Winter Chill. Jon Cleary
and looking much fresher than she had this morning. With her was a handsome young man with thinning blond hair and the awkward look of a courtier new to serving the queen. And Malone knew now that Joanna Brame was the queen of whichever circle she ruled back home in the States.
‘Adam, would you get the gentlemen a drink? This is Adam Tallis, an associate in our firm.’
Malone and Clements shook hands with Tallis and gave him their drink preferences. Then Malone sat down opposite Joanna Brame. ‘Our firm? You’re a lawyer, too, Mrs Brame?’
She smiled at that, a pleasant smile, then sipped the cocktail she had been holding when the two detectives had entered the room. ‘Only by osmosis. I said our firm out of habit. My great-grandfather founded it back in – when was it, Adam?’
‘1888.’ Malone was certain that Joanna Brame had known the date, but she had neatly drawn Tallis into the conversation. ‘Mrs Brame is a Schuyler.’
‘Of Schuyler, Dr Vries and Barrymore,’ said Malone and smiled at the surprise of the two Americans. ‘I looked it up, Mr Brame’s firm, I mean. I just didn’t know you were related to it, Mrs Brame.’
‘My great-grandfather, my grandfather, my father. And my husband.’ She looked at her drink as if she saw reflections in it. Malone wondered if her first husband had belonged to the firm, but now was not the time to ask her. ‘Somehow, I’ve never been able to escape it, the law. Even my first husband was a lawyer …’ Then she looked up, threw off the introspection that had veiled her for a moment. ‘Well, how can I help? Sit down here beside me, Adam. You may be able to help, too.’
‘First, we have to establish what Mr Brame was doing out so late last night.’
‘He may have gone for a walk. He did that every night, to unwind, he said. Whether we were at our apartment in Manhattan or at our place in Connecticut. I used to worry, especially in New York, but he told me he always kept to the well-lit streets.’
‘Darling Harbour is reasonably well-lit,’ said Clements. ‘There just aren’t too many people around at two or three o’clock in the morning.’
Malone said gently, ‘Did your husband have any enemies?’
‘Here?’ She put down her empty glass. ‘He hadn’t been home for thirty years.’
‘Not necessarily here. In the United States.’
‘None that I know of. He was highly respected.’
‘Popular?’ He knew that popularity could breed enmity. That skater Nancy Kerrigan had been popular and she had had enemies.
‘Well, perhaps not popular. My husband never courted that sort of thing. He used to quote somebody, I forget who. The more one pleases everybody, the less one pleases profoundly.’
‘Stendhal,’ said Tallis.
Malone didn’t know who Stendhal was, but guessed he was a lawyer: he sounded like one. ‘Would you know if he had any enemies, Mr Tallis? People he’d had business dealings with? Ex-clients?’
Tallis was handsome now, but one could already see the plumpness, like clouds of flesh, gathering around the cheeks and jowls, that would dim his looks and turn him into a fat middle-aged man. His voice was soft but reedy, unassertive, but at least his gaze was direct and Malone had the feeling he could be trusted. ‘I had only just begun to work with Mr Brame, to assist him personally, I mean. I’ve been with the firm four years, ever since I came out of law school, but I was in a section that Mr Brame had nothing to do with. Clients’ tax problems.’
‘How big is the firm?’
‘All told, I think we have about four hundred and fifty people on staff, including the partners and senior men.’
‘So what were you assisting Mr Brame on?’
‘Mr Brame handled half a dozen or so of our top clients.’
‘Such as?’
Tallis named three corporations that even Malone, no student of American business circles, knew. ‘You’d know those, I’m sure, Inspector. There were others, not so public, but all of them highly capitalized. There were times – well, I – I was out of my league, the first month or so. Perhaps, like me, Inspector, you don’t realize how much hidden money – well, not hidden – unpublicized money there is in our country. Mr Brame, in a way, was – connected to a lot of wealth. Riches.’
‘No names, Adam.’ Joanna Brame smiled, but there was no mistaking the fact that she was warning Tallis.
‘Are you suggesting money might be behind his murder?’
Tallis was abruptly cautious. ‘Well, no … I think we should wait till Mr De Vries arrives. He’s the other joint senior partner. I called him first thing this morning, when we – when we got the bad news. He was leaving immediately, as soon as he could get aboard a plane. Fortunately he was in Seattle on business, on the West Coast. I think I should leave him to answer all questions about the firm.’
‘Mr Tallis, we’re investigating a murder here. We don’t want the trail to go cold while we pay our respects to company protocol.’ Crumbs, he thought, I’m starting to sound like a lawyer, God forgive me.
Joanna Brame interrupted, politely: ‘Inspector, I don’t think Mr Tallis is trying to obstruct your investigations. Though he was my husband’s assistant, he was not privy to everything that Orville would have been involved with. I know – knew my husband. He carried everything very close to his chest. I think it would be advisable to wait for Mr De Vries.’
‘Did he ever confide in you?’
Her gaze, like Tallis’s, was direct. ‘No, nor did I encourage him to.’
Why do I have the feeling I’m facing hurdles here? Is it because lawyers, even lawyers’ wives, can’t help blowing smoke? Or was it just a cop’s prejudice? ‘You mentioned Mr Brame had a brother here in Sydney. Were they close?’
‘No. Anything but.’ Well, that was a direct answer, no smoke there.
‘Have you ever met Mr – what was his name?’
‘Channing,’ said Clements. ‘Of Channing and Lazarus.’
‘Never,’ said Joanna Brame. ‘Their father, his name was Lester Brame, was in Sydney during World War Two. He was a sergeant in some company or something that spent all its time in Sydney. Having a good war, I think it was called. He met and married their mother. My husband was born in 1943, I think. His brother was born ten years later. In the years between, I gather, the marriage had been an on-and-off affair. Finally, my husband’s father went back to the United States – he was never a success here nor back home. My husband grew up and went to law school at Sydney University, then left immediately he’d got his degree and went to join his father. Lester Brame died the day after my husband graduated from Yale Law School. The brothers took sides in the marriage – it often happens. My – my brother-in-law took his mother’s name, Channing.’ She stopped suddenly, as if she had run out of breath, but it was surprise at how much she had revealed. She was, Malone guessed, not one given to opening family closets, not to strangers. He wondered if, though she was a lawyer’s wife, this was her first encounter with a police investigation. She reached for her glass, saw that it was empty but waved a dismissing hand when Tallis gestured that he would refill it for her. ‘I don’t think my brother-in-law would have a clue, as you call it, as to who might have killed my husband.’
‘I hadn’t suggested he might have, Mrs Brame.’ There was just a hint of stiffening in her face, but that was all. But Malone saw Tallis straighten up and he turned to him: ‘You thought of something, Mr Tallis?’
‘Well, no, not really—’
‘Try me. I’ll tell you if it’s something worthwhile.’
Tallis hesitated, glanced at Joanna Brame, then looked back at Malone. ‘I