To the Death

Jimmy and Jane parked his Jaguar behind the Estuary Hotel, not twenty-five yards from where someone had rammed an Arabian dagger into the heart of Matt Barker. Jimmy walked to the end of the parking lot. There was an obvious bloodstain on the wall and on the concrete surface of the area. They walked in through the rear door of the hotel and inquired if they were too late for breakfast. The manager smiled and said, “Go through to the dining room and we’ll fix you up.”

It was almost 11 A.M. when Jimmy ordered eggs, bacon, sausage, and toast. Jane settled for cereal, yogurt, and fresh fruit salad. They were sitting in companionable silence when Jimmy stood up and walked through to the hotel foyer and spoke to the manager.

“Sir, are you Mr. Jim Caborn?”

“That’s me.”

Jimmy offered his hand and said quietly, “I’m Lt. Commander Ramshawe, National Security Agency. Could you find time to join me in the dining room? There’s a couple of things I’d like to discuss.”

The hotel manager looked suitably impressed at the mention of America’s most secret intelligence agency. “Why, certainly, Commander. I’ll be right in.” Jimmy returned to Jane, and Caborn came in and pulled up a chair and sat with them. He was a naturally friendly man, and he poured himself a cup of coffee.

“I’ll get some fresh if we need it,” he said, and offered his own right hand to Jane Peacock with the practiced aplomb of all hotel managers. “Glad to meet you, ma’am,” he said.

She shook his hand and replied, in the unmistakable style of a true Australian, “G’day, Jim. Nice little place you’ve got here.”

The hotel manager grinned and said: “Now what would a high-ranking young officer from the National Security Agency be doing down here — as if I didn’t know. It’s Carla, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is,” replied Jimmy. “And I want you to answer my questions with great care.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his identification pass, which allowed him to enter, every day and any night, the innermost sanctum of the front line of America’s military security.

Jim Caborn gave it a cursory glance and handed it back. “I don’t need to see that,” he said. “If the hotel business teaches you one thing, it’s to spot genuine. I knew you were on the level, first time I saw you.”

“Did you feel that way about Carla Martin?” asked the commander.

“Well, she had an American passport and all the right references. But there was something about her — she was kind of a mystery. I never felt I knew one thing about her background.”

“Did you ever think she might be foreign?”

“Not consciously. But now you mention it, she did sometimes say things kind of strangely. You know, like a French person — fluent in English, but sometimes saying things not quite the way we would.”

Jimmy nodded. “I guess you never knew where she lived?”

“No. I never did. No one did. Still don’t.”

“Do you think she murdered Matt Barker?”

“Jesus, I’ve always found that darned near impossible to grasp. She was a very nice girl, educated, polite, and very efficient. But I guess you have to consider, she covered her tracks and vanished the night of the murder. Never been seen since.”

“You have no documents or records of her?”

“Hell, no. Either she or someone else cleaned out her file. We have absolutely nothing to show that she ever existed.”

“Very professional,” murmured Jimmy.

The manager looked at him quizzically. “Professional?” he said. “I’d say more like cunning.”

“We’re in different trades, mate,” replied Ramshawe.

They finished their coffee, paid the bill, and said their good-byes; but as Jimmy and Jane walked across the parking lot, she turned and said, “Jesus, Jim, there were a whole lot more questions I could have asked him.”

“I’m not trying to solve this murder,” he replied. “I’m trying to identify Miss Carla Martin, nothing else. I don’t give a flying fuck about Matt Barker or his death.”

“Well, where are we going now?”

“We’re going to the police station, mostly because I want to have a look at that dagger.”

They’d driven past Detective Segel’s office on the way to the hotel, and now they strolled through the warm summer morning, leaving the car parked behind the hotel.

Both of them wore light blue jeans and loafers. Jane had on a crisp white shirt, and Jimmy a dark blue short-sleeved polo shirt. His shock of floppy dark hair, which so irritated the crewcut Admiral Morris, blew in the light wind. As did Jane’s spectacular blonde mane, bleached all through her teenage years by the hot sun that warmed Sydney’s Bondi Beach. They were, by any standard, a striking couple.

When they reached the police station, Jane said she’d rather wander down to the wide river, and Jimmy walked alone to the duty officer’s desk. He asked to see Detective Joe Segel, whose name he had read in the newspaper as the man leading the murder inquiry.