Faces in the Rain (3 page)

I eased out the back of the mansion with torch in hand. Then I spotted the crouched figure on the wall at the rear of the garden. He was seventy metres away and appeared to have on black clothing and a rifle slung over his shoulder. He saw the torchlight, propped on the wall and fumbled for his weapon. I heard a police siren and fired my gun into the air.

The figure on the wall dropped into the back neighbours' garden and out of sight.

The police radioed for more cars in an attempt to cordon off the area. They were concerned about the shot that was fired and I had to produce the gun and a licence because they had not been briefed on our special status as a kidnap target. Despite their efforts the armed prowler escaped, leaving me and the family uneasy.

Peggy arrived and took the kids to her place. She reported the next morning that she hadn't been able to sleep properly and that Samantha had had a nightmare. I made up my mind that Peggy, who had finished her shoot, would take the kids off earlier than planned on vacation at Noosa Heads where Benepharm had a beach resort with excellent security.

‘Go tomorrow if you can,' I said, ‘and stay ten days.'

After our previous experiences she and the kids were frightened and I wasn't feeling too brave myself. We'd had armed guards for a while and I'd had to continually change all my work commuting routines and so on. At one point Australian Intelligence advised the police that the kidnap threat had come from an overseas terrorist group, and that I should have a false ID and changed appearance whenever I left Australia. The removal of my beard, hair dyes and blue contact lenses to hide brown eyes completed the transformation. I had done this three times and despite looking five years younger felt ridiculous. However, when a New Zealand financier was kidnapped and held to ransom (ten million was paid out) and then murdered, I decided to put up with the inconvenience.

When things had settled down, a day or two later, it crossed my mind that the armed prowler might have been there for a reason other than kidnapping; But there was no other I could think of, so I dismissed the idea.

O
NE COULDN'T HELP
admiring the principles of Dr Peter Walters at the Talbert & Magenta Research Institute. He wouldn't budge one centimetre when I laid out a generous offer to take over the Institute's cancer research program, reputedly the nation's best. Walters was lean and unusually handsome with thick black hair, a long forehead, deepset eyes under black eyebrows, an eagle's nose, surly sensuous mouth and a jaw set determinedly against everything that we – my vice-chairman Lloyd Vickers and I – wanted. Walters sat opposite us flanked by his eightperson board and we were in their boardroom, which was a psychological disadvantage. Our scheme was to develop cancer cures based on the use of drugs combined with tailor-made diets and yoga exercises designed to tap mind powers. But even before I explained the blueprint, Walters made negative remarks.

‘We are a professional group,' he said in his oh-so-slightly
arrogant voice that betrayed an English upper-middle-class accent base and an educated Aussie overlay. ‘Lose-fat fads and dumbbells are not our domain.'

‘I'm talking about proven diet and yoga routines,' I said, bringing my hand down on thick folders of research, ‘they're not gimmicks.'

‘Let me put it another way,' Walters said, looking me straight in the eye, ‘I'm frankly not impressed by your approach to our science. You think you can use your dollars to usurp our decades of human research.'

‘The common aim should be to find the right drug to beat cancer,' I said glancing at all the faces opposite. ‘Our management and financial expertise, together with your research knowhow, can achieve this. Little would change in the way you worked.'

‘Our fear with you people,' Walters said, ‘is that you would be tempted, in your rush, to do something unethical.'

‘Such as?' I said holding his gaze and leaning forward on the table.

‘You might put out an untested product that could be dangerous to the public!' I shook my head in exasperation.

‘Name one Benepharm drug that has had dangerous side-effects,' Lloyd challenged and drew a short silence as he drummed a chubby forefinger on the table. He was a dumpy little man with grey hair going prematurely white, and an owlish expression. Hunched shoulders added to, or perhaps were a consequence of, a grouchy disposition. Yet he was a financial genius. I was the entrepreneur who created the ideas and products and he was the wizard who funded them and placed them in the market profitably.

We both reckoned that the Magenta Institute was just
about indispensable in our plans for the ‘Big C Campaign', as we called our cancer project, and we were both frustrated by this unexpected block. After Lloyd's spirited remark some of the Magenta board shuffled papers and the meeting seemed almost over when Walters said, ‘Another thing we don't like is the fact that you're really speculating for profit over people's lives.'

‘Utter rubbish,' Lloyd said. I tapped his foot under the table to restrain him. We couldn't afford to antagonise them.

‘Let's examine what you do,' Walters continued as if he was on to a winning point, ‘you buy up all these research groups and every now and again when there is a renewed stock-market interest in cancer or AIDS research you turn them over to another speculator for a profit just like a property developer.'

‘That may happen in the States,' Lloyd said, ‘but that's not our aim.'

‘Not your aim, but you may do it, right?'

‘We've carefully thought through this proposal, Doctor,' Lloyd replied less aggressively, ‘and we would bank on getting some drug developments out of Magenta, even if they weren't for cancer.'

As they argued I took a few more seconds to examine the faces of the board. One of them – a Dr Cassandra Morris – seemed less inclined to agree absolutely with Walters. She was a closet beauty doing everything she could to look plain; her black hair was swept up in a bun and she wore glasses that looked as if they belonged in the laboratory. Her eyes were big, penetrating and so vividly green that I wondered if she was wearing coloured contact lenses, and she had a straight, attractive nose with a notch of imperfection right in the middle of it. Though she wasn't making use of natural physical
gifts, she dressed impressively in a dark business suit, with a red, grey and white striped cravat. Her body language divulged an independent mind; when the others nodded in support of Walters, her head was still. Once I caught her staring at me and I would have given quite a few pennies for her thoughts. The short bio on her in my notes said she was ‘chief research scientist, cancer division'. Morris was a freelance researcher with her own operation, and under contract to the Institute. She was highly thought of as one of the best in her field.

I decided on a long shot.

‘Let me say this,' I said, using a politician's cliche, ‘we would inject massive funds over and above our offer to you into new equipment.' I pulled out a chequebook and began to scribble. ‘I'm willing to write any figure you need to get the equipment for your push to find a cure.' My eyes held Morris's again. ‘Just tell me. How much would you need?' No one seemed brave enough to answer. Morris's eyes examined her fingers as she leant right forward on the desk.

‘Someone must have an idea,' I added, looking at the other faces. ‘It's only an offer. You can refuse it.' I glanced back at Morris. ‘Dr Morris. You must have some idea.'

‘It's difficult to calculate off the top,' she said. I liked her voice. It had an assertive resonance.

‘A ball-park figure will do.'

‘Never was good at ball games,' she said.

‘Roughly what would you need tomorrow to be shipshape for a proper research assault,' I persisted, ‘four, five?'

Walters sat back, arms folded, his expression dark. He had not looked at Morris but the tension generated was tangible.

‘Yes,' she nodded.

I wrote out a cheque for five million and pushed it across the table at Walters.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,' I said, ‘the offer is on the table.' Walters pushed it back. Morris reached down the table, held the cheque above the table and let it drop. Everyone watched it float and tumble.

‘At least it didn't bounce,' she said.

‘I really don't think we need your style of company,' Walters said. I stared at him. Surprisingly, he added, ‘but because the offer appears generous we will consider it and get back to you.' As we left the Institute, Lloyd looked despondent.

‘We needed them,' he said, ‘but that Walters bastard won't give us a ghost of a chance.'

‘Wonder why he's being so difficult?'

‘Maybe he thinks we'd give him the bullet.'

‘I doubt it, if he's as good his reputation suggests.'

Walters appeared confident and on his record of research management would find top work in the field anywhere. He also ran a small private practice.

‘It may not be such a lost cause,' I said.

‘What?'

‘Did you see Dr Morris's reaction?'

‘Yes, she's a bit of character, isn't she? But Walters rules the roost there. We've been trying for months. He hasn't ever looked like letting us in.'

‘I realise that. But we've got to speak with her again – alone.'

It was lonely that night without the kids whom I had got used to having around the house in the previous week. I spent some time on the phone to Peggy who tried to
persuade me to join them for the coming weekend at Noosa. I flirted with the idea of flying up, but couldn't, because work, as ever, was pressing. At ten p.m. I received a call from a Senior Detective Benns.

‘Sorry to phone so late,' he said. ‘Would it be possible for us to interview you?'

My mind was on the intruder with the rifle.

‘You mean over what happened the other night?'

There was a few seconds silence before Benns replied, ‘Yes. When could we see you?'

‘Well, if you could be brief,' I said, looking at the antique grandfather clock in the foyer, ‘it would be OK right now.'

‘It's a bit late. Perhaps tomorrow at your office?'

‘Wouldn't it be better here,' I said, ‘where it happened?'

Again there was a strange silence and I was beginning to think Benns was thick.

‘At your home?' he said.

‘That's where it took place,' I said, ‘in the grounds of my home.'

‘In the mansion grounds,' Benns repeated as if he was writing it down. ‘What time would be convenient, Mr Hamilton?'

‘I'll be home by seven.'

‘And you live . . .?'

I thought it was slack that the police didn't even have my address.

‘Weren't you given it?' I said. ‘Aren't you from Prahran police?'

‘No sir. I'm from Homicide. We have your car registered at a work number in St Kilda. I rang there and Mr Vickers gave me your unlisted home number.'

‘You're from Homicide?'

‘Yes. What's your address please.'

‘Bramerton, Hopetoun Road, Toorak,' I said, confused.

‘Thank you, see you at seven.'

I put down the phone and frowned. Then it clicked. He wasn't ringing about the intruder. He was wanting an interview about the death of Martine.

I rang Ted Bayes but he was interstate for a couple of days. That caused me to thrash about on the phone trying to find another lawyer. Ted had been too complacent in his advice and he was not high-powered enough for this kind of situation that now, with a Homicide investigation, possibly involved a murder. I spent the next two hours trying to find out who was the best criminal lawyer in Melbourne. The name mentioned above all was Terry Hewitt. By coincidence, Terry had been at the reunion at the same table as Freddie May and me.

T
HE VICTORIAN CLUB
where I was invited to lunch by Hewitt was forty-one stories above the city in the Rialto on Collins Street. It had a dizzying three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of Melbourne. There was a sweeping panorama of cranes atop glass and steel mountains. Looking down into the canyons you could see the fast dwindling number of old structures, such as stately St Paul's Cathedral, and the rust-yellow, semi-baroque Flinders Street Station. The green gardens of South Yarra in the background gave a lift to the brown-grey river as it wound its way through ugly brown railway yards and development sites towards Port Phillip Bay.

The Club had changed its location in 1980 from a much less exalted building in Queens Street where the majority of its members were bookies. Some time ago, on a settlement night, the Club in Queens Street had been robbed of a huge day's takings and the event
became the subject of a TV drama, ‘The Great Bookie Robbery'. Many millions were stolen at gunpoint and it was the beginning of the end of the Club as it was then. Lawyers, stockbrokers, accountants and money managers with racing links then took the show upmarket and secured the lofty spot at the Rialto.

Hewitt seemed bemused by my approach. Apart from our meeting at the reunion, we couldn't recall seeing each other since school days. Years ago when Hewitt had just a fledgling law firm, Benepharm lawyers under my direction had given him lower-echelon work that they were too busy to handle. There was once a problem with the registration of a drug in Germany, and another time a patent difficulty in France, and he was sent abroad to help out. But even that indirect contact had been a long time ago.

Hewitt could have been a wealthy undertaker in his dark grey suit, light tie and matching pocket handkerchief. He had a greying, full head of styled hair and the only facial concession to the years were fuller jowls. His expression was alert and his eyes darted and twinkled. He liked his life as a lawyer and knew everything about anyone who was somebody in the town.