Autumn Maze (11 page)

“Why not? As Mr. Bruna says, let's speak ill of the dead. Maybe we'll learn something.”

“He was too unreliable, I always had the feeling that if he could make money on a shonky deal, he would.” It was his turn to sound pious; he saw the faint glimmer of a smile at the corner of his father's mouth. What surprised him was that his wife, too, seemed on the point of smiling. “He was a borrower, too. He put the bite on me a week after my wife introduced me to him.”

“You didn't tell me that,” said Juliet.

Malone interrupted before a husband-and-wife diversion could get in the way: “Did you lend him any money?”

“No. I told him I only lent money at the going rate and with firm security.”

“That's the only way to be in business,” said Aldwych and winked at Malone. “In our business, right, Scobie?”

“I didn't think you were still in business, Jack. Our business.”

Juliet
glanced sideways at the policeman beside her, then across at her father-in-law. She had no experience of how the law and the criminal element worked. She did not read crime novels, watch crime films or television series, never read crime stories in the newspapers. She was not naive and knew that the world only went round because the good and the evil recognized they were two sides of the same coin and the toss was often a matter of luck. It intrigued her that these two men appeared to have a working arrangement and she wondered if Inspector Malone was corrupt. That thought intrigued her, too, because corruption fascinated her.

“A figure of speech, Scobie.”

“Did you know him, Jack?”

“Never met him. Mr. Bruna here knew him, didn't you, Adam?” Aldwych threw a right hook, playful to be sure, but he wouldn't have minded if it had hurt.

“Oh yes, I knew him. I always thought he was perfectly charming. He never tried to borrow from me,” he told Jack Junior. “Perhaps he knew that gallery owners live from hand-to-mouth.”

“Stop crying poor mouth,” Juliet rebuked him.

“Was I doing that? How vulgar.” The smile was intended to blind them all.

The two detectives finished their fish, joined the others in the baked cheesecake dessert served by the still apprehensive housekeeper. Aldwych, never having known Rob Sweden, was the spectator here at the table and he sat back to enjoy it. “No dessert for me,” he said, and almost said,
I'll sit back and watch
. “More wine, Russ?”

“No, it's a beauty, Jack, but I'd better not. I'm driving.” Then he looked at Bruna, knowing it was time he took up the bowling. “Did Rob ever do any business with you, Mr. Bruna? I understand you're a very successful gallery owner?”

“You're interested in art?” Bruna made no attempt to hide his surprise at what the modern cop got up to in his idle time.

“No, I just do my homework.”

Top marks, thought Aldwych with malicious pleasure.

“
I should imagine in the gallery game, a lot depends on recommendations and introductions, right? Did young Sweden ever bring you any customers? He operated in circles where people, young people, have money to spend.”

“We call them clients, Sergeant, not customers. Customers go to supermarkets. Young people with money to spend—and they are scarcer than they used to be, much scarcer—if they buy art at all they buy paintings, not sculpture. I exhibit paintings, but mostly sculptors' work. They buy as an investment and sculpture, if it's not from a big name, is not looked upon as much of an investment. No, Rob never brought me any
clients
.”

“So how did you know him?” said Malone.

“Oh, I met him occasionally here at Juliet's. And Jack's,” he seemed to add as an afterthought. “And he would come to exhibitions at my gallery. He knew a lot of pretty girls, models, nobodies but p
retty
, and they always make an exhibition opening more attractive. They distract the husbands while the wives buy things.”

The smile this time had all the blandness of a smear of white blancmange. What a snob, thought Aldwych who, for all his sins, had never been a snob, not even towards the police. But the bastard was hiding something, those dark glasses were hiding more than his eyes.

“So he never brought a—a client, someone who wanted to pay a lot of money for a painting or piece of sculpture? But pay in cash?”

“No.”

“Do you ever get any clients who want to pay in cash?”

“Occasionally.” The dark glasses were as opaque as darkest night; by some trick of light nothing was reflected in them. “But they are never strangers.”

“No names, no pack drill?” said Malone.

Then Bruna took off the glasses, squinting a moment as he adjusted to the sunlight. He had dark artful eyes that, Aldwych guessed, could match a buyer and a painting in seconds, far faster than any artist could paint, even a graffiti dauber. “It's not unusual, Inspector, for buyers to ask for anonymity. It
protects
them from burglars. Pictures are always being stolen, they can always be sold to buyers who are even more anonymous than the original owners.”

“Does the tax man ever enquire into any of this?”

Bruna pushed away his half-eaten cheesecake. “You have spoiled my lunch, Inspector.” The smile flashed again. “We Roumanians are like the South Americans, we think taxation is a social disease that should never be mentioned in polite company.”

“Is that what you think, Jack?” Malone looked at Aldwych.

The old man spread his hand on his chest; the Pope could not have looked holier. “Scobie, I haven't missed a tax payment in I dunno how long.”

“How about twelve months?”

“Scobie, I'm an honest man now, won't you ever believe that?”

Jack Junior said, “I don't think you should insult my father.”

His father waved a quietening hand. “It's all right, Jack. Mr. Malone and I understand each other. Better, maybe, than any of the rest of you here at this table. Except you, Russ.” He looked around, but Malone and Clements were only on the periphery of his gaze; he was focussed on Jack Junior, Juliet and Adam Bruna. He was smiling, but it was an old crim's smile, full of guile and cynicism. “It puzzles you, Julie, how Mr. Malone and I understand each other, right?”

“Yes, it does.” She was not afraid of her father-in-law. She had only a sketchy idea of his history; Jack Junior, naturally, did not boast of his father's record. She made her own on-the-spot judgements of those she met and she had already filed her verdict on Jack Senior. He had killed and would kill again if necessary; he had retired, but his moral superannuation was flexible. He would kill, she was certain, if it meant saving his son from some awful fate. “You appear to be genuine friends.”

“Are we, Scobie?”

“We seem to be heading that way,” said Malone; but everyone at the table recognized the caution in his voice. He pushed back his chair. “I think we'd better be going.”

“You won't stay for coffee?” Juliet didn't want the detectives to leave. They might be dangerous,
to
whom, she didn't know; but they had made the day interesting. Lately she had started to become bored, which can happen when you discover you have married the wrong partner.

“I'll come down with you.” Aldwych rose, pulled down his waistcoat. He always wore a three-piece suit; Shirl, his wife, had always insisted that he should camouflage what she called his Australian belly. Shirl was dead now, but in various ways, he still paid his respects to her every day.

“Can we give you a lift?” Clements asked.

“No, there's a hire car waiting for me downstairs. I never drive, never did. I always had a wheel-man. I used him in getaways,” he explained to Juliet and her father. He delighted in shocking the straights of the world, though he had his doubts about how straight Bruna was. He ignored Jack Junior's frown of disapproval. “Take care of yourself, Julie. And of Jack.”

She kissed him on the cheek. “I'm taking care of you, too, you dear old man.”

Going down in the lift Aldwych said, “She's a great bullshit artist, my daughter-in-law. Women have always been better at it than men. It took me a long time to find that out.”

“Me, too,” said Clements, who, until he met Romy, had changed relationships almost as often as he changed his shirts. “I never understood why there weren't more con-
women
.”

“Maybe there were. Maybe they were so good, they never got caught.”

The two chauvinists nodded at each other while Malone said, “What about
Mr.
Bruna?”

“You notice his hair? He not only sells to the blue-rinse set, he's one of them. You think I'd look better with a blue tint, Russ?”

“It'd suit you, Jack. No bullshit.”

“Jack,” said Malone, “that wasn't what I meant.”

Aldwych looked at him quizzically. “Scobie, are you trying to recruit me as a gig? Don't waste your time, son.”

“Russ and I are trying to solve three murders. Yeah, three. You read about the corpse that went missing from the morgue?”

“How about that? Stealing stiffs. Even I never went in for that. So what's the connection with
young
Sweden?”

“We don't know, except that they were both done away with by the same method. A sharp instrument here—” Malone touched the back of his neck. “It's not a common way of knocking someone off.”

They had reached the ground floor, walked out through the lobby into the short circular driveway where a white Mercedes with HC plates and darkened windows stood waiting. A uniformed driver got out and opened the rear door. But Aldwych paused out of earshot of him. “Scobie, Russ, I know nothing. That's the truth. If I find out anything that'll help you, I'll let you know.”

“But?” said Malone.

“But what?”

“But not if it concerns Jack Junior, right?” The old man's face went suddenly stiff and Malone went on, “Jack, I'd never ask you to inform on your own son. But he almost got himself into bother with that girl Janis Eden eighteen months ago. She's still loose, you know.”

“He hasn't seen her, I can promise you that. I scared the shit outa her and she took me at my word. I'd come outa retirement if ever she came back and started making trouble.” A roughness had crept back into his voice, anger, controlled though it was, scraping the skin of the gang leader he had been.

“Righto, I take your word on it. But if you hear anything on any of the others . . .”

“What others? The whole clan? Juliet's sisters and their husbands? You think Cormac Casement would get himself involved in something dirty?” He shook his head. “You're barking up the wrong tree there, Scobie.”

“What about Derek Sweden?”

Aldwych shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I vote for him, or anyway his party, because I'm a conservative. What are you grinning at, Russ? You wouldn't expect a bloke who's earned his money like I did, you wouldn't expect me to be a socialist, would you?”

“I'm with you all the way, Jack,” said Clements, still grinning. “It's these lefties like Scobie who bugger up the system.”

Malone,
whom no party would have bothered canvassing, said, “Jack, about Derek Sweden?”

“I dunno for sure. Maybe his scams now are only political ones, but he made his money originally with some shonky development deals. There, that's all I'm gunna tell you. I'm gunna have trouble getting to sleep tonight, giving information to coppers. But it's been nice seeing you both. Look after yourselves.”

The two detectives escorted him to his hire car. “How do you fill in your time, now Jack Junior's married?”

“Read. I'm catching up on my education. Political history, crime biographies, stuff like that— they're often much the same thing. And watch TV and videos. I'm gunna watch
Pretty Woman
tonight for the second or third time. It's a great fairy story, that. A virtuous hooker can find true love if the john is rich enough. Some of the girls who used to work for me must of laughed themselves sick at it. Home, James.”

“Yes, Mr. Aldwych.”

He wound down the dark window and winked at them as he was driven away. He had reached a serenity that some old men achieve. Since it was neither senility nor spirituality, it had to be amorality.

II

When Malone and Clements got back to Homicide Andy Graham was waiting for them with some encouraging news.

“A missing person. A lady has been in touch, says her husband's been missing for three days. His description fits that guy who went missing from the morgue. Her name's—” He checked his notebook: “Mrs. Kornsey, Leanne Kornsey. She lives out at Lugarno. I'll go out there now—”

Malone was about to say yes, then thought of Mrs. Kornsey being told that all that remained of her husband, if it was he, was a foot and half a leg. Andy Graham, a well-meaning young man but as subtle as a bullock, was not the one to send on such an errand. “Never mind, Andy, I'll go. It could be a bit awkward—”

Graham
might be unsubtle but he was not unintelligent. “Thanks, Scobie, I wasn't looking forward to it.”

“You want me to come with you?” said Clements.

“I don't think so. If this
is
her husband, one-on-one is better.” He never relished these sort of visits, but they came with the job. He remembered how grateful he used to be when Greg Random was in charge of Homicide and had to do this sort of dirty work. “You're coming to dinner tonight, you and Romy?”

“Yeah.” Clements sounded unenthusiastic.

“What's the matter? You afraid Lisa is going to lean on you, get you to propose to Romy over our dinner table? Forget it. I've told her it's none of her business and I'll put her on a charge if she interferes.”