Faces in the Rain

by Roland Perry

  ‘The children will hear about it,’ I said, ‘I must tell them everything.’

  ‘They’re out at the beach with the guards. They’re expected back round five.’

  ‘I may not have time to call,’ I said, ‘give them my love and explain it all as best you can.’

  More frustration and heartache. The kids would be shaken to learn that their dad could be accused of murder, and I hated to think of the reaction they would get at school. Alistair could look after himself, but my little girl was fragile material.

  I began imagining all kinds of conspiracies. For some reason I was worried about Lloyd. Could he cope with running Benepharm? I had to ring him.

  ‘Are you out of your mind, Duncan?’ he said. ‘You must go to the police!’

  ‘No way,’ I said, ‘I just want you to know I’ll be back in there very soon.’

  There was silence. Then Lloyd’s hand went over the mouthpiece. I could hear frenzied whispering. There was a click on the line. Somebody had picked up another extension.

  ‘Who have you got with you?’ I asked.

  ‘No one.’

  ‘I heard you speaking with someone else!’

  ‘It was just Rachel. She bloody well barges in here giving me orders. She thinks she runs the place.’

  ‘Just be fair with her. She’s in charge of my office.’

  ‘She doesn’t control mine.’

  ‘I run yours and she takes orders from me.’

  I was seething. This was typical self-centred, ambitious Lloyd, who had always wanted to run Benepharm. I counted to ten and held my temper. Just.

  ‘I’m indispensable to this organisation,’ Lloyd said.

  ‘Lloyd, put your forefinger in a glass of water. Then withdraw it. If there’s still a space there, then you’re indispensable.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘Did you know the corporation was under siege?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course.’ His tone was smug.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘My broker rang this morning.’

  ‘Any idea who the buyer might be?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The overseas bit is worrying, isn’t it?’

  ‘Probably just a big institution getting into a good investment. We are that, you know. Thanks to my skills.’

  ‘Keep Rachel informed, will you, and try to be harmonious until I get back.’

  He made a sceptical sound and we said our cold goodbyes.

  THIRTEEN

  THE EVENING peak-hour traffic into the Dandenongs was slow as thousands of motorists made their way to leafy, sprawling suburbia and it gave me plenty of time to think. Lloyd Vickers kept dive-bombing into my thoughts, like a mosquito determined to buzz you through the night.

  How dare he act so arrogantly as de facto head of the corporation! I began to wonder if I should arrange a coup to fire him. My corporate lawyers could do it, but it would need my supervision, and I wasn’t in a position to supervise a chook raffle.

  I raked over my eight-year association with Lloyd who had returned after a decade in corporate finance in Europe. He had often wanted to leave to take over a company of his own, and I had dangled carrots to keep him there. Now the vegetable patch was empty.

  He had been so damned casual about the potential takeover. Could dear Lloyd be behind it? Perhaps as soon as he knew I was in trouble he’d organised a takeover. No. He wouldn’t have had time. Those things took big planning. Unless he had planned it some time ago and my trouble was a coincidence.

  I nearly ran into the car in front as my brain rioted.

  What if Lloyd had somehow set me up over Martine? After all, he had employed her. He had gone to the funeral. What if he had used Freddie May to . . . Oh no! That’s just too ridiculous . . . And yet his behaviour was odd. He was acting as if he was already in charge . . .

  ‘Lloyd, you low-life creep!’ I said aloud. ‘You’re a suspect. You are on the list!’

  I glanced at the car next to me. A woman in the passenger seat was staring at the loon talking to himself. I moved my head about and pretended to be listening to the music. She kept staring. What the hell, I thought. She’s looking at Morten-Saunders, not Hamilton. I poked my tongue out. She looked away.

  The restaurant barn was about a kilometre down a side-track off the main road and well into the bush. A large stuffed pheasant, looking more dead than angry, dangled from wires attached to a billboard that proclaimed its name. You entered through a sliding barn door adorned with tapestries of mediaeval feasts circa Henry VIII. Inside were two dining areas, one at ground level and the other in a hay loft, complete with bales of hay on the sloping floor.

  The tables were Dattner-designed oak trestles that seated from six to twenty, and the only incongruous part of the decor were the sofas and seats, which were of dark velvet, their lounging opulence offsetting the more rustic appearance of other furniture. A gilded mirror ran ten metres along and eight or so high on one wall, and in the half-light made it appear like another room. When all patrons were there it would seem as big as an opera hall. Open-hearth fires were already burning at each level, and I made up my mind to get a table in the loft to give me an advantageous view of the door and everyone coming and going.

  I found the manager, himself a portly Hungarian pheasant, in the kitchen and put in a bid for the loft. There was no problem. Forty patrons had been booked in, and he expected the place would be filled by last-minute diners.

  I waited outside in the drizzle for Farrar. At six thirty he hadn’t turned up. I sat in the car and turned on the news and was pleased that I didn’t rate a mention. At seven I listened again and there was nothing. My morning of infamy was over, or so I thought.

  I was just about to use the restaurant phone to find Farrar, when there was a tap on the passenger-door window. It startled me. I had my hand on the Heckler when I realised it was him.

  ‘I’ve checked out the whole area,’ he said, getting in, ‘anyone coming after you would have to move down the track. They’d get nowhere in that bush. There are valleys and holes of all kinds. OK if you can see them in the daylight, but at this hour it’s deadly.’

  ‘Thought you wanted to eat early.’

  ‘It would be better if I went in and sat at another table while you were inside.’

  ‘Where’s your car?’

  ‘Hidden just off the track about three hundred metres away.’

  ‘Any more news?’

  ‘Yeah. Benns wants to haul the Libyans in.’

  ‘Then I’m not a key suspect?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘Mate, you are. You’re top of the hit parade. But Benns wants to pull the Libyans and in Karl Krogen for interrogation. Because of my expertise on terrorism in the Middle East I may be asked to help out.’

  ‘So you’re back in favour with Benns?’

  ‘I don’t trust the bastard, but I’ll play along. He claims ASIO have had tips from French Intelligence about the Libyans.’

  My mind was still on Lloyd. I asked Farrar what he thought.

  ‘He always intrigued against you when I was at Benepharm,’ he replied, ‘but he never impressed me as being someone who would go that far. Not set you up for murder. Besides, the more I look at the case, the more I think you were an accident. You happened along. You unwittingly provided the poison – the drugs – used in the murder.’

  ‘Could you say all that to Benns?’ I suggested ruefully.

  ‘I have. But I can’t push it too much. He’ll cotton on to our connection.’

  I sat up straight when a Daimler wheeled up in front of the restaurant. Two couples got out and headed for the barn. The night’s patrons were arriving. Farrar entered the barn at seven thirty and I waited another twenty minutes before taking my place in the loft, which was preferred by half the thirty or so diners who had arrived in the same hour as me. I was famished by eight thirty and ordered a pâté entree.

  At eight fifty-five, Danielle arrived. All heads turned. It was not so much her
beauty, but her style and presence. She wore another of those big hats, dark brown this time, with a white band. She was nicely colour-co-ordinated in a two-tone brown and white dress, and in a way which accentuated her auburn hair.

  I had asked the manager to point me out, and he waved in my direction as I rose from my seat. She smiled at me before ascending the wooden ladder to the loft. She didn’t seem to notice Farrar, who was sitting in a corner down below with a view of the loft.

  A few men watched her climb up a steep ladder, which caused her to expose her strong and shapely limbs because she had to twist more than usual to elevate her wonky hip. I kissed her on both cheeks and went another round for good measure. She seemed amused by this.

  ‘You look better without the beard,’ she whispered, ‘it is a very good transformation. Particularly those glasses. They hide your eyes just enough.’

  Now three people outside my immediate family – Cassie, Farrar and Danielle – knew about the disguise. This woman was the biggest risk by far. She was associated with Freddie May and I didn’t know anything about her. Yet instinct was telling me she wasn’t an enemy, and that I had to gain her confidence to get information. With Freddie out of the country, there was no other tangible lead for me to work on, and she wouldn’t deal with Farrar.

  Danielle apologised for being late and said that she’d had trouble locating the track to the barn.

  ‘It was a good choice,’ she said scanning the restaurant, ‘very secluded, but perhaps a few less people would have been wiser.’

  ‘It’s not a problem if no one knows me.’

  Danielle shrugged and pulled out a packet of Winfield. It seemed a strange choice for a European.

  ‘Do you mind?’ she asked.

  ‘No. As long as you don’t mind me having a cigar later.’ I took her lighter and lit the cancer stick.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘smoking doesn’t bother me.’

  ‘Do you smoke much?’

  ‘Not enough to get lung cancer,’ she said, ‘besides I have the discipline to give them up when I want.’

  ‘You’re lucky. Some people have to go cold turkey.’

  ‘They must be a little weak to smoke so much in the first place.’

  I smiled at that. It was French logic. Danielle was tougher than she looked and she didn’t look soft.

  ‘Do you work here?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, surprised, ‘do you think I am rich or something?’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I work in a boutique in the Toorak Village. Fashion de Ville.’

  Despite her dress sense, she didn’t seem the type. There was a special vacuity needed to work in a Toorak boutique and Danielle didn’t have it.

  ‘What made you come to Australia?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘I’ve got the time.’

  A waiter hovered, took our wine and food orders and left. I watched Farrar. Danielle had her back to him. He was well into a main course and on a second bottle of wine. I wondered about his reflexes, but not about who would be picking up the tab.

  ‘I came here last year with a film producer,’ she said, ‘in the hope of making a French/Australian co-production mini-series on a French courtesan who was here during the gold-rush days. It fell through. I liked the country very much, so I decided to stay.’

  ‘Do you like working in a shop like that?’

  ‘It’s not very demanding,’ she said, waving smoke from the table, and eyeing me closely, ‘but it will do for the moment.’

  ‘The pay’s good?’

  ‘Not really.’

  The waiter poured claret and scurried off.

  ‘And how did you meet old Freddie?’ I asked.

  ‘Martine introduced us after she and Freddie met in hospital.’

  ‘When she was treated at the Magenta Institute?’

  ‘Yes. Dr Morris and Peter Walters saved Martine after her dreadful experiences in Paris where she nearly died. Martine couldn’t speak more highly of them, especially Walters whom she thought was wonderful.’ Danielle allowed herself a bright smile. ‘He is so very good-looking. I think she fancied him. You know how patients can be with their doctors.’

  ‘Did she offer him her professional services?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she laughed, ‘for free of course. But he ignored her overtures. He’s so very dedicated to medicine.’

  ‘He’s not ignoring Cassie Morris,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I daresay it helps that she’s dedicated to medicine too.’

  She sipped the wine.

  ‘It’s so sad,’ Danielle said reflectively.

  ‘What?’

  ‘All that good work done by the doctors to nurse Martine back to health, and then . . .’

  ‘Her old doctor returns to finish off the rotten work he did in Paris.’

  Danielle was disturbed by my conclusion. Her face clouded and she examined the stem of her wine glass.

  ‘Freddie seemed pretty dependent on you,’ I said.

  ‘I was a friend in need,’ she replied, ‘that’s all.’

  ‘You weren’t having an affair with him?’ I said as casually as possible.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘he would like this, but he was with Martine.’ She gave me a dubious look.

  ‘You are very inquisitive,’ she observed, but without rancour.

  I admired this woman’s cool. There was a lot more to her than fashion and movies that don’t get made.

  ‘I think I’m entitled to be,’ I said.

  ‘You are right.’

  ‘There were two Frenchman at the funeral,’ I said, ‘did you know them?’

  Danielle frowned.

  ‘I remember several faces from that day,’ she said, ‘some I recalled seeing in the French community here.’

  ‘Their names are Cochard and Maniguet.’ She ruminated on the names and then shook her head.

  ‘They work for Vital,’ I prompted.

  ‘Ah, the perfume group. I may have met them at one of the Consulate soirées.’

  ‘Is it possible they know the Consul?’ I said.

  ‘Maybe. He opened the Vital operations here a few months ago.’

  My brain did the hurdles on that one. The Consul could have had the thugs kin Martine and frame me. Or he could have murdered her and sent the thugs after me when they couldn’t quite pin it on me. Or . . . or . . . it was a possible in a sea of improbables.

  Danielle’s deep brown eyes had narrowed. It was becoming an inquisition and I had to switch ground to keep her bubbling.

  ‘You from Paris?’ I asked, knowing full well I had a provincial Latin face in front of me.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Born there?’

  ‘No. Montpelier.’

  Marseilles had been my guess. I wasn’t far out.

  ‘Lovely city,’ I said.

  ‘You know France well?’

  ‘Fairly. Used to save up and go there every Christmas vacation when I was a student. Now business still takes me there once a year.’

  ‘How’s your French?’

  ‘Passable. Fair when I’ve been back a couple of days. Your English is very good,’ I was seeking an opening. ‘Have you lived abroad much?’

  ‘Spent three years as a sales representative for a small company in London. My English improved then.’

  ‘Never lived in the States?’

  ‘I was in California for five months.’

  ‘That’s not much exposure to the language,’ I said, sounding impressed rather than sceptical. ‘You must have had a good teacher at some stage.’

  ‘I had an Australian boyfriend in Paris for a year.’

  ‘Ah!’

  Danielle smiled. It was the first hint of something less than serious in her face. Her lips parted to reveal teeth so white and expertly capped that it took several inspections to ascertain that they had been doctored.

  ‘It wasn’t just pillow talk,’ she said, ‘my Aussie was an English teacher.’

  ‘
I’m sure he was.’

  The first course of goose-liver pâté arrived.

  ‘Did you like London?’ I asked. Danielle presented her first authentic French pout.

  ‘It was a job,’ she said.

  We were distracted by a fat man at the next table who was coughing loudly. He became distressed. He began to choke. I moved behind him, got him in a chest lock and jerked hard. The fat man spluttered and spewed out the piece of vegetable that had lodged in his throat. He slumped to the floor.

  His female companion and the other couple at the table crowded him. Danielle pushed them away.

  ‘Give him air,’ she said, feeling for his pulse. She snapped her fingers at the manager who had ascended the staircase; ‘Get some water.’

  Farrar had pushed his way up too. I signalled to him and he returned to his seat. He had been more alert than I thought.

  ‘I’ll get an ambulance,’ the manager said. The fat man was coming round.

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ Danielle said. She helped the man back to his seat. Apart from the shock and acute embarrassment, the fat man seemed OK.

  ‘Are you a doctor?’ I asked Danielle when we had resumed our seats.

  ‘You know your first aid,’ she said as if I hadn’t asked a question, ‘one has to act quickly in these situations. People can choke to death very quickly, especially children.’

  I had to have a cheroot before tackling the pâté. Danielle lit a cigarette.

  ‘My family wanted me to be a doctor,’ Danielle said, ‘my father was a doctor. So was my mother, sister and four brothers.’

  ‘You had no problem with second opinions in your household.’

  ‘Oui,’ Danielle smiled, ‘I resisted for a long time.’ She had still evaded my question.

  ‘Were you a nurse or something?’ I persisted.

  ‘Oh, I eventually did medicine,’ she said, ‘I practised for a while, then gave it up for other ventures.’

  I had to suppress a fear. Benns wanted to charge me with murdering Martine because I had some medical knowledge. Here was the woman – a qualified medico – who had found her and had been last to see her alive, just.

  Danielle – if that was her real name – had approached me at the funeral and called my office. She had told me about Martine’s use of the migraine drug. On reflection, Danielle had sounded professionally knowledgeable. Was I looking into the eyes of the killer? Was she treacherous, or innocent, or a little bit of both?