Faces in the Rain by Roland Perry Page A

had his back to Cassie, hands thrust in pockets.
    â€˜Is everything OK?’ he said. ‘You seem, I don’t know, edgy.’
    â€˜Yes, I am a bit.’
    â€˜All the more reason for you to take a break.’ Walters moved to the door, and Cassie opened it for him.
    â€˜Sleep on it, darling,’ he said, reaching across and kissing her, ‘I’d love you to come.’
    â€˜I know, Peter,’ Cassie said, ‘I’ll talk to you in the morning.’
    Walters disappeared down the steps. I waited until the wire door clanged shut and emerged from the room. Cassie glanced at me and looked away.
    â€˜I’m sorry for putting you through this,’ I said, sounding lame.
    Cassie turned to face me.
    â€˜I just want you out,’ she said in distraught whisper, ‘leave me alone. Please.’
    I left Cassie’s apartment and walked to the corner of Lawson Grove and Caroline Street, still uncertain what to do. The fog was becoming hazardous to traffic, and I could see cars on Alexandra Avenue moving bumper to bumper, their high-beam lights on.
    I was still unsure about the appointment with Benns at St Kilda Road. My home and office would both be under surveillance, and I didn’t feel inclined to impose myself on friends or relatives. I loitered in the shadows on the corner and made sure I was not in view of passing cars.
    I decided to take my chances with the police and thought the best place to catch a taxi would be along popular Toorak Road, a seven or eight-minute walk. I moved up Caroline Street’s steep gradient away from the river and happened to look back to see a car turn into Lawson Grove.
    Seconds later the vehicle reversed into Caroline Street again. It was medium-sized and had a gear whine that was familiar.
    Was I paranoid or was it the Fiat?
    Its lights were on high beam.
    I stepped into the front garden of a house and lay flat on the moist lawn. The car slipped by. I was sure it was the Fiat, though I couldn’t pick up the registration. I hid behind a pillar. The car parked round a bend about one hundred and fifty metres from me, and so blocked my approach to Toorak Road. Somehow my attackers had learnt I was in the area and they were waiting.
    There was no choice but to turn back to Lawson Grove.
    I moved close to Cassie’s place and found a narrow path between the apartment and a fence that led to steps down to Darling Street, parallel to Caroline. I then made my way cautiously to my office on St Kilda Road, four kilometres away. It took twenty-eight minutes and I entered a back way via the basement carpark, took a service lift to the top floor, and keyed off the alarm before unlocking the door to my executive suite.
    I stood at the window facing my desk, peered down into the street and could just make out a police van, double-parked across from the entrance to Benepharm. Occupants of the police van seemed to be checking a parked vehicle with three people in it. An unmarked police car? The van drove on, leaving those in the other vehicle to watch the company building.
    I raided my ‘emergency’ wardrobe, which was kept for hurried trips abroad. I filled a suitcase with travelling essentials, and rifled a safe for the false passport, documents and credit cards.
    I also grabbed a box of forty bullets for the Heckler, its cordura nylon holster and a film protection bag. The beauty of this light weapon, which was fifty per cent plastic, was that it could be dismantled and placed in the lead-lined film bag so that you could bypass X-ray machines at airports. It meant that during the kidnap crisis period I could travel abroad and still carry the Heckler.
    From now on I was an Englishman, Charles Morten-Saunders, who worked for a British computer company, Braddock Electronic Supplies, or BES. Tony Farrar had made an arrangement with the company, which would vouch for my existence, I hoped, if ever the need arose. I had English credit cards, including