Jon Cleary - Yesterday’s Shadow

‘The what?’ Gina Caporetto was a blonde Italian-American, her birth roots north of Milan; it was an unfortunate name, a reminder of an Italian defeat in World War I; but the two Australians in the room had never heard of it. In any case men, and women, would hardly remark her name; instead they took note of her body and, eyes rising, her quite attractive face. She wore a beige knitted dress that looked as if she had put it on wet and it had shrunk. ‘I’ve never heard of it – no, wait a minute. Last year, during the Olympics, there was a big group from, I’ve forgotten where, New England somewhere, they were booked in there. I went up there once –’ She, too, frowned. ‘She was – there ?’

‘It’s a hundred-dollar-a-night place,’ said Avery. ‘Superintendent Random tells me the circumstances aren’t – well, not the best. She was found naked in her room. She’d been strangled.’

‘You are sure it’s Mrs Pavane?’ Goodbody’s accent seemed to have thickened with shock.

‘Certain,’ said Malone and held up the plastic bag and the passport.

‘Do the media know?’ Gina Caporetto had recovered her poise, which was considerable.

‘Miss Caporetto is our press officer,’ said Avery.

‘They know there’s been a double murder –’

‘A double murder?’ Goodbody seemed to be making a habit of the echo.

‘We don’t think the other homicide – a hotel cleaner – is connected to that of Mrs Pavane. But we’ve only just started our investigation –’

Gina Caporetto looked at Avery. ‘Shouldn’t our people be handling this?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Random, getting in first. ‘This is our turf, Miz Caporetto. We’ll welcome co-operation, but that’s all. I don’t know the set-up at your embassy –’

‘I’ll explain the situation to Canberra,’ said Avery. ‘I’ll call them now. Maybe you could offer Mr Random and Mr Malone some coffee, Gina? Take them into your office while I call Canberra. You stay with me, Mitch. This is just between ourselves till I’ve talked to the embassy.’

Goodbody still looked shaken: the wheels had come off and he had found himself with no jack. ‘They’ll be all over us –’

‘No, they won’t, Mitch,’ said Avery warningly. ‘Go ahead, Gina, give the gentlemen some coffee.’

Gina Caporetto led the two detectives out of the big office into a smaller one on the other side of a lobby. The secretary at the desk outside Avery’s room looked up enquiringly, but Ms Caporetto just shook her head.

She closed the door to her office and went to an old-fashioned percolator on a hot-plate. ‘I make my own coffee. We Americans think we make the best coffee in the world. But –’

She smiled and Malone said, ‘Don’t quote you. Did you ever meet Mrs Pavane?’

‘Cream or black? Sugar?’ She brought them their cups, then took her own behind her desk and sat down. It was a neat, comfortable office; but Malone wondered how comfortable it would be for her in the coming days. Even the ubiquitous Stars and Stripes on a small standard in a corner looked limp.

‘Yes, I met her, once down in Canberra just after they had arrived and twice up here. I took her shopping one day and another day I took her to lunch. She was trying to get the feel of – well, Australians, I guess.’

‘But?’ said Malone.

‘But?’ She paused, with her cup held in front of her face like a mask.

Greg Random said, ‘Miz Caporetto, we cops read what is unsaid. It comes with experience – in other circumstances we might have made good diplomats.’ He looked sideways at Malone. ‘Except Inspector Malone, who is notoriously undiplomatic.’

‘Nice coffee,’ said Malone diplomatically, holding up his cup.

Her first smile had been forced, a muscular effort, but now she appeared a little more relaxed; she shook her head and smiled at both of them. She looked like a sex bomb, but she had a cool mind that could always control it.

‘Yes – but. I just, I don’t know, I felt she wasn’t entirely a stranger here.’

‘Did you query her on it?’

‘Yes. Diplomatically.’ Just a faint smile.

‘And what did she say?’

She took a memory pause; then she said, ‘I’m being mean, but it was like she was making up an answer. Then she said she had been out here eight or nine years ago on a quick business trip. She had stayed at the Regent.’

‘Five-star,’ said Malone. ‘So why did she choose the Southern Savoy this time? It’d be struggling to pick up three stars.’

‘Did she let her hair down when you took her to lunch?’ Random had finished his coffee.

She got up, took his cup and poured more coffee for him. ‘Not really. We weren’t exactly girls on an equal footing – she was the Ambassador’s wife.’ She came back, sat down, paused again as if she realized she had spoken in the past tense: was the Ambassador’s wife. ‘She seemed to have tightened up after that first shopping visit. She wasn’t rude, but she was – well, distant. As if suddenly she had taken a dislike to, I dunno, Sydney or Australia. It happened after this guy spoke to her.’

‘Which guy?’ Random had almost finished his second cup. Slow in almost everything else, he was a quick coffee drinker, not a sipper.

‘We hadn’t started lunch when this guy came up, said, “Aren’t you –” I didn’t catch the name, he sorta mumbled it the way –’

‘The way Australians do,’ said Malone. ‘My wife is always telling me to open my mouth. She’s Dutch.’

‘Well, yes,’ said Ms Caporetto, trying to sound polite. ‘Well, anyway, she just froze him. She just said a blunt “No” and he apologized and sorta limped away.’

‘Did you get a good look at the man?’ asked Malone.

‘Not really. I was looking at her. He was short and, I’m not sure, bald. He stopped by for just a few seconds. The place was crowded and he just sort of disappeared.’

‘What happened then?’

‘Even at the time I thought it a bit strange – she just made no comment. She didn’t look at me, picked up her menu and, I think I’ve got it right, said, “I’ll have the oysters and the barramundi.”’

‘So she knew about our oysters and our fish?’ said Malone.

‘Well, yes, it seemed so. But she’d been in Canberra a coupla months – no, at that time a month or maybe five weeks – and maybe they’d told her what was best.’

‘What else do they have to talk about down in Canberra?’ said Random. ‘Where did you have lunch?’

‘At Catalina. It was a Friday, all the eastern suburbs ladies were there.’

‘What do you know about her back in the States?’

‘Nothing. I knew nothing about the Ambassador till we heard he was coming. He’s from Kansas City. I come from Philly – Philadelphia. Anything west of the Mississippi is still Indian territory to us.’

Just like us, thought Malone, though on a smaller scale. Sydney’s eastern suburbs thought of the western suburbs as Indian territory. ‘What’s he like?’

‘Charming. He’s no hayseed or cowboy –’ She stopped, shook her head again, looked squarely at the two men. ‘Why am I talking to you like this? Because you’re cops?’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Malone. ‘Because, like us, you want to know who killed the Ambassador’s wife.’

She pondered a moment, then she nodded. ‘Okay. As I said, he’s no hayseed. He graduated from the University of Missouri, then he went on to Oxford, England – he was there two or three years behind President Clinton. He’s very much okay and the word from Canberra is that he’s very popular and respected on the diplomatic circuit. Being a US ambassador is not the easiest job in the world, no matter where you are.’