'I can arrange protection for you. I told you I'm working with the police.'
She snorted and scrabbled in her bag on the table for a packet of cigarettes. She lit up and blew smoke through her nostrils. 'The police,' she said, 'they aren't worried about the police. They've got
…'
'What?'
'Their people inside the police.'
I said, 'That might be true, but there are honest police.'
She smiled and blew more smoke. She was gaining confidence. 'And you know them, do you?'
I hesitated just a beat too long.
'I thought so,' she said. 'How can you know? I'll tell you something, Mr… who are you again?'
'My name's Hardy.'
'Mr Hardy, I've learned something this year. You can't trust anyone. I was married to a man I thought I knew and I found out that I didn't know him at all. I didn't even know his real name. How's that for trust?'
I pulled out a chair and sat. I slid the ashtray closer to her. My windcheater was still rucked up and I pulled it down. At least she was talking.
'Tell me about it,' I said. 'I do have experience at helping people in tight corners. I do have influential friends I can trust.'
She studied me as she took a few drags on her cigarette. She butted it out and lit another one. 'There's a bottle of wine in the fridge. I need a drink. Would you mind? Don't worry, I'm not going to scoot off.'
I went through to the kitchen, found the chardonnay and a couple of glasses and brought them back to where she was sitting. I poured and sat.
'I married… Richard five years ago. I was a flight attendant with Qantas and I met him on a flight back from Dubai. It happens. He was working in the finance industry and seemed to have plenty of money and lots of time. I kept working for almost a year while we carried on the affair but it wasn't satisfactory, as you can imagine.
So we got married and I took a job in a travel agency.
'After another year or so Richard had an affair with the wife of his boss and he got the sack. I forgave him. I loved him. Then he went to work for Perry Hassan. It was a good job in terms of status and money and he seemed happy in it for a time. He worked very hard-incredible hours. He started to drink and gamble. We argued a lot, almost broke up, got back together. He was sexually… compelling.'
The third person to say something similar and the second woman.
'Breaking up and getting back together can add spice,' I said. 'I've been there.'
'Mmm, but it was more than just that. You'd have to have seen him in action to understand.'
In fact I had. I remembered the way several women in Perry's office had looked at Malouf as he moved around. Looked quickly and then away. He had a word for a couple of them as we went out for a cup of coffee and they smiled as if he'd given them a bunch of flowers. At the coffee shop he got immediate service from a waitress who stood as close to him as she could. The thing was, as I'd said to Standish, he wasn't extraordinarily handsome and there wasn't any conceit to him. He seemed not to notice the effect he had on women; he certainly didn't play to it, and that attitude appeared to have a powerful effect on them.
'You noticed, didn't you?' she said.
I nodded.
'Shit. It wasn't his looks or his voice, that was just foreplay. His touch was… electric. I'm sorry.'
She finished her cigarette and drank some wine. She was naturally pale, but the wine brought a little colour into her face. As she forced herself to relax, I saw how attractive she could be under the right conditions. Her hair was a rich auburn and thick and her features were generous when not under strain. The wine was OK; I poured some more for both of us.
'After a while, it was a marriage in name only. I left a couple of times but he always managed to draw me back. He said he needed me, but he always needed plenty of others. I thought I was pregnant at one point and that brought me back. I wasn't and that just about finished us off.'
She paused and I nodded, letting her tell it at her own pace.
'He was under a lot of stress; he worked all night at the computer sometimes and wouldn't tell me what he was doing. I heard him on the phone a few times speaking Lebanese and Chinese. Then I wouldn't see him for days.'
'Chinese?'
She shrugged. 'Yes, you pick up a few words as flight crew. I wanted to ask him about it but by then I was… afraid of him. God, I'm spilling my guts, aren't I? How've you managed to get me talking like this?'
'I'm a good listener.'
She smiled for the first time. 'I hope you're a bit more than that. You'll need to be. Anyway, I hadn't seen him for almost a week and then Selim Houli and another man paid me a visit at home. Houli asked me if I knew where Richard was and I said I didn't. They searched Richard's office and spent a long time at his computer. Then Houli said Richard was in a lot of trouble and that Richard Malouf was not his real name. He gave me a mobile number and said if Richard.. . if he contacted me I was to call him immediately-immediately.'
I could imagine the threat that accompanied the demand and the memory of it brought a nervous twitch to her hands.
'I asked why would I do that and he said that if I didn't he'd have acid thrown in my face. He showed me photographs of people who'd suffered that and how the surveillance of them had been done. He said the same thing would happen if I spoke to the police. I'm not a brave person and I believed him.'
I nodded. 'I can see why you would. What happened then?'
'Houli came again and told me the police would be arriving soon to ask me to identify a body they believed to be Richard. Houli told me to make the identification or the same threat would be carried out. I did what he said.'
We'd worked our way through two-thirds of the wine but she hadn't smoked since she began talking. Now she lit one. Her hands were steady and she blew a strong stream of smoke well away from me.
'I gave up smoking when I met him. He didn't like it.' She laughed. 'He wasn't who he said he was; he rooted around; he embezzled millions of dollars; he was involved with gangsters and I let him tell me what to do. How dumb can you get?'
'You know what I have to ask you next.'
'Before you do, what's your interest in all this? Did he steal your money?'
'Yes, but it's more complicated than that. There's something big going on. Then there's what Houli did to me.'
'I'm sorry about that. All right, you want to know whether that was the man I knew as Richard Malouf in the morgue?'
'Yes.'
'It wasn't.'
13
She said Houli had made the same threat-acid in the face- to compel her to contact him if anyone came asking about Richard Malouf after the initial fuss had died down.
'That's what I did when you turned up.'
'I understand. Does Houli know that you've moved here?'
'I don't know. I had to rent out the Gladesville house because I couldn't afford the mortgage. Richard had handled that and I had no idea it was so high. You found me easily enough, so I suppose Houli could. He could follow me from work, for example.'
She put her hand to her face and I knew what she was thinking about.
'I suppose talking to you'd come under the same heading as talking to the police or not telling him about anyone enquiring after Richard. I don't know why I'm doing it.'
I did. Even people under as serious a threat as she was can bottle things up for only so long. Eventually the
