Peter Corris - Master's mates

I managed a muttered ‘Bonjour’, and motioned for him to sit down a split second before he did anyway.

‘Are you enjoying your stay in Noumea?’

‘I’m here on business, Monsieur…?’

He took a long drag on his smoke instead of answering. ‘You must try the casino. I assume you got your vouchers when you arrived. Five hundred francs free to begin with, n’est ce pas?’

‘I’m not a gambler. I don’t want to be rude, but I’m trying to eat my breakfast.’

‘Of course. I’m sorry. There’s someone who would like to speak with you. The gentleman over there.’

I looked in the direction of his inclined head. A man wearing a suit something like the one hanging up in my room, except that it wasn’t wrinkled and he wore it with a shirt and tie, was sitting at a nearby table. He wasn’t looking at us.

‘He’d like you to join him.’

‘Who is he?’

‘He will tell you.’

I tore the rest of my croissant in half and applied a dob of the butter that had pretty well melted while we were talking. I put it in my mouth, chewed and took a sip of the cooling coffee. ‘He’s welcome to join me. I’m happy here, except that you’ve made my coffee get cold.’

He got up smoothly and walked across to where the other man sat. I noticed that he butted his cigarette in an ashtray on a empty table before he got there. He stood and they had a brief conversation. The man in the suit smiled and waved the other guy away as he moved towards my table. The man who hadn’t identified himself melted into the background, but I had the feeling that he’d never be very far away from whoever this was.

‘Mr Hardy. I am Pascal Rivages. Welcome to Noumea.’

The voice was low and pleasant, heavily French-accented. He knew I’d know the name and that it would catch me on the hop just a bit, and he enjoyed his moment. Couldn’t blame him. He was a well-preserved fiftyish with a fair skin he’d protected from the sun and a facial bone structure that would carry the years well. His dark hair was clipped close, like his moustache. Faint touch of grey.

‘Bonjour,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘I’m sorry about sending Sione to you. That was a little heavy-handed.’

‘He looks like a handy type.’

‘I’m sorry. My English… handy…?’

‘Useful.’

‘Yes, very useful. I understand that your coffee is cold. Some more?’

‘If it’s no trouble.’

‘It’s no trouble, Mr Hardy. I have an interest in this hotel. A considerable interest. I also have an interest in the car hire firm you’ve used.’

He signalled to a waiter and I pushed my cup and plate aside. ‘Mr Big?’ I said.

The melodious laugh came again. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Not at all. Just un homme d’affaires. How’s your French?’

‘Not as good as your English. Are you threatening me?’

A Kanak waiter brought coffee, cream and sugar on a tray and Rivages watched his every movement closely. When the operation was over he nodded and favoured the waiter with a smile that would make his day. ‘I don’t threaten people, Mr Hardy. Not any more. I don’t have to. Gabriel Rosito told me what your business is in Noumea. I can assure you that you are on… what do you call it? A wild goose chase.’

I poured myself some coffee from the silver pot and added a couple of cubes of sugar. ‘I find the coffee here a little bitter,’ I said. ‘I’ve been on lots of wild goose chases. Sometimes you catch the goose.’

‘Peut-etre… perhaps. I wouldn’t want you to waste your time.’

I sipped some coffee. Not bitter, never was. ‘I’m being paid for it. And now I’m curious why an important man like yourself would bother to talk to me.’

‘Ah, it’s nothing to do with your business here. I made enquiries about you. You have criminal convictions and-’

‘One.’

‘-a reputation for causing trouble. Noumea is a quiet, law-abiding place, as you must have observed.’

I was getting tired of him with his smooth velvet glove manner. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘It strikes me as being like a dull French provincial city on its best behaviour. Needs a bit of livening up.’

That reached him. A flush rose in his face and his hand twitched. For a moment I thought he might toss his coffee cup, still empty, at me. He fought for control and didn’t like doing it. At a guess, he was a man who’d had it all his own way for a very long time and couldn’t handle recalcitrance. He pushed his chair back and stood. I caught a movement behind me that was probably Sione and my skin crept a bit.

‘Be careful,’ Rivages said.

‘Toujours,’ I said. But I was saying it to his back.

I drank the rest of the coffee and thought it over. I had the answer to who searched my room. Gabriel Rosito must have got on the blower to him pretty quick smart, so he wasn’t quite the what-you-see-is-what-you-get guy he came across as. Almost certainly he’d alerted the others so that I could expect a guarded reception from them, or perhaps no reception at all. Probably needed to move quickly. One stray point I’d picked up. Why had Rosito said Montefiore was useful in their dealings with Rivages because he could speak French? Rivages spoke all the English he needed to. But maybe Rosito didn’t know that.

The day had warmed up quickly and the pool was inviting. A quick gym session followed by a dip would have been good, but I had things to scribble in my notebook and places to go and people to see, if they were still around.

Penny or Montefiore? The marina or the lie de France tower? I fancied the sea air and drove to the first of the two marinas. No boat called You Beaut, a name that seemed to mystify the French speakers I questioned, or maybe it was just my halting phrase-book French and bad accent. A lot of money bobbing along on the water here, and if you had enough of it yourself you could charter a luxury game fishing boat to go out and catch marlin. Pretend you were Zane Grey or Lee Marvin, Hemingway even. All as dead now as the fish they were so fond of catching.

Noumea came into its own a bit down here. The Gare Maritime des lies had a genuine working port look to it with slightly rusty, battered cargo boats loading and unloading. Apparently there was a lot of trade and cargo shifting between the islands and these ships did most of it. Somerset Maugham territory, possibly still with alcoholic doctors and tormented captains.

The second marina was across the way-more money and frolicking in the sun. I located Penny’s boat moored about halfway along it. I know nothing about boats. The You Beaut was white and big, sharp at one end and blunt at the other. It had a lot of brass railing and a high cabin mounted near the front with a long aerial waving in the light breeze. It looked very clean, almost too clean, and I remembered that Rosito had said Penny was trying to sell it. It had the same look as a house a day or two away from the auction when the owners run around picking up every scrap of paper and wiping away every spot of dirt.

I stood on the dock and hailed the boat in a tentatively loud voice. A number of other owners were working on their boats or lazing about. They took an interest in me and I was out of place as someone obviously non-nautical. ‘Hello, the You Beaut,’ I yelled, feeling silly doing it and even sillier when I had to do it again.

A man’s head followed by his body appeared from the middle of the boat. He was tall and spare and looked as if he’d been born out in the sun and never gone inside. He was the colour of teak with sun-bleached hair and long, toned muscles in all the right places. All he wore was a pair of denim shorts faded to the colour of his eyes. He held a mobile phone in his hand and he gestured for me to wait while he spoke into it. A few words, that was all.