Autumn Maze

‘That leaves me the Minister. Thanks.’

‘No, we’ll skip him, too, for a while. There’s someone else you’ve forgotten. The cove they pinched from the morgue. If he was killed by the same method as young Sweden, then I’ll bet on it, he was connected to him. Try your luck.’

Frank Minto was on the running sheet in the computer, but he was likely to be overlooked if pressure increased on the Sweden case. It was not true that death made a level playing field.

4

That morning, coming back late from its all-night fishing, a trawler turned seawards to dodge the huge waterspout heading for it. It dragged in the last of its nets: in it was a badly mutilated leg.

‘We t’ought the spout, it gonna send us down,’ the Italian skipper reported to the police. ‘We said the prayers, pretty hard. Da spout, it missed us. Den we look in da net and dere was dis horrible t’ing!’

Though the leg was badly mangled, the foot was intact. Attached to the big toe was a tag, the figures on it almost washed out but decipherable under a microscope: E.50710.

Chapter Four

1

That evening Malone took Lisa and the three children to the Golden Gate, a restaurant in Chinatown. Lisa recognized the outing for what it was, a penance for sins of omission, but she said nothing. Any sense of guilt that could make him spend money on the children was all right by her. She was not extravagant and ran their home with old-time Dutch thrift, but at times Scobie’s attachment to a dollar, as if it were an organ of his body, upset her. Money was to be saved, sure, but it was also to be spent.

The restaurant manager knew Malone, though the latter was not a regular customer here; the manager knew every police officer in the central business district. With an illegal gambling club on an upper floor of the building, it was politic to recognize the enemy, declared or otherwise.

The manager came back to their booth after he had taken the Malones’ orders. ‘Inspector, Mr Aldwych’s compliments and he would like you and your family to be our guests.’

Malone looked towards the back of the restaurant, saw Jack Aldwych seated alone in a booth. The silver-haired old man nodded and raised a hand in salute. Malone nodded, then turned back to the manager. ‘Thank Mr Aldwych, but no. He’ll understand.’

The manager smiled, a Chinese smile that gave nothing away. ‘Of course, Inspector. Enjoy your meal when it comes.’

When the manager had gone Claire said, ‘Why did you do that, Dad? That was rude.’

‘I’m supposed to be the rude one in the family,’ said Maureen.

‘You are,’ said Tom.

Malone looked at his three. Claire, almost seventeen, beautiful (in his eyes) and (also in his eyes) about to be ravished by sex-mad thugs masquerading as ordinary decent young Australian men. Maureen, going on fifteen but already with one foot in the doorway of adulthood, pretty but unconscious of it, both eyes wide open, but not with innocence, to the world. And Tom, who at ten was beginning to realize that being a cop’s son was not all fun.

‘The man who offered to pay for us is part-owner of this restaurant, but he was once the biggest criminal in the country. A cop can’t take favours from a man like that.’

Maureen had raised herself in her seat, taken a polite look at Jack Aldwych, who gave her a small wave. She sank back. ‘I read about him in the papers. He’s retired, it said.’

‘People would still look at it the wrong way.’ Especially now. This very week two senior police officers were being investigated for having lunched with two top crims.

Claire gave him a smile and patted his hand. ‘Well, it’s nice to know you’re not bent.’

‘Thanks,’ he said and looked at Lisa. ‘What more can kids say about their father than that? Now, when dinner comes, eat everything, since I’m paying.’

‘We knew you’d say that,’ said Maureen and produced a plastic bag. ‘So I brought a doggy-bag, just in case.’

They had almost finished dinner when Jack Aldwych, tall and well-dressed, looking more like a slightly battered banker, of whom there were many these days, than a man who had murdered and ordered murders, came past their booth. Lisa put out a hand.

‘Mr Aldwych, we haven’t met. I’m Lisa Malone and these are our children. We’d like to thank you for your offer of dinner. It wasn’t meant to be a rude refusal.’

Aldwych smiled at her. He liked good-looking women and this was a good-looking woman: blonde, well-figured, quietly dressed, with a frank but intelligent face. There had been a time when, intent only on the male enemy, cops and other crims, he had made little attempt to understand women. Except, of course, Shirl, the wife, whom he had understood and loved.

‘Mrs Malone, it’s a pleasure to meet you. And you, too.’ He looked around the booth at the three children; then at Malone: ‘Scobie, I understand. I wasn’t offended -I read the papers. It’s just a pity a simple gesture is suspected. I don’t mean you, you know who I mean.’

‘Sure, Jack. You well?’

‘Hoping to live till I’m a hundred. I’ll buy you all dinner on the day. By then I should be respectable.’ He smiled again at the children, then at Lisa. ‘Goodnight, Mrs Malone. The children are a credit to you. So is he.’

He winked at Malone and passed on. Claire said, ‘What a nice old man! It’s hard to believe—’

‘Believe it,’ said Malone, ‘whatever it is. Why did you do that, darl? Stop him?’

‘It was spur of the moment,’ said Lisa. ‘I’ve been hearing about him off and on, bits and pieces, for – what? – three years now. A wife gets curious, whether she is married to a policeman or not. I just wanted to see if he was real.’

‘Is he?’ said Tom.

‘Yes, he is. Very real.’ And she looked across the table at Malone. Somehow, he thought, she had seen inside Jack Aldwych, seen the ruthlessness, dormant now maybe, that had been his nature for so long. ‘But why did you bring us here?’

‘Because it’s the best restaurant in Chinatown. I’d just forgotten he’s a part-owner. Righto, now here’s the worst part of the evening. The bill.’

Going through their usual mockery of him, the two girls opened their purses and Tom put his hand in his pocket. Their mother said, ‘Put your money away. If he doesn’t pay, we’re all leaving home.’

Malone grinned and even left a tip, a bounty that left the Chinese waiters unimpressed. It was only five per cent, but it was almost a mortal wound to the donor.

2

Next morning Chief Superintendent Greg Random, Commander of the Regional Crime Squad, came across from Police Centre to the Hat Factory. Malone had just called the morning conference when Random walked in.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he said. Tall, lean and grey-haired, laconic as a recorded weather report, he had once been in charge here at Homicide. ‘You must have expected me.’

‘It crossed my mind,’ said Malone. ‘Who suggested it? AC Zanuch? Or the Minister?’

‘It was my own idea. Get on with it.’

There were six Homicide staff at the conference, plus two detectives from The Rocks and two from Campsie. Malone introduced the outsiders to Random, then nodded to Clements to open the meeting.

‘So far we haven’t got out of the barrier,’ said the big man. ‘The missing corpse has turned up, or part of it. But we still dunno who he is or where he came from.’

‘There’s nothing in Missing Persons,’ said Peta Smith. She was sitting with her knees together, her longish skirt covering them, giving the newcomers from The Rocks and Campsie no opportunity to appreciate her good legs. ‘It’s early days yet. Maybe so far nobody’s missed him. Andy Graham is keeping an eye out.’

‘Someone, somewhere, is going to miss him soon,’ said Malone. ‘You think he came from your area, Mick?’

Mick Griffin was one of the Campsie detectives, a young redheaded giant who on Saturday afternoons, when he wasn’t throwing his weight at crims, threw the discus in inter-district athletic meetings. ‘I don’t think he came from around our way, Inspector. We’ve been to all the pubs and clubs and showed the photos of him taken when he was found by the river. Nobody could tell us anything. We’ve talked to the girls on the beat on Canterbury Road, we thought he might of been an outsider trying to muscle in on the pimps there, but they told us there’s been no trouble for months.’

‘He doesn’t have to have had a record,’ said John Kagal.

‘No,’ said Malone, ‘but I’ll bet Sydney to a brick that whoever did him and young Sweden in has a record. Or if he hasn’t, he’s building up to one. This isn’t a domestic, these two were killed by a pro. Have you dug up anything in young Sweden’s flat?’