‘I’m a bit out of touch, but I don’t think so. Just the politics.’ Viv ran his hand over his bald head. ‘He’s got the looks-the figure, the hair and all that.’
That was enough for me to think about. We had another drink and chatted about nothing much until it was time for me to go. He gripped my hand and shook it solidly. No tremors. ‘I’m glad you did this, mate. I love planes. I’m going to sit and watch them land and take off for a while.’
I browsed through the tourist guide as the Air Calin jet spent the usual waiting time on the tarmac and then seemed to taxi interminably to its take-off point. Courtesy of my client, I was in business class with leg room. Economy, where I sit when I’m paying myself, looked to have the usual cattle-truck crowding. I spared them some pity as I leafed through the guide.
It seemed ridiculous for the islands to be named after Scotland by Captain Cook, but I suppose if we colonise Mars we’ll do much the same. The French got hold of the place in the middle of the nineteenth century and have never really let go. A useful dumping ground for convicts, like Australia, it seems to have later become a source of timber and minerals for the home country, like Australia, and has ended up a tourist destination, like Australia. Without making the comparison, the guide told me that the Melanesians, the Kanaks, like the Aborigines, have battled for their rights against the French and made some headway.
I couldn’t be bothered following the politics. There were accords and votes and plebiscites, which means money was spent and lies were told. It sounded like a tricky place to find your feet in but full of possibilities when you did. The same names kept cropping up and there was talk of ‘development’. You could sniff yacht deals, silent business partnerships and no-questions-asked investment opportunities. I turned over the leaflets and maps the airline provided without great interest. A restaurant named Le Gaugin sounded intriguing but I was pretty sure I could bypass Palm Beach Curios.
The flight took nearly three hours and they served a good lunch with as much free wine as you could drink. French, too. I gave it a judicious sampling. Read the papers and a couple of the Maugham stories. The weather in Noumea, mild when I checked it in the paper a day or so before, had become hot and sticky in the interim. I had only one bag and nothing to declare other than the scotch I bought at the duty free, and I was through the bureaucracy pretty quickly. No language problems so far, although ‘passport?’ is much the same anywhere.
Peter Corris
CH26 — Master's Mates
The Kanak woman at the car rental desk spoke good English and if she had doubts about my battered, non-gold American Express card she didn’t let them show. Before very long I was in an air-conditioned Peugeot 307 with my jacket off and my T-shirt was starting to detach itself from my back. The rental had set Lorrie Master back quite a few thousand Pacific francs but I wasn’t worried. For the moment, I concentrated on re-learning to drive on the wrong side of the road. I’d done it before in Europe and the US but not for some time and it’s a freaky feeling reserved for Brits and colonials, as if the world has suddenly turned itself inside out. Noumea was fifty kilometres away, with other drivers to contend with, hills to climb, roundabouts to negotiate and crossings to survive. I reckoned that I’d have it programmed in by the time I arrived.
The drive wasn’t bad once I’d relaxed into the road rules. The flat country gave way to hills which looked green in the distance and dry up close. Trees are trees to me, but most of these had a familiar look. I could’ve been in Australia except that every second car was a Renault, and those that weren’t were Citroens, Peugeots and Fiats. A toll gate extracted some of the change I’d got by tending miserable Aussie dollars for the scotch, and when you start parting with money you know you’re on the way to the big smoke. At a guess, an ugly structure in the near distance was the nickel smelter. The guide book had told me that the island was solid iron with lots of nickel. Good for them.
The city streets, with their roundabouts and intersections, were a test, particularly as I didn’t really know where I was going, although the woman at the rental desk had tried to explain things to me. Not to worry. My plan in new places is to give myself plenty of time and basically get lost and get found and get lost again and so on. Eventually you get a sense of what’s where. I knew that the hotel was at Ansa Vata and that was beachside. I found it by following half-understood road signs and by sniffing the air. Australians are mostly coast dwellers and have a feel for it. A few tourists with towels in hand helped to point the way.
The hotel was a big sprawling affair just across the road from the beach. The people at the desk spoke enough English for us to get by. No porters, which I like. Palm trees galore as you’d expect, good pool, ‘fitness gym’, and my room had a glimpse of the water. It was air-conditioned and perfectly okay. No mini-bar, which isn’t always a bad thing, temptation-wise. Besides, I had the duty free scotch. I unpacked my few belongings, had a quick instant coffee with ‘creamer’, made a mental note to buy some milk, and headed straight for the pool.
After the swim and a short lie in the sun, I went back to the room, cracked the scotch and inspected my list of the names and locations Master had mentioned in his letters. Rory McCloud and Gabriel Rosito lived at something called the Costa del Sol and Reg Penny and Jarrod Montefiore at the Ile de France, apartment complexes of some sort. Penny had a yacht, the You Beaut, moored at one of the two marinas. The Mocambo, the Ibis and the Park Royal hotel bars were favourite drinking places along with Le Saint Hubert brasserie and something called the Bout du Monde, which even my rudimentary French was up to-the End of the World. Master had also mentioned a place called Le Salon de Fun where there was lap dancing and a striptease. Master had stayed for ten days at the Meridien hotel where my guide put the tariff at the equivalent of four hundred bucks a day minimum, without breakfast. He’d rented a Saab and taken a plane trip to the Isle of Pines, paying for McCloud and Montefiore as well as himself. Stewie had been making a splash and wanted to tell Lorraine all about it.
I inspected my map and located the two residential tower blocks that housed Rosito and McCloud and Penny and Montefiore. The lie de France was hard up against the Hippodrome Henri Milliard, a racetrack, which sounded about right for a couple of Aussie punters, if that’s what they were. The only Noumea local Master had named was Pascal Rivages, who sounded like the front man for the property deal the Australians were trying to put together. No detail on that.
There was nothing subtle about my plan. I intended to find all four men or as many of them as were still around and talk to them, singly or together, to see if they had any ideas about how Master came to be carrying the heroin. Then it was a matter of playing it by ear and if any cracks opened, trying to prise them wider with what is usually a good lever-money.
I’d worn a T-shirt under the suit on the plane and I put on a silk shirt now. It and the suit were a bit crumpled but I thought I still had the right look. I chose the Costa del Sol to try first because the guide said the Baie des Citrons which it overlooked was the place to go on a Saturday night. Maybe I could catch Gabriel or Rory before they hit the town and they could take me along. Lunch was a memory and the small scotch had put an edge on my appetite. I’d packed shorts and sneakers and promised myself a visit to the ‘fitness gym’ tomorrow.
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 cafes 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.