getting hold of the journal? And the big one-if Van Kep killed him, for whom?’
‘Are they your only questions, Cliff?’
I knew from the tone of her voice what she meant, but I was concentrating now, focused, as the sports commentators say much too often. ‘Christ, no. Who was watching you and who tried to blow me apart? But those are the primary ones, the ones that need to be answered to get a grip on this. Did you look for the journal after Fleischman was killed?’
She nodded, but she was frowning. ‘Everywhere. No sign of it. I’ve assumed whoever killed him took it.’
‘You’ve got no idea who this other man might be?’
She went rigid and the gentle rubbing of her head against my shoulder stopped. ‘How could I? I didn’t have anything to do with.. ’
‘I know. I know. I just thought Van Kep might have mentioned needing help. Something like that.’
‘No! No! All I asked him to do was to keep an eye on Julius, make sure he didn’t hurt me or try to take me away or anything while I got things together to leave him. That’s all! He said he’d do it. He said he hated Julius, he…’
She didn’t cry much and she didn’t actually collapse, but letting all this loose drained her. She’d been holding it in for a considerable time, telling no one, rehashing it over and over until it was like a permanent thread through her every thought and action. She’d called on her wits and reserves of nervous energy to see her through the police investigation and the charging procedure and the meeting with Cy Sackville and the first encounter with me. She told me she’d devised little mental games and pretences to keep her courage up, and now it was as if the props and supports had fallen away. Her hard drinking days must have been well behind her because, together with the emotional turmoil, the laced coffee on top of what we’d had before seemed to slow her down and bring her to a stop.
I put her to bed in her kimono. Before she went to sleep she told me where to find a spare security card. I sat on the side of the bed in my pants and shirt and bare feet and smoothed some damp strands of hair away from her face. The slanted dark eyes looked up at me and I could sense all the same emotions that were affecting me flowing and cross-currenting in her. Doubts, suspicions, sexual strings, a need to believe and trust. Her eyes closed and she went to sleep with her mouth falling slightly open, exposing the extraordinary teeth and making her look young and vulnerable.
When I was sure she was under I got up and left the room, leaving on a bedside lamp turned towards the wall so that it created a pale pool of light. I prowled and snooped, taking care not to wake her. Few people welcome being probed the way a professional like me can do it. From long experience, I know the subterfuges, the strategies, hiding places, the ways the secrets are coded. Within an hour, I knew more about Claudia Fleischman, I suspected, than any other person living or dead had ever known about her apart from herself. What I found confirmed what I had from the sources and what I’d learned from her. She’d been a brilliant student and had got first-class honours for her combined degree. The sky seemed to be the limit for her as an academic or a legal practitioner. Then, with her parents’ death, the bottom fell out. She had several photographic albums and I was able to observe Claus and Julia Rosen over time, almost as if I had known them. Both were strikingly handsome, with regular features and alert, intelligent expressions. He had a full head of dark curly hair well into middle age and his wife’s looks seemed to improve with the years. It was hard to tell which of the two Claudia most favoured.
She kept no diary as such, but had fallen years ago into making diary-type entries in an appointment book and keeping the books. I skimmed through a few and noted the names of three or four men (presumably the found- wanting lovers), but very few people who appeared as friends or even close acquaintances. As she’d said, she was very rarely unwell and when she was a couple of times over a long stretch, it clearly annoyed her. After her parents were killed the entries stopped.
She wasn’t short of money but there was none to spare. The sale of her parents’ house had yielded only thirteen thousand dollars after the mortgage had been paid out and, although she’d saved money when she was working, the savings had been eaten into by several trips-to Vanuatu and New Caledonia-and by payments to a psychologist. She hadn’t told me about that. I browsed through her credit card statements and cheque book stubs. The statements are hard to interpret because a place that deals in fantasy underwear and marital aids can trade as ‘Products Incorporated’, but my snap judgment was that she hadn’t spent much money on having fun. The Pacific Islands trips seemed to have incurred expenses for sightseeing tours. I found only one example of concealment. The bank had sent her a new cheque book before she’d used all the forms in the previous book. Ten days before her husband died, Claudia had written a cash cheque for five thousand dollars in this new book and hidden the book inside a pair of knee-high boots. You don’t have to be a fetishist to take an interest in knee-high boots-funnel-web spiders and private enquiry agents are very aware of their potential.
I finished my search, checked on Claudia- still sleeping-and went into the living room. It was after midnight but I phoned Cy Sackville at home. The answering machine picked up but I cut the call without leaving a message and did it again and again until Cy came on the line.
‘Jesus. What is it?’
‘Who, mate. This is Hardy.’
‘Cliff, it’s very, very late. I’m due in court tomorrow morning.’
‘We never sleep. I have to tell you things. This has all got very strange. Claudia’s telling me a different story from what she’s said up till now, and I believe her.’
‘Where are you?’
‘At her place.’
‘Cliff, you haven’t?’
‘Not important. The thing is, she…’
Have to hand it to Sackville, he was lightning fast in recovery. I could see him taking a sip from the water he kept by the bed, looking at his Rolex, blinking, tapping into his stockpile of energy. ‘You shouldn’t talk on the phone. The police might be bugging her.’
‘Or someone else.’
‘Ah. Right. I’m not far away. I’ll come over.’
‘No, not necessary. I just wanted to let you know that we’ve got problems and possibilities.’
‘Just what I love at one o’clock in the bloody morning. I’m awake now. I’m on my way.’
Cy lived in Neutral Bay, only a five-minute run at that time of night if you knew the directional lurks. I poured some coffee, still hot in the machine, and added a judicious shot of the Scotch. The speaker and camera for the security gate were activated by switches on the wall near the door. I wandered over there and began pushing buttons. The area in front of the gate came into slightly grainy, black and white view. Idly, I wondered what Sackville would be wearing for such an impromptu call. I bet on a tracksuit, sneakers.
It took closer to ten minutes before he arrived and I was all wrong on the dress code. Cy wore rumpled jeans, a white business shirt and espadrilles-you can never tell. His face was dark with stubble and I realised that I’d never seen him other than very closely shaven. With his dark, receding hair sticking up and his slight gut bulging at the waist of the too-tight jeans, he looked nothing like the sleek barrister feared by prosecutors and uncertain witnesses. He took off his distance glasses, put on his specs for close work and peered at the name tags. I grinned as I watched, took a sip of the coffee.
The buzzer was louder than I’d expected and I worried that it would wake Claudia.
‘You’re in, night owl,’ I responded. ‘Push the gate.’
He did. The gate opened and I’d half-turned away when I heard the three popping sounds, close together. At first I thought it was some kind of audio bleep. I swung back to look at the screen and say Cy sliding down with his hands clutching at the gate. His head jerked and his glasses came off. Dark splashes appeared on the back of his shirt as he hit the ground. He twitched a couple of times and then lay very still.
I shouted his name, ran across the deep pile carpet and threw myself at the telephone.
10
I rang 000 and raced down the stairs and out to the gate. Cy was lying face down; his head was holding the gate open. I crouched beside him and felt for his pulse but I knew it was no use. The shooter had put three bullets
