The Mak Collection

by Tara Moss

  Maman…

  After a decade of travelling as a troupe, finally giving them all a place to belong together, Bijou was going to leave them again.

  Arslan could not let her do that.

  Bijou and her lover left her apartment for the theatre, and as soon as the door clicked shut, Arslan opened the top hatch of his old stage box. He crawled out limb by limb, and gracefully touched his feet on the hardwood floor as a spider would. Inwardly, he shook with grief.

  He was quick to make his way to the quarters he shared with Yelena, to change and grab his things for the performance, aware that he would need to race to the venue—only a few blocks from the corner of Montmartre where all the troupe lived in close proximity—to arrive on time. But before he left, he stood by the doorway with his eyes shut tight, struggling with a decision.

  Maman…

  Back in his own apartment, he walked quickly, determinedly, to his single bed and lifted the mattress. His hand hovered near a vial of liquid he had hidden there. His body froze momentarily while inner turmoil raged. Finally he picked up the vial and pocketed it.

  CHAPTER 40

  It was past nine o’clock on Sunday evening, Paris time, when Makedde entered the Cité Chaptal, a little cul-de-sac in the sleazy red-light district of Pigalle. She had rushed from Charles de Gaulle airport to drop her bags at her Montmartre hotel, and literally run the few blocks to the theatre. Slightly out of breath, she stopped on the cobblestones and frowned, lifting her furry collar to her chin.

  This is it?

  She looked at the address she’d scribbled down for the venue the troupe would be performing at—the site of the original Grand Guignol theatre, from which they took their inspiration—and looked back at the street sign. Yes, this is the place. She’d read up on the history of the troupe and its Parisian base and was disappointed to find that the infamous alley now appeared to be much like any other Parisian laneway. It was nothing but a plain cobblestone street leading to a small theatre with an uninspiring façade.

  The original Théâtre du Grand-Guignol?

  The venue had first acquired a reputation in 1897, when the French playwright Oscar Méténier bought the little building, a former church, to present his naturalist plays. Méténier was a police employee who spent the final moments with prisoners who’d been sentenced to death. His controversial plays reflected his experiences, and were known for their violence and horror. Mak had previously been aware of the place only through the celebrated diaries of Anaïs Nin, one of her favourite writers, who frequented the Grand Guignol with her lover, Henry Miller, in the early 1930s. What a place. What a history. Yet in the cold Parisian evening, the geographical heart of this unique genre of horror was deceptively banal. The original theatre had been closed in the 1960s, and was at present being used as an acting school called Theatre 347. Various plays were performed at the venue from time to time, with Le Théâtre des Horreurs evidently the only troupe trying to revive the Grand Guignol genre.

  Mak’s flurry of research on the troupe had resulted in numerous contradictions and mysteries—stories of fainting audience members and outrageous publicity stunts—but she was certain of one thing: five years earlier, right in the alley where she stood, a young man named Jean-Baptiste Trevillie had been attacked with acid after watching the Théâtre des Horreurs’ adaptation of The Final Kiss. It was evidently a brutal copycat crime. The quiet cobblestone alley had been witness to both history and horror.

  Mak felt a vibration in her pocket. Distractedly, she raised her phone to her ear and listened to a voicemail message. Familiar, comforting tones reached her from across the world. ‘Hi, Mak. It’s Bogey. I’m back in Melbourne. I hope everything’s going well in Paris, and that it isn’t too cold for you. Look, I wanted to say there’s a big design fair on in London this week. I was going to fly over for it, and I thought, perhaps, if you’re still in Paris…’

  Mak smiled, temporarily forgetting her case.

  ‘…I could come over and see you for a few days before you have to head home? If that would be something you’d be into…or…’

  ‘Oui!’ she blurted aloud, as if he could hear her, and hung up, giddy.

  Bogey? In Paris? That was a wonderful thought.

  She would call him later. In the meantime, she hoped to catch the second half of the show Le Théâtre des Horreurs were performing. Hopefully, Adam Hart would not be far away.

  Was he already nearby?

  Makedde paid her money and took her seat alone in the little theatre in the Cité Chaptal during the brief interval.

  The theatre was intimate, almost claustrophobic, with a small stage masked by a heavy red curtain. Above her, two enormous angels hovered eerily, a patina of dust and the wear and tear of age showing on their stern faces and billowing robes. Makedde could faintly smell traces of mildew and smoke beneath the stronger scent of overly perfumed patrons. The room was filled to about half capacity. Mak heard a mix of languages and accents as mid-week theatre-goers, tourists, Grand Guignol fans and lovers of the bizarre clustered in the former chapel. A metal spring showed through the fabric of the seat to her right, and she could not help but feel that the tattiness of the venue somehow lent further charm to the atmosphere. This space—so much more interesting than the bland exterior—had really seen things.

  The lights were dimming, the evening’s performance about to continue.

  Out of the darkness, a warm red glow seeped through the curtains and spread across the crowd. The old theatrical curtains were pulled back to reveal a band dressed in old-fashioned tuxedos, bringing to mind another era. The drummer, a woman with close-cropped hair, wore an amusing 1920s-style moustache. Her drum kit declared: LE THÉTRE DES HORREURS.

  Mak was terribly curious about the content of the show, but this was much more than a night of bizarre theatre for her. The real action, she hoped, would be backstage or in the audience itself. Where would Adam Hart be? In the dressing rooms? In the audience? Or would she need to follow one of the performers after the show to find him? Her first order of business was to get herself backstage. Neither the vaudeville troupe nor the venue appeared particularly high-budget or security-conscious. Mak felt her skills would be more than up to the task. As two eerily similar-looking burlesque artists slinked onto the stage holding signs that declared LE THEATRE DES HORREURS and THE THEATRE OF HORRORS respectively, Mak stood up and began to make her way to the back of the theatre.

  ‘Madame?’

  It was an usher, wearing a cross look, evidently displeased by her impolitely timed exit.

  Mak held her stomach, as if in agony. ‘Où est la toilette?’ she asked with an urgency that implied food poisoning.

  With a sneer, he pointed her in the right direction, and she followed the signs towards the washrooms. At the end of a dark corridor were the facilities—unisex in the oldfashioned French style. And on the other side, a door marked ACCÉS INTERDIT.

  Prohibited access.

  Mak grinned slightly, and pushed the door open…

  CHAPTER 41

  Time for the hard decisions, Jack.

  Jack Cavanagh sat across from The American, who waited patiently for instructions. Jack took his time, staring out his hard-earned office window, reflecting.

  His career had already been an accomplished one by any standard, but he feared slowing down. Slowing would necessarily involve handing over the reins to someone else. He had long hoped control of the business would stay in the family. But it was clear that handing the Cavanagh empire on to his 31-year-old son, Damien, would be extremely problematic, despite his Wharton education and all his grooming for the position. Damien was his only child. What could Jack do? The shareholders would jump ship before Damien even got the chance to drive the whole thing into the ground himself.

  Cobwebs and tar.

  Jack Cavanagh had built his influential empire from the ground up, and had imagined that by retirement age he’d be able to enjoy a certain satisfaction at what he had built. He kne
w what it was to work hard. He was the son of a janitor, not a mogul. He had watched his father toil excruciatingly long hours to save for his education. His father had been a smart man, but a man without opportunities. Jack had wanted to make his father proud.

  Somewhere along the way, the dream went wrong.

  Cobwebs…

  ‘Jack…?’ The American prompted.

  He looked at The American with his mouth turned down, his guts uneasy. ‘I need you to…’ His voice quavered. He tried again. ‘Yes. We need Mr Hand. We need Ms Vanderwall gone.’

  She was a problem. She had followed his son, and was agitating her police friends. And now, finally, she was out of the country. She had to stay gone.

  Mr White, The American, nodded in response. ‘I’ll take care of it.’

  Across the globe, in Algiers, Madame Q sat before a bank of computers ranged across an antique French oak table. An assortment of flowers arranged with expert aesthetic skill filled the crystal vase next to her. The Mediterranean Sea spread out before her, hot African sun beating on the white-painted windowsill.

  It was from this tranquil North African location that she conducted her business through a careful web of contacts on a digital network fuelled by need, greed, power and secrecy. Madame Q was an agent of death for cash. For the right price she was able to facilitate hits for wealthy corporations and individuals. She was not interested in politics. She did not deal with governments. Ideals did not concern her. Ideals were best left out of it.

  A message came in, from one of her Australian clients, Mr White.

  REQUEST. SINGLE. LOCATION PARIS. HAND AVAILABLE?

  Before she had a chance to reply that her agent Luther Hand would be available for the usual fee, another message arrived with an electronic beep. It was from the colleague who called himself Rob.

  INTERPOL, was all it said.

  Madame Q frowned. She knew what this meant. For some weeks she’d been receiving warnings that an Interpol net might be closing around her operation. So it seemed it was true?

  She returned to Mr White’s request, and responded quickly. CONFIRM. SECURE FUNDS BY THIS AFTERNOON.

  She would have to get the funds as fast as possible in case she got another update from Rob and needed to vacate her office in Algiers in short order.

  Madame Q would set Luther up for the job, and hold as much of the money as possible. If the Interpol threat was real, Luther would be left to his own devices.

  VANDERWALL.

  Mr White’s reply was a name, not a code. Madame Q paused. She swallowed, her mouth feeling dry. This was a reference to a previous job, an assignment that had become complicated.

  HALF RATE was her offer. Tense, she waited for a response. Half rate was still substantial; the client was wealthy and she hoped she could retain them after the dust had settled.

  CONFIRMED. FUNDS DELIVERED ONE HOUR.

  CHAPTER 42

  Mak pushed the door open and found herself in an unlit area backstage at the little theatre in Cité Chaptal.

  Yes…

  She had worn her favoured rubber-soled boots, and they did not betray her presence as she moved furtively through the darkness in near silence, passing the ghostly shapes of unused sets and lighting equipment, covered with filthy white sheets. There was a skerrick of light ahead, and Mak moved towards it. She could hear the performance taking place only metres away onstage.

  She had to find the dressing rooms.

  Where are you, Adam?

  Mak rounded a corner and stopped in her tracks.

  Shit. Caught out.

  She had stumbled upon a young man. The two locked eyes. Her heart leaped into her throat, but Makedde soon realised that he was even more alarmed to see her than she was at being discovered by him. He had been leaning over a props table, and when he heard her, he whirled, and nearly knocked over a rack of clothing.

  Adam?

  The man she had startled was perhaps thirty, and much darker than Adam. The nose was different. This man was handsome in his own way as well, she thought, but there was a hardness about him, especially in his eyes, which were dramatically lined with kohl. He had none of the freshness she’d seen in the photographs of Adam. Even with dyed hair, this could not be him. Dammit. For a second there, she had thought it could actually be that easy. How foolish of her to imagine that she could solve the mystery of Adam Hart’s disappearance by spotting him backstage on her first night in Paris.

  The moment lingered strangely, neither speaking.

  ‘Pardon…’ Mak said, and flashed her best disarming smile.

  The man—who was not Adam—continued staring at her with something like suspicion, even fear, and it dawned on her that his alarm had to do with his being interrupted during some type of sensitive moment. His manner was strangely furtive: he gripped something in his hand and walked slowly backwards, a look of naked guilt in his expression. Mak stole a glance at his fingers, but could not make out what he was holding.

  ‘Parlez-vous Anglais?’ she asked clumsily, in her most nonthreatening tone.

  Rather than grilling her—the impostor—on her reason for being backstage, the man scampered away, and a piece of clothing fell off a hanger where he had been standing. A white doctor’s coat. His reaction struck her as so odd that she stood confused for a time, before hanging the coat up on the props rack again. Next to it was a satin dressing gown, and a suit jacket, both with the curiously worn air of stage costumes.

  Mak paused, unsure what to make of the kohl-eyed man’s response. Would he bring reinforcements to boot her out?

  CHAPTER 43

  Arslan is mad.

  Lucien the illusionist sat before a mirror, practising his magic close-up, tilting the mirror at every possible angle to see what the most observant audience member could. He would be onstage for his next routine in twenty minutes.

  ‘Oui,’ he whispered to himself in an occasional chant of approval as he deftly moved the coin from finger to finger.

  Lucien needed to keep his hands soft and nimble. The techniques of sleight of hand required daily practice, and he had grown to look forward to this peculiar ritual of his, and taken to practising this way in times of stress. The concentration it involved took him away from the petty rivalries that inevitably sprang up amongst the ‘family’ of the troupe, the problems of money and sex and the horrors of the unknown. The future. In his act he could pretend to predict the future but in reality he had no such insight. He did not know where they would end up. He did not know what would become of him if the troupe disbanded. He did not know his future. What he knew was that he could do this: pinch drops, French drops, the Downs coin roll—his coins rolling down each hand effortlessly, bobbing up and down like ponies on a carousel. Precise. Perfect. Total control.

  As a child he had discovered magic. It was the only thing about him that had ever held his mother’s attention. And when she went away, it was his escape from loneliness.

  Arslan is mad, he thought again.

  His half-brother had always been prone to madness. His twin, Yelena, was quiet and lacked confidence, but Arslan had enough boldness and aggression for all of them combined. It was because of their mother. It was her fault that he was that way. They all knew.

  French drops, pinch drops…

  The show would go on, as it always did. For a while there would be an extra member of the family. And then he, Lucien predicted, he would be gone. Perhaps.

  The show will go on…

  Lucien dropped his coin. He scowled. A stranger was backstage; an attractive blonde. She did not belong here. He stood and approached her.

  ‘Pardon, monsieur. I was just looking for the ladies room, and I seem to have got myself all lost…’ Makedde lied, shrugging her shoulders playfully.

  Damn.

  This isn’t Adam, either, she thought, faced with a slender man swathed in a Victorian coat who stood glaring at her, clearly unfriendly. He looked somewhat like the man she had startled only moments before: dark, ha
ndsome, exotic; he even wore the same black kohl around his eyes. But this man was not about to scamper away. Mak recognised him from photographs on the troupe’s website. He was the resident magician, Lucien. She had disturbed his rehearsal, and he appeared plenty angry about it.

  ‘I am lost,’ she lied again, shrugged and tried to push past him, palms in the air in a gesture of peace.

  He grabbed her elbow.

  ‘Hey!’ She thought to kick out, to scream…

  Just then, there was the sound of the quick clicking of heels, and two petite burlesque dancers appeared, rushing through the narrow backstage corridor clad in corsets, fishnets, small top hats and platinum-blonde wigs. They looked like twins. When they saw the magician holding Mak’s elbow, their eyes became wide.

  ‘Hi,’ Mak said, and smiled broadly, acting the role of dumb tourist. ‘I like your outfits.’

  ‘Qui est-elle?’ they asked Lucien in unison, stopping. Who is she?

  Mak had to think fast. If she drew too much attention to herself, or her search for Adam Hart, she could send him into hiding. ‘Toilette?’ she asked, and giggled, pointing her finger this way and that, indicating that she needed directions.

  Together, the dancers pointed back the way she had come.

  Mak took the opportunity to flee the magician’s grasp. She left the eclectic trio with their mouths open, hands on hips, as she made her way back to the doorway through which she had entered.

  Dammit.

  Crestfallen, Makedde returned to her seat. She felt a wave of jetlag wash over her. She needed to stay awake through the remaining performances, but it could get tough. She’d been running on adrenaline since arriving, and now that she had not located Adam backstage, nor spotted him in the watching crowd, the tiredness took hold of her. Perhaps he was not even at the theatre, she thought. Bugger. That meant she would need to wait at the stage door in the winter cold, possibly for hours, just to be sure. And again the next night, and the next, until she had some luck.