Endpeace. Jon Cleary

Чтение книги онлайн.

      ‘Scobie, the Merc got in the line of fire – the shots were meant for the two people getting out of a Daimler, another guy and his wife.’

      ‘Russ, right now I’m not interested in attempted murder –’

      ‘You haven’t caught on, have you? The Briarcliff, that’s where Jack Aldwych Junior and his wife live. They were the couple getting out of the Daimler.’

      2

      ‘We didn’t want any fuss,’ said Jack Aldwych Senior. ‘If that couple downstairs hadn’t complained you wouldn’t have heard anything about it.’

      ‘Jack,’ said Malone, ‘that couple downstairs almost copped those shots in the head. They had a right to complain.’

      The old criminal boss (retired, he insisted, not reformed) nodded reluctantly. ‘I suppose so. But in the old days –’

      ‘These aren’t the old days, Jack. You agree with me?’ He looked at Jack Junior.

      The son sighed with exasperation. ‘I don’t think Dad realizes how much it shook me and Julie. Neither of us has ever been shot at before.’

      ‘You haven’t lived,’ said his father.

      ‘Mrs Chang, downstairs, passed out,’ said Juliet Aldwych. ‘So did her husband, almost.’ She said it with the superiority of someone who had never fainted in her life, as if she were as accustomed to passing bullets as much as her father-in-law. ‘One doesn’t expect that sort of thing, not in Point Piper.’

      The Briarcliff was a block of eight apartments, none of which could be bought for less than several million dollars. Six of the apartments were owned by Hong Kong Chinese, all unable to believe their luck in getting a waterfront home for less than half they would have paid for a place halfway up The Peak in Hong Kong. Point Piper, a manicured finger of land pointing out into the harbour, was one of the best addresses in Sydney. True, it had been named after a naval officer who was both a rake and a conman, and he had been followed by others of the same inclination, none of them reducing the locality’s value with their reputations. Sydney’s eastern suburbs residents, so long as they have a water view, are prone to forgive their neighbours anything. Except, perhaps, seduction of their own wives and a looting of their assets.

      Kate had dropped Malone off at the entrance to the apartments. Crime Scene tapes roped off a silver Mercedes, giving the impression that the car had somehow strayed in from the used car lots out along Parramatta Road. One of the Physical Evidence team, a redheaded slim young man, came across to Malone.

      ‘Morning, sir. We’ve found the bullets – Thirty-twos, they look like. And a cartridge shell out there –’ He nodded towards the quiet street. ‘Looks like they were parked at the kerb there, waiting. We haven’t found anything else.’

      Then Clements had arrived from Strawberry Hills and the PE man went back to examining the Mercedes. ‘What d’you reckon? Were they after Old Jack?’