Faces in the Rain

by Roland Perry

  She laughed and headed for the Treasury Gardens. I walked briskly into the Fitzroy Gardens, mindful that I’d blathered too much. Talk about Freudian slips! I had just fallen on my identikit face in the mud.

  An Italian in his gelati van was doing good business because an Italian wedding party was being photographed on the steps of the conservatory.

  I passed an old man with a Hawthorn beanie on his head sitting on a park bench reading the Sun.

  Three people were coming in my direction on the way to city offices. An Asian wedding was being conducted by a celebrant near a lake. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  Last night’s fog had lifted it skirts to reveal a petticoat of cloud and the sun was tantalising the city as I approached the View Room restaurant and stood thirty metres away near a model Tudor village.

  I pretended to concentrate on the sign explaining that the mini-village had been presented to the city by the citizens of Lambeth, England in appreciation of food gifts during the 1939–45 war. The Fairies’ Tree was opposite. Farrar wasn’t there. About eight people were sitting outside the restaurant at wooden tables under umbrellas advertising Peters Ice Cream. I walked up to the restaurant.

  Big Tony was inside. He was spiking his tea with whisky from a hip flask. I wasn’t about to reprimand him for drinking on the job, mid-morning. I needed all the friends I could muster.

  I sat down at his table in a sea of sickly light green. The colour dominated carpet, chairs, tables and the rest of the decor. Farrar gave me a murderous look and glanced at the other tables. I knew before he opened his rubbery lips that he hadn’t recognised me.

  ‘I’m expecting someone,’ he said.

  ‘Tony, it’s me,’ I said under my breath. Farrar did a double-take, then recovered.

  ‘Very good,’ he said, ‘Hamilton au naturel. No beard makes a hell of a difference.’

  ‘Benns wouldn’t know about it, would he?’

  ‘Not unless someone told him. The police weren’t directly involved when I fixed it up with ASIO.’

  ‘But the police knew of the kidnap threat?’

  ‘Sure, but you had private protection. Your only worry really is if someone in ASIO informs Benns about Morten-Saunders.’

  I got myself a tea and scones from the counter, and returned to the table.

  ‘When I heard about you on the radio I nearly collided with the car in front of me!’ Farrar said, that forehead crease now permanent. ‘Benns never said a word. Not a bloody word to me!’

  ‘Think he’s leading you on?’ I asked. ‘Does he know you’re investigating for me?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, sipping the tinctured tea. ‘So what’s up now?’

  I told him more about the Fiat chase.

  ‘You sure it was the same Fiat waiting at Homicide?’

  ‘Got the registration. It was the same one. It made me wonder if Benns could have been bribed or something. Think that’s possible?’

  ‘It sort of surprises me,’ Farrar said thoughtfully, if that wasn’t a contradiction in terms, ‘I’ve taken him for a nice meal to get into a file. That’s always on. But taking dough, that’s another thing.’

  ‘Did Benns say anything which indicated that he may have more evidence,’ I said, groping as ever with Farrar, who tended to let things hatch.

  ‘He did mention the autopsy report on the deceased,’ he replied with some effort. ‘The coroner thinks the migraine capsules were pumped down her throat after she was drowned.’

  ‘To make it look like she took an overdose?’

  Farrar nodded.

  ‘I never understand those medical things,’ he said with a frown, ‘how could they know someone made it look like an OD?’

  ‘The body wouldn’t stop ingesting the drug immediately after death,’ I said, ‘but it would slow down. There would be more traces of the Serophrine in the stomach if the drug had been pumped in after drowning.’

  ‘There were very minor lacerations found in the oesophagus, which the coroner indicated probably came from a pump.’

  ‘But they’re not certain?’

  ‘No, but everyone’s pretty certain it was murder. The coroner has laid out the evidence to make it ninety-five per cent certain.’

  ‘Retarded ingestion, lacerations. What else?’

  ‘I haven’t seen the report,’ Farrar said, eyeing me. ‘I have to ask you, have you ever used a stomach pump?’

  ‘Only after eating Mexican food,’ I said, deadpan.

  It threw Farrar.

  ‘C’mon Tony,’ I protested, ‘watch my lips. I didn’t kill Martine. I’ve never used a stomach pump. I’m being framed.’

  Did I detect a flicker of shame? I wasn’t sure, but just to keep him on side, I reached for my chequebook. I had two now. Morten-Saunders was filthy rich. He had a Swiss account as well as a substantial cash balance at the King’s Road branch of Barclays’ Bank, London.

  ‘Just in case you run short, or I’m forced into hiding,’ I said, ‘here’s another four.’

  The flicker of shame became a flutter of greed as he pocketed the cheque.

  ‘Had to be sure, Duncan,’ he said with gruff hypocrisy, ‘I trust you, but with you now a target . . .’

  ‘It’s more like danger money?’

  ‘Right,’ he laughed.

  ‘Have you checked on the French Consul?’

  ‘His name’s Gerard Bonnell. He’s known Martine since Paris seven years ago. She was his mistress then and resumed that role here a year ago.’

  ‘I wonder if he could have killed Martine and then sent those hoods after me because he thinks I know something,’ I speculated wildly. ‘Or maybe he or someone else thinks I killed her and wants revenge. It could be also be a frame-up. Then again I haven’t even ruled out someone trying to capture me and demanding a ransom!’

  ‘I have checked on the Consul,’ Farrar said. ‘He’s married and he plays a lot behind the wife’s back. A married Consul with a career at stake might not want an affair made public. Perhaps he was being blackmailed.’

  ‘Who suggested that?’

  ‘Martine’s friend Danielle. She didn’t actually suggest it, but remarked that there’d been some tension between Martine and the Consul in recent weeks.’

  ‘You should get onto him,’ I urged.

  ‘Tried. But he won’t see a private dick like me.’

  ‘Has Benns tried?’

  ‘The Consul’s on the Homicide Squad’s list of interviewees, but well down it. He has diplomatic immunity. Can’t be interrogated.’

  ‘What else do you know about these French hoods? Surely they are near the top of the police suspect list?’

  Farrar shook his head.

  ‘They have watertight alibis,’ he said. ‘They were at an Edith Piaf concert at the Alliance Francaise when Martine was killed. They were checked out and found OK. They apparently were friends of hers.’

  ‘They didn’t seem too concerned at the funeral.’

  ‘But they were there,’ Farrar shrugged. ‘The French have a very tight little community in Melbourne. Everyone knows everybody.’ Farrar drank more tea. ‘Maniguet and Cochard would have been under greater suspicion if they hadn’t been at the funeral.’

  ‘Have you found out anything about the Libyans?’

  ‘Benns has been picking my brains.’

  With a tooth-pick I thought. I was beginning to lose faith in Farrar.

  ‘Has he found anything?’ I asked. Farrar missed the ambiguity.

  ‘My ASIO friends are watching the Libyans round the clock,’ he said, ‘they’ve been tipped off by French Intelligence that Fazmi could be here to cause trouble. All consulates and the Embassy in Canberra are on alert. They haven’t ruled out bombings.’

  ‘Does Benns suspect them?’

  ‘He doesn’t buy anything that smacks of international links. It goes into the “too hard” basket. He doesn’t relish interference from the Feds or ASIO.’

  ‘What about Freddie May?’ I asked. ‘He
’s a local.’

  ‘Danielle says he has left the country to get over Martine. The police are not too pleased. They told him not to leave. They’re trying to trace him.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Europe.’

  ‘Europe,’ I repeated ruefully, ‘bit strange isn’t it? Could you speak with Danielle again? We must know where he is.’

  Farrar went to the counter and asked if he could use a phone. A waiter pointed to a red public phone in a corner. Farrar lumbered to it. He made a call. After a brief conversation, he beckoned me over.

  ‘She won’t speak with me any more,’ he said, handing me the phone.

  ‘Listen, you must tell me where Freddie is. It’s urgent.’

  ‘If he goes to France,’ she said reluctantly, ‘he always stays in Paris at a guest house in Alesia.’ I had a pen poised over a notepad. ‘Seventy-five Rue de la Tombe Issoire, apartment ten. Other than that, I can’t help you.’

  ‘What’s your connection with him?’ I said. She put down the receiver.

  Farrar had paid the bill and moved outside. He was standing in front of the mini Tudor village and he was anxious. He indicated something outside was bothering him. Two police were walking towards the restaurant. One was speaking into a hand-held phone. Farrar came back inside, and nodded to a rear exit.

  ‘I could hear a bit of the conversation the cop was having,’ Farrar said as we left, ‘they were searching for someone.’

  We walked at a brisk pace and glanced over our shoulders to see the police enter the restaurant. We doubled back to the Subaru in Lansdowne Street, where Farrar had also left his car.

  ‘Tony,’ I said, getting in, ‘you’re my big white hope. If you don’t come up with some clues to who the killer really is, I’m finished.’

  Farrar bent down to window level.

  ‘Can you give me your phone number?’ he asked. I hesitated. More police were walking in our direction from the Treasury Gardens.

  ‘It’s better I call you,’ Farrar persisted. ‘I reckon my phone will be monitored. I’ll use public phones.’

  I reeled off the number as the police came closer. Farrar memorised it.

  ‘You better get out of here,’ he said as I started the car.

  ‘I’m going to keep out of sight for a week and hope that you score for me.’

  ‘If I don’t?’ he said, glancing at the police, now about fifty metres away.

  ‘I’ll have to come down to St Kilda Road,’ I said, one eye on the approaching constabulary, ‘voluntarily.’

  PART TWO

  FUGITIVE

  TWELVE

  THE HIDEAWAY in Lawson Grove was monastic. It was on the top floor of a building perched on a hill and the isolated atmosphere was enhanced by the three storeys of stone steps to Cassie’s front door.

  There were leafy views from every side, and unless an intruder was a mountain climber he would find it hard scaling the walls. The front-door approach seemed the most vulnerable, but the wire door would take some crashing through.

  I grew restless by one p.m. after having watched and listened to media broadcasts that covered the Duncan Hamilton story. The media loved it and old TV footage of me launching a new drug, lunching with the Prime Minister and making speeches was trotted out.

  The inference was that I was guilty. Why else would the police be chasing me and why else would I hide? Journalists relished cutting down a tall poppy, a great Aussie pastime, and the whole story had a guilt-by-assocation whiff because so many other ‘successes’ had been found corrupt in recent times. Why not another? There was the Supreme Court judge who took bribes, the former Federal Minister with links to organised crime, the big businessman who did corrupt deals with Panama’s General Noriega, and the former Lord Mayor who ran an international drug racket, to name a small cross-section. Why not a pharmaceutical chief who had murdered?

  In desperation I rang Rachel, who was distraught. The police, Hewitt, Danielle Mernet and twenty others had rung. Lloyd Vickers had threatened to fire Rachel unless she allowed him to speak with me. My stockbroker, Oliver Slack, was on the line as I spoke with Rachel. She hooked us up.

  ‘More trouble than the early settlers, Dunc,’ he said, managing to sound cheerful. ‘What notoriety! And when you do it you do it in style!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She’s a smasher, Dunc. What a face. And that body!!’

  ‘Have you seen a picture of Martine?’

  ‘Everyone in Melbourne has. The Herald’s got her on the front page. Get the headline: “Princess of the Night’s Tragic Life”.’

  ‘I must go, Ollie,’ I said feeling worse than ever.

  ‘Sorry, old mate,’ he said, ‘must be nasty for you. I rang for another reason. Someone abroad is buying heavily into Benepharm. They’re already close to the foreign control limit.’

  ‘Who?!’

  ‘Don’t know. It’s the usual front merchant bank. Paris-based. They’re small, but I’ve heard of them before. And they’re aggressive. Hamot & Associates.’

  ‘Any activity here?’

  ‘Forty thou changed hands first thing this morning. Somebody on the inside is in the know.’

  ‘Somebody at Benepharm, or where?’

  ‘At the company, yes, but also somebody who’s aware that the overseas lot, whoever they are, are eating in.’

  ‘Can you keep on it? I want to know who it is here and abroad.’

  ‘Righto, Dunc.’

  ‘Have you told Lloyd?’

  ‘No. Thought you should know first.’

  ‘Thanks. Just keep Rachel informed. I’ll phone in to check.’

  ‘I was wondering where you planned to lie low.’

  ‘I have a temporary place.’

  ‘If you ever need a hideout,’ Oliver said, ‘I have a super “bunker”. It’s a place I go for duotude, as opposed to solitude. Nudge nudge, wink wink.’

  Dear Oliver was a known player, even in the 1990s era of cautious sex. He always had an inventory of playgirls, whether he was married or unmarried.

  I got off the phone and rammed a fist into the back of a sofa. It hurt me more than the furniture, but I was frustrated. Ifs began staring me in the face, taunting me. If I had been at the office I could have tracked down the insider. If I hadn’t been drunk at the reunion, I wouldn’t be in this mess. If that meteorite passing annually closer to the Earth would only hit Melbourne, the police would forget about me.

  Relying on Farrar was not enough. I had to take the initiative. I now had another clue as to why someone wanted me out of the way, whether by imprisonment on a murder charge or by shooting. But was a company takeover enough of a reason for murdering Martine? – so that I could be nailed? Somehow that explanation didn’t satisfy. Danielle Mernet loomed large in my thoughts because I’d always felt that striking French-woman held keys to the Martine Villon affair. She had known Martine as much as anyone; it was she who had found the body; she had tabs on almost everyone at the funeral.

  Danielle had called the office after hanging up in my face at the tea rooms. I dialled her number. It rang a long time. Then her husky voice came on. Like Rachel, my broker and everyone else alive, she knew I was in trouble.

  ‘I want to meet you,’ I said, ‘we must talk.’

  ‘It’s dangerous for you, is it not?’

  ‘I’ve got a disguise.’

  ‘Oh, but I’m not sure I can help.’

  ‘Then why did you phone?’

  ‘To apologise for hanging up.’

  ‘I accept. Now, can we meet?’

  The length of her deliberation worried me.

  ‘I can suggest an out-of-the-way place,’ I prompted, ‘somewhere safe.’

  I told her to meet me at ‘The Angry Pheasant’, an isolated restaurant in a converted farmhouse barn in the Dandenongs, an hour’s drive south-west of the city. She agreed. We set the rendezvous time for eight p.m.

  ‘Will you be alone?’ she asked. I was about to say yes, but changed my mi
nd, on the small chance that she was linked to my assailants. The meeting could be turned into a trap.

  ‘There will be just you and me at dinner,’ I said, ‘but I have hired protection. They’ll watch the restaurant.’

  ‘That sounds sensible.’

  ‘I’m also licensed to carry a weapon.’

  ‘I suppose you should.’

  Her calm manner puzzled me. She didn’t appear concerned that I might have been Martine’s killer, which implied that she knew I wasn’t. Anyone who had doubts wouldn’t bother ringing up to apologise for hanging up on me. They would keep well away.

  I booked the restaurant under the name Brown and rang Farrar. ‘Morten-Saunders here,’ I said, putting on an English accent.

  ‘I’m busy at the moment,’ Farrar said, ‘can I call you back?’

  Five minutes later he called on a public phone.

  ‘Tony, I want you to play bodyguard tonight.’ I told him of my appointment with Danielle.

  ‘Madame Mer . . . net,’ he said stumbling on the name, ‘I’d watch her.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She’s French. What if she knows Cochard and Maniguet?’

  ‘I’m Australian. I don’t know Paul Hogan.’

  ‘Point taken. It’s just a hunch. I’m meeting mates from ASIO tomorrow. Expect to learn more then.’

  ‘Good. I want you at the restaurant round six.’

  ‘Do I get to eat?’

  ‘Sure, Tony.’

  If ever a way to a man’s heart was via his stomach, it was with big Tony. Gorging his lumpy frame took precedence over protecting mine.

  ‘I checked out Vital again,’ Farrar said, ‘they say Maniguet and Cochard have left the company. Gone back to France.’

  ‘Do you think that’s true?’

  ‘Maybe. I found the offices in Prahran. No sign of a red Fiat or them. They just may have skipped town.’

  I didn’t believe it. Nor did I want to give myself the luxury of believing it.

  I still had several hours to kill so I rang Peggy in Queensland. She hadn’t seen the papers or heard anything in the media. I told her the painful saga and it distressed her.