Yesterday’s Shadow

‘Yes, I met her, once down in Canberra just after they had arrived and twice up here. I took her shopping one day and another day I took her to lunch. She was trying to get the feel of – well, Australians, I guess.’

‘But?’ said Malone.

‘But?’ She paused, with her cup held in front of her face like a mask.

Greg Random said, ‘Miz Caporetto, we cops read what is unsaid. It comes with experience – in other circumstances we might have made good diplomats.’ He looked sideways at Malone. ‘Except Inspector Malone, who is notoriously undiplomatic.’

‘Nice coffee,’ said Malone diplomatically, holding up his cup.

Her first smile had been forced, a muscular effort, but now she appeared a little more relaxed; she shook her head and smiled at both of them. She looked like a sex bomb, but she had a cool mind that could always control it.

‘Yes – but. I just, I don’t know, I felt she wasn’t entirely a stranger here.’

‘Did you query her on it?’

‘Yes. Diplomatically.’ Just a faint smile.

‘And what did she say?’

She took a memory pause; then she said, ‘I’m being mean, but it was like she was making up an answer. Then she said she had been out here eight or nine years ago on a quick business trip. She had stayed at the Regent.’

‘Five-star,’ said Malone. ‘So why did she choose the Southern Savoy this time? It’d be struggling to pick up three stars.’

‘Did she let her hair down when you took her to lunch?’ Random had finished his coffee.

She got up, took his cup and poured more coffee for him. ‘Not really. We weren’t exactly girls on an equal footing – she was the Ambassador’s wife.’ She came back, sat down, paused again as if she realized she had spoken in the past tense: was the Ambassador’s wife. ‘She seemed to have tightened up after that first shopping visit. She wasn’t rude, but she was – well, distant. As if suddenly she had taken a dislike to, I dunno, Sydney or Australia. It happened after this guy spoke to her.’

‘Which guy?’ Random had almost finished his second cup. Slow in almost everything else, he was a quick coffee drinker, not a sipper.

‘We hadn’t started lunch when this guy came up, said, “Aren’t you –” I didn’t catch the name, he sorta mumbled it the way –’

‘The way Australians do,’ said Malone. ‘My wife is always telling me to open my mouth. She’s Dutch.’

‘Well, yes,’ said Ms Caporetto, trying to sound polite. ‘Well, anyway, she just froze him. She just said a blunt “No” and he apologized and sorta limped away.’

‘Did you get a good look at the man?’ asked Malone.

‘Not really. I was looking at her. He was short and, I’m not sure, bald. He stopped by for just a few seconds. The place was crowded and he just sort of disappeared.’

‘What happened then?’

‘Even at the time I thought it a bit strange – she just made no comment. She didn’t look at me, picked up her menu and, I think I’ve got it right, said, “I’ll have the oysters and the barramundi.”’

‘So she knew about our oysters and our fish?’ said Malone.

‘Well, yes, it seemed so. But she’d been in Canberra a coupla months – no, at that time a month or maybe five weeks – and maybe they’d told her what was best.’

‘What else do they have to talk about down in Canberra?’ said Random. ‘Where did you have lunch?’

‘At Catalina. It was a Friday, all the eastern suburbs ladies were there.’

‘What do you know about her back in the States?’

‘Nothing. I knew nothing about the Ambassador till we heard he was coming. He’s from Kansas City. I come from Philly – Philadelphia. Anything west of the Mississippi is still Indian territory to us.’

Just like us, thought Malone, though on a smaller scale. Sydney’s eastern suburbs thought of the western suburbs as Indian territory. ‘What’s he like?’

‘Charming. He’s no hayseed or cowboy –’ She stopped, shook her head again, looked squarely at the two men. ‘Why am I talking to you like this? Because you’re cops?’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Malone. ‘Because, like us, you want to know who killed the Ambassador’s wife.’

She pondered a moment, then she nodded. ‘Okay. As I said, he’s no hayseed. He graduated from the University of Missouri, then he went on to Oxford, England – he was there two or three years behind President Clinton. He’s very much okay and the word from Canberra is that he’s very popular and respected on the diplomatic circuit. Being a US ambassador is not the easiest job in the world, no matter where you are.’

‘What is the security set-up? Is there an FBI agent at the embassy?’

‘No, he’s here at the consulate – that’s the posting. But he went down to Canberra last night when Mrs Pavane didn’t return there.’

Malone glanced at Random. ‘Did you know there was an FBI man stationed here?’

‘Yes. It’s not top secret, but it’s not broadcast. So far we’ve had no dealings with him.’

Malone felt uneasy, but said nothing. Then Consul-General Avery came in. His face was stiff, but he seemed to have recovered from the shock that Random and Malone had brought him. He looked ready for business, unsettling though it might be.

‘I spoke to our Chief of Mission first, then the Ambassador came on the line. It’s floored him – he sounded as if I’d hit him with a ten-pound hammer. He’s coming up right away – they’ve got a plane standing by. He’ll be here in an hour, an hour and a half at the most. Where is Mrs Pavane’s body?’

‘At the morgue,’ said Random. ‘If you could meet him at the airport and take him there – it’s out at Glebe. We’ll let them know to expect him. He’ll need to identify the body. Then we’d like to see him.’

‘Meet him here, will you? We’d like to keep him away from the media for as long as possible, at least till he’s got over the shock. Once it’s on the wire services or the reps here of our bigger papers …’ His brows came down, his mouth twisted and for a moment he looked ugly. Then his face cleared and he looked at his watch. ‘Say one-thirty?’

‘We’ll be here,’ said Random, then turned to Gina Caporetto. ‘We won’t identify Mrs Pavane till we’ve talked to the Ambassador. We’ll keep her out of the news till then. But then –’

‘Then,’ said Avery with the voice of experience, ‘the fan starts whirring.’

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Random. ‘Inspector Malone will be handling it. He’s a good man on fans and what sometimes flies out of them.’

‘Shit,’ said Malone, but under his breath.

Going down in the lift, in the long drop from the 59th floor, Malone felt his spirits descending, too. There were only the two of them in the lift and he said, ‘Given my choice I think I’ll take the hotel’s cleaner and the knife job on him. You can have Mrs Pavane.’

‘You have no choice, chum. My Welsh mother used to say –’

‘Forget it. You Welsh are a melancholy lot.’

‘So are you Irish at times. Like now.’

3

With Celtic pessimism Malone believed in the invasion of the irrational into the orderly. But he did not always accept the toss of the coin by God or the gods, whichever one believed in. He would not accept the second toss of the coin.