Dragons at the Party

ONE

1

When they took the bag of emeralds from the pocket of the murdered man, the President sighed loudly and the First Lady, who had been taking French lessons with her sights on asylum on the Riviera, said, ‘Merde!’

All this Malone learned within five minutes of arriving at Kirribilli House. Sergeant Kenthurst, the leader of the detail of Federal Police who were guarding President and Madame Timori, might know next to nothing about homicide but, coming from Canberra, had a sharp ear for detail and expletives.

‘It struck me as a bit off-colour,’ he said.

‘It would have been a bit more off-colour,’ said Russ Clements, who had taken high school French, ‘if she’d said it in Aussie.’

‘Righto, Russ, spread yourself around, see what you can pick up.’ Malone and Clements had started together as police cadets and Malone sometimes wondered if Clements, with his basic approach to everything, didn’t have the right attitude. There had been a time long ago when his own approach had been irreverent and somehow police work had been, or had seemed to be, more fun. ‘Are those protestors still outside?’

‘They’ve been moved further back up the street. I’ll see what I can get out of them. It may have been one of them who did it.’ But Clements sounded doubtful. Demonstrators didn’t bring guns to their outings. You didn’t volunteer to be manhandled by the pigs with a weapon in your pocket.

As the big untidy Homicide detective lumbered away, nodding to two junior officers to go with him, Kenthurst said, ‘Is he a good man?’

Malone sighed inwardly: here we go again. He was a patient-looking man, always seemingly composed. He was tall, six feet one (he was of an age that still continued to think in the old measures), big in the shoulders and still slim at the waist; he had that air of repose that some tall men have, as if their height accents their stillness. He was good-looking without being handsome, though the bones in his face hinted that he might be thought handsome in his old age, if he reached it. He had dark-blue eyes that were good-tempered more often than otherwise and he had a reputation amongst junior officers for being sympathetic. He suffered fools, because there were so many of them, but not gladly.

‘Don’t they teach you fellers down in Canberra to be diplomatic?’

The Federal Police Force, headquartered in the Australian Capital Territory, was a comparatively recent invention. Being so new, it had had no time to become corrupt; based in Canberra, it had also been infected by the virus of natural superiority which, along with hay fever and blowflies, was endemic to the national capital. The police forces of the six States and the Northern Territory, older, wiser and more shop-soiled in the more sordid crimes, looked on the Federals in much the same way as State politicians looked on their Federal counterparts, smart arses who didn’t know what went on in the gutters of the nation. The cops of Neapolis, bargaining with the pimps of Pompeii, had felt the same way about Rome and the Praetorian Guard.

Kenthurst blinked and his wide thin mouth tightened in his long-jawed face. He never liked these assignments here in New South Wales: the locals were too touchy. ‘Sorry, Inspector. I didn’t mean to criticize –’

‘Sergeant, if we’re going to get on together, let’s forget any rivalry. I’m not trying to muscle in on your territory – looking after a couple like the Timoris would be the last thing I’d ask for. You called in the local boys from North Sydney and they called us in from Homicide. I don’t want to take your President away from you. This is the biggest weekend of the year, maybe in Australia’s history, and I was looking forward to spending it with my wife and kids. So let’s co-operate, okay?’

Kenthurst nodded and looked around to see if anyone had overheard the exchange. But Malone did not tick a man off in front of his own men. He had his own diplomacy, of a sort.

Malone looked down at the sheet-covered body. The police photographer had taken his shots and the body was ready for disposal; Malone could hear the siren of the approaching ambulance. ‘Masutir – what was his first name?’

‘Mohammed. He was a Muslim, same as the President. He was a kind of second secretary, a pretty innocuous sort of guy as far as I can tell.’

‘Poor bugger.’ Malone looked around the grounds of the old house. All the lights were on, but there were big patches of black shadow under the trees. The grounds sloped down steeply to the waterfront and just below them a ferry, lights ablaze, drifted in towards the Kirribilli wharf. Once upon a time, before he and Lisa had started their family, they had lived just up the ridge from this house and he had caught that ferry to work. ‘Looks like the shot could have come from that block of flats.’

Kenthurst looked towards the block of flats just showing above the trees on the street side of the house. ‘It would have to’ve been from the top floor. I think the local boys are over there now.’

‘What was Timori doing out here?’

‘I gather he always liked to go for a walk after dinner – he wanted to go up the street, round the block, but we put the kybosh on that. He was famous for it back home in Palucca. No matter where he was, he always went for a walk after dinner. Just like President Truman used to, only he used to go for his walk before breakfast. Timori is a great admirer of Harry Truman, though I don’t know Truman would have liked that.’

It was Malone’s turn to blink, but he made no comment. Kenthurst might turn out to be a mine of inconsequential information; but Malone knew from experience how sometimes a nugget could be found amongst all the fools’ gold. ‘What happened when this feller went down? Did anyone hear the shot?’

‘No. Those galahs outside were chanting their usual stuff. Go home, Timori, all that crap.’

‘How has Timori been taking the demos?’

‘He just smiles – I guess he’s used to it. I gather the Paluccans were a bloody sight more vocal and violent than our galahs. He’d given up taking his walks the last couple of months in Bunda.’

‘What about Madame Timori – did she scream or faint or anything?’

‘Nothing. She just got angry, started swearing – she knows a lot of words besides merde. She’s a real tough cookie.’

Kenthurst was about the same age as Malone, forty-two, but Malone guessed they looked at different television programmes. Kenthurst, a smart dresser, looked as if he might be a fan of Miami Vice, where all the girls were tough cookies. But he had said ‘galahs’, so he wasn’t entirely Americanized. Malone was glad of that. He himself wasn’t anti-American, but he had grown tired of the standards for his own work being set by Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice. Police work, 99 per cent of the time, was plod, plod, plod and the music was slower than an undertaker’s jingle. The New South Wales Police Force had its critics, but it wasn’t the worst police force in the world, far from it.

‘Why are the Timoris here at Kirribilli House?’

‘It’s only temporary. The PM wanted them taken to Canberra, kept on the RAAF base there or even at Duntroon, so we could keep tight security on them. Madame Timori wouldn’t have a bar of that. Sydney or nothing, she told them. So they shoved them in here till they find a place for them. It’s been a bloody headache.’ He gestured at the sheet-covered corpse. ‘Maybe they’ll be glad to move now.’

‘Let’s go in and talk to them.’

They walked up the gravelled path to the steeply-gabled stone house. It had been built just over a hundred years ago by a rich merchant with the commercial-sounding name of Feez and in time it had been acquired by the Federal Government as a residence for visiting VIPs. Then a certain Prime Minister, chafing that such a charming house in such a beautiful situation right on Sydney Harbour should be wasted on visitors, some of them unwelcome, had commandeered it as his official Sydney residence. The present Prime Minister, who hated The Lodge, the main official residence in Canberra, spent as much time here as he could, being a Sydney man. Malone wondered how Phil Norval, the PM, felt about these unwelcome guests.

The Timoris were in the drawing-room. They were a handsome couple in the way that the ultra-rich often are; money had bought the extras to the looks they had been born with. Only when one looked closer did one see that Abdul Timori’s looks had begun to crumble; his bloodshot eyes looked half-asleep in the dark hammocks beneath them and his jowls had loosened. Delvina Timori, however, looked better than when Malone had last seen her close-up, ten or twelve years ago; she had never been strictly beautiful, but she had a dancer’s arrogance and grace and there was a sexuality to her that fogged-up most men’s view of her. Only their womenfolk looked at her cold-eyed.

‘Scobie Malone, isn’t it?’ she said in the husky voice that sounded phoney to women and like a siren’s song to their tone-deaf escorts. ‘I remember you! Darling, this is Mr Malone. He used to be in the Vice Squad when I was with the dance company. He thought all we dancers were part-time whores.’ She gave Malone a bright smile that said, You never proved it. ‘I hope you’ve changed your mind about dancers, Mr Malone. Especially since Australia is now so cultured.’

Outside, on the other side of the harbour, the fireworks had begun. The sky was an explosion of illumination. The city turned red, white and blue, the colours of the British, the founding fathers; someone had forgotten to light the green and gold rockets and local patriotism, as so often, remained in the dark. The citizens were still getting used to the idea that their nation was two hundred years old this week, not sure whether it was a good or a bad thing.

The ambulance had just come in the gates and in a moment or two Mohammed Masutir, the dead man, would be lifted into it and carted away to the morgue; but as far as Malone could see, Madame Timori had already forgotten him, had put his murder out of her mind.

‘I’d like to ask some questions, Mr President.’

‘The President is too upset at the moment to answer questions,’ said the President’s wife and, belatedly, made her own effort to look upset. She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief; Malone noticed it came away unmarked by any of the thick mascara she wore. ‘Poor Mr Masutir.’

‘Yes.’ Malone noticed that she, notorious for her jewels, wore none tonight. She was crying poor mouth, silently. But there were the emeralds that had been taken from Masutir’s pocket. He said bluntly, ‘The bullet was meant for the President – we can be pretty sure of that. Do you know of any organized opposition group here in Australia that would be likely to try and kill you, sir?’

‘Start asking that trash in the street outside –’

Timori raised a tired hand, silencing his wife. He took a sip of Scotch from the glass in his other hand; he was one of those Muslims, Malone guessed, who bent his religion to his own tastes. Malone, a Catholic, knew the feeling.

‘Mr Malone, I have enemies everywhere. Tell me a ruler who does not. The President of the United States, your Prime Minister –’

‘I don’t think Philip Norval thinks of himself as a ruler, darling,’ said Madame Timori. ‘Does he rule you, Mr Malone?’

Malone gave her a smile and looked at Kenthurst. ‘Sergeant Kenthurst could answer that better than I can. He’s from Canberra, where everyone rules. Yes, Sergeant?’

Clements had knocked on the door and put his tousled head into the room. ‘Can I see you a moment, Inspector?’

Malone went out into the hall. With the edge of his eye and mind he was aware of the furnishings of the house; it was the sort of place he wished he could afford for Lisa and the kids. Then he consoled himself: the voters could kick you out of here quicker than any foreclosing bank. ‘What is it, Russ?’

‘None of those out in the street know anything – I’m inclined to believe them. We’ve been into those flats opposite – some of the owners are away for the weekend. Those that are home said they heard nothing because of the noise of the clowns up the street.’

‘What about the top-floor flats? That’d be the best bet where the shot came from.’

‘The whole of the top floor is owned by an old lady, a –’ Clements looked at his notebook ‘– a Miss Kiddle. The bloke below her thought she should be home, but we can’t raise her.’

Malone looked at the burly, greying sergeant in uniform behind Clements. ‘What do you reckon, Fred?’

Thumper Murphy was a senior sergeant in the local North Sydney division. He had played rugby for the State and for Australia; his approach to football opponents and law-breakers was the same: straight through them. He was the last of a dying breed and Malone sometimes wondered if the Force could stand their loss. ‘We could bash the front door down. I’ve got a sledge-hammer in me car.’

‘I thought sledge-hammers had gone out of fashion.’

‘Not on my turf,’ said Thumper with a broken-toothed grin.

‘Righto, get in any way you can. But don’t scare hell out of the old lady.’

Thumper Murphy, accompanied by Clements, went away to get his sledge-hammer and Malone went back into the drawing-room. The President had lapsed back into the bleary-eyed look he had had when Malone had first walked into the room; the whisky glass in his hand was now empty. Madame Timori took the glass from him, slapped his wrist lightly as if he were a naughty child, and glanced at Malone.

‘I’ve suggested to Sergeant Kenthurst that the President be allowed to go to bed. He’s worn out.’

Malone looked at Kenthurst, who somehow managed to shrug with his eyebrows, What could I say? ‘All right, Madame Timori. But I’d like to see the President again in the morning. By then I hope we’ll know where we’re going.’

Timori was helped to his feet by his wife; he suddenly looked ten years older, sick and tired. ‘You don’t know where you’re going, Inspector? Neither do we. Good night.’

He brushed off his wife’s helping hand and walked, a little unsteadily, out of the room. Madame Timori looked at the two policemen. ‘We’ve been through a lot this past week, as you’ve probably read.’

And it hasn’t put a hair of your head out of place, Malone thought. Surviving a two-day siege of their palace, then a successful, though not bloody, coup, seemed hardly to have fazed her at all. Exile, however, might do that.

‘You may have to go through a lot more, Madame. This may not be the last attempt on the President’s life. Or on yours,’ he added and waited for the effect of the remark.

She did not flinch. ‘I’ve had three attempts on my life in the past three years. One gets used to it.’ It was bravado, but Malone had to admire it. ‘I suppose we were careless this evening. One just doesn’t expect assassination attempts in Australia. Except character assassination,’ she added with a smile that would have cut a thousand throats. ‘Now, is there anyone else you’d like to question?’

She had taken charge of the investigation. Malone grinned inwardly: Lisa would enjoy the police gossip in bed tonight. If he got to bed … ‘Anyone you’d care to suggest?’

Madame Timori gave him a look that would have demoted him right back to cadet if she’d had the authority. ‘The household staff?’

‘I think we can leave them till last. I’d like to talk to the staff you brought with you from Palucca. They’d know more about your enemies.’ He was treading on dangerous ground. He was aware of the warning waves coming out of Kenthurst, the Canberra man. You’re dealing with a Federal Government guest, a personal friend of the Prime Minister. ‘That is, if you don’t mind, Madame?’

‘You mean am I going to claim diplomatic immunity for them?’

‘I don’t think they’d want that. Not if they want to know who is trying to kill their President.’ Even if he’s only an ex-President now.

‘You sound so efficient, Inspector. So unlike our own police back home. I suppose, then, you should start with Sun Lee.’

Sun Lee was the President’s private secretary, a Chinese in his mid-forties with a skin as smooth as jade and eyes like black marbles. He was just as cold as both those stones. ‘I have nothing to tell you, Inspector.’

Malone looked at Madame Timori, who gave him a smug smile. Then he looked back at the Chinese. ‘Maybe you could show me Mr Masutir’s room?’

Sun frowned, a thin crack in the jade. ‘He shared a room with me – the accommodation here is limited –’ He spoke with all the expansive snobbery of a man accustomed to a palace. ‘There is nothing in Mr Masutir’s room but his personal belongings.’

‘Those are what I want to see.’

Sun glanced at Madame Timori, but she said nothing. Then he turned abruptly and led Malone out of the room and upstairs. The house, for an official residence, was small. Australia did not believe in any grandeur for those it voted into office; that was reserved for those forced upon it, the Queen’s Governors and Governor-General. There was a substantial mansion right next door to Kirribilli House, but that was the Sydney residence of the Governor-General and no place for a deposed President. The Queen, through her representative, only entertained exiled monarchs. A certain protocol had to be observed, even in disgrace.

The room was comfortably and attractively furnished, but Sun obviously thought it was a converted closet stocked from a discount house. ‘There is no room to move … Mr Masutir’s things are still in his suitcase. We were only allowed to bring one suitcase each.’

‘I read in the papers that the RAAF plane that brought you was loaded with baggage.’

‘The newspapers, as always, got it wrong. We brought packing cases, but they are full of official papers – records, files, that sort of thing. President Timori wanted to leave nothing for the vandals who have taken over the palace.’

‘What about Madame Timori? Did she bring only one suitcase?’

‘Madame Timori has a position to uphold.’

‘I thought she might have. The papers said she brought twelve cases and four trunks. But women never travel lightly, do they? So they tell me.’

Masutir’s suitcase, a genuine Vuitton or a good Hong Kong fake, Malone wasn’t sure which, was not locked. Malone flipped back the lid, was surprised at how neatly everything was packed; had Masutir been packed for weeks, waiting for the inevitable? Most of the contents told Malone nothing except that Masutir had always bought quality: the shirts, the socks, the pyjamas were all silk. In a pocket in the lid were Masutir’s passport and a black leather-bound notebook.

Malone flipped through the passport. ‘Mr Masutir had been to Australia before?’

‘I understand he had been here before.’

‘Six times in the past –’ Malone looked at the earliest date stamp ‘– eight months. Did you know about those visits, Mr Sun?’

If Sun had known about the visits he didn’t show it now. ‘No. Mr Masutir was more Madame Timori’s secretary than my assistant. Back home in Palucca she was a very busy woman, as you may know.’

‘Are you a Paluccan, Mr Sun?’

‘Fourth generation. My family came to Bunda from Hong Kong after the Opium War.’

‘Which side were they on?’ Sun looked blank and Malone added, ‘The war?’

Sun still looked blank, made no answer. So much for being a smart arse, thought Malone; but the quietly arrogant Chinese was beginning to get under his skin. Malone flipped through the black notebook, saw a list of Sydney addresses and phone numbers. He decided against asking Sun about them.

‘I’ll take this. I’ll give you a receipt for it.’

‘Can you do that?’

‘Do you want me to find out who murdered Mr Masutir?’

The tiny frown was there again, but just for a moment. ‘Of course. But how will his address book help you?’

‘We have to start somewhere, Mr Sun. Every murderer has a name. Our murderer’s may be in this.’ He held up the notebook, then slipped it into his pocket. ‘I think that’ll be all, Mr Sun.’

Sun looked surprised, and Malone was surprised to see him capable of such an expression. ‘You don’t want to question me?’

‘I’ll be back to do that, Mr Sun. In the meantime you prepare your answers.’

He went ahead of the Chinese down the stairs, not bothering to look back at him or say anything further. He sensed there might be something in Masutir’s notebook which might worry Sun Lee. A night to think about it might put another crack in the jade face.

When Malone reached the front hallway Clements was waiting there for him. He read the bad news on the big man’s face before Clements said it. ‘We bashed the door down and found the old lady. She’d been strangled.’

‘Any sign of the killer?’

Clements shook his head. ‘He’d left his gun, though. A Springfield 30, with a telescopic sight. He was a pro, I’d say. I’ve rung Fingerprints, they’re on their way.’

‘What about the old lady? Had he knocked her around?’

‘No. It was a neat job, with a piece of rope. He’d come prepared. Like I say, he was a real pro.’

‘Righto, I’ll be over there in a while. In the meantime, give this to Andy Graham, tell him I want every one of those Sydney addresses and phone numbers tracked down. Tell him to tell them to stand by when he finds out who they are. I’ll want to interview them.’ He handed the notebook to Clements, aware of Sun standing behind him and hearing every word. ‘Something doesn’t add up here. Maybe they meant to kill Masutir, after all. You think so, Mr Sun?’