by Roland Perry
‘He spent a lot of time with Martine.’
‘She didn’t know. I’m sure of that.’
‘She may have guessed,’ Coq au Vin said.
‘No. Not even at the end.’
‘But May asked me if I knew who you were,’ Coq au Vin said.
‘And?’
‘I said I didn’t know, but he said he knew Michel had had plastic surgery in Australia.’
‘Why was this discussed?’ the Dominator asked. He was in a fury again. ‘And when?’
‘It just came up in discussion – last night at La Coupole when he came there in a panic.’
‘You’d better disabuse him of that idea,’ the Dominator said, ‘but first we may be able to use him to deal with Christine and also to show the Australian police where Hamilton is.’
‘OK,’ Coq au Vin said reluctantly. I sensed he would like to handle it and remove one of my arms as a souvenir.
There was another pause. People went out of the room and returned.
‘It’s time to go,’ the Dominator said to Coq au Vin, who my dulled brain was telling me had to be Richard Cochard. God! I was going to be left alone with that monster after all, and in this enfeebled state!
‘Give him another five,’ the Dominator said. I felt a nurse’s hands. They were rougher than before. There was the jab of another needle. This time in the derriere. I was being drugged to the eyeballs.
My head throbbed.
I was drowning.
TWENTY
I WOKE UP seeing stars. I had been beamed down in the Bois de Boulogne. Or I assumed it was because it was the last topic of conversation before a jab. The stars faded and a huge fuzzy ball floated across the sky slowly. Very slowly. The earth was damp under me. Did I sneeze? I think I did. That rattled my brain and shook me.
There was a woman in black sitting on a bench. Behind her was a road. Then an avenue. I focused beyond her as hard as I could and raised my head. It was a very wide avenue and I was looking right along it. It ran to the Arc de Triomphe. But it was misty and I couldn’t believe I wasn’t dreaming. The avenue was deserted and I couldn’t conceive of any road to that mighty monument ever being deserted of people and cars.
Maybe I was hallucinating.
I looked over at the woman. She was standing now, scuffing the yellow-brown dirt with her foot, as if in slow motion. I registered that we were in a clearing in the Bois where boule was played. Except there was nobody about apart from this woman. She was smoking.
I tried to speak.
She either didn’t hear or ignored me. She came over. She was not only in black, but she was black. Indian. She bent down.
‘How are you feeling?’ she said in heavily accented English. It was a cracking and uncertain voice, like a boy at puberty.
‘Are you Christine?’ I said, getting up on my elbows. She smiled. It was a quizzical look.
‘Oui,’ she said, ‘’ow did you know?’
‘I was told I was going to meet you.’
‘And I was told I was going to meet you too.’
‘Have they come yet?’
‘Who?’
I examined her Adam’s apple which was bouncing like a man’s. She ran her hand through my hair.
‘You are very ’andsome,’ she said.
‘Like a shot wildebeest,’ I said. ‘Any chance of a drink before they come?’
That dry iron-and-salt taste was still in my mouth.
‘Who are they?’
‘The police. Le flic d’Australie. Les cops.’
She smiled. You couldn’t take it away from her. She was lovely. Only that Adam’s apple, which was noticeable if you looked for it, her voice and her big hands made me doubtful about her sexuality.
‘I don’t think we will ’ave trouble with the police,’ she said with a nice smile.
‘Then what are we waiting for? Why am I here?’
‘I wasn’t going to carry you,’ she replied with honeyed huskiness.
‘Carry me?’ I sat up further. Birds were chirping in and outside my head.
‘Oui. To your hotel room.’
‘It’s too far. It’s in . . .’ It had slipped my mind and I knew I was in trouble.
‘Quoi?’ she said.
‘I have the receipt,’ I said, fumbling in my wallet. It wasn’t there.
I was confused. I was in the Bois. I was looking right up to the Arc de Triomphe. There was a mist. This was Christine, who seemed more like a transsexual each time I scrutinised her.
Everything fitted with a set-up except for the fact that Benns and O’Dare hadn’t arrested me. Maybe that would come later. Perhaps Christine was taking me to them. Yet it didn’t sound like the way they would operate. They would want to pick up their quarry and be able to see my plight at first hand. Caught in Paris’s prostitute paradise. They always liked a bit of authenticity. All the better to paint you as a drug addict and sex maniac against a backdrop of murder.
The back of my head was sore and bandaged. Christine’s face was close to mine. Her breath smelt of chain-smoking and she had a distinctive – not alluring or offputting – body odour smothered by perfume. But the combination was over-powering. It brought back memories of my youth in Paris during the summer vacations. The local girls would live in apartments without baths. Showers were unheard of. A quick splash under the armpits and elsewhere was enough and then the perfume would be poured on. The Indian had that kind of smell and It seemed odd that that sensation would come back to me.
‘I don’t need help,’ I said, shrugging her off. I took a few steps. I became stiff-legged, stumbled like a baby and fell forward. Christine helped me up. I put an arm over her shoulder, which was just right for my height. She was big – over 185 cm – but her frame was light.
She was about to collapse under my weight as we staggered out of the Bois and along the left footpath as we faced the misty Arc. I was surprised to see other hookers out for early morning business. They were amused by Christine’s battle and I was embarrassed. They giggled and whistled and called out.
One of the girls, white and with considerable red lipstick, got my left arm round her shoulder and helped us. She giggled a lot and was introduced as Brina, a Norwegian. I asked if there were any French hookers left and Britta laughed.
‘They’re all married,’ she said. Christine gurgled at that in her booming, throaty way. For a moment I saw the absurdity of it. It was the world’s most expensive avenue, and I had a couple of business friends with residences here. I hoped they weren’t pulling weeds in the front garden or going for an early-morning jog. Then again, nobody who lived here would do either.
We made it to Rue Duret, a street off Avenue Foch, and stopped for a breather. Christine was laughing. I smiled. We staggered on.
Britta left us at the comer of Rue Bois de Boulogne and Rue Durer, and a moment or two later a taxi pulled up. Christine chatted amiably with the driver. A German Shepherd was on the front seat.
‘Where are you staying?’ Christine asked me again. ‘Can you remember it?’
It came to me.
‘Esmeralda, Rue St Julien Le Pauvre, St Michel.’
The driver acknowledged that he knew the address. I rolled into the rear and waved goodbye to Christine.
The taxi took me to the hotel, where I saluted the concierge and making judicious use of a handrail, pulled myself to the second floor and my room.
I lay on the bed and couldn’t sleep.
I struggled my clothes off, took a shower and then tried some yoga. During a death pose or savasana, where I lay on my back in a position for complete relaxation, I tried to focus on a soothing image. But my mind was wandering and freely associating, a state antipathetic to proper relaxation. Normally I had no trouble in fixing on an image such as Melbourne’s heavenly Botanical Gardens, which had made me easily hypnotised by Cassie. But now several images collided.
There was Maniguet’s face as life oozed from him; the cemetery at Mendon; the patients in the cancer ward in the
secret Vital hospital; and Christine looking down at me. Most of all the faces in the rain at Martine’s funeral haunted me. Lloyd, Maniguet, Cochard, Danielle, Freddie, Cassie, Benns, O’Dare, the priest, Fazmi, Farrar, the photographer, the Polynesian mourners, and others. They all at some time or other during the ceremony stared at me. Deep concentration was impossible and I lapsed into sleep with distorted images of those faces doing freestyle in my mind.
There was a steady ‘rap, rap, rap’ on my door. I stretched and took some time waking fully.
‘Monsieur, s’il vous plâit!’
‘OK,’ I said, ‘vingt minutes, Madame, twenty minutes.’
She gave that disgusted, fed-up sound of air expulsion that French women are so expert at. I reached for my watch and understood. It was six o’clock Wednesday evening. I had lost another half day. I pushed open the shutters to check where I was.
In Rue St Julien Le Pauvre there were two battered Deux-Chevaux, a couple of lovers on a park bench, a cop and a dog. I had to lean right out to see Notre Dame. It was Paris all right. I took a long shower this time and did some yoga, but I wasn’t too confident about a headstand because of the back of my skull. I dressed, let the maid in and went down to the lobby to phone Freddie. After his meeting with Cochard the other night I wanted to squeeze more out of him.
I got an answer machine. I held the phone for several seconds, unsure whether to put a reply on his tape or not. I decided it was too risky.
I wandered out into St Michel and a balmy evening. My mind had not cleared enough to think, but sufficiently to register hunger. I bought a couple of take-away souvlaki from the Greek restaurant in Rue de la Huchette where I had dined the first night in Paris and then went back to the hotel.
I rang Freddie again. He was in.
‘You’re OK?’ he grunted. He wasn’t big on compassion, but for Freddie the query was a concession.
‘Apart from a dented head,’ I said, fingering the bandage, ‘and few bruises, I’m not bad. How did you get my number?’
‘Christine told me you were at Esmeralda.’
‘What stopped you, Freddie?’
‘Huh?’
‘From turning me over to Benns?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Freddie, despite the fact I was used as a pincushion for dope needles, I did hear what was being said at that Meudon hospital. You were supposed to organise dickless Chris to stay with me until the cops found me in the Bois de Boulogne.’
‘Yeah, well, I changed my mind. They don’t own me.’
‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful.’
‘You should be.’
I waited. Freddie was ready for the confessional. I wanted to see him.
‘We should meet, Freddie.’
‘No, too dangerous.’
‘There’s a restaurant called . . .’
‘I know you didn’t murder Martine,’ he interrupted.
‘Of course I didn’t!’
‘I didn’t know that before, I swear. I thought you must have done it. But . . .’
‘What Freddie?’
‘Someone convinced me it wasn’t you.’
‘Who convinced you? Who killed Martine?!’
There was a long silence. I thought I might lose him.
‘I think I know,’ he said, his voice unsteady, ‘but if I tell and they find out . . .’
‘You can’t let a murderer go free!’
‘I can if it means my neck!’
There was no answer to that.
‘Then tell me who persuaded you to change your mind,’ I said.
‘I can’t!’ He sounded agitated. ‘All I can tell you is that the women have the answers. Don’t ask me any more, for Christ’s sake!’
I decided to try another tack. ‘Are you in trouble, Freddie?’
‘Not if I can get out of France. If they find out about Christine, I’m stuffed.’
‘What about her?’
‘I paid her off. Booked a flight for Greece. She’ll be on vacation for a week. They’ll think she took the money and ran.’
I had to keep him talking, gain his confidence.
‘Freddie, do you remember that Serophrine bottle Benns said he found in your apartment?’
‘Danielle took it.’
‘From Martine’s place?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
‘She wouldn’t tell me.’
‘But why did she plant it on you?’
‘She didn’t. She stayed at my place on the night after Martine was murdered. The cops turned my place upside down and they found the bottle.’
‘You sure she didn’t set you up?’
‘Yes. She told me last night about it.’
‘And she didn’t say why she took the bottle?’
‘She gave me some bullshit about wanting to have it checked for fingerprints.’
He rang off. I dialled his number again. It was engaged. I thought about going there but decided against it. I rang again. His answer machine was on but again I couldn’t bring myself to put anything on the tape.
I went out and joined the throng along Boulevard St Michel, which drifted in a wave of controlled hysteria down towards St Germain. It was a typical Paris summer’s evening. Garlic and petrol fumes sat lightly in the air from a million restaurants and cars.
I had to see Freddie. If I could front him again I was sure he would spill everything he knew.
The taxi left me standing about two hundred metres from his apartment on Rue Tombe Issoire and the corner of Rue d’Alesia, which ran to the Alesia metro beside the Church of St Pierre de Montrouge.
The night was becoming muggy and sounds of traffic were heightened by the humidity.
It was approaching eleven and I was comforted by the number of people. They allowed me to blend in and I kidded myself that there was safety in numbers as I tailed behind a group of about ten who were discussing a film they had seen about Camille Claudel, Rodin’s mistress.
About seventy metres from Freddie’s apartment, the group was distracted by a scuffle in front of it. Two men were shoving a third out of the apartment towards a truck, not dissimilar to the one I had seen at the Meudon hospital.
The group I was tailing got closer. One man a few metres in front of me ran forward to remonstrate with the two doing the heavying. I stopped.
One of the thugs was Cochard, and the man being muscled into the rear of the truck was Freddie. Cochard pulled out a gun, got the brave man from the group by the throat and shoved him up against the side of the truck. He pushed the gun’s barrel into the man’s nose so that it was twisted.
Women screamed. Another man remonstrated with Cochard and his companion. Cochard pushed the brave one to the ground and waved the gun at the group. Then he hopped into the front seat and the truck sped off.
I turned and headed for the metro. Even if I’d had a gun myself, I doubt I could have saved Freddie.
My thoughts went on a rollercoaster ride as I took the metro back to St Michel. Freddie could have learned from Christine that I had been staying at Esmeralda. Cochard could know too. It was time to vacate the hotel.
TWENTY-ONE
IT WAS GETTING hot, promising to become the sort of day that expands the Eiffel Tower. Despite half Paris being on a beach in the South of France, there were plenty of people around, mostly tourists. I felt uncomfortable when Koreans and Japanese began videoing the cafe where I was brunching. It maintained my minute-by-minute reminder that I was a fugitive. What’s more, my hunters were out there probably negotiating with the French police as I sat contemplating my fourth cafe macchiato for the day. I was thankful that my brain was beginning to function, a day after my body. I decided to go back to Meudon. Not to the hospital – that was too risky. Perhaps neighbours in the villas surrounding the Vital building could tell me more about it. There was also the priest.
Gare Montparnasse, which is in the same complex as the big metro stop, was busy even at eight p.m. Parisiennes,
more than any other big-city dwellers, like to work long hours and play even longer. If they didn’t stay at the office, they’d meet friends at a bar or cafe and linger a while over a pernod or coffee before the final trudge into suburbia. Consequently, despite the August exodus, I had timed it badly. The train to Meudon was packed and that somnolent village took on another perspective at night as hundreds alighted and shouldered their way to the exit.
This time I took a taxi up Rue Des Gardes past the Vital building to another opening to the forest. There was still some daylight when I found the track I had been on two days ago. A light at the bluestone church made it easier to find than during the day and I reached the cemetery after a few minutes. Through the thin poplar trees it was just possible to see the Vital building’s lights and those of the surrounding villas. Daylight was fading fast.
I knocked on the door of the little church. No one answered.
I pushed the door open. There were just six pews inside with an altar on which twenty candles flickered.
I retreated into the cemetery and stood staring at the small tombstones. I had to use my lighter to read the names. They were a mix of French and Polynesian. I moved to the rear of the site where the smoothed-down dirt from a fresh grave was evident. I bent down to read the inscription and flicked on the lighter. A name was chalked on the top of the tombstone ready for chiselling.
Frederick L. May.
I looked round. The priest was standing a few paces from me.
‘What do you want?’ he demanded.
‘I was wanting to speak with you,’ I said, in shock. Freddie was dead and buried right under my feet.
‘Are you alone?’ said the priest.
I nodded. He beckoned me into the church.
We sat at a table and he brought some port from a cupboard and offered me a glass. This was not an act of hostility. Despite my shot nerves I trusted this solidly built Polynesian.
The port warmed my throat.
‘You knew Mr May?’ he said.
‘I do . . . did.’
‘He was buried this morning.’
I examined the man more closely than before. He was about fifty, with a strong face and handsome brown eyes that weren’t menacing or aggressive. The only hint of violence was in the nose, which was flat and gnarled like a boxer’s. Despite this, it was a face of contrasting strength and sensitivity.