Peter Corris: The Washington Club

She said my name and I muttered hers out of a dry throat. Cy pointed to a chair that more or less put his desk between me and Mrs Fleischman. Good thing too, if I was to do any thinking. I sat down and tried not to let the flash I’d caught of her long legs under a short white dress activate any free-range hormones.

“The committal hearing opens a month from today,’ Cy said. ‘The Crown’s case is that Claudia hired Van Kep and another man to kill her husband. Van Kep, who’s a difficult character to read, says he doesn’t know the true identity of the other man and that it was him that did the shooting. Van Kep is being charged with conspiracy to commit murder. That’s the deal they gave him. He’s their chief witness. He’ll plead guilty and it’ll go through as smooth as you please. He’ll get seven years, serve four at the most.’

Claudia Fleischman watched me as Cy spoke. I looked at her and had trouble concentrating on what was being said. I nodded at what seemed like an appropriate moment.

‘Claudia maintains that Van Kep worked for her husband in some capacity she’s not sure of. She had no dealings with him nor with anyone else as alleged. She loved her husband and had no reason to murder him.’

I said, ‘What do you want me to do?’ I tried to keep the scepticism out of my voice. You don’t cop a seven-year sentence for no reason. A lot of nasty things can happen in gaol.

Mrs Fleischman smiled slightly and looked out the window. She’d caught the sceptical note. Cy replied quickly, trying to get past the awkward moment. ‘Investigate Van Kep. Find out everything about him. What he did for Julius Fleischman, why he’s lying about Claudia and, of course, try to find out who this other man is. It’s not credible that an assassin would work with someone he didn’t know.’

‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘Certainly an experienced one wouldn’t. Has Van Kep got a criminal record?’

‘Apparently not,’ Cy said.

‘Oh.’ That was bad-an inexperienced assassin could make all sorts of dumb mistakes, especially if he was on cosy terms with a woman like Mrs F.

‘Van Kep is both the strength and weakness of the Crown’s case,’ Cy said. ‘If he can be sufficiently undermined, he turns into a liability. Juries don’t like convicting on the word of self-confessed criminals, but they’ll do it if the information holds up.’

‘But Van Kep won’t be a self-confessed criminal,’ Claudia Fleischman said. ‘His trial or non-trial will take place after mine.’ Her voice was rather unusual, like the rest of her- deeper than you’d expect, with a suspicion of a lisp.

Cy nodded. ‘That’s a little spin they’ve put on things. It’ll be up to me to try to get the deal with Van Kep out into the open. The other side’ll try to stop me.’

‘There must be more to their case than just Van Kep.’

‘Yes,’ Cy said. ‘There’s…’

‘I can fill Mr Hardy in on the rest of it, Cyrus,’ Claudia Fleischman said. ‘I’ve had the training, remember? Perhaps you could drive me home, Mr Hardy?’

‘Claudia was a solicitor before she married,’ Cy said.

I tried not to stand up too quickly and not to let the fact that my car was a kilometre away bother me. We were all on our feet more or less together and Cy and Claudia were shaking hands. She bent smoothly, picked up a black leather purse with a strap and slung it over her shoulder. Her dress was plain, high-necked, pleated in front. She wore no jewellery. In her medium heels she was at least four inches taller than Cy who describes himself as ‘short average’-call her five foot ten in her stockings. I shook hands with Cy as well.

‘I’ll send you a contract, Cyrus.’

Cy winched. ‘Do that, Cliff, and be sure to keep me posted regularly. We haven’t got a lot of time.’

I followed Claudia out of the room. We both said our goodbyes to Janine and I pressed the button for the lift.

‘I walked here from the Cross,’ I said. ‘My car’s back there.’

‘I like walking, Cliff. We can go through the park. We could sit and talk there for a bit. I’m dying for a cigarette.’

We rode the lift in silence. In the confined space I could smell her perfume. I had no idea what it was but I liked it and hoped I wasn’t smelling of sweat. The streets were quieter and the people in the park had thinned out. She walked with a long, easy stride; she had the defined calf muscles you see in dancers and sprinters. And Tina Turner. Good shoulders. She headed for a bench in the shade, sat and reached into her bag. Out came a packet of Salem menthol filters. Back in my smoking days I switched from roll-your-owns to Salems when I had a cold. She shook two cigarettes up and offered me the pack. I took one and she lit us up with a gold lighter. I took a deep draw. The cigarette tasted good.

‘You’re not a smoker,’ she said.

‘I gave up ten years ago.’

She reached out, took the cigarette from me, dropped it on the ground and put her foot on it. ‘Don’t be an idiot. After ten years you’ve got your virginity back.’

I laughed. ‘You’re right, Claudia. Tell me about the other bits and pieces of the case against you.’

She looked out at the trees and grass and flowers and the few people sharing the space with us. The breeze was warm and I could smell the harbour. She puffed on the cigarette until it was half gone and then dealt with it the way she had before. I realised that we were sitting close together. Our shoulders were almost touching and I could see the fine dark down that ran below her hairline towards the corner of her jaw. I wanted to touch it and rubbed both sweaty hands together instead.

‘Sackville thinks a lot of you.’

‘We get along. He rescues me from my follies and that makes him feel adventurous.’

‘It’s more than that.’

‘Yeah. I guess we trust each other.’

She drew a deep breath and expelled it slowly. ‘I didn’t love Julius, but I had nothing to do with killing him.’

She told me that the prosecution had a couple of notes she’d written to her husband that were reproachful, even hostile. They accused him of being autocratic and unsympathetic to her needs. There was a witness, Judith Daniels, Fleischman’s daughter from his first marriage, who allegedly saw her at a motel with Van Kep. She also said that not long before he died, Fleischman had said he was afraid of his wife.

‘Cyrus says he isn’t too worried about the notes and whatever Judith might say. She’s vindictive and neurotic’

‘What does Van Kep say about it?’

She shook her head and the frizzy hair seemed to spring out and settle back. ‘We don’t know. They’re not obliged to tell us more than the general outline of his evidence. We have to assume that he’ll confirm it. He’s lying about everything else, why not this?’

A fat pigeon waddled over, took a peck at one of the cigarette butts and retreated in disgust. I watched it join the other birds and throw its weight around, shoving forward to get a grip on a crust.

‘Tell me about Van Kep.’

‘I know almost nothing about him. He’s tall and blond. I assume he’s of Dutch extraction, although he speaks standard Australian. I suppose he’s about thirty. I don’t know what he did for Julius. I wouldn’t have exchanged more than a few remarks with him.’

‘That’s all?’

She shrugged. ‘I could say that I suspect him to be capable of doing unpleasant things, but that might be just hindsight.’

I wanted to believe her but I didn’t know whether I did. I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter either way. I’d been hired to do a job and I’d get paid however it turned out, whether it helped Cy’s case or not. Those were the rules. But rules didn’t seem to matter too much at the moment. I felt a kind of sadistic need to crack through her hard shell of composure.