IT WAS VERY DARK for two o’clock in the afternoon and rain began to pelt down as guests made a dash for the front door of the Melbourne Club at the top end of Collins Street, only metres from Dimset’s surgery. Cassie and Walters got caught with their umbrella unopened for only a few seconds and their hair and faces were wet as they entered. I stood for a few minutes shivering under an awning until most guests had arrived from the South Yarra church.
For the first time in two weeks I was going somewhere as me. No Morten-Saunders disguise. No Oliver Slack glasses, hat and overcoat. No Russell Dimset rearranged face. Just me in a lounge suit, plain white shirt and red-and-white-striped tie from Oliver’s clothes cupboard in the Bunker.
My aim was to get Cassie aside and talk. That was going to be hard with Walters right by her side. Knowing him, she wouldn’t be out of his sight. I knew I was taking a risk in going public but I didn’t care any more. I was sick of disguises, of being a fugitive.
I hurried up the steps and into the high-ceilinged drawing room. A waiter thrust a champagne glass under my nose.
The atmosphere was in warm contrast to the black outside. It was all smiles and people were intent on having a good time. In a connecting room a string quartet played light chamber music.
The bride, in a pink dress that would have been a big hit with Russ Dimset, arrived clutching a bouquet of flowers, and a relieved groom accompanied her. Bridesmaids and groomsmen filtered in and stood by an open fire, warming their tails.
The happy couple began mingling. There was much kissing, hand-shaking and hugging. As they edged closer to me, I felt a twinge of nerves. Most people had averted their eyes from me, even though there were several faces I knew well, and I could guess what they were thinking. What does one say to a murderer?
Oliver pumped my hand and introduced me to his new bride.
‘Terrific you could come,’ he said, still pumping. It was one of those long handshakes that bestowed legitimacy. Within seconds, others were crowding round wanting to slap me on the back or kiss my cheek. People were hanging on every word. The bridegroom and bride were forgotten and I wanted to hide in the Club’s famous loos, with their barn-sized doors and wooden thrones.
‘What’s this I hear about you and a French agent?’ was the way Bruce Gower, a tall, imperious, merchant-banker friend from old school days put it, and it was cunning. No accusations, just a statement couched as a rumour. Now no one was looking away and I was getting more stares than a mouse in a stuffed owl factory.
‘Sub judice,’ I grinned.
‘But Crime Stoppers practically branded you a m–’
‘Uh, uh, uh!’ I interjected, ‘don’t say the ‘m’ word. Not in front of the bridesmaids!’
The growing circle round me laughed. It was a little too hearty.
‘Are you going to sue them, old sport?’ Ken Douglas, a short, podgy corporate lawyer asked.
‘We’ll see,’ I said, searching for that hole in the ground.
‘Did you know that beautiful hooker?’ Shelley Perret, an advertising executive asked. Did you do her in or not?
‘For about three hours,’ I said, and wished I hadn’t, for my admission cast doubts, which were pencilled into their wide-eyed expressions.
Annie Dart, an actress, former lover of Oliver’s, gripped my forearm and began to cry. She sobbed into my shirt, then my pocket handkerchief. Annie had never been a buddy of mine and I conjectured that the tears were induced by the prospect of her former beau going down the aisle with a rival. Or was it because film director, Dirk Clancy, a prematurely silver-haired master of celluloid sex and violence, was with her and watching? He was soon close and holding Annie, who was blowing her nose.
‘I’d like to talk seriously about your story,’ he whispered in my ear, ‘can I contact you?’
I looked at him. His face almost touched mine. He had the practised gaze of a mendacious main-chancer, and those wide blue eyes full of candour had never been threatened by original thought. He thrust a card in my hand, as I shouldered into back-slappers, well-wishers, huggers, kissers and those now buoyed enough by champagne who just wanted to touch me.
I caught a glimpse of Cassie and Walters who looked away.
Somewhere in the sea of permanent grins I saw a frown. It was Lloyd’s grim visage drifting low between the flotsam of elbows and drink trays like the moon hiding from Mother Earth.
Firm fingers were pressing my shoulder. These were undelicate, digits of a person with a mission. I glanced round and along the arm of Bill, the front-lobby flunky with hair swept straight back into the 1950s, who had been at the Club for a quarter century.
‘Phone call for you,’ he said. ‘Name’s Farrar. Reckon you better take it.’
It was my chance to escape. I followed old Bill down a corridor of welcome silence, but for the steady clip of our shoes, to a phone booth next to the front entrance. I shut myself in.
‘Thank Christ I got you,’ Farrar said, ‘something big is up. I went round to see Benns and O’Dare this morning. Didn’t have an appointment. Waited in me car for them. There was a helluva lot of activity at HQ. Plainclothes boys were running in and out.’
‘Yes, so?’
‘Well I watched and waited. I know most of the guys in the Homicide hit squad. A couple who had been in on the Libyan ambush were talking inside the front doors. Anyway, Benns and O’Dare arrived. I got out of the car and ran across the road.’
Farrar paused and added, ‘I blocked them off and asked why they hadn’t returned my calls. They reckon they hadn’t got any. Which was bullshit ‘cause I spoke to their flamin’ secretaries about ten times. They claimed they were in a hurry. They didn’t like me sniffin’ about, so I left. As I was comin’ down the steps, a couple of plainclothes guys I know hurried past me. I heard one of ’em say, “Where’s the stake-out, the MCG?” ’ The other one said something about it being “the snobs and bigshots club. Not the bloody footy club.” ’
I wanted to run.
‘I’ll phone you later,’ Farrar said and rang off.
I left the booth and had trouble lighting a cigar. More late arrivals were coming in. I stood in the open door and peered out into the rain. Car windows were fogged over but three shadows could be seen in a white Ford parked opposite. I shuddered and returned to the party.
Lunch was announced. Guests began to surge towards the newlyweds’ families who had lined up to shake hands and exchange banalities at the double wooden door to the dining room. When I reached Oliver he leant close.
‘You’re on Cassie Morris’s table,’ he whispered in my ear, ‘I’d go for her myself if she wasn’t thirty.’
‘Too old for you,’ I said, ‘but thanks for placing me there.’
‘Lloyd told me you wanted to take over her Institute,’ he said.
‘We’ve put in a bid.’
‘Maybe you should take her over too,’ Oliver said with a wink.
Our table was in front of an ornate baroque mantelpiece which stretched to the ceiling. We were close to the kitchen doors where ten waiters were lined up as if they were waiting for the starter’s pistol. It crossed my mind that I might have to make a quick exit.
Cassie’s place-name was next to mine. Moments later she arrived and both Walters and I reached to pull her chair out. He sat the other side of her. She seemed apprehensive. I leant over to shake hands with Walters but he was already engaged with the couple next to him.
‘Did you arrange the seating here?’ she asked quietly.
‘As a matter of fact, no,’ I said, ‘but I did want to speak with you. I think I may have something.’
Cassie smiled faintly. I thought of her words, ‘with love’ in her note, and wondered again if they meant anything. One torrid, brilliant night of love-making did not a relationship make. On the other hand, she wasn’t the type to string two men along at the same time.
‘We do need to talk, alone,’ I said, glancing at Walters. He was still charming the couple next to him.
‘That’s going to be difficult.’
I paused to acknowledge a couple who sat next to me. They were startled. The woman, a very tall blonde with an appropriately large mouth, examined my place-name, which said,
‘D. Hamilton.’
‘You’re not the Duncan Hamilton?’ she blurted. Everyone stopped talking and looked at me.
‘No, I’m his twin, David.’
‘Oh gosh, it must be tough on you!’ she giggled.
‘Sure is. I’ve been arrested often enough.’
‘I’m Bruce Springstein,’ her companion said, thrusting a hand at me, which I shook. He was a short barrel of a man in his fifties with a shiny bald head and soft wispy hair like mist round a mountain top. I could see her using it for a mirror or a serving plate.
‘Not the Bruce Springsteen?’ I said.
‘No,’ he guffawed, ‘everyone asks that. I’m Springstein.’
I turned to Cassie and said under my breath, ‘I’ll meet you in the courtyard.’
I walked along a corridor past another kitchen entrance and a distinct aroma of roast lamb and vegetables. The reading room near the entrance to the courtyard was empty, and without a member in it seemed dank and cold. I pushed through double doors and stood near a bench under an awning.
It was still raining. Puddles had begun to form on the lawn under an impressive plane tree, which dominated the high-walled yard. Beyond the rear wall, tiers of an ugly grey carpark spoiled the atmosphere. It was an intrusion into a setting that otherwise had not changed in fifty years.
It was cold. I stood up and lit my third cheroot. My nerve had returned. I strolled under the awning towards the carpark end of the courtyard.
Cassie appeared. She seemed distracted by something behind me. There was a figure on the fifth level of the carpark. He had binoculars. When I looked round he retreated into the shadows.
‘What was he doing?’ Cassie said as she reached me.
‘Would have to be a strange pervert to spy on old farts here.’
‘They’re talking about you in there,’ she said, putting her arm round me. It was like a shot of cognac.
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘They’re arguing over whether or not you’re the Duncan Hamilton.’
‘What fun.’
‘You’ve taken a bit of a risk, haven’t you?’
‘I had to see you.’
‘It’s awkward being here with Peter,’ she said, ‘but I had asked him weeks ago.’
I sat on a bench. Cassie hesitated and sat next to me. ‘I’m going to call it off after the wedding,’ she said. ‘I just haven’t had the time to say anything.’
I touched her forearm and kissed her.
‘This is not too romantic,’ I said, ‘but I want to tell you something about Freddie May.’
Cassie hunched forward and rubbed her hands.
‘Freddie told me that all the women at the funeral had a link to Claude Michel,’ I said. ‘I’m sure he meant Martine, Danielle Mernet and you.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I wondered if you might have an inkling of who he is?’
‘I would have said,’ Cassie frowned.
‘It may be that you know him and don’t realise it,’ I said. ‘It struck me when you looked at Michel’s photo.’
‘I thought the face was familiar. That’s all. It was a nervous reaction more than anything else.’
‘You’re absolutely certain you have not seen him before?’
‘I’m ninety-nine per cent sure, yes.’
‘It’s that one per cent I’m interested in.’
‘Sometimes faces can be close. You can make a mistake.’
‘Tell me about any “mistake”.’
‘I can’t think where I’ve seen a face that may be like Michel’s. I can’t pinpoint it. Makes me think I’m just imagining it because of what’s happened, or it’s somebody that has the same expression, that’s all.’
We were interrupted by the squeak of the double doors and a flash of fear rose in me. It was Bill the flunkey again. There were people behind him. Four men came into the courtyard and I took a deep breath to stop the panic radiating from me. They were led by Benns.