Faces in the Rain (15 page)

‘You're not making a wish on your birthday, Duncan. You can tell Aunty Cassie.'

I smiled at that, without opening my eyes. I told her about the Gardens.

‘Didn't I read somewhere about you being a yoga freak?' she said.

‘Enthusiast, please. “Freak” has other connotations.'

‘My, we are pedantic! Why use an emotive word when a little euphemism will do. How are you feeling?'

‘Relaxed.'

‘Good. And for the record. I believe in yoga. I get all my patients to use it. Peter thinks it's a waste of time.'

I could feel myself drifting, floating a little. I didn't realise it right then, but Cassie had me.

Next thing I knew Cassie was demonstrating her numeracy. I opened my eyes and shook my head. I apologised for dozing off. Cassie was re-winding a tape recorder she had pulled out when I was hypnotised. She sat it on a table and played it back.

I sat transfixed and listened. Cassie took me back to the old school reunion and dwelt on it for some time. Next came the meeting with Martine right up until I blacked out on her sofa.

‘You woke up again,' Cassie prompted, her voice anodyne.

‘At my place?'

‘No, earlier. You didn't sleep-walk home.'

‘Martine woke me when she threw up in the kitchen. I got off the sofa. Christ! My head aches! I follow Martine into the bathroom. She's on her knees throwing up into the toilet bowl. I want to heave ho myself, but I must help her first.'

‘What's wrong with her?'

‘She has a terrific migraine. We compare headaches. Mine is an anthill compared to her volcano. Martine tells me that Freddie slipped something into my drink to knock me out.'

‘Why?'

‘That's what I ask Martine. She says he was jealous.
He thought we were getting too amorous.'

‘Did you help her?'

‘I find two empty Serophrine bottles in the medicine cabinet. They were both dispensed from a Benepharmacy in Bourke Street. I know the manager-chemist. I phone him and persuade him to courier over a fresh bottle pronto. He argues a bit, because Serophrine is a prescribed drug and I can't present a doctor's prescription. Ludicrous really. I created that drug on the market! I have access to several pharmacies I don't legally own, but nevertheless unofficially control, and I can't get thirty little capsules from one of them!'

‘How do you talk him into it?'

‘In the end I cajole him into it by telling him not to mark the bottle in any way. It's unethical, but the capsules can't be traced back to him, so he feels better. He makes an excuse about getting a courier on such a fearful night, but that's solved by me offering to pay triple. The courier gets there inside fifteen minutes.'

‘What's the pharmacist's name?'

‘Don Cossar.'

‘Can you recall the courier company?'

‘Yes. “Yesterday Couriers.” I remember giving him the bonus and explaining it was danger money. He goes away happy. Hope he didn't drown. He'll be a good witness. It's still pissing down when he leaves.'

‘So you give them to Martine.'

‘Not “them”. Just one. She wants two and says she always took a couple at a time. I admonish her for that. One is the dose every twelve hours. One and a half is OK for a big young healthy man. But two is bordering on the dangerous. Anyway, she takes one and feels better in a few minutes. They work very quickly.'

‘What happens then?'

‘It's close to four a.m. Martine calls me a taxi. The rain is easing.'

‘That's all? You go home?'

‘I go into the bedroom to tell Freddie off for bombing me out. But he's dead to the world. He's taken a sleeping pill. Martine says she is going to have a bath and go to bed. I say goodbye.'

‘How?'

‘What do you mean “how”?'

‘Do you leap on her, kiss her, what?'

‘She kisses me. A little too passionately. Bit bizarre really.'

‘Why?'

‘Well her bathrobe falls open and she presses herself into me.'

‘But you resist?'

‘Yes.'

‘You should get a medal.'

‘Pardon me?'

‘Nothing.'

‘I'm not in the mood for that. My head's still throbbing. I'm still groggy from whatever was slipped into my drink.'

‘So the taxi comes and you go home?'

‘I don't know much about the driver. I think he's Chinese. He seems a little worried about my demeanour. You know, I'm tired, probably wobbly.'

There was a long silence.

‘I think that about covers it, Duncan,' Cassie said, ‘I'm going to count to ten and then you'll wake up. You won't recall any of this.'

The tape was finished. I punched the air and kissed her full on the mouth. She was pleased too that she wasn't dealing with a killer.

That embrace of joy transformed into desire. I kissed her again and she responded. I guess I was testing a few things, particularly how she felt about me and how close she really was to Walters.

Predictably, he wasn't out of the conversation long.

‘I think we should stop,' she said as we sat on the bed. I kicked off my shoes.

‘I don't,' I said.

‘Peter might get an early flight back.'

I removed her shoes. I had found that this often helped an undecided woman to decide. Foot fetishes are non-threatening.

‘You've got nice feet,' I said.

‘I bet you say that to all the quadrapeds.'

I caressed her feet. Her toes didn't curl. Starting from this end had its limitations.

‘You remind me of a chiropodist I once went to,' Cassie said. ‘He put me in a seat, with my feet resting on platforms. He wound something that lifted the seat and my feet. I was wearing a dress. I kept moving my knees together. I was sure he was trying to get a better view.'

I leant back and laughed.

‘Two things are sure to put me off sex,' I said, ‘humour and politics.'

‘Thatcher, Bush, Gorbachev, Gandhi, Suharto . . .'

We both laughed. I kissed her again and began to undo her blouse. She didn't resist.

‘If Peter comes back early,' she said, ‘it won't be nice.'

‘And if you were certain he wasn't coming back?'

Cassie looked into my eyes.

‘Is this all part of the game plan to win me to
Benepharm?' she whispered.

‘My desire for Cassie,' I said, ‘is absolutely exclusive of my corporation's needs for Dr Morris.'

She examined every line in my countenance for a hint of duplicity.

‘Why have you come to Paris?' she said.

I eased away a fraction. She seemed undecided about me. I liked her too much to be pushy.

‘I had little choice,' I said. ‘There was only one place left on an international carrier the morning I had to leave. It happened to be going to Paris.'

‘You could have got off in Bangkok.'

‘Didn't have a visa.'

‘You surely can't risk staying in Paris too long.'

‘I know. But Freddie May is here. I also know where a suspect in the Martine killing is staying.'

‘Who?'

‘Richard Cochard.'

I explained his connection.

‘Claude Michel may be in Paris too for all I know,' I said.

‘Perhaps they are linked.'

‘I've thought about that,' I said, ‘I've thought about a lot of things. I have a suspect list as long as your arm. Each one's motives and circumstance make them possible candidates.' I ticked them off with my fingers. ‘There are the Libyans, Richard Cochard and his friend Maniguet, not to mention my deputy, Lloyd Vickers. And Freddie May or Danielle Mernet can't be ruled out.'

‘Danielle?'

‘Yes. What did you think of her?'

‘Different from Martine. Kept herself to herself. Not a very open person. Polite, yes. But I couldn't understand
her flogging dresses in Toorak Village.'

‘Did you know she's a doctor?'

‘You're joking!'

‘True.'

Cassie frowned.

‘Come to think of it,' she said, ‘she did ask a hell of a lot of questions about the Institute. And she knew what she was talking about too. Drove me and Peter nuts. He didn't like her.'

‘Has Peter any ideas about Martine's killing?'

‘I spoke to him about Claude Michel a couple of times.'

‘What did you say?'

‘It came up when Martine made the papers the day after her murder. He had treated her too. Peter was shocked by it all.'

Cassie checked a window overlooking Boulevard Raspail.

‘He thinks Michel is probably dead,' she said. ‘He says French security would have quietly assassinated him.'

‘Why?'

‘Bringing him back to France and trying him would have been a huge embarrassment for the French Government, even though it had nothing to do with the experimentation Michel carried out on Polynesian victims of bomb radiation. A trial would have highlighted problems with the French nuclear weapons programs and the fact that underground tests have not proved fool-proof. Radiation leaks have occurred, for example, when a bomb got jammed in a shaft. That has happened more than once.'

Cassie was interrupted by the phone. It was Peter Walters. He would be delayed until the next morning.
When she put down the receiver, I moved close.

‘I'm not sorry to hear it,' I said, holding her.

‘I'm not either,' she said. ‘I just feel a fool for coming to Paris with him.'

I kissed her, and she responded with passion for the first time.

‘I want to end it properly with Peter,' she said, ‘before any other involvement.'

‘I hope I'm in the “any other involvement” category.'

‘Perhaps,' she said, showing me the door.

I
RETURNED
to my hotel and put a call to Farrar in Melbourne.

‘Don't tell me where you are,' he said, sounding more uptight than I'd ever heard him, ‘I don't want to know.'

‘I'm in a safe place abroad,' I said.

‘You're never gonna be safe. Duncan, you're wanted for questioning over the murder of Maniguet.'

I felt giddy.

‘What?!'

‘Just listen and listen good. Police were called to an apartment in South Yarra after shots were fired. Cassie Morris's Subaru was seen coming and going in the middle of the night. And you were seen going into her apartment earlier that evening.'

‘Maniguet died accidentally,' I said. Farrar was stunned as I told him about the hours after we had dined at ‘The Angry Pheasant'.

‘Duncan,' he said, ‘you're not covering for someone else, are you?'

‘No.'

‘You sound so bloody calm!'

‘It was self-defence, I tell you. Did they find the body?'

‘Yes.'

‘How?'

‘The car was seen in the Dandenongs in the early hours. Police searched the area where it had been parked.'

‘What do you think I should do?'

‘Stay put.'

‘Would Benns chase me here?'

‘Hard to say. If you were caught by Interpol, he would have you extradited.'

‘But he's unlikely to fly here just to search for me?'

‘No, he wouldn't. It would be a needle in a haystack. They'd wait for a definite lead then get the next flight.'

The next move was to develop an escape contingency, which didn't rely on travelling via the normal air and channel ports. I knew an art dealer who split his time between France, Holland and England. He had his own private jet and Benepharm was one of his larger corporate clients. The company would buy or lease art for our offices worldwide. The dealer was a beefy Dutchman, with a heart of gold and a bank account to match. I phoned him and his wife told me he wasn't in, but he planned to fly to London from Orly airport for an art exhibition at eleven the next morning.

I stayed at the hotel for the rest of the day and only ventured out at night for a Greek meal in nearby Rue de la Huchette and went to bed early. Continuous sleep was almost impossible and I got up at dawn and went
through a yoga routine for an hour.

At nine a.m. I couldn't resist ringing Cassie again. She seemed distressed and not her sarcasm-cracking self.

‘You sound like you have a cold,' I said.

‘Oh, it's nothing.'

‘What's wrong?'

‘It's Peter. He's here.'

‘You've been crying.'

‘We've been arguing. He's worried about some business deal with the Institute that hasn't come through.'

‘Do you want to have breakfast?'

Cassie hesitated.

‘I was hoping to see you,' she said. I liked hearing those words.

‘Then we'd better meet,' I said. ‘At Les Fleurs again in a half hour?

‘That would be nice. I need a boost.'

I dressed in the only casual clothes Charlie Morten-Saunders had – blue jeans, sneakers, shirt and dark glasses – and sauntered down the street.

It was just after ten a.m. as I approached Les Fleurs restaurant on foot from St Michel and then along St Germain. Cars were bumper to bumper and I had an urge to leap from one car top to the other to get across the Boulevard for a paper. That urge vanished when I saw a woman coming out of Les Fleurs.

She seemed very like Detective-Sergeant O'Dare!

She was looking my way but not at me. I turned and retraced my steps.

Was it her? Could this be an ambush?

First thoughts were to return to my hotel. No wonder Cassie was upset. She must have known. I felt foolish for overlooking the ease in which Benns could have tracked
her from Australia. Once he had her car registration he had her name and job and finally the fact that she was in Paris.

I sweated in my hotel room for twenty minutes, unsure of what to do, for I wasn't certain if it had been O'Dare or not. There was only one way of finding out. I had to ring Cassie. Walters answered the phone. I asked to speak with her.