Winter Chill. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      ‘We’d better do it together,’ said Zoehrer. ‘I’ve only met her once before, at Clinton’s inaugural. She’s not a lawyer’s wife, you know what I mean? Not one for conventions, stuff like that.’ Then he seemed to remember that he was talking in front of strangers, non-Americans. He looked at Malone. ‘You getting anywhere with your investigations, sir? Inspector, is that right?’

      Malone nodded. ‘Sergeant Clements and I’ve just come on the case. Our Crime Scene team tell us they’ve come up with nothing. The only thing we can say is that it doesn’t look like a mugging, something unpremeditated. He was lured on to the monorail, or forced on, by someone who knew what they were about. Or maybe he was shot beforehand and carried on to the monorail. At this stage we don’t know. I have to ask this – would you know if Mr Brame had any enemies, someone who might’ve followed him from the United States? Was he working on some big case? I’m asking the obvious – the Mafia?’

      The big hands were spread wide. ‘Not as far as I know. Orville wasn’t a criminal lawyer, at least he hadn’t been in years. We lived and worked on opposite sides of the country. He was New York, I’m San Francisco and LA. Los Angeles. I guess all lawyers – civil as well as criminal – I guess we all collect enemies as we go along.’

      There was a knock on the office door and a young woman put her head in. ‘Mr Champlain, Mrs Brame has arrived. We’ve taken her up to her suite.’

      ‘How is she?’ asked the manager.

      ‘It was hard to tell. Upset, I suppose, but she seemed to be holding herself together. Someone met her at the airport and told her on the way in.’

      ‘Well, we better go up,’ said Novack. ‘Will you excuse us, Inspector?’

      ‘Mr Novack, this is a murder case, on our turf.’

      ‘Of course, how stupid of me. Let’s go. I just hope she can handle it, four strange men coming in on her like this.’

      When the four men stepped out of the manager’s office into the lobby, a sudden silence fell on the crowd still there. The throng opened up and they went through and stepped into a waiting lift. As the doors closed they heard the clamour start up again and Malone glimpsed photographers and reporters trying to break through.

      ‘I hope they didn’t shut up like that when Mrs Brame came in,’ said Zoehrer.

      ‘They did, sir,’ said the girl who was escorting them to the upper floor. ‘It was eerie.’

      ‘When you go back downstairs,’ said Malone, ‘see that none of the media get up to this floor.’

      ‘Can I tell them you’ll be making a statement later?’ This girl had dealt with reporters before; hospitality management had taught her they were a necessary evil.

      Malone sighed. ‘They’ll expect it. We never tell ’em anything, but they always write it down anyway.’

      ‘The media,’ said Zoehrer. ‘Bless ‘em, they think we can’t do without them.’

      He sounded sincere, as a good lawyer should, but Malone had the distinct impression that the big man would wring everything he could out of the media.

      The four men entered the Brame suite, doing their best not to look like a threatening phalanx. Vases, large and small, of flowers decorated the big main room, an intended welcome for the wife of the president of the ABA; no one had remembered to remove them and they now supplied the wrong note, like a laugh at a funeral. Even the bright airiness of the room itself seemed out of place.

      Joanna Brame was sitting in a chair, staring out of the big picture window at the city skyline on the opposite side of the narrow strip of Darling Harbour. As she sat there the monorail train came into view and slid round the curve beneath her like a pale metal caterpillar. She turned her head as the four men came in, but did not immediately rise. When she did at last stand up she did so with slow grace; there was none of the stiff angularity that Malone knew shock could bring. She was dressed in a beige knitted suit that showed no untoward bulges in her figure; a brown vicuna coat had been dropped on a nearby couch. She was tall with short grey-blond hair, the patrician look that came of a special mix of flesh and bone, and large grey eyes that had a touch of hauteur to them; Malone had the quick thought that Mrs Brame would not suffer fools gladly, if at all. She was also someone who could hide her grief and shock like an accomplished actor.

      ‘Mrs Brame!’ Zoehrer strode across the room, hands outstretched. ‘I’m Karl Zoehrer, we met at the White House—’

      She gave him her hand, held a little high, almost as if she waited for it to be kissed. ‘Of course, Mr Zoehrer.’ Then she looked at the other three men, waiting for them to introduce themselves.

      Novack did so. ‘There are no words to express our feelings over what’s happened—’

      ‘No,’ she said and looked at Malone and Clements. ‘Is it too soon to ask who killed my husband?’

      ‘I’m afraid so, Mrs Brame. May we ask you some questions?’

      ‘Can’t the questions wait—?’ Zoehrer all at once had become a heavyweight guardian angel.

      ‘It’s all right.’ Joanna Brame held up a hand; Malone had seen judges call for quiet with the same gesture. She might not be a lawyer’s wife, you know what I mean, but she would hold a jurist’s view of things, she would ask questions as well as answer them. She had a low deep voice with some edge to it that, Malone guessed, usually got her what she asked for. ‘Where is my husband? His – body?’

      ‘At the city morgue.’ Malone saw an excuse to get her away from the interruptions and interference he felt sure would be coming from Zoehrer. ‘We’ll need you to identify him. It has to be done by a relative.’

      ‘Has his brother been informed?’

      ‘His brother?’ said Zoehrer. ‘He has a brother here at the convention?’

      ‘No, he’s Australian, not American. He is a partner in a law firm here in Sydney. Rodney Channing. You may know him, Inspector?’

      Malone looked at Clements and left the answer to him. ‘We’ve heard of him, Mrs Brame. But he’s not in our line of work, he’s not a criminal lawyer. It’s a different name – are they stepbrothers?’

      ‘No, brothers.’ She reached for her coat; Novack helped her on with it. ‘Shall we go?’

      ‘I’ll come, too,’ said Novack. ‘Your husband is an American citizen, I take it?’

      ‘Naturalized. He was born here in Australia. Do you have a car? Thank you, Mr Zoehrer, I’ll be more hospitable when I’ve done this – this duty.’

      ‘Sure, sure.’ Zoehrer looked as if it was the first time in years he had been dismissed. ‘I’ll be taking over the convention – I’ll see there is someone to take care of you, Mrs Brame—’

      She turned back in the doorway of the suite; Malone, immediately behind her, had to pull up sharply. ‘I’ll be perfectly all right, Mr Zoehrer. Thank you, though, for your concern.’

      When Malone led the way out of the lift down in the lobby the crowd there had thinned out. There were still clusters of people around СКАЧАТЬ