Again Clements looked out the window, then back at Malone. ‘No. Not yet.’
‘Ah.’ As wives say when told something they don’t want to hear. ‘I can hear her say that. Ah.’
‘No, it’ll be Ach! She’ll all of a sudden be Teutonic’ Romy, his wife, had been in Australia just over twenty years, but she was still proudly German. She liked Bach, Weill and Gunter Grass, three strangers Clements avoided, and occasionally tartly reminded him that not all Germans had been Nazis. They were an odd match but genuinely in love. ‘Even when I tell her that I was aiming for a trust fund for Amanda.’
Amanda was the Clements’ five-year-old daughter. ‘When did you dream that up, the trust fund?’
Clements grinned weakly. ‘Is it that obvious? Okay, when I first put the money into I-Saw, all I saw …’ He paused.
‘Go on. Forget the puns.’
Clements grinned again, but there was no humour in him. ‘All I saw was I was gunna make a million or more. It was gunna zoom to the top, like Yahoo. It was designed to help out lawyers, and lawyers are like rabbits. You get two lawyers in an office and pretty soon you’ve got four or six or a whole bloody floor of them. My stockbroker told me we couldn’t lose.’
‘How much has he lost?’
Again the grin, shamefaced this time. ‘He cashed in at the end of the first day’s trading, made 40 per cent. He didn’t tell me. I hung on, I was gunna make 1000 per cent.’
Malone pondered a while. This could not have come at a worse time; he had already recommended Clements for promotion. The Service had had a rough period, with Internal Affairs sniffing around like bloodhounds, and matters had only settled down in the last few months. But the media and the Opposition in Parliament were always out there, prowling the edges like hyenas, waiting to score points, scandal-chewers. He and Clements had always been honest cops, but they were always wary of outsiders. It came with the wearing of the blue.
‘Righto, you’re not going to have anything to do with the murder. You’re out of it. Entirely. But I want you to find out all you can about Mr Magee. He could’ve arranged his own kidnapping, if he’s in the shit financially. He might also have killed the maid. Has Forensic come up with anything more?’
‘Not so far. John and Sheryl are with the maid’s boyfriend now. They’re in the interview room. He’s a Bulgarian.’
‘I’ll leave him to you for the time being. When you’re finding out what you can about Magee, stay out of the picture yourself. We don’t want feature stories on you in the Herald or the Mirror. You know, Greg Random has backed up my recommendation that you take over from me.’ Random was their senior in Crime Agency. ‘Don’t bugger it up.’
Clements stood up slowly, as if his joints had set. ‘You’re not very sympathetic, are you?’
‘You said yourself you were greedy. What do you want me to do – bless you?’
‘I’ll be glad when you move out.’
Malone hummed, ‘You gonna miss me, honey, when I’m gone –’
They grinned at each other. The glue of friendship still held fast.
I’m gunna take half an hour off and duck over to see Romy.’
‘You’re going to give her the bad news in the morgue?’
Romy was the Deputy-Director of Forensic Medicine in the State Department of Health and second-in-charge at the City Morgue. She earned more than Clements and, like Lisa, kept an eye on household accounts.
I wanna get it off my chest.’
‘Good luck. I’ve got two females to interview, Magee’s girlfriend and his wife. Do I toss up?’
‘Take the girlfriend. She’ll always tell you more than a wife.’
They grinned at each other again, further glued by domestic chauvinism.
As Clements left, Malone saw Kagal and Sheryl Dallen come into the main office. He signalled them and they came in and sat down opposite him. They had no look of excitement on their faces.
‘Mr Todorov doesn’t think much of the New South Wales Police Service,’ said Kagal.
‘Or any police service,’ said Sheryl Dallen. I just wonder whose side he was on back in Bulgaria.’
Though not a lesbian or a man-hater, she always had reserved opinions about men. She was attractive without any distinguishing good looks, except that she always looked so healthy; she worked out three times a week at a gym and was on first-name terms with every muscle in her body. Just looking at her sometimes made Malone tired.
‘He doesn’t seem too upset by what happened to his girlfriend,’ said Kagal. ‘He’s already asking if he can claim worker’s compensation for her murder.’
Kagal always added distinction to the office. But his looks, his sartorial elegance compared to Malone and Clements, never hid the fact that, like Sheryl Dallen, he was a bloody good detective.
‘Keep an eye on him,’ said Malone. ‘Could he have had a hand in the kidnapping? Things went wrong when his girlfriend somehow got her skull bashed in?’
‘Maybe,’ said Sheryl, ‘but it’s a long shot. But we’ll put him on the list. Do we put surveillance on him?’
‘Let The Rocks do that.’ Never deprive another command of work. ‘Has the maid got any relatives?’
‘In the Philippines. We’re trying to get in touch with them.’
The paperwork of murder: ‘Try and unload that on The Rocks, too. In the meantime keep looking for Mr Magee. Though he’s ostensibly been kidnapped, he’s our Number One suspect for the moment. Unless you’ve got another candidate?’
They shook their heads, got up and left his office. He sat a while, trying to stir up energy and enthusiasm; suddenly he was in limbo. Was this what promotion did to you? He remembered that Greg Random, though a melancholy man at the best of times, had once told him that his devotion to police work had evaporated the day he had been promoted out of Homicide. Maybe there was a rung in the ladder of upward mobility (where had that phrase gone to?) where your foot found a natural resting place, where you really didn’t want to go any higher. But then (and he had seen it happen too often) there was the danger of growing fat and lazy on that rung.
He stirred himself, reached for his phone and called Detective-Constable Decker at The Rocks station. ‘Inspector Malone, Constable.’ He was always formal with officers from someone else’s command; he expected the same treatment for his own officers by other commanders. ‘What’s with Miss Doolan?’
I left her with her sister, sir, out at Minto. Macquarie Fields are keeping an eye on her, Minto is in their area. Any progress at your end, sir?’
‘No.’ Was she keeping score? Or was he becoming sensitive in his late middle age? I’m going out to see Miss Doolan now. I’ll keep you up to date.’
‘You want me to come with you, sir? I think I built up some rapport with her.’
He hesitated, then said, ‘No. I’ll be in touch, Constable.’
‘Yes, sir.’
It was always the same, the territorial imperative, the defence of one’s own turf. David Attenborough should bring the BBC Science Film Unit down here to study the wildlife in the NSW Police Service. Beginning with ageing bulls …
He had no sooner put down the phone than it rang: ‘Scobie? Sam Penfold. Norma has been back to the Magee apartment, something about the computers worried her.’ He paused: Physical Evidence were becoming actors.
‘Get on with it, Sam. Forget