by Morris West
This was will-o’-the-wisp country and I was not going to be enticed into it. I continued to thrust questions at her.
‘What is your position in Cassidy’s business affairs?’
‘I represent him in Thailand, Malaya, Laos and Vietnam.’
‘Do you – did Cassidy – traffic in drugs?’
‘We had, and still have, large interests in pharmaceutical manufacture, from the raw materials to the finished products. This is an international industry. I am not familiar with all of it – only my territories. I do know that what is legal in one country may be illegal in another.’
It was a hedged answer, but I let it pass.
‘Do you know a man called Marius Melville?’
‘Yes.’
‘What can you tell me about him?’
‘Only that he and Charles were very close. And that you cannot fail to meet him.’ Her manner changed abruptly. Now she was angry and imperious. ‘Mr. Gregory, you are interrogating me like a country policeman. I am not some ignorant peasant. I came here because you asked me to come.’
She stood up and made as if to leave. I was shamed into an apology.
‘Please! I beg your pardon. I’m bad-tempered because I’m tired and I’m doing something I hate – cleaning up Cassidy’s messes, when I’d like to be rubbing his nose in them. I’m angry with you, too – though it’s not your fault.’
‘With me? Why?’
‘Because…’ I knew I was making a fool of myself, but I had to get it out. ‘Because Marco told me Cassidy used to call you Miss Pat. That’s the name of his daughter, my wife. I found that… a kind of insult. It’s crazy I know, but–’
‘No, not crazy. Names are important. They grow to us like hair and limbs. But you must let me try to explain something…’
Now, suddenly she was in control and I was enveloped in a leaden cope of fatigue that held me down, pressed all the strength out of me. She squatted on her heels in front of me. As she spoke her hands made little fluttering gestures as if she were talking to the deaf.
‘Charles was obsessed by his past, haunted in a way that I would not have believed possible for so positive and ruthless a man. His wife and his child had left him. You, whom he regarded as a son, had stolen them. You had violated the relationships on which he had totally depended. He was an old-fashioned man. He could not beg for loyalties he thought were his by right. And let me be honest, Martin Gregory, your women were not educated to handle such a man. He and I met first in Bangkok, at a reception given by my father at the Oriental Hotel. We were immediately interested in each other. My father fostered the friendship. Cassidy was valuable to him, for politics and for international business. I was a surprise to Cassidy. My mother, who had been educated in a princely household, had taught me about men and their needs and all the demands they can make on one woman.’ She laughed, a small, mocking sound. ‘Charles Cassidy had so much to prove that he needed a whole dictionary of women. I was at least a condensed version. Of course in the end he knew that he was being manipulated, but he liked it. He began to understand the Asian way – that the bamboo bends to the wind and the falcon soars on it… So while we were together I was any woman Cassidy wanted me to be – wife, mother, sister, child. It was a game, a happy game, like dressing up in clothes from someone else’s cabinet. It certainly wasn’t an insult to you. Besides, my name is hard to say in English… Do you understand?’
‘I think so. I’m very sorry I was rude. What can I do to make amends?’
‘Just talk to me again, when you have studied the documents. Then, when you have finished in Australia, come to Bangkok and see what needs to be done with that part of the estate.’
‘What do you think it needs?’
‘A strong man to control it – to scare off the bandits.’
‘I’m Cassidy’s executor, not his heir.’
‘You could be his successor. He hoped you would. You will see that he left the way open.’
‘No thanks. I struck off his shackles when he was alive. I’m damned if I’ll wear them after his death.’
‘Don’t be too hasty, Mr. Gregory. Take a good look at the kingdom before you abdicate the throne.’ She offered her hand. Her touch was cool and smooth as satin. ‘I must go now. Call me when you want to talk again.’
A moment later she was gone and I was left cursing my tactless tongue. It was as if a bright bird had perched on my window-sill and I had frightened it away with my lumbering stupidity. Then I had a second thought, more base but probably closer to the truth: if Cassidy had in truth left me the keys to a kingdom, had he left me his consort and his child as well? I had never been in love with an Asian woman, but I could spot an Irish horse-coper a mile away.
8
At five past seven I called Laura Larsen at the Melmar Hotel. She was brusque and businesslike, quite unlike my Lady Owl-Eyes.
‘We have to talk. Things are happening faster than we expected. I had a man on your tail all day today. He called to say there’s a police surveillance group working on you as well. They were watching Cassidy’s house. They followed you back to the hotel. In addition to that, I’ve got a copy of the first piece Gerry Downs is running on Cassidy this weekend. It’s a shocker. The Government will be forced to take action. The action will have to include you as custodian and administrator of the estate…’
‘So where do we meet?’
‘I’ll call for you at the Town House in fifteen minutes. Dress very casually. Don’t use the elevators. Walk down the fire stairs to the basement car park. I’ll pick you up there. Don’t leave anything of importance in your room…’
It seemed an absurd piece of melodrama and I felt very resentful about playing it. I was, after all, a servant of the law on a legal errand in my homeland. The notion of police or private surveillance was repugnant to me. I was still stubborn enough to believe that righteousness was my strongest armour and the letter of the law my sharpest sword; but the conviction was getting blurred now. If Cassidy had indeed been engaged in criminal activities – and even Loomis and the Premier claimed to know that he had been – then I had no place to stand. I was not his lawyer. I was, as any layman might be, simply the executor of a deceased estate. I was not entitled to privileged custody of information or documents.
That, too, brought its own problems, since monies or possessions traceable to drug trafficking could, under recent legislation, be confiscated. Cassidy had claimed in his last letter to me that all the monies in his bequest to Clare were clean. Nonetheless, I might still be required to prove them so in court. Common sense told me that I had to lay hands on the documents in Cassidy’s safe while it was still legal for me to do so. I had to know what was in them before I was forced to surrender them to the police. But if his house were still under surveillance – as I seemed to be – certain difficulties presented themselves. I picked up the telephone and dialled Cassidy’s house. Marco Cubeddu answered.
‘Marco, I need to call on you again tonight. It may be late, but it is important.’
‘No matter, sir. I am at your disposal.’
‘Did you know the house is being watched?’
‘I did not know. I thought it might be. No one has attempted to enter.’
‘Is there a rear entrance?’
‘Only from the water. There is the boatshed where Mr. Cassidy’s speedboat is kept. Next to that there is a small jetty without lights. You would find it hard to identify at night.’
‘Is the boat in running order?’
‘Always. I service it myself. All you have to do is run it down the slipway on the cable.’
‘So I could come by the front way and leave by sea?’
‘Of course. What time may I expect you?’
‘Between ten and midnight. That’s the closest I can get at this moment.’
‘I shall be waiting. Did Miss Pat call you?’
‘She did. Thank you.’
‘Until later then, sir.’
I still had time for one more ca
ll, this time to Paul Henri Langlois of the Banque de Paris. He was dressing to go out to dinner. I told him my problem.
‘Paul, I’m in a jam. Late tonight I’m taking possession of some very hot documents, plus a sizeable amount of currency and bullion. I don’t want to hold them longer than I can help.’
‘How big is the package?’
‘It’s not a package. It’s more like three or four pillowcases full of stuff. Can you keep them at your place overnight and have them lodged in your safe deposit first thing in the morning? I want a seal on each bag and your signed receipt. Sorry to put this on you, but I’m swimming in rather deep waters.’
‘I guessed you might be.’ Paul Langlois had a fine Gallic taste for intrigue. ‘One of the problems of marriage is that we get the bride’s family as well as the bride… Come to my house, say at half past twelve tonight. I’ll take possession of the items and give you an interim receipt. In the morning I’ll have our security people pick them up and transfer them to the bank. Can you organise it?’
‘I can. Thanks, Paul. I owe you a big one. See you in the small hours.’
‘Swim very carefully, my friend. Sydney harbour has some of the biggest sharks in the world!’
The phrase haunted me as I made my furtive way down the fire stairs. I had been away so long I had forgotten the underlay of violence in the Australian character, the deep respect for roguery in the national ethos. Our founding fathers had ruled by the triangle and the lash. We had a century and a half of legal genocide to our credit. Powerful sections of our union movement were run by criminals, adept in the arts of rabble-rousing, intimidation and violence. Our police and our penal custodians had a reputation for brutality, venality and occasional murder – and my own colleagues, servants of the law like Loomis and Micky Gorman, were living on a diminishing capital of principle and an increasing contempt for due process.
The stereotypes of the ‘lucky country’ – the easy-going, sun worshipping, ‘ow-are-yer-mate’ Australian, friend of all the world – were fictions. We had our underworld chieftains – rich, well organised and well groomed. They could have you spiked with heroin, shot in an alley, chained and dumped in the deeps off the coast. No one would know and surprisingly few would care. Inquests could be delayed indefinitely for want of a body. Verdicts could be determined by perjured police testimony.
We had our narcotics empires, which stretched from Florida to Pakistan and Turkey. We had a whole hierarchy of pimps and panders, running a girl racket through Bangkok, Manila, Taiwan and Hong Kong. We had the Mafia controlling our country towns, where a post-war migrant population now owned orchards and vineyards and wineries, and greenhouses full of illegal grass. We were the fifth largest legal producer of opium in the world. With our tiny population of fifteen million we were one of the largest per capita consumers of illegal heroin. The alleys of Kings Cross and the lanes of our country towns were littered with syringes and glassine sachets.
Now I – Martin the Righteous, God help me! – was being seduced little by little into the fringes of this criminal empire. I had done nothing wrong, but already I was involved with the casuistries of the trade.
Already I was beginning to circumvent the law by the deliberate concealment of documents, which in my heart of hearts I knew to be connected with criminal conspiracies. But since no one – not even Loomis – could read my heart of hearts, I could hold up clean hands and cross my breast and swear: No, your Honour, at the time I moved the said documents, I had not read them; ergo, I had no knowledge of their contents; ergo, I am not in misprision of a felony. Though I may be a liar damned and double-damned, it’s sucks to you until you can prove it in this court… Besides, your Honour, I’m not sure that due process works any more in this country. I begin to wonder whether Cassidy may not have had the right idea. You must know the great Charles Parnell Cassidy. He appointed you to the bench. You may even have heard him say these selfsame words, because he did on occasion repeat himself:
‘“I learnt it at my father’s knee, sonny boy! And he learnt it from his father, who laid the foundations of the Cassidy fortune by selling grog after hours, and running a two-up school in the barn at Widows’ Peak. Always pay the policeman to look the other way, and pay double to the girl who can get him to bed and swear she’d seen the strawberry mark on his backside! Criminal law’s a farce, sonny boy. You can plant evidence and suborn witnesses and make sweetheart deals with the prosecution. The only laws we’re really interested in making stick are the laws of contract – because if commerce doesn’t work we’re eating tree bark instead of bread!”’
I swear I could hear his rich actor’s voice echoing round the concrete caverns of the car-park as I waited in a shadowy corner for Laura Larsen to show up. She was ten minutes late, which I didn’t expect from her.
She arrived in a big steel-grey Mercedes, which she slalomed dangerously through the concrete pillars of the parking lot. Dressed in slacks and blouse, with a red band round her hair, she looked like any young hostess from the Eastern suburbs. She was flushed and talkative.
‘Sorry I’m late! The bloody manager buttonholed me just as I was leaving the hotel. We’ve got a Japanese delegation arriving on an early flight tomorrow and our best interpreter is sick… I didn’t want to drag you out like this, but Mr. Melville called from Zurich. He insisted I meet you. There’s a little hole in the wall called Da Stefano, down by Circular Quay. The food’s good and there’s a private corner where we can talk… How are you, anyway? You’ve been a busy, busy boy! What do you think of your old home town? It’s grown up now – rich, rough and randy! I gather you didn’t make yourself too popular with Loomis and the Premier… Don’t look so surprised! That’s what I’m about – Little Miss Listening Post… Oh hell! Why am I rattling on like this? Because I’m scared, that’s why! Gerry Downs plays dirty pool – and I’m not sure I know how to handle you either, Martin Gregory!’
‘Forget about me and concentrate on your driving. Otherwise we’ll both end up in hospital.’
She gave a small strained laugh and patted my knee, which was meant to be encouraging, but was downright dangerous with the peak-hour traffic of Kings Cross.
‘Relax! I’ve got a clean licence and I’ve never lost a lawyer in my life… By the way, you and your wife feature prominently in Gerry Downs’ revelations. She begins as the victim of “brutal domestic tyranny in a typical Irish Catholic marriage of convenience”. You enter as the “courageous kid from nowhere, putting his career on the line for love. And likely to collect a fortune at the end of it!” How does that go for openers? You can read the first article over dinner.’
‘And how did it come into your hands?’
‘I told you. That’s what I’m about – tourism and entertainment and all the promotion dollars that go with them. The Melmar Marquis pays a lot of heavy retainers.’
‘Miss Larsen, I’m getting very tired of people mucking about with my life – especially people I’ve never met!’
‘You’ve met me.’
‘I have. And, would you believe, I like you. You know I’m married and I know I’m married, but I’m glad you called. Dinner with you is the best offer I’ve had these last three days. But Marius Melville, Gerry Downs – I don’t know them from a hole in the ground. And I don’t want to!’
‘Let’s do each other a favour.’
‘Fine. What’s the favour?’
‘Christian names. I’m Laura, you’re Martin. You sound so bloody British when you say Miss Larsen. It’s like… like going to bed with your socks on!’
I laughed. I laughed loudly, uncontrollably, until the tears rolled down my cheeks. All my memories of Britain in summer came crowding back in a rustic comedy: fat ladies in deckchairs; grandfathers with long trousers rolled up their shanks, paddling in grey water; young lovers, fish-belly white, nuzzling uncomfortably on a pebbly beach… And there was I in the middle of them, ridiculous in baggy underpants and ankle socks…
Laura Larsen seemed puzzled b
y my laughter.
‘I didn’t think it was that funny!’
‘Laura, my love, I can’t tell you how funny it really was!’
‘So you’re going to enjoy your dinner.’
‘Enjoy it and pay for it.’
‘Now there’s a generous man!’
‘Think you…’
‘Think I what?’
‘Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch’s wife, he would have written sonnets all his life.’
‘Now what sort of question is that?’
‘It’s not a question. It’s a quotation from Byron. And since I’m in the mood, here’s another one: “Laura was blooming still, had made the best of time, and time returned the compliment.”’
‘I think… I really think I’m beginning to like you, Martin.’
‘I think I’m beginning to like me too… God Almighty, woman! You just ran through a red light!’
‘Poetry always did send me crazy. Recite some more, please!’
Four off-colour limericks and ten stanzas of The Lady of Shalott brought us to the door of Da Stefano, a seedy shopfront that opened into a tiny trattoria, with immaculate linen, summer flowers, candlelight, good crystal; and Stefano himself, a young man handsome as a grand opera brigand. He welcomed us with a flourish, offered us his own special apéritif, then informed us that there were no choices. We would eat what he served, we would savour every mouthful, we would be grateful to the good God for leading us to his table.
We were grateful indeed. We ate well and drank better. We swopped travellers’ tales and silly jokes. We flirted recklessly, knowing that we were safe in the small circle of candlelight. We were like folk in the plague time, heedless of the rattle of the death-carts and the chant of the hired mourners in the alley. But with the coffee came the reckoning – the bill to be paid, the truth to be told. Laura fished in her handbag and brought out an envelope full of folded newsprint.
