Faces in the Rain

by Roland Perry

  ‘You’re the big media star,’ Bert said after refusing to shake hands. ‘Well you’re not gunna be a celeb in here, mate.’

  I decided to keep my mouth shut. This bothered Bert.

  ‘Did you murder that darkie?’ he said. ‘She was a good-lookin’ sheila even if she was a boong.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. What are you here for?’

  He had delight in describing in detail the job he was supposed to have done.

  ‘But I didn’t do it,’ he concluded, ‘no way Jose.’

  ‘There’s no justice.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘We’re both innocent. There’s no justice.’

  ‘Shit, man! You’re fine. The media’s on your bloody side.’

  ‘They’re fickle.’

  ‘Hey?’ Bert glared at me. Any word he didn’t understand was a threat.

  ‘The media can change like that,’ I said with a click of my fingers.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, lying on a bunk and resting on his elbows. He scrutinised me. ‘You don’t look like a killer.’

  ‘That figures.’

  ‘Hey?’

  ‘I’m not a killer.’

  ‘Crap!’ I reached for a newspaper.

  ‘They say you rooted her and then strangled her,’ he said, sitting on the bunk.

  ‘Who’s “they”?’

  ‘Aw, the screws. The cops told them.’

  ‘It’s rubbish.’

  He laughed. It was a strange, high-pitched whinny. Bert didn’t like my lack of attention as I tried to concentrate on the paper. He was making me uptight.

  ‘I reckon you did it,’ he said.

  I ignored him.

  ‘Can’t even defend yourself,’ he persisted.

  I kept my eyes on the paper.

  ‘I’m talkin’ to you.’

  I looked at him.

  ‘What are you bloody starin’ at!’ he said.

  He was standing over me. I stood up and moved round him to the cell bars.

  ‘Officer!’ I said, then I called louder. Bert pushed me hard in the shoulder. I backed away. No one came.

  ‘Now look,’ I said, ‘if you’ve been put up to this . . .’

  ‘Hey? Don’t you accuse me of doing deals with fuckin’ screws!’ Bert hurled himself at me. He threw a wide haymaker. If it had collected it would have sent my head into orbit. He missed and crashed his fist on the cell wall.

  I baulked away and he came at me with his left fist. He grazed the side of my head and split his knuckle on the rim of the top bunk. I brought a right knee up hard into his soft belly. He doubled forward and I hit him in the jaw. It was a short arm jab at close range and didn’t seem to have much effect. He threw himself at me and grabbed my throat. He squeezed so hard I thought he would push out my Adam’s apple. Again he left that soft undercarriage exposed and I used the left knee this time. It loosened Bert’s grip.

  My throat burned. I hit him on the nose and he let out a yelp of pain. Blood streamed from his nostrils. He swung and collected me on the side of the head again. He then gave me a painful Bristol kiss on the cheekbone. He’d been aiming for the nose but had not made full impact. Nevertheless, it sent an arrow of pain the length of my face. I swung a third punch at his nose and collected him between the eyes and it seemed to hurt me more than him.

  He came at me, shoulders and arms swinging like Smokin’ Joe Frazier. I was pushed to the bunk and struggled to avoid a wrestling match, which would have given Bert an advantage. If he had fallen on me I could have been used as a frisbee by the other remandees.

  I got to my feet. He lunged, missed and went sprawling. He struggled to his knees, and I threw a haymaker up and under his chin, which stunned him for the first time. Yet Bert kept coming, and hurting.

  Every time he struck, I was reminded of the bruises from Meudon and I couldn’t have taken much more as officers entered the cell and separated us.

  ‘He attacked me!’ Bert bellowed between breaths as clapping and cheering from other cells became audible. A medical orderly came in, examined Bert’s bleeding nose, mouth and hands, and suggested he be taken to hospital.

  ‘You’ll be charged for this,’ an officer warned me. I was left alone for several minutes and dreaded Bert’s return. Every footfall near the cell caused me to tense.

  Finally the medical orderly returned, had a look at my cheekbone and took me to the hospital where my wounds were dressed. I asked after Bert’s well-being and was told he had left the ward.

  After my wounds were dressed, so that I resembled a recently excavated Egyptian mummy, I asked a nurse for a pen and pad, and wrote an account of the attack. My knuckles were bruised and split and my hand shook, but write I did.

  At eleven p.m. Hewitt turned up. I was escorted to the same interview room in which the interrogation had taken place and we were left alone.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ I said.

  ‘At the footy,’ he said, ‘we won, I got caught up in celebrations and . . .’ He was distracted by my appearance. I explained what happened and that my cheekbone maybe had a hairline fracture. X-rays had been taken, and my left eye was swollen and closed.

  ‘That’s terrible, Duncan,’ Hewitt said, taking a close look at my eye.

  ‘You should have seen the other guy,’ I said without cheer, and added with feeling, ‘I don’t want to be put in a cell with that animal again.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ Hewitt said.

  ‘They were trying to soften me up,’ I said. I handed my report to him and urged him to give it to a journalist contact. Hewitt read it.

  ‘A private action against Benns and O’Dare,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Duncan, you can’t prove it.’

  ‘My cell-mate’s attack was unprovoked!’

  ‘Who witnessed it?!’

  ‘It’s my word against his!’

  ‘In here, your word carries about equal weight with that thug’s!’

  This sobering truism flummoxed me.

  ‘A private assault charge might kill your bail application,’ Hewitt said, lowering his voice.

  ‘What!’

  ‘It depends on which judge we get.’

  ‘The media are hungry for anything on this case,’ I said, pointing at my report, ‘we’ve got to fight back. Kick up the biggest fuss we can!’

  Hewitt was reluctant.

  ‘You’re going to remain my solicitor, aren’t you?’ I said.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And what should a good client do with his solicitor?’

  ‘Instruct him.’

  ‘I rest my case.’

  When Hewitt had departed, Benns and O’Dare returned to the interview room and sat at the table opposite me.

  ‘We hear you had an “altercation”,’ Benns said, shaking his head, ‘won’t go down too brilliantly in your bail application.’

  I didn’t respond. I had had enough of their cat-and-mouse game.

  ‘We’re sorry this had to happen,’ Benns said, ‘the remand cells are overcrowded right now.’ He glanced at O’Dare, who looked uncomfortable. ‘They’re building two new centres but there have been strikes on both sites. Held up things for months.’

  ‘So I’m put in with a pea-brain whose main preoccupation is grievous bodily harm?’ I said, bitterly.

  ‘We are trying to find a single cell,’ Benns said, rubbing his neck. I glared at him with my one good eye and waited for an ‘if’. But this duet was more subtle.

  ‘We wondered if you had had any more thoughts about what happened to Martine Villon,’ O’Dare said.

  I shook my head and resisted.

  ‘You wouldn’t have an aspirin, would you?’ I said. ‘That and a cup of tea would be appreciated.’

  They left without another word. Minutes later two officers led me to another cell. This time it was empty.

  THIRTY

  JUDGE ROHAN BROOKS returned to the bench after deliberating for three hours on the charges and the bail application. He was a tall
, gaunt man of forty-five, who had sat throughout the day’s proceedings with his hand cupped under his chin and elbow resting on the bench. He had not been happy with the numbers of people, including the media, that had built up during the day. Before announcing the decision, he waved a hand at a clerk near the rear of the court.

  ‘Clear the doorway please,’ he said, ‘ask ten to leave.’

  Heads turned as people jostled each other. I noticed a thin female media artist near the front row, who was sketching me. I wanted to protest that she had not drawn my swollen face and closed eye with much distinction. I had watched her draw the prosecuting counsel, Albert Costello, a man of more than one hundred kilograms with a ponderous manner to match as he stood swaying to and fro with his hands clasped round his Buddha front. Next to him was Benns, who made a valiant, but failed attempt to do his shirt collar up at the neck for the occasion, and O’Dare, who seemed nervous. She had not looked at me all day and I was hoping it was through guilt, for the police had made a big effort to have me incarcerated, citing the fact that I had skipped the country before, and had money and connections abroad. Hewitt had countered this brilliantly in what appeared at times to be the trial itself rather than just a bail application.

  While Judge Brooks looked over his spectacles and cleared his throat, Hewitt leaned close to me and said out of that infamous corner of his mouth, ‘This is it, we’ve done what we can.’

  ‘First, I wish to rule on charges four to twenty-two,’ the judge said, ‘they are dismissed. However, the accused will have to stand trial on the two charges of first-degree murder and the charge of unlawful disposal of a body.’ He peered over his spectacles at me and Hewitt. ‘I’m going to grant bail of one million dollars.’

  I had to repress a smile as a murmur ran through the court.

  Benns scowled.

  ‘The accused must report to St Kilda Road once a day,’ the judge added, ‘and he must surrender his passport. He must not travel outside the State of Victoria.’

  I shook hands with Hewitt, and looked into the body of the court to see Peggy standing and waving as if I had won. Hewitt bustled me out a side entrance to avoid the waiting media who had gathered like jackals at the front of the court to take the film and photos that had not been allowed inside the courtroom.

  THIRTY-ONE

  I BECAME WORRIED about Cassie. I hadn’t seen her since the bail application, and she hadn’t been answering my calls. I drove to her place and found the wire door to the apartment was open and had been prised with a crowbar, as had her front door. The radio was tuned in to the ABC’s FM classical music station where she had it when the TV wasn’t on. Inside cupboard doors were open. Coat-hangers were strewn on the floor. The bed was unmade and in the kitchen dishes were piled up in the sink. In the living room, ash from the fireplace had spilled onto the rug. I touched the ash. It was still hot. A bottle of perfume sat out of place on the dining-room table, and a piece of white lace lingerie was crumpled on the floor. It was not like Cassie, who carried her ordered approach to research into the rest of her life.

  The door to her study was locked.

  I felt a spine chill as I noticed that a piece of the carpet where Maniguet had been guillotined had been removed. I went over and cleared away rubbish from an upturned waste-paper basket so I could examine the cut in the carpet. Amongst the debris was a a damaged answer-phone cassette. The tape had been pulled loose from it.

  I found a screwdriver and spent ten minutes threading the tape back in before flicking it into the machine to hear it. The lead-in from Cassie said she could be contacted on an 059 number.

  I rang the number. There was no answer. I checked directory enquiries and found that the number was listed for Somers, a Westernport Bay resort address. It was an hour’s drive away. I left a message on Farrar’s answer machine, telling him where I was headed.

  I reached Somers just before midnight and parked the Rolls a good hundred metres from where the house should have been. I had trouble finding it and had to stumble down a track from Parklands Avenue through the tea trees to the beach and then work my way round the rear of the place. A wooden water-break two metres high ran parallel to the fence, which was five metres or so above water level. There was barbed wire along the fence and a sign said, Keep Out, Private Property. Despite this, a rickety gate opened. A path over a small rise in the tea tree scrub led to a back door of a wooden holiday home which had a pre-fab look about it. Lights were on.

  A car door slammed at the front. I edged along the side of the house.

  Cassie was carrying a suitcase towards a red Porsche waiting under a light at the front gate. One figure was sitting at the wheel and another in the passenger seat.

  There was a noise behind me. I turned to see Cochard pointing a sawn-off shotgun. He charged and swung the weapon. I ducked and fell. Cassie screamed, dropped her case and began running towards us. She was restrained by the people who had been sitting in the car. As Cochard half-turned towards them, I saw them clearly under the light on the gate.

  Walters and Danielle.

  Cochard kicked my thigh and pointed the shotgun at my chest. Walters helped Danielle push Cassie to the car and they forced her into the back seat. Danielle and Walters returned to Cochard and the three of them began arguing. Cochard wanted to blow my brains out. Danielle said another murder would be dangerous for their escape. Walters stepped in and told Cochard to tie me up and lock me in a secure room. He left Danielle to mind Cassie in the car and finally ordered Cochard to wait half an hour, in which time he was to dig a grave, and then execute me.

  Cochard asked why he couldn’t kill me first and then bury me? No, Walters explained, he didn’t want any gunshot sound while he was still in the vicinity. Cochard objected, saying that he could do it inside and muffle the sound. Walters insisted that Cochard should not kill me before they had been gone thirty minutes.

  The executioner finally agreed. Walters departed, telling him they were to meet as planned at a farmhouse. He kept his voice down as if it would matter if I heard. Cochard complained he had not been there. Walters said he should study a certain map again. Then he got in the car with the two women. Cochard watched the Porsche reverse down a winding path towards Parklands Avenue.

  I felt nauseated. I had killed his best buddy, perhaps even his lover. Mine would not be an easy death. He strolled over to me.

  ‘Get up,’ he said.

  Cochard found a shovel and a flashlight in a tool shed at the back of the house and took me out to a clearing amongst the tea trees. He scraped the ground for a minute. There was an urgency in his controlled manner as the shovel was dropped at my feet.

  ‘One metre deep,’ he said.

  I began to dig. The earth was soft and sand was just below the surface. I made out it was tough going.

  ‘Vite,’ Cochard said, ‘vite!’

  He laid the flashlight on the ground so that it was trained on me. He sat on a log, juggling the shotgun in his left hand and lighting a cigarette with his right. Because of the flashlight, he was just a silhouette and the smoke from his Gaulloise formed a light cloud halo about him. He began that shoulder spasm, but this time it was much slower and more rhythmical than ever before. Like a silent drum roll.

  ‘I’d like a cigarette,’ I said.

  ‘Dig!’ he snarled.

  ‘It’s the least you could do.’

  ‘Fermez la bouche! Bêchez!’

  In three weeks I had seen a few final resting places. The heavy rain at Fawkner Cemetery had made Martine’s grave a watery bog. There was Freddie’s perfunctory memorial. And now, amongst the scrub and tea tree was my very own rough bed of sand. I grunted and again made it look tougher than it was.

  With ten minutes to go before the deadline, Cochard flicked away his cigarette stub and stood over me. He wanted plus vite, and I wanted plus lent.

  We heard the whine of a car engine pulling up at the front fence, and someone snapping his way through the scrub. Cochard stood open-mouthed,
his shotgun held in front of him. The intruder stopped.

  There was silence except for the hum of cicadas.

  ‘Claude?’ Cochard called, ‘Claude?’

  A split second later a shot was fired and Cochard clutched a shoulder. I fell forward in the hole and lay flat. Cochard fired twice. The assailant came out of the scrub as Cochard tripped over me and landed on his back. He still held the weapon. The assailant ran forward and fired again. Cochard was struck a second time, and he went down with a sudden expulsion of air. The assailant stumbled into the open and straddled the grave. It was Farrar. He fired once more at Cochard’s head from no more than a metre.

  It wasn’t until we were inside that I noticed Farrar had been hit in the arm. It was a grazing blow, but the heavy bullet had sliced off a piece of shirt and flesh. Farrar had wrapped a white towel round it.

  There was a map of Victoria and New South Wales on the kitchen table but nothing except arrows along the Hume Highway between Melbourne and Sydney had been marked for Cochard’s benefit.

  ‘They left a half hour ago,’ I said, ‘will they drive straight through?’ Farrar held his arm.

  ‘Dunno,’ he said, ‘but it’s not your problem.’

  ‘It is. They’ve got Cassie.’

  ‘Forget her,’ he said, ‘she’s probably in with ’em.’

  I didn’t respond.

  ‘Look, mate,’ he said, ‘you’ve got more guts than a tennis-racket factory, but to chase them would be bloody mad!’

  I studied the map.

  ‘You’re right out of your league, Duncan,’ he persisted, ‘look at what just happened. They had you, mate. If I hadn’t rung Morris’s place and heard her cassette, you would have been dead meat.’

  ‘It hasn’t stopped you.’

  ‘I’m a pro. Besides, I’ve been protecting my investment. If they get you I don’t get paid, and no bonus.’

  Blood dripped onto the map.

  ‘I’m getting you to hospital,’ I said, and led Farrar out to the Rolls.

  THIRTY-TWO

  ON THE DRIVE BACK to Melbourne the shock of learning that Walters must have been Claude Michel was on my mind. Of course, it made sense. They were both expert on cancer research and practising surgeons in this area. Michel had disappeared from France six years ago. I wasn’t sure when Walters had emerged as Director of the Magenta Institute, but it had only been in the last few years. He had objected to Benepharm’s takeover of the Institute. If he was Michel he would have to prevent it, otherwise he would have lost access to Cassie’s research. On top of that, Walters had been in Europe with Cassie in the last few weeks and had repeatedly left her on unspecified business trips.