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‘Cossack Holdings – who are they? You’re the big-time investor.’
It was a private joke between them that Clements was the richest honest cop in the NSW Police Department. He had always been a lucky horse punter and since the October 1987 market crash he had dabbled on the stock exchange, picking up some sweet bargains through his brokers. He was not greedy, did not even have an ambition to be rich; he just gambled because he loved gambling. He was also incorruptible.
‘They’re a public company, unlike Kensay. They’re the leading shareholder in the O’Brien Cossack. That’s a merchant bank. Their shares are very dicey at the moment – there are lots of rumours. The bank and the guy who started all the companies are being investigated by the National Companies and Securities Commission. Brian Boru O’Brien.’
‘Brian Boru. B …’
‘What?’
Malone told him about the B. in Mardi Jack’s journal, pushing the book across his desk at him. ‘It’s a long shot –’
Then he looked up as Chief Inspector Greg Random wandered into his office. Greg Random had never been a man in a hurry, but lately he had seemed to be ambling aimlessly up and down the corridors of the Centre. He had been the chief of the thirty-six detectives in the old Homicide Bureau; but regionalization had broken up the Bureau and reduced the staff to thirteen detectives, too few for a chief inspector to command. Random had been moved to a supernumerary position, where he was lost and unhappy. He had come in now because he could still smell a homicide a mile away.
‘What happened down in Clarence Street?’ He was a tall, thin man with a shock of white hair and weary eyes. Nothing ever surprised him, neither the depravity of man nor the occasional kindnesses.
Malone told him. ‘We aren’t even in the starting blocks yet. All we know is she was shot by a high-powered rifle.’
‘Like those other two, the Gardner case and Terry Sugar?’
Malone raised his eyebrows. ‘I hadn’t thought about them.’
‘That’s all I’ve got, time to think. There’s bugger-all else for me to do.’
‘You think there’s some connection?’
‘I don’t know – that’s your job.’ Malone was now in charge of the remaining thirteen detectives and he sometimes wondered if Greg Random resented his luck. ‘Get Ballistics to get their finger out. Tell ’em you want a comparison of the bullets by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.’
Malone wanted to tell him that he no longer ran Homicide, but he couldn’t kick a man who was now virtually a pensioner, even if on a chief inspector’s 44,800 dollars a year. ‘Righto, Greg, thanks for the suggestion.’
Random hung around for another minute or two, then wandered out and disappeared. Malone looked at Clements. ‘Righto, you heard what the Chief Inspector said. Get your finger out.’
Clements sighed, picked up the phone and dialled Ballistics two floors above them. He spoke to someone there for a minute or two, trying to sound patient as he pressed his point, then he put down the phone. ‘They say they’re short-staffed – they’ve got two guys away in the bush and two off with the ’flu. They’ll do their best, but do we think all they have to do is help us solve homicide cases.’
Malone stood up, put on his jacket and raincoat and the battered rainhat he wore on wet days. ‘Come on, let’s go down and talk to Cossack Holdings. If nothing else, you might pick up some bargains.’
They drove down in an unmarked police car. The sun had disappeared and it was raining again, the rain riding a slanting wind down through the narrow streets of the central business district. Sydney was still a clean city compared to many, but high-rise development was doing its best to turn it into a city of shadows on sunny days and canyons of gloom on days such as today. The roadway and the pavements glistened like dirty grey ice; a red traffic light was bright as a desert sun in the dull day; a shoal of umbrellas made a shifting pattern as it drifted down Bridge Street. Clements parked the car, but ignored the threatening meter with its Expired red glare.
They rode up to the thirty-fifth floor, rising past the bank offices on the lower floors to the executive offices of Cossack Holdings. The reception lobby would not have been out of place in a five-star hotel. The black-haired girl behind the big desk was dressed in a beige suede suit that complemented the green suede walls. A Brett Whiteley hung on one wall; an Arthur Boyd faced it. This was not a reception lobby that welcomed would-be clients rattling a tin cup.
The girl did not look surprised that Cossack should be visited by the police. ‘May I tell Mr Bousakis the nature of your visit?’ Her vowels were as rounded as her figure.
‘Who’s Mr Bousakis?’ said Clements, who had made the introduction of himself and Malone.
‘The chief executive. You said you wanted to see the boss.’ She obviously thought all policemen were vulgar.
‘I think we’ll tell him the nature of our business when we see him,’ said Malone, smiling at her. ‘It won’t take long.’
She didn’t smile back, but got up and went into an inner office. It was almost a minute before she came back and held open the door. ‘Mr Bousakis will see you.’
The inner office was as big as the reception lobby; the shareholders in Cossack kept their executives in the style to which they aspired. George Bousakis did not rise from behind his big desk; from the bulk of him it looked as if he got to his feet only in an emergency. He was a huge man, at least six feet four and three hundred pounds: Malone still thought in the old measures when assessing a stranger. He was in his mid-forties with black slicked-back hair, a hint of handsome features behind the jowls and fat cheeks, and dark eyes that would miss nothing, even that which was hidden. He wore a pink shirt with white collar and cuffs, a blue tie with a thin red stripe in it, and a dark blue double-breasted suit. Converted to sailcloth, Malone reckoned there was enough material in the shirt and suit to have equipped a twelve-metre yacht.
‘Good morning. Miss Rogers didn’t say which section you were from.’ He had a pleasant voice, at least in timbre; but there was a hard edge to it.
‘Homicide,’ said Malone and explained the reason for their visit. ‘Miss Jack had a key to the flat. Who would have given her that?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’ Bousakis showed no shock at the news of murder in one of the company flats; Mardi Jack could have been something discovered missing from stock during an inventory check. ‘I wouldn’t know Miss – Jack? – if I fell over her.’
It would be the end of her if you did, Malone thought. ‘Do you ever use the flat yourself, Mr Bousakis?’
‘Never.’
‘Who does use it?’ Malone sat back, letting Clements take over the questioning. Their teamwork was invariably good: Malone always knew when it was time to change the bowling.
‘Some of our executives. Sales directors, people like that. And out-of-towners, people from our interstate offices. We put them up there instead of in hotels. We’re very cost-conscious,’ he said, evidently blind to the indulgence amidst which he sat. The room, green and grey, had suede-covered walls like the outer office; the carpet almost buried one’s shoes; the furniture was antique or a good reproduction of it. The paintings on the walls were from the traditional school: there was a Gruner, a Streeton, a Wakelin: they were familiar, but Malone did not know enough to name the artists.
‘Any of the O’Brien Cossack personnel?’
‘Occasionally. We try to keep ourselves separate from the bank.’
‘Why?’
Bousakis’ voice hardened just a little, his fat lips looked suddenly thin. ‘It’s just company policy.’
‘What about Mr Brian Boru O’Brien?’ Clements seemed to have a little difficulty in getting the name out.
Bousakis’ gaze was steady. ‘What about him?’
‘Would he use the flat?’ What a bowler to have at the other end, thought Malone in cricket terms: Clements thumped the ball down straight at the batsman’s head, the West Indians would have offered him full citizenship right off.
‘Why should he do that? Mr O’Brien has the penthouse suite at the Congress, only a couple of blocks from here.’
‘He lives there?’
‘Yes. Mr O’Brien’s not the sort of businessman who goes in for flamboyant mansions. He likes to live quietly, without too much self-advertisement. We have enough of that in this town,’ Bousakis added with a curled tongue, and Clements nodded in agreement.
Malone wondered what the penthouse suite at the Congress hotel would cost. Five thousand a week, six, seven, even allowing for corporate rates? It was an expensive way of living quietly, of being cost-conscious. He then began to wonder what the rumours were that Clements had mentioned about Cossack Holdings.
‘What does Mr O’Brien do? I mean in regard to Cossack?’
‘He’s the executive chairman. He leaves the day-to-day running to me, but he’s here every day, doing the strategic thinking. He wouldn’t even know we own that apartment you’re talking about.’
‘I think we’d like to see him,’ said Malone, taking over the bowling, deciding it was time to start seaming the ball.
‘I don’t think that can be arranged at such short notice –’
‘You mean your girl outside hasn’t already warned him we’re here?’ Clements was still thumping them down.
‘You’re pretty blunt, aren’t you, Sergeant?’
‘This is one of his milder days,’ said Malone, deciding that Clements had bowled enough bean-balls. ‘We don’t want to be rudely blunt, Mr Bousakis, but we are investigating a murder committed in a flat owned by one of your companies.’
Bousakis said nothing for a moment, then he nodded. ‘Sure. It’s a good point.’ It’s the only point, thought Malone; but didn’t press it. ‘I’ll take you up to him.’
He pushed back his chair from the leather-topped antique desk; only then did Malone notice the semicircle cut away in the desk-top to accommodate Bousakis’ belly. The big man looked down at it and smiled without embarrassment.
‘It’s an idea I picked up in London, at one of the clubs there. Brooks’. There’s a table where Charles James Fox, he was an eighteenth-century politician, used to play cards – they cut a piece out of the table so that he could fit his belly in. An admirable idea, I thought. I’ve always been built like this, even as a kid.’
‘How did you get on at a desk when you were working your way up to this?’ Clements was getting blunter by the minute. Malone had only thought of the question.
‘I sat sideways,’ said Bousakis and for the first time smiled. ‘That way I was able to keep an eye on the competition.’
The three of them went up in a private lift to the boardroom and the office of the executive chairman. The reception lobby here was much smaller; the board directors were either modest men or the chairman did not feel that visitors had to be impressed. A lone secretary sat at her desk, a girl as elegant as Miss Rogers downstairs but a few years older, experience written all over her. She stood up as soon as Bousakis led the way out of the lift and said, as if she had been expecting them, ‘I’ll tell Mr O’Brien you’re here.’
She went into the inner office and was back in a moment. Bousakis led the way in, filling the doorway as he passed through it and looming over the secretary like a dark blue hippo. This office was as large as Bousakis’, as elegantly furnished but more modern. There were expensive paintings here, too, and several pieces of abstract statuary. And, between two of the paintings, a gold record in what looked to be a gold frame.
Brian Boru O’Brien rose from behind his brass-and-glass desk. He was in his early forties, it seemed, lean and fit. For all his ultra-Irish name, he looked pure Australian: the long jaw, the cheekbones showing under the stringy flesh, the squint wrinkles round the narrow eyes. He had thick dark hair, a wide, thin-lipped mouth full of very white, rather big teeth and a smile that, used too much, would puzzle strangers as to its sincerity. He was not handsome, never would be, but more women than not might find him attractive.
He came round the desk and put out a large hand. ‘Hullo, Scobie. Remember me?’
Chapter Three (#u51becc4f-f3c6-528a-bf50-82abda9fe3cf)
1
Malone stared at him. He had trained himself to remember faces. In a game where names are just part of a criminal’s wardrobe, to be changed at will, a face is as important as a fingerprint. There was something faintly familiar about O’Brien, but it was a face seen through the dusty glass of many years.
‘Over twenty years ago,’ said O’Brien. ‘Twenty-three, twenty-four, whatever it was. At the police academy. I was Horrie O’Brien then, a cadet like you. A long long time ago,’ he said and seemed to be speaking to himself.
Malone relaxed, suddenly laughed. ‘Crumbs – you! That’s you – Brian Boru? Is that your real name? No wonder you didn’t use it at the academy.’
‘No, Horace is my real name. Horace Clarence. Or Clarence Horace, I’ve done my best to forget which.’ He looked at Bousakis and showed his big white teeth; it could have been either a smile or a snarl. ‘You mention that outside this room, George, and you’re out of a job. We all have our little secrets.’
‘Sure we do, Brian. My middle name’s Jason, if that’ll make you any happier. My mother was always telling me to go looking for the Golden Fleece.’ He sounded smug, as if he had found it. ‘Do you have a middle name, Sergeant?’
Malone felt the game was getting away from him; he chipped in before Clements could answer. ‘It’s Persistence. Can we see you alone, Brian?’
‘You want to talk about old times?’ O’Brien gave him a full smile.
‘Not exactly. If you’d excuse us, Mr Bousakis? We may be back to you.’
Bousakis flushed; he was not accustomed to being dismissed. He went out without a word, the bulk of his back seeming to tremble with indignation. O’Brien moved to the door, closed it and came back and waved Malone and Clements to green leather chairs set round a low glass coffee table.
‘George doesn’t like being shut out of things. He thinks this place can’t run without him.’
‘Can it?’ said Clements.
O’Brien seemed to freeze in mid-air for a split second as he sat down; then he dropped into a chair. ‘You mean the rumours? Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers, Sergeant. Were you at the academy when I was there?’
‘You wouldn’t remember me. I was in another group. I moved across to Scobie’s group the week before we graduated.’
‘I never did graduate. I often wonder what would have happened to me if I’d hung on there. But you’re not here to talk about old times, you said. You’re not from the Fraud Squad or anything like that, are you?’
‘No,’ said Malone. ‘Homicide.’
For the first time O’Brien lost his composure. ‘Jesus! Homicide?’
Malone gave him a brief summary of why they were here. ‘Did you ever meet a woman named Mardi Jack?’
There was a moment’s hesitation; the frown of puzzlement came a little too late. ‘Mardi Jack? No. Has she murdered someone?’
‘No. She was the one who was murdered. Shot by a high-powered rifle in a flat owned by one of your companies in Clarence Street.’ Malone bowled a bumper of his own.
O’Brien didn’t duck. ‘I didn’t know her. I don’t even know anything about the flat.’
Malone had had no conviction that the B. in Mardi Jack’s journal stood for Brian; it could have been the initial for half a dozen other names, surnames as well as given names. It could even stand for Bousakis. He stumbled mentally in his run-up to his next question: it was difficult to imagine that a mistress could be so desperately in love with a man as huge as Bousakis. Which only showed the prejudice of a lean and fit man.
He started again: ‘This murder isn’t going to be good for your corporate image. I mean, in view of the rumours …’
‘You believe the rumours, too?’ Hardly any of the big white teeth showed in O’Brien’s dry smile.
I don’t even know what they are: Malone, a non-investor, rarely read the financial pages. ‘It’s what other people believe that counts, isn’t it? You want to hear what Sergeant Clements thinks? He’s the Department’s biggest investor, outside the police pension fund.’
O’Brien looked like a man who knew his leg was being pulled. ‘What sort of investor are you, Sergeant?’
‘A cautious one. I’ve also punted on a few of your horses.’
‘Cautiously?’
Clements nodded, but didn’t elaborate; the inference was that he did not take O’Brien’s horses at face value. ‘These rumours, Mr O’Brien. They involve a lot of people – I’ve heard a State cabinet minister mentioned and a Federal Opposition front-bencher. Insider trading.’
‘It’ll all come out in the wash,’ said O’Brien, his leg safe but the rest of him now looking vulnerable. ‘And the wash will be cleaner than you’ve all expected. It’s the old tall poppy syndrome – chop down anyone who does better than the mediocre. That’s the sacred koala in this country – mediocrity.’
Malone had heard it all before; there was a certain truth to it. He wondered, however, if a nation dedicated to worship of the brilliant would have been any better. The jails weren’t full of just failures; there were a lot of over-achievers amongst them. Tall poppies who had lopped off their own heads.
‘Is the NCSC gunna hold an enquiry?’ said Clements.
‘They’ve already started.’ O’Brien appeared relaxed; but he was gently bouncing one big hand in the other. ‘I thought you’d know that.’
Clements took another tack, a wide outswinger: ‘Didn’t you have something to do with music at one time?’
The hands paused. ‘Yes. Quite some years ago. That was how I first got started.’
‘You managed and promoted pop stars in Britain and America?’
That explained O’Brien’s accent. Malone had been trying to place it: it had an Australian base, the vowels occasionally flattened, but there was something else laid over it, a transatlantic sound.
‘Yes,’ said O’Brien. ‘What’s this got to do with what happened today? The murder, I mean.’
Malone took up the attack again, seeing where Clements was leading. ‘Miss Jack was a singer. One of your firms, Kensay, owns a recording studio where she was working on Saturday before she was killed. How long ago were you in London – what do I call you, Horrie or Brian?’
