Faces in the Rain (5 page)

‘An overdose? It would lead to a blackout and quickly to death. That's the way Martine died isn't it?'

‘How did you know?' Benns said.

‘Freddie May told me.'

O'Dare succumbed to the tea. Benns scribbled.

‘Did she die that way?' I asked.

‘Possibly,' Benns said. ‘Either that or she drowned.'

‘You've done tests,' I said, ‘you should know if she had more than the prescribed dose.'

‘We're not going to disclose that,' O'Dare said.

‘Can I get back to your lapse of memory,' Benns said with traces of the sardonic, ‘does this happen often?'

‘Occasionally.'

‘How occasionally?'

‘Perhaps three or four times a year.'

‘How would you describe your drinking?'

‘Moderate. I rarely drink at lunch. If I do, no more than two glasses.'

‘Of what?'

‘Not metho,' I said. The police were not amused.

‘C'mon Mr Hamilton,' Benns said.

‘Two glasses of wine normally,' I said.

‘And at night?'

‘I like a Scotch with the evening meal.'

‘Just one?'

‘Yes.'

‘And when you're at a social function?'

‘It depends. A private party is different from a business function.'

‘Could you differentiate?'

‘Business functions are business. I don't get pissed on principle. Nor do any of my people.'

O'Dare blinked when I said ‘pissed'. She must have thought me too genteel to swear. But not to have committed murder.

‘And at a private party?'

‘I might sink a few more than normal,' I said, again fixing Benns' gaze. ‘Anyway I really don't trust a man who doesn't drink.'

‘That's old-fashioned,' O'Dare chimed in.

‘Doesn't make it a wrong instinct, Detective-Sergeant,' I said and turned to Benns again. ‘Do you drink?'

‘As a matter of fact, I don't,' he replied. The tension in the conversation was now palpable. Benns juggled the container in his hand.

‘How long did you know Martine Villon?' he said.

‘I met her for the first time last Friday night.'

‘You're certain of that?'

‘Positive.'

‘You never set eyes on her before?'

‘I had seen her at a screening of a Benepharm advertisement.'

‘So she had links with your corporation?'

The speed of this last question indicated that Benns knew this in advance.

‘Insofar as she did ads for us, which is a bit tenuous.'

‘Did you know she was on a retainer with Benepharm?'

‘For what?'

‘Modelling in ads for your “healthy life” health food range.'

‘I didn't know that.'

‘That's strange. Miss Martine Villon has your number in her diary.'

‘What number?'

‘699 9669.'

‘That's the number to the executive office switchboard.'

‘But nevertheless your number?'

Hewitt tried to intervene but I stopped him again. I was steamed up.

‘I have a private number at work. If I was involved with this woman in any way she would have that.'

‘With your name next to it?'

‘Her diary has my name in it?'

‘Certainly.'

‘If that's true, then it's a plant. I've never had any relationship with Martine Villon.'

I stood up. The others did too.

‘You say you've never seen this bottle before?' Benns said.

‘Not to my knowledge.'

‘Funny,' he said with a mock frown, ‘but it was found in this plastic bag stuffed under the rear seat of your Rolls.'

‘Then I'm definitely being set up.'

I began to walk the two detectives to the door.

‘You don't plan on going anywhere in the next few days, Mr Hamilton?' Benns said.

‘No, why?'

‘We're sure to want to speak with you again.'

I showed them the door while Hewitt lingered, his face twitching with embarrassment, in the background.

Benns hesitated outside the door.

‘See you at the funeral tomorrow,' he said.

‘Whose funeral?'

‘Martine Villon's.'

T
HE NEXT MORNING
I drove across town to Fitzroy, an inner-city suburb. Tony Bellami Farrar was the man I wanted to see. He was a struggling private detective who had once worked for Benepharm's international operations, which he used as a front for his work with Australian Intelligence. He did a good job in arranging exports and distribution of our products in the Middle East, so I turned a blind eye to his under-cover work. He had an expertise in terrorism and had been most helpful during that nightmare time a few years ago when my family had been under siege from kidnappers, and I felt a certain debt of gratitude towards him. Soon after the kidnap business blew over, he had been caught up in an Australian Intelligence bungle in Indonesia and he had resigned from the service and Benepharm. It was then that he had set up in private dickery, and it had been tough. I had heard from Lloyd Vickers, who had originally employed him for us, that
Farrar had become a glorified debt collector for finance companies. He was brilliant at industrial espionage and he had done a few missing-persons hunts to Greece to track down children that had been ‘kidnapped' by a disgruntled parent. I had a hunch that he still did things for Intelligence but very much under deep cover.

Farrar's offices and apartment were in a terrace house that had been converted into a Spanish-style villa and painted white.

He lived upstairs and ran the agency downstairs. You would have thought from the decorated foyer that he was successful. It was done in an off-white, with reproductions of French Impressionist paintings. But his secretary Roz, a brassy blonde of forty-five trying to look twenty-five, gave another impression. She had over-coiffured hair, an overpowering waft of Intimate perfume and a permanent air of boredom. She continually touched her hair, examined her nails, rolled her eyes and did everything but yawn as I waited to see my old employee. The only sign of interest in life came from her small mouth, which was held slightly open like a doll's as if she was expecting a kiss.

I had been there a few minutes when Farrar bowled out into the foyer swinging his huge arms like a demented conductor. He was big by any measurement. He stood around 195 cm or six feet five in the old money, and despite this and a pot, moved like a rover. He always had a deep tan that came from some Middle Eastern or Turkish parent, I forget which, and this helped his appearance although he would never win a beauty contest. He had large brown eyes under a ridge of black eyebrows. He kept his hair cropped brutally short like a cross between a London punk and an American Marine.

He seemed pleased to see me and I braced myself for an old-style Aussie handshake where you always wondered if you had been left with broken knuckles. I tried not to wring my hand as he ushered me into his open-plan office, interspersed with potted plants. The corner where he had his desk revealed more of the Farrar that I had known. A computer work-station, filing cabinets and bookcases without books were littered with files, old newspapers, magazines, and bits of paper that had been half-hidden for years. Ancient dust had settled on them. A window that had a cracked pane and was propped shut by a walking stick overlooked a courtyard. It was cobbled, grey and shiny with water that dripped from a leaking drainpipe overhead. The whole atmosphere – I suspected – was sadly indicative of the struggling gumshoe Farrar had become. He had been put under financial pressure by divorce from his wife, four kids and a couple of mortgages.

It was near enough to lunchtime, so he offered me a beer. Farrar was a man bereft of small talk and I appreciated getting down to business as I launched into the story and wished I had a tape of it.

‘How can I help?' he said. His voice was like a rusty lawn-mower.

‘I want you to help me clear my name and find out what happened to the French woman.'

‘I'm not cheap,' Farrar said.

‘Neither am I.'

Farrar threw his head back and laughed. It was a throaty roar that shook the rafters. Then his face went mean and serious again.

‘Five hundred a day with expenses on top.'

‘Done,' I said and pretended I didn't see his hand reach out to strangle mine again.

M
ELBOURNE'S WEATHER
had done its four season-cycle by the time I reached Fawkner Cemetery for Martine Villon's funeral. I had played tennis with Tomi Tashesita in crisp spring sunshine at dawn and it warmed by mid-morning only to become cool and autumny while I was meeting Farrar. By mid-afternoon, as I waited at the railway gates near the cemetery, winter rain was sheeting over the Rolls. It sounded like wild applause at an indoor rock concert as I adjusted the heating to accommodate the drop in temperature.

The funeral was for three and I was late. Lloyd Vickers was in the front seat next to me, having come along for moral support. He had known Martine vaguely, he claimed, because he had overseen the development of in-house advertising to save costs. He had hired and fired and approved the models. He had liked Martine because she was punctual. I wondered for a split second
whether crusty old Lloyd could have been playing round with Martine, but dismissed the idea as ludicrous. He could have fancied her, yet I had never heard him utter a feeling about a woman, except his wife, whom he despised, and his daughter, whom he considered out of control because she studied fine arts at Melbourne University. He had wanted her to be an accountant and she had let him down. I admired the daughter for her independence and always chiacked ‘Smiler', as we nicknamed Lloyd, about her defiance.

I was even glad of his dubious company as the train passed and I drove round the cemetery's fountain to an avenue leading to the Catholic burial area. The road was hemmed in by overhanging trees that wilted under the weight of the rain and formed a floral tunnel. It was ethereal and claustrophobic as a torrent stormed down and we slipped along in silence like surfers in a pipeline. The plots in the centre of the avenue were awash and their headstones were caked in mud sprayed up from cars.

‘Hope the priest has a wetsuit,' I said. Lloyd's frown deepened at my joke, but he never smiled anyway. At least he was not a sycophant. A sullen toad of a man yes, but not toady. From the limited conversation between us on the drive there, it was clear he was surprised that I wanted to attend the funeral. He knew about my tenuous link with the deceased.

‘I heard about it on the corporate grapevine,' he said as we pulled up about one hundred metres from a cluster of umbrellas near a grave in site thirty-four.

‘From whom, Lloyd?'

‘Another of the . . .' he coughed diffidently, ‘models. Jenny Clayborough.'

‘Who got it from . . .?'

‘Danielle Mernet.' Danielle was Freddie's French friend whom I'd spoken to on the phone. The world was shrinking.

Lloyd had gone a lighter shade of scarlet. Maybe I was wrong about him. Perhaps he was a closet luster. Jenny Clayborough was a petite redhead who did temporary work in Lloyd's department. I had had some lascivious thoughts about her myself, however fleeting. Like Jimmy Carter I confined them to my heart and didn't let them drift lower. I had made it an iron rule that I had knowledge of all my employees, but nothing carnal.

These unlikely thoughts about my stolid deputy made me smile as we began to pile out of the car, yet they were really part of a nervy reaction. I knew my every move and utterance here would be watched. In a way I was on trial.

‘You're wondering why I'm here,' I said.

‘Yes,' Lloyd said as we opened umbrellas and began to walk towards the gathering.

‘I'm being framed,' I said and told him about the Serophrine.

‘All the more reason to stay away.'

We were thirty metres from the congregration.

‘Disagree,' I said. ‘As you know I'm big on research. If some fool or fools are trying to destroy me, I want all the facts. And if being at this gives me even a tenuous clue, then it's worth the risk.'

A brave speech that, from a man whose knees had gone to jelly. Faces in the mist and rain round the grave turned to us one by one and then in groups.

There were about thirty mourners and I was reeling at the number I knew. The first one I recognised was Dr Peter Walters, the nemesis of Benepharm's Project Big
C. He wore an immaculate dark wool suit, a white shirt so starched that it could have walked away on its own, and a light blue tie. He presented himself faultlessly, neither flashy or understated. Somewhere, someone had put a lot of time into his packaging and had got it right. As he dabbed his eyes I guessed he was the doctor who had handled Martine's recovery from cancer.

Next to him was Dr Cassandra Morris, who seemed more stoic. She kept looking at me the way she did across the Institute boardroom table, as if she was curious about something. This time she'd made more of an effort with her appearance. The hair, long and lustrous, had been let loose from that austere bun to touch the shoulders, and there was a dash of make-up and lipstick. She must have been freezing in a short wool coat and black silk dress that showed off a superb figure. My feelings had shifted from admiration and interest to something stronger. At that moment I didn't want to think what, especially as the seed of a corporate battle plan involving her was beginning to germinate in the creative cavern of my overactive mind. I gave her the briefest nod of acknowledgement, which caused her to stare first at the tubby young priest, who was ending the ceremony, and then the coffin, which was about to be lowered into the two-metre hole. I thought he should hurry it along because landslides of mud were starting to slop into the bottom of the grave.

Freddie May was there too, blubbering at the back of the mourners and doing his best to avoid eye contact with me. The more I looked at him the more he howled. It was in stark contrast to our phone chat and he had never struck me as the emotional type.