Jon Cleary - Winter Chill

‘Oh? Any luck?’

Clements, the punter, thought she might have been asking if he had backed a winner at Randwick. ‘Not so far. But it’s early days—’

She turned away from him, looked at Channing. Malone had no idea of the ranking in a law firm, but he guessed that an office manager would have much less status than a partner, particularly one of the two senior partners. Yet Mrs Johns gave the impression that her status did not matter, at least not to her. Though she did call him – ‘Mr Channing. Is there anything we can do to help?’

‘We?’ Channing fumbled one of the cards; or anyway, a word. ‘How?’

‘I don’t know.’ She looked back at Malone and Clements; she appeared to have taken command. ‘Perhaps you gentlemen can tell us?’

Malone didn’t answer her, just turned back to Channing. ‘You never represented your brother’s firm out here?’

Channing shook his head. ‘We do represent three or four American firms, but never Schuyler, De Vries and Barrymore. I’m afraid we’re too small to have interested them.’

‘How big are you?’ asked Clements.

‘Forty all told,’ said Mrs Johns. ‘Two senior partners, four junior partners, six legal staff. And then the usual office staff, including myself. Nothing compared to Schuyler and partners. They’re a small army.’

Malone wondered why and how the manager of a medium-sized Sydney law firm would know how big a major New York firm was. But maybe law-firm office managers, like defence chiefs, kept tabs on other armies. ‘Would you know if Schuyler et cetera had links with other law firms in Sydney?’

‘Oh, they’re sure to have had.’ Channing had risen to his feet when Mrs Johns had come in, but Malone and Clements had resumed their seats after greeting her. Channing looked as if he didn’t want the meeting prolonged, but Malone was going to take his own time. ‘But it’d be one of the big firms—’

‘One of the small armies.’ Mrs Johns made what sounded like a soft hissing noise, but Malone thought he could have been mistaken. There was no doubt, however, that she did not have much time for battalions of lawyers. ‘We can check for you—’

‘We’ll do that,’ said Malone, who did not like being managed and felt that Mrs Johns was cracking her office whip. ‘We’re investigating another murder down at Darling Harbour. It may or may not be connected with your brother’s murder, Mr Channing.’

‘Another lawyer? Someone from his firm?’ Channing, with both hands on his desk, leaned forward: like a prosecutor quizzing a witness was the image that struck Malone.

‘You knew someone from Schuylers was with your brother?’

‘Well, no. I don’t know why I – I asked that.’

He was standing in front of the painting of himself; Malone, a modest man, wondered at the vanity of someone who would seat himself in front of his own portrait. But there was the stiff, formal Rodney Channing gazing over the shoulder of the suddenly ill-at-ease real Channing. Then Malone knew that the portrait was Channing’s own impression, not the artist’s, of himself. It was intended to impress clients that the real Rodney Channing was the calm, solid man in the painting.

‘No, it wasn’t anyone from Schuylers. He’s still alive, a young man named Adam Tallis. No, it was a security guard who was murdered. The same one who found your brother’s body.’

‘Coincidence?’ asked Mrs Johns.

Malone had been looking at Channing, who had leaned forward on the desk again, frowning this time but saying nothing. Then Clements said, ‘We’re looking into that, Mrs Johns. We’re not great believers in coincidence in the Police Service.’

Speak for yourself, thought Malone. He believed that coincidence greased the wheels of the world, otherwise fate would go off the track. The Celt in him wasn’t entirely negative.

‘A security guard?’ Channing had straightened up again. ‘What would he have to do with my brother?’

‘We’re not even trying to guess at this stage,’ said Malone. ‘Except that the security guard, too, was an American.’

Then the door, which was half-open, was pushed wide and another woman stood there, dressed for an evening out and holding a man’s white shirt on a hanger. ‘Oh, I thought … I’ll wait outside.’

‘No, come on in, come on in!’ Channing moved swiftly round the desk, advanced on the woman and hugged her as if she were a client on whom the future of Channing and Lazarus depended; she could not have been more welcome if she had been Alan Bond or Christopher Skase back in their heyday. He took the shirt from her, introduced her to Malone and Clements. ‘My wife Ruth. These gentlemen are from the police, they’re investigating my brother’s murder, they’re just leaving … My wife and I have to go to a reception for the Americans, the Bar Association. The Law Society is putting it on …’ Words were tumbling out of him, he was like a card trickster whose fingers had turned into fists. ‘I have to change …’ He held up the shirt. ‘If you’ll excuse me?’

‘You go and change, sweetheart.’ Mrs Channing stepped aside and pushed her husband out the door. ‘We’re running late. June and I will show the gentlemen out. I’m one of the official hostesses,’ she explained to the two gentlemen. ‘I can’t afford to be late.’

Ruth Channing had escaped plainness with the aid of a hairdresser, an aerobics instructor and a couturier, the latterday fairy princes who, for a price, would kiss any plain jane or joe for that matter. There was also a vivacity that lit up her small pale eyes, that gave mobility to her thin lips. Malone guessed she would be a willing volunteer hostess, anything to advance her husband’s career, one hand in the middle of his back guiding him. It struck Malone that, between his wife and Mrs Johns, Channing’s kidneys might be black and blue from being steered in the right direction.

‘I don’t know why, I’m expecting all these Americans to look like Perry Mason. I have this crazy sense of humour—’ She was one of those people who, afraid that the rest of the world was too dumb to be perceptive, would always help them with a description of her imagined better qualities. It was Malone’s experience that those who claimed a crazy sense of humour often had no such thing if the joke was against them. ‘It’ll be the social death of me one day—’

And a sickness for your friends: Malone wondered why he felt so unkindly towards Mrs Channing. Then realized he had let Channing and Mrs Johns start the irritation. ‘We must be going,’ he said.

‘Murder won’t wait, will it?’ she said.

He stopped dead. ‘Pardon?’

‘Didn’t Perry Mason say that? Or was it Shakespeare?’

Then he recognized the brightness in the pale eyes, the width of the smile: she was high on some drug. He had read her wrongly. She was not a volunteer hostess; the pushing hand was in her back. There were wives like her everywhere, driven or pulled by their husbands into situations where they would always be off-balance, where they would have to fall back on some support they could not find in themselves. The portrait on the wall must forever mock the Channings. Malone wondered what the other partner, Lazarus, was like.

‘Oh, murder will wait, Mrs Channing. We’re very patient in Homicide.’

Her eyes widened, as if she had realized that, for him, murder was no joke. Then Mrs Johns stepped forward, took her arm. ‘I don’t think we need any more of this sort of talk. Show yourselves out, will you, Inspector?’

‘Of course. We’re used to doing that.’ She gave him a look as sour as the note in his voice. ‘Channing and Lazarus. Is there a Mr Lazarus?’

Mrs Johns paused in the doorway. ‘Yes, Mr Will Lazarus. He’s overseas at the moment.’