The Easy Sin

‘Go back,’ Vassily had told her; he was a Bulgarian ex-communist and he knew all about capitalist bastards, ‘and tell Mr Magee you want redundancy pay and sick-leave pay. Tell him you want two thousand dollars.’

‘What’s redundancy pay?’ In Zamboanga she had never heard these esoteric terms.

‘It’s something capitalist bosses have to pay. Go now and tell him what you want or you will go to the Industrial Court.’

So Juanita Marcos came into the kitchen just as Corey Briskin came through from the living room. She saw him in his ski-mask and she opened her mouth to scream. He hit her with the first thing that came to hand, a copper-bottomed saucepan up-ended on the draining board. He was not to know, and she didn’t know, that she had an eggshell skull. She was dead before Corey and Phoenix, the latter with the bagged form of Errol Magee over his shoulder, had left the apartment.

2

Fifteen minutes after the Briskins had departed, a man arrived in the Magee apartment with intent to murder, not to kidnap. He came in through the same door as the one through which the Briskins had departed with their baggage. He saw the corpse of Juanita Marcos on the floor, knelt down and felt for a pulse. He remained kneeling on one knee for a long moment, then he shook his head and stood up. He knew who Juanita was, but from observation, not from meeting her. He was a professional killer and he had a professional contempt for collateral damage.

He went quickly through the rest of the apartment, pausing only to look at the messages on the eight computers and shake his head again, this time in amusement.

When he left he had been in the apartment only three minutes. He had touched nothing but the still pulse on Juanita Marcos’ throat.

Across the waters of Circular Quay he had been watched by a puzzled Darlene Briskin. She had been waiting for Errol Magee to come home and read the messages on the computers. Who was this stranger?

‘You are looking at where you live?’ The elderly man had appeared while she was concentrating, through the night-glasses, on the Magee apartment.

‘No, my mother does.’ She knew how to lie, she worked in a bank’s customer service: please hold, your custom is valued by us …

‘Very fortunate. I live in Essen, in Germany. Nothing to see. You are travelling alone?’

‘Just me and my boyfriend.’

‘Ach, a pity.’

Then her mobile rang. ‘Excuse me,’ she said and moved away along the deck. ‘Corey?’

Corey gave her the bad news.

3

Malone read the messages, all the same, on the computers in all the rooms. Then he went back into the living room where John Kagal and Paula Decker sat with Kylie Doolan. The Physical Evidence team were going about their affairs with their usual unhurried competence; Juanita Marcos was zipped up in a body bag, ready to be taken away. Murder, and the solving of it, is a business.

Malone sat down opposite Kylie Doolan. ‘You’re the girl mentioned in the messages? The one they want five million dollars for?’

‘Who else would it be?’

As if she wore the price tag round her neck. Kylie Doolan was a good-looking girl, an eyelash short of beautiful; it was her eyes, shrewd and grey, that distracted one from appreciating the rest of her finely chiselled face. She had thick blonde hair cut in a short page-boy style, a graceful figure and a voice cultivated a tone or two lower than its natural level. Malone found it difficult, even on short acquaintance, to like her.

‘Miss Doolan, I don’t mean to be rude – but why would you be worth five million dollars?’

‘Because I’m Errol’s girlfriend.’

He had known that; he had wanted to know what price she put on herself. ‘And where would Mr Magee be now?’

‘I have no idea –’

‘There’s a box with a half-eaten chicken-burger in the kitchen.’ Kagal was sitting on the long couch beside Miss Doolan. Handsome and well-dressed, as usual, he looked more like an adviser than an interrogator. Malone always found him invaluable when questioning women, especially young women. ‘Is that yours?’

‘I never eat junk food. That would be Errol’s. Or it might’ve been Juanita’s. Though I don’t know why she was here.’ She glanced towards the kitchen as the maid, in a body bag, was carried out towards the front door. ‘Are they going to take the – her – down in the front lifts?’

‘You’d prefer she was taken down in the service lift?’ said Malone.

For a moment she missed a step, without moving. ‘No. No, of course not. I was just thinking of the other tenants, the other owners –’

‘Should Juanita – that her name? – should she have been here this evening?’

Detective-Constable Paula Decker was from The Rocks station, the command that covered this downtown section of the city. The Rocks, short of staff, had called in Homicide and Malone, short of staff in his own section, had come down here with John Kagal, a junior sergeant. Tomorrow he would retire from the scene, go back to his office and leave the case to Kagal and another officer. And Paula Decker.

She was a tall girl: a high jumper, maybe, or a basketballer. She had pleasant eyes that, with her tallness, always seemed to be looking down. She had angular features that, had she been a man, would have made him handsome. She was dressed in a black trouser-suit and carried a handbag big enough to hold a year’s crime reports. She was efficient and, like John Kagal, ambitious.

‘Were you or Mr Magee expecting her?’

‘No. I gave her notice this morning and paid her off.’

‘You sacked her? She was unsatisfactory?’

‘She wasn’t exactly brilliant. She was lazy, but Errol trusted her and kept her on. No, I paid her off because we’re not renewing the lease. Yes?’ Kylie Doolan turned her head as Sam Penfold, leader of the PE team, appeared in the kitchen doorway.

Penfold ignored her. ‘Inspector, I see you out here?’

Malone followed him into the kitchen. ‘You come up with something?’

Sam Penfold had been coming up with something for twenty years and more. He was bony-faced with a hunter’s eyes; he hunted evidence as other men hunted game. ‘There are prints all around the place, but I’d say they’re the owner’s and his girlfriend’s. What’s she like?’

‘The original Ice Maiden.’

‘Never met her. We came up with this –’ He held up a pad. ‘It was in the sink, I thought it was a dish-rag. But smell it –’ Malone took a sniff, reared back. ‘Chloroform, right? It wasn’t used on the dead maid. So who was it used on?’

‘Mr Magee? What’s that they say about the plot?’

‘It thickens. I love it when that happens. It means PE guys like me don’t become redundant. Another thing – on a chair out in the entrance hall, there’s Magee’s blazer, like he’d thrown it there when he came in. And his trousers and shirt are on the floor beside the bed in the main bedroom. No shoes, though. Mr Magee has been home some time this evening.’

When Malone went back into the living room Paula Decker was saying, ‘Miss Doolan, there’s a Versace box on the bed in the main bedroom, tissue paper on the bed – where is what was in the box?’

She should be in PE, thought Malone.

‘I don’t know. It was a new dress and jacket, I brought it home this afternoon.’

‘How long have you known Mr Magee?’

‘I don’t know. A year, eighteen months.’

‘Miss Doolan, what do you do?’ asked Malone.

She gave him the full glare of the shrewd, challenging eyes. ‘I decorate.’