Peter Corris - Master's mates

‘Caldoche?’

‘French New Caledonians, born here and identify with the place. Anyway, it all went pear-shaped and we cut our losses. Rory shot through after doing a bit of a tour around, sniffing at other things and Stewie… Another beer?’

I refused. I hadn’t finished the third and didn’t plan to. Although the flight hadn’t been long and everything had gone smoothly, there’s something unsettling about travelling those distances in that time. We aren’t programmed for it yet and I was feeling weary. The beer was getting to me. Plus Rosito was smoking cigarillos and the room was fugging up. Also, I was feeling a certain level of disappointment. I had a sense that Rosito was exactly what he claimed to be and that he was telling the truth. There were just two more questions.

‘Thanks for being so straightfoward,’ I said.

He spread his hands. ‘Nothing to hide, mate. After Stewie was arrested the cops here grilled us all. Not too rough, mind, but they had warrants and searched. Went through this place with a finetooth comb.’

‘Ah… sorry, but why’re you still here? It must be costing you a mint.’

He took a long draw on the cigarillo and expelled the smoke luxuriously. He was a man who enjoyed smoking as much as he enjoyed everything. ‘No secret there either. You married, Cliff?’

‘No. Divorced.’

He laughed. ‘So am I, a couple of times. Have you noticed the women in this town? Sure you have. There’s this Caldoche widow I’ve been seeing. Beautiful woman and very rich. Get it?’

I nodded and levered myself up out of the leather club chair. ‘Last thing-are Penny and Montefiore still around?’

‘As far as I know. Reg’s running low on cash and trying to sell his yacht. You’re more likely to find him at the marina than anywhere else. Jarrod talks pretty good French and he’s got in with some people here. Passes himself off as zoreille — European French. Useful, that, because Pascal doesn’t speak English. He helped me get on terms with the widow, but I haven’t seen him for a while, come to think of it.’

I thanked him and he saw me to the door, saying we’d have a beer downtown sometime.

‘Okay,’ I said.

‘You’d be on expenses, right? So we’ll have a few.’

I left the Costa del Sol and set out to walk for a while to clear my head. The beer had dulled my appetite but the smells from the eateries would get to me eventually. Rosito had been helpful and the absence of McCloud had cut down on the work. A small speck of information would be worth noting-Lorraine Master had said that none of her husband’s mates spoke French, but evidently Jarrod Montefiore did. Was that important? Too soon to tell.

I walked for a couple of kilometres around to the next bright lights spot, the Baie des Pecheurs, and then back again. A brasserie not far from Gabriel Rosito’s tower advertised itself as ‘Friendly to Aussies and Kiwis’. I’m not proud. I took a seat and had a very good fish dinner with a small carafe of wine for not much more than you’d pay in Glebe Point Road. Better wine too, and great coffee. The waitress was tall, slim and beautiful in that cool French way, and her English was good so that I didn’t have to stumble through the menu. The other diners were mostly tourists, Brits and others, with some locals thrown in.

I sat over the coffee longer than I would normally as the crowd thinned a bit, so that I’d have a better chance of spotting anyone taking an interest in me. I didn’t. There were two ways back to the hotel-around the point on a well-lit footpath with the bay on the right, or across a stretch of rough ground that looked like a car park undergoing reconstruction. Less light. I had the Swiss army knife with me and I opened the small blade and kept my hand on it in my trouser pocket as I crossed the shadowy space. My mind was inventing scenarios the way it does: whoever attacked me in Sydney would send someone to have a go here-Rosito was Master’s enemy and would put someone on my track-the whole Master thing was a fake and I was being set up as a pawn in some bigger game. Such things had happened before and probably would again. Not just now. I reached the street lights on the other side untouched by anything except the salty evening breeze.

People were taking the air along the beachfront and there were even a few in swimming. The local people sat in groups on the grass looking contented. Most of the women wore a long dress that looked to be inspired by the missionary-style Mother Hubbard, but they’d jazzed them up with bright colours and different trimmings. They looked good and if I’d had a woman at home I’d have brought her back one, but there was no candidate.

When I was younger I would’ve set out for the other tower or the marina or had a look-in at the nightspots Master had mentioned in his letters. My ex-wife Cyn had complained about my late hours or, rather, my early hours, which was usually the time I arrived home when I was working on a case. I could still do it when I had to, but after an international flight and the amount of work I’d done, as well as a certain lack of urgency associated with the job, I was ready to call it a day. It wasn’t as if Master was scheduled for execution. In fact, when I thought about it as I climbed the stairs at the hotel, he really hadn’t seemed all that unhappy to be where he was. Or maybe I wasn’t reading him right. He was a con artist, after all.

The hotel contained several restaurants and bars and there was some activity in all of them and some late night frolickers in the swimming pool. I was tired and my mind was drifting. Cyn and I hadn’t had a honeymoon. Both too busy. I’d gone to holiday places with other women. To Bali with Helen Broadway. To Port Douglas with… who? Cyn might’ve liked this place. She could’ve exercised her schoolgirl French. But Cyn was dead and I was working. I worked the key in the awkward lock and opened the door. A welcome waft of cooled air hit me first, and then the realisation that my room had been thoroughly searched by someone who didn’t care that I knew.

Who can get into a locked hotel room? Anyone who really tries. There are lots of ways and I’ve used some of them myself. Had I told Rosito where I was staying? I thought I had. Did I have to revise my assessment of him? I didn’t think so. At least I was able to acquit myself of paranoia. Someone in Noumea was interested in me and was taking steps. I wished them luck. There hadn’t been a single thing in the room that would have told them anything. I had my notebook, the photocopies of Stewart Master’s letters and everything to do with Lorraine Master’s money box in my possession.

It got light early but I had the curtains drawn, the air conditioning on low and I slept well. The hotel must have had a lot of early risers because there seemed to be a lot of used places at breakfast. Maybe they were at church. I opted for the continental and took the juice, fruit, croissant and coffee out to a table near the pool. As I’d been strolling home last night I’d thought I might pay an early morning call to the gym. Maybe later.

I was in shorts, T-shirt and sandals and fitted right in except for the lack of a good tan. Thanks to my Irish gypsy grandmother’s genes, my skin never goes really pale and I’d brown up pretty quickly here. The day was already warm with a clear sky and those tropical smells that tell you you’re a long way north of home. I was mulling over how best to proceed when I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke and was suddenly in the shade.

‘Bonjour, Monsieur Hardy. May I join you?’

A tall, heavily built character with a Polynesian look to him was standing by the table and blocking the sun. He wore black trousers and a white shirt. Balding, forty-plus and with outsized hands the way they get from years of physical labour. The cigarette looked like a matchstick in his thick fingers. You have to watch yourself around hands like that. Not the kind of guy you say no to straight off.