Faces in the Rain (28 page)

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.

O
N 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.

Along with Cassie, Walters had been Martine's doctor in Melbourne. Unwittingly, she had ended up being treated by the man from whom she had been hiding. Walters had known how to get into Cassie's study and
probably how to access her computer, because he had watched her processing incoming research data the night I nearly ran into him at her place.

Michel and Walters seemed the right height and weight, although the face was markedly different.

‘It's amazing to think the Frog could have been turned into such a prince,' I said.

‘A sharper thinner nose, honed cheek bones, a change of hair and eye colour,' Farrar said, ‘the surgeon was bloody good.'

‘There's hope for us yet,' I said. It hurt Farrar to laugh. He tried to put his gun back in its arm holster below the wound, but couldn't. He swore, threw the gun on the rear seat, and tried to adjust the towel bandage. It had turned red.

I deposited Farrar at the city's St Vincent's hospital emergency ward at two a.m. The wound was more severe than he had thought and he had lost too much blood to be comfortable. He urged me to stay with him until he had phoned Benns at his private number. Farrar went to great lengths to explain that Peter Walters was Claude Michel, but as the Inspector knew little about Michel and even less about Walters, he was unconvinced. He said he would come and see Farrar at seven thirty a.m. on the way to work. Our fear that Cassie was in danger was lost on him, although he did react when we insisted Danielle Mernet was travelling with them. But it wasn't enough to get him out of bed. So the director of a cancer research institute takes off with his key researcher. So what? They were lovers. It was a free country.

Farrar neglected to mention that Cochard's carcass
was lying under a tarpaulin in the back yard of a Somers house. We both knew that this would have had Benns out of the cot for the wrong reasons. There had been a murder. Homicide would go to Somers and spend the night doing forensic fiddles while Walters burned rubber all the way to Sydney.

Farrar said he would explain all that to Benns over breakfast.

‘Don't you be a dickhead and try to follow them!' were Farrar's parting words for me. I looked at a clock on the wall in his cubicle in the emergency ward. It was nearly three.

‘Fat chance,' I said, ‘they'd be well over the border by now.'

‘What was he driving?'

‘A late-model Porsche coupe.'

‘They'd be at flamin' Gundagai, I reckon,' he said, as a nurse came in to see why I was still there. ‘I saw his car go past when I was comin' to Somers. He had to be doing 150 ks. Driving like a bat outa hell.'

‘I'm going to bed,' I said.

‘I'll ring you in the morning,' Farrar said, ‘just to make sure.'

As I walked out of the lift in the hospital foyer, an ambulance pulled into an entry bay, siren blaring and lights flashing. Orderlies lowered a woman onto a trolley and made a dash for the elevator. She had a drip feed attached to an arm and an oxygen mask to her face.

A sharp pain slashed my chest as I recognised the dark, luxuriant hair and a casual brown blouson jacket that was draped over the victim's torso.

It was Cassie's hair and Cassie's jacket.

Five orderlies, a doctor and two nurses crowded round her. A doctor began heart massage as the lift took
its time. The woman was going to die. I tried to get closer. A nurse pushed me away.

‘Please sir!!' she said.

‘What happened?!' I yelled.

‘Hit and run,' an orderly said.

The lift opened. The trolley was wheeled in. I caught a glimpse of the snow-white face with red lips.

‘Cassie!!' I called as the lift door closed. I leant against the wall.

It hadn't been her.

I hurried to the Rolls parked at the front of the hospital. The handgun – a Smith & Wesson with three bullets was sitting on the back seat. Farrar had forgotten it.

I drove south along Victoria Parade heading for Toorak, but I couldn't get the thought of that injured young woman and Cassie out of my mind. As much as I told myself there was nothing I could do, I was haunted by the thought that Cassie would be killed. Logic dictated that Michel/Walters would kill her. Before tonight, he had to silence two people so he could return to France and practise medicine at Meudon as Peter Walters. He would assume that Cochard had murdered me as instructed, so at some point he and Danielle would get rid of Cassie. They had to. Otherwise we would tell the story of Walters' double life and he would be wanted for murder in Australia and France, assuming that authorities there were serious about apprehending him.

The coward in me kept justifying not trying to find her.
Leave it to the police tomorrow.
Tomorrow, with Farrar's help, the situation could be explained. They would have to hunt for them. The police in New South Wales could be alerted and Walters and Danielle would
be rounded up, possibly within twenty hours.

But Cassie could also be dead.

Like that hit-and-run victim.

The Rolls did a U-turn against my better, more prudent judgement and made for the Sydney road out of Melbourne. The speedometer reached 150 k and it didn't bother me if I got booked or not. If the police chased me, I would try to enlist their help. Somewhere between Melbourne and Sydney, probably on the 480 k from Melbourne to the border, was a farm-house where Walters, Danielle and Cassie would be resting and waiting for Cochard. There had to be a thousand such places.

I sped along past the ugly billboards of the Sydney Road proclaiming used car yards and more used car yards, and held the map over the steering wheel. It was futile even making a guess.

I pulled in for petrol at the first all-nighter on the way and asked the bearded youth behind the counter if he had seen a red Porsche. He gave me a vacant stare and shook his head.

Ten stops and a dozen shaken heads and blank looks later I had just about given up. The car yards, all-nighters and petrol stations would soon give way to countryside, which on any other drive would have been a delight. This time it was worrying. It seemed futile to drive on.

The food smells in the all-nighters were making me hungry, so I tried once more at a Hungry Jack's about 50 k from Melbourne and bought a burger with the lot from a fat woman who seemed more alert than the others I had asked. So alert in fact that she called her companion named Bill, who eyed me when I repeated the question about a red Porsche. He was tall, lean and
with friendly crinkled eyes. He reminded me of Chips Rafferty, especially the way he rolled a cigarette and took an eternity to speak.

‘Yeah,' Bill said, ‘I seen 'em. A handsome fella with two pretty good-lookin' sheilas. They stopped for food.' He jerked his thumb at the woman, who was chewing hard. ‘Shirl served ‘em.'

‘You didn't know where they were headed?' I said, opening the burger packet and munching into it.

‘Sydney,' Shirl said. She seemed wary of me. It was the swollen cheekbone and half-closed black-and-blue eye. They were not a pretty sight.

‘How do you know?' I said.

‘One of the women wanted to phone Sydney,' Shirl said with a upward inflexion, ‘she was pissed off ‘cause the phones are out of order.'

‘Yeah,' Bill said, warming up, ‘the guy – real smooth bastard he was – said he was a bigshot doctor and wanted to call Melbourne.' He looked at Shirl for support.

‘Somers,' she said.

‘Right,' Bill said, ‘we let him use our private line, but there was nobody at the number he wanted. So then the foreign sheila . . .'

‘French?'

‘Dunno.'

‘What did she look like?'

‘Aw, you know . . .'

‘Tall?'

‘Nar. Good figure. You know. Big mouth . . .'

‘Nice clothes,' Shirl said, her inflexion still heavenward.

‘And the other woman?' I asked.

‘Stayed in the car,' Bill said, ‘well, most of the time. Think she went to the dunoy at one point. Anyway, the
foreign sheila wanted to ring Sydney. She got through.'

‘I heard her say they'd be in round three or four tomorrow afternoon,' Shirl said.

‘Yeah, that's right,' Bill agreed.

‘They didn't say where they'd stay the night?' I asked.

‘Nar,' Bill said with another glance at Shirl, ‘they were drivin' right through, I'd say.'

‘You're sure?'

‘I'd reckon. They took drinks with ‘em.'

‘If they drove right through, they'd be in Sydney before noon,' I suggested.

‘Dunno,' Bill said with dismissive pride, ‘I've never been over the border.'

I thanked them and began to walk away.

‘Friends of yours, are they?' Bill said.

‘One of them is, why?'

‘Aw, I dunno,' he said nodding towards the Rolls, ‘both drivin' nice cars, you know.'

‘Which one was your friend?' Shirl asked, with a legitimate inflexion.

‘The one who stayed in the car.'

‘She wasn't too bloody popular with the others,' Bill said.

I turned and faced Shirl, hoping for more.

‘I filled the tank for them,' she said, ‘and I was cleaning the windows, see, and the one in the back used a finger to write something on the windscreen. You know, it was misty.'

‘What did she write?'

‘Rams av.'

‘Rams Have? Have what?'

‘Nar. Rams Av– “A”, “V”, like in “Avenue”.'

‘What happened?'

‘The foreign woman jumped in the car and gave the
other one a good talking to. She belted her one.'

‘Did you say anything?'

‘It wasn't anything to do with me.'

I drove on, gunning the Rolls up to 180 k and taking risks passing trucks, that kept coming into view like sinister alien forces with their abundant coloured lights. They didn't like being overtaken, even in one-way traffic.

If Walters planned to be in Sydney as late as three or four in the afternoon, he was still going to make a stop. At Rams av.

I put the internal light on and placed the map over the steering wheel again. Was Rams av an obscure country town? I hadn't heard of it and I had done this trip thirty times by car. Perhaps it was Rams avenue? A street in a town. But which one!!??

I pushed the map onto the passenger seat and slammed my foot right down. Lights were flashing ahead.

A police car was by the side of the road and a policeman was standing in front, flagging me down. I hit the horn and swerved past him. The police car gave chase and I blasted my horn again to indicate an emergency dash. It didn't stop the police car.

Another police vehicle coming in the other direction was skidding into a turn to give chase.
Two on my tail now.
I kept going and thought they had given up as the 100 k from Melbourne sign whizzed by. But no. Flashing lights could be seen in the blackness behind me as the Rolls got caught behind two juggernauts taking up both lanes on a steep hill.