Jon Cleary - The Easy Sin

‘Were you or Mr Magee expecting her?’

‘No. I gave her notice this morning and paid her off.’

‘You sacked her? She was unsatisfactory?’

‘She wasn’t exactly brilliant . She was lazy, but Errol trusted her and kept her on. No, I paid her off because we’re not renewing the lease. Yes?’ Kylie Doolan turned her head as Sam Penfold, leader of the PE team, appeared in the kitchen doorway.

Penfold ignored her. ‘Inspector, I see you out here?’

Malone followed him into the kitchen. ‘You come up with something?’

Sam Penfold had been coming up with something for twenty years and more. He was bony-faced with a hunter’s eyes; he hunted evidence as other men hunted game. ‘There are prints all around the place, but I’d say they’re the owner’s and his girlfriend’s. What’s she like?’

‘The original Ice Maiden.’

‘Never met her. We came up with this –’ He held up a pad. ‘It was in the sink, I thought it was a dish-rag. But smell it –’ Malone took a sniff, reared back. ‘Chloroform, right? It wasn’t used on the dead maid. So who was it used on?’

‘Mr Magee? What’s that they say about the plot?’

‘It thickens. I love it when that happens. It means PE guys like me don’t become redundant. Another thing – on a chair out in the entrance hall, there’s Magee’s blazer, like he’d thrown it there when he came in. And his trousers and shirt are on the floor beside the bed in the main bedroom. No shoes, though. Mr Magee has been home some time this evening.’

When Malone went back into the living room Paula Decker was saying, ‘Miss Doolan, there’s a Versace box on the bed in the main bedroom, tissue paper on the bed – where is what was in the box?’

She should be in PE, thought Malone.

‘I don’t know. It was a new dress and jacket, I brought it home this afternoon.’

‘How long have you known Mr Magee?’

‘I don’t know. A year, eighteen months.’

‘Miss Doolan, what do you do?’ asked Malone.

She gave him the full glare of the shrewd, challenging eyes. ‘I decorate.’

‘Decorate what?’

‘Errol’s life.’

Malone wasn’t sure if he was supposed to laugh. He looked at Paula Decker and Kagal; they both appeared to be smiling at his naivete. He looked back at the decorative Miss Doolan. ‘In what way?’

‘He shows me off.’

Malone pondered that one. She had a pre-loved look, like an expensive car. ‘So you’re more a decoration than a decorator?’

Her eyes scratched him. Then all of a sudden it seemed she decided to be patient with him, as if he were an Inuit from the remoter parts of Greenland. ‘No, I work at it. The social pages on Sunday –’

Then John Kagal came to his rescue. ‘Our boss isn’t into the social whirl. He’s still getting over the Bicentenary gig.’

Back in 1988: thank you, John . But he grinned benevolently.

Kagal took a pull on the rescue rope: ‘Inspector, there’s something I’d like to show you on the computers –’

Malone got up and followed him into the main bedroom. ‘Look, I’m not interested in some feather-brained social butterfly –’

‘She’s no feather-brain, Scobie. I’d say she’s as calculating as any girl I’ve ever come across.’

Malone said admiringly, ‘And that would be a pretty wide circle.’

‘Used to be,’ admitted Kagal, safe in his conceit. ‘Before I settled down with Kate.’

A relationship that had lasted longer than Malone had expected. Kagal had once confessed to Malone that he was double-gaited in his sexual preference, fluid as the gays called it, but he had been living with Kate Arletti, once one of Malone’s Homicide detectives and now with Fraud, for five years and it seemed to be a happy arrangement. Malone, up to his belly in middle age, had given up guessing about the young. Including his own three young.

Then Norma Nickles came into the bedroom: floating in , as Malone always thought of her. She had been a ballet dancer before she had become Sam Penfold’s most reliable assistant in Physical Evidence. She was blonde and attractive and looked feminine even in the police dark blue blouson and slacks.

‘How are you two making out with Miss Doolan?’

‘Have you spoken to her?’ asked Malone.

‘Only when I first came in. I told her we’d have to go through the entire apartment and she got a bit haughty about it.’

‘If your boyfriend was missing, you’ve found your maid dead in your kitchen, kidnap notes on your computers, how upset would you be?’

‘With the guy I just dumped, and no maid, not particularly upset. But I see your point. Our Kylie’s not going to need smelling salts.’

‘You come up with anything?’ said Kagal.

‘Nothing that’s going to help us much. But I could write you a character profile on Mr Magee and Miss Doolan. They’re the original designer junkies, I think. The closets are full of designer labels. Alex Perry dresses, Blahnik shoes, Gucci handbags –’

‘What about him?’

‘Versace, Armani –’

Malone, who wouldn’t have gone beyond K-Mart if allowed by his wife and daughters, who was a life member of Fletcher Jones and Gowings, thought labels, especially if worn on the outside, were like birdshit, something that should be scrubbed off.

‘Spare me the details. Where does the money come from?’ He looked around the apartment.

Kagal looked at him as if he had just arrived from the upper reaches of New Guinea. ‘Scobie, Magee is I-Saw. I-Saw , for Crissakes.’

‘Eyesore?’

Kagal spelled it out for him: I-S-A-W. Don’t you ever read the BizCom pages in the papers? They have all the cute names, they’re like twelve-year-old kids –’

‘I’m not interested in BizCom or Information Technology, whatever you want to call it. I’m still getting used to faxes instead of telegrams –’ He stopped at the look on Kagal’s and Norma Nickles’ faces. ‘Righto, I’m joking. But no, I don’t know who or what I-Saw is.’

Kagal didn’t quite take him by the hand; but almost: I-Saw was started by Magee three or four years ago. It’s a software programme for lawyers, worldwide. It’s supposed to be, or anyway claimed to be, streets ahead of anything else in that field. It made Magee a millionaire, a multi -millionaire, almost overnight. On paper, that is – which is where most of these smart guys were, to begin with. I-Saw has started to go wrong over the last two or three months. It’s got cases against it, geeks charging Magee pinched some of their programmes and adapted them –’

‘What’s wrong with that?’ asked Norma, who had seen more larceny in ballet than any choreographer cared to admit.

Kagal looked at his boss. ‘Is that the sort of principles they teach in Physical Evidence?’

‘All the time,’ said Malone and gave Norma a smile to show he didn’t mean it. ‘Go on.’

‘I-Saw is on the point of going into receivership. I’d say that is one of the reasons Magee is giving up his lease on this –’ He nodded around them. ‘And why Miss Doolan sacked the maid this morning.’

Malone gave the matter some thought. ‘So Mr Magee could’ve done a bunk, put those kidnap notes on the computer as some sort of joke against our girlfriend?’

‘And killed the maid on the way out?’ asked Norma, still practical-minded. ‘Why?’

Malone knew it was a weak argument: ‘Maybe he had a barney with her and thumped her with the saucepan. Any prints on it?’

‘No. And I don’t buy that argument.’

I’m losing the reins here, thought Malone; and said, ‘Neither do I. You think of a better one?’

Said Kagal, also practical-minded: ‘Why would he be wearing gloves in his own apartment? I mean if he put the messages on the computers as some sort of dirty joke against his girlfriend? Or did he put on gloves to pick up the saucepan to scone the maid?’