Murder Song. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ drove down in an unmarked police car. The sun had disappeared and it was raining again, the rain riding a slanting wind down through the narrow streets of the central business district. Sydney was still a clean city compared to many, but high-rise development was doing its best to turn it into a city of shadows on sunny days and canyons of gloom on days such as today. The roadway and the pavements glistened like dirty grey ice; a red traffic light was bright as a desert sun in the dull day; a shoal of umbrellas made a shifting pattern as it drifted down Bridge Street. Clements parked the car, but ignored the threatening meter with its Expired red glare.

      They rode up to the thirty-fifth floor, rising past the bank offices on the lower floors to the executive offices of Cossack Holdings. The reception lobby would not have been out of place in a five-star hotel. The black-haired girl behind the big desk was dressed in a beige suede suit that complemented the green suede walls. A Brett Whiteley hung on one wall; an Arthur Boyd faced it. This was not a reception lobby that welcomed would-be clients rattling a tin cup.

      The girl did not look surprised that Cossack should be visited by the police. ‘May I tell Mr Bousakis the nature of your visit?’ Her vowels were as rounded as her figure.

      ‘Who’s Mr Bousakis?’ said Clements, who had made the introduction of himself and Malone.

      ‘The chief executive. You said you wanted to see the boss.’ She obviously thought all policemen were vulgar.

      ‘I think we’ll tell him the nature of our business when we see him,’ said Malone, smiling at her. ‘It won’t take long.’

      She didn’t smile back, but got up and went into an inner office. It was almost a minute before she came back and held open the door. ‘Mr Bousakis will see you.’

      The inner office was as big as the reception lobby; the shareholders in Cossack kept their executives in the style to which they aspired. George Bousakis did not rise from behind his big desk; from the bulk of him it looked as if he got to his feet only in an emergency. He was a huge man, at least six feet four and three hundred pounds: Malone still thought in the old measures when assessing a stranger. He was in his mid-forties with black slicked-back hair, a hint of handsome features behind the jowls and fat cheeks, and dark eyes that would miss nothing, even that which was hidden. He wore a pink shirt with white collar and cuffs, a blue tie with a thin red stripe in it, and a dark blue double-breasted suit. Converted to sailcloth, Malone reckoned there was enough material in the shirt and suit to have equipped a twelve-metre yacht.

      ‘Good morning. Miss Rogers didn’t say which section you were from.’ He had a pleasant voice, at least in timbre; but there was a hard edge to it.

      ‘Homicide,’ said Malone and explained the reason for their visit. ‘Miss Jack had a key to the flat. Who would have given her that?’

      ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’ Bousakis showed no shock at the news of murder in one of the company flats; Mardi Jack could have been something discovered missing from stock during an inventory check. ‘I wouldn’t know Miss – Jack? – if I fell over her.’

      It would be the end of her if you did, Malone thought. ‘Do you ever use the flat yourself, Mr Bousakis?’

      ‘Never.’

      ‘Who does use it?’ Malone sat back, letting Clements take over the questioning. Their teamwork was invariably good: Malone always knew when it was time to change the bowling.

      ‘Some of our executives. Sales directors, people like that. And out-of-towners, people from our interstate offices. We put them up there instead of in hotels. We’re very cost-conscious,’ he said, evidently blind to the indulgence amidst which he sat. The room, green and grey, had suede-covered walls like the outer office; the carpet almost buried one’s shoes; the furniture was antique or a good reproduction of it. The paintings on the walls were from the traditional school: there was a Gruner, a Streeton, a Wakelin: they were familiar, but Malone did not know enough to name the artists.

      ‘Any of the O’Brien Cossack personnel?’

      ‘Occasionally. We try to keep ourselves separate from the bank.’

      ‘Why?’

      Bousakis’ voice hardened just a little, his fat lips looked suddenly thin. ‘It’s just company policy.’

      ‘What about Mr Brian Boru O’Brien?’ Clements seemed to have a little difficulty in getting the name out.

      Bousakis’ gaze was steady. ‘What about him?’

      ‘Would he use the flat?’ What a bowler to have at the other end, thought Malone in cricket terms: Clements thumped the ball down straight at the batsman’s head, the West Indians would have offered him full citizenship right off.

      ‘Why should he do that? Mr O’Brien has the penthouse suite at the Congress, only a couple of blocks from here.’

      ‘He lives there?’

      ‘Yes. Mr O’Brien’s not the sort of businessman who goes in for flamboyant mansions. He likes to live quietly, without too much self-advertisement. We have enough of that in this town,’ Bousakis added with a curled tongue, and Clements nodded in agreement.

      Malone wondered what the penthouse suite at the Congress hotel would cost. Five thousand a week, six, seven, even allowing for corporate rates? It was an expensive way of living quietly, of being cost-conscious. He then began to wonder what the rumours were that Clements had mentioned about Cossack Holdings.

      ‘What does Mr O’Brien do? I mean in regard to Cossack?’

      ‘He’s the executive chairman. He leaves the day-to-day running to me, but he’s here every day, doing the strategic thinking. He wouldn’t even know we own that apartment you’re talking about.’

      ‘I think we’d like to see him,’ said Malone, taking over the bowling, deciding it was time to start seaming the ball.

      ‘I don’t think that can be arranged at such short notice –’

      ‘You mean your girl outside hasn’t already warned him we’re here?’ Clements was still thumping them down.

      ‘You’re pretty blunt, aren’t you, Sergeant?’

      ‘This is one of his milder days,’ said Malone, deciding that Clements had bowled enough bean-balls. ‘We don’t want to be rudely blunt, Mr Bousakis, but we are investigating a murder committed in a flat owned by one of your companies.’

      Bousakis said nothing for a moment, then he nodded. ‘Sure. It’s a good point.’ It’s the only point, thought Malone; but didn’t press it. ‘I’ll take you up to him.’

      He pushed back his chair from the leather-topped antique desk; only then did Malone notice the semicircle cut away in the desk-top to accommodate Bousakis’ belly. The big man looked down at it and smiled without embarrassment.

      ‘It’s an idea I picked up in London, at one of the clubs there. Brooks’. There’s a table where Charles James Fox, he was an eighteenth-century politician, used to play cards – they cut a piece out of the table so that he could fit his belly in. An admirable idea, I thought. I’ve always been built like this, even as a kid.’

      ‘How did you get on at СКАЧАТЬ