Master's Mates Read online

  It was well after 7 pm local time, an hour ahead of Sydney time, and the Baie des Citrons was starting to attract its customers. I walked the half kilometre to the tower as I could and forced myself to look left first and then right crossing the road. The place was solid cafés and brasseries for over a hundred metres and there were small boutiques and other shops tucked away here and there. The beautiful people were starting to congregate. The white ones, that is. The only black people I saw were serving the food and drink and most of them were on the beautiful side as well. I saw good examples of something you see all over the world—overweight, homely men accompanied by slender elegant women. Unusually for me, I was overdressed in my suit—light shirts, slacks and sandals were the order of the day.

  Security at the Costa del Sol amounted to buzzing the tenant from the entrance lobby. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen any bars on windows, or security grills. It looked as if Noumea was a law-abiding town. Suited me. I was about to go in when I got the feeling that someone was watching me. I looked around but couldn’t spot anyone. Paranoia goes with the job. I buzzed for McCloud and got no answer. Try Rosito.

  ‘Yeah? Oui?’

  ‘Mr Rosito, my name’s Hardy. I’m a private detective from Sydney. Stewart Master’s wife has hired me to look into things regarding her husband’s drug conviction. Could I have a word with you?’

  ‘Sure. Come on up and I’ll give you a beer. It’s good to hear an Aussie voice. Tenth floor, mate.’

  As easy as that. I got in the lift and it went express to the tenth. The entrance had been neat and well appointed and the lift was functional without being flash. I wondered what it cost to stay at the Costa. To judge by the hotel tariff, where Lorrie was paying just under three hundred bucks a night, it wouldn’t be cheap. One thing was for sure, the higher up, the dearer it’d be, and Gabriel Rosito was near the top.

  He was standing at the open door with a Crown Lager in his hand. One-eighty centimetres maybe, 90 kilos—mostly muscle—shown off to good advantage in a tight white T-shirt and baggy shorts. Dark hair, deep tan. A heavy duty watch suggesting water sports or something involving impact.

  He looked to be about thirty and somehow I’d imagined Master’s mates would be older.

  He shot out a hard hand and we shook. ‘Gidday. Have a beer. The local piss is okay but I thought you might prefer the genuine article.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Come in, mate. Make yourself comfortable.’

  He had an easy way with him, not forced, as if he expected good things of everyone. A lucky guy from the lucky country. The apartment was large and light, tastefully furnished as far as my own limited grasp of taste could tell, with a magnificent view from the massive south-west facing window. I walked automatically towards it and heard Rosito’s snort of amusement.

  ‘Everyone does that. You can see clear to the islands from here on a good day. Bit cloudy now. You want a glass?’

  I turned to see that he’d picked up his own bottle and was raising it to his mouth.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Cheers.’

  We both drank and looked at each other. ‘I understand Stewie’s wife’s a looker,’ he said.

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Blonde or what? He seemed to like blondes over here.’

  ‘I forget.’

  ‘Don’t get your balls in a twist, mate. Just shooting the breeze.’

  I wanted to get this back on the right footing. I took a swig of the beer and swilled it around. ‘He’s in Avonlea prison,’ I said. ‘None of this, no blondes, no brunettes.’

  ‘Poor Stewie,’ he said. ‘What a mug to try something like that.’

  8

  GABRIEL Rosito and I got on well over the next hour with the aid of a few more Crown Lagers. The apartment was air-conditioned to a good level and as the light outside died the view glowed and then diminished quickly in tropical fashion as I’d seen it do in other places before—none of them as comfortable as this. Unless he was a superb actor, Rosito told me the truth from go to whoa. He and the other three had come to Noumea to try to acquire land to build a golf course resort closer to the city than those already in operation. Land was available on a 99 year lease but no foreigner could get the action without a local front man. My guess was right—Pascal Rivages was the guy and Stewart Master knew him from some earlier operation.

  ‘Look,’ Rosito said. ‘We all knew that Stewie was a con artist and that Rivages was a crook. Useful bloke, but very suss. But it takes one to screw one, right? Reg, Jarrod and me all made money at home on the stock market, among other things, and—’

  ‘What about McCloud?’ I said, so as not to let the whole thing get too cosy.

  Rosito shrugged. ‘Dunno. Anyway, he’s pissed off.’

  ‘His name’s still down there.’

  ‘Quit detecting. So’re names that’ve been gone longer. The joint’s not exactly full. As I was saying, we had money to invest and needed tax breaks. We’ve all got managers and accountants yelling at us, you know? At least I have. Anyway, the idea came up and we decided to take a punt. I won’t kid you, Cliff. Can I call you Cliff?’

  I lifted my third beer in assent.

  ‘Right. For one reason or another it suited us to come across here. I won’t speak for the others, but I had a woman laying a paternity number on me. Bullshit, but you know how things can get. So we lobbed in and the thing got going. But it never really looked good. Too much politics. Too much bloody French bureaucratic bullshit and everything up for grabs after some local elections. Pascal had fingers in other pies and wasn’t giving the plan the attention it needed. The Kanaks raised objections and some of the Caldoche had environmental concerns, or so they said.’

  ‘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 Pêcheurs, 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.

  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-être . . . 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.