Helga's Web (39 page)

He strode on out of the office with his rolling seaman’s walk and Malone, after a quick glance at the others still in the Premier’s room, followed him. Leeds didn’t look back; he seemed intent on getting out of a building that threatened to asphyxiate him. He went down the outside steps into the even more stifling heat of the street, turned the corner and went at the same fast rolling gait down towards Police Headquarters and his own office. Malone galloped to catch up, then fell into step beside him. Leeds stared straight ahead of him, saying nothing, and Malone, wise in the atmosphere of superiors, kept his own mouth shut.

They went up to the Commissioner’s office and as soon as he thumped down in his chair behind his desk Leeds let fly. “Bugger and blast them!” Then he suddenly seemed to realize he had a junior officer with him; he looked up at Malone and glared. “You didn’t hear a word I said, Sergeant!”

“Not a word, sir.”

Leeds reached for the decanter of water on his desk, poured himself a glass. “Sit down, Scobie.” He was in control of himself now; his big reddish face lost some of its hue. He forced himself into the low gear that was his usual pace, became the relaxed, unflappable figure that was the public and police force image of him. “There’s going to be no charge.”

Malone was glad of the chair beneath him. “On neither count?”

“Neither. The A-G put a very good case for forgetting the whole thing—both murders. The gist of his argument was the truth of justice.” Leeds succeeded admirably in keeping any tone of comment out of his voice. “Should a man stand trial for a murder he didn’t commit because we couldn’t put him in the dock for a murder we know he did commit.”

“Give me time, sir, and I think I could dig up enough evidence on the Bixby murder.” But Malone’s heart was not in it and he knew his voice gave him away.

“I think you’ve had enough of it, Scobie. Anyhow, it has been decided for us by the Premier and the A-G. No charges.

It probably has nothing to do with their decision, but next year, you know, is election year.” This time he allowed himself a sardonic note; but only for a moment. “Did you know Helidon had sent in his resignation to the Premier last night?”

“He didn’t mention it.”

“Well, they’ve decided to accept it. It will be announced this evening for tomorrow’s papers. He’ll be retiring from politics altogether—on health grounds. Then he and his wife are going to take a long trip overseas.”

“May I have a drink of water?”

“Are you feeling faint?”

Malone grinned. “Has a junior officer ever passed out on your carpet before, sir?”

Leeds smiled, stood up, crossed to a cupboard. He opened it, revealing a small refrigerator. He took out two cans of beer, came back, poured them into two glasses. “As of now, we’re both off duty. Here’s to your health, Scobie.”

“Yours, too, sir.” Malone took a long swallow of the beer, then said, “So this is going to be another one like the High Commissioner job in London? I’m to forget all about it?”

“You’re to forget everything that happened up at the Premier’s office. Superintendent Fulmer will take charge of the file and it’ll go into the Classified section over there.” He nodded to a steel filing cabinet in one corner. “You will do your best to accept the old philosophy of punters and policemen. You win a few, you lose a few.” He raised his glass. “Here’s to politics.”

Malone didn’t drink to that. “Do you mind if I ask, sir-did Superintendent Fulmer put forward any argument that the charge be pressed?”

“Tom Fulmer said nothing. I think he saw the way things were going, regardless of what we said.”

“But I thought—” But Malone did not go on: whatever he had thought of Fulmer’s principles, something had happened

314 -°*

to them up there in the Premier’s office. He stood up. “Well, I don’t suppose it’ll be the last one we’ll lose, sir.”

“It’ll be the last one I’ll lose this way,” said Leeds. “There is going to be another announcement in the papers tomorrow, Scobie. I’m retiring. No, not over this—” He waved a big hand as he saw Malone stiffen. “Though it would be nice to think I had enough ethics to do so. But the Premier also got my resignation last night. I have only a few years of active service left in me. I’m going to Cyprus to run the United Nations force there. Canberra has asked for me to go. I’m Australia’s contribution to law and order.” His ironic smile was hidden in his beer. “It will be interesting to see how much politics I run into over there.”

“Who’s to be the new Commissioner?”

“That still has to be decided. Several of the older Superintendents won’t be starters—age, health, things like that. There will be a new look about the Force—younger men at the top.” He looked up at Malone. “It’s quite likely that Superintendent Fulmer will be Commissioner one day.”

And then Malone understood Fulmer’s silence, understood that even the most rigid of men could be bent by the flame of ambition. Christ, he thought, what a dirty day. Tanker Smith was likely to be in power for the next ten years and when it came time to appoint the Police Commissioner after next he would not look twice at a Superintendent who had once tried to press charges against one of his Ministers at the beginning of an election year.

“You may even be Commissioner yourself one day, Scobie.”

Malone smiled wryly. “I’ll have to out-live the present Premier.”

“Yes,” said Leeds. “But don’t expect to out-live politics.”

Tuesday, April 1

“You never did find out who murdered that girl,” said Brigid Malone. “That one from the Opera House.”

“Anyhow, I’m glad I wasn’t dragged into it,” said Con Ma- lone. “I still got me good name up at the pub. Can I have a bit more of that plonk?”

Malone poured his father another glass of claret. “That’s a bottle of the best French stuff. Lisa’s father sent it up from Melbourne.”

“I thought it tasted different,” said Con Malone, giving nothing away.

“Like I said,” said Brigid Malone, “if she’d been someone, you’d of found out who done her in. Don’t you think so, Lisa?”

Lisa didn’t look at Malone. “They don’t solve all the murders.”

“I still think-” Brigid Malone was unconvinced. “More trifle?”

“How’s your job, Lisa?” said Con Malone, sipping his wine. The sausages and onions had tasted better with the glass of French red-eye with it; but he wouldn’t dare tell the Old Lady that. “You busy?”

“I’m helping promote a new Society queen. That’s the fourth since Norma Helidon went abroad—”

“I always liked her,” said Brigid Malone, an habitue of the Society pages; she knew nothing of what went on overseas, but she was conversant with the births, deaths and marriages of a world that was just as remote from her. “She had a look of style about her—”

Malone sat back in his chair, letting the conversation swirl lazily about him. It had been an easy day today at Y Division. Come to think of it, things had been pretty easy since Christmas, since the Opera House murder. There had been an epidemic of bank hold-ups, but only one in Y Division; and Kildare and Welch had been landed with that one. They had never been told why they were to forget the Bixby murder and, because they were easy-going men, they had not persisted with their curiosity. They knew that someone had talked to someone somewhere, and they had been prepared to let it go at that.

An easy time for almost four months, Malone thought; but still the sour taste remained. He took another sip of wine.

The resignation of Helidon from politics had got less space in the newspapers than the abdication of his wife from Society. By the time Malone and Lisa had left for Melbourne to spend Christmas with her parents, the Helidons, as news, were as dead as last year’s fashions. In late January Lisa had brought to Malone’s notice a small item on the social pages of the Sun. “Among today s departures by Qantas for London were Mr. and Mrs. Walter Helidon. They said they liad no definite plans when they would return.”

“Does that finally close the case?” Lisa had asked.

“It was closed the minute I walked out of the Premier’s office that Saturday afternoon.”

“Don’t sound so bitter, darling. Mother and Father liked you so much at Christmas because they thought you were so even-tempered.”

“Your mother told me I’d need to be even-tempered to live with you.”

“Do you want to get up and go home?” I am up—

“Wait a moment till I get rid of this newspaper. We don’t want Dorothy Dix between us at a time like this.”

It had been difficult to get rid of the bitterness; and Russ Clements had felt the same way. Driving out to the airport one day last month to pick up a man whom Scotland Yard, through Interpol, had asked to be questioned, Clements had said, “I still think we should’ve tried to nail Helidon for the Bixby job.”

“You can try it in your spare time,” said Malone. “It’ll keep you from winning too much on the dogs and horses.”

“I haven’t had a winner in three weeks,” said Clements happily. “But seriously, Scobie, we shouldn’t have let him get off scot-free.”

“He didn’t get off scot-free,” said Malone; but he said it reluctantly. “He had to give up the only life he cared about.”

“You’re too bloody charitable,” said Clements.

I’m not, thought Malone. I’m just a bit older than you and I’ve had hammered into me some of the pragmatism of politics. It doesn’t make me any happier and it certainly hasn’t made me more charitable.

As they pushed through the crowd in the airport terminal a hand clutched Malone’s arm. “Going abroad, Sergeant?”

“Hello, Mr. Savanna. No, they don’t give the police free passes on the airlines. You on your way?”

Savanna shook his head. He looked different from the man Malone had known in that week last December: the blue Pantene made the grey hair glisten like that of a younger man, he wore a new expensive suit, he seemed to have lost weight. But there was something else: he seemed taller, his eyes had a lively humour to them, he exuded a quiet confidence that just had not been there in the old Savanna.

“No, I’m out here to see the boss off.” He nodded across to where Gibson, mouth turned down, stood with his wife, Josie Savanna and a short fat priest who, beaming like an altar boy who had just been told he would no longer have to serve early Mass, was supervising the checking of their luggage.

Malone then remembered seeing a small paragraph that had said Gibson Industries had taken over Olympus Films. “What’s he like to work for?”

“He’ll be better to work for while he’s abroad. But don’t quote me.” Then Savanna’s smile died and he said tentatively, “You never came back to us—about Helga.”

“No,” said Malone. “I don’t think we’ll ever solve that one. We closed the file on it when we found Phil Bixby.”

Savanna’s expression did not change: he might never have heard of Bixby. “Well, maybe it’s best that way. At least it didn’t get into the papers what Helga had been. Back in Germany, I mean.”

“Yes. I just wonder if she cares now. So long, Mr. Savanna. Give my regards to Mr. and Mrs. Gibson. Oh, and to your wife. She looks well.”

“She’s never been better. Goodbye, Sergeant.”

And that was it. As John Leeds, now in Cyprus, had said, You win a few, you lose a few. But if you had any principles, you never lost your sense of taste. You knew what would always taste sour every time you thought of it.

He took another sip of wine and looked across at Lisa, who would always taste good.

Jon Cleary was born in Sydney, Australia, the eldest of seven children. He left school at the age of fifteen to help support his family during the depths of the Depression. Before 1939 he was successively a film cartoonist, a baker’s delivery man, a laundry worker and a commercial artist.

He joined the Australian Imperial Forces early in 1940 and saw service in the Middle East and in the Southwest Pacific. He began writing while in the Middle East in 1941 and within a couple of years had stories accepted by most of the world’s leading magazines. His first novel, You Cant See Round Corners, was written while he was in New Guinea—the night after its completion, the entire manuscript was lost in a cyclone. Without notes, working from memory, he rewrote it completely, and in 1946 won a prize of 1000 pounds in the Sydney Morning Heralds first national literary contest.

Cleary’s travels have taken him to Canada, every state of the U.S. except Alaska, all of Europe, on a 6000-mile motor trip behind the Iron Curtain, to New Guinea, Burma, Turkey, Africa (West, South and Southwest), Peru and Bolivia. It was on his first trip to England that aboard ship he met Joy Lucas of Melbourne, and they were married soon after arrival in England. They have two daughters. They now live in Australia and have also resided in Italy, Spain, Austria, England, and the United States.

Helgas Web is Jon Cleary’s 19th novel.