The Dying Diplomats Club

by Matthew Benns

  ‘Ah Nick, you gave us all a bit of a scare,’ he said. ‘I trust you are recovered. It would take more than a little spill to knock you off your game I imagine. Shall we take our places for the main course?’

  At the other end of the table, Charlie drained his glass of red wine and wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead. ‘I might just take a turn around the begonias and get some fresh air before dinner,’ he said to everyone and no one in particular before stepping out through the double doors and onto the verandah.

  ‘I must say I am really rather peckish now,’ said La Contessa, walking back to the table with Anne-Sophie. ‘What were we having for the main course again?’

  ‘Coq au vin,’ said Anne-Sophie. ‘I believe our hosts may have chosen it to honour my husband.’

  ‘Well they could have chosen it to honour mine,’ said La Contessa, taking her seat opposite the French Ambassador’s wife. ‘This is Nick’s signature dish.’

  ‘Oh really? So you are a culinary man, Mr Moore?’ said Anne-Sophie as Nick sat down with a fresh martini.

  ‘Look I’ve been known to dabble in the kitchen,’ said Nick modestly, before taking a big, satisfying sip of his drink.

  ‘Oh, darling, you are being far too humble,’ said La Contessa. ‘Nick’s coq is simply magnificent.’

  Nick’s eyes bulged and his cheeks turned puce as he frantically attempted to stop the martini that had gone down the wrong way from spraying over the table.

  ‘No, when Nick says he is going to wheel out his coq, I drop everything,’ continued La Contessa innocently. ‘I just love it. Can’t get enough of it.’

  ‘Ah, Monsieur Nick, it sounds as though you are quite impressive in the ahh, coq department,’ said Anne-Sophie mischievously. ‘I only wish my own husband was endowed with such qualities.’

  ‘Nonsense, coq au vin is a French dish. It is a source of national pride that only a Frenchman can deliver with the necessary skill and craftsmanship such a delicacy deserves,’ said Armand, a playful smirk on his lips. ‘How could a mere Aussie hope to emulate the gastronomic heights scaled by a French chef in pursuit of the perfect traditional dish?’

  ‘Oh no, I admit sometimes the sauce can be a little stiff,’ said La Contessa. ‘But I just love the taste of his —’

  ‘I’m sure everyone has heard enough about my cooking skills,’ interrupted Nick, having finally managed to take a breath. His eyes were streaming. ‘It is after all just chicken in red wine.’

  ‘Oh no, Nick, it is so much more than that,’ jumped in Armand. ‘It is all about the umami of the dish, which gets better the longer you leave it.’

  The French Ambassador was met with a sea of blank faces.

  ‘You don’t know umami?’ he asked. ‘It is the fifth taste. There are the four basic tastes – sweet, sour, salty, bitter – and then there is umami. It is taken from the Japanese word meaning “a pleasant savoury taste”.’

  ‘My husband is correct,’ said Anne-Sophie. ‘It is the brothy, meaty taste that coats your tongue. It was only officially named as the fifth taste thirty years ago. You would know it in bacon and eggs and of course it is very prevalent in coq au vin.’

  ‘The French ideal may be to cook like your mummy,’ chimed in Hayden from the other end of the table. ‘But I pay a four-star chef to make sure he doesn’t cook like mine. She was a terrible cook. Ouch!’

  ‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Hayden,’ said La Contessa sweetly as the casino mogul sucked at the back of his hand, while glaring at her angrily. ‘I didn’t realise when I put my fork down that your hand would be on my leg again.’

  ‘Perhaps you would be kind enough to help Patricia with the serving of the coq au vin,’ said Monaro, diplomatically stepping in before things could escalate further. ‘Of course I don’t mean to be sexist. If anyone else would like to perhaps assist with the serving to ensure no one trips over the dog.’

  ‘A very good point,’ said Nick. ‘Where is the dog? Baxter! Baxter!’

  ‘There he is, darling,’ said La Contessa, getting up to head to the kitchen with Anne-Sophie. ‘He is scratching at something in the foyer near the ice carving.’

  Nick got up and headed into the entranceway to investigate as a light chatter drifted around the empty chairs at the table. ‘What is it, Baxter?’ he said as he rounded the ice carving and saw Baxter pawing at the striped wallpaper on the hidden door to the downstairs cloakroom. ‘Come on, fella, it’s just a bathroom. Nothing to see there.’

  Nick reached down and tugged at the beagle’s collar, but Baxter pulled against him, his claws sliding on the tiled floor. As soon as Nick let him go he returned to the door, keeping up a low-pitched, worried whine.

  ‘Baxter, that’s enough,’ said Nick, turning to go. ‘Cut that out and come on.’

  Rather than following, Baxter increased the volume of his whine and started to scrabble at the door.

  ‘Baxter, you will rip the wallpaper! Australians don’t pay their taxes to fix up scratches put in public buildings by bad dogs. Cut it out,’ said Nick, walking back to the dog. ‘All right, let’s see what you are getting so upset about.’

  Nick turned the handle and the door opened, but with resistance as though it were on some kind of spring. As he eased it further, an arm flopped through the crack and draped onto the floor. Baxter started barking wildly, raising the alarm. Nick pushed harder on the door and forced his way into the bathroom. He flicked on the light and was confronted with the sight of a man curled on the floor between the sink and the toilet in a pool of water. As he had fallen, he had caught the white toilet roll, which had unravelled onto his face, stuck there by blood that was starting to seep through it. Instinctively Nick put two fingers to the man’s neck and felt for a pulse. Nothing. He grabbed the man under his shoulders, his forearms cradling the lolling head, and carefully rolled him onto his back. The toilet paper obscured the top of his face but left his nose and mouth clear. Nick’s old training as a surf lifesaver years before kicked in; he checked for breathing, ensured the airway was clear and began compressions. By now Baxter’s barking had brought the other guests rushing in. Monaro was the first to arrive but was pushed aside by Charlotte, who began a rapid assessment of the patient as Nick continued CPR. There was barely room for the two of them in the cramped bathroom.

  ‘We have to get him out of here – we need space,’ she said. ‘We have to move him.’

  Together they manhandled the man to the door where the Prime Minister grabbed his legs and pulled him onto the tiles in the foyer.

  ‘That’s not going to be good if there are spinal issues,’ said Monaro quietly.

  ‘He has bigger things to worry about,’ said Charlotte, moving to the man’s head and performing two rescue breaths as Nick slipped around the body to continue with the compressions. After a few cycles, the minutes flying by, Charlotte sat up.

  ‘You can stop, Nick. I am afraid he is dead,’ she said. ‘He clearly suffered a blow here to the side of his neck.’

  Nick sat back, red faced and sweating from the exertion, and finally looked at the man. He finally pulled aside the now blood-soaked toilet paper. There was a jagged cut down the left side of his face, the paper still sticking to it like a bad attempt to staunch an enormous shaving cut, and the blood had coated his face and soaked onto his shirt.

  Only now did he consciously register that the dead man lying before him was the diplomat and former SAS soldier Alexander Brown, Australia’s man in London.

  ‘Oh no, poor Alex,’ said La Contessa. Before anyone else could speak there was a guttural wail and Patricia pushed through and flung herself on the dead man’s chest.

  ‘Alex!’ she cried. ‘No, no, no, not Alex. It can’t be. No, I won’t allow it. Alex.’

  The dinner guests stood awkwardly in a semi-circle around the dead man and the sobbing figure of the Prime Minister’s wife, grief stricken and bereft, hugging his body. Eventually Nick rose and placed his hands on Patricia’s heaving shoulders. Gently he helped her to her
feet. She did not resist. Broken.

  ‘Come on, Patricia,’ said La Contessa, putting an arm around her old friend and gently guiding her by the elbow. ‘Let’s go and sit by the verandah for a minute and get some fresh air. You have had quite a shock.’

  Monaro stood and watched them walk past, his face bleak.

  ‘Really, Robert, I think you had better call in the security detail,’ said Karen, who was standing pale-faced by the Prime Minister’s elbow. ‘Blackmail is one thing to try and keep under wraps but a dead body is quite another.’

  Monaro did not take his eyes off the diplomat’s body as he shook his head. ‘No, the guards are under orders to secure the perimeter,’ he said. ‘That means no one has arrived or left without our knowledge. The same people who were involved in this at the outset are still here and the questions remain unanswered. This is the one chance I have of getting to the bottom of this and taking some more time to do so will not bring Alex back to life. We carry on.’

  Karen shook her head and walked back into the dining room, leaving the Prime Minister still standing forlornly by the body spreadeagled on the floor.

  ‘I cannot see how that could have happened,’ said Sir Aiden. ‘Unless he slipped on that pool of water and somehow banged his head. Probably on the sink.’

  Nick kneeled down and looked closely at the contusion on the left side of Alexander’s neck. He paused thoughtfully before looking at Charlotte.

  ‘A blow to the neck there can be fatal,’ she said. ‘A blow there can tear the inner lining of the vertebral artery. Blunt cerebrovascular injury such as this can cause commotio cordis.’

  Charlotte Ngo paused and, seeing the blank faces, explained. ‘It’s Latin for “agitation of the heart”. The injury is in the same spot that killed the cricketer Phillip Hughes, when he was struck by a cricket ball at the SCG.’

  ‘Poor Alex. After all the things he has done and the risks he has taken,’ said Sir Aiden. ‘He had to be incredibly unlucky to slip and fall in a bathroom and hit his neck in that exact spot.’

  Nick stood up and looked the Governor-General in the eye. ‘That kind of bad luck would be a one in a million chance, and you can ask our friend Brett about the likelihood of that ever happening,’ he said. ‘I am inclined to think this was no accident.’

  *

  Upstairs, the man sat back down and watched the people coming and going from the foyer. He could see their backs and sense the urgency but the cameras did not cover the area near the guest bathroom where the activity seemed to be concentrated. He watched as a woman in an ivory-beaded dress, who he recognised from the cheat sheets he had studied at home in his basement as Foreign Minister Karen Knight, walked out from the foyer and returned to her seat near the head of the dining table. She looked troubled and took a big sip of her wine. The man smiled to himself and reached over and checked again the mechanism of the automatic pistol sitting on the table next to the keyboard.

  Things were beginning to heat up.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Dying Diplomats Club

  ‘You mean,’ said Monaro, staring incredulously at Nick, ‘he was murdered? Australia’s top diplomat to London has just been murdered in Kirribilli House? How on earth can you be certain of that?’

  They were all sitting back at the table, having gravitated there naturally without thinking. The coq au vin sat slowly cooling in front of them, forgotten by all apart from Hayden, who was noisily tucking in. Baxter sat expectantly by the casino mogul’s side, watching for the flying food that would inevitably follow.

  Nick took a sip of his martini and looked back at the Prime Minister levelly. Patricia muffled another sob from the opposite end of the table, twisting her serviette around and around in her hand and dabbing at her eyes. She kept glancing to the foyer and the Do Not Disturb sign that hung on the door to the guest bathroom as a reminder to anyone who may have inexplicably forgotten that that was where Alexander Brown’s cooling body had been placed, out of sight but not out of mind.

  ‘I mean who on earth would do such a thing?’ continued Monaro. ‘Alex was my right hand – we went through Iraq together. I just can’t believe it.’

  ‘Well that’s put a whole new slant on things,’ said Sir Aiden decisively. ‘This has gone a lot further than a Victorian parlour game version of Hunt the Blackmailer. We quite possibly have a murderer in our midst. It is time to call in the police.’

  ‘No,’ said the Prime Minister violently. He thumped the table causing his pistol to rattle against the cutlery. ‘Absolutely not. Another couple of hours are not going to bring Alex back to life but they will give us the time to sort this out once and for all.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I beg to differ, Prime Minister,’ said Sir Aiden quietly. ‘And if I must, I will insist.’

  ‘I am afraid you cannot insist,’ said Monaro decisively, his voice almost breaking with the strain. ‘The security detail withdrew on strict orders not to intervene or respond to anyone or anything inside Kirribilli House until they received specific instruction to do so from me. And I have no intention of giving any such instructions.’

  Monaro picked up his wine glass and took a sip, his fear showing in the white lines around his eyes. ‘I have too much riding on this to stop now. My whole career, time in office, and my legacy are hinged upon keeping this secret from coming to light. We need to find the blackmailer – now a killer.’ He turned back to Nick. ‘You’re the detective: who would want to kill Alex?’

  ‘Firstly, you are assuming the blackmailer and the killer are one and the same person and there is nothing to say that is the case. Secondly, you are talking about motive, Prime Minister,’ said Nick, pushing back his chair and standing up. He walked over to the banquet and picked up the cocktail shaker.

  ‘How can you think about making another martini when there is a man, a body, lying dead in the bathroom?’ cried Taylor. ‘I mean it’s horrible. He was sitting here, joking with me —’

  ‘Flirting with you,’ interrupted Hayden through a mouthful of food, red wine sauce dribbling down his chin.

  ‘Joking with me,’ continued the young influencer without any appearance of having heard her much older husband’s jibe. ‘He was so kind, so thoughtful. He was asking me about my followers on Insta and how I got my posts looking so good, and agreeing how awful it was that we had our phones confiscated. And now he’s dead. And you’re just standing around making cocktails. It’s awful.’

  ‘Not just cocktails,’ said Nick, walking back from filling up the cocktail shaker with ice from beneath the ice carving in the foyer. ‘Martinis. It’s an important distinction. To pick up on the point we were examining: motive. Who would want to kill Alexander Brown?’

  ‘Darling, I think that would have to be someone who wanted him silenced,’ said La Contessa. ‘Someone who would benefit from him being stopped before he could reveal something. Oh!’ La Contessa looked quickly at the Prime Minister and then added quietly, ‘Sorry, Robert.’

  ‘Precisely, my Diamante detective,’ said Nick. ‘If he was the blackmailer, as you suggested just before the fireworks intervened, you would be the one with the most to gain by silencing him forever, Prime Minister.’

  ‘That is ridiculous,’ said Monaro. ‘As I said before, Alex and I have been through too much together. Also, as you rightly point out, that only becomes relevant if he was the blackmailer. At this stage I still have no idea who the blackmailer is.’

  ‘There is also the little matter of his infidelity with your wife,’ said Nick quietly.

  ‘As you heard only a short time ago that was something we dealt with long ago. It’s in the past,’ said Monaro, pausing to give a long lingering look down the table at his wife, who sat red-eyed and bereft. She tried pathetically to rally and give him a supportive smile. ‘Alex was our friend. I most certainly did not want him dead.’

  ‘And if there is any further doubt, I can vouch for Robert,’ said Karen. ‘I stood next to him throughout the firework display and he did not leave
my side.’

  Nick finished shaking the cocktail and poured the ice-cold martini into the glass on the table. He proffered the shaker around the table to see if anyone else wanted one. Heads shook.

  ‘Oh yes, darling, I think I will have one.’ La Contessa smiled encouragingly. ‘Gets the old grey matter working.’

  ‘That’s my girl,’ said Nick, cutting the rind from a lemon, squeezing the zest over the drink to release a light infusion of oil, which then settled on the surface of the drink, before carefully wiping it around the rim of the glass. He gave the martini to La Contessa and then set about making himself another. ‘Perhaps we need to look at this another way. Maybe we should not be looking at who killed Alex, but what.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked La Contessa.

  ‘Alexander Brown was killed by a single strike to his neck, which caused the commotio cordis, or heart disruption, that killed him. Doctor Ngo, do you think that could have been caused by someone striking him with a bare hand?’

  ‘No: looking at the trauma to his neck I would say he was struck by a blunt instrument,’ said Charlotte Ngo.

  ‘And the cut to his face?’

  ‘Quite probably caused by a knife or some very sharp instrument, perhaps a scalpel or scissors.’

  ‘So it is quite possible that Alexander Brown, being a trained soldier, fought with his assailant, as the defensive wounds on his hands indicate, before being cut on the face by the blade of a dagger and then struck on the neck by the haft of that same knife,’ said Nick, walking around the table, glass in hand, as he worked the problem through. ‘I raise it because there was no such weapon in the toilet. I investigated most of the vestibule and just then looked at the ice at the foot of the carving of the pegasus to see if it had been dumped there. The most obvious place for a killer to divest him or herself of a murder weapon. Nothing.’

  ‘Which means,’ said La Contessa, closely following her husband’s train of thought, ‘that the killer may still have the knife on their person.’