Autumn Maze. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ a glass wall, across a wide terrace, to the harbour and the north-east. Behind the dividing wall that ran right across the apartment lay, Malone guessed, the bedrooms and service rooms. The furniture was a mixture of modern and antique, a cocktail of decor that didn’t turn the stomach. The pictures on the long wall were also a mix, but none of them clashed. Malone, a man any interior decorator would have hung on a wall in a dungeon, was nonetheless impressed. He was in rich territory.

      All the people in the room were grouped at the far end. Assistant Commissioner Zanuch detached himself from them and came quickly towards the new arrivals. He was ten years older than Malone but didn’t look it. Tall, handsome and arrogant, he gave the impression of being a banker in uniform rather than a police officer. His uniforms were custom made by the city’s most expensive tailor and the Police Service’s guess was that the insignia on his shoulders were all solid silver, he would not have been comfortable with less.

      ‘What are you doing here?’ He had a beautifully modulated voice but there was an edge to it now. ‘We haven’t yet decided whether it was an accident or homicide.’

      Malone smelled politics at once.

      ‘Oh, it was homicide, sir.’ Both men had kept their voices low; the faces at the far end of the room were turned towards them like small satellite dishes, blank of expression. ‘We’ve just come from the morgue. The opinion there is that young Mr Sweden was dead before he was tossed off the balcony. I’m taking charge of the case.’

      It was a challenge, and both of them knew it. The two men, because of the difference in rank, had had little to do with each other, but there was an antagonism that came to the surface on the rare occasions when they met on business. Malone could not stand Zanuch’s open ambition, his mountaineering amongst the political and social heights around town; the Assistant Commissioner had no time for Malone’s casual attitude, his apparent clumsiness in the minefields of respect for authority. All they had in common was that they were both good policemen.

      ‘You’re sure?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      They were stopped from further discussion as Derek Sweden came down the room towards them. Malone and Clements had never previously met the Police Minister; their political bosses came and went like seasonal viruses. Sweden was in his mid-fifties, bony-faced, bald and as elegantly dressed as Zanuch, but not in uniform. He had been in politics for twenty years without ever achieving his party’s leadership; he had at the same time managed to make money in property. The son of a political father and a mother who voted as she was told, it was said that he had shaken every hand in the State, including that of the head chimpanzee at Taronga Park. He had always been a State politician, but with the stunning defeat of his party in the Federal election two weeks ago, which had left party members on a merry-go-round, with each man stabbing the back of the man in front of him, it was rumoured that Sweden had set his sights on Canberra and the national playing field.

      He shook hands with the two detectives, voters both.

      ‘I’m sorry we have to be here, sir,’ said Malone. ‘Our sympathy on your son’s death.’

      ‘Thank you. From Homicide? What is this, Bill?’ He looked at Zanuch. ‘I thought we’d decided it was an accident. What’s going on?’

      ‘When Detective Kagal said that, I think he was trying not to make waves in front of the womenfolk.’ Zanuch might well have been a diplomat as well as a banker or a dozen other professionals. Sometimes he wondered why he had chosen to be a policeman. ‘Tell the Minister and me what you know, Inspector.’

      ‘Not that much, sir—’ Then Malone went on to explain what Romy had told him and Clements, though he did not mention the stolen corpse and the suspected similarity of its death to that of Robert Sweden. ‘Your son could’ve been dead before he was tossed off the balcony.’

      ‘Tossed off?’ Sweden looked at Zanuch as if to say, What have we got here?

      ‘Sorry. Thrown off.’ Malone could have chewed on his tongue; it had a habit of getting away from him, like a snapping dog, every time he came up against authority. He saw the look of irritation on Zanuch’s face and knew another black mark had been posted against him.

      ‘So what are you proposing?’ said Sweden.

      ‘We’d like to look around, with your permission. The PE team will have done its job, but I just like to look over things myself. Then we’d like to ask a few questions?’ He glanced at Zanuch.

      The Assistant Commissioner did not interfere in public; but he was visibly annoyed. ‘If you must.’

      ‘Dammit,’ said Sweden, even more annoyed, ‘I don’t want anyone questioned! Not now, not today. Christ, we’re still getting over what’s happened—’

      Zanuch looked at Malone. ‘Can’t it wait?’

      ‘I suppose so, sir. But the more time we waste, our chances of catching the killer get slimmer.’ You know that, even if you’ve never worked in Homicide.

      For a moment the Minister might just as well have been at the other end of the room with the still-watching group: the AC and his junior officer were locked in their own small tussle. Clements stood silent and aside, his face blank.

      Sweden interrupted: ‘Killer?’

      ‘Yes, sir,’ said Malone.

      Sweden, it seemed, was having difficulty coming to terms with the mere fact that his son was dead; that he had been murdered was piling too great a weight on his emotion. He looked blankly at Zanuch.

      The Assistant Commissioner, contrary to the national habit, took the long view: the way this present government shuffled its cabinet, this current Minister might not be in power when the Commissioner’s post became vacant. ‘I think Inspector Malone should do it his way.’

      Sweden shook his head, seemed about to make an angry retort, then changed his mind. ‘Go ahead, Inspector. Ask your questions.’

      ‘Where is Sergeant Greenup?’ Malone asked Zanuch.

      ‘In the kitchen, I think. He’s not a detective.’

      ‘No, sir. But he’s had thirty years’ experience. I’ll talk to him first. I’ll talk to Detective Kagal, too.’

      ‘You’re going to keep us waiting?’ Sweden was incredulous; he might just have been told that he had been dumped for pre-selection for the seat he had held so long.

      ‘I’m afraid so, sir. Until the two men out in the kitchen put me in the picture, I won’t know what questions to ask.’

      Sweden looked at Zanuch, then back at Malone. ‘Do you vote Labor?’

      Malone grinned. ‘Mr Zanuch thinks I’m a communist.’

      The AC’s smile was like that of a baby with wind. ‘Better get cracking, Inspector.’

      Malone and Clements left them and went through an archway into the other half of the apartment. As they did so, Clements muttered, ‘Are you trying to get us sent to Tibooburra? You go there on your own, mate.’

      Tibooburra, in the far north-west of the State, was the city policeman’s equivalent of Elba or St Helena. ‘If this case gets any muddier, I think I’d СКАЧАТЬ