Babylon South. Jon Cleary

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ why stop any enquiries, sir?’ Malone was on his way to making his later fame, the asking of undiplomatic questions of higher authority.

      ‘I’m afraid that’s classified, constable. Good day.’

      The phone went dead in Malone’s ear. He hung up and looked at Danforth, still lolling in the chair opposite him. They told us to get lost, Sarge.’

      ‘You see, son? Politics.’

      So Malone went to Hong Kong to play cricket in front of the English expatriates who murmured ‘Good shot!’ and ‘Well caught, sir!’ while the other 99 per cent of the colony shuffled by and inscrutably scrutinized the white flannelled fools who played this foolish game while the end of the world, 1997, was only thirty-one years away. Malone, who took fourteen wickets in the two matches played and, every decent fast bowler’s dream, retired two batsmen hurt, was as short-sighted and oblivious as any of the other fools. They all had their priorities right.

      When he came back Sir Walter Springfellow was still missing and ASIO and the Commonwealth Police had taken the case unto themselves. Detective-Sergeant Zanuch had gone from Special Branch to the Fraud Squad and Malone himself was transferred from Missing Persons to the Pillage Squad on the wharves.

      On Sunday July 17, four months after her father had disappeared, Justine Springfellow was born. By then the file on Sir Walter Springfellow had been put away in the back of a Missing Persons cabinet drawer and Sergeant Danforth, soon to be told to get to his feet and join the Vice Squad, conveniently forgot about it.

      Sir Walter’s disappearance would remain a mystery for another twenty-one years.

Chapter One

      1

      By sheer coincidence, without which no successful policeman could function, Detective-Inspector Scobie Malone was, indirectly, working for Venetia Springfellow when the skeleton of a middle-aged man was found in some scrub in the mountains west of Sydney.

      ‘Up near Blackheath. I thought you might like to talk to the lady,’ said Sergeant Russ Clements, calling from Homicide. ‘It looks as if it might be her late hubby, Sir Walter. They tell me she’s out there at the studio.’

      ‘Are they sure it’s him?’

      ‘Pretty sure. The upper and lower jaws are missing, so they can’t check on the teeth. It looks as if the whole lower part of the face was blasted away.’

      ‘How did we get into it?’ Meaning Homicide.

      ‘There’s no weapon, no gun, nothing. The detectives up at Blackheath have ruled out suicide – for the moment, anyway. Unless someone found the body, didn’t report it but pinched the gun.’

      ‘What’s the identification then?’

      ‘There’s a signet ring on one of the fingers – it has his initials on it. There’s also a briefcase with his initials on it.’

      ‘Anything in the briefcase?’

      ‘Empty. That’s why the Blackheath boys think it’s murder – if someone had stolen the gun, supposing he’d suicided, they’d have taken the ring and the briefcase, too. It’s him, all right. You want to prepare her for the bad news? They’ll come out later to tell her officially, get her to identify the ring and the briefcase.’

      ‘Are we on the job – officially?’

      ‘Yep. I just came back from my broker’s and there was the docket on your desk.’

      ‘From your who?’

      ‘My stockbroker.’

      ‘What happened to your bookie?’

      ‘I’ tell you later. You gunna tell her?’

      Malone hesitated. He hated that part of police work, the bringing of bad news to a family. Certainly the Springfellow family had had twenty-one years to prepare itself; it must by now have given up hope that Walter Springfellow was still alive. Nonetheless, someone had to tell the widow and, for better or worse, he was the man on the spot.

      ‘Righto, I’ll tell her. Can you come out and pick me up?’

      ‘What about Woolloomooloo Vice?’ It was their private joke.

      ‘You wouldn’t believe what they’re shooting today. The actor playing you wears a gold bracelet and suede shoes.’

      ‘I’ sue ‘em.’

      Malone hung up and smiled at the assistant floor manager who had brought him to the phone. She was a jeans-clad wind-up doll, one year out of film school, bursting with self-importance and programmed to talk only in jargon. She was always explaining to Malone how the dynamics of a scene worked. She was intrigued at the dynamics of Malone’s call. ‘A homicide, Scobie? A real one?’

      He nodded. ‘A real one, Debby. Where will I find Lady Springfellow?’

      ‘Holy shit, Lady Springfellow! Is she involved?’

      ‘Imagine the dynamics of that, eh?’

      He grinned at her and went back on the set to tell the director he would not be available for the rest of the day. He welcomed the escape, even if he could have done with better circumstances; he could not remember disliking an assignment more than this one. Sydney Beat, an Australian-American co-production, was a thirteen-part series and he was supposed to spend one day each week with the production as technical adviser. This was the third week and so far it had all been purgatory.

      Simon Twitchell, the director, was another film-school graduate; he had majored in temperament. ‘Oh God, what is it this time? You’re always pissing off when we need you – ’

      Malone wanted to king-hit him, but Twitchell was small and dainty and Malone didn’t want to break him in half like a cheesestick. He also had in mind that, though Sydney Beat was supposed to be a police series, the crew and the cast, all at least ten to twenty years younger than Malone, had no time for real cops, the fuzz and the pigs. Sovfilm, making a John Wayne movie, would have been more respectful.

      ‘I was pissed off the day I walked in here,’ said Malone keeping his temper.

      Then Gus Leroy, the producer, came out of the shadows and into the lights. He was a short, round man who always dressed in black and whose moods and humour could be the same colour. ‘What the fuck’s the matter this time?’ All his aggression, like Twitchell’s, was in his language; they would leave bigger men to do their fighting for them. ‘You’re always fucking nit-picking. What’s wrong this time?’

      ‘You mean with the production?’ All at once Malone saw the opportunity to escape from this farce for good. ‘It’ll never get the ratings. Every crim in the country will laugh their heads off – they’ll think it’s the Benny Hill Show. I have to go and see Lady Springfellow. Hooroo, in case I don’t come back.’

      He walked across the set, watched by the crew and cast. The set was a permanent one, the apartment of the series’ hero, a detective-sergeant. Malone had criticized it, saying its luxury would embarrass СКАЧАТЬ