Jon Cleary - Babylon South

‘Not that I know of. We’re not the sort who have joint accounts.’ There was just a note of snobbery in the answer: Venetia Springfellow, or Magee, wherever she had come from, had also learned.

‘Where did Sir Walter bank?’

‘The Bank of New South Wales. Their head office.’

‘Were you the last to speak to him, other than the driver who took him to the airport?’

‘I think so. No—’ She hesitated.

‘Go on,’ said Zanuch carefully.

Venetia glanced at Emma. ‘I was at the front door – my sister-in-law ran across the street to say something to my husband.’

Zanuch waited for Emma Springfellow to volunteer something. Malone, callow in the ways of woman against woman, yet knew that he and Zanuch were on the outskirts of a female war. On the beat, as a probationary constable in Newtown, he had seen women fight like men, with fists, or anyway claws, and language that had had a nice medieval ring to it. This, however, was different, somehow more deadly. Knives would be used here, with good manners and kid gloves and decorous malice.

‘It was private,’ Emma said at last. ‘Nothing important.’

‘Nothing that would have upset him?’

‘I told you – it was unimportant.’

The two policemen stayed only another few minutes, getting nowhere. Venetia Springfellow took them to the front door, thanking them for coming; she could have been ushering out two guests from her chat show. ‘Do call me, Sergeant, if you have any more questions. We want my husband back home as soon as possible …’ Then she glanced over her shoulder at Emma standing in the shadows of the big hallway like a bit-part player whom the cameraman had missed. ‘All the family does.’

In the car as they drove away Zanuch said, ‘Well, what do you think?’

‘If I was the Director-General, I’d have run away from the sister, not the wife.’

‘Don’t put that opinion in the running sheet. No, I don’t think this is a domestic’ Domestic situations were the bane of a cop’s life. You might fight with your own wife, but that was no training for interfering in a battle between another warring couple; nine times out of ten both husband and wife told you to go to hell and mind your own business. Except, of course, in Mosman, where the domestic battles would always be fought in whispers and the police would never be called. ‘ASIO are probably right, it’s some activist group. If it is, that’ll be a Commonwealth job, we’ll let them worry about it. Keep an eye on it and let me know what you’re up to. Check Sir Walter’s account at his bank. I’ll tell Sergeant Danforth you’re to be kept on it for a month.’

‘I’m taking a week’s leave this Friday, Sarge. I’m going to Hong Kong to play cricket.’ That past summer he had played his first season in the State team. ‘Australia’s most promising fast bowler’, a cricket writer had called him after Malone had bought him three beers. ‘The Department thinks it’s good PR, a cop who’s a State fast bowler.’

‘What would they think if he was a slow bowler?’ Zanuch’s Latvian parents had brought him to Australia when he was one year old; thirty-four years later there were still certain Australian customs he didn’t understand or want to. Sometimes the original white Australians were as puzzling and annoying as the more original Aborigines. ‘Have you got your priorities right? We’re supposed to be looking for the country’s top spy, for Chrissakes!’

Malone said meekly, ‘I’ check the bank account.’

Which he did, that afternoon. No money had been drawn from Sir Walter Springfellow’s account. ‘But I believe he had – has – an account with our Melbourne main branch,’ said the bank’s manager.

Malone called Melbourne. There was some hesitation at the other end, then the manager there said, ‘I’m sorry, officer, we can’t give out that information. I suggest you contact ASIO.’

Malone hung up, sat frowning till Sergeant Danforth came lumbering across the room towards him. ‘What’s the matter, son?’

Malone explained the unexpected blank wall he had run into. ‘Do I call ASIO or pass it on to Sergeant Zanuch to handle?’

Danforth dropped heavily into a chair; he had never been known to remain standing for longer than ten seconds. He was a tall, heavily built man, old-fashioned in dress, haircut and manner; he looked like someone who had been left over from the 1940s and wished he were still back in those days. He was only fifteen or so years older than Malone, but two generations could have separated them. ‘Ring ASIO. If you don’t get anywhere with them, let it slide. We won’t wanna get ourselves caught up in any politics.’ that was laziness, not wisdom, speaking. ‘You know what politics is like, son.’

At that stage of his career Malone knew nothing about politics; but he was prepared to take Danforth’s advice. He rang Melbourne and after some interruptions and hesitations was put through to the Deputy Director-General. ‘Ah yes, Constable – Malone, is it? Yes, we have asked the bank to put a stop on any enquiries about Sir Walter’s personal affairs. We have looked into it and there is nothing there.’

‘Then why stop any enquiries, sir?’ Malone was on his way to making his later fame, the asking of undiplomatic questions of higher authority.

‘I’m afraid that’s classified, constable. Good day.’

The phone went dead in Malone’s ear. He hung up and looked at Danforth, still lolling in the chair opposite him. They told us to get lost, Sarge.’

‘You see, son? Politics.’

So Malone went to Hong Kong to play cricket in front of the English expatriates who murmured ‘Good shot!’ and ‘Well caught, sir!’ while the other 99 per cent of the colony shuffled by and inscrutably scrutinized the white flannelled fools who played this foolish game while the end of the world, 1997, was only thirty-one years away. Malone, who took fourteen wickets in the two matches played and, every decent fast bowler’s dream, retired two batsmen hurt, was as short-sighted and oblivious as any of the other fools. They all had their priorities right.

When he came back Sir Walter Springfellow was still missing and ASIO and the Commonwealth Police had taken the case unto themselves. Detective-Sergeant Zanuch had gone from Special Branch to the Fraud Squad and Malone himself was transferred from Missing Persons to the Pillage Squad on the wharves.

On Sunday July 17, four months after her father had disappeared, Justine Springfellow was born. By then the file on Sir Walter Springfellow had been put away in the back of a Missing Persons cabinet drawer and Sergeant Danforth, soon to be told to get to his feet and join the Vice Squad, conveniently forgot about it.

Sir Walter’s disappearance would remain a mystery for another twenty-one years.

1

By sheer coincidence, without which no successful policeman could function, Detective-Inspector Scobie Malone was, indirectly, working for Venetia Springfellow when the skeleton of a middle-aged man was found in some scrub in the mountains west of Sydney.

‘Up near Blackheath. I thought you might like to talk to the lady,’ said Sergeant Russ Clements, calling from Homicide. ‘It looks as if it might be her late hubby, Sir Walter. They tell me she’s out there at the studio.’

‘Are they sure it’s him?’

‘Pretty sure. The upper and lower jaws are missing, so they can’t check on the teeth. It looks as if the whole lower part of the face was blasted away.’

‘How did we get into it?’ Meaning Homicide.

‘There’s no weapon, no gun, nothing. The detectives up at Blackheath have ruled out suicide – for the moment, anyway. Unless someone found the body, didn’t report it but pinched the gun.’