Babylon South. Jon Cleary

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      ‘All the time,’ said Clements.

      They went down the driveway, nodded to the surly security guard, waited for him to let them out of the big gates, then crossed the street to a slightly smaller house, also approached by a driveway. Sir Archibald’s son, the father of Walter, Edwin and Emma, had built this one in 1915, the year he had returned from Gallipoli minus half his right arm, and married the daughter of another prominent Mosman family. This house, too, had wide verandahs and narrow windows; its windows were still narrow, like the viewpoint of its present chatelaine, Ruth Springfellow, Edwin’s wife. Its garden was not as elaborate as the one the two detectives had just left, but it was just as ordered. Nothing grew wild in Mosman, not even weeds.

      The door was opened by Emma Springfellow. Malone introduced himself and Clements and she looked at him as if puzzled they should be on the doorstep. ‘Yes?’

      ‘We’d like to talk to you and Mr and Mrs Springfellow, if they’re at home. It’s about your brother Walter.’

      He had forgotten that he had ever met her. All he saw now was a dark-haired woman, with a single broad streak of grey along one temple, who might once have been on the way to being beautiful but had decided, of her own free will, against it. He did not see the inner woman. She was secretive, without even the phlebotomy of gossip. She had chosen loneliness and now couldn’t find her way out of it.

      ‘Who is it, Emma?’ Edwin Springfellow came into the hall behind his sister; behind him was his wife. The three of them stood stockstill, like statues waiting to be moved around in the museum that was their home. ‘Police? Do come in, please.’

      The house was indeed a museum; everything in it seemed older than its occupants. It was all quality and in its day had probably been expensive; it had not been neglected and the timber of the tables and chairs shone with years of polishing. If there was a television set, that icon of today, in the house it was not in evidence. People, like pets, sometimes are owned by their homes and take on their appearance. The Spring-fellows were all quality and polish but suggested the past.

      Malone and Clements were asked to sit down; the Springfellows arranged themselves on chairs facing them. It could have been a seance, though a medium or even a spirit would not have been admitted to this house without the best of credentials.

      Edwin and Ruth looked more brother and sister than husband and wife; Ruth seemed more out of the same mould than did Emma. Both were grey-haired, had thin patrician features, looked at the world with the same superior eye. They brushed each other’s hair every night and, when the occasion demanded, did the same with each other’s ego. Yet Emma, self-contained, feline, was not out of place with them.

      ‘Mr Springfellow,’ said Malone, plunging straight in, ‘would your brother have been the sort of man likely to have committed suicide?’

      There were gasps from both women, as if Malone had accused Sir Walter of bestiality. Edwin’s expression did not change.

      ‘No,’ he said in a clipped voice that sounded more English than Australian. ‘He certainly would not have done anything like that.’

      ‘What was his attitude towards guns?’

      ‘They were for sport, not suicide.’ Edwin’s tone was polite but cold. ‘If that’s what you are getting at.’

      He’s too well prepared, Malone thought. He could be a lawyer instead of a stockbroker. ‘Everyone seems to think we’re getting at something. Your sister-in-law had the same idea. Don’t you want to know how your brother died?’

      ‘Of course we do!’ Emma leaned forward; Malone waited for her to spring out of her chair. ‘But we’re not going to have his name besmirched!’

      Besmirched: he had heard that word only from learned judges in libel cases. But perhaps it was part of the vocabulary one would hear in a museum like this. ‘We don’t want it – besmirched, either. But let’s face it – this case is one of Australia’s biggest mysteries. I worked on it originally for a few days – it was front-page stuff in every newspaper in the country when he disappeared.’

      ‘1 remember it.’ Emma looked as if she might spit. ‘Reporters! Trying to turn our life into a goldfish bowl!’

      ‘It’s started again,’ said Ruth Springfellow. ‘We have an ex-directory number, but somehow or other they’ve discovered it and are ringing all the time, day and night. Whatever happened to respect for privacy?’

      ‘We’re living in the past, sweetheart,’ said her husband and, without irony, looked around the museum.

      Malone tried another tack, walking on hollow eggs. ‘This is a delicate question—’ Both women looked at him with apprehensive anticipation; but Edwin looked offended in advance. ‘What were relations like between your brother and his wife?’

      Edwin and Ruth were shocked; but Emma leaned forward again. ‘There were arguments. I always said they were an ill-matched pair.’

      ‘Emma!’ Edwin raised an open hand as if he intended to clamp it over his sister’s mouth.

      ‘It’s true. We all want to know what happened to Walter—’ She faltered for a moment and her face softened; she looked a different woman, one capable of love. Then she hardened again. ‘What’s wrong with the truth?’

      ‘Nothing,’ said Malone, getting in first. ‘It’s the only way we’ll solve anything.’

      ‘By dragging up the past?’ said Edwin.

      Malone gave him a steady look. ‘Yes, Mr Springfellow. That’s the only way we’re going to do it.’

      ‘Why not just let Walter rest in peace?’ said Ruth. ‘It’s what he would have wanted himself.’

      ‘No,’ said Emma. ‘He wouldn’t have wanted it that way at all. You know as well as I do, he wasn’t a man to let things rest, not even as a boy. He was like me, we always were. Let’s have the truth. It’s what he would have said.’

      ‘Can any of you remember anything of the day he disappeared?’

      ‘Nothing,’ said Edwin at once and Ruth, after a glance at him, shook her head.

      ‘I can,’ said Emma, looking at neither of them. ‘I was living here then with Edwin and Ruth—’

      ‘Where do you live now?’ said Clements. Malone always left it to him to take notes.

      ‘At the Vanderbilt in Macquarie Street. I’ve lived there for twenty years.’ She said it bitterly, as if south of the harbour were another country where she was a remittance woman not wanted at home.

      Malone said, ‘What do you remember of that day?’

      ‘How can one remember exactly what happened all that time ago?’ said Edwin.

      Emma ignored him. ‘Walter was very upset. I saw him for a moment before he left for the airport that morning—’

      ‘What did he say?’

      ‘It wasn’t what he said – I just knew. Walter and I were so close – we didn’t need to say things to each other. He just kissed me on the cheek СКАЧАТЬ