by Roland Perry
I couldn’t help peeping over her shoulder at Farrar. He was watching me and I had an urge to get a message to him. My right hand dropped to my trouser belt to which was attached the Heckler inside its holster. I ran my fingers over the gun’s outline. Would the killer be so daring as to report Martine’s murder as Danielle had done? That could only be done by the most self-possessed assassin, and I wondered if I had mistaken cool for cold-bloodedness.
‘Can’t you practise in Australia?’ I asked, for something to say as I took more than a sip of the red.
‘I’m not interested in medicine here,’ she said.
‘How long since you practised?’
‘Full-time? A few years now.’
I had dried up. The main course, pheasant, arrived and saved me.
‘What can you do now?’ she said, sounding concerned, almost solicitous.
‘Hide,’ I said, ‘and pray that the real . . . er,’ I choked on the ‘m’ word and sipped my wine, ‘. . . criminal is caught.’
‘I doubt it,’ she said, ‘if it was Claude Michel he will not be easy to find.’
‘At the funeral you seemed to think the Libyans had something to do with Martine’s murder.’
‘I still do,’ she said.
We began eating and I switched the subject to my affection for Paris and Benepharm’s growing operation there. This relaxed both of us until the end of the main course. I ordered a second bottle of wine. I was uptight. I lit another cheroot.
Danielle had her third cigarette. I asked her why she thought the Libyans could have been involved in Martine’s death. She chewed over that for quite a long time before giving a measured response.
‘It was something she said once about her Libyan lover,’ Danielle said. ‘How Al Shahati was debauched and erotic, yet a very charismatic man.’
‘You’re speaking of the lover she had in London?’
‘Oui.’ Danielle had no doubt about the Libyan’s name this time.
‘Martine said she would do anything – anything at all for him,’ Danielle said, blinking, ‘at the time she was very drunk. I remember her words. She said “I’m still doing things for him. At least, I hope he thinks so.” I asked her what she meant, but she just laughed and refused to elaborate.’
Danielle leant back in her chair as if she was examining my cigar smoke, which hung in the air near the roof like an apparition.
‘My impression was,’ Danielle said, ‘that this implied she was doing something for the Libyans here.’
‘Fazmi?’
‘Yes.’
‘You think she could have been doing a little intelligence for them by having an affair with the French Consul?’
‘That’s one possibility. The other is that she was acting as a double agent for the French.’
‘And the Libyans found out, and . . .’
‘It’s all conjecture, but yes.’
I wanted time to reflect on her words. When she went to the bathroom, I signalled to Farrar. He was on his third bottle and consuming that like a lizard drinking. Some detective/bodyguard! I was paying him five hundred dollars a day to eat and drink himself into oblivion in front of me.
FOURTEEN
DANIELLE LEFT the restaurant before us and Farrar escorted me to Cassie’s apartment, which I barricaded myself into by midnight. I’d had just enough booze to sleep soundly for the first time since the reunion a week earlier.
I sat bolt upright in bed as Cassie’s answer machine picked up a phone call. It was from a public phone. Whoever it was waited for more than a minute and left the line open. I could hear the steady whoosh of traffic, which sounded the same as the noise I could hear through the window from cars on the South-eastern Freeway, alongside the Yarra. Then came the dull chime of a nearby church clock as it registered three a.m.
The silent caller rang off.
I went to the machine and replayed the call. The tape had picked up the clock chimes. The phone booth had to be close to here! If someone had been casing the place to see if anyone was home they could be very near.
I tiptoed round in the dark and looked out every window. There was no one to be seen. It was cold. I pulled on tracksuit pants and a pullover and went to the kitchen for a glass of water.
There was a clunk sound, which at first I associated with pipes in the hot water service. Then there was a dull, scraping noise. I turned the kitchen sink water tap on and off again but the response from the hot water service was not connected to the second clunk, which was heavier and more prolonged.
The scrape became more pronounced and seemed to coming from outside.
I was glued to the kitchen floor and it took a conscious effort to step to the bedroom. I grabbed my gun from under the bed, and edged to the living room window. Whatever was there was outside the line of vision and below me, pressed against the wall. I eased the window out and looked down.
It took time to adjust to the blackness. In a few seconds I could just make out a grappling iron attached to a bend in a large pipe, which was a metre below the window ledge. I leant out cautiously and saw that it had a rope attached, which was moving slightly.
My fingertips could just touch the grappling iron. I pulled and pushed. It wouldn’t budge. I dropped back into the apartment, eased the window shut and retreated to the bedroom, locking myself in.
A minute later there was the splinter of glass. For the next few moments the intruder picked out chunks and dropped them inside. Some fell on carpet and other pieces shattered on the bare floorboards. The intruder cursed. Perhaps he’d cut himself. Maybe he’d had trouble opening a latch and squeezing in. I stood out of the line of fire behind the door and aimed the gun at it. My hand was shaking and my forearm ached from gripping the gun. There was muttering and the groan of floorboards with each change of weight as the intruder crept around. He was fumbling in the lock to Cassie’s study next door. So I was not the target. Sweat dropped into my eyes and trickled down my cheeks.
The minutes crawled by.
The computer had been started and he was getting into Cassie’s disk files. He had the printer running. The equipment was making enough noise to possibly blanket the sound of me making a phone call. The phone in the bedroom was sitting on a desk within my reach. I could dial for help, but from whom? Not the police.
Farrar was the only one I could trust.
I picked up the receiver.
Three phones jingled in other rooms. I put the receiver back in the cradle.
The intruder’s activity stopped.
‘Qui est là?’ he hissed. ‘Who is it?’
He left the study and tried the lock on the bedroom door. Then he kicked it. There was silence. Then that scraping sound of the grappling iron. He was hauling it in. Seconds later he began jemmying the door with it. It splintered and the hook pushed through.
The intruder stood back.
There was a ping as he fired through a silencer into the lock. Another bullet whistled into the room. He kicked open the door and caught me in the forearm. I slipped and fired. The intruder cried out. He clutched his shoulder and swung the long-barrelled weapon round. I fired again. He fell back and stumbled into the living room. I got to my feet.
The injured man fired once more and the gun spun out of my hand. I groped for it and fired a third time. The intruder slipped getting out of the way. He stumbled back, cried out, and then was still.
There was no sound except that of traffic on the freeway. The intruder was either foxing or out to it. I waited. I could see him spreadeagled on the floor. I switched on the light with my left hand and trained the gun on the figure.
I took a few steps forward.
The gaunt, pale eyes of Maniguet stared back. His face was contorted in agony so that his mouth was caught in a permanent grimace, which caused the scars round his mouth to form a pattern like a tightened hairnet. I moved closer. Maniguet had fallen on a slab of glass and severed his neck. He still held his gun, a Walther P38. I loosened the grip of his ring-laden fingers.
He had not been killed by one of the shots from my weapon, which had struck him in the leg, high on the shoulder and in the arm.
Time stood still.
I sat in a chair. My first thought was that Cochard could be close. I checked the windows again, unlocked the front and wire doors, and scanned the road from the top of the steps. Unless Cochard was waiting in a car a street away, Maniguet had come alone.
Things didn’t look good for me. I had to remove his body from the apartment and hide it somewhere. I put on rubber gloves from the kitchen, laid a sheet on the floor, lifted Maniguet’s head and removed the glass slab from his neck. Towels mopped up most of the blood. I rolled the body into the sheet, wrapped it, and dragged it down the steps to the wire door. I waited and listened, gun at the ready. Light rain was falling and the stillness was punctuated only by the sound of traffic. A cat on the stair scurried away as I hauled the body down into the narrow street. The car was parked at the foot of the stairs. I flipped up the back hatch, manoeuvred the body into a crumpled position and draped a second sheet over it, making sure no part was visible. I shut the hatch, reversed down Lawson Grove and drove to Alexandra Avenue.
There was little chance of dropping the body into the river without being seen, and the nearby Botanical Gardens were shut. It didn’t concern me that the body would be found, I only wanted to dump it somewhere remote in order to buy more time.
In the end I recalled Farrar’s words about the rough bush near ‘The Angry Pheasant’ and drove back to the vicinity of the restaurant, arriving there at half past four. I parked the car near an open picnic area, hauled the body out and dragged it deep into the bush about one hundred metres from the roadside. I tucked the sheet around the body and covered it with shrub and tree branches.
I returned to the apartment, put Maniguet’s Walther and the Heckler into a plastic bag and began to clean up. There was a pool of blood on the floorboards and carpet in the living room, and it took some time to wash and scrape off.
Computer disks were scattered in the study. It would have taken an hour to find their original places so I left them in a pile. The titles on the disk covers and small boxes indicated they contained summaries of research on several cancers and Cassie’s recommended treatment.
I packed, took a quick shower to wash away the sins of the night, and dressed as Morten-Saunders.
Dawn was breaking when I left the apartment. First stop was the river. I hurled the bag containing the weapons into the Yarra and watched its uninviting greyness swamp the evidence. I drove back to Lawson Grove, parked Cassie’s Subaru, and ordered a taxi.
‘Where to?’ the woman at the taxi company asked.
‘Melbourne airport,’ I said.
‘What time’s your flight?’
‘Soon,’ I said, ‘Get me there as fast as you can.’
FIFTEEN
THE QUEUES began to build and relatives were hugging each other; the Air France midday flight to Paris was just an hour away. Four police officers circled the international lounges but they didn’t seem to be looking for anyone in particular. The helpful counter staff had put me on standby.
I’d had breakfast and filled in time reading the papers. I found one item where a journalist had written an article about my disappearance. He had tried to interview Benepharm staff and could only get a comment from Lloyd, who insisted that I was on a vacation, the location of which, Lloyd claimed, had to be kept secret.
The journalist had put his story together with the knowledge that the Benepharm shares were being bought by investors abroad, and had speculated about the connection. Benns had been quoted with a predictable ‘no comment’ about my link to the death of Martine. He had added the emotive words, ‘We’ll find him, don’t you worry about that.’ Any future judgement of my case would be prejudiced by such language. It reinforced my feelings of powerlessness.
The immediate problem, however, was a seat. Every plane out of the country was booked for the day. I had the choice of a flight just to be out of the state, or I could take my chances and wait on standby for an international carrier. I decided on the latter and was encouraged by two others on standby in front of me, who got seats within a half hour. I was next. The ‘Now Boarding’ green light indicated the flight to Paris was ready. It was twenty minutes to take-off time.
I approached the ticket counter and was given a ticket.
I handed over a Visa card and was distracted by a man at my elbow who was speaking to the Air France manager. He was angry that a seat booked in his friend’s name had been given to me.
‘Sorry sir,’ the manager said, ‘there is no way we can hold a flight for Mr Maniguet, or any other passenger for that matter.’
I froze as I wrote my Morten-Saunders signature. Looking over my shoulder was Cochard.
I had been been given Maniguet’s first-class seat. Right next to Cochard!
‘But he has a first-class ticket,’ Cochard protested to the Manager.
I walked away.
Cochard didn’t turn up in the waiting lounge. The first-class section was called on board. A tall woman wearing excessive make-up was in my window seat next to Cochard’s empty place.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I had asked for a window seat.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘stay there. I don’t like window seats. Which is yours?’
The woman pointed out her place and was most grateful, but not a tenth as much as I was as I kept a close watch on the cabin door behind the first-class section.
No Cochard.
The cabin door was swung shut and I breathed a sigh of relief. But it was short-lived.
Thirty seconds later it swung open, and Cochard was let in. An attendant took him to the seat across the aisle and just forward of me. The cabin door was closed again. I could see him, but unless he turned his head round to the left he couldn’t see me.
He looked round many times and seemed flustered.
The body spasm first displayed at the funeral was now more pronounced. His head jerked and his every twitch made me think he was about to peer round at me, but it was merely part of the tic’s rhythm. First the face twitch, then the head jerk and finally a quite fierce double shoulder roll, like a butterfly swimmer warming up. It bothered the woman who had taken my place. She kept observing him out of the corner of her eye.
We took off on time and a meal was served.
Cochard ordered a rum and coke and spent most of the first hour scribbling in a notepad. I kept telling myself I had nothing to fear, unless he somehow saw through the disguise. I couldn’t see how he would have any idea that I had been at Cassie’s apartment last night. Certainly Maniguet was unaware of my presence and he had come to steal Cassie’s files, not attack me again. How could Cochard have known I was there, or that I had seen his companion die? There was no way he could know of the horrific events of the night or that I would be on this flight. It seemed that Maniguet had planned to steal the files and fly with Cochard to Europe. All this was logical and rational, yet the Frenchman’s presence chilled me and the coincidence would bother me all the way to Paris.
Cochard’s tic became less frequent as time passed and I found myself studying him. He looked as if he had dressed in a hurry: the collar on his jacket was half-turned down at the neck and his hair was still wet. His battered ears had been chewed in many a scrum and the left lobe carried the tiniest stud that glinted when he moved. His neck was thicker than a Mallee bull’s and I was amazed by his forehead. When he frowned, which was often, it disappeared.
Cochard lit up a Gaulloise as soon as the ‘No Smoking’ sign went off. The woman next to him pressed an armrest panel button and an attendant asked Cochard to put out his cigarette.
Cochard swore in French in a voice that had travelled through gravel and broken glass, and glared at the woman who had complained.
He put on earphones and listened to music but that didn’t last long. He fidgeted, pocketed the cigarettes and headed for the toilets, presumably with the inten
tion of having an illegal smoke in one of them.
He had left a brown leather pouch open on the food tray. It contained his passport, airline ticket and other documentation, and a school exercise book, in which he had been scribbling. It would have been more than interesting to get a closer look, but there didn’t seem to be a chance for that.
When Cochard returned he went through a mood change. He chatted to the woman next to him and appeared affable.
By the time lunch was served in the galley area upstairs, he had won over the woman, who on closer inspection appeared well-dressed in a plain grey business suit and white blouse with enough buttons open to expose a substantial cleavage. It had caused Cochard to stare, and had been enough of a distraction to temper his spasm.
The steward had given us the choice of sittings for the meal and I opted for a later one. Cochard and the woman departed together and he left his pouch on the floor under his seat. It was not in reach but all I had to do was move a few paces and pick it up, if I had the nerve. There was not much chance I would be caught. No one would expect it anyway, and I wouldn’t be stealing anything more than a look. Yet the one in a hundred chance that Cochard would return for it was enough to put me off.
I wandered up to observe the lunch scene where eight diners were sitting. Cochard and the woman were in animated discussion and the wine was flowing. I returned to the seat, but came down the aisle which would take me close to Cochard’s seat.
The group in the seats behind his were also at lunch. The distinguished-looking chap in front of my place was engrossed in a book, and a good-looking young woman was asleep next to him. The male and female cabin attendants had their backs to me.
I bent over, and in a second swiped the pouch and sat down. I placed it under a pillow and began slipping items out one by one. First the airline ticket, which had an itinerary sheet with it. He planned to stay in Paris at 98 Boulevard Montparnasse. I scribbled details on a pad and noted handwriting on the itinerary page, which was circled in biro. It said: ‘Hospital deliver 90 Rue Des Gardes, Meudon.’