Yesterday’s Shadow. Jon Cleary

‘Mrs Pavane’s maiden name was Wilhelmina Page, but she was known as Billie. She also used an American Express card under the name of Mrs Belinda Paterson. Home address, Corvallis. Her parents, who were killed in a car accident, lived there – roughly, I guess, in the late seventies. Her father had some sort of job at the State College, a groundsman or something.’

      ‘I’ll get on to that pronto.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Unless they’re having an early night.’

      ‘The FBI sleeps?’

      Again the smile. ‘Not as much as the CIA.’

      In heaven the seraphim criticize the cherubim, who look down on the thrones: the original bureaucracy.

      ‘Anything else?’

      ‘Mrs Pavane told Miss Caporetto, one day at lunch, that she’d made a quick business trip to Sydney some years ago. The Ambassador says that can’t be right. But at the lunch some feller came up, tried to speak to Mrs Pavane, but she just wiped him. Is there any way you can trace if a Miss Page or a Mrs Paterson came to Sydney eight or nine years ago? We’ll check with our Immigration.’

      Himes made a note. ‘I’m told there was another homicide at the same hotel. Any connection?’

      ‘We don’t think so. It’s a domestic. I’m on my way now to question the wife.’

      ‘I don’t envy you. In my job I never got caught up in domestics, not like local cops. This one –’ He shook his head as if in disbelief. ‘This one’s the closest I’ve ever been to a domestic.’

      ‘Joe, a domestic for us is when the husband kills the wife or vice versa.’

      ‘I know. But from what you’ve told me, this isn’t the usual security thing. Terrorists, someone with a grudge against the US – it looks like nothing more than plain murder. To which Mrs Pavane might’ve contributed by being where she was in that flea-bag.’

      ‘It’s not a flea-bag, Joe. It’s just a hotel where the rate is about three or four hundred dollars a night less than she’d be used to paying. What do you know about her?’

      ‘You couldn’t meet a nicer woman. She had – what do they call it? – the common touch. I know no more about her than what I saw down in Canberra – the embassy staff love her. She’d have been checked by the FBI back home before she and the Ambassador got the appointment – it’s standard procedure –’

      ‘They missed somewhere along the line. They didn’t link her with Mrs Belinda Paterson.’

      ‘The FBI is thorough –’

      ‘Joe, I’m not criticizing. I’m stating a fact, that’s all. Mrs Pavane apparently has had three names – I’d like to find out which was her real one. Then, maybe, we can start tracing her killer.’

      ‘You think it was someone from her past who killed her?’

      ‘I haven’t a clue, Joe. But it would be better if it were, wouldn’t it?’

      Himes stood up, looking weary. ‘I dunno, Scobie. There are no good aspects to murder, are there?’

      ‘I’m not sure of that, either. I’ve seen some bastards who were better dead than alive.’ He, too, stood up. They both looked weary enough to be at the end of a case rather than the beginning of it. ‘What if the bloke who killed her didn’t know who she really was? She had all her valuables up in the room with her. Only her passport was in the safe deposit box. Didn’t she want him to know who she was?’

      ‘I hate the thought she might just have been there as a pick-up. Are you gonna ask the Ambassador what their sex life was like?’

      Malone grinned without humour. ‘I think I’ll leave that to Foreign Affairs.’

      3

      On his way out Malone looked in on Consul-General Avery. ‘We’ve started, sir. But there’s a long way to go.’

      ‘I once played in a Rose Bowl game. We were behind thirty-eight to nil at the end of the second quarter.’

      ‘Did you win?’

      ‘No, but we gave UCLA a helluva fright.’

      Malone shook his head. ‘I’ve spent all my police career trying to give crims a fright. It never works, not with the pros. This feller who killed Mrs Pavane, he’s way ahead at the moment.’

      ‘You sound pessimistic.’

      ‘No, just realistic. It’s a cop’s philosophy.’

      Ms Caporetto rode down in the lift with him. She was wearing a thick brown coat and the sort of tea-cosy hat that he thought was worn only by seven-year-olds with fashion-conscious mothers. She did not look demure, nor as innocent as a seven-year-old, but the body was not visible to be whistled at.

      ‘I’m on my way to see your Premier.’

      ‘Is he getting into the act?’

      ‘I don’t think so. It’s a courtesy call on our part. We want to ask if everything can be played down, if and when the questions come up in Parliament.’

      ‘Not if. When. Another twenty-four hours and the Opposition will be asking why we police haven’t wrapped it up. It’s par for the course. Never be constructive when in Opposition.’

      ‘I love working here. You’re such a primitive lot.’ But as she stepped out of the lift she gave him a smile that said it was a compliment.

      He drove back to Police Centre and Delia Jones. The day had turned grey, but the clouds were still high, scarred by wind. Down at street level another wind chased paper down the gutters, straightened people into mannikins as they turned corners into it. A day for a grey mood.

      He first went into the Incident Room, where Gail Lee and Sheryl Dallen had finished the display board. There was not much: a few photos, names, diagrams. There would have been less if the coverage had been of only a single murder.

      ‘Not much, is there?’

      ‘Did you get anything new from the Ambassador?’ asked Gail Lee.

      ‘Just that Mrs Pavane has a murky past. No,’ he said as both women raised their eyebrows. ‘Nothing dirty. It’s just that even Mr Pavane can’t tell us much about his wife before he married her.’

      Then he looked at the photo of the dead Boris Jones. Even in death there was a look of cruelty in the broad Slav face; or was that his own imagination, a desire, too late, to protect Delia? ‘What would you say of a bloke like that?’

      ‘A bastard,’ said Sheryl. ‘But some women would find him attractive.’

      ‘Mrs Jones must have. How is she?’

      ‘A bit edgy,’ said Sheryl, ‘but nothing much. She’s more worried about her kids than about what she’s done.’

      ‘Her lawyer turned up yet?’

      ‘Mrs Quantock’s brought in a solicitor from out their way, Balmain. She and Mrs Jones have been arguing about who’ll pay – evidently Mrs Jones has got nothing. It looks like it might be a Legal Aid job.’

      Legal Aid did its best but it could never afford the talent that could turn a no-win case into an acquittal. ‘Righto, I’d better see her. You come with me, Gail.’

      ‘Do we keep both murders on the one board?’ asked Sheryl.

      ‘I hope not.’ He would like the Jones murder dropped off the board altogether. ‘We’ll see what she has to tell us.’

      ‘Not us,’ said Gail. ‘You.’

      ‘Don’t remind me.’ He looked at both of them. ‘You know I’d rather walk right away from this?’

      ‘Of