Faces in the Rain (29 page)

One of the police cars was gaining.

I slowed down and stopped in a parking bay. At the last second I spotted the Smith & Wesson on the back seat and hurled it under the Rolls as the police vehicle pulled up.

I got out. Two policemen emerged. One was about fifty with a pot belly. The other was half his age and fit-looking.

‘What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?' the older cop said.

‘I'm chasing a murderer,' I began.

‘What?'

‘A guy in a red Porsche.'

‘Porsche? We picked up a doctor in a red Porsche only a couple of hours ago.'

‘He's a killer on the run.'

‘Hey?'

‘A killer on the run, I tell you!'

‘I know you,' the younger cop said, ‘you're Duncan Hamilton.'

‘Look, I'm serious. Where was that red Porsche headed?'

‘Sydney,' the younger cop replied.

‘Just let's get you booked!' the older cop said.

‘You've got to stop that Porsche!' I said.

‘We already did. What's your address?'

‘He's got a hostage in the back seat.'

‘Bullshit! We saw them. Your address?'

I gave it and looked at the younger cop. There was a flicker of doubt.

‘They did act funny, Ted,' he said.

‘Whaddaya mean?' Ted said, looking at the younger one as if he had acted traitorously.

‘They didn't want an escort.'

‘Examine the car, will ya?' Ted ordered.

The younger cop fossicked round in the Rolls.

‘Give me the damned ticket!' I said.

Ted tore off the ticket and handed it to me.

‘Drive on like you did,' he said, ‘and I'll impound the car.'

‘I'm telling you the truth,' I said, ‘I need your help in going after him!'

‘Don't waste our time!' Ted snapped, ‘that man was who he said he was. He showed me ID.'

‘Have you got anything to report?' the younger cop said.

‘A kidnapping.'

‘For Chrissakes, Roy!' Ted said, ‘give it a rest. You've heard them all, haven't you? Don't be a sucker.'

‘Can I report it then?' I said, opening my arms.

‘You'll have to go back to the station,' Ted said.

‘Where's that?'

‘Sixty kilometres back towards Melbourne.'

‘You don't understand. The hostage in that car may be murdered by Walters!'

‘His name
was
Walters, Ted,' Roy said.

‘So bloody what?' Ted said. ‘He was
Doctor
Walters.'

I looked at the car clock. It was four thirty a.m. I got back in the Rolls.

‘We'll be warning officers along the highway about you,' Ted said.

‘Warn them about Walters in the Porsche too,' I said, starting up, ‘and tell them to be careful.'

‘No way,' Ted said. ‘unless you make an official complaint in writing.'

‘In writing?' I repeated. ‘Not necessarily at the police station?'

‘Well, it's better if . . .'

I pulled paper and pencil out of the glove box, scribbled the report of a kidnapping, signed it and handed it to young Roy.

‘If you want to save a life,' I said to him, ‘act on it, I'm begging you.'

Roy stood there gaping as Ted got into the police car and revved the engine.

‘Just remember what I said about speeding,' Ted said, poking his head through the driver's window.

I waited until the police car was well away before retrieving Farrar's gun and easing the Rolls back onto the highway.

Eighty k, 100, 120, 140 k. I sat on 140, which was forty above the limit, and examined the map again. I had to squint to see names as I looked for anything with either ‘Rams' or ‘av' or any combination of those syllables in it.

There was just one such place. Avenel. It was about sixty k away. I reached it at five a.m.

Now, to find ‘Rams' something. It was a long shot, but the only one I had. It had to be a country homestead. I meandered off the highway down side roads and past properties. Glenogel. Glen Haven. Tickleswood.

At five forty I began contemplating whether to drive on to Sydney or return to Melbourne where the alarm could be raised formally. The pale moon was still visible, hanging like a painted bauble in the streaky red dawn sky. Crows were heralding sun-up with their mournful bark as moving shadows in the fields and valleys transformed into sheep. Rabbits were scurrying in front of the car and along the side of the tracks. One, a little slower than the others, had been squashed flat like a banana skin. I stopped the car and examined it. Only one set of wheels had contributed to the little tragedy that the morning was revealing, and it had happened within hours. My hope was that this poor bunny's Sherman tank had been the Porsche.

I could see the highway about two k away but couldn't find the right track back. I noted the time as five fifty-five. I seemed to be so close but not able to find the road leading out of the maze.

Then I saw the name on a broken gate. Rams Haven.

Rams Haven, Avenel. It had to be it.

I rested the Smith & Wesson on the passenger seat and took the road down the track into a sizeable property of small hills, and green pastures.

The road wound close to a waterfall, and round the base of a hill. Down a small slope was a house covered in creeping vines. It was long. A modern extension had doubled its size. The roadway veered left of the house to a large makeshift garage and a small cottage. Smoke was coming out of the cottage chimney.

A shot echoed across the valley. The Rolls slewed as a tyre hissed flat. I grappled the wheel and applied the brake, then ducked low and reached for the gun. Too late. Danielle had emerged from behind a shed by the road. She was holding an Utzi sub-machine gun close to the driver's window. My hand was suspended above the weapon. She beckoned me out.

‘You shouldn't have come,' Danielle said.

It seemed a strange remark, but I wasn't about to argue. I was ticking off the seconds added to my life since she had poked the weapon at me.

Danielle indicated the cottage. We marched to the sound of crunched gravel along the road and entered through a rear door. Walters and Cassie were standing by the window in the kitchen, and he kept staring outside as if he expected troops to storm the place any moment. He clutched a rifle, which looked far less comfortable in his hands than the sub-machine gun did in Danielle's.

Cassie's hands clenched when she saw me.

‘We should take his car,' Danielle said to Walters.

‘Why?' he said, keeping vigil at the window.

‘We can't fit four in the Porsche.'

Walters' eyes flicked to me for the first time. He frowned at Danielle.

‘He's not coming!' he said.

‘You can't leave him here,' Danielle said, ‘they'll find him. He'll give information and . . .'

‘You've got to get rid of him then!' Walters snapped. The idea irritated him. It was a nasty chore, killing.

There was a measured silence in which Cassie looked at me helplessly.

‘You've got to do it now!' Walters said, slamming a fist down on the sink.

‘Someone will find the body,' Danielle said.

This is pretty final! I'm already a body.

Walters sucked in his breath.

‘You're the expert in this,' Walters hissed.

‘You handled Martine fairly well,' Danielle countered. I had an odd feeling that this remark was meant for Cassie and me.

‘I had to make it look like an accident!' Walters said, his tone still indicating he was irked, rather like a having to clean up a lab experiment that had gone wrong. ‘But this is different. This is military work.'

‘We could drop him in the dam,' Danielle said.

‘Do it then,' Walters said, ‘don't waste time.'

He glanced at his watch.

‘We still must leave at six thirty.'

‘We will,' Danielle said. She waved the Utzi at me, indicating I should step out of the cottage. ‘Where's the dam?'

‘I pointed it out when we arrived!' Walters said.

‘It was dark!' Danielle countered. ‘In any case, you come with me.'

‘Why?'

‘To make sure he doesn't run! He got away from Cochard, didn't he?'

Somewhere along the road from Melbourne, Danielle had gained more authority, even taken charge.

‘What happened to Cochard?' Walters said to me.

‘A detective shot him,' I said.

‘He's dead?' Danielle asked.

‘Very.'

Walters walked to the door and opened it.

‘Let's get this over with,' he said.

We trudged into a field.

A sound like a tractor from south of the homestead had all heads turning. The noise grew and lifted. It was a chopper.

‘Keep going!' Danielle ordered. Walters hesitated. I stopped.

He hit me hard across the back with his rifle and I fell to my knees. My instincts were to go down fighting rather than be shot like an animal. But the chopper offered hope. I stood up and stumbled towards the dam.

The chopper circled high above us. Had it seen us? If I made a dash somewhere, would it see me?

We reached the dam. The chopper seemed to grow. It was dropping altitude. Its blurred markings became clearer. Police Air Services.

Then it veered off low over the fields towards the highway. Its rotors' beat was muffled as it dropped out of sight over the horizon. Walters was watching it. He was two paces from me. A move had to be made because no help could come in time. I waited until Walters had taken his eyes off me, and threw my body under the rifle
and cannoned him to the ground. The rifle went off. We struggled. I had my knee in his stomach.

Danielle's bullet has to be coming . . .

I brought an elbow into the bicep of the arm that held the rifle. It loosened his grip and the rifle slipped out. Walters pushed up and threw me off. He clawed for the rifle. There was a staccato from the Utzi. My eyes shut tight, but I wasn't hit.

She's fired a warning round . . .

Cassie screamed. I opened my eyes. It hadn't been a warning. Walters was at full stretch, and his fingers twitched centimetres from the rifle. But it was only a reflex. His head, neck, side and back had red holes.

I glanced up at Danielle. She watched me as she walked over to Walters. She flicked his body over. Expert hands ran over his wrist and heart pulse. I was a few metres from the rifle. I took a step towards it.

‘Don't try anything,' Danielle said, edging sideways to pick up the rifle.

‘Don't shoot him, please,' Cassie implored her.

‘That was never my intention,' Danielle said, her eyes still on me, ‘Monsieur Hamilton has been most helpful in my assignment. We would never have found Michel and his drug-making plans without his help.'

‘Why did you kill Michel here?' I said, as Danielle picked up the rifle. She hurled it into the dam.

‘I intended to wait and see who his contacts were in Sydney for getting out of Australia,' Danielle said, ‘but you forced a change in plans.'

She backed away towards the cottage.

‘Don't raise the alarm,' she warned.

She marched into the cottage and Cassie ran to me.

‘We should run,' she said, ‘she'll be back for us!'

‘No,' I said, restraining her, ‘I think he has been the only real target.'

We looked down at Walters. Moments later Danielle emerged from the cottage with a suitcase. She was in a hurry, but not a panic. She stepped into the makeshift garage and we heard a vehicle start up. A metallic-grey old Mercedes sedan reversed out without hurry and Danielle drove off. A couple of seconds after she went out of sight behind the hill with the waterfall, the chopper emerged from the horizon again.

T
HE POLICE
never found Danielle Mernet, or more correctly, Australian Intelligence never wanted her found. In keeping with the clubbiness of the (Australian, French, British and American) intelligence community's extra-governmental methods, ASIO and ASIS turned a blind eye to the fact that she was a OGSE officer sent by the French government to find and assassinate Michel/Walters. It was a case of ‘Set a thief to catch a thief.'

Mernet was a doctor who would know how to investigate and track down somebody from that profession. She was also an experienced infiltrator who would have gained the confidence of maverick ex-DGSE agents Cochard and Maniguet. It was better for the French that she accomplish her mission and not get caught. It saved the French Government a great deal of embarrassment, for the last thing it wanted was another
Rainbow Warrior
-style incident making world headlines.

The Victoria police dropped both murder charges against me, but left the charge of unlawful disposal of a body. I was ordered to stand trial. Just two weeks before the trial was due to take place, this charge was also dropped, in a behind-the-scenes exchange where I abandoned a private action against the Welfare Department's Office of Corrections, its remand security officers, and Benns and O'Dare.

A month after Walters' death, Freddie May's body was exhumed from his grave in the Meudon Forest and later a French coroner's inquest found he had been murdered. Two hospital workers were charged with having conspired with Walters and Cochard to kill poor Freddie. The Vital hospital was closed and all patients were relocated to other Paris institutions for proper treatment of their illnesses.

Arrests were made of directors of Vital – a French company primarily involved in perfume and cosmetics manufacture – but charges were later dropped because of insufficient evidence linking them to Michel's nefarious schemes for its drug-making and marketing arm. Back in Melbourne, charges were never laid against Tony Farrar for killing Cochard.

Two months after Walters' death, Cassie Morris broke her freelance contract with the Magenta Institute and joined a new Benepharm subsidiary as Director of Cancer Research.