Peter Temple - An Iron Rose

‘When was this?’

‘More than a year ago now.’

‘And you wouldn’t know if there was anything concerning Darren in the safe. Right?’

Perez gave me a reassuring smile. ‘We can check that. I’ll get Mr Bianchi’s file.’

He went away. I got up and looked out the window. Two men, both balding and bearded, expensive clothes, were leaning on cars, BMW, Saab, parked next to each other on the median strip. They were talking across the gleaming metal, lots of gestures.

Alan Perez came back with a folder, sat down, went through it, eyebrows again trying to merge. There were only two pages as far as I could see.

‘Yes,’ he said, eyes down. ‘That’s unfortunate.’

‘What?’

‘File’s confidential, obviously, but there is a record here of a tape, audio tape, left with Geoff for safekeeping.’

‘Where would that be kept?’

‘Well, in the safe I imagine. In the absence of other instructions.’

‘Are there other instructions?’

Perez drew his furry upper lip down. ‘No. So that’s where it would have been put. I’m sure.’

‘Still there?’

‘I’ll check,’ he said, left again.

He was back inside a minute.

‘No. Not there. No tapes.’

‘So it could have been taken?’

Eyebrows again, black slugs trying to mate. ‘If it was in the safe. Where we would expect it to have been. But we don’t know. Yes. It could have been.’

I tried him on. ‘My sister-in-law says my brother left clear instructions with you about something. That would be about the tape, would it?’

He wasn’t happy. ‘Client’s instructions are confidential, we can’t…’

‘Client’s dead,’ I said. ‘And you don’t know what you had in your safe. Followed his instructions, have you? I’m happy to have the Law Institute take this up.’

I got up.

Perez said, ‘Mr Bianchi, you’ll appreciate our problem here. With Geoff dead, no-one was aware of his client’s instructions. We could hardly go through all his files to see…’

‘He’s my brother,’ I said. ‘All I want to know is what he wanted you to do. There’s something says you can’t tell me that?’

Pause. Perez shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose not. He wanted the tape handed over to the Director of Public Prosecutions. With copies to the media.’

‘In the event of what? When was this to be done?’

He couldn’t back off now.

‘In the event of his death from other than natural causes.’

‘He’s dead. Of unnatural causes.’

‘We didn’t know that. Unfortunately.’

‘Followed the instructions?’

He shrugged, crossed his legs. ‘You’ll understand our position, Mr Bianchi. The circumstances are such that we find ourselves…it would be unreasonable…we didn’t even know he was dead.’

‘Okay, I’ll accept that. Is there a Mrs Radomsky?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’d like to talk to her. He may have said something to her about the tape.’

‘Very unlikely. And I’m not sure that she…’

‘Alan,’ I said, ‘you owe this to Darren’s widow. You were negligent in your handling of a client’s affairs. You did not have procedures for ensuring that a client’s instructions were followed and…’

‘I’ll ring her,’ he said. ‘Would you excuse me for a moment?’

I went out and sat in the waiting area for a few minutes. Perez came out and beckoned me back into his office.

‘Helen Radomsky says she knows absolutely nothing about any tape. Geoff never talked about clients’ affairs- never.’

‘What about his secretary? She here?’

‘No. She took Geoff’s death badly. Both secretaries did. They both resigned. You can understand…’

‘Got a number for her?’

Perez looked unhappy again.

‘Ring her,’ I said. ‘Explain what it’s about.’

I didn’t have to leave the room this time. He got out the phone book. ‘I got a call from some solicitors in Hawthorn asking about Karen,’ he said. ‘Blandford something. Here we go.’

He dialled a number. ‘Alan Perez, Fielding, Perez, Radomsky. Do you have a Karen Chee? Yes, thank you… Karen, Alan Perez. Good thank you. You’re well, settling in?…It was a pleasure. Karen, we’re trying to find out about a tape that should have been in the safe. Audio tape.’

He listened for several minutes, saying ‘Yes. Right’.

Finally, he said, ‘Didn’t see them again. Sure about that?… Yes. Well, thanks. Look after yourself…I’ll certainly pass that on. Bye.’

He put the phone down.

I held my breath.

‘She says Geoff asked her to get the tape copied, two copies. There was some urgency about it. The copying was done by DocSecure-they do confidential copying. She went into the city by taxi, the job was done, she came back and put the master tape in the safe.’

‘She had a key?’

‘No, there’s a slot. Anyway, she then dropped the copies off at Geoff’s house. It was after five. The arrangement was for a courier to pick up the package at Geoff’s to deliver to Darren Bianchi in Noosa. She assumed both copies were being sent.’

‘I’d like to talk to Mrs Radomsky.’

Perez sighed, hesitated, caught my look, dialled. ‘Helen, Alan, sorry to disturb you again. Look, it really would be a great help if Mr Bianchi could talk to you for a few minutes…I know, I know. It’ll put his mind at rest. I’d appreciate it…Great, fine, yes. Thanks, Helen.’

The Radomsky house was a minute away, a freestanding brick two-storey, lace ironwork in need of paint. But not for much longer: a panel van with Ivan De Groot, Painter written on the side was parked outside. I pushed a brass button on the front door. It was opened by a short blonde woman, chubby, in her early forties.

‘Mr Bianchi? Helen Radomsky. Come in. We’ll have to go into the kitchen, everything else is being painted.’

We went down a wide passage and turned left into a kitchen, a big room with windows looking onto a walled garden.

‘Sit down,’ she said. I sat down at a scrubbed table. She leant against the counter under the windows.

‘I’m sorry about your husband,’ I said.

‘Thank you. The most senseless thing.’

I nodded. ‘Mrs Radomsky, Alan Perez may have explained. My brother left an audiotape with your husband and it’s gone, not in the safe.’

She nodded.

‘His secretary says she had the tape copied late one afternoon and dropped off two copies here. A courier was going to pick them up.’

‘I remember a courier coming one evening. About six thirty. That’s two or three weeks before Geoff…I didn’t see what Geoff gave him.’

I put my elbows on the table, palms together. ‘It’s most likely Geoff sent off both copies. But I’d like to ask you something, just to be certain.’

‘Yes?’

‘If Geoff didn’t give the courier both tapes, where would he have put the second one?’

She smiled. ‘Well, he’d have put it on the side table in the study to take to work, forgotten all about it, put a newspaper on top of it the next day. Six weeks later there would be a panic search and we’d find it under sixteen copies of the Age , three books and four old Football Records.’

‘ Is it possible?’

She pulled a face. ‘I haven’t been into the study for more than ten seconds since the night. Actually, I haven’t been into it for more than ten seconds in years. And Geoff wouldn’t let the cleaning lady near it. He attacked the mess himself about twice a year.’

‘Could you bear to…’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Come.’

We went back down the passage. She opened the second door on the left, went in, pulled open heavy red curtains. It was not the study of a tidy person: books, newspapers, files on all surfaces, two bags of golf clubs leaning against the fireplace, a filing cabinet with the bottom drawer pulled out, two full wastepaper baskets, a team of old cricket bats meeting in a corner, empty wine bottles and several wine glasses and mugs on the mantelpiece.