Babylon South (20 page)

“Only at your own expense and in your own time. Get the Federals to do all that for you.”

“Right,” said Graham, disappointed.

He stood up and galloped off and Clements, who had sat silent during the instructions, said, “You're a bit tough on him, aren't you?”

“Right,” said Malone. “You want me to be the same with you?”

“No, thanks. When you've got shit on the liver, it's time for me to find something else to do.” Then he said with concern, “What's the matter with you, Scobie? You've been like a guy who prayed for rain and got acid instead.”

Malone leaned back in his chair. “I think I've got too much on my plate. Maybe I should ask Greg to give the Walter Springfellow case to someone else.”

“You asked him to let you keep it. Why not let someone else take the Emma case? I'll take that one over, if you like. You and Andy can keep on with Walter and his bones.”

I cant do that. The Commissioner has told me I have to stay on Emma's case.
But he could never tell that to Clements, no matter how much he trusted the latter to keep his mouth shut.

“I'll give it another week or two, see how we go. What have you come up with so far?”

Clements opened up his desk, took out the manila envelope and extracted Emma's diary. “I've been through this line by line. She was a sour old bitch—she doesn't seem to have had a good word for anyone except Walter, not even for her other brother, Edwin, and his wife. As for Lady Venetia and the daughter—”

“What about the daughter?” Malone tried to keep his voice casual.

“Emma accuses her of being someone's bastard, though she doesn't say whose. Three months ago—here, August 15—she says something about the „old friend'—that's in quotes—does he know about his bastard child? That's what she writes,
bastard child.
That's almost biblical. Then there's another entry—” He flipped through the pages. “Last Sunday. „J.—' it's just the initial—„J. phoned me and threatened me.'”

“
J. could be anyone.” J. for John Leeds, for instance: he shot down that thought as soon as it rose in his mind. “What about Venetia?”

“Oh, the diary's full of her for the past month—she gets a guernsey practically every day. But it's Emma threatening her, not the other way around. She's going to wipe the streets of Sydney with Venetia—those are her words in one of the entries.”

“What about Edwin and his wife? And Venetia's mother?”

“Nothing really bitchy about Edwin and his missus, just sort of cool. Alice Magee—yeah, she cops it a coupla times.” He dropped the diary back into the envelope, put it back in his desk and locked the drawer. “Emma made her own enemies. I think she was around the twist, myself.”

“Are there any other diaries?”

“If there are, we haven't found them yet. We've been right through the flat. There's a storage basement in the building, but we didn't find anything there of hers.”

“I'd like to go through that diary myself some time, just in case you missed something.” Clements looked offended and Malone grinned. “Come on, you know four eyes are better than two. Now what about Ballistics—you heard anything from them?”

“Came in this morning. They took two bullets from her, both .380s, round nose profile. Ballistics say they could have come from a Walther. I checked with the insurance company—it was Intercapital—and Walter's gun collection was insured with them and Venetia had kept up the insurance.

“There was a Colt .45 and a Walther PPK .380, both automatics, in the collection. They are the two that are missing.”

“Scientific?”

“So far all they've come up with are some prints on three drinking glasses—one set of prints are Emma's. The others are a small set, could be a woman's, and a man's. There's a fourth set on the doorhandle of the bedroom.”

“The doorman's? He went into the bedroom to find her.”

“I dunno. We have to check that. There's a fifth and sixth set, but they could be old ones, a day
or
so old. The maid who cleans up didn't come in on Monday, she had the „flu or something.”

“Seems there are bloody prints all over!”

Clements nodded glumly, “I know. They found a couple of threads on the key in the front door, as if someone had brushed against it, maybe in a hurry, and torn their dress. Blue threads.”

“Dress?”

“So Scientific think. They don't think it's from a feller's shirt, unless Emma was entertaining a ballet dancer.”

Malone grinned. “Have you ever been to the ballet? Some of them have bigger balls than the front row from South Sydney.”

Clements had been saving something; he looked uncharacteristically smug as he produced it: “Justine went back to The Vanderbilt a second time Monday night.”

Malone felt a sudden weight, as if John Leeds had slumped against him. “Someone saw her?”

“Two of the tenants, a couple named Pandon. They flew down to Melbourne yesterday morning to see the Cup and came back late last night. Our guys hadn't had a chance to talk to „em till this morning.”

“What did they have to say?”

“About eleven on Monday night they came back from a concert at the Opera House. Justine was pressing Emma's intercom buzzer. They knew her slightly, they're pretty social types, I gather, always in Dorian Wilde's column, you know the sort—”

Malone didn't; but he said patiently, “Go on.”

“Well, they let her in with their key and she went up in the lift with them. They live on the sixth floor.”

“They'll give evidence?”

“I gather Mrs. Pandon will do anything that'll get her name in the papers. They're old money, but vulgar. Or anyway she is.”

“You're becoming a snob in your old age.” Malone was silent a moment, feeling a burden he
hadn'
t anticipated already settling on him. Then he sighed and stood up. “Righto, I think we'd better start all over again with Justine. She looks like our best bet.”

The best bet would be to forget the whole thing and get a transfer to Traffic Branch: Malone could already see the traps beginning to show through the roadside undergrowth. He could not, however, flash the red light on Clements, not too obviously and not yet. He stood up, felt like a man standing in the middle of a road on which accidents were going to happen at any moment, a traffic cop whom everyone was, wittingly or unwittingly, ready to run down.

He said, trying to keep the reluctance out of his voice, “Let's go down and see Miss Springfellow.”

They drove down to Springfellow House, persuaded the parking attendant of police parking privileges and rode up in the lift to the twenty-ninth floor. Miss Springfellow's secretary came out to the reception area. She was in her late twenties, just the right side of plainness, a girl who had tried to make the most of herself by being as up-to-the-minute stylish as possible. Her clothes were expensive, possibly more than she could afford, and her hair was a mass of ringlets; Malone thought it looked like a bird's nest hit by a strong wind, but he was a man of simple tastes when it came to coiffure. He guessed that the secretary was not afraid of men, not even
police
men.

“Miss Springfellow is not in this morning.” Her tone implied that
they,
too, should not be here this morning. “She was
shattered
by her aunt's murder. We all were.”

“Could we go somewhere a little more private?” said Malone. Through a big glass partition they were being watched by half a dozen girls, crouching behind their computers and typewriters as if behind machine-guns. There wasn't a man in sight, no one to infiltrate behind the lines. “I think we're keeping your staff from their work. You're Miss—?”

“Quantock—Ms.” It came out as
Mizzzz
, squeezed out like a hiss. “We'll go into Ms. Springfellow's office.”

She led the way into the office where the two detectives had been two days before. She sat behind the desk and waved Malone and Clements into the chairs opposite her. Crumbs, thought Malone,
trying
hard not to be a male chauvinist and barely succeeding, this building is riddled with masterful (mistressful?) women. Ms. Quantock was sure of her destiny.

“I'm not entitled to speak for Ms Springfellow—”

“Oh, I thought you were,” said Clements, never one to dodge being a chauvinist; he tried occasionally for chivalry, especially towards Lisa Malone, but, being an Aussie, it gave him a hernia. “Sitting there . . .”

She gave him a look that buried a knife in his groin; then she looked at Malone, who appeared reasonably civilized. “What was it you wanted to ask me, Inspector?”

“Have you seen Miss Springfellow since the murder of her aunt?”

“Yes. She came in yesterday morning, but went home after an hour. I went across to see her this morning at her apartment. She is
shattered.”

“Yes, so you said. Did Emma Springfellow ever come up to this floor to see Justine? A business visit? A family one, you know, aunt visiting niece?”

“I don't think Miss Emma—”
Miss,
not
Ms.:
Emma, Malone guessed, would have cut anyone dead who called her Ms. “—I don't think she would have been seen—” She stopped abruptly, for the first time lost her composure.

“Been seen dead? Well, she wasn't, was she? Seen dead up here.”

Elizabeth Quantock sat silent, suddenly looked plain, all her sense of style gone; the wrecked bird's nest of hair only added to the impression that she had crumbled. Malone all at once saw that he and Clements so far had been shown only the façade. This organization to which she belonged, this building where she worked, had helped create her image. She was one with all the money-making that went on on this floor and the floors below; she had done her best to be part of the Scene. Beneath her feet were the $100,000-plus-a-year whiz-kids with their green-lined computer terminals, their phones growing out of their ears like a malignant growth, their high-pitched yells and the feverishly excited faces of the money-mad. Or that was how it would have been down there up until three weeks ago. Now the Crash, the postponement of the takeover bid and the murder of Emma had reduced the Scene to a
shambles.
Perhaps she was engaged to one of the whiz-kids; a diamond ring glinted on her finger; the future no longer was as bright as the diamond. She had nothing but her own original character to support her and suddenly she was having difficulty in locating it.

There was a knock on the door and a bald head appeared as the door was pushed open. “Oh, I'm sorry—” said Michael Broad. “I thought Justine was in—”

“Mr. Broad, this is Inspector Malone and Sergeant Clements.” She was a good secretary; she remembered names. “Mr. Broad, our finance director.”

Broad nodded to the two detectives. Years ago he would have shaken hands with them in the European fashion; but he had learned in Australia one did not shake hands with policemen. The rumour was that too many policemen had taken bribes that way, though Broad would never descend to that level. He was a venal snob.

“Are you interrogating our staff, Inspector?”

“Not the staff, Mr. Broad. Just Miss Quantock, just checking on a few things about Miss Springfellow. Justine, that is.”

“In what connection?”

“Are you Justine's employer, Mr. Broad?”

A warmer-blooded man might have flushed at that; but Broad just smiled coolly. “You know better than that, Inspector. But I think in all fairness you should be interviewing Miss Springfellow herself, not subjecting Miss Quantock to some awkward questions.”

Ms. Quantock had stood up as soon as Broad entered the office; she stood awkwardly behind the desk, like a lady-in-waiting caught on the throne.

“Our questions are always awkward, Mr. Broad,” said Malone. “We may have to come and ask you some, at the proper time.”

“You'll be welcome,” said Broad, realizing he had been dismissed and knowing when to go, without further argument.

When Broad had gone, Malone wondered why Broad had not asked what the questioning
would
be about.

But Clements was already back on the attack with Elizabeth Quantock: “Justine is a rich young girl. Has anyone ever threatened her?”

“Justine?” She had sat down behind the desk again, but all her composure had gone. “What do you mean?”

“Rich people are always under threat,” said Clements. “Kidnap, that sort of thing. Did she ever carry a gun for protection?”

That's it! thought Malone. Clements had put the questioning back on track. He realized that, subconsciously or otherwise, he had been trying to protect Justine; or, rather, he was protecting John Leeds. He, and not Clements, should have asked a question about the gun; he was troubled, uncertain that he would have raised the matter of the gun at all. He felt a weight settling on him like an iron saddle.

Elizabeth Quantock shook her head. “No, she never mentioned anything like that—I'm sure she would have. I did see—” Again she stopped.

“You saw what?” Clements at times could be remarkably gentle with his questioning. “A gun or something?”

She nodded, reluctantly. “Yes, a gun. It was in the desk here.” She pulled open a drawer, looked relieved to find there was no gun there now. “I didn't mention it to Justine. It was gone the next day—I never saw it again.”

“When was that?”

“Is any of this relevant, Sergeant?” She was loyal to her boss; she tried for some of her old assurance.

“Everything's relevant when we're talking about murder,” said Clements, voice still gentle.

Nicely said, thought Malone; and wished he were miles out of town, say on the traffic beat in Tibooburra, where three trucks and a pick-up would be the peak-hour crush. In his mind's eye, that nervous tic that afflicts the imaginative, he saw John Leeds coming out to join him in the accident lane.