Autumn Maze

‘I went out to Edgecliff yesterday afternoon,’ said Kagal. ‘His flat is in one of the older blocks out there, but nicely furnished. Looks like he went for the good things. His car is a BMW 525, we found it yesterday morning still down in the garage of The Wharf.’

‘What did you find at his flat?’

‘These.’ Kagal emptied a large plastic envelope on to the table round which they sat. ‘There was a lot of the usual stuff in the closets and drawers – there were ten suits, for instance. All imported stuff, Italian.’ Kagal sounded envious. ‘Zegna, Armani.’

‘They’re expensive, right?’ Malone bought his home-grown wardrobe off the rack at Fletcher Jones or Gowings, usually at sale time.

‘Even I know that,’ said Clements, another poor fashion-plate.

‘Could we get off the style notes?’ said Random. ‘What you’re saying, John, is this man lived above his means?’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Malone, getting in first. ‘He made sixty thousand a year, plus bonuses. He could’ve spent every cent of it. Young fellers do.’

The young fellers around the table shifted uneasily. Kagal went on, ‘He must have liked the ladies – his bedside drawer had enough condoms in it to cover every cock in the eastern suburbs. Sorry, Peta.’

She said nothing, but Malone said, ‘Nicely put, John. Just don’t put it on the computer. Go on.’

‘There are these American Express card account statements. He made a trip to Manila last month, stayed at the Manila Plaza, that’s a five-star hotel.’

‘He could’ve gone there for his firm.’

‘Yes, except I checked the dates. He flew out on the Friday night, came back on the Sunday. I rang Casement’s, they said they’d never sent him overseas on business.’

‘Could he have gone on one of those sex tours?’ asked one of the men from The Rocks.

Kagal shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, not when he was getting so much here at home.’

‘Anything else?’ said Malone.

‘There’s this.’ Kagal pushed a cheque-book and bank statement across the table. ‘There are deposits every fortnight. The same amount, obviously his salary cheques. But look at the other deposits. Where did that money come from?’

Malone looked at the statement: there were three deposits, each of five thousand dollars. ‘Bonuses?’

‘I checked with his office. The bonus is paid once a year, in June, just before the end of the financial year. He hadn’t received this year’s yet.’

‘Could it be money he made trading on the side?’ said Random.

Malone shook his head. ‘That’s not allowed and, as far as we know, young Sweden never tried it.’

‘Could it be gambling winnings?’ said Peta Smith.

Clements, the gambling man, said, ‘Five thousand each time? Your winnings are never as regular as that.’

‘You’re listening to the expert,’ Malone explained to the others. ‘Anything else, John?’

Kagal produced another envelope, dropped one item on the table, a second cheque-book. He did it with some flair, like a magician producing a second rabbit from a small hat. You show-off young bastard, Malone thought; and out of the corner of his eye waited for some reaction from Greg Random. But the older man’s lean, gullied face showed nothing.

‘That account’s in another name. Raymond Sexton. R.S. Same initials. It’s supposed to be difficult to open a bank account now without proper identification, but it can be done. Look at the deposits. Eight thousand, nine thousand five hundred, eight thousand again, seven thousand eight hundred. There’s just over seventy-two thousand dollars deposited in that account in the past three months, all in amounts under ten thousand dollars. That way the bank doesn’t have to inform the tax people.’

Malone picked up the cheque-book, glanced at the name of the bank. Then he looked at Clements. ‘Well, waddiaknow! Our old mates down at Shahriver Credit International.’

‘They’re in our territory, aren’t they?’ Terry Leboy, from The Rocks, was a young blond-headed man almost as well-dressed as Kagal.

Malone nodded. ‘We had something to do with them a coupla years ago. They’re shonky – plenty of capital, but they don’t care particularly who their clients are. So far they haven’t been closed down. Maybe they’ve been keeping their noses clean. Except—’ He tapped the cheque-book on the table. ‘Young Sweden was up to something. Try the bank. Find out if the deposits there by Mr Sexton were in cheques or cash. These statements don’t show.’

‘Do we tell ’em we think Sexton and Sweden are the same man?’

‘Sure, why not? If they’re trying to keep their noses clean, they’ll lean over backwards to be co-operative. Be polite.’

Malone gave out instructions to the other detectives and everyone left the table but Malone, Clements and Random. There were other Homicide men working on other cases in the big room. Random rose, jerked his head and led the way back into Malone’s small office.

‘Close the door.’

Malone did so. ‘We’re in trouble, right?’

‘Not yet.’ Random took a pipe from his jacket pocket and put it between his teeth. Malone, in all the years he had known Random, had never seen him light it. He had begun to suspect that the older man, the least actorish of men, used it as a prop. ‘The Minister is making noises.’

‘What sort of noises? Does he want us to call off the investigation?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Random sucked on his pipe. ‘There are waves coming down from above, from Bill Zanuch, even from the Commissioner, that I can’t fathom. The government’s got a majority of two, it’s had a few messy cock-ups the past couple of months, it doesn’t want its boat rocked again. If the Minister’s son was involved in something shonky, if the Minister knew of it—’

‘Do you think he did?’

Random shrugged, sucked on the pipe again. ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

Malone and Clements looked at each other. They had been this route before, with a Labor government, with past and present Conservative coalition governments. In any democratic State, politics is always ready to interfere; that, Malone was convinced, was what democracy was about. Power had to be protected, to a political party it was as precious as motherhood. So long, that is, as the mothers voted the right way.

‘Greg,’ said Clements, ‘we can’t just let this lay. We’ve got another four unsolved murders out there, ones that have got nothing to do with the Sweden case.’ He nodded through the half-glass wall to the big room. ‘If we drop another one in the Too Hard basket, the media will be on us like a ton of bricks. They’re ready to pile the shit. There’s those four young coppers accused of stealing drugs, there’s the suspected cover-up by our two senior blokes—’ He bit his lip. ‘Nothing may come of those, we dunno. But I’d rather protect the service than take care of the Minister. Four Corners is just itching to make another TV documentary that makes us look fools. If the media starts querying why we’re back-pedalling on the Sweden case, we might as well pack up, take our superannuation and go fishing.’

Random looked at Malone, held up a finger. ‘My finger in the wind tells me you feel the same way?’

Malone nodded. ‘Let’s do it our way, Greg. If the boat has to be rocked, too bad.’ He sighed, leaned back in his chair, stretched his legs; he was not relaxing, just trying to ease the sudden tension that had taken hold of his limbs. ‘I’ve reached a point where I don’t care a stuff about politics. I think I might welcome being shifted out to Tibooburra.’

‘Don’t write it off as a possibility.’ Random stood up, put his pipe back in his pocket. ‘Okay, go ahead. But keep me informed all along the way, everything you come up with, including stuff you won’t put in the briefs. I’ll make the decisions, understand?’

‘You don’t think I want to make ’em, do you?’ Malone grinned, but there was stiffness in his facial muscles, too.

As soon as Random had gone, Malone tried some politics of his own. He rang Fred Falkender, AC, Crime. ‘Sir, I’d like to come over to Headquarters and talk to the Minister. I thought I’d better tell you first.’

‘Does Chief Super Random know?’

‘He’s told me to pursue the Sweden case my own way,’ Malone half-lied.

‘You mean you haven’t told him you’re coming over here? Scobie, you really are a pain in the arse.’ Falkender had worked his way up from the ranks; there wasn’t a trick he did not know. Still, he laughed. He was always laughing, but the unsuspecting had too often found it was just a smokescreen. The Assistant Commissioner was too experienced to believe that all was laughter in the human comedy. ‘Okay, come over. See me first, I’ll find out if the Minister wants to see you.’

When Malone reached Administration Headquarters several blocks away, Falkender was coming down the corridor from another of the offices occupied by the seven assistant commissioners. ‘I’ve just been talking to AC Zanuch.’

Malone looked warily at him. ‘Yes?’