Autumn Maze. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ checked that with the doorman. He said no, everything in the building is supposed to be for the comfort of the tenants. Silent lifts, things like that.’

      He sat back. ‘Peta, do you ever fall down on anything?’

      ‘Only in the guys I choose.’ She smiled and left him wondering if she was having love trouble here in Homicide.

      Clements came in with the preliminary report from the Physical Evidence team on the Sweden case. ‘They haven’t come up with much. There are fingerprints all over the apartment – evidently the maid goes pretty light on with the duster, she just re-arranges the dust. Fingerprints will check ’em out with everyone who comes and goes in the apartment, including all those we talked to this morning. I asked ’em to get Cormac Casement’s – that’ll go down well with the Wicked Witch when our guys walk in with their little pads.’

      ‘Anything else?’

      ‘They found a trace of blood on the fancy coverlet in the second bedroom, where there might of been a struggle. Just a faint smear, as if a needle or something with blood on it had fallen on the coverlet. It’s a fancy pattern, they say, and the killer could of missed the smear in it. There’s nothing else. If Rob Sweden had a visitor he knew, we don’t know if he offered him a drink. The maid said she washed up all the glasses this morning, Mrs Sweden told her to. Evidently Mr and Mrs Sweden had a drink when they got home from the opera and the uniformed boys were there to tell them what had happened. I’d have a drink, too.’

      ‘Righto, I’ve told Peta to start drawing up a chart. The Rocks can set up a command room, it’s on their turf. I don’t know why their D’s weren’t there when we were down there.’

      Clements bit his lip, an old habit. ‘Wayne Murrow gave me the word on that.’

      Murrow was a senior constable with the Physical Evidence Section. ‘Yes?’

      ‘Seems that AC Zanuch got in first. He laid down that it was to be handled directly by Police Centre. I think he also suspected it could be more than an accident. He wants to keep a rein on what goes on.’

      ‘Fred Falkender’s not going to like that.’ Falkender was the Assistant Commissioner, Crime, one of the seven ACs and no less senior than Zanuch, though without his ambition. Politics was part of the weather in this State and Malone could see the clouds already beginning to loom.

      ‘Scobie, let them work it out between them. Pull your head in.’

      ‘It’s right in, I’m not starting any fights on this one. We’ll do the donkey-work and let them up above make the decisions. In the meantime we’ll start talking to everyone connected to young Sweden. We’ll do them individually. The three sisters, their husbands – who do you want?’

      ‘Not the women. I’ve got Romy on my mind at the moment. One’s enough.’

      ‘Propose to her and all your worries will be over. Righto, I’ll take the sisters. I’ll also take young Jack Aldwych. We’ll leave Casement, we’ve got enough out of him for the moment.’

      ‘That leaves me the Minister. Thanks.’

      ‘No, we’ll skip him, too, for a while. There’s someone else you’ve forgotten. The cove they pinched from the morgue. If he was killed by the same method as young Sweden, then I’ll bet on it, he was connected to him. Try your luck.’

      Frank Minto was on the running sheet in the computer, but he was likely to be overlooked if pressure increased on the Sweden case. It was not true that death made a level playing field.

      4

      That morning, coming back late from its all-night fishing, a trawler turned seawards to dodge the huge waterspout heading for it. It dragged in the last of its nets: in it was a badly mutilated leg.

      ‘We t’ought the spout, it gonna send us down,’ the Italian skipper reported to the police. ‘We said the prayers, pretty hard. Da spout, it missed us. Den we look in da net and dere was dis horrible t’ing!’

      Though the leg was badly mangled, the foot was intact. Attached to the big toe was a tag, the figures on it almost washed out but decipherable under a microscope: E.50710.

Chapter Four

      1

      That evening Malone took Lisa and the three children to the Golden Gate, a restaurant in Chinatown. Lisa recognized the outing for what it was, a penance for sins of omission, but she said nothing. Any sense of guilt that could make him spend money on the children was all right by her. She was not extravagant and ran their home with old-time Dutch thrift, but at times Scobie’s attachment to a dollar, as if it were an organ of his body, upset her. Money was to be saved, sure, but it was also to be spent.

      The restaurant manager knew Malone, though the latter was not a regular customer here; the manager knew every police officer in the central business district. With an illegal gambling club on an upper floor of the building, it was politic to recognize the enemy, declared or otherwise.

      The manager came back to their booth after he had taken the Malones’ orders. ‘Inspector, Mr Aldwych’s compliments and he would like you and your family to be our guests.’

      Malone looked towards the back of the restaurant, saw Jack Aldwych seated alone in a booth. The silver-haired old man nodded and raised a hand in salute. Malone nodded, then turned back to the manager. ‘Thank Mr Aldwych, but no. He’ll understand.’

      The manager smiled, a Chinese smile that gave nothing away. ‘Of course, Inspector. Enjoy your meal when it comes.’

      When the manager had gone Claire said, ‘Why did you do that, Dad? That was rude.’

      ‘I’m supposed to be the rude one in the family,’ said Maureen.

      ‘You are,’ said Tom.

      Malone looked at his three. Claire, almost seventeen, beautiful (in his eyes) and (also in his eyes) about to be ravished by sex-mad thugs masquerading as ordinary decent young Australian men. Maureen, going on fifteen but already with one foot in the doorway of adulthood, pretty but unconscious of it, both eyes wide open, but not with innocence, to the world. And Tom, who at ten was beginning to realize that being a cop’s son was not all fun.

      ‘The man who offered to pay for us is part-owner of this restaurant, but he was once the biggest criminal in the country. A cop can’t take favours from a man like that.’

      Maureen had raised herself in her seat, taken a polite look at Jack Aldwych, who gave her a small wave. She sank back. ‘I read about him in the papers. He’s retired, it said.’

      ‘People would still look at it the wrong way.’ Especially now. This very week two senior police officers were being investigated for having lunched with two top crims.

      Claire gave him a smile and patted his hand. ‘Well, it’s nice to know you’re not bent.’

      ‘Thanks,’ he said and looked at Lisa. ‘What more can kids say about their father than that? Now, when dinner comes, eat everything, since I’m paying.’

      ‘We knew you’d say that,’ said Maureen and produced a plastic bag. ‘So I brought СКАЧАТЬ