pressure has to be relieved, but it would have sounded patronising to tell her so.
'Before we get on to how to protect you, Mrs Malouf, I've got another question. When you said you didn't know where your husband was, was that true?'
'It was then, but I've had time to think about it.' 'And…?'
Her smile was professional-the kind an airline hostess or a travel agent might use to comfort a passenger or sell a package.
'Let's talk about the protection first.'
I'd been thinking about it and had come up with two ideas. 'Do you remember a journalist named Prospero Sabatini?'
She was about to finish the wine in her glass but she stopped and gave me a quizzical look. 'How the hell did you know about that?'
'I don't know anything, but I spoke to him and-'
'He didn't tell you… no, of course not, you tricked me.'
'I tried to get him to help me find you but he wouldn't.'
Her smile now was entirely different. 'That's nice.'
'I was just guessing that you meant something to him. But it's more than that, right?'
She poured out the rest of the wine. Well, it wasn't a full bottle to start with.
'It's weird,' she said. 'I met Pros in a bookshop one night during one of my separations from Richard. We were both after the same book and they only had the one copy. He let me have it. We went for coffee and got along very well. I met him again and gave him the book. I'm pretty sure something could have happened but… Richard came back and that was it. He phoned me after… the death, but I was too afraid to really talk to him. What're you thinking?'
'That he might help. Might give you a place to stay that Houli doesn't know about.'
I could see the idea appealed to her but she shook her head. 'I still have to get about, go to work, buy bloody food.'
That led to my other idea. I told her about the task force Chang was heading up and its brief to investigate the connection between Chinese and Lebanese crime. I said Chang had resources and manpower. If he was convinced that Malouf was some kind of lynchpin he could provide her with protection.
'Houli and a gangster named Freddy Wong are both trying to find Richard Malouf,' I said. 'And you heard him speaking Chinese and Lebanese. I think Inspector Chang will find that of great interest.'
She thought about it. This time she didn't touch her face or smoke or drink, but from her eyes I could tell that she was weighing a number of things in the balance. Time had dragged on and it was cold in the unheated room. She shivered, but not from the cold.
'You're a bit of a shit for all your winning ways, aren't you? That's the deal, eh? Protection in return for information?'
'Put it that way if you want to, yes. But I'm taking you on trust that you do have something to contribute.'
'You could twist a corkscrew straight. All right, you set everything up the way you said and I'll tell you something.'
It took a series of phone calls-to Sabatini, to Chang, from Chang to others and back to me, but eventually the arrangements were made.
We were both edgy, but on first name terms by then and drinking coffee as she packed a couple of bags. She had the flat on loan from a friend who was overseas, and she hadn't brought a lot of stuff with her. No problem about leaving. She'd had her mail diverted to her business address and didn't have a landline to the flat.
In the hook-up, she'd spoken briefly to Sabatini and was having trouble suppressing her excitement at the prospect of seeing him again. I had to tell Sabatini I couldn't promise any scoops, but he was smart enough to know that he was, to some extent, on the inside now. Anyway, he seemed as enthusiastic as Rosemary about them meeting.
Sabatini lived in Coogee, handy to Rosemary's office. She didn't have a car. She told me that the Merc Richard Malouf had run was repossessed by a finance company after he went missing. I drove her and we had a discreet police escort.
'He told me he owned the Mercedes,' she said as we headed east. 'I'm trying to think of one thing he told me that was true or even partly true.'
'He must have been a good actor,' I said.
'Mmm, whoever he was.'
'You only have Houli's word on that.'
Her laugh was nervous. For all her eagerness to see Sabatini, she was aware that she was on dangerous ground and Houli's name had triggered that fear. 'It's funny,' she said, 'but I'm inclined to believe that bloody gangster rather than the man I was married to. If I was married. Shit, what a mess.'
She pulled out her cigarettes and lit up. I wondered what Sabatini's attitude was to smoking. She glanced back at the police car.
'How do you know you can trust these particular police?'
'Instinct,' I said.
'Jesus Christ, I'm not sure about this. What if…?'
'We're here.' I pulled up outside a small block of flats a few streets back from the beach. The police car slid in behind us and two uniformed officers escorted us to the entrance. Sabatini was in flat 4. I rang, he answered, and the security door opened. We took the stairs to the second level and I knocked. Sabatini, in jeans, sneakers and a jumper, appeared. He'd trimmed his beard and smelled of the shower and shampoo.
'Hello, Pros,' Rosemary said.
'Hello, Rose, Hardy. Come in.'
The senior cop said they'd be on watch in the street.
'Thank you,' Rosemary said.
'I'm off,' I said. 'Remember, Rosemary, there's a meeting tomorrow at nine am.'
'Yes,' she said, 'I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but at least I feel I've broken out of some kind of prison.'
Rosemary's words stayed in my head as I drove home. It hadn't occurred to me before, but they amounted to a pretty good description of the condition of a lot of the people I'd dealt with in my work: the parents of missing children, the blackmailed, the threatened. And it applied not only to the innocent-the liars and cheats made prisons for themselves and squirmed to get out of them.
Those thoughts led inevitably to me considering my own position. Was I in a prison of my own or somebody else's making? I wasn't usually given to negative self-examination and I shook the impulse off. I was working, possibly being of help to people, and I had scores to settle. That was enough on the positive side. For the rest of the way home, I played the new Dylan album Megan had left in the CD slot. The voice was just a growl now, but a great growl:
… it's all good.
14
The next morning Chang, Ali and a technician assembled audio and visual recording gear in Sabatini's living room.
'This is highly unorthodox,' Chang said, 'but so is this whole thing.'
Rosemary and Sabatini smiled at each other. They held coffee cups and were relaxed. It was good to see. I remembered what it was like-that first firing up of a new relationship-but it seemed like a long time ago. The flat was spacious, tastefully decorated with an emphasis on books and CDs. I browsed-fiction and history, biography and economics, blues and soul-my kind of guy apart from the economics. The day was cloudy with rain threatening so the view of the water wasn't inspiring, but it'd still have put thousands on the price or the rent.
'OK,' Chang said. 'I don't think Mr Sabatini should be present. I could do without Mr Hardy, but-'
'I want them both here.'
