The Easy Sin. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ said Malone.

      ‘Am I on a retainer?’ Tom was fast becoming an economic rationalist, a bane of his father’s.

      ‘I’ll shout you a night out at Pizza Hut.’

      ‘Investment bankers don’t go to Pizza Hut.’

      When Malone was leaving for the office Lisa followed him to the front door. ‘Any more on the promotion? You said nothing last night.’

      ‘It’s going through.’ He wasn’t enthusiastic about it. I got a hint I’ll be skipping a rank. How does Superintendent Malone strike you?’

      ‘I’ll get a new wardrobe.’

      ‘There’s a summer sale on at Best & Less.’

      She kissed him tenderly. There are worse fates than a tight-fisted husband.

      Malone drove into Strawberry Hills through an end-of-summer morning. The traffic was heavy, but road rage seemed to have been given a sedative. He was a careful driver and had never been a hurrier; he acknowledged the occasional but fading courtesy of other drivers and gave them his own. The day looked promising. He would turn the Juanita Marcos murder over to Russ Clements and relax behind his desk, mulling over the future.

      He parked in the yard behind the building that housed the Homicide and Serial Offenders Unit and sat for a while in the car. In another month he would no longer be Inspector Malone, but Superintendent Malone. He would no longer be the co-ordinator of Homicide, but moved to a desk in Crime Agency at Police Central.

      Strawberry Hills, named after the English estate of compulsive letter-writer Horace Walpole, though it had never looked English and had never grown strawberries, indeed had nothing to it but this large nondescript building in front of him, suddenly seemed like Home Sweet Home. In Homicide, whether here or in other locations – and the unit had been moved around like an unwanted bastard – he had spent most of his police life. It had not always been enjoyable; homicide officers were not sadists nor masochists. There had been times when he had wanted to turn away, sickened by what he had to investigate. But to balance that there had been the solving of the crimes, the bringing to justice those who had little or no regard for the lives of others. He hated murder and had never become casual about it. It was part of life and had to be accounted for.

      As a superintendent in Crime Agency he would be at least one remove from it, maybe more.

      He went up to the fourth floor, let himself in through the security door and was met by Russ Clements, who, he hoped, would succeed him. The big man, usually imperturbable, had something on his mind.

      I see you, mate? Before the meeting?’

      There was always a meeting each morning, to check on yesterday’s results, to assign new cases for today. ‘What’ve we got? Something serious?’

      He led the way into his office and Clements followed him. The big man, instead of taking his usual relaxed place on the couch beneath the window, eased his bulk into the chair opposite

      Malone’s desk. He looked uncomfortable, like a probationary constable who had made a wrong arrest.

      There were two more homicides last night, one at Maroubra, the other at Chatswood. The locals don’t need us, they’ve got the suspects in custody. No, it’s something else.’

      Malone waited. He had a sudden irritating feeling that Clements was going to tell him something personal he didn’t want to hear. That his marriage was breaking up?

      ‘The job down at the Quay,’ said Clements. The maid that was done in. Well, not her, exactly.’ He shifted in the chair.

      Malone, studying him, this man with whom he had worked for twenty-two years, said, ‘What’s eating you? You got ants up your crack?’

      ‘No. Well, yes – in a way. The maid’s boss, the guy who’s disappeared, Errol Magee. We’ve got a problem.’

      ‘We?’ Still puzzled, he yet felt a certain relief that Clements’ problem was not a domestic one.

      ‘Well, me.’ He looked out at the bright day, then back at Malone. I invested in Magee’s company, I got in when it was floated.’

      ‘So?’

      ‘You’re not helping me, are you?’

      ‘I’m listening, but you’re taking a long time to get around to what’s worrying you.’

      Clements looked out the window again. He was not a handsome man, but there was a certain strength to the set of his big face that, for the truly aware, was more reassuring than mere good looks. Right now, though, all the strength seemed to have drained out of him. He looked back at Malone. I invested sixty thousand dollars.’ Almost a year’s salary for a senior sergeant. ‘I’ve done the lot. The receivers are moving in on I-Saw, it’s gunna be announced today.’

      Clements had always been a gambler, first on the horses, then, when he married, on the stock exchange. But he had never been a plunger. Or so Malone had always believed.

      Malone shook his head. ‘Sixty thousand? You and Romy’ve got that much to spare?’

      ‘It’s not gunna bankrupt us. But no, we don’t have it to spare. Not for gambling – which, I guess, is what she calls it. I just got greedy. I thought things had settled down in the IT game, the mugs had been sorted out – you know what it was like a coupla years ago.’

      ‘Only what Tom told me. I was never into companies that weren’t going to show any profit for five, ten years. That were paying their bosses half a million or more before they’d proved anything. I’m short-sighted, I like my dividends every six months. One thing about the Old Economy, as I gather you smartarses call it, it had little time for bullshit. Does Romy know you’ve done that much?’

      Again Clements looked out the window, then back at Malone. ‘No. Not yet.’

      ‘Ah.’ As wives say when told something they don’t want to hear. ‘I can hear her say that. Ah.’

      ‘No, it’ll be Ach! She’ll all of a sudden be Teutonic’ Romy, his wife, had been in Australia just over twenty years, but she was still proudly German. She liked Bach, Weill and Gunter Grass, three strangers Clements avoided, and occasionally tartly reminded him that not all Germans had been Nazis. They were an odd match but genuinely in love. ‘Even when I tell her that I was aiming for a trust fund for Amanda.’

      Amanda was the Clements’ five-year-old daughter. ‘When did you dream that up, the trust fund?’

      Clements grinned weakly. ‘Is it that obvious? Okay, when I first put the money into I-Saw, all I saw …’ He paused.

      ‘Go on. Forget the puns.’

      Clements grinned again, but there was no humour in him. ‘All I saw was I was gunna make a million or more. It was gunna zoom to the top, like Yahoo. It was designed to help out lawyers, and lawyers are like rabbits. You get two lawyers in an office and pretty soon you’ve got four or six or a whole bloody floor of them. My stockbroker told me we couldn’t lose.’

      ‘How much has he lost?’

      Again СКАЧАТЬ