WHEN THE TAXI was round the corner leading up Caroline Street away from the river, I began to walk the other way and turned right into Lawson Grove. A little way into the street was a general store for the locals who were isolated from the fashionable shops on Toorak Road. I bought a newspaper and a Mars Bar, which I devoured in a few seconds. Apart from a guzzled cup of office plunger coffee, I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. I wrapped the Heckler in the paper and stuffed it back in my jacket pocket.
Number five was at the end of the cul de sac, and the night was quiet apart from the occasional vehicle swooping down Caroline Street and the drone of traffic on Alexandra Avenue.
A fog was settling in early over the city. I surveyed the block where Cassie Morris lived. It was a 1930s apartment building and would not have been out of place in Hollywood, San Francisco or even a Greek island with its stucco, campy architecture – early picture theatre. There was a concrete walk up outside staircase with landings at each level. Cassie’s apartment was on top. The handrail was slippery from the fog’s moisture as I stepped under a light at a wire door entrance, which led to another flight of stairs and her place. I looked back. The pea souper had crept over the river like a slow gas attack and was beginning to blanket buildings, but the Nylex clock could be just seen on the tower across the river. It said eight twenty-six. A second later the temperature flashed a chilly eight degrees, which I hadn’t noticed until now, because I’d been too busy getting hot running and dodging.
I pulled up my coat collar, and pushed the button to number five at the wire door. It snapped open and there was movement at the top of the staircase leading to Cassie’s apartment. Seconds later she appeared at her front door.
‘Come on up,’ she said, ‘I’m just watching Peter on TV.’
Walters was being interviewed on a news program. I stepped in and was enveloped by the warmth from a wood fire of split Mallee roots as she closed the door behind me. The walls were book-lined, and the the books were catalogued into medical and non-medical, the latter being again split into fiction and non-fiction. Signs of a tidy, well-read mind. Cassie had on a tight-fitting crimson dress and she wore black high-heeled shoes. Her hair was still down and she had put on red lipstick.
She was having trouble keeping her eyes off the screen. She apologised, offered me a glass of champagne from a bottle already opened, and a seat. I sat watching her new lover. I didn’t know her well enough to be jealous. But I was envious. Walters looked handsome in a conservative, tailored charcoal-grey suit and his lean face was made for television. He didn’t have a dark hair out of place. When he smiled he could have been a mature model for denture paste, and he handled himself well answering questions about Cancer Week in Australia. The only sign of nerves came when he played with a large, ornate cufflink attached to a starched cuff. Walters was speaking about the chances of a breakthrough in cures for brain tumours.
‘We’re not there yet, but we’re close,’ he said. ‘We can retard their progress if we reach them early enough.’
Morris was smiling approvingly and nodding.
‘He’s good, isn’t he?’ she said.
‘He looks good,’ I said, ‘but is he saying anything new?’
‘Well, he can’t, I suppose.’
‘Sounds like a good politician,’ I said, good-naturedly.
‘I suppose he is, really. But what happened to you?’ she said, taking me in properly for the first time. ‘You’ve been cut.’
‘I’m a rotten shaver,’ I said.
The cuts must have been from the glass when the bullets went through my car window. I ran a finger round my collar. There was plenty of congealed blood. No wonder I had received strange looks from everyone on the circuitous route here.
The Walters interview was over. She flicked off the TV.
I stood up and looked out a window to a courtyard of an adjacent apartment block, half-expecting to see the Frenchmen creeping towards us.
‘I won’t be able to come out with you this evening,’ Cassie said.
‘That suits me,’ I said, ‘I’m having a little trouble. Someone just tried to kill me.’
Cassie was wide-eyed for a moment.
‘At least your lines are original.’
‘I’m serious,’ I said and related the events of the chase and the growing mystery surrounding Martine’s death.
She tossed her hair back and narrowed her eyes on me.
‘I don’t know whether to believe you,’ she said.
‘It all happened,’ I said a little angrily.
She folded her arms.
‘I do remember Martine being paranoid about Claude Michel,’ she said.
‘Did she say anything about him to you?’
‘She told Peter that Michel couldn’t give a damn whether patients lived or died. She said Michel was responsible for many more than the twenty deaths the French authorities are claiming.’
Cassie sat down. She was reflective.
‘Martine’s maltreatment was typical of Michel,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘An uncomplicated lymphatic cancer was experimented with for years. It should have been cured in months.’
‘He sounds like another Dr Mengele.’
Cassie’s manner sharpened.
‘My father’s parents died in a concentration camp,’ she said. ‘My father escaped. After what he saw in the camps he wanted my brother and me to be doctors.’
‘To preserve life?’
‘Something like that. Some of the camps had no doctors. Others had several, all dedicated to Nazi experimentation.’
I kept a nervous vigil at the window. I was worried about Walters turning up. I accepted more champagne and took a seat on a sofa, but I wasn’t relaxed.
‘Dad explained in graphic detail all about Nazi atrocities,’ Cassie went on. ‘Until then I’d spoken German because he came from Berlin. Haven’t been able to speak it ever since. Not a word.’
She gathered her composure.
‘Have you ever needed a psychiatrist?’ she asked.
I shook my head.
‘No,’ she said with a cynical little laugh, ‘I guess you bull-at-a-gate corporate types don’t have self-doubt. Or mid-life crises.’
‘We haven’t time,’ I said, ‘we spend our spare hours skewering new-born babes and eating puppies.’
She managed a smile.
‘Besides,’ I said, ‘I’m only thirty-seven. The mid-life problems hit from forty on, don’t they?’
‘Depends on how long you’ll live.’
That gave me pause. I returned to the window and felt the outline of the Heckler in my jacket. The phone rang. I swung round as Cassie reached for it.
‘Don’t answer it,’ I said.
She hesitated, but could see I was on edge. After eight rings an answer machine picked up the call in her bedroom. Cassie walked to the fireplace and put a log on the fire.
‘I wanted to make you a business offer tonight,’ I said, ‘to head up Benepharm’s cancer research facility. But as you can see, I’m not exactly in the mood for it.’
‘I don’t think I would be interested now,’ she said, ‘and anyway, I’m not sure about your motive for making these drugs.’
‘I’d like to be first to make a breakthrough – have some impact with cancer cures.’
‘And make billions doing it.’
‘It’s going to take billions to do it.’
‘So it’s fame and fortune you want?’
‘I want the corporation to make its mark.’
She was faintly amused by something.
‘You know how to make God laugh,’ she said.
‘No, how?’
‘Tell him your future plans.’
I mustered a fleeting smile. Cassie looked at her watch. I wondered if she was stalling for Walters’ appearance. Then the door chimes went.
‘That’ll be Peter,’ she said.
‘Get rid of him.’
‘I can’t! He can get in!’
I crept to a peephole in the front door. I could see Walters bending down on the porch fumbling with a tile in the wall. He found some keys and began fitting one to the lock on the wire door.
‘Make sure he doesn’t stay long,’ I said, darting back, ‘and don’t let him know I’m here.’
Walters was coming up the stairs. I grabbed my champagne glass and ducked into a room off the hallway leading from the front room. I left the door slightly ajar and could see Walters enter the apartment. He was carrying flowers.
‘Why didn’t you answer the door?’ he asked.
‘I was in the bathroom,’ Cassie said, touching her dress as if she was adjusting it.
Walters handed her the flowers.
‘That’s nice, Peter,’ she said, ‘thank you.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘how did I look on the box? Was I brilliant or what?’
‘You were good. Except when you opened your mouth.’
That threw Walters. He looked hurt.
‘Then you were terrific,’ Cassie said. ‘Anyone who can say so much and yet so little at the same time is truly gifted.’
Walters smiled slightly at the irony. ‘Well, I couldn’t really be too specific.’
His expression clouded when he spotted the champagne.
‘You’ve drunk nearly a bottle on your own!’ he said.
‘I used a very big glass.’
‘Not like you, Cassie.’
Walters found himself a glass and poured some champagne into it.
‘We do happen to have something to celebrate,’ he said, ‘I’m bringing my trip to Europe forward a few days. Leaving tomorrow.’ He placed an affectionate hand on her neck.
‘I’ll book a ticket for you too,’ he said.
‘No,’ she said, ‘too much work.’
I was startled by the sub-machine gun rattle of a computer print-out in the room next to the one I was in.
‘That’s research coming in from Boston,’ Cassie said, ‘it’s making my point. I’m too busy at the moment.’
Cassie stepped down the hall. I pulled my head away as Walters followed her to a study. I could hear her unlocking the door. Moments later she started up her computer as the printer continued on. Walters must have been standing at the door because Cassie remarked, ‘The man-eating plants have been fed. You can come in.’
‘I’m honoured,’ Walters said, ‘I’ve never been in the inner sanctum before.’
Cassie was typing at the keyboard.
‘Note how secure this place is,’ she said, ‘tighter than a nun’s knickers. That’s why I got it. All my main files and research analysis is here.’
A minute later Cassie and Walters returned to the front room.
‘The trip will only be for eight days,’ he persisted, ‘you’ll love it. Paris at the end of the summer is great.’
‘Thought you said you never mixed business with pleasure.’
‘I’m making an exception.’
‘It’s all too rushed.’
I eased open the door again. Walters had his back to Cassie, hands thrust in pockets.
‘Is everything OK?’ he said. ‘You seem, I don’t know, edgy.’
‘Yes, I am a bit.’
‘All the more reason for you to take a break.’ Walters moved to the door, and Cassie opened it for him.
‘Sleep on it, darling,’ he said, reaching across and kissing her, ‘I’d love you to come.’
‘I know, Peter,’ Cassie said, ‘I’ll talk to you in the morning.’
Walters disappeared down the steps. I waited until the wire door clanged shut and emerged from the room. Cassie glanced at me and looked away.
‘I’m sorry for putting you through this,’ I said, sounding lame.
Cassie turned to face me.
‘I just want you out,’ she said in distraught whisper, ‘leave me alone. Please.’
I left Cassie’s apartment and walked to the corner of Lawson Grove and Caroline Street, still uncertain what to do. The fog was becoming hazardous to traffic, and I could see cars on Alexandra Avenue moving bumper to bumper, their high-beam lights on.
I was still unsure about the appointment with Benns at St Kilda Road. My home and office would both be under surveillance, and I didn’t feel inclined to impose myself on friends or relatives. I loitered in the shadows on the corner and made sure I was not in view of passing cars.
I decided to take my chances with the police and thought the best place to catch a taxi would be along popular Toorak Road, a seven or eight-minute walk. I moved up Caroline Street’s steep gradient away from the river and happened to look back to see a car turn into Lawson Grove.
Seconds later the vehicle reversed into Caroline Street again. It was medium-sized and had a gear whine that was familiar.
Was I paranoid or was it the Fiat?
Its lights were on high beam.
I stepped into the front garden of a house and lay flat on the moist lawn. The car slipped by. I was sure it was the Fiat, though I couldn’t pick up the registration. I hid behind a pillar. The car parked round a bend about one hundred and fifty metres from me, and so blocked my approach to Toorak Road. Somehow my attackers had learnt I was in the area and they were waiting.
There was no choice but to turn back to Lawson Grove.
I moved close to Cassie’s place and found a narrow path between the apartment and a fence that led to steps down to Darling Street, parallel to Caroline. I then made my way cautiously to my office on St Kilda Road, four kilometres away. It took twenty-eight minutes and I entered a back way via the basement carpark, took a service lift to the top floor, and keyed off the alarm before unlocking the door to my executive suite.
I stood at the window facing my desk, peered down into the street and could just make out a police van, double-parked across from the entrance to Benepharm. Occupants of the police van seemed to be checking a parked vehicle with three people in it. An unmarked police car? The van drove on, leaving those in the other vehicle to watch the company building.
I raided my ‘emergency’ wardrobe, which was kept for hurried trips abroad. I filled a suitcase with travelling essentials, and rifled a safe for the false passport, documents and credit cards.
I also grabbed a box of forty bullets for the Heckler, its cordura nylon holster and a film protection bag. The beauty of this light weapon, which was fifty per cent plastic, was that it could be dismantled and placed in the lead-lined film bag so that you could bypass X-ray machines at airports. It meant that during the kidnap crisis period I could travel abroad and still carry the Heckler.
From now on I was an Englishman, Charles Morten-Saunders, who worked for a British computer company, Braddock Electronic Supplies, or BES. Tony Farrar had made an arrangement with the company, which would vouch for my existence, I hoped, if ever the need arose. I had English credit cards, including Barclays and Visa and was an MCC member. There were even photos of my wife and family. The imaginary Charles Morten-Saunders – call me Charlie – had a gorgeous blonde wife, Emma, and two little girls, Davina and Allison. As I glanced at the photos, I recalled secret desires to find Emma, if she existed under that name.
I found the rest of the paraphernalia for a complete identity transformation in a compact cosmetics box, and it included horn-rimmed spectacles, fortunately now back in fashion, cosmetics, contact lenses, different hair dyes, and electric curlers. It brought back irritating memories of making the adaptations to Morten-Saunders without professional help, for it was imperative that no hairdresser knew of the change.
I began the laborious job of turning into Charlie boy, who was a few years younger than me. The transition to the upper-middle-class, Westminster and Oxford-educated Morten-Saunders, deputy in charge of PC sales, Asia and Pacific, took twenty-five minutes. The main change was to shave off my beloved beard and put on the glasses and contact lenses, without worrying for the moment about hair dyes to colour out the wisps of grey at the temples.
I was ready to go at eleven p.m., but the police were still outside. There was no alternative but to sleep the night in the bedroom adjoining the executive suite and set the alarm for five a.m.