Jon Cleary - Yesterday’s Shadow

‘And your wife liked that? I understand she’d been out here.’

Pavane looked puzzled again. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Miss Caporetto. She went to lunch with your wife and your wife told her she’d been here on a quick business trip some years ago.’

Pavane shook his head emphatically. ‘Miss Caporetto must’ve got it wrong. My wife didn’t want to come here.’

‘Why not?’

Pavane almost smiled, took his time. ‘Do you want me to be frank or diplomatic, Inspector?’

‘Frank, sir. I’m not so nationalistic that I think this is Utopia. One of our Prime Ministers once said not to forget we were at the arse-end of the world. Or words to that effect.’

The Ambassador did smile this time, though it was an effort. ‘Those were the words my wife used. Though she pronounced it ass-end.’

‘In the end she changed her mind?’

‘It took a lot of persuasion on my part.’ He was silent a long moment and Malone let him take his time. Then: ‘How much do we have to tell the media?’

‘Just the facts, sir. How she was murdered, who she is. Nothing more than that. We don’t have to tell them what happened beforehand.’

Pavane was grateful: ‘You’re an understanding man, Inspector.’

Malone nodded in acknowledgement. ‘Why did she come to Sydney on this particular trip?’

‘She wanted to go to the New South Wales Art Gallery. There’s an exhibition on there – the best of Australian art. Back home in Kansas City she’s on the board of the Nelson Gallery – that’s our main gallery. My father bought and donated paintings to it. She’s on leave of absence, but she’d told the board she would look at this collection – we don’t see much Australian art in our Mid-West.’

‘Righto, sir. We’ll see if she ever got to the gallery. As for what I’ve told you about last night, we’ll keep a lid on it as much as possible.’

‘Is there likely to be a leak from – well, the morgue staff?’

‘The DDFM –’ He grinned, trying to lighten the mood. “The Deputy Director of Forensic Medicine, she did the post-mortem –’

‘I met her at the morgue.’

‘She’s a close personal friend of me and my wife and she’s the wife of my second-in-command at Homicide. She would sack anyone who talked out of turn to the media.’

‘Good enough. I apologize for questioning them. Will you tell Joe Himes?’

‘I’m afraid I’ll have to, sir, if he’s to work with us. But no one else.’ He stood up, put out his hand as the other man rose. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I’ll do everything I can to keep the dirt out of this. It’s not going to be a tabloid carnival.’

‘I’m going back to Canberra this afternoon. I want the body of my wife shipped back to Kansas City – I’ll go with her. Dr Clements, your friend, said they would release her within the next day or two, soon as the post-mortem is finished. There’ll be a press release put out from the embassy when I get back this afternoon. It will say as little as possible.’

‘We’ll try to do the same at this end, sir. You’ll be coming back from Kansas City?’

Pavane hesitated. ‘I’ll think about it. I really loved my wife, Mr Malone – we were very happy together. I have to get used to the idea that she is gone.’ Just before he opened the door to go out he turned. ‘Thanks, Mr Malone.’

Malone could only nod.

The Consul-General’s office was a bustle of departure. Random left at the same time as the Ambassador, DCM Kortright and RSO Bodine. Malone and Himes borrowed Ms Caporetto’s office again. Malone stood at the window gazing down on Martin Place at the ants coming back from lunch. There had been the usual lunchtime concert in the small amphitheatre in the middle of the tree-lined plaza and the musicians were packing their gear and moving on to – what? And what were all the human ants scurrying to? From here on the 59th level destiny was a distant prospect. He turned back to Himes: ‘Joe, what are your feelings on destiny?’

Himes was seated in the chair behind the desk, the presiding chair. Pull your head in, Malone, he’s not taking over . ‘I never worry about destiny. That’s for judges and juries.’

Malone grinned: he was going to like this man. ‘Righto –’

‘Righto? I thought only upper-class Englishmen said that. You know – “Righto, old chap.”’

‘If I’d been born an upper-class Englishman, my dad would’ve strangled me at birth. He’s never been near Ireland, but he’s an Irish patriot – more so than my mother, who was born there. No, righto has just stuck to my tongue since I was a kid.’

‘What do you say when things are okay?’

‘Okay.’

Himes gazed at Malone and after a long pause said, ‘I think you and I are gonna get along, Scobie.’

‘I hope so, Joe. We’re going to need help – a lot of it.’ He sat down, then told Himes of the intimate personal side of the Pavane murder. ‘We’re not putting out anything about that – our media would make a meal of it.’

‘Not just yours. Ours, too.’

‘There’s something else besides the sex bit. Mrs Pavane has some mystery about her, something that seems to puzzle even the Ambassador. Does the FBI have a bureau in Oregon?’

Himes smiled; he had big white teeth that seemed to alter the whole set of his face. Almost impish, like a boy of long ago suddenly appearing in the man he had become. ‘We’ve got ’em all over. The local cops think we’re a pain in the ass.’

Malone returned the smile. ‘We think the same about our Feds here. Anyhow, can you have them trace –’ He looked at his notebook again. ‘Mrs Pavane’s maiden name was Wilhelmina Page, but she was known as Billie. She also used an American Express card under the name of Mrs Belinda Paterson. Home address, Corvallis. Her parents, who were killed in a car accident, lived there – roughly, I guess, in the late seventies. Her father had some sort of job at the State College, a groundsman or something.’

‘I’ll get on to that pronto.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Unless they’re having an early night.’

‘The FBI sleeps?’

Again the smile. ‘Not as much as the CIA.’

In heaven the seraphim criticize the cherubim, who look down on the thrones: the original bureaucracy.

‘Anything else?’

‘Mrs Pavane told Miss Caporetto, one day at lunch, that she’d made a quick business trip to Sydney some years ago. The Ambassador says that can’t be right. But at the lunch some feller came up, tried to speak to Mrs Pavane, but she just wiped him. Is there any way you can trace if a Miss Page or a Mrs Paterson came to Sydney eight or nine years ago? We’ll check with our Immigration.’

Himes made a note. ‘I’m told there was another homicide at the same hotel. Any connection?’

‘We don’t think so. It’s a domestic. I’m on my way now to question the wife.’

‘I don’t envy you. In my job I never got caught up in domestics, not like local cops. This one –’ He shook his head as if in disbelief. ‘This one’s the closest I’ve ever been to a domestic.’

‘Joe, a domestic for us is when the husband kills the wife or vice versa.’

‘I know. But from what you’ve told me, this isn’t the usual security thing. Terrorists, someone with a grudge against the US – it looks like nothing more than plain murder. To which Mrs Pavane might’ve contributed by being where she was in that flea-bag.’

‘It’s not a flea-bag, Joe. It’s just a hotel where the rate is about three or four hundred dollars a night less than she’d be used to paying. What do you know about her?’

‘You couldn’t meet a nicer woman. She had – what do they call it? – the common touch. I know no more about her than what I saw down in Canberra – the embassy staff love her. She’d have been checked by the FBI back home before she and the Ambassador got the appointment – it’s standard procedure –’