I had always remembered Cassidy in an Edwardian setting of walnut and mahogany and studded leather, of Waterford crystal and antique cutlery, of genre pictures in baroque frames and family photographs in silver ones. His whiskey was always poured from heavy square decanters, his wine dispensed from beakers with gilded lips. His favourite books were bound in tooled Morocco, with markers of watered silk. He opened his mail with an agate paper-knife. At ease in his study, he wore a velvet smoking jacket and monogrammed slippers. Clare used to call it his Trinity-squireen-look’, which was intended to convey an impression of ripe scholarship and material well-being and political wisdom.
This house, however, was the habitat of a quite different man: a youthful, modern, ebullient fellow, who loved the sun and the dazzle of bright water and cool colours in his drapes and simple lines in his furniture and pictures pulsing with light. It was a three-storeyed town house built from road-level to the water’s edge, angled to the north-east with a breathtaking view of Sydney harbour and its traffic of shipping and pleasure-craft. The rooms were large and airy, the bookshelves and cupboards were all recessed into the walls, so that one moved freely from the mobile present of harbour traffic to a visionary past, captured and framed on every available wall space. I wondered which of his women had persuaded him to change his image and his life-style.
Cassidy’s resident staff – Elena and Marco Cubeddu – received me into the house. He was immigrant Sardinian, very formal, very correct. She was a girl from Lazio, inclined to be voluble until she was hushed by a low– spoken word from her husband. They had come to pay their respects at the funeral, so they knew I was family. They seemed a little unclear as to my function as executor; but once they had grasped the fact that I was an avvocato as well as a son-in-law they were more at ease.
While Elena went to make me coffee, I had a private talk with Marco. I told him first of Cassidy’s bequest to him and his wife – a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Clearly, he had not expected so much but, a true Sardo, he still maintained a dignified reserve.
‘He was a great gentleman. It was an honour to serve him. We shall have Masses said for his soul.’
‘How did you come to him, Marco?’
‘Mr. Melville recommended us.’
‘You mean Mr. Marius Melville?’
‘Yes. I had worked for him in Milan. Then, when we decided to emigrate, he wrote to Mr. Cassidy, seeking a post for us.’
‘Will you go back to Mr. Melville?’
‘I don’t know. One waits to be invited.’
‘Marco,’ I chose the next words carefully, ‘Mr. Cassidy explained to me before he died that you were a man of trust. I need your help.’
‘In what particular, sir?’ He was a man of caution as well as confidence.
‘Like all politicians, Mr. Cassidy made enemies as well as friends. Now that he is dead, his enemies will try to blacken his reputation for political reasons.’
‘Sadly, that is normal in my country also.’
‘May I count upon your discretion not to discuss with anybody your period of service with Mr. Cassidy?’
‘I have already had approaches, sir. Visits from journalists, telephone calls from newspapers. I have given them all the same answer. He is dead. He has a right to decent silence.’
‘Thank you, Marco. My family and I are grateful for that, too. Another matter: no one is to be admitted to the house without my permission. No tradesmen, no repairmen… no one!’
‘That may be a little difficult, sir.’
‘Oh?’
‘The signorina has a key. She comes and goes. She sleeps here when she chooses.’
‘And who is the signorina?’
‘Mr. Cassidy told us to call her Miss Pat. Her real name is difficult to pronounce.’
‘But who is she?’
Marco coughed discreetly and chose his words with care.
‘She is – how do you say it? – Mr. Cassidy’s donna di confidenza. She works on his private business. Sometimes she acts as his hostess with people from overseas.’ He picked up a silver-framed photograph from the coffee table. ‘Eccolà! There she is.’
There were two figures in the photograph. They looked like a mother and daughter, both dressed in traditional costume, posed in a tropic garden outside a beautiful old Thai house, elaborately carved and gilded. The daughter looked about sixteen years old, the woman somewhere in her mid-thirties. Both had that strange placid beauty which haunts the memory like a Buddha smile.
Marco said quietly, ‘The older one is Miss Pat.’
‘And the younger… ?’
He answered with cool respect. ‘I have never enquired, sir.’
There was a dedication in the lower right hand corner of the picture, but it was written in Thai so I could not read it.
I asked, ‘Do you have an address, a telephone number for Miss Pat?’
‘Yes, sir. When Mr. Cassidy began to be ill she gave it to me. She said I must call her whenever Mr. Cassidy was unwell. It’s in the kitchen. One moment please.’
A moment later he was back with a tray of coffee and sweet biscuits and a scrap of paper on which was written a Thai name, Pornsri Rhana, and a Sydney telephone number. I thanked him and folded the paper into my pocket-book. I handed him my card and told him: ‘For the moment, leave things as they are with Miss Pat. I shall try to telephone her. If she comes here before I’ve made contact, give her my card and ask her to telephone me at the Town House. Now, if you will excuse me, I must go through the house and inspect everything – especially Mr. Cassidy’s papers.’
‘All his papers are in the safe, which is in one section of the wardrobe in Mr. Cassidy’s bedroom. He stored them there before he left for America. Unfortunately, I do not have the combination or the key.’
‘I have them. Is there another set?’
‘I do not know, sir.’
‘Who else might know?’
‘For his personal affairs, he used only Miss Pat. For his official work he brought someone from Parliament… Please sir, drink your coffee before it gets cold. If you need anything else, just dial zero on the house phones – the green ones.’
He bowed himself out and left me to my coffee and my puzzlement.
Charles Parnell Cassidy was too clever a man to receive a known spy into his household. So, clearly, his relationship with Marius Melville was one of openness and mutual trust. Whether I should trust him was not half so clear. Pornsri Rhana was yet another problem. I felt an instant resentment against her because Cassidy had given her the name of the daughter he had thrust out of his life. And if she was, as Marco had seemed to suggest, something more than a business aide, then there was real perversity in giving a mistress the name of his own daughter. But then, the Cassidy I knew was a perverse son-of-a-bitch with a wide streak of cruelty in his make-up. I asked myself why I cared so much and why I was taking so much trouble to protect his memory. I tried to thrust him out of my mind and concentrate on my inspection of his house.
For the moment, I was not interested in his possessions – pictures, jade, exotic and valuable curiosities from all over the world. These would be listed and valued for probate by professionals. I was concerned only with documents. I wanted every scrap of Cassidy paper under my control. Later I would decide what to do with it.
There was nothing to inhibit my search. Cassidy’s keys, his wallet, his folder of credit cards, his pocket diary, had all been handed to me at the hospital on the night of his death. The diary was the most useful item and might in the end prove the most revealing. It was the usual vade mecum of a busy man. It contained the combination of his safe, the numbers of his bank accounts and insurance policies, addresses and telephone numbers of doctors, dentists, lawyers, friends male and female. Pornsri Rhana was among them, listed as a resident in a very expensive apartment hotel.
My search was thorough. I opened every cupboard, rummaged in every drawer, checked every pocket in every suit. Nothing. Apart from the photographs – Cassidy with the plebs, Cassidy with the nabobs, Cassidy with the royals – the place was as bare of personal history as a public art gallery. Finally, I came to the safe, a big commercial affair nearly six feet high, hidden behind a sliding door and set on a concrete block over one of the steel bearer beams of the structure. They must have used a crane to get it in. They would need another one to get it out – and a laser drill with a charge of explosive to force it. Before opening it, I locked the bedroom door and closed the drapes over the French windows that led to the balcony. It seemed a panicky paranoid precaution – until I saw the contents of the safe. The two upper shelves were stacked solid with currency: American hundred-dollar bills, Swiss francs, Deutschmarks, sterling pounds in high and low denominations, gold ingots of various weights, Krugerrands, Mexican, Russian and British gold pieces. I did not attempt to count it but clearly it added up to a tidy fortune.
The next shelf was occupied by stacks of photograph albums of uniform size and shape. I opened three of them at random. Most of the exhibits were pornographic shots taken on brothel premises or at orgies in private houses. Neatly typed labels identified the place, the date and the participants. Others, taken with telephoto lenses, recorded furtive meetings on street corners, in automobiles, in public parks.
Charles Parnell Cassidy was a twentieth-century man, exercising the most primitive magic of all – once you possessed the images of men and women engaged in the sexual act, you held their souls in bondage.
The remaining space in the safe was stuffed tight with papers: legal briefs tied with pink tape, bundles of letters, ledgers, notebooks large and small. I had neither energy nor inclination to read them now, but I had no doubt they would fit with the rest of the hoard, as instruments of power, recording debts to be called in, services to be exacted when the need arose.
Here was the proof of Gorman’s accusations that Cassidy had engaged in bribery and blackmail. Murder? Given the nature of the material, murder was a daily possibility.
It was obvious that Cassidy thought so too. Laid on top of the albums was a .38 automatic. The safety catch was on but there was a magazine in the chamber. I left the weapon untouched. Immediately I saw the shape of the problem. Sooner or later, people would come looking for this material. If I were Loomis, I would find cause to swear out a search warrant. If I were a villain, I would send in the best safe crackers money could buy – and a pair of Italian domestics wouldn’t worry me at all. So, interesting and urgent question: What was I, Martin Gregory, executor, going to do about it? For tonight, nothing.
I felt suddenly bone-weary and nauseous. I locked the safe and shoved the key in my pocket. The time was five-thirty. I would have loved a stiff Scotch, but the thought of drinking in Cassidy’s house with his ghost grinning over my shoulder appalled me.
Instead, I used his telephone to call Pat in London. She was delighted to hear from me and eager to talk, but she sounded frayed and fretful.
‘I hate your being away, darling! I don’t know what’s come over me. I snap at Clare and the children. I’m having recurrent nightmares. I’m a little girl lost in a dark forest. I hear Daddy calling, but I can’t make him hear me…’
‘Perhaps you ought to see a doctor. Call Peter Maxwell.’
‘I went to him yesterday. He was kind and understanding. He explained that the death of a parent is often a bigger shock than we expect – and that my – our – estrangement only made things worse. He wants me to get away for a while. Clare suggests we take a chalet in Klosters and do some skiing. The children have a half-term coming up; they’d enjoy the snow. What do you think, darling?’
‘Go, by all means. I can’t see myself getting out of here for at least three weeks. You might as well relax and enjoy yourselves.’
‘I wish you could be with us. I miss you very much… How did it go today?’
‘The ceremony went off well. The Cardinal gave a most friendly eulogy. All the top brass turned out, the Governor-General, the Prime Minister…’
‘And what happens now?’
‘Some scandal-mongering, I’m afraid. Possibly a Royal Commission into your father’s administration.’
‘Why can’t they let him rest in peace?’
‘There’s no mercy in politics. If you’re contacted by the Australian press, tell them you have no comment. You’ve been living abroad for many years. You have no information on your father’s career or his private life. Give Clare the same warning.’
‘Are you sure you’re all right, Martin?’
‘A bit frayed, that’s all. I’ve had a long day. The funeral this morning, lawyers this afternoon. I’m at your father’s house now. There’s a whole mess of papers to wade through – days of work, in fact. I can use a good night’s sleep. Any other news?’
‘Not much. People have been very kind. There are telegrams from folk we haven’t heard from in years. Mr. Melville has been especially kind. He’s called several times from Zurich.’
Once again I felt a prickle of fear, but it seemed that fear made me skilful in duplicity. I asked, ‘And who, pray, is Mr. Melville?’
‘You know! The one Daddy mentioned in his last letter to you. I forget what he said exactly. I’m still vague about all that happened that night. But apparently they were good friends who did a lot of business together over the years. Mother remembers the name, but she can’t recall ever meeting him. However, he’s been very solicitous, a telegram first, then flowers, then a very sweet letter of condolence. He said he would get his people in Australia to make contact with you and help you in every way possible.’
‘That’s kind, but please tell Clare not to cultivate the man. Just stay formal and polite.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘It’s difficult to explain on an open line. Your father made good friends and bad enemies. I’ve hardly begun to sort out one from the other. So, the less you’re involved with any of his old associates the better.’
‘Oh, Martin! That’s awkward.’
‘What’s awkward?’
‘Our holiday. Mr. Melville offered us the use of his chalet in Klosters. I accepted.’
‘Then turn it down! Think up some excuse.’
‘What excuse can I possibly offer? The man’s just trying to be kind. Why insult him?’
Why indeed? Once again, I heard Charlie Cassidy’s ghostly voice: ‘Show respect. He merits it. He keeps iron faith with his friends.’ Pat’s anxious voice stirred me out of the brief reverie.
‘Martin? Are you still there?’
‘I’m here. I’m sorry if I barked at you, sweetheart. Let the arrangement stand. Go to Klosters, enjoy yourselves.’
‘Thank you, darling. And you take care too! Look up some of your old colleagues. See if you can get yourself a game of golf and a weekend sail.’
‘I’ll try. I promise. Give the children a kiss. My love to Clare – and a special loving to you.’
‘We all miss you very much. God bless, sweetheart.’
And thus, thought I in my innocence, thus endeth the funeral day of Charles Parnell Cassidy. Here am I, the man he hated, sitting in his empty house, with a couple of million worth of fine art on the walls and a safe full of explosive secrets, waiting for the big blow-up!