Autumn Maze. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ past their booth. Lisa put out a hand.

      ‘Mr Aldwych, we haven’t met. I’m Lisa Malone and these are our children. We’d like to thank you for your offer of dinner. It wasn’t meant to be a rude refusal.’

      Aldwych smiled at her. He liked good-looking women and this was a good-looking woman: blonde, well-figured, quietly dressed, with a frank but intelligent face. There had been a time when, intent only on the male enemy, cops and other crims, he had made little attempt to understand women. Except, of course, Shirl, the wife, whom he had understood and loved.

      ‘Mrs Malone, it’s a pleasure to meet you. And you, too.’ He looked around the booth at the three children; then at Malone: ‘Scobie, I understand. I wasn’t offended -I read the papers. It’s just a pity a simple gesture is suspected. I don’t mean you, you know who I mean.’

      ‘Sure, Jack. You well?’

      ‘Hoping to live till I’m a hundred. I’ll buy you all dinner on the day. By then I should be respectable.’ He smiled again at the children, then at Lisa. ‘Goodnight, Mrs Malone. The children are a credit to you. So is he.’

      He winked at Malone and passed on. Claire said, ‘What a nice old man! It’s hard to believe—’

      ‘Believe it,’ said Malone, ‘whatever it is. Why did you do that, darl? Stop him?’

      ‘It was spur of the moment,’ said Lisa. ‘I’ve been hearing about him off and on, bits and pieces, for – what? – three years now. A wife gets curious, whether she is married to a policeman or not. I just wanted to see if he was real.’

      ‘Is he?’ said Tom.

      ‘Yes, he is. Very real.’ And she looked across the table at Malone. Somehow, he thought, she had seen inside Jack Aldwych, seen the ruthlessness, dormant now maybe, that had been his nature for so long. ‘But why did you bring us here?’

      ‘Because it’s the best restaurant in Chinatown. I’d just forgotten he’s a part-owner. Righto, now here’s the worst part of the evening. The bill.’

      Going through their usual mockery of him, the two girls opened their purses and Tom put his hand in his pocket. Their mother said, ‘Put your money away. If he doesn’t pay, we’re all leaving home.’

      Malone grinned and even left a tip, a bounty that left the Chinese waiters unimpressed. It was only five per cent, but it was almost a mortal wound to the donor.

      2

      Next morning Chief Superintendent Greg Random, Commander of the Regional Crime Squad, came across from Police Centre to the Hat Factory. Malone had just called the morning conference when Random walked in.

      ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he said. Tall, lean and grey-haired, laconic as a recorded weather report, he had once been in charge here at Homicide. ‘You must have expected me.’

      ‘It crossed my mind,’ said Malone. ‘Who suggested it? AC Zanuch? Or the Minister?’

      ‘It was my own idea. Get on with it.’

      There were six Homicide staff at the conference, plus two detectives from The Rocks and two from Campsie. Malone introduced the outsiders to Random, then nodded to Clements to open the meeting.

      ‘So far we haven’t got out of the barrier,’ said the big man. ‘The missing corpse has turned up, or part of it. But we still dunno who he is or where he came from.’

      ‘There’s nothing in Missing Persons,’ said Peta Smith. She was sitting with her knees together, her longish skirt covering them, giving the newcomers from The Rocks and Campsie no opportunity to appreciate her good legs. ‘It’s early days yet. Maybe so far nobody’s missed him. Andy Graham is keeping an eye out.’

      ‘Someone, somewhere, is going to miss him soon,’ said Malone. ‘You think he came from your area, Mick?’

      Mick Griffin was one of the Campsie detectives, a young redheaded giant who on Saturday afternoons, when he wasn’t throwing his weight at crims, threw the discus in inter-district athletic meetings. ‘I don’t think he came from around our way, Inspector. We’ve been to all the pubs and clubs and showed the photos of him taken when he was found by the river. Nobody could tell us anything. We’ve talked to the girls on the beat on Canterbury Road, we thought he might of been an outsider trying to muscle in on the pimps there, but they told us there’s been no trouble for months.’

      ‘He doesn’t have to have had a record,’ said John Kagal.

      ‘No,’ said Malone, ‘but I’ll bet Sydney to a brick that whoever did him and young Sweden in has a record. Or if he hasn’t, he’s building up to one. This isn’t a domestic, these two were killed by a pro. Have you dug up anything in young Sweden’s flat?’

      ‘I went out to Edgecliff yesterday afternoon,’ said Kagal. ‘His flat is in one of the older blocks out there, but nicely furnished. Looks like he went for the good things. His car is a BMW 525, we found it yesterday morning still down in the garage of The Wharf.’

      ‘What did you find at his flat?’

      ‘These.’ Kagal emptied a large plastic envelope on to the table round which they sat. ‘There was a lot of the usual stuff in the closets and drawers – there were ten suits, for instance. All imported stuff, Italian.’ Kagal sounded envious. ‘Zegna, Armani.’

      ‘They’re expensive, right?’ Malone bought his home-grown wardrobe off the rack at Fletcher Jones or Gowings, usually at sale time.

      ‘Even I know that,’ said Clements, another poor fashion-plate.

      ‘Could we get off the style notes?’ said Random. ‘What you’re saying, John, is this man lived above his means?’

      ‘Not necessarily,’ said Malone, getting in first. ‘He made sixty thousand a year, plus bonuses. He could’ve spent every cent of it. Young fellers do.’

      The young fellers around the table shifted uneasily. Kagal went on, ‘He must have liked the ladies – his bedside drawer had enough condoms in it to cover every cock in the eastern suburbs. Sorry, Peta.’

      She said nothing, but Malone said, ‘Nicely put, John. Just don’t put it on the computer. Go on.’

      ‘There are these American Express card account statements. He made a trip to Manila last month, stayed at the Manila Plaza, that’s a five-star hotel.’

      ‘He could’ve gone there for his firm.’

      ‘Yes, except I checked the dates. He flew out on the Friday night, came back on the Sunday. I rang Casement’s, they said they’d never sent him overseas on business.’

      ‘Could he have gone on one of those sex tours?’ asked one of the men from The Rocks.

      Kagal shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, not when he was getting so much here at home.’

      ‘Anything else?’ said Malone.

      ‘There’s this.’ Kagal pushed a cheque-book and bank statement across the table. ‘There are deposits every fortnight. The same amount, obviously his salary cheques. But look at СКАЧАТЬ