. And we’ll see how she reacts when we tell her we’ve frozen that five and a quarter million.’

Chapter Three

      1

      Jason opened the front door. ‘Hello, Pa. We wondered if you’d come.’

      ‘Sugar and I thought we’d better.’

      Though George Rockne was a good six inches shorter than his son had been, the resemblance was clear: he had the same bony face, though it was more weatherbeaten and the lines were deeper, the same aggressive eyes, the same shaped head, though his was entirely bald. The woman beside him was as tall as he, blonde and buxom, full of life but not aggressive about it. Jason had a lot of time for his step-grandmother, Sugar Bundy, the Kings Cross stripper who, against all the odds, had married his commo grandfather and made the old man happy.

      ‘Anyone else here?’ George Rockne sounded wary.

      ‘Just Grandma Carss.’

      Rockne wrinkled his nose, though the wrinkling was barely discernible amidst all the other lines on his face. ‘Well, she’s the least of our worries. Forget I said that, Jay.’

      The СКАЧАТЬ