Shielded by a screen of Melmar staff, we left the hotel at eleven, to catch the one o’clock flight to Bangkok. Sergeant Donohue rode with us. He stood watch over us in the diplomatic lounge, while an airline officer processed our tickets and our luggage. When Laura went to the powder-room, he gave me the address of General Rhana and the names and telephone numbers of my contacts on the staff of the Australian Federal Police stationed in Bangkok. He also gave me a hurried update on the murder.
‘…It’s a dressed-up killing. The post mortem shows she wasn’t spiked but strangled. Now that the press has put out the drug story, the killer’s purpose is served… Our man in Manila has interviewed Erhardt Möller, with a Filipino officer in attendance. Möller says yes to everything. It was a legitimate share deal. He did telephone you – no threatening intent, of course. Yes, a quantity of chemical was involved – a new compound still under test for the treatment of schizophrenia. It’s very scarce and very costly. A check with our drug companies reveals that such a product does exist, is available in small quantities at an exorbitant price… One more thing. The share register of Macupan Pharmaceutical shows the holdings as follows: one-third Austral Enterprises, Manila – that’s Erhardt Möller and his bunch – one-third Rotdrache and one-third Melmar Corporation, Manila.’
‘So whose shares was Pornsri supposed to be buying?’
‘I don’t think she was buying shares at all. The stock certificate has to be phoney paper…’
‘So why were they calling in funds?’
‘Our man says there’s a Liberian freighter broken down and waiting for repairs off Luzon. They can’t pay the demurrage, so the cargo is up for sale to the highest bidder.’
‘What’s the cargo?’
‘Small arms, grenades, bazookas and anti-personnel mines – and an end-user certificate for – would you believe? – Chile?’
‘And who’s the highest bidder?’
‘Macupan Pharmaceutical. But settlement is fourteen days from now.’
‘So why, Sergeant, would they kill off their banker, Pornsri Rhana?’
‘I can’t answer that yet,’ said Donohue with a shrug. ‘We set up the skittles and knock ‘em down, until one day there’s a skittle that nobody can knock down…’
Then Laura came back. Our flight was called. Donohue spread his protecting wings over us until we were seated, slap in front of the bulkhead in first class. Then he left us, locked in our capsule to enjoy our last eight hours of privacy.
There was little we could do, except hold hands. There was little left to say after the long night when what we had agreed to lend had become a gift that neither of us wanted ever to take back. Yet we were not desperate any more. We were very quiet, floating on a swift current over which we had no control, which was whirling us inexorably towards a dark, uncharted sea. ‘When we arrive,’ Laura had said, ‘we must be formal with each other. We must be seen to be separate. My father is very astute. He is also very jealous, bred to the notion that the strongest of men is vulnerable through his women. You must make your decisions as if I did not exist, because I shall no longer be the woman you held in your arms last night. Do you understand what I’m saying, Martin?’
Strangely enough, I did understand it. The gift we had exchanged was a freedom and not a bondage. The sweet sadness of the aftermath was an absolution from whatever might be done when we came, captives to circumstance, into Bangkok.
The first few hours of the flight took us away from the lush coastal fringe and right across the arid heart of the continent. Looking down at the raw earth-colours of the land, furrowed by ancient cataclysms, scored by millennia of wind, and drought, and rare floods that turned it once again into an inland sea, I felt a sudden, piercing pang of loss.
This was my land and I knew it hardly at all. This was my land and I had exiled myself from it, exiled my children from it – for what? A vendetta against a man now discredited as a rogue? A marriage that was already in peril? Hung like the Prophet in his coffin, between heaven and earth, I could see all the follies of my past, all the simple pleasures I had missed. What I could not see, as the desert unrolled itself like a prayer carpet towards the sunset, was the shape of the future – for me, for Pat, for the children. Everything was in confusion now. Everything was at risk.
The steward brought us a menu. Then he brought us drinks and canapés. We toasted each other… ‘I wish you the best of everything, my love…’
‘And I you…’
I asked, ‘Does your father travel with an entourage?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t call it anything so grand. He has a secretary, a masseur who is also a bodyguard, and that’s it.’
‘He has no woman friend?’
‘Many, but no permanent lover. What makes you ask?’
‘I’m trying to build up a picture of the man I’m going to meet.’
‘Don’t. You’ll be creating an illusion. My father is not a simple man, but he works to one simple rule: always tell the truth; you can be sure most people won’t believe you.’
‘You’re saying I should believe him.’
‘Believe him, yes. Not necessarily like him or agree with him. I tell you this because I won’t be present when you meet. He will insist on a face-to-face encounter, alone in his suite.’
‘And what do I insist on?’
‘Nothing. You listen. He likes people who listen. You ask questions, if you want. Then you tell him you need time to think. He won’t object to that either. But when you come back, he will expect an answer, yea, nay or on specific conditions. He deals all the time with hard men. He despises weak ones…’
Then lunch was served and, after lunch, a mindless police film with banging guns and maniac car chases and gutter dialogue. I listened to Mozart on the sound system. Laura dozed, with her head on my shoulder. I felt very tender towards her, grateful beyond words for the liberation of our night together. I felt as if the ice around my heart had suddenly splintered away and I was able to feel again, laugh and cry and lust and be afraid again – for Pat, for my children, for the small white vagrant spirit that was all I had left of Martin the Righteous.
We touched down at Don Muang airport an hour before midnight. The stink of the delta and the fumes of a million trucks and cars lay over the city like a pall. The Thai officials passed us through with a smile. A driver in spotless white, with the insignia of the Oriental Hotel embroidered on his pocket, led us to an air-conditioned Mercedes and, with patriarchal caution, drove us at high speed along the military road into the city where, in the press of buses, taxis, farm trucks, samlors and a whole mobile junkyard of vehicles, he turned into a suicidal maniac.
As we swung into the narrow alleyway that led to the entrance of the hotel, Laura leaned across and kissed me. We clung together for a moment. She told me: ‘Father doesn’t get up until eight-thirty. I swim every morning at seven. That would be a good time for us to meet. Good luck!’
We walked into the hotel together; but immediately an unspoken protocol separated us. The Duty Manager took charge of Laura and whisked her towards the elevator.
‘Your father is waiting for you, Miss Larsen – in the Royal suite. This way please. Your luggage will follow.’
His assistant was only a shade less courtly to me.
‘You have the Graham Greene suite, Mr. Gregory. It has a beautiful view right down the river. We hope you’ll enjoy your stay with us.’
Let me say it now. The Oriental Hotel, Bangkok, is one of the great hotels of the world – an oasis of civilised comfort in a ramshackle delta city built on mud, hopelessly overpopulated, awash with stinking water in monsoon time, heavy with polluted air in the dry. If you could afford it, you could live and die there and never believe that such squalor existed. I stood on my balcony and looked up and down the river with its firefly traffic of small boats, and across the dark water to the godowns and teak barges on the further shore. The godowns had always been there, since the Chinese came, carrying porcelain and silk to trade for long-grained delta rice, the best in Asia. But behind the godowns, where once Conrad and Maugham and Noël Coward had seen palm groves and paddy fields, now there were the yellow lights of an urban sprawl, so dense that they had filled in the canals to accommodate it. Still, below me in the gardens of the Oriental there were palms and hibiscus and plumeria trees and bird of paradise flowers and small, perfect women who made their Western sisters look large and awkward, like farm horses among the fillies in a race of champions.
The porter arrived with my luggage. A bell-boy came with him to present a peremptory message from Mr. Marius Melville: ‘Ten tomorrow morning, in my suite – M.M.’ Hard on their heels came a waiter to offer me a welcoming cup – a compound of rum and exotic fruit juices. He was followed by a chambermaid to unpack my clothes and take away any travel-stained linen. At one-thirty in the morning, still wakeful, I was sipping my drink and leafing through an early edition of Stamboul Train, when the telephone rang.
‘Mr. Gregory.’ The voice had a long Queensland drawl. This is John Marley, Federal Police. The Commissioner sent us a message about you. Just checking in.’
‘That’s a kind thought. Thank you.’
‘He also said to warn you that Möller has people here. They’ve got a dive they call an office down in Patpong Road. They send Filipino bands and singers up here – other things, too. If you get any funny calls or messages, please let us know.’
‘Happily, Mr. Marley. And thanks again.’
‘One thing more. General Rhana knows that you are in Bangkok. He has been told through the Thai Embassy that you wish to pay your respects. He has agreed to receive you. I suggest you call him early in the morning – nineish.’
‘Any briefing?’
‘His rank says most of it. He’s not in the top echelon of the power structure, but he’s got a lot of clout just the same.’
‘How is he taking his daughter’s death?’
‘We have no word on that. He’s dealt only through the Embassy. He asked for the body to be shipped home and, so far as we know, the granddaughter is remaining at school in Switzerland. If I get anything else I’ll let you know… Sleep well, Mr. Gregory.’
‘You too, Mr. Marley.’
‘Fat chance, I’m afraid. The Thai police have just arrested two Sydney girls at the airport. They had two kilos of heroin each. They were going back on the plane you came in on. Silly little bitches never learn… My guess is they were just mules making a cover run for something much bigger. But the Thais have got their bust, so they’re happy. I’m going to be up all night.’
It was then that I remembered Sergeant Donohue’s parting gift – a pocket pen and a pocket pencil, each of which fired a bullet, lethal at short range. As I laid them side by side on the table, they looked pitifully inadequate. Neither would stop a charging man unless the bullet hit him in the heart or the head. Essentially they were tools for an assassin, not for a man defending his life against assault. Still, they were all I had. I had best be grateful.
Suddenly I felt deathly tired. I put the chain on the door, locked the French windows that opened onto the terrace, asked for a wake-up call, made my last ablutions, tumbled into bed and slept like the dead until the telephone jangled in my ear at six-forty-five.
Laura was at the pool before me, swimming steady laps, breast-stroke, on the sunny side of the water. I dived in and fell into rhythm beside her.
She said, ‘…Father’s in a strange mood. He doesn’t look well. He says the journey from Zurich exhausted him; but I think it’s something more than simple fatigue… I told him about the murder. He seemed very distressed. He said it could have profound effects upon his dealings here. He’s negotiated to build a new hotel on the far west coast, near Phuket, between Malaysia and Burma. It’s a big project that involves feeder air services, from Malaysia as well as Bangkok… So he’s most sensitive to public and political relations. He wanted to know what I thought of you. I didn’t tell him you’d shown Cassidy’s documents to the Federal Police. I’m relying on you to do that, as you promised.’
‘I’ll do it. What else did he ask?’
‘He wanted to know how you felt about Cassidy and what effect, if any, his death had had on your marriage. I told him I didn’t know, hadn’t asked and it wasn’t my business anyway. He accepted that; but grumbled that everything was important in business and women never seemed to understand that fact… Finally, he got around to the real question: could I work with you in a commercial enterprise?’
‘I wouldn’t know until I tried. Then he asked who I thought would be the boss if we joined forces.’
‘And what was your answer to that one, Laura Larsen?’
‘I told him we wouldn’t know that either, until we had our first fight.’
‘In short, he’s thinking about an alliance. With me running Cassidy’s interest?’
‘He’s thinking about it. He won’t propose it until he’s met you and tested you.’
‘But you’ve met me and you’ve tested me.’
‘Only the love, Martin. The rest of you is still a mystery to me… You should go in now. Father’s terrace overlooks the pool. He’ll be stirring shortly.’
Back in my room, I ordered breakfast to be sent up and then telephoned General Rhana. His English was fluent, if exotic, his manner reserved but meticulously polite. I told him I wanted to meet him, offer my condolences and give him whatever information he wanted about my brief association with his daughter. His response was more eager than I expected: he lived quite close, he could be with me in twenty minutes. He was punctual to the minute, a small, dapper man, immaculately tailored, with fine-boned features and sombre dark eyes. He joined his hands and bowed in greeting. He refused coffee, but accepted a glass of mineral water. He acknowledged my sympathies with grave dignity and then prompted me: ‘I should like to know, please, who you are, how you became connected with my daughter’s life and what you know of her very terrible death.’
I told him everything I knew – which, even as I laid it out for him, seemed pitifully little. He listened carefully, asking only an occasional question; but the questions revealed a precise knowledge of his daughter’s affairs, of her relations with Cassidy and with the Melmar interests in Thailand. I ended by offering to visit his granddaughter in Switzerland and providing her with such family support as she would like to accept. Then I waited. He excused himself and went out to pace up and down the terrace. When he came back, I poured him another glass of mineral water and waited again. Finally he managed to set his thoughts to my alien language.
‘…I believe what you have told me, Mr. Gregory… it fits with what I know from my long association with Charles Cassidy and as a director of the Chao Phraya Trading Company… He and I got along well together. We were never close friends. What father can be a close friend of his daughter’s lover? But I liked him and respected him. He did not think in black and white, as so many westerners do. He understood that what appears to be one colour is a combination of many. He understood that what is good for one man is poison for another. The hill folk will die without the poppy harvest; addicts in other countries die because of it… We trade guns to the Chinese war lords in the triangle because we would rather have them as uncertain friends than certain enemies. Our country is a monarchy, modified by the army, modified by an electoral system and a precarious balance of commercial progress and social discontents. Cassidy understood these things. He never drove too hard a bargain. He didn’t mind paying squeeze provided he was not squeezed too hard. So, he got the protection he paid for. In the beginning, it was the same with Marius Melville. He let himself be guided by Cassidy. He let my daughter and me deal in our way with our own people… Am I explaining myself properly? This is not easy for me.’
I told him he was explaining himself very well. I begged him to continue.
‘However, as Cassidy declined in health Mr. Melville changed, little by little. It was not so much a personal thing, you understand. It was all the changes that are taking place right across South-East Asia. The economic balance has shifted. Singapore can no longer compete with Taiwan. China is opening her frontiers to trade and tourism – and what will all her millions do to the manufacturing market and what kind of a consumer market will they become! Vietnam is now the occupying power in Kampuchea, so we are threatened on our north-eastern frontiers… Indonesia makes ready for a push into Papua-New Guinea. Marcos is gone; the Philippines are in new ferment… All these changes, Mr. Gregory, challenge the Americans who control the capital necessary for adaptation and survival. Mr. Melville represents that capital – at least, a very special and powerful section of it. So he is under big pressure. When he acts, it is not with the subtlety of Cassidy, because he does not control his own destiny as Cassidy did… He is much harsher, much more demanding. He has found friends here who approve that, because he has enabled them to shift a large part of their capital out of Thailand and into the United States… So, Mr. Gregory, Cassidy was your enemy, but you tried to be a friend to my daughter. I will try to be a friend to you… my daughter was not killed for drugs or money, but for more complicated reasons. Your police are investigating. I shall make my own enquiries. You may learn something from Mr. Melville. Whichever of us is the first to find out the truth will tell the other. Yes?’
‘Yes, General. And what happens then?’
‘The question is premature, my friend. There is a saying in the Ramayana… “A good hunter never shoots at a bird-cry. He waits until the bird is in full view.”… You have done me a great service, Mr. Gregory. Please call on me at any time.’
Again, the joined hands and the bow and he was gone. I looked at my watch. Nine-thirty. I still had half an hour to spare before my meeting with Marius Melville. I took out the organisation plans of the Cassidy/Melville enterprise which Donohue had enlarged from the microfiches and tried to fix them, as visual entities, in my memory. If Melville and I were going to talk turkey, this was the bird we would be talking about, a big, plump bird with a lot of meat on it for the folk at the High Table – and generous pickings for the underlings below the salt.
Cassidy’s side of the diagram was clear and simple. All the dividends from all his interests flowed back to the Rotdrache trust in Switzerland. His organisation was vulnerable principally in its local partners – Thai, Korean, Filipino, Taiwanese, Indonesian. Melville’s organisation was much less easy to decipher. The lines of communication were much longer. They bent through more cities. Most of them ended in a box called, cryptically, ‘Holders unspecified’. Cassidy’s empire was smaller, more controllable. I guessed, from my experience of the US fiscal system and the practice of US lawyers, that there were many more shifts, stratagems and treacherous byways in the domains which Melville shared with the Honourable Society. I knew in my bones that, once Melville was gone, Laura would have no hope of controlling the ramshackle system. Her safest move would be to get out rich and let the vultures pick the corpse down to the bones. But this was her business and Melville’s, not mine. I was as well briefed now as I would ever be. I ran a comb through my hair, straightened my tie, clipped the pen and pencil into my inside breast pocket and rode upstairs to the Royal suite.
The man who met me at the door of the elevator was young, well groomed, hard of eye and muscle and studiously polite.
‘You’d be Mr. Gregory. Welcome, sir. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I have to search you. It’s an inflexible rule, a built-in condition of Mr. Melville’s life assurance policies.’ He ran expert hands round my body and up and down my legs. ‘Thank you for your courtesy. If you’ll go straight ahead, sir, Miz Burton will take care of you.’
Miz Burton, a well groomed woman in her late thirties, gave me a dazzling smile and led me into a large chamber walled in tinted glass, with a panoramic view of the delta. She offered me coffee, which I refused. She apologised profusely because Mr. Melville had been detained by an unexpected call from California. Then she left me to solace myself with a distant glimpse of Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn, shining in the morning light.
I waited perhaps five minutes, then the doors to the bedroom opened and Marius Melville stepped into the room.
The effect of his sudden presence was strange. The air in the room was charged with electricity, as if a storm was about to break. Yet around the man himself there was an aura of stillness and singular repose. He was tall, lean almost to frailness, but he held himself straight as a guardsman. He must have been well into his sixties; his hair and his imperial beard were snow white. His skin, the colour of old walnut, contrasted vividly with the immaculate whiteness of his tropical suit. His hands and feet were small as a woman’s. His eyes were black as jet. His nose was a hawk’s beak above a mouth thin and scarlet as a knife-cut. Yet, when he smiled, his whole face lit up and you felt warmed as if by an embrace. He came towards me and held out a welcoming hand.
‘Mr. Gregory. A great pleasure to meet you.’
‘The pleasure is mutual, Mr. Melville.’
‘Please, sit down. We have much to discuss.’
I took a high chair. He sat on the settee, with the coffee table in front of him.
‘First, if you will permit me, I should like to thank you for your care of my wife and family in Klosters.’
‘Please! It was the least I could do for the daughter of an old and dear friend… I always felt sad that he had been estranged so long from his family. As one gets older, one has great need of continuities. But,’ he shrugged eloquently, ‘our destiny is written on the palms of our hands. Most of us learn too late to read it… You are a lawyer, I understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you specialise in corporation law, banking and international tax matters.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Cassidy always spoke very highly of your talents.’
‘He was praising his own handiwork.’
‘Which he was sometimes disposed to do, eh?’ Melville gave a small, good-humoured laugh. I smiled and slid away from the contentious subject.
‘Sometimes.’
‘Well now, to business, Mr. Gregory. I have an offer on the table: five million dollars for a briefcase full of the microfiche records of the late Charles Cassidy. Are you willing to sell?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
He took it quite calmly. He studied the backs of his hands for a moment, then he asked, ‘The price is too low, perhaps.’
‘The price is not an issue, Mr. Melville. Cassidy left me free to decide on the disposition of the documents. My decision is not to sell them.’
‘Then of course I accept that. I confess I am not too surprised. My offer was made when Cassidy first told me he was terminally ill. At that stage he had no means of knowing whether you would accept to be his executor… However, there are certain other options which I should like to discuss with you, if you are so disposed.’
‘I’m a good listener, Mr. Melville.’
He gave me a swift, appraising glance and a smile that had very little humour in it.
‘I believe you are, Mr. Gregory. Yes, I believe you are. Well then… Charles Cassidy and I were friends. We were also associated in business and therefore, sometimes, our interests were in conflict. Most of the time we managed to resolve that conflict by friendly negotiation. Occasionally, we had sessions of very hard dealing, in which one of us came out the loser. For this reason, and by mutual and open understanding’… He made a large, Latin gesture of opening his heart to me and to the world, ‘each of us preserved certain areas of privacy in our business affairs. We did not disclose everything to each other… One of the reasons I was prepared to buy Cassidy’s records from you for so high a price was precisely that. Once he was dead, there was no one else who could profit from his secrets. Unless…’ He lapsed into a small, carefully contrived, silence… ‘unless you yourself decided to take over his interests. He hoped you would. He told me he was going to discuss it with you in London. I presume he did so?’
‘He did.’
‘And your decision?’
‘To take the matter in stages. First, to study the basic documents. Second, to establish the exact relationship between the Melville enterprises and Cassidy’s. Third, to ascertain your future intentions and, finally, to decide if, when and how I step into the enterprise.’
‘Very prudent,’ said Melville drily. ‘Very logical and lawyer-like. Cassidy trained you well. No wonder he hated your guts. Now, may I ask to what stage you are now arrived?’
‘Stage one is completed. I have studied what Cassidy left me. I have arranged for further research to be done on certain areas of obscurity. Now I am part way through stage two. I have an outline knowledge of the connections between Cassidy and yourself.’
‘Would you mind describing them to me – as you see them?’
‘Better still, Mr. Melville, let me show you a copy of my diagrams. You will be able to correct any obvious errors.’
I took out the microfiche blowups and laid them in sequence on the table in front of him. He pored over them for nearly a minute, his eyes downcast, his face immobile as a wooden mask. Finally, he put the cards together in a neat stack and handed them back to me with a smile.
‘Very good, Mr. Gregory. Acceptably accurate. A few minor changes would bring them right up to date. I begin to wonder if you are not almost as formidable as Charlie himself – a strong ally, a dangerous enemy. So, if you accept my assurance that you are at the end of stage two…’
‘I do.’
‘Then I should like to hear your assessment of both businesses.’
‘I’m not an accountant. Even if I were, I do not have enough figures to make a financial judgment. But in general terms…’
‘That’s what I’m anxious to hear: the general terms.’
‘Very well.’ I spread the cards again and, using Donohue’s pencil as a pointer, began an elementary analysis. There’s Cassidy – there’s Melville. Leaving aside the questions of gross income and net worth, because I know Cassidy’s but I don’t know yours, I’d say Cassidy’s in a much sounder position than you.’
‘You intrigue me, Mr. Gregory! Please go on.’
‘Item one. All Cassidy’s income flows back to a single trust in a secure tax haven. The trust is very rich; so you can cut off all the trading companies and sink ‘em in the ocean, but the trust remains a solid financial institution in its own right. I know that for various reasons the companies are vulnerable, and we should talk about that, but in a final analysis they are dispensable. Now, let’s take you. Your revenues are not shown as flowing back to a single source. Just as the lines of control do not lead back to one institution… in short, Mr. Melville, you are a very rich man but, if my guess is right, you are not your own master. These people,’ I pointed the lethal pencil at the card, ‘these “unspecified holders” could, in the last resort, unite against you and bring you down. Equally, they and you could mount an assault against Cassidy’s interests and bring those down. But the core asset would still remain untouched… End of commentary. If I have seemed impertinent you must forgive me. You did ask.’
‘On the contrary, my friend. I find your candour refreshing and your logic sound. I am vulnerable – as vulnerable as Cassidy when he came to you the night he died and begged you to take over the administration of his affairs. I am older than he was; though, thank God, I am in better health. Still, I am daily aware that I am living on borrowed time. Like my friend Cassidy, I have a daughter, but no son…’ He gave a small dry laugh and made a fluttery gesture of deprecation. ‘God knows why I tell you this, but in the early days, before you ran off with his daughter, Cassidy and I used to say that you and Laura would make a good match. We even made plans to arrange it. Then she married this fellow Larsen, you and Cassidy became enemies and all our plans came to nothing. However, in the weeks since Cassidy’s death I have thought that another kind of alliance might be possible – an alliance of interest which is often more permanent than marriage. That’s your third point, Mr. Gregory. Where do we both go from here? I need a man to protect my daughter and her interests.’
‘Against Friends of the Friends?’
For the first time, I had touched a nerve. A slow flush of anger showed under the dark skin. A moment later he was in control of himself. He said coolly, ‘Against the intrigues normal to every large institution.’
‘Before I could make any comment on that, I would have to know whom I was getting into bed with.’
‘In a business sense, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘That might be difficult, not to say dangerous. The whole point about corporate structures is that they create new legal persons, untainted by history. A corporation cannot commit adultery. It cannot go to gaol. It cannot be indicted for murder. All the entities we are talking about – Cassidy’s, mine, the Friends’ – are such corporate bodies. But in the end there has to be a strong man to run them.’
‘And what makes you believe I am that man?’
‘Cassidy thought you could be. My daughter says you are. Each minute that we talk brings me closer to the same opinion.’
‘Then perhaps you will allow me to ask you some questions.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Why have you invaded my family life?’
His head came up with a jerk. His mouth tightened into that thin red line. He looked like a snake reared and ready to strike.
‘Invaded? That’s an ugly word, Mr. Gregory.’
‘Ugly things have happened. My family were invited to Switzerland without reference to me. While you were there, someone did a very good job of convincing my wife I was playing around in Sydney. Someone clearly encouraged her to do a little playing of her own and to split the family at a critical time while she remained to take part in some damned amateur ski championships.’
‘I don’t understand a word of this,’ said Melville coldly. ‘You insult me, Mr. Gregory.’
‘I haven’t finished yet. You set your daughter to watch me or have me watched from the moment I left London. The fact that we have become friends as a result of the encounter is no thanks to you. Finally, the day before yesterday, Pornsri Rhana, one of our fellow shareholders in Chao Phraya Trading, was found murdered in her Sydney apartment – and you haven’t said one goddamned word about it since I entered this room!’
‘And you think I engineered all this.’
‘You certainly engineered my family’s visit to Klosters and your daughter’s surveillance of me. I’d be happy to hear your explanation of the rest of it… After all, if we’re going to work together we’d better start with a clean deck, hadn’t we?’
That surprised him, as I had hoped it might. He stared at me for a long moment, trying to read in my face how much I really knew and how far I was bluffing. With obvious reluctance, he began to explain himself.
‘…You know as well as I that Cassidy disapproved of your marriage to his daughter. It was against his wishes; it was against the Church. I don’t think he believed too much in God, but, like all the Irish, like all the Sicilians and the Maltese, the Church was where he was born, the Church was where he wanted to die. He used to say to me often: “It’s no marriage, Mario. It’s a sacrilege. If I could break it up, I would. That way they’d both get a fresh chance; and if Martin decided to marry your daughter – which she’d be free to do, because she was married outside the fold, too – then I’d happily give him the blessing I refused him in the first place!” Do you believe what I’m telling you, Mr. Gregory?’
I shrugged and told him that if it wasn’t true it was at least ben trovato. I could almost hear Cassidy saying the words.
He went on: ‘…So after Cassidy’s death and your departure for Australia, I decided to see for myself how things lay between you and your wife. I was not in Klosters, but I have many friends there. It was simple enough to plant a rumour or two, gossip heard from Australian visitors, a letter displayed at a party… It soon became clear that you had parted under strained circumstances, that your wife was uncertain and suggestible. She is also of a certain age, when the attentions of a young and handsome ski instructor are at least flattering. To the best of my knowledge, nothing has happened; but if it had, I should have been very happy to foster a match between you and my daughter. There now! What have I done that is so terrible? If you and your wife still love each other, I have brought you closer together. If you don’t – then you are both rich, free and happy…’
Once again I was caught, snap-frozen, in that ice-age of irredeemable malice. I couldn’t be angry with him. I believed every word he said; about Cassidy, about Pat, about himself. In the same mood of utter detachment, I asked him to give his version of the murder of Pornsri Rhana. He shook his head emphatically.
‘For this I have no explanation. She was Cassidy’s mistress, Cassidy’s choice to run Chao Phraya Trading. She voted with Cassidy on the board of directors. I met her a few times. She was very beautiful, but I have small taste for Thai women. I find them full of sweetness but without fire. However, that is a personal taste… Regretfully, Mr. Gregory, I cannot help you.’
‘Then perhaps you would be willing to check a line of reasoning that has been put up to me.’
‘By whom?’
‘By two people – my lawyer and a very experienced police officer.’
‘You mean you’ve been to the police about this?’ He seemed genuinely shocked.
‘Other way round. The police have been to see me.’
‘Of course. Forgive my stupidity. Go on.’
‘The police know the woman was Cassidy’s mistress. They know she worked for Chao Phraya. They know that company’s connection with the pharmaceutical business… All this and some more, including the existence of a trust called in German Red Dragon, and the existence of a Melmar subsidiary which holds one-third of the issued stock… Now, they come to me and say, “Martin Gregory, you’re a lawyer. We’re going to read you a scenario and you’re going to give us an opinion on it…” Here’s the story they read me… Marius Melville is an international developer with no criminal convictions but a lot of criminal connections. Cassidy was a brilliant crook who managed to stay out of gaol. He has set up a chain of companies in South-East Asia in which Melville controls one-third of the shares. Cassidy’s dead, Melville wants to take over. Easiest way is to grab another third of the votes, leaving the Cassidy interest isolated and outvoted… You see how they’re reasoning, Mr. Melville?’
‘I do.’ He seemed very calm about it. ‘It’s called a hypothesis, a “let’s suppose”, an unproven assumption.’
‘I told them the same thing, almost in the same words. But they went a little further.’
‘Oh?’
‘They suggested that the killing may have been arranged by one Erhardt Möller, an expatriate criminal who is a one-third shareholder in Cassidy’s Manila operation. If you had him on your side that would give you control of two companies instead of one… That’s the police theory, of course.’
‘It has one fatal flaw, I’m afraid. The woman’s share reverts to her father, General Rhana. How can I possibly get him to sell out?’
‘A little more pressure would do it. Pressure from the personage at the Palace who can say yea or nay to your hotel permit, who would love to get his hands on the very substantial reserves of Chao Phraya. Pressure from below – from the police, the customs men and the shipping clerks, who are already putting the bite on… That’s the reading I got. What do you think of it?’
‘Ingenious, but a fairytale.’
‘Except for one fact. Möller was waiting for a remittance from Pornsri to buy a cargo of arms under demurrage in Luzon. The remittance was never sent. My lawyer was dealing with it and the police intervened. But some time yesterday Möller bought his cargo. I wonder where he got the money from?’
‘You must know,’ said Marius Melville softly, ‘that you have just committed a dangerous indiscretion.’
‘What’s indiscreet about it? We’re private. We’re talking deals. You have to know the kind of partner you’d be getting. I have to know that I’m not in business with a man who’s getting so short-sighted he can’t see the snipers in the trees… Oh, and that’s another thing, Mr. Melville. Please never, never meddle in my private life again.’
‘Is that a threat?’
‘I’m happy to grant it… Now, may I take it you are willing to join forces with me to protect our joint interests and, in due course, those of my daughter?’
‘I’m willing to discuss such an arrangement; heads of agreement first, details in due course. I have to tell you that’s going to involve some disclosures about who controls what on the Melville side… There are a lot of nasty diseases about and I want to know whom I’m getting into bed with.’
‘I repeat, Mr. Gregory – I’d like to see you bedded and wedded with my daughter. She likes you very much – and she comes with a hell of a dowry!’
‘That’s a poor joke, Mr. Melville.’
‘It wasn’t intended as a joke. There’d be fewer divorces if people ran their marriages as a business partnership! May I suggest we meet at five this afternoon to discuss heads of agreement. I’m bidden with Laura to lunch at the Palace… Which reminds me: we needn’t make a big song and dance over the General’s interest in Chao Phraya Trading. I’m sure we can offer a very generous buyout. Why don’t you call him and talk to him? You’re a very persuasive advocate!’