Faces in the Rain Read Online Free Page A

give him the bullet.’
    â€˜I doubt it, if he’s as good his reputation suggests.’
    Walters appeared confident and on his record of research management would find top work in the field anywhere. He also ran a small private practice.
    â€˜It may not be such a lost cause,’ I said.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Did you see Dr Morris’s reaction?’
    â€˜Yes, she’s a bit of character, isn’t she? But Walters rules the roost there. We’ve been trying for months. He hasn’t ever looked like letting us in.’
    â€˜I realise that. But we’ve got to speak with her again – alone.’
    It was lonely that night without the kids whom I had got used to having around the house in the previous week. I spent some time on the phone to Peggy who tried topersuade me to join them for the coming weekend at Noosa. I flirted with the idea of flying up, but couldn’t, because work, as ever, was pressing. At ten p.m. I received a call from a Senior Detective Benns.
    â€˜Sorry to phone so late,’ he said. ‘Would it be possible for us to interview you?’
    My mind was on the intruder with the rifle.
    â€˜You mean over what happened the other night?’
    There was a few seconds silence before Benns replied, ‘Yes. When could we see you?’
    â€˜Well, if you could be brief,’ I said, looking at the antique grandfather clock in the foyer, ‘it would be OK right now.’
    â€˜It’s a bit late. Perhaps tomorrow at your office?’
    â€˜Wouldn’t it be better here,’ I said, ‘where it happened?’
    Again there was a strange silence and I was beginning to think Benns was thick.
    â€˜At your home?’ he said.
    â€˜That’s where it took place,’ I said, ‘in the grounds of my home.’
    â€˜In the mansion grounds,’ Benns repeated as if he was writing it down. ‘What time would be convenient, Mr Hamilton?’
    â€˜I’ll be home by seven.’
    â€˜And you live . . .?’
    I thought it was slack that the police didn’t even have my address.
    â€˜Weren’t you given it?’ I said. ‘Aren’t you from Prahran police?’
    â€˜No sir. I’m from Homicide. We have your car registered at a work number in St Kilda. I rang there and Mr Vickers gave me your unlisted home number.’
    â€˜You’re from Homicide?’
    â€˜Yes. What’s your address please.’
    â€˜Bramerton, Hopetoun Road, Toorak,’ I said, confused.
    â€˜Thank you, see you at seven.’
    I put down the phone and frowned. Then it clicked. He wasn’t ringing about the intruder. He was wanting an interview about the death of Martine.
    I rang Ted Bayes but he was interstate for a couple of days. That caused me to thrash about on the phone trying to find another lawyer. Ted had been too complacent in his advice and he was not high-powered enough for this kind of situation that now, with a Homicide investigation, possibly involved a murder. I spent the next two hours trying to find out who was the best criminal lawyer in Melbourne. The name mentioned above all was Terry Hewitt. By coincidence, Terry had been at the reunion at the same table as Freddie May and me.

FIVE
    T HE VICTORIAN CLUB where I was invited to lunch by Hewitt was forty-one stories above the city in the Rialto on Collins Street. It had a dizzying three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of Melbourne. There was a sweeping panorama of cranes atop glass and steel mountains. Looking down into the canyons you could see the fast dwindling number of old structures, such as stately St Paul’s Cathedral, and the rust-yellow, semi-baroque Flinders Street Station. The green gardens of South Yarra in the background gave a lift to the brown-grey river as it wound its way through ugly brown railway yards and development sites towards Port Phillip Bay.
    The Club had changed its location in 1980 from a much less exalted building in