Cassidy

by Morris West

  There were two figures in the photograph. They looked like a mother and daughter, both dressed in traditional costume, posed in a tropic garden outside a beautiful old Thai house, elaborately carved and gilded. The daughter looked about sixteen years old, the woman somewhere in her mid-thirties. Both had that strange placid beauty which haunts the memory like a Buddha smile.

  Marco said quietly, ‘The older one is Miss Pat.’

  ‘And the younger… ?’

  He answered with cool respect. ‘I have never enquired, sir.’

  There was a dedication in the lower right hand corner of the picture, but it was written in Thai so I could not read it.

  I asked, ‘Do you have an address, a telephone number for Miss Pat?’

  ‘Yes, sir. When Mr. Cassidy began to be ill she gave it to me. She said I must call her whenever Mr. Cassidy was unwell. It’s in the kitchen. One moment please.’

  A moment later he was back with a tray of coffee and sweet biscuits and a scrap of paper on which was written a Thai name, Pornsri Rhana, and a Sydney telephone number. I thanked him and folded the paper into my pocket-book. I handed him my card and told him: ‘For the moment, leave things as they are with Miss Pat. I shall try to telephone her. If she comes here before I’ve made contact, give her my card and ask her to telephone me at the Town House. Now, if you will excuse me, I must go through the house and inspect everything – especially Mr. Cassidy’s papers.’

  ‘All his papers are in the safe, which is in one section of the wardrobe in Mr. Cassidy’s bedroom. He stored them there before he left for America. Unfortunately, I do not have the combination or the key.’

  ‘I have them. Is there another set?’

  ‘I do not know, sir.’

  ‘Who else might know?’

  ‘For his personal affairs, he used only Miss Pat. For his official work he brought someone from Parliament… Please sir, drink your coffee before it gets cold. If you need anything else, just dial zero on the house phones – the green ones.’

  He bowed himself out and left me to my coffee and my puzzlement.

  Charles Parnell Cassidy was too clever a man to receive a known spy into his household. So, clearly, his relationship with Marius Melville was one of openness and mutual trust. Whether I should trust him was not half so clear. Pornsri Rhana was yet another problem. I felt an instant resentment against her because Cassidy had given her the name of the daughter he had thrust out of his life. And if she was, as Marco had seemed to suggest, something more than a business aide, then there was real perversity in giving a mistress the name of his own daughter. But then, the Cassidy I knew was a perverse son-of-a-bitch with a wide streak of cruelty in his make-up. I asked myself why I cared so much and why I was taking so much trouble to protect his memory. I tried to thrust him out of my mind and concentrate on my inspection of his house.

  For the moment, I was not interested in his possessions – pictures, jade, exotic and valuable curiosities from all over the world. These would be listed and valued for probate by professionals. I was concerned only with documents. I wanted every scrap of Cassidy paper under my control. Later I would decide what to do with it.

  There was nothing to inhibit my search. Cassidy’s keys, his wallet, his folder of credit cards, his pocket diary, had all been handed to me at the hospital on the night of his death. The diary was the most useful item and might in the end prove the most revealing. It was the usual vade mecum of a busy man. It contained the combination of his safe, the numbers of his bank accounts and insurance policies, addresses and telephone numbers of doctors, dentists, lawyers, friends male and female. Pornsri Rhana was among them, listed as a resident in a very expensive apartment hotel.

  My search was thorough. I opened every cupboard, rummaged in every drawer, checked every pocket in every suit. Nothing. Apart from the photographs – Cassidy with the plebs, Cassidy with the nabobs, Cassidy with the royals – the place was as bare of personal history as a public art gallery. Finally, I came to the safe, a big commercial affair nearly six feet high, hidden behind a sliding door and set on a concrete block over one of the steel bearer beams of the structure. They must have used a crane to get it in. They would need another one to get it out – and a laser drill with a charge of explosive to force it. Before opening it, I locked the bedroom door and closed the drapes over the French windows that led to the balcony. It seemed a panicky paranoid precaution – until I saw the contents of the safe. The two upper shelves were stacked solid with currency: American hundred-dollar bills, Swiss francs, Deutschmarks, sterling pounds in high and low denominations, gold ingots of various weights, Krugerrands, Mexican, Russian and British gold pieces. I did not attempt to count it but clearly it added up to a tidy fortune.

  The next shelf was occupied by stacks of photograph albums of uniform size and shape. I opened three of them at random. Most of the exhibits were pornographic shots taken on brothel premises or at orgies in private houses. Neatly typed labels identified the place, the date and the participants. Others, taken with telephoto lenses, recorded furtive meetings on street corners, in automobiles, in public parks.

  Charles Parnell Cassidy was a twentieth-century man, exercising the most primitive magic of all – once you possessed the images of men and women engaged in the sexual act, you held their souls in bondage.

  The remaining space in the safe was stuffed tight with papers: legal briefs tied with pink tape, bundles of letters, ledgers, notebooks large and small. I had neither energy nor inclination to read them now, but I had no doubt they would fit with the rest of the hoard, as instruments of power, recording debts to be called in, services to be exacted when the need arose.

  Here was the proof of Gorman’s accusations that Cassidy had engaged in bribery and blackmail. Murder? Given the nature of the material, murder was a daily possibility.

  It was obvious that Cassidy thought so too. Laid on top of the albums was a .38 automatic. The safety catch was on but there was a magazine in the chamber. I left the weapon untouched. Immediately I saw the shape of the problem. Sooner or later, people would come looking for this material. If I were Loomis, I would find cause to swear out a search warrant. If I were a villain, I would send in the best safe crackers money could buy – and a pair of Italian domestics wouldn’t worry me at all. So, interesting and urgent question: What was I, Martin Gregory, executor, going to do about it? For tonight, nothing.

  I felt suddenly bone-weary and nauseous. I locked the safe and shoved the key in my pocket. The time was five-thirty. I would have loved a stiff Scotch, but the thought of drinking in Cassidy’s house with his ghost grinning over my shoulder appalled me.

  Instead, I used his telephone to call Pat in London. She was delighted to hear from me and eager to talk, but she sounded frayed and fretful.

  ‘I hate your being away, darling! I don’t know what’s come over me. I snap at Clare and the children. I’m having recurrent nightmares. I’m a little girl lost in a dark forest. I hear Daddy calling, but I can’t make him hear me…’

  ‘Perhaps you ought to see a doctor. Call Peter Maxwell.’

  ‘I went to him yesterday. He was kind and understanding. He explained that the death of a parent is often a bigger shock than we expect – and that my – our – estrangement only made things worse. He wants me to get away for a while. Clare suggests we take a chalet in Klosters and do some skiing. The children have a half-term coming up; they’d enjoy the snow. What do you think, darling?’

  ‘Go, by all means. I can’t see myself getting out of here for at least three weeks. You might as well relax and enjoy yourselves.’

  ‘I wish you could be with us. I miss you very much… How did it go today?’

  ‘The ceremony went off well. The Cardinal gave a most friendly eulogy. All the top brass turned out, the Governor-General, the Prime Minister…’

  ‘And what happens now?’

  ‘Some scandal-mongering, I’m afraid. Possibly a Royal Commission into your father’s administration.�
��

  ‘Why can’t they let him rest in peace?’

  ‘There’s no mercy in politics. If you’re contacted by the Australian press, tell them you have no comment. You’ve been living abroad for many years. You have no information on your father’s career or his private life. Give Clare the same warning.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Martin?’

  ‘A bit frayed, that’s all. I’ve had a long day. The funeral this morning, lawyers this afternoon. I’m at your father’s house now. There’s a whole mess of papers to wade through – days of work, in fact. I can use a good night’s sleep. Any other news?’

  ‘Not much. People have been very kind. There are telegrams from folk we haven’t heard from in years. Mr. Melville has been especially kind. He’s called several times from Zurich.’

  Once again I felt a prickle of fear, but it seemed that fear made me skilful in duplicity. I asked, ‘And who, pray, is Mr. Melville?’

  ‘You know! The one Daddy mentioned in his last letter to you. I forget what he said exactly. I’m still vague about all that happened that night. But apparently they were good friends who did a lot of business together over the years. Mother remembers the name, but she can’t recall ever meeting him. However, he’s been very solicitous, a telegram first, then flowers, then a very sweet letter of condolence. He said he would get his people in Australia to make contact with you and help you in every way possible.’

  ‘That’s kind, but please tell Clare not to cultivate the man. Just stay formal and polite.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘It’s difficult to explain on an open line. Your father made good friends and bad enemies. I’ve hardly begun to sort out one from the other. So, the less you’re involved with any of his old associates the better.’

  ‘Oh, Martin! That’s awkward.’

  ‘What’s awkward?’

  ‘Our holiday. Mr. Melville offered us the use of his chalet in Klosters. I accepted.’

  ‘Then turn it down! Think up some excuse.’

  ‘What excuse can I possibly offer? The man’s just trying to be kind. Why insult him?’

  Why indeed? Once again, I heard Charlie Cassidy’s ghostly voice: ‘Show respect. He merits it. He keeps iron faith with his friends.’ Pat’s anxious voice stirred me out of the brief reverie.

  ‘Martin? Are you still there?’

  ‘I’m here. I’m sorry if I barked at you, sweetheart. Let the arrangement stand. Go to Klosters, enjoy yourselves.’

  ‘Thank you, darling. And you take care too! Look up some of your old colleagues. See if you can get yourself a game of golf and a weekend sail.’

  ‘I’ll try. I promise. Give the children a kiss. My love to Clare – and a special loving to you.’

  ‘We all miss you very much. God bless, sweetheart.’

  And thus, thought I in my innocence, thus endeth the funeral day of Charles Parnell Cassidy. Here am I, the man he hated, sitting in his empty house, with a couple of million worth of fine art on the walls and a safe full of explosive secrets, waiting for the big blow-up!

  7

  I walked from Cassidy’s house back to my hotel. It was a stiff hike around the hilly promontories of the harbour, but I needed the exercise. More, I had to escape from the suffocating sub-world into which Cassidy had seduced me. I wanted to enjoy, however briefly, the simple anonymous commerce of the streets.

  I was scared now. I knew too little and too much. Under all its up-to-the-minute gloss, Sydney was a rough, tough town, with a deep harbour and hundreds of square miles of virgin bush around it. Lots of people turned up dead. Some didn’t turn up at all. I was under threat, because I could threaten others.

  If I wanted to survive, I would have to turn horse-trader, blackmailer too, if necessary, as Cassidy had done in his time. To do that I had to take physical possession of all the contents of Cassidy’s safe, before the villains sent in a safe-cracker or the Attorney-General decided to swear out a search warrant. If I were in his shoes I could find a dozen pretexts to do it. My guess was that he was waiting until the newspaper stories gave him the excuse, or I decided to dump the whole mess in his lap and head for home. I had the uneasy feeling that I had already lost that option and that I should even now be preparing for enemy action.

  But who were my enemies? Who would make the first sorties against me? Loomis and the Premier had made no secret of their hostility. My old colleague Micky Gorman had abdicated from Cassidy’s affairs. Marius Melville – whoever he was! – wanted to stay very close; but he at least was ready to trade. The rest was a blur of faces, a babble of voices heard at a funeral, winks and whispers and threats disguised as compliments – and, in the distance, thunder and the gleam of weapons in the dark.

  All the mathematics worked against me. I could not begin to number my enemies; but where did I turn for friends? Pat had suggested blithely ‘get some golf and some sailing’. It was not half so easy as it sounded. I had been away too long. The break with home-folk and homeland had been too brusque, too final, to be mended by a phone call or a surprise appearance at the Squadron or on the first tee at Royal Sydney. My face would be splashed all over tomorrow’s press as Cassidy’s son-in-law and executor. A sail on the harbour or eighteen holes of golf wouldn’t be worth the explanations I should have to give. So, stinking of fatigue and suppressed anger, with a black devil perched on my shoulder, I came back to the Town House.

  There was a note in my box: ‘Please call me between seven and eight. Urgent… Laura Larsen.’ I shoved the message slip in my pocket and headed for the elevator. My suite was on the eighth floor, a two-roomed apartment with a view across the rooftops to a small segment of the harbour. I shaved, showered, put on a track suit and slippers and poured myself the long-awaited drink. I was just beginning to unwind, when there was a knock at the door. Thinking it was the night maid, I called ‘Come in!’ The knock was repeated.

  I opened the door to find Pornsri Rhana standing in the hallway. She was dressed in shirt and jeans and for an instant I thought she was one of the stewardesses from Thai Airlines, who overnighted at the Town House. Then I remembered her from the photograph I had seen in Cassidy’s house.

  She was a classic type: pure Siamese from the central provinces, small, honey-skinned, placid and perfect as a porcelain doll. She joined her hands and bowed her head in the traditional wai. Her English was faultless. Only the formality was exotic.

  ‘I am Pornsri. You are Martin Gregory. I had a message that you wanted to see me.’

  ‘Thank you for answering so promptly. Please come in. Do sit down… May I offer you a drink?’

  ‘Fruit juice, if you have it, please.’

  My hand trembled as I poured the drink. She was so calm, so completely at ease, that I felt like a fumbling lout, all thumbs and hobnails. I tried to explain my embarrassment.

  ‘Until this afternoon, I didn’t know you existed. I saw your photograph in Cassidy’s lounge. Marco explained you in Italian. He called you “donna di confidenza”. I presume he meant “confidential secretary”.’

  ‘Marco is always very discreet.’ She gave a small pout of displeasure. ‘Charles Cassidy and I were lovers. My daughter is his child.’

  ‘The one in the photograph?’

  ‘Yes. She is in school in Switzerland.’

  ‘I presume you know who I am and what I am charged to do?’

  For the first time she smiled, the tolerant evanescent smile of a Bodhisattra.

  ‘I know much more than that. You were like a jungle ghost in our lives. Nothing I could do would appease you. I could never persuade Charles to drive you out. There was so much anger between you. I can feel it now, even as I sit here.’

  ‘Then why did he ask me to act for him after his death?’

  ‘I tried to dissuade him, believe me. But he would hear no argument. He said, “Martin will be doubly honest. He hates me so much that he’ll have to prove to himself and my daughter that he’s virgin pure. Apart from that, he�
�s the only man I know who can control our partners and hold the enterprise together.”’

  ‘What enterprise was he talking about?’

  ‘You don’t know?’ There was surprise and fear in her voice. ‘He had a briefcase full of material to give you. I helped him assemble it.’

  ‘I have the briefcase. It’s lodged in my bank. I begin to study the microfiches tomorrow.’

  ‘Then, until you have finished your study and made your decision, nothing that I can say will make much sense.’

  ‘Would you answer some questions for me, please?’

  ‘If I can.’

  ‘Do you have a key to Cassidy’s safe?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know what’s in it?’

  ‘Some – not all. Charles always referred to it as his insurance policy. I do know that most of the essential material is duplicated in what you have.’

  ‘Are you aware that Cassidy made no provision for you and your daughter in his will?’

  ‘We agreed that long ago. Charles provided for us in other ways. I hold a substantial interest in his Asian ventures.’

  ‘I am told the newspapers are mounting an attack on Cassidy’s administration. Will that cause you embarrassment?’

  ‘No. I shall not be here. I leave in a few days for Bangkok. Besides, how much can the papers write about a man and a woman making love?’

  ‘More than you might believe!… Are you aware that Cassidy is alleged to have connections with criminal elements, here and abroad?’

  ‘I’m aware that he dealt with a lot of strange people in politics and in business. I’m not sure that I judge them in the same way as you do. We are another people. We do not expect perfection from those who are bound with us to the wheel of life… My father was a political General; my mother was his favourite concubine. He bought her out of the dance troupe of Prince Pramoj. Each of them taught me to understand how life is lived in politics and in the Palace. You bargain; you compromise; you survive… But you never compromise, do you, Mr. Gregory? You never take off that mask of legal virtue. Charles Cassidy ate up life as if it were a mango – but he was never a hypocrite. He drove hard bargains with hard men. He made no secret that there were other women in his life. He knew that I had another existence, too. We could be happy because we accepted the terms of the contract.’