Babylon South

It took him several minutes to get to see Lady Spring-fellow; it seemed that she had more minders than the Prime Minister. Perhaps the richest woman in the land was entitled to them; there was no reason why rich women should be more accessible than rich men. All at once he longed for a call to go and interview someone out amongst the battlers in the western suburbs, someone alone and without minders. But not to give him or her bad news.

‘Lady Springfellow says what is it about?’ The last line of defence was an Asian secretary, a beautiful Singapore-Chinese with her blue-black hair cut in a Twenties bob and her demeanour just as severe. Malone could see her guarding the Forbidden City in old Peking with a two-edged sword and no compunction about chopping off a head or two.

‘I’ll tell her when I see her,’ he said evenly.

The secretary stared at him, looking him up and down in sections. She saw a tall, well-built man in his early forties, who was not handsome but might be distinguished-looking in his old age, long-jawed and blue-eyed and with a wide good-humoured mouth that, she guessed correctly, could be mean and determined when obstacles were put in his way.

‘I’ see what she says to that.’ In her Oriental way she could be just as stubborn. But when she came back from the inner office she produced an unexpected smile, though it might have been malicious. ‘Watch your step, Inspector.’

‘Oh, I always do that,’ he said, but there were some in the Department, including the Commissioner, who would have disputed that.

Malone had been told that the Channel 15 network was being done over in its new owner’s image. The previous colour scheme of the network, from ashtrays to screen logo, had been bright blue and orange, a combination that had brought on a generational bout of conjunctivitis known to ophthalmologists from Perth to Cairns as ‘Channel 15 eye’. The new owner had insisted on muted pink and grey, a choice that had viewers, on tuning into the new network logo, fiddling with their controls. The natives liked colour, otherwise what was the point of owning a colour set? Even Bill Cosby had a purple tinge on Australian screens.

The chief executive’s office was pink and grey; so was the chief executive, Roger Dircks, who sat in a chair at one side. The owner herself sat behind the big modern desk; reigning queens do not squat on their own footstools. She was dressed in pink slacks and shirt, grey calf-length boots and had a pink and grey silk scarf tied round her shoulders. A pink cashmere cardigan was draped over the chair behind her.

‘So you’re the estimable Inspector Malone?’ He had never been called estimable before, not even by the better educated, unembittered crims. ‘What do you think of our series?’

He thought he had better get that out of the way at once. ‘I have an eight-year-old daughter – she’ll love it.’

‘It’s not being made for eight-year-olds.’ The throaty voice suddenly turned chilly, an icy wind over the rocks. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘Lady Springfellow, that’s not why I’m here. It’s something more important – and I think it will upset you.’

Venetia went stiff without moving. He had not seen her in person since that visit to her home in Mosman long ago and he was surprised how little she seemed to have changed. True, there were signs of age, but she had lasted remarkably well. Her skin and jawline had kept their own suspension, there had been no need for lifting, and her blonde hair was still thick and lustrous. Even her mouth had somehow missed that thinning of the lips that comes to ageing women, as if pursing them at the misdeeds of men has worn away their youthful fullness. But then rumour said that Venetia Spring – fellow had never tired of men and was careless of their misdeeds, except in business. She was regal amongst her commoner lovers. Money and power turn a beautiful woman into a fantasy.

‘Upset me, Inspector? Then it must be something dreadful.’

Malone told her, as gently as he could. ‘They’re certain it’s your husband.’

Venetia blinked; but there was no sign of tears. She looked at Roger Dircks, who moved his small mouth as if he were trying to find words to fit it. He was a tall, plump man in his early fifties, with a smooth pink face under a pelt of grey hair that lay on his small head like a bathing-cap. He was dressed in a grey wool suit with a pink shirt and a grey silk tie. Malone, in his polyester blue, felt like an ink-blot on a pale watercolour.

Dircks stood up, moved towards Venetia, then stopped. One did not lay a hand on the Queen Bee, even in sympathy; she was to be touched only by invitation. At last he said, ‘This is God-awful, Venetia! It’s the last thing you want—’

‘Of course it’s the last thing I want,’ she said coldly. ‘You have a talent for the bon mot, Roger.’

Malone had an abrupt feeling of déjà vu; the last time he had met Venetia Springfellow there had been animosity between her and someone else – had it been her sister-in-law? He wasn’t sure; he had forgotten the case till he had come here to the studio and learned that Lady Springfellow was the new boss.

‘Do I have to – to identify him, Inspector?’

‘No, I think you can be spared that. There’s only a skeleton.’ She winced a little, as if she found it hard to believe that that was all that was left of a loved one. ‘But they’ll ask you to identify the ring and the briefcase.’

She said nothing for a while, looking at him and through him. Then she frowned, her gaze focusing. ‘I have a memory for faces and names. Haven’t I seen you before somewhere?’

‘Years ago. I came with Sergeant Zanuch to interview you when your husband first disappeared. He’s an Assistant Commissioner now.’

She nodded, looked abstracted again. Malone studied her while he waited for her to make the next move. She had come a long way from Venetia Magee, the midday TV hostess of the Sixties; he had never known where she had stood in the ratings, but it had been reasonably high. Her biggest cachet was that she had married into the Springfellow family; old money had meant more then than it did now. Now, of course, she had new money, her own, trainloads of it. He could only guess at what she owned, maybe even a major part of the country. She was the only woman amongst the nation’s twenty richest voters, a rose amongst some very prickly males who, it seemed, were always photographed looking sideways, as if they expected her to sneak up in ambush on them. It was said that if she wore her success lightly, others wore it heavily. She was a boss to be feared.

She said, ‘Did he die – naturally? Or suicide or what?’

‘They think it was murder.’ He didn’t want to describe the state of the dead man’s skull. The bereaved should be left with proper memories.

‘Murdered?’ She frowned again and suddenly, just for a moment, seemed to age.

Then the door opened and a young girl stood there. ‘Mother – oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you—’

‘Come in, darling.’ Venetia had recovered, the lines disappearing from her face. ‘This is Inspector Malone – he’s just brought me some bad news. This is my daughter Justine.’

Venetia and Justine: whatever happened to good old names like Dot and Shirl? The daughter had a resemblance to her mother, though she was more beautiful, her features more perfect; she had dark hair, instead of her mother’s blonde, but it was cut in the same full style. She was dressed as stylishly as Venetia, though not in pink and grey. She was in a blue silk suit and Malone didn’t feel quite so much of a blot. She had all the looks, but there was something missing: her mother’s shadow dimmed the edges of her.

‘Bad news? What bad news?’

‘They have found your father’s – skeleton.’ The image was still troubling her. A collection of old bones: could one have once loved that? ‘Somewhere up in the Blue Mountains.’

‘Blackheath,’ said Malone.

Justine sat down in one of the grey chairs. Dircks moved to her and put his hand on her shoulder; she was touchable, her mother’s daughter but not yet the boss. ‘It’s dreadful, love. You don’t need such a shock—’ Then he looked at Venetia, knowing he had said the wrong thing again. His shallowness had less depth than one would have thought. He had risen to this position as chief executive only because he was a survivor; he had no talent, managerial or creative, but that often wasn’t necessary in the entertainment business. Selling oneself was as important as selling air-time and up till now he had sold himself well. ‘I’ get your driver to take you both home—’

‘No,’ said Venetia. ‘We’ll finish our business first. After – what? – twenty-one years, another half-hour … When will you bring the ring and the briefcase, Inspector, for me to identify?’

‘The Scientific men will bring that, I guess.’

‘Was there nothing else? His clothes?’

‘They didn’t mention any. Can you remember what he was wearing when he disappeared?’

She shook her head. ‘Of course not. All those years ago? There would have been a label in them – he had everything made at Cutlers – he prided himself on the way he dressed.’

‘I’ see they bring everything to you that they’ve found. I have to go up to Blackheath now.’

‘To the scene of the crime?’ said Dircks, once more saying the wrong thing.

‘Crime?’ Justine spoke for the first time since she had sat down. She had just been presented with the discovery of the skeleton of the father she had never known. All her life she had felt a sense of loss at never knowing him and often, even these days, she sat in front of the photograph of him in the Springfellow drawing-room and wondered how much she would have loved the rather stern-looking, handsome man who had sired her. She had dreamed as a child, as a schoolgirl, even now as a young woman, that he was still alive, that some day he would come out of the past, like a figure in a mirage, and into their lives again. It gave her a shock and a terrible sense of final loss to learn that only his bones were left. ‘What crime?’

Venetia looked at Malone: there were certain things a mother should not have to tell her daughter. He caught her unspoken plea and said, ‘We think your father was murdered. I’m going up to Blackheath to start the investigation.’

‘Murdered?’ All her conversation so far had been questions. Malone had seen it before; shock could leave some people only with questions.

‘It’s only a guess at the moment,’ he said gently, ‘It’s not going to be easy to find out exactly what happened, not after so long.’

He was at the door when Dircks, foot in mouth again, said, ‘You didn’t tell us what’s wrong with our series.’

Malone noticed that, though Venetia was annoyed, she was waiting on his reply. ‘The cops solve everything too easily. It never happens that way, not in real life.’

2

A studio car had picked up Malone each week and brought him out here to Carlingford on the inner edge of the western suburbs. The studio, surrounded by landscaped grounds, backed on to a Housing Commission development; the Commission residents, battlers all, looked over their back fences at the factory where their dreams were made. They waved to the stars of the soaps who drove in every day; stars dim and tiny, but any galaxy is a relief from the kitchen sink and the ironing-board and a husband who thinks foreplay is a rugby league warm-up. One morning a woman had waved to Malone and he had waved back, hoping she had not recognized her mistake. He hated to disappoint people.

The driver got out of his car when he saw Malone come out of the front door of the administration building; but the detective waved him back. He stood on the front steps, savouring the mild sunny day. October was a good month; it brought the jacaranda blooms, one of his favourite sights. The landscape designer had planted jacarandas, interspersed with the occasional flame tree, all along the front fence of the big gardens; Malone wondered if, with the new owner, he would be told to replace them with pink blossom trees and grey gums. But Venetia Springfellow, he guessed, was an indoors person and probably never noticed the outdoors through which she passed. The seasons would mean nothing to her, except the financial ones. He wondered if he was going to finish up disliking her.