Yesterday’s Shadow

‘We’ll be there,’ said Malone; then looked at the manager who had raised his eyebrows. ‘Life goes on, Deric. We’re not cold-blooded bastards.’

‘No. No, I guess not.’ But he didn’t look convinced.

As the body was put on a stretcher to be taken away, Malone moved to the window and looked out. On the other side of the square the tall Italianate clock tower of the station reared like an unintended memorial above the dead in the old burying ground. Malone remembered reading somewhere that water from a creek that had run through the burial grounds had been used to make the best-tasting beer in the early days of the colony. Drinkers of it often finished up in the graves beside the creek, adding no advertisement for the beer. In the middle of the square, complementing none of the surrounding buildings, was a steel-and-glass construction that, for want of a better name, was called a bus shelter; those who stood under it said that the only thing it protected them from was the pigeon-shit of the birds that squatted on it. It looked as out of place as a glass condom on an altar, but that was the way the city was going. The dead in the burial grounds would, metaphorically, piss on it from a great height.

Central Square was not Sydney’s most glittering scene and he wondered why a seemingly wealthy American woman would have come here to this hundred-dollar-a-night hotel when more expensive and luxurious hotels, with much better views, were available only ten-minute cab rides from here. Then he saw a man get off a bus lugging a heavy suitcase and he turned back to the manager.

He waited while the body was taken away and Romy went out of the room, brushing her hand against Clements’ as she went. Then he said, ‘Where’s the lady’s luggage?’

‘There wasn’t any,’ said the manager.

‘You let people check in here without luggage?’

Deric looked embarrassed; he moved his hands again. ‘Reception uses its discretion. My girl thought Mrs Paterson looked – well, okay. Not a hooker. But …’

Malone waited, aware that everyone else in the room had paused.

Deric said, ‘People check in here sometimes for meetings – they don’t want to meet in more conspicuous places –’

‘Inspector,’ said Shirer, ‘Norma mentioned what was in Mrs Paterson’s handbag. Expensive stuff, she said – the watch and the pearls. Yet she signed for a safe deposit box downstairs –’

‘Did you know that?’ Malone asked the manager.

‘No. They didn’t mention it down at the desk –’

‘We haven’t looked at it yet,’ said Shirer, ‘but why didn’t she put the watch and pearls in it? Or anyway, the pearls?’

‘What time did you come on duty, Deric?’

‘I got here at, I dunno, five-thirty, quarter to six. They called me as soon as they found Boris’ body –’

‘Boris?’

‘The cleaner,’ said Shirer. ‘Boris Jones.’

‘Boris Jones?’ Malone managed to remain expressionless. ‘Righto, Deric, let’s go down and have a look at what’s in the box. The key in her handbag, Norma?’

Norma Nickles ferreted in the crocodile-skin handbag, held out a key. ‘That it?’

‘That’s it,’ said the manager and looked almost nervous as he took the key.

Before he left the room Malone asked, ‘Any prints?’

‘We’re still dusting,’ said Norma. ‘The report will be on your desk this afternoon.’

‘Not mine,’ said Malone. ‘Russ’.’

‘Thanks,’ said Clements and looked at Shirer. ‘The chain of command, Des. Does it ever get you down?’

Shirer looked at his junior man, smiled for the first time. ‘Not really, does it, Matt?’

Matt just rolled his eyes and looked at the two uniformed men, who, bottom of the heap, kept their opinion to themselves.

Malone went down in the lift with the manager. Deric was quiet, looked worried. ‘What about Boris? Our cleaner? God, two of them the same night! Management has already been on to me – you’d think it was my fault! Do you think there’s any connection? I mean between the two murders?’

‘Do you?’

‘Me? Why would I connect them? The woman’s a total stranger –’

‘Let’s hope she’s not,’ said Malone. ‘That always makes our job so much harder. We solved a case last year, took us seven years to identify the victim –’

‘Oh God,’ said Deric.

In the lobby Malone paused to give a non-committal comment to the media hawks, throwing them a bone that they knew was bare. ‘Is that all?’ asked the girl from 2UE. ‘Who is Belinda Paterson?’

Someone at the reception desk had opened his or her mouth. ‘That’s all we have at the moment, her name.’

‘No address?’ This girl knew that bones had a marrow.

Malone looked at the manager, who said, ‘No local address. Just an address in the United States.’

‘So she’s another tourist who’s been –’

But Malone had pushed the manager ahead of him into the latter’s office and closed the door before he heard the word murdered.

‘Oh Jesus, Inspector, I can see and hear ’em on tonight’s news –’

‘Deric, if they hang around after we’ve gone, you tell them nothing, okay? Nothing. Just refer ’em to us. Now where’s the safe deposit box?’

Deric went into an inner room, not much larger than a closet, and came back with the flat metal box. He opened it, then looked at Malone and frowned. ‘That’s all? A passport?’

Malone picked up the black passport, opened it. He had seen one or two like it before: a diplomatic passport. He saw the photo: the dead woman alive, looking directly into the camera as if challenging it. He read the name and the particulars, then he closed it, took a plastic bag from his pocket and dropped the passport in it.

The hotel manager could read expressions on strangers’ faces; it was part of his training. ‘Trouble?’

‘Could be. Keep it to yourself till I check. It’ll be better for the hotel, I think –’

‘If you say so. But –’

‘No buts, Deric. Have you been in this business long? You’re English, aren’t you?’

Deric had sat down, as if all his strength had suddenly gone. ‘No, I’m Australian. From Perth. I used to be an actor. I went to London, worked there off and on for –’ He shrugged. ‘For too long. I was out of work more than I was working. When I was out, I used to work as a waiter or nights on the reception desk in hotels. Five years ago I gave it up, the acting, and took a hotel management course –’ He appeared to be talking to himself. Abruptly he shut up, then after a silence, he said, ‘I thought everything was going sweetly for me.’

‘It still can, Deric. None of this is your fault. In the meantime –’

He went back upstairs, besieged again by the reporters. He knew they had a job to do, but they pressed their case too hard, as if history itself would stop unless they got the news to the voters immediately.

‘Tell us something, Inspector – anything! Are the murders connected?’