Faces in the Rain (2 page)

‘Are the kids ready for the footy?' I asked.

‘They're about somewhere, waiting for lazybones. How are you going to go?'

‘In the Roller. Why?'

‘You didn't bring it home last night.'

‘Good parking, Dad,' Alistair said with a cheeky twelve-year-old's giggle as we spotted the Rolls perched on the sidewalk in Domain Road.

‘Great parking, Dad,' nine-year-old Samantha parroted as I asked the taxi driver to let us out. The kids fought for the front passenger seat while I tore a parking ticket from the front windscreen just as a police car moved into Park Street. It stopped about one hundred metres away outside the apartment I remembered being in last night. Curiosity caused me to drive left into Park Street and past the apartment block. Two cops were carrying out a body on a stretcher as an ambulance arrived.

‘Look! A dead woman!' Sam called from the back seat.

‘How do you know it was a lady and that she was dead?' Alistair challenged.

‘It wasn't a lady,' she said haughtily, ‘it was a “woman”. “Lady” is sexist.'

‘How do you know it was a . . . female?' Alistair persisted in the teasing tone reserved for his sister.

‘Oh, you're just blind!'

I completed the block and entered Punt Road over the Yarra which was a murky grey after the flooding. There
was a bottleneck as cars descended from all points of the city for the big footy game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Alistair continued to goad Samantha. Time for Dad to intervene.

‘I once found a dead man outside Grandpa's pharmacy,' I said, ‘I was three at the time and no one believed me. Then Grandpa went out and examined the body in the gutter and found he was dead. The man had had too much to drink in a nearby pub and had collapsed in the street.'

Samantha seemed to feel vindicated by my story.

‘Sam,' I said gently, ‘you can't be sure the woman was dead until a doctor or someone like Grandpa examines her.'

She began crying.

‘I
know
she was dead,' she blubbered.

‘You're probably right,' I said, ‘did you notice anything about the woman?'

‘Yes,' Samantha said, drying her eyes, ‘she had black hair, and it was tied a funny way.'

There was a good feeling in the Members' stand as Melbourne, the team I had supported for thirty years, piled on the goals. The looks on Members' faces confirmed my long held theory that a goal or a touchdown in any code was equal to a sporting orgasm. In Aussie Rules, even a losing team scores plenty, hence the fans' satisfaction. Yet despite goal-fed goodwill of fans around me, I was dogged by the image of the woman on the stretcher in Park Street. Had it really been Martine? My good friend and stockbroker, Oliver Slack, noticed my discomfort.

‘What's wrong with you?' he said, ‘The Demons will bury them, but you don't have to look like the undertaker.'

He was right. What was I worried about?

At half-time I volunteered to get pies for everyone. On the way to a stall I hesitated at a phone booth. Freddie May had given me the apartment phone number in case I got lost en route from the reunion to South Yarra. I still had the number scribbled on the reverse side of his business card that said: Frederick L. May, Vital Corporation.

I dialled the number. A man answered.

‘Hullo?'

My mouth went drier than Noel Coward's joke book.

‘Who is this, please?' the male voice said in the flat tone reserved for people used to saying ‘The suspect proceeded in a southerly direction.' I put down the phone. My brain pole- vaulted. Was it really the police? Had Martine been on that stretcher?

A
T THE OFFICE
on Sunday, I found Freddie's home number. A sultry-voiced female answered the phone.

‘Freddie's asleep,' she assured me.

‘Who is this?'

‘Danielle.'

‘Can you get Freddie to the phone please. This is important.'

‘Who are you?'

‘Duncan Hamilton.'

Her hand went over the mouthpiece and there was urgent whispering. Clearly Freddie was reluctant to speak, while Danielle seemed to be pushing him. He came on the line.

‘I know what you're ringing about,' he said in a defensive voice.

‘What happened last night?' I said, ‘I saw a body being carried out of that block this morning. Was it Martine?'

‘Bloody oath!'

‘How do you know?'

‘It was Danielle who found her.'

I felt dizzy.

‘Dead?'

‘Nearly. She had a faint pulse but she gave out in the ambulance and was DOA.'

I fell silent.

‘Duncan?'

‘I'm still here. How did she die?'

‘Overdosed on a drug for her migraine. Champagne and pills. A trusted way out. Danielle found her in the bath, her mouth under water.'

‘Have you been to the police?'

‘Yeah. Made a statement.'

‘I'd better . . .'

‘You? Christ, no! Stay out of it. The papers will have a field day if they learn you were there. With me it's different. “Ex-teacher at Suicide Scene” will hardly excite
Truth.
But “Billionaire Drug Industry Boss Spends Night With Suicide Beauty” would turn on every editor in the country.'

‘You didn't tell the police I was there?'

‘No. As far as they're concerned it was just me and Martine. We had a screw. I left. She had a bath and knocked herself off.'

‘Just tell me what happened?'

‘You don't remember?'

‘Not much.'

‘Yeah, I 'spose you were pissed.'

‘I thought I fell asleep on the sofa.'

‘You did, mate. When it began to flood outside you had to stay. Martine and I went to bed. At about four I woke you and piled you into a taxi.'

I recalled falling into the back seat.

‘Martine ran the bath,' Freddie added, ‘and I left. I can remember her standing near the bathroom door as the steam billowed out.'

‘Why did she do it? Did you have a fight?'

‘Nar. Never. She was like a mistress to me. You don't brawl with 'em. Only your wife, right?'

‘But you still haven't said why she did it.'

Confident Freddie hesitated and the first mild hint of fear crept into his reassuring tone.

‘Look. She was a pretty wild chick. You know? Arguably the best lover I'd ever had. Crazy.' He laughed, too eagerly, ‘They say you should comb the nut houses for the best screws. She had paranoias about someone in France, who was after her for some reason she never laid out.'

‘You're saying she was suicidal?'

‘Well, she had to be, didn't she?'

‘Did she leave a note?'

‘Nar. But not all of 'em do, the cops said.'

The mention of her fears weighed on my mind and I didn't know why.

‘I think I should see a lawyer,' I said.

‘It'll be a waste of time, mate. You're in the clear. Anyway I'll bet any lawyer would say keep your nose – particularly
your
famous snout – out of it.'

For the next couple of days I checked newspapers, watched TV and listened to the radio – even at work – and at night wandered my Edwardian mansion like a restless ghost. I was troubled. I didn't think Freddie May had told me everything about those forgotten hours.

On Monday night I was sitting alone after the evening
meal in front of the fireplace in the downstairs reception room. I used the hours eight until midnight to read and plan Benepharm ventures, and always ended the night with yoga exercises. Others in the house – the kids if they were staying with me, and our Japanese housekeepers, Tomi and Fui Tashesita – knew not to disturb me. This monkish period had become more important than ever because the company was preparing the biggest research and development project in its fifteen-year history.

I had become obsessed with being first to market drugs that would prevent or cure certain major cancers. The best way was to buy up all the research facilities we could in Australia and abroad. It was an operation costing tens of millions and included complicated financial deals involving American low-interest, high-risk bonds and other chancy resources. The calculated gamble was that at worst we would develop marketable spin-off drugs for cancer-related diseases that would eventually cover costs; at best we would find the big cancer drugs that would make Benepharm the most successful pharmaceutical group in the world.

While I was mumbling thoughts and instructions into a small tape recorder for a secretary to type up and act on the next day, Peggy came into the room with a lemon herb tea. She had come to see the kids, who were staying with me while she had a week's shooting on location in a TV play.

She lingered and I looked up.

‘What's bothering you?' she asked.

‘Nothing – well, work.'

‘The kids remarked that you've been grumpy at the dinner table for the last few nights.' Peggy smiled. ‘Sam said you were “reclusive” – she learnt the word yesterday
and has been using it every second sentence.' I laughed. It was the only time I'd smiled all day.

‘C'mon,' Peggy persisted, ‘what's on your mighty mind?'

Our eyes locked. I flicked off the tape. Despite the break-up of our marriage I occasionally confided in her. She was the solid, upright, commonsense type. Very hockey sticks.

‘Sit down,' I said, and told her the story. She insisted on me seeing a lawyer. She had that sort of tidy mind, not to mention the fact that she was the daughter of a Supreme Court judge. I resisted at first because it seemed trivial and embarrassing.

‘I don't want anyone at Benepharm knowing about mishaps in my private life,' I said, ‘rumours spread like wildfire.'

‘Then get Ted Bayes,' Peggy suggested, referring to the family lawyer who'd handled our divorce with discretion and a minimum of fuss, ‘just see him and tell him what happened.'

Ted's father had been my father's lawyer and he fixed things like wills and tax and trusts. I knew he had handled some minor matters for other clients/friends like me. He had kept spoilt teenagers out of court and the newspapers over such things as stolen cars and paternity suits. My little incident seemed to warrant that sort of attention, just in case, sensible Peggy said.

The next morning, I dropped into the smart, expensive Collins Street offices of Bayes, Bayes and Burton. Ted, a nice, rather ineffectual man on the surface, had sandy, greying hair, thin, bloodless lips and watery blue eyes. But he was fit – a marathon runner. One wondered whether he kept running to get away from trusts and wills and a hectoring wife.

While I told Ted my tale he looked out the window. When I pulled out a cheroot and offered him one, a secretary had to search for an ashtray at the back of a drinks cupboard, while he opened a window. Cigar smoke seemed to concern him far more than the story. He didn't ask one question. At the end I said, ‘What should I do?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Shouldn't the police know I was there?'

‘Why?'

‘In case Freddie May tells them I was there.'

‘You said he didn't.'

‘What if he did?'

‘Then if the police got in touch you'd tell them to see me and I'd tell them your story.'

‘Simple as that.'

‘Simple as that. Nothing to worry about.'

‘It's not important that I was a witness to her behaviour?'

‘What was her behaviour?'

‘Friendly . . . normal.'

‘Not going to illuminate police investigations much, is it?'

‘I 'spose not.' Ted dodged some smoke and took a breath.

‘Freddie May was right,' he said, ‘no point in you opening yourself up to newspaper gossip.'

I left Ted to fumigate his office.

D
UDLEY
, Alistair's Bearded Dragon, was missing somewhere in the mansion grounds. The wire cage near the pool not far from the back door of the servants' quarters had been pulled askew and there was a hole for the pet to escape. It had happened before and the cat next door had been accused of being the culprit, although no paw prints had been identified. Dudley made things more difficult by being a wanderer. Recently he had been found in the front garden of the mansion near the tennis courts, and the summer before he had several times been caught basking on the slate roof where he was very hard to find because of his chameleon tendencies, which allowed him to blend with the roof's blue-grey colour. The household formed a search party with torches. The kids scoured the one hundred metres of rear garden, the Tashesitas looked in the tennis court and the front garden, while I was on hands and knees in the grass by the pool. Samantha screamed.

‘Daddy! Daddy! Come quick! Help!'

I charged into the rear garden towards a bobbing torchlight until I reached her. She was trembling.

‘There . . . there was a man in the bushes!' she screamed.

‘Where?!'

She pointed and Alistair came to us.

‘I did see someone,' he said, ‘he crashed into the pond area.'

I led them to the back of the house where the Tashesitas had gathered. Three years ago Peggy and I had had to go through an elaborate plan to protect the kids from kidnapping. The police had warned we were targets because of my wealth and high profile.

Someone once tried to impersonate Peggy at St Catherine's school where Samantha was waiting to be picked up. The woman had been frightened off by an alert parent, who knew she wasn't Peggy. Another time two hooded intruders had been seen in the grounds by neighbours and the alarm had been raised.

I told the Tashesitas to secure all doors to the mansion and phoned the police. I ran upstairs to a bedroom safe where I kept a licensed Heckler & Koch semi-automatic handgun. I loaded it.

I had had pistol training and found I was a fair shot, especially at close range. For the first time since school Cadet days I had a weapon. It was supposed to be used only as a last resort.